I started off with Ocean Engineering, even though I was determined to build a career as a Software Engineer. I always keept CS as a minor. It was a good decision, because I had a solid foundation in mechanical engineering. School taught me how to think, not how to program. And in contrast to some CS grads I met, I knew exactly what real-world problems could be solved with Computers.
At the same time, this approach backfired once. A company I really wanted to work for made me an offer, but their legal department refused to apply for an H1-B Visa for a non-CS person (this was a big corporation and an entry level position). Also, I found that it can be difficult sometimes to get a non-CS resume past braindead HR people.
Yawn. There have been quite a few ideas for easier handheld input, the one-handed keyboard and left handed QWERTY keyboard being two examples for one-handed imput. There are many more. Will they ever (or this one) take off? Only if it is (1) easy to learn, or (2) there are huge advantages. I can't see either in this case. Graffiti succeeded, because it is (relatively) easy to learn. Cell phone users put up with their keypad, because this is the only viable option with today's cell phone sizes (except hauling more equipment around).
If neither of the two criteria is given, the technology might still succeed - in a niche market. I can see this technology in some industrial environment, where the operator has only one hand available. But the mass market? Nah....
Adobe will never stop supporting the Asian market - though they might very well shift their business focus. Adobe is a major driver of internationalization standards. They are extremely active driving the Unicode standard, and the standard book for Internationalization, CJKV, is written by Ken Lunde, an Adobe employee who is treated with great care.
Adobe might very well stop internationalizing some of their products (like Photoshop), but I am sure they have an agenda for the Asian market.
Do any of you synchronize the New York Times with AvantGo? If so, check out the first 1-3 articles. They are usually reviews of shows, product discussions, etc. Call me paranoid, but they always promotes something - even headline stories usually appear only as the second or third article. Coincidence? I don't think so. A fair price for a "free" service? Maybe so, but it's sleezy not to tell the user up front.
There was an interesting article last year in MIT's Technology Review Magazine about Negroponte leaving the Media Lab, leaving the Lab's future uncertain. The article makes a number of references to the Media Lab, including Biotech Research. It's interesting that he still refers to the Lab as "we" - I assume it's hard to let go, and probably good for the Lab to keep him around as an advisor.
The huge difference between a closed and an open project is, that in the first case people are forced to put up with bad management, and in the second not. For an open source project, the developers just don't put up with micromanagement and other idiosyncraties
With good project management, the management is invisible. Management is an enabler, and nothning more (and nothing less!).
Having said that, I feel that open source projects encourage an enabling management, but it's management nevertheless. The people in charge know that they can't motivate people by creating artificial deadlines, or stupid requirements. The motivator is enthusiasm and success.
Open source attracts good management.
(An essential book for Managers, talking about this stuff, is Peopleware, by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. Do yourself a favor and get it for your manager!)
Slightly off topic, but do you remember what France planned for the 100-year aniversary celebration of the Eiffel tower? I believe in 1997 or 1998. They were considering to send a balloon ring satellite into space, that would appear as big as the full moon Here is the only reference I found:
Satellite debris also interferes with astronomical observations. The incredibly sensitive instruments professional astronomers use can be "thrown off" by passing satellites and man-made debris. Even more threatening, just recently the French were stopped from launching a huge balloon ring satellite to commemorate Paris' Eiffel Tower's one hundredth anniversary. Many astronomers opposed the ring satellite, as it would have been the size and visual brightness of the full Moon as viewed from the ground and would have interfered with observations. They were also concerned that it might start companies advertising in space with huge satellite "billboards", which some are considering! Along with light pollution on the ground from ever-growing cities, astronomers - and those who just enjoy looking at the stars - are having their work cut out for them.
I'd love to agree with you, but I doubt it would work. I don't think you'll get the critical mass to achieve anything:
95% of all users won't even notice.
3% of all users play CDs on their computers, but don't copy them. They will be annoyed, but won't notice that copy protection is the issue. They'll play the CD on regular CD players only.
1.5% of all users have an old CD player that chokes. They'll be pissed, and hopefully some will return the CD.
The reminding 0.5% are slashdot readers who definitely will return the CD.
Okay, so there is a potential 2% of users who'd return the CD, but currently there are only 2 CDs out there. How many of those 2% do currently own the CD? Almost nobody! How many people are willing to go out, buy the CD just to return it? Well, make your guess, but I doubt it'll be enough.
Certainly BMG will closely monitor consumer reaction. And I am sure they will pull all strings to prevent this information to be reported in news. And probably they will be successful, as big corporations are pretty good at controlling the media. I mean, isn't it weird that nobody mentioned any US news source about this?
There is nothing revolutionary about the Internet and Politics. In contrast, it's sad to see how old strategies of power aquisition are applied to such a cool medium as the Internet. The latest example is the AOL-Time Warner merger. With this move, a big chunk of the mainstream Internet news outlet is immediately controlled by the government - assuming that you agree with me that the media (and Time Warner) is pretty much controlled by the government. Sure, there will still be other news sources, but if they don't get traffic (and with AOL-TW out there, they will get less traffic), they will get less (Ad) revenues, and with that, they can affort less independent research, which will make the mainstream news sources even more attractive. And even if they can keep their traffic, they will have to rely on Reuters & Co. as a source for news. Go figure.
I hope you don't find this off topic - because the influence of politics on media must not be underestimated. There are very few news agencies out there, and a lot of the data they spread steems directly from the White House, the Pentagon and large corporations. Do you think Reuters verifies all the news they release? "It's from the White House speaker, it must be true!" Don't forget that all major government agencies spend millions every year on a staff of hundreds of press speakers. And they know who pays their salery.
Does anybody know what the educational policy from other distributions in Europe is? For instance, I believe SuSe (located in Germany) is pretty strong. I wonder whether this is a strategic move to get market share from other distributions... any thoughts?
Okay, so the bottom line is, that geeks are shy, don't go out! I heard similar clichees about bookkeepers, for instance. I really would like to see some statistics that proove this. I actually doubt that this clichee is true, shy and outgoing characters are found in all professions.
However, I found that the article made an interesting point, pointing out the differences between the bay area and San Francisco. It makes sense that the more outgoing people live in San Francisco by choice, while the more introvert people end up outside the city. I know people who commute in both directions, and put up with a one hour commute each way, because the lifestyle in the neighborhood of their working space doesn't suit them (and not because of cost issues). Now, this is a point to expand on - but the article didn't exploit this.
Last, I am German, and I have a couple of German friends around here. One is married to another German girl and living in Mountain View in the suburbs, another one is the ultimate batchelor, living in San Francisco and dating a Palestinian girl, and yet another German is hanging out with strippers and is in the SM scene. Now, the European culture might be closer to the US than the Asian culture (the one discussed in the article), but my point is, that attitute can overcome a lot of cultural problems. Sure, I also know people who are not that happy here, but many of them already returned home. That's fine. As far as this topic is concerned, some statistics would help a lot as well.
Bottom line: I don't know where Paulina Borsook took her opinions from, and she didn't attempt to be credible.
As people mentioned before, the Handspring Visor accepts non-standard extention modules as well. What is not mentioned is the underlying technology is pretty cool.
Handspring modules carry their own applications with them - if you plug in the module, the software installs itself, if you take it out, the software gets uninstalled. Transparent to the user (freaky!), and supposedly pretty stable (details here).
Is this good or bad? I don't know, I rather have controll over the installed applications...
This doesn't sound like something new spectacular to me - and from the article I feel that it promises more than it can hold (e.g., I doubt that HTML and JavaScript tweaks could be translated from one client to the other).
But hey, that's not the point. If I am not mistaken, the thing builds on the philosophy of XML (if not on XML itself). It's about time that more XML complient tools appear on the market, and hopefully these tools will be extendable, and can interact via XML. Seeing that IBM not only jumps onto the XML bandwagon (which is not surprising, as they used SGML for a long time), but also starts to deliver the tools, is a great thing!
A long time ago, I checked out a kind of interesting book by Frank Tipler: The Physics of Immortality. In a nutshell, he proves the existance of god, heaven, hell, and sex in the after-life, following one basic assumption: The brain is a computer, the soul a program.
The article states: "What we have here is some alien life because it has nothing to do with biochemical life."
If that's true, then Erwin is just a lucky geek reincarnated on Linux;-)
It's so sad to see SGI falling apart like this. They had a unique concept to make them successful (hardware accellerated 3D graphics - and the machines look pretty cool, too!). They were kind of slow to react to the competition, lost direction, and IMHO didn't find the right direction yet - but try to jump on any bandwagon which passes by {sigh}.
I really hope they get their act together, find the right direction and make it happen. Otherwise, they might face a similar fate like Digital, who also had great technology (Alpha chip) but no direction, and is now going down together with Compaq.
Sure, it's silly to have all these different Palms. And look at the III and IIIe - a couple of bugs difference, a few features are different, but that's not what it is about.
Marketing! To be in the news, show the world that one new Pilot is coming out after the other, not only CE devices. And that's great. No matter what people at/. know, the general public has to know that there are alternatives to Microsoft.
However, I am still waiting for more Pilot clones. I believe IBM has or had one, but that's about it. I hope that 3com has a proper hardware licensing policy, and that more hardware manufacturers are taking advantage of it. Does anyone know more about this?
For a retailer like EggHead it's reasonable to sell over-stock off at an auction. The easiest way to do that is to buy an auction site (with a good, established name, onSale). Plus, they use the buzz-word "auction" while it's still in the heads of some stupid Wall-Street investors.
Not that this will make two very average companies any better...
Well, in the press release, I didn't hear that they are wining about alignment: "bringing photons not only to the desktop, but to rooftops, windows and ships at sea"
Also, it states the supported distance: A four-wavelength system with a maximum capacity of 10 Gb/s for distances up to five kilometers is expected to be commercially available in the summer of 2000. That's about three miles.
By the way - this is an original company press release. Pretty much hyped, and still quite far in the future. Let's check back in one year and see what they actually delivery, and how big the market for that product will be...
I wonder how involved CDNow and Sony/Warner have been so far, anyway. For instance, CDNow and MusicBoulevard used the same distributor from the very beginning, long before they merged. If something was on sale at MusicBlvd, it was on sale at CDNow as well - both operating on razor thin margins, just forwarding their distributor's price to the customer. But once they merged, suddenly prices were going up significantly. Go figure!
Considering that Sony holds lables, and many networking threads in the industry, I fear that we will see no positive impact of this deal on the end user. Just think of CDs sold exclusively through CDNow online for the first couple of weeks, or similar crap. So run, run as far as you can, and give some business to the other players!
This reminds me of another Slashdot story - Mouse Recharges Laptops, which has been invented by Compaq Australia. But it was an April hoax, and unfortunately they removed that page.
Honestly - don't you think that the name "aolsearch" has been chosen specifically to drive traffic? If it was meant to be an acronym, "aaolsearch" would have been it. But even if that's the case, there's nothing wrong with it! First comes, first serves! There's "whitehouse.com", and the fed didn't take over that one either!
I think the behavior of AOL and NSI is incredible arrogant, unseen! They totally contradict past behavior.
Give me a break! Tons of buzz-words on their site - all underlined, but not hyperlinked (means: no details available).
And sure, sell the first system for $26 million, and the following systems for $1000 each? Supposedly they sold one system so far - I wonder who bought it. Either the company itself, or one of their VCs, probably. That's a neat way to raise money...
Slashdot Mirror
I started off with Ocean Engineering, even though I was determined to build a career as a Software Engineer. I always keept CS as a minor. It was a good decision, because I had a solid foundation in mechanical engineering. School taught me how to think, not how to program. And in contrast to some CS grads I met, I knew exactly what real-world problems could be solved with Computers.
At the same time, this approach backfired once. A company I really wanted to work for made me an offer, but their legal department refused to apply for an H1-B Visa for a non-CS person (this was a big corporation and an entry level position). Also, I found that it can be difficult sometimes to get a non-CS resume past braindead HR people.
If neither of the two criteria is given, the technology might still succeed - in a niche market. I can see this technology in some industrial environment, where the operator has only one hand available. But the mass market? Nah....
Adobe might very well stop internationalizing some of their products (like Photoshop), but I am sure they have an agenda for the Asian market.
Do any of you synchronize the New York Times with AvantGo? If so, check out the first 1-3 articles. They are usually reviews of shows, product discussions, etc. Call me paranoid, but they always promotes something - even headline stories usually appear only as the second or third article. Coincidence? I don't think so. A fair price for a "free" service? Maybe so, but it's sleezy not to tell the user up front.
There was an interesting article last year in MIT's Technology Review Magazine about Negroponte leaving the Media Lab, leaving the Lab's future uncertain. The article makes a number of references to the Media Lab, including Biotech Research. It's interesting that he still refers to the Lab as "we" - I assume it's hard to let go, and probably good for the Lab to keep him around as an advisor.
With good project management, the management is invisible. Management is an enabler, and nothning more (and nothing less!).
Having said that, I feel that open source projects encourage an enabling management, but it's management nevertheless. The people in charge know that they can't motivate people by creating artificial deadlines, or stupid requirements. The motivator is enthusiasm and success.
Open source attracts good management.
(An essential book for Managers, talking about this stuff, is Peopleware, by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. Do yourself a favor and get it for your manager!)
I might be mistaken, but I thought they created their own label. Does anybody has more information?
... does anybody know anything more specific about the problems user ran into?
- 95% of all users won't even notice.
- 3% of all users play CDs on their computers, but don't copy them. They will be annoyed, but won't notice that copy protection is the issue. They'll play the CD on regular CD players only.
- 1.5% of all users have an old CD player that chokes. They'll be pissed, and hopefully some will return the CD.
- The reminding 0.5% are slashdot readers who definitely will return the CD.
Okay, so there is a potential 2% of users who'd return the CD, but currently there are only 2 CDs out there. How many of those 2% do currently own the CD? Almost nobody! How many people are willing to go out, buy the CD just to return it? Well, make your guess, but I doubt it'll be enough.Certainly BMG will closely monitor consumer reaction. And I am sure they will pull all strings to prevent this information to be reported in news. And probably they will be successful, as big corporations are pretty good at controlling the media. I mean, isn't it weird that nobody mentioned any US news source about this?
I hope you don't find this off topic - because the influence of politics on media must not be underestimated. There are very few news agencies out there, and a lot of the data they spread steems directly from the White House, the Pentagon and large corporations. Do you think Reuters verifies all the news they release? "It's from the White House speaker, it must be true!" Don't forget that all major government agencies spend millions every year on a staff of hundreds of press speakers. And they know who pays their salery.
Does anybody know what the educational policy from other distributions in Europe is? For instance, I believe SuSe (located in Germany) is pretty strong. I wonder whether this is a strategic move to get market share from other distributions... any thoughts?
However, I found that the article made an interesting point, pointing out the differences between the bay area and San Francisco. It makes sense that the more outgoing people live in San Francisco by choice, while the more introvert people end up outside the city. I know people who commute in both directions, and put up with a one hour commute each way, because the lifestyle in the neighborhood of their working space doesn't suit them (and not because of cost issues). Now, this is a point to expand on - but the article didn't exploit this.
Last, I am German, and I have a couple of German friends around here. One is married to another German girl and living in Mountain View in the suburbs, another one is the ultimate batchelor, living in San Francisco and dating a Palestinian girl, and yet another German is hanging out with strippers and is in the SM scene. Now, the European culture might be closer to the US than the Asian culture (the one discussed in the article), but my point is, that attitute can overcome a lot of cultural problems. Sure, I also know people who are not that happy here, but many of them already returned home. That's fine. As far as this topic is concerned, some statistics would help a lot as well.
Bottom line: I don't know where Paulina Borsook took her opinions from, and she didn't attempt to be credible.
Handspring modules carry their own applications with them - if you plug in the module, the software installs itself, if you take it out, the software gets uninstalled. Transparent to the user (freaky!), and supposedly pretty stable (details here).
Is this good or bad? I don't know, I rather have controll over the installed applications...
http://www.dvortyboards.com/dvorak.html
But hey, that's not the point. If I am not mistaken, the thing builds on the philosophy of XML (if not on XML itself). It's about time that more XML complient tools appear on the market, and hopefully these tools will be extendable, and can interact via XML. Seeing that IBM not only jumps onto the XML bandwagon (which is not surprising, as they used SGML for a long time), but also starts to deliver the tools, is a great thing!
The article states: "What we have here is some alien life because it has nothing to do with biochemical life."
If that's true, then Erwin is just a lucky geek reincarnated on Linux ;-)
I really hope they get their act together, find the right direction and make it happen. Otherwise, they might face a similar fate like Digital, who also had great technology (Alpha chip) but no direction, and is now going down together with Compaq.
Marketing! To be in the news, show the world that one new Pilot is coming out after the other, not only CE devices. And that's great. No matter what people at /. know, the general public has to know that there are alternatives to Microsoft.
However, I am still waiting for more Pilot clones. I believe IBM has or had one, but that's about it. I hope that 3com has a proper hardware licensing policy, and that more hardware manufacturers are taking advantage of it. Does anyone know more about this?
Not that this will make two very average companies any better...
Also, it states the supported distance: A four-wavelength system with a maximum capacity of 10 Gb/s for distances up to five kilometers is expected to be commercially available in the summer of 2000. That's about three miles.
By the way - this is an original company press release. Pretty much hyped, and still quite far in the future. Let's check back in one year and see what they actually delivery, and how big the market for that product will be...
Considering that Sony holds lables, and many networking threads in the industry, I fear that we will see no positive impact of this deal on the end user. Just think of CDs sold exclusively through CDNow online for the first couple of weeks, or similar crap. So run, run as far as you can, and give some business to the other players!
Strange, that this is Compaq yet again...
I think the behavior of AOL and NSI is incredible arrogant, unseen! They totally contradict past behavior.
And sure, sell the first system for $26 million, and the following systems for $1000 each? Supposedly they sold one system so far - I wonder who bought it. Either the company itself, or one of their VCs, probably. That's a neat way to raise money...