I would like to hear an argument from anybody as to why innovation cannot or should not come from this one.
Because visual detail and speed is not the blocking factor in innovative GUI design these days. If they were, someone would have come up with proofs of concept that use better graphics already. All the upcoming Vista hardware does is to draw what's already doable faster. And, again, if that were useful, someone would have a prototype ready to go. Remember that WIMP was there 3-5 years before it was actually commercialized. Same with the internet, microprocessors, and video tape. You have some odd idea that technical revolutions just "pop up". They don't. There are years of groundwork laid before most innovations are brought to the public. So, excuse me for being skeptical - I just don't see anything on the horizon that's blocked by this particular factor.
Seriously,... can you imagine the possibilities for the improvements in typical GUIs?
No. Why don't you enlighten us with what amazing GUI benefits we'll get and why they're so exciting.
Most of us are fine with the WIMPy interfaces and crappy graphics we have today. What incredible leaps do you foresee? I see nothing coming but a bunch of distracting and less than useless eye candy.
...the bottom line is that Windows is being designed to appeal to people who buy the system based on what they *see*.
And that's the problem. Only Mac buyers buy systems based on what they "see". Windows users become Windows users because (a) they're cheap and (b) it's what's on the box that's cheap. Once Windows isn't on cheap boxes, they'll start to lose market share because Windows users don't give a rats ass about what they *see*, only about what they're familiar with and what's cheap.
As happy as I am with all of the interesting stuff the BBC is doing via the web, I really wish they hadn't had to kill their shortwave bradcasts to North America to do it. And though I can listen online when I'm around a computer and can even catch their broadcasts to other regions, I miss being able to hear them clearly almost any evening hour without shelling out for a satellite radio. I'd even trade all of the whizzy web crap for that.
...I don't think it should be treated as a batch-gamble, where they seem to throw piles of money, small ideas and big names at a vat-o-projects and hope a few get a blockbuster.
It's a common investment strategy. Diversification accross several similar projects and regression to the mean brings a smaller, though less risky, average return. This strategy is also the basis of most VC firms' investment strategies.
Contrary to what you imply, traffic on the Mississippi can get along just fine without the city of New Orleans. Reinforced port facilities could be built without surrounding them with a city that is below sea level. Ports are useful. Cities built without adaquate mitigation are not.
Where do they get their low-cost workers if they don't have a major metro area nearby? Yeah, you can pay to fly them in and out each week (like they do for the oil rigs) but that costs a lot. I doubt shipping companies are willing to pay a premium for labor. Cities were built on the river for a reason - commerce (and therefore jobs) was there. You can't have one without the other (at least 'til the robots and teleoperators take over).
Let us not forget all the ham radio operators who have been working continuously since even before the hurricane made land fall...
Don't worry. After we get BPL crammed down our airwaves they can all take a nice long rest. Not to be opportunistic, but I hope that the Hams are taking this opportunity to make sure the FCC knows they are helping here and the fact that if equipment is unusable during times of non-emergency, it's unlikely to be there when another emergency hits. BPL is a really stupid idea and I hope that this will wake the idiots up who think it's just the cat's PJs.
...while discounting Microsoft funded reports as biased because they are not funded by an independant group?
Maybe because IBM sells and supports both Windows and Linux systems(and Solaris, too, BTW - or at least they did a few years ago) and therefore might be less biased than a company that manufactures and sells only Windows?
ZIP doesn't do that; each file in a ZIP archive is compressed individually, with a separate compression dictionary. That hurts the compression ratio for ZIP archives that contain many files, particularly many small files, particularly many similar small files, like source code, for example.
And this, boys and girls, is why you archive and then zip. The archive program combines all of the nasty littles filezees into one big file with mucho redundancy for your compression algorithm to chew on. This allows for maximum compression while retaining the ability to update the non-archived portion of the file.
The PhD's Google hires will continue to be smart no matter what Google ends up doing. And Cringely? Well, he'll keep being Cringely, no matter what anyone does. I know which I'd bet on...
...how can technology be better-implemented to ensure a student's studies and also lower the costs of fuel for the districts?"
It can't - not unless families want to stop being two income families, which a lot can't. It would be really tempting to say that a six year old could be left at home alone with a computer all day, but he or she can't. Not legally and not practically. So why don't we have groups of kids gather in neighborhoods and be supervised by an adult who could help them learn? Oh yeah, we do this. It's at a place we call a... a... wait a minute, it's right on the tip of my tongue... oh yeah, a school. Now I will agree that many of the schools today are too big and gather in kids from too wide-ranging an area, but that can be solved by dividing the districts to make neghborhood schools neighborhood schools again. But that would probably cost more than the cost of fuel. Actually, come to think of it, any technology would probably cost more than the fuel. So, no, there is no easy technological fix.
This is the biggest misconception. It's not "just another language" - it's a different mindset. These are machines that cannot be allowed to crash. These are the real brains that control the corporate body - important things like payroll, being systems of record when the auditors need information, really expensive boxes that if you screw up, the company will quite literally shut down. This is not a take this PC offline until we can swap in a new one. This is not let's buy a cluster of these things for performance - you better be able to account for every cycle before you ask your boss for the multiple hundreds of thousands it takes to upgrade. It's not we want to put this code on the box today - it's let's set up a test partition this week so we can run this thing in parallel for a couple of months so then maybe at the next scheduled maintenance period (which will happen on the weekend, BTW) we can put it into operation (oh yeah, you'll be on call for a couple of weeks after that so you can put the original code back if someting screws up, so you better not make a lot of fancy changes from which you can't back away). It's called the zSeries for "zero downtime" (and for the zero dollars left in your pocket after you buy the system and the software you run on it:-).
So, no, it's not just another language - it's another way of life. Not that you couldn't adapt - most people here seem bright enough. But it does take dedication and a change of attitude.
Oh yes, the Clipper chip people, I remember them well.
At least with the Clipper Chip, you still needed to go to court, get a warrant, and proceed via due process. Plus, no chip I ever saw, got us involved in a quagmire in the Middle East. So, yes, I did prefer the Clipper Chip people - they got us in a HELL OF A LOT LESS TROUBLE. But then I guess, people who don't recognize relativity of maginitude when talking about bad things are condemned to be stupid.
Sorry, but all those mean things that the Republicans said about Joe Wilson and his wife were true.
Even if the things the Republicans said *were* true (something I dispute), did it justify breaking the law? Did it justify the risking of the lives of other operatives and associates that worked for and with the Brewster-Jennings cover organization? Or is it OK to break the law in the name of political expediancy if you are a Republican administration official? What a fscking moron.
If you work in the science/eng fields you probably see this. My company talks about the problems of losing too many employees in the next ten years to retirement and not having enough replacements (very few people under 30).
But not so worried that they're willing to pay the salaries and benefits demanded by more experienced employees rather than bitch about the lack of L1 and H1-B visas after they've hired all the entry level workers, all of which they can pay a (relative) pittance.
So, before you come up with these dramatic proclamations about how America's at a "crossroads" and you predict we'll take the wrong path and eventually fade into irrelevance, remember all the times people before you said those exact same things, and remember how dumb they sounded even five years later.
And the reason that they sound dumb five years later is that some folks care enough to say these extreme "dumb" things ahead of time and get the attention of people whose mental timeframe is often measured in quarterly earnings reports and biannual election cycles. If we took your prescription of "everything is periodic" and things will naturally swing back to the norm, you have a very deep misunderstanding of the way social inertia and tipping points work. And I say this as a fifty year-old fart who has also seen plenty of these ten-years cycles. Only in my case, I've seen that it's the ranting of those you ridicule who have been instrumental in raising the awareness to a level where people would take action. So to whomever wrote the initial article, keep running around with your hair on fire - these days, it takes that much to make it through the noise. Some of us old guys actually appreciate you doing it...
You'll also need some penguin blood with that black magic if you think you're going to use OSS and/or GNU/Linux without knowing anything but Windows.
This is just FUD that Microsoft trots out whenever they want the TCO numbers to come out favoring Windows! Everyone knows that penguin blood is much more expensive than chicken blood. Of course, what they won't tell you is that chicken blood works just fine for Linux servers, too. Don't believe me? Try it.
Of course, Linux admins still cost more than Windows admins, but that's because you only have to pay the monkeys in bananas...
Nobody is holding a gun to your head to read this. I myself have been known to exit a page of comments before reading to the bottom. In fact, I've even been known to skip entire articles!
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Because visual detail and speed is not the blocking factor in innovative GUI design these days. If they were, someone would have come up with proofs of concept that use better graphics already. All the upcoming Vista hardware does is to draw what's already doable faster. And, again, if that were useful, someone would have a prototype ready to go. Remember that WIMP was there 3-5 years before it was actually commercialized. Same with the internet, microprocessors, and video tape. You have some odd idea that technical revolutions just "pop up". They don't. There are years of groundwork laid before most innovations are brought to the public. So, excuse me for being skeptical - I just don't see anything on the horizon that's blocked by this particular factor.
No. Why don't you enlighten us with what amazing GUI benefits we'll get and why they're so exciting.
Most of us are fine with the WIMPy interfaces and crappy graphics we have today. What incredible leaps do you foresee? I see nothing coming but a bunch of distracting and less than useless eye candy.
And that's the problem. Only Mac buyers buy systems based on what they "see". Windows users become Windows users because (a) they're cheap and (b) it's what's on the box that's cheap. Once Windows isn't on cheap boxes, they'll start to lose market share because Windows users don't give a rats ass about what they *see*, only about what they're familiar with and what's cheap.
You misspelled "Ubuntu".
As happy as I am with all of the interesting stuff the BBC is doing via the web, I really wish they hadn't had to kill their shortwave bradcasts to North America to do it. And though I can listen online when I'm around a computer and can even catch their broadcasts to other regions, I miss being able to hear them clearly almost any evening hour without shelling out for a satellite radio. I'd even trade all of the whizzy web crap for that.
It's a common investment strategy. Diversification accross several similar projects and regression to the mean brings a smaller, though less risky, average return. This strategy is also the basis of most VC firms' investment strategies.
Make that thirty-five years and you're spot on...
Where do they get their low-cost workers if they don't have a major metro area nearby? Yeah, you can pay to fly them in and out each week (like they do for the oil rigs) but that costs a lot. I doubt shipping companies are willing to pay a premium for labor. Cities were built on the river for a reason - commerce (and therefore jobs) was there. You can't have one without the other (at least 'til the robots and teleoperators take over).
Don't worry. After we get BPL crammed down our airwaves they can all take a nice long rest. Not to be opportunistic, but I hope that the Hams are taking this opportunity to make sure the FCC knows they are helping here and the fact that if equipment is unusable during times of non-emergency, it's unlikely to be there when another emergency hits. BPL is a really stupid idea and I hope that this will wake the idiots up who think it's just the cat's PJs.
Maybe because IBM sells and supports both Windows and Linux systems(and Solaris, too, BTW - or at least they did a few years ago) and therefore might be less biased than a company that manufactures and sells only Windows?
And this, boys and girls, is why you archive and then zip. The archive program combines all of the nasty littles filezees into one big file with mucho redundancy for your compression algorithm to chew on. This allows for maximum compression while retaining the ability to update the non-archived portion of the file.
The PhD's Google hires will continue to be smart no matter what Google ends up doing. And Cringely? Well, he'll keep being Cringely, no matter what anyone does. I know which I'd bet on...
It can't - not unless families want to stop being two income families, which a lot can't. It would be really tempting to say that a six year old could be left at home alone with a computer all day, but he or she can't. Not legally and not practically. So why don't we have groups of kids gather in neighborhoods and be supervised by an adult who could help them learn? Oh yeah, we do this. It's at a place we call a... a... wait a minute, it's right on the tip of my tongue... oh yeah, a school. Now I will agree that many of the schools today are too big and gather in kids from too wide-ranging an area, but that can be solved by dividing the districts to make neghborhood schools neighborhood schools again. But that would probably cost more than the cost of fuel. Actually, come to think of it, any technology would probably cost more than the fuel. So, no, there is no easy technological fix.
This is the biggest misconception. It's not "just another language" - it's a different mindset. These are machines that cannot be allowed to crash. These are the real brains that control the corporate body - important things like payroll, being systems of record when the auditors need information, really expensive boxes that if you screw up, the company will quite literally shut down. This is not a take this PC offline until we can swap in a new one. This is not let's buy a cluster of these things for performance - you better be able to account for every cycle before you ask your boss for the multiple hundreds of thousands it takes to upgrade. It's not we want to put this code on the box today - it's let's set up a test partition this week so we can run this thing in parallel for a couple of months so then maybe at the next scheduled maintenance period (which will happen on the weekend, BTW) we can put it into operation (oh yeah, you'll be on call for a couple of weeks after that so you can put the original code back if someting screws up, so you better not make a lot of fancy changes from which you can't back away). It's called the zSeries for "zero downtime" (and for the zero dollars left in your pocket after you buy the system and the software you run on it :-).
So, no, it's not just another language - it's another way of life. Not that you couldn't adapt - most people here seem bright enough. But it does take dedication and a change of attitude.
At least with the Clipper Chip, you still needed to go to court, get a warrant, and proceed via due process. Plus, no chip I ever saw, got us involved in a quagmire in the Middle East. So, yes, I did prefer the Clipper Chip people - they got us in a HELL OF A LOT LESS TROUBLE. But then I guess, people who don't recognize relativity of maginitude when talking about bad things are condemned to be stupid.
Even if the things the Republicans said *were* true (something I dispute), did it justify breaking the law? Did it justify the risking of the lives of other operatives and associates that worked for and with the Brewster-Jennings cover organization? Or is it OK to break the law in the name of political expediancy if you are a Republican administration official? What a fscking moron.
But not so worried that they're willing to pay the salaries and benefits demanded by more experienced employees rather than bitch about the lack of L1 and H1-B visas after they've hired all the entry level workers, all of which they can pay a (relative) pittance.
And the reason that they sound dumb five years later is that some folks care enough to say these extreme "dumb" things ahead of time and get the attention of people whose mental timeframe is often measured in quarterly earnings reports and biannual election cycles. If we took your prescription of "everything is periodic" and things will naturally swing back to the norm, you have a very deep misunderstanding of the way social inertia and tipping points work. And I say this as a fifty year-old fart who has also seen plenty of these ten-years cycles. Only in my case, I've seen that it's the ranting of those you ridicule who have been instrumental in raising the awareness to a level where people would take action. So to whomever wrote the initial article, keep running around with your hair on fire - these days, it takes that much to make it through the noise. Some of us old guys actually appreciate you doing it...
Only if you can get a mouse in the bottle.
This is just FUD that Microsoft trots out whenever they want the TCO numbers to come out favoring Windows! Everyone knows that penguin blood is much more expensive than chicken blood. Of course, what they won't tell you is that chicken blood works just fine for Linux servers, too. Don't believe me? Try it.
Of course, Linux admins still cost more than Windows admins, but that's because you only have to pay the monkeys in bananas...
Nobody is holding a gun to your head to read this. I myself have been known to exit a page of comments before reading to the bottom. In fact, I've even been known to skip entire articles!
No, people also hate its UI. And the API is no great shakes, either. (Not to say that Exchange is any better in these areas...)
Are they dropping it on the floor and breaking it? Running it into a tree? Spraying grafiti on it? Where do these guys get these statements?
And how in the hell do you "damage music" any worse than Britney Spears does when she sings?
... seems to have been turned into sawdust...
Now that we know there's ice there, we can tell the Canadians and they'll get a hockey team up there ASAP.