While I like "classic sf" (meaning technology and adventure), this was a very good read. It has enough stuff to cause some thinking, not just the entertainment value. I highly recommend it to anyone who's getting a little bored with current SF.
I've had problems with UPS too, but the last shipment we got was very carefully packed (6' by 4' by 4') in a custom-made wooden box (packed by UPS). The packer was great, the delivery guy was great, and we are very happy. Sometimes the actual people involved do make a difference!
I love Brin, and found (by accident) that he's written at least 3 books aimed at younger readers. They're not outdated, and are simpler than his well-known books. Just right for younger kids.
I'm not at home, so don't have the names of these books. If interested, let me know and I'll dig them out.
For those who are speculating about where they are going, a possibility is in a recent (within 5 years) article by William A. Woods, one of the top natural language researchers. His work at Sun was about using noun phrases (turned into concepts) as search guides. No idea if this is relevant to Google, but the work seems very promising.
For those interested in a good discussion of the whole problem, there is an excellent article in the latest ACM Queue magazine (November 2006,Vol 4 No 9) entitled "A Conversation with Douglas W. Jones and Peter G. Neumann". These are both experts in the field, and have a good discussion of the total picture. Highly recommended -- but I don't believe it's on the ACM website yet (http://www.acmqueue.org/).
Options in a large, established company, especially a public one, have a clear value and those companies will probably curtail use of options.
However, startups usually have no profit early on anyway, so options still make sense for them! More loss looks OK, because later when (hopefully) they turn a profit and it just looks like they grew more.
So the bottom line is: get into a startup very early, before they really have to worry about "profit" in the accounting sense.
Check out Storage Computer (storage.com). Their site sucks, but they're now selling storage software really primed for computer clusters, and their prices are less than the competition. Ask them for the details.
A "Policy" is not a selling document, nor even a how-to. It provides guidelines to make decisions, biased to what the corporate executives want. In this case, a policy should contain items like:
1. When planning a new software activity, see if there are any open source candidates.
2. If there are any candidates, they must be investigated (with criteria like the parent of this comment proposes): risk, history of support and bugginess of releases, real adequacy for the task, TCO estimates, etc.
3. Produce a report comparing and contrasting the proposed solution with alternatives, and the rationale for a choice.
I.e. in terms business people can understand. Other information should be elsewhere.
I've been an industry analyst in a firm like Gartner, and I also have a Ph.D. in computer science. So, for my 2-cents (or less) worth:
There are good analysts and poor analysts; some know what's going on, others just read headlines and sound good superficially.
Analysts have a different viewpoint than most observers -- they have to cover the "100,000 foot" level view for a lot of clients with issues not like normal individuals.
Firms like Gartner are a business. They make money by giving clients a warm-fuzzy feeling (that is, a feeling that they are reducing risk for those clients), so they have to be somewhat conservative.
For the general public, include Jabber or similar. The point is that people (especially teens) love instant messaging (particularly AIM), and an IM client that is compatible with AIM would be understandable to a large audience.
I don't know how many SF books I've collected, but I find that the HH series is the one I re-read the most. I love the idea that I can get them all on the CD, and think this is an innovative move by the publisher!
In fact, given the clumsiness of any e-reader, this will probably boost their sales of the older books.
Re:Fully digitally-proportional cars available too
on
Smallest RC Cars?
·
· Score: 1
While you really have to fit your problem, your environment, and your programmers, you might consider the language Dylan. See
comp.lang.dylan in the newsgroups,
Functional Objects for a commercial version (http://www.functionalobjects.com/) , or
the open source "Gwydion Dylan" at http://www.gwydiondylan.org/
The F-O "about Dylan" area is full of information, enough for you to see it satisfies all of your criteria.
Slashdot Mirror
While I like "classic sf" (meaning technology and adventure), this was a very good read. It has enough stuff to cause some thinking, not just the entertainment value. I highly recommend it to anyone who's getting a little bored with current SF.
I've had problems with UPS too, but the last shipment we got was very carefully packed (6' by 4' by 4') in a custom-made wooden box (packed by UPS). The packer was great, the delivery guy was great, and we are very happy. Sometimes the actual people involved do make a difference!
I love Brin, and found (by accident) that he's written at least 3 books aimed at younger readers. They're not outdated, and are simpler than his well-known books. Just right for younger kids.
I'm not at home, so don't have the names of these books. If interested, let me know and I'll dig them out.
For those who are speculating about where they are going, a possibility is in a recent (within 5 years) article by William A. Woods, one of the top natural language researchers. His work at Sun was about using noun phrases (turned into concepts) as search guides. No idea if this is relevant to Google, but the work seems very promising.
And sorry, I don't have the reference handy.
For those interested in a good discussion of the whole problem, there is an excellent article in the latest ACM Queue magazine (November 2006,Vol 4 No 9) entitled "A Conversation with Douglas W. Jones and Peter G. Neumann". These are both experts in the field, and have a good discussion of the total picture. Highly recommended -- but I don't believe it's on the ACM website yet (http://www.acmqueue.org/).
I just wanted to thank you for the data and analysis! Very, very interesting and thoughtful. And I've been an industry analyst myself.
Read David Brin's "Kiln People" (2002).
sci fi wins again!
Options in a large, established company, especially a public one, have a clear value and those companies will probably curtail use of options.
However, startups usually have no profit early on anyway, so options still make sense for them! More loss looks OK, because later when (hopefully) they turn a profit and it just looks like they grew more.
So the bottom line is: get into a startup very early, before they really have to worry about "profit" in the accounting sense.
Check out Storage Computer (storage.com). Their site sucks, but they're now selling storage software really primed for computer clusters, and their prices are less than the competition. Ask them for the details.
A "Policy" is not a selling document, nor even a how-to. It provides guidelines to make decisions, biased to what the corporate executives want. In this case, a policy should contain items like:
1. When planning a new software activity, see if there are any open source candidates.
2. If there are any candidates, they must be investigated (with criteria like the parent of this comment proposes): risk, history of support and bugginess of releases, real adequacy for the task, TCO estimates, etc.
3. Produce a report comparing and contrasting the proposed solution with alternatives, and the rationale for a choice.
I.e. in terms business people can understand. Other information should be elsewhere.
For the general public, include Jabber or similar. The point is that people (especially teens) love instant messaging (particularly AIM), and an IM client that is compatible with AIM would be understandable to a large audience.
I've just bought it.
I don't know how many SF books I've collected, but I find that the HH series is the one I re-read the most. I love the idea that I can get them all on the CD, and think this is an innovative move by the publisher!
In fact, given the clumsiness of any e-reader, this will probably boost their sales of the older books.
"I just bought a different brand..."
Could you tell us the brand?
While you really have to fit your problem, your environment, and your programmers, you might consider the language Dylan. See
comp.lang.dylan in the newsgroups,
Functional Objects for a commercial version (http://www.functionalobjects.com/) , or
the open source "Gwydion Dylan" at http://www.gwydiondylan.org/
The F-O "about Dylan" area is full of information, enough for you to see it satisfies all of your criteria.