Farenheit 451 was Francois Truffaut's only english language film to my knowledge. I suspect he suffered from Hollywood-itis... constant meddling by the producers, script re-writes ad nauseum, etc.
Also remember that the movie was made in the late 1960s. Given the other sci-fi fare available at the time, such as The Omega Man, Fantastic Voyage, (exception: 2001) I think it holds up pretty well.
Given that Microsoft never recommended WinME or Win98 for corporate networks, I don't think we can blame them here. Honestly, i can see some companies having made the mistake of deploying Win95 TEN YEARS ago on a corporate basis, but WinNT, Win2K, and WinXP have been around since and available for upgrade.
I hope to god people aren't running Win95 on 486s in their offices right now. That's like...inhumane.
In most cases, the DVD is cheaper than the movie soundtrack. Yes, for popular movies DVDs sell more copies, but given that the movie PAYS FOR the production of the soundtrack in the first place, its all gravy to the rights holder and to the label.
This is an easy example to use to anyone who argues that there's no collusion in the music industry. HMV is the same retail channel for both products -- its not the retailers marking up product, the problem lies at the source.
Re:A more favourable environment for Linux
on
Linux in Canada
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Becuase we're bilingual, Canada insists all federal based systems, documentation, etc etc be included in both French and English. Its a necessity to win Federal contracts. And there *is* a formal recongised Canadian French version, similar to Internation English or UK English vs US English.
Don't confuse regional dialect with formal language. I can find you some southern US drawls or english cockney that you would never understand!
PS In general, Parissiene French have a very demeaning attitude towards the colonial french. I'm sure the differences were exaggerated as a matter of social convention.
Re:A more favourable environment for Linux
on
Linux in Canada
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Microsoft is up here and is just as aggressive in corporate centres as in the US. However, Canada's national government has slightly different objectives than the US government or businesses, and that is a huge opportunity for Linux.
First off, for national defense or other confidential government affairs, linux would be the logical way to go -- its completely open source. The government could hire a Canadian company to customise and secure a linux kernel for specialised functions. If Canada buys Windows, however, there's no guarantees about security, and lets be honest...I find it perfectly reasonable to assume that there's a nudge-nudge/wink-wink backdoor in microsoft products for the NSA or CIA to leverage if necessary.
The other issue is languages. French isn't very popular in the US, but about 20% of our population speaks it and we're officially a bilingual country. We also have a whole territory (e.g. think 'province-lite') that is native speaking (Nunavut). When Windows 2000 came out here, the French version was several months behind...and it was more Parisienne French instead of Quebecois French, which was what was promised.
Finally, I think there's huge savings to get off the 'upgrade now' software assurance lifecycle. For government terminal functions (e.g. get a new driver's license) baseline it, secure it, and let it run for 10 years. No need to refresh you hardware and software every 3 years. Hell, refresh every 5 years and you've increased your equity by 40%.
Sony doesn't have a monopoly in any segment of domestic products that I can think of. I remember seeing an interview with a head Sony designer and he had a very sobering thought:
"Any technology we bring to market will be copied by 2 or 3 major competitors within 6 months. What separates us from our competitors is branding, consistency in design, and a reputation for quality."
If she ~really~ worked at compusa then she'll have a Slashdot account and can post to corroborate your story.
When NOT to hack
on
Hack Your Ride
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I'll hack something right up until the point where my personal body is in jeopardy.
Medical instruments? Factory spec is good enough for me. Microwave? I like to keep the RADs down. Cars? I like arriving in one piece.
I can understand this as a hobby, but why mod your day-to-day car so heavily? You probably break several laws in doing so, you definitely invalidate your car lease or warranty, and you probably invalidate your insurance as well. Besides, how confident are you that you'd never screw up?
Its a russian website, leveraging questionable copyright principles, with no legal presence in north america.
I'm sorry to say that I would never trust them with my credit card, and I'd be worried about any time of persistent connection between my computer and their website. I hope I'm wrong and its a legitimate attempt at a new online business model, but I've seen enough SPAM and ebay and paypal scams to be very nervous about this proposition.
Already done. Something like "The Janus Syndicate" or "The Janus Organisation" was what was run by Sean Bean's character in _Goldeneye_. And interesting play on the two-faced aspect of Bean...he was supposedly a double-oh agent, but in reality betrayed the MI-5.
Its the best James Bond film since _The Living Daylights_ in my opinion, and you have to go waaaaay back before that to get a Bond film that's not campy/over the top.
Notice also how the villan uses OS/2 on all his PCs at his secret hideout. Evvvvvilllll.....
Don't forget David Fincher's deluxe editions of Se7en and Fight Club. Not only does he include a cast/director commentary, but a craft-ortiented commentary with the cinematographer, audio mixers, etc.
Roger Ebert's commentaries on Dark City and Citizen Kane are essentials as well.
And finally, the Lord of the Rings commentaries are all great.
Please note i have over 300 DVDs, and I'm not spamming this message thread...those are the only real commentaries that stick out in my mind.
Excuse me, I'd rather my business partners use and abuse excel to their hearts content. Do you really want some rudimentary person building a database through wizards and gui, with no concept of logical design?
With spreadsheet abuse, the worst scenario you can get into is mangled data. With MS Access abuse, you can end up with a prototype for a production application. What starts on someone's PC becomes a LAN based app, then an.asp front end is added, then its rolled out and copied by other departments, then imported into SQL Server and centralised, then bastardised, then...
Hardware is measurable in a physical sense. So many transitors per mm, how many units a factory can produce in 'n' period of time, benchmarks against some algorithms...
But for software, it is much more difficult to measure improvement in a quantitative sense. It can be done, but not easily if the vendor wants to muddy the waters. I believe feature creep & bloat in Windows is to prevent direct comparisons with previous iterations of the product.
Although hardware costs have come down, its the result of competition in the free market, easily understood and measured as a physical good. Microsoft OS? They've become more expensive, with less value add in each iteration.
You're better off spending a bit more money and buying a low end multimedia PC for your home. More flexibility, more storage. You can kindof play games on your TV, but TV resolution sucks anyways in comparison with an SVGA screen.
Including Canada. We usually get a guarantee from a state's DA that they will not pursue the death penalty if extradicted. If its an option, our Supreme Court usually blocks the extradition.
We wouldn't extradict or evict someone threatened with tortue or execution to some 3rd world dictatorship like Iran or Syria, and those rules apply to 1st world nations as well.
Hence the growth industry in online auditing by the big 5 consulting firms. I don't gamble online, but I checked out a few sites to see how sketchy they were. Some were very, very dangerous (e.g. "Give us your credit card and we will then setup your account and provide you with a name and password."). Others allowed you to use paypal or other neutral tenders to hold cash in advance of gambling activity.
What really impressed me was that some of these casinos had the payout rates and statistical advantages audited and endorsed by 3rd parties -- governments of countries, and even Arthur Anderson and Deloitte and Touche. When was the last time you went to a casino and they provided you with a breakdown of their slot payouts?
I guess the US liberating Iraq is actually a noble attempt to try and make up for the CIA's sponsorship of Saddam's rise to power in the 1960s....
I understand what you're arguing: that removing Saddam now will prevent thousands of deaths in the future. But sorry if the world is skeptical -- the US under the CIA supported Iraq & Saddam for 30 years, so why depose him now?
I'm cynical about the newfound fundamentalist foreign policy running the White House nowadays, but I do share your hope that life improves for the Iraqi people.
The way I see it, IT is not very well respected and probably never will be.
As an IT worker, you have one of two options -- work for a pure tech based company, or work as an IT enabler for another type of business.
In the first case, you're a slave to the IPO culture. Bigger, faster, deliver yesterday. The lifespan of an IT company is measured in months or years, not decades. Your skills are constantly expiring (e.g. product lines end; certifications expire), much moreso than a traditional professional industry like engineering, medical practice, or law. The hours are bad, you're a disposable commodity (moreso than in other industries) and the lifestyle habits that are part of your work culture are unhealthy at best (long hours, fast food, sedentary, caffeine, smoking). Turnover is tremendous, burn out is common, and you're usually on contract. You get paid well, but probably have a brutal commute or even work in another city. And you can alternate from being highly in demand to unemployable in as little as 6 months.
If you're an IT enabler in a traditional business (like me), it has a few added benefits, but also some additional drawbacks. You're not the core of the business, so your costs are always scruitinized to ridiculous levels. You're not part of the decision making process that has huge impacts to how you do your job. Your bosses don't understand what you do and don't value your skills as much as their own, so you spend as much time managing the relationship as you do with delivery. Usually you're handcuffed to older legacy technologies as well, which means your skill development is held back and you're not cutting edge. On the plus side, you get some additional career stability to the pure IT shop since the business has a more traditional lifecycle. HR hates you, since you're a special skill and throw the compensation scale out of whack.
There are lots of benefits to working in IT, but sometimes the stress and career instability and social costs are just not worth it.
Think of it this way -- this is insurance that your Domain Name will be reserved for the next 20-30 years. The extra 60+ are insurance.
As for domain name expiry in 100 years time, I suspect that after 100 years of ownership, that it would be difficult for anyone to legally purchase the newly avaialble domain and to execute a business case with it. e.g. "My name is William Ford...I'm running my consulting services based website on this new domain name I bought, www.ford.com!..." Uh, no. You and 10 generations of your direct descendants have been litigated into oblivion! Have a nice day...
Speilberg's JAWS was the genesis of the summer 'blockbuster' -- a term defined by the fact that people lined up around the block to see JAWS.
Unfortunately, Speilberg will never be one of the all-time great directors. He is too affected by sentimentality, too demeaning to his audience, and too market driven to aspire to something greater. Even Schindler's List -- which has some great sequences and was brilliantly conceived -- collapses into a pit of sentimentality and historical inaccuracy at the end. And his book-ending of films with peoeple reminiscing (e.g. Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan) is the ultimate disservice to his story telling ability... "I don't think you got the message, so I'm going to beat you over the head so you understand what I meant!".
He's put together a string of really good films, and he's created some of the most entertaining movies in the past 25 years, but none will stand the test of time aside from being spectacle.
PS Its funny that people can't remember Spielberg's failures -- which are numerous. Hook...Jumanji...1941...Jurassic Park 3...big budget disasters of the Nth degree.
Took your test, and for the record I'm almsot exactly dead centre (which is what I expected). I disagree with the socialism vs liberalism comparison. In the US 'liberal' mean 'socialist' to most people. Also, Authoritarian vs democractic might be a better way of describing the second axis given the popular views of today. Not classically correct, but probably a better match given popular terminology.
Consider this: training, amount of time, and tools. Think of how ugly it is to uninstall a nasty worm virus; think of the effort it takes to salvage files from a flaky/dying hard drive, plus rebuilding the machine. Think of the cost of all the diagnostic software/tools you might have, even if its just some Norton Utilities, a MS Technet subscription, and an AV program.
If a lawyer or a plumber or an exterminator can charge $50-100/hour, a computer technician should be allowed to do the same.
Technician skills are expensive. My company now maintains images of your hard drive. If you have a problem that can't be resolved within 30 minutes of trouble shooting, they take your laptop away, re-image a new laptop, and give it to you the next morning. Its not worth the recovery effort. Bad ofr people with desktop support skills (used to be LAN admins who did that stuff). Now a force of >100 LAN admins across the Greater Toronto Area is less than 20 individuals.
Canada has far more social systems in place than the US. Until the early 1990s, you could argue the Canadian government was more authoritarian than life in the US, especially given the higher tax burden. Since the past 10 years, however, I think you'd be a fool to make that argument.
I've never heard of the US called "The Great Society", but if you think things like education, healthcare, social security, and pensions are the makings of an authoritarian regime, then you really need to reconsider your perspective in a worldwide context.
Slashdot Mirror
Farenheit 451 was Francois Truffaut's only english language film to my knowledge. I suspect he suffered from Hollywood-itis ... constant meddling by the producers, script re-writes ad nauseum, etc.
Also remember that the movie was made in the late 1960s. Given the other sci-fi fare available at the time, such as The Omega Man, Fantastic Voyage, (exception: 2001) I think it holds up pretty well.
Given that Microsoft never recommended WinME or Win98 for corporate networks, I don't think we can blame them here. Honestly, i can see some companies having made the mistake of deploying Win95 TEN YEARS ago on a corporate basis, but WinNT, Win2K, and WinXP have been around since and available for upgrade.
I hope to god people aren't running Win95 on 486s in their offices right now. That's like...inhumane.
In most cases, the DVD is cheaper than the movie soundtrack. Yes, for popular movies DVDs sell more copies, but given that the movie PAYS FOR the production of the soundtrack in the first place, its all gravy to the rights holder and to the label.
This is an easy example to use to anyone who argues that there's no collusion in the music industry. HMV is the same retail channel for both products -- its not the retailers marking up product, the problem lies at the source.
Becuase we're bilingual, Canada insists all federal based systems, documentation, etc etc be included in both French and English. Its a necessity to win Federal contracts. And there *is* a formal recongised Canadian French version, similar to Internation English or UK English vs US English.
Don't confuse regional dialect with formal language. I can find you some southern US drawls or english cockney that you would never understand!
PS In general, Parissiene French have a very demeaning attitude towards the colonial french. I'm sure the differences were exaggerated as a matter of social convention.
Microsoft is up here and is just as aggressive in corporate centres as in the US. However, Canada's national government has slightly different objectives than the US government or businesses, and that is a huge opportunity for Linux.
First off, for national defense or other confidential government affairs, linux would be the logical way to go -- its completely open source. The government could hire a Canadian company to customise and secure a linux kernel for specialised functions. If Canada buys Windows, however, there's no guarantees about security, and lets be honest...I find it perfectly reasonable to assume that there's a nudge-nudge/wink-wink backdoor in microsoft products for the NSA or CIA to leverage if necessary.
The other issue is languages. French isn't very popular in the US, but about 20% of our population speaks it and we're officially a bilingual country. We also have a whole territory (e.g. think 'province-lite') that is native speaking (Nunavut). When Windows 2000 came out here, the French version was several months behind...and it was more Parisienne French instead of Quebecois French, which was what was promised.
Finally, I think there's huge savings to get off the 'upgrade now' software assurance lifecycle. For government terminal functions (e.g. get a new driver's license) baseline it, secure it, and let it run for 10 years. No need to refresh you hardware and software every 3 years. Hell, refresh every 5 years and you've increased your equity by 40%.
Sony doesn't have a monopoly in any segment of domestic products that I can think of. I remember seeing an interview with a head Sony designer and he had a very sobering thought: "Any technology we bring to market will be copied by 2 or 3 major competitors within 6 months. What separates us from our competitors is branding, consistency in design, and a reputation for quality."
If she ~really~ worked at compusa then she'll have a Slashdot account and can post to corroborate your story.
I'll hack something right up until the point where my personal body is in jeopardy.
Medical instruments? Factory spec is good enough for me. Microwave? I like to keep the RADs down. Cars? I like arriving in one piece.
I can understand this as a hobby, but why mod your day-to-day car so heavily? You probably break several laws in doing so, you definitely invalidate your car lease or warranty, and you probably invalidate your insurance as well. Besides, how confident are you that you'd never screw up?
I'll take the bus thank you.
This site looks awesome, but...
Its a russian website, leveraging questionable copyright principles, with no legal presence in north america.
I'm sorry to say that I would never trust them with my credit card, and I'd be worried about any time of persistent connection between my computer and their website. I hope I'm wrong and its a legitimate attempt at a new online business model, but I've seen enough SPAM and ebay and paypal scams to be very nervous about this proposition.
Already done. Something like "The Janus Syndicate" or "The Janus Organisation" was what was run by Sean Bean's character in _Goldeneye_. And interesting play on the two-faced aspect of Bean...he was supposedly a double-oh agent, but in reality betrayed the MI-5.
Its the best James Bond film since _The Living Daylights_ in my opinion, and you have to go waaaaay back before that to get a Bond film that's not campy/over the top.
Notice also how the villan uses OS/2 on all his PCs at his secret hideout. Evvvvvilllll.....
Don't forget David Fincher's deluxe editions of Se7en and Fight Club. Not only does he include a cast/director commentary, but a craft-ortiented commentary with the cinematographer, audio mixers, etc.
Roger Ebert's commentaries on Dark City and Citizen Kane are essentials as well.
And finally, the Lord of the Rings commentaries are all great.
Please note i have over 300 DVDs, and I'm not spamming this message thread...those are the only real commentaries that stick out in my mind.
Don't forget -- we shipped her to Vegas. Canada is a safe place to come and life if you DON'T want to see Celine.
But we want Neil Young and Leonard Cohen back, you bastards.
Excuse me, I'd rather my business partners use and abuse excel to their hearts content. Do you really want some rudimentary person building a database through wizards and gui, with no concept of logical design?
.asp front end is added, then its rolled out and copied by other departments, then imported into SQL Server and centralised, then bastardised, then...
With spreadsheet abuse, the worst scenario you can get into is mangled data. With MS Access abuse, you can end up with a prototype for a production application. What starts on someone's PC becomes a LAN based app, then an
Sorry, i've seen too much of this!
Hardware is measurable in a physical sense. So many transitors per mm, how many units a factory can produce in 'n' period of time, benchmarks against some algorithms...
But for software, it is much more difficult to measure improvement in a quantitative sense. It can be done, but not easily if the vendor wants to muddy the waters. I believe feature creep & bloat in Windows is to prevent direct comparisons with previous iterations of the product.
Although hardware costs have come down, its the result of competition in the free market, easily understood and measured as a physical good. Microsoft OS? They've become more expensive, with less value add in each iteration.
You're better off spending a bit more money and buying a low end multimedia PC for your home. More flexibility, more storage. You can kindof play games on your TV, but TV resolution sucks anyways in comparison with an SVGA screen.
Definitely anal.
... "Yeah, Bob, looks like another late night -- we just took it up the ass again!".
Why?
During the next worm outbreak, just listening to your LAN admins discussing their work conditions.
Including Canada. We usually get a guarantee from a state's DA that they will not pursue the death penalty if extradicted. If its an option, our Supreme Court usually blocks the extradition.
We wouldn't extradict or evict someone threatened with tortue or execution to some 3rd world dictatorship like Iran or Syria, and those rules apply to 1st world nations as well.
Hence the growth industry in online auditing by the big 5 consulting firms. I don't gamble online, but I checked out a few sites to see how sketchy they were. Some were very, very dangerous (e.g. "Give us your credit card and we will then setup your account and provide you with a name and password."). Others allowed you to use paypal or other neutral tenders to hold cash in advance of gambling activity.
What really impressed me was that some of these casinos had the payout rates and statistical advantages audited and endorsed by 3rd parties -- governments of countries, and even Arthur Anderson and Deloitte and Touche. When was the last time you went to a casino and they provided you with a breakdown of their slot payouts?
I guess the US liberating Iraq is actually a noble attempt to try and make up for the CIA's sponsorship of Saddam's rise to power in the 1960s....
I understand what you're arguing: that removing Saddam now will prevent thousands of deaths in the future. But sorry if the world is skeptical -- the US under the CIA supported Iraq & Saddam for 30 years, so why depose him now?
I'm cynical about the newfound fundamentalist foreign policy running the White House nowadays, but I do share your hope that life improves for the Iraqi people.
The way I see it, IT is not very well respected and probably never will be.
As an IT worker, you have one of two options -- work for a pure tech based company, or work as an IT enabler for another type of business.
In the first case, you're a slave to the IPO culture. Bigger, faster, deliver yesterday. The lifespan of an IT company is measured in months or years, not decades. Your skills are constantly expiring (e.g. product lines end; certifications expire), much moreso than a traditional professional industry like engineering, medical practice, or law. The hours are bad, you're a disposable commodity (moreso than in other industries) and the lifestyle habits that are part of your work culture are unhealthy at best (long hours, fast food, sedentary, caffeine, smoking). Turnover is tremendous, burn out is common, and you're usually on contract. You get paid well, but probably have a brutal commute or even work in another city. And you can alternate from being highly in demand to unemployable in as little as 6 months.
If you're an IT enabler in a traditional business (like me), it has a few added benefits, but also some additional drawbacks. You're not the core of the business, so your costs are always scruitinized to ridiculous levels. You're not part of the decision making process that has huge impacts to how you do your job. Your bosses don't understand what you do and don't value your skills as much as their own, so you spend as much time managing the relationship as you do with delivery. Usually you're handcuffed to older legacy technologies as well, which means your skill development is held back and you're not cutting edge. On the plus side, you get some additional career stability to the pure IT shop since the business has a more traditional lifecycle. HR hates you, since you're a special skill and throw the compensation scale out of whack.
There are lots of benefits to working in IT, but sometimes the stress and career instability and social costs are just not worth it.
Think of it this way -- this is insurance that your Domain Name will be reserved for the next 20-30 years. The extra 60+ are insurance.
As for domain name expiry in 100 years time, I suspect that after 100 years of ownership, that it would be difficult for anyone to legally purchase the newly avaialble domain and to execute a business case with it. e.g. "My name is William Ford...I'm running my consulting services based website on this new domain name I bought, www.ford.com!..." Uh, no. You and 10 generations of your direct descendants have been litigated into oblivion! Have a nice day...
Speilberg's JAWS was the genesis of the summer 'blockbuster' -- a term defined by the fact that people lined up around the block to see JAWS.
Unfortunately, Speilberg will never be one of the all-time great directors. He is too affected by sentimentality, too demeaning to his audience, and too market driven to aspire to something greater. Even Schindler's List -- which has some great sequences and was brilliantly conceived -- collapses into a pit of sentimentality and historical inaccuracy at the end. And his book-ending of films with peoeple reminiscing (e.g. Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan) is the ultimate disservice to his story telling ability... "I don't think you got the message, so I'm going to beat you over the head so you understand what I meant!".
He's put together a string of really good films, and he's created some of the most entertaining movies in the past 25 years, but none will stand the test of time aside from being spectacle.
PS Its funny that people can't remember Spielberg's failures -- which are numerous. Hook...Jumanji...1941...Jurassic Park 3...big budget disasters of the Nth degree.
Took your test, and for the record I'm almsot exactly dead centre (which is what I expected). I disagree with the socialism vs liberalism comparison. In the US 'liberal' mean 'socialist' to most people. Also, Authoritarian vs democractic might be a better way of describing the second axis given the popular views of today. Not classically correct, but probably a better match given popular terminology.
Consider this: training, amount of time, and tools. Think of how ugly it is to uninstall a nasty worm virus; think of the effort it takes to salvage files from a flaky/dying hard drive, plus rebuilding the machine. Think of the cost of all the diagnostic software/tools you might have, even if its just some Norton Utilities, a MS Technet subscription, and an AV program.
If a lawyer or a plumber or an exterminator can charge $50-100/hour, a computer technician should be allowed to do the same.
Technician skills are expensive. My company now maintains images of your hard drive. If you have a problem that can't be resolved within 30 minutes of trouble shooting, they take your laptop away, re-image a new laptop, and give it to you the next morning. Its not worth the recovery effort. Bad ofr people with desktop support skills (used to be LAN admins who did that stuff). Now a force of >100 LAN admins across the Greater Toronto Area is less than 20 individuals.
Canada has far more social systems in place than the US. Until the early 1990s, you could argue the Canadian government was more authoritarian than life in the US, especially given the higher tax burden. Since the past 10 years, however, I think you'd be a fool to make that argument.
I've never heard of the US called "The Great Society", but if you think things like education, healthcare, social security, and pensions are the makings of an authoritarian regime, then you really need to reconsider your perspective in a worldwide context.