I can't let this one go by without comment. Are you saying that because the guy published some stuff, he forfeits privacy and the rights to control how his work is presented? Man, if this ain't Open Source run amok!
So you like his work! Great! Douglas Adams probably had that goal in mind and, dammit, if it didn't make him rich and famous. But come on, dude, he is not part of your life - his writings are. Douglas Adams doesn't owe you anything. As for your financial investment, you own the book you bought - that's it. Unless, of course, you forwarded Adams a few bucks when he was a struggling, destitute hack.
But let's take your line of reasoning a little further, shall we? You post your comments on/. and you are now publishing in the public domain. Furthermore, I've developed a perverse-worship-ideal about all things Flarg!-ian. Congrats! You're part of my like now! Can I have your address? What's your girlfriend's name? Do you have any unusual moles? Do you have any pictures, writings, thoughts, bad habits, or other creatively unique thoughts for me? By your own logic, "All Flarg!s are belong to us.".
Like others have said, let Mr. Adams rest. Unless his last wish was to publish this stuff, it's safe to assume that he didn't want it published. Gotta love that boolean logic, eh?
So why rape his work after death? Just to capitalize on recent media attention? Is his estate in financial dire straits? I, for one, am unlikely to purchase any of this stuff - unless the critcs tell me to!;)
For all you whipper-snappers out there, James Martin has been a self-professed IT guru for about 25 years. There was a time when you couldn't open a trade rag without finding him blowing hot air about something or other. Whatever the current fad - Info Engineering, CASE, whatever - there he was.
The thing is, Mr. Martin had a small army of research associates working for him who did all the hard slogging for the "James Martin" brand. Frankly, I cannot believe this guy is still alive! He must be about 90 years old!!
Anyways, as most folks can tell by reading the arcticle, Mr. Martin has a profound grasp of the obvious. This has always been my beef with his kind of industry punditry. A lot of it reads no better than a 1950s-era Popular Science article ("in the future we'll be good-looking, wear jumpsuits, and drive flying cars to our 2-hour/week office jobs..."). Good to see that James has not slowed down, or changed his modus operandi.
Who gives a shit if poor ol' Napster is getting another bitch-slap? The stats "proving" Napster spurs more CD purchases are simply ridiculous. There is no way anyone is going to prove any causal relationship between CD sales and Napster (good or bad) - even if such a relationship exists.
Bottom-line... Napster and its users (that includes the 6 songs I downloaded) are absolutely all about stealing music. Period. This geek media fascination with the new, reformed Napster is becoming a sad and pathetic spectacle of denial. And before anyone flames me, the Napster debate is NOT in the same universe of 'fair use' laws.
I agree that schools, daycares, community groups, etc. could benefit from old hardware. It's so inaccurate to say that giving them old 486 and Pentium boxes would saddle folks with out-of-date software. Exactly what does Office2000 give that Office97 doesn't when all somone need is word processing to print the church newsletter, for Pete's sake?
Anyways, one of the biggest sources of old hardware is, of course, corporations. I work for a very large corporation that freed up over 5000 old desktops in a few short months (part of a concentrated replacement effort). I had the idea to give these PCs away - good for the community and good PR for the company. We had staff ready to reimage the machines on their own time!.
Well guess what? The legal department got involved and felt that, legally, the only way to ensure that the hard drives had no confidential data on them was to pay an outside firm to remove each drive and drill a whole in it! I am NOT making this up. In the end, the cost to do this was prohibitive ($200/PC), so the machines were mothballed in a warehouse and, mysteriously, have been slowly disappearing out the door.
So, we all lost on this escapade and no one really knows what data was left on them anyways. Anyone else encounter similar problems recycling old hardware out to the community?
What about The Planiverse?
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Flatterland
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Mathematician AK Dewdney published a book back in 1984 entitled "The Planiverse" which was a very entertaining, but thorough, examination of what 2D existence could be like. I think it's currently out of print, but is worth a look if one can find it. A further description is here .
Dude, you have a point - but please understand that the browser developers (MS and Netscape) have played leapfrog for years where standards are concerned. Both products have never implemented a full set of W3C standards. Instead, they have selectively implemented the standards when it complements the inclusion of their own "standards".
This has been an on-going pain-in-the-ass for the W3C folks. The problem, of course, is that no vendor ever got rich implementing standards verbatim - there's just no competitive advantage. Hence the "extensions" that vendors - most noteably MS - needs to include and hype in their products.
While IE is certainly a leader in standards implementation today, the V6.0 Netscape embarrassment (and other products) actually implement a fuller spec. There's a great book on the subject called "Raggett on HTML 4" by Dave Raggett - lead architect of the 4.0 spec. While the book is about HTML, itself, it's salted with a lot of insider glimpses of how specs evolve and how the software vendors (MS and Netscape) thrust-and-parry with the W3C. It's worth a look.
Dude, I've done market analysis for a paycheque and I gotta disagree on a few points...
The fact that company X happens to know that customer ID 939392-2349493-1343 likes to play ping-pong on Tuesday nights and prefers green pullovers to blue is not equivalent to being spied upon. The information is used in an abstract fashion: crunching statistics, determining customer needs, etc. Not one person at DoubleClick or any other "Big Brother" company gives a flying flip at a rolling donut *what* you do in your spare time.
Actually, many companies DO care if you care if you play ping-pong on Tuesday nights. If this is regular behaviour, maybe you'd like to buy our new PADDLE2000. Or maybe you'd like some coupons for a local restaurant chain 'cause you must be eating out on Tuesday nights on your way to ping-pong. Or maybe you'd be interested in donating some dough to a local youth ping-pong team so it can realize its dream of playing in China. Get the drift?
How does a computer thousands of miles away knowing that you're interested in travel, politics, and fine art *really* affect your life, except that the spam you receive is tailored for your interests, instead of being completely random?
Good point, but it belies the basic concept around privacy. I don't care how inocuous the intent. The fact that someone has info about ME that I didn't give them is inherently a breac hof my privacy. Idon't know about you, but I don't need spam to tell me where to find the things I'm interested in, thanks.
People are naturally observant by nature. When you go out in public, you notice what people are doing, wearing, saying, etc. After a while, you come to conclusions based on those observations. Have you invaded those people's privacy? A library keeps track of what books people are reading so that they can keep their library stocked with books that will be useful or interesting to the local population. Have they invaded those people's privacy? The notion that what someone is doing is EVIL because they are company is absurd, yet that seems to be the party line here on Slashdot.
Public domain info (what you wear, what you say within earshot of a stranger) is not a privacy issue at all since its in MY control of where I go what I wear, what I say, etc. A library does not simply stock what people like - otherwise we'd have libraries chock full of trashy books by Danielle Steele and the like. Libraries (through the highly-trained librarians that run them) build collections that reflect the gamut of human knowledge (and, yes, that includes pop culture). Again, this is irrelevant to the privacy issue.
Privacy issues in the information age are not about stunted emotional adoloescence or libertarianism or anarchist fantasies. Rather, they're about maintaining a sense of Self and Humanity in a world where these concepts are withering.
Ok, I like McNealy. He's a hoot. But what special insight has he got into this issue? I think the article looks bad on him. Consider:
central storage for personal info is not inherently safer. For one thing, it's on a network with a (potentially) very visible address. As well, the public has no real clues about how their data is managed, accessed, etc. in accordance with any privacy policy.
banking is a bad example (I know 'cause I work for one). Your data may not be compromised or divulged to a 3rd party, but you can be sure your bank is doing sophisticated segmentation and behaviour analysis based on your banking patterns, etc. This is just as bad a breach of privacy in my mind.
I don't need any friggin' PDA hooked up with some personalization technology to suggest restaurants and the like! Machines that try do do our thinking for us are - at best - annoying and redundant and - at worst - dangerous to personal liberty.
Ol' Scotty M. may be right that we don't have the privacy we think we do, but computers (and the humans who drive them) really aren't as smart and far-reaching as he'd have as all believe. In the end, I think I'll protect my privacy whereever I can, thank-you. The unsavoury alternative is to roll over and eat the French cusine my PDA suggested rather than pizza I really crave right now.
For all you non-Canadians in the room, you must be aware that ex-Astronauts in our country (like M. Garneau) all go to live in that Big Bureaucracy in the Sky when they retire. They get nice jobs with obscure, but nice, little gov't organizations. Their days are spend holding conferences with other nice, but obscure, little gov't organizations where they chatter on about Big Things, invent cute slogans, and issue press releases that get trotted out on slow news days. This is the Way of Things in Canada.
Canada will not go to Mars. Trust me on this. Now lets all go back to sleep and let the nice Canadian space heroes finish their speeches. Okay?
Look, M$ produces suck-ass products and we all know it. But they figured out how to market hard and own the markets they choose. However, the Business Week article - besides being an overt blow-job for M$ advertising dollars - is almost science-fiction in its analysis.
M$ will continue to make lots of money, no doubt. But there are a few issues that need to be understood:
M$ will NEVER make significant money from Internet-based subscription services. People don't like to pay for stuff they think they can get for free off the Web. Lots of companies have tried this route and failed - and M$ doesn't seem to have more clues about the Internet-as-a-business-model than anyone else.
M$ will NEVER make any serious inroads into the big corporate datacenters - contrary to what their PR and the press will tell you. I work in Big Corporate Land and can tell you that any M$ technology that's snuck onto the raised floor is going buh-bye in favour of Unix.
.Net is a junky vision and is just a rehash of ActiveX, DNA, and whatever other names they've used in the past. It's more marketing concept than it is a set of solutions. The folks who adopt.Net in any meaningful way are the same folks who develop with ActiveX, OLE, MTS, etc. today. I don't see any new markets opening up with.Net
Finally, M$ on everything we touch? Don't make me laugh! They have screwed up more often than they haven't - settop box software, PDAs, phones. Need I go on?
In the end, M$ makes loadsadough and will continue to do so. But they're not poised to dominate the world, me buckos. They're big, they're bloated, and not every pie in which they currently have a finger will taste very good to consumers.
'nuff said.
get a bit of exercise (I play hockey once or twice a week)
get away from the monitor every few hours and walk around
stretch out your arms, shoulders, neck once in awhile (your doctor can give you some good advice on how to do this)
believe it or not, make sure you have the proper prescription if you wear glasses
stay away from chiropractors. This is just a personal thing based on the fact my 31-yo brother-in-law suffered a stroke right after having a neck adjustment done by a chiro. (just recently settled out-of-court)
just avoid insane sessions of hacking and coding. It's a big world - go outside!!
I think the corporate death penalty idea could work, but is fraught with legal landmines. I think if it can be proven and ruled that a company is entirely based/founded on fraudulent or criminal behaviour, then it should lose it's corporate charter. Plain and simple. Avant! would seem to an example here, but I'm betting there are not that many cases this cut-and-dried.
However, I'm willing to guess that there are tons of companies out there where perhaps a portion of their business could fall into the 'death penalty' area. What about those? Can you kill part of a company? What kind of legal rangling would we see in these cases?
I dunno...this all seems tricky - and it's lunchtime. Mmmm.
At the bank I work at, we tried going the diskless kiosk route with spotty success. The environment we have in our 1300 branches is currently OS/2 RIPL'd PCs running a fixed set of apps on a locked-down desktop. Essentially, this is a network station kiosk in function.
Obviously, we're looking to get off OS/2 - yet still maintain the spirit of network-booting, locked down environment. We pilotted some IBM Network Station devices. Essentially, these are Unix kiosks - some highlights:
support DHCP
use BOOTP to bring themselves to life
loads apps off the BOOTP server
support Java natively
includes a Netscape-variant browser
supports ICA protocol to get those nasty Win32 apps
supports user-developed apps (browser, Java)
PowerPC chip, no disk, loads'o'RAM, sound, etc.
The devices (and Unix kiosk concept) worked really well for us. However, we chose not to implement them for the simple fact that no swapping capability exists. That is, the diskless device, by definition, supports a flat memory model. Therefore, new apps that are introduced there must be analyzed for memory requirements and the RAM must be adjusted accordingly. In our bank, where existing apps change and new apps get introduced regularly, the flat-memory model was not acceptable.
However, for true public kiosk applications where the app profile does not change with any kind frequency, I think the diskless kiosk notion can work very well.
Interesting article, but a couple of points really bugged me:
the class of 2001 is NOT the first to have PCs, the Net, yadda yadda. This is an upper middle class myth in that most kids in North America (and the world) DO NOT have regular access to these technologies.
the author would do well to check the history books. The sames fears and promises were rampant in the media when calculators and even slide rules were introduced to school systems. What impact did they have? Oh yeah, lots of math, science, and engineering grads.
The point I really want to make is that computers don't make kids any more intelligent, just like D&D doesn't make kids any more suicide-prone and violent vids don't make kids any more aggressive. All of these things simply expand a particular view of the world as it is. That's all!
Computers and the Net have a special place in this discussion because their expansive properties are (almost) limitless in every dimension. We have access to anything and everything in the world - good, bad, insipid, bland, inspiring, whatever. This doesn't make them more intelligent, but provides awareness of the richness of human experience. In effect, it gives some amount of free rein to their intelligence.
The danger is in how kids perceive and process all of this information (and the capability to manipulate it). In my own experience (5 year-old boy and 8 year-old girl), the issue is teaching "focus". Too much data and the simplicity of flitting from idea to idea raises the spector of the Sesame Street Attention Span. These kids cannot focus a thought, cannot sit and enjoy a complete sunset - but must instead seek out the next new experience lest the current one become boring.
I've let my kids use computers with very few time restrictions since they were 3 years old. I've sat with them to teach them the basic skills and have injected the technology as a tool in their everyday lives (essentially a glorified Encyclopedia Britanica at times). I'm not saying they're typical, but I've found that on average we have no problems with the kids spending their days playing games or chatting. Will this change as they get older? Maybe. But my tack here is that I'll help my kids transition their experience from information acquisition and entertainment (i.e. surfing the Net, email, and playing games - some educational, some simply for fun) to information manipulation and discovery (programming, strategy-based games) - if they're so inclined. It's not a perfect plan, but parenting is not a science!!
So, computers (and the Net) for kids - absolutely! But not as a babysitter, not as a stand-in for television, and not as a special piece of furniture in the house - but as a tool for exploring the world of ideas with the guidance and support of their parents and teachers. Make the technology feel commonplace and part of the household fabric. It won't make kids any smarter, but they'll seem that way with a depth of world-awareness that previous generations did not enjoy.
Look, I liked the show. The premier SUCKED, but I gave it some time and it got better. But really, where was the premise going? We knew the Gunmen already as interesting - albeit 2D - characters and the new show didn't really flesh them out any further. Instead, they add the Good-Hearted-Doofus-Guy and Mysterious-Sexy-Gal to round out the show's possibilities. These characters were interesting to watch, but really amounted to denizens of the same last ditch sidekick world as The Great Gazoo and Scrappy Doo. In the end, the show was better than Harsh Realm, but still couldn't stand up on its own without a lot more depth of character.
*sigh*
Umm.... think you missed the point here. The whole Linux/M$ line was simply a whimsical statement. Of course Linux is just a tool, yadda yadda and of course no one (ok, mostly no one) thinks the game oughtta be on Linux. In fact, I can't imagine anyone who takes the time to run Linux would even want to play some sissy 'Shrek' game! Don't take things so literally, man!
Here'a a Weird Juxtaposition
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While Linux played a large part in the creation of the movie version of Shrek, the inevitable video game version of Shrek will be made exclusively available on the M$ XBox console. Game development is being done at the Canadian studios of Digital Illusions (check out http://www.dice.se).
I don't why, but I find this weirdly unsettling - Linux does the anonymous grunt work and M$ gets the flashy exposure.
This is gonna sound anti-geek, but this just sounds like technology for the sake of technology. I think it's cool and fun that a bushel'o'Macs have been clustered to run real fast, but I have to wonder 'why'?
Is there some benefit in using this solution vs. the umpteen other (cheaper, maybe better?) clustering solutions that exist today? Just sounds like a misuse of time/effort/money to me.
I hope Mr. Henson finds the asylum he seeks (I'm Canadian). The Free Speech issues seem self-evident here. However, he should be aware that we have some Hate Crime laws in the Great White North that (sometimes) are heavy-handed - although not likely to the extent to which Mr. Henson is currently experiencing.
As well, the Scientology folks have no right to claim any injury here. I had a personal experience with these twits when I was in my teens. While walking down the street with a friend one day, some clean-cut guy (looked exactly like a mid-level manager-drone from M$ - complete with Dockers) jumped out from around the corner and offered us a free "personality test". Upon learning that we were minors, he offered to give us the tests and then discuss the results and "possible remedies" with our parents - just to be above board. Very spooky.
Thanks for your perspectives, but I'll correct some of them for you:
WinNT (or the guts of it anyways) was indeed based on much of the early core IBM/MS collaboration. The original plan that became 'NT' was slated to be included in Win95 as part of MS's plan to shed DOS support. However, marketing rules and Win95 became a DOS veneer in many respects - thereby putting MS on the divergent o/s path. However, the experience, some code design, and development staff from the IBM/MS project still found its way into Win95.
I have used Workplace Shell, for about 10 years (give or take - my mind is getting older). I agree that the its functionality is unparalleled, but IMHO its early days did not really expose those strengths too much for the casual user.
BTW, I checked your (old) website. Nice OS/2 links!
I work for a large multi-national financial institution (complete with undead zombies, flying monkeys, etc.). We run over 1000 branches on OS/2 - client and server - and have done so for a decade. Having helped introduce OS/2 to the bank originally, having worked with IBM labs closely over the years, and having been charged with figuring out where to do next (i.e. migrate away from OS/2) - I'd like to clear up a few items I've read in this thread:
IBM and Microsoft were collaborating on a new o/s at one time. IBM supplied the mainframe-like skills for great paging, small kernals, etc. while MS provided the PC expertise. There was a falling out and IBM was left holding the bag. Both organizations had copies of the joint project's source which IBM released as OS/2 1.3 and MS - eventually - used as a basis for Win9x.
OS/2 was/is a great o/s bcause it was designed with mainframe solidness in mind. The GUI sucked (but got better) because IBM didn't have the background and expertise. Win9x had a much better GUI but couldn't do preemptive multitasking to save its life. Wonder why...
we manage OS/2 as a true thin client o/s in all our branches through a mechanism called RIPL (Remote IPL). All workstations boot off the server and dynamically load their o/s - much like the reviled network computers of yore. A sysadmin's dream.
OS/2 failed because (1) IBM cannot touch MS where home consumer marketing is concerned and (2) IBM is fundamentally a hardware and services company that never figured out how to get the 3rd-party development community on-side.
at a technical level, OS/2 has 3 really strong features that I've yet seen come together in any other o/s. Namely - (1) true preemptive multitasking (with requisite thread support and crash protection/isolation), (2) an effective, if unsexy, GUI that could be modified/replaced/locked-down to suit user needs, and (3) a true isolation of o/s libraries from applications that makes upgrades, etc. a snap (unlike Windoze and it's ridiculous 'feature' of allowing 3rd-party apps to overwrite systems DLLs).
I don't know much about eComStation, but I'll be sure to check it out. In the meantime, OS/2 still exists on thousands and thousands of corporate-drone desktops - so IBM is still making loadsadough of it. But I wish ta god they'd open-source the sucker.
I work for an evil multinational financial institution that does a ton of OO-based, client-server (or shall I say, network computing) apps. We've looked at OODBMS from time to time and shied away from them as a vehicle for large corporate apps. The reasons:
PERFORMANCE: They just don't perform for high-volume, on-line, real-time situations. Period.
TOO CLOSE TO THE CODE: The structure and nature of OODBMS stores forces too much thought from the Developer's perspective (consider the impact of object deep copies). We prefer to keep a cleaner line between database design and code access.
VISIBILTY OF DATA: A golden rule of Data/Function placement to put the data in a place (logical and physical) where it has the most visibility to its users and potential users. Fact is, it's tough to put an OODBMS on a boring old S/390 box - and I haven't seen a Unix or NT cluster that can take its place (even if they can house an OODBMS).
FUTURE APP USES: If I implement an OO app that uses an OODBMS, I know it works today. But the next app that comes along and needs to access that data may not be OO and may not be able to access the data.
OBJECT FIDELITY: Dumb problem.... but if the objects I store atrophy (i.e. the classes from which they're derived change), then I have a versioning problem. Sure there are ways to mitigate this problem through sound design, careful mgmt, etc. - but it's more crap to worry about.
Bottom-line for this kind of corporate computing environment is that OODBMS is a problematic technology. It forces too much up-front code design and doesn't provide enough long-term flexibility.
Ok... now tell me where I'm wrong (and you're probably right).
Anyone here ever used a Crosspad? I've played around with one and found pretty darn useful. For the uninitiated...
- interface = pen + paper
- pen has radio xmitter, pad (under paper) has receiver
- write, draw, whatever and pad stores everything (up to 50 pages I think)
- plug it into your PC and upload everything verbatim
- handwriting recognition s/w translates your writing into text
Like I say, I've only played around with one, but was impressed with the functionality (including the handwriting recognition). Very cool yet very 'legacy'!
Slashdot Mirror
I can't let this one go by without comment. Are you saying that because the guy published some stuff, he forfeits privacy and the rights to control how his work is presented? Man, if this ain't Open Source run amok!
So you like his work! Great! Douglas Adams probably had that goal in mind and, dammit, if it didn't make him rich and famous. But come on, dude, he is not part of your life - his writings are. Douglas Adams doesn't owe you anything. As for your financial investment, you own the book you bought - that's it. Unless, of course, you forwarded Adams a few bucks when he was a struggling, destitute hack.
But let's take your line of reasoning a little further, shall we? You post your comments on /. and you are now publishing in the public domain. Furthermore, I've developed a perverse-worship-ideal about all things Flarg!-ian. Congrats! You're part of my like now! Can I have your address? What's your girlfriend's name? Do you have any unusual moles? Do you have any pictures, writings, thoughts, bad habits, or other creatively unique thoughts for me? By your own logic, "All Flarg!s are belong to us.".
What's that you say?.... Thought so.
Like others have said, let Mr. Adams rest. Unless his last wish was to publish this stuff, it's safe to assume that he didn't want it published. Gotta love that boolean logic, eh?
So why rape his work after death? Just to capitalize on recent media attention? Is his estate in financial dire straits? I, for one, am unlikely to purchase any of this stuff - unless the critcs tell me to! ;)
For all you whipper-snappers out there, James Martin has been a self-professed IT guru for about 25 years. There was a time when you couldn't open a trade rag without finding him blowing hot air about something or other. Whatever the current fad - Info Engineering, CASE, whatever - there he was.
The thing is, Mr. Martin had a small army of research associates working for him who did all the hard slogging for the "James Martin" brand. Frankly, I cannot believe this guy is still alive! He must be about 90 years old!!
Anyways, as most folks can tell by reading the arcticle, Mr. Martin has a profound grasp of the obvious. This has always been my beef with his kind of industry punditry. A lot of it reads no better than a 1950s-era Popular Science article ("in the future we'll be good-looking, wear jumpsuits, and drive flying cars to our 2-hour/week office jobs..."). Good to see that James has not slowed down, or changed his modus operandi.
And thus endeth the history lesson.
Who gives a shit if poor ol' Napster is getting another bitch-slap? The stats "proving" Napster spurs more CD purchases are simply ridiculous. There is no way anyone is going to prove any causal relationship between CD sales and Napster (good or bad) - even if such a relationship exists.
Bottom-line... Napster and its users (that includes the 6 songs I downloaded) are absolutely all about stealing music. Period. This geek media fascination with the new, reformed Napster is becoming a sad and pathetic spectacle of denial. And before anyone flames me, the Napster debate is NOT in the same universe of 'fair use' laws.
There...I feel better now.
I agree that schools, daycares, community groups, etc. could benefit from old hardware. It's so inaccurate to say that giving them old 486 and Pentium boxes would saddle folks with out-of-date software. Exactly what does Office2000 give that Office97 doesn't when all somone need is word processing to print the church newsletter, for Pete's sake?
Anyways, one of the biggest sources of old hardware is, of course, corporations. I work for a very large corporation that freed up over 5000 old desktops in a few short months (part of a concentrated replacement effort). I had the idea to give these PCs away - good for the community and good PR for the company. We had staff ready to reimage the machines on their own time!.
Well guess what? The legal department got involved and felt that, legally, the only way to ensure that the hard drives had no confidential data on them was to pay an outside firm to remove each drive and drill a whole in it! I am NOT making this up. In the end, the cost to do this was prohibitive ($200/PC), so the machines were mothballed in a warehouse and, mysteriously, have been slowly disappearing out the door.
So, we all lost on this escapade and no one really knows what data was left on them anyways. Anyone else encounter similar problems recycling old hardware out to the community?
Mathematician AK Dewdney published a book back in 1984 entitled "The Planiverse" which was a very entertaining, but thorough, examination of what 2D existence could be like. I think it's currently out of print, but is worth a look if one can find it. A further description is here .
Dude, you have a point - but please understand that the browser developers (MS and Netscape) have played leapfrog for years where standards are concerned. Both products have never implemented a full set of W3C standards. Instead, they have selectively implemented the standards when it complements the inclusion of their own "standards".
This has been an on-going pain-in-the-ass for the W3C folks. The problem, of course, is that no vendor ever got rich implementing standards verbatim - there's just no competitive advantage. Hence the "extensions" that vendors - most noteably MS - needs to include and hype in their products.
While IE is certainly a leader in standards implementation today, the V6.0 Netscape embarrassment (and other products) actually implement a fuller spec. There's a great book on the subject called "Raggett on HTML 4" by Dave Raggett - lead architect of the 4.0 spec. While the book is about HTML, itself, it's salted with a lot of insider glimpses of how specs evolve and how the software vendors (MS and Netscape) thrust-and-parry with the W3C. It's worth a look.
Dude, I've done market analysis for a paycheque and I gotta disagree on a few points...
The fact that company X happens to know that customer ID 939392-2349493-1343 likes to play ping-pong on Tuesday nights and prefers green pullovers to blue is not equivalent to being spied upon. The information is used in an abstract fashion: crunching statistics, determining customer needs, etc. Not one person at DoubleClick or any other "Big Brother" company gives a flying flip at a rolling donut *what* you do in your spare time.
Actually, many companies DO care if you care if you play ping-pong on Tuesday nights. If this is regular behaviour, maybe you'd like to buy our new PADDLE2000. Or maybe you'd like some coupons for a local restaurant chain 'cause you must be eating out on Tuesday nights on your way to ping-pong. Or maybe you'd be interested in donating some dough to a local youth ping-pong team so it can realize its dream of playing in China. Get the drift?
How does a computer thousands of miles away knowing that you're interested in travel, politics, and fine art *really* affect your life, except that the spam you receive is tailored for your interests, instead of being completely random?
Good point, but it belies the basic concept around privacy. I don't care how inocuous the intent. The fact that someone has info about ME that I didn't give them is inherently a breac hof my privacy. Idon't know about you, but I don't need spam to tell me where to find the things I'm interested in, thanks.
People are naturally observant by nature. When you go out in public, you notice what people are doing, wearing, saying, etc. After a while, you come to conclusions based on those observations. Have you invaded those people's privacy? A library keeps track of what books people are reading so that they can keep their library stocked with books that will be useful or interesting to the local population. Have they invaded those people's privacy? The notion that what someone is doing is EVIL because they are company is absurd, yet that seems to be the party line here on Slashdot.
Public domain info (what you wear, what you say within earshot of a stranger) is not a privacy issue at all since its in MY control of where I go what I wear, what I say, etc. A library does not simply stock what people like - otherwise we'd have libraries chock full of trashy books by Danielle Steele and the like. Libraries (through the highly-trained librarians that run them) build collections that reflect the gamut of human knowledge (and, yes, that includes pop culture). Again, this is irrelevant to the privacy issue.
Privacy issues in the information age are not about stunted emotional adoloescence or libertarianism or anarchist fantasies. Rather, they're about maintaining a sense of Self and Humanity in a world where these concepts are withering.
Ok, I like McNealy. He's a hoot. But what special insight has he got into this issue? I think the article looks bad on him. Consider:
Ol' Scotty M. may be right that we don't have the privacy we think we do, but computers (and the humans who drive them) really aren't as smart and far-reaching as he'd have as all believe. In the end, I think I'll protect my privacy whereever I can, thank-you. The unsavoury alternative is to roll over and eat the French cusine my PDA suggested rather than pizza I really crave right now.
For all you non-Canadians in the room, you must be aware that ex-Astronauts in our country (like M. Garneau) all go to live in that Big Bureaucracy in the Sky when they retire. They get nice jobs with obscure, but nice, little gov't organizations. Their days are spend holding conferences with other nice, but obscure, little gov't organizations where they chatter on about Big Things, invent cute slogans, and issue press releases that get trotted out on slow news days. This is the Way of Things in Canada.
Canada will not go to Mars. Trust me on this. Now lets all go back to sleep and let the nice Canadian space heroes finish their speeches. Okay?
Look, M$ produces suck-ass products and we all know it. But they figured out how to market hard and own the markets they choose. However, the Business Week article - besides being an overt blow-job for M$ advertising dollars - is almost science-fiction in its analysis.
M$ will continue to make lots of money, no doubt. But there are a few issues that need to be understood:
In the end, M$ makes loadsadough and will continue to do so. But they're not poised to dominate the world, me buckos. They're big, they're bloated, and not every pie in which they currently have a finger will taste very good to consumers. 'nuff said.
Just my own practices here:
Wow! Your back must be really flexible! :\
I think the corporate death penalty idea could work, but is fraught with legal landmines. I think if it can be proven and ruled that a company is entirely based/founded on fraudulent or criminal behaviour, then it should lose it's corporate charter. Plain and simple. Avant! would seem to an example here, but I'm betting there are not that many cases this cut-and-dried.
However, I'm willing to guess that there are tons of companies out there where perhaps a portion of their business could fall into the 'death penalty' area. What about those? Can you kill part of a company? What kind of legal rangling would we see in these cases?
I dunno...this all seems tricky - and it's lunchtime. Mmmm.
At the bank I work at, we tried going the diskless kiosk route with spotty success. The environment we have in our 1300 branches is currently OS/2 RIPL'd PCs running a fixed set of apps on a locked-down desktop. Essentially, this is a network station kiosk in function.
Obviously, we're looking to get off OS/2 - yet still maintain the spirit of network-booting, locked down environment. We pilotted some IBM Network Station devices. Essentially, these are Unix kiosks - some highlights:
The devices (and Unix kiosk concept) worked really well for us. However, we chose not to implement them for the simple fact that no swapping capability exists. That is, the diskless device, by definition, supports a flat memory model. Therefore, new apps that are introduced there must be analyzed for memory requirements and the RAM must be adjusted accordingly. In our bank, where existing apps change and new apps get introduced regularly, the flat-memory model was not acceptable.
However, for true public kiosk applications where the app profile does not change with any kind frequency, I think the diskless kiosk notion can work very well.
Interesting article, but a couple of points really bugged me:
The point I really want to make is that computers don't make kids any more intelligent, just like D&D doesn't make kids any more suicide-prone and violent vids don't make kids any more aggressive. All of these things simply expand a particular view of the world as it is. That's all!
Computers and the Net have a special place in this discussion because their expansive properties are (almost) limitless in every dimension. We have access to anything and everything in the world - good, bad, insipid, bland, inspiring, whatever. This doesn't make them more intelligent, but provides awareness of the richness of human experience. In effect, it gives some amount of free rein to their intelligence.
The danger is in how kids perceive and process all of this information (and the capability to manipulate it). In my own experience (5 year-old boy and 8 year-old girl), the issue is teaching "focus". Too much data and the simplicity of flitting from idea to idea raises the spector of the Sesame Street Attention Span. These kids cannot focus a thought, cannot sit and enjoy a complete sunset - but must instead seek out the next new experience lest the current one become boring.
I've let my kids use computers with very few time restrictions since they were 3 years old. I've sat with them to teach them the basic skills and have injected the technology as a tool in their everyday lives (essentially a glorified Encyclopedia Britanica at times). I'm not saying they're typical, but I've found that on average we have no problems with the kids spending their days playing games or chatting. Will this change as they get older? Maybe. But my tack here is that I'll help my kids transition their experience from information acquisition and entertainment (i.e. surfing the Net, email, and playing games - some educational, some simply for fun) to information manipulation and discovery (programming, strategy-based games) - if they're so inclined. It's not a perfect plan, but parenting is not a science!!
So, computers (and the Net) for kids - absolutely! But not as a babysitter, not as a stand-in for television, and not as a special piece of furniture in the house - but as a tool for exploring the world of ideas with the guidance and support of their parents and teachers. Make the technology feel commonplace and part of the household fabric. It won't make kids any smarter, but they'll seem that way with a depth of world-awareness that previous generations did not enjoy.
Look, I liked the show. The premier SUCKED, but I gave it some time and it got better. But really, where was the premise going? We knew the Gunmen already as interesting - albeit 2D - characters and the new show didn't really flesh them out any further. Instead, they add the Good-Hearted-Doofus-Guy and Mysterious-Sexy-Gal to round out the show's possibilities. These characters were interesting to watch, but really amounted to denizens of the same last ditch sidekick world as The Great Gazoo and Scrappy Doo. In the end, the show was better than Harsh Realm, but still couldn't stand up on its own without a lot more depth of character. *sigh*
Umm.... think you missed the point here. The whole Linux/M$ line was simply a whimsical statement. Of course Linux is just a tool, yadda yadda and of course no one (ok, mostly no one) thinks the game oughtta be on Linux. In fact, I can't imagine anyone who takes the time to run Linux would even want to play some sissy 'Shrek' game! Don't take things so literally, man!
While Linux played a large part in the creation of the movie version of Shrek, the inevitable video game version of Shrek will be made exclusively available on the M$ XBox console. Game development is being done at the Canadian studios of Digital Illusions (check out http://www.dice.se).
I don't why, but I find this weirdly unsettling - Linux does the anonymous grunt work and M$ gets the flashy exposure.
This is gonna sound anti-geek, but this just sounds like technology for the sake of technology. I think it's cool and fun that a bushel'o'Macs have been clustered to run real fast, but I have to wonder 'why'?
Is there some benefit in using this solution vs. the umpteen other (cheaper, maybe better?) clustering solutions that exist today? Just sounds like a misuse of time/effort/money to me.
Rebuttals anyone?
I hope Mr. Henson finds the asylum he seeks (I'm Canadian). The Free Speech issues seem self-evident here. However, he should be aware that we have some Hate Crime laws in the Great White North that (sometimes) are heavy-handed - although not likely to the extent to which Mr. Henson is currently experiencing.
As well, the Scientology folks have no right to claim any injury here. I had a personal experience with these twits when I was in my teens. While walking down the street with a friend one day, some clean-cut guy (looked exactly like a mid-level manager-drone from M$ - complete with Dockers) jumped out from around the corner and offered us a free "personality test". Upon learning that we were minors, he offered to give us the tests and then discuss the results and "possible remedies" with our parents - just to be above board. Very spooky.
- WinNT (or the guts of it anyways) was indeed based on much of the early core IBM/MS collaboration. The original plan that became 'NT' was slated to be included in Win95 as part of MS's plan to shed DOS support. However, marketing rules and Win95 became a DOS veneer in many respects - thereby putting MS on the divergent o/s path. However, the experience, some code design, and development staff from the IBM/MS project still found its way into Win95.
- I have used Workplace Shell, for about 10 years (give or take - my mind is getting older). I agree that the its functionality is unparalleled, but IMHO its early days did not really expose those strengths too much for the casual user.
BTW, I checked your (old) website. Nice OS/2 links!I don't know much about eComStation, but I'll be sure to check it out. In the meantime, OS/2 still exists on thousands and thousands of corporate-drone desktops - so IBM is still making loadsadough of it. But I wish ta god they'd open-source the sucker.
I work for an evil multinational financial institution that does a ton of OO-based, client-server (or shall I say, network computing) apps. We've looked at OODBMS from time to time and shied away from them as a vehicle for large corporate apps. The reasons:
PERFORMANCE: They just don't perform for high-volume, on-line, real-time situations. Period.
TOO CLOSE TO THE CODE: The structure and nature of OODBMS stores forces too much thought from the Developer's perspective (consider the impact of object deep copies). We prefer to keep a cleaner line between database design and code access.
VISIBILTY OF DATA: A golden rule of Data/Function placement to put the data in a place (logical and physical) where it has the most visibility to its users and potential users. Fact is, it's tough to put an OODBMS on a boring old S/390 box - and I haven't seen a Unix or NT cluster that can take its place (even if they can house an OODBMS).
FUTURE APP USES: If I implement an OO app that uses an OODBMS, I know it works today. But the next app that comes along and needs to access that data may not be OO and may not be able to access the data.
OBJECT FIDELITY: Dumb problem.... but if the objects I store atrophy (i.e. the classes from which they're derived change), then I have a versioning problem. Sure there are ways to mitigate this problem through sound design, careful mgmt, etc. - but it's more crap to worry about.
Bottom-line for this kind of corporate computing environment is that OODBMS is a problematic technology. It forces too much up-front code design and doesn't provide enough long-term flexibility.
Ok... now tell me where I'm wrong (and you're probably right).
Anyone here ever used a Crosspad? I've played around with one and found pretty darn useful. For the uninitiated...
- interface = pen + paper
- pen has radio xmitter, pad (under paper) has receiver
- write, draw, whatever and pad stores everything (up to 50 pages I think)
- plug it into your PC and upload everything verbatim
- handwriting recognition s/w translates your writing into text
Like I say, I've only played around with one, but was impressed with the functionality (including the handwriting recognition). Very cool yet very 'legacy'!