As far as corporate R&D for IT companies, here's my take...
Microsoft: I have no idea what they spend their billions on, and yes, they do spend a bundle on R&D. They just never have much in the way of either (a) actual products to show for it, or (b) wow technologies like HP PARC. Seriously, considering all they spend, they should be HP PARC. They're not.
IBM: Well, they do make the fastest chips on earth at the moment (POWER6), as well as tons of other things, and the best O/S on the planet (z/OS), not to mention another awesome O/S (OS/400), plus...OK, IBM does great things with R&D.
Google: See Microsoft. Seriously - they have a great search engine. Best in the world. Hands down. And also...oh wait, I guess that's it.
HP: HP has pissed away more technology they've bought than anyone else. VMS? Tru64? Alpha? And then there are things they do that are awesome - Tandem Nonstop - but never integrated into the rest of their line. ARGH! They make great printers, I'll give them that...
Sun: Really forward-thinking, great R&D. The Solaris O/S has been Microsoft's crystal ball for years. DTRACE. ZFS. Java. Even just cool implementations like Thumper. Of course, Sun can't seem to make dime one on any of this...they really do seem to have the most clueless management on earth...a pity.
Yes, many countries could make a nuclear bomb TODAY. But the situation was different in 1943. The United States was genuinely the only country capable of bringing together scientists - from around the world - and marrying them with the engineering prowess and industrial capability to make the first nukes. There was no other country that could have done that in the 1940s. Germany was not even remotely close, and they were the next runner-up.
Yes, there was a period of time where the U.S. was truly exceptional.
With all due respect I think this overglorifies. Yes it was a great achievement, especially with the technology of the time. But for the most part it got done because of money, not extreme talent. Any largish nation, willing to spend the money could have done it. Only the relative speed at which it succeeded could be credited in some way to a more than usually talented bunch of scientist (as compared to other talented scientist).
I disagree. Would you say the same about the Manhattan Project? The fact is that any other nation could NOT have done it - as evidenced by the fact that the Soviet Union never landed a man on the moon.
CARDS!?!? You needed cards? Back in my day we were just figments of a possible future reality and our programs ran just fine without all these fancy technological crutches like "the universe" and "reality" and such.
Good point - though perhaps just the review is missing it, not the book. Wizardry was a mainstay from the early PC days (Apple ][) until it burned out in the early part of this decade. I loved Sir-Tech.
The Witcher is pretty well known - you can find it at most mass-market retailers (I got my copy at Fred Meyer's here in PDX, which is analagous to Wal-Mart, a couple weeks ago). It was done by a Polish studio using the Neverwinter Nights (aka Aurora) engine. Lots of customization and new mechanics - in fact, I think they pushed that engine so hard it looks like a really different game than NWN. Much more adult in context, too - your main character can get laid, though the US edition removed the graphic parts. Bastiges. Very dark tone as well.
It's not a perfect game by any means, but is reasonably popular and certainly those involved in its creation have earned some pride.
I used to have a position where I met quarterly with most of the major Wall Street CTOs/CIOs. Every one of them was heavily involved in deploying Linux. You could sum up their reasons quite simply: commoditization yields cheaper computing.
All of them were tired of being locked into the hardware that Solaris required (i.e., Sun's vertical stack), and paying Veritas Foundation Suite licensing on top of that. (I mean, come on, no big enterprise shop ever used Solaris Disk Suite as a standard!)
Sure, today you can run Solaris on x86 more credibly and there's ZFS, but three years ago that was still vapor. Sun was too late with them.
The writing on the wall for Sun's big servers has been there for some time. Sun could not afford to cannibalize its enterprise offerings by going whole-hog into Solaris x86, which is why it's always been the poor stepchild. In the meantime, Linux came along, reached maturity, and now anyone wanting to buy a Unixy system can let Dell, HP, IBM, Sun, etc. compete to deliver a cheap x86 box. There's no important differentiation between them, and very few people are buying giant Sun servers any more. Heck, Sun's big Lonestar supercomputer sale was commodity x86 running Linux.
Linux deployments, at least in the sector I worked with, were mainly Unix replacements.
Oh, and a couple responses to the above:
BTW, all of these shops also had huge mainframes. These are not going away any time in any of our lifetimes. I'm not exaggerating. More transactions run through COBOL on mainframes running z/OS in an hour than run through Google in a day. No one wants to mess with all of that.
The desktops? All Windows. Someone mentioned that firms still use Excel 97 - very true. No one wants to go through the work of porting the ridiculously massive macro and VBA code. Everyone I've known who worked on Wall Street says that Excel is so deeply ingrained that it's practically the Street's O/S.
you basically need a vmware license in order to develop.
Yes, but the license for what you would need (VMWare Server) is free. You probably do not need the pay-for Workstation, etc. features. The vast majority of the benefits of VMWare are available in the free products - it's only when you want to do advanced stuff like snapshots, moving images around, teams, etc. that you need to get into the pay-for products.
(Not trying to be snippy, just passing this on because VMWare's license model has changed in recent years.)
Oh, horseshit. For every guy who's risked everything and made a billion, there are thousands who did the same and did not. Fearlessness does not equal success in any way, shape, or form.
...is that articles of impeachment are fairly routine. Yes, it's true - they were introduced by various congressmen at various points against Bush prior to this, against Clinton (before Lewinsky), GB I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson...
Any congressman can introduce articles of impeachment. Big deal. 99.9% of the time, it's a publicity stunt. Just like this time.
Slashdot Mirror
...that neither 'bind' nor 'named' should be capitalized. Then again, they're not very technical people.
Sun.
As far as corporate R&D for IT companies, here's my take...
Microsoft: I have no idea what they spend their billions on, and yes, they do spend a bundle on R&D. They just never have much in the way of either (a) actual products to show for it, or (b) wow technologies like HP PARC. Seriously, considering all they spend, they should be HP PARC. They're not.
IBM: Well, they do make the fastest chips on earth at the moment (POWER6), as well as tons of other things, and the best O/S on the planet (z/OS), not to mention another awesome O/S (OS/400), plus...OK, IBM does great things with R&D.
Google: See Microsoft. Seriously - they have a great search engine. Best in the world. Hands down. And also...oh wait, I guess that's it.
HP: HP has pissed away more technology they've bought than anyone else. VMS? Tru64? Alpha? And then there are things they do that are awesome - Tandem Nonstop - but never integrated into the rest of their line. ARGH! They make great printers, I'll give them that...
Sun: Really forward-thinking, great R&D. The Solaris O/S has been Microsoft's crystal ball for years. DTRACE. ZFS. Java. Even just cool implementations like Thumper. Of course, Sun can't seem to make dime one on any of this...they really do seem to have the most clueless management on earth...a pity.
Did I forget anyone?
Yes, many countries could make a nuclear bomb TODAY. But the situation was different in 1943. The United States was genuinely the only country capable of bringing together scientists - from around the world - and marrying them with the engineering prowess and industrial capability to make the first nukes. There was no other country that could have done that in the 1940s. Germany was not even remotely close, and they were the next runner-up.
Yes, there was a period of time where the U.S. was truly exceptional.
With all due respect I think this overglorifies. Yes it was a great achievement, especially with the technology of the time. But for the most part it got done because of money, not extreme talent. Any largish nation, willing to spend the money could have done it. Only the relative speed at which it succeeded could be credited in some way to a more than usually talented bunch of scientist (as compared to other talented scientist).
I disagree. Would you say the same about the Manhattan Project? The fact is that any other nation could NOT have done it - as evidenced by the fact that the Soviet Union never landed a man on the moon.
CARDS!?!? You needed cards? Back in my day we were just figments of a possible future reality and our programs ran just fine without all these fancy technological crutches like "the universe" and "reality" and such.
Are you saying it's The Road Ahead?
When I stay at the Neverland ranch, I always use those Sun Microsystems Thumper boxes and Viagra chips!
(Huh? Why are you bother- what? They're named after...oh...OHHHH...)
Um, never mind.
Good point - though perhaps just the review is missing it, not the book. Wizardry was a mainstay from the early PC days (Apple ][) until it burned out in the early part of this decade. I loved Sir-Tech.
If you're carrying numbers when dividing, I guess you are inventing new math :-)
Iditot.
Well, you sure showed him.
A firearm is pretty much useless against a tank rolling towards you, yet I'd consider that pretty threatening.
Which, of course, is why we won in Viet Nam and the Soviets won in Afghanistan.
...which NAS to buy?
The Witcher is pretty well known - you can find it at most mass-market retailers (I got my copy at Fred Meyer's here in PDX, which is analagous to Wal-Mart, a couple weeks ago). It was done by a Polish studio using the Neverwinter Nights (aka Aurora) engine. Lots of customization and new mechanics - in fact, I think they pushed that engine so hard it looks like a really different game than NWN. Much more adult in context, too - your main character can get laid, though the US edition removed the graphic parts. Bastiges. Very dark tone as well.
It's not a perfect game by any means, but is reasonably popular and certainly those involved in its creation have earned some pride.
"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." --John McCain
He just won my vote. Thank you.
Yes, as long as it's not loaded.
I used to have a position where I met quarterly with most of the major Wall Street CTOs/CIOs. Every one of them was heavily involved in deploying Linux. You could sum up their reasons quite simply: commoditization yields cheaper computing.
All of them were tired of being locked into the hardware that Solaris required (i.e., Sun's vertical stack), and paying Veritas Foundation Suite licensing on top of that. (I mean, come on, no big enterprise shop ever used Solaris Disk Suite as a standard!)
Sure, today you can run Solaris on x86 more credibly and there's ZFS, but three years ago that was still vapor. Sun was too late with them.
The writing on the wall for Sun's big servers has been there for some time. Sun could not afford to cannibalize its enterprise offerings by going whole-hog into Solaris x86, which is why it's always been the poor stepchild. In the meantime, Linux came along, reached maturity, and now anyone wanting to buy a Unixy system can let Dell, HP, IBM, Sun, etc. compete to deliver a cheap x86 box. There's no important differentiation between them, and very few people are buying giant Sun servers any more. Heck, Sun's big Lonestar supercomputer sale was commodity x86 running Linux.
Linux deployments, at least in the sector I worked with, were mainly Unix replacements.
Oh, and a couple responses to the above:
...and Jimi Hendrix was, in hindsight, wildly overrated.cough I think you mean the Experience museum in Seattle, not Jimi himself ;-)
Also, in what way has Paul Allen failed? Seems to me he's doing rather well for himself.
Overall, sure, but he has certainly had his share of losers. For example, "BusinessWeek magazine calculated he had lost $US12 billion in the previous five years.".
you basically need a vmware license in order to develop.
Yes, but the license for what you would need (VMWare Server) is free. You probably do not need the pay-for Workstation, etc. features. The vast majority of the benefits of VMWare are available in the free products - it's only when you want to do advanced stuff like snapshots, moving images around, teams, etc. that you need to get into the pay-for products.
(Not trying to be snippy, just passing this on because VMWare's license model has changed in recent years.)
Oh, horseshit. For every guy who's risked everything and made a billion, there are thousands who did the same and did not. Fearlessness does not equal success in any way, shape, or form.
There's a bitwise operator joke in there but I can't do the math in my head.
...is that articles of impeachment are fairly routine. Yes, it's true - they were introduced by various congressmen at various points against Bush prior to this, against Clinton (before Lewinsky), GB I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson...
Any congressman can introduce articles of impeachment. Big deal. 99.9% of the time, it's a publicity stunt. Just like this time.
In the US, it is unconstitutional for the government to give funding to churches.
Not that the constitution says that, of course...
A homopohobe? What is that, a transgendered homeless man or something?
turns out a huge chunk of the Boy Scouts is financed by the Mormon church.
No. None of the BSA is "financed by the Mormon church" and P&T never said that. There are, however, a lot of Mormons in the BSA.