And I have to know, how cheap can an iPod be in the US that $600 is such a bad price?
$400! Every time I hear about a cool gadget selling for $400 on Slashdot, I have to remember that for me to afford it, I have to sell another kidney. Of course, I still have health insurance to take care of me while I'm on dialysis.
Before any of you go packing your bags for Canada, just stop and think: sure, you'll have a job; and sure you'll be working out of your own apartment instead of driving 2.5 hours to a cubicle somewhere; and sure you'll probably earn more on the whole than any of your other Canadian friends... But really, half your income goes to the government, and what you're left with doesn't go as far, cause an iPod costs six hundred bloody dollars here, and... and... you have to say "bloody" in casual conversation... and "eh", sometimes, too... and... Please don't come here! I can't take any more competition!
I very much agree, but in those cases, iPod or no iPod, they're going to do the deed. If the concern is absolute security beyond any doubt, it will require a strip search in and out of the facility. If you are running a facility and won't go that far, you have to expect that you could face disaster one day, and weigh your options.
I guess the point I'm try to make is that the technology isn't the problem, it's the people using the technology that is the issue. It's like banning Gnutella to get rid of piracy: go after motive, not method.
I could possibly be horribly naïve, but I would think a 9-month intensive background check coupled with years of experience handling extremely confidential information would probably negate the risk of an employee using their iPod for anything other than music. Really, if you can't trust a certain employee with an iPod at their desk, you've got a personnel problem, not a technology problem.
Well, not that I did wear it inside after I was told not to, but I'd say the policy was a bit confused considering half the employees were given half-secured laptops that they brought home every day, with all their files onboard. My watch could carry files, but not all that many. And strangely enough, the laptops got lost more often than my watch did.
I would think there would be smarter ways to protect against this kind of thing. If someone wants to steal your data, they'll sneak a USB device in and steal it. Perhaps just deploying PCs with limited peripheral capabilities is a better option.
There's a fine line to walk when trying this, though: if your technology is indeed too complex to easily replicate, it will require effort to the nth degree to break through your closely-held knowledge monopoly. How much effort someone is willing to dump into breaking that barrier depends on how insanely useful the idea is. To keep people with money from dumping lots of cash into stealing your idea, you need to keep your presentations as vague as possible, so that there are more question marks involved for you to answer (in exchange for financing). But I've seen it happen that truly stunning technologies die in obscurity because they come across too smoke-and-mirrors for VCs to bite.
I have an article I wrote a whole back dealing with this concept of the "idea men" not being able to execute their own innovations properly. The one thing that a lot of former dotcom execs told me was that they wish they'd sold out soon before they got the big company with all the programmers and Coke machines, because the biggest lesson they learned was that they didn't know how to run a business as well as they knew how to come up with great starter ideas.
I think this blog approach - despite the fact that it's horribly risky for people with good concepts - is closer to the ideal. Find the talent out there, get them to give their baby a kickstart, and then (likely) buy it away from them to make it really successful. People need to see where they fit into the bigger picture, and not try and be in every shot.
Well hell, since you're offering, you can do 3D for my project! It's not even started yet, but on the plus side it'll only take 36 hours to complete! You can find it here.
Shameless plugs are so rarely requested like this... must be my lucky day!
I know some engineers from MDR and they are extremely bright people. If you happen to bump into one in a bar somewhere, be sure not to start talking about ergonomics, because you'll get drowned in actual information (rather than the pseudo-information average humans have). They deserve all the praise they get on these things, because I don't know anyone that works harder on more complex systems than these guys do.
On the other hand, I hear they know nothing about hockey, so they're not all good...
Not that it could ever really happen, but I wonder if, as you say, many other/.ers believe these things; and if they were to all vote Green... would the Green party make much of a showing?
There has been a big to-do in the press this election (as in most elections) that young people don't vote. And how to get them to vote: address issues "young people" care about. But really, I know young Conservatives, young NDP-ers, and probably a lot of closet young Liberals, and none of them are going to switch allegiances because a certain party channels Avril Lavigne into their platform...
It seems to me that there are more inroads to be made targeting like-minded portions of the population. The Green party may actually have a great platform here, but up until now I had no idea they had any idea what the GPL was. If they broadcast those ideals to their target audiences, rather than picking fights for mainstream voters on the "usual" issues, they might find themselves with a few MPs this time around.
Of course, somehow getting this message across on Slashdot probably does a lot of good to that end.
Once I had kids, I got a bunch of diaper bags (for carrying great gobs of baby stuff). Graco makes a kick-ass one that has more padded pouches than I can possibly use. The good part is that it's the perfect size for my Powerbook, headphones, and various other gadgets. I keep a little portable pouch of huggies in the front (cause they're damn useful anyway), just in case I get mugged and need to convince them there's nothing of value to steal. I get funny looks from clients when I unpack my gear from a blue and pink bag, but ultimately everyone agrees it's a pretty foolproof way to keep unsavoury types away.
Note: possibly not for the single geek pickin' up hot dates. Note on note: I crack myself up sometimes.
Re:Can I smell something ?
on
Directed Sound
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· Score: 5, Informative
I don't know what the official definition of vapourware is, but I have seen this in use from rooftops at MIT (it's fun to see the reaction of people as they try and figure out if anyone else heard that voice), and am helping in the development of a line of products that use these speakers as a key component.
I think the reason you probably haven't seen it yet is that there aren't many finished products made yet, and part of that might have to do with the fact that lots of local bylaws seem concerned with this kind of thing (they liken it to talking on cell phones while driving).
It won't be long before this is everywhere. I think the tech is just slightly outpacing the market right now.
Yeah, after I posted I thought it wasn't quite phrased right. I know there are a lot of people who stay in the US and work for foreign companies remotely, because there aren't as many quality jobs for American companies. I know a few people that moved from Europe to the US to work for a company that ended up doing most of its work for a European corporation.
I don't know that the whole argument of scientific leadership really works as well in these times, upon reflection. If half of a major US firm's workforce is based in India, is that an American science leader, or an Indian one? If an American company is really just a shell for a European corporation, who gets the "credit"? Half the people I know in the tech industry these days work for companies outside the country they live in, but I'm not sure how they'd be counted.
I'd say the days of the US dominance in science is over, only because it's getting harder to pin down the criteria for counting.
We know Japanese work long hours. We also know they don't work nearly as hard as Americans
I can't say I have actual numbers for this, but in my experience, both Americans and Japanese put the same amount of energy into their work. Where you see a difference is the mentality that their work must be done right and on time... in Japan, the greater-good mentality pushes everyone to work as hard and as fast as they can. In America, the individualism approach tends to make the over-achievers work harder, and the rest just cruise along at mediocrity.
Looking at the broader picture, I think that in a lot of cases, the American school and support system for sciences probably produces a lot of very talented people, but they're less interested in serving the country that helped them than they are in furthering their careers (by moving abroad etc). Which is not a bad thing. In a choice between having a stable life working for a foreign company and staying at home and living in uncertainty, any well-educated talented person would have to choose stability.
It's a question of making the work environment at home more friendly to talent.
No, I turned that off when I noticed the same thing (a few months ago). The one potentially-useful comment i've seen is to switch the channel your BS works on from something set to "Automatic". So far I've had about ten minutes online after that switch, compared to about 4 before.
I can confirm that it does indeed kill your signal in places it used to work. Right now sitting one room away from the base station (where I used to get 3+ bars), I now get one, sometimes two. My connection keeps dropping out and I have to restart to get it back most of the time.
This just popped into my head, and I need to write it down before I forget: we (meaning a certain percentage of/.-type people) say "the music industry needs to adapt to the new paradigm and understand p2p" --- but then we argue that any songs we buy from iTMS should be sell-able just like CDs were.
So it occurs to me that perhaps we are not as in-tune with the new paradigm as we thought... if we insist on turning THEIR lives upside down in this revolution, we might have to do the same to ours. It's not a question of legality or technology, but the basic concept of "if I buy a song for $.99, what can I expect to do with it?". We have to get our story straight, I guess.
Gosh. Those painkillers really DO make me profound!
But along the same lines, those who see it as possible often can't sell the idea, and you are usually the one that spent the most energy and (in a lot of cases) could-have-been-billing-for-it time on the project, and you end up nowhere.
Not that ending up nowhere is necessarily bad, but it's definitely a downer after a lot of hard work.
It's true, the Japanese DVD does indeed have English subtitles. It's a great film. However, because you have to get it from Japan (it was a gift in my case), you can't play it in North American DVD players, so the only way to enjoy the movie at all is to resort to means that are sometimes considered illegal.
So it's unavailable in any reasonable sense of the word, I guess is what I'm saying.
A friend of mine actually did record a rock opera himself using a Powerbook, Apple's Soundtrack, his guitar and a cheap microphone. It was very odd, given that he played several parts all by himself, but the end result was very interesting. The CDs he sold have more than paid for the laptop.
Of course, he's got a very wacky sense of humour that really kept the thing interesting. But hey, it's plausible I guess.
This is actually a really annoying thing to deal with as a producer. The concept of a ship making is something that sounds good (ahem) on paper, and even in some circumstances it has dramatic effect, but then when you get to the visuals of a dogfight (such as it is) in space, with lots of ships and lots of movement, the lack of some kind of whooshing sound makes it all seem very empty.
The alternative is to cut inside the ship to hear the sounds there (well, the sound of that ship itself), but eventually you need to go outside again, and once there, the silence almost seems like a statement rather than a fact. It's like the environment becoming a character by its absence.
So really, in some entertainment, it's either your scientific accuracy or your excitement level. Crappy tradeoff.
Slashdot Mirror
$400! Every time I hear about a cool gadget selling for $400 on Slashdot, I have to remember that for me to afford it, I have to sell another kidney. Of course, I still have health insurance to take care of me while I'm on dialysis.
Before any of you go packing your bags for Canada, just stop and think:
sure, you'll have a job; and sure you'll be working out of your own apartment instead of driving 2.5 hours to a cubicle somewhere; and sure you'll probably earn more on the whole than any of your other Canadian friends...
But really, half your income goes to the government, and what you're left with doesn't go as far, cause an iPod costs six hundred bloody dollars here, and... and... you have to say "bloody" in casual conversation... and "eh", sometimes, too... and...
Please don't come here! I can't take any more competition!
I guess the point I'm try to make is that the technology isn't the problem, it's the people using the technology that is the issue. It's like banning Gnutella to get rid of piracy: go after motive, not method.
I could possibly be horribly naïve, but I would think a 9-month intensive background check coupled with years of experience handling extremely confidential information would probably negate the risk of an employee using their iPod for anything other than music. Really, if you can't trust a certain employee with an iPod at their desk, you've got a personnel problem, not a technology problem.
I would think there would be smarter ways to protect against this kind of thing. If someone wants to steal your data, they'll sneak a USB device in and steal it. Perhaps just deploying PCs with limited peripheral capabilities is a better option.
There's a fine line to walk when trying this, though: if your technology is indeed too complex to easily replicate, it will require effort to the nth degree to break through your closely-held knowledge monopoly. How much effort someone is willing to dump into breaking that barrier depends on how insanely useful the idea is. To keep people with money from dumping lots of cash into stealing your idea, you need to keep your presentations as vague as possible, so that there are more question marks involved for you to answer (in exchange for financing). But I've seen it happen that truly stunning technologies die in obscurity because they come across too smoke-and-mirrors for VCs to bite.
I think this blog approach - despite the fact that it's horribly risky for people with good concepts - is closer to the ideal. Find the talent out there, get them to give their baby a kickstart, and then (likely) buy it away from them to make it really successful. People need to see where they fit into the bigger picture, and not try and be in every shot.
I should update that article sometime... hmm...
Well hell, since you're offering, you can do 3D for my project! It's not even started yet, but on the plus side it'll only take 36 hours to complete! You can find it here. Shameless plugs are so rarely requested like this... must be my lucky day!
Both I and my carpal-tunnel-crippled hand respectfully disagree.
It all depends on who's buying the drinks, my friend.
On the other hand, I hear they know nothing about hockey, so they're not all good...
Not that it could ever really happen, but I wonder if, as you say, many other /.ers believe these things; and if they were to all vote Green ... would the Green party make much of a showing?
There has been a big to-do in the press this election (as in most elections) that young people don't vote. And how to get them to vote: address issues "young people" care about. But really, I know young Conservatives, young NDP-ers, and probably a lot of closet young Liberals, and none of them are going to switch allegiances because a certain party channels Avril Lavigne into their platform...
It seems to me that there are more inroads to be made targeting like-minded portions of the population. The Green party may actually have a great platform here, but up until now I had no idea they had any idea what the GPL was. If they broadcast those ideals to their target audiences, rather than picking fights for mainstream voters on the "usual" issues, they might find themselves with a few MPs this time around.
Of course, somehow getting this message across on Slashdot probably does a lot of good to that end.
Not officially, no.
If you find those unusual, I suppose you aren't ready to carry around a little container of zincofax with you either.
Once I had kids, I got a bunch of diaper bags (for carrying great gobs of baby stuff). Graco makes a kick-ass one that has more padded pouches than I can possibly use. The good part is that it's the perfect size for my Powerbook, headphones, and various other gadgets. I keep a little portable pouch of huggies in the front (cause they're damn useful anyway), just in case I get mugged and need to convince them there's nothing of value to steal.
I get funny looks from clients when I unpack my gear from a blue and pink bag, but ultimately everyone agrees it's a pretty foolproof way to keep unsavoury types away.
Note: possibly not for the single geek pickin' up hot dates.
Note on note: I crack myself up sometimes.
I don't know what the official definition of vapourware is, but I have seen this in use from rooftops at MIT (it's fun to see the reaction of people as they try and figure out if anyone else heard that voice), and am helping in the development of a line of products that use these speakers as a key component.
I think the reason you probably haven't seen it yet is that there aren't many finished products made yet, and part of that might have to do with the fact that lots of local bylaws seem concerned with this kind of thing (they liken it to talking on cell phones while driving).
It won't be long before this is everywhere. I think the tech is just slightly outpacing the market right now.
Yeah, after I posted I thought it wasn't quite phrased right. I know there are a lot of people who stay in the US and work for foreign companies remotely, because there aren't as many quality jobs for American companies. I know a few people that moved from Europe to the US to work for a company that ended up doing most of its work for a European corporation.
I don't know that the whole argument of scientific leadership really works as well in these times, upon reflection. If half of a major US firm's workforce is based in India, is that an American science leader, or an Indian one? If an American company is really just a shell for a European corporation, who gets the "credit"? Half the people I know in the tech industry these days work for companies outside the country they live in, but I'm not sure how they'd be counted.
I'd say the days of the US dominance in science is over, only because it's getting harder to pin down the criteria for counting.
I can't say I have actual numbers for this, but in my experience, both Americans and Japanese put the same amount of energy into their work. Where you see a difference is the mentality that their work must be done right and on time... in Japan, the greater-good mentality pushes everyone to work as hard and as fast as they can. In America, the individualism approach tends to make the over-achievers work harder, and the rest just cruise along at mediocrity.
Looking at the broader picture, I think that in a lot of cases, the American school and support system for sciences probably produces a lot of very talented people, but they're less interested in serving the country that helped them than they are in furthering their careers (by moving abroad etc). Which is not a bad thing. In a choice between having a stable life working for a foreign company and staying at home and living in uncertainty, any well-educated talented person would have to choose stability.
It's a question of making the work environment at home more friendly to talent.
No, I turned that off when I noticed the same thing (a few months ago). The one potentially-useful comment i've seen is to switch the channel your BS works on from something set to "Automatic". So far I've had about ten minutes online after that switch, compared to about 4 before.
I can confirm that it does indeed kill your signal in places it used to work. Right now sitting one room away from the base station (where I used to get 3+ bars), I now get one, sometimes two. My connection keeps dropping out and I have to restart to get it back most of the time.
Still, could be worse.
This just popped into my head, and I need to write it down before I forget: we (meaning a certain percentage of /.-type people) say "the music industry needs to adapt to the new paradigm and understand p2p" --- but then we argue that any songs we buy from iTMS should be sell-able just like CDs were.
So it occurs to me that perhaps we are not as in-tune with the new paradigm as we thought... if we insist on turning THEIR lives upside down in this revolution, we might have to do the same to ours. It's not a question of legality or technology, but the basic concept of "if I buy a song for $.99, what can I expect to do with it?". We have to get our story straight, I guess.
Gosh. Those painkillers really DO make me profound!
But along the same lines, those who see it as possible often can't sell the idea, and you are usually the one that spent the most energy and (in a lot of cases) could-have-been-billing-for-it time on the project, and you end up nowhere.
Not that ending up nowhere is necessarily bad, but it's definitely a downer after a lot of hard work.
It's true, the Japanese DVD does indeed have English subtitles. It's a great film. However, because you have to get it from Japan (it was a gift in my case), you can't play it in North American DVD players, so the only way to enjoy the movie at all is to resort to means that are sometimes considered illegal.
So it's unavailable in any reasonable sense of the word, I guess is what I'm saying.
A friend of mine actually did record a rock opera himself using a Powerbook, Apple's Soundtrack, his guitar and a cheap microphone. It was very odd, given that he played several parts all by himself, but the end result was very interesting. The CDs he sold have more than paid for the laptop.
Of course, he's got a very wacky sense of humour that really kept the thing interesting. But hey, it's plausible I guess.
The alternative is to cut inside the ship to hear the sounds there (well, the sound of that ship itself), but eventually you need to go outside again, and once there, the silence almost seems like a statement rather than a fact. It's like the environment becoming a character by its absence.
So really, in some entertainment, it's either your scientific accuracy or your excitement level. Crappy tradeoff.