1. A typical large distribution warehouse receives product in case lot/batch/vat fashion. The RFID tags in this case would be attached to each crate of shoes rather than embedded in the shoe itself for example. That is precisely why Wal-mart is going to start with warehouses only--because far fewer RFID tags and readers will be required, costs will be lower and the negative impact of potential problems with them will be much lower than in a retail setting. You can take off your tinfoil hat for the time being because those RFID tags will be nowhere in sight once the merchandise is placed on retail store shelves.
2. Organisations involved in sales and distribution (such as those responsible for maintaining UPC codes) are very aware of consumer's concerns over privacy and assurances have been made that they will be easily disabled. In fact, one idea to prevent shoplifting was to disable the RF tag on ALL purchased merchandise at the cashier's counter and use the presence of an active tag as an indicator of theft. As for sharing information on disabling an RFID as contravening the DMCA, the argument is very weak. The DMCA is about COPYRIGHT--it arguably intrudes on property rights and fair use, but destroying the RFID tag embedded in your already-purchased Nikes does NOTHING to violate copyright--your shoes won't magically clone without the tag and the tag does not prevent a person from making cheap Nike knockoffs. The same holds true regarding State law, and local/municipal governments don't even have juristiction over copyright or theft prevention.
Incidentally, RFID and unique barcode tags are already used to track livestock. It is starting to prove to be a godsend to the industry as a way to track the health of the animals and our food supply. Unfortunately the practise started in Canada and the US AFTER the birth of the animal infected with mad cow that was found in Canada. At that time, record-keeping was sometimes apallingly lax in places.
Americans shouldn't feel all that smug about the health of ther beef supply either--not only were their tracking methods as lax as Canada's, they also tended to more often employ the use of animal-based protein feed and hormones in cattle production. Also, the Canadian case of Mad Cow did not make it into the food supply (it was destroyed as soon as disease was suspect but before it was confirmed) but the offspring of the infected animal were sold to Montana--and those animals DID make it into the US food supply. Because of lax record-keeping it can't be confirmed, but it is likely the infected cow was born in the US--and the possibility exists that it got the disease there too. So much for the validity of the US embargo on Canadian beef...but I digress. In this case, technology like RF tags, when used with the proper respect for human rights, could have prevented (and will prevent in the future) a public health scare and the resulting political manoevring and economic disruption.
I attended the GO Expo in Calgary a couple weeks ago and got to see their offerings first hand--nice little booth they had set up.
YES, sometimes real-estate IS massively important. Some points you missed:
1. Take out a ruler and size out the unit, or check one out physically. These things have no keyboard mouse or display, but because of that the box is damn small--smaller than the vast majority of notebooks (at least "real" ones capable of running WinXP or a full Linux desktop).
2. You cannot easily buy a new laptop with comparable power for as cheap as the norhtec units because you must buy the drives, keyboard, mouse, display and so on. Who says you always need all that stuff? What if it is meant to act as a server or data collection device? Sometimes you need a PC in a server role but lack space(trucking industry, remote mining/drilling camps--which is the market they were chasing in Calgary and so on). Perhaps you are stuck in a Windows mentality and assume PCs actually need keyboards and monitors to function.
3. These units are FANLESS and can be equipped with solid-state persistent storage rather than regular hard drives (that was an option they were touting at the GO expo). No moving parts as well as the ability to run on DC can be a huge bonus for mobile applications (there is no AC-to-DC power supply as typically found on desktops in these units--they come with a "brick" like a notebook or your old C64 might have). These units are solid, metal cases designed to be relatively easy to mount in a variety of locations.
Here are some sample uses where the "tower under the desk" or a "space saving laptop" just wouldn't cut it, and these units would be ideal:
* MP3 jukebox for your car - whether you use flash or a hard drive you can put hours (or days perhaps) of music on it--they do have sound built in after all. They are portable and can be brought in and easily hooked up for download--or perhaps even cooler you could put a wireless ethernet card init and leave it bolted in your dash or trunk, then FTP music to it using your little linksys wireless router or whatever when the car is parked in the garage!
* SCADA, remote logging, etc. These rugged, inexpensive devices can be used to gather data at remote or industrial locations. Pumping stations at oil and gas wellsites have lots of data gathering requirements. CN and CP rail have hotwheel detectors, signalling systems and so on in shacks all over the country that rely on expensive, proprietary and sometimes obsolete equipment to work. Power plants collect data everywhere. In all of these situations I've seen instances where recording data meant an ancient serial line printer spewing reams of paper. These could be drop-in replacements.
* Mobile applications - trucking industry, police and EMS vehicles, warehousing (forklift mounted system with attached barcode scanner and very simple display connected) and so on would find these products extremely useful as there isn't much out ther at the same price with the same flexibility. This is where the no moving parts possibility would be invaluable.
Does this help you in the "newsworthy" and "massively important" departments?
Since when do the paranoid (or even cynical) believe government documents that state everything has been running smoothly and everything has been uneventful? It's been a long time since the government has been able to do anything of importance without involving some incredible, expensive or absurdly stupid event, descision or fact?
If these declassified documents are truly complete, there HAS to be a reason they were classified in the first place. SOMETHING interesting, out-of-the-ordinary or plain stupid was contained in them to warrant classification. If nothing of that nature is present, then these documents have been censored beyond recognition.
If the government REALLY wanted to diffuse the conspiracy theorists, at least release SOMETHING interesting and believablly COMPLETE. Where ate the pruchase orders for the $5000 hammers and $25000 toilets? Where are the debriefing documents of long-since-dead double agents back from the Soviet Union gathering info on the state of nuclear research behind the iron curtain? Plans for experimental warcraft? Covert relationships with rogue nations or rebel leaders?
Geez--there doesn't even have to be even a HINT of little green men in there, but man, SOMETHING CNN-worthy should be released to demonstrate that the govenrment is SOMEWHAT willing to disclose a meaningful amount of truth! I'll believe the government is on the up-and-up when thy declassify something that makes WORLD HEADLINES--and it doesn't have to have a damn thing to do with aliens and UFOs.
... as long as you're the biggest, that translates into more antagony
Big isn't always bad, not is small good. if that were the case, everybody would be crapping all over IBM and cheering on the SCO underdog in its valiant fight to knock the big evil IBM down a peg.
People hate MS because they are amoral in their behaviour--they "don't play nice". They implement perverted versions of open standards (bastardised kerberos, broken email and DNS, improper use of the HTTP protocol in IIS which IE handles OK but all other browsers occasionally choke on...). MS wipes the floor with competitors by imitating them and undercutting them to the point of giving away the executables--and if that doesn't erase them completely they "bundle" then "integrate" applications (already there with IE--that'll be followed by Media Player, then NetMeeting, Outlook and if left unchecked the rest of Office too). Nasty and evil ain't it? big didn't make them bad--big just allows them to get away with it.
Not that you need to be big to be bad. Witness the actions of SCO--that evil little bastard of a corporation. It is a pipsqueak with a loud annoying bark. They are flexing all the muscle of IP ownership they can conjure up--launching a ludicrous billion-dollar lawsuit against IBM. They vomit up propaganda press releases and threatening letters to Linux vendors and developers. In doing all this they look petty, greedy and entirely devoid of scruples. It conjures up thoughts of SCO directors laughing maniacally as they plot to pump-and-dump their stock or force-feed it to IBM at hyper-inflated prices as a settlement. Besides that, all it does is make the pointy-haired bosses who were finally opening up to Linux alternatives have more doubts and excuses to stay with the rickety old status-quo from Microsoft. Not only to the powers-that-be at SCO not seem to care about the health of the industry, they don't even seem to care about public image or even corporate self-preservation! Nasty, evil little bastards.
Contrast that to IBM. They are HUGE and for decades were the epitome of CLOSED source (right down to men in dark suits bearing NDAs and security bordering on paranoia). IBM has learned to "play nice"--at least to a degree. Their paid staff contribute immensely to Free software projects (Linux, Apache and I believe the Postfix mail server among them), port their closed applications to Linux (DB2...) and support linux on a wide variety of systems. They participate in the development of open protocols and use and promote them faithfully. They do all this despite being big enough to get away with doing much less. Yes they are a big faceless corporation, and yes they were prodded in that direction by antitrust suits and advancing technology making their mainframe operations look obsolete. The fact remains though, that IBM is now "playing nice" and that keeps \.ers and their ilk off IBM's back. Atta boy, IBM!
In my experience, only a (surprisingly small) minority of clients care at all about what programming language was used to implement their systems.
When they do, it has absoluely NOTHING to do with the merits of the language. The ONLY reason I've ever been given when a certain language was a part of the project requirements was because that is what their in-house staff knew and they wanted the option to be able to maintain/change/debug the application themselves. The fact that I was required to use VB 5 (with MS Access 95 files as the back end!) to develop a relatively complicated multi-user, networked client-server system at one time underscores that point.
The system in question may have had a humble beginning in 1990 as a Quick BASIC app that fit a specific niche very well. If it still works well in a DOS console window I'm guessing the customer doesn't want your company to wipe the slate clean and subject them to all new, untested and quite probably much less stable code than they currently have.
I remember those simpler times--DOS 3.3 or 5 and apps you installed simply by copying a single.COM or.EXE file (or at most a single directory of a few files). They were easy to maintain and NEVER suffered catastrophic failures like Windows has been known to do. The system requirements to run the app are likely modest to the extreme (ie. your clients can use those 386s until they turn to dust).
I'm betting it's the most reliable application any of your clients have, and as such they would gladly give their left nuts for it over the typical glitchy fare foisted upon them from other vendors. Unfortunately for them, they are doomed to become victims of obsolescense when they must run the app on a new version of Windows that no longer offers DOS compatibility. I'd recommend you push your employer to start porting to VB 6 now (the most modern option that offers the least disruption of source code that I can think of--VB6 swallows a surprising amount old BASIC code--line numbers and all!). When the time comes that DOS code wont run anymore that'll buy you a few more years of usefulness.
FYI--Windows NT, 2k and XP are no more compatible with DOS than Linux is. Those OSes have an integrated DOS/Win16 emulator akin to 'dosemu' in Linux. When you run an old DOS or Win 3.x program you aren't really executing it directly--Windows detected the 16-bit EXE and transparently launches the WOWEXEC.EXE DOS emulator to run it (AKA the "Windows on Windows" execution subsystem or some such thing). I'm sure most/.ers know this but some long-time casual MS users think I'm feeeding them a line of crap...
because LA already has a domain under.US. There is in fact a second one if you prefer a more verbose address. I think there are a few US cities that use the.US TLD in the.. fashion. It seems that this practise is much more common outside the US though.
. . . hda: C/H/S=19158/16/255 from BIOS ignored hda: WDC WD400BB-00CLB0, ATA DISK drive hdc: TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-5602B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15 hda: 78165360 sectors (40021 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=77545/16/63, UDMA(100) . . .
*whew!* was worried there for a second. Makes me glad I gave Western Digital a second chance after they put out a bunch of potenially defective 1.6 gig Caviars out a number of years ago (personally witnessed one undergo the "clunk of death" at the time).
I think with the insanely rapid advancement of HD technology (and the equally insande decline in prices) over the past few years, every HD manufacturer is going to have their turn doing damage control and learning from the experience.
..although they do eventually learn. Telus IS in some ways like Microsoft--useless technical support and usually their 3rd try at something is when it is truly useful (just like with Windows). That, and whenever they mess with something add "enhancements" they introduce 2x more new bugs.
I have to say beyond that Telus is fairly reliable (for everything but wireless/cellphone stuff), despite having crappy customer service. Lately however, Telus has been messing with things and it has affected my DSL service. Perhaps this was due to "improvements" in their Calgary network. Hopefully, this doesn't follow the path my last run-in with Telus did, or I'll be changing telephone providers very soon:
When my old ISP (CADVision) was bought out by Telus, I found that although service was not affected much at first, they completely botched the transfer of CADVision customers to their infrastructure. They missed all deadlines by a few days, ruined my hosting configuration (without warning my email and web page stopped working right). After waiting on hold for up to an hour for phone support or for days via email (exruciatingly delivered via dial-up as the DSL was out). I would get ill-informed, conflicting advice on how to move things along.
I was so pissed off that rather than allow Telus to honour the 1-year contract I signed with CADVision, I cancelled my service entirely before they fixed the mess and went with another ISP. They were cheaper, had a more flexible choice of service plans and better, faster service. I decided to host my own web, email and DNS servers on leftover and existing hardware running Linux, so that any screwups would be those I was responsible for (and I could use a "connectivity only" package at a 35% savings over Telus' closest offering). I was already using fixed IPs for some services, so I figured I might as well handle everything. The only problem is that since Telus is the established monopoly, so ALL DSL providers must rely to some degree on Telus infrastructure, and that Telus sill gets a least a small portion of my money.
Incidentally, in order for your ADSL modem to work, Telus has to light up your line at the CO, and the biling contact for that phone number eventually covers the cost of providing the DSL signal--all you would be stealing from Telus (or the targeted victim) is the IP address and whatever other services offered with their package (web space, email etc).
Ignoring the fact that the Sony PS2 implementation was not even close to optimised for the comparison...the PS2 is also priced very modestly.
Also, a PS2, unlike a PC (or even an XBox) probably consumes less power and does not require multiple fans per unit to keep from overheating (cheaper to operate and more reliable due to less moving parts).
To a/. reader I'm sure this is far from a profound insight but it's refreshing to see CEO's who are clued in:
Microsoft wants to move to a world where THEY decide what software a computer runs because that will allow them to extract the most money from consumers. They'll position this product with a comforting sounding name like "trustworthy" computing and tout the benefits [...] It will ultimately give Microsoft control over a user's computer. This is why we do not, in any way, limit what software users can install.
The fact that Microsoft is leading the charge in this direction is somewhat ironic. Microsoft rose to prominence based ENTIRELY on an industry that came to being because of enthusiasts who believed in bringing availability and control of computer hardware and software to the masses. The personal computer was invented chiefly to wrest control of computer resources from institutions (and their black-suit and white-labl-coat cladded minions) and place it in the hands of the end user.
Nearly 30 years ago, computer users had to pay through the nose for timeshare services what was allowed was decided based on corporate policy and the whim of system administrators (and even the mainframe vendors!). Running your process or batch on the big IBM iron was a privlige you paid dearly for and you were grateful for it (kinda sounds like grandpa walking to school barefoot in the snow but it was kinda true). Computer enthusiasts were tired of it and brash upstarts provided hardware (MITS) and software (Microsoft) they could purchase and use as they saw fit.
Fast forward to today. What a sad situation when a once brash young upstart--one that totally owes its successful existence to PC users past and present--turns into the "enemy" and betrays its customers by angling to control what people can do with the machines they own.
Microsoft is becoming a throwback to the 70's and earlier--like the companies that sold mainframes or timeshare services that called all the shots. With the arrival of the PC revolution none of those companies were the same again (and most don't exist at all). Microsoft has always been good at looking out for competition and the next big thing, and when they miss the boat (as they did with the Internet) they'd hop a raft and paddle out to it to stage a mutiny. I wonder if they're losing their touch now. They're responding to a new threat with an old business model.
And--irony of ironies--it looks like IBM is clued in enough to be a willing player in the game (even if they still are heavily invested in mainframes and proprietary computing).
...and take notice of ALL the taxes Canadians pay. I'm surprised it's not even higher than 50% of income.
You are only looking at FEDERAL INCOME TAX. Take a look at your return and see how much income tax additionally goes to the province you live in. That will add a few percent on top of it.
Don't forget the other payroll deductions either. They are essentially taxes too. One deduction is called "Employment Insurance", however just like auto insurance you pay and pay and only get back when you are between jobs (and you meet all qualifications). Not only that--EI takes in WAY more than it pays out and the surplus is "invested". The crooked Canadian federal government has (on more than one occasion) has passed bills and regulations to raid the EI fund to cook the books and achieve a "balanced" budget. The other deduction on your cheque (CPP) is for the pension plan, which has been badly managed and is far from guaranteed to pay out (most analysts say that NOBODY under 50 will EVER receive all their pension contributions after retirement--that is unless they live to be 100).
Now there are municipal taxes. All property owners pay municipal taxes (and that means so do all renters, as landlords pass those costs onto them). Where I live, for a modest home such as mine, that amounts to around C$1500.
Last but not least, there are sales taxes. All Canadians pay at least 7% for the federal GST on damn near everything they buy (it seems only most grocery items are exempt). Add up the tax on all your utility bills, snack foods, booze, auto fuel, clothes--all of it (even YOUR HOUSE and USED ITEMS ON CONSIGNMENT and USED CARS--yes the government recycles those for taxation purposes too!). Even the poorest pay more than they get back in GST rebates. Unless you're from Alberta the province chimes in with their sales tax, bringing up the tally to an average of %15. Don't feel left out Alberta, your province dings you too (though perhaps not to the same extent) with the Healthcare Premium tax (yes--it IS a tax).
And "things aren't enforced nearly as much"?! It's pretty damn hard to avoid paying sales taxes--you can't give the glerk 7-15% less and expect them to be happy. If you owe income tax on your return--try not paying it for awhile. They don't toss you in jail in Canada, but they will garnishee your wages and freeze your bank accounts until they have your money. If you stop paying your Alberta healthcare or municipal taxes for long enough they will send a private collection agency after you and your credit rating will be downgraded. When it comes to getting money to spend...Canadian government most certainly DO care. And they make sure they get a hell of a lot more than 30%.
...and I'd bow down before the gods of parody (once I stopped laughing my ass off) if I were to see PA's take on American McGee's treatment of the Smurfs....heh heh
C'mon...Smurfette--a lone girl smurf amongst a community of 99 boy smurfs? "They're only a couple apples tall but it's still one big blue bang"
In Calgary, my next door neighbours had Shaw cable internet, and it had slightly higher peak rates than my DSL (up to nearly 300 kilbytes per second), however they basically enjoyed that transfer rate at about 2 to 3 am or during non-peak for a few days after Shaw did whatever monthly upgrading they mentioned on their tech support lines (which usually involved losing internet entirely from Friday just after lunch to Saturday morning). Aside from that, the speed hovered between 15 and 150 kB/s.
On the other hand, my DSL connection was ALWAYS 100 to 150 kB/s. I had maybe ONE day of outage time in an entire year. Then CADVision was bought by TELUS. They intgrated CADvision customers into TELUS infrastructure, and offered piss poor customer service and support during and after the ordeal (my business service lost all it's fixed IPs, they messed up my DNS hosting, etc.) It's my understanding that Shaw has gotten past it's growing pains and now is better for customer service and a bit more consistent where TELUS has deteriorated.
No matter--TELUS chased me away and did NOTHING to lure me back--some customers are even getting so pissed off with them that they are switching their local and long distance phone as well--mostly to make a point about crappy service. I kept the phone but switched to Radiant DSL. I pay C$10/month LESS and consistently get 2 to 2.5 MBps--EXACTLY what was advertised (I got the "business connectivity 2.5" package)! I save money because they make the crap I can do myself optional (I don't need space on their web server and 10 email accounts and DNS hosting--I provide my own DNS, web and email servers). Shaw doesn't offer packages like that--I have to take what they offer and pay maybe 40% more.
So, overall the situation hasn't changed. In Calgary I'd say cable has improved a lot, but some DSL providers still have the edge and are still more consistent.
...is that for the kind of business I've been doing (consulting/programming) that the city has no damn business getting into my business. Clients rarely need to come by my home--I go to them or connect to them through a VPN or their corporate dialup server (they prefer that anyways). Thus, there are no extra parking or traffic volume requirements. I don't have a great deal of storage needs--I don't keep any physical inventory (hardware is shipped direct to clients--only when a couple of units need configuring etc. do I ever have their stuff here). Thus, I don't need to build additions and what not.
The whole point of municipal business taxes/licenses as I see it is to provide revenue to the city to support services they must supply to businesses, and to keep the community in the loop. I need no parking space, upgraded roads or utilities, external signage or ANYTHING that I don't already pay residential property taxes for. Asking for more simply because I make money from home is simply being unfairly greedy.
My city seems to agree with that--there are some circumstances where no business license (and thus extra tax) is required. A consultant or software writer (or novel/article writer for that matter) can be considered a "telecommuter" in the same way people who have bosses downtown but work at home.
One thing is for certain--you have to register your business and pay taxes on your income one way or another. Where I'm at it is strictly in the provincial and/or federal juristiction. the simplest setup is to register your business name and operate as a sole-proprietor or partnership. Your revenue is taxed on your personal income tax.
Alternatively you can register a corporation (under a name or a number with a "doing business as" name). The corporation is a distinct legal entity that prepares its own tax return. If you ARE required to pay municipal taxes/fees you would do so under the corporation.
In Canada, there is one thing ALL business should do (and MUST do if you are at it full time and bring in revenue above a pretty modest threshold--even if you are a one man show). That is, you MUST obtain a federal Business Number (the BN--even if you aren't a corporation). This is used for taxation purposes (to report business income on your personal tax return for non-corporate enterprises and as the identifier on a corporate return). The BN is also used in the collection of the GST and is required in order to properly hire employees (for payroll deductions and so on).
Make sure you look into that sort of stuff first--the city crap can wait as they don't REALLY care that much if you don't draw attention to yourself. Federal and provincial (or state-level) governments on the other hand are much more humourless (and greedy IMHO). If you don't go by the book with them they get serious--the city will just say "get a permit" and perhaps charge you an extra little fee (and here, they'll do a surprising amount of "hand holding" as well).
One thing is that I'm not a big fan of the term "piles"--it seems to imply disorganisation (as does "clutter"), which is preceived as a characteristic that reduces productivity. I figured a marketing wonk would've come up with a more clever name.
Worse yet was my FIRST thought upon hearing the term "piles"... "Great...first all those poor old macs get constipated trying to run the latest nifty new browser. Now, the damn things will have piles and mac users will need to stock up on Preparation H!"
GW wants to ban ALL 3rd party internet vendors and do it themselves--they want the WHOLE pie to themselves. Perhaps they are trying to become "vertically integrated" (ie. greedy bastards). Theoretically, making, distributing, marketing and selling a product through one big company is supposed to reduce risk of IP theft, possibility of other entities that you depend on going under and so on.
However in todays economy (fast moving, information based, global) "vertical integration" is ineffective and obsolete except in the case of VERY big corporations like GM--and even they outsource (if there is a problem with the outsource, they have enough pull to affect their management or pull out, or even take them over). The "razor blade" theory is also becoming so much bunk too (giving away whe razor and ripping us off on the blades).
In the computer industry I can think of examples where the tactics GW used completely backfired. MITS created the PC industry with the Altair--they were the only player in the game, but success very quickly brough competitors (Proc Tech, IMSAI, Cromemco, Apple, Commodore, Tandy...). MITS tried to aggessivley protect their IP (namely the bus which became known as the S100 bus--competitors started making peripheral cards for it and soon make S100 PCs of their own). Not only was MITS uncooperative with 3rd party vendors--they went as far as to threaten lawsuit. On the sales and marketing side, MITS attempted to make all their dealers exclusive MITS dealers--but soon most broke off that deal as IMSAI (and later Apple) gave them sweeter deals and didn't demand exclusivity.
GW is doing this now. They are vigourously defending their "IP" to the point of crippling their marketing (they don't even want people to put up pictures on their websites---turning their nose up at free advertising!). Furthermore, hey are trying to control everything--they want to have the only website and a bunch of stores with nothing but their own product. Like MITS, GW isn't exactly a high profile company. Also like MITS, their product could be duplicated relatively easily (not cloned mind you, but if GW alientates customers work-alike products will fill the void). GW could be like MITS in a third way in 2 or 3 years--completely gone.
This vertical strategy only stands a good chance of working if you have BIG resources and can take BIG risks. Even Texas Instruments failed with the TI99/4a. From the start they employed a vertical strategy (along with the "razorblade" strategy when sales were slow). Before TI discontinued the machine, they controled manufacturing (the thing was loaded wil all TI chips---CPU, VDP, memory, logic), distribution and sales (making it a bit more difficult to find than say a Commodore, Atari or Apple) and software/peripheral/accessories (they figured they could sell the computer for much less than it cost to make and hose customers on software and hardware accessories--the 3rd party TI market was basically non-existent). TI couldn't pull it off and lost millions. Ironically, in the couple of years AFTER TI pulled out of the market, a small 3rd party industry blossomed around the TI.
If a giant like TI couldn't pull it off, how can a specialty shop like GW handle the whole pie?
I am also disappointed in the lack of diligence demonstrated by the/. editors--usually I'm annoyed by dupes but it is starting to show up in the form of factual inaccuracies as well. However, I digress...
Not only isn't it a tablet PC (it's merely a wireless "intelligent display"), it is a very poorly executed implemetation of what it is.
Firstly, it costs as much as my notebook did nearly two years ago--and it is a full computer. Not only does it not need a host PC--it can also be hooked up to a television and play DVD movies. Why would I pay the same amount for much less? If I want to surf the net untethered I'll throw a wireless PC card in my notbook, thanks.
Second, I am at a loss to figure out why it's so hefty and power hungry. It weights around 2.5kg's (that's over 5 lbs) and the battery life is also comparable to that of smaller sized but fully functional notebooks. Is this merely due to the large touchscreen? I don't get it--basically it looks like this unit is a big screen with the guts of a Pocket PC PDA in it. Why the heck does its WinCE and client software need 64M of RAM? Is the protocol so bloated that 64M is needed as cache to make the thing usable? So much for the "thin client" concept.
All in all, I think the review was overly generous in giving out it's rating--it's a half-baked implementation and thus barely merits a 5 out of 10. The concept is cool though--right now it is about as ready as Windows 1.0 was when it was released. Perhaps 2 versions from now it will be worth considering.
If I was moderating you'd get my vote! I'm in Canada and coverage in my part of the country actually isn't that bad--of course things in places like the mountains or in Tumbleweed sask. are dismal if you want digital ANYTHING. Beyond that, customer service is ATROCIOUS (thank God my service has been pretty reliable)!
Affordability, reliability, good service--THAT is what is foremost in my mind with wireless technology right now. What good are polyphonic ringtones, fancy colour screens, digital cameras, 3-d graphics and so on in my cellphone if I can't TALK on the damn thing half the time? If I wanted to play games on a tiny screen or take crappy snapshots I'd buy a gameboy and a $50 digital camera.
3-D graphics? No thanks--I'll stick to my trusty, sturdy little Nokia 5165. Its little monochrome LCD is easy to read and has a good backlight. I can talk on it, send text messages with it, use caller ID and store my numbers and email addresses on it. It has some simple games that evoke fond memories of the Atari 2600. I rarely need to charge it more than once a week. Calls after 6 and on weekends are flat rate.
I'll be interested in bells and whistles when they don't chop my battery life to bits, cause the phone to lock up or allow viruses and worms to mess things up and there is acually USEFUL internet content, service and coverage out there. I'll be even MORE interested when the monthly phone bill stays under $100.
Such fond memories! The pop machine is the "Hello, world!" of Engineerland!
Of couse, these days thanks to Microsoft, we have "popmachine.NET". What once was implemented with a smattering of TTL logic must now posess a Pentium chip, megabytes of RAM and embedded Windows with the.NET framework. At least now there's a book out there that will inform today's enlightened pop machine programmers how to use "state charts" to develop efficient C# code for such a beast.
Am I missing something here? I'll be first to admit I'm far from a C guru but I fail to see what is groundbreaking about the concept. Of course, I'm an oddball and tend to mentally envision a program as digital circuitry much in the same way someone learning a new language will tend towards mentally translating into english.
Hmm...I guess those without a background in electrical engineering--particularly digital design--really do get a view from a completely different perspective.
After a second or two of clue-in time (state CHART == state DIAGRAM == state MACHINE) I was thinking "and the big deal is...?". This concept was covered in an INTRODUCTORY electrical engineering course in my case. We started with "welcome to the world of boolean logic"--working with equations and karnaugh-maps and what not--then went straight onto using those concepts to implement state machines with 74LS... TTL chips stuck in breadboards.
I guess being that is what I learned and how I always thought is why I carried the concept with me into programming. State machines were central in implementing VHDL. Subsequently, my C programs kind of look like my VHDL did. One observation I've made--those with an engineering background often write code dominated by boolean logic and switch statements very obviously describing a state machine, and those who have an abundance of programming courses don't.
The PC legacy is more than 20 years old
on
Legacy-Free PCs
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
In my opinion, the legacy of your typical desktop PC than IBM's PC/XT. Pentium has it's roots in the 8086? Try the 8080 or even the 8008. Does opening your desktop, with the motherboard and it's PCI slots with vertically mounted cards remind you of the original IBM XT or AT with it's ISA slots? Cast your mind back further--more than five years--and behold! (be patient, takes awhile to load)
...to the University of Calgary. The license need not be represented by one of those nifty little certificates with intricate graphics, numbers and holograms all over it. It is entirely possible that in return for letting MS put on its dog-and-pony show microsoft granted some sort of volume licensing deal with the UofC.
I agree with the article that "Sasha" (the MS point-of-contact for the student tour) is out of the loop concerning licensing issues--understandable since keeping everything straight is something akin to brain surgery and rocket science. Sasha might reply after talking to one of the MS High Priests of Licensing saying as much as I've stated above.
If in doubt, ultimately I'd talk to the UofC's Computing Services department--or the departments of Computing Science or Computer Engineering--to inquire about how student licensing works (ie it it technically property of the U of C and you only buy the media--or whatever).
I don't know how it works at the U of C, but at the U of Alberta bookstore, you didn't need to be a student to buy most anything there, but for software it was a different story--you needed to present a valid, current student ID card and fill out documentation before you could cart your purchase home.
It was many years ago when I did that (1996), however when I bought MS Office it didn't come with the same licensing documentation (certificate, registration postcards, etc) that retail (or even OEM) software was packed with. Perhaps that meant it was licensed to the U of A for use by all students who bought the media. However I didn't really care then about the legal details of licensing at the time. Come to think of it, I don't now either. I don't purposely go out of my way to "steal" MS software, but it gets legally murky when your software library from MS is a mishmash of retail, OEM, NFR copies obtained from being a former "MS Partner" and student editions. If I worried about it I'd get ulcers and never have time to do real work.
What's to be impressed about? Connectivity that tops out at less than 300 kbps for nearly US$30 per month? Where I live, you can get 3 TO 8 TIMES that speed over DSL for around the same price (acually slightly less costly) with DSL. The real solution is to find a way to stop Americal ISPs from completely ripping off their broadband customers. I think the telecommunications industry and regulations in the US are deeply flawed if ISPs can get away with selling crap like that for such a high price. Time to look at how things work here in Canada or perhaps in parts of Asia and Europe.
Furthermore, if it's simply data compression techniques implemented with the same old 56K modems and lines then it's crap--most data pumped over the line when you surf the net and speed matters is already compressed--be it GIF, PNG and JPEG graphics, MP3s, MPEG video, Microsoft updates and so on. The only way that can be compressed further is with lossy compression (can't do that with code anyways). User's either get the same cruddy speed or a lousy multimedia experience.
Even though we here in Canada are led by a doddering, senile old coward prime minister who can't/won't help our neighbours in a time of need, I suppose at the very least Canadian ISPs can manage to offer REAL consumer broadband for US$30. *sigh* Nope I still feel ashamed of our leadership or lack thereof...
Wait a minute...it's not like there was a lady on an operating table, being prodded by a robot and no-one around save perhaps a pimply-faced computer geek to make sure everything was going well. There WAS a doctor overseeing events at the site. Conversely, it's not like the doctor on the other end was lounging by the pool, tweaking the trackpoint of his IBM ThinkPad. This technology wouldn't be used on a person unless it was proven safe and the benefits for outweighed possible risks (also, remember they weren't doing brain surgery on their maiden voyage--it was surgery to correct an acid-reflux problem, so if there were problems the risk of death would be quite low).
You're right--400 km isn't exactly a cross-continent trek, but keep in mind that a round trip by car would eat up eight hours of a skilled surgeon's time (and time is money), and even flying would take a few hours. Also, remember the surgery was in North Bay and performed by a doctor in Hamilton. North Bay isn't exacly a metropolitan hub--there's maybe what...50,000 people there? I don't think there are gonna be direct flights leaving hourly from Hamilton. Besides, do you know what the weather has been like in Ontario lately? Cold and horrible! Flight schedules aren't going to be reliable, and driving 400 km through a blizzard would be quite treacherous!
The next step is to start using this technology in places like Yellowknife. Yellowknife! Not exactly the kind of place that's teeming with specialised surgeons, and a doctor in Toronto can't easily hop a train, plane or taxi there, nor can the patient be safely relocated to Toronto without great expense and risk. You'd have to hop a 727 in Toronto to Edmonton, a lear jet to Ft. McMurray and a turboprop to Yellowknife (at best you might be able to avoid the stopover in Ft. McMurray)--or else spend a great deal of taxpayer's money in an already strained socialised haelthcare system on a special private direct flight.
Yup, telesurgery starts to look pretty appealing if you've been suffering on a long waiting list typical of the healthcare system in Canada, and it offers you the chance to get it done not only properly, but much sooner as well.
And if we put a taxi driver out of a job who the hell cares--he's probably an immigrant with 10 years of medical training and a long history of performing surgery in Pakistan, scaping out a living until all the immigration bullshit has been shoveled and he can get certified to work as a doctor in Canada. Maybe the money saved with this technology can make that process go faster so he can "do surgery by the pool" with Dr. Anvari. That old farmer in Cowcrap, Saskatchewan who needs his hernia fixed might appreciate the resulting shorter waiting time too...
Slashdot Mirror
... for 2 reasons:
1. A typical large distribution warehouse receives product in case lot/batch/vat fashion. The RFID tags in this case would be attached to each crate of shoes rather than embedded in the shoe itself for example. That is precisely why Wal-mart is going to start with warehouses only--because far fewer RFID tags and readers will be required, costs will be lower and the negative impact of potential problems with them will be much lower than in a retail setting. You can take off your tinfoil hat for the time being because those RFID tags will be nowhere in sight once the merchandise is placed on retail store shelves.
2. Organisations involved in sales and distribution (such as those responsible for maintaining UPC codes) are very aware of consumer's concerns over privacy and assurances have been made that they will be easily disabled. In fact, one idea to prevent shoplifting was to disable the RF tag on ALL purchased merchandise at the cashier's counter and use the presence of an active tag as an indicator of theft. As for sharing information on disabling an RFID as contravening the DMCA, the argument is very weak. The DMCA is about COPYRIGHT--it arguably intrudes on property rights and fair use, but destroying the RFID tag embedded in your already-purchased Nikes does NOTHING to violate copyright--your shoes won't magically clone without the tag and the tag does not prevent a person from making cheap Nike knockoffs. The same holds true regarding State law, and local/municipal governments don't even have juristiction over copyright or theft prevention.
Incidentally, RFID and unique barcode tags are already used to track livestock. It is starting to prove to be a godsend to the industry as a way to track the health of the animals and our food supply. Unfortunately the practise started in Canada and the US AFTER the birth of the animal infected with mad cow that was found in Canada. At that time, record-keeping was sometimes apallingly lax in places.
Americans shouldn't feel all that smug about the health of ther beef supply either--not only were their tracking methods as lax as Canada's, they also tended to more often employ the use of animal-based protein feed and hormones in cattle production. Also, the Canadian case of Mad Cow did not make it into the food supply (it was destroyed as soon as disease was suspect but before it was confirmed) but the offspring of the infected animal were sold to Montana--and those animals DID make it into the US food supply. Because of lax record-keeping it can't be confirmed, but it is likely the infected cow was born in the US--and the possibility exists that it got the disease there too. So much for the validity of the US embargo on Canadian beef...but I digress. In this case, technology like RF tags, when used with the proper respect for human rights, could have prevented (and will prevent in the future) a public health scare and the resulting political manoevring and economic disruption.
...to see how neat those units really are.
I attended the GO Expo in Calgary a couple weeks ago and got to see their offerings first hand--nice little booth they had set up.
YES, sometimes real-estate IS massively important. Some points you missed:
1. Take out a ruler and size out the unit, or check one out physically. These things have no keyboard mouse or display, but because of that the box is damn small--smaller than the vast majority of notebooks (at least "real" ones capable of running WinXP or a full Linux desktop).
2. You cannot easily buy a new laptop with comparable power for as cheap as the norhtec units because you must buy the drives, keyboard, mouse, display and so on. Who says you always need all that stuff? What if it is meant to act as a server or data collection device? Sometimes you need a PC in a server role but lack space(trucking industry, remote mining/drilling camps--which is the market they were chasing in Calgary and so on). Perhaps you are stuck in a Windows mentality and assume PCs actually need keyboards and monitors to function.
3. These units are FANLESS and can be equipped with solid-state persistent storage rather than regular hard drives (that was an option they were touting at the GO expo). No moving parts as well as the ability to run on DC can be a huge bonus for mobile applications (there is no AC-to-DC power supply as typically found on desktops in these units--they come with a "brick" like a notebook or your old C64 might have). These units are solid, metal cases designed to be relatively easy to mount in a variety of locations.
Here are some sample uses where the "tower under the desk" or a "space saving laptop" just wouldn't cut it, and these units would be ideal:
* MP3 jukebox for your car - whether you use flash or a hard drive you can put hours (or days perhaps) of music on it--they do have sound built in after all. They are portable and can be brought in and easily hooked up for download--or perhaps even cooler you could put a wireless ethernet card init and leave it bolted in your dash or trunk, then FTP music to it using your little linksys wireless router or whatever when the car is parked in the garage!
* SCADA, remote logging, etc. These rugged, inexpensive devices can be used to gather data at remote or industrial locations. Pumping stations at oil and gas wellsites have lots of data gathering requirements. CN and CP rail have hotwheel detectors, signalling systems and so on in shacks all over the country that rely on expensive, proprietary and sometimes obsolete equipment to work. Power plants collect data everywhere. In all of these situations I've seen instances where recording data meant an ancient serial line printer spewing reams of paper. These could be drop-in replacements.
* Mobile applications - trucking industry, police and EMS vehicles, warehousing (forklift mounted system with attached barcode scanner and very simple display connected) and so on would find these products extremely useful as there isn't much out ther at the same price with the same flexibility. This is where the no moving parts possibility would be invaluable.
Does this help you in the "newsworthy" and "massively important" departments?
Since when do the paranoid (or even cynical) believe government documents that state everything has been running smoothly and everything has been uneventful? It's been a long time since the government has been able to do anything of importance without involving some incredible, expensive or absurdly stupid event, descision or fact?
If these declassified documents are truly complete, there HAS to be a reason they were classified in the first place. SOMETHING interesting, out-of-the-ordinary or plain stupid was contained in them to warrant classification. If nothing of that nature is present, then these documents have been censored beyond recognition.
If the government REALLY wanted to diffuse the conspiracy theorists, at least release SOMETHING interesting and believablly COMPLETE. Where ate the pruchase orders for the $5000 hammers and $25000 toilets? Where are the debriefing documents of long-since-dead double agents back from the Soviet Union gathering info on the state of nuclear research behind the iron curtain? Plans for experimental warcraft? Covert relationships with rogue nations or rebel leaders?
Geez--there doesn't even have to be even a HINT of little green men in there, but man, SOMETHING CNN-worthy should be released to demonstrate that the govenrment is SOMEWHAT willing to disclose a meaningful amount of truth! I'll believe the government is on the up-and-up when thy declassify something that makes WORLD HEADLINES--and it doesn't have to have a damn thing to do with aliens and UFOs.
... as long as you're the biggest, that translates into more antagony
Big isn't always bad, not is small good. if that were the case, everybody would be crapping all over IBM and cheering on the SCO underdog in its valiant fight to knock the big evil IBM down a peg.
People hate MS because they are amoral in their behaviour--they "don't play nice". They implement perverted versions of open standards (bastardised kerberos, broken email and DNS, improper use of the HTTP protocol in IIS which IE handles OK but all other browsers occasionally choke on...). MS wipes the floor with competitors by imitating them and undercutting them to the point of giving away the executables--and if that doesn't erase them completely they "bundle" then "integrate" applications (already there with IE--that'll be followed by Media Player, then NetMeeting, Outlook and if left unchecked the rest of Office too). Nasty and evil ain't it? big didn't make them bad--big just allows them to get away with it.
Not that you need to be big to be bad. Witness the actions of SCO--that evil little bastard of a corporation. It is a pipsqueak with a loud annoying bark. They are flexing all the muscle of IP ownership they can conjure up--launching a ludicrous billion-dollar lawsuit against IBM. They vomit up propaganda press releases and threatening letters to Linux vendors and developers. In doing all this they look petty, greedy and entirely devoid of scruples. It conjures up thoughts of SCO directors laughing maniacally as they plot to pump-and-dump their stock or force-feed it to IBM at hyper-inflated prices as a settlement. Besides that, all it does is make the pointy-haired bosses who were finally opening up to Linux alternatives have more doubts and excuses to stay with the rickety old status-quo from Microsoft. Not only to the powers-that-be at SCO not seem to care about the health of the industry, they don't even seem to care about public image or even corporate self-preservation! Nasty, evil little bastards.
Contrast that to IBM. They are HUGE and for decades were the epitome of CLOSED source (right down to men in dark suits bearing NDAs and security bordering on paranoia). IBM has learned to "play nice"--at least to a degree. Their paid staff contribute immensely to Free software projects (Linux, Apache and I believe the Postfix mail server among them), port their closed applications to Linux (DB2...) and support linux on a wide variety of systems. They participate in the development of open protocols and use and promote them faithfully. They do all this despite being big enough to get away with doing much less. Yes they are a big faceless corporation, and yes they were prodded in that direction by antitrust suits and advancing technology making their mainframe operations look obsolete. The fact remains though, that IBM is now "playing nice" and that keeps \.ers and their ilk off IBM's back. Atta boy, IBM!
In my experience, only a (surprisingly small) minority of clients care at all about what programming language was used to implement their systems.
.COM or .EXE file (or at most a single directory of a few files). They were easy to maintain and NEVER suffered catastrophic failures like Windows has been known to do. The system requirements to run the app are likely modest to the extreme (ie. your clients can use those 386s until they turn to dust).
/.ers know this but some long-time casual MS users think I'm feeeding them a line of crap...
When they do, it has absoluely NOTHING to do with the merits of the language. The ONLY reason I've ever been given when a certain language was a part of the project requirements was because that is what their in-house staff knew and they wanted the option to be able to maintain/change/debug the application themselves. The fact that I was required to use VB 5 (with MS Access 95 files as the back end!) to develop a relatively complicated multi-user, networked client-server system at one time underscores that point.
The system in question may have had a humble beginning in 1990 as a Quick BASIC app that fit a specific niche very well. If it still works well in a DOS console window I'm guessing the customer doesn't want your company to wipe the slate clean and subject them to all new, untested and quite probably much less stable code than they currently have.
I remember those simpler times--DOS 3.3 or 5 and apps you installed simply by copying a single
I'm betting it's the most reliable application any of your clients have, and as such they would gladly give their left nuts for it over the typical glitchy fare foisted upon them from other vendors. Unfortunately for them, they are doomed to become victims of obsolescense when they must run the app on a new version of Windows that no longer offers DOS compatibility. I'd recommend you push your employer to start porting to VB 6 now (the most modern option that offers the least disruption of source code that I can think of--VB6 swallows a surprising amount old BASIC code--line numbers and all!). When the time comes that DOS code wont run anymore that'll buy you a few more years of usefulness.
FYI--Windows NT, 2k and XP are no more compatible with DOS than Linux is. Those OSes have an integrated DOS/Win16 emulator akin to 'dosemu' in Linux. When you run an old DOS or Win 3.x program you aren't really executing it directly--Windows detected the 16-bit EXE and transparently launches the WOWEXEC.EXE DOS emulator to run it (AKA the "Windows on Windows" execution subsystem or some such thing). I'm sure most
because LA already has a domain under .US. There is in fact a second one if you prefer a more verbose address. I think there are a few US cities that use the .US TLD in the .. fashion. It seems that this practise is much more common outside the US though.
...lets see... /var/log/dmesg says:
.
.
.
hda: C/H/S=19158/16/255 from BIOS ignored
hda: WDC WD400BB-00CLB0, ATA DISK drive
hdc: TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-5602B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: 78165360 sectors (40021 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=77545/16/63, UDMA(100)
.
.
.
*whew!* was worried there for a second. Makes me glad I gave Western Digital a second chance after they put out a bunch of potenially defective 1.6 gig Caviars out a number of years ago (personally witnessed one undergo the "clunk of death" at the time).
I think with the insanely rapid advancement of HD technology (and the equally insande decline in prices) over the past few years, every HD manufacturer is going to have their turn doing damage control and learning from the experience.
..although they do eventually learn. Telus IS in some ways like Microsoft--useless technical support and usually their 3rd try at something is when it is truly useful (just like with Windows). That, and whenever they mess with something add "enhancements" they introduce 2x more new bugs.
I have to say beyond that Telus is fairly reliable (for everything but wireless/cellphone stuff), despite having crappy customer service. Lately however, Telus has been messing with things and it has affected my DSL service. Perhaps this was due to "improvements" in their Calgary network. Hopefully, this doesn't follow the path my last run-in with Telus did, or I'll be changing telephone providers very soon:
When my old ISP (CADVision) was bought out by Telus, I found that although service was not affected much at first, they completely botched the transfer of CADVision customers to their infrastructure. They missed all deadlines by a few days, ruined my hosting configuration (without warning my email and web page stopped working right). After waiting on hold for up to an hour for phone support or for days via email (exruciatingly delivered via dial-up as the DSL was out). I would get ill-informed, conflicting advice on how to move things along.
I was so pissed off that rather than allow Telus to honour the 1-year contract I signed with CADVision, I cancelled my service entirely before they fixed the mess and went with another ISP. They were cheaper, had a more flexible choice of service plans and better, faster service. I decided to host my own web, email and DNS servers on leftover and existing hardware running Linux, so that any screwups would be those I was responsible for (and I could use a "connectivity only" package at a 35% savings over Telus' closest offering). I was already using fixed IPs for some services, so I figured I might as well handle everything. The only problem is that since Telus is the established monopoly, so ALL DSL providers must rely to some degree on Telus infrastructure, and that Telus sill gets a least a small portion of my money.
Incidentally, in order for your ADSL modem to work, Telus has to light up your line at the CO, and the biling contact for that phone number eventually covers the cost of providing the DSL signal--all you would be stealing from Telus (or the targeted victim) is the IP address and whatever other services offered with their package (web space, email etc).
Ignoring the fact that the Sony PS2 implementation was not even close to optimised for the comparison...the PS2 is also priced very modestly.
Also, a PS2, unlike a PC (or even an XBox) probably consumes less power and does not require multiple fans per unit to keep from overheating (cheaper to operate and more reliable due to less moving parts).
To a /. reader I'm sure this is far from a profound insight but it's refreshing to see CEO's who are clued in:
Microsoft wants to move to a world where THEY decide what software a computer runs because that will allow them to extract the most money from consumers. They'll position this product with a comforting sounding name like "trustworthy" computing and tout the benefits [...] It will ultimately give Microsoft control over a user's computer. This is why we do not, in any way, limit what software users can install.
The fact that Microsoft is leading the charge in this direction is somewhat ironic. Microsoft rose to prominence based ENTIRELY on an industry that came to being because of enthusiasts who believed in bringing availability and control of computer hardware and software to the masses. The personal computer was invented chiefly to wrest control of computer resources from institutions (and their black-suit and white-labl-coat cladded minions) and place it in the hands of the end user.
Nearly 30 years ago, computer users had to pay through the nose for timeshare services what was allowed was decided based on corporate policy and the whim of system administrators (and even the mainframe vendors!). Running your process or batch on the big IBM iron was a privlige you paid dearly for and you were grateful for it (kinda sounds like grandpa walking to school barefoot in the snow but it was kinda true). Computer enthusiasts were tired of it and brash upstarts provided hardware (MITS) and software (Microsoft) they could purchase and use as they saw fit.
Fast forward to today. What a sad situation when a once brash young upstart--one that totally owes its successful existence to PC users past and present--turns into the "enemy" and betrays its customers by angling to control what people can do with the machines they own.
Microsoft is becoming a throwback to the 70's and earlier--like the companies that sold mainframes or timeshare services that called all the shots. With the arrival of the PC revolution none of those companies were the same again (and most don't exist at all). Microsoft has always been good at looking out for competition and the next big thing, and when they miss the boat (as they did with the Internet) they'd hop a raft and paddle out to it to stage a mutiny. I wonder if they're losing their touch now. They're responding to a new threat with an old business model.
And--irony of ironies--it looks like IBM is clued in enough to be a willing player in the game (even if they still are heavily invested in mainframes and proprietary computing).
Interesting times...
...and take notice of ALL the taxes Canadians pay. I'm surprised it's not even higher than 50% of income.
You are only looking at FEDERAL INCOME TAX. Take a look at your return and see how much income tax additionally goes to the province you live in. That will add a few percent on top of it.
Don't forget the other payroll deductions either. They are essentially taxes too. One deduction is called "Employment Insurance", however just like auto insurance you pay and pay and only get back when you are between jobs (and you meet all qualifications). Not only that--EI takes in WAY more than it pays out and the surplus is "invested". The crooked Canadian federal government has (on more than one occasion) has passed bills and regulations to raid the EI fund to cook the books and achieve a "balanced" budget. The other deduction on your cheque (CPP) is for the pension plan, which has been badly managed and is far from guaranteed to pay out (most analysts say that NOBODY under 50 will EVER receive all their pension contributions after retirement--that is unless they live to be 100).
Now there are municipal taxes. All property owners pay municipal taxes (and that means so do all renters, as landlords pass those costs onto them). Where I live, for a modest home such as mine, that amounts to around C$1500.
Last but not least, there are sales taxes. All Canadians pay at least 7% for the federal GST on damn near everything they buy (it seems only most grocery items are exempt). Add up the tax on all your utility bills, snack foods, booze, auto fuel, clothes--all of it (even YOUR HOUSE and USED ITEMS ON CONSIGNMENT and USED CARS--yes the government recycles those for taxation purposes too!). Even the poorest pay more than they get back in GST rebates. Unless you're from Alberta the province chimes in with their sales tax, bringing up the tally to an average of %15. Don't feel left out Alberta, your province dings you too (though perhaps not to the same extent) with the Healthcare Premium tax (yes--it IS a tax).
And "things aren't enforced nearly as much"?! It's pretty damn hard to avoid paying sales taxes--you can't give the glerk 7-15% less and expect them to be happy. If you owe income tax on your return--try not paying it for awhile. They don't toss you in jail in Canada, but they will garnishee your wages and freeze your bank accounts until they have your money. If you stop paying your Alberta healthcare or municipal taxes for long enough they will send a private collection agency after you and your credit rating will be downgraded. When it comes to getting money to spend...Canadian government most certainly DO care. And they make sure they get a hell of a lot more than 30%.
...and I'd bow down before the gods of parody (once I stopped laughing my ass off) if I were to see PA's take on American McGee's treatment of the Smurfs....heh heh
C'mon...Smurfette--a lone girl smurf amongst a community of 99 boy smurfs? "They're only a couple apples tall but it's still one big blue bang"
In Calgary, my next door neighbours had Shaw cable internet, and it had slightly higher peak rates than my DSL (up to nearly 300 kilbytes per second), however they basically enjoyed that transfer rate at about 2 to 3 am or during non-peak for a few days after Shaw did whatever monthly upgrading they mentioned on their tech support lines (which usually involved losing internet entirely from Friday just after lunch to Saturday morning). Aside from that, the speed hovered between 15 and 150 kB/s.
On the other hand, my DSL connection was ALWAYS 100 to 150 kB/s. I had maybe ONE day of outage time in an entire year. Then CADVision was bought by TELUS. They intgrated CADvision customers into TELUS infrastructure, and offered piss poor customer service and support during and after the ordeal (my business service lost all it's fixed IPs, they messed up my DNS hosting, etc.) It's my understanding that Shaw has gotten past it's growing pains and now is better for customer service and a bit more consistent where TELUS has deteriorated.
No matter--TELUS chased me away and did NOTHING to lure me back--some customers are even getting so pissed off with them that they are switching their local and long distance phone as well--mostly to make a point about crappy service. I kept the phone but switched to Radiant DSL. I pay C$10/month LESS and consistently get 2 to 2.5 MBps--EXACTLY what was advertised (I got the "business connectivity 2.5" package)! I save money because they make the crap I can do myself optional (I don't need space on their web server and 10 email accounts and DNS hosting--I provide my own DNS, web and email servers). Shaw doesn't offer packages like that--I have to take what they offer and pay maybe 40% more.
So, overall the situation hasn't changed. In Calgary I'd say cable has improved a lot, but some DSL providers still have the edge and are still more consistent.
...is that for the kind of business I've been doing (consulting/programming) that the city has no damn business getting into my business. Clients rarely need to come by my home--I go to them or connect to them through a VPN or their corporate dialup server (they prefer that anyways). Thus, there are no extra parking or traffic volume requirements. I don't have a great deal of storage needs--I don't keep any physical inventory (hardware is shipped direct to clients--only when a couple of units need configuring etc. do I ever have their stuff here). Thus, I don't need to build additions and what not.
The whole point of municipal business taxes/licenses as I see it is to provide revenue to the city to support services they must supply to businesses, and to keep the community in the loop. I need no parking space, upgraded roads or utilities, external signage or ANYTHING that I don't already pay residential property taxes for. Asking for more simply because I make money from home is simply being unfairly greedy.
My city seems to agree with that--there are some circumstances where no business license (and thus extra tax) is required. A consultant or software writer (or novel/article writer for that matter) can be considered a "telecommuter" in the same way people who have bosses downtown but work at home.
One thing is for certain--you have to register your business and pay taxes on your income one way or another. Where I'm at it is strictly in the provincial and/or federal juristiction. the simplest setup is to register your business name and operate as a sole-proprietor or partnership. Your revenue is taxed on your personal income tax.
Alternatively you can register a corporation (under a name or a number with a "doing business as" name). The corporation is a distinct legal entity that prepares its own tax return. If you ARE required to pay municipal taxes/fees you would do so under the corporation.
In Canada, there is one thing ALL business should do (and MUST do if you are at it full time and bring in revenue above a pretty modest threshold--even if you are a one man show). That is, you MUST obtain a federal Business Number (the BN--even if you aren't a corporation). This is used for taxation purposes (to report business income on your personal tax return for non-corporate enterprises and as the identifier on a corporate return). The BN is also used in the collection of the GST and is required in order to properly hire employees (for payroll deductions and so on).
Make sure you look into that sort of stuff first--the city crap can wait as they don't REALLY care that much if you don't draw attention to yourself. Federal and provincial (or state-level) governments on the other hand are much more humourless (and greedy IMHO). If you don't go by the book with them they get serious--the city will just say "get a permit" and perhaps charge you an extra little fee (and here, they'll do a surprising amount of "hand holding" as well).
...the more I "get it" and like the idea.
One thing is that I'm not a big fan of the term "piles"--it seems to imply disorganisation (as does "clutter"), which is preceived as a characteristic that reduces productivity. I figured a marketing wonk would've come up with a more clever name.
Worse yet was my FIRST thought upon hearing the term "piles"... "Great...first all those poor old macs get constipated trying to run the latest nifty new browser. Now, the damn things will have piles and mac users will need to stock up on Preparation H!"
GW wants to ban ALL 3rd party internet vendors and do it themselves--they want the WHOLE pie to themselves. Perhaps they are trying to become "vertically integrated" (ie. greedy bastards). Theoretically, making, distributing, marketing and selling a product through one big company is supposed to reduce risk of IP theft, possibility of other entities that you depend on going under and so on.
However in todays economy (fast moving, information based, global) "vertical integration" is ineffective and obsolete except in the case of VERY big corporations like GM--and even they outsource (if there is a problem with the outsource, they have enough pull to affect their management or pull out, or even take them over). The "razor blade" theory is also becoming so much bunk too (giving away whe razor and ripping us off on the blades).
In the computer industry I can think of examples where the tactics GW used completely backfired. MITS created the PC industry with the Altair--they were the only player in the game, but success very quickly brough competitors (Proc Tech, IMSAI, Cromemco, Apple, Commodore, Tandy...). MITS tried to aggessivley protect their IP (namely the bus which became known as the S100 bus--competitors started making peripheral cards for it and soon make S100 PCs of their own). Not only was MITS uncooperative with 3rd party vendors--they went as far as to threaten lawsuit. On the sales and marketing side, MITS attempted to make all their dealers exclusive MITS dealers--but soon most broke off that deal as IMSAI (and later Apple) gave them sweeter deals and didn't demand exclusivity.
GW is doing this now. They are vigourously defending their "IP" to the point of crippling their marketing (they don't even want people to put up pictures on their websites---turning their nose up at free advertising!). Furthermore, hey are trying to control everything--they want to have the only website and a bunch of stores with nothing but their own product. Like MITS, GW isn't exactly a high profile company. Also like MITS, their product could be duplicated relatively easily (not cloned mind you, but if GW alientates customers work-alike products will fill the void). GW could be like MITS in a third way in 2 or 3 years--completely gone.
This vertical strategy only stands a good chance of working if you have BIG resources and can take BIG risks. Even Texas Instruments failed with the TI99/4a. From the start they employed a vertical strategy (along with the "razorblade" strategy when sales were slow). Before TI discontinued the machine, they controled manufacturing (the thing was loaded wil all TI chips---CPU, VDP, memory, logic), distribution and sales (making it a bit more difficult to find than say a Commodore, Atari or Apple) and software/peripheral/accessories (they figured they could sell the computer for much less than it cost to make and hose customers on software and hardware accessories--the 3rd party TI market was basically non-existent). TI couldn't pull it off and lost millions. Ironically, in the couple of years AFTER TI pulled out of the market, a small 3rd party industry blossomed around the TI.
If a giant like TI couldn't pull it off, how can a specialty shop like GW handle the whole pie?
I am also disappointed in the lack of diligence demonstrated by the /. editors--usually I'm annoyed by dupes but it is starting to show up in the form of factual inaccuracies as well. However, I digress...
Not only isn't it a tablet PC (it's merely a wireless "intelligent display"), it is a very poorly executed implemetation of what it is.
Firstly, it costs as much as my notebook did nearly two years ago--and it is a full computer. Not only does it not need a host PC--it can also be hooked up to a television and play DVD movies. Why would I pay the same amount for much less? If I want to surf the net untethered I'll throw a wireless PC card in my notbook, thanks.
Second, I am at a loss to figure out why it's so hefty and power hungry. It weights around 2.5kg's (that's over 5 lbs) and the battery life is also comparable to that of smaller sized but fully functional notebooks. Is this merely due to the large touchscreen? I don't get it--basically it looks like this unit is a big screen with the guts of a Pocket PC PDA in it. Why the heck does its WinCE and client software need 64M of RAM? Is the protocol so bloated that 64M is needed as cache to make the thing usable? So much for the "thin client" concept.
All in all, I think the review was overly generous in giving out it's rating--it's a half-baked implementation and thus barely merits a 5 out of 10. The concept is cool though--right now it is about as ready as Windows 1.0 was when it was released. Perhaps 2 versions from now it will be worth considering.
If I was moderating you'd get my vote! I'm in Canada and coverage in my part of the country actually isn't that bad--of course things in places like the mountains or in Tumbleweed sask. are dismal if you want digital ANYTHING. Beyond that, customer service is ATROCIOUS (thank God my service has been pretty reliable)!
Affordability, reliability, good service--THAT is what is foremost in my mind with wireless technology right now. What good are polyphonic ringtones, fancy colour screens, digital cameras, 3-d graphics and so on in my cellphone if I can't TALK on the damn thing half the time? If I wanted to play games on a tiny screen or take crappy snapshots I'd buy a gameboy and a $50 digital camera.
3-D graphics? No thanks--I'll stick to my trusty, sturdy little Nokia 5165. Its little monochrome LCD is easy to read and has a good backlight. I can talk on it, send text messages with it, use caller ID and store my numbers and email addresses on it. It has some simple games that evoke fond memories of the Atari 2600. I rarely need to charge it more than once a week. Calls after 6 and on weekends are flat rate.
I'll be interested in bells and whistles when they don't chop my battery life to bits, cause the phone to lock up or allow viruses and worms to mess things up and there is acually USEFUL internet content, service and coverage out there. I'll be even MORE interested when the monthly phone bill stays under $100.
Such fond memories! The pop machine is the "Hello, world!" of Engineerland!
.NET framework. At least now there's a book out there that will inform today's enlightened pop machine programmers how to use "state charts" to develop efficient C# code for such a beast.
Of couse, these days thanks to Microsoft, we have "popmachine.NET". What once was implemented with a smattering of TTL logic must now posess a Pentium chip, megabytes of RAM and embedded Windows with the
Zing... you can fill a whole book with how to turn a state diagram into essentially:
.
switch(statevar) {
case STATE1:
outvar = boolfunc1(invar1, invar2...);
statevar = STATE2;
break;
case STATE2:
outvar = boolfunc2(invar1, invar2...);
statevar = STATE3;
break;
. .
}
Am I missing something here? I'll be first to admit I'm far from a C guru but I fail to see what is groundbreaking about the concept. Of course, I'm an oddball and tend to mentally envision a program as digital circuitry much in the same way someone learning a new language will tend towards mentally translating into english.
Hmm...I guess those without a background in electrical engineering--particularly digital design--really do get a view from a completely different perspective.
After a second or two of clue-in time (state CHART == state DIAGRAM == state MACHINE) I was thinking "and the big deal is...?". This concept was covered in an INTRODUCTORY electrical engineering course in my case. We started with "welcome to the world of boolean logic"--working with equations and karnaugh-maps and what not--then went straight onto using those concepts to implement state machines with 74LS... TTL chips stuck in breadboards.
I guess being that is what I learned and how I always thought is why I carried the concept with me into programming. State machines were central in implementing VHDL. Subsequently, my C programs kind of look like my VHDL did. One observation I've made--those with an engineering background often write code dominated by boolean logic and switch statements very obviously describing a state machine, and those who have an abundance of programming courses don't.
In my opinion, the legacy of your typical desktop PC than IBM's PC/XT. Pentium has it's roots in the 8086? Try the 8080 or even the 8008. Does opening your desktop, with the motherboard and it's PCI slots with vertically mounted cards remind you of the original IBM XT or AT with it's ISA slots? Cast your mind back further--more than five years--and behold! (be patient, takes awhile to load)
...to the University of Calgary. The license need not be represented by one of those nifty little certificates with intricate graphics, numbers and holograms all over it. It is entirely possible that in return for letting MS put on its dog-and-pony show microsoft granted some sort of volume licensing deal with the UofC.
I agree with the article that "Sasha" (the MS point-of-contact for the student tour) is out of the loop concerning licensing issues--understandable since keeping everything straight is something akin to brain surgery and rocket science. Sasha might reply after talking to one of the MS High Priests of Licensing saying as much as I've stated above.
If in doubt, ultimately I'd talk to the UofC's Computing Services department--or the departments of Computing Science or Computer Engineering--to inquire about how student licensing works (ie it it technically property of the U of C and you only buy the media--or whatever).
I don't know how it works at the U of C, but at the U of Alberta bookstore, you didn't need to be a student to buy most anything there, but for software it was a different story--you needed to present a valid, current student ID card and fill out documentation before you could cart your purchase home.
It was many years ago when I did that (1996), however when I bought MS Office it didn't come with the same licensing documentation (certificate, registration postcards, etc) that retail (or even OEM) software was packed with. Perhaps that meant it was licensed to the U of A for use by all students who bought the media. However I didn't really care then about the legal details of licensing at the time. Come to think of it, I don't now either. I don't purposely go out of my way to "steal" MS software, but it gets legally murky when your software library from MS is a mishmash of retail, OEM, NFR copies obtained from being a former "MS Partner" and student editions. If I worried about it I'd get ulcers and never have time to do real work.
What's to be impressed about? Connectivity that tops out at less than 300 kbps for nearly US$30 per month? Where I live, you can get 3 TO 8 TIMES that speed over DSL for around the same price (acually slightly less costly) with DSL. The real solution is to find a way to stop Americal ISPs from completely ripping off their broadband customers. I think the telecommunications industry and regulations in the US are deeply flawed if ISPs can get away with selling crap like that for such a high price. Time to look at how things work here in Canada or perhaps in parts of Asia and Europe.
Furthermore, if it's simply data compression techniques implemented with the same old 56K modems and lines then it's crap--most data pumped over the line when you surf the net and speed matters is already compressed--be it GIF, PNG and JPEG graphics, MP3s, MPEG video, Microsoft updates and so on. The only way that can be compressed further is with lossy compression (can't do that with code anyways). User's either get the same cruddy speed or a lousy multimedia experience.
Even though we here in Canada are led by a doddering, senile old coward prime minister who can't/won't help our neighbours in a time of need, I suppose at the very least Canadian ISPs can manage to offer REAL consumer broadband for US$30. *sigh* Nope I still feel ashamed of our leadership or lack thereof...
...because it seems I've seen this episode before!
Perhaps there are so many cooks in the slashdot editorial kitchen that a few dishes get made twice due to lack of communication...
Wait a minute...it's not like there was a lady on an operating table, being prodded by a robot and no-one around save perhaps a pimply-faced computer geek to make sure everything was going well. There WAS a doctor overseeing events at the site. Conversely, it's not like the doctor on the other end was lounging by the pool, tweaking the trackpoint of his IBM ThinkPad. This technology wouldn't be used on a person unless it was proven safe and the benefits for outweighed possible risks (also, remember they weren't doing brain surgery on their maiden voyage--it was surgery to correct an acid-reflux problem, so if there were problems the risk of death would be quite low).
You're right--400 km isn't exactly a cross-continent trek, but keep in mind that a round trip by car would eat up eight hours of a skilled surgeon's time (and time is money), and even flying would take a few hours. Also, remember the surgery was in North Bay and performed by a doctor in Hamilton. North Bay isn't exacly a metropolitan hub--there's maybe what...50,000 people there? I don't think there are gonna be direct flights leaving hourly from Hamilton. Besides, do you know what the weather has been like in Ontario lately? Cold and horrible! Flight schedules aren't going to be reliable, and driving 400 km through a blizzard would be quite treacherous!
The next step is to start using this technology in places like Yellowknife. Yellowknife! Not exactly the kind of place that's teeming with specialised surgeons, and a doctor in Toronto can't easily hop a train, plane or taxi there, nor can the patient be safely relocated to Toronto without great expense and risk. You'd have to hop a 727 in Toronto to Edmonton, a lear jet to Ft. McMurray and a turboprop to Yellowknife (at best you might be able to avoid the stopover in Ft. McMurray)--or else spend a great deal of taxpayer's money in an already strained socialised haelthcare system on a special private direct flight.
Yup, telesurgery starts to look pretty appealing if you've been suffering on a long waiting list typical of the healthcare system in Canada, and it offers you the chance to get it done not only properly, but much sooner as well.
And if we put a taxi driver out of a job who the hell cares--he's probably an immigrant with 10 years of medical training and a long history of performing surgery in Pakistan, scaping out a living until all the immigration bullshit has been shoveled and he can get certified to work as a doctor in Canada. Maybe the money saved with this technology can make that process go faster so he can "do surgery by the pool" with Dr. Anvari. That old farmer in Cowcrap, Saskatchewan who needs his hernia fixed might appreciate the resulting shorter waiting time too...