Even better than gobbledygook - it's refined jabberwocky. They obviously took (and passed) FUD 403.a and followed with VCA 221.b (Venture Capital-speak Ambiguity), though I can't tell if they passed that one.
The GTX site hasn't been updated since 2004 and is co-located with a lot of very non-technical entertainment sites, according to Netcraft.
And then you get to the meat at the bottom of the press release:
This press release includes "safe harbor" language pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended, indicating that certain statements about the Company's business contained in the press releases are "forward-looking" rather than "historic." The press releases contain forward- looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties concerning GTX Global's expected financial performance (as described without limitation in quotations from management in the press release), as well as GTX Global's strategic and operational plans. Actual results may differ materially from the results predicted and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance.
I feel like I need to take a shower after reading that.
If they can a) back the claim to have beaten GMail and b) demonstrate an understanding of how to maintain their competitive advantage *after* GMail is out of Beta, _then_ I will be more interested in paying attention to either crying "We're #1!"
We already know Wal-Mart is bad for small business, merchant exploitation, competition, and even larger suppliers, so I am in favor of anything that might allow good companies like Vlasic retain their ability to meet profit margins and pay their workers. I personally abhor and refuse to visit any of the Wally World constructs (or any of the other Mega-Lo-Marts) in favor of internet shopping and my wife's constant pursuit of the 1/2 price grocery store trip via coupon and sale shopping (not there yet, but getting closer). I also encourage anyone I work with or hang with to do the same, pointing out the examples above and following with the straight-forward explanation of how our family manages to avoid the ninth level of Hell.
My opinion is based part on the characters not being scifi and part based on their depth (or lack of) - which I admit makes my caveat ironic considering Croft is from a video game. The Croft movies, while campy, projected the character with more substance: that may be a factor of Jolie being a decent actress (sometimes even gifted, like in "Gia", "Girl, Interrupted" and "Playing by Heart").
I just got more of a sense of self-worth and true character personality from Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) and Aeyrn Sun (Claudia Black) whenever I saw either show, and both seemed to grow with the depth of story lines from each season. If I had to choose role models from the mainstream visual media - as we must increasingly do - then I am drawn much more to these characters than to Buffy, Xena, and Lara Croft.
And I have had the opposite experience, so I have a feeling this particular issue has all kinds of contributing factors. Newer folks where I work have come to me asking about code that I wrote or updated as much as five years ago (and yes, I realize that five-year-old code can itself be a little disturbing), but I usually need just a couple of minutes to recall what was going on and why. The reason: comments.
This may be stereotyping - and if it is, please forgive my generalization - but over the past few years I have seen a noticeable dearth of decent comments in the majority of code I review or get pulled in to fix. There are exceptions, but they are rarely where (and when) you need them. I should have put this in the original post, because upon further reflection I wonder if the lack of good documentation - in the code or in another repository - is also a contributing factor to a lot of half-assed patching.
This is all IMO, of course; I hope I see more of the exceptions than the rule.
Buffy?
Xena?
Lara Croft?
Ok, I'll grant a weak maybe on Lara Croft, but the first two as role models, nope sorry. Plus, as many have pointed out, none of the three are really scifi!
How about these instead: Samantha Carter Aeryn Sun
(I will grant that Claudia Black did guest on Xena once, but her integral role in Farscape should far and away excuse that transgression)
What we really need are more good role models in every genre, not just scifi, but that will get me on an offtopic rant...
John Crichton: That's my underwear!
Aeryn Sun: What does this say?
John Crichton: Calvin.
Aeryn Sun: Well, they're not yours...
One must also consider the possibility that the folks doing the coding and the quality assurance (SQA) may not be the original authors of the specific branch involved, and therefore did not have the proper experience level required to do the research and make the judgement calls. With the rumored turnover Microsoft has seen lately, I wonder if this is not a possibility?
More and more of the post-development activities (break/fix, SQA, implementation/packaging, etc.) for software are happening in little bubbles, somewhat removed from the core competency group that created the original code. We even see this touted as the right way to do things from sources that are considered to experts in the process + workflow arena (well, some folks consider them experts, anyway). When this becomes the standard operating procedure, any company runs the risk of bad patches to any kind of software: you can not limit the culpability to Microsoft.
My bubble shielding me from reality just burst! OMG! Linux will not rule the world?!?!?
Seriously, two points:
- an opinion on InfoWorld is not exactly gospel;
- even though the Linux kernel and all the associated applications make for a nice developer platform, they don't all mesh into something that every PC manufacturer wants to preload on their systems, nor something that a majority of the public wants to rush out and buy every time a version update is released. But why is that a bad thing? Linux and the rest of GNU are wonderful for those of us who want to develop on, maintain, or simply enjoy the use of a stable and flexible "platform". SFW - it never gets a huge market share, winds up directed by market-droids and Executive Vice Presidents in search of ridiculous yearly bonuses. I don't see the downside, as long as there are still folks who buy it for certain uses and license it for even more (not to mention those of us who test and contribute whenever time allows). Wasn't that a key tenet of GNU from the beginning... ?
I'm not done with Iron Sunrise yet, so I'll refrain (but it is really really good so far). I did finish Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and found the core story was imaginative and the characters were pretty engaging. I thought Strange was actually more distant in terms of visualization than Norrell - for some reason I could picture the latter and hear his voice much more readily than the supposedly more approachable and contemporary Strange. She didn't rush the story (even at page 800) and there were not any useless passages: everything had a bearing on at least one aspect of each storyline.
One book that is not mentioned here that I highly recommend is Dan Simmons' Ilium. This was a 12-hour read - problem was, it was 12 straight hours because I couldn't put the damn thing down!!
Congress currently limits NASA to awarding prizes of $250,000 or less. The space agency is lobbying lawmakers for the authority to increase the limit to as much as $40 million. That would allow the Centennial Challenges program to set up competitions for more-advanced projects, like a human orbital flight.
The longer the government stays involved in NASA, the less the chances of NASA having successful missions and regaining achievement through innovation and daring. As long as Congress holds the reigns (and the pursestrings), NASA will be hampered by inefficient bureaucracy and meddling from unqualified naysayers. The XPrize is proof that it's time for government to exit this area of scientific examination and for philanthropists and concerned businesses to take control.
Just my $0.02, not counting inflation or exchange rates
EDS has been obsessed with being everything to everyone, and this is just another facet to the multiplicitous facade. Once they get someone to buy into either end of the argument, they get their consulting wing fully embedded in the customer and then suck them dry like a vampire on steroids (but not the kind of steroids that make you hit home runs... no... the kind that makes you into an egotistical shmuck who feels impervious to the ridicule from such factions of reality as customer satisfaction and cost controls). Please, just spare us any more stories about EDS and their views on Linux!
> Meantime, Fisher said many colleagues on the Anne Arundel County police force have found their own solution: They carry cell phones in case their radios go dead.
so that being an option, why not have the cell companies take over administration of all the systems in these ranges, subcontracted thru local government offices? have the companies then manage (and be liable for) the need for non-overlapping frequencies separating critical traffic from the general public. especially the ones that shouldn't be driving and yapping on a cell phone as they hurtle through traffic (you know who you are!!!)
and yes, i know this puts a consumer-driven entity in charge of systems that are depended upon by lcoal/stage/regional entities, but hasn't private enterprise often proven its ability to manage complex systems a tad better than the government? could be a re-birth of telecom spending and contracts (which could mean jobs, more bottom-line investing, more attention on the nation's eroding infrastructure...)
whenever a company gives you a chance to Opt Out, take it, no matter what the hassles. this keeps your personal information from getting into databases like this and ensures that even if - as in this case - the information "owner" denies accountability, you still have some protection from recent state and federal legislation.
Check out Foucault's Pendulum, which has to be one of the most non-tech story lines revolving around technology and science I've ever run across. It's a challenge, but a worthy one, and an incredible read.
is the fact that the perfect movie has only 10pc plot, and the only thing that rates lower is the music. seems a sad reflection on the industry as a whole.
the poll there on the site for the best movie doesn't seem to follow that sentiment, which is very encouraging - at least the viewers want something more than 10pc plot!
we tried sun linux 5 and put it up against ...
on
Sun Drops Linux Distro
·
· Score: 2, Informative
suse 8.1 and redhat 8.0 - found absolutely nothing special except a couple of tweaks for the LX-50 series rackmount that you can easily emulate with a couple of recent kernel patches (and you don't even need those for suse 8.1 since it's on 2.4.19). in fact, running apache, tomcat, and coldfusion on suse 8.1 was a breeze and performed better than a lot of the other combos and platforms we tested.
it's good that sun should drop this idea and spend more time on the x86 Solaris build which still has it's niche market. especially since the 280Rs are still unreliable... what the hell was the software group thinking? be nice if they'd post here and clue us in on both of those aborted initiatives.
some of my daughter's stinky flatulence to aid in the research. she drinks soy milk and eats soy cheese (milk allergies are fun to plan around) and she *definitely* has an odor all her own. anyone got any ideas on the best way to pass along some samples to DARPA? i'd hate to choose a container that failed to retain the potency:-D
ummm, where did you get the information that i am american, much less racist? besides, i'd say the exact same thing if Bill & Co. wanted to share the source code with Israel. and it really needs to be shared with countries that don't just happen to have an incredible emerging market and a legion of software engineers - why leave out the U.K., Latin America, and South Africa? economics must not overrule prudence, lest we descend into the disasterous downward spiral of letting corporations make decisions without recompense.
besides, you'd be just as incensed if your premier consulting firm suddenly decided to share their project code with North Korea, who has been shipping nuclear delivery methods and materials to many countries, including your beloved neighbors in Paktistan. keep it in perspective here...
... they aren't willing to share source code in the U.S. for "security" reasons, but they are willing to pass on the source code to a country in the midst of a volatile conflict with a growing nuclear weapons program...
and so now it's friday the 13th per GMT. maybe this is a fitting time to run the story...
... and a purchaser of serveral large PO's for business in my area, i have always found Dell to be top quality, pretty Linux (at least SuSE) friendly, and offering great support options. i see no reason why their PDA offering would be any different, and i'm honestly curious to see just how Dell's track record with servers, desktops, and appliances translates to a rather specific market full of *very* picky users.
that said, i'm a skeptic, and with Palm and Clie and Zaurus out there, Dell is going to have to be damn near perfect in their first offering, otherwise it's just a foray into a fashion trend like the Web PC.
that list of *NIX platforms already has an answer to passport - liberty. i may have my negative opinions about IBM and Sun at times, and don't get me started about RH, but i place a lot more faith in their stability and security, and i know they'll answer answer the phone when we have a security issue that has to be fixed 30 minutes ago. i don't feel comfortable ever saying that about Microsoft.
Slashdot Mirror
The GTX site hasn't been updated since 2004 and is co-located with a lot of very non-technical entertainment sites, according to Netcraft.
The Vizco site is hosted in a house in a remote part of Charlotte, NC, and doesn't appear to have much substance to it yet. Since it's a TWC subnet, I would hazard a guess that it's a cable modem's static IP address hooked to someone's cheap-ass Windoze machine.
And then you get to the meat at the bottom of the press release:
I feel like I need to take a shower after reading that.
&laz;
If they can a) back the claim to have beaten GMail and b) demonstrate an understanding of how to maintain their competitive advantage *after* GMail is out of Beta, _then_ I will be more interested in paying attention to either crying "We're #1!"
We already know Wal-Mart is bad for small business, merchant exploitation, competition, and even larger suppliers, so I am in favor of anything that might allow good companies like Vlasic retain their ability to meet profit margins and pay their workers. I personally abhor and refuse to visit any of the Wally World constructs (or any of the other Mega-Lo-Marts) in favor of internet shopping and my wife's constant pursuit of the 1/2 price grocery store trip via coupon and sale shopping (not there yet, but getting closer). I also encourage anyone I work with or hang with to do the same, pointing out the examples above and following with the straight-forward explanation of how our family manages to avoid the ninth level of Hell.
My opinion is based part on the characters not being scifi and part based on their depth (or lack of) - which I admit makes my caveat ironic considering Croft is from a video game. The Croft movies, while campy, projected the character with more substance: that may be a factor of Jolie being a decent actress (sometimes even gifted, like in "Gia", "Girl, Interrupted" and "Playing by Heart").
I just got more of a sense of self-worth and true character personality from Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) and Aeyrn Sun (Claudia Black) whenever I saw either show, and both seemed to grow with the depth of story lines from each season. If I had to choose role models from the mainstream visual media - as we must increasingly do - then I am drawn much more to these characters than to Buffy, Xena, and Lara Croft.
And I have had the opposite experience, so I have a feeling this particular issue has all kinds of contributing factors. Newer folks where I work have come to me asking about code that I wrote or updated as much as five years ago (and yes, I realize that five-year-old code can itself be a little disturbing), but I usually need just a couple of minutes to recall what was going on and why. The reason: comments.
This may be stereotyping - and if it is, please forgive my generalization - but over the past few years I have seen a noticeable dearth of decent comments in the majority of code I review or get pulled in to fix. There are exceptions, but they are rarely where (and when) you need them. I should have put this in the original post, because upon further reflection I wonder if the lack of good documentation - in the code or in another repository - is also a contributing factor to a lot of half-assed patching.
This is all IMO, of course; I hope I see more of the exceptions than the rule.
Xena?
Lara Croft?
Ok, I'll grant a weak maybe on Lara Croft, but the first two as role models, nope sorry. Plus, as many have pointed out, none of the three are really scifi!
How about these instead:
Samantha Carter
Aeryn Sun
(I will grant that Claudia Black did guest on Xena once, but her integral role in Farscape should far and away excuse that transgression)
What we really need are more good role models in every genre, not just scifi, but that will get me on an offtopic rant
One must also consider the possibility that the folks doing the coding and the quality assurance (SQA) may not be the original authors of the specific branch involved, and therefore did not have the proper experience level required to do the research and make the judgement calls. With the rumored turnover Microsoft has seen lately, I wonder if this is not a possibility?
More and more of the post-development activities (break/fix, SQA, implementation/packaging, etc.) for software are happening in little bubbles, somewhat removed from the core competency group that created the original code. We even see this touted as the right way to do things from sources that are considered to experts in the process + workflow arena (well, some folks consider them experts, anyway). When this becomes the standard operating procedure, any company runs the risk of bad patches to any kind of software: you can not limit the culpability to Microsoft.
*fss...*
... ?
My bubble shielding me from reality just burst! OMG! Linux will not rule the world?!?!?
Seriously, two points:
- an opinion on InfoWorld is not exactly gospel;
- even though the Linux kernel and all the associated applications make for a nice developer platform, they don't all mesh into something that every PC manufacturer wants to preload on their systems, nor something that a majority of the public wants to rush out and buy every time a version update is released. But why is that a bad thing? Linux and the rest of GNU are wonderful for those of us who want to develop on, maintain, or simply enjoy the use of a stable and flexible "platform". SFW - it never gets a huge market share, winds up directed by market-droids and Executive Vice Presidents in search of ridiculous yearly bonuses. I don't see the downside, as long as there are still folks who buy it for certain uses and license it for even more (not to mention those of us who test and contribute whenever time allows). Wasn't that a key tenet of GNU from the beginning
My $0.02, adjusted for inflation
I'm not done with Iron Sunrise yet, so I'll refrain (but it is really really good so far). I did finish Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and found the core story was imaginative and the characters were pretty engaging. I thought Strange was actually more distant in terms of visualization than Norrell - for some reason I could picture the latter and hear his voice much more readily than the supposedly more approachable and contemporary Strange. She didn't rush the story (even at page 800) and there were not any useless passages: everything had a bearing on at least one aspect of each storyline.
One book that is not mentioned here that I highly recommend is Dan Simmons' Ilium. This was a 12-hour read - problem was, it was 12 straight hours because I couldn't put the damn thing down!!
Actually, this one looks suspicously non-Mac ...
a llery_12250_11_18161.html (me pops for goodness)
... anyone out there tweaking OSX to look like XP? If so, do you need a free psych consult?
http://files.macbidouille.com/transparent/pages/g
A System Tray and Recycle Bin on a Mac
The only thing I want to see through a transparent screen is very likely NSWF and therefore extremely counter-productive.
Congress currently limits NASA to awarding prizes of $250,000 or less. The space agency is lobbying lawmakers for the authority to increase the limit to as much as $40 million. That would allow the Centennial Challenges program to set up competitions for more-advanced projects, like a human orbital flight.
The longer the government stays involved in NASA, the less the chances of NASA having successful missions and regaining achievement through innovation and daring. As long as Congress holds the reigns (and the pursestrings), NASA will be hampered by inefficient bureaucracy and meddling from unqualified naysayers. The XPrize is proof that it's time for government to exit this area of scientific examination and for philanthropists and concerned businesses to take control.
Just my $0.02, not counting inflation or exchange rates
EDS has been obsessed with being everything to everyone, and this is just another facet to the multiplicitous facade. Once they get someone to buy into either end of the argument, they get their consulting wing fully embedded in the customer and then suck them dry like a vampire on steroids (but not the kind of steroids that make you hit home runs ... no ... the kind that makes you into an egotistical shmuck who feels impervious to the ridicule from such factions of reality as customer satisfaction and cost controls). Please, just spare us any more stories about EDS and their views on Linux!
> Meantime, Fisher said many colleagues on the Anne Arundel County police force have found their own solution: They carry cell phones in case their radios go dead.
...)
so that being an option, why not have the cell companies take over administration of all the systems in these ranges, subcontracted thru local government offices? have the companies then manage (and be liable for) the need for non-overlapping frequencies separating critical traffic from the general public. especially the ones that shouldn't be driving and yapping on a cell phone as they hurtle through traffic (you know who you are!!!)
and yes, i know this puts a consumer-driven entity in charge of systems that are depended upon by lcoal/stage/regional entities, but hasn't private enterprise often proven its ability to manage complex systems a tad better than the government? could be a re-birth of telecom spending and contracts (which could mean jobs, more bottom-line investing, more attention on the nation's eroding infrastructure
whenever a company gives you a chance to Opt Out, take it, no matter what the hassles. this keeps your personal information from getting into databases like this and ensures that even if - as in this case - the information "owner" denies accountability, you still have some protection from recent state and federal legislation.
...
sometimes it's good to use the system
Check out Foucault's Pendulum, which has to be one of the most non-tech story lines revolving around technology and science I've ever run across. It's a challenge, but a worthy one, and an incredible read.
is the fact that the perfect movie has only 10pc plot, and the only thing that rates lower is the music. seems a sad reflection on the industry as a whole.
the poll there on the site for the best movie doesn't seem to follow that sentiment, which is very encouraging - at least the viewers want something more than 10pc plot!
suse 8.1 and redhat 8.0 - found absolutely nothing special except a couple of tweaks for the LX-50 series rackmount that you can easily emulate with a couple of recent kernel patches (and you don't even need those for suse 8.1 since it's on 2.4.19). in fact, running apache, tomcat, and coldfusion on suse 8.1 was a breeze and performed better than a lot of the other combos and platforms we tested.
... what the hell was the software group thinking? be nice if they'd post here and clue us in on both of those aborted initiatives.
it's good that sun should drop this idea and spend more time on the x86 Solaris build which still has it's niche market. especially since the 280Rs are still unreliable
that arnold has opted out of this one ... ?
... ?
please?
anyone
oh, drat!
some of my daughter's stinky flatulence to aid in the research. she drinks soy milk and eats soy cheese (milk allergies are fun to plan around) and she *definitely* has an odor all her own. anyone got any ideas on the best way to pass along some samples to DARPA? i'd hate to choose a container that failed to retain the potency :-D
ummm, where did you get the information that i am american, much less racist? besides, i'd say the exact same thing if Bill & Co. wanted to share the source code with Israel. and it really needs to be shared with countries that don't just happen to have an incredible emerging market and a legion of software engineers - why leave out the U.K., Latin America, and South Africa? economics must not overrule prudence, lest we descend into the disasterous downward spiral of letting corporations make decisions without recompense.
...
besides, you'd be just as incensed if your premier consulting firm suddenly decided to share their project code with North Korea, who has been shipping nuclear delivery methods and materials to many countries, including your beloved neighbors in Paktistan. keep it in perspective here
... they aren't willing to share source code in the U.S. for "security" reasons, but they are willing to pass on the source code to a country in the midst of a volatile conflict with a growing nuclear weapons program ...
...
and so now it's friday the 13th per GMT. maybe this is a fitting time to run the story
... and a purchaser of serveral large PO's for business in my area, i have always found Dell to be top quality, pretty Linux (at least SuSE) friendly, and offering great support options. i see no reason why their PDA offering would be any different, and i'm honestly curious to see just how Dell's track record with servers, desktops, and appliances translates to a rather specific market full of *very* picky users.
that said, i'm a skeptic, and with Palm and Clie and Zaurus out there, Dell is going to have to be damn near perfect in their first offering, otherwise it's just a foray into a fashion trend like the Web PC.
how UT would be *very* real in 3D :)
that list of *NIX platforms already has an answer to passport - liberty. i may have my negative opinions about IBM and Sun at times, and don't get me started about RH, but i place a lot more faith in their stability and security, and i know they'll answer answer the phone when we have a security issue that has to be fixed 30 minutes ago. i don't feel comfortable ever saying that about Microsoft.
is FUD has spread to the Register, which i usually associate with something pretty close to reality in an information source. bummer.
more info and yet another point of view at Bill's RadioParadise (scroll down to the comments section).