This is yet another example of someone taking a current trend and then drawing a straight line and declaring impending doom.
There are consequences and feedback involved in any trend and things will eventually reach an equilibrium point.
Although the internet helps with the logistics of working with someone half way around the world, it does not eliminate all of the problems. You must specify things more completely to the person on the other side of the world or risk introducing errors into the process. Developing the specs costs money and properly maintaining the specs costs even more money. This eats into the savings. Many processes are too important to introduce this risk. I work on things that can easily cost $250,000 to have a process interrupted for a single day. Saving a few bucks on the programmer doesn't make much sense.
There is not an over abundance of skilled and experienced programmers in India. Much of the feedback that I have received is that the quality varies and it is difficult to manage this. The company selling the service insists that everyone is top notch but when you get the code back you realize that they handed it over to some kid fresh out of school. They are half way around the world so you have no contact with the actual programmers to assess their skills.
I think that there are plenty of areas were it would make sense to seek out the cheapest labor but there are a lot of areas where it does not make sense. The economy will continue to grow. Computers will continue to be more pervasive and there is going to be a ton of work for programmers. You may just have to adjust to the changes and make the best of them. I've said this before a bunch of times. Change isn't always bad. There is ALWAYS an opportunity if you have some imagination and the balls to pursue it.
Most independent stores I have gone to shop for music in are charing $16+ for a CD. If you're buying it for $12 and making $4+ a CD I seriously believe that you are gouging us. I don't feel bad for you.
A 30% markup for a specialty store is not unreasonable. You act like some asshole is just taking the $4 and putting it in his pocket. You should try to run a business. The owner of the store probably invested a good bit of money up front to get started. You have to fill the store with racks, buy inventory, and plan on running at a loss for the first few months as you grow your business. The owner is probably paying back the debt incurred at startup for a long time or they risked a lot of savings just to get started.
Once you get past that hurdle you have to pay rent, taxes, insurance, hire employees, pay unemployment tax, workers comp, social security. You also have to pay to advertise your business, pay your accountant to file your taxes, possibly hire a book keeper to help you keep up with the sales tax that you must pay. It is endless. $4 per CD doesn't go very far. You have to sell a lot of CD's to break even. Making a big profit off of such a business isn't a trivial thing.
I'm not saying that you should feel bad for business owners. Just realize that it isn't all that easy. If you go into a store that you really enjoy that has a wide selection, knowledgeable employees, and a great atmosphere with good customer support, you should appreciate it for the gem that it is. Someone has really had to put a lot of thought and strategy into pulling it off right. They probably also took a lot of risks just to get it started. It isn't all that easy.
I can buy a PC today for $500 that is more powerful than any computer I could have bought for any amount of money 15 years ago. That is inefficient?
It costs a lot more money to maintain a bunch of old stuff than it does to buy newer stuff. Keeping old production lines going and maintaining spare parts can be very expensive.
I guess I am lucky to have had a few good role models growing up and early in my career. You should pick the 1 or 2 most important things that need to be done, knock them out, and then move on to the next 1 or 2. Concentrating your effort and attention gives much better results. You get more done in less time and you make fewer mistakes. It is much more effective and a lot less stressful.
One of my first bosses is like that. The "fire fighters" as we called them would be running around frantically all stressed out about every problem. They always looked really busy and really stressed. He, on the other hand, would sit down and make a list of the problems and figure out how best to tackle the situation and then concentrate on one item at a time. He would get that one highest priority item done properly and then move on to the next. Sometimes people would get pissed at him for not working on 10 other things but he would stick with it and get them all done. The fire fighters would always look more busy and frantic but in the end they would accomplish very little and much of that would have to be redone.
Never mistake activity for work. You have to be deliberate and figure out how to get the highest value out of your time. Work less, be more effective, make more money. That's my motto. Everybody gets the same 24 hours in a day. Its how you use them that counts.
I think that Van Allen made a very good point when he said that the ISS and Shuttle contributed very little. They drain resources and keep us from focusing on the one thing that is key to doing everything that you mentioned. Reducing the cost of putting objects into orbit should be priority number 1.
Until we can quickly, cheaply, and safely hoist objects into space, every missions is a major endeavor requiring tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Experimentation and possible failure are far too expensive.
For 30+ years we have basically been using the same technology. It is treated as a given that it has to be really expensive to get to orbit. With the proper focus, the cost should be reduced substantionally. This would allow a larger number of missions and more risky missions would be more accecptable. More people doing more missions means more discoveries.
Mr. Van Allen seems to propose a future where we minimize the amount of money that we spend on space missions while maximizing the return of scientific knowledge. Imagine a bunch of guys who are either too skinny or too fat sitting around a bunch of computers analyzing data telling jokes that only they think are funny. Imagine a bunch of bureaucrats sitting in endless meetings trying not to take any unnecessary risks. Imagine those bureaucrats dictating how things will be done. Imagine endless political battles and ass covering when mistakes are made. Imagine the ebb and flow of money from congress as they gain and lose interest. How uninspiring. No wonder enrollment in science and engineering programs is waning among Americans.
He reminds me of the geek sitting in the computer room with his mainframe thinking that is the way things will always be. He is sorely missing the point.
We're on the verge of a revolution. It may take 30 years but it is coming. Guys like Burt Rutan and Paul Allen are going to open spaceflight back up to adventure. They aren't going to sit around in a stale old government funded program and play the risk averse bureaucrat. They are going to grab the dragon by the tail. They're going to do what 30+ years of bureaucracy hasn't been able to do. They are going to reduce the cost per kilo to get into orbit. They are going to figure out how to make it safe and repeatable. They will eventually figure out how to make some money at it so that they can do more of it and discovery better ways and refine their techniques.
Mr. Van Allen is like the old mainframe guys who thought that computers had to be big and expensive and complex. They never imagined that one day I would be walking around with a cell phone that could send email, browse the web, and play MP3's and only cost a few hundred bucks.
I just think that the future can be so much sexier and more exciting that what he imagines.
Thanks to capitalism there isn't any obligation to be an employee. You can always shop the market for a better employer or better yet, employ yourself.
The people that I know who have developed marketable skills set their own hours and have more opportunities than they have the time to pursue. Thank you capitalism.
Quit acting like you don't have any choice in the matter.
The proposal is not to make the software illegal. It is to make it easier for corporations to sue you for producing the software. There is a difference. The article goes so far as to spell it out
The bill doesn't set up new criminal or civil penalties for those who "induce" copyright violations, but it creates a new class of people who can be sued or prosecuted for copyright infringement -- those who a "reasonable person" would believe "intentionally aids, abets, induces or procures" copyright violations.
The headling says: "outlaw P2P entirely by making it illegal to produce such applications."
I guess that in addition to RTFA we need to have UTFA, Understand the f**** article.
While I am not all that impressed with the proposed legislation, being served papers because the RIAA is suing you for producing a P2P app is certainly much different from federal agents kicking down your door and arresting you because you just wrote a new Java app to share files on the internet for your programming class.
If you are going to get pissed off, at least understand what you are getting pissed off about.
So what do you do? Give up because it is too hard?
You act like conventional warfare is always straightforward. Everyone just lines up and fights a certain way between certain hours. Deception, misdirection, and the element of surprise have always been major factors in warfare. Nothing has changed. Warriors have always had to adjust to new techniques and technologies.
I agree with you that it is impossible to account for all possibilities. I'm sure that the first guy to be shot with a firearm was pretty surprised as his suit of armor was pierced by the bullet. The test of a warrior is how quickly you can adapt. Once you see your people fall with holes in the armor, you better be able to come up with a new strategy for protecting yourself. These types of games can help to tune those skills.
These types of war games are a good way to assess preparedness, test your defenses, and learn from mistakes. You have to practice and constantly test yourself to become and stay good.
Besides, whos says that you just have to sit around on the defensive. The rules didn't change, we just didn't realize that there was a war on before 9/11. You can also go after the attackers and make sure that they have little time to plan because they are doing everything they can just to stay alive.
The scary thing is that someone will figure out how to fit that particle accelerator into a hard disk enclosure before we figure out how to make the battery on my laptop last a full workday without a recharge.
Look on the bright side geeks. If you become an auto mechanic, you will always have work and it isn't very likely that it will every be cheaper or practical to ship a car to India to be fixed.
The icomes of most high end mechanics aren't too bad either.
I agree with you. They have shown themselves to be pretty honorable and trustworthy thus far.
The only problem is that I wonder how much of this will change after their IPO.
Right now they are a private company trying to build up. What happens after they issue stock and have report their earnings quarterly? Will they stick to their principles?
The fiber, routers, switches, servers, and other equipment that the Internet is composed of are all owned and operated by someone. To assume that someone is not going to exercise whatever power that ownership provides them is naive.
Theoretically I like the ideas of JP Barlow and others who talk about the Internet being this incredible liberating force free of political and geographical boundaries but in practice I don't think that will happen anytime soon.
The Internet is a lot more centralized than most people think. Large chunks are owned by a handful of companies (mainly US companies). Maybe one day when we have huge mesh networks with millions of interconnected nodes running on equipment that is owned by millions of individuals connected via ad-hoc wireless connections, we will finally be free because it will be too chaotic and distributed for any one group to gain a great deal of control.
Until this happens you have to be practical and realize the political power that certain groups are going to maintain by owning or controlling large chunks of the physical infrastructure. You can be appalled all you want but it doesn't change the actual politics of the situation.
I'm not advocating any of this. I'm just pointing out that it is unrealistic to expect otherwise. Those who own the physical assets have the power. If you don't want them to have the power, use someone else's assets.
They aren't policing the world's communications just the stuff that is passing through their equipment.
They really need to be worried about their business which is slipping away while they are screwing around in the lab.
This reminds me of all of the times while I was in school that I would work on some project that I was interested in instead of studying the boring stuff that I needed to study.
You're report cards are in guys and it is time to hunker down and take care of business for a while. You need to worry about things that are going to add to your bottom line. I don't know how a 3D interface for Linux is going to do that effectively.
I don't know if you remember there were a lot of folks in the industry that had very mixed feelings about Pointdexters total information awareness initiative. While they didn't like the big brother aspects of it, many people said that the types of software and systems that were proposed had as much potential to change the world of computing as the development of the internet.
I'm pretty sure that they are drawing on the best minds that they can find and I wouldn't be surprised if some of those folks worked at Google.
Even though Poindexter's TIA program was canned most of the projects have lived on under other names. I'm sure that it will be a while but it will be interesting to see what kinds of information technologies get spun off from this.
This is such a non-story. What is the point of the study?
The computer manufacturing business is one of the most cut throat businesses on the planet. Every tiny bit of slack in the process must be eliminated in order to stay competitive. This means that they must use as few raw materials as possible. Energy consumption is minimized. The part count is kept to a minimum. There is as little waste as possible.
Let's talk about some of the positive impacts of computer use. I use mine with VPN to handle work for customers without traveling. This results in fewer plane rides, rental cars, and sitting in traffic. In my professional work I use computers to monitor environmental impact at manufacturing and industrial plants. I also use them to help make the processes more efficient which lessens the environmental impact of the activities.
Computers are also used to mange traffic in large cities. They are used to manage public transportation facilities. I've done work for logistics companies that manage the shipment of goods to reduce fuel consumption, lessening the environmental impact of these activities.
Let's face it. Computers are the most valuable modern tool that we have developed. The impact of manufacturing one is more than offset by all of the positive impacts of their use.
Worrying about the environmental impact of producing this valuable tool when we already know how competitive it is to manufacture them and how efficiently it is already done seems really silly.
Perhaps we should do a study of the impact of all of the CO2 that is emitted during worthless UN debates. Certainly it is impacting global warming in an adverse fashion.
Hey UN, stop worrying about inane crap like this. Last I heard there was some shit going down in Haiti that you might want to concentrate on. While you're at it, Kim Jong Il is starving his people. I'm sure there are a lot of other areas of much higher impact that you could concentrate on. You do some really good work out there. This type of study isn't helping though.
Let's face it; if a business offers free wifi then I choose it over a pay place every time. A couple of businesses near me have it. I am much more likely to go have lunch or breakfast there where I can work a little and eat. A couple of hotels that I have stayed at in the last year had free access.
It is a business differentiator and it isn't all that expensive. Most hotels and restaurants/coffee shops will already at least have a DSL line for credit cards, the manager's computer, etc. It doesn't cost much more to throw an extra box on the line and share it. I would bet that a lot of these places are putting it in for only a couple of thousand dollars.
Security is a problem at any hotspot. I use SSH to protect my email. Most corporate users either access their email through VPN or a web mail site that is SSL encrypted. Any IT guy who is letting his users access his server from the outside in any other way is asking for trouble.
The free hotspots that I have used have all redirected me to a website that explains who is running the node, that it is for their customers only, and that you are to use it good and not evil. After you agree to the terms, you are free to go about your business. I don't know how iron clad this is but I imagine that it offers decent enough legal protection if they felt comfortable doing it.
It is worth noting that all of the businesses that I have seen offering free hotspots are doing well. I would say that probably 70% of the customers don't have any idea what wifi is but the 30% that do love it and come back for more. That little bit extra can be the difference between breaking even and making a good profit.
You have been disappointing us. While many of us grew up with your movies and loved them, things have been steadily going down hill.
1. Hire some real writers. You got help with Empire and it was the best movie to date. Don't try to do it yourself, you're real talent lies elsewhere.
2. Hire another director. Get somebody like Peter Jackson who can film the trilogy all at once. We don't like waiting years between movies. 1 year max between releases.
3. If it's cute. Leave it out. No more muppet'y characters like the Ewoks. No more frickin' Jar Jar type characters. I just can't take it. If you would like, I will offer my services for free. You can run this stuff by me and I will tell you if it sucks.
4. Give it an edge like Empire. Your loyal fan base is getting older. We want a real plot without all of the inconsistencies that you have written yourself into in the last two movies. Remember, we're adults now. We we love the world and the characters that you created for us but we really want to experience it on an adult level. I'll say it again. No more Jar Jar's.
5. Concentrate on what you really do best. Keep pushing the state of the art in film production. Push ILM to make the movie better while producing it faster and cheaper than anyone has ever done. Bring the costs of producing epic style movies down to a more reasonable level so that even more young artists can expose us to their visions without having a $100 million bank roll. The less expensive it gets, the more variety we will have.
6. Don't concentrate on making a blockbuster. Just make the best movie that you can and show it to us. We will pay to see it. You don't have to have product tie ins everywhere we go. No more cheesy market deals. No more Jar Jar's (did I already mention that?)
7. I want the new trilogy to hit DVD before I start collecting social security. Besides if you get off your ass on this, you can sell the previous movie on DVD right before you release the next movie. Easy advertising. (Don't do like LOTR though and release a 'normal' DVD and hold out the good one for a month or two. We like that about as much as we adore Jar Jar).
7. Use your influence and $$$ to get us completely digital theaters. We all want to see the new movies on a crystal clear screen that isn't going to be completely degraded the 3rd and 4th time we go to see it. (This assumes that you make them good).
You know what. Forget it all. I'm still pissed about the whole Jar Jar thing.
I remember back in the 80's when my Mom's boss had a cell phone. He paid something like $400/month for it but he made millions. It was a productivity tool.
Zoom ahead 15 years. Now every punk kid at the mall has a cell phone and it costs them $40/month. They use them to goof off and keep in touch with friends.
WiFi will be the same. It will just take a few years to get cheap. Not as many years as cell phones.
It is just business. It may have nothing to do with you personally or how well you performed your job.
There could be several reasons for them to make the choice that they did. I'm sure that a big part of it was liability. Being a financial services firm, they would be in big trouble if there were a security breach.
The services company will represent themselves as qualified professionals and will carry liability insurance. If there is a breach, management has an out and somebody to hold accountable. If you allowed a breach as an employee then they are accountable.
I have seen a lot of posts about how stupid management can be. While this is sometimes the case, I have found that many decisions only appear stupid because the average technical person doesn't give much thought to overall strategy or business drivers.
I have been on both sides of the equation. I've sat and strategerized with my attorney and had to make some of these difficult decisions. Things aren't always as easy and simple as they appear on the surface.
As a professional, it is your responsibility to learn about the business and strategic aspects of your job as well as keep up with the technical aspects. Take these things into account as you find your next position. It will help you in the long run.
Crap, I've been waiting 3 weeks to get my POTS line turned off after switching over to Vonage. It still isn't done and the web site says that it can take up to 20 business days. I'm glad that I chose to do this around the hollidays.
[1] A CD-R does not have the same life expectancy as a regular CD. They degrade over time.
[2] The DRM wrapper around the ACC format is proprietary to Apple.
I suppose that you could take the files and burn them and then re-rip them but that isn't what the vendors intend for you to do.
Mark my words, people will be complaining in a few years that the songs that they bought have fallen by the wayside as formats and services have changed. These DRM'd files will not be around as long as my oldest CD's.
Slashdot Mirror
This is yet another example of someone taking a current trend and then drawing a straight line and declaring impending doom.
There are consequences and feedback involved in any trend and things will eventually reach an equilibrium point.
Although the internet helps with the logistics of working with someone half way around the world, it does not eliminate all of the problems. You must specify things more completely to the person on the other side of the world or risk introducing errors into the process. Developing the specs costs money and properly maintaining the specs costs even more money. This eats into the savings. Many processes are too important to introduce this risk. I work on things that can easily cost $250,000 to have a process interrupted for a single day. Saving a few bucks on the programmer doesn't make much sense.
There is not an over abundance of skilled and experienced programmers in India. Much of the feedback that I have received is that the quality varies and it is difficult to manage this. The company selling the service insists that everyone is top notch but when you get the code back you realize that they handed it over to some kid fresh out of school. They are half way around the world so you have no contact with the actual programmers to assess their skills.
I think that there are plenty of areas were it would make sense to seek out the cheapest labor but there are a lot of areas where it does not make sense. The economy will continue to grow. Computers will continue to be more pervasive and there is going to be a ton of work for programmers. You may just have to adjust to the changes and make the best of them. I've said this before a bunch of times. Change isn't always bad. There is ALWAYS an opportunity if you have some imagination and the balls to pursue it.
A 30% markup for a specialty store is not unreasonable. You act like some asshole is just taking the $4 and putting it in his pocket. You should try to run a business. The owner of the store probably invested a good bit of money up front to get started. You have to fill the store with racks, buy inventory, and plan on running at a loss for the first few months as you grow your business. The owner is probably paying back the debt incurred at startup for a long time or they risked a lot of savings just to get started.
Once you get past that hurdle you have to pay rent, taxes, insurance, hire employees, pay unemployment tax, workers comp, social security. You also have to pay to advertise your business, pay your accountant to file your taxes, possibly hire a book keeper to help you keep up with the sales tax that you must pay. It is endless. $4 per CD doesn't go very far. You have to sell a lot of CD's to break even. Making a big profit off of such a business isn't a trivial thing.
I'm not saying that you should feel bad for business owners. Just realize that it isn't all that easy. If you go into a store that you really enjoy that has a wide selection, knowledgeable employees, and a great atmosphere with good customer support, you should appreciate it for the gem that it is. Someone has really had to put a lot of thought and strategy into pulling it off right. They probably also took a lot of risks just to get it started. It isn't all that easy.
Just like many on Slashdot.
:)
Oh well, I suppose it is better then nothing.
I can buy a PC today for $500 that is more powerful than any computer I could have bought for any amount of money 15 years ago. That is inefficient?
It costs a lot more money to maintain a bunch of old stuff than it does to buy newer stuff. Keeping old production lines going and maintaining spare parts can be very expensive.
I guess I am lucky to have had a few good role models growing up and early in my career. You should pick the 1 or 2 most important things that need to be done, knock them out, and then move on to the next 1 or 2. Concentrating your effort and attention gives much better results. You get more done in less time and you make fewer mistakes. It is much more effective and a lot less stressful.
One of my first bosses is like that. The "fire fighters" as we called them would be running around frantically all stressed out about every problem. They always looked really busy and really stressed. He, on the other hand, would sit down and make a list of the problems and figure out how best to tackle the situation and then concentrate on one item at a time. He would get that one highest priority item done properly and then move on to the next. Sometimes people would get pissed at him for not working on 10 other things but he would stick with it and get them all done. The fire fighters would always look more busy and frantic but in the end they would accomplish very little and much of that would have to be redone.
Never mistake activity for work. You have to be deliberate and figure out how to get the highest value out of your time. Work less, be more effective, make more money. That's my motto. Everybody gets the same 24 hours in a day. Its how you use them that counts.
I was playing XBox Live in '99. It is seared-seared into my memory.
I think that Van Allen made a very good point when he said that the ISS and Shuttle contributed very little. They drain resources and keep us from focusing on the one thing that is key to doing everything that you mentioned. Reducing the cost of putting objects into orbit should be priority number 1.
Until we can quickly, cheaply, and safely hoist objects into space, every missions is a major endeavor requiring tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Experimentation and possible failure are far too expensive.
For 30+ years we have basically been using the same technology. It is treated as a given that it has to be really expensive to get to orbit. With the proper focus, the cost should be reduced substantionally. This would allow a larger number of missions and more risky missions would be more accecptable. More people doing more missions means more discoveries.
Mr. Van Allen seems to propose a future where we minimize the amount of money that we spend on space missions while maximizing the return of scientific knowledge. Imagine a bunch of guys who are either too skinny or too fat sitting around a bunch of computers analyzing data telling jokes that only they think are funny. Imagine a bunch of bureaucrats sitting in endless meetings trying not to take any unnecessary risks. Imagine those bureaucrats dictating how things will be done. Imagine endless political battles and ass covering when mistakes are made. Imagine the ebb and flow of money from congress as they gain and lose interest. How uninspiring. No wonder enrollment in science and engineering programs is waning among Americans.
He reminds me of the geek sitting in the computer room with his mainframe thinking that is the way things will always be. He is sorely missing the point.
We're on the verge of a revolution. It may take 30 years but it is coming. Guys like Burt Rutan and Paul Allen are going to open spaceflight back up to adventure. They aren't going to sit around in a stale old government funded program and play the risk averse bureaucrat. They are going to grab the dragon by the tail. They're going to do what 30+ years of bureaucracy hasn't been able to do. They are going to reduce the cost per kilo to get into orbit. They are going to figure out how to make it safe and repeatable. They will eventually figure out how to make some money at it so that they can do more of it and discovery better ways and refine their techniques.
Mr. Van Allen is like the old mainframe guys who thought that computers had to be big and expensive and complex. They never imagined that one day I would be walking around with a cell phone that could send email, browse the web, and play MP3's and only cost a few hundred bucks.
I just think that the future can be so much sexier and more exciting that what he imagines.
Thanks to capitalism there isn't any obligation to be an employee. You can always shop the market for a better employer or better yet, employ yourself.
The people that I know who have developed marketable skills set their own hours and have more opportunities than they have the time to pursue. Thank you capitalism.
Quit acting like you don't have any choice in the matter.
The proposal is not to make the software illegal. It is to make it easier for corporations to sue you for producing the software. There is a difference. The article goes so far as to spell it out
The bill doesn't set up new criminal or civil penalties for those who "induce" copyright violations, but it creates a new class of people who can be sued or prosecuted for copyright infringement -- those who a "reasonable person" would believe "intentionally aids, abets, induces or procures" copyright violations.
The headling says: "outlaw P2P entirely by making it illegal to produce such applications."
I guess that in addition to RTFA we need to have UTFA, Understand the f**** article.
While I am not all that impressed with the proposed legislation, being served papers because the RIAA is suing you for producing a P2P app is certainly much different from federal agents kicking down your door and arresting you because you just wrote a new Java app to share files on the internet for your programming class.
If you are going to get pissed off, at least understand what you are getting pissed off about.
So what do you do? Give up because it is too hard?
You act like conventional warfare is always straightforward. Everyone just lines up and fights a certain way between certain hours. Deception, misdirection, and the element of surprise have always been major factors in warfare. Nothing has changed. Warriors have always had to adjust to new techniques and technologies.
I agree with you that it is impossible to account for all possibilities. I'm sure that the first guy to be shot with a firearm was pretty surprised as his suit of armor was pierced by the bullet. The test of a warrior is how quickly you can adapt. Once you see your people fall with holes in the armor, you better be able to come up with a new strategy for protecting yourself. These types of games can help to tune those skills.
These types of war games are a good way to assess preparedness, test your defenses, and learn from mistakes. You have to practice and constantly test yourself to become and stay good.
Besides, whos says that you just have to sit around on the defensive. The rules didn't change, we just didn't realize that there was a war on before 9/11. You can also go after the attackers and make sure that they have little time to plan because they are doing everything they can just to stay alive.
The scary thing is that someone will figure out how to fit that particle accelerator into a hard disk enclosure before we figure out how to make the battery on my laptop last a full workday without a recharge.
Look on the bright side geeks. If you become an auto mechanic, you will always have work and it isn't very likely that it will every be cheaper or practical to ship a car to India to be fixed.
The icomes of most high end mechanics aren't too bad either.
I agree with you. They have shown themselves to be pretty honorable and trustworthy thus far.
The only problem is that I wonder how much of this will change after their IPO.
Right now they are a private company trying to build up. What happens after they issue stock and have report their earnings quarterly? Will they stick to their principles?
The fiber, routers, switches, servers, and other equipment that the Internet is composed of are all owned and operated by someone. To assume that someone is not going to exercise whatever power that ownership provides them is naive.
Theoretically I like the ideas of JP Barlow and others who talk about the Internet being this incredible liberating force free of political and geographical boundaries but in practice I don't think that will happen anytime soon.
The Internet is a lot more centralized than most people think. Large chunks are owned by a handful of companies (mainly US companies). Maybe one day when we have huge mesh networks with millions of interconnected nodes running on equipment that is owned by millions of individuals connected via ad-hoc wireless connections, we will finally be free because it will be too chaotic and distributed for any one group to gain a great deal of control.
Until this happens you have to be practical and realize the political power that certain groups are going to maintain by owning or controlling large chunks of the physical infrastructure. You can be appalled all you want but it doesn't change the actual politics of the situation.
I'm not advocating any of this. I'm just pointing out that it is unrealistic to expect otherwise. Those who own the physical assets have the power. If you don't want them to have the power, use someone else's assets.
They aren't policing the world's communications just the stuff that is passing through their equipment.
The geek in me thinks this is pretty cool but...
They really need to be worried about their business which is slipping away while they are screwing around in the lab.
This reminds me of all of the times while I was in school that I would work on some project that I was interested in instead of studying the boring stuff that I needed to study.
You're report cards are in guys and it is time to hunker down and take care of business for a while. You need to worry about things that are going to add to your bottom line. I don't know how a 3D interface for Linux is going to do that effectively.
I don't know if you remember there were a lot of folks in the industry that had very mixed feelings about Pointdexters total information awareness initiative. While they didn't like the big brother aspects of it, many people said that the types of software and systems that were proposed had as much potential to change the world of computing as the development of the internet.
I'm pretty sure that they are drawing on the best minds that they can find and I wouldn't be surprised if some of those folks worked at Google.
Even though Poindexter's TIA program was canned most of the projects have lived on under other names. I'm sure that it will be a while but it will be interesting to see what kinds of information technologies get spun off from this.
This is such a non-story. What is the point of the study?
The computer manufacturing business is one of the most cut throat businesses on the planet. Every tiny bit of slack in the process must be eliminated in order to stay competitive. This means that they must use as few raw materials as possible. Energy consumption is minimized. The part count is kept to a minimum. There is as little waste as possible.
Let's talk about some of the positive impacts of computer use. I use mine with VPN to handle work for customers without traveling. This results in fewer plane rides, rental cars, and sitting in traffic. In my professional work I use computers to monitor environmental impact at manufacturing and industrial plants. I also use them to help make the processes more efficient which lessens the environmental impact of the activities.
Computers are also used to mange traffic in large cities. They are used to manage public transportation facilities. I've done work for logistics companies that manage the shipment of goods to reduce fuel consumption, lessening the environmental impact of these activities.
Let's face it. Computers are the most valuable modern tool that we have developed. The impact of manufacturing one is more than offset by all of the positive impacts of their use.
Worrying about the environmental impact of producing this valuable tool when we already know how competitive it is to manufacture them and how efficiently it is already done seems really silly.
Perhaps we should do a study of the impact of all of the CO2 that is emitted during worthless UN debates. Certainly it is impacting global warming in an adverse fashion.
Hey UN, stop worrying about inane crap like this. Last I heard there was some shit going down in Haiti that you might want to concentrate on. While you're at it, Kim Jong Il is starving his people. I'm sure there are a lot of other areas of much higher impact that you could concentrate on. You do some really good work out there. This type of study isn't helping though.
Let's face it; if a business offers free wifi then I choose it over a pay place every time. A couple of businesses near me have it. I am much more likely to go have lunch or breakfast there where I can work a little and eat. A couple of hotels that I have stayed at in the last year had free access.
It is a business differentiator and it isn't all that expensive. Most hotels and restaurants/coffee shops will already at least have a DSL line for credit cards, the manager's computer, etc. It doesn't cost much more to throw an extra box on the line and share it. I would bet that a lot of these places are putting it in for only a couple of thousand dollars.
Security is a problem at any hotspot. I use SSH to protect my email. Most corporate users either access their email through VPN or a web mail site that is SSL encrypted. Any IT guy who is letting his users access his server from the outside in any other way is asking for trouble.
The free hotspots that I have used have all redirected me to a website that explains who is running the node, that it is for their customers only, and that you are to use it good and not evil. After you agree to the terms, you are free to go about your business. I don't know how iron clad this is but I imagine that it offers decent enough legal protection if they felt comfortable doing it.
It is worth noting that all of the businesses that I have seen offering free hotspots are doing well. I would say that probably 70% of the customers don't have any idea what wifi is but the 30% that do love it and come back for more. That little bit extra can be the difference between breaking even and making a good profit.
You have been disappointing us. While many of us grew up with your movies and loved them, things have been steadily going down hill.
1. Hire some real writers. You got help with Empire and it was the best movie to date. Don't try to do it yourself, you're real talent lies elsewhere.
2. Hire another director. Get somebody like Peter Jackson who can film the trilogy all at once. We don't like waiting years between movies. 1 year max between releases.
3. If it's cute. Leave it out. No more muppet'y characters like the Ewoks. No more frickin' Jar Jar type characters. I just can't take it. If you would like, I will offer my services for free. You can run this stuff by me and I will tell you if it sucks.
4. Give it an edge like Empire. Your loyal fan base is getting older. We want a real plot without all of the inconsistencies that you have written yourself into in the last two movies. Remember, we're adults now. We we love the world and the characters that you created for us but we really want to experience it on an adult level. I'll say it again. No more Jar Jar's.
5. Concentrate on what you really do best. Keep pushing the state of the art in film production. Push ILM to make the movie better while producing it faster and cheaper than anyone has ever done. Bring the costs of producing epic style movies down to a more reasonable level so that even more young artists can expose us to their visions without having a $100 million bank roll. The less expensive it gets, the more variety we will have.
6. Don't concentrate on making a blockbuster. Just make the best movie that you can and show it to us. We will pay to see it. You don't have to have product tie ins everywhere we go. No more cheesy market deals. No more Jar Jar's (did I already mention that?)
7. I want the new trilogy to hit DVD before I start collecting social security. Besides if you get off your ass on this, you can sell the previous movie on DVD right before you release the next movie. Easy advertising. (Don't do like LOTR though and release a 'normal' DVD and hold out the good one for a month or two. We like that about as much as we adore Jar Jar).
7. Use your influence and $$$ to get us completely digital theaters. We all want to see the new movies on a crystal clear screen that isn't going to be completely degraded the 3rd and 4th time we go to see it. (This assumes that you make them good).
You know what. Forget it all. I'm still pissed about the whole Jar Jar thing.
Exactly, just like cell phones.
I remember back in the 80's when my Mom's boss had a cell phone. He paid something like $400/month for it but he made millions. It was a productivity tool.
Zoom ahead 15 years. Now every punk kid at the mall has a cell phone and it costs them $40/month. They use them to goof off and keep in touch with friends.
WiFi will be the same. It will just take a few years to get cheap. Not as many years as cell phones.
It is just business. It may have nothing to do with you personally or how well you performed your job.
There could be several reasons for them to make the choice that they did. I'm sure that a big part of it was liability. Being a financial services firm, they would be in big trouble if there were a security breach.
The services company will represent themselves as qualified professionals and will carry liability insurance. If there is a breach, management has an out and somebody to hold accountable. If you allowed a breach as an employee then they are accountable.
I have seen a lot of posts about how stupid management can be. While this is sometimes the case, I have found that many decisions only appear stupid because the average technical person doesn't give much thought to overall strategy or business drivers.
I have been on both sides of the equation. I've sat and strategerized with my attorney and had to make some of these difficult decisions. Things aren't always as easy and simple as they appear on the surface.
As a professional, it is your responsibility to learn about the business and strategic aspects of your job as well as keep up with the technical aspects. Take these things into account as you find your next position. It will help you in the long run.
NASA has not kept pace with the latest American management practices. They still use overpriced local labor resources.
They should be outsourcing the entire project to Indian companies.
Crap, I've been waiting 3 weeks to get my POTS line turned off after switching over to Vonage. It still isn't done and the web site says that it can take up to 20 business days. I'm glad that I chose to do this around the hollidays.
[1] A CD-R does not have the same life expectancy as a regular CD. They degrade over time.
[2] The DRM wrapper around the ACC format is proprietary to Apple.
I suppose that you could take the files and burn them and then re-rip them but that isn't what the vendors intend for you to do.
Mark my words, people will be complaining in a few years that the songs that they bought have fallen by the wayside as formats and services have changed. These DRM'd files will not be around as long as my oldest CD's.