So Apple didn't invent USB. Who cares? Without Apple, it would have never caught on. Even the GUI was pioneered at Xerox PARC. Just because you didn't come up with an origonal idea doesn't mean you didn't play an extremely important role. If the technology is never adopted, it's greatness doesn't mean anything.
s/Apple/Microsoft/g
Apple has proven itself pretty damn good at taking someone else's technology, and making it popular, and you can't discount the importance of that.
s/Apple/Microsoft/g
Of course, no mention what it would be. I don't think he really has a clue what this next 'super innovation' (like the mac was in '84) should be, but he blames Apple for not coming up with it yet.
Techies generally aren't gasbags. If he's been involved in the nuts and bolts for 20 years, then it's safe to assume he has a clue (and if he won't talk about it, it's safe to assume he has some funding).
My guess is he's going to productize the persistent-object system (e.g. EROS, Grasshopper) and pattern the UI after OS/2's object-based UI. There are so many advantages to this approach: instant-on/instant-off, highly modular (take a moment to imagine what you could do if painting to the entire video screen were represented by a class like any other and you started applying design patterns to it... PCanywhere, multi-head, instant resolution change, etc. etc. would be easy and straightforward), easy fine-grained security, easy rich-media handling, document embedding as a way of life, and the list goes on.
If this isn't what Raskin is working on, I'd be surprised if it weren't something even better.
Well, as one of those "right wingers" that you so eloquently talk about, I'm pleased that the government isn't going to pay for science to harvest humans for thier cells.
... while at the same time the baby-fetishists have taken action in fourteen states to demand insurance coverage on fertility treatments, with a steady supply of embryos flushed down the hopper as a byproduct.
Science should look at every option, and follow every research path, but federal money shouldn't be used for the harvesting of humans.
In which case, for consistency's sake, Medicare ought not to pay for organ transplants of any kind, ever.
Those 4 or 5 cells become as real as any person and the loss felt is terrible.
That sounds like a truly unhealthy case of projection, man. Hormones can do some really funny things to you, but shouldn't you wait until the kid's born before you start making up fairytales about it?
I pray your family never has to deal with that.
The trouble with you "right-wingers" is that you lack the ability to not project your preconceptions of and neuroses about life on everyone around you, damn the inconsistencies, and instead assume everyone is exactly like you and doesn't find you and your preconceptions loathsome enough to cross the street just to get away from. One, I neither have nor had any intention of founding a family; two, within a year or two I will be taking steps to ensure that I do not found a family; and three, a miscarriage would be a BLESSING compared to a quarter of a million dollars of liability over the next twenty years for a book full of Kodak Moments that not only have zero appeal to me, but are infinitely less useful than an intelligent, grown-up human being who's got a skill or two, a personality, and maybe a talent.
That said, thanks for your concern. I aim never to be in that unenviable position.
Because this God is surrounded by busybody intolerant sadistic hypocrites who anthropomorphize the aether, can't mind their own business, and try to force their product down people's throats when they don't even use it themselves? Matters not if the guy in the middle is 110% holy and right if you have to literally fight your way through assholes to get to him. God judges those outside the church -- not you.
as telecom equipment. (Ain't standards wonderful?) Small racks and shipping enclosures from 2U to 12U are common but not necessarily cheap. Check your local music store or look online.
If some two-bit marketeer and Windows konsultant kould konstrukt a famous industrial danse klub that way, why not?
-jhp
TACO, NEED A (-1, Ignorant) MODERATION K THX BYE
on
Alpha Up For Grabs?
·
· Score: 2
True, they've got the PowerPC, but it wouldn't hurt them to have another product, particularly one that is used in the server market, where the
PowerPC is virtually non-existant.
There is a better term. "Skill". IT is a skill-based industry, similar to journalism, civil engineering, or facilities maintenance. There's no reason to seek you in particular over anyone else in the industry who can do the same work.
Talent, on the other hand, implies that you have an artistic flair and that only your performance could possibly do. Anyone with a password is equivalent, as far as the computer is concerned.
If working conditions become harsh you may leave and get work somewhere else, usually pretty easily.
Unless your company decides to subcontract your job out to some substandard Java conslutancy in India that uses == to compare Strings. Or hires someone from abroad on a work visa because they're cheaper than you are.
As an IT worker I want to be paid based on my talent.
Well, that's tough shit, boy, you're paid based on supply and demand. You don't have talent, you have skill. You'll be paid exactly what you're worth in the market at any given time. As soon as someone finds a way to pipe your job to someplace else for cheaper, your rate will also drop, if you want to stay employed. Did you see the comment a few days back in another article where investors only wanted to pay $45k for a CCIE certified network admin? (For those of you oriented against certification, a CCIE certification is temporary, competitive, and not least expensive. By the time you've gotten it, though, you know Cisco routers cold.) Serious blood, sweat and cash spent on a serious certification, and some sucka VC says he shouldn't make the going rate for college graduates? That in and of itself is an excellent example of where unions could help.
Naturally, the good comes from unions and governments only if the people who comprise them do their "eternal vigilance" homework and make sure the leaders aren't running off with the bag. Force is, unfortunately, not an attractive option against either sort of conglomerate.
Seniority means nothing if the person does not retain their edge and continually keep updated.
Why not? Keeping up-to-date with the latest tools only feeds the marketing hype machine. In hiring a sysadmin, for example, knowing the minutiae of Red Hat 9.3's particular flavor of init scripts is probably far less important than having the problem-solving skills to dig into them and find the needed information.
I suspect your fixation on staying "hip" has to do with your own position being dependent on the upgrade treadmill? Problem solving is not a purchasable skill.
I also want to negotiate my contract. I do not want to share a contract with every other IT person in the company.
Then why are you not a consultant? You want the entrepreneurial endorphin buzz, you start the consultancy or the startup and stop ruining the industry for those of us who like to go home before the stars come out.
(Oh, and ahem. Screen Actors Guild?)
Unions support the collective, IT is based around individuals and individual talent. They are mutually exclusive in my opinion.
Then why all the emphasis on "team play" in this industry? Why are cowboys so frowned upon? Why does your supposed "talent" never get recognized as individually your contribution? Because it isn't talent. If you want to exercise your bloody talents, drag your PHB grandstanding "mememememe" ass into sales and leave us scientists alone.
The largest existing vendor and promoter of independent music just sold everything to a major.
I'm sure the terms will change for the worse as far as the artists are concerned.
Who can fill mp3.com's shoes now that IUMA is dead?
The patent office generally "cannot afford" to do searches outside of their own database of prior art.
If the problem is that they can't afford the time to search, Google could win big points with the current junta by donating bandwidth and networking expertise to the USPTO. If the problem is that the PTO would lose too much business, well, the Invisible Hand really is a fascist and woe unto those misfortunate deluded fools and self-absorbed jackals who worship it.
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless -
(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States
So their technique was in public use for three years prior to the filing of the patent! Stop whining about your uncompensated data entry! That's not the point of their case and it's not the point of ours. The point is that they're prosecuting a company based on a statutorily invalid patent and a disappointing business relationship, and they have neither the facts nor the law on their side.
They're absolutely right. It's not about data, it's about intellectual property.
IANAL, but at least I can spot a red herring when I see one.
so QUIT CALLING IT PIRACY. It's "bootlegging". Are you shilling for the surface cargo industry or the RIAA? You're distorting the debate by using terms that have nothing to do with the actions at hand.
Furthermore, RIAA does NOT represent artists' interests AT ALL. They represent record companies, and they buy legislation that HARMS artists (see the "work for hire" rider in the Satellite Home Viewing Improvement Act). These are the people that, by locking up the market as a cartel, demand onerous contracts in exchange for "access" to the payola market, without which an artist gets no coordinated radio exposure and no career. While it may be ethical to pay for music, the balance of evils clearly favors cutting the RIAA members out of the deal.
Why are Americans these days such unquestioning tools? Mama's-boys don't keep a free country free, and you sure aren't helping.
The patent system by design requires disclosure as compensation to the public good in exchange for a time-limited monopoly on the invention. This has been stated so many times in so many discussions on IP law, and with your two-digit user number you've no excuse for not being aware of it. If you don't know exactly what you're talking about, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. (Taco? Can we get that added to the Important Stuff about comments?)
What is far more interesting is that the disclosure occurred over a year before it was filed (corporate welfare might have increased this time limit in recent history), thus the patent would likely be held invalid. Gracenote is clearly hoping that Roxio will get scared and settle rather than defend.
Hey, Roxio, I don't own a Windows machine, but I'll buy a license to Easy CD Creator (retail) directly from you if you guys countersue them for fraud.
Sorta like the PC I saw in a hole-in-the-wall PC repair place... the USB ports were labeled "Mouse" and "Keyboard"
If that was the builder's labeling, then it was probably a customer support consideration. Computer-illiterate people may not be aware that USB ports are equivalent, and labeling 100 machines in this way is probably cheaper than fielding just a couple of luser calls.
Lack of confidence isn't the only reason you sell stock. With the market being such an unstable beast and having bled so much in recent history, maybe employees are getting smart and refusing to believe in the options racket.
AMD announced the 1GHz Athlon mere hours before Intel announced the Penium III 1GHz.
AMD 1GHz parts were available to consumers and OEM's well ahead of the Intel part. You could hold your very own AMD 1GHz processor in your hand some time before you could get the Intel part. Of course, if they were powered, you'd probably be able to hold on to the AMD part for a few seconds longer.
Our livelihood depends on working for others so we can pay our taxes.
Okay, Mr. Smarty, move out someplace and don't interact with anyone, but be totally self-sufficient. Because when you trade with people, you are "working for others."
There are many ways in which humans interact. They develop themselves intellectually, they develop emotional connections with other humans, they interact sexually, they take communion in spirituality with others (though they often believe their gods keep them segregated) and they engage in the trade of goods and services. Only the last of these is a zero-sum situation. That only the last of these is a valid justification for human contact is a pathological and poisonous notion.
Who's going to provide the something?
In the case of land, it predated humanity by a few billion years. No one can say with any certainty.
In the case of food, it is obvious that the land and plant life produces food. Whether humans help or hinder the process over generational time is a question for another time and place, though it certainly depends on how and to what purpose.
Allow me to emphasize that the original poster arguing for a parcel of land, which is clearly not man-made, to be granted to persons in perpetuity, with the only levy being the requirement to do something with it. I will not accept the argument that any one or more of several deities constructed that land or parceled it out to their chosen people, due to the nearly universal tendency for such deities to agree exactly with the speaker appealing to a deity's authority. It is exactly these theological arguments that lead directly to the tiresome Israel-Palestine pissing match.
Even if he were arguing for birthrights other than land, and assuming the timeless social ideals of advancing human knowledge and respect for others, it makes more sense to allow all persons unfettered access to the elements of an independently productive life (global maximum) than to restrict the elements of independent life to a select class and enforce the dependent existence of a dependent class on the independent gatekeepers (local maxima). Wisdom new and old warns frequently of the dangers of local maxima. While the most strenuous battles against a global maximum are fought by those who have reached a local maximum, the most visible and loudest supporters of the local maximum are those who simply fancy themselves one but have little likelihood of achieving that goal.
I close by frankly stating that your attitudes toward other human beings pose a sufficient danger to civil society to merit institutionalization and heavy drugs that we on the outside only dream of, whether you are a troll or True Believer.
You can buy cards for testing consumer remote controls etc. that emit orange light when an infrared source of sufficient intensity shines on them. I'd guess either MCM Electronics or Mouser Electronics would carry them, and I'd also guess they're relatively inexpensive. CCD cameras are sensitive to IR radiation, so you could potentially use a display model camcorder over in the consumer electronics section to observe displays while pretending to interact with them. (You could also use IR remotes to disrupt the cameras.)
Why can't we complain about the abuse of information gathered about us without our knowledge or consent? We quite rightly can complain about it, disrupt their data collection until it leaves our hands, and discover and disclose the use this technology wherever we find it. We have no obligation to the merchant to let them use our involuntary reactions so they can harass us with higher prices and more pressure to buy, and we have no obligation not to mess with their system until mall security escorts us off the premises. Naturally, since we're in public, the Supremes will say that they certainly can, but any merchant who would press the issue so far has already lost in the court of public opinion by the time the first appeal is filed.
(Incidentally, the heat signature given off by blood vessels in the forehead is as or more unique than fingerprints.)
The social institution of DIY has been in danger for years now. I think it started with the War On (Some) Drugs making it almost impossible for an individual to acquire fine chemicals, and orders for listed chemicals are subjected to scrutiny by chemical distributors and prosecuted for anything from controlled substance manufacturing to terrorism if the buyer can't come up with a good story. Radio Shack, once a source for electronic components, now is a glorified consumer-electronics also-ran that won't even sell you a 6.5536MHz crystal anymore. The DMCA neatly banished research of copy control to corporations, with even the ivory tower of academia under attack for research the law explicitly permits, and very nearly makes a crime out of verifying the operation of something you paid for. In some places, you can't buy CO2 or hair bleach
Innovation has become the sole province of corporations, it seems, and this is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. This is an unprecedented attack on the sovereignty of the individual, on many different fronts, concocted by people who have few common ties but the ability to profit from conformity, and it isn't getting any better. We can keep fighting them point-by-point to slow down the machine's progress, but what can we do to reverse the trend? What can we do to restore discovery, initiative, and independence to their rightful place as the cornerstone of Western achievement, in a world filled with prefab, overpriced, purpose-built, rubber-bumpered crap?
Hey, Katz, if you want to do something useful for "The Kids", then quit defending mindless entertainment and start advocating mindful engagement. Ten million zombies playing Quake are not going to fix the problem.
-jhp
Tip: Don't move into houses w/ half-finished roofs
on
Agenda Delayed Again
·
· Score: 3
I personally believe that palm had the right idea. If it's going to be an organizer, make it as simple as possible. no command lines, no wacky software widgets.
You might ask your friend to look at his Agenda and see if it says "Developer Edition". Ask him what he thinks that means.
My Apple newton is still working fine, crash free since '96. It surfs the web, reads REAL handwriting, and stores personal info. Isn't that enough?
Great! It also had an advanced operating environment based on a persistent object store. I'd buy one if some arrogant crank from Cupertino with tunnel vision hadn't buried the technology in his back yard.
1) Accessory keyboards are available soon, if not now. 2) Why ruin a device that's better for maintaining lists of short textual data when programs that must have landscape orientation can do so trivially (see the marching-aliens game included in the latest software rev)? 3) You don't want a PIM, you want a handheld PC. They're used for different purposes and that's why they're different.
Slashdot Mirror
My guess is he's going to productize the persistent-object system (e.g. EROS, Grasshopper) and pattern the UI after OS/2's object-based UI. There are so many advantages to this approach: instant-on/instant-off, highly modular (take a moment to imagine what you could do if painting to the entire video screen were represented by a class like any other and you started applying design patterns to it... PCanywhere, multi-head, instant resolution change, etc. etc. would be easy and straightforward), easy fine-grained security, easy rich-media handling, document embedding as a way of life, and the list goes on.
If this isn't what Raskin is working on, I'd be surprised if it weren't something even better.
-jhp
That said, thanks for your concern. I aim never to be in that unenviable position.
-jhp
-jhp
-jhp
'Cuz real-ass niggaz know they got 'em
-Geto Boyz, "Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta"
-jhp
-jhp
-jhp
-jhp
Talent, on the other hand, implies that you have an artistic flair and that only your performance could possibly do. Anyone with a password is equivalent, as far as the computer is concerned.
Unless your company decides to subcontract your job out to some substandard Java conslutancy in India that uses == to compare Strings. Or hires someone from abroad on a work visa because they're cheaper than you are. Well, that's tough shit, boy, you're paid based on supply and demand. You don't have talent, you have skill. You'll be paid exactly what you're worth in the market at any given time. As soon as someone finds a way to pipe your job to someplace else for cheaper, your rate will also drop, if you want to stay employed. Did you see the comment a few days back in another article where investors only wanted to pay $45k for a CCIE certified network admin? (For those of you oriented against certification, a CCIE certification is temporary, competitive, and not least expensive. By the time you've gotten it, though, you know Cisco routers cold.) Serious blood, sweat and cash spent on a serious certification, and some sucka VC says he shouldn't make the going rate for college graduates? That in and of itself is an excellent example of where unions could help.Naturally, the good comes from unions and governments only if the people who comprise them do their "eternal vigilance" homework and make sure the leaders aren't running off with the bag. Force is, unfortunately, not an attractive option against either sort of conglomerate.
Why not? Keeping up-to-date with the latest tools only feeds the marketing hype machine. In hiring a sysadmin, for example, knowing the minutiae of Red Hat 9.3's particular flavor of init scripts is probably far less important than having the problem-solving skills to dig into them and find the needed information.I suspect your fixation on staying "hip" has to do with your own position being dependent on the upgrade treadmill? Problem solving is not a purchasable skill.
Then why are you not a consultant? You want the entrepreneurial endorphin buzz, you start the consultancy or the startup and stop ruining the industry for those of us who like to go home before the stars come out.(Oh, and ahem. Screen Actors Guild?)
Then why all the emphasis on "team play" in this industry? Why are cowboys so frowned upon? Why does your supposed "talent" never get recognized as individually your contribution? Because it isn't talent. If you want to exercise your bloody talents, drag your PHB grandstanding "mememememe" ass into sales and leave us scientists alone.-jhp
Who can fill mp3.com's shoes now that IUMA is dead?
-jhp
-jhp
They're absolutely right. It's not about data, it's about intellectual property. IANAL, but at least I can spot a red herring when I see one.
-jhp
Furthermore, RIAA does NOT represent artists' interests AT ALL. They represent record companies, and they buy legislation that HARMS artists (see the "work for hire" rider in the Satellite Home Viewing Improvement Act). These are the people that, by locking up the market as a cartel, demand onerous contracts in exchange for "access" to the payola market, without which an artist gets no coordinated radio exposure and no career. While it may be ethical to pay for music, the balance of evils clearly favors cutting the RIAA members out of the deal.
Why are Americans these days such unquestioning tools? Mama's-boys don't keep a free country free, and you sure aren't helping.
-jhp
What is far more interesting is that the disclosure occurred over a year before it was filed (corporate welfare might have increased this time limit in recent history), thus the patent would likely be held invalid. Gracenote is clearly hoping that Roxio will get scared and settle rather than defend.
Hey, Roxio, I don't own a Windows machine, but I'll buy a license to Easy CD Creator (retail) directly from you if you guys countersue them for fraud.
-jhp
-jhp
-jhp
-jhp
-jhp
-jhp
-jhp
In the case of food, it is obvious that the land and plant life produces food. Whether humans help or hinder the process over generational time is a question for another time and place, though it certainly depends on how and to what purpose.
Allow me to emphasize that the original poster arguing for a parcel of land, which is clearly not man-made, to be granted to persons in perpetuity, with the only levy being the requirement to do something with it. I will not accept the argument that any one or more of several deities constructed that land or parceled it out to their chosen people, due to the nearly universal tendency for such deities to agree exactly with the speaker appealing to a deity's authority. It is exactly these theological arguments that lead directly to the tiresome Israel-Palestine pissing match.
Even if he were arguing for birthrights other than land, and assuming the timeless social ideals of advancing human knowledge and respect for others, it makes more sense to allow all persons unfettered access to the elements of an independently productive life (global maximum) than to restrict the elements of independent life to a select class and enforce the dependent existence of a dependent class on the independent gatekeepers (local maxima). Wisdom new and old warns frequently of the dangers of local maxima. While the most strenuous battles against a global maximum are fought by those who have reached a local maximum, the most visible and loudest supporters of the local maximum are those who simply fancy themselves one but have little likelihood of achieving that goal.
I close by frankly stating that your attitudes toward other human beings pose a sufficient danger to civil society to merit institutionalization and heavy drugs that we on the outside only dream of, whether you are a troll or True Believer.
-jhp
Why can't we complain about the abuse of information gathered about us without our knowledge or consent? We quite rightly can complain about it, disrupt their data collection until it leaves our hands, and discover and disclose the use this technology wherever we find it. We have no obligation to the merchant to let them use our involuntary reactions so they can harass us with higher prices and more pressure to buy, and we have no obligation not to mess with their system until mall security escorts us off the premises. Naturally, since we're in public, the Supremes will say that they certainly can, but any merchant who would press the issue so far has already lost in the court of public opinion by the time the first appeal is filed.
(Incidentally, the heat signature given off by blood vessels in the forehead is as or more unique than fingerprints.)
Oh yeah, that's "speech", not "speach".
-jhp
Innovation has become the sole province of corporations, it seems, and this is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. This is an unprecedented attack on the sovereignty of the individual, on many different fronts, concocted by people who have few common ties but the ability to profit from conformity, and it isn't getting any better. We can keep fighting them point-by-point to slow down the machine's progress, but what can we do to reverse the trend? What can we do to restore discovery, initiative, and independence to their rightful place as the cornerstone of Western achievement, in a world filled with prefab, overpriced, purpose-built, rubber-bumpered crap?
Hey, Katz, if you want to do something useful for "The Kids", then quit defending mindless entertainment and start advocating mindful engagement. Ten million zombies playing Quake are not going to fix the problem.
-jhp
-jhp
-jhp