My son's orthodontist office called me in a panic one afternoon: "Can you fix our network, like, today?" Long story short, I now handle whatever computer or networking problems they have in barter for my boy's braces. I'm thrilled to death to get a price break on their services and they feel the same way. It's a great arrangement that I hope to continue for a long time.
I'm sure your son doesn't hope it continues for a long time;)
Software makes some tasks easier, but that does not mean the workers can now be stupid.
If you make it simple for people to search through a document (hint: type Ctrl-F), it does not mean I can have a dumb employee, it means I can let that employee do higher level stuff.
Until the eighties, you could give a 500 pages document to someone, and ask him for a one page summary management would then analyze the summary and take some decision. Today, you give an employee a project, he researches on-line, creates a report, presents it, and more importantly does recommendations.
Remove today's powerful tools, and people go back to low-level tasks.
Give an engineer a lab machine powerful enough to host 10 virtual machines. Guess what, he'll model a network of servers and make progress. Give the same engineer a pile of a hundred books on computers, and a crappy 500MB desktop, come back a year later and see if he's achieved anything, and progressed in his knowledge...
timezones change all the time, your pc should get updates of the timezone database.
your alarm clock or other such products may get problems with a new timezone, but you just modify it manually and that's it.
The important systems such as banking servers definitely already have the mechanism to adapt to new timezone logics.
It booted the first time, Why would it not boot the second?
- The time changed (y2k, September 9 1999,...)
- The database changed
- The application software changed
- The servers that this servers talks to when starting up have been changed
- Someone did a bad edit/boot
- Etc...
Bottom line is reasons to fails accumulate over time, if you reboot only in 3 years, there's a chance you'll have multiple causes for failure, and that's going to be a big pain to fix, plus no one will remember what changed over the course of those 3 years...
yep. Imagine the scenario: you configure and boot up the server, a year later you quit, 3 years later someone reboots it for hardware maintenance, and guess what, it does not boot up correctly that time. Good luck to them trying to figure out why and how to fix it!
Not true:
- Adults may choose to drink soda or acohol. Most choose alcohol, especially where I live.
- People can hardly choose between cigarette and marijuana because marijuana is forbiden (at least where I live), so they do not smoke marijuana
- Marijuana smoking is allowed in Amsterdam, guess what, people smoke it.
Bottom line is state policy does influence people's behaviour and health. Legalizing something does help it propagate
In that jeopardy game, the computer is not listening to the voice. It gets the questions from a data line, as ascii text.
Talking with a computer is often just as frustrating as talking on the phone with someone using a computer...
The only thing I do with voice on my computer is:
- a script that says the name of the dvd inserted when my laptop recovers from sleep mode. Great to not forget to bring the dvd back to the shop the morning after. (I work from home so no annoyed colleagues to fear)
- a bit of using the espeak command to show my kids how something is spoken in a language they learn at school
other than that, I keep dreaming that human/machine interface will improve, but somehow, I think it will come from head mounted displays, sight recognition, etc... more than speech recognition
- apps do not get as much scrutinized as on iphone
- google is desperate to have as many apps as iphone
- android is more open, apps can get more access to the device's data
combine all this, and you get a recipe for success, or a recipe for disaster...
Sun and SGI made more money and ran a lot longer but for some reason had a lot less to show for it in the final analysis.
Look at what Sgi machines helped accomplish, in movies, in petrol research, in car and plane designs, 3D processors, Open Gl, etc...
Sure, you don't see "Sgi technology inside" stickers, but that does not mean it's not present!
Fragmentation of the file system is no issue in our times.
letting the disk fill up, then delete some files, then save some more files, you're going to end up fragmenting the disk
Now maybe fragmenting the disk is not too much of an issue these days because of disk speeds, and also because the lifetime of disks is becoming shorter
Personally I don't hit fragmentation because of the following:
My laptop runs Fedora. Once a year I upgrade it (running Fedora 13, going to Fedora 15 after it comes out).
When i do it, I backup my data to an external disk, then install the new OS from scratch, then restore my backup. I do not even restore my configuration files (other than my keyring of passwords).
Bottom line is that this way, each year I get an unfragmented disk, a new OS, no viruses, etc... It works for me!
Do a bit of math: how much did your studies cost over the last 20 or so years? how much salary will you make over the next 40 or so years?
Attending that conference would cost you less than 1000 dollars I'm sure, and if it can get you a career boost of 1%, you're looking at maybe 20 000 dollars more over the next 40 years. Not bad return on investment!
Many tablets today are netbooks with no keyboard but a tactile display. But their price is about 300 dollars more.
Guess what, I just bought a netbook!
The other thing is those tablets are way more closed than the netbooks.
So yes, tablets today are basically clumsy phones.
Wake me up when a good open Linux tablet is available.
yes, there are the friends that connect all their "toys" together, and then you get lots of automated messages when they are in a traffic jam, when they publish a tweet even if you don't use twitter.
Most of the times, I just "unfriend" them. They're still my friend in real life, but not in the digital world anymore.
How about: they start creating a fake account with your user name on facebook, become friend with some of your linkedin contacts, post on your new friends walls a scam using distorted extracts of what you posted on slashdot.
Ok, you did a decent job of hiding your true name with that GameboyRMH ID, but still, if you use the same ID on lots of sites, you're still vulnerable to the kind of scenario I mention above.
Personally, any online account that is indexed by search engines, I use a fake ID, and move to another one every 2 years, and it's not the same as my email address, etc...
What I'm sick of is seeing some people fighting and dying for freedom in one part of the world (lookin' at you, Egypt), and others digging themselves deeper into outdated, bullshit traditions and rules
Don't worry, maybe Egypt will go the bullshit traditions way very soon.
Slashdot Mirror
My son's orthodontist office called me in a panic one afternoon: "Can you fix our network, like, today?" Long story short, I now handle whatever computer or networking problems they have in barter for my boy's braces. I'm thrilled to death to get a price break on their services and they feel the same way. It's a great arrangement that I hope to continue for a long time.
I'm sure your son doesn't hope it continues for a long time ;)
... new types of monster munch.
Software makes some tasks easier, but that does not mean the workers can now be stupid. ...
If you make it simple for people to search through a document (hint: type Ctrl-F), it does not mean I can have a dumb employee, it means I can let that employee do higher level stuff.
Until the eighties, you could give a 500 pages document to someone, and ask him for a one page summary management would then analyze the summary and take some decision. Today, you give an employee a project, he researches on-line, creates a report, presents it, and more importantly does recommendations.
Remove today's powerful tools, and people go back to low-level tasks.
Give an engineer a lab machine powerful enough to host 10 virtual machines. Guess what, he'll model a network of servers and make progress. Give the same engineer a pile of a hundred books on computers, and a crappy 500MB desktop, come back a year later and see if he's achieved anything, and progressed in his knowledge
an aerogel is mostly anything but atoms
10 grams of aerogel is 10 grams of atoms. When the foam is inside the tube, it's packed tightly, and it's definitely made of atoms
- my Aerogel battery leaked
- and?
- who'll pay for cleaning the room?
timezones change all the time, your pc should get updates of the timezone database.
your alarm clock or other such products may get problems with a new timezone, but you just modify it manually and that's it.
The important systems such as banking servers definitely already have the mechanism to adapt to new timezone logics.
It booted the first time, Why would it not boot the second?
- The time changed (y2k, September 9 1999, ...) /boot ... ...
- The database changed
- The application software changed
- The servers that this servers talks to when starting up have been changed
- Someone did a bad edit
- Etc
Bottom line is reasons to fails accumulate over time, if you reboot only in 3 years, there's a chance you'll have multiple causes for failure, and that's going to be a big pain to fix, plus no one will remember what changed over the course of those 3 years
yep. Imagine the scenario: you configure and boot up the server, a year later you quit, 3 years later someone reboots it for hardware maintenance, and guess what, it does not boot up correctly that time. Good luck to them trying to figure out why and how to fix it!
Not true:
- Adults may choose to drink soda or acohol. Most choose alcohol, especially where I live.
- People can hardly choose between cigarette and marijuana because marijuana is forbiden (at least where I live), so they do not smoke marijuana
- Marijuana smoking is allowed in Amsterdam, guess what, people smoke it. Bottom line is state policy does influence people's behaviour and health. Legalizing something does help it propagate
would you care to explain one more time to us why Watson was not doing speech recognition please?
In that jeopardy game, the computer is not listening to the voice. It gets the questions from a data line, as ascii text. ... ... more than speech recognition
Talking with a computer is often just as frustrating as talking on the phone with someone using a computer
The only thing I do with voice on my computer is:
- a script that says the name of the dvd inserted when my laptop recovers from sleep mode. Great to not forget to bring the dvd back to the shop the morning after. (I work from home so no annoyed colleagues to fear)
- a bit of using the espeak command to show my kids how something is spoken in a language they learn at school
other than that, I keep dreaming that human/machine interface will improve, but somehow, I think it will come from head mounted displays, sight recognition, etc
- apps do not get as much scrutinized as on iphone - google is desperate to have as many apps as iphone - android is more open, apps can get more access to the device's data combine all this, and you get a recipe for success, or a recipe for disaster ...
maybe it will in 15 years ;)
Last I checked, gold was naturally-occurring - and therefore organic
That's not my definition of organic. or else most of the earth is organic too ;)
Sun and SGI made more money and ran a lot longer but for some reason had a lot less to show for it in the final analysis.
Look at what Sgi machines helped accomplish, in movies, in petrol research, in car and plane designs, 3D processors, Open Gl, etc ...
Sure, you don't see "Sgi technology inside" stickers, but that does not mean it's not present!
Fragmentation of the file system is no issue in our times.
letting the disk fill up, then delete some files, then save some more files, you're going to end up fragmenting the disk ... It works for me!
Now maybe fragmenting the disk is not too much of an issue these days because of disk speeds, and also because the lifetime of disks is becoming shorter
Personally I don't hit fragmentation because of the following: My laptop runs Fedora. Once a year I upgrade it (running Fedora 13, going to Fedora 15 after it comes out).
When i do it, I backup my data to an external disk, then install the new OS from scratch, then restore my backup. I do not even restore my configuration files (other than my keyring of passwords).
Bottom line is that this way, each year I get an unfragmented disk, a new OS, no viruses, etc
Do a bit of math: how much did your studies cost over the last 20 or so years? how much salary will you make over the next 40 or so years?
Attending that conference would cost you less than 1000 dollars I'm sure, and if it can get you a career boost of 1%, you're looking at maybe 20 000 dollars more over the next 40 years. Not bad return on investment!
frame
usage
segment
navel gazing
click rates
Let me guess, you work in marketing? ;) Have a great weekend in any case!
Many tablets today are netbooks with no keyboard but a tactile display. But their price is about 300 dollars more. Guess what, I just bought a netbook! The other thing is those tablets are way more closed than the netbooks. So yes, tablets today are basically clumsy phones. Wake me up when a good open Linux tablet is available.
The computer received questions through typed entries at the same time as host Alex Trebek read them out loud
I think this qualifies as cheating for an artificial intelligence demo!
yes, there are the friends that connect all their "toys" together, and then you get lots of automated messages when they are in a traffic jam, when they publish a tweet even if you don't use twitter. Most of the times, I just "unfriend" them. They're still my friend in real life, but not in the digital world anymore.
nastiest trick I heard of is a bottle of milk spilled behind a shelf, on a carpet. I hope no one ever does it at my company!
Thanks for pushing me to research a bit: http://tools.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-li-bgp-stability-01.txt
How about: they start creating a fake account with your user name on facebook, become friend with some of your linkedin contacts, post on your new friends walls a scam using distorted extracts of what you posted on slashdot. Ok, you did a decent job of hiding your true name with that GameboyRMH ID, but still, if you use the same ID on lots of sites, you're still vulnerable to the kind of scenario I mention above. Personally, any online account that is indexed by search engines, I use a fake ID, and move to another one every 2 years, and it's not the same as my email address, etc ...
What I'm sick of is seeing some people fighting and dying for freedom in one part of the world (lookin' at you, Egypt), and others digging themselves deeper into outdated, bullshit traditions and rules
Don't worry, maybe Egypt will go the bullshit traditions way very soon.