Kaiser Kuo, a former director of digital strategy for the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency in China...and member of Tang Dynasty and Chun Qiu (Spring and Autumn), which world-metalheads should check out.;)
Subscription model seems to work pretty well for WoW.
Free basic game with in-game purchase of add-ons seems to work pretty well for Wizard101 and its ilk.
Yes, either system leaves room for abuse of various sorts... maybe the real challenge is to come up with anti-pirate systems that work for offline games.
It's been nearly a year since the first leaks from Apple about a mystery tablet, and you can't tell me that those leaks weren't meant to drum up interest before a product even existed.
From what I've seen, Apple's modus operandi is more one of saying they don't think there's any market for a given class of products, until they have something ready to show (in hopes of revolutionizing that class of products). Nearly a year since the first leaks from Apple? Not bad considering that there have been rumors in the media since 2002.
When Microsoft says "late prototype" I read it as "we've got nothing, really, but if we say we're about to release something, a non-zero percentage of the market will sit on their thumbs until we do, instead of buying actual products that are actually available from other sources, because by golly, we're Microsoft."
(Yes, I know, it actually works. And no, I don't think that's a very nice tactic.)
Basically everyone with a phone in the USA has been paying an extra fee for decades now to fund rollout of broadband to rural areas. Not only have the rural areas not gotten it, even a lot of built-up areas don't have it. In fact, when municipalities have tried to create their own high-speed networks, the telcos have gone so far as to sue to prevent it. Taking $200 billion to do something, then making efforts to prevent that something from even happening? Evil.
I'd like the FCC to ask the telcos where the $200 billion went... and if the telcos want to claim things are impossible, maybe the FCC can ask them to give that $200 billion back, since we all know there's a company (Google) that's chomping at the bit to install super-fast FTTH.
Cupola has six trapezoidal windows and circular roof designed to provide a unique vantage-point for observing Earth.
I think you meant to say "designed for monitoring dockings, robotic-arm operations and spacewalks."
But I'm sure the residents of the station will be begging command to let them open the aluminum shutters that protect those windows from space junk and meteorites, since the windows coincidentally would provide a unique vantage-point for observing Earth and space, too.:)
As well as anything else that might be outside... glass elevators, vermicious knids, etc.
Symbian is well known across most of the world, but it's mostly a foreign curiosity in the US. AT&T is the only carrier that currently has a symbian phone in its lineup, the Nokia E71x.
There've been Symbian phones in the US for at least 7 years now - I had a Nokia 3650 back in the early days. And back then, compared to what else was out there, it was pretty cool. Compared to what's out there now? Not so much.
I've spent the last three years taking data for the "Nearby Supernova Factory" the article mentions, with little understanding of what it was all about.
Working as a developer back in the 1900s, I had free subscriptions to some relevant magazines. Yes, the time I spent reading them was time I didn't spend coding, but it meant I kept abreast of developments in the field, which was a Good Thing as far as my employers were concerned.
Slashdot's "news for nerds" and "stuff that matters" are generally more useful, and certainly more timely, than those magazines ever were. I'm not in IT any more, but I'm close enough to it that people still appreciate and value me knowing what's up in technology.
rsmith-mac: There is a price at which Nokia will license their patents - however it looks like they aren't making it available to Apple. sznupi: Yes, there is a price. I guess the one made available to Apple is very comparable to rules by which other manufacturers play. But Apple wants to have better rules.
(And honestly, if they want anything more than a t-shirt, you need to have a talk with them about the difference between "looking the part" and "getting the job done.")
Summary makes it clear it's AT&T that isn't selling the iPhone in New York City. Headline says it's Apple, who last time I checked have iPhones for sale in their New York City stores.:)
This. The Micro Framework is for resource-constrained embedded devices... which are just about the last place you'd want to run bytecode anyway, as far as I can see. We've got tons of embedded stuff where I work, but I fail to see how controllers for mechanical bits and pieces are going to benefit from having the CLR, object classes, GUIs, etc. made available to them.
Yes, I know they're hoping to scoop the mobile market, but which part of it - the non-smartphone (dumbphone) market?
It's been 425 years since Bruno argued in De l'Infinito, Universo e Mondi (Italian; use Google translate) that the universe was infinite and contained innumerable stars, with countless planets around them, some containing life.
He was pretty far ahead of his time... far enough ahead that in 1600 the Church had him burned at the stake. Good to see they're getting round to considering his ideas, albeit a little bit belatedly.
1929? Don't know where you picked that date from, since it's clearly not supported by the article. 1932 is a more generally accepted year for the discovery.
But yeah, Jansky was awesome. As were a couple other Bell Labs guys a few decades later - maybe you've heard of Penzias and Wilson.
I'm in the middle of writing a paper on this stuff for one of my classes, and this Navy thing is definitely getting cited.:)
Did *you* RTFA? They stated quite clearly that the Dell had issues with water ingress, including water getting into a battery compartment that isn't isolated from the mainboard.
Yes, it worked again after they let it dry out for a day... but that's bad.
I volunteer somewhere that bought one of these Dells, and honestly I have no idea why they needed a ruggedized laptop.
I spent about 15 years in IT (programmer, sysadmin, webmaster, web dev, consultant). 5.5 years ago consulting was slow (if you knew my town, you'd know why) so I was looking for a full-time sysadmin gig. Just so happens the biggest local UNIX shops are observatories - the kind with telescopes.
I was applying for sysadmin jobs when a part-time gig operating a small telescope came along. I didn't know a whole lot of astronomy (okay, I knew woefully little, and had never had a single class in it) but the telescope was controlled by UNIX and Linux boxes, and I sure as heck knew those. I had to learn about "right ascension" and "declination." I picked up some other part-time jobs, so my worst year (2005?) ended up only being 80% less than my best dot-com year (2002).
About a year later, I started doing sporadic laser-safety stuff at a couple other observatories. Not in terms of actually working on the lasers, but in terms of making sure they didn't, um, hit any airplanes.:)
A couple years in, some folks who were using the telescope a lot decided that since I was a techie, curious, and actually talked to them (they used an AIM chatroom for communication between collaborators on a couple continents, and all my fellow operators were thoroughly non-instant-messaging sorts), they'd train me to use their data-taking setup (xterms and some custom GUI apps, running in VNCs over an SSH tunnel). So before long I had entries in ADSABS and a.gov email address and life was getting weird.
Last year, after 4 years of being a computer geek surrounded by astronomers, I signed up for an online graduate certificate program in astronomy, in hopes of learning what all those strange words meant. This spring, being in a graduate program weighed in my favor and I got a full-time job as an operator-in-training at a (much larger) telescope, which basically pays enough to live on, here (and has a lot of upside potential).
So... pros and cons of going from IT operations to technical work in science operations...
Cons: You'll never hear anyone talking about crazy dot-edu or dot-org pay.;) The survival of your job depends in part on survival of their funding. If you're a lone wolf or primadonna, operations is not the place for you. Work ethic may be different; no foosball table.
Pros: Science abhors a vacuum between people's ears, so everyone you work with will be smart in some way or another. Scientists actually recognize and appreciate the fact that You Make Things Work. (egad!) Hiring authorities often equally happy with a degree in their science, some other science, technology, or engineering. Stress level can be significantly lower in some cases (like mine).
Oh, and FWIW, science-y places also need electronics engineers, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, programmers, sysadmins, builders of instrumentation - all kinds of techies.
Slashdot Mirror
Kaiser Kuo, a former director of digital strategy for the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency in China ...and member of Tang Dynasty and Chun Qiu (Spring and Autumn), which world-metalheads should check out. ;)
Subscription model seems to work pretty well for WoW.
Free basic game with in-game purchase of add-ons seems to work pretty well for Wizard101 and its ilk.
Yes, either system leaves room for abuse of various sorts... maybe the real challenge is to come up with anti-pirate systems that work for offline games.
It's been nearly a year since the first leaks from Apple about a mystery tablet, and you can't tell me that those leaks weren't meant to drum up interest before a product even existed.
From what I've seen, Apple's modus operandi is more one of saying they don't think there's any market for a given class of products, until they have something ready to show (in hopes of revolutionizing that class of products). Nearly a year since the first leaks from Apple? Not bad considering that there have been rumors in the media since 2002.
When Microsoft says "late prototype" I read it as "we've got nothing, really, but if we say we're about to release something, a non-zero percentage of the market will sit on their thumbs until we do, instead of buying actual products that are actually available from other sources, because by golly, we're Microsoft."
(Yes, I know, it actually works. And no, I don't think that's a very nice tactic.)
Basically everyone with a phone in the USA has been paying an extra fee for decades now to fund rollout of broadband to rural areas. Not only have the rural areas not gotten it, even a lot of built-up areas don't have it. In fact, when municipalities have tried to create their own high-speed networks, the telcos have gone so far as to sue to prevent it. Taking $200 billion to do something, then making efforts to prevent that something from even happening? Evil.
I'd like the FCC to ask the telcos where the $200 billion went... and if the telcos want to claim things are impossible, maybe the FCC can ask them to give that $200 billion back, since we all know there's a company (Google) that's chomping at the bit to install super-fast FTTH.
Just wondering. The subscription model of WoW has kept me using WC3. :)
Cupola has six trapezoidal windows and circular roof designed to provide a unique vantage-point for observing Earth.
I think you meant to say "designed for monitoring dockings, robotic-arm operations and spacewalks."
But I'm sure the residents of the station will be begging command to let them open the aluminum shutters that protect those windows from space junk and meteorites, since the windows coincidentally would provide a unique vantage-point for observing Earth and space, too. :)
As well as anything else that might be outside... glass elevators, vermicious knids, etc.
Symbian is well known across most of the world, but it's mostly a foreign curiosity in the US. AT&T is the only carrier that currently has a symbian phone in its lineup, the Nokia E71x.
There've been Symbian phones in the US for at least 7 years now - I had a Nokia 3650 back in the early days. And back then, compared to what else was out there, it was pretty cool. Compared to what's out there now? Not so much.
I've spent the last three years taking data for the "Nearby Supernova Factory" the article mentions, with little understanding of what it was all about.
Finally, it all makes sense. :)
Working as a developer back in the 1900s, I had free subscriptions to some relevant magazines. Yes, the time I spent reading them was time I didn't spend coding, but it meant I kept abreast of developments in the field, which was a Good Thing as far as my employers were concerned.
Slashdot's "news for nerds" and "stuff that matters" are generally more useful, and certainly more timely, than those magazines ever were. I'm not in IT any more, but I'm close enough to it that people still appreciate and value me knowing what's up in technology.
rsmith-mac: There is a price at which Nokia will license their patents - however it looks like they aren't making it available to Apple.
sznupi: Yes, there is a price. I guess the one made available to Apple is very comparable to rules by which other manufacturers play. But Apple wants to have better rules.
[Citation Needed] you two.
Network Security Staff t-shirts.
(And honestly, if they want anything more than a t-shirt, you need to have a talk with them about the difference between "looking the part" and "getting the job done.")
Summary makes it clear it's AT&T that isn't selling the iPhone in New York City. Headline says it's Apple, who last time I checked have iPhones for sale in their New York City stores. :)
I have to spend the whole night about 9,300 feet up, on the side of Mauna Kea.
Hmm, I think I'll take my cameras. And spare batteries. :)
Sorry, wet Swedes.
This. The Micro Framework is for resource-constrained embedded devices... which are just about the last place you'd want to run bytecode anyway, as far as I can see. We've got tons of embedded stuff where I work, but I fail to see how controllers for mechanical bits and pieces are going to benefit from having the CLR, object classes, GUIs, etc. made available to them.
Yes, I know they're hoping to scoop the mobile market, but which part of it - the non-smartphone (dumbphone) market?
Mine turned out to be maliciously crafted.
It's been 425 years since Bruno argued in De l'Infinito, Universo e Mondi (Italian; use Google translate) that the universe was infinite and contained innumerable stars, with countless planets around them, some containing life.
He was pretty far ahead of his time... far enough ahead that in 1600 the Church had him burned at the stake. Good to see they're getting round to considering his ideas, albeit a little bit belatedly.
1929? Don't know where you picked that date from, since it's clearly not supported by the article. 1932 is a more generally accepted year for the discovery.
But yeah, Jansky was awesome. As were a couple other Bell Labs guys a few decades later - maybe you've heard of Penzias and Wilson.
I'm in the middle of writing a paper on this stuff for one of my classes, and this Navy thing is definitely getting cited. :)
BTW an American plug can handle 15 amps easily; it's how I run my spare heater.
I'm trying to decide whether:
1. You have an extra heater.
2. You meant "space heater."
3. You think your "hot spares" need to be kept literally hot.
Did *you* RTFA? They stated quite clearly that the Dell had issues with water ingress, including water getting into a battery compartment that isn't isolated from the mainboard.
Yes, it worked again after they let it dry out for a day... but that's bad.
I volunteer somewhere that bought one of these Dells, and honestly I have no idea why they needed a ruggedized laptop.
NASA's new moon rocket makes first test flight.
Moon... Ares I... Yeah, let us know how that works out for you.
*sigh*
I spent about 15 years in IT (programmer, sysadmin, webmaster, web dev, consultant). 5.5 years ago consulting was slow (if you knew my town, you'd know why) so I was looking for a full-time sysadmin gig. Just so happens the biggest local UNIX shops are observatories - the kind with telescopes.
I was applying for sysadmin jobs when a part-time gig operating a small telescope came along. I didn't know a whole lot of astronomy (okay, I knew woefully little, and had never had a single class in it) but the telescope was controlled by UNIX and Linux boxes, and I sure as heck knew those. I had to learn about "right ascension" and "declination." I picked up some other part-time jobs, so my worst year (2005?) ended up only being 80% less than my best dot-com year (2002).
About a year later, I started doing sporadic laser-safety stuff at a couple other observatories. Not in terms of actually working on the lasers, but in terms of making sure they didn't, um, hit any airplanes. :)
A couple years in, some folks who were using the telescope a lot decided that since I was a techie, curious, and actually talked to them (they used an AIM chatroom for communication between collaborators on a couple continents, and all my fellow operators were thoroughly non-instant-messaging sorts), they'd train me to use their data-taking setup (xterms and some custom GUI apps, running in VNCs over an SSH tunnel). So before long I had entries in ADSABS and a .gov email address and life was getting weird.
Last year, after 4 years of being a computer geek surrounded by astronomers, I signed up for an online graduate certificate program in astronomy, in hopes of learning what all those strange words meant. This spring, being in a graduate program weighed in my favor and I got a full-time job as an operator-in-training at a (much larger) telescope, which basically pays enough to live on, here (and has a lot of upside potential).
So... pros and cons of going from IT operations to technical work in science operations...
Cons: ;)
You'll never hear anyone talking about crazy dot-edu or dot-org pay.
The survival of your job depends in part on survival of their funding.
If you're a lone wolf or primadonna, operations is not the place for you.
Work ethic may be different; no foosball table.
Pros:
Science abhors a vacuum between people's ears, so everyone you work with will be smart in some way or another.
Scientists actually recognize and appreciate the fact that You Make Things Work. (egad!)
Hiring authorities often equally happy with a degree in their science, some other science, technology, or engineering.
Stress level can be significantly lower in some cases (like mine).
Oh, and FWIW, science-y places also need electronics engineers, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, programmers, sysadmins, builders of instrumentation - all kinds of techies.
Just sayin'.
Sounds like a nice toy to run stuff coded for CUDA or OpenCL - does anything OS than OS X support either of those properly yet?
I support or endorse the parent post. I'm struggling to think of a file format less desirable than PST, in any area of computing. PICT images maybe?
Wonderful, now we can route our already-pokey 3G connections through a whole bunch of nodes to make them feel like old 2G connections.
Is retro back in style?