Uri Geller has filed suit against Sarah Michelle Gellar, alleging "a conspiracy to defraud and confuse" the public. The main thrust of Geller's suit is that the uncanny similarity between their names and their involvement in the magic field "can't be a coincidence". Attorneys for Ms. Gellar responded with the statement "It's just a TV show, stupid. I mean, it's on the WB, and who even watches that? WB stations are usually in the UHF band, anyways."
In a related development, NSI responded by immediately placing all related domain names on hold.
- -Josh Turiel
Both are awesome chips-the difference is degrees
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G4 vs. Athlon Review
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· Score: 3
The Athlon is an amazing chip, even more so given the need to maintain backwards compatibility with real-mode X86 code and the hack that is MMX. The only performance improvements I really expect to see going forward in X86 architecture are going to be due to process improvement rather than architectural development. MMX and 3DNOW are kludges on the architecture. In light of that, Athlon stands out even more.
The G4, though, has the advantage of being a lighter-weight chip (fewer transistors needed, fewer instructions, less microcode). As for speed, RISC versus CISC aside, the Motorola/IBM designs have not shown the ability to drive the high clock speeds that Intel and AMD are playing with. Until about a year ago, the two were neck-and-neck, but the X86 chips are now up around 800 MHz while the G4 is just passing 500 now. But given the efficiency of not having to deal with all the microcoded X86 instructions the G4 minimizes the difference in a well-implemented OS.
Another thing to keep in mind (mentioned in the article) is that the G4 is not strictly designed for desktop computers. PowerPC chips are very popular in the embedded market, where they go into single-board computers, automobiles, and all sorts of dedicated hardware. Sales to Apple alone wouldn't keep a chip family alive. Interestingly, Intel sells a lot of older 386 processors to the embedded market too - the too-cool Blackbery 2-way pagers use a 386 processor among other devices.
The best thing that PowerPC has going for it IMHO is that Motorola didn't build backwards compatibility with the M68K series processors. They made an architectural clean break - and the few companies that needed compatibility did it through emulation (parts of the MacOS are still in 68K code today). The ample shortcomings of the MacOS tend to cover up what is a first-rate processor family.
My suspicion as to the 'real' reason Intel has been funding Linux ventures is this: they know that Windows is hopelessly tied to X86, and they are hoping to eventually leave that baggage behind in the IA-64 architecture. Ultimately, X86 will be a drag on clock speeds.
Sorry to have rambled about here some, but I'm still a bit sleep-deprived from the weekend.
Usually only Open Source-based products get patches that fast. Not only is Apple's Open Transport not Open Source, it's licensed from a third party to boot. Even though OT is pretty easy to tweak, it's still impressive that Apple did the Right Thing so fast.
I'm sure there were script kiddies out there hoping to exploit this particular hole - but I have my doubts about the "Y2K/black helicopters" scenario that the fellow who spotted this bug seems to believe is imminent...
I'd avoid RIMM memory until it's been proven better over time. If that means using the VIA chipset to run 133 MHz FSB for now, so be it. Or you could use an Athlon, or stick to the tried-and-true BX chipset. But regardless, I'd stick with SDRAM for the next six months or so at least (a year, ideally) - the cost is substantially less, the performance is virtually identical, and it's proven stable. Rambus has had issues so far - the fix for the initial problems with the early i820 chipsets was to eliminate a RIMM slot! That doesn't encourage an early adoption.
Other than that, the specs look good. You may want to look into 3D cards that are optimized for general-purpose 3D rather than gaming, but it'll be fast any way you slice it. As for 128-bit sound, it's not needed, but given how little a good 128-bit sound card costs, why not?
First of all, I do think that Dvorak blows smoke way too often, but he's interesting even when he's been using the ol' crack pipe. At least he has real opinions that were formulated by actual experience, unlike the average smarmy.com reporter who parrots the "corporate line". If ZD had more Dvoraks I'd respect them more.
That said, I'm right with him on his first four picks for the big events (Linux may be proven to us, but most of the world seems to see it as "the latest Microsoft challenger", and Apple's return from the grave helps ensure that there will always be a "Pepsi" to Microsoft's Coke - regardless of Linux's future), but I don't think.com millionaires have made that much of a splash (other than in a few ZIP codes). Yes, we're conscious of them, but more in the general sense of "hey! People are getting rich selling nothing!" than in the "CmdrTaco is a media mogul" sense. I don't think they were really that significant for the most part - just a side effect of the "Rise Of The Internet".
No, I think number 5 should have been called "cutting the cord". The explosion of cellular phones, laptop computers, beepers, and Palm handhelds (and the coming 2-way pager boom) has been enormous this past year - cell phones and Palms are everywhere and people have accepted them as a normal part of society. Have any of you Palm people noticed that people don't look at you funny any more when you whip a Palm III out in the middle of a meeting and start taking notes? They're just part of the landscape now, along with the requisite micro-phone from Nokia, Motorola, or Qualcomm. Cellular, and digital/PCS cellular in particular, finally has the size, battery life, and pricing to be everywhere. So much so that the backlash has already started. The coming "no cell phone" railroad cars and restaurants are indicating that cellular is no longer for the so-called "elite" but for everyone.
As for the flops list - the jury's still out on Firewire. I think 2000 will be the "make or break" year for the technology, at least in the mass-market consumer end of the business. But the new digital camcorders are so cool and so cheap that I think Firewire will be just fine. But it's a niche technology until Intel puts it into PC chipsets. Firewire as standard on Macs, Sonys, and a few other small brands (PC-wise) just isn't enough.
Java is rapidly becoming "just another language", mainly because of Sun's incompetent stewardship. Soon it'll be thought of as "C++ with garbage collection" unless Sun loosens up the death grip. Stick a fork in Larry Ellison - he's done and doesn't know it yet. Microsoft's going to kill him on the low end and IBM will kill him on the high-end. CE was a dead man walking when it first shipped - as son as it became clear that a CE device would have the battery life of a bad laptop. Give up a hard drive for that? I don't think so. The fundamental crappiness of the Windows interface in a handleld form factor just made it worse.
And as for DIVX? I've forgotten it already. Although now that DVD's won, they're trying to get the horse back in the barn...
A lot of things that ultimately show up in the auto market debut on Cadillac cars. As GM's high-end, they appeal to people with money to spare which is useful when a new tech is just coming out of the lab. A few things that Cadillac led with:
They had a forerunner of ABS available in 1970. Air bags were available in the mid-'70s. So was EFI. They did tilt wheels in the '60s. I believe they were also the first GM division to add OnStar to their cars.
The trend at GM is to move things down throughout the line - look for Night Vision to be on Buick and the high-end GM trucks (Suburban and Tahoe) in another year or two, then for it to be on Olds and Pontiac, followed by Chevy and (maybe) Saturn in the middle of the next decade.
Night Vision is one of those things that screams "why didn't anybody think of it sooner". From what I've seen of it, it doesn't get in the way, and just spotlights things that are out of your headlights' range. I could use that when I'm staying on the Vineyard - the damn deer are everywhere on the island.
I've come to the conclusion that a technology has become passé when they start making it with transparent plastic... First it was casette tapes, then floppies, now Macs!:)
It's not that the technology has become passé necessarily (though that's possible), it's that the technology has now become ubiquitous to a point where the item worries about the fashion statement as much as the device inside the fashion. Think about it. The iMac isn't a computer for everyone (geeks like we/. readers)- it's targeted to the consumer.
The average Joe-type consumer doesn't care that AMD has a 750 MHz Athlon, though we do. They don't even care if it runs Windows, though they're susceptible to the herd mentality. Computers (in general) have gotten simple enough, fast enough, and cheap enough that they all blur together in many a mind and the distinguishing selling characteristic becomes "How cool is it? The iMac is a decent computer for the price - not a great one. But it oozes Cool to the consumer.
In my home, I have a few PC's and they're all beige powerhouses I built myself. Two run Linux and one runs Win98 (games, games, games). But when someone comes to my house and needs to use a computer, they're drawn to my wife's iMac. I bought an iBook to replace my trusty old PowerBook 3400 (overclocked to 270MHz, in case anybody wants to buy it?), and people stop to stare at it and touch it when I pull it out of the briefcase.
When technology is all the same to people, design becomes the differentiator. Consumer products companies have known that for years - the computer industry is just catching on. Right now most of the Wintel boxes trying to play in this space are iMac knock-offs, which plays into Apple's hands. When the Wintel shops start to do interesting and different things with their designs, the sales will reflect it.
Right now Apple is winning the consumer war - their model outsells any other individual model of Wintel system (and the iBook is doing the same against laptops) at retail, and the Wintel vendors are changing their design models to imitate. Right down their alley.
Hmmm... What could I possibly bid for hemos.net that would truly be worthy?
I know - I'll give you $35, (rummaging through my desk) a PC Card placeholder for your laptop, a chocolate Balance bar, three Pepcid AC tablets, a serial/PS/2 adapter, and a slightly used Pentium motherboard from some no-name manufacturer.
Do we have a deal, or what?
I'll even throw in a couple of those free Home Depot "remodeling your home"-type pamphlets - you could probably use one of them...
That's the message here. If "other mall owners", many of which own multiple malls (I think that most mall companies, at least based on my experience in New England, own and operate several at a time) don't ban.com ads, it's not because they're afraid to - it's because they aren't dumb enough to shite where they eat! The bigger chains will do what they want, anyways, because a mall can't afford to say "no" to the Gap, the Limited, or Victoria's Secret. Without brand-name stores, most malls wither and die.
What Hycel has done is just demonstrate they don't understand running a mall. From some of the comments here, their mall is apparently an "upscale" mall in St. Louis, and the only one in Hycel's portfolio. Well, I suspect (but don't know for sure) that they acquired the mall rather than built it, and that they mainly operate other sorts of properties. Because they seem to rate poorly on the Clue-O-Meter (tm) when it comes to mall management. America has sufficent critical mass in mall distribution that there's probably a competitor in the immediate area that'll find room for the tenants they anger enough to drive out. Sales for the chain are unaffected, and the Galleria goes into a death spiral.
.com shopping is a threat in many instances - but for the most part not directly to the brick-based retailers in malls. An Eddiebauer.com won't pull the business without having the store presence to back it up - allowing for convenience to the customer. If Eddie Bauer doesn't sell in stores, there's nothing to drive the brand into people's heads. If they don't sell online, they'll lose the online sales that go to the web-only segment. The biggest threat to retailers is from the "pure" web companies. So do they stay out of e-tailing because some piss-ant mall owner says they can't advertise in-store? I don't think so. Do they cave for one mall owner? Nope. Can't afford to set the precedent. Do they sue the mall owner or leave to go elsewhere? Now you're talking...
(addressed to Hycel): guys, running a competitive mall is tough enough as is. Don't fsck it up by taking on the Gap, too. You need to keep them happy or they'll squish you like a bug - not to mention they can afford more lawyers than you can. You may sell $500 per square foot, but it's not because of you - it's the store mix. If the stores leave, so do your sales numbers.
Hello?
- -Josh Turiel
Here's my definition (geek is more positive)
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Geeks vs. Nerds
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· Score: 2
A nerd is hopelessly focused on one thing, to the exception of pretty much all else. You can be a computer nerd, an RPG nerd, a chemistry nerd, or even a politics nerd. But the implication is that you are wearing blinders to the rest of the world.
Whereas a geek may be equally adept at the same thing as the nerd, but the geek has a broader worldview. The geek goes out on Saturday night, reads the newspaper to see what's going on in the world, and has other hobbies and other areas of interest.
Geeks are friends with non-geeks, too. Nerds just tend to be friends with other nerds.
Geeks date and get married. Nerds are frightened to - though some get over it. In general geeks are more socially aware.
People can have tendencies in both directions - it's not entirely a "either/or" situation. But, for the most part, geeks realize the existence of shades of gray. nerds are more binary in nature. Ask a geek to turn on the light, and they will turn on the nearest or the brightest light - making a judgement as to which one you want. if they aren't sure, they'll ask you which one you meant. Ask a nerd to turn on a light without explicitly specifying which one, and you run a risk of being ignored completely.
Geeks usually know that they're geeks. Most like it that way. Nerds usually don't realize that they are nerds. Those who do have enough self-awareness that they may eventually become geeks.
Geeks use higher-level languages than nerds - geeks hack Perl, write shell scripts, and the nerdier ones do Java. Nerds start with Java as a HLL, and work down to assembler.
When I was growing up a couple of decades ago the two were equally negative, but "geek" referred to personality and "nerd" usually strictly referred to someone technologically obsessed. The terms have obviously changed over the years. Now, even though I see nerd as a less positive term than geek - neither is really much of an insult anymore outside the third grade.
But all in all, geeks and nerds combined rule the world today - and it's good to be the king!
Obviously, RSI is a Bad Thing. I won't challenge that (I've been whacked by that myself), and my hands have been known to get sore from over-keyboarding, too. I'm working on a book right now, and it's not easy to pound out the words. Handwriting can be difficult for me, and I have some trouble at times playing golf, a sport which I am very fond of. As soon as Dragon ships their Mac version, I'm all over it.
My concern is with the way the government chooses to meddle. Should Congress pass a law stating that chemicals must be labelled (to use one example from your comment), I have no problem with that. Congress consists of elected officials, who are accountable to their constituents. Without digressing into my personal opinion of Congress, I'll say that if the Congressperson's constituents do not approve of the law, they can make it known to said Congressperson who can vote for or against it. I assume here that Congresspersons wish to appeal to a majority of the people they represent, and will take that into account when deciding how to vote.
I'm going to exaggerate here deliberately for the sake of illustrating my point, but part of the question when considering regulations are an "opportunity cost" - if a regulation would cost $1 billion, and save 2 lives, that's a cost of $500 million per life saved. Is that worth it? Yes, if you're the immediate family of thse two people (or one of them yourself), but that cost implies that approximately $2,000 comes out of each and every one of our pockets to save one of those people. Is the cost to society as a whole worth it? Probably not. Is it worth, say, an extra $30 per year (maybe not directly in taxes, but in increased cost for goods) to save 2 people? Maybe. To save 100 people? Probably. 1000? Definitely. And so forth and so on. The actual numbers here aren't meant to say anything other than that there's a cost to every regulation, regardless of intent. Politicians are accountable for that - spend too much of my money on things I don't value and I will vote to remove you from office. If a plurality of votors agree, you're removed, to be replaced by someone we agree with. If I vote against you and lose, then that's fine - the people have a different priority and I'll live with that (unless I'm one of the two people not saved - oof!). In reality, I might well vote to spend the money to save those people. Or I might not. It depends.
Mind you, I understand well where you're coming from - at my old company I was responsible for the network and the people who operated the imagesetters and proofing equipment - we mixed our own developer and toner (we called going for fresh water to mix with "making a soup run"). We kept the MSDS sheets for everything, installed everything possible to keep the environment safe, and installed eye protection kits and wash stations. It was nasty stuff, but we had to do it - again, because we wanted to keep employees. Ironically, we weren't too good about things like wristrests or keyboard trays but hazmat - we had that nailed. My current company doesn't do any of that but, as I said, the goals are the same.
In OSHA, we have a group that has no accountability to anybody formulating rules based on their need to keep regulating to survive. If OSHA wants to inflict a rule (not necessarily this one, mind you) that has a destructive impact on the economy, they can go ahead and do so - nobody will vote them out of office. Once OSHA was created, they were given the authority to do what they saw fit - and Congress gets to stay out of it. Regulations are better addressed through laws passed by lawmakers, not rules passed by an agency. Remember "Know Your Customer"? Or the Clipper Chip? Things like that happen when there is no direct accountability to the voters/taxpayers. Congress should pass the regulations, and OSHA, if it existed in my world, would make sure those regulations were enforced. Your textile workers and industrial workers would still be protected all the same. That's the beauty of our system, flawed though it is.
I'm not willing (despite my obviously Libertarian leanings) to go out on a limb and say the invisible hand of the market can address every single ill - that's terribly impractical even if it's technically "the Right Thing". But our ills should be addressed by accountable politicians, not unelected bureaucrats.
Yes, I know RSI is a real problem, and I agree that employers should be sufficiently responsible about the workplace environment so that the chances are minimized that any employee will suffer injuries of that nature.
That said, I have a big problem with OSHA sticking their nose into this. The business of OSHA is to (if you feel they are a legitimate governmental authority - I have a philosophical opposition to their existence) prevent workers from getting maimed and killed. OSHA is for the construction sites, the meat-packing plants, and the assembly lines of the nation (places where workers are at significant risk of bodily harm), not the white-collar offices. Existing workers' compensation law should be more than sufficient to allow the free market to deal with RSI - if the employer does not make fairly inexpensive adjustments for the benefit of their employees, there will be more workers' comp claims and higher turnover, resulting in higher costs to the employer (insurance, legal, and training costs). It is to the economic advantage of the employer to provide a reasonable environment to their employees. If I'm productive at my task, my employer will make sure I'm properly equipped to do my job in reasonable comfort - if I'm not, they'll fire my butt. My company, as an example, is happy to provide trackballs, ergo keyboards, keyboard trays, and adjustable chairs to try to make the workplace as comfortable as we can for our employees. But we haven't worried about measurements to specific OSHA-inlicted guidelines or any of that crap - we do it because comfortable employees are happier and get more done as a result. It just makes sense.
The problem as I see it is that OSHA, like any governmental bureaucracy, has an institutional need to impose (without legislative mandate) more and more rules on the workplace in order to demonstrate their (OSHA's) effectiveness and justify their continued existence. Simply monitoring and enforcing a minimum of rules doesn't justify bigger budgets and pay raises for the people who work there and OSHA's constituencies on the Hill. This applies to virtually all the commissions and agencies (like the EPA, EEOC, and OSHA, to name the most egregious offenders) that exist outside the traditional Cabinet-level structure and most of the ones that are in it, too. It's just an ever-expanding mandate - will they regulate your home office - or Rob's, or Hemos' house once it's rebuilt as their next action "for your safety"?
This most recent Congress has been, by most conventional measures, a spectacularly inefficient one - nothing of any substance has been passed due to the partisan gridlock that's prevailed ever since the Clinton investigation kicked into high gear. And you know what? It's been successful as all hell. It appears that the nation does just fine without Congress passing laws - somehow we're just able to get over it, pick ourselves up, and continue building this economy to unheard-of heights. Coincidence? I doubt it. I'm a firm believer in the general philosophy of "that government governs best which governs least".
Hey - my cat wants to sit on my lap while I'm typing this - does this have OSHA implications?
Duties included managing stress and failure studies on body parts, studying healing process, and testing new procedures for bandage and splint application. Travelled frequently, though trips were short in duration. Operated machinery in an unsafe manner.
I, for one, never had a moment's doubt that Bubbleboy would make it out into the open. If nothing else, the arms race between virus writers and anti-virus companies guarantees that viruses will show up in public. I wouln't even blink if you told me that it was spread by one of the antvirus companies (even by accident), because what will happen as a result?
That's right - more antivirus sales. And now that Macs are popular again, there's even viruses that affect them: for years, Mac users could putter away in safety knowing that not even virus writers developed for the platform. Now Macs aren't even safe.
I'm sorry, viruses are just not a sufficient reason (yet) to switch my whole company over to Linux.
I guess I'm just a hardened cynic. Oh well, time to go make sure I remembered to set the filter on Groupshield...
And I don't think it was Debian. For many years, I ran a network of Macs for a company that made supermarket circulars. We used a funky program from Multi-Ad Services called Multi-Ad Creator. It's still the best thing I've used for single-page ad layouts, and the logo (dating back at least 8 years) is nearly identical in design and concept.
The processor, OTOH, I don't have a lot to contribute about...
Not only was his website supposedly hacked - now it looks like it's been slashdotted, too!
I saw it earlier this week - I guess I just don't get what the fuss was all about. Maybe I'm just an Old Fart, but I've seen a lot more interesting candidates for net.phenom. Oh well. To own their each.
I thought "This website works best with Microsoft Internet Explorer" was the most common symbol on the Internet. Or am I just bitter and cynical?
TRUSTe has been all but ignored since they came into existence as far as I can tell. It would be nice to see a privacy stamp with credibility - but it's not theirs. Too many 'gotchas" under their watch.
I was actually referring to the way it can independently aquire targets and bring them in. It could collect aircraft pieces, and return them to base whenever it's full - a lot cheaper and safer than sending divers 200+ feet down.
As for power, it's more realistic to think that it would use seawater than dead humans.
What we have here is actually pretty radical. This is more or less a fully autonomous, self-powered robot that could continue to do it's job (albeit a very simple one) indefinitely. It can't repair itself, but otherwise will keep going until you stop it. Not to mention that it has the ability to identify targets in an area with plenty of interference (plants and other critters).
This could be a harbinger of significantly more useful stuff to come. Slus are slow, and easy targets, but what about other pests? Another possibility is search and recovery missions. Imagine robots with similar logic looking for, say, the debris from the EgyptAir crash the other day.
Now, a scary thought - Imagine your AIBO hunting slugs. Brrr.....
I meant to refer to the "free beer" model - there's plenty of high-quality free and commercial software, and there's commercial software that's open out there too. And plenty of people create "Free Software" without asking for anything in return, but commercial software will take something from you as payment - even indirectly. That's the nature of the game. It's OK if they tell you up front, and even the model of "give away the sucky version and charge for the slick version" is OK by me. Caveat Emptor.
Sendmail's not as good an example because they give away and still maintain/enhance their core product which is still open. They are an example of doing the Right Thing. Good old Sendmail, despite it's hairyness, is good enough for most users. The "Pro" version gets you extra goodies and a slick GUI, but the core is the same. Real (or Apple's QuickTime) are better examples of crippleware. Apple, though, just makes you see an irritating banner ad. They don't (as far as I know) send my personal information to Apple without my consent every time I play an MP3 or video. But they do generally ask permission to do such things first.
Giving up privacy without consent is Wrong. Period. But be prepared to have it made an up-front condition for using more and more "free" commercial programs. They have to make money from something to pay the bills...
...they only stated up front what data they were collecting, and why. Real is a company that needs to make a profit (despite being a player in the Internet space, where profits are pretty much just baggage!), and isn't going to when they don't charge for software. Sure, you pay for their "plus" packages, but I think most users stick to the free stuff - remember, very few things in life are free, and commercial software is not one of them. Ultimately, Real needs to be able to sell demographic and targeted advertising information to companies if they want to make money - I sympathize with that need and don't have an issue with selling demographics at all. Most companies (Real included) aren't run as charities and need to make money somehow.
Anyhow, Real is entitled to the data so long as they ask for it, and make it clear that they are collecting it. If a user doesn't like it, they're welcome to not use RealJukebox or RealPlayer, there's plenty of alternatives out there. But collecting data without informing the user is the Wrong Thing.
No - I read it quite thoroughly. But I don't have any recollection of internet time being a factor at all in previous cases - all the other factors aren't new, they've been used in previous non-compete invalidations. This, on the other hand, represents something new.
I can see the logic behind having your key people sign non-compete clauses (star developers, executives, and the like), but in those cases a non-compete often isn't used because the would-be employee will refuse to sign it - and the position they are in has enough clout that they can get away with it.
In practice, non-competes are generally used to keep worker bees from moving to better jobs, it seems. They're definitely used too often, and on average don't really accomplish much at all. I've seen a few articles in recent months citing non-competes that were struck down for reasons of just being too restrictive: this is the first one I've seen that used Internet Time as a reason. But any reason to strike down a non-compete clause is fine by me.
Slashdot Mirror
Uri Geller has filed suit against Sarah Michelle Gellar, alleging "a conspiracy to defraud and confuse" the public. The main thrust of Geller's suit is that the uncanny similarity between their names and their involvement in the magic field "can't be a coincidence". Attorneys for Ms. Gellar responded with the statement "It's just a TV show, stupid. I mean, it's on the WB, and who even watches that? WB stations are usually in the UHF band, anyways."
In a related development, NSI responded by immediately placing all related domain names on hold.
- -Josh Turiel
The Athlon is an amazing chip, even more so given the need to maintain backwards compatibility with real-mode X86 code and the hack that is MMX. The only performance improvements I really expect to see going forward in X86 architecture are going to be due to process improvement rather than architectural development. MMX and 3DNOW are kludges on the architecture. In light of that, Athlon stands out even more.
The G4, though, has the advantage of being a lighter-weight chip (fewer transistors needed, fewer instructions, less microcode). As for speed, RISC versus CISC aside, the Motorola/IBM designs have not shown the ability to drive the high clock speeds that Intel and AMD are playing with. Until about a year ago, the two were neck-and-neck, but the X86 chips are now up around 800 MHz while the G4 is just passing 500 now. But given the efficiency of not having to deal with all the microcoded X86 instructions the G4 minimizes the difference in a well-implemented OS.
Another thing to keep in mind (mentioned in the article) is that the G4 is not strictly designed for desktop computers. PowerPC chips are very popular in the embedded market, where they go into single-board computers, automobiles, and all sorts of dedicated hardware. Sales to Apple alone wouldn't keep a chip family alive. Interestingly, Intel sells a lot of older 386 processors to the embedded market too - the too-cool Blackbery 2-way pagers use a 386 processor among other devices.
The best thing that PowerPC has going for it IMHO is that Motorola didn't build backwards compatibility with the M68K series processors. They made an architectural clean break - and the few companies that needed compatibility did it through emulation (parts of the MacOS are still in 68K code today). The ample shortcomings of the MacOS tend to cover up what is a first-rate processor family.
My suspicion as to the 'real' reason Intel has been funding Linux ventures is this: they know that Windows is hopelessly tied to X86, and they are hoping to eventually leave that baggage behind in the IA-64 architecture. Ultimately, X86 will be a drag on clock speeds.
Sorry to have rambled about here some, but I'm still a bit sleep-deprived from the weekend.
- -Josh Turiel
Usually only Open Source-based products get patches that fast. Not only is Apple's Open Transport not Open Source, it's licensed from a third party to boot. Even though OT is pretty easy to tweak, it's still impressive that Apple did the Right Thing so fast.
I'm sure there were script kiddies out there hoping to exploit this particular hole - but I have my doubts about the "Y2K/black helicopters" scenario that the fellow who spotted this bug seems to believe is imminent...
- -Josh Turiel
I'd avoid RIMM memory until it's been proven better over time. If that means using the VIA chipset to run 133 MHz FSB for now, so be it. Or you could use an Athlon, or stick to the tried-and-true BX chipset. But regardless, I'd stick with SDRAM for the next six months or so at least (a year, ideally) - the cost is substantially less, the performance is virtually identical, and it's proven stable. Rambus has had issues so far - the fix for the initial problems with the early i820 chipsets was to eliminate a RIMM slot! That doesn't encourage an early adoption.
Other than that, the specs look good. You may want to look into 3D cards that are optimized for general-purpose 3D rather than gaming, but it'll be fast any way you slice it. As for 128-bit sound, it's not needed, but given how little a good 128-bit sound card costs, why not?
- -Josh Turiel
First of all, I do think that Dvorak blows smoke way too often, but he's interesting even when he's been using the ol' crack pipe. At least he has real opinions that were formulated by actual experience, unlike the average smarmy .com reporter who parrots the "corporate line". If ZD had more Dvoraks I'd respect them more.
.com millionaires have made that much of a splash (other than in a few ZIP codes). Yes, we're conscious of them, but more in the general sense of "hey! People are getting rich selling nothing!" than in the "CmdrTaco is a media mogul" sense. I don't think they were really that significant for the most part - just a side effect of the "Rise Of The Internet".
That said, I'm right with him on his first four picks for the big events (Linux may be proven to us, but most of the world seems to see it as "the latest Microsoft challenger", and Apple's return from the grave helps ensure that there will always be a "Pepsi" to Microsoft's Coke - regardless of Linux's future), but I don't think
No, I think number 5 should have been called "cutting the cord". The explosion of cellular phones, laptop computers, beepers, and Palm handhelds (and the coming 2-way pager boom) has been enormous this past year - cell phones and Palms are everywhere and people have accepted them as a normal part of society. Have any of you Palm people noticed that people don't look at you funny any more when you whip a Palm III out in the middle of a meeting and start taking notes? They're just part of the landscape now, along with the requisite micro-phone from Nokia, Motorola, or Qualcomm. Cellular, and digital/PCS cellular in particular, finally has the size, battery life, and pricing to be everywhere. So much so that the backlash has already started. The coming "no cell phone" railroad cars and restaurants are indicating that cellular is no longer for the so-called "elite" but for everyone.
As for the flops list - the jury's still out on Firewire. I think 2000 will be the "make or break" year for the technology, at least in the mass-market consumer end of the business. But the new digital camcorders are so cool and so cheap that I think Firewire will be just fine. But it's a niche technology until Intel puts it into PC chipsets. Firewire as standard on Macs, Sonys, and a few other small brands (PC-wise) just isn't enough.
Java is rapidly becoming "just another language", mainly because of Sun's incompetent stewardship. Soon it'll be thought of as "C++ with garbage collection" unless Sun loosens up the death grip. Stick a fork in Larry Ellison - he's done and doesn't know it yet. Microsoft's going to kill him on the low end and IBM will kill him on the high-end. CE was a dead man walking when it first shipped - as son as it became clear that a CE device would have the battery life of a bad laptop. Give up a hard drive for that? I don't think so. The fundamental crappiness of the Windows interface in a handleld form factor just made it worse.
And as for DIVX? I've forgotten it already. Although now that DVD's won, they're trying to get the horse back in the barn...
- -Josh Turiel
It's gotta be more than that...
- -Josh Turiel
Then what's FreeBS?
A pirated copy of Windows, perhaps?
- -Josh Turiel
A lot of things that ultimately show up in the auto market debut on Cadillac cars. As GM's high-end, they appeal to people with money to spare which is useful when a new tech is just coming out of the lab. A few things that Cadillac led with:
They had a forerunner of ABS available in 1970.
Air bags were available in the mid-'70s. So was EFI.
They did tilt wheels in the '60s.
I believe they were also the first GM division to add OnStar to their cars.
The trend at GM is to move things down throughout the line - look for Night Vision to be on Buick and the high-end GM trucks (Suburban and Tahoe) in another year or two, then for it to be on Olds and Pontiac, followed by Chevy and (maybe) Saturn in the middle of the next decade.
Night Vision is one of those things that screams "why didn't anybody think of it sooner". From what I've seen of it, it doesn't get in the way, and just spotlights things that are out of your headlights' range. I could use that when I'm staying on the Vineyard - the damn deer are everywhere on the island.
- -Josh Turiel
I've come to the conclusion that a technology has become passé when they start making it with transparent plastic... First it was casette tapes, then floppies, now Macs! :)
/. readers)- it's targeted to the consumer.
It's not that the technology has become passé necessarily (though that's possible), it's that the technology has now become ubiquitous to a point where the item worries about the fashion statement as much as the device inside the fashion. Think about it. The iMac isn't a computer for everyone (geeks like we
The average Joe-type consumer doesn't care that AMD has a 750 MHz Athlon, though we do. They don't even care if it runs Windows, though they're susceptible to the herd mentality. Computers (in general) have gotten simple enough, fast enough, and cheap enough that they all blur together in many a mind and the distinguishing selling characteristic becomes "How cool is it? The iMac is a decent computer for the price - not a great one. But it oozes Cool to the consumer.
In my home, I have a few PC's and they're all beige powerhouses I built myself. Two run Linux and one runs Win98 (games, games, games). But when someone comes to my house and needs to use a computer, they're drawn to my wife's iMac. I bought an iBook to replace my trusty old PowerBook 3400 (overclocked to 270MHz, in case anybody wants to buy it?), and people stop to stare at it and touch it when I pull it out of the briefcase.
When technology is all the same to people, design becomes the differentiator. Consumer products companies have known that for years - the computer industry is just catching on. Right now most of the Wintel boxes trying to play in this space are iMac knock-offs, which plays into Apple's hands. When the Wintel shops start to do interesting and different things with their designs, the sales will reflect it.
Right now Apple is winning the consumer war - their model outsells any other individual model of Wintel system (and the iBook is doing the same against laptops) at retail, and the Wintel vendors are changing their design models to imitate. Right down their alley.
- -Josh Turiel
Hmmm... What could I possibly bid for hemos.net that would truly be worthy?
I know - I'll give you $35, (rummaging through my desk) a PC Card placeholder for your laptop, a chocolate Balance bar, three Pepcid AC tablets, a serial/PS/2 adapter, and a slightly used Pentium motherboard from some no-name manufacturer.
Do we have a deal, or what?
I'll even throw in a couple of those free Home Depot "remodeling your home"-type pamphlets - you could probably use one of them...
- -Josh Turiel
That's the message here. If "other mall owners", many of which own multiple malls (I think that most mall companies, at least based on my experience in New England, own and operate several at a time) don't ban .com ads, it's not because they're afraid to - it's because they aren't dumb enough to shite where they eat! The bigger chains will do what they want, anyways, because a mall can't afford to say "no" to the Gap, the Limited, or Victoria's Secret. Without brand-name stores, most malls wither and die.
What Hycel has done is just demonstrate they don't understand running a mall. From some of the comments here, their mall is apparently an "upscale" mall in St. Louis, and the only one in Hycel's portfolio. Well, I suspect (but don't know for sure) that they acquired the mall rather than built it, and that they mainly operate other sorts of properties. Because they seem to rate poorly on the Clue-O-Meter (tm) when it comes to mall management. America has sufficent critical mass in mall distribution that there's probably a competitor in the immediate area that'll find room for the tenants they anger enough to drive out. Sales for the chain are unaffected, and the Galleria goes into a death spiral.
.com shopping is a threat in many instances - but for the most part not directly to the brick-based retailers in malls. An Eddiebauer.com won't pull the business without having the store presence to back it up - allowing for convenience to the customer. If Eddie Bauer doesn't sell in stores, there's nothing to drive the brand into people's heads. If they don't sell online, they'll lose the online sales that go to the web-only segment. The biggest threat to retailers is from the "pure" web companies. So do they stay out of e-tailing because some piss-ant mall owner says they can't advertise in-store? I don't think so. Do they cave for one mall owner? Nope. Can't afford to set the precedent. Do they sue the mall owner or leave to go elsewhere? Now you're talking...
(addressed to Hycel): guys, running a competitive mall is tough enough as is. Don't fsck it up by taking on the Gap, too. You need to keep them happy or they'll squish you like a bug - not to mention they can afford more lawyers than you can. You may sell $500 per square foot, but it's not because of you - it's the store mix. If the stores leave, so do your sales numbers.
Hello?
- -Josh Turiel
A nerd is hopelessly focused on one thing, to the exception of pretty much all else. You can be a computer nerd, an RPG nerd, a chemistry nerd, or even a politics nerd. But the implication is that you are wearing blinders to the rest of the world.
Whereas a geek may be equally adept at the same thing as the nerd, but the geek has a broader worldview. The geek goes out on Saturday night, reads the newspaper to see what's going on in the world, and has other hobbies and other areas of interest.
Geeks are friends with non-geeks, too. Nerds just tend to be friends with other nerds.
Geeks date and get married. Nerds are frightened to - though some get over it. In general geeks are more socially aware.
People can have tendencies in both directions - it's not entirely a "either/or" situation. But, for the most part, geeks realize the existence of shades of gray. nerds are more binary in nature. Ask a geek to turn on the light, and they will turn on the nearest or the brightest light - making a judgement as to which one you want. if they aren't sure, they'll ask you which one you meant. Ask a nerd to turn on a light without explicitly specifying which one, and you run a risk of being ignored completely.
Geeks usually know that they're geeks. Most like it that way. Nerds usually don't realize that they are nerds. Those who do have enough self-awareness that they may eventually become geeks.
Geeks use higher-level languages than nerds - geeks hack Perl, write shell scripts, and the nerdier ones do Java. Nerds start with Java as a HLL, and work down to assembler.
When I was growing up a couple of decades ago the two were equally negative, but "geek" referred to personality and "nerd" usually strictly referred to someone technologically obsessed. The terms have obviously changed over the years. Now, even though I see nerd as a less positive term than geek - neither is really much of an insult anymore outside the third grade.
But all in all, geeks and nerds combined rule the world today - and it's good to be the king!
- -Josh Turiel
Obviously, RSI is a Bad Thing. I won't challenge that (I've been whacked by that myself), and my hands have been known to get sore from over-keyboarding, too. I'm working on a book right now, and it's not easy to pound out the words. Handwriting can be difficult for me, and I have some trouble at times playing golf, a sport which I am very fond of. As soon as Dragon ships their Mac version, I'm all over it.
My concern is with the way the government chooses to meddle. Should Congress pass a law stating that chemicals must be labelled (to use one example from your comment), I have no problem with that. Congress consists of elected officials, who are accountable to their constituents. Without digressing into my personal opinion of Congress, I'll say that if the Congressperson's constituents do not approve of the law, they can make it known to said Congressperson who can vote for or against it. I assume here that Congresspersons wish to appeal to a majority of the people they represent, and will take that into account when deciding how to vote.
I'm going to exaggerate here deliberately for the sake of illustrating my point, but part of the question when considering regulations are an "opportunity cost" - if a regulation would cost $1 billion, and save 2 lives, that's a cost of $500 million per life saved. Is that worth it? Yes, if you're the immediate family of thse two people (or one of them yourself), but that cost implies that approximately $2,000 comes out of each and every one of our pockets to save one of those people. Is the cost to society as a whole worth it? Probably not. Is it worth, say, an extra $30 per year (maybe not directly in taxes, but in increased cost for goods) to save 2 people? Maybe. To save 100 people? Probably. 1000? Definitely. And so forth and so on. The actual numbers here aren't meant to say anything other than that there's a cost to every regulation, regardless of intent. Politicians are accountable for that - spend too much of my money on things I don't value and I will vote to remove you from office. If a plurality of votors agree, you're removed, to be replaced by someone we agree with. If I vote against you and lose, then that's fine - the people have a different priority and I'll live with that (unless I'm one of the two people not saved - oof!). In reality, I might well vote to spend the money to save those people. Or I might not. It depends.
Mind you, I understand well where you're coming from - at my old company I was responsible for the network and the people who operated the imagesetters and proofing equipment - we mixed our own developer and toner (we called going for fresh water to mix with "making a soup run"). We kept the MSDS sheets for everything, installed everything possible to keep the environment safe, and installed eye protection kits and wash stations. It was nasty stuff, but we had to do it - again, because we wanted to keep employees. Ironically, we weren't too good about things like wristrests or keyboard trays but hazmat - we had that nailed. My current company doesn't do any of that but, as I said, the goals are the same.
In OSHA, we have a group that has no accountability to anybody formulating rules based on their need to keep regulating to survive. If OSHA wants to inflict a rule (not necessarily this one, mind you) that has a destructive impact on the economy, they can go ahead and do so - nobody will vote them out of office. Once OSHA was created, they were given the authority to do what they saw fit - and Congress gets to stay out of it. Regulations are better addressed through laws passed by lawmakers, not rules passed by an agency. Remember "Know Your Customer"? Or the Clipper Chip? Things like that happen when there is no direct accountability to the voters/taxpayers. Congress should pass the regulations, and OSHA, if it existed in my world, would make sure those regulations were enforced. Your textile workers and industrial workers would still be protected all the same. That's the beauty of our system, flawed though it is.
I'm not willing (despite my obviously Libertarian leanings) to go out on a limb and say the invisible hand of the market can address every single ill - that's terribly impractical even if it's technically "the Right Thing". But our ills should be addressed by accountable politicians, not unelected bureaucrats.
- -Josh Turiel
Yes, I know RSI is a real problem, and I agree that employers should be sufficiently responsible about the workplace environment so that the chances are minimized that any employee will suffer injuries of that nature.
That said, I have a big problem with OSHA sticking their nose into this. The business of OSHA is to (if you feel they are a legitimate governmental authority - I have a philosophical opposition to their existence) prevent workers from getting maimed and killed. OSHA is for the construction sites, the meat-packing plants, and the assembly lines of the nation (places where workers are at significant risk of bodily harm), not the white-collar offices. Existing workers' compensation law should be more than sufficient to allow the free market to deal with RSI - if the employer does not make fairly inexpensive adjustments for the benefit of their employees, there will be more workers' comp claims and higher turnover, resulting in higher costs to the employer (insurance, legal, and training costs). It is to the economic advantage of the employer to provide a reasonable environment to their employees. If I'm productive at my task, my employer will make sure I'm properly equipped to do my job in reasonable comfort - if I'm not, they'll fire my butt. My company, as an example, is happy to provide trackballs, ergo keyboards, keyboard trays, and adjustable chairs to try to make the workplace as comfortable as we can for our employees. But we haven't worried about measurements to specific OSHA-inlicted guidelines or any of that crap - we do it because comfortable employees are happier and get more done as a result. It just makes sense.
The problem as I see it is that OSHA, like any governmental bureaucracy, has an institutional need to impose (without legislative mandate) more and more rules on the workplace in order to demonstrate their (OSHA's) effectiveness and justify their continued existence. Simply monitoring and enforcing a minimum of rules doesn't justify bigger budgets and pay raises for the people who work there and OSHA's constituencies on the Hill. This applies to virtually all the commissions and agencies (like the EPA, EEOC, and OSHA, to name the most egregious offenders) that exist outside the traditional Cabinet-level structure and most of the ones that are in it, too. It's just an ever-expanding mandate - will they regulate your home office - or Rob's, or Hemos' house once it's rebuilt as their next action "for your safety"?
This most recent Congress has been, by most conventional measures, a spectacularly inefficient one - nothing of any substance has been passed due to the partisan gridlock that's prevailed ever since the Clinton investigation kicked into high gear. And you know what? It's been successful as all hell. It appears that the nation does just fine without Congress passing laws - somehow we're just able to get over it, pick ourselves up, and continue building this economy to unheard-of heights. Coincidence? I doubt it. I'm a firm believer in the general philosophy of "that government governs best which governs least".
Hey - my cat wants to sit on my lap while I'm typing this - does this have OSHA implications?
- -Josh Turiel
I can see it now:
1960-1975
Deceleration Coordinator
Duties included managing stress and failure studies on body parts, studying healing process, and testing new procedures for bandage and splint application. Travelled frequently, though trips were short in duration. Operated machinery in an unsafe manner.
- -Josh Turiel
I, for one, never had a moment's doubt that Bubbleboy would make it out into the open. If nothing else, the arms race between virus writers and anti-virus companies guarantees that viruses will show up in public. I wouln't even blink if you told me that it was spread by one of the antvirus companies (even by accident), because what will happen as a result?
That's right - more antivirus sales. And now that Macs are popular again, there's even viruses that affect them: for years, Mac users could putter away in safety knowing that not even virus writers developed for the platform. Now Macs aren't even safe.
I'm sorry, viruses are just not a sufficient reason (yet) to switch my whole company over to Linux.
I guess I'm just a hardened cynic. Oh well, time to go make sure I remembered to set the filter on Groupshield...
- -Josh Turiel
And I don't think it was Debian. For many years, I ran a network of Macs for a company that made supermarket circulars. We used a funky program from Multi-Ad Services called Multi-Ad Creator. It's still the best thing I've used for single-page ad layouts, and the logo (dating back at least 8 years) is nearly identical in design and concept.
The processor, OTOH, I don't have a lot to contribute about...
- -Josh Turiel
Not only was his website supposedly hacked - now it looks like it's been slashdotted, too!
I saw it earlier this week - I guess I just don't get what the fuss was all about. Maybe I'm just an Old Fart, but I've seen a lot more interesting candidates for net.phenom. Oh well. To own their each.
- -Josh Turiel
I thought "This website works best with Microsoft Internet Explorer" was the most common symbol on the Internet. Or am I just bitter and cynical?
TRUSTe has been all but ignored since they came into existence as far as I can tell. It would be nice to see a privacy stamp with credibility - but it's not theirs. Too many 'gotchas" under their watch.
- -Josh Turiel
Well, what else are you going to do with them?
(/me ducks)
I was actually referring to the way it can independently aquire targets and bring them in. It could collect aircraft pieces, and return them to base whenever it's full - a lot cheaper and safer than sending divers 200+ feet down.
As for power, it's more realistic to think that it would use seawater than dead humans.
- -Josh Turiel
What we have here is actually pretty radical. This is more or less a fully autonomous, self-powered robot that could continue to do it's job (albeit a very simple one) indefinitely. It can't repair itself, but otherwise will keep going until you stop it. Not to mention that it has the ability to identify targets in an area with plenty of interference (plants and other critters).
This could be a harbinger of significantly more useful stuff to come. Slus are slow, and easy targets, but what about other pests? Another possibility is search and recovery missions. Imagine robots with similar logic looking for, say, the debris from the EgyptAir crash the other day.
Now, a scary thought - Imagine your AIBO hunting slugs. Brrr.....
- -Josh Turiel
Good point.
I meant to refer to the "free beer" model - there's plenty of high-quality free and commercial software, and there's commercial software that's open out there too. And plenty of people create "Free Software" without asking for anything in return, but commercial software will take something from you as payment - even indirectly. That's the nature of the game. It's OK if they tell you up front, and even the model of "give away the sucky version and charge for the slick version" is OK by me. Caveat Emptor.
Sendmail's not as good an example because they give away and still maintain/enhance their core product which is still open. They are an example of doing the Right Thing. Good old Sendmail, despite it's hairyness, is good enough for most users. The "Pro" version gets you extra goodies and a slick GUI, but the core is the same. Real (or Apple's QuickTime) are better examples of crippleware. Apple, though, just makes you see an irritating banner ad. They don't (as far as I know) send my personal information to Apple without my consent every time I play an MP3 or video. But they do generally ask permission to do such things first.
Giving up privacy without consent is Wrong. Period. But be prepared to have it made an up-front condition for using more and more "free" commercial programs. They have to make money from something to pay the bills...
- -Josh Turiel
...they only stated up front what data they were collecting, and why. Real is a company that needs to make a profit (despite being a player in the Internet space, where profits are pretty much just baggage!), and isn't going to when they don't charge for software. Sure, you pay for their "plus" packages, but I think most users stick to the free stuff - remember, very few things in life are free, and commercial software is not one of them. Ultimately, Real needs to be able to sell demographic and targeted advertising information to companies if they want to make money - I sympathize with that need and don't have an issue with selling demographics at all. Most companies (Real included) aren't run as charities and need to make money somehow.
Anyhow, Real is entitled to the data so long as they ask for it, and make it clear that they are collecting it. If a user doesn't like it, they're welcome to not use RealJukebox or RealPlayer, there's plenty of alternatives out there. But collecting data without informing the user is the Wrong Thing.
- -Josh Turiel
No - I read it quite thoroughly. But I don't have any recollection of internet time being a factor at all in previous cases - all the other factors aren't new, they've been used in previous non-compete invalidations. This, on the other hand, represents something new.
- -Josh Turiel
I can see the logic behind having your key people sign non-compete clauses (star developers, executives, and the like), but in those cases a non-compete often isn't used because the would-be employee will refuse to sign it - and the position they are in has enough clout that they can get away with it.
In practice, non-competes are generally used to keep worker bees from moving to better jobs, it seems. They're definitely used too often, and on average don't really accomplish much at all. I've seen a few articles in recent months citing non-competes that were struck down for reasons of just being too restrictive: this is the first one I've seen that used Internet Time as a reason. But any reason to strike down a non-compete clause is fine by me.
- -Josh Turiel