If all you're doing is destroying a tree, then axes, chainsaws and even dynamite may be applicable. However, if you're trying to build something, say carve a totem pole, then you would selectively use both axes and chainsaws to accomplish this. Use axes when you need precision, chainsaws when you want brute force.
One of my favorite terms is "Parotting". It refers to the behavior of most marketing/sales people who spit out acronyms and words that they have heard someone else say, but that they know nothing about. However, it can and is often used to describe technical people who jump on new buzzwords. Often times the people I see most passionate about patterns are the ones who are clueless to good programming. You see, the language of patterns lets them at least "talk the talk", even if they can't "walk the walk".
If you enjoy this kind of stuff, then read "Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds" by Charles MacKay.
Now about bubbles in IT. Some of you may recall the bubble that grew in the early to mid '80s in the pc industry. Pundits were predicting pc's in every home. According to them, mom would be able to track her recipes and dad would be able to balance his checkbook. Unfortunately, pc's back then cost ~$2.5k which was quite a bit of money. To put it into perspective, my Apple II+ was the single largest purchase we made after the home and car. Mom's recipes turned out not to be *that* valuable to keep and dad found he had nothing in his bank account to reconcile after buying the pc. The industry buildup around selling tons of pc's created a bubble which crashed around 1985-6. Of course, the stock market crash of 1987 put the nail in the coffin.
But the predictions were right. The pc market rebounded in a big way and pc's are now ubiquitous. The big difference between tulips and pc's is that tulips have no intrinsic value and are static entities. PC's on the other hand can do many things for you and are able to adapt to new uses. Hence many years later, pc sales zoomed in the 90's with the advance of the Internet.
So a pc bubble grew and burst in the 90's, but pc's came back. An internet bubble grew and burst in the 90's.... and I fully expect a number of Internet dotcoms to come back strong! B2C, B2B and C2C all have value and in the coming years we're going to see the companies that focused on product and earnings really shine.
Will there be another tech bubble.... oh most definitely!
The other day I was ready to do the self-checkout at Home Depot when I noticed that all the terminals had crashed and were being rebooted. I had to go to another line that had a meat puppet running the register. Microsoft, thanks for bringing your sh*tty reliability to yet another platform.
I've been working in the software industry for... well, let's just say a while... and after having worked with many languages it was readily apparent that Java would gain momentum. It has a lot of benefits for businesses and individuals.
As far as computer science programs, the fact that Java has classes, gui, networking and documentation built-in makes it a natural candidate for teaching students.
Yes, companies spread their money around to influence students and Sun probably did some spreading. But Java has a lot of advantages that make it attractive to both business and academia even without anyone doing any marketing.
How much does it cost me, as an individual, to use a cell phone in Europe versus the US? Call time per user and other stats are neat... I guess, but the stat that most interests me is the price per minute I have to pay.
Could someone explain why Amazon and other on-line retailers are not held to the same standards as their brick-n-mortar counterparts with respect to this?
Back when I was architecting eMarkets, I seem to recall that credit card processors (visa, mastercard, etc.) wouldn't allow online merchants to actually charge a buyer's card until the item was actually shipped. So the merchant would first do a pre-authorization for the purchase amount and then do an actual charge when it left their warehouses.
It could be the loophole that Amazon is using when they state that there is no actual 'contract' until the item is shipped.
You would have made a good captain on the Titanic. I can see you now, "We're not going to start lowering lifeboats until I see water on the bridge. This ship is damn well unsinkable. Otherwise, bugger off with your concern about this little leak!"
Oh, and uhm, life did and does still persist on the Titanic.... it's just not of the human kind.
I'm not sure how you can consider the article complete bunk if you've had a sufficient college physics class that covered the particle-wave duality of electromagnetic waves.
In your example, it's true that your eyes can't discern the difference between the signals and this is classically how we've viewed radio detectors. However, the information in the signals is not lost - you're ability to detect between them is altered, but the photons themselves are unaltered.
If you switch to a different type of sensor or encoding scheme - for example, utilize frequency hopping (aka spread spectrum) then you could easily broadcast the two signals over the same range of frequencies (colors).
Overall the article has a lot of merit in providing a different and, in my mind, compelling metaphor of bandwidth as colors as opposed to the classical bandwidth as land. As to his ideas of limitless bandwidth being true, the idea is beyond my ability to see how this is feasible, but that does not detract from his idea that we could actually be communicating a LOT more over the current spectrum than we are today.
I couldn't connect to the server... I think the distributed mirror's been slashdotted. Does anyone have a mirror for the distributed mirror?
Re:That's not really the problem.
on
NYT on RFID Tags
·
· Score: 2, Funny
The fact that they continue to work for a very long time and the fact that they are, or can be, completely unique means that a store can identify YOU by your panties.
I think the term, "going commando", will take on a whole new meaning.
By your reasoning, the war taking place in Europe from 1914-1918 was already named World War I by the participants. They were aware that this naming scheme was easily extended to incorporate future conflicts such was WWII, WWIII, etc.
But, if memory serves me correctly, this war was actually called "the big war" or "the war to end all wars" by its participants. It was only years later, when WW II erupted that they renamed the earlier conflict to WW I.
Over 100 years hindsight is 20/20. I think the goal of this technology is to provide hindsight over a span of days/weeks/months.
You're right that Microsoft has patience where others do not, but they've only ever succeeded where they've been able to create a legal/illegal choke point in distribution or had marginal (only compared to their monopoly products) success in products which are closely linked or can leverage their monopoly products.
I may not know enough about their plans, but I don't see the distribution choke point in gaming. The best bet is trying to buy the biggest game developers - which is what Microsoft appears to be trying to do - but even then, a new game developer can come out of nowhere and write a hit game for your competitor's platform. It's just so unpredictable compared to the controlled windows distribution scheme with the OEM's.
I actually think Microsoft has a better chance with the home media market with their close ties to the RIAA and MPAA due to DRM technology. The RIAA is intimately aware of the power of choke points on pricing and profit. There was never a question about whether they and Microsoft would get into bed.... the only question was which one would have to sleep in the wet spot.
RISC OS is a windows-and-mouse based operating system to compete with Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux in an increasingly computer-orientated world.
What cheeky little bastards they are to pirate linux code in an effort to compete with linux.
How about spending billions to save millions from AIDS... only to have them die anyway of famine, civil war or another infectious disease? Africa has many problems which can't be solved with 30 second sound bites promising to throw money at the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
If all you're doing is destroying a tree, then axes, chainsaws and even dynamite may be applicable. However, if you're trying to build something, say carve a totem pole, then you would selectively use both axes and chainsaws to accomplish this. Use axes when you need precision, chainsaws when you want brute force.
One of my favorite terms is "Parotting". It refers to the behavior of most marketing/sales people who spit out acronyms and words that they have heard someone else say, but that they know nothing about. However, it can and is often used to describe technical people who jump on new buzzwords. Often times the people I see most passionate about patterns are the ones who are clueless to good programming. You see, the language of patterns lets them at least "talk the talk", even if they can't "walk the walk".
backseat = lower insurance premiums
It's a Good Thing!(tm)
If you enjoy this kind of stuff, then read "Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds" by Charles MacKay.
.... and I fully expect a number of Internet dotcoms to come back strong! B2C, B2B and C2C all have value and in the coming years we're going to see the companies that focused on product and earnings really shine.
.... oh most definitely!
Now about bubbles in IT. Some of you may recall the bubble that grew in the early to mid '80s in the pc industry. Pundits were predicting pc's in every home. According to them, mom would be able to track her recipes and dad would be able to balance his checkbook. Unfortunately, pc's back then cost ~$2.5k which was quite a bit of money. To put it into perspective, my Apple II+ was the single largest purchase we made after the home and car. Mom's recipes turned out not to be *that* valuable to keep and dad found he had nothing in his bank account to reconcile after buying the pc. The industry buildup around selling tons of pc's created a bubble which crashed around 1985-6. Of course, the stock market crash of 1987 put the nail in the coffin.
But the predictions were right. The pc market rebounded in a big way and pc's are now ubiquitous. The big difference between tulips and pc's is that tulips have no intrinsic value and are static entities. PC's on the other hand can do many things for you and are able to adapt to new uses. Hence many years later, pc sales zoomed in the 90's with the advance of the Internet.
So a pc bubble grew and burst in the 90's, but pc's came back. An internet bubble grew and burst in the 90's
Will there be another tech bubble
The other day I was ready to do the self-checkout at Home Depot when I noticed that all the terminals had crashed and were being rebooted. I had to go to another line that had a meat puppet running the register. Microsoft, thanks for bringing your sh*tty reliability to yet another platform.
This is when you root for a Pyrrhic victory.
I've been working in the software industry for ... well, let's just say a while ... and after having worked with many languages it was readily apparent that Java would gain momentum. It has a lot of benefits for businesses and individuals.
As far as computer science programs, the fact that Java has classes, gui, networking and documentation built-in makes it a natural candidate for teaching students.
Yes, companies spread their money around to influence students and Sun probably did some spreading. But Java has a lot of advantages that make it attractive to both business and academia even without anyone doing any marketing.
You're implying that Sun paid universities to adopt Java? Care to back that up with some references?
Now that's funny!!!
Where are my mod points when I need them?
How much does it cost me, as an individual, to use a cell phone in Europe versus the US? Call time per user and other stats are neat ... I guess, but the stat that most interests me is the price per minute I have to pay.
Your timing was off, submit it again so they can post the dupe.
LOL. Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's not like there's any chance that an H1B worker was actually more qualified than an available American worker.
<whisper>Right???</whisper>
Back when I was architecting eMarkets, I seem to recall that credit card processors (visa, mastercard, etc.) wouldn't allow online merchants to actually charge a buyer's card until the item was actually shipped. So the merchant would first do a pre-authorization for the purchase amount and then do an actual charge when it left their warehouses.
It could be the loophole that Amazon is using when they state that there is no actual 'contract' until the item is shipped.
You would have made a good captain on the Titanic. I can see you now, "We're not going to start lowering lifeboats until I see water on the bridge. This ship is damn well unsinkable. Otherwise, bugger off with your concern about this little leak!"
.... it's just not of the human kind.
Oh, and uhm, life did and does still persist on the Titanic
I'm not sure how you can consider the article complete bunk if you've had a sufficient college physics class that covered the particle-wave duality of electromagnetic waves.
In your example, it's true that your eyes can't discern the difference between the signals and this is classically how we've viewed radio detectors. However, the information in the signals is not lost - you're ability to detect between them is altered, but the photons themselves are unaltered.
If you switch to a different type of sensor or encoding scheme - for example, utilize frequency hopping (aka spread spectrum) then you could easily broadcast the two signals over the same range of frequencies (colors).
Overall the article has a lot of merit in providing a different and, in my mind, compelling metaphor of bandwidth as colors as opposed to the classical bandwidth as land. As to his ideas of limitless bandwidth being true, the idea is beyond my ability to see how this is feasible, but that does not detract from his idea that we could actually be communicating a LOT more over the current spectrum than we are today.
I couldn't connect to the server ... I think the distributed mirror's been slashdotted. Does anyone have a mirror for the distributed mirror?
I think the term, "going commando", will take on a whole new meaning.
By your reasoning, the war taking place in Europe from 1914-1918 was already named World War I by the participants. They were aware that this naming scheme was easily extended to incorporate future conflicts such was WWII, WWIII, etc.
But, if memory serves me correctly, this war was actually called "the big war" or "the war to end all wars" by its participants. It was only years later, when WW II erupted that they renamed the earlier conflict to WW I.
Over 100 years hindsight is 20/20. I think the goal of this technology is to provide hindsight over a span of days/weeks/months.
Okay the "big picture" college profs should be showing you is this one.
You're right that Microsoft has patience where others do not, but they've only ever succeeded where they've been able to create a legal/illegal choke point in distribution or had marginal (only compared to their monopoly products) success in products which are closely linked or can leverage their monopoly products.
.... the only question was which one would have to sleep in the wet spot.
I may not know enough about their plans, but I don't see the distribution choke point in gaming. The best bet is trying to buy the biggest game developers - which is what Microsoft appears to be trying to do - but even then, a new game developer can come out of nowhere and write a hit game for your competitor's platform. It's just so unpredictable compared to the controlled windows distribution scheme with the OEM's.
I actually think Microsoft has a better chance with the home media market with their close ties to the RIAA and MPAA due to DRM technology. The RIAA is intimately aware of the power of choke points on pricing and profit. There was never a question about whether they and Microsoft would get into bed
Well it looks like the broad brushing of the mob mentality has taken yet another victim to the hot, steamy pit of collateral damage.
And since mine was the hand that wielded this brush, I must extend my apology.
But let me say this to all of you GPL violators out there, cut out all of that evil!
Ssssppppoooooonnnnn!!!!!
What cheeky little bastards they are to pirate linux code in an effort to compete with linux.
You're absolutely right! We've been spending too much time with the average user and it has been dumbing us down.
Or perhaps we spent too much time away from english class.
How about spending billions to save millions from AIDS ... only to have them die anyway of famine, civil war or another infectious disease? Africa has many problems which can't be solved with 30 second sound bites promising to throw money at the problem.