Apple was always cooler and "better" than Windows, but Apple always found a way to screw it up. I think we would all like to see a world where MS didn't have such a ridiculouly large piece of the desktop, and Apple is still the best bet, but they have a very long way to go.
And most of the things that stopped Apple from suceeding are still true, i.e. - they are still a lot more expensive (at least for a good laptop), - The software choice on Windows is still infinitely better, - The commodity hardware makers still aren't allowed to make platforms that host Apple's choices. (I think) - Probably some other things that I have forgotten:)...
So I guess Apple won't make much progress (again). Even if they are better (again).
This sounds like it has not been thought through to me. Won't this make it impossible to protest when Microsoft (or Apple or Google) does exactly the same thing?
And is it not to be expected that Microsoft will do a better job at it than the Paris Goverment?
I have a limited appetite for iPods, and I never go into McDonalds, so a Starbucks Doppio is what I use to compare price levels. For example $1.83 in Seattle, 1.70 Euros in Paris, 2.60 Euros in Frankfurt Airport. Seems like the Euro is way overvalued.
As an aside, the Economist picked the Big Mac because McDonalds makes a big effort to source as much as possible locally, so a McDonalds big Mac should reflect the relative cost of producing that hamburger in that place.
The iPod is manufactured centrally (I think) and shipped in, so it really does not qualify in the same way a Big Mac does. Nor does a Starbucks coffee I guess.
I am sure someone else pointed this out already, but I am too lazy to read all the posts.
1. You might be wrong. Maybe what you think is important is really not the key factor in other jobs that are related. For example there are many very successful VB shops, but few Java and C# people out there who will give them the time of day. And programming techniques and methodologies vary widely.
2. The candiate may have had a bad day. I know I have had some bad ones, where I was tongue-tied on occasion and just did not see what my interviewer (or customer) was getting at, though it was clear as daylight later.
3. There are misunderstandings. People hear one word, and understand another. Accents, culture, word usage vary widely and interviews are usually too short to establish contexts and get used to one another.
Once we hired a guy who interviewed brilliantly, even had fanstastic code samples (impresive video games he had written on a basic PC - that later turned out to be very buggy). After a year we concluded that he could never write enough "if" statements to special case his bugs out of existence, and he would never be able to tackle problems in any other way. But we missed it in the interview.
Fact is that MS profit margins are so great that there is a huge amount of room for concessions. Linux might be free, but the fixed costs of Microsoft are distributed over such a massive user base that they could give it away for almost free too. The fact that they do not shows how little impact Linux has actually had.
I suspect it is no longer even regarded as the main threat, I imagine the main threats are considered to be Google and Apple, and maybe even Oracle.
I think this is actually good for Linux, they did better when they were considered the underdog and no one was paying attention to them, say like around 6 or 7 years ago.
I googled quickly before I posted and found the seven years. Now I can't find that link, but there are like 300k+ to sift through if you look for "sox e-mail retention".
Here is a link indicating 3 years is already standard practice in some industries (like mine).
I run SQL 2005 (SP1) on Vista RTM, and on Windows XP professional. They might not be supported (after all they are server product, and those are workstation OSs), but they work just fine.
Actually SQL 2005 (SP1) gave me a few problems on Vista, I only got it to run as a local admin, probably because I don't fully understand the new Vista security model yet. But this is okay for me, I just want to develop on Vista anyway.
This is a lame post. There are lots of compatilbilites between lots of MS products, what do you expect when you have so many?
The same is true of every Linux flavor, all IBM products, and even Apple. It will surely be true of Google before too long with all those software guys they hired to write whatever they wanted, however they want.
Microsoft's "New World of Work" initiative is all about this. If you look beyond its short term goals of selling and deploying more Office Software, there is a very compeling vision of the future, with widescale automation of low-value tasks. There is an extremely cool BMW video around this, with not a single MS logo in sight, but some ultra-cool hardware (desks and walls that are montitors with optimal transparency) that makes "Minority Report" look terribly crude.
Of course nobody can deliver on this today, but there is a lot of investment going on at MS and elsewhere. I would love to work with that stuff today. And I suddenly see the value of "glass" in Vista, but it has a long way to go.
Would be cool if some OSS software got there first!
The non-technical managers feel threatened by managers that have technical know-how. And they can use their considerable social skills to brand that know-how as a disadvanage, as a distraction to the essential task of management, which they see as making financial decisions and communication.
I have experienced this ostracism, and while it can be dealt with, it is definitely something a techie manager has to keep in mind when dealing with the other non-so-clued managers. It is a "weakness" which can easily negate any advantage derived from greater and deeper technical insight.
It is a talent that is more appropriate to an entrapraneur than a manager in my opinion.
Microcredit has been around a very long time. I read my first article on Microcredit something like 20 years ago, and it pops up now and again, but it never seems to become a major policy. A quick check in Wikipedia confirms that Microcredit has been around since the 70s, but has it played much of a role in the huge number of countries who have changed from starving wastelands to fast growing competitors in that time? If so it is a well-kept secret.
I guess I have to wonder if the rulers of any of those countries really support an initiative that only empowers the poor with little opportunity for them to direct things. Perhaps the better ones support it on an abstract level, but in the end if they are in charge, then change is bad, right?
Or am I being too cynical. Maybe it is time for bed:).
I was sceptical about Global Warming (heard too much FUD from all the Greens over the years, "Waldsterben", etc), but reading the summary in Wikipedia kind of convinced me.
But it is certainly not 100 percent yet. There are some alternate hypothisis, and the world does have a surprising ability to adapt to what we throw at it.
Of course I would like to know how they were weighted. And studies like this tend to underestimate the ability of systems to adapt, the natural reaction to us poisoning and eating the life in the sea will be to promote toxic resitant species that we do not like to eat. Probably not a good thing, expecially for us, but not the same thing as "death of the ocean".
There are a lot of Microsoft sales and marketing employees in Munich (well over 1000). If all those non-technical goverment employees turn out to be happy with their new unfamiliar Linux desktops, then it will truly be a revolution, and might cause many very good sales people to desert Microsoft and setup competition.
On the otherhand, if they mostly don't like the experience then it will get rapidly and publicly tossed out by the next goverment, and will likely set Desktop Linux back 10 years in Europe.
Frankly, I would not bet on Linux in this situation. To my experience modern German Beauracrats are poor-learners, unmotiviated and like to complain about things. The fact that the project has got a lot of bad press, was initiated by an overly-idealogical Red/Green alliance, and has been running late bodes ill. And I read that it cost almost double what Microsoft claimed their solution would have cost. The latter is probably standard sales propaganda, but most people believe what they read.
By the end of 2008 we should know how it turns out.
He starts out with that equation in his whitepaper, but I can't see it applying here.
Maybe I am looking at it too simply, but that Lorenz force equation describes forces on charged particles (with a charge of q), and he is talking about Electromagnetic waves here. When these are considered as particles (photons) they have no charge.
Of course it is maybe irrelevant, because the argument he describes there is not actually used anywhere else in his paper where he elaborates his theory, as least as far as I can see.
I really do not trust that "Relativistic Correction Factor".
That is a transformation that is appropriate for calculating how things change when you change your referenece system, and I don't see him mentioning that here at all. Like maybe that would be appropriate if he were trying to calculate the thurst from the point-of-view of something riding along with the waves, but that is pretty irrelevant to trying to move a satellite.
His reason for using them are all wrong. For example if you see two spaceships moving directly away from each other at 75 percent of the speed-of-light, then you see them moving away from each other at 1.5 times the speed-of-light, and no correction is needed in your reference system. Of course the spaceships would see something different, and that is what the addition law is all about.
Maybe it does radiate some massive photons if movement occurs. I mean it would have to, right?
Which might not be very good on Earth.
I wonder if this is something that works only if no work gets done, i.e. you can measure the force if everything is fixed, but if you let it accually do work, all the power drains as it emits something to conserve momentum.
I have to think about this more. Whatever the truth of this, it is an interesting idea. I haven't thought about Physics for awhile.
Of course Smart is somewhat a matter of opionion (i.e. what I consider smart, you may find irrelevant), and culture and chemistry are important too, but I think his article is a good guide to finding the right people. At least it works for me:)
And give up such a great opportunity to pontificate about how bad civilization, industry, people, capitalists, globalization, multinations, the Republicans, Microsoft, Bush,(what have I forgotten now...) are for the world? Just because we might not understand what is actually going on?
Dream on. But people WILL forget it as soon as the next opportunity comes along, so maybe that is okay after all.
How much is pirated data worth anyway? I remember one guy I knew about 10 years back who was proud of the fact that he had over $200k worth of pirated software. Not that he needed it or could even use most of that stuff...
Problems like this exist in most segments of society. Jealousy is a very common phenomenon, wherever men and women mix. It is part of the DNA imperative for people to worry about this. For that matter a certain amount of cheating probably helps people propogate, so the worries are rational.
Deal with it. If anything this is less of a problem in IT because of the predominance of only one gender.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple was always cooler and "better" than Windows, but Apple always found a way to screw it up. I think we would all like to see a world where MS didn't have such a ridiculouly large piece of the desktop, and Apple is still the best bet, but they have a very long way to go.
:)...
And most of the things that stopped Apple from suceeding are still true, i.e.
- they are still a lot more expensive (at least for a good laptop),
- The software choice on Windows is still infinitely better,
- The commodity hardware makers still aren't allowed to make platforms that host Apple's choices. (I think)
- Probably some other things that I have forgotten
So I guess Apple won't make much progress (again). Even if they are better (again).
This sounds like it has not been thought through to me. Won't this make it impossible to protest when Microsoft (or Apple or Google) does exactly the same thing?
And is it not to be expected that Microsoft will do a better job at it than the Paris Goverment?
Just thinking out loud here...
I have a limited appetite for iPods, and I never go into McDonalds, so a Starbucks Doppio is what I use to compare price levels. For example $1.83 in Seattle, 1.70 Euros in Paris, 2.60 Euros in Frankfurt Airport. Seems like the Euro is way overvalued.
As an aside, the Economist picked the Big Mac because McDonalds makes a big effort to source as much as possible locally, so a McDonalds big Mac should reflect the relative cost of producing that hamburger in that place.
The iPod is manufactured centrally (I think) and shipped in, so it really does not qualify in the same way a Big Mac does. Nor does a Starbucks coffee I guess.
I am sure someone else pointed this out already, but I am too lazy to read all the posts.
1. You might be wrong. Maybe what you think is important is really not the key factor in other jobs that are related. For example there are many very successful VB shops, but few Java and C# people out there who will give them the time of day. And programming techniques and methodologies vary widely.
:)
2. The candiate may have had a bad day. I know I have had some bad ones, where I was tongue-tied on occasion and just did not see what my interviewer (or customer) was getting at, though it was clear as daylight later.
3. There are misunderstandings. People hear one word, and understand another. Accents, culture, word usage vary widely and interviews are usually too short to establish contexts and get used to one another.
Once we hired a guy who interviewed brilliantly, even had fanstastic code samples (impresive video games he had written on a basic PC - that later turned out to be very buggy). After a year we concluded that he could never write enough "if" statements to special case his bugs out of existence, and he would never be able to tackle problems in any other way. But we missed it in the interview.
Basically hiring people is risky business
Fact is that MS profit margins are so great that there is a huge amount of room for concessions. Linux might be free, but the fixed costs of Microsoft are distributed over such a massive user base that they could give it away for almost free too. The fact that they do not shows how little impact Linux has actually had.
I suspect it is no longer even regarded as the main threat, I imagine the main threats are considered to be Google and Apple, and maybe even Oracle.
I think this is actually good for Linux, they did better when they were considered the underdog and no one was paying attention to them, say like around 6 or 7 years ago.
I googled quickly before I posted and found the seven years. Now I can't find that link, but there are like 300k+ to sift through if you look for "sox e-mail retention".
m pliance/0,3800003180,39130615,00.htm
:).
Here is a link indicating 3 years is already standard practice in some industries (like mine).
http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/co
So it is not completely made up, though you could make a case for exageration
Better think again.
SOX requires your company to keep it around for something like 7 years, so deleting it out of your mailbox only denies *you* access to it.
I run SQL 2005 (SP1) on Vista RTM, and on Windows XP professional. They might not be supported (after all they are server product, and those are workstation OSs), but they work just fine.
Actually SQL 2005 (SP1) gave me a few problems on Vista, I only got it to run as a local admin, probably because I don't fully understand the new Vista security model yet. But this is okay for me, I just want to develop on Vista anyway.
This is a lame post. There are lots of compatilbilites between lots of MS products, what do you expect when you have so many?
The same is true of every Linux flavor, all IBM products, and even Apple. It will surely be true of Google before too long with all those software guys they hired to write whatever they wanted, however they want.
Aggressive today aren't we. Too much coffee maybe?
It wasn't a bad comment to make. And way more beleivable than either "black helicopters" or aliens on earth.
Hmmm. How about "elephantine"?
I kind of like cetacean though. I think it is imaginative. And I think the previous AC post is being a bit pedantic.
Microsoft's "New World of Work" initiative is all about this. If you look beyond its short term goals of selling and deploying more Office Software, there is a very compeling vision of the future, with widescale automation of low-value tasks. There is an extremely cool BMW video around this, with not a single MS logo in sight, but some ultra-cool hardware (desks and walls that are montitors with optimal transparency) that makes "Minority Report" look terribly crude.
Of course nobody can deliver on this today, but there is a lot of investment going on at MS and elsewhere. I would love to work with that stuff today. And I suddenly see the value of "glass" in Vista, but it has a long way to go.
Would be cool if some OSS software got there first!
The non-technical managers feel threatened by managers that have technical know-how. And they can use their considerable social skills to brand that know-how as a disadvanage, as a distraction to the essential task of management, which they see as making financial decisions and communication.
I have experienced this ostracism, and while it can be dealt with, it is definitely something a techie manager has to keep in mind when dealing with the other non-so-clued managers. It is a "weakness" which can easily negate any advantage derived from greater and deeper technical insight.
It is a talent that is more appropriate to an entrapraneur than a manager in my opinion.
Microcredit has been around a very long time. I read my first article on Microcredit something like 20 years ago, and it pops up now and again, but it never seems to become a major policy. A quick check in Wikipedia confirms that Microcredit has been around since the 70s, but has it played much of a role in the huge number of countries who have changed from starving wastelands to fast growing competitors in that time? If so it is a well-kept secret.
:).
I guess I have to wonder if the rulers of any of those countries really support an initiative that only empowers the poor with little opportunity for them to direct things. Perhaps the better ones support it on an abstract level, but in the end if they are in charge, then change is bad, right?
Or am I being too cynical. Maybe it is time for bed
I was sceptical about Global Warming (heard too much FUD from all the Greens over the years, "Waldsterben", etc), but reading the summary in Wikipedia kind of convinced me.
But it is certainly not 100 percent yet. There are some alternate hypothisis, and the world does have a surprising ability to adapt to what we throw at it.
Because that statment gives more information.
Of course I would like to know how they were weighted. And studies like this tend to underestimate the ability of systems to adapt, the natural reaction to us poisoning and eating the life in the sea will be to promote toxic resitant species that we do not like to eat. Probably not a good thing, expecially for us, but not the same thing as "death of the ocean".
There are a lot of Microsoft sales and marketing employees in Munich (well over 1000). If all those non-technical goverment employees turn out to be happy with their new unfamiliar Linux desktops, then it will truly be a revolution, and might cause many very good sales people to desert Microsoft and setup competition.
On the otherhand, if they mostly don't like the experience then it will get rapidly and publicly tossed out by the next goverment, and will likely set Desktop Linux back 10 years in Europe.
Frankly, I would not bet on Linux in this situation. To my experience modern German Beauracrats are poor-learners, unmotiviated and like to complain about things. The fact that the project has got a lot of bad press, was initiated by an overly-idealogical Red/Green alliance, and has been running late bodes ill. And I read that it cost almost double what Microsoft claimed their solution would have cost. The latter is probably standard sales propaganda, but most people believe what they read.
By the end of 2008 we should know how it turns out.
I don't think his "Maths is wrong". At least I don't see any mistakes. Do you?
The physics is though. Too bad.
He starts out with that equation in his whitepaper, but I can't see it applying here.
Maybe I am looking at it too simply, but that Lorenz force equation describes forces on charged particles (with a charge of q), and he is talking about Electromagnetic waves here. When these are considered as particles (photons) they have no charge.
Of course it is maybe irrelevant, because the argument he describes there is not actually used anywhere else in his paper where he elaborates his theory, as least as far as I can see.
I really do not trust that "Relativistic Correction Factor".
That is a transformation that is appropriate for calculating how things change when you change your referenece system, and I don't see him mentioning that here at all. Like maybe that would be appropriate if he were trying to calculate the thurst from the point-of-view of something riding along with the waves, but that is pretty irrelevant to trying to move a satellite.
His reason for using them are all wrong. For example if you see two spaceships moving directly away from each other at 75 percent of the speed-of-light, then you see them moving away from each other at 1.5 times the speed-of-light, and no correction is needed in your reference system. Of course the spaceships would see something different, and that is what the addition law is all about.
Maybe it does radiate some massive photons if movement occurs. I mean it would have to, right?
Which might not be very good on Earth.
I wonder if this is something that works only if no work gets done, i.e. you can measure the force if everything is fixed, but if you let it accually do work, all the power drains as it emits something to conserve momentum.
I have to think about this more. Whatever the truth of this, it is an interesting idea. I haven't thought about Physics for awhile.
I think Joel Spolsky said it all here:
0 73.html/
:)
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000
Hire people who are #1 Smart, #2 Get things done.
Of course Smart is somewhat a matter of opionion (i.e. what I consider smart, you may find irrelevant), and culture and chemistry are important too, but I think his article is a good guide to finding the right people. At least it works for me
Oh come on.
And give up such a great opportunity to pontificate about how bad civilization, industry, people, capitalists, globalization, multinations, the Republicans, Microsoft, Bush,(what have I forgotten now...) are for the world? Just because we might not understand what is actually going on?
Dream on. But people WILL forget it as soon as the next opportunity comes along, so maybe that is okay after all.
Did they pay for that?
How much is pirated data worth anyway? I remember one guy I knew about 10 years back who was proud of the fact that he had over $200k worth of pirated software. Not that he needed it or could even use most of that stuff...
Problems like this exist in most segments of society. Jealousy is a very common phenomenon, wherever men and women mix. It is part of the DNA imperative for people to worry about this. For that matter a certain amount of cheating probably helps people propogate, so the worries are rational.
:)
Deal with it. If anything this is less of a problem in IT because of the predominance of only one gender.
But don't tell my wife I wrote this
It's always easy to blame the US for anything bad. It obviates the necessity of thinking things through.
Not that the USA is blame free, far from it. But I am amazed at what they get blamed for these days.