I bought a CDR right when it came out and after around 3 weeks of playing around I stopped using it. Unless you have a real need, a bunch of cash you're looking to burn (in which case I have a nice dot-com I'd like you to invest in), or you're going to be renting a bunch of movies from Blockbuster and ripping them, don't bother wasting the money. They may seem cheap now but they'll drop a lot after New Years.
Why go all the way to India when you could move to Toronto or Vancouver and take advantage of the Government of Canada's "scientific and experimental development" tax credit program (see Revenue Canada's SR&ED website for more info). For every dollar you put in, you could get forty cents or more back... with respect to your project, this might mean an extra coder for free. -Duke
Adobe may be leaving Asian makets but their products won't be... Adobe is just leaving the risk behind. For example, a recent press release said that they chose Lionbridge, which will localize the company's recently released Illustrator 10 graphics software into Japanese, Traditional Chinese and Korean, "based on its ability to provide the Adobe team with improved quality and a more manageable localization process" (see press release) but I think it's simply an operation in risk management: Lionbridge invests the US$750,000 it would cost to produce the Asian versions of Illustrator 10 and then it also pays royalties. If the piracy rate is as high as the Business Software Association thinks it is -- 94 percent -- then Lionbridge takes all the risk while Adobe can only benefit. This meshes with Adobe's official position: "the company remains committed to developing Chinese-language versions of its products, despite comments reportedly made by its chief executive officer last week that Adobe could abandon the market because of software piracy in the region." (see IT World)
-Duke
In Frank Herbert's "Dune", the filthy Tleilaxu use their women to manufacture everything from synthetic spice to "gholas" (essentially reincarnated people). Is this where we're headed?
-Duke
I'm 99.8% sure this would go against Canadian anti-combine laws (similar to American anti-trust laws). I doubt that the Corel/MS acquisition agreement stated such a thing implicitly... and it's unlikely that they would have left any record of "suggestions" made by senior MS people for the DoJ or Canadian equivalent (the Mounties? CSIS?) to find in the ensuing legal case. If, however, Corel execs were shown that Linux was not as good an opportunity as they might have thought it was when they bought Borland and got into the distro business then that might have affected things (except that the shareholders would have to agree to both the acquisition and the sale of the asset and so something looks good somewhere to the majority of their group, whether that's a small group or not I don't know). I am curious about their upside, though. What is their.NET gain (sorry, bad pun) by participating in this affair... if they bought Borland for half a billion (this figure is based only on the rumours I remember) and if they are indeed selling their entire operation for $5 million then they're out a whole bunch and I would never, ever buy Corel shares again (and if this is true then I believe Michael Coupland, the Corel CEO, has earned an early retirement and very chique frontal lobotomy). But if they made out better than I think they have and someone can explain their strategy to me in a way that makes sense, then I might not be so... bewildered... by their behaviour.
-Duke
Goodwin's Law of Usenet
Professor Goodwin, U of I, in 1981 made the observation that Usenet discussions gravitate downhill.
He postulated that as the length of a discussion thread grows, the probability approaches one (1) that one participant will introduce the terms "Hitler" or "Nazi".
The custom has evolved that the first party to utter "Hitler" or "Nazi" has lost the discussion, and the thread terminates.
-Duke
BTW, if you're interested in finding out from where I have plagiarized this information, it comes from a Tripod website.
I think the drawback is slower cultural evolution... I'm not sure if there would be an impact on Darwin's survival of the fittest (except maybe that older reproductive males could beat on younger ones, killing off their competition using more advanced skills acquired during a long life, and thus ending the collective life of the species in a few generations by killing off all young males) but I know for certain that science and technology would develop at Ent-like speeds if we didn't have all these impetuous youths inventing new fangled things like "Linux" and "computers". Generally speaking, from a species point of view, there's no reason to keep non-productive members around. However, from the point of view of someone who will get old and would like to eventually retire to shuffle board and other non-productive pursuits, I would like people to live as long as possible.
-Duke, creator of Slashdot's longest single sentence (see above)
Someone had better think of a way to get Gnutella up and running at 100% efficiency soon or else nobody's going to be able to get free music online... except on IRC and that's no fun:)
I have a habit to support here... someone please help!
-Duke
Novell's share price hasn't moved much since a major drop in May. I think that if they were doomed we would have seen more action recently... unless now is a good time to short NOVL:)
-Duke
I go to a College where "freedom of speech" and "freedom of association" have very limited meanings. We are marked by the administration as being either "good" or "bad" and, based on this judgement, we are either supported in life after college or we're screwed (by them). I know quite well that trust in higher ups with virtually unlimited power can be misplaced but I also understand that sometimes there are dangers associated with technologies developed without keeping that kind of thing in mind (e.g., nuclear weapons). This, however, is not an argument against technology... it is an argument for the proper use of technology by those who use it.
If the FBI is going to do its job, they need to be able to use wire taps and collect evidence. Encrypting email with techniques they can't crack prevents them from doing their job... which is fine. However we can be more certain that the people we have put in power are more likely to use their power for good than we can be certain of the people who take control by force. The good thing here is that now, if they want to continue invading our privacy, they will have to innovate and invest in the development of new technology to do so.
Innovation is a good thing. Privacy is a good thing. But we need leaders we can trust to use our innovations properly and respect our privacy.
If you think that's redundant then I give up.
-Duke
Frankel is a loose cannon. If I tried any of the shit he's pulled I'd get administrated out of existance... relegated to my very own special "R&D Broom Closet" in the company's sub-basement.
They deep-sixed Gnutella and weren't enthused that he'd done it on their tab. Now their own software is being taken appart by one of their own. He should concentrate on integrating their toys with WinAmp to make a suite of apps and compete with ICQ, ultimately a better program than AIM anyway. I'm a big fan of Justin's but I'm not impressed with his latest innovation and I doubt that AOL's uppers are in love with him right now either.
The moral of the story: If he'd messed around with a revenue generator he would be clearing out his desk now instead of laughing about these latest headlines with his buddies at the pub... after a point the mangement stops caring about how smart you are and fires your ass.
-Duke
The main difference between the Hubble and the new super advanced telescope they're planning to launch in 2008 is that the Hubble "sees" visible and UV while the new one "sees" only infrared radiation. Having actual pictures of space is important for marketing to the public (imagine what would happen if there were publishable pictures of planets from another solar system that people could recognize and get excited about). Without visual cues that the money is being well spent, the people won't push as hard for space and NASA will get even less money from the government.
What if there are planets out there that we could actually see? It could fundamentally shift the way we see ourselves and our celestial neighbourhood. Not to sound fanatical or anything but what if there are pre-radio civilizations out there that we could see but can't hear?
Scarcity drives economic theory and decides, essentially, who can get what commodities and at what price. Dismissing the bandwidth problem as "lotek" and making the assumption that things will work out on their own because, in the past, "technology backfills the new need" would not make a good foundation for long-term policy. I'd much rather see pressure put on the government to subsidize the development of a more substantial backbone or, at minimum, update the one we have to handle the ever-increasing load.
Traffic management is key, however, in the interim. If you need proof, take a gander over to Yahoo Finance and look at Inktomi's performance over the past little while. That they're even considering dumping search shows how valuable the efficient control of traffic has become.
The problem is not that individuals have too much bandwidth, but that the corporations (in a relative sense) have too little. And the only group that can do much of anything about this is the government (especially the Americans).
-Duke
(Tony Blair's new policies in the UK demonstrate this proactive-government-affecting-life-for-the-better thing better than anything else that comes to mind).
This might explain why they have only targeted the US. In Canada we have some very specific rules about what you can do to a consumer's credit card, etc. and how the consumer can react (e.g., there's a ~2 day grace period on all transactions before which you can cancel without penalty if you haven't received the goods).
I don't know about the laws in Finland but I'm pretty sure they're not a carbon-copy of the American system. Until PayPal hits critical mass in the US (estimated at 10 million users) and can afford to take risks in foreign markets they'll probably stay home. They already have 400 employees... how many would they have to add to expand outside of North America?
-Duke
Slashdot Mirror
I bought a CDR right when it came out and after around 3 weeks of playing around I stopped using it. Unless you have a real need, a bunch of cash you're looking to burn (in which case I have a nice dot-com I'd like you to invest in), or you're going to be renting a bunch of movies from Blockbuster and ripping them, don't bother wasting the money. They may seem cheap now but they'll drop a lot after New Years.
Why go all the way to India when you could move to Toronto or Vancouver and take advantage of the Government of Canada's "scientific and experimental development" tax credit program (see Revenue Canada's SR&ED website for more info). For every dollar you put in, you could get forty cents or more back... with respect to your project, this might mean an extra coder for free.
-Duke
Adobe may be leaving Asian makets but their products won't be... Adobe is just leaving the risk behind. For example, a recent press release said that they chose Lionbridge, which will localize the company's recently released Illustrator 10 graphics software into Japanese, Traditional Chinese and Korean, "based on its ability to provide the Adobe team with improved quality and a more manageable localization process" (see press release) but I think it's simply an operation in risk management: Lionbridge invests the US$750,000 it would cost to produce the Asian versions of Illustrator 10 and then it also pays royalties. If the piracy rate is as high as the Business Software Association thinks it is -- 94 percent -- then Lionbridge takes all the risk while Adobe can only benefit. This meshes with Adobe's official position: "the company remains committed to developing Chinese-language versions of its products, despite comments reportedly made by its chief executive officer last week that Adobe could abandon the market because of software piracy in the region." (see IT World)
-Duke
Additional coverage: Mass High Tech, IT News (Australia)
In Frank Herbert's "Dune", the filthy Tleilaxu use their women to manufacture everything from synthetic spice to "gholas" (essentially reincarnated people). Is this where we're headed?
-Duke
I'm 99.8% sure this would go against Canadian anti-combine laws (similar to American anti-trust laws). I doubt that the Corel/MS acquisition agreement stated such a thing implicitly... and it's unlikely that they would have left any record of "suggestions" made by senior MS people for the DoJ or Canadian equivalent (the Mounties? CSIS?) to find in the ensuing legal case. If, however, Corel execs were shown that Linux was not as good an opportunity as they might have thought it was when they bought Borland and got into the distro business then that might have affected things (except that the shareholders would have to agree to both the acquisition and the sale of the asset and so something looks good somewhere to the majority of their group, whether that's a small group or not I don't know). I am curious about their upside, though. What is their .NET gain (sorry, bad pun) by participating in this affair... if they bought Borland for half a billion (this figure is based only on the rumours I remember) and if they are indeed selling their entire operation for $5 million then they're out a whole bunch and I would never, ever buy Corel shares again (and if this is true then I believe Michael Coupland, the Corel CEO, has earned an early retirement and very chique frontal lobotomy). But if they made out better than I think they have and someone can explain their strategy to me in a way that makes sense, then I might not be so... bewildered... by their behaviour.
-Duke
Goodwin's Law of Usenet
Professor Goodwin, U of I, in 1981 made the observation that Usenet discussions gravitate downhill.
He postulated that as the length of a discussion thread grows, the probability approaches one (1) that one participant will introduce the terms "Hitler" or "Nazi".
The custom has evolved that the first party to utter "Hitler" or "Nazi" has lost the discussion, and the thread terminates.
-Duke
BTW, if you're interested in finding out from where I have plagiarized this information, it comes from a Tripod website.
I think the drawback is slower cultural evolution... I'm not sure if there would be an impact on Darwin's survival of the fittest (except maybe that older reproductive males could beat on younger ones, killing off their competition using more advanced skills acquired during a long life, and thus ending the collective life of the species in a few generations by killing off all young males) but I know for certain that science and technology would develop at Ent-like speeds if we didn't have all these impetuous youths inventing new fangled things like "Linux" and "computers". Generally speaking, from a species point of view, there's no reason to keep non-productive members around. However, from the point of view of someone who will get old and would like to eventually retire to shuffle board and other non-productive pursuits, I would like people to live as long as possible.
-Duke, creator of Slashdot's longest single sentence (see above)
I wonder why Germany ranks highest among the non-US users... Japan I can see and Canada is in North America but why Germany? Check out this graphic.
.net breakdown (remember that cool poster from ThinkGeek?) and the breakdown by .edu as well.
There are some cool charts examining the
-Duke
Someone had better think of a way to get Gnutella up and running at 100% efficiency soon or else nobody's going to be able to get free music online... except on IRC and that's no fun :)
I have a habit to support here... someone please help!
-Duke
Novell's share price hasn't moved much since a major drop in May. I think that if they were doomed we would have seen more action recently... unless now is a good time to short NOVL :)
-Duke
I go to a College where "freedom of speech" and "freedom of association" have very limited meanings. We are marked by the administration as being either "good" or "bad" and, based on this judgement, we are either supported in life after college or we're screwed (by them). I know quite well that trust in higher ups with virtually unlimited power can be misplaced but I also understand that sometimes there are dangers associated with technologies developed without keeping that kind of thing in mind (e.g., nuclear weapons). This, however, is not an argument against technology... it is an argument for the proper use of technology by those who use it.
If the FBI is going to do its job, they need to be able to use wire taps and collect evidence. Encrypting email with techniques they can't crack prevents them from doing their job... which is fine. However we can be more certain that the people we have put in power are more likely to use their power for good than we can be certain of the people who take control by force. The good thing here is that now, if they want to continue invading our privacy, they will have to innovate and invest in the development of new technology to do so.
Innovation is a good thing. Privacy is a good thing. But we need leaders we can trust to use our innovations properly and respect our privacy.
If you think that's redundant then I give up.
-Duke
Frankel is a loose cannon. If I tried any of the shit he's pulled I'd get administrated out of existance... relegated to my very own special "R&D Broom Closet" in the company's sub-basement.
They deep-sixed Gnutella and weren't enthused that he'd done it on their tab. Now their own software is being taken appart by one of their own. He should concentrate on integrating their toys with WinAmp to make a suite of apps and compete with ICQ, ultimately a better program than AIM anyway. I'm a big fan of Justin's but I'm not impressed with his latest innovation and I doubt that AOL's uppers are in love with him right now either.
The moral of the story: If he'd messed around with a revenue generator he would be clearing out his desk now instead of laughing about these latest headlines with his buddies at the pub... after a point the mangement stops caring about how smart you are and fires your ass.
-Duke
The main difference between the Hubble and the new super advanced telescope they're planning to launch in 2008 is that the Hubble "sees" visible and UV while the new one "sees" only infrared radiation. Having actual pictures of space is important for marketing to the public (imagine what would happen if there were publishable pictures of planets from another solar system that people could recognize and get excited about). Without visual cues that the money is being well spent, the people won't push as hard for space and NASA will get even less money from the government.
What if there are planets out there that we could actually see? It could fundamentally shift the way we see ourselves and our celestial neighbourhood. Not to sound fanatical or anything but what if there are pre-radio civilizations out there that we could see but can't hear?
Build and launch this mission ASAP!
Scarcity drives economic theory and decides, essentially, who can get what commodities and at what price. Dismissing the bandwidth problem as "lotek" and making the assumption that things will work out on their own because, in the past, "technology backfills the new need" would not make a good foundation for long-term policy. I'd much rather see pressure put on the government to subsidize the development of a more substantial backbone or, at minimum, update the one we have to handle the ever-increasing load.
r thing better than anything else that comes to mind).
Traffic management is key, however, in the interim. If you need proof, take a gander over to Yahoo Finance and look at Inktomi's performance over the past little while. That they're even considering dumping search shows how valuable the efficient control of traffic has become.
The problem is not that individuals have too much bandwidth, but that the corporations (in a relative sense) have too little. And the only group that can do much of anything about this is the government (especially the Americans).
-Duke
(Tony Blair's new policies in the UK demonstrate this proactive-government-affecting-life-for-the-bette
This might explain why they have only targeted the US. In Canada we have some very specific rules about what you can do to a consumer's credit card, etc. and how the consumer can react (e.g., there's a ~2 day grace period on all transactions before which you can cancel without penalty if you haven't received the goods). I don't know about the laws in Finland but I'm pretty sure they're not a carbon-copy of the American system. Until PayPal hits critical mass in the US (estimated at 10 million users) and can afford to take risks in foreign markets they'll probably stay home. They already have 400 employees... how many would they have to add to expand outside of North America? -Duke