Of course one of the few times I read something worth a higher score than it actually has, I don't have moderation ability. Someone please raise the score on this. It's a good insight. I agree totally, BTW.
i'm a "soft-techie". i'm basically a geek turned suit; i'm also an economist and practical techno-business person. i am not an open source zealot, but i can tell you that the reason i do think that open source is the way of the future is b/c ours is a service-based economy. a few years ago, the US economy was product based. today, we are 60% product based and growing. don't believe me? who do you think makes a bigger profit margin? dell or anderson consulting? if products were so profitable, when why do we see more and more companies giving away products (computers, cell phones, etc...) for free, but charging for service?
open sourcing a software product allows people who ultimately sell services (like red hat's support) to make a bigger profit on their services by sharing the costs of a product, and ultimately offering a better product.
today, products are pretty much commodity items. seriously, what is the BIG difference between dell computers and gateway2000 computers. it's all about the marketing and customer support. did you knokw that car dealerships no longer compete based on price, but based on customer support? it's true.
that's why open source works, why it's the way of the future, and why people WILL make money giving something away for free.
it's just that it's software, and thus something different. when you get down to it, there is nothing too different from giving away software for free and charging for service (like support) and giving away cell phones for free and charging for the connection fees. just as a cell phone is USELESS without service, to a large corporation, linux isn't all that useful without massive support as well. (i'm not talking about a few developers using linux as their private operating system; i'm talking about a large coprotation clustering 40 - 50 servers all running linux and serving out web-based, custom-built applications.)
i don't think that the purpose of a free, online university is to take the place of an accredited university. at least i hope not.
that being said, though, i think the idea is a wonderful one. i take a lot of pride in my school. i know i went to a good one, and i know i busted my ass to get in and to pay for it.
i also know that not everyone has those options.
the Internet brought us unlimited knowledge. i see a free, online university as bringing some structure to that knowledge and acting as a resource for people who are not at university for some reason or another.
can't afford school? working too hard and don't have the time? just not able to make the committment? fine! go online and read up on 13th century artwork! read about the finer points of freidrich hayek's work in political philosophy!
provided that this doesn't take the place of an accredited university (and i don't think it would), i think it's a wonderful idea!
actually, vassar college held campus wide student elections over the Internet back in 96, i think. we also are (to the best of my knowledge) the first college to put the local paper, the misc, online as well. (that used to be my job!) though i wasn't the guy who actually put electios on line, i was part of the crew. we also had a lot of fears about cheating, but it really wasn't all that difficult to take care of. at the end of the day, we saw voter turn out go up by more than double, i believe. any other schools out there that do this?
the vaio is a sexy machine, but a pii 400 isn't running at that speed b/c the vaios are super slow, and if you're lucky, you'll get 2.5 hrs of battery life. (i say this as i type on a vaio...)
microsoft actually purchased excell... they didn't develop it (at least not initially.) with respect to the mouse, i would imagine that they didn't produce a CHEAP mouse, but made a mouse that was cheap to buy by subsidizing it with windows royalties.
a friend of mine was at one time playing with the possibility of using an old newton or newer palm (with the irda port) as his own universal remote. he basically was planning on programming the thing to do whatever he wanted. i THINK he said that he got a fair amount of success.
i'm a web solutions provider here in the boston area. i have been in and around the "startup" scene for a while now. basically, i create the e-commerce and branding solutions that startups are looking for. this means that (as a web partner) i've been on many sides of the screening process, and i've seen first hand what VCs are looking for. the one bit of advice i can give you is this: if you've got an idea, share it with EVERYONE!!!! don't tell them HOW you're going to do something, but definately tell them WHAT you are doing. why? according to 100% of the VC reps i work with, "if you have an idea, and at least 5 other people aren't working on it at the same time, then it's not a good idea." being paranoid implies that you think your idea is so original and great that no one else can think of it... this is not the kind of thinking that VCs like, and it WILL turn them off. i've seen it. in a nutshell, VCs look for PEOPLE with good ideas, not good ideas themselves. if the PEOPLE are there, they will work with the idea. if the idea is there... and the people aren't, they will turn you down. additionally, VC firms did NOT get to where they are by stealing ideas. they are very professional about what they do, and in the end, 99.9% of all VCs i know are in it b/c it's fun and they like working with people to see ideas come alive.
now... if you want to get in touch with a VC, here is what you need to do: 1) get a team together. you need people with EXPERIENCE in either a) building a final product, or b) runing a company that has a final product. if you have one, the VC will help you build the other. if you have both, that's super good, and if you have neither, that's bad. 2) get a referral. you WILL NOT EVER get any attention simply by emailing a VC, or by cold-calling. in the end, only 1% of all prospects get funding, and only 5% of all prospects even get to see the VCs in person. 3) this means you have to NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK!! find just ONE person and take it from there... if you ever walk into a VC's office and don't have a name to toss out, you don't have credibility, and you won't make it very far. no matter where you start, you can work up the ladder... beleive me, i've done it. and ask EVERYone you meet for names. even if a VC turns you down, it may not be for the reason you think. often times, the idea and team may be very strong, but just not on strategy for the VC in question.. but asking that VC who might be interested is a great thing to do. 4) never give up. even when you're at your bottom dollar. cisco was rejected by EVERY VC in california and eventually was "funded" when the founders maxed out all of the credit cards they could get. 5) get a plan together. you don't need a business plan. you don't need projections. no one ever looks at projections. all you need is a few pages of text that explain what you are doing in plain english. remember.. VCs are people too, and at the end of the day, if they can't explain what you are trying to do to their spouses or friends, IN PLAIN ENGLISH, then you will fail. you can have lots of pretty charts and numbers, projections, etc... but if you don't give the VC something s/he can use to explain the idea to other people... it ain't gonna work. and finally... when building the team... remember this: equity is NOT given away. the VC does not TAKE equity. equity is a bargaining chip. your goal is to streth your "spending dollars" and see how much you can get with the equity that you offer. often times, if the founders are even still around at a publicly traded company, if they are still holding 12% of the company, they are going VERY well.
i guess that's about it.... if anyone has any questions, please feel free to email me at jonty@teralon.com. additionally, if anyone is in the boston area and has any ideas, PLEASE email me. i have MANY associates that are looking to fund hot new ideas.
i'm in a similar situation right now. i'm based in boston (BTW, if anyone wants a job, email me at haledon@teralon.com) and runing a web shop. we've gone through the whole contractor vs. employee bit, and what we decided was that we were building, first and foremost, a COMPANY. that means bringing in everyone who plays a role in getting the work done, and making them feel like the company was partly theirs. (this is, BTW, also our honest feeling on the subject.) having worked in several different environments, i've found that this approach tends to get more skilled and dedicated people, both programmers and other type of people, do do their best possible work. why? it has their name on it, and it's something to which they are personally attatched. sure you may "exclusively own" the "rights" to the code that's produced by a contractor, and sure, they may know their stuff, but you'll get the truly well thought out stuff from people you SHARE with-- AKA employees (or team members, as i don't truly like the term or connotation of 'employee'.) that's just what i think, but so far, my personal experience has backed it up. by including your fellow workers into the company, on several different levels, you don't just get the "great code" that a contractor might produce. you see them staying late with you and coming up with the crazyness that goes on to eventually become a pet project that everyone has the real fun on, or that everyone just thinks is plain cool.
280 Million of our tax paying money to assure ourselves that terrorists from countries with GDPs lower than half that amount can't gain access to the technology to encrypt their diabolicle plots to smash this country.... yeah right. how about using the machine for something OTHER than breaking encryption keys, like, oh, i dunno, doing the math that will make social security work, rather than going bankrupt within the next 10 years? 280M seems like a lot of money to be spending on a machine i'm not so sure we NEED, and one that won't get all THAT much use.....
oh, recall the days when companies like AT&T would sue to keep their business, rather than innovating. recall the days before the information super highway. whatever. this is just silly. there is no way in HELL any institution can stop the mass printing of CDs, and change formats, and no way in hell anyone in RIAA would ever want to. why's this important? b/c even if they DO kill hardware MP3 players, as long as there are rippers and players (which are legal), the problem is going to exist. people going out and buying portable MP3 players are probably the smallest part of the "revolution" in my opinion. the real problem (or percieved problem) to the RIAA are the people who sit at their computers and leech tons of MP3s illegally, not average joe consumer who probably doesn't even know where to look for such stuff.
oh, and then what, though? they make encoders and players illegal? big deal. they exist, they will continue to exist. the only thing the RIAA is doing is making people who LIKE blatantly ripping off RIAA member companies more pissed.... personally, if the RIAA keeps this up, i wouldn't be surprised to see an underground MP3 ripping off community (possibly growing out of the existing online communities) coming out and doing blatant stuff in retaliation.... that's just the kind of generation we are, i suppose... just my thoughts. they're not coherant (i just took my last exam for college.... EVER), but all the basic points are there. aaah.... sleep.....
but... i actually read about this around 18 months ago, i believe. at the time, there was a single prototyp built, or the designs and some proof that the designs would work. i really can't recall. of course the technology is interesting, and of course i'm glad to see it, but i wonder how this will affect me what is the interface of such a device? are there any limitations to the technology that would render it virtually out of reach for the the consumer market? how fast will these puppies fly? how much will they cost? what kinds of power consumptions are we looking at here? can they be dropped into a box with SCSI drives as well? will IBM be the sole manufacturer of such devices, or are there other people working on it? all these questions boil down to: how practical is it? how much will it cost? will it work for me? and of course, is it worth it? there will likely be tons of posts like, "ooooh, i can't wait to get one!" and of course, who would NOT want such high capacity storage? but... what if average joe (well average joe slashdotter) just can't afford it? of course, on the OTHER hand... if things are on the upside, what kinds of options could this open up? removable media, anyone? portable solutions? then again, there is the impact it could have... warez are traded over the net all the time. as time progresses, so too to connection speeds, HD sizes, and the size of warez files. most here have probably noticed the Matrix movie (yes, the ENTIRE 1.2 gig movie) available up for grabs on warez sites. not many grabbed it, but those w/ lots of HD space and connection speeds high enough certainly did. in fact, congress held a hearing a few months back (anyone wanna refernece this for me?) where someone voiced concern over DVD titles and the likliehood of piracy. the fear was that with so many DVD players being put into computers these days, people would soon start pirating movies on an order of magnitude at least equal to the piracy of software. the committee concluded that the (relatively) slow average net access speeds and high levels of storage space required for such piracy to take place were sufficiently out of reach of most people. this may not be the case 3 years from now when (if?) storage devices such as these hit the market and broadband net access becomes more common... just a few thoughts on the impact of technology. remember how long it used to take to download text files from BBSs over 2400 baud modems? =) ...and just because i have to, "cool, i want one!" -Jonty )|(
we are in the beginning of a golden era for technology. i think of all the exciting developments that are taking place in the software area, and i feel like the technology era we are now in shares some powerful parallelisms with the hardware era of the 1970s. we are at a point where we no longer need high-cost, powerful hardware to take care of specialized needs. slap linux onto any piece of hardware, and you can get very easy and cheap alternative to finding someone to build a custom piece of hardware that can only take on one task. but i digress. the point is that we are on the verge of a new era. this may sound a bit over the top, but i honestly think it's conservative, if anything. the explosion of the Internet is paramount to the wide-spread use of the printing press. the major difference here is that most people have equal access to their own "printing press", and distribution is a dream come true. what makes this comment relavent to the article posted is the fact that years from now we're going to look back on this sort of thing and just laugh. and i don't know (yet) whether it'll be a happy or sad laugh. look at how many people industrial waste killed before we realized that it was toxic. think of how many people needlessly died from operations just becuase no one ever thought to wash their hands before operating! then again, think of the fact that the reason we have so many other wonderful things (like penecillin (sp?)) is becuase of simple mistakes we've made. i dunno, i know i'm rambling and not really articulating what i'm TRYING to say, but the gist of it is that comprehension comes at a much slower pace than technological advance, and articles such as the one above make me think.
ok. done. not bad for only 2 hrs. of sleep. now i gotta bang out this last project....
This is the second or third time I've heard of MS doing something questionable since the DOJ trial has been on holiday. The thing that I wonder is whether the "powers that be" are watching MS, and whether all these little events are swaying them one way or another. It just makes you think, doesn't it? I mean, once this thing is over, I doubt that any of the states involved will have the money or inclination to fight it out again, so the judge is probably taking things EXTRA seriously, and ever little questionable act that MS commits must leave SOME sort of negative feeling... just my thoughts, but what do I know?
personally, i agree that the cable access sucks. you actually DON'T get comedy central as part of the basic package! but the cable modem access has seemed pretty good. i've had limited experience w/ cable modem access in the boston area... i'm moving there full time in a few weeks, and i expect the service will treat me just fine. anyone care to comment on the television access, though? anyone wanna rate mediaone for me? lemme know what i can expect?
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Of course one of the few times I read something worth a higher score than it actually has, I don't have moderation ability. Someone please raise the score on this. It's a good insight. I agree totally, BTW.
i'm a "soft-techie". i'm basically a geek turned suit; i'm also an economist and practical techno-business person. i am not an open source zealot, but i can tell you that the reason i do think that open source is the way of the future is b/c ours is a service-based economy. a few years ago, the US economy was product based. today, we are 60% product based and growing. don't believe me? who do you think makes a bigger profit margin? dell or anderson consulting? if products were so profitable, when why do we see more and more companies giving away products (computers, cell phones, etc...) for free, but charging for service?
open sourcing a software product allows people who ultimately sell services (like red hat's support) to make a bigger profit on their services by sharing the costs of a product, and ultimately offering a better product.
today, products are pretty much commodity items. seriously, what is the BIG difference between dell computers and gateway2000 computers. it's all about the marketing and customer support. did you knokw that car dealerships no longer compete based on price, but based on customer support? it's true.
that's why open source works, why it's the way of the future, and why people WILL make money giving something away for free.
it's just that it's software, and thus something different. when you get down to it, there is nothing too different from giving away software for free and charging for service (like support) and giving away cell phones for free and charging for the connection fees. just as a cell phone is USELESS without service, to a large corporation, linux isn't all that useful without massive support as well. (i'm not talking about a few developers using linux as their private operating system; i'm talking about a large coprotation clustering 40 - 50 servers all running linux and serving out web-based, custom-built applications.)
questions? comments? email me!
that being said, though, i think the idea is a wonderful one. i take a lot of pride in my school. i know i went to a good one, and i know i busted my ass to get in and to pay for it.
i also know that not everyone has those options.
the Internet brought us unlimited knowledge. i see a free, online university as bringing some structure to that knowledge and acting as a resource for people who are not at university for some reason or another.
can't afford school? working too hard and don't have the time? just not able to make the committment? fine! go online and read up on 13th century artwork! read about the finer points of freidrich hayek's work in political philosophy!
provided that this doesn't take the place of an accredited university (and i don't think it would), i think it's a wonderful idea!
actually, vassar college held campus wide student elections over the Internet back in 96, i think. we also are (to the best of my knowledge) the first college to put the local paper, the misc, online as well. (that used to be my job!) though i wasn't the guy who actually put electios on line, i was part of the crew. we also had a lot of fears about cheating, but it really wasn't all that difficult to take care of. at the end of the day, we saw voter turn out go up by more than double, i believe. any other schools out there that do this?
the vaio is a sexy machine, but a pii 400 isn't running at that speed b/c the vaios are super slow, and if you're lucky, you'll get 2.5 hrs of battery life. (i say this as i type on a vaio...)
microsoft actually purchased excell... they didn't develop it (at least not initially.) with respect to the mouse, i would imagine that they didn't produce a CHEAP mouse, but made a mouse that was cheap to buy by subsidizing it with windows royalties.
a friend of mine was at one time playing with the possibility of using an old newton or newer palm (with the irda port) as his own universal remote. he basically was planning on programming the thing to do whatever he wanted. i THINK he said that he got a fair amount of success.
now... if you want to get in touch with a VC, here is what you need to do: 1) get a team together. you need people with EXPERIENCE in either a) building a final product, or b) runing a company that has a final product. if you have one, the VC will help you build the other. if you have both, that's super good, and if you have neither, that's bad. 2) get a referral. you WILL NOT EVER get any attention simply by emailing a VC, or by cold-calling. in the end, only 1% of all prospects get funding, and only 5% of all prospects even get to see the VCs in person. 3) this means you have to NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK!! find just ONE person and take it from there... if you ever walk into a VC's office and don't have a name to toss out, you don't have credibility, and you won't make it very far. no matter where you start, you can work up the ladder... beleive me, i've done it. and ask EVERYone you meet for names. even if a VC turns you down, it may not be for the reason you think. often times, the idea and team may be very strong, but just not on strategy for the VC in question.. but asking that VC who might be interested is a great thing to do. 4) never give up. even when you're at your bottom dollar. cisco was rejected by EVERY VC in california and eventually was "funded" when the founders maxed out all of the credit cards they could get. 5) get a plan together. you don't need a business plan. you don't need projections. no one ever looks at projections. all you need is a few pages of text that explain what you are doing in plain english. remember.. VCs are people too, and at the end of the day, if they can't explain what you are trying to do to their spouses or friends, IN PLAIN ENGLISH, then you will fail. you can have lots of pretty charts and numbers, projections, etc... but if you don't give the VC something s/he can use to explain the idea to other people... it ain't gonna work.
and finally... when building the team... remember this: equity is NOT given away. the VC does not TAKE equity. equity is a bargaining chip. your goal is to streth your "spending dollars" and see how much you can get with the equity that you offer. often times, if the founders are even still around at a publicly traded company, if they are still holding 12% of the company, they are going VERY well.
i guess that's about it.... if anyone has any questions, please feel free to email me at jonty@teralon.com. additionally, if anyone is in the boston area and has any ideas, PLEASE email me. i have MANY associates that are looking to fund hot new ideas.
that was my $0.02 =) )|(
280 Million of our tax paying money to assure ourselves that terrorists from countries with GDPs lower than half that amount can't gain access to the technology to encrypt their diabolicle plots to smash this country.... yeah right. how about using the machine for something OTHER than breaking encryption keys, like, oh, i dunno, doing the math that will make social security work, rather than going bankrupt within the next 10 years? 280M seems like a lot of money to be spending on a machine i'm not so sure we NEED, and one that won't get all THAT much use.....
after years of a lack of innovation, it's nice to see someone pushing the 80x86 architecture further. (p.s. first post! woo hoo!)
oh, and then what, though? they make encoders and players illegal? big deal. they exist, they will continue to exist. the only thing the RIAA is doing is making people who LIKE blatantly ripping off RIAA member companies more pissed.... personally, if the RIAA keeps this up, i wouldn't be surprised to see an underground MP3 ripping off community (possibly growing out of the existing online communities) coming out and doing blatant stuff in retaliation.... that's just the kind of generation we are, i suppose... just my thoughts. they're not coherant (i just took my last exam for college.... EVER), but all the basic points are there. aaah.... sleep.....
but...
...and just because i have to, "cool, i want one!" -Jonty )|(
i actually read about this around 18 months ago, i believe. at the time, there was a single prototyp built, or the designs and some proof that the designs would work. i really can't recall. of course the technology is interesting, and of course i'm glad to see it, but i wonder how this will affect me
what is the interface of such a device? are there any limitations to the technology that would render it virtually out of reach for the the consumer market? how fast will these puppies fly? how much will they cost? what kinds of power consumptions are we looking at here? can they be dropped into a box with SCSI drives as well? will IBM be the sole manufacturer of such devices, or are there other people working on it? all these questions boil down to: how practical is it? how much will it cost? will it work for me? and of course, is it worth it?
there will likely be tons of posts like, "ooooh, i can't wait to get one!" and of course, who would NOT want such high capacity storage? but... what if average joe (well average joe slashdotter) just can't afford it?
of course, on the OTHER hand... if things are on the upside, what kinds of options could this open up? removable media, anyone? portable solutions?
then again, there is the impact it could have... warez are traded over the net all the time. as time progresses, so too to connection speeds, HD sizes, and the size of warez files. most here have probably noticed the Matrix movie (yes, the ENTIRE 1.2 gig movie) available up for grabs on warez sites. not many grabbed it, but those w/ lots of HD space and connection speeds high enough certainly did. in fact, congress held a hearing a few months back (anyone wanna refernece this for me?) where someone voiced concern over DVD titles and the likliehood of piracy. the fear was that with so many DVD players being put into computers these days, people would soon start pirating movies on an order of magnitude at least equal to the piracy of software. the committee concluded that the (relatively) slow average net access speeds and high levels of storage space required for such piracy to take place were sufficiently out of reach of most people. this may not be the case 3 years from now when (if?) storage devices such as these hit the market and broadband net access becomes more common...
just a few thoughts on the impact of technology. remember how long it used to take to download text files from BBSs over 2400 baud modems? =)
ok. done. not bad for only 2 hrs. of sleep. now i gotta bang out this last project....
This is the second or third time I've heard of MS doing something questionable since the DOJ trial has been on holiday. The thing that I wonder is whether the "powers that be" are watching MS, and whether all these little events are swaying them one way or another. It just makes you think, doesn't it? I mean, once this thing is over, I doubt that any of the states involved will have the money or inclination to fight it out again, so the judge is probably taking things EXTRA seriously, and ever little questionable act that MS commits must leave SOME sort of negative feeling... just my thoughts, but what do I know?
personally, i agree that the cable access sucks. you actually DON'T get comedy central as part of the basic package! but the cable modem access has seemed pretty good. i've had limited experience w/ cable modem access in the boston area... i'm moving there full time in a few weeks, and i expect the service will treat me just fine. anyone care to comment on the television access, though? anyone wanna rate mediaone for me? lemme know what i can expect?