I enjoyed how you, in a nice way, suggested that most moderators are morons -- and then had your comment moderated up as informative.
would hate to take a class with that guy
on
Is The Term Paper Dead?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
>Where I go to college, one of my professors (in a social science) has a standing bet with all his students: >if we ever have to write a term paper for our job in the real world (i.e., not academia), he'll donate $25 to >the charity of our choice. He's been teaching since the 1970s and has >never had to pay up.
Of course he never has to pay up. But the underlying point he's trying to make is idiotic. There's no such thing as a term paper in business or government. But there are tons of important tasks that draw on exactly that skill set. Should we hire a team of people to redesign our packaging; does the potential added sales justify the expense? What mistakes did we make in our last government bid, and how can they be avoided next time? Why does Sally deserve to get the ax for her abrasive attitude towards people who report to her?
These are all things often handled with the very same writing structure that you learn writing term papers. Much of your potential to reach leadership positions within industry depends on how effectively you can explain, and how persuasively you can argue. Nothing in academia develops these skills like a good, old fashioned, term paper. It's really galling to see somebody within academia who is seemingly oblivious to how important these skills are. The fact is most college students can't write for shit, and if they could, they would be better decision-makers, they would carry greater influence at work, and they would go further in life.
Plus, being able to express yourself clearly is just cool regardless of how it affects your career potential.
Imagine being able to tell the Microsoft auditor to fuck himself/herself, and when the big heavies show up, all they see are peace lovin' penguins fluttering around the office with no short and curlies to grip on to.
And then imagine the BSA showing you the logs from six months ago, when six of your unauthorized Windows computers were automatically downloading Windows security fixes from Microsoft. What do you think brought the BSA to your doorstep in the first place?
Windows' notorious security problems may turn out to help Microsoft in their antipiracy efforts. What business can afford to not download the latest patches?
Rotating skyscapers, for the sake of capturing more sunlight, is so plebian and low-tech. The truly rich build skyscrapers that revolve around the earth, so they're constantly in sunlight.
>Come on Yahoo...is that authentication code really a crown jewel?
The code isn't the crown jewel. What's of enormous value is the database of 250 million established Yahoo ID's.
Suppose I want to open my blog up to comments. These days, I'd be nuts to allow non-account-holders to post, since I would be overwhelmed with comment spam. How many of my users will be willing to register a brand new username and password with my site's custom code? But if you've already got a Yahoo ID, that's all you'll need to go right ahead and post on my blog. See? The barriers to participating on my site have dropped almost to nothing, all because of Yahoo's pre-existing database of 250 million users.
This is a win all the way around. It's a win for Yahoo, since it makes it more valuable for people to own a Yahoo ID. It's a win for me, since I don't need to generate custom code and maintain a database for user passwords. And it's a win for my users, who can now comment on my blog with little or no hassle.
The losers? Sites like typekey.com, who were created to offer the same feature that Yahoo is about to offer, but who don't have the crown jewel of 250 million user accounts.
>I would be terrified to even stand near such a fueling station, let alone use one or install it in my home.
And you would be terrified to even stand near a gasoline fueling station, if you've ever personally witnessed the entire fueling platform engulfed in twelve foot flames. I saw that once when driving through Alabama on the Interstate. And, having seen that, I'd be more than happy to take my chances with electric power.
OK, I read TFA, and there's nothing here worth seeing.
What's missing is the key ingredient: either give me the details of what they're actually planning to do, or tell me the value proposition of what they are mulling over. This article gives you neither. The crux of this story is that Microsoft is thinking of releasing Works as a free or subscription model. The idea of paying regularly for a web-based version of Microsoft's crippled Office stepchild, which many PC companies give away with $299 desktops, is amusing to say the least.
Now maybe Microsoft can come up with some added value that would make it worthwhile to go this route. If so, I'd sure want to read about it. But in the absence of information like that, there's nothing in this article worth your time.
That's right..the Beatles (and Apple records, which they own) would take in substantially more than 64 cents per song, if they sold their songs through iTunes. As I'm sure VenomKid would agree, 64 cents on the dollar for a small artist is a pretty great deal.
I share your fear. Just yesterday, I spent eleven hours on an Amtrak train from Boston to Syracuse. All around me, people were yakking nonstop on their cell phones. Reading and working was practically impossible.
I'm guessing that in a few years, cellphone and VOIP talk on airplanes will be widespread. At that point, you're going to be stuck bringing headphones and listening to music for your entire flight. What a bummer that will be.
Excuse me? All I can remember of the early-80s gaming scene is that whenever a game came out for both Apple II's and C-64s, the graphics and sound on the C-64 version would blow away the Apple version.
Not convinced? Summer Games from Epyx. I rest my case.
Let's start by acknowledging the truth of one basic issue: most Internet users demand far more bandwidth than they once did, and the amount of bandwidth they demand will only rise as video becomes a greater part of the Internet experience. Ten years ago, the Internet was all about low-bandwidth applications like chat and email. Five years ago, bandwidth needs went up as people started downloading MP3s. And now bandwidth demand is surging again with video.
On the other side of things, cost per gigabyte of bandwidth has dropped markedly and will continue to fall.
But in the short to mid-term, perhaps a case can be made that consumer demand for bandwidth will reach levels that current subscription fees can't cover. This is a reasonable argument, but there's nothing to this argument that requires these costs be offset by content providers.
Right now I'm getting about a half a MB a second over my cable modem. Maybe it will turn out that there are HD audio applications I really want, that will require greater bandwidth. Fine. I'm the one consuming this bandwidth. So let me shop around and find the cheapest provider of super-broadband.
But there's nothing in this article, and no argument I've yet seen, that gives any clear reason why content providers ought to be the one ponying up to cover these extra bandwidth costs. This whole argument is being made by large incumbent ISPs who are looking to extort content providers. It has nothing to do with charging people for what they consume. Those costs have traditionally be borne by Internet users, and they should continue to be.
If I find out that my ISP is charging content providers a toll to reach me, I'll immediately do everything possible to change ISPs.
On another matter, it's telling that this article quotes nobody who says that this is a bad faith argument. The reporting in this article is either inept or corrupt.
>So it sounds like Google needs to *shudder* have a user feedback system where
>humans with logins add moderation metadata to the search results and in return
>get results based on this moderation en-mass.
Oh God no. It would produce an entirely different dynamic than the moderation system on Slashdot. There are too many website operators who'd join your proposed Google moderating program for the sole purpose of modding down competing sites.
What you're proposing would replace Pagerank's mediocre performance with outright vindictiveness. I still remember getting screwed back in the day (when AltaVista dominated the search engine world) over how competing websites edited the DMoz directory.
>This marketplace could easily give rise to dependence on it for ideas,
>and ignore the fact that people who can get things done often don't
>have the best ideas, but because they can accomplish them, are >infinitely more valuable than the armchair quarterbacks scattered
>throughout a company.
Those people you're mentioning who "get can things done," -- isn't it to their interest, and everybody's interest, that they are implementing the very best ideas available? It's not like anybody's suggesting that these people be fired -- if anything the value of what they're able to produce increases as they are given better projects to see through to completion.
And those "armchair quarterbacks" -- this term seems needlessly insulting, by the way -- if these quarterbacks are able to come up with the very best ideas in the company, shouldn't they receive all the encouragement in the world to dream up new ideas? And shouldn't they share the spoils of this success with the people who can implement these great ideas?
Seems to me that this stock exchange idea is win/win/win for the GTD people, the quarterback people, and the company as a whole.
In light of this report, I'm wondering if and when I should ditch providing MP3s for my podcast and switch to AAC? I know I could provide both formats but that would entail a lot of extra work.
I'm really eager to ditch MP3s for a couple reasons. First, I understand that AAC sounds at least twice as good at comparable bitrates. Second, I'm no more trusting of the MP3 coalition than I was of the JPG owners, whereas I can't picture apple ever seeking royalty backpayments from podcasters using the AAC format.
An obvious solution is to provide both MP3 and AAC files, but I'm lazy and would prefer to offer only one format. Any thoughts on whether it makes sense for a podcaster to switch entirely to AAC? I'm sure most of my listeners would appreciate the enhanced sound quality. But what percentage of my listeners would be likely to disappear?
It would be much easier to handle 10% revolving ill over a few months than it would be to handle ~35% of staff ill for 2 weeks.
Yeah, except this isn't a garden-variety flu bug -- it's incredibly lethal. If this bug mutates to easily spread from person-to-person, you're not talking about revolving ill -- many of these people won't be "revolving" back to the workplace, they'll be dead. Of 34 human cases of H5N1 that hit Asia by February 2004, 23 were fatal.
On the plus side, it's a nice visual effect to have pixel-by-pixel scrolling. Very pleasing to the eye.
On the down side, scrolling should never have momentum! When I want to stop scrolling, I want the scrolling to stop immediately. I've only used the page for a couple minutes but it's already obvious that their scrolling implementation is a disaster. It feels like driving a car with bad brakes; you're always shooting past where you want to stop.
I did notice that my mouse's scroll wheel works on their page, and it does a nicer job than clicking on the arrows. But not that much nicer; it still sucks.
I don't know how they allowed this current way of outputting results to be released to the public. Regular HTML output is a thousand times more useful.
Broadband service (DSL anyway) has gotten cheaper rather than more expensive. And upcoming wireless technologies will go a long way toward handling the last mile problem.
It seems to me that there are plenty of contenders out there vying for the home broadband market, and with upcoming wireless standards more contenders will emerge. We're not going to be stuck choosing between cable and DSL. Unless the main providers can create an illegal cartel (and evade government prosecution for doing so), I can't see that tiered service will ever harm us.
I'm sure that there are light users out there who would love $8/month tiered service for the 8 megs of transfer they might use in a month. But for the rest of us, I bet we'll always be able to switch providers to an untiered service the moment our current provider offers an unattractive tiered plan. Bandwidth is only going to get cheaper and more of a commodity, even at the local level.
I can vouch first-hand for his temper and irrationality in many "tech" issues.
I thought the whole point of vouching is that it is not anonymous. When you vouch for somebody, you're putting your credibility on the line by making a declaration about somebody's character or honesty. I don't see how you can "vouch" as an AC.
Microsoft has responded to criticism by saying, 'We think it's better to be there with our services than not be there.'
I wonder if IBM said the same thing about working with Nazi Germany. Despite China's oppressive human rights record, you'd have to be a moron to equate the two countries. But there are clearly special ethical perils to supplying information technology solutions to repressive regimes.
Slashdot Mirror
yeah, let's mod up internet profiteering on a lame-ass design sweatshop item where the profits apparently don't even go to an anti-DRM cause.
>Where I go to college, one of my professors (in a social science) has a standing bet with all his students:
>if we ever have to write a term paper for our job in the real world (i.e., not academia), he'll donate $25 to
>the charity of our choice. He's been teaching since the 1970s and has >never had to pay up.
Of course he never has to pay up. But the underlying point he's trying to make is idiotic. There's no such thing as a term paper in business or government. But there are tons of important tasks that draw on exactly that skill set. Should we hire a team of people to redesign our packaging; does the potential added sales justify the expense? What mistakes did we make in our last government bid, and how can they be avoided next time? Why does Sally deserve to get the ax for her abrasive attitude towards people who report to her?
These are all things often handled with the very same writing structure that you learn writing term papers. Much of your potential to reach leadership positions within industry depends on how effectively you can explain, and how persuasively you can argue. Nothing in academia develops these skills like a good, old fashioned, term paper. It's really galling to see somebody within academia who is seemingly oblivious to how important these skills are. The fact is most college students can't write for shit, and if they could, they would be better decision-makers, they would carry greater influence at work, and they would go further in life.
Plus, being able to express yourself clearly is just cool regardless of how it affects your career potential.
Imagine being able to tell the Microsoft auditor to fuck himself/herself, and when the big heavies show up, all they see are peace lovin' penguins fluttering around the office with no short and curlies to grip on to.
And then imagine the BSA showing you the logs from six months ago, when six of your unauthorized Windows computers were automatically downloading Windows security fixes from Microsoft. What do you think brought the BSA to your doorstep in the first place?
Windows' notorious security problems may turn out to help Microsoft in their antipiracy efforts. What business can afford to not download the latest patches?
Rotating skyscapers, for the sake of capturing more sunlight, is so plebian and low-tech. The truly rich build skyscrapers that revolve around the earth, so they're constantly in sunlight.
> Microsoft would want everyone out there(Amazon, eBay, Apple for gods sakes) to be pushing out a customized version of IE7.
Maybe Amazon or eBay, but definitely not Apple. You can't even download IE for a Mac anymore.The trickle of power used to keep its RAM warm doesn't compare to the amount of power (and cash) saved by running such an old laptop.
Cash maybe, power almost certainly not. Unless your Pentium 3 processor sips less than 31 watts of power. That's all the Core Duo requires.The code isn't the crown jewel. What's of enormous value is the database of 250 million established Yahoo ID's.
Suppose I want to open my blog up to comments. These days, I'd be nuts to allow non-account-holders to post, since I would be overwhelmed with comment spam. How many of my users will be willing to register a brand new username and password with my site's custom code? But if you've already got a Yahoo ID, that's all you'll need to go right ahead and post on my blog. See? The barriers to participating on my site have dropped almost to nothing, all because of Yahoo's pre-existing database of 250 million users.
This is a win all the way around. It's a win for Yahoo, since it makes it more valuable for people to own a Yahoo ID. It's a win for me, since I don't need to generate custom code and maintain a database for user passwords. And it's a win for my users, who can now comment on my blog with little or no hassle.
The losers? Sites like typekey.com, who were created to offer the same feature that Yahoo is about to offer, but who don't have the crown jewel of 250 million user accounts.
>I would be terrified to even stand near such a fueling station, let alone use one or install it in my home.
And you would be terrified to even stand near a gasoline fueling station, if you've ever personally witnessed the entire fueling platform engulfed in twelve foot flames. I saw that once when driving through Alabama on the Interstate. And, having seen that, I'd be more than happy to take my chances with electric power.
OK, I read TFA, and there's nothing here worth seeing.
What's missing is the key ingredient: either give me the details of what they're actually planning to do, or tell me the value proposition of what they are mulling over. This article gives you neither. The crux of this story is that Microsoft is thinking of releasing Works as a free or subscription model. The idea of paying regularly for a web-based version of Microsoft's crippled Office stepchild, which many PC companies give away with $299 desktops, is amusing to say the least.
Now maybe Microsoft can come up with some added value that would make it worthwhile to go this route. If so, I'd sure want to read about it. But in the absence of information like that, there's nothing in this article worth your time.
How was this not moderated "Score 5, Funny"?
>well you're not exactly radiohead or the beatles
That's right..the Beatles (and Apple records, which they own) would take in substantially more than 64 cents per song, if they sold their songs through iTunes. As I'm sure VenomKid would agree, 64 cents on the dollar for a small artist is a pretty great deal.
I'm guessing that in a few years, cellphone and VOIP talk on airplanes will be widespread. At that point, you're going to be stuck bringing headphones and listening to music for your entire flight. What a bummer that will be.
Excuse me? All I can remember of the early-80s gaming scene is that whenever a game came out for both Apple II's and C-64s, the graphics and sound on the C-64 version would blow away the Apple version.
Not convinced? Summer Games from Epyx. I rest my case.
On the other side of things, cost per gigabyte of bandwidth has dropped markedly and will continue to fall.
But in the short to mid-term, perhaps a case can be made that consumer demand for bandwidth will reach levels that current subscription fees can't cover. This is a reasonable argument, but there's nothing to this argument that requires these costs be offset by content providers.
Right now I'm getting about a half a MB a second over my cable modem. Maybe it will turn out that there are HD audio applications I really want, that will require greater bandwidth. Fine. I'm the one consuming this bandwidth. So let me shop around and find the cheapest provider of super-broadband.
But there's nothing in this article, and no argument I've yet seen, that gives any clear reason why content providers ought to be the one ponying up to cover these extra bandwidth costs. This whole argument is being made by large incumbent ISPs who are looking to extort content providers. It has nothing to do with charging people for what they consume. Those costs have traditionally be borne by Internet users, and they should continue to be.
If I find out that my ISP is charging content providers a toll to reach me, I'll immediately do everything possible to change ISPs.
On another matter, it's telling that this article quotes nobody who says that this is a bad faith argument. The reporting in this article is either inept or corrupt.
>humans with logins add moderation metadata to the search results and in return
>get results based on this moderation en-mass.
Oh God no. It would produce an entirely different dynamic than the moderation system on Slashdot. There are too many website operators who'd join your proposed Google moderating program for the sole purpose of modding down competing sites.
What you're proposing would replace Pagerank's mediocre performance with outright vindictiveness. I still remember getting screwed back in the day (when AltaVista dominated the search engine world) over how competing websites edited the DMoz directory.
>and ignore the fact that people who can get things done often don't
>have the best ideas, but because they can accomplish them, are
>infinitely more valuable than the armchair quarterbacks scattered
>throughout a company.
Those people you're mentioning who "get can things done," -- isn't it to their interest, and everybody's interest, that they are implementing the very best ideas available? It's not like anybody's suggesting that these people be fired -- if anything the value of what they're able to produce increases as they are given better projects to see through to completion.
And those "armchair quarterbacks" -- this term seems needlessly insulting, by the way -- if these quarterbacks are able to come up with the very best ideas in the company, shouldn't they receive all the encouragement in the world to dream up new ideas? And shouldn't they share the spoils of this success with the people who can implement these great ideas?
Seems to me that this stock exchange idea is win/win/win for the GTD people, the quarterback people, and the company as a whole.
I'm really eager to ditch MP3s for a couple reasons. First, I understand that AAC sounds at least twice as good at comparable bitrates. Second, I'm no more trusting of the MP3 coalition than I was of the JPG owners, whereas I can't picture apple ever seeking royalty backpayments from podcasters using the AAC format.
An obvious solution is to provide both MP3 and AAC files, but I'm lazy and would prefer to offer only one format. Any thoughts on whether it makes sense for a podcaster to switch entirely to AAC? I'm sure most of my listeners would appreciate the enhanced sound quality. But what percentage of my listeners would be likely to disappear?
Yeah, except this isn't a garden-variety flu bug -- it's incredibly lethal. If this bug mutates to easily spread from person-to-person, you're not talking about revolving ill -- many of these people won't be "revolving" back to the workplace, they'll be dead. Of 34 human cases of H5N1 that hit Asia by February 2004, 23 were fatal.
On the down side, scrolling should never have momentum! When I want to stop scrolling, I want the scrolling to stop immediately. I've only used the page for a couple minutes but it's already obvious that their scrolling implementation is a disaster. It feels like driving a car with bad brakes; you're always shooting past where you want to stop.
I did notice that my mouse's scroll wheel works on their page, and it does a nicer job than clicking on the arrows. But not that much nicer; it still sucks.
I don't know how they allowed this current way of outputting results to be released to the public. Regular HTML output is a thousand times more useful.
It seems to me that there are plenty of contenders out there vying for the home broadband market, and with upcoming wireless standards more contenders will emerge. We're not going to be stuck choosing between cable and DSL. Unless the main providers can create an illegal cartel (and evade government prosecution for doing so), I can't see that tiered service will ever harm us.
I'm sure that there are light users out there who would love $8/month tiered service for the 8 megs of transfer they might use in a month. But for the rest of us, I bet we'll always be able to switch providers to an untiered service the moment our current provider offers an unattractive tiered plan. Bandwidth is only going to get cheaper and more of a commodity, even at the local level.
I thought the whole point of vouching is that it is not anonymous. When you vouch for somebody, you're putting your credibility on the line by making a declaration about somebody's character or honesty. I don't see how you can "vouch" as an AC.
I wonder if IBM said the same thing about working with Nazi Germany. Despite China's oppressive human rights record, you'd have to be a moron to equate the two countries. But there are clearly special ethical perils to supplying information technology solutions to repressive regimes.