"Imagine seeing Indy in a hot tub with two big hooters in his face. And he gets the girl because he is a nerd, he gets the girl because he talks to her about archeology."
"Cell" looks like a technology or platform rather than one possible implementation. The 1 PowerPC (PPE), 8 SPE organization of the Cell to be used by Sony is probably not the only organization possible for this _technology_. Microsoft's XBox is basically 3 PPE and no SPEs. For Apple needs, I would expect something like 2 PPE/4 SPE at 90nm or 3-4 PPE/8 SPE at 65nm. Either one of these would be a great laptop processor, giving users reasonable single thread performance, great multi-thread performance, and the ability to encode video from a built-in camera, among other things.
It is not so much functionality, but attention to detail, and outright bugs. (OO 1.1.1 w/Suse 9.1)
I tried for hours trying to get sections numbered like "1.1.3.2", working, to no avail. I'm sure this is a minor bug, but it was critical for what I wanted to do. So OO failed for me.
This is the one thing I remember from the experience, but there was several other minor problems. It needs work, hopefully it gets it.
Ah, there's the videogames, comicbooks and cartoons (ok, ok, animation) sort of geek. And then there is the voraciously reading, puzzle solving, science loving sort of geek. Except maybe at slashdot, they don't generally associate. And the latter generally look down at the former, as well they should. So laugh all you want, comic-boy!:)
The only possible reason that I can see for wikipedia _not_ crushing the old school out of existence is the percieved lack of scholarly quality. But I doubt that this is a concern for most users of an encyclopedia.
Or do you have another reason to believe that crushing sounds won't be heard?
Well, it never existed. However you could state that the $48 was money the company lost because it _could_ have sold the same stock for $50, with exactly the same dilution via increased shares. But this is a straw man because it has already granted the options years previously.
I find it hard to fathom calling a *potentially* money losing choice path an "expense". It sounds to me to be more of an "investment" with direct and indirect returns, neither of which are guaranteed. The direct return is the retention of valuable employees. The indirect return is never positive, and is the money lost because the stock that the employees excercise was not sold by the company at the market price.
I am a software developer, and have used my web access many times to get information on things I have been working on. However, in thinking back on it, I could have just as easily used a dedicated machine somewhere other than my desk (in a room nearby). It was definately not a daily occurence. Your experience may differ.
It's not about trusting people, its about giving them what they need, and also about trusting others on the internet, which I definately do not. Depending on the value of what resides on my intranet, I would consider a sneaker-net firewall. I'm just not convinced that internet at a developer's desk is what *every*one needs, when an almost as useful alternative is available. Of course, anyone with a good business reason for it should get access in their office/cube (on a separate network).
As for your break reason, there are other fine ways to take breaks. I don't see this as a need.
This attitude is why you don't own a business. You neither respect nor trust people.
Not guilty. But thanks for the insult.
I believe in giving people what they need, not what they want--this has nothing to do with trust or respect. I want to see what good reasons people have for having internet at their desks because I personally haven't seen any good reasons for it, in general. An by internet access, I mean a direct internet connection giving web, im, news, and whatever. What business value do these things give? Would internet access in a common room be good enough for most employees?
Also consider that what you described is not internet at your desk, but a way to access your intranet from home. This could be done without internet access at the desk.
I believe you are assuming because I don't want to give internet access that I don't trust people to do their work. I'm not sure I disagree, but I also believe that your argument is something of a slippery slope. Do you also provide each of your employees with a TV and cable access in case they want to take a break? Toys? A hammock? How much do you want to make it like home? At some point, your employees will decide subconciously or not, that you just want them to feel at home. Have a beer, watch some TV. Program a little if you can fit it in. Relax, its all good, dude!
But does it scale?:) Will it be 10 groups of 10 or 100 people in the same room? Good luck with the noise...
The OBR arrangement might be good for scrappy development teams where there are lots of interactions between developers. But I doubt if it would scale to larger teams, and probably would only work well in the initial stages of a longer project.
Perhaps a happy medium for larger projects would be to use OBR for the initial stages of a project, and offices after the team and project have gelled.
All of these can also be dealt with without individual offices by locating programming staff away from these distractions and somewhere that is not "on the way" to anywhere. Preferably with only one entrance guarded by trained attack dogs.
Except for the internal extractions--Newbie questions, non-business discussions, discussions about topics that aren't useful to everyone in the group, technical arguments that go on and on, bad choices in music, etc, etc.
Unless your group isn't really doing concentration work, offices are essential.
There are so many ways for people to collaborate that do not involve being able to yell "hey" across a crowded room that the "collaboration" argument seems like a rationalization for saving money.
Aeron chairs _do_ cut into your legs _if_ you don't have the right size. The *ah-hem* widest version is much more comfortable for most "well fed" males who couldn't cross their legs for a bet.
None of your rationals for a fast internet connection actually does anything for the business, except _maybe_ the email example. In most cases what internet access at the desk does is provide a way to waste time and distract from real work. If I owned a business I would tend to put internet access in a separate room except for those who really need timely access. This would also serve as trojan/worm/virus protection for the business's internal network.
Although I agree that nothing is 100% effective, I would argue that with the potential for devastication from a well planned attack, that information gathering and movement tracking is something we (our government) should definitely do, especially with certain individuals.
Ask yourself (as you say), what if monitoring and tracking had caught one or more of the 911 terrorists and upset their plans. Or, if an even more worse attack (nuclear) were foiled.
Obviously, oversight is important, as recent events can attest, but the benefits outway the drawbacks, IMHO. An ID card, even if a terrorist obtains a valid one, would allow such monitoring and tracking, and quicker arrest should evidence of intention become available.
1. Some dishonest people might be able to forge their identity card. 2. Since some dishonest people might slip through the cracks, its less secure than we have now.
Can someone explain to me why this is a valid argument, even if the forgery can't be made highly improbable through cryptography, which I doubt.
Your less secure argument is invalid. Many people here illegally for whatever reason have papers which look valid, but are not verifiable. A one-time lengthy verification process provides the information needed to put on the card for a quick identification.
The rest of your post seems to imply that an "effective solution" requires catching ALL terrorists. If you have a way to be 100% effective, I suggest you patent it and start making plans for your new opulent lifestyle.
Someone modulates an electromagnetic wave in his general direction, and he should be prosecuted for detecting, descrambling and using it? What's next, sound waves?
Actually, cordless mice are wonderful, and if mine used bluetooth instead of a funky little dongle, all the better.
I see your point though, but I can see it being useful for more ad hoc, mobile communications...eliminate passwords to access computers...negotiate payment with vending machines...adolescent dating games...transmittal of electronic business cards...keyless entry....
It's pretty simple. In order to get investors, you have to make it seem like there is a market for your new gizmo. In order to make it appear that there is a market, you need to give the market a name, say XYZ. Then you get all of the techie magazines to start talking about XYZ, and how great it is going to be. Once you have "defined" the market in this way, people can start investing in XYZ so that gizmo makers can start making their gizmos to satisfy the pent up demand which is clearly demonstrated by all the magazine buzz about XYZ. Then a bunch of "XYZ" companies IPO, and several people "call in rich". The rest, of course, watch their investments dwindle to nothingless as the overheated gas escapes....
How come no comments? Imagine that you've spent months making fun of those blimey idiot 'merikans for coming up with gormless laws like the DMCA and SSSCA, then one of your own outdoes both with one law. Oh the shame!
Slashdot Mirror
"Imagine seeing Indy in a hot tub with two big hooters in his face. And he gets the girl because he is a nerd, he gets the girl because he talks to her about archeology."
Indiana Jones and the Nipples Of Doom...
"Cell" looks like a technology or platform rather than one possible implementation. The 1 PowerPC (PPE), 8 SPE organization of the Cell to be used by Sony is probably not the only organization possible for this _technology_. Microsoft's XBox is basically 3 PPE and no SPEs. For Apple needs, I would expect something like 2 PPE/4 SPE at 90nm or 3-4 PPE/8 SPE at 65nm. Either one of these would be a great laptop processor, giving users reasonable single thread performance, great multi-thread performance, and the ability to encode video from a built-in camera, among other things.
No problem..almost all Windows boxes have this upgrade option called "Linux". Check the manual...
It is not so much functionality, but attention to detail, and outright bugs. (OO 1.1.1 w/Suse 9.1)
I tried for hours trying to get sections numbered like "1.1.3.2", working, to no avail. I'm sure this is a minor bug, but it was critical for what I wanted to do. So OO failed for me.
This is the one thing I remember from the experience, but there was several other minor problems. It needs work, hopefully it gets it.
I never could figure them out....
Ah, there's the videogames, comicbooks and cartoons (ok, ok, animation) sort of geek. And then there is the voraciously reading, puzzle solving, science loving sort of geek. Except maybe at slashdot, they don't generally associate. And the latter generally look down at the former, as well they should. So laugh all you want, comic-boy! :)
The only possible reason that I can see for wikipedia _not_ crushing the old school out of existence is the percieved lack of scholarly quality. But I doubt that this is a concern for most users of an encyclopedia.
Or do you have another reason to believe that crushing sounds won't be heard?
One possible patent reform for software (short of getting rid of software patents altogether) would be to require a non-trivial algorithm.
This would eliminate all your "dumbass" patents, but allow LZW. Significant new algorithms *should* be patentable, IMHO.
Well, it never existed. However you could state that the $48 was money the company lost because it _could_ have sold the same stock for $50, with exactly the same dilution via increased shares. But this is a straw man because it has already granted the options years previously.
I find it hard to fathom calling a *potentially* money losing choice path an "expense". It sounds to me to be more of an "investment" with direct and indirect returns, neither of which are guaranteed. The direct return is the retention of valuable employees. The indirect return is never positive, and is the money lost because the stock that the employees excercise was not sold by the company at the market price.
I am a software developer, and have used my web access many times to get information on things I have been working on. However, in thinking back on it, I could have just as easily used a dedicated machine somewhere other than my desk (in a room nearby). It was definately not a daily occurence. Your experience may differ.
It's not about trusting people, its about giving them what they need, and also about trusting others on the internet, which I definately do not. Depending on the value of what resides on my intranet, I would consider a sneaker-net firewall. I'm just not convinced that internet at a developer's desk is what *every*one needs, when an almost as useful alternative is available. Of course, anyone with a good business reason for it should get access in their office/cube (on a separate network).
As for your break reason, there are other fine ways to take breaks. I don't see this as a need.
Ahhh....Troll bait(TM).
Guilty as charged.
This attitude is why you don't own a business. You neither respect nor trust people.
Not guilty. But thanks for the insult.
I believe in giving people what they need, not what they want--this has nothing to do with trust or respect. I want to see what good reasons people have for having internet at their desks because I personally haven't seen any good reasons for it, in general. An by internet access, I mean a direct internet connection giving web, im, news, and whatever. What business value do these things give? Would internet access in a common room be good enough for most employees?
Also consider that what you described is not internet at your desk, but a way to access your intranet from home. This could be done without internet access at the desk.
I believe you are assuming because I don't want to give internet access that I don't trust people to do their work. I'm not sure I disagree, but I also believe that your argument is something of a slippery slope. Do you also provide each of your employees with a TV and cable access in case they want to take a break? Toys? A hammock? How much do you want to make it like home? At some point, your employees will decide subconciously or not, that you just want them to feel at home. Have a beer, watch some TV. Program a little if you can fit it in. Relax, its all good, dude!
But does it scale? :) Will it be 10 groups of 10 or 100 people in the same room? Good luck with the noise...
The OBR arrangement might be good for scrappy development teams where there are lots of interactions between developers. But I doubt if it would scale to larger teams, and probably would only work well in the initial stages of a longer project.
Perhaps a happy medium for larger projects would be to use OBR for the initial stages of a project, and offices after the team and project have gelled.
All of these can also be dealt with without individual offices by locating programming staff away from these distractions and somewhere that is not "on the way" to anywhere. Preferably with only one entrance guarded by trained attack dogs.
Except for the internal extractions--Newbie questions, non-business discussions, discussions about topics that aren't useful to everyone in the group, technical arguments that go on and on, bad choices in music, etc, etc.
Unless your group isn't really doing concentration work, offices are essential.
There are so many ways for people to collaborate that do not involve being able to yell "hey" across a crowded room that the "collaboration" argument seems like a rationalization for saving money.
Aeron chairs _do_ cut into your legs _if_ you don't have the right size. The *ah-hem* widest version is much more comfortable for most "well fed" males who couldn't cross their legs for a bet.
I suspect that one or more of the following applies at this place:
- everyone there is 20-25 and inexperienced.
- nothing more complex than HTML and javascript.
- everyone wears headphones to cut the noise.
None of your rationals for a fast internet connection actually does anything for the business, except _maybe_ the email example.
In most cases what internet access at the desk does is provide a way to waste time and distract from real work. If I owned a business I would tend to put internet access in a separate room except for those who really need timely access. This would also serve as trojan/worm/virus protection for the business's internal network.
There's an evaluation board by momentum: www.970eval.com. Hopefully the price falls...
Although I agree that nothing is 100% effective, I would argue that with the potential for devastication from a well planned attack, that information gathering and movement tracking is something we (our government) should definitely do, especially with certain individuals.
Ask yourself (as you say), what if monitoring and tracking had caught one or more of the 911 terrorists and upset their plans. Or, if an even more worse attack (nuclear) were foiled.
Obviously, oversight is important, as recent events can attest, but the benefits outway the drawbacks, IMHO. An ID card, even if a terrorist obtains a valid one, would allow such monitoring and tracking, and quicker arrest should evidence of intention become available.
Schneier's argument goes like this:
1. Some dishonest people might be able to forge their identity card.
2. Since some dishonest people might slip through the cracks, its less secure than we have now.
Can someone explain to me why this is a valid argument, even if the forgery can't be made highly improbable through cryptography, which I doubt.
Your less secure argument is invalid. Many people here illegally for whatever reason have papers which look valid, but are not verifiable. A one-time lengthy verification process provides the information needed to put on the card for a quick identification.
The rest of your post seems to imply that an "effective solution" requires catching ALL terrorists. If you have a way to be 100% effective, I suggest you patent it and start making plans for your new opulent lifestyle.
Someone modulates an electromagnetic wave in his general direction, and he should be prosecuted for detecting, descrambling and using it? What's next, sound waves?
Actually, cordless mice are wonderful, and if mine used bluetooth instead of a funky little dongle, all the better.
I see your point though, but I can see it being useful for more ad hoc, mobile communications...eliminate passwords to access computers...negotiate payment with vending machines...adolescent dating games...transmittal of electronic business cards...keyless entry....
It's pretty simple. In order to get investors, you have to make it seem like there is a market for your new gizmo. In order to make it appear that there is a market, you need to give the market a name, say XYZ. Then you get all of the techie magazines to start talking about XYZ, and how great it is going to be. Once you have "defined" the market in this way, people can start investing in XYZ so that gizmo makers can start making their gizmos to satisfy the pent up demand which is clearly demonstrated by all the magazine buzz about XYZ. Then a bunch of "XYZ" companies IPO, and several people "call in rich". The rest, of course, watch their investments dwindle to nothingless as the overheated gas escapes....
How come no comments?
Imagine that you've spent months making fun of those blimey idiot 'merikans for coming up with gormless laws like the DMCA and SSSCA, then one of your own outdoes both with one law. Oh the shame!
lose the burner, add dvd playback, add firewire, slap it in a mini component box and make mine black. Thanks!