No, it's probably not a good thing. It's just part of the death of western capitalism. Soon the new eastern capitalists (i.e. China) will come here to fill the void.
Just plain old internal politics. As it was explained to me: If you're the new programming executive you need to prove your predecessor was an idiot. So, you take a show, move it around and preempt it until it tanks then replace it with something of your own. Now you're the hero for replacing that "bad" show.
It took a special kind of stupid to believe that region coding would stop anything. Even without the chipped players region coding depended on the price of DVD players staying so high that most people would not be able to afford a second one.
Sony you've lost my trust. There is nothing you can say that will get it back. Actions, not words can win me back and that will take a long, long time.
I've wondered why the spammers haven't started crapflooding the social bookmarking sites already. John Udell wrote about it last month when del.icio.us added the "for" tag.
Yahoo already has a nearly identical service. It works but, there is not much of a community behind it since there was no compelling reason to leave del.icio.us to use Yahoo bookmarks. They're buying del.icio.us for the community not the technology.
The IBM 3480 and 3490 HDAs had small windows over the RW heads. They were pretty cool to watch if you could take the noise in the cabinet.
We had a head crash on a 3480 once. At first we thought the noise was from some construction outside. Then we get nasty red messages on the console, CICS crashes (of course it wasn't a work pack) and all that related hoo ha. After the CE got it out he opened it up for us. The head had dug into the platter at full speed and gouged out a spiral of aluminum out of the platter. It was a pain to recover from but it did look cool.
I see it blow up once and a while with Bonjour (formerly Reundevous) messaging. I think it's libgaim though. Fire did the same thing and both are based on libgaim.
My biggest gripe with all of the multi protocol clients (I'm looking at you libgaim) is the lack of support for proxing via HTTP. Not using the CONNECT method at the proxy (like anyone has it enabled). I'm stuck using the real Yahoo! client (yuck) because I haven't found one yet that handles the AIM/ICQ, Yahoo HTTP protocol. We're supposed to see HTTP proxy support in Gaim 2.
The whole thing smells of this administration trying the distract the "values voters" from the scandals and war. Just like gay marriage just before the election.
I'm a programmer in my 40s and looking at a layoff next year. Frankly, I can not recommend anyone go into IT or any other "knowledge worker" field. If you don't have to be there physically you risk your job going elsewhere. Before you go to college for that degree learn a trade. HVAC maintenance, auto repair, carpentry, plumbing. Hell, drive a truck. After doing that for a few years you'll know about hard work and have something to fall back on when (not if) the pointy hairs send your "knowledge worker" job elsewhere to save a couple bucks. Me, I'm going to try to squeeze a few more years out of programming while trying to start a business of my own. I really love programming. I would spend the rest of my career designing/coding and mentoring new people entering the field but nobody seems to want that anymore.
Many years ago we used to have a cat who would spend much of it's day trying to figure out how to catch, kill and eat our 2 cockatiels without touching them (yes, cat logic). One day we had the birds out flying around the apartment and the cat thought it would be a good idea to sit in front of the open cage door and wait for the bird. One of the birds got spooked by something and dived toward the cage so it could hide. While the bird was in a power dive towards the cage it noticed the cat and, at the same time, the cat saw the bird zooming towards it. The cats eyes went wide with an "OH CRAP" look and the bird tried to do a quick air brake like they do in the cartoons. The bird crashed into the side of the cat and they both ran off in different directions. That cat wouldn't go near the birds for weeks after that.
To this day it's still one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
This is one of the more absurd patents to come out of the USPTO in a while. Hopefully, absurd enough that the average American will see how broken the patent system is.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's probably not a good thing. It's just part of the death of western capitalism.
Soon the new eastern capitalists (i.e. China) will come here to fill the void.
Just plain old internal politics.
As it was explained to me:
If you're the new programming executive you need to prove your predecessor was an idiot. So, you take a show, move it around and preempt it until it tanks then replace it with something of your own.
Now you're the hero for replacing that "bad" show.
It took a special kind of stupid to believe that region coding would stop anything. Even without the chipped players region coding depended on the price of DVD players staying so high that most people would not be able to afford a second one.
I rather like the way it asks before running a new widget for the first time. That can help keep it from becoming another way that malware can run.
Now we can see the same 8 games updated every year for our phones too!
Sony you've lost my trust. There is nothing you can say that will get it back. Actions, not words can win me back and that will take a long, long time.
Grab that account quick before someone gets your favorite username.
I've wondered why the spammers haven't started crapflooding the social bookmarking sites already. John Udell wrote about it last month when del.icio.us added the "for" tag.
SiteBar http://sitebar.org/ is a pretty good php/MySQL webapp.
Yahoo already has a nearly identical service. It works but, there is not much of a community behind it since there was no compelling reason to leave del.icio.us to use Yahoo bookmarks.
They're buying del.icio.us for the community not the technology.
The IBM 3480 and 3490 HDAs had small windows over the RW heads. They were pretty cool to watch if you could take the noise in the cabinet.
We had a head crash on a 3480 once. At first we thought the noise was from some construction outside. Then we get nasty red messages on the console, CICS crashes (of course it wasn't a work pack) and all that related hoo ha.
After the CE got it out he opened it up for us. The head had dug into the platter at full speed and gouged out a spiral of aluminum out of the platter. It was a pain to recover from but it did look cool.
I know exactly where Paco would be with one of those. Stuck to the floor. Our cats are bigger then him.
I'd also be concerned about putting a PS3 on my network. Will it sniff traffic on your network and report back to Sony?
I see it blow up once and a while with Bonjour (formerly Reundevous) messaging. I think it's libgaim though. Fire did the same thing and both are based on libgaim.
Fire is nice on the Mac but it really doesn't play well on Powerbooks (won't reconnect after suspend) so I switched to AdiumX and I like it better.
My biggest gripe with all of the multi protocol clients (I'm looking at you libgaim) is the lack of support for proxing via HTTP. Not using the CONNECT method at the proxy (like anyone has it enabled). I'm stuck using the real Yahoo! client (yuck) because I haven't found one yet that handles the AIM/ICQ, Yahoo HTTP protocol.
We're supposed to see HTTP proxy support in Gaim 2.
Or a hammer. You can fix anything with a big enough hammer.
The whole thing smells of this administration trying the distract the "values voters" from the scandals and war. Just like gay marriage just before the election.
I prefer the shotgun filled with rock salt or a fire hose.
I'm a programmer in my 40s and looking at a layoff next year. Frankly, I can not recommend anyone go into IT or any other "knowledge worker" field. If you don't have to be there physically you risk your job going elsewhere. Before you go to college for that degree learn a trade. HVAC maintenance, auto repair, carpentry, plumbing. Hell, drive a truck. After doing that for a few years you'll know about hard work and have something to fall back on when (not if) the pointy hairs send your "knowledge worker" job elsewhere to save a couple bucks.
Me, I'm going to try to squeeze a few more years out of programming while trying to start a business of my own.
I really love programming. I would spend the rest of my career designing/coding and mentoring new people entering the field but nobody seems to want that anymore.
Many years ago we used to have a cat who would spend much of it's day trying to figure out how to catch, kill and eat our 2 cockatiels without touching them (yes, cat logic). One day we had the birds out flying around the apartment and the cat thought it would be a good idea to sit in front of the open cage door and wait for the bird. One of the birds got spooked by something and dived toward the cage so it could hide. While the bird was in a power dive towards the cage it noticed the cat and, at the same time, the cat saw the bird zooming towards it. The cats eyes went wide with an "OH CRAP" look and the bird tried to do a quick air brake like they do in the cartoons. The bird crashed into the side of the cat and they both ran off in different directions. That cat wouldn't go near the birds for weeks after that.
To this day it's still one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
... no.
On second thought... still no. Not just no but hell no.
This is one of the more absurd patents to come out of the USPTO in a while. Hopefully, absurd enough that the average American will see how broken the patent system is.
It's called Dinty Moore Beef Stew.
Yes, they won't make as much as MS or the old Novell. With the commoditization of computer technology we should expect that. The market is maturing.