I have made the run to Hong Kong about the same number of times, with results as quoted. The problem is it is random. Take six more flights and it's all different.
Cell phones: AC is ambiguous (sometimes OK until door closes, sometimes not). Shows: the other day on my way to HKG via SFO (wanted to fly Singapore airlines) I had to remove them once in Toronto, twice in San Francisco. And I wear a suit.
Singapore Airlines do not allow ANY phone calls on board, ever, even before engine start and while boarding.
802.11b on my laptop and PDA (palm) are both always ON, unless I go deep into the interface, right-clicking all over, to disable.
The sign I saw a couple years ago at New Delhi airport said it was forbidden to carry on the usual supsects (weapons, bomb, poison) plus "cricketballs" and "other round objects".
It's mainly random idiocy. I travel 120,000 miles a year and see the same.
- In Vancouver they want me to REMOVE batteries. In Toronto they want me to turn the equipement ON and leave the batteries connected.
- In Toronto every first passenger boarding is searched. How long till the terrorists realise they should board as passenger 2 instead?
- I carry at least one ham radio. Big trouble when they see it. Big antenna. So before travelling I tune the radio to a public FM broadcast station and when they ask "what is that" I say "a radio" and turn it on to that broadcast station.
- Don't start me on the shoes.
- No cellphones in the cabin on some flights; OK on others. Random again.
- No cell phones while flying, I can understand. But all our PDA's and laptops with 802.11b are always on, blasting 2.4 GHz signals all across the pacific, and no-one cares.
- The thing with the shoes.. in Orlando the security person recently told me "all those with laptop PC's must remove their shows". Huh??
It's all very very silly but if you look respectable and smile, all is OK. I;ve never had anyone take anything and I am mr gadget: over a dozen electronics bits in my briefcase every time I travel. Actually enjoying to see the security propls sweat trying to understand what the equipment is...
You are right, people are people and they are extremely fallible. But even so, they have, as teams, been able to do some pretty amazing things.
Project management, science, documented technology, (amphasis on documented!): all these are the tools that fallible no-good lazy dumb people use to get people to the moon, keep flying big airplanes reliably, and design operating systems. You are right, in other words, but the cool part of technology and project planning is when you realise this and work around it. Creating proper people (who are not lazy ***holes) is probably impossible, so working with it and making the best of the resources you have is what it's about.
I think Christianity tries to do the same: realise we're all miserable sinners but still find redeeming value in there. And I'm an atheist:)
I have been unable to get top BBC news since yesterday - "connection refused". Is anyone else experiencing the same? BBC itself is fine, just the news site.
You say "one would expect from a young and inexperienced economist with no background in science"..
He has a doctorate in statistics. As someone with a BSc(Eng) degree I think that someone with a doctorate in statistics from a Danish university has a VERY good background in science.
Agreed entirely: the whole things is very unbecoming.
But this is nothing new - the scientific "community" has always deserved black eyes. Einstein was disbelieved too at first. Many great scientists were vilified (just think Galileo).
"Eppur si muove": fortunately, scientific process works where people and communities are fallible. I am quite sure that in the end, the truth will out.
Without taking sides, I would much rather talk about the facts quoted in the book. Is the air in London cleaner now than at any time since the 1700's (because sulfur-laden coal is no longer used for heating and making tea)? Do we have enough oil for at least another few hundred years (and it appears to be well argumented)? All a bit offtopic, but since it was started, let's all read the book (it is WELL worth it whatever you believe) and debate it.
Michael
Who is an ISP? Me, becuase I run a few sites?
on
Who Is An ISP?
·
· Score: 1
And it seems to me there is an in-between category as well, such as myself.
Out of my house I run a few web sites for money. They are small sites, Linux/Apache/PHP/MySQL, by companies that get a few hits a day and a few emails a day. I do this to hone my sysadmin skills and to earn back the cost of the SOHO commercial cable connection. But does that make me an ISP? Should I, if I do business with people in the UK, keep logs for years? Should I install a government spy box? Surely that cannot be the intention?
Mullen, let me explain why I disagree with at least one of your arguments.
First, though: namecalling never helps. Whether this senator is liberal (whatever you think that means - I think it means "in favour of freedom" - cf, your dictionary) or not should not affect his arguments. Now as for your arguments.
[1) Most spam that ends up in U.S. mailboxes comes from overseas, so no US law is going to stop that.]
Not true: US law can stop the beneficiaries. The sleazebag with the PO Box in Reno who in the end receives your penis patch money.
[2) Spam actually works on an economic level, if it did not, then no one would spam. Spammers spam, because spam works.]
Yes. But if we make it even just a bit more difficult they will not earn money as easily.
[3) Spamming is easy. Make it so addresses can not be spoofed, email headers can't be forged and MX records have to match up with A records ]
Mmm. Now who believes in big government? The government dictating how tech works? That is hwo we ended up with Bell, selling 1940 style phones in 1980...!
Mullen, let me explain why I disagree with at least one of your argumants.
First, though: namecalling never helps. Whether this senator is liberal (whatever you think that means - I think it means "in favour of freedom" - cf, your dictionary) or not should not affect his arguments. Now as for your arguments.
>>>1) Most spam that ends up in U.S. mailboxes comes from overseas, so no US law is going to stop that.>>2) Spam actually works on an economic level, if it did not, then no one would spam. Spammers spam, because spam works.>>3) Spamming is easy. Make it so addresses can not be spoofed, email headers can't be forged and MX records have to match up with A records
Mm. Now who believes in big government? The government dictating how tech works? That is hwo we ended up with Bell, selling 1940 style phones in 1980...!
My boss does not read/. - he doesn't understand computers.
All I can say is: try to be CEO of a corporation for a while and we'll see. And why does their pay go up? Programmers and janitors can be hired quite easily - an ad in the paper (in Bangalore, even) will do it. People with a CEO's skillset cannot be hired quite as easily. So they cost more. Quite simple really, no?
But I am a CTO and I do work for a CEO. And it seems to me that life is a bit more complicated than you make it out to be.
First, being a CEO is damn difficult. The problems a CEO deals with in a day, and the stress he/she manages, and the management abilities, and the ability to handle impossible situations, and the memory required, and the negotiation skills, and the 18-hour days 7 days a week, and so on and so forth, are very rare. Personally, I could not even come CLOSE to what our CEO does.
Second: making money is DAMN hard. If it was easy, we'd all be earning $150k a year. But it is NOT easy. the competition is always there, working harder. Every time you have a great product someone else has just made it cheaper in Taiwan. Every time you have a great idea someone executes it better becusae they have more programmers. And so on.
As a tech guy I am not denying tech's value, But it seems to me we should NOT ever underestimate the incredible skills of the men and women that create our wealth and keep our companies running.
In the web era that translates to: we can all be famous for 15 people.
Indeed, that's about as many as look at my personal web site (www.mvw.net), and I am happy with that. I get to hone my web design and sysadmin skills, my mother gets to see what I am up to, and a few people like to engage in debate which is fine.
And the most important : old friends can find me! My name comes up very early in Google as a result of the personal web sites. Web sites are a bit like business cards in that respect - people don't look at them in a lot of detail but without them you're lost.
I have now received this worm 616 times since 9pm last night. That is 616 in one day, making this about ten times worse than any previous worm,
Seems the same machines go on, and on, and on. A number appear from the same machines (as shown by sending IP). This could be very very annoying.
I guess it has been said before... who has not patched their machine for two years? Grannies? They do not have broadband. Groan. Maybe we need a "PC license", like a "driving license".
This is OOo's killer app - we have switched 40 of our 85 employees worldwide so far and they ALL love the ability to send as PDF and export to PDF - EASILY and FLAWLESSLY!
NOTE - How do I encourage switching? a) I offer new PCs with OOo - keep your old PC or get a new one but that has just OOo on it. And b) That PDF killer app as mentioned. So far everyone but one ueser is extremely happy - and (B) is the reason.
No M$ lover me, but surely mistakes are exactly what makes business successful?
For every business idea that takes off, there are always a few that don't. Reading the future is very hard - almost impossible. MS has billions and billions in the bank, meaning it can afford to try and fail - so that it has a steady range of successes. Surely that is a good thing, if you are MS?
Seems to me we should all want to have enough cash to be able to try this "scattershot and some can't fail to stick" approach to business.
....and it was not obvious to me how NOT to buy the Windows XP version. "Customise" took me to a page that did not allow me to customise, other than the warranty.
Now I only spent three minutes looking but in those three minutes I was clearly pointed towards the XP version. Did I miss it? Or are they deliberately steering me to the XP versions?
There are two simple points here, it seems to me...
1. Price
Sending a byte anywhere across my cable modem costs $0.000000019. Sending one across my GPRS cellphone here in Canada costs me 0.00025 per byte, which makes cellular technology 13,421 times more expensive! Yes, thirteen thousand TIMES more expensive. And 3G is not showing signs of being cheaper. The cell companies have billions in licenses to recover. The 13,421 times difference (that is an 1.3 million percent margin) seems like highway robbery to me.
2. "Getting it". The cell companies have shown no sign of getting anything. They appear to think we are still in the circuit switching age, And have you check cell gprs/wap "content"? One line new headliners updated about once every 48 hours, and cost $0.25 to read? Ther should realise they are thyere to connect us to whatever we want to connec to, not to interpret/provide.
No doubt this will all be solved in the end and we will all have long range wireless, but not until the old telecoms guys are all long retired.
Mike (an ex telecom guy myself, ask me about papertape for loading phone switches years after PCs were introduced!)
You say "Linux is for when you're young, poor, and in need of serious computing horsepower. OS X is for when you've got money in the bank and you don't want to have to deal with the Linux hassle."
For me it is the reverse. I am neither young nor poor, and am not really in need of serious power, except for serious flexibility.
I love my Linux desktop because *I*, not Steve J or Bill G, am in charge. I can do what I want, I can combine, shells are not hidden, and I have a choice of apps greater than one (vs MS Office for Apple and not much more for the Mac).
You say Windows is open? Not to me it isn't. All the really useful Windows knowledge I have is in the form of "secrets". THAT is why I have a Linux desktop.
The article, if you read it, says that accpording to one newspaper story, the government PLANS to move SLOWLY (starting with one pilot; ramping up ove rthree years) to Open Source.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your viewpoint, plans and especially government plans often do not work out. ("No New Taxes", remember that one?). So I would not cheer. Or worry. Just yet.
Seems to me we are talking about several different things here.
First of all, presumably it is a good thing that people think, and get inspiration. Mon-Fri 9-5 is not the best time for thinking - this is the time for meeting deadlines, sitting in meetings, answering the phone, putting out fires, and so on. The only time most of us have to actually sit and think is the weekend. Personally, I think that should be encouraged.
The next step is implmenting what you have dreamt up. Obviously, most ideas fail - ask any patent officer. And obviulsly, implmenting a new idea without checking with colleagues, drawing it 0ut in a spec, getting that spec approved, then protoyping, testing, tuning is not ideal either. These procedures were invented for good reasons - not just to constrain the creative mind. This is where most developers fail - not in coming up with ideas, but in being disiplined in implmenting them. I hear "we cannot plan ahead, it does not work like that for us" all the time from my developers - this is always a misconception, and seems to me simply a combination of inexperience, laziness and inability... nothing that cannot be fixed!
Slashdot Mirror
Sure. I understand cell phones too.
But
a) There's more than just the FCC - the universe does NOT stop outisde the USA. In other countries it IS a ruleimposed by their equivalent of the FAA.
b) The probition is also an AIRLINE rule. That's why you get this randomness. Singapore does not allow it; AC does (while on the ground!)
Michael
I have made the run to Hong Kong about the same number of times, with results as quoted. The problem is it is random. Take six more flights and it's all different.
Cell phones: AC is ambiguous (sometimes OK until door closes, sometimes not). Shows: the other day on my way to HKG via SFO (wanted to fly Singapore airlines) I had to remove them once in Toronto, twice in San Francisco. And I wear a suit.
Singapore Airlines do not allow ANY phone calls on board, ever, even before engine start and while boarding.
802.11b on my laptop and PDA (palm) are both always ON, unless I go deep into the interface, right-clicking all over, to disable.
Michael
Good point. They have been primarily with flights to the US and Asia.
Michael
Talking of the randomness of all this:
The sign I saw a couple years ago at New Delhi airport said it was forbidden to carry on the usual supsects (weapons, bomb, poison) plus "cricketballs" and "other round objects".
Go figure.
It's mainly random idiocy. I travel 120,000 miles a year and see the same.
- In Vancouver they want me to REMOVE batteries. In Toronto they want me to turn the equipement ON and leave the batteries connected.
- In Toronto every first passenger boarding is searched. How long till the terrorists realise they should board as passenger 2 instead?
- I carry at least one ham radio. Big trouble when they see it. Big antenna. So before travelling I tune the radio to a public FM broadcast station and when they ask "what is that" I say "a radio" and turn it on to that broadcast station.
- Don't start me on the shoes.
- No cellphones in the cabin on some flights; OK on others. Random again.
- No cell phones while flying, I can understand. But all our PDA's and laptops with 802.11b are always on, blasting 2.4 GHz signals all across the pacific, and no-one cares.
- The thing with the shoes.. in Orlando the security person recently told me "all those with laptop PC's must remove their shows". Huh??
It's all very very silly but if you look respectable and smile, all is OK. I;ve never had anyone take anything and I am mr gadget: over a dozen electronics bits in my briefcase every time I travel. Actually enjoying to see the security propls sweat trying to understand what the equipment is...
Mike
Please do dig up the Ariane story - thanks.
:)
You are right, people are people and they are extremely fallible. But even so, they have, as teams, been able to do some pretty amazing things.
Project management, science, documented technology, (amphasis on documented!): all these are the tools that fallible no-good lazy dumb people use to get people to the moon, keep flying big airplanes reliably, and design operating systems. You are right, in other words, but the cool part of technology and project planning is when you realise this and work around it. Creating proper people (who are not lazy ***holes) is probably impossible, so working with it and making the best of the resources you have is what it's about.
I think Christianity tries to do the same: realise we're all miserable sinners but still find redeeming value in there. And I'm an atheist
Mike.
I have been unable to get top BBC news since yesterday - "connection refused". Is anyone else experiencing the same? BBC itself is fine, just the news site.
./'ed! :-)
Surely not
You say "one would expect from a young and inexperienced economist with no background in science"..
He has a doctorate in statistics. As someone with a BSc(Eng) degree I think that someone with a doctorate in statistics from a Danish university has a VERY good background in science.
Agreed entirely: the whole things is very unbecoming.
But this is nothing new - the scientific "community" has always deserved black eyes. Einstein was disbelieved too at first. Many great scientists were vilified (just think Galileo).
"Eppur si muove": fortunately, scientific process works where people and communities are fallible. I am quite sure that in the end, the truth will out.
I have, and I found it very interesting.
Without taking sides, I would much rather talk about the facts quoted in the book. Is the air in London cleaner now than at any time since the 1700's (because sulfur-laden coal is no longer used for heating and making tea)? Do we have enough oil for at least another few hundred years (and it appears to be well argumented)? All a bit offtopic, but since it was started, let's all read the book (it is WELL worth it whatever you believe) and debate it.
Michael
And it seems to me there is an in-between category as well, such as myself.
Out of my house I run a few web sites for money. They are small sites, Linux/Apache/PHP/MySQL, by companies that get a few hits a day and a few emails a day. I do this to hone my sysadmin skills and to earn back the cost of the SOHO commercial cable connection. But does that make me an ISP? Should I, if I do business with people in the UK, keep logs for years? Should I install a government spy box? Surely that cannot be the intention?
Michael
Mullen, let me explain why I disagree with at least one of your arguments.
First, though: namecalling never helps. Whether this senator is liberal (whatever you think that means - I think it means "in favour of freedom" - cf, your dictionary) or not should not affect his arguments. Now as for your arguments.
[1) Most spam that ends up in U.S. mailboxes comes from overseas, so no US law is going to stop that.]
Not true: US law can stop the beneficiaries. The sleazebag with the PO Box in Reno who in the end receives your penis patch money.
[2) Spam actually works on an economic level, if it did not, then no one would spam. Spammers spam, because spam works.]
Yes. But if we make it even just a bit more difficult they will not earn money as easily.
[3) Spamming is easy. Make it so addresses can not be spoofed, email headers can't be forged and MX records have to match up with A records ]
Mmm. Now who believes in big government? The government dictating how tech works? That is hwo we ended up with Bell, selling 1940 style phones in 1980...!
Cheers,
Michael
Mullen, let me explain why I disagree with at least one of your argumants.
First, though: namecalling never helps. Whether this senator is liberal (whatever you think that means - I think it means "in favour of freedom" - cf, your dictionary) or not should not affect his arguments. Now as for your arguments.
>>>1) Most spam that ends up in U.S. mailboxes comes from overseas, so no US law is going to stop that.>>2) Spam actually works on an economic level, if it did not, then no one would spam. Spammers spam, because spam works.>>3) Spamming is easy. Make it so addresses can not be spoofed, email headers can't be forged and MX records have to match up with A records
Mm. Now who believes in big government? The government dictating how tech works? That is hwo we ended up with Bell, selling 1940 style phones in 1980...!
Cheers,
Michael
My boss does not read /. - he doesn't understand computers.
All I can say is: try to be CEO of a corporation for a while and we'll see. And why does their pay go up? Programmers and janitors can be hired quite easily - an ad in the paper (in Bangalore, even) will do it. People with a CEO's skillset cannot be hired quite as easily. So they cost more. Quite simple really, no?
Michael
Disclaimer: IANACEO (I am not a CEO).
But I am a CTO and I do work for a CEO. And it seems to me that life is a bit more complicated than you make it out to be.
First, being a CEO is damn difficult. The problems a CEO deals with in a day, and the stress he/she manages, and the management abilities, and the ability to handle impossible situations, and the memory required, and the negotiation skills, and the 18-hour days 7 days a week, and so on and so forth, are very rare. Personally, I could not even come CLOSE to what our CEO does.
Second: making money is DAMN hard. If it was easy, we'd all be earning $150k a year. But it is NOT easy. the competition is always there, working harder. Every time you have a great product someone else has just made it cheaper in Taiwan. Every time you have a great idea someone executes it better becusae they have more programmers. And so on.
As a tech guy I am not denying tech's value, But it seems to me we should NOT ever underestimate the incredible skills of the men and women that create our wealth and keep our companies running.
Michael
..said we could all be famous for 15 minutes.
In the web era that translates to: we can all be famous for 15 people.
Indeed, that's about as many as look at my personal web site (www.mvw.net), and I am happy with that. I get to hone my web design and sysadmin skills, my mother gets to see what I am up to, and a few people like to engage in debate which is fine.
And the most important : old friends can find me! My name comes up very early in Google as a result of the personal web sites. Web sites are a bit like business cards in that respect - people don't look at them in a lot of detail but without them you're lost.
Michael
I have now received this worm 616 times since 9pm last night. That is 616 in one day, making this about ten times worse than any previous worm,
Seems the same machines go on, and on, and on. A number appear from the same machines (as shown by sending IP). This could be very very annoying.
I guess it has been said before... who has not patched their machine for two years? Grannies? They do not have broadband. Groan. Maybe we need a "PC license", like a "driving license".
Michael
This is OOo's killer app - we have switched 40 of our 85 employees worldwide so far and they ALL love the ability to send as PDF and export to PDF - EASILY and FLAWLESSLY!
NOTE - How do I encourage switching? a) I offer new PCs with OOo - keep your old PC or get a new one but that has just OOo on it. And b) That PDF killer app as mentioned. So far everyone but one ueser is extremely happy - and (B) is the reason.
Michael
No M$ lover me, but surely mistakes are exactly what makes business successful?
For every business idea that takes off, there are always a few that don't. Reading the future is very hard - almost impossible. MS has billions and billions in the bank, meaning it can afford to try and fail - so that it has a steady range of successes. Surely that is a good thing, if you are MS?
Seems to me we should all want to have enough cash to be able to try this "scattershot and some can't fail to stick" approach to business.
Michael
....and it was not obvious to me how NOT to buy the Windows XP version. "Customise" took me to a page that did not allow me to customise, other than the warranty.
Now I only spent three minutes looking but in those three minutes I was clearly pointed towards the XP version. Did I miss it? Or are they deliberately steering me to the XP versions?
Michael
There are two simple points here, it seems to me...
1. Price
Sending a byte anywhere across my cable modem costs $0.000000019. Sending one across my GPRS cellphone here in Canada costs me 0.00025 per byte, which makes cellular technology 13,421 times more expensive! Yes, thirteen thousand TIMES more expensive. And 3G is not showing signs of being cheaper. The cell companies have billions in licenses to recover. The 13,421 times difference (that is an 1.3 million percent margin) seems like highway robbery to me.
2. "Getting it". The cell companies have shown no sign of getting anything. They appear to think we are still in the circuit switching age, And have you check cell gprs/wap "content"? One line new headliners updated about once every 48 hours, and cost $0.25 to read? Ther should realise they are thyere to connect us to whatever we want to connec to, not to interpret/provide.
No doubt this will all be solved in the end and we will all have long range wireless, but not until the old telecoms guys are all long retired.
Mike (an ex telecom guy myself, ask me about papertape for loading phone switches years after PCs were introduced!)
You say "Linux is for when you're young, poor, and in need of serious computing horsepower. OS X is for when you've got money in the bank and you don't want to have to deal with the Linux hassle."
For me it is the reverse. I am neither young nor poor, and am not really in need of serious power, except for serious flexibility.
I love my Linux desktop because *I*, not Steve J or Bill G, am in charge. I can do what I want, I can combine, shells are not hidden, and I have a choice of apps greater than one (vs MS Office for Apple and not much more for the Mac).
You say Windows is open? Not to me it isn't. All the really useful Windows knowledge I have is in the form of "secrets". THAT is why I have a Linux desktop.
Michael
....gang oft agley.
The article, if you read it, says that accpording to one newspaper story, the government PLANS to move SLOWLY (starting with one pilot; ramping up ove rthree years) to Open Source.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your viewpoint, plans and especially government plans often do not work out. ("No New Taxes", remember that one?). So I would not cheer. Or worry. Just yet.
Michael
What is stopping your ctatic RAM drive? In principle nothing, but in today's reality, two things:
1. Cost
2. Speed
I think 5-10 more years.
-=Michael
Seems to me we are talking about several different things here.
First of all, presumably it is a good thing that people think, and get inspiration. Mon-Fri 9-5 is not the best time for thinking - this is the time for meeting deadlines, sitting in meetings, answering the phone, putting out fires, and so on. The only time most of us have to actually sit and think is the weekend. Personally, I think that should be encouraged.
The next step is implmenting what you have dreamt up. Obviously, most ideas fail - ask any patent officer. And obviulsly, implmenting a new idea without checking with colleagues, drawing it 0ut in a spec, getting that spec approved, then protoyping, testing, tuning is not ideal either. These procedures were invented for good reasons - not just to constrain the creative mind. This is where most developers fail - not in coming up with ideas, but in being disiplined in implmenting them. I hear "we cannot plan ahead, it does not work like that for us" all the time from my developers - this is always a misconception, and seems to me simply a combination of inexperience, laziness and inability... nothing that cannot be fixed!
Michael