is one starting point, but there are a few others.
You're basically replacing/var/spool/mail with an SQL back-end. Things like MBOX or IMAP will suck for dealing with millions of records/messages, but SQL should handle it easily.
The standard for the new high definition DVDs isn't yet done. The MPAA will get their little broadcast flag included in thew new DVD technical specs. When you go to buy a new DVD player, boom, you'll have the new rights management. Want to watch the new high-definition signals? You can, until you buy the next generation of HDTVs.
It's pointless to come up with a scheme that requires everyone to buy all new equipment so that they can do less than before (unless the MPAA is going to provide new, free hardware to everyone). If you're going to deliberately break something, you have to do it before anyone has a chance to buy it.
Or, the MPAA could just pay companies for it. "Here's $10 million if you'll include this in what you sell."
Skipping voting for a candidate is not the same as voting against all candidates for an office. Modern elections only allow me to vote/for/ someone, and completely ignore the need to vote/against/.
If the majority vote "none of the above," thus voting against all candidates for that office, then the race for that office should begin again, and continue until a candidate that a majority vote for is elected.
It's about choice. The choice to say that no candidate is right for the office.
A couple of years ago (2001?), Verizon had a five-day SMTP server outage. (I was a customer then.) No email got in or out. They were accepting email for 4 days of that five that was arriving from outside Verizon's network, but were then throwing the email away.
Moreover they had the policy that outgoing mail had to have the From: and Reply-To: addresses be verizon.net email addresses. Which meant that I could not use the email address that I've had for years, nor could my wife use her work email address.
Using the ISP's outgoing SMTP server only works if: 1) the server actually works 2) the ISP has things configured in a correct manner.
My only choices in this situation were to build my own mail server, or get a free webmail account somewhere. The ISP fell far short of what anyone could deem acceptable. Using the ISP's SMTP server is a good idea -- if the ISP knows what the hell they're doing. At that time, Verizon clearly didn't.
It varies by region. In Kolkata, the "living wage" or minimum wage is about 2,200-2,400 Rs. per month, but the actual wage many people are paid is about half this (or less).
Food prices in Rupees per kilogram, or per piece (I don't remember which), at the College Street Market (in Kolkata) when I was there in January of this year: potato 5, onion 5-6, peas 8, cabbage 3, bean 6, tomato 6, carrot 8, brinjal 8, gourd 5, palang 5, rohu fish (cut) 80, mutton 140, chicken 75.
While it's cheap by U.S. standards, it's still a fortune by Indian standards. 840 is dinner for 4 people at Peter Cat, an upscale, trendy, expensive restaurant (where someone bought me dinner), and the guy buying dinner winced when he saw the bill (a local physician).
The DSP portion of these (Digital Signal Processing) is a large block about 4" x 1.5" x 0.5" in size, and is attached between the USB connector and the headphones. It contains the sound card (or whatever DSP they're using) for the earphones and the boom micrphone. No offloading of stuff to the CPU.
The PDF file with the description of the device mentions Windows and Mac platforms are supported, so it sounds like they haven't written a driver for other operating systems.
The DSP unit is described as a 5-channel, 16-bit, 48kHz data processor from USB, and 24-bit 100dB signal to noise CODEC, with a 32-bit digital audio processing unit.
But don't trust me. Read the brochure yourself on their website.
Plantronics makes several headsets with microphone that only require a USB connection, but do not require a sound card. They work quite well, and this should lower the hardware requirements for a small, lower-powered device.
http://www.plantronics.com
and search for their DSP-*00 series. I picked up their DSP-500 (normally $110) for $40 on a deal.
Somehow PGP and GPG are open source, and somehow no one call the security of these tools into question. The only reasons you don't want to offer the source is if 1) there are security holes, or 2) you have no intention of fixing the security holes.
The problem here is that the system involves hardware -- which will likely not be open source because of patent constraints, and that it should allow the voter 1) to remain anonymous, 2) to provide a method for the voter to double-check their votes prior to submission, and 3) to provide a method for the voter to verify that their votes were cast and counted correctly in the final totals. All of this means that it can't be a purely electronic method. The voter must take away something with them.
If something like this -- the combination of open source software and patent-free hardware could be assembled, at a reasonable, inexpensive price, it would be a wonderful gift to the democracies of the world.
If you've never seen them, they're little critters that attach to everything, and grow, with very hard shells. All oceangoing ships have to be dry-docked every so often and have the barnacles (and other ocean critters) sandblasted, ground, dissolved, and photo-flashed off the hull. This is done to improve speed and fuel efficiency. If you get into the 3rd world, sometimes you can see boats that have a good foot of ocean critter crust attached to the hull.
Now imagine your PC water cooling hose becoming slowly clogged with critters. Plus you'd likely suction up something else, like kelp or seaweed.
If you just want to embed a metal plate in the hull, and weld a heat transfer unit to it on the inside of the boat, that'd work nicely. A closed-loop water cooler. That'd allow you to use other fluids, like adding some glycol, so that the thing didn't freeze up, expand, and break, if you didn't use the computer some icy day.
Manhole covers are round because manholes are round. Manholes are round because the tube shape naturally resists the crushing pressure of the ground surrounding it.
It is for this reason that very old water wells (like in Africa and southern Asia) are round. The rocks you form the walls with resist compression quite well (pun unintended), and you get a sturdy, low-maintenance water source.
Most of the old wells I've seen have rectangular covers, but the ones that people walk over have round covers so that the edge sits flush with the surrounding ground. Most of the flush-mounted ones are in built-up cities (like old London), and I imagine that the local barrel maker manufactured those as well. The edge of these is a row of stone/cobble that's set deeper into the ground than the surrounding cobblestone street.
I think the modern answer (of geometry and axes) is quite boring, and ignores history and tradition too much.
Everyone writes one interface for every skill level. There ought to be different interfaces according to your choice, or according to what level of interface the system thinks you can handle.
That last part's a bit broad, so I'll clear things up. With a normal PC, you've got CPU cycles to spare, and the computer has time to tell if you move deliberately for a menu choice, or if you're hunting for it, or if you keep choosing something, and cancelling out of the choice.
For a VCR, the default interface should be as simple as the buttons on the front. If you read the manual a bit, it will tell you how to turn on the intermediate features. If you read a lot, you can turn on the advanced features. If you read waaay too much, you get to turn on the command-line interface that uses reverse-Polish notation, in Aramaic, but displayed approximately by using Turkish for vowels, and Cantonese for consonants.
Everyone's not as comfortable with it as folks like us are, and because computers can do sooo bloody much, we should stop boring them, and give the computers more to do, such as providing different interfaces for different skill levels. We use short command interfaces with our kids and our pets ("Sit! Quiet!"), and much longer command interfaces with our peers ("Dude, nice frag!"). It's a very natural thing to do, and we ought to start allowing computers to do the same.
Palladium + Fritz Chip = Required Ad Viewing?
on
Web Publishers Sue Gator
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Anyone else worried that the new Fritz chip will require that I sit through advertisements before I'm allowed to see content?
Don't think it's possible? Howzabout DVD players, where you have to sit through the various FBI warnings and movie previews at the start of the disk before the movie starts.
First, my bad. I was more trying to explain that some corporate IM clients can meet restrictions. The Sametime Client Packager also allows you to bundle/not bundle the AIM connectivity part.
However, if Corporate has a reason for blocking these things, they need to issue a fiat: no IM client, or you're fired. Turning the computer people into policemen (which we're not) isn't the correct way to solve these problems. People doing what they shouldn't is still people doing what they shouldn't even if a computer is involved. Somehow us IT folks get saddled with fixing the problem.
Namely IBM's product Sametime. Chat logging (so that you can meet SEC requirements), logs into AIM, and it's works with some 3rd party tidbit that logs all the chat stuff at the firewall. (Sorry if that's vague, but I can't remember the company name.)
128-Bit RC-2 encrypted, too. Includes audio, video, whiteboard. H.323 compliant, and a slew of other things.
You'll find life much more interesting. For example, "Blue Highways: A Journey into America" by William Least Heat-Moon. Mr. Least Heat-Moon (yes, that's really his last name) also ran the rivers (as much as was possible) from NY to Portland (Oregon).
Interstates were made to get stuff from point A to point B, not for your to experience the country and the people.
As for must-sees, pretty much anything in the National Park System is worthy of a look. However given the trip you're talking about, U.S. 2 (the highway) runs from where you are to where you want to go, isn't an interstate, and has several things along it that are interesting and scenic. The Grand Coulee in Washington (skip the dam -- ugly and boring), Glacier National Park (some samples on my website in/scenery), the badlands of the Dakotas....
If the camera in question always looks the same direction (no pan & tilt), then you just need to batch process the images before publishing them.
Either mask out the scenery in the foreground, or blur it beyond recognition.
The merge between your background image (the "live" picture) and a foreground image would probably be easiest. That or do a poly-fill on known coordinates from a command line. GNUplot could almost do that.
But, in the interest of being a good neighbor, unplug, or stop publishing the camera pix, until you have a permanent solution.
Don't piss your neighbors off. If your house catches fire or is burgled while you're away, they may pull up deck chairs and watch, rather than telephoning for help.
First, doubt I'd stay more than a night or two. I guess I should have added a weekend as a request (so I don't miss work), and so that I get the cheaper ticket for staying Saturday night at the destination.
Second, the $100 a night sounds outrageous, until you see that most conventions I get flyers for have hotel rooms between $250-400/night. (Let's see, $500 round-trip ticket, $2,000 conference admission, 4 nights hotel at $250 plus tax to $300 -- yeah, I can afford $4,000.) The room shouldn't cost more than getting there. I can at least take one of the cheapo airport hotels the first night, and then move in to the conference hotel for a night, before leaving the next day. (How come hotels never offer discounts for staying more than 1 night?)
Third, we're all ultra-nationalist, terrorist-fighting, god-fearing, flag-waving, hard-working, tax-paying, hyphenated-Americans over here. Welfare is evil, and we never take it, and farm subsidies and tariffs don't count as welfare. (You Brits will recognize the saracasm in there, but the Americans won't.) I wish it were more pinko leftist here. There'd be better foreign policy, fewer rights being violated, better, more consistent environmental policy, etc. etc.
Fourth, I was trying to include students in my overly broad categorization of "the unemployed". So, yeah, I deserve that criticism. I'll make up for it. I wish the conference were run the way the American Association of Geographers (http://www.aag.org) runs their convention (excluding this year's convention in New Orleans, which is hopelessly fucked up). They pick a conference hotel, negotiate a reduced price, advertise the city a year in advance, and list the prices of, and distance to, all the proximal hotels. (I single out the New Orleans conference because this year they booked it late, during Mardi Gras week, didn't reserve any rooms, haven't published the schedule so that presenters and attendees know when they should be there...in short, you're just supposed to book a room for a week at $300/night, wade through crowds of urinating drunk people Mardi Gras celebrators, etc.)
Schedule it a half a year in advance so that I can book tickets and time off.
Book it in a reasonably-priced hotel, or at least near reasonably-priced hotels (like $100/night or less). I pay for conferences out of my own pocket, which means I never attend conferences.
Pick a city that's an airport hub, and central to the U.S. (Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis) so that airfares are cheaper, instead of the obvious and expensive cities like Boston, New York, and San Francisco. And when considering what's an expensive air fare city, think of flights out of smaller towns, not comparing L.A.-->Baltimore tickets.
In short, do this so that the great unemployed can afford to go, and can make contacts. Don't do this as a moneymaker. I've chaired conferences before. I know what they cost, and I know how much money they can make. I also know how easy it is to make them affordable.
If it works, make it an annual event, and pick the same location/city/weekend each year. We can then plan better, and "accidentally" be at a customer site, or on layover, in that city at the right weekend.
While many girls appreciate these gifts, it's derned close to that "my husband bought me a romantic clothes washer for our anniversary," or even, "my boyfriend changed the oil in my car for Valentine's day," or also, "My neighbor bought me a waffle iron for Christmas."
While we dudes appreciate a fine tool, it's not Chick stuff. The clothes washer and the waffle iron come with the implication, "MAKE USE OF THAT FINE APPLIANCE FOR ME RIGHT NOW YOU LAZY WOMAN. I HAVE A GAME TO WATCH. ONLY SUMMON ME IF THERE IS A FIRE OR SEX."
The lock pick set will be forgotten in the back of a drawer. The fine flashlight will be stolen at the first Rave.
Give the girl cash. Best gift. Accepted in 200+ countries and on 7 continents. No ID needed. Don't leave home without it.
Sametime works better for meetings, but not for self-paced learning. MindSpan is a "complete" e-learning suite.
Should also add that you can add-in the Lotus/IBM real-time translation stuff (Lotus Translation Components, and you can type in English, and have it render, simultaneously, for whatever the end-user needs. Japanese, German, Portugese, French, Chinese....
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.dbmail.org/
/var/spool/mail with an SQL back-end. Things like MBOX or IMAP will suck for dealing with millions of records/messages, but SQL should handle it easily.
is one starting point, but there are a few others.
You're basically replacing
The standard for the new high definition DVDs isn't yet done. The MPAA will get their little broadcast flag included in thew new DVD technical specs. When you go to buy a new DVD player, boom, you'll have the new rights management. Want to watch the new high-definition signals? You can, until you buy the next generation of HDTVs.
It's pointless to come up with a scheme that requires everyone to buy all new equipment so that they can do less than before (unless the MPAA is going to provide new, free hardware to everyone). If you're going to deliberately break something, you have to do it before anyone has a chance to buy it.
Or, the MPAA could just pay companies for it. "Here's $10 million if you'll include this in what you sell."
Skipping voting for a candidate is not the same as voting against all candidates for an office. Modern elections only allow me to vote /for/ someone, and completely ignore the need to vote /against/.
If the majority vote "none of the above," thus voting against all candidates for that office, then the race for that office should begin again, and continue until a candidate that a majority vote for is elected.
It's about choice. The choice to say that no candidate is right for the office.
This system is an improvement, but each elected position should also offer the choice of "None of the Above."
I should not have to choose the lessor of two evils.
A couple of years ago (2001?), Verizon had a five-day SMTP server outage. (I was a customer then.) No email got in or out. They were accepting email for 4 days of that five that was arriving from outside Verizon's network, but were then throwing the email away.
Moreover they had the policy that outgoing mail had to have the From: and Reply-To: addresses be verizon.net email addresses. Which meant that I could not use the email address that I've had for years, nor could my wife use her work email address.
Using the ISP's outgoing SMTP server only works if:
1) the server actually works
2) the ISP has things configured in a correct manner.
My only choices in this situation were to build my own mail server, or get a free webmail account somewhere. The ISP fell far short of what anyone could deem acceptable. Using the ISP's SMTP server is a good idea -- if the ISP knows what the hell they're doing. At that time, Verizon clearly didn't.
...will the companies that were sued and lost get their money back?
It varies by region. In Kolkata, the "living wage" or minimum wage is about 2,200-2,400 Rs. per month, but the actual wage many people are paid is about half this (or less).
Food prices in Rupees per kilogram, or per piece (I don't remember which), at the College Street Market (in Kolkata) when I was there in January of this year:
potato 5, onion 5-6, peas 8, cabbage 3, bean 6, tomato 6, carrot 8, brinjal 8, gourd 5, palang 5, rohu fish (cut) 80, mutton 140, chicken 75.
While it's cheap by U.S. standards, it's still a fortune by Indian standards. 840 is dinner for 4 people at Peter Cat, an upscale, trendy, expensive restaurant (where someone bought me dinner), and the guy buying dinner winced when he saw the bill (a local physician).
It says they found so many bugs per 1,000 lines, but did they submit the errors, or fixes, to CVS, or to the vendor?
The DSP portion of these (Digital Signal Processing) is a large block about 4" x 1.5" x 0.5" in size, and is attached between the USB connector and the headphones. It contains the sound card (or whatever DSP they're using) for the earphones and the boom micrphone. No offloading of stuff to the CPU.
The PDF file with the description of the device mentions Windows and Mac platforms are supported, so it sounds like they haven't written a driver for other operating systems.
The DSP unit is described as a 5-channel, 16-bit, 48kHz data processor from USB, and 24-bit 100dB signal to noise CODEC, with a 32-bit digital audio processing unit.
But don't trust me. Read the brochure yourself on their website.
Plantronics makes several headsets with microphone that only require a USB connection, but do not require a sound card. They work quite well, and this should lower the hardware requirements for a small, lower-powered device.
http://www.plantronics.com
and search for their DSP-*00 series. I picked up their DSP-500 (normally $110) for $40 on a deal.
Somehow PGP and GPG are open source, and somehow no one call the security of these tools into question. The only reasons you don't want to offer the source is if 1) there are security holes, or 2) you have no intention of fixing the security holes.
The problem here is that the system involves hardware -- which will likely not be open source because of patent constraints, and that it should allow the voter 1) to remain anonymous, 2) to provide a method for the voter to double-check their votes prior to submission, and 3) to provide a method for the voter to verify that their votes were cast and counted correctly in the final totals. All of this means that it can't be a purely electronic method. The voter must take away something with them.
If something like this -- the combination of open source software and patent-free hardware could be assembled, at a reasonable, inexpensive price, it would be a wonderful gift to the democracies of the world.
http://www.rlx.com/product/
The 1U unit holds SIX computers. The 3U unit holds 24 computers.
Not real cheap, but not outrageous, either. Neato remote management tools, too.
Barnacles
If you've never seen them, they're little critters that attach to everything, and grow, with very hard shells. All oceangoing ships have to be dry-docked every so often and have the barnacles (and other ocean critters) sandblasted, ground, dissolved, and photo-flashed off the hull. This is done to improve speed and fuel efficiency. If you get into the 3rd world, sometimes you can see boats that have a good foot of ocean critter crust attached to the hull.
Now imagine your PC water cooling hose becoming slowly clogged with critters. Plus you'd likely suction up something else, like kelp or seaweed.
If you just want to embed a metal plate in the hull, and weld a heat transfer unit to it on the inside of the boat, that'd work nicely. A closed-loop water cooler. That'd allow you to use other fluids, like adding some glycol, so that the thing didn't freeze up, expand, and break, if you didn't use the computer some icy day.
Manhole covers are round because manholes are round. Manholes are round because the tube shape naturally resists the crushing pressure of the ground surrounding it.
It is for this reason that very old water wells (like in Africa and southern Asia) are round. The rocks you form the walls with resist compression quite well (pun unintended), and you get a sturdy, low-maintenance water source.
Most of the old wells I've seen have rectangular covers, but the ones that people walk over have round covers so that the edge sits flush with the surrounding ground. Most of the flush-mounted ones are in built-up cities (like old London), and I imagine that the local barrel maker manufactured those as well. The edge of these is a row of stone/cobble that's set deeper into the ground than the surrounding cobblestone street.
I think the modern answer (of geometry and axes) is quite boring, and ignores history and tradition too much.
Everyone writes one interface for every skill level. There ought to be different interfaces according to your choice, or according to what level of interface the system thinks you can handle.
That last part's a bit broad, so I'll clear things up. With a normal PC, you've got CPU cycles to spare, and the computer has time to tell if you move deliberately for a menu choice, or if you're hunting for it, or if you keep choosing something, and cancelling out of the choice.
For a VCR, the default interface should be as simple as the buttons on the front. If you read the manual a bit, it will tell you how to turn on the intermediate features. If you read a lot, you can turn on the advanced features. If you read waaay too much, you get to turn on the command-line interface that uses reverse-Polish notation, in Aramaic, but displayed approximately by using Turkish for vowels, and Cantonese for consonants.
Everyone's not as comfortable with it as folks like us are, and because computers can do sooo bloody much, we should stop boring them, and give the computers more to do, such as providing different interfaces for different skill levels. We use short command interfaces with our kids and our pets ("Sit! Quiet!"), and much longer command interfaces with our peers ("Dude, nice frag!"). It's a very natural thing to do, and we ought to start allowing computers to do the same.
Anyone else worried that the new Fritz chip will require that I sit through advertisements before I'm allowed to see content?
Don't think it's possible? Howzabout DVD players, where you have to sit through the various FBI warnings and movie previews at the start of the disk before the movie starts.
First, my bad. I was more trying to explain that some corporate IM clients can meet restrictions. The Sametime Client Packager also allows you to bundle/not bundle the AIM connectivity part.
However, if Corporate has a reason for blocking these things, they need to issue a fiat: no IM client, or you're fired. Turning the computer people into policemen (which we're not) isn't the correct way to solve these problems. People doing what they shouldn't is still people doing what they shouldn't even if a computer is involved. Somehow us IT folks get saddled with fixing the problem.
Namely IBM's product Sametime. Chat logging (so that you can meet SEC requirements), logs into AIM, and it's works with some 3rd party tidbit that logs all the chat stuff at the firewall. (Sorry if that's vague, but I can't remember the company name.)
128-Bit RC-2 encrypted, too. Includes audio, video, whiteboard. H.323 compliant, and a slew of other things.
You'll find life much more interesting. For example, "Blue Highways: A Journey into America" by William Least Heat-Moon. Mr. Least Heat-Moon (yes, that's really his last name) also ran the rivers (as much as was possible) from NY to Portland (Oregon).
/scenery), the badlands of the Dakotas....
Interstates were made to get stuff from point A to point B, not for your to experience the country and the people.
As for must-sees, pretty much anything in the National Park System is worthy of a look. However given the trip you're talking about, U.S. 2 (the highway) runs from where you are to where you want to go, isn't an interstate, and has several things along it that are interesting and scenic. The Grand Coulee in Washington (skip the dam -- ugly and boring), Glacier National Park (some samples on my website in
No more radar guns for police (now you'll need an invisible car)
Fighter planes that don't need radar (but will need scads of cameras all over it -- both visible, infrared, and tetrawave)
Computerized athletic officiating (which may finally kill the politics of skating and gymnastics)
Better identity recognition software (now you don't have to face the camera)
Custom-tailored clothing (no more scanning mechanisms)
Automated grocery checkout (the machine identifies the fruits & veggies so that the clerk doesn't have to type in a 4-digit produce code)
Another reason for George Lucas to go back and re-film all 6 episodes into digital 3-D.
If the camera in question always looks the same direction (no pan & tilt), then you just need to batch process the images before publishing them.
Either mask out the scenery in the foreground, or blur it beyond recognition.
The merge between your background image (the "live" picture) and a foreground image would probably be easiest. That or do a poly-fill on known coordinates from a command line. GNUplot could almost do that.
But, in the interest of being a good neighbor, unplug, or stop publishing the camera pix, until you have a permanent solution.
Don't piss your neighbors off. If your house catches fire or is burgled while you're away, they may pull up deck chairs and watch, rather than telephoning for help.
First, doubt I'd stay more than a night or two. I guess I should have added a weekend as a request (so I don't miss work), and so that I get the cheaper ticket for staying Saturday night at the destination.
Second, the $100 a night sounds outrageous, until you see that most conventions I get flyers for have hotel rooms between $250-400/night. (Let's see, $500 round-trip ticket, $2,000 conference admission, 4 nights hotel at $250 plus tax to $300 -- yeah, I can afford $4,000.) The room shouldn't cost more than getting there. I can at least take one of the cheapo airport hotels the first night, and then move in to the conference hotel for a night, before leaving the next day. (How come hotels never offer discounts for staying more than 1 night?)
Third, we're all ultra-nationalist, terrorist-fighting, god-fearing, flag-waving, hard-working, tax-paying, hyphenated-Americans over here. Welfare is evil, and we never take it, and farm subsidies and tariffs don't count as welfare. (You Brits will recognize the saracasm in there, but the Americans won't.) I wish it were more pinko leftist here. There'd be better foreign policy, fewer rights being violated, better, more consistent environmental policy, etc. etc.
Fourth, I was trying to include students in my overly broad categorization of "the unemployed". So, yeah, I deserve that criticism. I'll make up for it. I wish the conference were run the way the American Association of Geographers (http://www.aag.org) runs their convention (excluding this year's convention in New Orleans, which is hopelessly fucked up). They pick a conference hotel, negotiate a reduced price, advertise the city a year in advance, and list the prices of, and distance to, all the proximal hotels. (I single out the New Orleans conference because this year they booked it late, during Mardi Gras week, didn't reserve any rooms, haven't published the schedule so that presenters and attendees know when they should be there...in short, you're just supposed to book a room for a week at $300/night, wade through crowds of urinating drunk people Mardi Gras celebrators, etc.)
Some other thoughts:
Schedule it a half a year in advance so that I can book tickets and time off.
Book it in a reasonably-priced hotel, or at least near reasonably-priced hotels (like $100/night or less). I pay for conferences out of my own pocket, which means I never attend conferences.
Pick a city that's an airport hub, and central to the U.S. (Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis) so that airfares are cheaper, instead of the obvious and expensive cities like Boston, New York, and San Francisco. And when considering what's an expensive air fare city, think of flights out of smaller towns, not comparing L.A.-->Baltimore tickets.
In short, do this so that the great unemployed can afford to go, and can make contacts. Don't do this as a moneymaker. I've chaired conferences before. I know what they cost, and I know how much money they can make. I also know how easy it is to make them affordable.
If it works, make it an annual event, and pick the same location/city/weekend each year. We can then plan better, and "accidentally" be at a customer site, or on layover, in that city at the right weekend.
While many girls appreciate these gifts, it's derned close to that "my husband bought me a romantic clothes washer for our anniversary," or even, "my boyfriend changed the oil in my car for Valentine's day," or also, "My neighbor bought me a waffle iron for Christmas."
While we dudes appreciate a fine tool, it's not Chick stuff. The clothes washer and the waffle iron come with the implication, "MAKE USE OF THAT FINE APPLIANCE FOR ME RIGHT NOW YOU LAZY WOMAN. I HAVE A GAME TO WATCH. ONLY SUMMON ME IF THERE IS A FIRE OR SEX."
The lock pick set will be forgotten in the back of a drawer. The fine flashlight will be stolen at the first Rave.
Give the girl cash. Best gift. Accepted in 200+ countries and on 7 continents. No ID needed. Don't leave home without it.
Lotus Sametime
IBM's MindSpan
Sametime works better for meetings, but not for self-paced learning. MindSpan is a "complete" e-learning suite.
Should also add that you can add-in the Lotus/IBM real-time translation stuff (Lotus Translation Components, and you can type in English, and have it render, simultaneously, for whatever the end-user needs. Japanese, German, Portugese, French, Chinese....