First of all- the pain relieving effects of morphine are not related to the 'highs' that one might feel; in fact pain is a natural anti-dote to the addictive effects of morphine and that includes the 'highs'. So morpine will still work to reduce your pain.
Secondly - the newspaper article is so obviously a typical 'scare' story; it's in the Independent for starters; it's in a Sunday edition (the day when the Uk press is crazier than normal); and just how likely is it that any government would even suggest such a thing to parents? Heck, they can't even get parents to vaccinate kids with the MMR jab. (And hey - when did Slashdot get to suggest 'quango' when it didn't say such a thing in the original article?)
Thirdly - the clinical trials carried out on the TA-CD vaccine appear to be limited in duration so I'm not sure they would actually last as long as a vaccine.
Fourthly - what the heck has this got to do with computers?;>
Nothing so convoluted my friend; just that in this one instance it served MS well to publish this article. Would they have published a similar article that criticised a core, not-for-sale, product such as Windows Server 2003 or Exchange? (I just know you're going to find something that does just that;)
As for blogging connecting one-to-one with the customer - how's that then? I thought that's what technical support was for - and MS haven't improved that area so much.
Not that I'm trying to criticise MS - I like their products and I don't criticise them for acting more like a big corp. than, say, the OSS community. MS need to keep making a profit so I can buy their fairly useful software and get support from a large user community. But, what they could avoid doing, is making such painfully obvious self-serving moves like this article in Slate and the blogging initiative.
Maybe if they focussed on keeping hold of their key value propositions - like backward-compatibility in their OSs, and some pretty useful Office and development software - instead of cheap tricks like Slate-loves-Firefox and less-than-obvious moves like the X-Box and all those other blog-like initiatives then maybe they wouldn't keep appearing to be such a big joke all of the time.
I mean to say - what are they still doing with billions of dollars in 'dead' cash? They should have used it for some M&A activity as soon as the court cases were 'settled'; and I don't think buying Lookout really counts, do you?
A bit more 'big blue' and little less of 'big Bulmer' would not be bad thing sometimes...
... on Slate because that is the exact sort of thing that gives Slate a supposed 'reputation' for journalism. In fact, it's a pretty cheap trick to recommend something that so many others have recommended already (and is so obviously a better product), when MS's own product (IE) attracted so much trouble for MS in the first place and doesn't make a profit for MS anyway.
Now if they had gone down the road of web-based applications then maybe this would have been a different story - but right now IE is a suitable sacrificial lamb that will boost Slate's reputation just before a potential sale/partnership.
In fact, Slate appears to be part of trend at MS, what with blogs and all, to promote the idea that MS goes in for a little self-criticism... wonder why?
Maybe MS feels that self-attack is the best form of defence against their only true threat - worldwide Governments - and appearing to be self-governing is a common method used by large industries to avoid government-regulation.
Not that I'm suggesting that MS is really trying to be so underhand - but I guess they can't help but appear to be so.
... he could just get a normal job instead of claiming his only income stream is building missiles - I'm sure I could start building something deadly too - but would I start moaning when the government stopped me from doing so? (Probably)
Certainly for enterprise software vendors the lack of new core functionality is to blame - MRP2 (at the heart of most ERP software), and, to a lesser extent, CRM (at the heart of Siebel etc.) are now fully utilised in the places where they can be used (i.e. large enterprises) and companies are looking at other ways to reduce fixed costs (e.g. off-shoring call centres).
Low level innovations of the past, such as RDBMS and networking, are also not beng replaced by newer innovations (I don't think technologies such as Neural Nets are fully realised but I think they never will be).
These two levels of innovation are what I think drove the IT industry in the past - until some new things come along (and I don't think anything will in the next 20 years) major IT companies will always be outside the high-profit zone.
Of my college VAX system with 100's of terminals across the campus.
Who's on-line lists; command line email (so much easier to use than Outlook); me and my mates wrote an on-line magazine called Dogsday with selective readership blocking; the incomprehensible Minitab for pharmacology analysis (the *only* time my fellow students sought me out because even then I was the main geek); the late-night hacking sessions (and I was c*** at it - but for once being c*** at something saved my ass when some of the other guys got kicked out of college for managing to do the thing I couldn't - i.e. reset the login timer).
Of course, as said elsewhere, the real joy of of Vax was the ghostly warm glow from lovely orange terminals (I really didn't dig the green ones).
Your boss is obviously trying to cut some areas of cost - that's standard business... but in return you should ask for some recognition of your increased professionalism - i.e. more wages or days working from home; they're miles better than expensing costs.
When I was in a perm job I funded my own narrow-band connection and used it allow me to work from home one or two days per month - that saved more than the cost of the connection in travelling costs AND meant I could take it a little easier...
My theory about it being a reference to Rooney is because in the UK the tabloids - pretty c*** at news but great at headlines - started put oo's into words to emphasise the joy and respect footie fans had for Rooney.
Any decent football fan who also visits art galleries would want to refer to that tabloid spelling as an extra knife into the back of the England team.
If they were looking to refer to Rebecca Loos then, IMHO, they would have added something along the lines of 'Stop shagging over the phone...' etc.
Anyway - I don't think any footie fan would criticise any football player of having a bit on the side - not in public anyway;)
PCPro is the best of a pretty average bunch of PC 'zines in the UK.
The Financial Times offers analysis as well as news and rarely makes the thicko comments inferences found in other papers (including The Times I'm afraid to say - I mean 'Loosers' was clearly a reference to Wayne Rooney - not to Rebecca Loos...)
As an aside - none of the newspapers have decent IT columns///
The pure arrogance of the commission beggars belief...
- not only are UK supermarkets pushing all the local grocers out-of-business so we only have one place to go to for all our essentials (supermarkets!)
- not only are they forcing us to have 'loyalty cards' (secret tracking cards to you and me) so they can track what we buy and then use it to shove junk mail through our letter box and put up the prices of our favourite goods and make secret pay-offs to jam jar poison
- but now they're trying to imply that supermarkets our part of our DNA!
I had expected better of Somerfield... sounds like the sort of thing Tesco's would do...
In fact, come to think of it, Somerfield's latest UK marketing campaign is all about implying that supermarkets are the essential thread in our very existence - they have a man and a woman bump into each other in a supermarket - and after a couple of coy looks a baby drops from the sky into the woman's shopping *trolley*
Personally I prefer the Asda (now with added Walmart) adverts - all that bum slapping makes me feel all warm inside.
They used the phrase 'The blending of these technologies into the semacode gestalt...'
Please put them out of my misery...
Was it really that good? Retro-TV campaigns ...
on
Farscape is Back
·
· Score: 1
... will ruin TV (and therefore, my life).
After the initial shock I have come to accept the end of Farscape; and right now I really don't care if Farscape comes back. A previous poster got it right when indicating that Lexx was far superior to Farscape. I guess I didn't have it all in perspective (and Ben B didn't help when he kept talking about chainsaws being taken to Moya).
What with the news of a new series of Dr Who, which was probably not that great after all and will not be any better now, I'm beginning to regret all the campaigns to restore the sci-fi of our past.
Let Farscape, Dr Who, Blakes 7 (I know...), and Futurama (gulp) lie in our past and then maybe new, better stuff will come through.
Hell, even the Lexx website (lexx.com) was better than the Farscape one - though lately they seem to have got rid of the robot head and the poems... oh well; you'll have to trust me on that one...
"Anyway..." I said in an attempt to make my abrupt exit from the comment seem more amicable...
... 'cause I know the number of replies to this will mean no-one will see my minor contribution, but...
For technical notes and my work diary (because of the fine point and totally non-blobbliness) - the Pilot G-Tec-C4 (though I'm sure any of the needle-point range will be good enough)
For my crossword and general writing (because of its fat grip) - the Pilot Dr Grip ball pen
For personal scribbles - the Faber-Castell GRIP 2001 pencil (smooooth;).
Grim reaper Mal Young is the good news here
on
Doctor Who Comeback
·
· Score: 1
I think that the BBC story includes mention of Mal Young overseeing the project - he has had a number of successes (Brookside - all those shaking heads and murders; Doctors - almost Dr Who in a suburban setting - the characters deal with life and death over their tea breaks; Holby City - almost as thrilling and violent as the first series of Casualty; In Deep - laddish violence sanctioned by the govt) and could be seen as a 'series fixer'; usually achieved by upping the amount of effective violence and death.
So good news for the series - it will be successful - and if it isn't, Mal will inject a healthy dose of violence and death (but of course, the Dr won't ever die - so Mal will have a field day...)
Looks 'interesting' - not sure what drives the 'Brainfinger' signals it uses to control mouse movements though, and you;re right about the cost - way out of my league! Even with the free 'Cybergel';)
... that darn' evil M$oft; trust them to be truly evil and stupid and hide their stupid and evil mistakes. I knew there was a reason I didn't like them.
Why I ought'a... switch to that there Lee-nux them there hippies keep squak'n 'bout...
... now that would make a better idea than re-gargling Blakes 7. When I was a kid B7 was the tops - I even made a paper blaster and teleportation ring, such was my devotion.
But now, after the wonderful Farscape, even the basic concepts of B7 do not compare (an evil Federation controlling a WHOLE galaxy?)
Much as I respect Darrow's acting in the original B7 (matched only by that sneaky thief guy - who taught me that 'the best lock pickers learn to think like the lock maker'), this whole B7 resurrection is a dumb idea.
Could this be used to replace the PC mouse and point'n'click? The article talks about detecting a person's desire to move in a particular direction by monitoring alpha brain waves. This is surely something that could be easily applied to mouse control.
Differentiating between EEG patterns could be advanced by neural network based analysis.
The possibilities are endless.
BTW, the Swiss institute mentioned in the article also analysed a Bin Laden tape and decided it was fake.
... and speaking as someone whose main job is to feed my master computers with information and business rules, I can't bloody wait...
I thought the whole point of computers was to free humans from menial tasks so we coudl spend all day on the beach, flying starships and drinking coffee.
Slashdot Mirror
Secondly - the newspaper article is so obviously a typical 'scare' story; it's in the Independent for starters; it's in a Sunday edition (the day when the Uk press is crazier than normal); and just how likely is it that any government would even suggest such a thing to parents? Heck, they can't even get parents to vaccinate kids with the MMR jab. (And hey - when did Slashdot get to suggest 'quango' when it didn't say such a thing in the original article?)
Thirdly - the clinical trials carried out on the TA-CD vaccine appear to be limited in duration so I'm not sure they would actually last as long as a vaccine.
Fourthly - what the heck has this got to do with computers? ;>
As for blogging connecting one-to-one with the customer - how's that then? I thought that's what technical support was for - and MS haven't improved that area so much.
Not that I'm trying to criticise MS - I like their products and I don't criticise them for acting more like a big corp. than, say, the OSS community. MS need to keep making a profit so I can buy their fairly useful software and get support from a large user community. But, what they could avoid doing, is making such painfully obvious self-serving moves like this article in Slate and the blogging initiative.
Maybe if they focussed on keeping hold of their key value propositions - like backward-compatibility in their OSs, and some pretty useful Office and development software - instead of cheap tricks like Slate-loves-Firefox and less-than-obvious moves like the X-Box and all those other blog-like initiatives then maybe they wouldn't keep appearing to be such a big joke all of the time.
I mean to say - what are they still doing with billions of dollars in 'dead' cash? They should have used it for some M&A activity as soon as the court cases were 'settled'; and I don't think buying Lookout really counts, do you?
A bit more 'big blue' and little less of 'big Bulmer' would not be bad thing sometimes...
Now if they had gone down the road of web-based applications then maybe this would have been a different story - but right now IE is a suitable sacrificial lamb that will boost Slate's reputation just before a potential sale/partnership.
In fact, Slate appears to be part of trend at MS, what with blogs and all, to promote the idea that MS goes in for a little self-criticism... wonder why?
Maybe MS feels that self-attack is the best form of defence against their only true threat - worldwide Governments - and appearing to be self-governing is a common method used by large industries to avoid government-regulation.
Not that I'm suggesting that MS is really trying to be so underhand - but I guess they can't help but appear to be so.
Low level innovations of the past, such as RDBMS and networking, are also not beng replaced by newer innovations (I don't think technologies such as Neural Nets are fully realised but I think they never will be).
These two levels of innovation are what I think drove the IT industry in the past - until some new things come along (and I don't think anything will in the next 20 years) major IT companies will always be outside the high-profit zone.
Who's on-line lists; command line email (so much easier to use than Outlook); me and my mates wrote an on-line magazine called Dogsday with selective readership blocking; the incomprehensible Minitab for pharmacology analysis (the *only* time my fellow students sought me out because even then I was the main geek); the late-night hacking sessions (and I was c*** at it - but for once being c*** at something saved my ass when some of the other guys got kicked out of college for managing to do the thing I couldn't - i.e. reset the login timer).
Of course, as said elsewhere, the real joy of of Vax was the ghostly warm glow from lovely orange terminals (I really didn't dig the green ones).
When I was in a perm job I funded my own narrow-band connection and used it allow me to work from home one or two days per month - that saved more than the cost of the connection in travelling costs AND meant I could take it a little easier...
But I did think that was one of the reasons for going to that big blob of methane in the first place.
Oh well ...
Any decent football fan who also visits art galleries would want to refer to that tabloid spelling as an extra knife into the back of the England team.
If they were looking to refer to Rebecca Loos then, IMHO, they would have added something along the lines of 'Stop shagging over the phone
Anyway - I don't think any footie fan would criticise any football player of having a bit on the side - not in public anyway
The Financial Times offers analysis as well as news and rarely makes the thicko comments inferences found in other papers (including The Times I'm afraid to say - I mean 'Loosers' was clearly a reference to Wayne Rooney - not to Rebecca Loos...)
As an aside - none of the newspapers have decent IT columns///
... the stupidest thing I have ever seen.
No really - this is art...
... geeks finally get to be as special and pointless as Hollywood ... what we've all be working towards all these years ...
The pure arrogance of the commission beggars belief...
- not only are UK supermarkets pushing all the local grocers out-of-business so we only have one place to go to for all our essentials (supermarkets!)
- not only are they forcing us to have 'loyalty cards' (secret tracking cards to you and me) so they can track what we buy and then use it to shove junk mail through our letter box and put up the prices of our favourite goods and make secret pay-offs to jam jar poison
- but now they're trying to imply that supermarkets our part of our DNA!
I had expected better of Somerfield ... sounds like the sort of thing Tesco's would do ...
In fact, come to think of it, Somerfield's latest UK marketing campaign is all about implying that supermarkets are the essential thread in our very existence - they have a man and a woman bump into each other in a supermarket - and after a couple of coy looks a baby drops from the sky into the woman's shopping *trolley*
Personally I prefer the Asda (now with added Walmart) adverts - all that bum slapping makes me feel all warm inside.
Please put them out of my misery
After the initial shock I have come to accept the end of Farscape; and right now I really don't care if Farscape comes back. A previous poster got it right when indicating that Lexx was far superior to Farscape. I guess I didn't have it all in perspective (and Ben B didn't help when he kept talking about chainsaws being taken to Moya).
What with the news of a new series of Dr Who, which was probably not that great after all and will not be any better now, I'm beginning to regret all the campaigns to restore the sci-fi of our past.
Let Farscape, Dr Who, Blakes 7 (I know...), and Futurama (gulp) lie in our past and then maybe new, better stuff will come through.
Hell, even the Lexx website (lexx.com) was better than the Farscape one - though lately they seem to have got rid of the robot head and the poems ... oh well; you'll have to trust me on that one ...
"Anyway..." I said in an attempt to make my abrupt exit from the comment seem more amicable...
... 'cause I know the number of replies to this will mean no-one will see my minor contribution, but...
For technical notes and my work diary (because of the fine point and totally non-blobbliness) - the Pilot G-Tec-C4 (though I'm sure any of the needle-point range will be good enough)
For my crossword and general writing (because of its fat grip) - the Pilot Dr Grip ball pen
For personal scribbles - the Faber-Castell GRIP 2001 pencil (smooooth;).
So good news for the series - it will be successful - and if it isn't, Mal will inject a healthy dose of violence and death (but of course, the Dr won't ever die - so Mal will have a field day ...)
Looks 'interesting' - not sure what drives the 'Brainfinger' signals it uses to control mouse movements though, and you;re right about the cost - way out of my league! Even with the free 'Cybergel' ;)
... that darn' evil M$oft; trust them to be truly evil and stupid and hide their stupid and evil mistakes. I knew there was a reason I didn't like them.
Why I ought'a ... switch to that there Lee-nux them there hippies keep squak'n 'bout ...
Darn' tootin'
... now that would make a better idea than re-gargling Blakes 7. When I was a kid B7 was the tops - I even made a paper blaster and teleportation ring, such was my devotion.
But now, after the wonderful Farscape, even the basic concepts of B7 do not compare (an evil Federation controlling a WHOLE galaxy?)
Much as I respect Darrow's acting in the original B7 (matched only by that sneaky thief guy - who taught me that 'the best lock pickers learn to think like the lock maker'), this whole B7 resurrection is a dumb idea.
Stick to the re-runs on UK Gold ...
Imagine a cose-mod designed to look like Orac! Now that would get some cash in for Paul Darrow ...
Differentiating between EEG patterns could be advanced by neural network based analysis.
The possibilities are endless.
BTW, the Swiss institute mentioned in the article also analysed a Bin Laden tape and decided it was fake.
I thought the whole point of computers was to free humans from menial tasks so we coudl spend all day on the beach, flying starships and drinking coffee.
We are, after all, nothing but consumers ...
Oh my dancing gods! What am I saying !