The real problem is what to set the volume to? How loud is too loud? I have no idea. I shouldn't be able to max out my ipod ever (especially when on a noisy airplane). It is very easy to get the ipod at max volume in an airplane. How many people know this is bad for them?
An Internet access levy payable to the music labels enforces control of the label over the artists. It removes the threat of artists going it their own because they get paid no matter what. A tax for music is patently unfair. For one, there is no representation... how do we guarantee that our unsigned indie musician gets a piece of the pie?
What music labels fear is democratization and commoditization of the pipeline. Many vendors, many musicians can compete on price eventually. Secondly, the reason for going with a major label dimish as access to broadband increases (and Ipods)... communication and popularity campaigns become cheaper... radio stations will play hits from the Internet/blogospher. It scares the labels because they are not technology companies but content managers so they cannot control distribution.
What they want is a universal tax. Once established it is EASY money, and very difficult to REPEAL accept by a change in law or vote. Then the labels lobbyists take charge which we know is a VERY effective way of getting things done.
One can also make the argument that the web was created by humans and social tagging (via HTML links)... this is more or less the same but not defined by a protocol standard yet.
For $65k you should be able to bargain with MSFT somehow. Academia does it by department which should be far less than what you pay... and it is department negoiated, not University wide. In other news, expect a slashdot article in a month stating that "I got fired for installing OO 2.0 on our corp. network".
MS Office doesn't even work with highly complex objects and docs... even between versions or across different computers.
What the unwashed masses here miss out on is that if you start dressing nicer, people will treat you better, and you will get promoted and or paid more... Sure, you can be judged objectively on your work, but most of your work is presentation and communication. Those should be as neat and professional as possible. Do you go to the doctor expecting him to walk in wearing flip flops, with greasy hair etc... no... why?
It is the expectation of professionalism. Dress for success is a common factor that really holds its value. But you should only dress just a little bit less than as good as your boss, or your bosses boss (if you want your bosses job and you think your boss is an idiot).
Seriously. You will be surprised how quickly you get promoted or well treated and taken more seriously.
If you dress like a student, you get treated like a student. If you are 40 and still dressing like a student, people think you are weird. If you dress better, you get women or men whichever is your fancy.
Many grad students also go through this phenomena. The start off wearing the same old same, and then as they get closer to graduation they start dressing nicer and nicer until one day the boss no longer thinks of them as a student in training, but as a credible scientist.
God help you if your boss dress like a slob. I would take another job seriously.
Seriously. The comments and the comedy. Awesome. I like the evolution of running jokes personally, and the puns using old technology... Check out the digg... dug... classic old skool comedy. Many script kiddies are too young for that... Korean old people jokes, , mother russia jokes, jokes about the jokes, google base, watching fads rise and fall (Apple OS X, Google), priceless every little bit of it.
Sure we get trolls, and slash-vertisments from unscrupulous individuals. But it is the community... *shudder* did I just say that..? there are some excellent folks around here... even some bigwig techies read the slashdot and post occasionally. And generally, even the script kiddies get moderated out, that or they p*wn the postings... I can't post a damn article ever... maybe, we need a karma posting system or something. Something better Cmdr. Taco please, please fix the posting system it *is* broken.
Just to troll, digg is lame, lame UI, lame comment system.
It also could be the opposite... Google may bid to raise the price for MSFT. Microsoft already has MsNBC which has been a pretty poor online play. Presumably Google has their numbers and Microsoft their own. Now the game theorists get to analyze the situation and decide what to do. Is Microsoft bluffing? Is Google really serious about AOL? I'm guessing that they are serious since I remember approx 1/2 of Google's revenue came from wholesale search deals.. but that was a couple years ago. Interesting none the less.
Do not do it. Bioengineering is a way better degree, in fact, ChemE is even better.. get a CS minor or double major. Study linear algebra and dynamical systems. You can always do computational linguistics in grad school (and it is dying field anyway so far)... Anyway, how do you think you compute all that stuff anyway? Matrices, Markov chains, and other mathemtical algorithms. GET AS MUCH Math training as you possibily can. Linear Algebra is essential.
This presents an interesting predicament.. perhaps they will figure out some special way to BSD license the plugin for the open-source community in some way... this will be a boon for research and science and make Firefox (open browsers) the de facto standard. Suddenly, using patents for the benefit of programming-kind and people around the world. No longer will Microsoft control the browser experience. I think this is key and crucial... and great for open source and the world.
The UC has a scientific/ethical mission to advance knowledge and understanding and the browser plays a key role....
Didn't he put his keester on the line by posting the software on his website etc...??? I think that is part of the claim to fame here. He stuck his kneck out while the others did not. He also didn't bolt in the face of adversity. Courage or idiocy; it's one of the two. He seems to have some hacking salt though with play fair and the rest of the hacks... Why admonish him here? Seems silly. Slashdot seems to hate those that accomplish stuff. Seems like all we want to do is complain.
I think Microsoft should break backwards compatibility. Simply, the should ship a copy of Virtual PC with every windows box. But, make it highly optimized to run Win3.1, DOS, Win95/98/XP apps quickly. Just like Apple did with Classic. It should be doable...
All in all this makes me realize that Apple makes a better product, even though Powerpoint and Office for the Mac really sucks... go figure...
If I was Goog I would just buy the whole thing and get some almost exclusive cotent licensing deal with TimeWarner. Maybe it is wise for Google to wait until dial-up is dead, but then again the average AOL user is not the average slashdotter. I remember ~6 months ago Google said that AOL was something like 60% of its revenue. I wonder if that has changed or still the same. If this has gone down that is a good thing, but I would imagine with Google fedexing Schmidt to New York that it hasn't.
Google needs that access point (which they get now, only indirectly). If Google buys just the online unit and the IM unit, then MSFT will probably buy just the dialup unit. Then MSFT switches everyone to MSN and google is up the creek.. MSFT's goal is still accomplished. Why Google did not pre-empt this I do not know. Anyway, with Comcast and the Net things are moving towards the 5th network... Terry Semel at Yahoo with content (+ much more MSFT friendly). Google has a pretty good opportunity with Comcast is it works. Very large cable network to start the Google end to end experience.
This is an entire shake up of the industry folks. Technology, content, and direct leased access (eye-balls) is important. Yes you can change the homepage, but most AOL users use the AOL navigator. Google has to buy AOL and formulate a strategy to move dialup users to fixed access DSL or there own network. Or they have to figure out how to get that 60% of their revenue back after MSFT takes it away.... I think owning AOL is a cheaper option. Plus Google needs to make a content play. Either through licensing with Yahoo... Since google is mostly tech oriented it needs all the help it can get. If Google can take the AOL pigskin and run with it of course, it will essentially hammer some nails into MSN.
On slashdot, we tend to forget that money makes the world go around. If this is too expensive for Google, it defintely raises some major anti-trust issues (again)for MSFT. Google buying AOL should invigorate that company. AOL/TimeWarner was a good venture, it was just 5 years too early... if Google can leverage its technology advantage (all those PhDs) perhaps they can do something cool.
BTW I think Apple will own digital media. Everyone will buy a video ipod. It is the beginning of the end of DVDs.
For those of you interested in this subject and the applications of the human genome project to understanding propensity, genetic discrimination, behavior, and a host of other issues I recommend that you read the book: "Genome" by Matt Ridley. It was a NYTIMES bestseller and is very informative on this subject.
For instance did you know that caucasian, pale, tall, thin, blue-eyed Europeans (by ancestory) are more likely to be shy in general and anxious when challenged (in conflict)and this has to do with an overactive amygdala in the brain that was presumably selected for during evolution because it provided increased metabolism to generate body heat (presumably to keep warm in Europe/Nordic regions). Shyness and anxiety are by-products. He makes the claim that an HR recruiter would be good to know this information since they discriminate based on personality anyways. A personality is simply a product of genetic influences.
However, shyness and anxiety can be treated successfully by therapy and/or drugs. So the run-time system can be modified (so to speak).... so if you are a blue-eyed white guy.. don't worry to much...
Well the easiest way to measure raw "innovation" is by counting the number of assigned patents. But since we don't like patents on slashdot and consider them evil and by no way a measure of real 'innovation then what do we do... measure innovation by survival within the dynamic forces of the market? In this case Apple is very innovative. Both with the design of the mac/ipod, access to music, and the digital lifestyle experience... which is really an extension of its focus on graphics/media and making a simple product for creative talented artists to develop on.
What I am discussing is that innovation isn't necessarily pure product technology, rather the innovative solution that lets people get stuff done quickly and with low cost. MSFT provides access to real-time information and understanding. MSFT provides a comprehensive platform which by itself is innovative even if the parts were bought and assembled. That is a boon to medium-small businesses. So an integrated platform that works together is a good innovative idea at the large-scale. Information = Money and Time = Money, more information begets more money.
At the risk of being flamed... does linux innovate? does open source innovate? And I mean besides being open-source alone which is pretty innovative... It marginalizes existing industries and makes software cheaper + it provides jobs and opportunities without having to shell out $$$ for official certification programs.
A lot of what we like is *NIX apps and utilities... linux is not entirely innovative in this way. Sun with Java? Is a JVM innovative? I can say that in academia there were previous VMs around.. Apple with Aqua? perhaps... but seriously... most people take what works and make it a little bit better and in many cases a little bit cheaper (or expensive by adding/increasing value). Apple did this with OS X. It makes *NIX more valuable. DirectX? Is that innovative or a complete smash up of OpenGL? Visual Studio? Visio? SQL Server? MSFT buys good tech... SQL Server may get slammed by many here, but for a small-medium business that needs advanced data analytics to query financial data and export it to XLS/PPT for the executives to make decisions I think it works pretty well and is way cheaper than the alternatives. Big companies use Big Iron and Oracle. MSFT has largely been medium user to end-user desktop based. That is because there is a lot of money in those areas. Follow the money and you will find MSFT.
For businesses that don't need that, such as web2.0 companies there is little incentive to go with MSFT on the backend since it is pure cost than value. Plus you can tweak and extend your linux implementation freely. Linux is more customizable and that helps in many instances and it is cheap for building a server farm. But for data analytics, for integrating information, and providing information value for cheap MSFT is the way to go. They own the corporate information pipeline. That is where value is. Information is valuable. Making it easy to create, get, and use information. Open source hasn't done that yet, except in limited cases where programming gurus go off and start there own companies (Yahoo,Google) etc... and even then they scale to large company size and then will buy Oracle and other large-scale data analytics (or write there own). Google makes then NET valuable. Ebay makes garage sales valuable.
I think open-source will continue to marginalize infastructure, but as long as MSFT keeps providing information value it will always have the lead. Here information value is provided by the solution and not necessarily the product.
I am really enjoying the posts in this thread. Some are quite good beyond the usual slashdot banter to Google or MSFT... or against MSFT. One thing to point out is that Google Desktop Search was really a slap in the face of Microsoft. It basically said, hey we got game buddy. Second, it says that the web interface to the computer is fine by me. Hyper-explore your computer though the web interface. GDS2.0 is more or less the same and by all means a little crappier... who needs that damn huge sidebar... I mean, that reminds me of the Sidekick days. One thing about apps we learnt from the OSX world is that we want to be able HIDE them away, off the screen... on multiple screens and that they must be perty!!! Perty opengl polished eye candy. GDS2.0 should try to be Mac OSX widgets. I didn't realize how useful widgets were till I poured coffee over my powerbook and am stuck with a Windows box for a while.
Plus Microsoft now owns Virtual Server... so they can provide backwards compatibility just as Mac provides Classic Support. Easy solution to a complex problem. Now there is no need to worry about DLL hell. Of course, this would be an innovative solution to a complex problem. I wonder if they will do it. Sure it takes a page out of Mac, but who really cares.
Honestly, the way to solve the funding problem is to start a search engine as a non-profit whose revenue is used to fund aka "grants" OSS projects and build an endowment. GNU could do this. Sell ads on the search engine, run and maintain it, provide cool new software.
Slashdot Mirror
I am amazed it runs on Windows and does as well as it does.
Actually Sulfur is a major determinant of cloud formation.. at least over the ocean.i ew.php
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/dimethyl/overv
Sulfur acts as a cloud condensing nuclei (CCN) which attracts water molecules...
Clouds are formed by dust, dirt, and sulfur... So your point about an "all natural
all organic" pure water solution is just plain wrong..
The real problem is what to set the volume to? How loud is too loud? I have no idea.
I shouldn't be able to max out my ipod ever (especially when on a noisy airplane). It
is very easy to get the ipod at max volume in an airplane. How many people know this is
bad for them?
An Internet access levy payable to the music labels enforces control of the label over the artists. It removes the threat of artists going it their own because they get paid no matter
what. A tax for music is patently unfair. For one, there is no representation... how do we guarantee that our unsigned indie musician gets a piece of the pie?
What music labels fear is democratization and commoditization of the pipeline. Many vendors, many musicians can compete on price eventually. Secondly, the reason for going with a major label dimish as access to broadband increases (and Ipods)... communication and popularity campaigns become cheaper... radio stations will play hits from the Internet/blogospher. It scares the labels because they are not technology companies but content managers so they cannot control distribution.
What they want is a universal tax. Once established it is EASY money, and very difficult to REPEAL accept by a change in law or vote. Then the labels lobbyists take charge which we know
is a VERY effective way of getting things done.
One can also make the argument that the web was created by humans and social tagging (via HTML links)... this is more or less the same but not defined by a protocol standard yet.
shopzilla sold in June for a little more than that.. expect major consolidation in this area...
Call me when they release the D version of this processor...
Yodah....
Well first they'd have to start dressing better... obviously...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168629
For $65k you should be able to bargain with MSFT somehow. Academia does it by department which should be far less than what you pay... and it is department negoiated, not University wide. In other news, expect a slashdot article in a month stating that "I got fired for installing OO 2.0 on our corp. network".
MS Office doesn't even work with highly complex objects and docs... even between versions or across different computers.
What the unwashed masses here miss out on is that if you start dressing nicer, people will treat you better, and you will get promoted and or paid more... Sure, you can be judged objectively
on your work, but most of your work is presentation and communication. Those should be as neat and professional as possible. Do you go to
the doctor expecting him to walk in wearing flip flops, with greasy hair etc... no... why?
It is the expectation of professionalism. Dress for success is a common factor that really holds its value. But you should only dress just a little bit less than as good as your boss, or your bosses boss (if you want your bosses job and you think your boss is an idiot).
Seriously. You will be surprised how quickly you get promoted or well treated and taken more seriously.
If you dress like a student, you get treated like a student. If you are 40 and still dressing like a student, people think you are weird. If you dress better, you get women or men whichever is your fancy.
Many grad students also go through this phenomena. The start off wearing the same old same, and then as they get closer to graduation they start dressing nicer and nicer until one day the boss no longer thinks of them as a student in training, but as a credible scientist.
God help you if your boss dress like a slob. I would take another job seriously.
Seriously. The comments and the comedy. Awesome. I like the evolution of running jokes personally, and the puns using old technology... Check out the digg... dug ... classic old skool comedy.
Many script kiddies are too young for that... Korean old people jokes,
, mother russia jokes, jokes about the jokes, google base, watching fads rise and fall (Apple OS X, Google), priceless every little bit of it.
Sure we get trolls, and slash-vertisments from unscrupulous individuals. But it is the community... *shudder* did I just say that..? there are some excellent folks around here... even some bigwig techies read the slashdot and post occasionally. And generally, even the script kiddies get moderated out, that or they p*wn the postings... I can't post a damn article ever... maybe, we need a karma posting system or something. Something better Cmdr. Taco please, please fix the posting system it *is* broken.
Just to troll, digg is lame, lame UI, lame comment system.
It also could be the opposite... Google may bid to raise
the price for MSFT. Microsoft already has MsNBC which has
been a pretty poor online play. Presumably Google has their
numbers and Microsoft their own. Now the game theorists get
to analyze the situation and decide what to do. Is Microsoft
bluffing? Is Google really serious about AOL? I'm guessing
that they are serious since I remember approx 1/2 of Google's
revenue came from wholesale search deals.. but that was a couple
years ago. Interesting none the less.
Do not do it. Bioengineering is a way better degree, in fact, ChemE is even better.. get a CS minor or double major. Study linear algebra and dynamical systems. You can always do computational linguistics in grad school (and it is dying field anyway so far)... Anyway, how do you think you compute all that stuff anyway? Matrices, Markov chains, and other mathemtical algorithms. GET AS MUCH Math
training as you possibily can. Linear Algebra is essential.
This presents an interesting predicament.. perhaps
they will figure out some special way to BSD license the plugin for the open-source community in some way... this will be a boon for research and science and make Firefox (open browsers) the de facto standard. Suddenly, using patents for the benefit of programming-kind and people around the world. No longer will Microsoft control the browser experience. I think this is key and crucial... and great for open source and the world.
The UC has a scientific/ethical mission to advance knowledge and understanding and the browser plays a key role....
Didn't he put his keester on the line by posting the software on his website etc...??? I think that is part of the claim to fame here. He stuck his kneck out while the others did not. He also didn't bolt in the face of adversity. Courage or idiocy; it's one of the two. He seems to have some hacking salt though with play fair and the rest of the hacks... Why admonish him here? Seems silly. Slashdot seems to hate those that accomplish stuff. Seems like all we want to do is complain.
I think Microsoft should break backwards compatibility. Simply, the should ship a copy of Virtual PC with every windows box. But, make it highly optimized to run
Win3.1, DOS, Win95/98/XP apps quickly. Just like Apple did with Classic. It should be doable...
All in all this makes me realize that Apple makes a better product, even though Powerpoint and Office for the Mac really sucks... go figure...
If I was Goog I would just buy the whole thing and get some almost exclusive cotent licensing deal with TimeWarner. Maybe it is wise for Google to wait until dial-up is dead, but then again the average AOL user is not the average slashdotter. I remember ~6 months ago Google said that AOL was something like 60% of its revenue. I wonder if that has changed or still the same. If this has gone down that is a good thing, but I would imagine with Google fedexing Schmidt to New York that it hasn't.
Google needs that access point (which they get now, only indirectly).
If Google buys just the online unit and the IM unit, then MSFT will probably buy just the dialup unit. Then MSFT switches everyone to MSN and google is up the creek.. MSFT's goal is still accomplished. Why Google did not pre-empt this I
do not know. Anyway, with Comcast and the Net things are moving towards the 5th network... Terry Semel at Yahoo with content (+ much more MSFT friendly). Google
has a pretty good opportunity with Comcast is it works. Very large cable network
to start the Google end to end experience.
This is an entire shake up of the industry folks. Technology, content, and direct leased access (eye-balls) is important. Yes you can change the homepage, but most AOL users use the AOL navigator. Google has to buy AOL and formulate a strategy to move dialup users to fixed access DSL or there own network. Or they have to figure out how to get that 60% of their revenue back after MSFT takes it away.... I think
owning AOL is a cheaper option. Plus Google needs to make a content play. Either through licensing with Yahoo... Since google is mostly tech oriented it needs all the help it can get. If Google can take the AOL pigskin and run with it of course, it will essentially hammer some nails into MSN.
On slashdot, we tend to forget that money makes the world go around.
If this is too expensive for Google, it defintely raises some major anti-trust issues (again)for MSFT. Google buying AOL should invigorate that company. AOL/TimeWarner was a good venture, it was just 5 years too early... if Google can leverage its technology advantage (all those PhDs) perhaps they can do something cool.
BTW I think Apple will own digital media. Everyone will buy a video ipod. It is the beginning of the end of DVDs.
For those of you interested in this subject and the applications of the human genome project to understanding propensity, genetic discrimination, behavior, and a host of other issues I recommend that you read the book: "Genome" by Matt Ridley. It was a NYTIMES bestseller and is very informative on this subject.
For instance did you know that caucasian, pale, tall, thin, blue-eyed Europeans (by ancestory) are more likely to be shy in general and anxious when challenged (in conflict)and this has to do with an overactive amygdala in the brain that was presumably selected for during evolution because it provided increased metabolism to generate body heat (presumably to keep warm in Europe/Nordic regions). Shyness and anxiety are by-products. He makes the claim that an HR recruiter would be good to know this information since they discriminate based on personality anyways. A personality is simply a product of genetic influences.
However, shyness and anxiety can be treated successfully by therapy and/or drugs. So the run-time system can be modified (so to speak).... so if you are a blue-eyed white guy.. don't worry to much...
Well the easiest way to measure raw "innovation" is by counting ... measure innovation
the number of assigned patents. But since we don't like patents
on slashdot and consider them evil and by no way a measure of
real 'innovation then what do we do
by survival within the dynamic forces of the market? In this case
Apple is very innovative. Both with the design of the mac/ipod,
access to music, and the digital lifestyle experience... which
is really an extension of its focus on graphics/media and making
a simple product for creative talented artists to develop on.
What I am discussing is that innovation isn't necessarily pure product
technology, rather the innovative solution that lets people get stuff
done quickly and with low cost. MSFT provides access to real-time information and understanding. MSFT provides a comprehensive platform which by itself
is innovative even if the parts were bought and assembled. That is a boon
to medium-small businesses. So an integrated platform that works together is a
good innovative idea at the large-scale. Information = Money and Time = Money,
more information begets more money.
At the risk of being flamed... does linux innovate? does open source innovate?
And I mean besides being open-source alone which is pretty innovative... It
marginalizes existing industries and makes software cheaper + it provides jobs and opportunities without having to shell out $$$ for official certification programs.
A lot of what we like is *NIX apps and utilities... linux is not entirely innovative in this way. Sun with Java? Is a JVM innovative? I can say that in
academia there were previous VMs around.. Apple with Aqua? perhaps... but seriously... most people take what works and make it a little bit better and in many cases a little bit cheaper (or expensive by adding/increasing value). Apple
did this with OS X. It makes *NIX more valuable. DirectX? Is that innovative or a complete smash up of OpenGL? Visual Studio? Visio? SQL Server? MSFT buys good tech... SQL Server may get slammed by many here, but for a small-medium business that needs advanced data analytics to query financial data and export it to XLS/PPT for the executives to make decisions I think it works pretty well and is way cheaper than the alternatives. Big companies use Big Iron and Oracle. MSFT has largely been medium user to end-user desktop based. That is because there is a lot of money in those areas. Follow the money and
you will find MSFT.
For businesses that don't need that, such as web2.0 companies there is little incentive to go with MSFT on the backend since it is pure cost than value. Plus you can tweak and extend your linux implementation freely. Linux is more customizable and that helps in many instances and it is cheap for building a server farm. But for data analytics, for integrating information, and providing information value for cheap MSFT is the way to go. They own the corporate information pipeline. That is where value is. Information is valuable. Making it easy to create, get, and use information. Open source hasn't done that yet, except in limited cases where programming gurus go off and start there own companies (Yahoo,Google) etc... and even then they scale to large company size and then will buy Oracle and other large-scale data analytics (or write there own). Google makes then NET valuable. Ebay makes garage sales valuable.
I think open-source will continue to marginalize infastructure, but as long as MSFT keeps providing information value it will always have the lead. Here information value is provided by the solution and not necessarily the product.
I am really enjoying the posts in this thread. Some are quite good beyond the usual slashdot banter to Google or MSFT... or against MSFT. One thing to point out is that Google Desktop Search was really a slap in the face of Microsoft. It basically said, hey we got game buddy. Second, it says that the web interface to the computer is fine by me. Hyper-explore your computer though the web interface. GDS2.0 is more or less the same and by all means a little crappier... who needs that damn huge sidebar... I mean, that reminds me of the Sidekick days. One thing about apps we learnt from the OSX world is that we want to be able HIDE them away, off the screen... on multiple screens and that they must be perty!!! Perty opengl polished eye candy. GDS2.0 should try to be Mac OSX widgets. I didn't realize how useful widgets were till I poured coffee over my powerbook and am stuck with a Windows box for a while.
Plus Microsoft now owns Virtual Server... so they can provide backwards compatibility just as Mac provides Classic Support.
Easy solution to a complex problem. Now there is no need
to worry about DLL hell. Of course, this would be an innovative solution to a complex problem. I wonder if they will do it. Sure it takes a page out of Mac, but who really cares.
and so did slashdot. hmmm.. hope slash used a database backend back then.
Umm Amazon existed in 1998.
Honestly, the way to solve the funding problem is to start a search engine as a non-profit whose revenue is used to fund aka "grants" OSS projects and build an endowment. GNU could do this. Sell ads on the search engine, run and maintain it, provide cool new software.