Given that MSN search is horrible, I can see where MS would want to vulch that one piece of Yahoo, and that probably wouldn't run afoul of anti-trust laws. In any event, as a huge fan of Flickr, I'm glad there is no longer a serious threat that my beloved photo service will succumb to Redmondian rapine.
And of course, it's highly plausible that this whole effort from Microsoft was intended solely to serve their own interests by creating the perception they were going to acquire, and they never intended to go through with it, for whatever arcane market reasons.
So what you're saying is: Stupid people make bad decisions.
Well, that's a tautology and the other tautology is that there are a lot of stupid people, especially in management. Actually, I don't think that was always true, however, I think management, as a skill and an area of expertise, has gone backwards in the last couple decades. Part of that is because we are now managing things that are not concrete, like an engineering project, but rely on many intangibles, like creativity. The other part of it is that so many people who end up as managers are, to be blunt, morons. Our education system is allowing more and more people to fall through the cracks by coasting through without being really challenged and without being forced to actually learn anything constructive. But I didn't mean to make this a treatise on (yet another reason) why the U.S. and modern society in general are going to Hell.
In any event, a wealth of Open Source tools, even if a lot of them are marginal, or outright bad, is a Good Thing. If everyone were locked into, say, Microsoft, who generally makes pretty good development tools, would we really be better off? Competition is competition and back in the days when IBM was king, a lot of software was hopelessly cryptic, user-hostile and sometimes, as bad as the cheesiest VB knockoff that some sad schlump is trying to sell for $39.99.
It's progress... not all good, but definitely not all bad. Open Source may be the only means for real progress and innovation left in the software industry. Are we getting it from King Microsoft? Ha ha, it is to laugh. How about the much vaunted Apple? Some, but not enough. My experience with recent Apple software is that while a lot of it is good, and cool, like OSX in general, a lot of it is crap, like iTunes. Both companies have too much inertia to innovate as fast as many open-source technologies have been doing.
That isn't a function of technology, it's a function of the child's environment. If learning is valued at home, the child will value learning. If it isn't, the child will not.
I am hardly one of those task-master parents who drive their kids to be overachievers at the expense of childhood... I'm more than happy to let them veg out in front of the GameCube, and other unstructured free-time activities that would be detrimental if done to excess. On the other hand, my wife and I are voracious readers and both committed, through a passion for knowledge, to continuing our educations in many formal and informal ways. Our kids can't help but be influenced by that environment, and I think it's been a big benefit to them.
People who meet our children frequently comment on how "smart" they are and how much they know, and yet they are subject to today's technology, with me being a hardcore computer nerd, probably more than the average children. However, they are picking up our habits of reading a lot, and we enjoy watching lots of documentary-type TV, which may be far from a rigorous syllabus, but is definitely better than the garbage most kids spend all their time watching. And don't get me wrong, I have nothing against fluff television in moderation (or even occasional immoderation, as we are all "Simpsons" fanatics and watch it way too much).
More importantly, we've managed to establish an environment where learning is part of every day life. When one of kids is curious, he or she will ask a question, and I've made a commitment always to take these questions seriously and provide real answers, if not immediately, in due time. My wife and I have our own interests which we are passionate about and we talk about these things... in my case, technology and science, whereas she is interested in history and other similar subjects. One of my favorite activities is when one of the kids asks, "Daddy, why does...?" and I don't know, so I say, "Let's find out", and in those cases Google is invaluable.
As an example, one of my kids has taken a huge interest in early film and television technology, as well as the actual content, and we've learned a lot of cool stuff together. I discovered tons of fascinating things I didn't know about the development of color film and the early days of electromechanical television... there were actually stations broadcasting in the 30's long before the CRT TVs were available to the public and NTSC was established, etc.
Another of my kids has a huge interest, and talent, in drawing and other artistic endeavors, and we do everything we can to encourage it by providing her with ample materials for creative work, as well as providing instruction (mostly informal through books, etc), and positive feedback. She devotes a significant time to her work, and has seen the benefits it produces.
However, in the environment we have at home, the kids are motivated to pursue these interests mostly on their own, and we as parents are more facilitators rather than full-time instructors. We've managed (somehow) to teach them how to learn stuff on their own.
So, like most things, Google can be a crutch, or it can even be a hindrance, but used correctly, like any technology, it can be a huge enhancement. I hardly consider myself to be some kind of miracle parent: our house is a mess, the kids can be very disorganized themselves, and we have our share of "issues", but I think the lessons we have gotten across will serve them fruitfully throughout their lives.
that 4th dimensional rotational axis means you have to reach forward in time
Depends on what kind of dimension you are using. This one uses 4 spacial dimensions (projected down to 3 dimensions due to stupid limitations of our universe).
The summary said: when a computer on the plant's business network was rebooted after an engineer installed a software update
We all know what really happened. Dude rebooted the computer so that Windows automatic update reminder to reboot wouldn't interrupt his Solitaire game every 10 minutes.
Well, some parts of the U.S. just suck. In more than 20 years of voting I think I've had to wait for more than a trivial amount of time once, and that was for the 1988 Presidential election.
It would be helpful, I think, if Election Day were a holiday for people, but it just really isn't a problem for me here in Virginia. Voting for me has always been quick and easy. Plus they don't use those stupid touch-screen machines, we mark a normal, simple, readable (human- and machine-readable, that is) ballot with a marker and insert it into a collection machine. It amazes me the bizarre, nonsensical and downright stupid schemes that so many municipalities use.
The biggest lesson from the U.S. Presidential Election of 2000 didn't have anything to do with Republicans, Democrats, the Supreme Court or Al Gore's incessant whining. The biggest lesson was that the Florida state legislature is grossly incompetent. Everything else was just a side-effect.
Well the complaining comes from people who code for IE, who always pay the price for every stupid thing Microsoft has ever done. Maybe MS is doing the right thing finally, but customers will once again have to pay the price to correct all the bad things they did to get it to work with the broken prior versions of IE. Incompetence is not the biggest problem with Microsoft. Their utter contempt for customers is.
Sadly, these kinds of stories will only be increasing as the now-firmly-established corporatocracy starts consolidating power. In 20 years, we won't need to worry about the government, because they will be powerless too.
Every conceivable permutation of DRM restrictions has to be tried and failed until the barely-chordates in the music industry will realize it's a terminally flawed business model.
I imagine the schemes will become more and more elaborate, more and more draconian, and more and more amusing for those of us who've had a new thought since the compact disc was invented.
I'm very happy with mindawn.com and emusic.com, and physical CD purchases for those other things I "just gotta have". Everyone else can take a flying leap.
I will just sit back and enjoy watching the churn.
Thanks. I've downloaded a ton of papers I want to read, but I'll make a point to read this one too... even if there isn't a nice shiny picture, suitable for framing.;-)
Cool concept. I still remember being blown away by a "photo" of a benzene ring from an old dog-eared copy of George Gamow's classic "1, 2, 3... Infinity" that belonged to my father. I don't recall how the image was made, some version of electron microscopy I guess, because that book dates from the 50s or earlier. I probably still have the book somewhere.
XP is the closest Microsoft has ever come to getting it right. It was, I thought, proof that their iterative release model for NT was finally proven right. Then came Vista.
And the irony was that it was obvious from the beginning that a total rewrite was _not_ the way to go. XP had problems, mostly security related, but I liked it from the get-go, and I was negatively predisposed... i.e., I went in expecting XP to suck, and it didn't. Ironically, after being wrong about Windows 2000 and XP (i.e., expecting crap and finding out they were OK), I realized I should be cautiously optimistic about Vista, and ended up hating it in spades.
Windows 2003 did seem to be good progress, but what Vista turned into was a complete detour down Trainwreck Lane.
I have to agree. I'm no MS fan either, but in the case of getting XP activated on new hardware (i.e., transferring it to a new machine), I've never had any trouble. When a phone call was needed, it only took a couple minutes and was easy and straightforward, no hold times or anything.
As much as people whinged and complained about how awful activation was when MS first introduced it, I've never had a problem or hassle because of it.
I will go out of my way to find reasons to criticize MS, but in this can, I cannot.
Slashdot Mirror
Given that MSN search is horrible, I can see where MS would want to vulch that one piece of Yahoo, and that probably wouldn't run afoul of anti-trust laws. In any event, as a huge fan of Flickr, I'm glad there is no longer a serious threat that my beloved photo service will succumb to Redmondian rapine.
And of course, it's highly plausible that this whole effort from Microsoft was intended solely to serve their own interests by creating the perception they were going to acquire, and they never intended to go through with it, for whatever arcane market reasons.
Programming is simple. Business is complicated.
So wait -- you're my neighbor, and you have my phone number, but you've never called it till my shed is on fire?
Well, that's only because my kid set the fire.
So what you're saying is: Stupid people make bad decisions.
Well, that's a tautology and the other tautology is that there are a lot of stupid people, especially in management. Actually, I don't think that was always true, however, I think management, as a skill and an area of expertise, has gone backwards in the last couple decades. Part of that is because we are now managing things that are not concrete, like an engineering project, but rely on many intangibles, like creativity. The other part of it is that so many people who end up as managers are, to be blunt, morons. Our education system is allowing more and more people to fall through the cracks by coasting through without being really challenged and without being forced to actually learn anything constructive. But I didn't mean to make this a treatise on (yet another reason) why the U.S. and modern society in general are going to Hell.
In any event, a wealth of Open Source tools, even if a lot of them are marginal, or outright bad, is a Good Thing. If everyone were locked into, say, Microsoft, who generally makes pretty good development tools, would we really be better off? Competition is competition and back in the days when IBM was king, a lot of software was hopelessly cryptic, user-hostile and sometimes, as bad as the cheesiest VB knockoff that some sad schlump is trying to sell for $39.99.
It's progress... not all good, but definitely not all bad. Open Source may be the only means for real progress and innovation left in the software industry. Are we getting it from King Microsoft? Ha ha, it is to laugh. How about the much vaunted Apple? Some, but not enough. My experience with recent Apple software is that while a lot of it is good, and cool, like OSX in general, a lot of it is crap, like iTunes. Both companies have too much inertia to innovate as fast as many open-source technologies have been doing.
because I was pushed into reading fiction as a kid, I avoid it completely now.
So I'm guessing you avoid cable news completely! (Ba-dum-bump!)
That isn't a function of technology, it's a function of the child's environment. If learning is valued at home, the child will value learning. If it isn't, the child will not.
I am hardly one of those task-master parents who drive their kids to be overachievers at the expense of childhood... I'm more than happy to let them veg out in front of the GameCube, and other unstructured free-time activities that would be detrimental if done to excess. On the other hand, my wife and I are voracious readers and both committed, through a passion for knowledge, to continuing our educations in many formal and informal ways. Our kids can't help but be influenced by that environment, and I think it's been a big benefit to them.
People who meet our children frequently comment on how "smart" they are and how much they know, and yet they are subject to today's technology, with me being a hardcore computer nerd, probably more than the average children. However, they are picking up our habits of reading a lot, and we enjoy watching lots of documentary-type TV, which may be far from a rigorous syllabus, but is definitely better than the garbage most kids spend all their time watching. And don't get me wrong, I have nothing against fluff television in moderation (or even occasional immoderation, as we are all "Simpsons" fanatics and watch it way too much).
More importantly, we've managed to establish an environment where learning is part of every day life. When one of kids is curious, he or she will ask a question, and I've made a commitment always to take these questions seriously and provide real answers, if not immediately, in due time. My wife and I have our own interests which we are passionate about and we talk about these things... in my case, technology and science, whereas she is interested in history and other similar subjects. One of my favorite activities is when one of the kids asks, "Daddy, why does...?" and I don't know, so I say, "Let's find out", and in those cases Google is invaluable.
As an example, one of my kids has taken a huge interest in early film and television technology, as well as the actual content, and we've learned a lot of cool stuff together. I discovered tons of fascinating things I didn't know about the development of color film and the early days of electromechanical television... there were actually stations broadcasting in the 30's long before the CRT TVs were available to the public and NTSC was established, etc.
Another of my kids has a huge interest, and talent, in drawing and other artistic endeavors, and we do everything we can to encourage it by providing her with ample materials for creative work, as well as providing instruction (mostly informal through books, etc), and positive feedback. She devotes a significant time to her work, and has seen the benefits it produces.
However, in the environment we have at home, the kids are motivated to pursue these interests mostly on their own, and we as parents are more facilitators rather than full-time instructors. We've managed (somehow) to teach them how to learn stuff on their own.
So, like most things, Google can be a crutch, or it can even be a hindrance, but used correctly, like any technology, it can be a huge enhancement. I hardly consider myself to be some kind of miracle parent: our house is a mess, the kids can be very disorganized themselves, and we have our share of "issues", but I think the lessons we have gotten across will serve them fruitfully throughout their lives.
If the router can be reconfigured and/or rebooted without a password it is buggy.
I can do that by bouncing the power. In fact, my router has a power switch.
Funny. I don't find either one of them good. What does that make me?
that 4th dimensional rotational axis means you have to reach forward in time
Depends on what kind of dimension you are using. This one uses 4 spacial dimensions (projected down to 3 dimensions due to stupid limitations of our universe).
The summary said: when a computer on the plant's business network was rebooted after an engineer installed a software update
We all know what really happened. Dude rebooted the computer so that Windows automatic update reminder to reboot wouldn't interrupt his Solitaire game every 10 minutes.
Yeah, but everyone knows those EULAs are unenforceable.
Nice idea. Too bad this society's going in the opposite direction on both your points: education and power consolidation
Well, some parts of the U.S. just suck. In more than 20 years of voting I think I've had to wait for more than a trivial amount of time once, and that was for the 1988 Presidential election.
It would be helpful, I think, if Election Day were a holiday for people, but it just really isn't a problem for me here in Virginia. Voting for me has always been quick and easy. Plus they don't use those stupid touch-screen machines, we mark a normal, simple, readable (human- and machine-readable, that is) ballot with a marker and insert it into a collection machine. It amazes me the bizarre, nonsensical and downright stupid schemes that so many municipalities use.
The biggest lesson from the U.S. Presidential Election of 2000 didn't have anything to do with Republicans, Democrats, the Supreme Court or Al Gore's incessant whining. The biggest lesson was that the Florida state legislature is grossly incompetent. Everything else was just a side-effect.
The contract was between our media corporate overlords and their lapdogs in Congress. You have no say in the matter.
Well the complaining comes from people who code for IE, who always pay the price for every stupid thing Microsoft has ever done. Maybe MS is doing the right thing finally, but customers will once again have to pay the price to correct all the bad things they did to get it to work with the broken prior versions of IE. Incompetence is not the biggest problem with Microsoft. Their utter contempt for customers is.
Thank you for the information. I gladly stand corrected.
Is that anything like oobleck?
(God, I hate agreeing with someone who's got me marked as a foe. It's so... so... Un-Slashdotish, somehow.)
Perhaps you should have appended "you insensitive clod!" to your post.
The very idea of this is as ludicrous as trying to outlaw particular thoughts... oh, wait, they're already doing that with Hate Crime Laws.
We are so screwed.
Like they say, "No good deed goes unpunished."
Sadly, these kinds of stories will only be increasing as the now-firmly-established corporatocracy starts consolidating power. In 20 years, we won't need to worry about the government, because they will be powerless too.
You're assuming large corporations are actually subject to the law.
Every conceivable permutation of DRM restrictions has to be tried and failed until the barely-chordates in the music industry will realize it's a terminally flawed business model.
I imagine the schemes will become more and more elaborate, more and more draconian, and more and more amusing for those of us who've had a new thought since the compact disc was invented.
I'm very happy with mindawn.com and emusic.com, and physical CD purchases for those other things I "just gotta have". Everyone else can take a flying leap.
I will just sit back and enjoy watching the churn.
Thanks. I've downloaded a ton of papers I want to read, but I'll make a point to read this one too... even if there isn't a nice shiny picture, suitable for framing. ;-)
Cool concept. I still remember being blown away by a "photo" of a benzene ring from an old dog-eared copy of George Gamow's classic "1, 2, 3... Infinity" that belonged to my father. I don't recall how the image was made, some version of electron microscopy I guess, because that book dates from the 50s or earlier. I probably still have the book somewhere.
Yeah, I'll accept your explanation of the existence of "atoms" when you show me a good clear photograph of one.
XP is the closest Microsoft has ever come to getting it right. It was, I thought, proof that their iterative release model for NT was finally proven right. Then came Vista.
And the irony was that it was obvious from the beginning that a total rewrite was _not_ the way to go. XP had problems, mostly security related, but I liked it from the get-go, and I was negatively predisposed... i.e., I went in expecting XP to suck, and it didn't. Ironically, after being wrong about Windows 2000 and XP (i.e., expecting crap and finding out they were OK), I realized I should be cautiously optimistic about Vista, and ended up hating it in spades.
Windows 2003 did seem to be good progress, but what Vista turned into was a complete detour down Trainwreck Lane.
I have to agree. I'm no MS fan either, but in the case of getting XP activated on new hardware (i.e., transferring it to a new machine), I've never had any trouble. When a phone call was needed, it only took a couple minutes and was easy and straightforward, no hold times or anything.
As much as people whinged and complained about how awful activation was when MS first introduced it, I've never had a problem or hassle because of it.
I will go out of my way to find reasons to criticize MS, but in this can, I cannot.