Everybody knows damn well why IBM doesn't have so many young people pursuing z/OS training.
At one point, IBM mainframes and their work-alikes were almost synonymous with enterprise computing. Today, that is far indeed from being the case. They're still interesting and useful, but part of a specialized niche market.
There are plenty of good reasons to learn mainframe technology, but given that the architecture, operating system, heck... everything! are completely proprietary and the knowledge you accumulate is generally not practical any place else (unlike the Unix world, for instance) there is a strong disincentive to "put your eggs all in one basket" and learn mainframe technology. What if IBM discontinues it in five or ten years. Worse, what if it's gone in 15 or 20 when you're too old and tired to learn new tricks?
I have a deep respect for IBM and its business practices (no really!) But not for the decisions they made surrounding their mainframes. Granted, I can't take potshots because most of this was done thirty or more years ago with no clue as to what the world would like today. Still, building to open standards has always been a sound truth. The more you rely on proprietary tech to lock your customers in -- however you justify it -- the more you ensure that sooner or later you will pay the heavy cost for doing so.
IBM built its own cage here (or, dug its own grave if you feel like being dramatic.)
Allow me a gross analogy in saying that SunnComm is a company that sells locks. You have admitted that SunnComm's first generation of locks were easily defeated. This is not the point you say. You aren't trying to build the "holy grail" of locks, because that's impossible.
But locks are judged on far more than just their effectiveness at keeping property safe. For example, if I spend 3000$ on bike because it weighs 15 pounds, I will definitely want a good lock. I will probably also be willing to spend a lot on it. But, no matter how effective or inexpensive, I will probably not be willing to buy a lock that weighs more than a few pounds.
Similarly, if SunnComm produces "locks" that prevent the owners of some property (even if it is "listening property") from the legitimate use of their property, these "locks" are unlikely to be a source of success for SunnComm or the interests it represents.
Maybe SunnComm already invests in some kind of "user acceptance" testing of their software. If so, I would highly suggest that they invest more and more seriously in this.
Peter, the rest of my note describes some of my deeper thoughts on these topics. I feel they might be interesting to you, so I spent the time to record them. Be warned: they aren't as pragmatic as my advice above. They're more in the category of forward-thinking philosophy.
Not so long ago, professional musicians earned commissions for their work to support themselves -- many other kinds of professional artistists still do. There was no such thing as a recording. For awhile, recordings could be bought and sold -- if we are to believe Adam Smith -- because they were scarce. It was hard to make a good sounding copy of a recording, if it were possible at all. With technology today, however, that scarcity is starting to diminish. I know this asks you to question the very tenets of your business, but ask yourself all the same: is this such a bad thing?
In a cents (ha!), the "value" (monetary, not artistic) of an artistist's work was *created* by the recording industry. Metallica are millionaires because they sold a million recordings to a million fans. If we were forced back to commissioning musicians, it is conceivable that Metallica would insist on a million dollars from fans before releasing a single new song... but unlikely. Instead, they'd probably just insist on what they need to survive comfortably. There wouldn't be many millionaire rockstars anymore. But there would probably be *many* more musicians since, after all, how much money does a musician really need to support themselves comfortably and how much money is the public willing to spend on music? Come to think of it... this is kind of like the rest of the art world! Artists are "starving" not because there isn't an audience for their art, but because the worth of their labor is primarily a function of the observer. Could it be the case that recordings presented an opportunity for an entire industry to spring up around music that specializes in adding perceived value to a piece of music? Might it also be the case that this was helped along by the fact that mass media outlets were, until recently, massively expensive? If anybody can cheaply copy a recording, and anybody can cheaply trumpet their love or hate of that recording, where is the value that the recording industry historically provided to the artist and consumers? It seems to me that their "value add" has become mighty slim. Did you see the NY Times article yesterday about the huge "value added" bonuses record companies are throwing into their CDs today? Nothing could better make my point.
The record industry is fond of pointing out that, without it, musicians could only become established as word-of-mouth phenomenons. I wonder if it isn't the other way around. If musicians become established through word-of-mouth, can the record industry continue to justify its existence? I am not a betting man, and I don't work in the record industry. It doesn't
While I like your general point, your specific argument is utterly ridiculous. I can't believe that somebody else on Slashdot hasn't called you on this.
"Princeton is the first of the vaunted Ivies to make this list at #21 (11.7%), and only because it is the one that behaves most like a small college. "
OK, so you are arguing that Princeton acts the most like a small liberal arts college BECAUSE IT PRODUCES THE MOST PHDs, BY PERCENTAGE OF GRADUATES?
Please tell me someone else finds this statement ridiculous. Since when is a PHD the end all and be all of a liberal arts education? Must one do research to be a well rounded individual?
I would almost prefer that you make your statistics by the percentage of grads that DON'T go into medicine, law, or investment banking. But even that would be silly.
For all the insulting that people do against the Useless News and Worthless Reports, they do a solid job of factoring in all the MANY facets of a school in reaching their final ranking. It is extremely dangerous to argue from a single statistic something as wide ranging as "acts the most like a small college".
But then, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You must be working for some small college that didn't make it to the top of that ranking.
But MSFT's "core business" is selling office productivity software-- not the OS!
Ok, there may be some philosophical points in here I don't care to argue, but I don't see how MSFT loses either way. They sell more Office X, or they continue their desktop monopoly.
But it makes sense enough this is just a pressue campaign to divert marketing dollars...
Actually, the forum this story was extracted from is pretty much geared towards only generating PR, and not scientific exchange. Attacking Farid and/or Dartmouth for this is silly... this is how institutions generate attention and money for grants.
But it is especially silly since he does such a bangup job of putting his technical work on-line:
Actually, I think the really different thing here is that Google, as a company, actually "gets it" when it comes to privacy concerns.
I feel strongly that most every other company on the internet would just install their toolbar, no questions asked... Microsoft isn't the only evil company in Seattle that does this, so does Real Networks! And so do many others.
What I see as insightful and great about how Google did things is that they felt they could provide a better service by using this information, BUT they realized that they had to ask my permission for that information FIRST, before they went ahead and started taking it from me.
We should be applauding Google, and asking other places to follow their lead... not raising an eyebrow, and much less a red flag...
I actually ran research experiments with human subjects using a prototype of the force feedback mouse Logitech is releasing last summer at Harvard's School of Public Health.
It has long been established in the literature that certain types of user interface tasks are more easily accomplished than others-- its a lot easier to target something (click on a button), than it is to steer something (navigate the start menu or a scroll pane).
That difficulty changes, however, when the input metaphor changes. For example, a steering wheel is a great input device for moving a scroll pane. We'd probably use steering wheels instead of mice if the only thing we needed to do with a computer was use scroll panes on web pages. (hmm... maybe I should ditch the mouse)
The great thing about these new mice is that, when programmed well, doing everyday stuff with your computer will get much nicer. Ever get tired of just missing the corner of a window when you're trying to resize? How about continually hitting the wrong program or option by just one a deep set of menus. What about just clicking on a link in a web page?
BUT if programmed poorly, force feedback UIs could be a real pain in the ass. How awful would it be to have to click on a button that continually repelled your mouse cursor? One of the most interesting preliminary results we saw was that, regardless of how much less comfortable a person was, having force feedback turned on improved a user's performance for their tasks. Meaning that, even when you're fighting repelling fields to get to your target, you're faster for having some kind of tactile feedback that when you have none at all... in the worst scenario this could mean companies having little incentive to get the force feedback UI right for their workers-- productivity increases regardless, so who cares?
All this is, of course, ongoing research and you should take my info with a big grain of salt. Incidentally, SensAble's phantom is cool, but the real force feedback work is going on at Immersion (www.immersion.com)... They're putting force feedback devices in everything from car stereos to the just-unveiled-in-Paris BMW concept cars. And their technology is what's inside the Logitech mouse.
I wonder if there are any serious scientific applications that could use this
I don't know about scientific applications, but I've always wanted to see someone build a card to accelerate physics in 3D games the same way graphics are accelerated. A lot of cards do geometry acceleration... why not put some of the most processor intensive physics calculation on the card too?
I'm too naive about this sort of thing to know exactly which calculations would benefit, but I bet you could make one hell of a billiards game or flight simulator with this kind of a card as your friend...
Slashdot Mirror
Everybody knows damn well why IBM doesn't have so many young people pursuing z/OS training.
At one point, IBM mainframes and their work-alikes were almost synonymous with enterprise computing. Today, that is far indeed from being the case. They're still interesting and useful, but part of a specialized niche market.
There are plenty of good reasons to learn mainframe technology, but given that the architecture, operating system, heck... everything! are completely proprietary and the knowledge you accumulate is generally not practical any place else (unlike the Unix world, for instance) there is a strong disincentive to "put your eggs all in one basket" and learn mainframe technology. What if IBM discontinues it in five or ten years. Worse, what if it's gone in 15 or 20 when you're too old and tired to learn new tricks?
I have a deep respect for IBM and its business practices (no really!) But not for the decisions they made surrounding their mainframes. Granted, I can't take potshots because most of this was done thirty or more years ago with no clue as to what the world would like today. Still, building to open standards has always been a sound truth. The more you rely on proprietary tech to lock your customers in -- however you justify it -- the more you ensure that sooner or later you will pay the heavy cost for doing so.
IBM built its own cage here (or, dug its own grave if you feel like being dramatic.)
Peter:
Allow me a gross analogy in saying that SunnComm is a company that sells locks. You have admitted that SunnComm's first generation of locks were easily defeated. This is not the point you say. You aren't trying to build the "holy grail" of locks, because that's impossible.
But locks are judged on far more than just their effectiveness at keeping property safe. For example, if I spend 3000$ on bike because it weighs 15 pounds, I will definitely want a good lock. I will probably also be willing to spend a lot on it. But, no matter how effective or inexpensive, I will probably not be willing to buy a lock that weighs more than a few pounds.
Similarly, if SunnComm produces "locks" that prevent the owners of some property (even if it is "listening property") from the legitimate use of their property, these "locks" are unlikely to be a source of success for SunnComm or the interests it represents.
Maybe SunnComm already invests in some kind of "user acceptance" testing of their software. If so, I would highly suggest that they invest more and more seriously in this.
Peter, the rest of my note describes some of my deeper thoughts on these topics. I feel they might be interesting to you, so I spent the time to record them. Be warned: they aren't as pragmatic as my advice above. They're more in the category of forward-thinking philosophy.
Not so long ago, professional musicians earned commissions for their work to support themselves -- many other kinds of professional artistists still do. There was no such thing as a recording. For awhile, recordings could be bought and sold -- if we are to believe Adam Smith -- because they were scarce. It was hard to make a good sounding copy of a recording, if it were possible at all. With technology today, however, that scarcity is starting to diminish. I know this asks you to question the very tenets of your business, but ask yourself all the same: is this such a bad thing?
In a cents (ha!), the "value" (monetary, not artistic) of an artistist's work was *created* by the recording industry. Metallica are millionaires because they sold a million recordings to a million fans. If we were forced back to commissioning musicians, it is conceivable that Metallica would insist on a million dollars from fans before releasing a single new song... but unlikely. Instead, they'd probably just insist on what they need to survive comfortably. There wouldn't be many millionaire rockstars anymore. But there would probably be *many* more musicians since, after all, how much money does a musician really need to support themselves comfortably and how much money is the public willing to spend on music? Come to think of it... this is kind of like the rest of the art world! Artists are "starving" not because there isn't an audience for their art, but because the worth of their labor is primarily a function of the observer. Could it be the case that recordings presented an opportunity for an entire industry to spring up around music that specializes in adding perceived value to a piece of music? Might it also be the case that this was helped along by the fact that mass media outlets were, until recently, massively expensive? If anybody can cheaply copy a recording, and anybody can cheaply trumpet their love or hate of that recording, where is the value that the recording industry historically provided to the artist and consumers? It seems to me that their "value add" has become mighty slim. Did you see the NY Times article yesterday about the huge "value added" bonuses record companies are throwing into their CDs today? Nothing could better make my point.
The record industry is fond of pointing out that, without it, musicians could only become established as word-of-mouth phenomenons. I wonder if it isn't the other way around. If musicians become established through word-of-mouth, can the record industry continue to justify its existence? I am not a betting man, and I don't work in the record industry. It doesn't
While I like your general point, your specific argument is utterly ridiculous. I can't believe that somebody else on Slashdot hasn't called you on this.
"Princeton is the first of the vaunted Ivies to make this list at #21 (11.7%), and only because it is the one that behaves most like a small college. "
OK, so you are arguing that Princeton acts the most like a small liberal arts college BECAUSE IT PRODUCES THE MOST PHDs, BY PERCENTAGE OF GRADUATES?
Please tell me someone else finds this statement ridiculous. Since when is a PHD the end all and be all of a liberal arts education? Must one do research to be a well rounded individual?
I would almost prefer that you make your statistics by the percentage of grads that DON'T go into medicine, law, or investment banking. But even that would be silly.
For all the insulting that people do against the Useless News and Worthless Reports, they do a solid job of factoring in all the MANY facets of a school in reaching their final ranking. It is extremely dangerous to argue from a single statistic something as wide ranging as "acts the most like a small college".
But then, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You must be working for some small college that didn't make it to the top of that ranking.
But MSFT's "core business" is selling office productivity software-- not the OS!
Ok, there may be some philosophical points in here I don't care to argue, but I don't see how MSFT loses either way. They sell more Office X, or they continue their desktop monopoly.
But it makes sense enough this is just a pressue campaign to divert marketing dollars...
I can't seem to load it, but the "major university" seems like it may be Cornell... the link I can't load is labelled cornell.html anyway.
It must be this study
Actually, the forum this story was extracted from is pretty much geared towards only generating PR, and not scientific exchange. Attacking Farid and/or Dartmouth for this is silly... this is how institutions generate attention and money for grants.
But it is especially silly since he does such a bangup job of putting his technical work on-line:
Farid's Publications
That's great that you guys love Bill Hewlett and HP, but it was still a tasteless comment from Michael.
Posting an obit is just not something you want to post a joke with... Period, the end.
Actually, I think the really different thing here is that Google, as a company, actually "gets it" when it comes to privacy concerns.
I feel strongly that most every other company on the internet would just install their toolbar, no questions asked... Microsoft isn't the only evil company in Seattle that does this, so does Real Networks! And so do many others.
What I see as insightful and great about how Google did things is that they felt they could provide a better service by using this information, BUT they realized that they had to ask my permission for that information FIRST, before they went ahead and started taking it from me.
We should be applauding Google, and asking other places to follow their lead... not raising an eyebrow, and much less a red flag...
How did he know so much about running, organizing, succesfully managing a project of such size when he was just a grad student?
I know it didn't all just happen over night, but the man has some serious organizational skills. Did he have a mentor, or was it just natural?
I actually ran research experiments with human subjects using a prototype of the force feedback mouse Logitech is releasing last summer at Harvard's School of Public Health.
It has long been established in the literature that certain types of user interface tasks are more easily accomplished than others-- its a lot easier to target something (click on a button), than it is to steer something (navigate the start menu or a scroll pane).
That difficulty changes, however, when the input metaphor changes. For example, a steering wheel is a great input device for moving a scroll pane. We'd probably use steering wheels instead of mice if the only thing we needed to do with a computer was use scroll panes on web pages. (hmm... maybe I should ditch the mouse)
The great thing about these new mice is that, when programmed well, doing everyday stuff with your computer will get much nicer. Ever get tired of just missing the corner of a window when you're trying to resize? How about continually hitting the wrong program or option by just one a deep set of menus. What about just clicking on a link in a web page?
BUT if programmed poorly, force feedback UIs could be a real pain in the ass. How awful would it be to have to click on a button that continually repelled your mouse cursor? One of the most interesting preliminary results we saw was that, regardless of how much less comfortable a person was, having force feedback turned on improved a user's performance for their tasks. Meaning that, even when you're fighting repelling fields to get to your target, you're faster for having some kind of tactile feedback that when you have none at all... in the worst scenario this could mean companies having little incentive to get the force feedback UI right for their workers-- productivity increases regardless, so who cares?
All this is, of course, ongoing research and you should take my info with a big grain of salt. Incidentally, SensAble's phantom is cool, but the real force feedback work is going on at Immersion (www.immersion.com)... They're putting force feedback devices in everything from car stereos to the just-unveiled-in-Paris BMW concept cars. And their technology is what's inside the Logitech mouse.
Cheers!
I wonder if there are any serious scientific applications that could use this
I don't know about scientific applications, but I've always wanted to see someone build a card to accelerate physics in 3D games the same way graphics are accelerated. A lot of cards do geometry acceleration... why not put some of the most processor intensive physics calculation on the card too?
I'm too naive about this sort of thing to know exactly which calculations would benefit, but I bet you could make one hell of a billiards game or flight simulator with this kind of a card as your friend...
Anybody know of someone doing this kind of thing?