I'd never want someone who just does exactly what I tell them without thinking for themselves. People closest to the problem, the one actually doing the work, are in a much better position to figure out how to best solve it.
You won't be able to implement things optimally if you don't have people asking questions and trying to optimize.
When would you want someone who can't think for themselves? Honestly, I can't imagine a situation where this would be desireable. Could you describe why you want a "conformist" who won't ask "too many questions?"
It's depressing that you think that. But I'm not sure lying is necessary.
When I interview, enthusiastic, creative people straight out of college with no experience beat out people with piles of experience all the time. Sure, college hires sometimes have almost blank resumes (aside from some college projects), but passion and eagerness make up for that and more.
If you have no experience, here's what I'd suggest you do before an interview. Take one day of your weekend and devote it entirely to preparing for the interview. Read up on the company. Google the names of anyone you know will be on your interview loop and read their resumes if you can find them. Look at every product the group in which you are interviewing produces. Look at the competing products from other companies. Then spend at least an hour brainstorming on ideas. What changes could be made to the current products (perhaps stealing ideas from competitors, perhaps brand new ideas)? What cool new product ideas do you have?
If you do that, you'll look fantastic in the interview. I can't tell you how many people come in knowing nothing at all about the company. Not only does that make you look unenthusiastic, it makes you look lazy. Doing your homework puts you well ahead of the pack.
Do not lie. Lies are eventually revealed, you waste your time and theirs.
It does amaze me how many people lie on their resume. All it takes is asking a few questions to discover the lie. Just ask them to describe what they did, stop them a bit into it, ask for more detail on X, stop them a bit into that, ask for yet more detail some part of X. If they didn't do it, they won't be able to provide the detail. I'd say about 50% of the candidates I phone screened for interviews failed this test in the first 10 minutes.
People continue to lie though, so I guess they must get away with it fairly often.
I've been looking at this a lot lately since I was just about to build a new box. Ultimately, I decided not to go with a Athlon64 (too expensive for the limited benefit), but I did find reading all these articles useful in making that decision.
I think you're largely correct that Microsoft is intending to duplicate Google, not innovate beyond Google.
But, regardless, Microsoft's competition spurs innovation. Why? Because it forces Google to keep innovating rapidly to stay ahead.
If no one was competing with Google, they wouldn't need to try to be as creative as they are. They could just sit still. But, because so many people are running after where Google is right now, Google has to keep moving, researching, creating, and innovating.
ExtremeTech article on building a home threatre PC
on
Build Your Own PVR
·
· Score: 5, Informative
ExtremeTech has a good recent article on building your own home theater PC (basically, a high end PC-based PVR). Nice configuration they got there. I'm thinking of doing something similar, but with the Antec Overture case.
(5) DATABASE (A) IN GENERAL- Subject to subparagraph (B), the term `database' means a collection of a large number of discrete items of information produced for the purpose of bringing such discrete items of information together in one place or through one source so that persons may access them.
combined with their definition of a prohibited action (making "available in commerce to others a quantitatively substantial part of the information in a database" is prohibited without consent) would seem to make it possible to sue for almost any use of any information without consent. At least, any information that can be decomposed into a small number of parts in some way or another.
I wonder if we'll see SCO-like attempts to quickly produce as many databases of as many facts as possible. Anyone using any facts whatsoever could be extorted for license fees or subject to lawsuits by rabid hordes of attorneys.
This whole social networking fad -- Friendster, Tribe, LinkedIn, etc. -- does seem to play off people's egos. I'm still wondering if there's any real value to being in one of these social networks other than the minimal ego boost you get from admiring your mighty network. Is there anything that these tools offer that a mailing list doesn't?
For example, LinkedIn seems to have a big focus on finding business contacts for jobs, consulting, or whatever that might be a couple hops away in your social network. But it's time consuming to use Linked In in this way and the contacts I've gotten through the network aren't particularly useful or interesting.
Is there something more here? Has anyone else find any real value from social networking sites?
Absolutely right. I'm not sure how they're getting to distributing computing (or grid computing) from cellular automata.
Distributed computing, as I've seen it defined, requires substantial computation at each node. I've never heard of anyone refer to cellular automata as distributed computing.
I did the same, but I still found it annoying. When you installed TurboTax 2002, C-Dilla was also quietly installed. C-Dilla ran all the time, taking up memory. Originally, C-Dilla would remain installed even when you uninstalled TurboTax. Only after a public outcry did Intuit decide to release an uninstaller for C-Dilla. Sure, it's not the end of the world, but it's definitely annoying.
Aerogel is relatively expensive primarily because it is currently made in very limited quantities. While increasing the scale of aerogel production will reduce the cost, the basic process and raw materials are still somewhat costly. For relatively small quantities of aerogel the cost is about $1.00 per cubic centimeter for one liter.
It sounds like, if the process to manufacture aerogel was modified to work at large scale, it might be possible to vastly reduce the cost. Given the extremely good insulation properties of this material, I wonder if it could be competitive with other insulators, at least for some applications.
Great point. Vibrate or single beep instead of a loud full length ring by default.
While many people do customize their cell phone's ring tones, as with any customer electronic device, the vast majority probably never change the settings from the defaults. Just making the default setting the least annoying one would have a big impact.
Google's AdSense program, which allows you to get paid for ads on your website, explicitly prohibits using it in e-mail, but it may not be a big deal to start allowing that. Seems like just releasing that restriction and a little work for targeting of ads to e-mails instead of websites would mean that Google's advertising system could be applied to e-mail.
I find it strange that companies like DoubleClick and X10 believe that advertising is most effective when maximally annoying. Google's advertising is a perfect example of how targeted advertising -- matching keywords to ads, tracking the effectiveness of ads, and showing ads where they are most effective -- can be quite profitable. And they're doing it with text-only ads, no flash, graphics taking over your entire screen, or pop ups.
At best, popup ads and other annoyances seems penny-wise and pound-foolish, sacrificing long-term customer satisfaction of the many who are subject to these ads and overall brand reputation for a potential short-term boost in sales from the few customers that do click through on annoying ads. For example, because I hate their ads so much, I would never buy any product from X10.
But I actually find Google's ads useful and click on them frequently because they're so well targeted to whatever I happen to be looking for. Targeted ads work. They show information or a product that's actually useful to me without getting in my way. Why do other advertisers continue to annoy customers with useless and irrelevant popup ads?
It's a bit of a pain to get news from a wide variety of sources though. Takes quite a bit of time. I've found a couple resources to be useful for this.
Google News and Technorati pick from a wide variety of sources and allow you to search news articles. But I sometimes find it hard to find what I want in all the clutter. Plastic provides moderation and discussion of news, but doesn't have broad coverage. Various RSS aggregators allow me to create your own news feed, but they don't have good coverage of mainstream news sources and they're a bit of a pain to set up. There's a couple recent attempts at personalized news -- Findory News is one -- that try to pull news from a broad variety of sources targetted to your interests.
This kind of failed project makes me wonder about the health of China's economy in general. There's talk of an investment bubble in China right now with huge amounts of money going into projects that don't make a lot of sense. This maglev train seems like just one of many examples.
This isn't some personal hobby on my or your spare time. This is a large expenditure of public funds. You have to ask if there were other ways to spend those funds that would have had a better positive impact on mankind.
Well, look, money is finite. If you fund one exploration project, another doesn't get funded. How do you know which you should fund and which you shouldn't? Why do a manned mission instead of x10 as many cheaper robotic probes?
For that matter, how do you compare spending money on a manned mission to Mars to spending money on other things that benefit the world? Why not spend that money on cancer research, AIDS research, education, etc.?
The only rational basis for comparison is expected value of spending that money on X vs. Y. That's how you decide whether to do a manned mission to Mars or whether you should just send probes and try to cure cancer with the remaining funds.
the financial and exploratory benefits seem to outweigh the social negatives
What are the social and exploratory benefits of a manned mission? How do they outweigh the costs?
While I'm a big fan of robotic probes to Mars and elsewhere, I have never seen a compelling economic argument for manned exploration of Mars, at least in the short and medium term.
The argument for seems to be based entirely on the assumption that we need to colonize Mars as quickly as possible and this is a first step. But why do we need to colonize Mars as quickly as possible? Until we've exhausted what we can learn from unmanned probes, why send manned missions at all?
The problem with distributed ("utility") computing is that communication between the processing units is expensive (high latency, in particular), so your task needs to be divisible into many almost completely independent pieces. While a some CPU intensive tasks do fit that model (protein folding, Seti@Home, DNA analysis, some search problems, some AI problems), most don't.
So, I'm basically agreeing with you that utility computing is applicable to only a small subset of interesting problems. A useful subset, but only a subset.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd never want someone who just does exactly what I tell them without thinking for themselves. People closest to the problem, the one actually doing the work, are in a much better position to figure out how to best solve it.
You won't be able to implement things optimally if you don't have people asking questions and trying to optimize.
When would you want someone who can't think for themselves? Honestly, I can't imagine a situation where this would be desireable. Could you describe why you want a "conformist" who won't ask "too many questions?"
It's depressing that you think that. But I'm not sure lying is necessary.
When I interview, enthusiastic, creative people straight out of college with no experience beat out people with piles of experience all the time. Sure, college hires sometimes have almost blank resumes (aside from some college projects), but passion and eagerness make up for that and more.
If you have no experience, here's what I'd suggest you do before an interview. Take one day of your weekend and devote it entirely to preparing for the interview. Read up on the company. Google the names of anyone you know will be on your interview loop and read their resumes if you can find them. Look at every product the group in which you are interviewing produces. Look at the competing products from other companies. Then spend at least an hour brainstorming on ideas. What changes could be made to the current products (perhaps stealing ideas from competitors, perhaps brand new ideas)? What cool new product ideas do you have?
If you do that, you'll look fantastic in the interview. I can't tell you how many people come in knowing nothing at all about the company. Not only does that make you look unenthusiastic, it makes you look lazy. Doing your homework puts you well ahead of the pack.
- Do not lie. Lies are eventually revealed, you waste your time and theirs.
It does amaze me how many people lie on their resume. All it takes is asking a few questions to discover the lie. Just ask them to describe what they did, stop them a bit into it, ask for more detail on X, stop them a bit into that, ask for yet more detail some part of X. If they didn't do it, they won't be able to provide the detail. I'd say about 50% of the candidates I phone screened for interviews failed this test in the first 10 minutes.People continue to lie though, so I guess they must get away with it fairly often.
Tom's Hardware has been running a great series of articles reviewing motherboards for the Athlon64. ExtremeTech also has a good review of Athlon64 motherboards. And AnandTech recently wrote up a useful AMD 2004 CPU roadmap.
I've been looking at this a lot lately since I was just about to build a new box. Ultimately, I decided not to go with a Athlon64 (too expensive for the limited benefit), but I did find reading all these articles useful in making that decision.
Given the news coverage Orkut received, it's not at all surprising it went down. The traffic must have been extraordinary.
I think you're largely correct that Microsoft is intending to duplicate Google, not innovate beyond Google.
But, regardless, Microsoft's competition spurs innovation. Why? Because it forces Google to keep innovating rapidly to stay ahead.
If no one was competing with Google, they wouldn't need to try to be as creative as they are. They could just sit still. But, because so many people are running after where Google is right now, Google has to keep moving, researching, creating, and innovating.
ExtremeTech has a good recent article on building your own home theater PC (basically, a high end PC-based PVR). Nice configuration they got there. I'm thinking of doing something similar, but with the Antec Overture case.
Amazon takes a cut of these payments. You'd be better off giving directly to the campaigns.
- (5) DATABASE
combined with their definition of a prohibited action (making "available in commerce to others a quantitatively substantial part of the information in a database" is prohibited without consent) would seem to make it possible to sue for almost any use of any information without consent. At least, any information that can be decomposed into a small number of parts in some way or another.(A) IN GENERAL- Subject to subparagraph (B), the term `database' means a collection of a large number of discrete items of information produced for the purpose of bringing such discrete items of information together in one place or through one source so that persons may access them.
I wonder if we'll see SCO-like attempts to quickly produce as many databases of as many facts as possible. Anyone using any facts whatsoever could be extorted for license fees or subject to lawsuits by rabid hordes of attorneys.
This whole social networking fad -- Friendster, Tribe, LinkedIn, etc. -- does seem to play off people's egos. I'm still wondering if there's any real value to being in one of these social networks other than the minimal ego boost you get from admiring your mighty network. Is there anything that these tools offer that a mailing list doesn't?
For example, LinkedIn seems to have a big focus on finding business contacts for jobs, consulting, or whatever that might be a couple hops away in your social network. But it's time consuming to use Linked In in this way and the contacts I've gotten through the network aren't particularly useful or interesting.
Is there something more here? Has anyone else find any real value from social networking sites?
Absolutely right. I'm not sure how they're getting to distributing computing (or grid computing) from cellular automata.
Distributed computing, as I've seen it defined, requires substantial computation at each node. I've never heard of anyone refer to cellular automata as distributed computing.
I did the same, but I still found it annoying. When you installed TurboTax 2002, C-Dilla was also quietly installed. C-Dilla ran all the time, taking up memory. Originally, C-Dilla would remain installed even when you uninstalled TurboTax. Only after a public outcry did Intuit decide to release an uninstaller for C-Dilla. Sure, it's not the end of the world, but it's definitely annoying.
Ah, right. Sorry, I thought it was an independent effort. They're clearly working together.
Yeah. This is a very cool technology that looks like a low-cost, low-latency alternative to geosynchronous satellites.
Nasa is apparently working on something similar.
- Aerogel is relatively expensive primarily because it is currently made in very limited quantities. While increasing the scale of aerogel production will reduce the cost, the basic process and raw materials are still somewhat costly. For relatively small quantities of aerogel the cost is about $1.00 per cubic centimeter for one liter.
It sounds like, if the process to manufacture aerogel was modified to work at large scale, it might be possible to vastly reduce the cost. Given the extremely good insulation properties of this material, I wonder if it could be competitive with other insulators, at least for some applications.Great point. Vibrate or single beep instead of a loud full length ring by default.
While many people do customize their cell phone's ring tones, as with any customer electronic device, the vast majority probably never change the settings from the defaults. Just making the default setting the least annoying one would have a big impact.
Google's AdSense program, which allows you to get paid for ads on your website, explicitly prohibits using it in e-mail, but it may not be a big deal to start allowing that. Seems like just releasing that restriction and a little work for targeting of ads to e-mails instead of websites would mean that Google's advertising system could be applied to e-mail.
I find it strange that companies like DoubleClick and X10 believe that advertising is most effective when maximally annoying. Google's advertising is a perfect example of how targeted advertising -- matching keywords to ads, tracking the effectiveness of ads, and showing ads where they are most effective -- can be quite profitable. And they're doing it with text-only ads, no flash, graphics taking over your entire screen, or pop ups.
At best, popup ads and other annoyances seems penny-wise and pound-foolish, sacrificing long-term customer satisfaction of the many who are subject to these ads and overall brand reputation for a potential short-term boost in sales from the few customers that do click through on annoying ads. For example, because I hate their ads so much, I would never buy any product from X10.
But I actually find Google's ads useful and click on them frequently because they're so well targeted to whatever I happen to be looking for. Targeted ads work. They show information or a product that's actually useful to me without getting in my way. Why do other advertisers continue to annoy customers with useless and irrelevant popup ads?
It's a bit of a pain to get news from a wide variety of sources though. Takes quite a bit of time. I've found a couple resources to be useful for this.
Google News and Technorati pick from a wide variety of sources and allow you to search news articles. But I sometimes find it hard to find what I want in all the clutter. Plastic provides moderation and discussion of news, but doesn't have broad coverage. Various RSS aggregators allow me to create your own news feed, but they don't have good coverage of mainstream news sources and they're a bit of a pain to set up. There's a couple recent attempts at personalized news -- Findory News is one -- that try to pull news from a broad variety of sources targetted to your interests.
What do you use?
It was expensive ($14B USD).
This kind of failed project makes me wonder about the health of China's economy in general. There's talk of an investment bubble in China right now with huge amounts of money going into projects that don't make a lot of sense. This maglev train seems like just one of many examples.
This isn't some personal hobby on my or your spare time. This is a large expenditure of public funds. You have to ask if there were other ways to spend those funds that would have had a better positive impact on mankind.
Well, look, money is finite. If you fund one exploration project, another doesn't get funded. How do you know which you should fund and which you shouldn't? Why do a manned mission instead of x10 as many cheaper robotic probes?
For that matter, how do you compare spending money on a manned mission to Mars to spending money on other things that benefit the world? Why not spend that money on cancer research, AIDS research, education, etc.?
The only rational basis for comparison is expected value of spending that money on X vs. Y. That's how you decide whether to do a manned mission to Mars or whether you should just send probes and try to cure cancer with the remaining funds.
- the financial and exploratory benefits seem to outweigh the social negatives
What are the social and exploratory benefits of a manned mission? How do they outweigh the costs?While I'm a big fan of robotic probes to Mars and elsewhere, I have never seen a compelling economic argument for manned exploration of Mars, at least in the short and medium term.
The argument for seems to be based entirely on the assumption that we need to colonize Mars as quickly as possible and this is a first step. But why do we need to colonize Mars as quickly as possible? Until we've exhausted what we can learn from unmanned probes, why send manned missions at all?
The problem with distributed ("utility") computing is that communication between the processing units is expensive (high latency, in particular), so your task needs to be divisible into many almost completely independent pieces. While a some CPU intensive tasks do fit that model (protein folding, Seti@Home, DNA analysis, some search problems, some AI problems), most don't.
So, I'm basically agreeing with you that utility computing is applicable to only a small subset of interesting problems. A useful subset, but only a subset.