There are some questions that need to be answered:
Is the work that the company wants you to do considered important or essential to the business?
Is broadband and wireless communication ability considered an inherent or important part of that work?
Is the ability to respond with devices such as Blackberries, cell phones and pagers -- and the associated response times -- considered important or essential to the company?
Do broadband and these other devices enable you to do work that is considered important for customer satisfaction or business continutity?
Does the company benefit from the provision of these devices and services?
Are the activities that any or all of these devices and services enable considered to be part of your job?
If the answer to any or all of the above questions is "yes" -- especially the last one -- then the company should pay for it since it is the principal beneficiary of the work that these devices and services enable. It is up to the employer to provide the facilities, materials and tools required to do the job (unless it is explicitly stated otherwise in your employment contract).
If the company is willing to accept lower customer satisfaction ratings or interruptions in business continuity by not paying for these items, then it should be optional for the employee to pay for or use these items in their work. If it's not important enough for the company to pay for these things then it certainly isn't important enough for the employee to do so.
Whatever the case the employees should not be put in a position where they are forced to fund business operations to do their jobs -- which is very much what this sounds like.
Gilmoure wrote: I had a teacher in college (1992) that said you should never have more than three folders deep on a Mac.
Back then the Mac was the graphical OS and IBM PCs/clones ran on a DOS command line interface while Microsoft Windows and IBM OS/2 were fighting it out to be the PC GUI-based OS (ignore that Windows was just a GUI for DOS).
Never is a strong word to use because there are always exceptions.
But the basic rule in user-centered design for limiting menus (and by extension folder/directory trees) to three deep has to do with difficulties people have finding specific items when you bury them deeper than three.
As far as folders go, you may have your own filing system, but if/when someone else needs to find that one bit of information in the project that you set up they will likely have a hard time doing so. Or what happens when you need to find a particular item from a project that you completed 10 years ago? Human memory is notoriously fallible.
That is the rationale behind the 'rule of three.' Your prof should have explained it more clearly than making an absolute statement like he did.
As usual, it's never a good time to buy a computer.
With prices constantly falling and better performance for price as hardware incessantly marches toward being a commodity good, one could just as easily say that it's always a good time to buy a computer.
The fact that game production costs are now approaching Hollywood proportions isn't really news to anyone who follows the industry. What is news and what is different here is how Shane Kim approaches game investment and development, and how that directly affects quality and innovation in games.
Laying off 200 (presumably) talented game developers and alienating some of those that remain seems counterintuitive to producing high-quality games, but on paper I'm sure it looks like a good financial move for a Microsoft division that is hemorrhaging cash like there is no tomorrow.
Here's the original post, highlighting comments from Blue Fang's president that expresses some concerns.
Microsoft Game Studios' New GM Shane Kim Speaks
Mercury News' Dean Takahashi profiles and interviews Shane Kim, Microsoft Game Studios' new General Manager. Among his first acts as GM, Kim killed Microsoft's entire XSN sports line and cut the number of developers from 1200 to 1000, leaving some developers 'privately grumbling that Microsoft has lost its way.' Kim has taken a more conservative, business-oriented approach than predecessor Ed Fries, funding sequels to games like Project Gotham Racing and Halo (Xbox) saying, 'This is about us growing up... At the end of the day we'll have more quality.' But others like Blue Fang's Hank Howie have reservations: 'I wonder how innovative new ideas are going to get funded if everyone is being cautious and funding sequels.' Mirror at Mercury News.
That's weird. The original post had the Google link in it (see below). But it didn't have the links to all the game sites - didn't have time to add them.
It makes sense for developers who are already familiar with PC game development to work on Xbox console games. That is not a trend in itself and will not overthrow the reigning console king, Sony.
What is interesting is that many highly-anticipated and benchmark-setting games are Xbox-exclusive or Xbox-first. Besides those mentioned in the article, the most notable Xbox-exclusive example was Halo - originally a PC title - but that was following Microsoft's acquisition of Bungie. These are third-party developers who are opting to go the Xbox route, with no overt interest or incentive in developing for Xbox-only beyond the relative ease of development vs. the notoriously arcane PS2.
If Microsoft can convince third-party developers to make the Xbox their first choice when considering new development projects, Sony will have to respond with some strong incentives to stay on top. If gamers can get the titles that they want most only on one console why wouldn't they vote with their dollars?
Xbox-Exclusive Games a Growing Trend
The New York Times Technology's Michel Marriott reports on the growing trend of developers making Xbox-exclusive games, bypassing the Sony PS2 and Nintendo GameCube. Microsoft is 'playing catch-up on the console' with some notable examples of Xbox-exclusive (or Xbox-first) games that include Doom 3, Unreal Championship 2, Advent Rising and Full Spectrum Warrior. Marriott interviews Todd Hollenshead (id), Mark Rein (Epic), J. Allard (Microsoft), and Donald Mustard (Majesco) among others that include Sony and THQ. The question is, will gamers follow the developers' preferences? Sony's dominance in the next game console wars could be toppled if they do. 'If Microsoft can woo more developers to Xbox, the balance of power in the next round could change.'
We have lots of garbage and pollution on Earth, lots of space-junk in orbit around the Earth that is widely predicted to become a hazard, and plenty of junk left on the Moon's surface from the manned and unmanned expeditions.
The place isn't even accessible to tourists yet and someone has come up with a way to pre-pollute it.
Do we really want to turn the Moon into an interplanetary garbage dump?
This will probably be modded OT but I think something should be said.
Here's the original post (including the missing financial context and Google link) that I wrote up shortly after reading the article at midnight last night when the New York Times site is updated.
Hollywood's Rising Fascination With Video Games
The New York Times Technology's Laura M. Holson writes about a growing trend: Hollywood movie directors making videogames. The reason? Big money, sometimes even more than they made from the movies they directed. Peter Jackson missed out on the bonanza from the Lord of the Rings trilogy but will have creative control of Ubisoft's King Kong movie tie-in. John Woo's (Face/Off, Mission Impossible 2, Hard-Boiled) Tiger Hill Games and Sega have a 30-person team developing a heist game (maybe a Metroid title too?). Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Alien, Gladiator) and Tony Scott (Top Gun, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State) are in talks with major game executives. Finally, the Wachowski brothers raked in millions from the Enter the Matrix game, which Warner Brothers declined to back. Determined not to miss more opportunities, the studio founded Warner Games, led by Monolith co-founder and ex-CEO Jason Hall. What if the games are better than the movies they are based on?
Admittedly, it's a bit long and deserves some necessary editing (substituting the IMDB link for the directors' respective filmographies and movie credits for example).
When I logged in early this morning, the post was rejected and in mid-afternoon simoniker posted the story (1 of only 2 today - it's after 6:30 PM as I write this comment). It's entirely possible - though somewhat unlikely considering the sequence of events - that simoniker stumbled on the article by himself and wrote it up entirely by himself.
In the past I've largely ignored that fact that many articles submitted when simoniker was editing invariably are rejected and then - often very similar or identical text - are posted uncredited.
I'm not the first person here to take notice of the pattern or to point this out.
It's not about the Karma or complaining that something wasn't posted, or anything of that sort because I've been maxed out on Karma for a long time, I have lots of submitted items posted, and probably even more rejected because someone else thought to submit it before me. Rejected posts aren't the problem.
It's about common courtesy and respect for the readers and the people who make Slashdot work.
Slashdot works because of the people who take the time to write in and let their fellow readers know about items of interest to geeks everywhere. It's more than a little irritating to take time to do a write-up on a holiday weekend, have it rejected and then see a nearly identical (less so in this particular case) item uncredited.
Most people have had at least one experience of a pinhead boss taking credit for their work, and most people have tolerated it because they get paid to do their jobs and don't want to risk workplace wrath. Here, nobody's getting paid except the Slashdot editors, to whom none of us are accountable. The reader/reporters aren't getting paid and the virtual tip of the hat as thanks is the only reward. I've read people's compaints about a relative lack of submissions or stories in the Games section. If this type of behavior is the reason, it goes a long way to explaining why.
simonker, 'Stuff that matters' is part of Slashdot's slogan. The bottom line: Give credit where credit is due.
scubaduba, interesting interview. I see some of the same themes that he's talked about in the past. He is quite concerned about the effects of technology on the average person which he discusses in some detail in the interview linked below.
Here's an interview with Eugene Spafford in two parts that outlines a lot of the issues that he's concerned with. It provides some background and insights into his thinking. I found his views on the purpose of security technology especially interesting and somewhat unexpected. The same goes for his indirect criticism of Microsoft, which speaks to his comment in the Greplaw interview about 'using the right tools for the right jobs.'
Enjoy some context (not intended as a criticism). Part of the reason is demographic trends and part of the reason is financial. The ideas in the article seem to support a shift to creativity as discussed in an article with some game industry experts last year.
Reuters reports on the crisis of creativity in games 'as aging gamers' tastes increasingly shift toward sequels and games based on movies'. The supposed crisis was discussed by industry participants at the Game Developers Conference 2004. 'The gaming industry will shrink unless we start to see new games,' warned Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani. Sony's Ryoichi Hasegawa said, 'Core gamers are advancing in age and they are becoming more conservative'.
As the GDC panel sees it, the other big problem is the cost of producing games which encourages publishers and developers to 'take less risks on new, innovative titles.'
The argument for creative new games and game types echoes an article we ran last year where experts say game industry trends favor a shift to creativity and creative talent. Iwatani appears to agree, saying he had seen periods that lacked creativity in his 20-year career but 'new and revolutionary new games appear in a two- to three-year cycle.'
I accidentally pressed Submit before adding this important piece of context to the post. In case there's any confusion, Dan Farber did not come up with this list by himself.
Ray Lane, former Oracle executive and a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, [who] outlined six objections gleaned from interviews with a few dozen CIOs at Fortune 500 companies.
Tried submitting this a couple of times since yesterday but the submission system seems to have picked up a few bugs of its own where it says "Thanks for the submission" but nothing shows up in the queue. Here are the details...
Because it was a pre-release version we looked at it as an unfinished product, especially due to the number of menu items that came up with the "Feature will be available in future upgrades. Visit www.rca.com/lyra-avdownloads for details" message. After reading Stephen Manes' Forbes article, it might not be a bad idea to publish it just so people can see what they'll be getting.
I didn't think that RCA would ship the A/V Jukebox with those menus as they were. The RCA Lyra download site wasn't even working when we were examining the product.
I agree that a dedicated device like this should be fully functional out of the box, especially considering the price. A great user experience is part of what made the iPod such a massive success and more companies should take a lesson from Apple.
But we differ on one point. The average person WILL put up with a LOT of abuse and poor functionality when it comes to computer-related devices, and we've seen the proof with countless (nameless) hardware and software companies. Most of us use their products every day. The early-adopter consumer is the typical Slashdotter who is also the primary market for this type of product: someone who likes to fiddle with technology. The mass market version will probably / had better be a complete product.
The concept of "good enough" seems to be creeping further and further toward shipping de facto beta versions of everything. But there really isn't an excuse for shipping a dedicated device like this as a finished product, when in reality it is a beta.
Any of us who have worked in the technology industry know about the time pressures and the strong imperative to ship "good enough" versions of everything from software to hardware to services. That may fly in the enterprise space (even though it shouldn't) but to bring that approach to consumer electronics...? That attitude isn't good enough anymore.
If a machine is not doing what you want, then you don't have these options. You may have to read an entire manual just to figure out how to make one tiny change. Thus, one seemingly thing turn into a major thing.
If that's the case, it's an extremely poorly written and poorly designed manual.
Gehorsman suggests: "Guns? I'll admit, however, that the magic system is not particularly robust."
While magic may not play a part in this I would expect that random elements of good and bad luck will.
Even with people behind the opponents of the team in training, every war has soldiers who have stories about experiencing lucky and unlucky coincidences.
Medical students syndrome
on
Cyberchondria
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
You don't have to be a hypochondriac to experience it. It's also known as medical students' syndrome, where perfectly normal and reasonable medical students self-diagnose themselves with diseases and illnesses that they are studying about. It's also been known as psychology students' syndrome for obvious reasons.
You have to remember that the people who are making the decisions are more concerned with risk-assessment, risk management, and the bottom line than with security.
They take their chances and play the odds. They calculate the likelihood of an attack or breach over a given period of time, figure out what it would cost, calculate the potential repair cost, and if the repair cost is less than the cost of securing their systems, then they go with the leave-it-to-chance model.
The majority of breaches go unreported. Part of what companies count on is people not finding out. When was the last time you heard about a network security breach at a bank? They happen, but we just don't hear about them. If word got out about this sort of thing more often then perhaps the attitude would be different.
It's a stupid way to do business because the real cost is the damage to a company's brand and the loss of confidence customers. Those are intangibles that become very tangible when you see the result on the bottom line.
Key items about the coming search wars
on
Google v. Microsoft
·
· Score: 2, Informative
There are some key items in the article summarized in my (rejected) post. They give a good indication of where the market is headed. They also highlight and give clues about some of the competitive challenges that Microsoft will face while trying to take Google's market share.
2004-02-01 00:12:36
The Coming Search Wars: Microsoft vs. Google (articles,internet)
The New York Times' John Markoff reports on the coming Internet search engine wars between Microsoft and Google. Markoff draws parallels between Google and another mid-1990s upstart company: Netscape. The feature also provides some historical context on how Google filled a niche that the giants ignored while pursuing Web portals. A few story items stand out. (1) When Microsoft Research demonstrated its new search technology that will take on Google, former Digital Equipment Internet search pioneer 'Mike Burrows... who later helped design Microsoft's experimental search engine, quietly defected' to Google. (2) Further, 'Google has been quietly developing what industry experts consider to be the world's largest computing facility' with over 100,000 computers in at least a dozen data centers around the world. (3) Finally, 'Microsoft is concerned that it may be at a competitive disadvantage' due to Google's use of Linux and open source technologies, according to an internal e-mail from Google CEO Eric Schmidt who describes Microsoft as 'obsessed with open source as a business model.' Not bad for a company that had negligible revenue in 2001 and now has $1 billion in annual sales and a $350 million profit.
wow, why don't you just change email addresses? that is fucking ridiculous. no one i've ever heard of gets so much, why do you?
I agree about the ridiculous part. I know people who get even more than I do.
Only one address is public by necessity and that one gets the most spam. The totals include accounts that I personally use daily across three different domains. I've already changed my primary public address twice, but every time it changes there are very real costs associated with it. I have received telephone calls from people waiting for replies to legitimate messages that did not get to me due to those changes. Most of the spam does get filtered/deleted upon receipt (that's where most of the 5000 go) but a couple of dozen get through every day.
I no longer have an accurate count on the total number of messages received per day. The 5000 figure is from a few months ago when I made a few changes, adjusted some filters and auto-deleted upon receipt anything that had specific triggers. Previously I left a 24-hour window between receipt and deletion to visually scan for false-positives but that stopped when it became too costly and impractical to do so. Based on the spam that's getting through, the estimated volume of spam received is up about 10% during the last four months. From the statistics I have read, that is less than the general rate of spam proliferation during the same period.
The cost of keeping an address compared to the cost of dealing with the spam is the determining factor. Those costs are measured in time, money and resources. When it begins to approach a break-even proposition I kill an address and start with a fresh one.
Seriously. Are you people really getting so much spam every day that the "delete" button just doesn't do it for you?
Really, now, junk mail is just not that pressing an issue to me. And I can't see why/how it's such a huge issue for anyone else.
Let me explain it to you.
Yes. I personally receive over 5000 spam messages a day. Thanks to the very clever spammers who are getting better at circumventing spam filters, I'm seriously considering moving to a white-list, and even that may not stem the tide. Part of the problem is with false-positives and the fact that people don't know how to write a proper subject line. Sometimes legitimate and very important messages have been contained in messages with subjects and other message body content that can resemble spam.
As a test I have set up e-mail addresses that I have never used or publicized in any way at a number of domains and providers. Guess what? Within days (sometimes hours) spam lands in those mailboxes, too, and based on the user/account names that I set up, I know it's not because of a simple dictionary attack.
Just because you don't personally experience it (consider yourself among the lucky few) doesn't mean that it's not a real problem. FYI, SPF is not (strictly speaking) from AOL. It's just being rolled out on a massive scale by AOL, which should be a good test of the technology.
I don't know if this is the right move, but something has to be done to eradicate this plague and its carriers.
... Here's an interview with Gene Spafford in two parts that outlines a lot of the issues that he's concerned with. It provides some background and insights into some of the thinking behind the guide. I found his views on the purpose of security technology especially interesting and somewhat unexpected. The same goes for his indirect criticism of Microsoft.
Has anyone here had any experience with getting Turnitin.com to remove your site from their database - and prove that they have done so? We just noticed that their bot appears to have done a complete crawl and sucked in our entire site. This violates our terms of service (not to mention copyright) since Turnitin.com is a commercial entity.
If Turnitin wants to pay to use our content that's one thing, but just taking it for their own commerical exploitation without any compensation is completely another.
Slashdot Mirror
There are some questions that need to be answered:
If the answer to any or all of the above questions is "yes" -- especially the last one -- then the company should pay for it since it is the principal beneficiary of the work that these devices and services enable. It is up to the employer to provide the facilities, materials and tools required to do the job (unless it is explicitly stated otherwise in your employment contract).
If the company is willing to accept lower customer satisfaction ratings or interruptions in business continuity by not paying for these items, then it should be optional for the employee to pay for or use these items in their work. If it's not important enough for the company to pay for these things then it certainly isn't important enough for the employee to do so.
Whatever the case the employees should not be put in a position where they are forced to fund business operations to do their jobs -- which is very much what this sounds like.
Gilmoure wrote:
I had a teacher in college (1992) that said you should never have more than three folders deep on a Mac.
Back then the Mac was the graphical OS and IBM PCs/clones ran on a DOS command line interface while Microsoft Windows and IBM OS/2 were fighting it out to be the PC GUI-based OS (ignore that Windows was just a GUI for DOS).
Never is a strong word to use because there are always exceptions.
But the basic rule in user-centered design for limiting menus (and by extension folder/directory trees) to three deep has to do with difficulties people have finding specific items when you bury them deeper than three.
As far as folders go, you may have your own filing system, but if/when someone else needs to find that one bit of information in the project that you set up they will likely have a hard time doing so. Or what happens when you need to find a particular item from a project that you completed 10 years ago? Human memory is notoriously fallible.
That is the rationale behind the 'rule of three.' Your prof should have explained it more clearly than making an absolute statement like he did.
As usual, it's never a good time to buy a computer.
With prices constantly falling and better performance for price as hardware incessantly marches toward being a commodity good, one could just as easily say that it's always a good time to buy a computer.
The fact that game production costs are now approaching Hollywood proportions isn't really news to anyone who follows the industry. What is news and what is different here is how Shane Kim approaches game investment and development, and how that directly affects quality and innovation in games.
Laying off 200 (presumably) talented game developers and alienating some of those that remain seems counterintuitive to producing high-quality games, but on paper I'm sure it looks like a good financial move for a Microsoft division that is hemorrhaging cash like there is no tomorrow.
Here's the original post, highlighting comments from Blue Fang's president that expresses some concerns.
That's weird. The original post had the Google link in it (see below). But it didn't have the links to all the game sites - didn't have time to add them.
It makes sense for developers who are already familiar with PC game development to work on Xbox console games. That is not a trend in itself and will not overthrow the reigning console king, Sony.
What is interesting is that many highly-anticipated and benchmark-setting games are Xbox-exclusive or Xbox-first. Besides those mentioned in the article, the most notable Xbox-exclusive example was Halo - originally a PC title - but that was following Microsoft's acquisition of Bungie. These are third-party developers who are opting to go the Xbox route, with no overt interest or incentive in developing for Xbox-only beyond the relative ease of development vs. the notoriously arcane PS2.
If Microsoft can convince third-party developers to make the Xbox their first choice when considering new development projects, Sony will have to respond with some strong incentives to stay on top. If gamers can get the titles that they want most only on one console why wouldn't they vote with their dollars?
We have lots of garbage and pollution on Earth, lots of space-junk in orbit around the Earth that is widely predicted to become a hazard, and plenty of junk left on the Moon's surface from the manned and unmanned expeditions.
The place isn't even accessible to tourists yet and someone has come up with a way to pre-pollute it.
Do we really want to turn the Moon into an interplanetary garbage dump?
Keep your litter and junk to yourself.
This will probably be modded OT but I think something should be said.
Here's the original post (including the missing financial context and Google link) that I wrote up shortly after reading the article at midnight last night when the New York Times site is updated.
Admittedly, it's a bit long and deserves some necessary editing (substituting the IMDB link for the directors' respective filmographies and movie credits for example).
When I logged in early this morning, the post was rejected and in mid-afternoon simoniker posted the story (1 of only 2 today - it's after 6:30 PM as I write this comment). It's entirely possible - though somewhat unlikely considering the sequence of events - that simoniker stumbled on the article by himself and wrote it up entirely by himself.
In the past I've largely ignored that fact that many articles submitted when simoniker was editing invariably are rejected and then - often very similar or identical text - are posted uncredited.
I'm not the first person here to take notice of the pattern or to point this out.
It's not about the Karma or complaining that something wasn't posted, or anything of that sort because I've been maxed out on Karma for a long time, I have lots of submitted items posted, and probably even more rejected because someone else thought to submit it before me. Rejected posts aren't the problem.
It's about common courtesy and respect for the readers and the people who make Slashdot work.
Slashdot works because of the people who take the time to write in and let their fellow readers know about items of interest to geeks everywhere. It's more than a little irritating to take time to do a write-up on a holiday weekend, have it rejected and then see a nearly identical (less so in this particular case) item uncredited.
Most people have had at least one experience of a pinhead boss taking credit for their work, and most people have tolerated it because they get paid to do their jobs and don't want to risk workplace wrath. Here, nobody's getting paid except the Slashdot editors, to whom none of us are accountable. The reader/reporters aren't getting paid and the virtual tip of the hat as thanks is the only reward. I've read people's compaints about a relative lack of submissions or stories in the Games section. If this type of behavior is the reason, it goes a long way to explaining why.
simonker, 'Stuff that matters' is part of Slashdot's slogan. The bottom line: Give credit where credit is due.
It matters.
scubaduba, interesting interview. I see some of the same themes that he's talked about in the past. He is quite concerned about the effects of technology on the average person which he discusses in some detail in the interview linked below.
Here's an interview with Eugene Spafford in two parts that outlines a lot of the issues that he's concerned with. It provides some background and insights into his thinking. I found his views on the purpose of security technology especially interesting and somewhat unexpected. The same goes for his indirect criticism of Microsoft, which speaks to his comment in the Greplaw interview about 'using the right tools for the right jobs.'
Description courtesy of Bruce Schneier's Crypto-gram:
Here's some links from an almost-submitted post.
Microsoft Cuts Xbox Price to $150
Microsoft has cut the price of its Xbox game console to about $150 ($149.99), a $30 drop. The price cut was widely expected by analysts in a move to spur slowing console sales for the Xbox as the current generation approaches the end of its cycle, and gamers anticipate the next-generation of consoles in 2005. Microsoft also announced several price cuts on Xbox games and titles including 'Xbox Music Mixer, Project Gotham Racing 2 and Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge.' More coverage at CNet, CNN Money, ZDNet UK, AP via Seattle PI and Bloomberg via Seattle Times. (Microsoft press release)
Enjoy some context (not intended as a criticism). Part of the reason is demographic trends and part of the reason is financial. The ideas in the article seem to support a shift to creativity as discussed in an article with some game industry experts last year.
I accidentally pressed Submit before adding this important piece of context to the post. In case there's any confusion, Dan Farber did not come up with this list by himself.
The comments were part of a keynote address at the Open Source Business Conference 2004 in San Francisco by:
Tried submitting this a couple of times since yesterday but the submission system seems to have picked up a few bugs of its own where it says "Thanks for the submission" but nothing shows up in the queue. Here are the details...
Yahoo, Hotmail Users Vulnerable to XSS PC Attack
Both Yahoo Web e-mail and Microsoft Hotmail are vulnerable to an Internet Explorer cross-site scripting (XSS) attack that lets malicious users run local code, according to Israel's GreyMagic security consultants (proof of concept). Possible consequences range from theft of login and password to a remote takeover of the compromised machine. Reports indicate that Microsoft has patched the hole but Yahoo has yet to solve the problem. The vulnerability presumably affects Windows PC-based versions of Internet Explorer only. Some people might want to read this developerWorks article on how to prevent cross-site scripting and protect oneself, mentioned last month on Slashdot. More coverage at InternetNews and The Register.
After taking a hands-on look at the pre-release version, we were going to add a preview of the RCA Lyra Audio/Video Jukebox to our MP3 / Music section but decided against it.
Because it was a pre-release version we looked at it as an unfinished product, especially due to the number of menu items that came up with the "Feature will be available in future upgrades. Visit www.rca.com/lyra-avdownloads for details" message. After reading Stephen Manes' Forbes article, it might not be a bad idea to publish it just so people can see what they'll be getting.
I didn't think that RCA would ship the A/V Jukebox with those menus as they were. The RCA Lyra download site wasn't even working when we were examining the product.
Until this, most of the big criticisms have been about the size of portable media players.
I agree that a dedicated device like this should be fully functional out of the box, especially considering the price. A great user experience is part of what made the iPod such a massive success and more companies should take a lesson from Apple.
But we differ on one point. The average person WILL put up with a LOT of abuse and poor functionality when it comes to computer-related devices, and we've seen the proof with countless (nameless) hardware and software companies. Most of us use their products every day. The early-adopter consumer is the typical Slashdotter who is also the primary market for this type of product: someone who likes to fiddle with technology. The mass market version will probably / had better be a complete product.
The concept of "good enough" seems to be creeping further and further toward shipping de facto beta versions of everything. But there really isn't an excuse for shipping a dedicated device like this as a finished product, when in reality it is a beta.
Any of us who have worked in the technology industry know about the time pressures and the strong imperative to ship "good enough" versions of everything from software to hardware to services. That may fly in the enterprise space (even though it shouldn't) but to bring that approach to consumer electronics...? That attitude isn't good enough anymore.
If a machine is not doing what you want, then you don't have these options. You may have to read an entire manual just to figure out how to make one tiny change. Thus, one seemingly thing turn into a major thing.
If that's the case, it's an extremely poorly written and poorly designed manual.
Gehorsman suggests: "Guns? I'll admit, however, that the magic system is not particularly robust."
While magic may not play a part in this I would expect that random elements of good and bad luck will.
Even with people behind the opponents of the team in training, every war has soldiers who have stories about experiencing lucky and unlucky coincidences.
You don't have to be a hypochondriac to experience it. It's also known as medical students' syndrome, where perfectly normal and reasonable medical students self-diagnose themselves with diseases and illnesses that they are studying about. It's also been known as psychology students' syndrome for obvious reasons.
You have to remember that the people who are making the decisions are more concerned with risk-assessment, risk management, and the bottom line than with security.
They take their chances and play the odds. They calculate the likelihood of an attack or breach over a given period of time, figure out what it would cost, calculate the potential repair cost, and if the repair cost is less than the cost of securing their systems, then they go with the leave-it-to-chance model.
The majority of breaches go unreported. Part of what companies count on is people not finding out. When was the last time you heard about a network security breach at a bank? They happen, but we just don't hear about them. If word got out about this sort of thing more often then perhaps the attitude would be different.
It's a stupid way to do business because the real cost is the damage to a company's brand and the loss of confidence customers. Those are intangibles that become very tangible when you see the result on the bottom line.
There are some key items in the article summarized in my (rejected) post. They give a good indication of where the market is headed. They also highlight and give clues about some of the competitive challenges that Microsoft will face while trying to take Google's market share.
2004-02-01 00:12:36
The Coming Search Wars: Microsoft vs. Google (articles,internet)
The New York Times' John Markoff reports on the coming Internet search engine wars between Microsoft and Google. Markoff draws parallels between Google and another mid-1990s upstart company: Netscape. The feature also provides some historical context on how Google filled a niche that the giants ignored while pursuing Web portals. A few story items stand out. (1) When Microsoft Research demonstrated its new search technology that will take on Google, former Digital Equipment Internet search pioneer 'Mike Burrows ... who later helped design Microsoft's experimental search engine, quietly defected' to Google. (2) Further, 'Google has been quietly developing what industry experts consider to be the world's largest computing facility' with over 100,000 computers in at least a dozen data centers around the world. (3) Finally, 'Microsoft is concerned that it may be at a competitive disadvantage' due to Google's use of Linux and open source technologies, according to an internal e-mail from Google CEO Eric Schmidt who describes Microsoft as 'obsessed with open source as a business model.' Not bad for a company that had negligible revenue in 2001 and now has $1 billion in annual sales and a $350 million profit.
wow, why don't you just change email addresses? that is fucking ridiculous. no one i've ever heard of gets so much, why do you?
I agree about the ridiculous part. I know people who get even more than I do.
Only one address is public by necessity and that one gets the most spam. The totals include accounts that I personally use daily across three different domains. I've already changed my primary public address twice, but every time it changes there are very real costs associated with it. I have received telephone calls from people waiting for replies to legitimate messages that did not get to me due to those changes. Most of the spam does get filtered/deleted upon receipt (that's where most of the 5000 go) but a couple of dozen get through every day.
I no longer have an accurate count on the total number of messages received per day. The 5000 figure is from a few months ago when I made a few changes, adjusted some filters and auto-deleted upon receipt anything that had specific triggers. Previously I left a 24-hour window between receipt and deletion to visually scan for false-positives but that stopped when it became too costly and impractical to do so. Based on the spam that's getting through, the estimated volume of spam received is up about 10% during the last four months. From the statistics I have read, that is less than the general rate of spam proliferation during the same period.
The cost of keeping an address compared to the cost of dealing with the spam is the determining factor. Those costs are measured in time, money and resources. When it begins to approach a break-even proposition I kill an address and start with a fresh one.
Seriously. Are you people really getting so much spam every day that the "delete" button just doesn't do it for you?
Really, now, junk mail is just not that pressing an issue to me. And I can't see why/how it's such a huge issue for anyone else.
Let me explain it to you.
Yes. I personally receive over 5000 spam messages a day. Thanks to the very clever spammers who are getting better at circumventing spam filters, I'm seriously considering moving to a white-list, and even that may not stem the tide. Part of the problem is with false-positives and the fact that people don't know how to write a proper subject line. Sometimes legitimate and very important messages have been contained in messages with subjects and other message body content that can resemble spam.
As a test I have set up e-mail addresses that I have never used or publicized in any way at a number of domains and providers. Guess what? Within days (sometimes hours) spam lands in those mailboxes, too, and based on the user/account names that I set up, I know it's not because of a simple dictionary attack.
Just because you don't personally experience it (consider yourself among the lucky few) doesn't mean that it's not a real problem. FYI, SPF is not (strictly speaking) from AOL. It's just being rolled out on a massive scale by AOL, which should be a good test of the technology.
I don't know if this is the right move, but something has to be done to eradicate this plague and its carriers.
Correction: it's not a typewriter that's on his desk. It's a fountain pen. That's what he used to write Quicksilver.
From what I understand, currently Neal Stephenson's desktop looks like a desk with real working mechanical typewriter on it. Remember those?
Description courtesy of Bruce Schneier's Crypto-gram:
If possible we'd like to leave the lawyers out of it. We're not interested ina protracted legal battle if it can be avoided.
If they prove to be unreasonable the time may come to lawyer up.
Has anyone here had any experience with getting Turnitin.com to remove your site from their database - and prove that they have done so? We just noticed that their bot appears to have done a complete crawl and sucked in our entire site. This violates our terms of service (not to mention copyright) since Turnitin.com is a commercial entity.
If Turnitin wants to pay to use our content that's one thing, but just taking it for their own commerical exploitation without any compensation is completely another.