When I lived in Midland, MI (home to Dow and Dow Corning) 'silicon' wasn't uncommon in casual conversations, particularly in a city of 40,000 with a large engineering population. Dow Corning, besides silicone compounds also provides silicon to a local company literally in the sticks, Hemlock Semiconductor. Some nice stuff on their site regarding products, 1, 2
I'd always thought these materials were made in hot, dry climates, like Arizona, yet there was a supplier right in my backyard.
'wage arbritrage' as called by our CEO is only a short term trend and will only go so far.
Think it's only private sector work? Thing again, the IRS has thousands of idians doing tax work and will increase it. If you've ever complained bitterly about the people you had to talk to about your tax issues, well, maybe the IRS heard you.
Outsourcing everything to India was in vogue around '97 or '98. It didn't work then and it's not going to work now. But everyone forgets the problems and history repeats itself.
And probably one of the main reasons was they weren't ready for it. Now they are and as one indian service provider stated, they've worked to improve their product. Even getting the indian workers to adopt western names, 'Shawn', 'Jessica' etc. and working on pronounciation. While these may seem to be minor, consider the last time you had a grad student lecturing for the instructor of a college course and you couldn't understand a word he said (real teachers don't teach, they get grunts to do it and are actually working on grant projects or university fundraising, those who can't, do teach)
Power and communications were a problem, now these people who own and run the companies have their own generators and satellite communications systems.
Don't assume they didn't learn something and everything is as bad as it was. Dell's failure may well be attributed to only one service vendor who wasn't as polished as others.
They still serve a very important purpose for many businesses: Multipart form printing.
Another practical use, is source code printed on fan-fold, tractor-fed paper. I've been adjusting to tryint to manage large chunks of code only in a small window, but when you have to check something further down the current section, it gets really annoying. Code printed on sheets, from a laser printer, is just about as irritating. Nothing beats seeing code on one continuous strand of paper.
As far as tubes, I've got two tube amps (one for guitar) and a couple tuners. Nice stuff.
Regarding digital watches, my father got a gold TI LED watch for retirement. It never looked elegant and I eventually sprung for a decent swiss watch. I suppose if he wore his TI digital it would really draw attention, problem is it requires frequent battery changes.
And they could lump cassette and 8-track with reel to reel. I can't even find pre-recorded tapes at the music stores, but go to an indian market and they're all over the place.
Games being often programmed for critical specifics probably aren't going to move well, if at all. Too many bases to cover at too much of a cost. Microsoft is obviously making a break for their own reasons, though so new to the game such a radical change I'd sum up thusly:
"Microsoft, having cut one hand off with the saw, found they no longer could wield the saw to cut off their other hand, and declared it a victory."
He was a risk taker though, and clearly scuba diving is dangerous if you have emphasema (sp?).
He died, IIRC, after a basketball game. Ruptured aorta, I think. Something that happens to tall people on occasion and Douglas was 6'4" (also, IIRC)
I did have the great fortune to meet him (and Terry Jones) at a reading (Startship Titanic) in Larkspur, CA several years ago. A truly entertaining fellow to listen to. I wonder how much recorded, documentary style footage there is of him.
One thing I'll pass along, and pardon me for not wording it exactly as he had: WWW has to be the longest to pronounce, as an acronym of what it stands for. Double-U-Double-U-Double-U, that's 9 syllables, while World Wide Web has only 3. Why don't they call it something shorter, like Triple-U?
Pretty sad, I've only got 2 out of the whole list, and I'm a voracious reader, though apparently not
of their list.
Monstrous Regiment: OK, but not his best
Wee Free Men: Better than MR
(pTerry's next book, A Hat Full of Sky will be out in a couple months.)
Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams, M.J. Simpson (Hodder & Stoughton; Justin Charles & Co.)
Not sure I'd read this, I took a swing at Salmon of doubt but didn't find much interesting I hadn't already seen before in there. A good read from a while back, and recently re-issued in hardcover: Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
I picked a paperback copy up in Cambridge, ten years ago and found it a great read.
(Currently reading The Soong Dynasty (non-fiction) by Sterling Seagrave, alternately with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (fiction) by Robt. Heinlein, interesting combination as both address revolutions.)
Now Intel just changed their 64-bit plans, and all of a sudden this appears. Speculate away!"
I speculate in a couple days Microsoft will deny this release exists, as they suddenly pull it to give their old cartel partner a chance to catch up and save face.
Consider this:
Microsoft has an evaluation operating system for the Yamhill before Intel actually ships. That doesn't just look like they've been playing patty-cake, but that Intel is running to keep up with AMD. How embarrassing. What's Moore's Law got to say about this? "Every 2 years Intel will get a little further behind where they need to be, by an ever increasing margin until operating systems exists for processors they haven't even designed yet."
Why, didn't you expect him to actually learn anything?
Didn't Bill Gates attend Harvard for a couple years?
Seems like some sort of trend, people of a sort gravitating towards Harvard. You might shudder about that...
Seems that Microsoft is still offering BIG patches this fix is 2.8mb ! damm, just for a link problem I don't know if they included a new clippy bmp in that ?!?!:)
10K bug fix
2.799M new bugs
(I typed this already, but after downloading the patch my computer froze up and I'm having to retype it.)
I can't take credit for this, as I saw it on slashdot once: "64,000 bugs in the code, 64,000 bugs, whack one back with a service pack, 64,008 bugs in the code."
but if a offshore ISP doesn't do anything accept send spam and faces being blacklisted because they ignore their bills,
Here's something for you to consider. Who the heck died and made you the tax collector for the world? That's exactly what they'll be saying to Microsoft and Yahoo. This approach would be excedingly painful to negotiate, worse, most of the open relays aren't great big machines, but zombies and small servers with lax security.
A couple years back some sh!t hit the fan regarding Bill Jones run for office in California. Seems some Campaign email was routed through a elementary school computer in Korea. What are you going to do? Send them a bill and have Microsoft or Yahoo goons shut down the school when they don't pay it?
What's needed is cooperation, not this loopy strategy.
Blacklist/Whitelist or roll out a new standard and have major ISP's switch over and at some point block old SMTP Problem solved.
ah... but if spammer x sends a boatload of herbal viagra offers under bob's relay and bob gets a bill... then when they do catch spammer x he can be nabbed under wire fraud laws and be open to all sorts of tasty civil action.
That's naive. You know Ralsky and the like use open relays around the world. He's even contracted some in China. You might tighten a net at best, but eventually you come back to the problem of trying to bill non-USA service providers. Lotsa luck. At best you encourage them to clean up their open relays and implement some decent security, lest their IP traffic be blocked at the border. But this should already be happening. Start locking these things out and they'll get around to fixing things pronto.
They stand to make huge profits because they host the inboxes of millions of users. Every email received at those accounts would invoice the sender. It's a no brainer for BARRELS OF CASH !!! (tm)
Someone also has to provide software and systems to meter and invoice email. Gee, who could that be...
Geez. Why the heck can't these fat-walleted companies fork over a few bucks or a few of their own employees to help the local and federal government bust some heads? All I see is talk-talk-talk. Let's get some action and stop it with these stupid schemes. Seriously, the purveyors of spam are fraudsters, can't they be reigned in on that alone?
Oh, maybe if the postage goes to further line the pockets of M'soft and Y'hoo, as a likin worked, I can see their true motivation.
So, it's not as bas as "The Importance of" makes it out to seem.
Isn't it? Suppose the cybercafe logs your keystrokes. Suppose they associate a face with a particular workstation and what was typed on the workstation. Suppose there's an Act which goes to the absurd length of requiring librarians to keep track of who reads what. Connect the dots. Garden Grove may well be a bastion of conservatives, it appears to be in Orange County, which is probably the most conservative corner of the state of California.
"There he is, the tall goofy looking one, always on that subversive website, writing critiques of party and patriotic goverment policy. How dare he abuse constitutional right!"
If you read his answers, its pretty clear they have free access to the internet right now.
Indeed. And they're a very religious country -- which means "if I'm doing it, it's OK, if someone else is doing it, it's bad and there oughta be a law against it." Have no fear, they'll probably get around to a massively restrictive system once the mullahs gain political power and control. They could probably learn from Iran and China, how to limit access and spy on people.
Don't just think of the USA (though there's a strong predisposition to that topic.) Other gulf states, Europe, South Africa, South America, Canada and China are logical desitinations beside the USA. If they could live well and scrape together enough to send home a few hundred bucks home each month you bet they'll take it.
Back in the late 70's there were a lot of middle eastern students in US schools. When the iranian revolution happened quite a few went home, but many stayed. I know a few who have prospered very well, where they wouldn't have done well or died fighting Iraq if they went home.
The same sort of thing coule be happening again, though pressured by need rather than social upheaval.
In all seriousness though, it's nice to have a little bit different viewpoint of life in Baghdad. I really thought that everyone must be staying home all day long, afraid to leave their homes, given the way the US media reports the conditions there.
Doubtfully they're exporting, yet, as most of this stuff is coming from Taiwan, through Dubai. If you wanted to actually order from some shop on Sana'a Street you'd probably pay a ton in postage, get nailed with import duties, and it may never arrive.
Even needing to go so far as printing handbills advitising prices for local consumption is probably overkill. I would love to see some digital photos *hint* *hint* of this street and some shops.
As far as the media goes, Mr. Bremmer needs to get some people on the ground from CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, etc and show the people back home how it's going. Though it might be counter-productive as media may still be a terror magnet.
Of course, make sure you don't teach the Iraqis -too- well, or they might start outsourcing jobs there, too;)
I see the wink emoticon, but have you considered the alternative? A brain-drain for Iraq? If you read the article you'd see that Iraq has a lot of pretty intelligent C++ and vb programmers, plus lots of Unix experience. Consider that these very people may elect to leave Iraq for India, or other parts, to make more money than they can in Iraq. A brain-drain would be disasterous for Iraq, to say nothing of what it would mean for iLug.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd always thought these materials were made in hot, dry climates, like Arizona, yet there was a supplier right in my backyard.
Think it's only private sector work? Thing again, the IRS has thousands of idians doing tax work and will increase it. If you've ever complained bitterly about the people you had to talk to about your tax issues, well, maybe the IRS heard you.
And probably one of the main reasons was they weren't ready for it. Now they are and as one indian service provider stated, they've worked to improve their product. Even getting the indian workers to adopt western names, 'Shawn', 'Jessica' etc. and working on pronounciation. While these may seem to be minor, consider the last time you had a grad student lecturing for the instructor of a college course and you couldn't understand a word he said (real teachers don't teach, they get grunts to do it and are actually working on grant projects or university fundraising, those who can't, do teach)
Power and communications were a problem, now these people who own and run the companies have their own generators and satellite communications systems.
Don't assume they didn't learn something and everything is as bad as it was. Dell's failure may well be attributed to only one service vendor who wasn't as polished as others.
Same amount of keystrokes, but eight less syllables.
http://slashdot.org works and is what browsers seem to remember.
Another practical use, is source code printed on fan-fold, tractor-fed paper. I've been adjusting to tryint to manage large chunks of code only in a small window, but when you have to check something further down the current section, it gets really annoying. Code printed on sheets, from a laser printer, is just about as irritating. Nothing beats seeing code on one continuous strand of paper.
As far as tubes, I've got two tube amps (one for guitar) and a couple tuners. Nice stuff.
Regarding digital watches, my father got a gold TI LED watch for retirement. It never looked elegant and I eventually sprung for a decent swiss watch. I suppose if he wore his TI digital it would really draw attention, problem is it requires frequent battery changes.
And they could lump cassette and 8-track with reel to reel. I can't even find pre-recorded tapes at the music stores, but go to an indian market and they're all over the place.
"Microsoft, having cut one hand off with the saw, found they no longer could wield the saw to cut off their other hand, and declared it a victory."
He died, IIRC, after a basketball game. Ruptured aorta, I think. Something that happens to tall people on occasion and Douglas was 6'4" (also, IIRC)
I did have the great fortune to meet him (and Terry Jones) at a reading (Startship Titanic) in Larkspur, CA several years ago. A truly entertaining fellow to listen to. I wonder how much recorded, documentary style footage there is of him.
One thing I'll pass along, and pardon me for not wording it exactly as he had: WWW has to be the longest to pronounce, as an acronym of what it stands for. Double-U-Double-U-Double-U, that's 9 syllables, while World Wide Web has only 3. Why don't they call it something shorter, like Triple-U?
Monstrous Regiment: OK, but not his best
Wee Free Men: Better than MR
(pTerry's next book, A Hat Full of Sky will be out in a couple months.)
Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams, M.J. Simpson (Hodder & Stoughton; Justin Charles & Co.)
Not sure I'd read this, I took a swing at Salmon of doubt but didn't find much interesting I hadn't already seen before in there. A good read from a while back, and recently re-issued in hardcover: Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
I picked a paperback copy up in Cambridge, ten years ago and found it a great read.
(Currently reading The Soong Dynasty (non-fiction) by Sterling Seagrave, alternately with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (fiction) by Robt. Heinlein, interesting combination as both address revolutions.)
I speculate in a couple days Microsoft will deny this release exists, as they suddenly pull it to give their old cartel partner a chance to catch up and save face.
Consider this:
Microsoft has an evaluation operating system for the Yamhill before Intel actually ships. That doesn't just look like they've been playing patty-cake, but that Intel is running to keep up with AMD. How embarrassing. What's Moore's Law got to say about this? "Every 2 years Intel will get a little further behind where they need to be, by an ever increasing margin until operating systems exists for processors they haven't even designed yet."
Yeah, but then he'll just take some herbal vi@gra and grow back to 6'1", because everyone knows it makes pricks get bigger.
For all his success, why doesn't he sport a William Shatner(tm) Rug on that shiny dome?
Did anybody else shudder at the thought! :)
Why, didn't you expect him to actually learn anything?
Didn't Bill Gates attend Harvard for a couple years? Seems like some sort of trend, people of a sort gravitating towards Harvard. You might shudder about that...
"After the superbowl another sighting, a couple of boobies were spotted hanging out at Harvard."
10K bug fix
2.799M new bugs
(I typed this already, but after downloading the patch my computer froze up and I'm having to retype it.)
I can't take credit for this, as I saw it on slashdot once: "64,000 bugs in the code, 64,000 bugs, whack one back with a service pack, 64,008 bugs in the code."
Here's something for you to consider. Who the heck died and made you the tax collector for the world? That's exactly what they'll be saying to Microsoft and Yahoo. This approach would be excedingly painful to negotiate, worse, most of the open relays aren't great big machines, but zombies and small servers with lax security.
A couple years back some sh!t hit the fan regarding Bill Jones run for office in California. Seems some Campaign email was routed through a elementary school computer in Korea. What are you going to do? Send them a bill and have Microsoft or Yahoo goons shut down the school when they don't pay it?
What's needed is cooperation, not this loopy strategy.
Blacklist/Whitelist or roll out a new standard and have major ISP's switch over and at some point block old SMTP Problem solved.
That's naive. You know Ralsky and the like use open relays around the world. He's even contracted some in China. You might tighten a net at best, but eventually you come back to the problem of trying to bill non-USA service providers. Lotsa luck. At best you encourage them to clean up their open relays and implement some decent security, lest their IP traffic be blocked at the border. But this should already be happening. Start locking these things out and they'll get around to fixing things pronto.
Someone also has to provide software and systems to meter and invoice email. Gee, who could that be...
Oh, maybe if the postage goes to further line the pockets of M'soft and Y'hoo, as a likin worked, I can see their true motivation.
Isn't it? Suppose the cybercafe logs your keystrokes. Suppose they associate a face with a particular workstation and what was typed on the workstation. Suppose there's an Act which goes to the absurd length of requiring librarians to keep track of who reads what. Connect the dots. Garden Grove may well be a bastion of conservatives, it appears to be in Orange County, which is probably the most conservative corner of the state of California.
Nothing increases the reported incidences of crime like noticing it.
"There he is, the tall goofy looking one, always on that subversive website, writing critiques of party and patriotic goverment policy. How dare he abuse constitutional right!"
Indeed. And they're a very religious country -- which means "if I'm doing it, it's OK, if someone else is doing it, it's bad and there oughta be a law against it." Have no fear, they'll probably get around to a massively restrictive system once the mullahs gain political power and control. They could probably learn from Iran and China, how to limit access and spy on people.
Back in the late 70's there were a lot of middle eastern students in US schools. When the iranian revolution happened quite a few went home, but many stayed. I know a few who have prospered very well, where they wouldn't have done well or died fighting Iraq if they went home.
The same sort of thing coule be happening again, though pressured by need rather than social upheaval.
In all seriousness though, it's nice to have a little bit different viewpoint of life in Baghdad. I really thought that everyone must be staying home all day long, afraid to leave their homes, given the way the US media reports the conditions there.
Doubtfully they're exporting, yet, as most of this stuff is coming from Taiwan, through Dubai. If you wanted to actually order from some shop on Sana'a Street you'd probably pay a ton in postage, get nailed with import duties, and it may never arrive.
Even needing to go so far as printing handbills advitising prices for local consumption is probably overkill. I would love to see some digital photos *hint* *hint* of this street and some shops.
As far as the media goes, Mr. Bremmer needs to get some people on the ground from CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, etc and show the people back home how it's going. Though it might be counter-productive as media may still be a terror magnet.
I see the wink emoticon, but have you considered the alternative? A brain-drain for Iraq? If you read the article you'd see that Iraq has a lot of pretty intelligent C++ and vb programmers, plus lots of Unix experience. Consider that these very people may elect to leave Iraq for India, or other parts, to make more money than they can in Iraq. A brain-drain would be disasterous for Iraq, to say nothing of what it would mean for iLug.