So Tolkien is dead and his name and works are managed by a "company". I don't recall anyone saying that in a free democratic society that companies have no rights nor do they deserve to be accorded any. There are a lot of good reasons for families to set up trusts, not the least of which is the fact that there are many in this world--people, companies and governments--with absolutely no respect for the dead (and sometimes the living) and will take advantage of others' situations, fame, wealth and so on. It's meant to protect the "family jewels", not to fsck everyone over.
You make a good point with Microsoft...they messed up badly (I believe with hotmail.com as well) so they deserve the embarrassment--however a lot of (non-Microsoft) people but big-time money and effort into establishing the Hotmail service AND the brand/trademark, and Microsoft in turn paid big coin to acquire those assets. I know of nobody named "Hotmail" or other businesses operating under that marque--if there are then they have every right to sneak in and swipe the name from MS.
I am aware of the McDonalds case too...the fast food chain handled the situation quite badly and perhaps the Scottish esablishment that originally had it had every right to keep it. The fast food chain at LEAST should have the opportunity to make its case.
But jrrtolkein.com? What legitimate use does "Alberta Hot Rods/Celebrity1000" have? Their sole purpose is to suck traffic into a tasteless, annoying ad machine. That sort of parasitic money-for-nothing who-cares scheme pisses me right off.
Put yourselves in the shoes of Tolkein's descendants for a moment. Would YOU want your grandfather's good name to be abused by those who point the corresponding domain to a page full of tacky blinking ads and pop-ups schilling loan schemes, penis pills and porn? Just 'cause he's dead that means his name and his works are up for grabs by cyber-squatters, B-movie producers and every cheap toymaking sweatshop in China?
I'm not at all pleased to see copyright terms and IP law in general get perverted to the degree it is being done in the US. Some day all great works must be made available to the public domain. However, there HAS to be some balance between the rights of Joe Schmoe and those of everyone else (be it a celebrity, Jane Schmoe or Schmoe, Inc.).
If the domain was registered by a non-affiliated fan club or individual enthusiast and it was used to host a quality website on the subject (ie. LEGITIMATE USE), then I'd have said "screw off WIPO, leave them be"--especially if it was a non-commercial venture. I think if it wasn't the name of a person (living or dead) then I'd be even more inclined to say so (for example...startrek.com being ripped away from an early fan site by draconian, overzealous Paramount That was a dumbass thing to do too).
All most Win98 users in a small shop have to do is periodically run Windows Update, and if you've so long that you have 30 critical updates then you probably don't give a damn about more security or stability. And I don't recall having to reboot for each patch---only one after all are installed, except for major WMP and IE upgrades. The difference between that and Win2k and XP in this environment is barely perceptible at present. now for THOUSANDS of PCs scatterd around the world...yes...more automated update facilities are essential...
"Mom and Pop" say: Hmmm nasty trojans and worms eh? SQL Slammer, Blaster, Welchia, Nachi... Those were the REALLY nasty ones...damn we gotta get rid of Win98...what? What do you mean those only infect NT/2000/XP (and slammer only infects database servers)? That means win98 is immune? Damn I think I'll stick with win98 since all these newer, nastier viruses are going after the newer stuff. Plus I don't need to spend more money or worry about pirating stuff.
Also, clueless laptop user gets what's coming to him if he neglects to keep his anti-virus program up to date and habitually puts his laptop in suspend mode when moving from home to work networks (my employer mandates regular anti-virus updates and it's against policy to hook your laptop into the company network when in suspend/hibernation). None of that involves upgrading and can affect ALL OSes (especially all MS OSes).
BTW...That hibernation feature is how SQL slammer infested many sites (salespeople with SQL server running to demonstrate high-end software). Upgrading wouldn't have saved anyone there--but turning of the SQL server service and/or not using suspend would've and that costs nothing.
Right now, to convince businesses, especially SMEs, that spending big $ to upgrade their OSes, basically requires MS and all software makers to ABANDON older OSes...they'd all have to work in consort to confiscate their paddles and launch 'em into 5h1t Creek...
You're right in that there can be big benefits to eliminating win 9x from the IT picture (whether it be with NT/2k/xp or a Linux distro). However, none of the benefits you mention are significant AT ALL in the SME space. And by benefits, I mean DIRECT $$ SAVINGS. If it does the job Win 9x will stay there until it is forced out (ie. old machines that break down are replaced and new ones added--and 9x licences are no longer sold) or manager types are scared into upgrading (y2k and all--that's how a surprising amount of DOS/Win 3.x was cleared out).
Better automated distribution of patches? BIG FRIGGIN DEAL if you have only a dozen or less PCs to support. Better security? As long as you have a good firewall and anti-virus, etc it is of little to no concern if everyone in the company sees each other every day and knows where everyone lives. Not saying there is NO reason to think about patching and security--just in those situations you've got a lot of extra convincing to do. Especially if you tell mom-and-pop that their computers will run much better with an upgrade, but you'll need to spend $5000 or more to do it. Oh yeah, and that neat little VB4 app your nephew wrote in 1996 that you've come to depend upon will never run quite right again...
Even in a very large organization there is a point where there is no convincing argument to upgrade. My employer, a VERY large, global corporation just completed migration to win2k about a year ago (erasing the last of the win9x) that's lamost THREE YEARS after the product was released!
Win2k has all the security and administative benefits of XP and took a LONG time to fully deploy. A four year support cycle would be ludicrous as it would keep the IT dept busy almost perpetually upgrading and MS is starting to see that.
That is why MS is running into roadblocks with its licinsing schemes--it compels companies to upgrade too frequently. For a large corporation or government, they count on a three year MINIMUM life cycle. ROI better be even quicker than that too.
My employer is significantly larger than 10k users and also has volume license arrangements wirh MS. It also costs us no different for CALs regardless of windows version, however that cost is miniscule compared to the effort and money it takes to upgrade on that scale. thus, Win2k is expected to be present in our company until about 2006--about the time Server 2003 is completely established (It doesn't look like XP will EVER be formally rolled out as an upgrade--it seems to be just floating in as the sales people get new machines or machines with a WinXP sticker on them are sent in for re-imaging, and our techie types must stick with 2k as the software we work with hasn't been proven to our satisfaction to operate safely with XP).
Longhorn won't see the light of day here until near the end of the DECADE provided MS doesn't fall behind in its release schedule...
SCO fails the "Dad's good bet" test MISERABLY--and as such it is NOT a reliable investment (more on that below). It is of course wise to be diligent in looking for any "ace up the sleeve" that SCO may have. However it is too soon after the.com bubble for most to forget that stock price means little to nothing about how well a company operates, and even less about its future prospects.
My father is recently retired and in the past few years has invested a portion of his savings in stocks, mainly on TSX (Toronto exchange). My father and koreth (author of the parent post) are two of very few people who seem aware of the "interesting fact" regarding stock funds performance against market indeces.
In the stock market, it seems generally to be a VERY BAD IDEA to make investments based heavily on the forecasts on market conditions and the performances of key industres and so on. My dad has had the most long term success by almost completely IGNORING trends forecasts proclaimed by the "experts" and looking at a companies current and past performance vs. its stock valuation. Some criteria are:
1. REAL assets vs capitalisation - Dad never bought into the whole.com bubble because these companies had NO "STUFF" to back their huge valuations--only business plans, expenses and ad campaigns. They held no real estate, had no inventory, not even significant intellectual property (proprietary software, patents, licensing deals and so on). If a stock looks interesting, make sure it's backed by some TRUE value
2. Is the company making money. Dad looks at the whole TSE and on the first pass he drops EVERYTHING that doesn't meed a certain PE ratio as a safe investment, REGARDLESS of what headlines they are making or press releases they are making. Dad didn't get into BRE-X for a reason--they were making headlines about a big gold find but WERE MAKING NO REVENUE YET. The find turned out to be a scam and those who gambled too long lost it all.
3. Do they issue dividends...that is a bonus...and if they do re-invest the dividends they issue back into more of the same stock. You can set it up so essentially you get shares instead of cash and you can avoid brokerage fees.
Pretty simple...and you hold everything you buy until you need to cash out or a periodic review of your investments fails to pass all your criteria. DO NOT let fluctuations in stock price--up OR down--scare you into buying or selling, EXCEPT when said fluctuation causes the stock to move outside the criteria you set as a good investment bet.
Everything else is a gamble--invest your lottery ticket money in it and nothing else.
BTW SCO fails MISERABLY as a safe investment--it fails 1. as its assets are currently next to worthless in comparison to its market valuation--and the only thing that'll change that is winning the IBM case, AND commandeering BSD since Linux users would likely move en-masse to BSD should Linux become expensive and closed. Very inlikely. It fails 2 because it doesn't make NEARLY enough revenue to pass the PE ratio test. AND because if 2. it can't do 3--pay any sort of meaningful dividend.
This "Hitbit" machine you mention is not the one I was referring to--it was built many years later. And, being it is based on MSX2 standards (not the original MSX) it was released AFTER the original Apple Mac.
The machine I recall had a monochrome display mounted in a portrait orientation and booted up right into a word processing application which I believe was permanently stored in firmware. By all rights it was capable of being a full computer but it was certainly NOT an MSX2 machine and was DEFINATELY meant to be used chiefly as a word processor.
Apple could probably be credited with being the first to return to the era of OPTIONAL floppy drives, but as far as being the first with 3.5"...it's another innovation falsely credited to Apple.
IBM invented the floppy in the 70s (or late 60s?)--it's creation was 8" and was truly floppy. A few years later a company called Shugart made a mini version--5.25 also in a flexible envelope. This is when floppies became much more popular (Shugart drives were coveted by Altair/S100-based PC owners who had the cash for them).
The 3.5" we all know and hate today was invented by SONY in 1980 and used in one of it's own machines the following year--nearly 3 years prior to Apple's introduciton of the MacIntosh.
Sony's machine wasn't much more than a word processor, but I do remember PCs using them a year before the MAC came out (there was a machine in europe that wasn't 100% IBM compatible but ran MS-DOS and used internal 3.5" floppy drives in 1983--I think it was called Apricot or something). Also, there was a rumour in 1982-83 that Coleco almost decided to use them in their ADAM computer but the cost was too high so they went with some kind of odd high speed tape drives.
So yup...3.5" (their creation or inclusion with a machine) were NOT original Apple ideas...they were just good ideas that Apple was the most successful at executing.
Yes, Apple was a pioneer in bringing innovation to the masses, but not everything on that list can be attributed to Apple.
Macs may have been the first that could be bought with an integrated CDROM (I can't say either way) but my first encounter with a CDROM was on PC based hardware (a big external SCSI-based beast that ran at 1x speed--same RPM as audio CD players if I recall) and those 3DO boxes were early examples of non-audio CD applications in the consumer market.
Apple was also most definitely NOT the first to offer colour support on their computers. Colour graphics adapters for the Altair and other S100 bus PCs predate the Apple ][ (Apple's first colour computer). Atari also released the 800 close the same time as the Apple ][ came out and I would argure the Atari 800 was more technologically innovative. I'd say the Atari 800 (and later the Commodore Vic-20 and 64) were the PCs that really drove the early growth in personal computing "multimedia". The 800 had a real chipset, with dedicated graphics and sound processors (CTIA and POKEY and so on). On top of that, it ran at an 70%+ higher clock speed, had better sound, higher resolution and 128 colours vs 8 on the Apple of the time.
That being said, the Apple ][ was a much more elegant design--simple, consistent and open--much more so than the Atari. Kudos to Woz for inventing such a fine machine. Hobbyists and engineers could much better appreciate and understand the Apple ][ and if one so wished he could engineer his own fancy graphics and sound boards as it had a proper expansion bus and internal slots rather than some unused, undocumented, external "bus" port hanging off the back like the Atari...Although I'd have to say the Atari 2600 has to rank right up there with the Apple I and ][ for elegance, simplicity and sheer cleverness in electronics design.
RIAA and MPAA, being comprised of entertainment executives and their lawyers which are known to be the lowest form of life on earth, would instinctively... attempt to "join" these networks, posing as users looking for Britney's latest, and entrapping systems that serve up the bits? Will they put out bogus trojaned clients on the services? "Dude, download LockTella 1.9, it's l33t!!" only to find that it hoovers up passwords and music lists, and forwards them on to DUDE@RIAA.COM....
Hopefully, however, the law and the constitution would step in since these tactics are just a tiny bit unethical, immoral and illegal. RIAA agents posing as file sharers and enticing others to load and run trojans that compromise their PCs and privacy in order to look for and obtain incriminating evidence is blatant entrapment and such evidence would/should be inadmissable in a court case.
It also looks like illegal search and seizure--and an unconstitutional invasion of privacy and misuse of private property. People have been convicted of criminal offences for deploying trojans and viruses and hacking into peoples machines (and rightly so). The rules should be no different for those acting on RIAA or MPAA's behalf regardless of their motives.
At least Netcraft's proctice is simple and relatively blind to human bias. Port80 doesn't even try to hide their bias--this is a marketing strategy not a research project.
What exactly makes a survey of Fortune1000 companies better than a wide survey of hostnames at indicating what is more popular or capable? "Jack in the box" (an American fast food restaurant chain) is on the list. Why the hell would I care what THEY use if I were selecting a platform for hosting a website? How many people in the world lay awake at night excitedly waiting for the next opportunity to go to a buger-joint's home page?
OTOH, Slashdot is NOT on the Fortune1000 and thus is not in Port80's survey. However it is one of the biggest, most popular sites in the world from a viewership/capacity standpoint. Links on this site bring on the wrath of a Slashdotting that cause many lesser sites to fold like rice paper. Now, if I want software that is scalable THAT is a site I'd examine for how to handle things right, not the e-brocure site of some obscure regional US health management company or cheesy fast food company.
I wont even START talking about the technical flaws of this silly Fortune1000 survey of web sites (use of proxies and so on creating false responses). In short, while it provides an interesting factoid in its results, Port80's survey is 100% useless in determining the true merits, suitability or even popularity of a web hosting platform.
To do the job RIGHT, a research project must compile a list of the top sites by VIEWERSHIP or TRAFFIC, then PERSONALLY CONTACT the webmasters to get positive confirmation of their server platforms (none of this nonsense of sending a bot out to scan the net). Not only that, it should look at the hardware costs, administration requirements and uptime stats of each of those sites. AND it should be sone by independent analysts, not by some software company that depends directly on the fortunes of one of the platforms being researched, or even by open-source idealogues.
Would sure be nice to have a credible survey on the subject. I personally suspect that Apache would still be on top and fare quite well in such a survey, however it would still be nice to have some confirmation.
You're right--the blogger wasn't fired because of security reasons--the picture didn't reveal any secrets in their strategy. Hell, it's fairly common knowledge that BillG carted in Lisa's and Mac's from the start. MS makes a mac version of office among other products--how the hell are they supposed to do that without having access to Apple hardware?
You're DEAD WRONG on another front--you infer that the blogger was wrongfully terminated because of "Microsoft bullshit". I'm a Linux evangelist myself, but in this case I think Microsoft did the typical and understandable thing in dismissing him. After all, do you think Red Hat would be happy if an employee released a picture of himself or a co-worker happily clicking around Windows XP at work, wrote an article entitled "We like BillG's stuff" and posted it on the internet? Doesn't matter WHO the employer is, I think he would've at LEAST had some interesting words with his boss.
This guy was quite likely breaching conflict of interest policies by embarassing his employer. He posted a picture of a load of Macs coming off a truck in a loading dock and identified it as being on the Microsoft campus. Not a violation in and of itself. Then he proceeded to identify himself as an EMPLOYEE of Microsoft and the author of the picture! I'd say if he wrote a blog entry flattering to Microsoft (along the lines of "look--MS wants to be multi-platform and play nice with others"), maybe he would've kept his job.
No..he was foolish enough to write a blog entry RIDICULING HIS EMPLOYER. ANY compnay would do the same thing if ridiculed by an employee in a very public forum.
Coca-Cola would (and has) fired employees for releasing pictures of pallets of Pepsi sitting in a warehouse surrounded by Coke and making the suggestion that "Coke was trying to learn a thing or two from Pepsi" (Both Coke and Pepsi bottlers have policies regarding how competitors products are to be handled on their premesis--you could be fired for drinking a Coke product in a Pepsi lunch room, particularly if you are caught with it by media representatives or a plant tour group).
GM would not tolerate the publication of a person identified as a GM employee enjoying a cruise in his Ford Mustang--if that employee was a willing participant in the activity.
Even a local mom-and-pop pizza joint would take issue with an employee eating Domino's in view of customers-or even just talking about how he or other employees prefer the competiton.
Was termination justified? I'm not quite sure. Some form of discipline, however, is completely understandable.
You'd think these people would be suitably equipping their children with tinfoil hats? That would obviously block the Wi-fi rays from cooking their precious childrens brains. Hell, why aren't they doing that already? The aliens and the CIA most surely have already been reading their entire family's brain waves for some time now.
Tsk Tsk...people are becoming more careless and irresponsible by the day.
(my apologies in advance to the good people of Newfoundland)
I'm reminded of an old email joke about the "newfie virus"--no attachment just the following message:
-- Dis 'ere is a virus from da good people o' Newfoundland. Da bye's 'ere on da rock aint dat sharp wit da 'puters so if ya could be so kind as to pass dis message on to all yer kin and erase yer hard drive it'd be much appreciated. --
We now have "Newfie DRM":
-- We dont want ya sharin' our tunes with all the world fer nuttin' so if ya'd be so kind as to let yer CD play by itself and keep yer paws of da shift key so we can mess wit ya 'puter it'd be much appreciated. If ya can't be helped to do dat den please find and run our nifty screwup program yerself.
PS: If yer one o' dem nerd types with dat linux ting please pretend not to hear da music. --
(Paraphrased from the actual instructions on the CD as shown below):
THIS CD IS ENHANCED WITH MEDIAMAX SOFTWARE. Windows Compatible Instructions: Insert disc into CD-ROM drive. Software will automatically install. If it doesn't, click on "LaunchCd.exe." MacOS Instructions: Insert disc into CD-ROM drive. Click on "Start." Usage of the CD on your computer requires your acceptance of the End User License Agreement and installation of specific software contained on the CD.
...because first of all it would be a colossally stupid move from a PR standpoint.
Secondly I believe Woz is still technically an employee of Apple (and will be for the rest of his life in an honorary capacity) as well as a shareholder (although I think he only holds 1 share for posterity). Because of that and the vital role he played in the formation of the company I *think* he still has enough pull to keep the IP lawyer dogs in Apple's employ on their leashes in this case.
..because the Apple I is considered a work of art. Some people consider Woz to be the engineering equivalent of a renaissance master. Some people hang framed prints of the schematics originally included with Apple I kits on the wall because the design was not only extremely elegant, efficient and clever--the drawing was also very well laid out and visually appealing.
So...it's the same reason non-geek "artsy" types buy classic paintings (or prints of them) even though we have photographic equipent (both film-based and digital) to make exact represtations of real life.
...and many of you are liable to freeze (or in southern parts bake) in the dark. If it weren't for BC Hydro selling power to California's PG&E over the common power grid on the west coast it would have been a certainty. Moreover, PG&E DEFAULTED on MILLIONS of dollars owed for said power to BC Hydro--so perhaps the proper term would be BC GAVE California power. Sooo...who uses who's power grid?
Also, before you start singing a round of "Blame Canada" it has been determined to a high degree of certainty by industry experts that the most recent power outage originated in the US (notwithstanding out boneheaded prime minister's impulsive comments on the matter before anything was determined). One thing is for certain--it was the Homer Simpsons on BOTH sides of the border that allowed the outage to propigate to the extent it did (operator error, scheduled outages that left the whole system running at capacity, etc...).
Deregulation has been bungled in its implementation all over the continent, but moreso in the US and particularly in California (well...EVERYTHING involving goverenment in California is royally fscked and has been for the better part of the last decade). The process was always politicised and the fledgling market manipulated by the established players and governments no matter where deregulation happened.
The concept is sound however...creaky old mandated monopolies should be broken up and the system made as open as technically possible to as many potential generation sources as possible. Decades of monopoly (in generation particularly) set us all up for the situation we are in now.
As a result, we presently have a handful of creaky, large utilities running creaky, large power plants with obsolete technology--and newer technology tacked on with duct tape and baling twine with little attention to stability and security. This has nothing to do with what country you are in--it is the situation continent-wide.
I've worked in the industry and have seen it first hand--and this was BEFORE the industry was deregulated (they still had several 1988-era 386s and a 286 in use--in 1996!). The argument then was that competition would compel established players to innovate and become more efficient. NOTHING has changed in these plants since deregulation--they are moving no slower OR faster in bringing new capacity to the grid. Only now demand has reached critical levels as predicted by some years ago. Only the argument has changed. Now instead of being the solution, deregulation is cited as the reason for problems (careless cost cutting rather than being sheltered from competition).
I'm astonished (but not entirely surprised) that since I was last in a power plant that there has been enough integration of critical systems into the general network that blaster-like infections could disrupt operations. Back in the mid 90's where I was, there were two distinct networks with NO connection at all (be it physical or not). If course, the 'net wasn't what it is now either and dozens of on-site employees had to rely on a 56k leased line for outside access.
Hopefully the blackout made everyone feel vulnerable enough to wake up and put at least as much or more into security and stability as they did into y2k compliance...
There are indeed about 30 million people in about 13 million households in Canada...and being I was born and raised here I can tell you that the majority of households have a cellphone here (both in the city and in the surrounding rural communities)--and it is very common to see a family where there are two or more (parents give their teenagers cellphones for emergency use and/or to keep tabs on them). I've seen kids as young as 10-12 on cellphones and some of my own relatives in their 80s have them as well. Yep--I think 12 million could be a reasonable estimate.
I've also had extended stays in the US, and I's have to say that with the exception of large metropolitan areas that overall per-capita cellphone usage is slightly lower in the US than in Canada (and from what I've heard western Europe and Asia outstrip us both by far).
This is just personal observation so if anyone has data to prove or disprove my observation let me know...
PS...and the comment about the elderly being cautious about new technology--overall that is a false assumption. I have found personally (and recently read a study on the subject) that the demographic most resistant to adopting new technology are those from 40 to 65 years of age (oddly enough although women of that age find high-tesh stuff intimidating, it is men of that age that are more resistant to it). After retirement people tend to become MORE willing to try out new technology. I have an aunt who I never imagined would learn to use a computer take to it like a fish to water--and she didn't so much as press a key until she was in her 80s.
Innovations like fuel cell and biomass generators aren't only beneficial because they use renewable energy sources and/or produce less pollution. I think that there is an even more intriguing aspect--the implemetation of these new technologies in small-scale units. The possibility of a truly distributed power generation system is very appealing.
I look forward to a time when millions of homes/farms/factories/villiages have their own refrigerator-sized, low-cost, efficient heat/electricity generation units connected to the existing power grid. People could choose to buy electricity off the grid from any number of sources or produce their own power and sell the excess to the grid (imagine getting a cheque instead of a bill every month!).
Such a setup would make blackouts like the one on the US eastern seaboard and southern Ontario much less likely--less dependence on massive, central generation means less disruption due to a failure cascading through the grid.
More sources of generation might also make the electric energy sector truly free market. Deregulation was supposed to make the scenario I described possible, however so far it has been a disaster in its implementation--governments all over the continent lifted regulations, sold off government owned utilities where they existed and handed the whole market over to lumbering old monopolies to mismanage, while at the same time leaving barriers to entry for new players and technology. Politics royally shagged a potentially good idea--hopefully over time it all works out.
What an awful link in the article! I don't even mean it's awful because it's a Japanese link posted on the English slashdot site. It's awful because 99 percent of the gaming public would find it unintelligable (regardless of the language it's written in OR the primary language of the reader).
Honestly--I have an engineering degree and a fair bit of electronics knowledge under my belt and the stats made MY eyes glaze over. Dual MIPS4000 cores? 660nm laser diode to read a 60mm dual layer 1.8GB media disc? Hardware tesselator and surface mapper? Reconfigrable multi-channel sound DSP? Jeeeeezus who the hell cares (or even understands) besides the most hardcore geeks and hardware engineers in the videogame industry?
While all that is front and centre, why didn't the editors (of either ZDNet or Slashdot) include specs "real" people find important. What are the overall physical dimensions (not just screen size--and including the weight), amount of playing time from fully charged? How long can you play on a full charge? Can you toss in AA cells or does it use an expensive, cellphone-like battery pack? Are the discs enclosed in protective sleeves a-la 3.5" disks (being it will be used in a portable environment)? Can you connect it to an external monitor or television (I presume with "7.1" sound you could hitch it to your stereo being that 7-channel headphones or 7 tiny little speakers jammed in there would be silly)? How many and what games will be initially released?
Hell--there isn't even a picture of the damn thing! Even the folks making that "phantom" game box at least put a computer-generated mock-up out there! Is it going have a notebook-like "clamshell" design like Nintendo has moved to?
Until it's FULLY announced I consider this concept- or vapour-ware (ie. specs subject to change without notice--yes, even if it is from a big, rich outfit like Sony). I have my doubts about a product stuffed with so many processors, a mini laser disc player, USB, memory stick etc being practical from a price or portability standpoint.
I guess we'll see what chance it has when we REALLY get to see it at E3--it could be a great hit or it could merely be just small enough to slide into that shelf full of Betamax tapes that have been collecting dust for the past 15-20 years...
...when you stated you really wanted "affordable tape backup for long term storage". A recordable CD jukebox (or perhaps even better to use DVDs) could be an inexpensive alternative to those $1000+ tapes. The media is also more available, less expensive and arguably more durable than tape. The one drawback would be the large number of disks would make the setup bulkier...
Software could easily be developed to span the drive image over even dozens of CDRW disks--the final one being the index. When you need to recover data it could totaly leave tape in the dust--one of the CDs would be an index CD, which the software would load to determine what data CD your file was on--then it would zap to that CD and grab the file. The whole operation would take less than a minute.
My personal experience with selectively restoring lost data is that the linear nature of tape makes the searching for the data tedious and time consuming (perhaps there are faster tape solutions out there but I'm sure they are expensive). Incremental backups might be trickier to fully automate but still quite possible.
1. Rather than buy a printer for his C64 back in the day, he elected to build a home made plotter and make several improvements along the way. It's quite impressive!
2. Before digital imaging was even remotely on the minds of personal computer users, he constructed a slow but functional low-res scanner That has to be a hallmark of a true hacker--his creations may not be practical and are of limited use, but they are fascinating and forward thinking.
3. Sometimes hacks really do save money, like this multi-megapixel digital camera made from a cheap $100 scanner at a time when most decent digital cameras cost 10 times that much. Sure, it took 30 seconds to take a pic, but it served the purpose for non-action photography and when motion was involved it could produce some interesting effects.
You make an interesting point about marketing. MySQL could very well be the VHS of OS databases to PostgreSQL's Betamax. PostgreSQL clearly wins out when it comes to a mature, stable feature set (the one perhaps sole place where MySQL shines in comparison is in being lightweight and fast at performing SELECTs--and even there the difference is undetectable in most situations). However, MySQL enjoys a higher profile and "better marketing"
Does this mean that PostgreSQL is doomed to the same fate as Betamax? Hell no! Unlike the VHS/Betamax case we are NOT dealing with proprietary technologies. Plus we are talking software--physically it is a bunch of bytes in files on hard drives, disks and the ether that is the 'net. There are potentially little to no manufacturing and distribution costs involved, as there are with VCRs, tapes and even boxed, commercial/proprietary software. It is the nature of Free software to endure despite lack of "success" in terms of widespread usage or revenue generation. So long as at least the developers use the software it will live on and potentially resurface publicly.
MySQL might be backed by a corporation and their aim may be to make money with it, but the driving force of most Free software is NOT driven by its money making capability--it was created and is maintained because it fills a technological need. Linux grew out of a personal project/experiment by Linus Torvalds who wanted a truly free MINIX-like OS to fill his personal needs--which happened to match the needs of many others. PostgreSQL was the academic follow-up project to INGRES--it's purpose wasn't originally to be an Oracle-slayer--it was to teaach CS studens about relation database concepts. When the Postgres project ended, it was in "production" use at several dozen (a few hundred?) academic sites, and thus there was a need for it to be maintained (originally by former UC Berkley students, followed by enthusiastic users with a vested interest in furthering the project). It's actually very hard to kill projects like *BSD or PostgreSQL even if Linux and MySQL are more popular, because they STILL have a LOT of users who are very much interested in keeping them alive for technical (and even emotional) reasons. They don't have to make money or dominate the market because they didn't from the start and they never were intended to. Those projects were simply meant to be damn good software.
OTOH, if Microsoft develops or acquires a product it is chiefly for the purposes of making scads of money (Windows, Office) or to establish itself in new markets with the intent of eventual domination (XBOX). If it doesn't make money and it doesn't destroy competitors (or, in the case of MS's 1st foray into "tablet computing" as an answer to products from upstart GO comupting, it destoys the competition but subsequently fails to make money), MS drops it like a hot potato. To hell with the fans the product might have. And why bother releasing source or schematics? 99.9% of MS customers are too clueless to comprehend them, and those that have any comprehension might track down and pester our developers, who MS would much rather have working as long hours as possible on a harder-to-crack next-gen XBOX or Office 2004 or Longhorn or whatever. Thus unpopular closed products wither and die very rapidly.
Incidentally, it wasn't just bad marketing that killed Beta. Oddly enough, one major factor was that it was "too proprietary" (Sony alone controlled licensing the technology and got a bit greedy. VHS eventually became maintained by a consortium of manufacturers, and it was much less costly to produce "approved" VHS products). The cost of being so proprietary was passed onto consumers, giving VHS the edge. The other reasons were marketing and exposure (such as space on video store shelves), plus the fact that most consumers preferred the much longer duration of VHS tapes at the same or lower costs over the better picture quality of Beta. If that lesson is missed by Microsoft et al in their zeal to develop and promote DRM, "trusted computing" and so forth, no amount of marketing will prevent Linux from gaining ground.
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So Tolkien is dead and his name and works are managed by a "company". I don't recall anyone saying that in a free democratic society that companies have no rights nor do they deserve to be accorded any. There are a lot of good reasons for families to set up trusts, not the least of which is the fact that there are many in this world--people, companies and governments--with absolutely no respect for the dead (and sometimes the living) and will take advantage of others' situations, fame, wealth and so on. It's meant to protect the "family jewels", not to fsck everyone over.
You make a good point with Microsoft...they messed up badly (I believe with hotmail.com as well) so they deserve the embarrassment--however a lot of (non-Microsoft) people but big-time money and effort into establishing the Hotmail service AND the brand/trademark, and Microsoft in turn paid big coin to acquire those assets. I know of nobody named "Hotmail" or other businesses operating under that marque--if there are then they have every right to sneak in and swipe the name from MS.
I am aware of the McDonalds case too...the fast food chain handled the situation quite badly and perhaps the Scottish esablishment that originally had it had every right to keep it. The fast food chain at LEAST should have the opportunity to make its case.
But jrrtolkein.com? What legitimate use does "Alberta Hot Rods/Celebrity1000" have? Their sole purpose is to suck traffic into a tasteless, annoying ad machine. That sort of parasitic money-for-nothing who-cares scheme pisses me right off.
Put yourselves in the shoes of Tolkein's descendants for a moment. Would YOU want your grandfather's good name to be abused by those who point the corresponding domain to a page full of tacky blinking ads and pop-ups schilling loan schemes, penis pills and porn? Just 'cause he's dead that means his name and his works are up for grabs by cyber-squatters, B-movie producers and every cheap toymaking sweatshop in China?
I'm not at all pleased to see copyright terms and IP law in general get perverted to the degree it is being done in the US. Some day all great works must be made available to the public domain. However, there HAS to be some balance between the rights of Joe Schmoe and those of everyone else (be it a celebrity, Jane Schmoe or Schmoe, Inc.).
If the domain was registered by a non-affiliated fan club or individual enthusiast and it was used to host a quality website on the subject (ie. LEGITIMATE USE), then I'd have said "screw off WIPO, leave them be"--especially if it was a non-commercial venture. I think if it wasn't the name of a person (living or dead) then I'd be even more inclined to say so (for example...startrek.com being ripped away from an early fan site by draconian, overzealous Paramount That was a dumbass thing to do too).
...nope...not convinced yet...
All most Win98 users in a small shop have to do is periodically run Windows Update, and if you've so long that you have 30 critical updates then you probably don't give a damn about more security or stability. And I don't recall having to reboot for each patch---only one after all are installed, except for major WMP and IE upgrades. The difference between that and Win2k and XP in this environment is barely perceptible at present. now for THOUSANDS of PCs scatterd around the world...yes...more automated update facilities are essential...
"Mom and Pop" say: Hmmm nasty trojans and worms eh? SQL Slammer, Blaster, Welchia, Nachi... Those were the REALLY nasty ones...damn we gotta get rid of Win98...what? What do you mean those only infect NT/2000/XP (and slammer only infects database servers)? That means win98 is immune? Damn I think I'll stick with win98 since all these newer, nastier viruses are going after the newer stuff. Plus I don't need to spend more money or worry about pirating stuff.
Also, clueless laptop user gets what's coming to him if he neglects to keep his anti-virus program up to date and habitually puts his laptop in suspend mode when moving from home to work networks (my employer mandates regular anti-virus updates and it's against policy to hook your laptop into the company network when in suspend/hibernation). None of that involves upgrading and can affect ALL OSes (especially all MS OSes).
BTW...That hibernation feature is how SQL slammer infested many sites (salespeople with SQL server running to demonstrate high-end software). Upgrading wouldn't have saved anyone there--but turning of the SQL server service and/or not using suspend would've and that costs nothing.
Right now, to convince businesses, especially SMEs, that spending big $ to upgrade their OSes, basically requires MS and all software makers to ABANDON older OSes...they'd all have to work in consort to confiscate their paddles and launch 'em into 5h1t Creek...
Wonder if this "web fountain" will be smart enough to determine the context to THAT level.
A painter thinks "colour" when he sees the word.
A slashdot reader (and many other grown-ups) thinks of the band "Pink Floyd".
If you are (or are the parent of) a teen-aged girl you think of neither...you think of the anti-Britney pop-star princess of angst Pink
You're right in that there can be big benefits to eliminating win 9x from the IT picture (whether it be with NT/2k/xp or a Linux distro). However, none of the benefits you mention are significant AT ALL in the SME space. And by benefits, I mean DIRECT $$ SAVINGS. If it does the job Win 9x will stay there until it is forced out (ie. old machines that break down are replaced and new ones added--and 9x licences are no longer sold) or manager types are scared into upgrading (y2k and all--that's how a surprising amount of DOS/Win 3.x was cleared out).
Better automated distribution of patches? BIG FRIGGIN DEAL if you have only a dozen or less PCs to support. Better security? As long as you have a good firewall and anti-virus, etc it is of little to no concern if everyone in the company sees each other every day and knows where everyone lives. Not saying there is NO reason to think about patching and security--just in those situations you've got a lot of extra convincing to do. Especially if you tell mom-and-pop that their computers will run much better with an upgrade, but you'll need to spend $5000 or more to do it. Oh yeah, and that neat little VB4 app your nephew wrote in 1996 that you've come to depend upon will never run quite right again...
Even in a very large organization there is a point where there is no convincing argument to upgrade. My employer, a VERY large, global corporation just completed migration to win2k about a year ago (erasing the last of the win9x) that's lamost THREE YEARS after the product was released!
Win2k has all the security and administative benefits of XP and took a LONG time to fully deploy. A four year support cycle would be ludicrous as it would keep the IT dept busy almost perpetually upgrading and MS is starting to see that.
That is why MS is running into roadblocks with its licinsing schemes--it compels companies to upgrade too frequently. For a large corporation or government, they count on a three year MINIMUM life cycle. ROI better be even quicker than that too.
My employer is significantly larger than 10k users and also has volume license arrangements wirh MS. It also costs us no different for CALs regardless of windows version, however that cost is miniscule compared to the effort and money it takes to upgrade on that scale. thus, Win2k is expected to be present in our company until about 2006--about the time Server 2003 is completely established (It doesn't look like XP will EVER be formally rolled out as an upgrade--it seems to be just floating in as the sales people get new machines or machines with a WinXP sticker on them are sent in for re-imaging, and our techie types must stick with 2k as the software we work with hasn't been proven to our satisfaction to operate safely with XP).
Longhorn won't see the light of day here until near the end of the DECADE provided MS doesn't fall behind in its release schedule...
...how long would it be before you unwittingly ended up with a big stash of K1DD13_Pr0n on your machine?
And how much longer would it take for the authorities to find it, confiscate your equipment and charge you with posession of the nasty stuff?
Lotta reasons to button down that access to your machines...
SCO fails the "Dad's good bet" test MISERABLY--and as such it is NOT a reliable investment (more on that below). It is of course wise to be diligent in looking for any "ace up the sleeve" that SCO may have. However it is too soon after the .com bubble for most to forget that stock price means little to nothing about how well a company operates, and even less about its future prospects.
.com bubble because these companies had NO "STUFF" to back their huge valuations--only business plans, expenses and ad campaigns. They held no real estate, had no inventory, not even significant intellectual property (proprietary software, patents, licensing deals and so on). If a stock looks interesting, make sure it's backed by some TRUE value
My father is recently retired and in the past few years has invested a portion of his savings in stocks, mainly on TSX (Toronto exchange). My father and koreth (author of the parent post) are two of very few people who seem aware of the "interesting fact" regarding stock funds performance against market indeces.
In the stock market, it seems generally to be a VERY BAD IDEA to make investments based heavily on the forecasts on market conditions and the performances of key industres and so on. My dad has had the most long term success by almost completely IGNORING trends forecasts proclaimed by the "experts" and looking at a companies current and past performance vs. its stock valuation. Some criteria are:
1. REAL assets vs capitalisation - Dad never bought into the whole
2. Is the company making money. Dad looks at the whole TSE and on the first pass he drops EVERYTHING that doesn't meed a certain PE ratio as a safe investment, REGARDLESS of what headlines they are making or press releases they are making. Dad didn't get into BRE-X for a reason--they were making headlines about a big gold find but WERE MAKING NO REVENUE YET. The find turned out to be a scam and those who gambled too long lost it all.
3. Do they issue dividends...that is a bonus...and if they do re-invest the dividends they issue back into more of the same stock. You can set it up so essentially you get shares instead of cash and you can avoid brokerage fees.
Pretty simple...and you hold everything you buy until you need to cash out or a periodic review of your investments fails to pass all your criteria. DO NOT let fluctuations in stock price--up OR down--scare you into buying or selling, EXCEPT when said fluctuation causes the stock to move outside the criteria you set as a good investment bet.
Everything else is a gamble--invest your lottery ticket money in it and nothing else.
BTW SCO fails MISERABLY as a safe investment--it fails 1. as its assets are currently next to worthless in comparison to its market valuation--and the only thing that'll change that is winning the IBM case, AND commandeering BSD since Linux users would likely move en-masse to BSD should Linux become expensive and closed. Very inlikely. It fails 2 because it doesn't make NEARLY enough revenue to pass the PE ratio test. AND because if 2. it can't do 3--pay any sort of meaningful dividend.
Ehhhhh YES...
This "Hitbit" machine you mention is not the one I was referring to--it was built many years later. And, being it is based on MSX2 standards (not the original MSX) it was released AFTER the original Apple Mac.
The machine I recall had a monochrome display mounted in a portrait orientation and booted up right into a word processing application which I believe was permanently stored in firmware. By all rights it was capable of being a full computer but it was certainly NOT an MSX2 machine and was DEFINATELY meant to be used chiefly as a word processor.
Apple could probably be credited with being the first to return to the era of OPTIONAL floppy drives, but as far as being the first with 3.5"...it's another innovation falsely credited to Apple.
IBM invented the floppy in the 70s (or late 60s?)--it's creation was 8" and was truly floppy. A few years later a company called Shugart made a mini version--5.25 also in a flexible envelope. This is when floppies became much more popular (Shugart drives were coveted by Altair/S100-based PC owners who had the cash for them).
The 3.5" we all know and hate today was invented by SONY in 1980 and used in one of it's own machines the following year--nearly 3 years prior to Apple's introduciton of the MacIntosh.
Sony's machine wasn't much more than a word processor, but I do remember PCs using them a year before the MAC came out (there was a machine in europe that wasn't 100% IBM compatible but ran MS-DOS and used internal 3.5" floppy drives in 1983--I think it was called Apricot or something). Also, there was a rumour in 1982-83 that Coleco almost decided to use them in their ADAM computer but the cost was too high so they went with some kind of odd high speed tape drives.
So yup...3.5" (their creation or inclusion with a machine) were NOT original Apple ideas...they were just good ideas that Apple was the most successful at executing.
Yes, Apple was a pioneer in bringing innovation to the masses, but not everything on that list can be attributed to Apple.
Macs may have been the first that could be bought with an integrated CDROM (I can't say either way) but my first encounter with a CDROM was on PC based hardware (a big external SCSI-based beast that ran at 1x speed--same RPM as audio CD players if I recall) and those 3DO boxes were early examples of non-audio CD applications in the consumer market.
Apple was also most definitely NOT the first to offer colour support on their computers. Colour graphics adapters for the Altair and other S100 bus PCs predate the Apple ][ (Apple's first colour computer). Atari also released the 800 close the same time as the Apple ][ came out and I would argure the Atari 800 was more technologically innovative. I'd say the Atari 800 (and later the Commodore Vic-20 and 64) were the PCs that really drove the early growth in personal computing "multimedia". The 800 had a real chipset, with dedicated graphics and sound processors (CTIA and POKEY and so on). On top of that, it ran at an 70%+ higher clock speed, had better sound, higher resolution and 128 colours vs 8 on the Apple of the time.
That being said, the Apple ][ was a much more elegant design--simple, consistent and open--much more so than the Atari. Kudos to Woz for inventing such a fine machine. Hobbyists and engineers could much better appreciate and understand the Apple ][ and if one so wished he could engineer his own fancy graphics and sound boards as it had a proper expansion bus and internal slots rather than some unused, undocumented, external "bus" port hanging off the back like the Atari...Although I'd have to say the Atari 2600 has to rank right up there with the Apple I and ][ for elegance, simplicity and sheer cleverness in electronics design.
*sigh* those were the days...
RIAA and MPAA, being comprised of entertainment executives and their lawyers which are known to be the lowest form of life on earth, would instinctively ... attempt to "join" these networks, posing as users looking for Britney's latest, and entrapping systems that serve up the bits? Will they put out bogus trojaned clients on the services? "Dude, download LockTella 1.9, it's l33t!!" only to find that it hoovers up passwords and music lists, and forwards them on to DUDE@RIAA.COM ....
Hopefully, however, the law and the constitution would step in since these tactics are just a tiny bit unethical, immoral and illegal. RIAA agents posing as file sharers and enticing others to load and run trojans that compromise their PCs and privacy in order to look for and obtain incriminating evidence is blatant entrapment and such evidence would/should be inadmissable in a court case.
It also looks like illegal search and seizure--and an unconstitutional invasion of privacy and misuse of private property. People have been convicted of criminal offences for deploying trojans and viruses and hacking into peoples machines (and rightly so). The rules should be no different for those acting on RIAA or MPAA's behalf regardless of their motives.
At least Netcraft's proctice is simple and relatively blind to human bias. Port80 doesn't even try to hide their bias--this is a marketing strategy not a research project.
What exactly makes a survey of Fortune1000 companies better than a wide survey of hostnames at indicating what is more popular or capable? "Jack in the box" (an American fast food restaurant chain) is on the list. Why the hell would I care what THEY use if I were selecting a platform for hosting a website? How many people in the world lay awake at night excitedly waiting for the next opportunity to go to a buger-joint's home page?
OTOH, Slashdot is NOT on the Fortune1000 and thus is not in Port80's survey. However it is one of the biggest, most popular sites in the world from a viewership/capacity standpoint. Links on this site bring on the wrath of a Slashdotting that cause many lesser sites to fold like rice paper. Now, if I want software that is scalable THAT is a site I'd examine for how to handle things right, not the e-brocure site of some obscure regional US health management company or cheesy fast food company.
I wont even START talking about the technical flaws of this silly Fortune1000 survey of web sites (use of proxies and so on creating false responses). In short, while it provides an interesting factoid in its results, Port80's survey is 100% useless in determining the true merits, suitability or even popularity of a web hosting platform.
To do the job RIGHT, a research project must compile a list of the top sites by VIEWERSHIP or TRAFFIC, then PERSONALLY CONTACT the webmasters to get positive confirmation of their server platforms (none of this nonsense of sending a bot out to scan the net). Not only that, it should look at the hardware costs, administration requirements and uptime stats of each of those sites. AND it should be sone by independent analysts, not by some software company that depends directly on the fortunes of one of the platforms being researched, or even by open-source idealogues.
Would sure be nice to have a credible survey on the subject. I personally suspect that Apache would still be on top and fare quite well in such a survey, however it would still be nice to have some confirmation.
You're right--the blogger wasn't fired because of security reasons--the picture didn't reveal any secrets in their strategy. Hell, it's fairly common knowledge that BillG carted in Lisa's and Mac's from the start. MS makes a mac version of office among other products--how the hell are they supposed to do that without having access to Apple hardware?
You're DEAD WRONG on another front--you infer that the blogger was wrongfully terminated because of "Microsoft bullshit". I'm a Linux evangelist myself, but in this case I think Microsoft did the typical and understandable thing in dismissing him. After all, do you think Red Hat would be happy if an employee released a picture of himself or a co-worker happily clicking around Windows XP at work, wrote an article entitled "We like BillG's stuff" and posted it on the internet? Doesn't matter WHO the employer is, I think he would've at LEAST had some interesting words with his boss.
This guy was quite likely breaching conflict of interest policies by embarassing his employer. He posted a picture of a load of Macs coming off a truck in a loading dock and identified it as being on the Microsoft campus. Not a violation in and of itself. Then he proceeded to identify himself as an EMPLOYEE of Microsoft and the author of the picture! I'd say if he wrote a blog entry flattering to Microsoft (along the lines of "look--MS wants to be multi-platform and play nice with others"), maybe he would've kept his job.
No..he was foolish enough to write a blog entry RIDICULING HIS EMPLOYER. ANY compnay would do the same thing if ridiculed by an employee in a very public forum.
Coca-Cola would (and has) fired employees for releasing pictures of pallets of Pepsi sitting in a warehouse surrounded by Coke and making the suggestion that "Coke was trying to learn a thing or two from Pepsi" (Both Coke and Pepsi bottlers have policies regarding how competitors products are to be handled on their premesis--you could be fired for drinking a Coke product in a Pepsi lunch room, particularly if you are caught with it by media representatives or a plant tour group).
GM would not tolerate the publication of a person identified as a GM employee enjoying a cruise in his Ford Mustang--if that employee was a willing participant in the activity.
Even a local mom-and-pop pizza joint would take issue with an employee eating Domino's in view of customers-or even just talking about how he or other employees prefer the competiton.
Was termination justified? I'm not quite sure. Some form of discipline, however, is completely understandable.
You'd think these people would be suitably equipping their children with tinfoil hats? That would obviously block the Wi-fi rays from cooking their precious childrens brains. Hell, why aren't they doing that already? The aliens and the CIA most surely have already been reading their entire family's brain waves for some time now.
Tsk Tsk...people are becoming more careless and irresponsible by the day.
(my apologies in advance to the good people of Newfoundland)
I'm reminded of an old email joke about the "newfie virus"--no attachment just the following message:
--
Dis 'ere is a virus from da good people o' Newfoundland. Da bye's 'ere on da rock aint dat sharp wit da 'puters so if ya could be so kind as to pass dis message on to all yer kin and erase yer hard drive it'd be much appreciated.
--
We now have "Newfie DRM":
--
We dont want ya sharin' our tunes with all the world fer nuttin' so if ya'd be so kind as to let yer CD play by itself and keep yer paws of da shift key so we can mess wit ya 'puter it'd be much appreciated. If ya can't be helped to do dat den please find and run our nifty screwup program yerself.
PS: If yer one o' dem nerd types with dat linux ting please pretend not to hear da music.
--
(Paraphrased from the actual instructions on the CD as shown below):
THIS CD IS ENHANCED WITH MEDIAMAX SOFTWARE. Windows Compatible Instructions: Insert disc into CD-ROM drive. Software will automatically install. If it doesn't, click on "LaunchCd.exe." MacOS Instructions: Insert disc into CD-ROM drive. Click on "Start." Usage of the CD on your computer requires your acceptance of the End User License Agreement and installation of specific software contained on the CD.
...but total BS. Hockey wasn't imported but is a home-grown on-ice adaptaion of what natives were playing before the arrival of european settlers.
You may have been confusing Hockey with another popular Canadian pastime played on ice: CURLING. That sport was brought over from Scotland.
Basketball was invented in Ontario by James Naismith--he was nether French nor a monk. The venue was not an orphanage or church but a YMCA.
...because first of all it would be a colossally stupid move from a PR standpoint.
Secondly I believe Woz is still technically an employee of Apple (and will be for the rest of his life in an honorary capacity) as well as a shareholder (although I think he only holds 1 share for posterity). Because of that and the vital role he played in the formation of the company I *think* he still has enough pull to keep the IP lawyer dogs in Apple's employ on their leashes in this case.
..because the Apple I is considered a work of art. Some people consider Woz to be the engineering equivalent of a renaissance master. Some people hang framed prints of the schematics originally included with Apple I kits on the wall because the design was not only extremely elegant, efficient and clever--the drawing was also very well laid out and visually appealing.
So...it's the same reason non-geek "artsy" types buy classic paintings (or prints of them) even though we have photographic equipent (both film-based and digital) to make exact represtations of real life.
...and many of you are liable to freeze (or in southern parts bake) in the dark. If it weren't for BC Hydro selling power to California's PG&E over the common power grid on the west coast it would have been a certainty. Moreover, PG&E DEFAULTED on MILLIONS of dollars owed for said power to BC Hydro--so perhaps the proper term would be BC GAVE California power. Sooo...who uses who's power grid?
Also, before you start singing a round of "Blame Canada" it has been determined to a high degree of certainty by industry experts that the most recent power outage originated in the US (notwithstanding out boneheaded prime minister's impulsive comments on the matter before anything was determined). One thing is for certain--it was the Homer Simpsons on BOTH sides of the border that allowed the outage to propigate to the extent it did (operator error, scheduled outages that left the whole system running at capacity, etc...).
Deregulation has been bungled in its implementation all over the continent, but moreso in the US and particularly in California (well...EVERYTHING involving goverenment in California is royally fscked and has been for the better part of the last decade). The process was always politicised and the fledgling market manipulated by the established players and governments no matter where deregulation happened.
The concept is sound however...creaky old mandated monopolies should be broken up and the system made as open as technically possible to as many potential generation sources as possible. Decades of monopoly (in generation particularly) set us all up for the situation we are in now.
As a result, we presently have a handful of creaky, large utilities running creaky, large power plants with obsolete technology--and newer technology tacked on with duct tape and baling twine with little attention to stability and security. This has nothing to do with what country you are in--it is the situation continent-wide.
I've worked in the industry and have seen it first hand--and this was BEFORE the industry was deregulated (they still had several 1988-era 386s and a 286 in use--in 1996!). The argument then was that competition would compel established players to innovate and become more efficient. NOTHING has changed in these plants since deregulation--they are moving no slower OR faster in bringing new capacity to the grid. Only now demand has reached critical levels as predicted by some years ago. Only the argument has changed. Now instead of being the solution, deregulation is cited as the reason for problems (careless cost cutting rather than being sheltered from competition).
I'm astonished (but not entirely surprised) that since I was last in a power plant that there has been enough integration of critical systems into the general network that blaster-like infections could disrupt operations. Back in the mid 90's where I was, there were two distinct networks with NO connection at all (be it physical or not). If course, the 'net wasn't what it is now either and dozens of on-site employees had to rely on a 56k leased line for outside access.
Hopefully the blackout made everyone feel vulnerable enough to wake up and put at least as much or more into security and stability as they did into y2k compliance...
There are indeed about 30 million people in about 13 million households in Canada...and being I was born and raised here I can tell you that the majority of households have a cellphone here (both in the city and in the surrounding rural communities)--and it is very common to see a family where there are two or more (parents give their teenagers cellphones for emergency use and/or to keep tabs on them). I've seen kids as young as 10-12 on cellphones and some of my own relatives in their 80s have them as well. Yep--I think 12 million could be a reasonable estimate.
I've also had extended stays in the US, and I's have to say that with the exception of large metropolitan areas that overall per-capita cellphone usage is slightly lower in the US than in Canada (and from what I've heard western Europe and Asia outstrip us both by far).
This is just personal observation so if anyone has data to prove or disprove my observation let me know...
PS...and the comment about the elderly being cautious about new technology--overall that is a false assumption. I have found personally (and recently read a study on the subject) that the demographic most resistant to adopting new technology are those from 40 to 65 years of age (oddly enough although women of that age find high-tesh stuff intimidating, it is men of that age that are more resistant to it). After retirement people tend to become MORE willing to try out new technology. I have an aunt who I never imagined would learn to use a computer take to it like a fish to water--and she didn't so much as press a key until she was in her 80s.
Innovations like fuel cell and biomass generators aren't only beneficial because they use renewable energy sources and/or produce less pollution. I think that there is an even more intriguing aspect--the implemetation of these new technologies in small-scale units. The possibility of a truly distributed power generation system is very appealing.
I look forward to a time when millions of homes/farms/factories/villiages have their own refrigerator-sized, low-cost, efficient heat/electricity generation units connected to the existing power grid. People could choose to buy electricity off the grid from any number of sources or produce their own power and sell the excess to the grid (imagine getting a cheque instead of a bill every month!).
Such a setup would make blackouts like the one on the US eastern seaboard and southern Ontario much less likely--less dependence on massive, central generation means less disruption due to a failure cascading through the grid.
More sources of generation might also make the electric energy sector truly free market. Deregulation was supposed to make the scenario I described possible, however so far it has been a disaster in its implementation--governments all over the continent lifted regulations, sold off government owned utilities where they existed and handed the whole market over to lumbering old monopolies to mismanage, while at the same time leaving barriers to entry for new players and technology. Politics royally shagged a potentially good idea--hopefully over time it all works out.
Doesn't look like that to mee...looks more like a litigous, greedy, ham-fisted attempt at extortion to me...
"Hand over the cash or I shoot the penguin"
What an awful link in the article! I don't even mean it's awful because it's a Japanese link posted on the English slashdot site. It's awful because 99 percent of the gaming public would find it unintelligable (regardless of the language it's written in OR the primary language of the reader).
Honestly--I have an engineering degree and a fair bit of electronics knowledge under my belt and the stats made MY eyes glaze over. Dual MIPS4000 cores? 660nm laser diode to read a 60mm dual layer 1.8GB media disc? Hardware tesselator and surface mapper? Reconfigrable multi-channel sound DSP? Jeeeeezus who the hell cares (or even understands) besides the most hardcore geeks and hardware engineers in the videogame industry?
While all that is front and centre, why didn't the editors (of either ZDNet or Slashdot) include specs "real" people find important. What are the overall physical dimensions (not just screen size--and including the weight), amount of playing time from fully charged? How long can you play on a full charge? Can you toss in AA cells or does it use an expensive, cellphone-like battery pack? Are the discs enclosed in protective sleeves a-la 3.5" disks (being it will be used in a portable environment)? Can you connect it to an external monitor or television (I presume with "7.1" sound you could hitch it to your stereo being that 7-channel headphones or 7 tiny little speakers jammed in there would be silly)? How many and what games will be initially released?
Hell--there isn't even a picture of the damn thing! Even the folks making that "phantom" game box at least put a computer-generated mock-up out there! Is it going have a notebook-like "clamshell" design like Nintendo has moved to?
Until it's FULLY announced I consider this concept- or vapour-ware (ie. specs subject to change without notice--yes, even if it is from a big, rich outfit like Sony). I have my doubts about a product stuffed with so many processors, a mini laser disc player, USB, memory stick etc being practical from a price or portability standpoint.
I guess we'll see what chance it has when we REALLY get to see it at E3--it could be a great hit or it could merely be just small enough to slide into that shelf full of Betamax tapes that have been collecting dust for the past 15-20 years...
...when you stated you really wanted "affordable tape backup for long term storage". A recordable CD jukebox (or perhaps even better to use DVDs) could be an inexpensive alternative to those $1000+ tapes. The media is also more available, less expensive and arguably more durable than tape. The one drawback would be the large number of disks would make the setup bulkier...
Software could easily be developed to span the drive image over even dozens of CDRW disks--the final one being the index. When you need to recover data it could totaly leave tape in the dust--one of the CDs would be an index CD, which the software would load to determine what data CD your file was on--then it would zap to that CD and grab the file. The whole operation would take less than a minute.
My personal experience with selectively restoring lost data is that the linear nature of tape makes the searching for the data tedious and time consuming (perhaps there are faster tape solutions out there but I'm sure they are expensive). Incremental backups might be trickier to fully automate but still quite possible.
...he is also a very talented and prolific one:
1. Rather than buy a printer for his C64 back in the day, he elected to build a home made plotter and make several improvements along the way. It's quite impressive!
2. Before digital imaging was even remotely on the minds of personal computer users, he constructed a slow but functional low-res scanner That has to be a hallmark of a true hacker--his creations may not be practical and are of limited use, but they are fascinating and forward thinking.
3. Sometimes hacks really do save money, like this multi-megapixel digital camera made from a cheap $100 scanner at a time when most decent digital cameras cost 10 times that much. Sure, it took 30 seconds to take a pic, but it served the purpose for non-action photography and when motion was involved it could produce some interesting effects.
(bows down) I'm not worthy....
You make an interesting point about marketing. MySQL could very well be the VHS of OS databases to PostgreSQL's Betamax. PostgreSQL clearly wins out when it comes to a mature, stable feature set (the one perhaps sole place where MySQL shines in comparison is in being lightweight and fast at performing SELECTs--and even there the difference is undetectable in most situations). However, MySQL enjoys a higher profile and "better marketing"
Does this mean that PostgreSQL is doomed to the same fate as Betamax? Hell no! Unlike the VHS/Betamax case we are NOT dealing with proprietary technologies. Plus we are talking software--physically it is a bunch of bytes in files on hard drives, disks and the ether that is the 'net. There are potentially little to no manufacturing and distribution costs involved, as there are with VCRs, tapes and even boxed, commercial/proprietary software. It is the nature of Free software to endure despite lack of "success" in terms of widespread usage or revenue generation. So long as at least the developers use the software it will live on and potentially resurface publicly.
MySQL might be backed by a corporation and their aim may be to make money with it, but the driving force of most Free software is NOT driven by its money making capability--it was created and is maintained because it fills a technological need. Linux grew out of a personal project/experiment by Linus Torvalds who wanted a truly free MINIX-like OS to fill his personal needs--which happened to match the needs of many others. PostgreSQL was the academic follow-up project to INGRES--it's purpose wasn't originally to be an Oracle-slayer--it was to teaach CS studens about relation database concepts. When the Postgres project ended, it was in "production" use at several dozen (a few hundred?) academic sites, and thus there was a need for it to be maintained (originally by former UC Berkley students, followed by enthusiastic users with a vested interest in furthering the project). It's actually very hard to kill projects like *BSD or PostgreSQL even if Linux and MySQL are more popular, because they STILL have a LOT of users who are very much interested in keeping them alive for technical (and even emotional) reasons. They don't have to make money or dominate the market because they didn't from the start and they never were intended to. Those projects were simply meant to be damn good software.
OTOH, if Microsoft develops or acquires a product it is chiefly for the purposes of making scads of money (Windows, Office) or to establish itself in new markets with the intent of eventual domination (XBOX). If it doesn't make money and it doesn't destroy competitors (or, in the case of MS's 1st foray into "tablet computing" as an answer to products from upstart GO comupting, it destoys the competition but subsequently fails to make money), MS drops it like a hot potato. To hell with the fans the product might have. And why bother releasing source or schematics? 99.9% of MS customers are too clueless to comprehend them, and those that have any comprehension might track down and pester our developers, who MS would much rather have working as long hours as possible on a harder-to-crack next-gen XBOX or Office 2004 or Longhorn or whatever. Thus unpopular closed products wither and die very rapidly.
Incidentally, it wasn't just bad marketing that killed Beta. Oddly enough, one major factor was that it was "too proprietary" (Sony alone controlled licensing the technology and got a bit greedy. VHS eventually became maintained by a consortium of manufacturers, and it was much less costly to produce "approved" VHS products). The cost of being so proprietary was passed onto consumers, giving VHS the edge. The other reasons were marketing and exposure (such as space on video store shelves), plus the fact that most consumers preferred the much longer duration of VHS tapes at the same or lower costs over the better picture quality of Beta. If that lesson is missed by Microsoft et al in their zeal to develop and promote DRM, "trusted computing" and so forth, no amount of marketing will prevent Linux from gaining ground.