Cognitive Overload is not new
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Life Interrupted
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· Score: 2, Interesting
People have known about this for a long time, and it's been studied to death. I know that for those that see my posts I often mention aviation, but here we go again;
During flight training, one of the first things that you're taught is to focus on the important stuff first, and prioritize. Don't let an interruption from air traffic control interrupt the flow involved in actually flying the plane... don't let an attempt at navigation/location get in the way of flying the plane... in fact set your priorities so that you will be SAFE above all. I guess my training was a bit of a reality check for me... it taught me that "cognitive overload" can actually kill me quicker than you might think. As a result I focus on one task at a time until I complete that task. If workload is too high (say multiple interruptions at once), always remember to AVIATE, NAVIGATE, then COMMUNICATE. Anything else is fluff.
After I'd finished learning to fly, I found that I was unconsciously doing the same thing in my day-job. Although an email promising larger genitalia and better stock market tips might annoy on occasion, it isn't likely to kill me in that job. I took the principles of flying a plane and turned them to my day job (systems engineering, development etc.) At first it was tricky since everyone around me was attempting the same "multi-tasking" tricks that I had done before... on occasion it seemed that I was falling behind. Once I got into "the groove" so to speak I found that I completed projects more quickly, more accurately and actually found that I was happier with the results.
Maybe I should require that employees take flight training to ensure they prioritize and focus correctly...
I guess my point is; learn to prioritize those things that matter. If you have multiple projects that need completed, then prioritize those too. Work on one at a time... don't jump around and try to finish them all at once. You won't. I've seen too many people burn out early because they try to do everything at once... a lot of them are younger than me... and I'm not exactly old either!!!!
Well, I know from reading the feedback that a lot of this has already been said, but some of this does deserve some reiteration... for which I will relay my opinions on the Cirrus/BRS systems.
When I first heard about the BRS in Cirrus planes I was quite excited. This sounded like a brilliant idea and from all my reading seemed to work great. Of course, at this time I was not even a student pilot and the only Cirrus was the SR-20 (the SR-22 followed on a few months after I first started reading). I'd had an interest in flight for some time, that much is true... but I hadn't yet had the financial stability to take the plunge so to speak.
So, leap forward to the present. I'm a PP-ASEL (in FAA speak... Private Pilot, Airplane Single Engine Land), and planning on doing my Instrument and Multi in the new year... finances allowing. So how has my opinion changed in that time? Well, quite a bit actually.
1. The only time an airframe parachute makes sense is in the event of a structural failure of the aircraft. I can only see two times when this would come about; pilot error (doing aerobatics in an aircraft not built for it) or SEVERE turbulence... enough to snap the wings in a negative-G state (VERY hard to break the wings in a positive-G state on most GA aircraft). Either of these are PILOT ERROR INDUCED under most circumstances. At the first hint of severe turbulence, standard practice should be to slow the hell down and get to or preferably below maneuvring speed... at that speed the airfoil will stall before the aircraft will be severely damaged. Also,if you're dumb enough to be doing barrel rolls in a plane not designed for it then you probably deserve to become an expensive lawn dart.
2. A BRS "save" in a Cirrus occurred some time ago when a maintenance error led to the departure of the aileron from the airframe during flight. This was probably a valid use of the parachute in this case since it was a situation that would be less than perfect. HOWEVER... it IS possible to control a plane without ailerons. I've done it... in fact my instructor was VERY adamant that I should be able to fly the plane with only rudder, throttle and trim if it came down to it. I probably have several hours of time (under the IFR hood and visual) where I was flying "hands off the yoke" for some time. Nerve-racking... but doable. Even if I then lost the rudder I have at least once flown with elevator trim, throttle and the doors of the plane (sounds funny, but it works!) If you suffer this kind of multiple failure simultaneously then you probably should have landed after the first failure!
3. An engine failure does not a parachute situation make. In fact I would avoid this where possible. Engines fail... fact of life in aviation. A plane with no engine WILL glide VERY well. During my training again I had a joke early on that by the time I reached my first cross country solo I had had more "engine failures" (simulated) than I had landings. This wasn't far from the truth. Through sheer repetition my instructor ingrained it in me to the point where it's almost a reaction now... loss of engine power equals ABCD... "Airspeed" (best glide, 65 knots in a 172), "Best Field" (locate my location to land), "Checklist" (check my fuel, mixture, carb heat, primer, fuel selector valve) and "Declare" (tune 121.5, declare an emergency, give location, dial 7700 on the transponder).
I also have an advantage with the engine failures though... I live in St. Louis, MO where there's nearly always an airfield or a suitable corn field close by... but I'm ALWAYS conscious while flying of where my "best bets" are.
4. An airframe parachute will only really help about 15% of annual accidents. This might be a low estimate, but most of my reading tells me that the most common accidents are things like controlled flight into terrain, VFR into IMC, and often bad pre-flight. One example of the latter was a recent accident here in STL where a Cessna 182 (or 210... not sure) went down after a go-around at a l
Quite possibly because of the extreme cold. At 94K it's unlikely that you could keep a floatation device filled with enough buoyant gas to keep it afloat... besides the gas would probably also end up being a liquid.
Chances are that you COULD use a "lighter" fluid for bouyancy, but until we know what that sea's made of we're not going to be able to effectively plan for that.
We're being asked to change licenses when the GPL has NEVER BEEN STRUCK DOWN IN COURT???? OK... this seems like a troll to me.
Oh, and it's a dupe... but that's cool because I didn't get a chance to read the article last time... this time I did.
Seriously... it's sort of putting the cart before the horse. The only real problem I perceive with Linux today is that it's a large target. The GPL is not the problem, from the perspective of monolithic software corporations the whole product is the problem. Most big businesses would love to find a hole in the GPL that they could use to usurp Linux for their own ends. So far there hasn't been one.
However, I do think it might be prudent to review the GPL in really great depth (something that is sort of going on over at Groklaw) to make sure there ARE no loopholes. I want Linux to remain free.
Oh, and in answer to anyone who might ask... I use Linux not because it's free... not because I'm a geek... I use Linux because it WORKS. There's nothing that an MS operating system does better that I care about. No, I don't play games (don't have time).
Although I'll probably be lost in the torrent of comments on this one, I would just like to turn people's attention to a startlingly similar case; gateway.com.
For those that don't know, Alan Clegg once owned the domain "gateway.com"... since around 1994 or thereabouts. All of a sudden in 2000, Gateway 2000 decided that they liked this Internet thing after all and wanted to have the domain. So did they offer to buy said domain??? Hell no... they sued Alan for the domain. (a URL that details a bit of this is http://www.cybermad.com/culture/odd/odd.html)
Now, to this day I don't know exactly what happened to this lawsuit... I didn't keep up with it much, but of course gateway.com now goes to the large corporation.
Funnily enough, one of the really amusing (horrible) things that happened during the lawsuit was that Gateway 2000 removed the definition of "gateway" from their online dictionary, it being a piece of networking equipment which is where Alan got the name from.
If you're out there, Alan... I still wonder occasionally what happened. I even wrote an opinion piece of my own website about it... you can still search and find information about it on Google.
I feel for Katie Jones... and to be honest I hope she wins the lawsuit. Sounds to me like she's fighting the other Katie... not necessarily Penguin. I, for one however will not be buying this book under any circumstances. It would just fund the lawsuit.
... but not because PDA's are DEAD. As others have mentioned, it's more that the form of PDA's has changed. Smart phones and so forth... the actual PDA will become integrated, not die.
Now, I'm probably in the minority here, but personally I'm one of those people who PREFER carrying a seperate PDA and cellphone. Quite simply it's because while on the phone I often have to write notes, check my calendar and so forth. To-date I've not seen a smart phone that does this quite as well as my old PDA and basic cellphone.
Also, another thing to note is that PDA sales are declining because the market is saturated. The people who use PDA's like me have already bought one, and to be honest there are few if any reasons to upgrade a PDA quite as often as a laptop or cellphone. The drive just isn't there... there are no "killer apps". I don't play games on my PDA... I don't keep MP3's on it... it's for my important data and notes. Now, a friend of mine recently bought one of the new state of the art Ipaq's... all the bells and whistles... and when I played with it I noticed a slight increase in response but it provided me nothing over the Ipaq 3855 I've owned for the better part of three years now and still rely on every day.
Sure, eventually the battery will die and I'll invariably upgrade... but other than this fact there are no other compelling reasons to upgrade like with a Windows PC (full Windows, not PocketPC).
And as for the cost of laptops compared to PDA's... well I find the form factor of my Ipaq much easier to lug around between meetings than my Dell Latitude... and while I like working on my Dell it's a PITA in a meeting that may move around the building at short notice (due to presenting information to vendors and so forth). My PDA is damned handy... hell I even use it when driving if I need to make notes to myself I just whip it out of my belt holster and press the record button. When I get home, I upload and transcribe those notes as necessary.
Food for thought?
How exactly are the licensees supposed to certify that they're NOT using UNIX code in Linux, if SCO is unwilling to identify said code??? I mean, a kernel changes a lot depending upon what has been compiled in... how do I know if I'm using it or not?
I've got no experience with virtualization on Z-Series hardware, except that anecdotal evidence from colleagues of mine always contains positive feedback, but with interspersed horror stories... mostly related to IBM Consulting Services and how they cost WAY too much for what the accomplish.
My experience with VM's has so far been with VMWare GSX and ESX. While not really the same, these are based on similar concepts as the mainframe VM's, and ESX especially is a really awesome and reliable product. However, you're still tied to commodity Intel hardware and all the good (and bad) that implies.
On the flip-side, for good multi-path redundancy you can implement multiple VMWare servers in a clustered configuration... where one node exists as a guest on one host, and the next node on the next host and so forth. Yes, you can implement multiple nodes on the same host... but why?
The only problem with these implementations is current lack of support for grouped/teamed network cards which does somewhat limit the ability to provide true multi-path redundancy. GSX gets around this a little by using Windows as a back end (or Linux), and as such can support network teaming through the host OS. Not a perfect solution, but workable.
However, ESX is under pretty much constant development and has become a very stable product. Also, it's only a matter of time before the teamed-NIC problem ceases to be an issue.
My personal feeling is that either the Z or with VMWare you can accomplish what the customer wants... personally I'd go with VMWare because I feel I can get a lot more bang-for-the-buck simply because Intel hardware is cheaper and generally can be as powerful as a mainframe in heavy computational environments. Sure, nothing beats a mainframe for sheer I/O... but that's also nothing you can't work around with a well-configured storage and memory subsystem in a VMWare host or hosts. The only caveat is that you do need to ensure you've properly designed the VMWare system before you start or you WILL get burned. Provide as much multi-path redundancy as you can and you'll get mainframe-like uptime, virtualization and performance... and at probably still a fraction of the cost of a new Z.
My 2c... take it for how much that can actually buy you these days.:)
Groupwise the Client (hmm, sounds like an Evercrack character...) is not a great piece of software. It's pretty bloated and somewhat unstable unless your PC's set up JUST SO...
OTOH, Groupwise on the backend is still light years ahead of the competition (read- Exchange) and has been for many years. It's lovely to administer and work with... and once it's running it's pretty much a "hands off" type install unless something goes wrong. Exchange 2000 is a step in the right direction, but it's STILL got a long way to go.
My 2c worth... take it for what you want... but having worked with all sorts of Enterprise groupware and mail systems, I have to say that from an admin perspective Groupwise is the best. Now, if we can just get a decent client going we'll be rocking:)
I think that the so-called "lost arts" hold a certain allure for highly technical people, mostly because it's the antithesis of what we do for a living.
For example, many of my friends and peers are very attracted to aviation (myself included), despite the fact that 99% of the technology of light aviation is 20-40 years old! Old technology tends to stick in that field because it works, not because it's cool. The only exception to that rule seems to be GPS, which both works and is cool!
I think we are automatically drawn to things that represent the opposite of what we do for a living; I know a racecar driver personally whose hobby is horticulture (you know, plants and stuff). He tells me that he finds it peaceful, relaxing and an almost zen-like experience especially after barrelling around a track a couple of times faster than my poor beleagured Ford Escort is capable of for a couple of hours.
This seems especially true of "geekdom" because we have high-tech and stressful careers that do not lend themselves well to wind-down time. Sure, when you're young and in the geekdom you tend to do computers as a hobby as well as a living, but after a certain amount of time (about 5 years in my case), computers as a hobby loses its appeal and you start to find things to do outside of work that may be the polar opposite of your career choice. My hobbies? Aviation, reading (another lost art!!), working on my cars (I think I'm the only person in my subdivision who does that any more)... you get the idea.
Take my viewpoint for what it's worth... me, I give myself 2c.
I've got one of the old Destination monitors; a 36" jobbie I use for my TV. I don't have the computer, I built my own custom box to do the job better, but I picked up the monitor on Ebay. To have either a decoder card or box hooked up to the monitor (probably through a KVM switch) would give me the ability to watch HDTV.
Sure, the 800x600 max resolution is far from perfect, but it's certainly a lot cheaper than going out and buying an HDTV at this point.
> You would think that flying would be natural progression for a techie
Not necessarily. Flying is pretty low-tech, which in my experience is what tends to turn techies off. Hell, the highest-tech piece of equipment in the planes I fly is usually my Ipaq with AnywhereMap on it, the plane itself is often almost as old as I am!
I've flown with a few techie friends who love the experience, but get a little disheartened when they don't see big moving-map displays in the middle of the panel... then they almost freak when I explain that I have to control the fuel mixture because there's no computers or fuel injection on the engine in front of us. I tend to avoid conversation about magnetos and the often unnecessary electrical system:-)
Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, too; I'm one of them! I like high-tech in my business, but I'm a low-tech person once I get out of the office: I rarely watch TV, I drive a 10-year old Escort held together purely by the fact that I work on it myself (164K miles and counting...), and my favorite hobby other than flying is cooking. Go figure:)
Oh no... the real cost is MUCH higher than that...
Once you've wiped the s**t eating grin off your face, you're hooked! It's like the first hit of a really good drug; and this sort of "getting high" is legal!!
In all honesty, flying for real is like a revelation after flying flight-sims... these days I fly some great sims (X-Plane and FS2002), but I still find them severely lacking when it comes to the truly visceral experience of being 5000 feet above your home town keeping your eyes peeled for flocks of geese. Now that's something sims are lacking right there...:)
I used to send MOD files across email packed using the Automation Packer when I was part of a demo-group for the Atari ST... we used a BBS (CIX) rather than the Internet, but does this count as prior art? It was around 1990 or 91.
Yes and no. It certainly won't be IT like we know it today.
Personally, I see the commoditization of the PC market continuing, turning the hardware tech side of things into something resembling the TV Repair industry; pretty much dead since a TV is usually cheaper to replace than repair. We're already reaching that point.
The networking side of the house will also change, it has to. Networks are going to become simpler, easier to manage and thus reduce the need for a dedicated admin. Sure, the larger companies will still have admin staff, but to be honest I feel that those departments will shrink dramatically, and smaller to mid-size companies will no longer need a dedicated admin. Small companies and home users will probably only know that they plug in a cable and it works... no messing around. How the abstraction of services will work between a local machine and the network I can't predict; personally I can't wait.
The outsourcing/consulting industry will actually probably stay about the same as it is today (or slightly smaller). Reason being, these commoditized networks and PC's don't need quite so much work, and are normally replaced rather than fixed. Those smaller companies without admins will use outsourcing for their basic admin needs, probably only needing a few things per month, if even that. This is already happening; I admin for a company here in St. Louis that has 45 users in the office, and their network is managed entirely by me, maybe 10 hours a month. As I've improved the network since I originally installed it, my admin work has been reducing. These days I barely have any overhead on their systems and there's rarely a problem that takes more than a couple of hours to fix.
As for programming... now there I do see some growth, though not as much as many might predict. Good programmers will be required to create the abstraction layers that my above predictions need, and to maintain them after the fact... but there are already enough programmers out there to make this a reality. The problem that I see in the programming industry is an "egg-farming" attitude; hire lots of cheap, semi-computer-literate programmers and give them all very small tasks to do, and sooner or later you'll have a product. I have worked (for a month) for one company that did this as a project manager (the one growth job for experienced people in this business model)... I quit because I hated seeing it and knowing this was the future of programming. Sure, the products worked, but that's about it. I guess someone might call it the "Infinite Monkeys" programming style. As the programming team project manager, I managed a team of 30 programmers. Even then I was only given a section of code to work and then it was my job to break it down into tasks, then manage to it. Tedious as all get out, but as much as I hate to admit it, it did produce the desired results.
Basically, the upshot of my discussion here is that IT is going to change. There is going to be less and less room in this industry for those who love to (need to?) excel at everything they do. Going "the extra mile" will eventually result in a manager saying "Very good job, but how much did that impact the tasks I gave you last week?" Creativity will be stifled within the walls of corporations, even those that have encouraged that creativity to-date, and "good enough" becomes a mantra for IT departments everywhere.
I hate to see this happen, in a sense... but it was inevitable. I have loved the IT industry for about the last 11 years I've been in it; it has provided me with great opportunities to excel at what I do best, as well as bring in a decent paycheck and allowed me to be creative with solutions. However, I'm already seeing the writing on the wall from where I stand.
In answer to the main question; no, I don't see myself retiring from IT. The old IT and new IT have one thing in common; they both value youth (and therefore low-cost). Thankfully, I got into IT young, so I have been able to ride it for a long time... but I see already that I'm within 8-10 years of being considered an "old man" in the IT world. To me, this is the time for me to start looking around at other options. They may not pay as well, but to me they will be much more rewarding.
I use mine daily... actually I utilize mine a lot and have done for about 3 years or so.
I have a PocketPC-based device... a Casio E-125 to be precise... that I use for just about everything. I store hand-written notes in it (got two years worth in there right now, many of them migrated to a few CF cards I have laying around)... I read Ebooks on the plane or when bored... I use "find on map" with a St. Louis map to find the location of my next appointment (it's a recent feature release from Microsoft that works great)... I keep my appointments in it of course... and I've got about 5000 contacts stored in there.
As for the "waste of time syncing the data"... well it's just a matter of educating yourself to stick your PDA on the cradle while you're working on your PC... that way it's synced and charged when you need it.
Since I also back it up weekly I don't really fear losing the data in there either.
I know this isn't what you wanted to hear...
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Build Your Own PowerPC?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
... but I'm typing this reply on a Mac that I pieced together for less than $250 all figured. I run OS 9.1 currently, but another $100 worth of parts and I can put OS X on here.
Basically, I started with an old PowerCenter 120 (a PowerPC Mac Clone) with 32MB of RAM. Total cost? $47 from Ebay
Next up, I added 128MB of RAM from Computer Renaissance... it's fussy about is RAM (5V DIMMs). Total cost: $30
Next... I added an old SCSI drive I had knocking around (4Gb drive from an old server of mine). Total cost: $0
THEN I added a Powerlogix G3-400 upgrade card, $85 from Other World Computing. Finally, added a $49 copy of OS9.1 and OSX 10.1 (a bundled special also from OWC).
So what can I do with it? Well, I love the fact that I now have a machine that's relatively trouble-free, runs the applications I use most often with aplomb (word processing, email, Mozilla etc.) and provides me a REAL upgrade path to OSX. Yeah, OSX isn't strictly compatible with my hardware, but the only piece that's truly critical is the video; to be fixed by the addition of a Radeon 7000 in the next few weeks. Everything else can be worked around using XPostFacto.
Worth a thought if you REALLY want to play with OS X but don't want to outlay on the hardware. FYI, this thing runs OS 9.1 faster than my neighbor's 400Mhz Imac... still remains to be seen how X will run.
Total cost for the project: $300 or so
Value of knowing my 5-year old Mac is more reliable and stable than anything with Microsoft OS's on it: priceless!
when our license expired here for our Trivium call-logging system, I took it upon myself to build a complete call logger and reporter on a Linux box. It's pretty basic really; a simple script takes data captured from the TTY port and dumps it to a Microsoft SQL server (though I deliberately wrote the code so that it would be portable to other SQL servers, most notably Sybase).
Periodically, the reporting engine pulls data from the SQL server, generates it into a nice HTML report and sends it to our sales manager, CEO... and a copy to me to make sure it worked as expected.
Because it was Perl, I was also able to write a little Apache-based reporter, so a sales rep wanting to know how many calls he's made and to whom over a certain period can run a report as they desire.
It works pretty well, though it's still very much a work-in-progress... (the latest bug I found was in totalling up duration of calls I had somehow managed to code 61 minutes into an hour so the numbers were a little off... oops!)
Yeah, but looking at the original question, most Macs and Mac clones built in the last 5-7 years have Ethernet ports on the mobo. Yeah, many of them require a transceiver in order to go to an RJ-45, but even my 5-year-old PowerCenter 120 has an RJ-45 in it... and hell, even my Mac 6116CD has an Ethernet port, and that damned thing's slower than a P-100.
I'm not a Mac zealot... I just happen to like using them because I find the OS a lot less fiddly than either Micro$oft or Linux, so I find I get a lot more work done and spend less time fiddling. However, in many ways the PC has been playing catch-up on the hardware for a LONG time.
Although I don't use this at home (got DSL... shibby!), my CEO lives in the boonies and got a satellite connection in order to connect to the Internet. Anyway, although he didn't have a Mac, the same solution applies;
Basically, I set up a Windows 2000 PC using scrap parts I had lying around... a basic USB-capable mobo (PII-350 actually), 128MB of RAM, a modem and so forth. I then set up Internet sharing and Dial on Demand, so the satellite starts working when access is required to an IP address not on the local network.
The only caveat is that you need to be careful to tune the DoD so that broadcasts won't trip it... takes a little trial-and-error but it works.
Anyway, he's happy because he's got a connection that "just works" from his perspective whether he's using his laptop or his wife's PC... and the DoD server itself just runs headless in the basement where we ran the satellite cable to. Piece of cake. I know it's not a perfect workaround, but it does work and I've proved it.
I use Macs at home myself, as well as my PC's and Linux boxen... so I know this solution will work with them too so long as you've got an Ethernet card. Since most Macs since the original PowerMacs have Ethernet on-board, you probably DO have that capability.
I use Windows 2000 server at work, simply because that's what's been mandated by management. On one of the servers (the Exchange server) I installed LDAP and RADIUS. This allows me to extend my system using Linux boxes I use for development.
Basically, the way it works is the Linux boxen, Cisco PIX firewall etc. all use RADIUS for authentication... I even have the RADIUS plugin for PERL that allows my intranet applications on Linux to use the same authentication database. I use LDAP to grab the actual user information when I need it; user name, location etc. The PIX gives us VPN capability using the normal Windows passwords.
I co-developed a standard for naming servers that works for most UNIX variants and also NT servers. Basically I name them by their location, service and then a number. For example, at my St. Louis office I would have STLFIL01, which is St. Louis File Server 01. In Chicago I might have CHIEML01, which is an email server in Chicago.
It's not a great standard, and for the uninitiated it does look kind of daunting, but once you get the hang of how it's configured it's easy to see at-a-glance what each server does.
If anyone would like a more detailed breakdown of the entire design, please email me. BTW, I've got some semi-random characters in the email address I use here, so remove them before sending. It's pretty self-explanatory though!
I don't know the technical details of WHY... but it HAS been proven that UWB interferes with GPS. This is scary to me... as a budding pilot I know how vital GPS can be. Certainly, not an absolute requirement... but hell, IFR flight with VOR's is a bear, and one hell of a barrier to many people learning how to fly.
I'm not saying don't learn the "needles"... just that an archaic technology like that needs to make way for GPS if general aviation is ever going to stand a chance. VOR's as a backup... cool. GPS is the way of the future and many aircraft are already equipped as such. Even commercial airliners use GPS, they come that way from the factory. I don't want to go back to dead-reckoning unless I have an electrical failure (kills my GPS) AND a vacuum failure (kills my VOR guages) simultaneously!
Lem is an awesome author... I think the difference between his own upbringing and that of other sci-fi authors in the West really comes out in his writing, giving it an even more "other-worldly feel" that sets the mood of his books brilliantly.
I'm hoping for a resurgence in interest of Lem's books with the upcoming Solaris movie... yeah it's a Western take on the story but if done half way well it could really get some people who otherwise would never have HEARD of Lem to go out and buy some of his other works. Hey, it worked for Orson Scott Card with The Abyss... did you see sales of his other works before and after?:)
Legal? Almost certianly not. Right? Well, that will depend on who you ask!
I know I used to get stuff off BBS's a LONG time ago... but that was a different world. Part of the reason it had little to no impact is simply because BBS's weren't nearly as prevalent in society as the Internet is. Access to information... and pirated books... is WAY too easy!
On the flip-side, I see arguments on both sides. I recently downloaded the 5 books of The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy in HTML format, converted to an Ebook and dumped to my PDA (yes, a CE-based device, more's the pity) for reading! Now, the first reason I did this is because I was going on a lot of VERY long flights for which taking the entire 5 books just wasn't practical. I also OWN all 5-books in the series... and a bound edition of the first 4 before Mostly Harmless was released. Did I do something illegal or wrong? I downloaded material I already owned... was that illegal? Would it have been any different if I'd used a scanner and OCR software to convert the book to an Ebook?
The whole situation is actually pretty complex... and the more layers you add the more complex it gets.
I think though the original article kind of misses the point; that it's not necessarily a lack of demand for Ebooks that's killing them... it's the overwhelming attitude of those on the Internet butting heads with the old "Corporate Republic". We expect information to be free... nay demand it. I know, I'm guilty of that too! We're the antithesis of that upon which corporations were built. They want to charge money for ebooks? Are you going to pay it?
On the flip-side of THAT argument, I am also a writer. To-date I've never published anything through the monolithic press simply because I don't like their business model. I think ebooks will mark a change in the business model from the monolithic press to more self-published works. Unfortunately this is also going to mean more chaff and fewer diamonds in the world of publishing... but does some venture capitalist out there want to put some money into a site that reviews these works? Peer review is often the best method of selling books... not advertising. I personally would much rather put out a free copy of the first few chapters of a book (or the first 50 or so pages) on a website, then ask that anyone who wants to read the full story send a small sum to get the rest of the book by return email. Not a terribly effective business model, and it'll never make me rich... but I don't write for fame or fortune... simply for my own pleasure! If others get pleasure out of it too, then that's just dandy.
Keep an eye on this subject... in the next few years I predict this is going to get interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
People have known about this for a long time, and it's been studied to death. I know that for those that see my posts I often mention aviation, but here we go again;
During flight training, one of the first things that you're taught is to focus on the important stuff first, and prioritize. Don't let an interruption from air traffic control interrupt the flow involved in actually flying the plane... don't let an attempt at navigation/location get in the way of flying the plane... in fact set your priorities so that you will be SAFE above all. I guess my training was a bit of a reality check for me... it taught me that "cognitive overload" can actually kill me quicker than you might think. As a result I focus on one task at a time until I complete that task. If workload is too high (say multiple interruptions at once), always remember to AVIATE, NAVIGATE, then COMMUNICATE. Anything else is fluff.
After I'd finished learning to fly, I found that I was unconsciously doing the same thing in my day-job. Although an email promising larger genitalia and better stock market tips might annoy on occasion, it isn't likely to kill me in that job. I took the principles of flying a plane and turned them to my day job (systems engineering, development etc.) At first it was tricky since everyone around me was attempting the same "multi-tasking" tricks that I had done before... on occasion it seemed that I was falling behind. Once I got into "the groove" so to speak I found that I completed projects more quickly, more accurately and actually found that I was happier with the results.
Maybe I should require that employees take flight training to ensure they prioritize and focus correctly...
I guess my point is; learn to prioritize those things that matter. If you have multiple projects that need completed, then prioritize those too. Work on one at a time... don't jump around and try to finish them all at once. You won't. I've seen too many people burn out early because they try to do everything at once... a lot of them are younger than me... and I'm not exactly old either!!!!
Well, I know from reading the feedback that a lot of this has already been said, but some of this does deserve some reiteration... for which I will relay my opinions on the Cirrus/BRS systems.
,if you're dumb enough to be doing barrel rolls in a plane not designed for it then you probably deserve to become an expensive lawn dart.
When I first heard about the BRS in Cirrus planes I was quite excited. This sounded like a brilliant idea and from all my reading seemed to work great. Of course, at this time I was not even a student pilot and the only Cirrus was the SR-20 (the SR-22 followed on a few months after I first started reading). I'd had an interest in flight for some time, that much is true... but I hadn't yet had the financial stability to take the plunge so to speak.
So, leap forward to the present. I'm a PP-ASEL (in FAA speak... Private Pilot, Airplane Single Engine Land), and planning on doing my Instrument and Multi in the new year... finances allowing. So how has my opinion changed in that time? Well, quite a bit actually.
1. The only time an airframe parachute makes sense is in the event of a structural failure of the aircraft. I can only see two times when this would come about; pilot error (doing aerobatics in an aircraft not built for it) or SEVERE turbulence... enough to snap the wings in a negative-G state (VERY hard to break the wings in a positive-G state on most GA aircraft). Either of these are PILOT ERROR INDUCED under most circumstances. At the first hint of severe turbulence, standard practice should be to slow the hell down and get to or preferably below maneuvring speed... at that speed the airfoil will stall before the aircraft will be severely damaged. Also
2. A BRS "save" in a Cirrus occurred some time ago when a maintenance error led to the departure of the aileron from the airframe during flight. This was probably a valid use of the parachute in this case since it was a situation that would be less than perfect. HOWEVER... it IS possible to control a plane without ailerons. I've done it... in fact my instructor was VERY adamant that I should be able to fly the plane with only rudder, throttle and trim if it came down to it. I probably have several hours of time (under the IFR hood and visual) where I was flying "hands off the yoke" for some time. Nerve-racking... but doable. Even if I then lost the rudder I have at least once flown with elevator trim, throttle and the doors of the plane (sounds funny, but it works!) If you suffer this kind of multiple failure simultaneously then you probably should have landed after the first failure!
3. An engine failure does not a parachute situation make. In fact I would avoid this where possible. Engines fail... fact of life in aviation. A plane with no engine WILL glide VERY well. During my training again I had a joke early on that by the time I reached my first cross country solo I had had more "engine failures" (simulated) than I had landings. This wasn't far from the truth. Through sheer repetition my instructor ingrained it in me to the point where it's almost a reaction now... loss of engine power equals ABCD... "Airspeed" (best glide, 65 knots in a 172), "Best Field" (locate my location to land), "Checklist" (check my fuel, mixture, carb heat, primer, fuel selector valve) and "Declare" (tune 121.5, declare an emergency, give location, dial 7700 on the transponder).
I also have an advantage with the engine failures though... I live in St. Louis, MO where there's nearly always an airfield or a suitable corn field close by... but I'm ALWAYS conscious while flying of where my "best bets" are.
4. An airframe parachute will only really help about 15% of annual accidents. This might be a low estimate, but most of my reading tells me that the most common accidents are things like controlled flight into terrain, VFR into IMC, and often bad pre-flight. One example of the latter was a recent accident here in STL where a Cessna 182 (or 210... not sure) went down after a go-around at a l
Quite possibly because of the extreme cold. At 94K it's unlikely that you could keep a floatation device filled with enough buoyant gas to keep it afloat... besides the gas would probably also end up being a liquid.
Chances are that you COULD use a "lighter" fluid for bouyancy, but until we know what that sea's made of we're not going to be able to effectively plan for that.
We're being asked to change licenses when the GPL has NEVER BEEN STRUCK DOWN IN COURT???? OK... this seems like a troll to me.
Oh, and it's a dupe... but that's cool because I didn't get a chance to read the article last time... this time I did.
Seriously... it's sort of putting the cart before the horse. The only real problem I perceive with Linux today is that it's a large target. The GPL is not the problem, from the perspective of monolithic software corporations the whole product is the problem. Most big businesses would love to find a hole in the GPL that they could use to usurp Linux for their own ends. So far there hasn't been one.
However, I do think it might be prudent to review the GPL in really great depth (something that is sort of going on over at Groklaw) to make sure there ARE no loopholes. I want Linux to remain free.
Oh, and in answer to anyone who might ask... I use Linux not because it's free... not because I'm a geek... I use Linux because it WORKS. There's nothing that an MS operating system does better that I care about. No, I don't play games (don't have time).
Although I'll probably be lost in the torrent of comments on this one, I would just like to turn people's attention to a startlingly similar case; gateway.com.
For those that don't know, Alan Clegg once owned the domain "gateway.com"... since around 1994 or thereabouts. All of a sudden in 2000, Gateway 2000 decided that they liked this Internet thing after all and wanted to have the domain. So did they offer to buy said domain??? Hell no... they sued Alan for the domain. (a URL that details a bit of this is http://www.cybermad.com/culture/odd/odd.html)
Now, to this day I don't know exactly what happened to this lawsuit... I didn't keep up with it much, but of course gateway.com now goes to the large corporation.
Funnily enough, one of the really amusing (horrible) things that happened during the lawsuit was that Gateway 2000 removed the definition of "gateway" from their online dictionary, it being a piece of networking equipment which is where Alan got the name from.
If you're out there, Alan... I still wonder occasionally what happened. I even wrote an opinion piece of my own website about it... you can still search and find information about it on Google.
I feel for Katie Jones... and to be honest I hope she wins the lawsuit. Sounds to me like she's fighting the other Katie... not necessarily Penguin. I, for one however will not be buying this book under any circumstances. It would just fund the lawsuit.
... but not because PDA's are DEAD. As others have mentioned, it's more that the form of PDA's has changed. Smart phones and so forth... the actual PDA will become integrated, not die. Now, I'm probably in the minority here, but personally I'm one of those people who PREFER carrying a seperate PDA and cellphone. Quite simply it's because while on the phone I often have to write notes, check my calendar and so forth. To-date I've not seen a smart phone that does this quite as well as my old PDA and basic cellphone. Also, another thing to note is that PDA sales are declining because the market is saturated. The people who use PDA's like me have already bought one, and to be honest there are few if any reasons to upgrade a PDA quite as often as a laptop or cellphone. The drive just isn't there... there are no "killer apps". I don't play games on my PDA... I don't keep MP3's on it... it's for my important data and notes. Now, a friend of mine recently bought one of the new state of the art Ipaq's... all the bells and whistles... and when I played with it I noticed a slight increase in response but it provided me nothing over the Ipaq 3855 I've owned for the better part of three years now and still rely on every day. Sure, eventually the battery will die and I'll invariably upgrade... but other than this fact there are no other compelling reasons to upgrade like with a Windows PC (full Windows, not PocketPC). And as for the cost of laptops compared to PDA's... well I find the form factor of my Ipaq much easier to lug around between meetings than my Dell Latitude... and while I like working on my Dell it's a PITA in a meeting that may move around the building at short notice (due to presenting information to vendors and so forth). My PDA is damned handy... hell I even use it when driving if I need to make notes to myself I just whip it out of my belt holster and press the record button. When I get home, I upload and transcribe those notes as necessary. Food for thought?
How exactly are the licensees supposed to certify that they're NOT using UNIX code in Linux, if SCO is unwilling to identify said code??? I mean, a kernel changes a lot depending upon what has been compiled in... how do I know if I'm using it or not?
Can somebody mod SCO -1 TROLL?
I've got no experience with virtualization on Z-Series hardware, except that anecdotal evidence from colleagues of mine always contains positive feedback, but with interspersed horror stories... mostly related to IBM Consulting Services and how they cost WAY too much for what the accomplish.
:)
My experience with VM's has so far been with VMWare GSX and ESX. While not really the same, these are based on similar concepts as the mainframe VM's, and ESX especially is a really awesome and reliable product. However, you're still tied to commodity Intel hardware and all the good (and bad) that implies.
On the flip-side, for good multi-path redundancy you can implement multiple VMWare servers in a clustered configuration... where one node exists as a guest on one host, and the next node on the next host and so forth. Yes, you can implement multiple nodes on the same host... but why?
The only problem with these implementations is current lack of support for grouped/teamed network cards which does somewhat limit the ability to provide true multi-path redundancy. GSX gets around this a little by using Windows as a back end (or Linux), and as such can support network teaming through the host OS. Not a perfect solution, but workable.
However, ESX is under pretty much constant development and has become a very stable product. Also, it's only a matter of time before the teamed-NIC problem ceases to be an issue.
My personal feeling is that either the Z or with VMWare you can accomplish what the customer wants... personally I'd go with VMWare because I feel I can get a lot more bang-for-the-buck simply because Intel hardware is cheaper and generally can be as powerful as a mainframe in heavy computational environments. Sure, nothing beats a mainframe for sheer I/O... but that's also nothing you can't work around with a well-configured storage and memory subsystem in a VMWare host or hosts. The only caveat is that you do need to ensure you've properly designed the VMWare system before you start or you WILL get burned. Provide as much multi-path redundancy as you can and you'll get mainframe-like uptime, virtualization and performance... and at probably still a fraction of the cost of a new Z.
My 2c... take it for how much that can actually buy you these days.
Groupwise the Client (hmm, sounds like an Evercrack character...) is not a great piece of software. It's pretty bloated and somewhat unstable unless your PC's set up JUST SO...
:)
OTOH, Groupwise on the backend is still light years ahead of the competition (read- Exchange) and has been for many years. It's lovely to administer and work with... and once it's running it's pretty much a "hands off" type install unless something goes wrong. Exchange 2000 is a step in the right direction, but it's STILL got a long way to go.
My 2c worth... take it for what you want... but having worked with all sorts of Enterprise groupware and mail systems, I have to say that from an admin perspective Groupwise is the best. Now, if we can just get a decent client going we'll be rocking
I think that the so-called "lost arts" hold a certain allure for highly technical people, mostly because it's the antithesis of what we do for a living.
For example, many of my friends and peers are very attracted to aviation (myself included), despite the fact that 99% of the technology of light aviation is 20-40 years old! Old technology tends to stick in that field because it works, not because it's cool. The only exception to that rule seems to be GPS, which both works and is cool!
I think we are automatically drawn to things that represent the opposite of what we do for a living; I know a racecar driver personally whose hobby is horticulture (you know, plants and stuff). He tells me that he finds it peaceful, relaxing and an almost zen-like experience especially after barrelling around a track a couple of times faster than my poor beleagured Ford Escort is capable of for a couple of hours.
This seems especially true of "geekdom" because we have high-tech and stressful careers that do not lend themselves well to wind-down time. Sure, when you're young and in the geekdom you tend to do computers as a hobby as well as a living, but after a certain amount of time (about 5 years in my case), computers as a hobby loses its appeal and you start to find things to do outside of work that may be the polar opposite of your career choice. My hobbies? Aviation, reading (another lost art!!), working on my cars (I think I'm the only person in my subdivision who does that any more)... you get the idea.
Take my viewpoint for what it's worth... me, I give myself 2c.
I've got one of the old Destination monitors; a 36" jobbie I use for my TV. I don't have the computer, I built my own custom box to do the job better, but I picked up the monitor on Ebay. To have either a decoder card or box hooked up to the monitor (probably through a KVM switch) would give me the ability to watch HDTV.
Sure, the 800x600 max resolution is far from perfect, but it's certainly a lot cheaper than going out and buying an HDTV at this point.
> You would think that flying would be natural progression for a techie
:-)
:)
Not necessarily. Flying is pretty low-tech, which in my experience is what tends to turn techies off. Hell, the highest-tech piece of equipment in the planes I fly is usually my Ipaq with AnywhereMap on it, the plane itself is often almost as old as I am!
I've flown with a few techie friends who love the experience, but get a little disheartened when they don't see big moving-map displays in the middle of the panel... then they almost freak when I explain that I have to control the fuel mixture because there's no computers or fuel injection on the engine in front of us. I tend to avoid conversation about magnetos and the often unnecessary electrical system
Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, too; I'm one of them! I like high-tech in my business, but I'm a low-tech person once I get out of the office: I rarely watch TV, I drive a 10-year old Escort held together purely by the fact that I work on it myself (164K miles and counting...), and my favorite hobby other than flying is cooking. Go figure
Oh no... the real cost is MUCH higher than that...
:)
Once you've wiped the s**t eating grin off your face, you're hooked! It's like the first hit of a really good drug; and this sort of "getting high" is legal!!
In all honesty, flying for real is like a revelation after flying flight-sims... these days I fly some great sims (X-Plane and FS2002), but I still find them severely lacking when it comes to the truly visceral experience of being 5000 feet above your home town keeping your eyes peeled for flocks of geese. Now that's something sims are lacking right there...
I used to send MOD files across email packed using the Automation Packer when I was part of a demo-group for the Atari ST... we used a BBS (CIX) rather than the Internet, but does this count as prior art? It was around 1990 or 91.
:)
This would be compressed media, right?
Yes and no. It certainly won't be IT like we know it today.
Personally, I see the commoditization of the PC market continuing, turning the hardware tech side of things into something resembling the TV Repair industry; pretty much dead since a TV is usually cheaper to replace than repair. We're already reaching that point.
The networking side of the house will also change, it has to. Networks are going to become simpler, easier to manage and thus reduce the need for a dedicated admin. Sure, the larger companies will still have admin staff, but to be honest I feel that those departments will shrink dramatically, and smaller to mid-size companies will no longer need a dedicated admin. Small companies and home users will probably only know that they plug in a cable and it works... no messing around. How the abstraction of services will work between a local machine and the network I can't predict; personally I can't wait.
The outsourcing/consulting industry will actually probably stay about the same as it is today (or slightly smaller). Reason being, these commoditized networks and PC's don't need quite so much work, and are normally replaced rather than fixed. Those smaller companies without admins will use outsourcing for their basic admin needs, probably only needing a few things per month, if even that. This is already happening; I admin for a company here in St. Louis that has 45 users in the office, and their network is managed entirely by me, maybe 10 hours a month. As I've improved the network since I originally installed it, my admin work has been reducing. These days I barely have any overhead on their systems and there's rarely a problem that takes more than a couple of hours to fix.
As for programming... now there I do see some growth, though not as much as many might predict. Good programmers will be required to create the abstraction layers that my above predictions need, and to maintain them after the fact... but there are already enough programmers out there to make this a reality. The problem that I see in the programming industry is an "egg-farming" attitude; hire lots of cheap, semi-computer-literate programmers and give them all very small tasks to do, and sooner or later you'll have a product. I have worked (for a month) for one company that did this as a project manager (the one growth job for experienced people in this business model)... I quit because I hated seeing it and knowing this was the future of programming. Sure, the products worked, but that's about it. I guess someone might call it the "Infinite Monkeys" programming style. As the programming team project manager, I managed a team of 30 programmers. Even then I was only given a section of code to work and then it was my job to break it down into tasks, then manage to it. Tedious as all get out, but as much as I hate to admit it, it did produce the desired results.
Basically, the upshot of my discussion here is that IT is going to change. There is going to be less and less room in this industry for those who love to (need to?) excel at everything they do. Going "the extra mile" will eventually result in a manager saying "Very good job, but how much did that impact the tasks I gave you last week?" Creativity will be stifled within the walls of corporations, even those that have encouraged that creativity to-date, and "good enough" becomes a mantra for IT departments everywhere.
I hate to see this happen, in a sense... but it was inevitable. I have loved the IT industry for about the last 11 years I've been in it; it has provided me with great opportunities to excel at what I do best, as well as bring in a decent paycheck and allowed me to be creative with solutions. However, I'm already seeing the writing on the wall from where I stand.
In answer to the main question; no, I don't see myself retiring from IT. The old IT and new IT have one thing in common; they both value youth (and therefore low-cost). Thankfully, I got into IT young, so I have been able to ride it for a long time... but I see already that I'm within 8-10 years of being considered an "old man" in the IT world. To me, this is the time for me to start looking around at other options. They may not pay as well, but to me they will be much more rewarding.
That's why I'm learning to fly!
I use mine daily... actually I utilize mine a lot and have done for about 3 years or so.
I have a PocketPC-based device... a Casio E-125 to be precise... that I use for just about everything. I store hand-written notes in it (got two years worth in there right now, many of them migrated to a few CF cards I have laying around)... I read Ebooks on the plane or when bored... I use "find on map" with a St. Louis map to find the location of my next appointment (it's a recent feature release from Microsoft that works great)... I keep my appointments in it of course... and I've got about 5000 contacts stored in there.
As for the "waste of time syncing the data"... well it's just a matter of educating yourself to stick your PDA on the cradle while you're working on your PC... that way it's synced and charged when you need it.
Since I also back it up weekly I don't really fear losing the data in there either.
... but I'm typing this reply on a Mac that I pieced together for less than $250 all figured. I run OS 9.1 currently, but another $100 worth of parts and I can put OS X on here.
Basically, I started with an old PowerCenter 120 (a PowerPC Mac Clone) with 32MB of RAM. Total cost? $47 from Ebay
Next up, I added 128MB of RAM from Computer Renaissance... it's fussy about is RAM (5V DIMMs). Total cost: $30
Next... I added an old SCSI drive I had knocking around (4Gb drive from an old server of mine). Total cost: $0
THEN I added a Powerlogix G3-400 upgrade card, $85 from Other World Computing. Finally, added a $49 copy of OS9.1 and OSX 10.1 (a bundled special also from OWC).
So what can I do with it? Well, I love the fact that I now have a machine that's relatively trouble-free, runs the applications I use most often with aplomb (word processing, email, Mozilla etc.) and provides me a REAL upgrade path to OSX. Yeah, OSX isn't strictly compatible with my hardware, but the only piece that's truly critical is the video; to be fixed by the addition of a Radeon 7000 in the next few weeks. Everything else can be worked around using XPostFacto.
Worth a thought if you REALLY want to play with OS X but don't want to outlay on the hardware. FYI, this thing runs OS 9.1 faster than my neighbor's 400Mhz Imac... still remains to be seen how X will run.
Total cost for the project: $300 or so
Value of knowing my 5-year old Mac is more reliable and stable than anything with Microsoft OS's on it: priceless!
when our license expired here for our Trivium call-logging system, I took it upon myself to build a complete call logger and reporter on a Linux box. It's pretty basic really; a simple script takes data captured from the TTY port and dumps it to a Microsoft SQL server (though I deliberately wrote the code so that it would be portable to other SQL servers, most notably Sybase).
Periodically, the reporting engine pulls data from the SQL server, generates it into a nice HTML report and sends it to our sales manager, CEO... and a copy to me to make sure it worked as expected.
Because it was Perl, I was also able to write a little Apache-based reporter, so a sales rep wanting to know how many calls he's made and to whom over a certain period can run a report as they desire.
It works pretty well, though it's still very much a work-in-progress... (the latest bug I found was in totalling up duration of calls I had somehow managed to code 61 minutes into an hour so the numbers were a little off... oops!)
Yeah, but looking at the original question, most Macs and Mac clones built in the last 5-7 years have Ethernet ports on the mobo. Yeah, many of them require a transceiver in order to go to an RJ-45, but even my 5-year-old PowerCenter 120 has an RJ-45 in it... and hell, even my Mac 6116CD has an Ethernet port, and that damned thing's slower than a P-100.
I'm not a Mac zealot... I just happen to like using them because I find the OS a lot less fiddly than either Micro$oft or Linux, so I find I get a lot more work done and spend less time fiddling. However, in many ways the PC has been playing catch-up on the hardware for a LONG time.
Although I don't use this at home (got DSL... shibby!), my CEO lives in the boonies and got a satellite connection in order to connect to the Internet. Anyway, although he didn't have a Mac, the same solution applies;
Basically, I set up a Windows 2000 PC using scrap parts I had lying around... a basic USB-capable mobo (PII-350 actually), 128MB of RAM, a modem and so forth. I then set up Internet sharing and Dial on Demand, so the satellite starts working when access is required to an IP address not on the local network.
The only caveat is that you need to be careful to tune the DoD so that broadcasts won't trip it... takes a little trial-and-error but it works.
Anyway, he's happy because he's got a connection that "just works" from his perspective whether he's using his laptop or his wife's PC... and the DoD server itself just runs headless in the basement where we ran the satellite cable to. Piece of cake. I know it's not a perfect workaround, but it does work and I've proved it.
I use Macs at home myself, as well as my PC's and Linux boxen... so I know this solution will work with them too so long as you've got an Ethernet card. Since most Macs since the original PowerMacs have Ethernet on-board, you probably DO have that capability.
I use Windows 2000 server at work, simply because that's what's been mandated by management. On one of the servers (the Exchange server) I installed LDAP and RADIUS. This allows me to extend my system using Linux boxes I use for development.
Basically, the way it works is the Linux boxen, Cisco PIX firewall etc. all use RADIUS for authentication... I even have the RADIUS plugin for PERL that allows my intranet applications on Linux to use the same authentication database. I use LDAP to grab the actual user information when I need it; user name, location etc. The PIX gives us VPN capability using the normal Windows passwords.
Food for thought perhaps?
I co-developed a standard for naming servers that works for most UNIX variants and also NT servers. Basically I name them by their location, service and then a number. For example, at my St. Louis office I would have STLFIL01, which is St. Louis File Server 01. In Chicago I might have CHIEML01, which is an email server in Chicago.
It's not a great standard, and for the uninitiated it does look kind of daunting, but once you get the hang of how it's configured it's easy to see at-a-glance what each server does.
If anyone would like a more detailed breakdown of the entire design, please email me. BTW, I've got some semi-random characters in the email address I use here, so remove them before sending. It's pretty self-explanatory though!
Gavin.
I don't know the technical details of WHY... but it HAS been proven that UWB interferes with GPS. This is scary to me... as a budding pilot I know how vital GPS can be. Certainly, not an absolute requirement... but hell, IFR flight with VOR's is a bear, and one hell of a barrier to many people learning how to fly.
I'm not saying don't learn the "needles"... just that an archaic technology like that needs to make way for GPS if general aviation is ever going to stand a chance. VOR's as a backup... cool. GPS is the way of the future and many aircraft are already equipped as such. Even commercial airliners use GPS, they come that way from the factory. I don't want to go back to dead-reckoning unless I have an electrical failure (kills my GPS) AND a vacuum failure (kills my VOR guages) simultaneously!
Just my 2c worth!
Lem is an awesome author... I think the difference between his own upbringing and that of other sci-fi authors in the West really comes out in his writing, giving it an even more "other-worldly feel" that sets the mood of his books brilliantly.
:)
I'm hoping for a resurgence in interest of Lem's books with the upcoming Solaris movie... yeah it's a Western take on the story but if done half way well it could really get some people who otherwise would never have HEARD of Lem to go out and buy some of his other works. Hey, it worked for Orson Scott Card with The Abyss... did you see sales of his other works before and after?
Legal? Almost certianly not. Right? Well, that will depend on who you ask!
I know I used to get stuff off BBS's a LONG time ago... but that was a different world. Part of the reason it had little to no impact is simply because BBS's weren't nearly as prevalent in society as the Internet is. Access to information... and pirated books... is WAY too easy!
On the flip-side, I see arguments on both sides. I recently downloaded the 5 books of The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy in HTML format, converted to an Ebook and dumped to my PDA (yes, a CE-based device, more's the pity) for reading! Now, the first reason I did this is because I was going on a lot of VERY long flights for which taking the entire 5 books just wasn't practical. I also OWN all 5-books in the series... and a bound edition of the first 4 before Mostly Harmless was released. Did I do something illegal or wrong? I downloaded material I already owned... was that illegal? Would it have been any different if I'd used a scanner and OCR software to convert the book to an Ebook?
The whole situation is actually pretty complex... and the more layers you add the more complex it gets.
I think though the original article kind of misses the point; that it's not necessarily a lack of demand for Ebooks that's killing them... it's the overwhelming attitude of those on the Internet butting heads with the old "Corporate Republic". We expect information to be free... nay demand it. I know, I'm guilty of that too! We're the antithesis of that upon which corporations were built. They want to charge money for ebooks? Are you going to pay it?
On the flip-side of THAT argument, I am also a writer. To-date I've never published anything through the monolithic press simply because I don't like their business model. I think ebooks will mark a change in the business model from the monolithic press to more self-published works. Unfortunately this is also going to mean more chaff and fewer diamonds in the world of publishing... but does some venture capitalist out there want to put some money into a site that reviews these works? Peer review is often the best method of selling books... not advertising. I personally would much rather put out a free copy of the first few chapters of a book (or the first 50 or so pages) on a website, then ask that anyone who wants to read the full story send a small sum to get the rest of the book by return email. Not a terribly effective business model, and it'll never make me rich... but I don't write for fame or fortune... simply for my own pleasure! If others get pleasure out of it too, then that's just dandy.
Keep an eye on this subject... in the next few years I predict this is going to get interesting.