A lot of IT/IS people have a very distorted view of the world in thinking that their profession is the mission of their organization. IT is about facilitating the people that do the real work. IT is easy; the business uncertainty is low, 90% of the work can be done by trained chickens, and there is no production requirement. LITERALLY all you have to do is keep stuff working and upgrade from time to time.
But that's not how it works in all too many companies. For an enterprise with 10,000 people producing, you have 1,000 IT people to sit around and think of new ways to justify their continued employment through bureaucratic process and unnecessary BS. IT managers, just like all good managers enter the resource war with their colleagues for more money, more staff, more power, etc. What is forgotten is that meeting requirements has essentially a fixed price.
I have worked in industry a long time with a bunch of carbon-blobs that do anything they can to impede the real work. IT is not a mission, it's a f@#$king support role worthy of no higher esteem than janitors, accountants or lawyers. Now get off your pedestal and fix my god-damned computer you FU%$&ing OBSTRUCTIONIST!!!
Flamebait? It's the cold hard light of reality. The government of an impoverished nation like India has zero business developing an indigenous space program. Participate in the ISS, space shuttle ride, satellites, FINE. A space program would pump lots of money into the economy, but the collective production is minimal. The kind of money that it would take to send a man to the moon could build massive desalination plants, generate cheaper power, provide public transportation, REDUCE TAXES, or a multitude of other projects to improve the economy. I would have a HUGE problem with this if I were an indian taxpayer.
Want a good present? How about skype phones? If you actually like your family, they can help you stay in contact dirt cheap. That's kinda what xmas is all about.
So a country of a billion people can spend billions on a space program, but can't feed a BIG portion of it's own people? I like space travel, but my god get your priorities in order.
How do you mean? When I start up windows XP, it looks identical on every computer I go to. Excepting administrator specific restrictions, it works the same. All CD-Burners work the same, all floppy disks work the same, my programs are all in one place, etc...
If you are referring to some techno-geek service perspective, then that's the exact frame of mind you have to get out of to understand this article.
People aren't going to change. Linux will. Joe Twelvepack doesn't want to learn computerese, his computer should learn English. (or whatever language Joe speaks) I'm a fairly technically savvy user, and the hard time I have with linux is the fragmentation.
NOTHING pisses me off more than hearing "Well this is built under (dev environment) so you need to run it in (whatever gui.) The big successful desktop OSes are standardized. Don't like some Windows/MacOS piece? Too bad. It hurts that 1/1 millionth of the population that might care, but it provides a CONSISTENT user experience that can be built on for the rest of us.
Don't blame this on the world, the Linux community has the OS they wanted for themselves, not for the public.
I was at a stupid mobility conference a few weeks ago. (yes stupidity is very mobile) He was talking of plans to transmit music over cell phones wireless networks. He suggested that one would be able to play music of their choice on-demand, but that currently they are thinking that preset genre specific playlists provided by music companies would be more popular. Someone from the peanut gallery asked "how is that different from the radio?" The thought had honestly never occurred to him.
I sort of place music on-demand in the same category as speech-recognition and text-to-speech for text messaging. It might work and be cool, but it's easier to just call the person.
Kill or be killed is the law of capitalism. If you're #1 you make more money (and probably have more sex too) and making money is the ultimate end goal here. It's not a penis size contest, it's survival of the fittest.
Shrugging off the topically relevant war in Iraq to focus on an important issue like *GASP* music piracy is certainly a bold move that will ressonnate with the progressive voters of Utah. I don't know, nor do I care what this guy's platform is on real issues, but my god, this is about as low on most people's totem pole of political importance as gay marriage or Native American Affairs. I really hope it's not his flagship issue, because it's a real lame one for most people.
Google Earth pulls from ONE BIG flat file. It's the same kind of technology that pixia uses. These extremely large files are much faster than databases because of pyramid layers. (reduced resolution data sets) The Keyhole Fusion that you use to add to a skin stitches it into that file. (Yes, it has variable resolution)
I mean for anything? Yeah my dad will only buy GM vehicles, my uncle only ford, but to think that anybody would always choose one brand of blender over another is ridiculous. That's why wal-mart is so successful, low price is king. Sony itself DOESN'T have a good reputation for hardware anymore and the playstation has no stronger of a rep than nintendo had in 95. Perhaps it's too early to celebrate the death of the "brand" but it's certainly less important now than it ever has been.
"I don't want to help terrorists or help bad guys do bad things on airplanes"
There are plenty of ways to revel this possibly gaping security hole without publishing a tool to do it. Demo it at a conference, show the media, contact the TSA, DON'T put out a tool into the wild. That was just irresponsible and naive. (and as arrestable of an offense as putting out high-quality counterfeit money producers I would guess)
"Microsoft has come a long way but still has some way to go before taking on Firefox and Opera"
I bet the IE guys are microsoft read the article and are sulking about how their browser isn't ready to take on the competition. Oh well, I guess they can always take solace in their 88% market share.
Because it will be a cold day there before I move out, and I don't care for the heat. Anybody else who wants to leave (for ideological reasons) can go there too.
I have spent the last 5 years researching information visualization, recently gettinging into immersive (glasses, multi-wall, etc) visualization, and I can say without hesitation that his primary arguement holds no water whatsoever for most tasks relevant to computer users.
"three dimensions, even virtual dimensions, are so much better than the two we experience on our monitors today"
The problem is that the author makes no case for *why* this is.
I don't want to get too far into the weeds here, but a fundamental concept of design is to strip abstract away irrelevant material (noise) to leave that which is important (signal) for the user. He is suggesting moving from a paradigm of 1 dimension (text is 1 dimensional, not two) and moving to four dimensions (time is as relevant as place when you start dealing with avatars, VWs, etc)
The human perceptual system doesn't really work that way. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors left us with a hybrid 1D/2D ability, with limited capacity to perceive or reason in higher dimensionality. If we look at information absorbtion, we can do very well with 2d in the form of pictures, maps, etc, but if the story being told doesn't lend itself to that medium, then we are 1-dimensional learners. Reading and speaking are our primary communication mediums for complex ideas and they are completely linear. (time)
It boils down to complexity. A virtual world adds unneeded complexity to simple phenomenon. (social networking, productivity applications, etc) Value is derived from making information MORE accessible, not less accessible in a prettier way.
Only two browsers are "Major" and that's a combined Mozilla/Firefox and a combined Internet Explorer. And that's being generous to Moz/FF. The others are curiosities. Fine software perhaps, but certainly not "major."
I cast serious doubt on Mozilla's claim of tab "innovation" but IE7 definitely perfected it by allowing me to REALLY turn it off! (Middle mouse button and all)
"Considering that video game movies always do poorly"
Let's analyze this. Certainly there have been poor performers (anything by Uwe Boll) but they *always* make money. Some have even done quite well. Doom, Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider 1&2, Resident Evil, Pokemon, even street fighter and mortal kombat did fairly well. It's all about a compelling story told effectively. Halo has a good story. Translating that could be a problem, but some of these people are actually pretty talented.
SGI still has some really slick tech like NUMA. I work in high-end visualization, and I can tell you that it's tough to get good computers for it. I'd love to see them start combining commodity and proprietary to make new-wave supercomputer hybrids for visualization. The problem is, that like all Unix makers, they think it's better to do everything themselves and lock-in their customers rather than competing. Get over this and they might have something.
I think a bigger problem is that the government leadership has had so much smoke blown up their asses about what "technology" can do that they are (rightfully) skeptical. I can't tell you how many software demos I attend where the sales-weasels promise the solution to world hunger but deliver a smouldering pile of crap. When people start seeing through it, they come up with a different line and use even more nebulous terms to tell you why you need XMLnanostreamservice instead of the old crap they sold you last time. Tech burn is VERY VERY real, and it's getting much worse.
I really do look forward to a day when a software vendor takes responsibility for the proper functioning of their software. IMHO, Mcaffee, symantec, etc shouldn't exist. They are able to get by because of Microsoft's sloppiness. I don't blame MS one bit for trying to correct years of negligence. (I do blame them for those years of negligence) Making Microsoft Windows work shouldn't have to be a competitive industry, Microsoft SHOULD monopolize that.
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But that's not how it works in all too many companies. For an enterprise with 10,000 people producing, you have 1,000 IT people to sit around and think of new ways to justify their continued employment through bureaucratic process and unnecessary BS. IT managers, just like all good managers enter the resource war with their colleagues for more money, more staff, more power, etc. What is forgotten is that meeting requirements has essentially a fixed price.
I have worked in industry a long time with a bunch of carbon-blobs that do anything they can to impede the real work. IT is not a mission, it's a f@#$king support role worthy of no higher esteem than janitors, accountants or lawyers. Now get off your pedestal and fix my god-damned computer you FU%$&ing OBSTRUCTIONIST!!!
Flamebait? It's the cold hard light of reality. The government of an impoverished nation like India has zero business developing an indigenous space program. Participate in the ISS, space shuttle ride, satellites, FINE. A space program would pump lots of money into the economy, but the collective production is minimal. The kind of money that it would take to send a man to the moon could build massive desalination plants, generate cheaper power, provide public transportation, REDUCE TAXES, or a multitude of other projects to improve the economy. I would have a HUGE problem with this if I were an indian taxpayer.
Want a good present? How about skype phones? If you actually like your family, they can help you stay in contact dirt cheap. That's kinda what xmas is all about.
So a country of a billion people can spend billions on a space program, but can't feed a BIG portion of it's own people? I like space travel, but my god get your priorities in order.
If you are referring to some techno-geek service perspective, then that's the exact frame of mind you have to get out of to understand this article.
NOTHING pisses me off more than hearing "Well this is built under (dev environment) so you need to run it in (whatever gui.) The big successful desktop OSes are standardized. Don't like some Windows/MacOS piece? Too bad. It hurts that 1/1 millionth of the population that might care, but it provides a CONSISTENT user experience that can be built on for the rest of us.
Don't blame this on the world, the Linux community has the OS they wanted for themselves, not for the public.
I sort of place music on-demand in the same category as speech-recognition and text-to-speech for text messaging. It might work and be cool, but it's easier to just call the person.
That's EXACTLY my point. He's got a powerful issue to push and he (chooses?) digital media rights? Doesn't seem like a good idea.
Kill or be killed is the law of capitalism. If you're #1 you make more money (and probably have more sex too) and making money is the ultimate end goal here. It's not a penis size contest, it's survival of the fittest.
not relevant. "It's the WAR stupid." That's the ONLY issue this election. Sad but true.
Shrugging off the topically relevant war in Iraq to focus on an important issue like *GASP* music piracy is certainly a bold move that will ressonnate with the progressive voters of Utah. I don't know, nor do I care what this guy's platform is on real issues, but my god, this is about as low on most people's totem pole of political importance as gay marriage or Native American Affairs. I really hope it's not his flagship issue, because it's a real lame one for most people.
Google Earth pulls from ONE BIG flat file. It's the same kind of technology that pixia uses. These extremely large files are much faster than databases because of pyramid layers. (reduced resolution data sets) The Keyhole Fusion that you use to add to a skin stitches it into that file. (Yes, it has variable resolution)
I mean for anything? Yeah my dad will only buy GM vehicles, my uncle only ford, but to think that anybody would always choose one brand of blender over another is ridiculous. That's why wal-mart is so successful, low price is king. Sony itself DOESN'T have a good reputation for hardware anymore and the playstation has no stronger of a rep than nintendo had in 95. Perhaps it's too early to celebrate the death of the "brand" but it's certainly less important now than it ever has been.
There are plenty of ways to revel this possibly gaping security hole without publishing a tool to do it. Demo it at a conference, show the media, contact the TSA, DON'T put out a tool into the wild. That was just irresponsible and naive. (and as arrestable of an offense as putting out high-quality counterfeit money producers I would guess)
It kept failing on me
I bet the IE guys are microsoft read the article and are sulking about how their browser isn't ready to take on the competition. Oh well, I guess they can always take solace in their 88% market share.
Because it will be a cold day there before I move out, and I don't care for the heat. Anybody else who wants to leave (for ideological reasons) can go there too.
I have spent the last 5 years researching information visualization, recently gettinging into immersive (glasses, multi-wall, etc) visualization, and I can say without hesitation that his primary arguement holds no water whatsoever for most tasks relevant to computer users. "three dimensions, even virtual dimensions, are so much better than the two we experience on our monitors today" The problem is that the author makes no case for *why* this is. I don't want to get too far into the weeds here, but a fundamental concept of design is to strip abstract away irrelevant material (noise) to leave that which is important (signal) for the user. He is suggesting moving from a paradigm of 1 dimension (text is 1 dimensional, not two) and moving to four dimensions (time is as relevant as place when you start dealing with avatars, VWs, etc) The human perceptual system doesn't really work that way. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors left us with a hybrid 1D/2D ability, with limited capacity to perceive or reason in higher dimensionality. If we look at information absorbtion, we can do very well with 2d in the form of pictures, maps, etc, but if the story being told doesn't lend itself to that medium, then we are 1-dimensional learners. Reading and speaking are our primary communication mediums for complex ideas and they are completely linear. (time) It boils down to complexity. A virtual world adds unneeded complexity to simple phenomenon. (social networking, productivity applications, etc) Value is derived from making information MORE accessible, not less accessible in a prettier way.
Only two browsers are "Major" and that's a combined Mozilla/Firefox and a combined Internet Explorer. And that's being generous to Moz/FF. The others are curiosities. Fine software perhaps, but certainly not "major."
I cast serious doubt on Mozilla's claim of tab "innovation" but IE7 definitely perfected it by allowing me to REALLY turn it off! (Middle mouse button and all)
100m is a drop in the bucket for geodata. I have seen plenty of data sets of small areas for $1mil plus. That doesn't go very far.
Let's analyze this. Certainly there have been poor performers (anything by Uwe Boll) but they *always* make money. Some have even done quite well. Doom, Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider 1&2, Resident Evil, Pokemon, even street fighter and mortal kombat did fairly well. It's all about a compelling story told effectively. Halo has a good story. Translating that could be a problem, but some of these people are actually pretty talented.
SGI still has some really slick tech like NUMA. I work in high-end visualization, and I can tell you that it's tough to get good computers for it. I'd love to see them start combining commodity and proprietary to make new-wave supercomputer hybrids for visualization. The problem is, that like all Unix makers, they think it's better to do everything themselves and lock-in their customers rather than competing. Get over this and they might have something.
I think a bigger problem is that the government leadership has had so much smoke blown up their asses about what "technology" can do that they are (rightfully) skeptical. I can't tell you how many software demos I attend where the sales-weasels promise the solution to world hunger but deliver a smouldering pile of crap. When people start seeing through it, they come up with a different line and use even more nebulous terms to tell you why you need XMLnanostreamservice instead of the old crap they sold you last time. Tech burn is VERY VERY real, and it's getting much worse.
I really do look forward to a day when a software vendor takes responsibility for the proper functioning of their software. IMHO, Mcaffee, symantec, etc shouldn't exist. They are able to get by because of Microsoft's sloppiness. I don't blame MS one bit for trying to correct years of negligence. (I do blame them for those years of negligence) Making Microsoft Windows work shouldn't have to be a competitive industry, Microsoft SHOULD monopolize that.