That just means that the technology is maturing to something useable. Sense if you 'read' about what is new with microsoft they are talking about 'integrating' search into the OS. Or mixing the brower in with the main codebase. There isn't much 'new' in what you would call a pure OS.
This trend will just get worse for microsoft as time passes. The features needed by 99% of people are already in things like win2k. Add on software like google desktop and firefox just make them more useful. So what can't 99% of people do with win2k that WinXP could do on the same old clunky PII 450?
FYI: I still use Win2k on a PIII 900. Upgrading to WinXP will just make my computer slower while not giving me any needed features.
You do know that one of the first applications for computer driven equipment will be mass transit? First it will be all the trains and busses that will be run by computer.
If one were to look into the future....
As the technology inproves people will be given wifi flagers with built in GPS systems... the transit system will be built around small four person automated transports that will go around picking up and dropping off people. Basicly driving you from a pickup on the street in front of your home to where you work.
Hell, with some built in AI you could even program in your destination and the system could pick up other people going to where you work from the same area and drop you all off at once.
Now that is a mass transit system that I could really use very very well.
Zeelan
I don't know... we already trust computers in so many ways that I don't see this as being any different.
Autopilots fly planes for pilots... and could probable land them if programed right. The pilot is there for backup.
They are trusted for things like traffic lights, water treatment, sewer treatment, electricity distrobution, and phones.
Cars wouldn't be all that big a leap to the next level. Just sit back... read a paper or book on the way to work... work on your computer so that you can read your e-mail before you get there.
People wouldn't have any problem with it at all. Remember, the first application of it would be for large semi-trucks.
I have found that doing legal searches is for the birds when your a one man operation. The best thing for a small firm to do is specialize heavaly in one very small area. Make something terrible usesful, sell it for lots of money, but keep your costumer base extreamly small.
The last part is easy to prevent... how do you keep a large corporation from smashing you flat cause they don't like your program... ect.
Believe it or not... open source is the answer. Just like the stunt that Netscape pulled. If you have a good program... and your only option if you are sued is to drop out of business, would be to stuff your work under the GNU. It would have exactly the oposite effect of putting your company under by making your program even more advailable then before.
In this case the GNU would be used as a barganing chip. Sue me and yes, I will go away, but you will be fighting my work on the net for the next ten years.
The way things are now the people in rural areas have more of a voice on a natinoal scale then people in urban areas. I'm not talking about the presidential election, I'm talking about the way congressional distorics are divided.
It is very common for people in a state to vote 60% democratic and have only 50% reprasentation in congrass. Or an even more extream example... 40% of the population votes democratic and 85% of their reprasentatives are republican.
Is this good? No... it just makes the people in more urban areas underreprasented. As this effect gets more and more extream, read texas, there will in the end be a very nasty backlash.
As in... this doesn't work... rural areas now have 2 to 3 times the voice of more urban areas. This is inharintly unfair. So we are going to hold general elections and strip the rural areas of 'any' voice at all.
Here are the issues that I think should be considered.
Abortion. It should be someeones right. Typical bush voter wants to strip 'other people' of this right. Differance. One is a testiment to someone elses freedom... the other is a reliougious faith.
Gay Rights. In Ohio they banned civil unions. So again the right wanted to strip 'other people' of their rights. Again... they are interested in hurting other people.
No. I find a vote for bush to be a vote for those two issues. If you voted for bush no mater what your reasons those are the issues that you were voting on. So 51% of americans have decided that stripping other people of rights is a good thing.
No... the hatrid is justified... this president hasn't lifted a finger to unite this country and has done nothing but fan the flames.
Has it ever dawned on you, that democrats are pictured as the doves? The people that are pussies... whinny?
Now they are very very angry... and all you can do is piss on them how their 'angry' voice only pushes people away. Well if the far right had any interest in cooling things down they would have 'worked' with democrats instead of pissing on them for years now.
An angry dove is far far more dangerious then an angry chikenhawk.
It has also been shown that minorities are descriminated against far less in a large city then main street rural USA.
So one could argue that they didn't 'go' to the city looking for work but were 'leaving' small town USA to get away from it.
Zeelan.
The Sega Game Gear can play Sega Master system games with a addapter cartrage. The Sega Genesis could play Sega Master System games with a power base converter. (It would change the voltages used for the Master system cartrages). The adapters were relitivly cheap and easy to use.
If only they had continued that tredition with the Sega Satern. (Play Genesis cartrages and SegaCD games.)
Then again... coleco Vision could play atari 2600 games. If bleem had ever been alowed to exist DreamCast could have played Playstation games.
Nay.... you just put them on salery and then expect them to work 12 hour days. Four hours on slashdot... two hours cubical hopping... one hour eatting... and five hours of real work.
If you want more work.... set a really short deadline and then expect them to show up on saterday and sunday... for the good of the company.
Everyone knows that Mars is red. So changing the colors on the pictures that they show to the public is probable just a PR stunt... to make it look exotic and exciting... when it really doesn't look at that exotic...
Or... if your like to think big... it is really just eastern Oregon that they are showing and they really spent all money on something else.
It was within thirty days... yes... but the order wasn't signed tell the 11th of December... meaning that SCO has tell Monday Afternoon the the 12th of January to actually turn over the data.
There put up or shut up day is on the 12th... technicallly the 11th... but they should have turnned in what they have to trun in by Monday Afternoon. Sense they had 30 days from the day that the order was signed.
Even then we will not see what it is for a while less some of the papers are filed in a more public area.
There is more to outsourcing then just the lose of jobs... maybe I can give you a little background so that you can better understand.
When companys in the US outsource most of them don't setup an office over in india or some other country and start to hire people. Most of them hire some other company in India to do the work for them. Only most of the savings that they make have nothing to do with the cost of labor itself.
Take my own part of the tech industry. There is a lot of outsourcing going on in it. (High end electronic enginering.) The big thing there is that people in india can do the work for 1/20th the cost of someone in the US and can put four engineers on a project instead of just one.
Sounds good on paper, but, most of the cost of this work isn't in the people. The software needed to do a lot of the work is extreamly expensive. ($200,000 US for one setup.)
To have four people in the US do this work it would cost nearlly a million dollars to setup four computers and all the software that they would need.
What is happening though is that the four guys in india are getting paid less, but they are also using pirated software on four computers to do the work.
There isn't anyway on earth that people in the US can compeat against that. I couldn't beat the price of an indian company for the same work even if I worked for free.
In the end you can find things like that for almost all of the industries that are outsourced from the US. Any industry. It isn't the cost of labor or how much it costs to pay someone to do the work. It is always something else. You just have to look around to see it.
I have also found this to be a big problem with most industries... where they look at 'what' you used to earn. When I was going from a small town to a city some of the offers I got where almost laughable.
The other fix for this problem is just to change jobs ever two years. In fact... that is the only fix for that problem. I have also found that it is a lot easyer to get a job if your already working then if your just out looking for a job.
So in todays world.. you get a job... and then quickly go out and start looking for a different job. The miniute your present employer finds that your looking for another job... they tend to give you promotions and raises a lot faster.
The only thing that the BSD people require is that you put in their copyright notice. You can slap a different licence on it if you wished. Hence... windows sells BSD software... probable with a lot of modifications... but still gives BSD the copyright.
I don't remember any of this just this side of the left thing from Bush... all I remember is that he didn't really say much about himself or what he would do to help the environment or people.
No... I just remember add after add telling me how 'bad' Gore would be... The republicans haven't won an election on their policy for years. They have just mastered the art of calling names tell everyone beleaves the other guy is the spawn of hell.
Point in fact. Gore 'invented' the internet. He never said that... look up the quote... what he said 'was' true.
I don't know about that 'not really angry' with bush thing. I have been bitterly angry with Bush sense he first walked into the highest office. His policies have been little more then doubletalk sense he first came into office. Saying one thing and really doing something else. His no child left behind act is a joke. (Pass that law and also gut the funding for one of the most sucsessful goverment education programs of all time.. head start.)
I am angry. Very angry. The pure nastiness that bush has done to the sciences... the blatent lies... stacking the deck for large corporations and basicly raping the american economy are unforgivable.
My own opinion why more people are not angry is cause them NASCAR dads don't go out and really look to see what he is doing. They just listen to his surger coated 'no child left behind' words. Or his 'forest protection' legisaltions. AKA Slash and burn environmentalizum. So they watch CNN and Fox news for sound bites and look at the cute apple that Bush offers... but never cut it open to see the rotten core.
Correction... Gore won the ellections but lost the electorial votes per fraud in Florida. (Several thousand people were 'removed' from the voters list in 'error')
2nd Correction... He didn't claim to 'invent' the internet. That was a creation of the mass media... he said that he helpped bring the internet into being. And its true. He was the main person that pushed to have the millitary/academic internet go from being only a government net to a net open to the public.
So you really can say 'thank you mr Gore' for the ability to post to Slashdot today.
Aye... I'm sure that it will piss SCO and even more so then normal sense Christoph Hellwig was once a SCO employee. He did a ton of work on linux back when he was working at Caldara before and after they got their paws on the old UNIX tree.
He was a big pusher of putting JFS on linux.... that is probable why SGI got ahold of him.
It would have my friend... it would have. Then again sense you look like a smart young lad I'm sure that you could probable 'write' the open letter yourself! It is that predictable.
Ah... but we haven't had a good SCO letter of FUD to harp on for a couple of days.
Myself... I found the part where he talked about the glory of copyright where the author could do anything he wanted with it and then moaned and complained that he can't take GPL code and make it proprietary rather poetic.
I have always found that when put into a situation like that that yes... some people were more productive.... cause they wouldn't really know how to do their own job and would then come to me and 'discuss' the problem. I would tell them how to fix it and they would then go all mushy about how 'after discussing it with a colleage we find a solution together.'
After getting dinged in a performance report for 'talking to fellow employees too much.' I just started to do my work and 'didn't' help everyone that came along. Next time I was dinged for not being a team player.
Slashdot Mirror
That just means that the technology is maturing to something useable. Sense if you 'read' about what is new with microsoft they are talking about 'integrating' search into the OS. Or mixing the brower in with the main codebase. There isn't much 'new' in what you would call a pure OS.
This trend will just get worse for microsoft as time passes. The features needed by 99% of people are already in things like win2k. Add on software like google desktop and firefox just make them more useful. So what can't 99% of people do with win2k that WinXP could do on the same old clunky PII 450?
FYI: I still use Win2k on a PIII 900. Upgrading to WinXP will just make my computer slower while not giving me any needed features.
You do know that one of the first applications for computer driven equipment will be mass transit? First it will be all the trains and busses that will be run by computer. If one were to look into the future.... As the technology inproves people will be given wifi flagers with built in GPS systems... the transit system will be built around small four person automated transports that will go around picking up and dropping off people. Basicly driving you from a pickup on the street in front of your home to where you work. Hell, with some built in AI you could even program in your destination and the system could pick up other people going to where you work from the same area and drop you all off at once. Now that is a mass transit system that I could really use very very well. Zeelan
I don't know... we already trust computers in so many ways that I don't see this as being any different.
Autopilots fly planes for pilots... and could probable land them if programed right. The pilot is there for backup.
They are trusted for things like traffic lights, water treatment, sewer treatment, electricity distrobution, and phones.
Cars wouldn't be all that big a leap to the next level. Just sit back... read a paper or book on the way to work... work on your computer so that you can read your e-mail before you get there.
People wouldn't have any problem with it at all. Remember, the first application of it would be for large semi-trucks.
Zeelan
I have found that doing legal searches is for the birds when your a one man operation. The best thing for a small firm to do is specialize heavaly in one very small area. Make something terrible usesful, sell it for lots of money, but keep your costumer base extreamly small.
The last part is easy to prevent... how do you keep a large corporation from smashing you flat cause they don't like your program... ect.
Believe it or not... open source is the answer. Just like the stunt that Netscape pulled. If you have a good program... and your only option if you are sued is to drop out of business, would be to stuff your work under the GNU. It would have exactly the oposite effect of putting your company under by making your program even more advailable then before.
In this case the GNU would be used as a barganing chip. Sue me and yes, I will go away, but you will be fighting my work on the net for the next ten years.
Zeelan
The way things are now the people in rural areas have more of a voice on a natinoal scale then people in urban areas. I'm not talking about the presidential election, I'm talking about the way congressional distorics are divided.
It is very common for people in a state to vote 60% democratic and have only 50% reprasentation in congrass. Or an even more extream example... 40% of the population votes democratic and 85% of their reprasentatives are republican.
Is this good? No... it just makes the people in more urban areas underreprasented. As this effect gets more and more extream, read texas, there will in the end be a very nasty backlash.
As in... this doesn't work... rural areas now have 2 to 3 times the voice of more urban areas. This is inharintly unfair. So we are going to hold general elections and strip the rural areas of 'any' voice at all.
Zeelan.
Here are the issues that I think should be considered.
Abortion. It should be someeones right. Typical bush voter wants to strip 'other people' of this right. Differance. One is a testiment to someone elses freedom... the other is a reliougious faith.
Gay Rights. In Ohio they banned civil unions. So again the right wanted to strip 'other people' of their rights. Again... they are interested in hurting other people.
No. I find a vote for bush to be a vote for those two issues. If you voted for bush no mater what your reasons those are the issues that you were voting on. So 51% of americans have decided that stripping other people of rights is a good thing.
Welcome to Germany in the early 30s.
Zeelan
No... the hatrid is justified... this president hasn't lifted a finger to unite this country and has done nothing but fan the flames. Has it ever dawned on you, that democrats are pictured as the doves? The people that are pussies... whinny? Now they are very very angry... and all you can do is piss on them how their 'angry' voice only pushes people away. Well if the far right had any interest in cooling things down they would have 'worked' with democrats instead of pissing on them for years now. An angry dove is far far more dangerious then an angry chikenhawk.
It has also been shown that minorities are descriminated against far less in a large city then main street rural USA. So one could argue that they didn't 'go' to the city looking for work but were 'leaving' small town USA to get away from it. Zeelan.
The Sega Game Gear can play Sega Master system games with a addapter cartrage. The Sega Genesis could play Sega Master System games with a power base converter. (It would change the voltages used for the Master system cartrages). The adapters were relitivly cheap and easy to use.
If only they had continued that tredition with the Sega Satern. (Play Genesis cartrages and SegaCD games.)
Then again... coleco Vision could play atari 2600 games. If bleem had ever been alowed to exist DreamCast could have played Playstation games.
Nay.... you just put them on salery and then expect them to work 12 hour days. Four hours on slashdot... two hours cubical hopping... one hour eatting... and five hours of real work.
If you want more work.... set a really short deadline and then expect them to show up on saterday and sunday... for the good of the company.
Everyone knows that Mars is red. So changing the colors on the pictures that they show to the public is probable just a PR stunt... to make it look exotic and exciting... when it really doesn't look at that exotic...
Or... if your like to think big... it is really just eastern Oregon that they are showing and they really spent all money on something else.
Zeelan
It was within thirty days... yes... but the order wasn't signed tell the 11th of December... meaning that SCO has tell Monday Afternoon the the 12th of January to actually turn over the data.
There put up or shut up day is on the 12th... technicallly the 11th... but they should have turnned in what they have to trun in by Monday Afternoon. Sense they had 30 days from the day that the order was signed.
Even then we will not see what it is for a while less some of the papers are filed in a more public area.
you should read Groklaw.
Chahala
There is more to outsourcing then just the lose of jobs... maybe I can give you a little background so that you can better understand.
When companys in the US outsource most of them don't setup an office over in india or some other country and start to hire people. Most of them hire some other company in India to do the work for them. Only most of the savings that they make have nothing to do with the cost of labor itself.
Take my own part of the tech industry. There is a lot of outsourcing going on in it. (High end electronic enginering.) The big thing there is that people in india can do the work for 1/20th the cost of someone in the US and can put four engineers on a project instead of just one.
Sounds good on paper, but, most of the cost of this work isn't in the people. The software needed to do a lot of the work is extreamly expensive. ($200,000 US for one setup.)
To have four people in the US do this work it would cost nearlly a million dollars to setup four computers and all the software that they would need.
What is happening though is that the four guys in india are getting paid less, but they are also using pirated software on four computers to do the work.
There isn't anyway on earth that people in the US can compeat against that. I couldn't beat the price of an indian company for the same work even if I worked for free.
In the end you can find things like that for almost all of the industries that are outsourced from the US. Any industry. It isn't the cost of labor or how much it costs to pay someone to do the work. It is always something else. You just have to look around to see it.
I have also found this to be a big problem with most industries... where they look at 'what' you used to earn. When I was going from a small town to a city some of the offers I got where almost laughable.
The other fix for this problem is just to change jobs ever two years. In fact... that is the only fix for that problem. I have also found that it is a lot easyer to get a job if your already working then if your just out looking for a job.
So in todays world.. you get a job... and then quickly go out and start looking for a different job. The miniute your present employer finds that your looking for another job... they tend to give you promotions and raises a lot faster.
Just the way I have seen it.
Zeelan
The only thing that the BSD people require is that you put in their copyright notice. You can slap a different licence on it if you wished. Hence... windows sells BSD software... probable with a lot of modifications... but still gives BSD the copyright.
I don't remember any of this just this side of the left thing from Bush... all I remember is that he didn't really say much about himself or what he would do to help the environment or people. No... I just remember add after add telling me how 'bad' Gore would be... The republicans haven't won an election on their policy for years. They have just mastered the art of calling names tell everyone beleaves the other guy is the spawn of hell. Point in fact. Gore 'invented' the internet. He never said that... look up the quote... what he said 'was' true.
I don't know about that 'not really angry' with bush thing. I have been bitterly angry with Bush sense he first walked into the highest office. His policies have been little more then doubletalk sense he first came into office. Saying one thing and really doing something else. His no child left behind act is a joke. (Pass that law and also gut the funding for one of the most sucsessful goverment education programs of all time.. head start.) I am angry. Very angry. The pure nastiness that bush has done to the sciences... the blatent lies... stacking the deck for large corporations and basicly raping the american economy are unforgivable. My own opinion why more people are not angry is cause them NASCAR dads don't go out and really look to see what he is doing. They just listen to his surger coated 'no child left behind' words. Or his 'forest protection' legisaltions. AKA Slash and burn environmentalizum. So they watch CNN and Fox news for sound bites and look at the cute apple that Bush offers... but never cut it open to see the rotten core.
Correction... Gore won the ellections but lost the electorial votes per fraud in Florida. (Several thousand people were 'removed' from the voters list in 'error') 2nd Correction... He didn't claim to 'invent' the internet. That was a creation of the mass media... he said that he helpped bring the internet into being. And its true. He was the main person that pushed to have the millitary/academic internet go from being only a government net to a net open to the public. So you really can say 'thank you mr Gore' for the ability to post to Slashdot today.
Aye... I'm sure that it will piss SCO and even more so then normal sense Christoph Hellwig was once a SCO employee. He did a ton of work on linux back when he was working at Caldara before and after they got their paws on the old UNIX tree.
He was a big pusher of putting JFS on linux.... that is probable why SGI got ahold of him.
Amen Brother... ":)
It would have my friend... it would have. Then again sense you look like a smart young lad I'm sure that you could probable 'write' the open letter yourself! It is that predictable.
Ah... but we haven't had a good SCO letter of FUD to harp on for a couple of days.
Myself... I found the part where he talked about the glory of copyright where the author could do anything he wanted with it and then moaned and complained that he can't take GPL code and make it proprietary rather poetic.
Don't you mean the answer is always XLII?
I have always found that when put into a situation like that that yes... some people were more productive.... cause they wouldn't really know how to do their own job and would then come to me and 'discuss' the problem. I would tell them how to fix it and they would then go all mushy about how 'after discussing it with a colleage we find a solution together.'
After getting dinged in a performance report for 'talking to fellow employees too much.' I just started to do my work and 'didn't' help everyone that came along. Next time I was dinged for not being a team player.
I didn't stay there long after that.