"Believe it or not, most IBM engineers aren't stupid. Seriously."
Thanks, I used to be one! And I think you're right, of course. However, during my time at IBM I did see toys that were made as "proof of concept" that later couldn't get over the hump between neat and practical. Battery life is one such area. The decoupling idea is a good one, hopefully it won't make it an even bigger gadget.
All these principles make sense and on paper work great. However, it's been tried before - it was called viral marketing (and don't tell me that employees of.com-s in 98-early '00 were not enthusiastic about their jobs and true embassadors, I was living in the bay area at the time and could feel it from every friend I had). Most companies found that in order for the "viral" part to work they had to give away a service/product that costs them money for free. Later, they started charging for it and that's when the real test came and in many cases the virally added consumers that came for the freebies left. The only viral service I can think of that I still use now that it isn't operating on a loss is Snapfish. I like their processing and posting (good for overseas parents) and this way I don't have to remember to pick up my photos. Still, if I found out that they were way more expensive than other alternatives I'd drop them in a heartbeat. Lucky for me they're priced well.
To me this is just another example of a tool/IP business model not making it even though it is useful technology and if it were gone it would be sorely missed. Still, businesspeople don't have the capabilities of valuing a tool that is not an end product (show me an MBA that sees encryption as an income generating end-product and I'll show you a geek in wool/MBA clothing). Also, I have yet to hear of a major money draining hack to a corporation that could have been prevented by PGP, I believe the stolen credit cards etc were obtained by hacking the system open, not listening on the lines. Anyone know of such an example?
First, what's the point of a watch whose battery life is measured in hours, as opposed to months? It's nice as a concept toy, I guess.
Second, the fully loaded digital watch was all the rage back in the 80s (you kids may not remember that decade very clearly, so I'll let you know that those watches covered a substantial part of your wrist and then some and if you had the muscles to wear them for long you could probably get tennis arm...). It died out pretty quickly then, partly due to their weight, but also because it really isn't very convenient to handle lots of buttons or operations when 1 hand is incapacitated (the one the watch is on) and the other is busy activating the device....
The problem with these types of keyboards is that the keys are smaller than most fingers (in particular thumbs). The stylo can type on them if there's an indentation but then it isn't that much better than the "keyboard" displayed on the screen. I think a more inventive system (as was discussed re:cellphones recently) is needed.
This looks interesting but expensive to implement (the article says $1 per sensor for 1 key and then you need to license & implement the technology). It seems to me that it would be easier to add 3-4 more buttons to an SMS phone that were pressed simultaneosly with the "letter" buttons. Since 2 hands are needed to operate the finger differentiating method, it won't matter if you use 2 hand for this "chord". In particular, those of us that thumb-type on a cell can just use both thumbs.
Based on previous rulings (e.g., sales tax) the physical location of the business does matter for tax purposes. In fact, in the sales tax case residents of any state in which the company has an office must pay sales tax. I don't think the IRS would give up their share w/o a fight...
I'm really curious to read what they have in the sample page which features Israel and Ireland. Both have developed hi-tech hubs (Israel probably more so). I think I read that israeli companies form the largest contingency on Nasdaq after the north american companies, and they're mostly hi-tech. That should translate to some real bandwidth.
Reading this article I smell a goat, as they say. It smacks too much of a good initiative that will be exploited. Like the recenly announced toolkit to get your system checked for vulnerabilities and fixed free (see here ). If you try to actually have it sent to you and go thru a few screens you see that you need Passport (a.k.a. "all your passwords are belong to us!") in order to have them send you a CD by snail-mail. What does a physical CD have to do with an evil service, you ask? Did I mention that the CD might be useful/coveted? Has anyone found a similar hitch with this (e.g., putting the settings in such a way that a central M$ database will check the appropriateness of all your info "to make sure it's secure", oh and to make sure you don't use it for anything that disparages M$, hotmail, MSN, etc).
The issue here is at what price. If it was a 5 cent overhead I think you would agree that most people would buy LAN-ready appliances. Not to mention blue-tooth ready cell phones. The problem is that, for example, the blue tooth chip set is way over $5 even which by the time it gets to the consumer means increasing the cost of their cellphone by 50-100%. This ruins the attractiveness.
Similarly, with a Transmeta processor, if you could for example put multiple sensors in your house that would wirelessly transmit humidity and temp readings to a central unit that would adjust the thermostat for, say $50, I think many people would do this. In the future these sensors could be embedded in the AC vents, for example, PROVIDED they are very cheap (not sure what an acceptable price is but I'm assuming $1 should do it).
I think the issue here is that transmeta will not enable a $1-$5 solution so their "penetration" into the embedded market depends on the existence of complementary simpler chipsets (e.g., in the temp case transmeta could be embedded in the central unit).
My understanding is that embedded systems need more customization than your typical laptop. That's why companies like Tensilica can sell their design cores. Having a chip that relies so much on sw can be a boon for customization, provided that it is open enough (I'm assuming Linus took care of that). However, one of the reasons that so far companies have customized their chips is that they wanted to minimize the sw part for efficiency reasons. I wonder if this doesn't contradict the vision of cheap embedded systems for all...
It is unfair to gloat by saying that every time anything comes up on your screen you should have to say OK. It is a judgement call (imagine if you had to OK each image or flash component separately...). One of the most important parts of designing a product (whether sw, hw, or a chair) is what the features it has and what is the default (e.g., the default for a recliner is the upright position and you have to actively do something to make it recline, imagine if it started out reclining, it would be kind of awkward to get into it).
Having said that, the use of the OK button should be related to the amount of damage a malicious item can cause. In the case of binhex it seems like a no-brainer to ask first...
In my alma mater all coding assignments were done in teams (mostly because I'm old and way back then in the early 80's there weren't enough PDP11s to go around). Teams had 2-5 people depending on platform. I think teamwork makes coding more fun and is good at preparing you for work IF you are conscientious (sp?) about it. I did have a few teams where there were slackers that didn't do anything. I think those people missed out because of the lack of resources and had they had to work on their own they would have learned more (even by copying the printout into your program, which one team did as I recall:-). I think this is a valid reason for a prof to make at least some projects individual projects.
BTW, if I look at where the slackers are now only some of them dropped out of the CS workforce, most are chugging along just fine.
It is always amazing to me that a law that tries to get rid of monopoly/ies has left so much power in their hands without real controls on the amount of rents they can extract. It is especially strange since telecom lines in today's world are a public good, much like roads in the early 20th century. While there are toll roads, it would have been inconceivable to have all roads be toll in the 1950's, for example. I wonder if it is possible to argue in court that the nature of the service provided has changed and thus various other laws now apply to telecom lines (thus creating a conflict with the telecom law that must now be resolved by the supreme court).
LTPS (low temperature polycrystalline silicon)is a new technology that improves the quality of small LCDs (e.g., for handhelds). Supposedly Sony, Toshiba (watch out for the fonts), and Sanyo are early adopters and should start mass production in 2002. Palm-3D-games anyone?
This Cnet article mentions that there are different levels of protection available, including a level that will allow MP3s downloaded to PC but still prevent piracy (I guess by not allowing the creation of a master to be burned a gazzilion times). This seems to me the best of both worlds: stop piracy and let the geeks have their MP3s. This is what we should push the record companies to do (and this answers their concern over piracy, so if they refuse they expose their hipocracy).
This business model is what my grandma would call "neither here nor there" (or "nisht a hin nisht a her", excuse the sp), it's not really open source, yet isn't the prevailing evil (read XP). These things resolve pretty quickly typically, I must say that Caldera has held on to the fence for a longer while than I'd expect but in the long run it combines the least attractive features of both sides: less support and closed source/high prices.
Most striking to me is the before and after satelite pictures on the same site. Notice that the before is 180 degrees off the after (they should have aligned them...).
By having many releases of Linux distros at various times, when you get the most recent version you are up to date on protection (whatever that may be). On the other hand, M$ does not bother to incorporate their patches in later CDs of their OS. For example, the Oct 2000 patch was not incorporated in a w2k/iis server sold this summer. It's only 9 months later...
what amazes me is that a copy of iis purchased in july 2001 still needs to be patched with a patch released in oct 2000.... This is from personal experience BTW. Hello? what's the big deal of burning the CD with a patched system (say updating it quarterly). Would it add 5 cents to the total cost?
I think 2 points made previously are important and should be tested in each individual case:
1) some people don't work well from home
2) some bosses don't think you can work well from home
Here's a suggestion that worked for me (BUT: I only telecommute occassionally and never for more than 2-3 days at a stretch). Try telecommuting from your current (close) location for 2 weeks (pre-agree with your boss - he will mind less as you're still in a close location and it's for a fixed time). Make this coincide with a new definable (sub-) project that you take on. First prove to yourself that this is an effective mode for you. Compare your productivity, and take active notice of when/where/how you work from home. BTW a home office is a must for this experiment to be valid. Second, make a point of reviewing the sub-project with your boss after 2 weeks, and getting feedback on the relative differences between your other projects and this one (do this in a subtle, non obvious, way). Again, this is not as threatening for the boss as a move 100 miles away.
Good luck. I've had jobs where telecommuting worked real well, but also 1 or 2 where it was a disaster and it's better in these cases that you come to this conclusion rather than your employer.
Our India office works with an Indian company that supports their Linux server. It is so much more reliable than our horrible (yet brand new) w2k one. The company they use (I think it's called starcom or something similar) also has services in the US but they prefer to deal with hosted servers (in farms) and that was too complicated and costly for our small office. I wonder if the experienced and educated people they have in India are enough to overcome such a large geographic divide. I know they also send people to the US but I bet that then it is economically equivalent to a US firm, and then why not hire locally...
Here are some cool pictures of what you can do with 3D printers (from another company called Objet). They actually don't have the one I like best (a friend showed me): a human skull with all the trimmings...
I bought a second hand table that the seller told me was a sewing table. It is wide as a desk but deeper and has a pullout (similar to a keybord drawer only bigger) that is the same size as the top. The pullout has room for a keyboard and mouse and any docs I'm looking at as well as plenty of room in the back to hide some notebooks/manuals I like handy. The top has room for 2 monitors (17" in my case) and still plenty of depth left. It's made of solid wood and has some bracing in the back and solid sides. My only problem is that since I've moved so much in the past few years, each time the movers break off parts of my furniture and this table was no exception. I have no clue where to buy a new one of these, but if you're designing your own I highly recommend adding a full sized pullout for the keyboard. This one has been with me for 5-6 year now and the previous owner had it for an additional 5 years (but with a much lighter load).
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Thanks, I used to be one! And I think you're right, of course. However, during my time at IBM I did see toys that were made as "proof of concept" that later couldn't get over the hump between neat and practical. Battery life is one such area. The decoupling idea is a good one, hopefully it won't make it an even bigger gadget.
All these principles make sense and on paper work great. However, it's been tried before - it was called viral marketing (and don't tell me that employees of .com-s in 98-early '00 were not enthusiastic about their jobs and true embassadors, I was living in the bay area at the time and could feel it from every friend I had). Most companies found that in order for the "viral" part to work they had to give away a service/product that costs them money for free. Later, they started charging for it and that's when the real test came and in many cases the virally added consumers that came for the freebies left. The only viral service I can think of that I still use now that it isn't operating on a loss is Snapfish. I like their processing and posting (good for overseas parents) and this way I don't have to remember to pick up my photos. Still, if I found out that they were way more expensive than other alternatives I'd drop them in a heartbeat. Lucky for me they're priced well.
To me this is just another example of a tool/IP business model not making it even though it is useful technology and if it were gone it would be sorely missed. Still, businesspeople don't have the capabilities of valuing a tool that is not an end product (show me an MBA that sees encryption as an income generating end-product and I'll show you a geek in wool/MBA clothing). Also, I have yet to hear of a major money draining hack to a corporation that could have been prevented by PGP, I believe the stolen credit cards etc were obtained by hacking the system open, not listening on the lines. Anyone know of such an example?
First, what's the point of a watch whose battery life is measured in hours, as opposed to months? It's nice as a concept toy, I guess.
Second, the fully loaded digital watch was all the rage back in the 80s (you kids may not remember that decade very clearly, so I'll let you know that those watches covered a substantial part of your wrist and then some and if you had the muscles to wear them for long you could probably get tennis arm...). It died out pretty quickly then, partly due to their weight, but also because it really isn't very convenient to handle lots of buttons or operations when 1 hand is incapacitated (the one the watch is on) and the other is busy activating the device....
The problem with these types of keyboards is that the keys are smaller than most fingers (in particular thumbs). The stylo can type on them if there's an indentation but then it isn't that much better than the "keyboard" displayed on the screen. I think a more inventive system (as was discussed re:cellphones recently) is needed.
This looks interesting but expensive to implement (the article says $1 per sensor for 1 key and then you need to license & implement the technology). It seems to me that it would be easier to add 3-4 more buttons to an SMS phone that were pressed simultaneosly with the "letter" buttons. Since 2 hands are needed to operate the finger differentiating method, it won't matter if you use 2 hand for this "chord". In particular, those of us that thumb-type on a cell can just use both thumbs.
Just an idea....
Based on previous rulings (e.g., sales tax) the physical location of the business does matter for tax purposes. In fact, in the sales tax case residents of any state in which the company has an office must pay sales tax. I don't think the IRS would give up their share w/o a fight...
I'm really curious to read what they have in the sample page which features Israel and Ireland. Both have developed hi-tech hubs (Israel probably more so). I think I read that israeli companies form the largest contingency on Nasdaq after the north american companies, and they're mostly hi-tech. That should translate to some real bandwidth.
Reading this article I smell a goat, as they say. It smacks too much of a good initiative that will be exploited. Like the recenly announced toolkit to get your system checked for vulnerabilities and fixed free (see here ). If you try to actually have it sent to you and go thru a few screens you see that you need Passport (a.k.a. "all your passwords are belong to us!") in order to have them send you a CD by snail-mail. What does a physical CD have to do with an evil service, you ask? Did I mention that the CD might be useful/coveted? Has anyone found a similar hitch with this (e.g., putting the settings in such a way that a central M$ database will check the appropriateness of all your info "to make sure it's secure", oh and to make sure you don't use it for anything that disparages M$, hotmail, MSN, etc).
The issue here is at what price. If it was a 5 cent overhead I think you would agree that most people would buy LAN-ready appliances. Not to mention blue-tooth ready cell phones. The problem is that, for example, the blue tooth chip set is way over $5 even which by the time it gets to the consumer means increasing the cost of their cellphone by 50-100%. This ruins the attractiveness.
Similarly, with a Transmeta processor, if you could for example put multiple sensors in your house that would wirelessly transmit humidity and temp readings to a central unit that would adjust the thermostat for, say $50, I think many people would do this. In the future these sensors could be embedded in the AC vents, for example, PROVIDED they are very cheap (not sure what an acceptable price is but I'm assuming $1 should do it).
I think the issue here is that transmeta will not enable a $1-$5 solution so their "penetration" into the embedded market depends on the existence of complementary simpler chipsets (e.g., in the temp case transmeta could be embedded in the central unit).
My understanding is that embedded systems need more customization than your typical laptop. That's why companies like Tensilica can sell their design cores. Having a chip that relies so much on sw can be a boon for customization, provided that it is open enough (I'm assuming Linus took care of that). However, one of the reasons that so far companies have customized their chips is that they wanted to minimize the sw part for efficiency reasons. I wonder if this doesn't contradict the vision of cheap embedded systems for all...
It is unfair to gloat by saying that every time anything comes up on your screen you should have to say OK. It is a judgement call (imagine if you had to OK each image or flash component separately...). One of the most important parts of designing a product (whether sw, hw, or a chair) is what the features it has and what is the default (e.g., the default for a recliner is the upright position and you have to actively do something to make it recline, imagine if it started out reclining, it would be kind of awkward to get into it).
Having said that, the use of the OK button should be related to the amount of damage a malicious item can cause. In the case of binhex it seems like a no-brainer to ask first...
In my alma mater all coding assignments were done in teams (mostly because I'm old and way back then in the early 80's there weren't enough PDP11s to go around). Teams had 2-5 people depending on platform. I think teamwork makes coding more fun and is good at preparing you for work IF you are conscientious (sp?) about it. I did have a few teams where there were slackers that didn't do anything. I think those people missed out because of the lack of resources and had they had to work on their own they would have learned more (even by copying the printout into your program, which one team did as I recall :-). I think this is a valid reason for a prof to make at least some projects individual projects.
BTW, if I look at where the slackers are now only some of them dropped out of the CS workforce, most are chugging along just fine.
It is always amazing to me that a law that tries to get rid of monopoly/ies has left so much power in their hands without real controls on the amount of rents they can extract. It is especially strange since telecom lines in today's world are a public good, much like roads in the early 20th century. While there are toll roads, it would have been inconceivable to have all roads be toll in the 1950's, for example. I wonder if it is possible to argue in court that the nature of the service provided has changed and thus various other laws now apply to telecom lines (thus creating a conflict with the telecom law that must now be resolved by the supreme court).
LTPS (low temperature polycrystalline silicon)is a new technology that improves the quality of small LCDs (e.g., for handhelds). Supposedly Sony, Toshiba (watch out for the fonts), and Sanyo are early adopters and should start mass production in 2002. Palm-3D-games anyone?
This Cnet article mentions that there are different levels of protection available, including a level that will allow MP3s downloaded to PC but still prevent piracy (I guess by not allowing the creation of a master to be burned a gazzilion times). This seems to me the best of both worlds: stop piracy and let the geeks have their MP3s. This is what we should push the record companies to do (and this answers their concern over piracy, so if they refuse they expose their hipocracy).
This business model is what my grandma would call "neither here nor there" (or "nisht a hin nisht a her", excuse the sp), it's not really open source, yet isn't the prevailing evil (read XP). These things resolve pretty quickly typically, I must say that Caldera has held on to the fence for a longer while than I'd expect but in the long run it combines the least attractive features of both sides: less support and closed source/high prices.
The actual site is this . I think it's interesting to note that the .us domains have a very different distribution from the .com, .edu, .org, etc.
Most striking to me is the before and after satelite pictures on the same site. Notice that the before is 180 degrees off the after (they should have aligned them...).
By having many releases of Linux distros at various times, when you get the most recent version you are up to date on protection (whatever that may be). On the other hand, M$ does not bother to incorporate their patches in later CDs of their OS. For example, the Oct 2000 patch was not incorporated in a w2k/iis server sold this summer. It's only 9 months later...
what amazes me is that a copy of iis purchased in july 2001 still needs to be patched with a patch released in oct 2000.... This is from personal experience BTW. Hello? what's the big deal of burning the CD with a patched system (say updating it quarterly). Would it add 5 cents to the total cost?
I think 2 points made previously are important and should be tested in each individual case:
1) some people don't work well from home
2) some bosses don't think you can work well from home
Here's a suggestion that worked for me (BUT: I only telecommute occassionally and never for more than 2-3 days at a stretch). Try telecommuting from your current (close) location for 2 weeks (pre-agree with your boss - he will mind less as you're still in a close location and it's for a fixed time). Make this coincide with a new definable (sub-) project that you take on. First prove to yourself that this is an effective mode for you. Compare your productivity, and take active notice of when/where/how you work from home. BTW a home office is a must for this experiment to be valid. Second, make a point of reviewing the sub-project with your boss after 2 weeks, and getting feedback on the relative differences between your other projects and this one (do this in a subtle, non obvious, way). Again, this is not as threatening for the boss as a move 100 miles away.
Good luck. I've had jobs where telecommuting worked real well, but also 1 or 2 where it was a disaster and it's better in these cases that you come to this conclusion rather than your employer.
Our India office works with an Indian company that supports their Linux server. It is so much more reliable than our horrible (yet brand new) w2k one. The company they use (I think it's called starcom or something similar) also has services in the US but they prefer to deal with hosted servers (in farms) and that was too complicated and costly for our small office. I wonder if the experienced and educated people they have in India are enough to overcome such a large geographic divide. I know they also send people to the US but I bet that then it is economically equivalent to a US firm, and then why not hire locally...
Here are some cool pictures of what you can do with 3D printers (from another company called Objet). They actually don't have the one I like best (a friend showed me): a human skull with all the trimmings...
I bought a second hand table that the seller told me was a sewing table. It is wide as a desk but deeper and has a pullout (similar to a keybord drawer only bigger) that is the same size as the top. The pullout has room for a keyboard and mouse and any docs I'm looking at as well as plenty of room in the back to hide some notebooks/manuals I like handy. The top has room for 2 monitors (17" in my case) and still plenty of depth left. It's made of solid wood and has some bracing in the back and solid sides. My only problem is that since I've moved so much in the past few years, each time the movers break off parts of my furniture and this table was no exception. I have no clue where to buy a new one of these, but if you're designing your own I highly recommend adding a full sized pullout for the keyboard. This one has been with me for 5-6 year now and the previous owner had it for an additional 5 years (but with a much lighter load).