True, but which of the sites you listed has enough people on their sites that can bring an ordinary web server to it's knees?
That all said, the way that Toshiba forms their URLs (with a bunch of @@@ and DB info), I think that is the reason that the URL posted on the/. page is not working not because of the slashdot effect.
I don't know about you, but most people I know orient their keyboard so that the whole keyboard (keyboard and keypad) are centered against the monitor, not just the main keyboard. Call it an aesthetics thing. That doesn't even consider the fact that most keyboards are already off centered to the left to a small degree already.
I have to agree with the first post, if you have that much real estate to work with, why not have a keypad on there. Hell, why not just dump the whole small keyboard footprint and go with a full 104 on there?
You mention how you turned an old laptop into a router w/ this to save yourself some cash. I did a similar thing w/ a different setup, but it was the same (a linux based router).
But lets ignore everything out there - you hit something on the head, how much does it take to get a hardware router now a days? I have seem some as low as $30 before. But to run it on a laptop or a computer? We are talking some solid amount of cash there (not to mention the resources that you are tying up). Personally, I think we are talking about a project for a market that really isn't there. I have an old P120, the one that I ran my router on. IMHO, I have much better uses of it than having it route packets for me (quite noisily I might add), especially when, for $70, I can get a Router/Firewall/Print Server (which is also SILENT).
I had only read half the article when I posted my thoughts. Now that I have read more:
Damn, Steve Jobs was on top of things here. He hit the nail on the head and could be considered be 100% right about what he said. Just some of the things he thought:
He thought the design sucked - to plain jane. I don't know how much it changed since then, but this device still is kind of so-so looking.
He hit them for manufacturing issues, many of which might have been right. Which also led to him...
Knocking them for their thoughts on reverse engineering. He is probably right on this, and IMHO, their thinking it couldn't be reverse engineered was very obtuse.
His biggest point was that they needed to just flood the market. Don't go slow, go all out, sell them everywhere.
I have to admit - his last point is very good, they had a very narrow market at the start, which alone let it get slammed. From the article:
"[Jobs] warned that even this sort of slow launch was filled with dangers. If one stupid kid at Stanford hurt himself using a Ginger and then announced online that the machine sucked, the company was sunk, because there was no way to control that or counter it if people couldn't ride one for themselves. With a big fast launch, on the other hand, a few malcontents wouldn't be heard above the general hoopla."
Think about it. Why is one of the biggest reasons that the Segway is slammed? No one has gotten on one. Hell, I would guess very few of us have seen one in person. I saw one briefly, but didn't get a good look at it. I have heard the "It sucks, it sucks", but I don't see a lot of people out there who have used one that could give a solid review of it. There is a little scooter place in the shopping center near my place that does all they can to get their scooters seen. Just from watching people ride them, I have a better feel for what those scooters can do than a Segway.
Jobs said it sucked, not because he thought the idea was dumb - he thought it didn't have a cutting edge design. This is the guy who made Apples sell because of their external design alone. Hell, the iMac alone started a WHOLE new market trend; just look at all the things you can buy now with the iMac color schemes.
What I love about the way brandido wrote it was:
"recounting of the Apple and Amazon bosses' first impressions of the device. Steve Jobs' gut reaction, quoted in the article: 'I think it sucks!'"
But that isn't true. He had seen Ginger a day earlier and had time to reflect on the whole thing. He thought it was solid, but lacked a look that people would be drawn to. The quote should have had this additional thought added to it
"'You have this incredibly innovative machine but it looks very traditional.'"
But instead he wanted to go for the shock value. Somehow this appearing on/. shocks me not at all.
But seriously, that is a whole new can of worms. But you do raise a big issue - is the real issue with ageism just a way to have cheaper labor. Then again, we are still just talking what I mentioned in my other message - if you are willing to sacrifice quality workers for things like lower wage staff, hiring your friends and having a staff that is more in your age bracket, ultimately you are just hurting your own business.
Yea, I agree - this has been covered a number of years. While there may be a new article on it, this is old news.
Fact is, ageism exists, but I don't think it is nearly as big of a deal as it was before. During the dot.com era, companies were formed by cliques, and having similarly aged people was very common. I think now, many companies have come to their senses and are fielding the best people they can find, regardless of age. Those that aren't, are just looking at another dot.com like belly up. Of course that is just my opinion.
IMHO, I think that kids who want to program will learn to program. I mean, the kids who learned everything about their computer 10 years ago didn't do it because the tools were there. The computer was something that interested them and they soaked up all they could when they could. The same is still true.
That all said - I agree, some of the beginning tools are not there in the sense that you no longer have DOS with BASIC. But in another way, you have so much more. Now these kids have the internet to get all their tools. This is where I think the author or the article is missing something - free SDKs are being DLed, and the real wiz kids are learning how to program in much more robust languages than BASIC. Because of such, I really don't see a need for Toy Languages.
Up, down, sideways. Does it really matter? I mean: 1- this book only goes to 1995. What about post 1995? In terms of the computer industry, that might well be two whole epochs. 2- this is only told from one side. If it had a few authors, it might be a better view, but this is just one guy, giving HIS perspective. Sorry, but I think I will wait for the movie.
Yea, I agree, this article was a bit short sighted. I mean DVDs and for that matter - hard media (like Videos before the), have a quality about them that is EXTREMELY popular. Forget the movie watching, DVDs are popular because of the extras that come with them. Things like that would never be popular or really even useful with VOD. I expect DVDs to be around for years, maybe with some minor changes.
Just something to consider between WiFi and Dot.coms was that one of the biggest reasons that Dot.coms failed was that they were companies who got money and had no real product or service to offer. Dot.coms were built on speculation of, well nothing, and that is why investors were burned. Now look at WiFi which is something real and tangible. Sure, some of these companies could be gone very soon, but hey, they at least are offering something that we know is real, or working to offer something. This is where I think that we see a major difference. Again, will some fail, sure, but it will be very different, 1- because these are companies that are making an effort to make a real business. And 2- it is not like we have a whole freaking economy built on this. This is very small, compared to dot.coms who had hundreds of billions invested, and commanded a huge market share.
The author of this whole thing is right - they put themselves out there, they should pay the costs.
IMHO, what he/she (and anyone else in this situation) should do is updated their AUP and TOS etc and basically have them all say:
"You are putting your computer on the net to do whatever you want, thus putting yourself at risk for your bandwidth being improperly used. This risk can be removed by turning any of your equipment off, and as such, your will be charged for any bandwidth used, regardless if you are the source or not."
I agree with many of the arguments made, but he is providing a service, a service that the users do not have to use. I say impliment policies such as the above, and then let the users decide if they want to stay on with them or not.
Perhaps the best solution would be to impliment a flat rate that under which, you would just pay a set amount per month. If you exceeded this, then you would pay on a burst billing method for the bandwidth beyond that.
The real question becomes where do you set the line? But that could be determined by the average user usage, perhaps a study could be done over the course of a few months to see where people fall on this whole thing.
Slashdot Mirror
True, but which of the sites you listed has enough people on their sites that can bring an ordinary web server to it's knees?
/. page is not working not because of the slashdot effect.
That all said, the way that Toshiba forms their URLs (with a bunch of @@@ and DB info), I think that is the reason that the URL posted on the
As opposed to now?
I don't know about you, but most people I know orient their keyboard so that the whole keyboard (keyboard and keypad) are centered against the monitor, not just the main keyboard. Call it an aesthetics thing. That doesn't even consider the fact that most keyboards are already off centered to the left to a small degree already.
I have to agree with the first post, if you have that much real estate to work with, why not have a keypad on there. Hell, why not just dump the whole small keyboard footprint and go with a full 104 on there?
You mention how you turned an old laptop into a router w/ this to save yourself some cash. I did a similar thing w/ a different setup, but it was the same (a linux based router).
But lets ignore everything out there - you hit something on the head, how much does it take to get a hardware router now a days? I have seem some as low as $30 before. But to run it on a laptop or a computer? We are talking some solid amount of cash there (not to mention the resources that you are tying up). Personally, I think we are talking about a project for a market that really isn't there. I have an old P120, the one that I ran my router on. IMHO, I have much better uses of it than having it route packets for me (quite noisily I might add), especially when, for $70, I can get a Router/Firewall/Print Server (which is also SILENT).
Damn, Steve Jobs was on top of things here. He hit the nail on the head and could be considered be 100% right about what he said. Just some of the things he thought:I have to admit - his last point is very good, they had a very narrow market at the start, which alone let it get slammed. From the article:Think about it. Why is one of the biggest reasons that the Segway is slammed? No one has gotten on one. Hell, I would guess very few of us have seen one in person. I saw one briefly, but didn't get a good look at it. I have heard the "It sucks, it sucks", but I don't see a lot of people out there who have used one that could give a solid review of it. There is a little scooter place in the shopping center near my place that does all they can to get their scooters seen. Just from watching people ride them, I have a better feel for what those scooters can do than a Segway.
RonB
What I love about the way brandido wrote it was:
But that isn't true. He had seen Ginger a day earlier and had time to reflect on the whole thing. He thought it was solid, but lacked a look that people would be drawn to. The quote should have had this additional thought added to it But instead he wanted to go for the shock value. Somehow this appearing on
Of course if they lose this one, they will lose others. It could be bad too - it would be the end of the internet!
Um, I doubt that.
RonB
The Bounty Hunters are the best part of this whole story. Personally, I think this story just got good.
RonB
Well after the lawsuits from those you layoff...
But seriously, that is a whole new can of worms. But you do raise a big issue - is the real issue with ageism just a way to have cheaper labor. Then again, we are still just talking what I mentioned in my other message - if you are willing to sacrifice quality workers for things like lower wage staff, hiring your friends and having a staff that is more in your age bracket, ultimately you are just hurting your own business.
RonB
Yea, I agree - this has been covered a number of years. While there may be a new article on it, this is old news.
Fact is, ageism exists, but I don't think it is nearly as big of a deal as it was before. During the dot.com era, companies were formed by cliques, and having similarly aged people was very common. I think now, many companies have come to their senses and are fielding the best people they can find, regardless of age. Those that aren't, are just looking at another dot.com like belly up. Of course that is just my opinion.
RonB
IMHO, I think that kids who want to program will learn to program. I mean, the kids who learned everything about their computer 10 years ago didn't do it because the tools were there. The computer was something that interested them and they soaked up all they could when they could. The same is still true.
That all said - I agree, some of the beginning tools are not there in the sense that you no longer have DOS with BASIC. But in another way, you have so much more. Now these kids have the internet to get all their tools. This is where I think the author or the article is missing something - free SDKs are being DLed, and the real wiz kids are learning how to program in much more robust languages than BASIC. Because of such, I really don't see a need for Toy Languages.
RonB
Hey, dropping my Orc in the sea today, dropping my money in his bank account tomorrow.
Fact is - cracking/hacking whatever - if done on a system that is not yours for the most part is ILLEGAL.
RonB
I bet you post a lot of ME TOOs on the USENET.
RonB
Up, down, sideways. Does it really matter? I mean:
1- this book only goes to 1995. What about post 1995? In terms of the computer industry, that might well be two whole epochs.
2- this is only told from one side. If it had a few authors, it might be a better view, but this is just one guy, giving HIS perspective.
Sorry, but I think I will wait for the movie.
RonB
That isn't the point. Fact of the matter is that we are comparing DVD and VOD. DVD = owning, VOD = renting.
Sure, having net storage is cool - but basically the same thing.
But don't forget - HDs crash.
RonB
RonB
Yea, I agree, this article was a bit short sighted. I mean DVDs and for that matter - hard media (like Videos before the), have a quality about them that is EXTREMELY popular. Forget the movie watching, DVDs are popular because of the extras that come with them. Things like that would never be popular or really even useful with VOD. I expect DVDs to be around for years, maybe with some minor changes.
RonB
Just something to consider between WiFi and Dot.coms was that one of the biggest reasons that Dot.coms failed was that they were companies who got money and had no real product or service to offer. Dot.coms were built on speculation of, well nothing, and that is why investors were burned.
Now look at WiFi which is something real and tangible. Sure, some of these companies could be gone very soon, but hey, they at least are offering something that we know is real, or working to offer something. This is where I think that we see a major difference.
Again, will some fail, sure, but it will be very different, 1- because these are companies that are making an effort to make a real business. And 2- it is not like we have a whole freaking economy built on this. This is very small, compared to dot.coms who had hundreds of billions invested, and commanded a huge market share.
RonB
Not including the start and select.
RonB
Is that kind of like humor and this article?
RonB
And I thought you were going to say that it prevents you from getting .... FIRST POSTS!!!
RonB
IMHO, what he/she (and anyone else in this situation) should do is updated their AUP and TOS etc and basically have them all say:
I agree with many of the arguments made, but he is providing a service, a service that the users do not have to use. I say impliment policies such as the above, and then let the users decide if they want to stay on with them or not.
RonB
RonB
Perhaps the best solution would be to impliment a flat rate that under which, you would just pay a set amount per month. If you exceeded this, then you would pay on a burst billing method for the bandwidth beyond that.
The real question becomes where do you set the line? But that could be determined by the average user usage, perhaps a study could be done over the course of a few months to see where people fall on this whole thing.
RonB