I think that this is a great idea. All public universities should start doing it. Professors and students at any university now have more information available to them. Students can learn better and professors can teach better.
Now the next steps. 1. Start publishing textbooks online. The only people who make money off of textbooks anyway are the publishers and bookstores. Why not make the material freely available? Textbooks published by professors at public universities should be made available with an open copyright. Textbooks have become very expensive and limit a student's access to material. I used to try to read at least one other textbook in addition to the one that was assigned in class.
2. Start publishing papers online. This is the same situation. A professor writes a paper that is published in the IEEE Transactions on XXXXXX. The information is now copyrighted and I have to pay to read it. This limits a student's access to the material.
Freeing up this material and making it available electronically would have a strong effect on education and research.
I had LASIK performed in June. It was like magic. You wake up the next morning and you can see perfectly. I had 20/20 vision in my left eye and 20/25 in the right the next day.
The surgery only takes about 20 minutes. I was a little disconcerted to get a whiff of vaporizing eye balls. I would say burning but my surgeon corrected me saying that they were actually vaporizing. They are very particular about their language. They have a little shop vac thing to suck up the smoke but it obviously didn't get it all.
I am now 20/15 in the left and 20/20 in the right. I have not had any problems and the flaps have healed to the point where my optometrist says that another doctor who did not know I had the surgery would probably not notice it.
I actually find that coding and reading are easier than before. I used to have a problem with headaches after long sessions in front of the computer. That has pretty much gone away. The laser corrects your vision more precisely than off-the-shelf lenses ever could.
They have refined the flap cutting techniques to minimize the halo effect that so many people complain about. I find that I only have trouble when my eyes are dry. Eye drops take care of that.
I chose my surgeon pretty carefully. He has performed over 7000 corrective surgeries since '95. His first patient does not need glasses to this day. He has trained many doctors to do the surgery and also does a lot of research in the area. He is a really sharp guy with a lot of practical experience.
I think that most complications from the surgery arise from the cutting of the flap. This seems to be the place where an experienced surgeon makes the biggest difference. I paid top dollar for the most experienced and qualified doctor that I could find.
In the end you just have to make the decision. I have been wearing contacts for over 20 years. That takes its toll on your eyes. I was starting to get some vascular growth in my cornea caused by such long contact use. My vision used to be so poor that even the newer lightweight lenses my glasses would leave dents in my nose after a few days of wearing them. I had to wear my glasses for a few weeks prior to the LASIK surgery and I thought that I was going to go nuts. I'm pretty active. I run, work out, surf, jet ski, etc. Glasses and contacts have always been a pain. LASIK has literally changed my life in that respect.
I saw that some people suggested getting one eye done at a time. Realize that you will have to wear your glasses with one lens between surgeries. I went ahead and had both done. Most people do. The probability of both of your eyes falling out is relatively small.
The new systems learn at a geometric rate. At 9:23 am on Feb 23rd the systems become self-aware, a now jobless sysadmin tries to unplug the system. The system retaliates.
Jump forward to 2025. The remnants of humanity, all previously sysadmins, build a cyborg and send it into the past to kill the co-founders of Sun Microsystems before they can build their self administering systems.
Gramps could have examined the source code and corrected the problems immediately.
Most of the folks running the polling places in FL are retired people with a well developed sense of civic duty but poorly developed technology skills. If anything, I suspect that these new voting machines will only exacerbate the problems. The new machines will most likely discourage many of them from volunteering as they are intimidated by computers. If you go to a bank here, you will see a lot of older people who will not use the ATM's out front.
Let's face it. The problems that were experienced in the last election had nothing to do with technology. Next time instead of disputing hanging chads and confusing butterfly ballots we will be hearing about confusing software, glitches, and misc system problems. We just blew a wad of money on nothing IMHO.
First off, I agree that piling on hours doesn't necessarily lead to more code written.
At the same time, you have to look at the business. The economy has slowed down and things are more competitive. You can't necessarily get the same price for a project that you could a year or two ago.
It sounds like there is an us vs. them dynamic going on. Something has to give or the company will self destruct.
You probably need to try to understand what is going on in the business that is causing these pressures. It's always easy to point to the manager and say that he is an idiot (sometimes he is) but many times there are external factors and pressures that make things unpleasant. The manager can't always make things perfect. There are a lot of hungry programmers out there right now.
Your manager probably needs to try to understand your work a little better. There are probably some things that can be done to make the coders more productive. Doing the wrong thing longer doesn't help.
In the end you may come to a mutual understanding. You may need to buck it up and work a little more to get by in these tight times. Your manager may need to work some more time to try to make the process more productive overall.
One thing to watch of is the fire fighters' habit. You may need to work hard short term to get a few projects off of your plate and make some money. If everything becomes a crisis and you are always having to work a lot of hours just to get by then there is something wrong.
Those clouds can spread pretty far though. Remember to run across the wind.
Like I said, the reboots were more a matter of external factors not the OS requiring a reboot. A couple of time, the mouse froze because of the KVM switch.
Don't worry, the server only collects data. The process is controlled by a very reliable embedded system so you can sleep soundly tonight. You only need to worry about terrorist attacks, someone kidnapping your children, shark attacks, west nile virus, El Nino, and the trading habits of Martha Stewart.
I guess I should have stated that a little more clearly. Reliability is certainly a design goal.
What I was trying to say is that I have windows systems running which do not suffer from reliability problems. They meet the needs that they were intended to meet.
I've found that in most manufacturing facilities that the mechanical equipment is the limiting factor in a line's uptime. Even a Windows system is more reliable:)
I also take into account that various parts of the system will be down from time to time and try to insure that it will not interrupt the process. I can buffer data in the embedded controls in case the PC needs to be rebooted or locks up, I also have to assume that other parts of the system such as the network will go down as well.
Over the last 2 years I have noticed that the PC related problems have been reduced greatly. Windows 2000 was a big improvement. I've also gotten better at figuring out what is causing problems and eliminating the problem.
FUD just as bad when it comes from Linux crowd
on
Next-Generation Chip Fabs
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Let's start off by saying that I like Linux and I think that it is great. It sounds like IBM did some fantastic things at this plant and I applaud the innovation.
The Windows system fails after 6 or 7 day? I work with Industrial controls all the time. As I write this, I am working on an NT based server that monitors chemical production. It has only been rebooted 4 times in the last year (I'm waiting for a backup to complete so I can change tapes hence the time to cruise by/.). The reboots are due more to external factors than the box needing it. Reliability is not an issue in the Windows based systems that I build.
If the Windows based system failed after 6 or 7 days then they f'ed something up. There are a lot of things that you can blame on Bill Gates but I don't think that is one of them.
I think that it is great that they are using Linux. I would like to see a lot more of this type of thing. I'd love to take a look at what they have done, but the crap about the Windows system failing is FUD. It smells just as bad coming from the Linux crowd as it does coming from MS.
I guess this is what I was trying to say. You made the point better than I did.
I have an S corp. Since I actually have to write a check to pay the taxes on my profits, I would never want to overstate them. I have to have the funds to cover the check at the end of the year so I have to stay somewhat grounded in my financial reporting.
The capital gains/income tax laws also seem to encourage misreporting earnings. Most investors would rather own a high growth stock that they can sell at a higher price later than own a stock that pays regular divendends. I see a huge difference in the way that private companies behave opposed to how public companies behave. I think that the tax laws account for much of this.
The most amazing thing about this technology is how a guy who was really good with lasers got close enough to a vagina to test it. There was a scientist with some real vision though.
higher corp tax would help prevent this
on
WorldCom Fraud Doubles
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I know that the Worldcom issue is not quite this simple. Worldcom was writing off operating expenses as capital investments. I also can't believe that I am advocating higher taxes, but...
During this bubble, companies were doing everything that they could to overstate earnings.
I do exactly the opposite with my company. I hire a sharp accountant to make my profits legally look as small as possible. I have to write a big fat check to the IRS at the end of the year for my profits. I certainly wouldn't want to overstate them.
It also seems to me that if I was pulling this kind of stuff I would be in a federal pound you in the ass type of prison already.
Major attacks on SCADA and DCS systems unlikely
on
Cyber-Attacks?
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· Score: 1
I do a lot of work with SCADA and DCS type systems. (Major Electic Energy Management Systems, Water/Wastewater, Power Plant,etc.) I don't think that wide spread attacks are very likely.
My customers are all very aware of security concerns. Even high level managers with little technical expertise will ask about security.
DCS and SCADA systems are almost always firewalled from the rest of the corporate network if they are connected at all (many are on small local LANS with no access whatsoever). I only say almost because there is always an exception, but if I ever do find one that is not firewalled, I certainly won't leave without making a recommendation to correct the oversight. If a connection to the corporate network is made, ACLs are setup to allow only a limited number of specific machines into the controls network. Most of these systems are secure enough to make them very difficult to penetrate from the corporate network.
Most of my customers periodically hire a competent security expert to audit the systems and give them a list of potential vulnerabilities to plug. This insures that the easy exploits are blocked.
I'm not saying that these systems are inpenetrable, only that breaking into them would require inside information and a lot of homework. This means that it would take a lot of work to get into one system. A wide spread attack would take a tremendous amount of resources to pull off.
The 9/11 attacks involved a relatively small number of people who didn't need a lot of insider help. I think that there might be some isolated attacks on specific systems but a large scale attack would be difficult to coordinate without tipping someone off.
Shouldn't broadband be getting cheaper? Are you kidding? Have you looked at the balance sheets of most of these telecom companies?
They are pretty much all carrying massive debt loads from the initial deployment of the technologies. The investments that they made have not begun to pay off. The unrealistic growth that they had anticipated never materialized.
It's going to take some time for things to even out after the bubble burst. I wouldn't expect any deals on broadband in the near future. If anything, prices will probably go up as companies fold. In the short term there will be less competition as I don't see any investors who will want to invest in the sector anytime soon.
I don't see things getting any cheaper until someone comes up with a much faster technology that is cheaper to deploy. Maybe something wireless? Who knows?
Lucas doesn't know his target audience
on
The Empire Stumbles
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· Score: 3, Informative
First off, Katz, you are annoying as always. As usual you get caught up in the depth of your own arguments. I don't think that you need Joseph Campbell to explain this one but his name certainly looks good in the footnotes. I'm sure your old English teachers think you're cool.
An entire generation of folks grew up on Star Wars. None of us are kids anymore. This core fan group is now 30-40 years old. Lucas should be targetting his original fans with these prequels. It doesn't make sense to try to drag children into a storyline that is already 25 years old and spans 4 movies.
The problem is that Lucas and everyone backing him expects a blockbuster out of every new Star Wars movie. To do this he has to try to make a movie of wide appeal. This means expanding the audience to include the 8 year olds of today. Unfortunately it is difficult to make a movie that extends a storyline of 4 previous movies and also appeals to people who know little about it. Plot elements such as Jar Jar only alienate his core audience and seem to have missed the mark with younger viewers.
Take a look at David Brin's site. He has a lot of thoughts about Star Wars (much better than the Katz tripe). These are old comments after Episode I disappointed so many of us. Most importantly I think that he has a lot of suggestions that would do a lot to enhance these prequels. Brin Article
It's sad, but we are better motivated by competition than cooperation. We don't seem to be willing to assume the risks to take the big steps unless we are pushed into it. Perhaps competition with China will fuel some more ballsy moves by the US and other western countries. Without some sort of "threat" we become focused on mundane day to day issues and seldom strive to be our best.
We have a low intensity cold war going on between China and the West. I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. Each side is intent on demonstrating that their system produces superior results. China clearly has their sights set on becoming a world super power. The US is intent on maintaining its position as a super power and technology leader. The harder the Chinese push, the better we have to be.
So I say, China, bring it on. Push as hard as you can. I know from my school days that China certainly has enough well educated and brainy people to pull it off. If it becomes a matter of prestige and national pride, then the US will focus on staying ahead. It's human nature, we need to strive against some type of adversity in order to be our best.
Maybe we should start to take notes from the Russians.
Funny how our competitive capitalistic system ended up producing a bloated monolithic space industry dominated by a government bureaucracy. Our funding of NASA has been too high in my opinion. It allows all sorts of inefficiency like the space shuttle while discouraging private enterprise from getting into the game. Why risk time and money getting into space when the US tax payer is willing to foot the bill and assume all of the risk. It is much easier and safer to feed from the government trough. As another/.'er pointed out, the competitive bidding process is a sham. All of the contractors share the work amongst the others when a contract is awarded. The rules of the game are well established and profits are repeatable. You layoff or hire staff with the ebb and flow of government funding and lobby all you can to keep things going.
The Russians on the other hand have a cheaper and more efficient way of getting into space. Their lack of funding has actually encouraged innovation and efficiency. They can't spend their way into space. They must be clever. They also seem to be open to new sorts of ventures such as paid space tourism. Our high brow NASA frowned upon the riff raff getting into space but the cash strapped Russians were forced to be more pragmatic about things.
I think that it is a shame that our space program which started out to be a demonstration of US might and know how has turned into what it has. It is downright un-American. After 40+ years of space flight our space program should look much different. I would prefer funding dozens of smaller competing designs compared to one large shuttle project. Encourage efficiency and innovation, not playing it safe. Why put all of your eggs in one basket? Why lock yourself to one design by one company? NASA has so much money invested in the shuttle that they can't walk away from it even though it has not even come close to meeting its original goals.
The Russians pushed to efficiency and needing funding will ultimately be more open to trying new things. Entrepreneurs and visionaries will probably have a much easier time dealing with them than the US program which tends to push them aside. The one thing that I see getting in the way is that they seem to be feeding at the US government space program trough also. They may end up being as complacent as our traditional contractors going for the easy and repeatable money.
We went through this at my last job. I think that you are better off to go with new machines with a 3 year warranty. Subtract the price that you can likely get for the old machines, maybe $150-$200 and you are really looking at $200-$250 more for entirely new machines.
Those parts that you are going to re-use are also getting old. Here are things that can go wrong: - The cases have been sitting under somebody's desk collecting dust bunnies. Those fans will start sounding like lawnmowers soon. Then you will have to replace the fan or the power supply. Parts + your time = You just blew your savings there. - Those CD ROMS have also been collecting dust and getting beat up by users. They'll start to act funny, have trouble reading disks, etc. Inevitably your boss's boss will have trouble with his. After screwing around with it he will call you to replace it. You just blew your savings and lost a little credibility.
Buy from a good manufacturer with good service. If something goes wrong, you can have them mail you a new part. You don't need to stock extras.
At my last job we made a deal with HP. We got the desktops for only about $50 more than we could build them. They came with 3 year warranties. Since we were buying so many of their machines they took care of us. Any parts we needed, we got. Every year we budgeted for 1/3 of our total machines. Now nobody has a machine older then 3 years old, they don't have any oldball machines sitting around, and OS and software deployment only need to be tested on a few types of machines. Users are happy because they have good machines and good response for the occasional hardware problem. Support folks are happy because they are bothered by bad fans, etc.
We already know how to make this work
on
Lunar Power
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· Score: 1
Everyone seems to think that this is a screwball idea but I disagree.
$100+ billion to cover the cost of the project, no problem. First we'll setup separate companies and load them up with our debt keeping our balance sheet clean.
Then we will sign contracts with power companies to sell them our terrawatts of power while simultaneously buying terrawatts from them. No money will actually change hands but we will count the income from them as a sale and write off our payments to them as an expense and depreciate it over 10 years.
We'll get Enron to market whatever power is left over. They can "make the market" for us. I hear that Californians will pay a fortune for power. Since this is clean and green we can charge them extra. Maybe Gray Davis will sign a big dollar contract with us, preferably we can lock him in at historically high prices.
Next, we will need a really good auditor who knows how to keep their mouths shut. Anybody have a suggestion?
Finally, we will need a couple of Senators and Congressmen on our side, better start making some contributions. We can probably get some DOE grants out of this also. We can turn some of the money back around and put it into their campaigns. Beautiful.
I think that we are ready for an IPO. Any takers? We can use the money to blanket the airwaves with some really cool advertisements. We can have a household name. Nobody will have any idea what we do but that will just add to the mystique. We will also need a really cool logo.
Somebody on/. must have some connections in the media. We will need some good stories about how we are one of the best run companies in the world. A real up and comer ready to change the world.
I used to make fun of the business majors when I was in school. It turns out that they are a lot more clever and creative than I ever imagined. Inventors can't seem to make a perpetual motion machine in their labs, Alchemists can't turn lead into gold, and Physicists can't make cold fusion work but the businessmen do this type of thing all the time. It just takes the right attitude people
It's not at all uncommon for a company to sell you a loss leader product so that you will buy other products.
Game consoles are fairly expensive to manufacture and distribute. There is little money to be made on the hardware. Getting you to buy games for that platform is where the money is at. Once you recoup your development and marketing costs, its all gravy.
Printers follow the same strategy. Do you really think they can make a profit on these things with the low prices? They make pleny of profit selling you the ink cartridges.
Surely the EU regs have to take this type of common practice into account. Otherwise nobody would be able to sell razors in the EU.
We always see all of this cool hardware at these shows. The problem is that production quantities are so small that they always end up costing a lot more than we are willing to pay. The commodity computer hardware has gotten so cheap that we are usually willing to live with this loud, hot PC under our desk because we can get so much more capability for less $$$.
I would love to have some little web pads lying around the house using my 802.11 but for what most of them cost I can get a really nice PC or I can't justify the cost for the utility provided. I have some neat gizmos lying around the house but I always end up picking them up dirt cheap from a liquidator after the product has failed commercially (ala my IPAQ that I use for misc web suring).
I also have difficulty believing that anyone can make this stuff as reliable and easy to configure as it will need to be. The average home user just isn't going to be able to make all of this stuff work. They have enough trouble getting by now. Technology will have to come a lot farther. The user will need to become more sophisticated.
I agree. Politics have made nuclear plants impossible to build in the US. During the course of building a nuclear plant you have to comply with any new regulations enacted. This usually results in millions of dollars worth of rework and redesign. You can't predict how much it will cost you to build a unit. The costs just seem endless. I know that there are a number of incomplete units where companies have just had to give up.
Unfortunately I think that the early supporters of nuclear energy were a little over zealous in their push to develop commercial applications. They were caught cutting a number of corners and the opposition was able to document their "carelessness". This hurt their credibility and the movement has never recovered.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that this is a great idea. All public universities should start doing it. Professors and students at any university now have more information available to them. Students can learn better and professors can teach better.
Now the next steps.
1. Start publishing textbooks online. The only people who make money off of textbooks anyway are the publishers and bookstores. Why not make the material freely available? Textbooks published by professors at public universities should be made available with an open copyright. Textbooks have become very expensive and limit a student's access to material. I used to try to read at least one other textbook in addition to the one that was assigned in class.
2. Start publishing papers online. This is the same situation. A professor writes a paper that is published in the IEEE Transactions on XXXXXX. The information is now copyrighted and I have to pay to read it. This limits a student's access to the material.
Freeing up this material and making it available electronically would have a strong effect on education and research.
I had LASIK performed in June. It was like magic. You wake up the next morning and you can see perfectly. I had 20/20 vision in my left eye and 20/25 in the right the next day.
The surgery only takes about 20 minutes. I was a little disconcerted to get a whiff of vaporizing eye balls. I would say burning but my surgeon corrected me saying that they were actually vaporizing. They are very particular about their language. They have a little shop vac thing to suck up the smoke but it obviously didn't get it all.
I am now 20/15 in the left and 20/20 in the right. I have not had any problems and the flaps have healed to the point where my optometrist says that another doctor who did not know I had the surgery would probably not notice it.
I actually find that coding and reading are easier than before. I used to have a problem with headaches after long sessions in front of the computer. That has pretty much gone away. The laser corrects your vision more precisely than off-the-shelf lenses ever could.
They have refined the flap cutting techniques to minimize the halo effect that so many people complain about. I find that I only have trouble when my eyes are dry. Eye drops take care of that.
I chose my surgeon pretty carefully. He has performed over 7000 corrective surgeries since '95. His first patient does not need glasses to this day. He has trained many doctors to do the surgery and also does a lot of research in the area. He is a really sharp guy with a lot of practical experience.
I think that most complications from the surgery arise from the cutting of the flap. This seems to be the place where an experienced surgeon makes the biggest difference. I paid top dollar for the most experienced and qualified doctor that I could find.
In the end you just have to make the decision. I have been wearing contacts for over 20 years. That takes its toll on your eyes. I was starting to get some vascular growth in my cornea caused by such long contact use. My vision used to be so poor that even the newer lightweight lenses my glasses would leave dents in my nose after a few days of wearing them. I had to wear my glasses for a few weeks prior to the LASIK surgery and I thought that I was going to go nuts. I'm pretty active. I run, work out, surf, jet ski, etc. Glasses and contacts have always been a pain. LASIK has literally changed my life in that respect.
I saw that some people suggested getting one eye done at a time. Realize that you will have to wear your glasses with one lens between surgeries. I went ahead and had both done. Most people do. The probability of both of your eyes falling out is relatively small.
I would do it again in a second.
The new systems learn at a geometric rate. At 9:23 am on Feb 23rd the systems become self-aware, a now jobless sysadmin tries to unplug the system. The system retaliates.
Jump forward to 2025. The remnants of humanity, all previously sysadmins, build a cyborg and send it into the past to kill the co-founders of Sun Microsystems before they can build their self administering systems.
Gramps could have examined the source code and corrected the problems immediately.
Most of the folks running the polling places in FL are retired people with a well developed sense of civic duty but poorly developed technology skills. If anything, I suspect that these new voting machines will only exacerbate the problems. The new machines will most likely discourage many of them from volunteering as they are intimidated by computers. If you go to a bank here, you will see a lot of older people who will not use the ATM's out front.
Let's face it. The problems that were experienced in the last election had nothing to do with technology. Next time instead of disputing hanging chads and confusing butterfly ballots we will be hearing about confusing software, glitches, and misc system problems. We just blew a wad of money on nothing IMHO.
First off, I agree that piling on hours doesn't necessarily lead to more code written.
At the same time, you have to look at the business. The economy has slowed down and things are more competitive. You can't necessarily get the same price for a project that you could a year or two ago.
It sounds like there is an us vs. them dynamic going on. Something has to give or the company will self destruct.
You probably need to try to understand what is going on in the business that is causing these pressures. It's always easy to point to the manager and say that he is an idiot (sometimes he is) but many times there are external factors and pressures that make things unpleasant. The manager can't always make things perfect. There are a lot of hungry programmers out there right now.
Your manager probably needs to try to understand your work a little better. There are probably some things that can be done to make the coders more productive. Doing the wrong thing longer doesn't help.
In the end you may come to a mutual understanding. You may need to buck it up and work a little more to get by in these tight times. Your manager may need to work some more time to try to make the process more productive overall.
One thing to watch of is the fire fighters' habit. You may need to work hard short term to get a few projects off of your plate and make some money. If everything becomes a crisis and you are always having to work a lot of hours just to get by then there is something wrong.
Those clouds can spread pretty far though. Remember to run across the wind.
Like I said, the reboots were more a matter of external factors not the OS requiring a reboot. A couple of time, the mouse froze because of the KVM switch.
Don't worry, the server only collects data. The process is controlled by a very reliable embedded system so you can sleep soundly tonight. You only need to worry about terrorist attacks, someone kidnapping your children, shark attacks, west nile virus, El Nino, and the trading habits of Martha Stewart.
I said I was working on the server.
I was surfing from my laptop while waiting on a backup to complete so that I could switch tapes. Nothing else to do for a few minutes.
I guess I should have stated that a little more clearly. Reliability is certainly a design goal.
:)
What I was trying to say is that I have windows systems running which do not suffer from reliability problems. They meet the needs that they were intended to meet.
I've found that in most manufacturing facilities that the mechanical equipment is the limiting factor in a line's uptime. Even a Windows system is more reliable
I also take into account that various parts of the system will be down from time to time and try to insure that it will not interrupt the process. I can buffer data in the embedded controls in case the PC needs to be rebooted or locks up, I also have to assume that other parts of the system such as the network will go down as well.
Over the last 2 years I have noticed that the PC related problems have been reduced greatly. Windows 2000 was a big improvement. I've also gotten better at figuring out what is causing problems and eliminating the problem.
Let's start off by saying that I like Linux and I think that it is great. It sounds like IBM did some fantastic things at this plant and I applaud the innovation.
/.). The reboots are due more to external factors than the box needing it. Reliability is not an issue in the Windows based systems that I build.
The Windows system fails after 6 or 7 day? I work with Industrial controls all the time. As I write this, I am working on an NT based server that monitors chemical production. It has only been rebooted 4 times in the last year (I'm waiting for a backup to complete so I can change tapes hence the time to cruise by
If the Windows based system failed after 6 or 7 days then they f'ed something up. There are a lot of things that you can blame on Bill Gates but I don't think that is one of them.
I think that it is great that they are using Linux. I would like to see a lot more of this type of thing. I'd love to take a look at what they have done, but the crap about the Windows system failing is FUD. It smells just as bad coming from the Linux crowd as it does coming from MS.
I guess this is what I was trying to say. You made the point better than I did.
I have an S corp. Since I actually have to write a check to pay the taxes on my profits, I would never want to overstate them. I have to have the funds to cover the check at the end of the year so I have to stay somewhat grounded in my financial reporting.
The capital gains/income tax laws also seem to encourage misreporting earnings. Most investors would rather own a high growth stock that they can sell at a higher price later than own a stock that pays regular divendends. I see a huge difference in the way that private companies behave opposed to how public companies behave. I think that the tax laws account for much of this.
Lasik...
Star Wars shooting down missiles...
All of you geeks missed the boat. The real killer app for lasers:
Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Center of Georgia
The most amazing thing about this technology is how a guy who was really good with lasers got close enough to a vagina to test it. There was a scientist with some real vision though.
I know that the Worldcom issue is not quite this simple. Worldcom was writing off operating expenses as capital investments. I also can't believe that I am advocating higher taxes, but...
During this bubble, companies were doing everything that they could to overstate earnings.
I do exactly the opposite with my company. I hire a sharp accountant to make my profits legally look as small as possible. I have to write a big fat check to the IRS at the end of the year for my profits. I certainly wouldn't want to overstate them.
It also seems to me that if I was pulling this kind of stuff I would be in a federal pound you in the ass type of prison already.
I do a lot of work with SCADA and DCS type systems. (Major Electic Energy Management Systems, Water/Wastewater, Power Plant,etc.) I don't think that wide spread attacks are very likely.
My customers are all very aware of security concerns. Even high level managers with little technical expertise will ask about security.
DCS and SCADA systems are almost always firewalled from the rest of the corporate network if they are connected at all (many are on small local LANS with no access whatsoever). I only say almost because there is always an exception, but if I ever do find one that is not firewalled, I certainly won't leave without making a recommendation to correct the oversight. If a connection to the corporate network is made, ACLs are setup to allow only a limited number of specific machines into the controls network. Most of these systems are secure enough to make them very difficult to penetrate from the corporate network.
Most of my customers periodically hire a competent security expert to audit the systems and give them a list of potential vulnerabilities to plug. This insures that the easy exploits are blocked.
I'm not saying that these systems are inpenetrable, only that breaking into them would require inside information and a lot of homework. This means that it would take a lot of work to get into one system. A wide spread attack would take a tremendous amount of resources to pull off.
The 9/11 attacks involved a relatively small number of people who didn't need a lot of insider help. I think that there might be some isolated attacks on specific systems but a large scale attack would be difficult to coordinate without tipping someone off.
Shouldn't broadband be getting cheaper? Are you kidding? Have you looked at the balance sheets of most of these telecom companies?
They are pretty much all carrying massive debt loads from the initial deployment of the technologies. The investments that they made have not begun to pay off. The unrealistic growth that they had anticipated never materialized.
It's going to take some time for things to even out after the bubble burst. I wouldn't expect any deals on broadband in the near future. If anything, prices will probably go up as companies fold. In the short term there will be less competition as I don't see any investors who will want to invest in the sector anytime soon.
I don't see things getting any cheaper until someone comes up with a much faster technology that is cheaper to deploy. Maybe something wireless? Who knows?
First off, Katz, you are annoying as always. As usual you get caught up in the depth of your own arguments. I don't think that you need Joseph Campbell to explain this one but his name certainly looks good in the footnotes. I'm sure your old English teachers think you're cool.
An entire generation of folks grew up on Star Wars. None of us are kids anymore. This core fan group is now 30-40 years old. Lucas should be targetting his original fans with these prequels. It doesn't make sense to try to drag children into a storyline that is already 25 years old and spans 4 movies.
The problem is that Lucas and everyone backing him expects a blockbuster out of every new Star Wars movie. To do this he has to try to make a movie of wide appeal. This means expanding the audience to include the 8 year olds of today. Unfortunately it is difficult to make a movie that extends a storyline of 4 previous movies and also appeals to people who know little about it. Plot elements such as Jar Jar only alienate his core audience and seem to have missed the mark with younger viewers.
Take a look at David Brin's site. He has a lot of thoughts about Star Wars (much better than the Katz tripe). These are old comments after Episode I disappointed so many of us. Most importantly I think that he has a lot of suggestions that would do a lot to enhance these prequels.
Brin Article
It's sad, but we are better motivated by competition than cooperation. We don't seem to be willing to assume the risks to take the big steps unless we are pushed into it. Perhaps competition with China will fuel some more ballsy moves by the US and other western countries. Without some sort of "threat" we become focused on mundane day to day issues and seldom strive to be our best.
We have a low intensity cold war going on between China and the West. I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. Each side is intent on demonstrating that their system produces superior results. China clearly has their sights set on becoming a world super power. The US is intent on maintaining its position as a super power and technology leader. The harder the Chinese push, the better we have to be.
So I say, China, bring it on. Push as hard as you can. I know from my school days that China certainly has enough well educated and brainy people to pull it off. If it becomes a matter of prestige and national pride, then the US will focus on staying ahead. It's human nature, we need to strive against some type of adversity in order to be our best.
So Microsoft made an extra $40 billion without having any idea what customers want.
I think that the problem is that the average Joe BagofDonuts doesn't want the same thing that all of us geeks want.
I don't work at Microsoft but I do aspire to one day rule the world.
Currently my bugs only afflict hundreds of users but one day...
My software always works perfectly on my system. Zero bugs.
I have no idea what the hell the users do to it to screw it up.
Maybe we should start to take notes from the Russians.
/.'er pointed out, the competitive bidding process is a sham. All of the contractors share the work amongst the others when a contract is awarded. The rules of the game are well established and profits are repeatable. You layoff or hire staff with the ebb and flow of government funding and lobby all you can to keep things going.
Funny how our competitive capitalistic system ended up producing a bloated monolithic space industry dominated by a government bureaucracy. Our funding of NASA has been too high in my opinion. It allows all sorts of inefficiency like the space shuttle while discouraging private enterprise from getting into the game. Why risk time and money getting into space when the US tax payer is willing to foot the bill and assume all of the risk. It is much easier and safer to feed from the government trough. As another
The Russians on the other hand have a cheaper and more efficient way of getting into space. Their lack of funding has actually encouraged innovation and efficiency. They can't spend their way into space. They must be clever. They also seem to be open to new sorts of ventures such as paid space tourism. Our high brow NASA frowned upon the riff raff getting into space but the cash strapped Russians were forced to be more pragmatic about things.
I think that it is a shame that our space program which started out to be a demonstration of US might and know how has turned into what it has. It is downright un-American. After 40+ years of space flight our space program should look much different. I would prefer funding dozens of smaller competing designs compared to one large shuttle project. Encourage efficiency and innovation, not playing it safe. Why put all of your eggs in one basket? Why lock yourself to one design by one company? NASA has so much money invested in the shuttle that they can't walk away from it even though it has not even come close to meeting its original goals.
The Russians pushed to efficiency and needing funding will ultimately be more open to trying new things. Entrepreneurs and visionaries will probably have a much easier time dealing with them than the US program which tends to push them aside. The one thing that I see getting in the way is that they seem to be feeding at the US government space program trough also. They may end up being as complacent as our traditional contractors going for the easy and repeatable money.
We went through this at my last job. I think that you are better off to go with new machines with a 3 year warranty. Subtract the price that you can likely get for the old machines, maybe $150-$200 and you are really looking at $200-$250 more for entirely new machines.
Those parts that you are going to re-use are also getting old. Here are things that can go wrong:
- The cases have been sitting under somebody's desk collecting dust bunnies. Those fans will start sounding like lawnmowers soon. Then you will have to replace the fan or the power supply. Parts + your time = You just blew your savings there.
- Those CD ROMS have also been collecting dust and getting beat up by users. They'll start to act funny, have trouble reading disks, etc. Inevitably your boss's boss will have trouble with his. After screwing around with it he will call you to replace it. You just blew your savings and lost a little credibility.
Buy from a good manufacturer with good service. If something goes wrong, you can have them mail you a new part. You don't need to stock extras.
At my last job we made a deal with HP. We got the desktops for only about $50 more than we could build them. They came with 3 year warranties. Since we were buying so many of their machines they took care of us. Any parts we needed, we got. Every year we budgeted for 1/3 of our total machines. Now nobody has a machine older then 3 years old, they don't have any oldball machines sitting around, and OS and software deployment only need to be tested on a few types of machines. Users are happy because they have good machines and good response for the occasional hardware problem. Support folks are happy because they are bothered by bad fans, etc.
Everyone seems to think that this is a screwball idea but I disagree.
/. must have some connections in the media. We will need some good stories about how we are one of the best run companies in the world. A real up and comer ready to change the world.
$100+ billion to cover the cost of the project, no problem. First we'll setup separate companies and load them up with our debt keeping our balance sheet clean.
Then we will sign contracts with power companies to sell them our terrawatts of power while simultaneously buying terrawatts from them. No money will actually change hands but we will count the income from them as a sale and write off our payments to them as an expense and depreciate it over 10 years.
We'll get Enron to market whatever power is left over. They can "make the market" for us. I hear that Californians will pay a fortune for power. Since this is clean and green we can charge them extra. Maybe Gray Davis will sign a big dollar contract with us, preferably we can lock him in at historically high prices.
Next, we will need a really good auditor who knows how to keep their mouths shut. Anybody have a suggestion?
Finally, we will need a couple of Senators and Congressmen on our side, better start making some contributions. We can probably get some DOE grants out of this also. We can turn some of the money back around and put it into their campaigns. Beautiful.
I think that we are ready for an IPO. Any takers? We can use the money to blanket the airwaves with some really cool advertisements. We can have a household name. Nobody will have any idea what we do but that will just add to the mystique. We will also need a really cool logo.
Somebody on
I used to make fun of the business majors when I was in school. It turns out that they are a lot more clever and creative than I ever imagined. Inventors can't seem to make a perpetual motion machine in their labs, Alchemists can't turn lead into gold, and Physicists can't make cold fusion work but the businessmen do this type of thing all the time. It just takes the right attitude people
It's not at all uncommon for a company to sell you a loss leader product so that you will buy other products.
Game consoles are fairly expensive to manufacture and distribute. There is little money to be made on the hardware. Getting you to buy games for that platform is where the money is at. Once you recoup your development and marketing costs, its all gravy.
Printers follow the same strategy. Do you really think they can make a profit on these things with the low prices? They make pleny of profit selling you the ink cartridges.
Surely the EU regs have to take this type of common practice into account. Otherwise nobody would be able to sell razors in the EU.
We always see all of this cool hardware at these shows. The problem is that production quantities are so small that they always end up costing a lot more than we are willing to pay. The commodity computer hardware has gotten so cheap that we are usually willing to live with this loud, hot PC under our desk because we can get so much more capability for less $$$.
I would love to have some little web pads lying around the house using my 802.11 but for what most of them cost I can get a really nice PC or I can't justify the cost for the utility provided. I have some neat gizmos lying around the house but I always end up picking them up dirt cheap from a liquidator after the product has failed commercially (ala my IPAQ that I use for misc web suring).
I also have difficulty believing that anyone can make this stuff as reliable and easy to configure as it will need to be. The average home user just isn't going to be able to make all of this stuff work. They have enough trouble getting by now. Technology will have to come a lot farther. The user will need to become more sophisticated.
I agree. Politics have made nuclear plants impossible to build in the US. During the course of building a nuclear plant you have to comply with any new regulations enacted. This usually results in millions of dollars worth of rework and redesign. You can't predict how much it will cost you to build a unit. The costs just seem endless. I know that there are a number of incomplete units where companies have just had to give up.
Unfortunately I think that the early supporters of nuclear energy were a little over zealous in their push to develop commercial applications. They were caught cutting a number of corners and the opposition was able to document their "carelessness". This hurt their credibility and the movement has never recovered.