This idea strikes me as an implementation or extension of "Munchkins" described in an ancient (1996) paper by Rohit Khare and Adam Rifkin.
The idea basically describes very small, low-power devices that can route messages between each other until they find the target device (or a valid route to the target device). I have to wonder whether new devices like the iPAQ with GSM, WiFi, and Bluetooth are trending towards this behaviour. It wouldn't take a heck of a lot to turn the iPAQ 6340 into a device that can intelligently route incoming packets over any of its connections.
I'd love to be able to pick up my cellphone, and connect to my PC via a network of industrial sensors built into traffic signals, bus stops or the nearest ATM.
There is only one of you. You have one set of fingerprints and one set of unique retinal patterns.
If someone manages to compromise this, say by lifting one of your prints off a discarded coke can, or removing one of your eyeballs, then you're - as the kids say - 0wned.
Sure biometrics may be mildly harder to compromise than a password, but a password is a hell of a lot easier to revoke if it has been compromised.
I've just finished Quicksilver - I thought I'd better wade through it so I could start on The Confusion.
I reckon it is best read as a mildly-accurate potted history of modern Science and Economics, rather than a novel. A lot of these historical anecdotes are interesting in and of themselves (e.g. Newton's wider interests), but the attempt to add action and intrigue really just clashes with the long segments of (interpreted) history lessons.
Stephenson would have been better off writing a collection of short stories based around the more interesting and amusing historical anecdotes. That is all I came away with after reading Quicksilver: a bunch of amusing bits of dinner-table trivia about alchemy, early science ('Natural Philosophy'), and economics (e.g. the Bourse, the Dutch East-India Company...).
If I'm buying a nice HD based MP3 player, the last thing that will sway my decision is whether a piece of free proprietary software will work well with it.
You misunderstand completely. Why would MSFT care about it's short term stock price?
Because rightly or wrongly, press articles and the stock price are about all Mr and Mrs Could-give-a-fuck see (and care about).
What we have recently is lots of press about the iPod, and perhaps about the delays in longhorn and various lawsuits against Microsoft. Then we perhaps see Joe Analyst showing charts like this in the business news.
Stock price is one thing that MS can easily (temporarily) affect, getting themselves a free "and MSFT jumped by $3 today" on the news.
Hrrm but if you buy shares for $x + $2, then get a $3 payment and sell the shares for $x, then you've made $1. Hence why the share price (not the value of the company) will likely inflate close to $3.
There is no feedback loop. They buy back your shares, you no longer own them, so yes MSFT owns another 0.0001% of itself.
Yes, a company could theoretically own itself. Much like a million and one Mom-and-Pop corner stores own themselves.
The sharemarket exists as a way to distribute risk. A long time ago (in a galaxy fa...) MSFT said: "Hey we have this great idea to make software to sell to computer users, and we need money to do it. Rather than take out a bank loan, how about you guys (Mr and Mrs Mutual Fund Owner) shoulder some of the risk? If it works out, we'll both make lots of money!"
If MSFT happens to make so much money that they can afford to buy the risk back from Mr and Mrs Shareholder, then more power to them. This is not the way it happens in reality though, because the risk always exists, and if MSFT happens to go down the toilet, they don't want to shoulder the entire burden. Better that Mom & Pop Shareholder take some of the pain too.
Strange isn't it that most Fund Managers and Brokers never ever mention the 'Risk' part of the equation eh? They always talk about 'equity' and 'investment'.
I'll say it again: the sharemarket is simply a way of distributing business risk. If you can't take the risk, invest in fixed income. Not as sexy and not as much possible upside, but not as much risk.
Man, I knew MS were worried about their lacklustre share price performance compared to Apple, but this is a desperation move if ever I've seen one.
Basically, this is a quick way to pump up your share price by almost three bucks, only to have it plummet by the same amount when it goes ex-dividend.
Either that, or they are trying to lose that cash-mountain to make it less of a target for something over the horizon that we haven't seen yet. Think patent infringement lawsuit or something like that.
I remember reading about some game called "Cookies'n'Cream". I could never find a copy, but apparently you either controlled two on-screen characters at the same time (one with each thumbstick), or as a two-player co-op game. You had to do stuff like row a boat... sounded like a ton of fun if you got drunk first.
Parent sounds kinda flamebait-ish, but actually pretty perceptive.
Sony have a huge following in Japan, and there are a squillion totally insane and unfathomably games for the PS2 that never see the light of day outside of Asia.
I doubt MS would be able to understand Sony's Japasia market, let alone penetrate it.
Sadly, I'm guessing that Ballmer's crass remark may end up being true if Sony take too long to release the PS3. At the very least Microsoft will make big inroads in western markets, and stand to do well in Asia if (a) the console is much sexier than the current version, and (b) they managed to sign some big Asian games studios. Admittedly neither of these is very likely.
I have no problem if Microsoft become a bigger player in the console market. The original XBox definitely raised the standards of what we could expect from console performance, and without XBox there would be no one to keep Sony honest*. What I don't want to see is Microsoft pulling a Windows on the console market. That would be very bad for all involved, and would just give Ballmer the meathead more to crow about.
*Yes yes yes. Gamecube, Dreamcast, Phantom, blah blah. Anyone honestly think they could keep Sony honest?
Hrrm but the PS3 chip is a totally different concept - that 'Cell' thingy - isn't it? So it's probably designed and fabbed by a different team.
As far as I know, MS will be using a near-standard PowerPC chip in the XBox (like the original XBox chip was a standard x86 jobbie). Not sure if it's actually a G5, but it would make sense for it to be.
I imagine MS would ask for (as opposed to actually sell) an order of magnitute more volume from IBM than Apple uses. Question is, if IBM had trouble supplying Apple, how can they supply MS?
I generally agree. One comment I would make however is that they (Oddpost) deliberately eschewed the 'colourful' and 'pretty' options:
Ethan Diamond: Our strategy is to make the interface invisible, to make the mail data itself the interface. So, we started with the basic three-pane layout familiar to users of Outlook, Eudora, ccMail, and so on, and then we systematically eliminated every non-data pixel from the screen. For example, if a message header is bold, you know that the message has not been read. You don't also need to see an icon of a closed envelope next to that header, and you certainly don't need to see a column of hundreds of open envelopes towering next to the messages you have read. Similarly, the indentation of folders does a fine job of conveying hierarchy - little ant trails connecting every folder don't express any further information.
As this dude says: If Oddpost is a clone of Outlook, how fast will Microsoft sue?
I mean it's pretty obvious that they're riding Outlook's popularity. Lifted straight from Oddpost's FAQ (emphasis mine): Oddpost is a web-based email and news aggregation application that combines the rich, responsive interface of a desktop program like Outlook with the available-from-anywhere convenience of a web mail service like Hotmail.
Seriously, if Oddpost is trying to do Outlook in the browser (errrm Exchange Web Access anyone?), and they were flying under Microsoft's radar before, then this deal will surely make Microsoft take a lot more notice.
[Disclaimer]I'm not saying that this is a Good Thing, just that MS might see it as an easy option to silence a competitor.
I see a couple of interesting things in this whole Yahoo/Oddpost/GMail webmail thing:
Will MS join the bandwagon and jazz up Hotmail (or provide a premium service) that does all the javascript funkiness (drag-n-drop, context menus etc)? They've already done this for exchange web access. If so, is that not kinda shooting desktop Outlook in the foot? Will they fall behind again on this New Thing due to their dekstop blinkers?
Why do the funky interface thing anyway? A website is a website, and a lot more people are comfortable with the webforms approach to email, because it is a fairly engrained standard (e.g. their online banking is webforms based). Perhaps everyone is being led by the nose by GMail? Never! Fastmail is just one example of thousands of slick webforms-based webmails
As a long-time Oddpost user, I have to say I was having qualms about Oddpost a couple of months ago. I've been trying to get off the IE bandwagon, and my questions to their (normally very responsive) support staff about Mozilla/Firefox support seemed to fall on deaf ears. I guess they were too busy doing the deal.
By all means improve IE. Standards-compliant CSS and/or XHTML would be fantastic, but I really don't understand all this foaming at the mouth about tabbed browsing.
What's wrong with Ctrl-N (new window from same page), or Right-Click->Open in new window (opens the focussed link in a new window)!? If enabling tabbed browsing takes time away from developing standards compliance, then I say forget it. One is infinitely more important than the other.
...so get your goddamned sticky hands off my console.
Just because a PC is useful for a number of tasks other than gaming, doesn't mean I want a PC (with it's associated dangly bits - keyboard, mouse) attached to my television.
I want to play games. I do not need, nor want, the ability to surf the web, check email, or write a letter in Word. I do not want a keyboard or mouse. I do not want green eggs and ham. I do not want them Sam I am.
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This idea strikes me as an implementation or extension of "Munchkins" described in an ancient (1996) paper by Rohit Khare and Adam Rifkin.
The idea basically describes very small, low-power devices that can route messages between each other until they find the target device (or a valid route to the target device). I have to wonder whether new devices like the iPAQ with GSM, WiFi, and Bluetooth are trending towards this behaviour. It wouldn't take a heck of a lot to turn the iPAQ 6340 into a device that can intelligently route incoming packets over any of its connections.
I'd love to be able to pick up my cellphone, and connect to my PC via a network of industrial sensors built into traffic signals, bus stops or the nearest ATM.
There is only one of you. You have one set of fingerprints and one set of unique retinal patterns.
If someone manages to compromise this, say by lifting one of your prints off a discarded coke can, or removing one of your eyeballs, then you're - as the kids say - 0wned.
Sure biometrics may be mildly harder to compromise than a password, but a password is a hell of a lot easier to revoke if it has been compromised.
I've just finished Quicksilver - I thought I'd better wade through it so I could start on The Confusion.
I reckon it is best read as a mildly-accurate potted history of modern Science and Economics, rather than a novel. A lot of these historical anecdotes are interesting in and of themselves (e.g. Newton's wider interests), but the attempt to add action and intrigue really just clashes with the long segments of (interpreted) history lessons.
Stephenson would have been better off writing a collection of short stories based around the more interesting and amusing historical anecdotes. That is all I came away with after reading Quicksilver: a bunch of amusing bits of dinner-table trivia about alchemy, early science ('Natural Philosophy'), and economics (e.g. the Bourse, the Dutch East-India Company...).
...so you actually can do crap with a soldering iron then!
The Motorola V3.
Sex on wheels (or at least whatever the same saying is for a phone... Sex off wires!?)
Seriously, the V3 is such a stylee phone (check out that Trek-like etched keypad) - Apple probably wished they'd designed it themselves.
For the phone geeks: Titanium casing; Bluetooth; camera; 262,000 color QVGA (240x320) LCD. Drool!
I'm sorry, I just don't buy that (pun intended).
If I'm buying a nice HD based MP3 player, the last thing that will sway my decision is whether a piece of free proprietary software will work well with it.
Dammit, so now I'm going to have to dispose of my Pantograph then?
Because rightly or wrongly, press articles and the stock price are about all Mr and Mrs Could-give-a-fuck see (and care about).
What we have recently is lots of press about the iPod, and perhaps about the delays in longhorn and various lawsuits against Microsoft. Then we perhaps see Joe Analyst showing charts like this in the business news.
Stock price is one thing that MS can easily (temporarily) affect, getting themselves a free "and MSFT jumped by $3 today" on the news.
Mindshare.
Hrrm but if you buy shares for $x + $2, then get a $3 payment and sell the shares for $x, then you've made $1.
Hence why the share price (not the value of the company) will likely inflate close to $3.
There is no feedback loop. They buy back your shares, you no longer own them, so yes MSFT owns another 0.0001% of itself.
Yes, a company could theoretically own itself. Much like a million and one Mom-and-Pop corner stores own themselves.
The sharemarket exists as a way to distribute risk. A long time ago (in a galaxy fa...) MSFT said: "Hey we have this great idea to make software to sell to computer users, and we need money to do it. Rather than take out a bank loan, how about you guys (Mr and Mrs Mutual Fund Owner) shoulder some of the risk? If it works out, we'll both make lots of money!"
If MSFT happens to make so much money that they can afford to buy the risk back from Mr and Mrs Shareholder, then more power to them. This is not the way it happens in reality though, because the risk always exists, and if MSFT happens to go down the toilet, they don't want to shoulder the entire burden. Better that Mom & Pop Shareholder take some of the pain too.
Strange isn't it that most Fund Managers and Brokers never ever mention the 'Risk' part of the equation eh? They always talk about 'equity' and 'investment'.
I'll say it again: the sharemarket is simply a way of distributing business risk. If you can't take the risk, invest in fixed income. Not as sexy and not as much possible upside, but not as much risk.
Man, I knew MS were worried about their lacklustre share price performance compared to Apple, but this is a desperation move if ever I've seen one.
Basically, this is a quick way to pump up your share price by almost three bucks, only to have it plummet by the same amount when it goes ex-dividend.
Either that, or they are trying to lose that cash-mountain to make it less of a target for something over the horizon that we haven't seen yet. Think patent infringement lawsuit or something like that.
That bad?
I remember reading about some game called "Cookies'n'Cream". I could never find a copy, but apparently you either controlled two on-screen characters at the same time (one with each thumbstick), or as a two-player co-op game. You had to do stuff like row a boat... sounded like a ton of fun if you got drunk first.
Parent sounds kinda flamebait-ish, but actually pretty perceptive.
Sony have a huge following in Japan, and there are a squillion totally insane and unfathomably games for the PS2 that never see the light of day outside of Asia.
I doubt MS would be able to understand Sony's Japasia market, let alone penetrate it.
Sadly, I'm guessing that Ballmer's crass remark may end up being true if Sony take too long to release the PS3. At the very least Microsoft will make big inroads in western markets, and stand to do well in Asia if (a) the console is much sexier than the current version, and (b) they managed to sign some big Asian games studios. Admittedly neither of these is very likely.
I have no problem if Microsoft become a bigger player in the console market. The original XBox definitely raised the standards of what we could expect from console performance, and without XBox there would be no one to keep Sony honest*. What I don't want to see is Microsoft pulling a Windows on the console market. That would be very bad for all involved, and would just give Ballmer the meathead more to crow about.
*Yes yes yes. Gamecube, Dreamcast, Phantom, blah blah. Anyone honestly think they could keep Sony honest?
Hrrm but the PS3 chip is a totally different concept - that 'Cell' thingy - isn't it? So it's probably designed and fabbed by a different team.
As far as I know, MS will be using a near-standard PowerPC chip in the XBox (like the original XBox chip was a standard x86 jobbie). Not sure if it's actually a G5, but it would make sense for it to be.
I imagine MS would ask for (as opposed to actually sell) an order of magnitute more volume from IBM than Apple uses. Question is, if IBM had trouble supplying Apple, how can they supply MS?
I wonder if Microsoft is regretting the choice of IBM to supply chips for the next XBox*?
;-)
Or maybe it's some machevellian plot whereby MS is paying IBM big $$ to stockpile chips for them, hence reducing Apple's supply?
Or am I totally off track and neXtBox chips are fabbed at a different plant?
*NB: There's no way I'm calling it XBox2, because MS are never going to have an *2 competing with a *3 (e.g. PS3).
I generally agree. One comment I would make however is that they (Oddpost) deliberately eschewed the 'colourful' and 'pretty' options:
Ethan Diamond: Our strategy is to make the interface invisible, to make the mail data itself the interface. So, we started with the basic three-pane layout familiar to users of Outlook, Eudora, ccMail, and so on, and then we systematically eliminated every non-data pixel from the screen. For example, if a message header is bold, you know that the message has not been read. You don't also need to see an icon of a closed envelope next to that header, and you certainly don't need to see a column of hundreds of open envelopes towering next to the messages you have read. Similarly, the indentation of folders does a fine job of conveying hierarchy - little ant trails connecting every folder don't express any further information.
Heh Benedict is my *first* name and I already have a GMail address TYVM.
As this dude says: If Oddpost is a clone of Outlook, how fast will Microsoft sue?
I mean it's pretty obvious that they're riding Outlook's popularity. Lifted straight from Oddpost's FAQ (emphasis mine): Oddpost is a web-based email and news aggregation application that combines the rich, responsive interface of a desktop program like Outlook with the available-from-anywhere convenience of a web mail service like Hotmail.
Seriously, if Oddpost is trying to do Outlook in the browser (errrm Exchange Web Access anyone?), and they were flying under Microsoft's radar before, then this deal will surely make Microsoft take a lot more notice.
[Disclaimer]I'm not saying that this is a Good Thing, just that MS might see it as an easy option to silence a competitor.- Will MS join the bandwagon and jazz up Hotmail (or provide a premium service) that does all the javascript funkiness (drag-n-drop, context menus etc)? They've already done this for exchange web access. If so, is that not kinda shooting desktop Outlook in the foot? Will they fall behind again on this New Thing due to their dekstop blinkers?
- Why do the funky interface thing anyway? A website is a website, and a lot more people are comfortable with the webforms approach to email, because it is a fairly engrained standard (e.g. their online banking is webforms based). Perhaps everyone is being led by the nose by GMail? Never! Fastmail is just one example of thousands of slick webforms-based webmails
- Besides, why not just use IMAP into your rich client of choice.
As a long-time Oddpost user, I have to say I was having qualms about Oddpost a couple of months ago. I've been trying to get off the IE bandwagon, and my questions to their (normally very responsive) support staff about Mozilla/Firefox support seemed to fall on deaf ears. I guess they were too busy doing the deal.By all means improve IE. Standards-compliant CSS and/or XHTML would be fantastic, but I really don't understand all this foaming at the mouth about tabbed browsing.
What's wrong with Ctrl-N (new window from same page), or Right-Click->Open in new window (opens the focussed link in a new window)!? If enabling tabbed browsing takes time away from developing standards compliance, then I say forget it. One is infinitely more important than the other.
...so get your goddamned sticky hands off my console.
Just because a PC is useful for a number of tasks other than gaming, doesn't mean I want a PC (with it's associated dangly bits - keyboard, mouse) attached to my television.
I want to play games. I do not need, nor want, the ability to surf the web, check email, or write a letter in Word. I do not want a keyboard or mouse. I do not want green eggs and ham. I do not want them Sam I am.
I already have a PC. It does what it does well.
As does my XBox.
It's autumn down here in Middle Earth, you insensitive clod!
Is it just me, or does this sound like a headline from the newspaper in the original Sim City? :)
Right up there with "Metroville Builds Airport".
Get in line behind the "ET special agents with walkie-talkies instead of guns" guys.
Nothing to see here.