I like being able to sketch things out when I work - a network diagram, a chart to help me understand how things work together, something like that.
The few times I tried a tablet PC, it simply didn't feel natural. There was always a feeling that the PC was half a second behind the stylus.
I'm currently trying the Logitech IO pen gizmo. I like almost everything about it, except the pen is huge and a little awkward.. and it looks just enough like some kind of sci-fi dildo that people look twice at it.
The problem facing the networks is, the PVR genie is already out of the bottle. My own kids don't know what channel or time most of their shows come on, they just know how to set up a season pass on Tivo. Even I don't know what night Law & Order is on anymore; I watch it when I want to.
CBS, along with the other networks, is pretty bright. The MPAA has consistently been a lot more clueful than the RIAA has been when faced with new technologies. They realize there is a very thin line between retaining customers and annoying them.
HD is phenomenally good, and I love my mitsubishi HD set.. but the fact is that most TV shows don't merit 65" screens or 1080i format; they look just fine in compressed-to-hell-and-back format on a 32" set.
The electronics mfgr's have had a real hard battle getting consumers interested in HD already; you can bet that Sony and Samsung will not sit idly while their market is managed into oblivion by ABC and Fox.
Home computers now have an amazing array of artistic tools available. Between my digital camera, camcorder, and Mr. Firewire, it's theoretically possible to shoot some still pictures and video, title them and edit amazingly smooth transitions, rivaling the production abilities of some smaller hollywood facilities.
Sadly, I still jiggle the goddam camera, and mostly shoot video of the inside of the lens cap.
Spielberg doesn't have to worry about missing a paycheck yet.:-)
Agreed, but the semantic differences become lost in the stream of expletives when a clueless consultant plugs in his msblaster-infected laptop, or you arrive at work in the morning to find that what used to be your mysql database server is now a warez/irc bot server.
I'll give MS credit for being faster on average. Sometimes, linux apps have patches out in a matter of hours. Other times... not so fast. Or the patch would put you out-of-sync with the distro you're using, unless you wait for the "approved" patch.
Long story short, I think the "windows-vs-linux" thing is a lot like "cars-vs-SUV's". Someone call someone else a Nazi so we can move on.:-)
My theory is, if you can afford a $300+/- ipod, plus the music you download, you can probably spring for a 256mb stick of RAM at best buy for $18.95:-)
Heck, even my kids computer has 512mb of RAM. It's so cheap these days, if it saves you one hour of "loading, please wait" over the lifetime of the computer, it's worth getting it.
Maybe my perspective is different since I usually run Linux as a server platform, and I greatly value stability over features. I recently noticed that one of my linux machines has an uptime of 371 days -- and this is a box accessed by a dozen people, running an SQL database, web server, etc. etc...
I *love* itunes, and just hope I don't go overboard with it.. but maybe it's time for a "workstation" and a "server" branch of linux? one for ease of use and all the great features you like, and another for the rock-of-gibraltar stability and predictability that all the server folks love?
Perusing my security logs, I see 4,300 port scans, ssh crack attempts, and so on all from.cn addresses. Since the top of the hour, that is. ('bout 32 minutes ago)
I am beginning to wish China was slightly more effective in their blocking.
Maybe in some markets. I was sold on the idea of cheap, fast pr0n downloads.
It seems like a good move by the companies, though. 2% of your users consume 40% of your resources, which are cost-sensitive. Annoy that 2% into taking their business to your competitor, and your bottom line goes w00t!
I *really* like linux. I use it on a stack of servers, and I have a couple of linux workstations, which are just great for the power that the unix command line (and utilities like awk, grep, etc) all offer.
But unix as a gaming platform? I just don't really see the value, other than the small marketing boost. Games are designed to be sold at high volume and low margin; if you spend half an hour on the phone with one user who can't get the opengl driver running, you eat the profit for 50 copies of the title.
Me, I like unix for what it's good at, and I like WinXP for what it does well.
Remember, you're talking about a collective public that's often convinced that buying an extended warranty is a good deal. The security isn't intended to actually do anything, but it reassues nervous people that all is well.
We bought a few of the Toshiba PocketPC phones, and they were simply unusable; battery life measured in hours of standby and minutes of browsing, unable to use it without a headset, and enormously unstable firmware.
As much as I love my Dell pocketpc (axim), I don't think the PocketPC phone combo is ready for prime time.
Time Warner (at least in my area) has their own spin on tivo - PPV with fast forward, rewind, etc. etc, you pay for a movie and you get to watch it for 24 hours.
They're offering a similar service for "premium" channels (hbo, sho, max, etc..) for a few bucks a month.
I've already got a tivo, but if I didn't, it might be appealing.
I'd be more curious about a non-wrecked bus of burning nuns, honestly. I'm on FIRE with the spirit! someone put me OUT, please!
The amusing part of this article was the mention about "having an in-depth conversation with a spouse or loved one". Now, don't get me wrong, but... do I REALLY want to be wearing a speedo in front of a room (pool?) full of other people while I'm having an "in depth" talk with my wife??
Or worse... if the guy talking to his wife happens to drift towards the rear end of some poor guy getting worked over by an IRS agent...... Damn, I'm a sick pup.
I'm sure some adjustment will be needed, and it seems obvious that weaving through a crowd of children in a school zone deseves a different penalty than leaning into fourth gear on an empty freeway... But I personally like the idea. I drive carefully and respectfully, and I'm just plain tired of seeing blatantly dangerous drivers "get away with it".
When I fly a plane, I'm under almost constant surveillance, and if I did something idiotic like "cutting off" another plane in order to land ahead of him, I'd expect to be read the riot act, and probably lose my license. Yet, I see at least one vehicle accident a week where it's plain to see that at least one (and usually more) drivers couldn't be bothered to even pay attention to what they were doing. The cost in lives (roughly the equivalent of 9/11 every week) is so high that a multiple-fatality collision doesn't even make page one of a city newspaper. Just in the U.S. alone, 100 fatalities a day is average, plus several hundred crippling injuries and tens of millions of dollars in property damage, medical costs, and lost earnings. Just look at your insurance bill and you'll get the general idea.
Yup, the "zero tolerance" bit will be difficult to get past, but, we're bright people. we'll figure something out.
Err.... No. Most spammers use one of several programs specifically designed for spamming, with features like rate throttling and header munging. These programs often tell dim-witted MTA's that they are Outlook or Outlook Express simply because that's a well-known mailer.
As for the virus count, that seems accurate, and reasonable; Outlook and OE are, by far, the most popular mail programs on the planet, and they are the default mailers on perhaps 80% of all desktop computers on the planet, most of which are used by relatively unsophisticated people to perform day-to-day tasks.
Windows is no more or less secure than any other OS, it's just a lot more popular. If linux was more popular (and especially if there were a huge LinuxCorp to bash - oh, wait, there is!) you can be sure it would be decried as the source of All Things Evil on the internet.
Car theft would become instantly pointless Shoplifting would become obsolete (you'd just get charged for the things you left with) Taking inventory would take seconds, not days Retail prices could drop 10%. (or service could get 10% better) Counterfieting would be obsolete (spelling, however, would not be) Dispensing medication would be more accurate Heavy vehicles could have tolls assessed by the item. Products known to have serious safety recalls (contaminated veggies, whatever) could be removed with much more confidence
I know, I know... THE MAN is going to use all that data for his evil plot, and we should all go back to the Good Old Days when everybody paid full retail at the Corner Market, and had their purchases rung up by hand) but that's just a pain in the ass.
I spent three minutes waiting to buy a magazine at a bookstore today. I could have walked out with my purchase instantly with RFID. I waited in line to buy a thing of candy at the movie theater. Ditto. I got stuck in traffic behind the usual bunch of idiots with no credit cards who won't get toll tags.
I'm having trouble with this "if I can see your signal, I have the right to do anything I want with it" idea. It makes the assumption that:
1. Any time you expose your property to the public in any way, they have unlimited rights to do anything with it that they wish.
2. If you fail to extraordinary means (hardened OS, encryption, etc.) you forfeit any rights to privacy or ownership of your information.
3. Once your information has been compromised, you have no recourse against those who share your information, and use of the court system to enforce ownership claims is morally repugnant.
I'm sorry, guys. Claim whatever "non-infringing" uses you want. If you're walking through a parking lot with a slim jim and a slap hammer, your claims of "but I might decide to hotwire my car instead of using the key" argument is going to be a little hard to swallow.
KDE is pretty impressive, and quite stable, at least where I've used it.
The only reasons I still lean towards XP for "gotta pick one" (i.e. my laptop, mom's machine, whatever) are the support for commercial apps, and "works out of the box" 3D support. Gotta get my quake fix....
But KDE with GIMP and a couple of other apps makes a really nice replacement for a copy of Photoshop - at least for an amateur digicam nut like me.
Sweet. I had a Sidekick for a while. It was a neat piece of hardware, but the network it was running on (T-Mobile) had some really bad coverage issues.
I'm still hoping for the "killer device" that will be as tough and small as a pager, have a keyboard (even a tiny one), a phone, and decent battery life. So far I haven't had much luck. (must.... resist... geek lust.....)
We all love to hate Wal-Mart. It ruins the environment, kills puppies, etc. etc. etc. But we all seem to find the idea of a Mom & Pop store to be a great abstraction.. but not enough that we want to pay $3 more for a pair of socks.
obBatteries: I'm using a stack of NiMH AA's in lots of things. I use them in remotes for Tivo, in my cordless phone, and in my wireless mouse. They do wear out faster than alkaline non-rechargables, but it's really handy to be able to know there's always a couple of freshly-charged sets around the house.
My kids also have a couple of toys that eat AA's. I figure it probably saves me a little cash, but the time I don't spend hunting down replacement batteries is more of a benefit.
I've operated two major businesses - both with over 2,000 employees - from behind proxy/nat systems. In one case I had a/24 (of which I used precisely four IP's) and in the other case I had a/28 (which was used more completely because of multiple web sites).
I'm using NAT right now, and running VoIP (vonage) flawlessly, gaming with both Xbox and PC (I get fragged a lot, but it's because I'm a mediocre player, ping time ain't a factor). At the same time I'm also using a VPN (so it looks like I have full routing to a corporate network). NAT and DHCP have made home networking so simple that a lot of products require little or no configuration, which means a lot more people can take advantage of them.
IPv6 is a very interesting technology, but there's simply nothing that makes it worth investing time and money for most companies and end-users. When there's some "killer app", that makes it worthwhile to switch to IPv6.... I will take the plunge like everyone else.
I think it's a good idea to make users sit behind a proxy. It reduces security risks for inexperienced users, makes it easier to identify mp3 downloaders, and keeps the terminally clueless from turning on IIS and having their machines owned in 30 seconds flat. NAT, squid, and other technologies pretty much made the address "shortage" a non-issue, by increasing exponentially the efficiency of IP address allocation. A certain famously demanding lady from NSI also deserves some credit, for brow-beating ISP's into being more realistic about address space requests.
A while ago I might have said the same thing.. but to a lot of people, time is more valuable. I've had a PVR since they were pretty new (3 years+?) and even though I paid something like $699 for it, I consider it a terrific buy.
I figure I watch 10 hours of TV a week. Probably 7 hours are stations with commercials. 20 minutes per hour X 7 hours, that's 2 hours and 20 minutes a week I *don't* spend watching tampax ads.
In other words, in last three years, I've avoided wasting 400 hours on commercials. I figure my time is worth about $50 an hour, so that's $20k in "free time" I've had available to do other things.
I stand corrected, I read a little more on the topic and now I think I understand that there is a performance improvement with framerate > refresh.. even if I don't understand exactly why.
I think that maybe I just feel a little guilty using an SMP workstation loaded with enough Xeons to heat a bag of popcorn.
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I like being able to sketch things out when I work - a network diagram, a chart to help me understand how things work together, something like that.
The few times I tried a tablet PC, it simply didn't feel natural. There was always a feeling that the PC was half a second behind the stylus.
I'm currently trying the Logitech IO pen gizmo. I like almost everything about it, except the pen is huge and a little awkward.. and it looks just enough like some kind of sci-fi dildo that people look twice at it.
The problem facing the networks is, the PVR genie is already out of the bottle. My own kids don't know what channel or time most of their shows come on, they just know how to set up a season pass on Tivo. Even I don't know what night Law & Order is on anymore; I watch it when I want to.
CBS, along with the other networks, is pretty bright. The MPAA has consistently been a lot more clueful than the RIAA has been when faced with new technologies. They realize there is a very thin line between retaining customers and annoying them.
HD is phenomenally good, and I love my mitsubishi HD set.. but the fact is that most TV shows don't merit 65" screens or 1080i format; they look just fine in compressed-to-hell-and-back format on a 32" set.
The electronics mfgr's have had a real hard battle getting consumers interested in HD already; you can bet that Sony and Samsung will not sit idly while their market is managed into oblivion by ABC and Fox.
Home computers now have an amazing array of artistic tools available. Between my digital camera, camcorder, and Mr. Firewire, it's theoretically possible to shoot some still pictures and video, title them and edit amazingly smooth transitions, rivaling the production abilities of some smaller hollywood facilities.
:-)
Sadly, I still jiggle the goddam camera, and mostly shoot video of the inside of the lens cap.
Spielberg doesn't have to worry about missing a paycheck yet.
Agreed, but the semantic differences become lost in the stream of expletives when a clueless consultant plugs in his msblaster-infected laptop, or you arrive at work in the morning to find that what used to be your mysql database server is now a warez/irc bot server.
I'll give MS credit for being faster on average. Sometimes, linux apps have patches out in a matter of hours. Other times... not so fast. Or the patch would put you out-of-sync with the distro you're using, unless you wait for the "approved" patch.
:-)
Long story short, I think the "windows-vs-linux" thing is a lot like "cars-vs-SUV's". Someone call someone else a Nazi so we can move on.
My theory is, if you can afford a $300+/- ipod, plus the music you download, you can probably spring for a 256mb stick of RAM at best buy for $18.95 :-)
Heck, even my kids computer has 512mb of RAM. It's so cheap these days, if it saves you one hour of "loading, please wait" over the lifetime of the computer, it's worth getting it.
Maybe my perspective is different since I usually run Linux as a server platform, and I greatly value stability over features. I recently noticed that one of my linux machines has an uptime of 371 days -- and this is a box accessed by a dozen people, running an SQL database, web server, etc. etc...
I *love* itunes, and just hope I don't go overboard with it.. but maybe it's time for a "workstation" and a "server" branch of linux? one for ease of use and all the great features you like, and another for the rock-of-gibraltar stability and predictability that all the server folks love?
Perusing my security logs, I see 4,300 port scans, ssh crack attempts, and so on all from .cn addresses. Since the top of the hour, that is. ('bout 32 minutes ago)
I am beginning to wish China was slightly more effective in their blocking.
Hey, dressing up as captain kirk is one thing.. but wearing a dress? ewwww! lol lol
Maybe in some markets. I was sold on the idea of cheap, fast pr0n downloads.
It seems like a good move by the companies, though. 2% of your users consume 40% of your resources, which are cost-sensitive. Annoy that 2% into taking their business to your competitor, and your bottom line goes w00t!
I *really* like linux. I use it on a stack of servers, and I have a couple of linux workstations, which are just great for the power that the unix command line (and utilities like awk, grep, etc) all offer.
But unix as a gaming platform? I just don't really see the value, other than the small marketing boost. Games are designed to be sold at high volume and low margin; if you spend half an hour on the phone with one user who can't get the opengl driver running, you eat the profit for 50 copies of the title.
Me, I like unix for what it's good at, and I like WinXP for what it does well.
Remember, you're talking about a collective public that's often convinced that buying an extended warranty is a good deal. The security isn't intended to actually do anything, but it reassues nervous people that all is well.
We bought a few of the Toshiba PocketPC phones, and they were simply unusable; battery life measured in hours of standby and minutes of browsing, unable to use it without a headset, and enormously unstable firmware.
As much as I love my Dell pocketpc (axim), I don't think the PocketPC phone combo is ready for prime time.
Time Warner (at least in my area) has their own spin on tivo - PPV with fast forward, rewind, etc. etc, you pay for a movie and you get to watch it for 24 hours.
They're offering a similar service for "premium" channels (hbo, sho, max, etc..) for a few bucks a month.
I've already got a tivo, but if I didn't, it might be appealing.
The amusing part of this article was the mention about "having an in-depth conversation with a spouse or loved one". Now, don't get me wrong, but... do I REALLY want to be wearing a speedo in front of a room (pool?) full of other people while I'm having an "in depth" talk with my wife??
Or worse... if the guy talking to his wife happens to drift towards the rear end of some poor guy getting worked over by an IRS agent...... Damn, I'm a sick pup.
I'm sure some adjustment will be needed, and it seems obvious that weaving through a crowd of children in a school zone deseves a different penalty than leaning into fourth gear on an empty freeway... But I personally like the idea. I drive carefully and respectfully, and I'm just plain tired of seeing blatantly dangerous drivers "get away with it".
When I fly a plane, I'm under almost constant surveillance, and if I did something idiotic like "cutting off" another plane in order to land ahead of him, I'd expect to be read the riot act, and probably lose my license. Yet, I see at least one vehicle accident a week where it's plain to see that at least one (and usually more) drivers couldn't be bothered to even pay attention to what they were doing. The cost in lives (roughly the equivalent of 9/11 every week) is so high that a multiple-fatality collision doesn't even make page one of a city newspaper. Just in the U.S. alone, 100 fatalities a day is average, plus several hundred crippling injuries and tens of millions of dollars in property damage, medical costs, and lost earnings. Just look at your insurance bill and you'll get the general idea.
Yup, the "zero tolerance" bit will be difficult to get past, but, we're bright people. we'll figure something out.
Err.... No. Most spammers use one of several programs specifically designed for spamming, with features like rate throttling and header munging. These programs often tell dim-witted MTA's that they are Outlook or Outlook Express simply because that's a well-known mailer.
As for the virus count, that seems accurate, and reasonable; Outlook and OE are, by far, the most popular mail programs on the planet, and they are the default mailers on perhaps 80% of all desktop computers on the planet, most of which are used by relatively unsophisticated people to perform day-to-day tasks.
Windows is no more or less secure than any other OS, it's just a lot more popular. If linux was more popular (and especially if there were a huge LinuxCorp to bash - oh, wait, there is!) you can be sure it would be decried as the source of All Things Evil on the internet.
With widespread use of them,
Car theft would become instantly pointless
Shoplifting would become obsolete (you'd just get charged for the things you left with)
Taking inventory would take seconds, not days
Retail prices could drop 10%. (or service could get 10% better)
Counterfieting would be obsolete
(spelling, however, would not be)
Dispensing medication would be more accurate
Heavy vehicles could have tolls assessed by the item.
Products known to have serious safety recalls (contaminated veggies, whatever) could be removed with much more confidence
I know, I know... THE MAN is going to use all that data for his evil plot, and we should all go back to the Good Old Days when everybody paid full retail at the Corner Market, and had their purchases rung up by hand) but that's just a pain in the ass.
I spent three minutes waiting to buy a magazine at a bookstore today. I could have walked out with my purchase instantly with RFID. I waited in line to buy a thing of candy at the movie theater. Ditto. I got stuck in traffic behind the usual bunch of idiots with no credit cards who won't get toll tags.
And so on, and so on...
I'm having trouble with this "if I can see your signal, I have the right to do anything I want with it" idea. It makes the assumption that:
1. Any time you expose your property to the public in any way, they have unlimited rights to do anything with it that they wish.
2. If you fail to extraordinary means (hardened OS, encryption, etc.) you forfeit any rights to privacy or ownership of your information.
3. Once your information has been compromised, you have no recourse against those who share your information, and use of the court system to enforce ownership claims is morally repugnant.
I'm sorry, guys. Claim whatever "non-infringing" uses you want. If you're walking through a parking lot with a slim jim and a slap hammer, your claims of "but I might decide to hotwire my car instead of using the key" argument is going to be a little hard to swallow.
KDE is pretty impressive, and quite stable, at least where I've used it.
The only reasons I still lean towards XP for "gotta pick one" (i.e. my laptop, mom's machine, whatever) are the support for commercial apps, and "works out of the box" 3D support. Gotta get my quake fix....
But KDE with GIMP and a couple of other apps makes a really nice replacement for a copy of Photoshop - at least for an amateur digicam nut like me.
Sweet. I had a Sidekick for a while. It was a neat piece of hardware, but the network it was running on (T-Mobile) had some really bad coverage issues.
I'm still hoping for the "killer device" that will be as tough and small as a pager, have a keyboard (even a tiny one), a phone, and decent battery life. So far I haven't had much luck. (must.... resist... geek lust.....)
But that Sharp PDA does look pretty cool.
We all love to hate Wal-Mart. It ruins the environment, kills puppies, etc. etc. etc. But we all seem to find the idea of a Mom & Pop store to be a great abstraction.. but not enough that we want to pay $3 more for a pair of socks.
obBatteries: I'm using a stack of NiMH AA's in lots of things. I use them in remotes for Tivo, in my cordless phone, and in my wireless mouse. They do wear out faster than alkaline non-rechargables, but it's really handy to be able to know there's always a couple of freshly-charged sets around the house.
My kids also have a couple of toys that eat AA's. I figure it probably saves me a little cash, but the time I don't spend hunting down replacement batteries is more of a benefit.
I've operated two major businesses - both with over 2,000 employees - from behind proxy/nat systems. In one case I had a /24 (of which I used precisely four IP's) and in the other case I had a /28 (which was used more completely because of multiple web sites).
I'm using NAT right now, and running VoIP (vonage) flawlessly, gaming with both Xbox and PC (I get fragged a lot, but it's because I'm a mediocre player, ping time ain't a factor). At the same time I'm also using a VPN (so it looks like I have full routing to a corporate network). NAT and DHCP have made home networking so simple that a lot of products require little or no configuration, which means a lot more people can take advantage of them.
IPv6 is a very interesting technology, but there's simply nothing that makes it worth investing time and money for most companies and end-users. When there's some "killer app", that makes it worthwhile to switch to IPv6.... I will take the plunge like everyone else.
I think it's a good idea to make users sit behind a proxy. It reduces security risks for inexperienced users, makes it easier to identify mp3 downloaders, and keeps the terminally clueless from turning on IIS and having their machines owned in 30 seconds flat. NAT, squid, and other technologies pretty much made the address "shortage" a non-issue, by increasing exponentially the efficiency of IP address allocation. A certain famously demanding lady from NSI also deserves some credit, for brow-beating ISP's into being more realistic about address space requests.
A while ago I might have said the same thing.. but to a lot of people, time is more valuable. I've had a PVR since they were pretty new (3 years+?) and even though I paid something like $699 for it, I consider it a terrific buy.
I figure I watch 10 hours of TV a week. Probably 7 hours are stations with commercials. 20 minutes per hour X 7 hours, that's 2 hours and 20 minutes a week I *don't* spend watching tampax ads.
In other words, in last three years, I've avoided wasting 400 hours on commercials. I figure my time is worth about $50 an hour, so that's $20k in "free time" I've had available to do other things.
Valuable things.
Like posting rants on slashdot.
I stand corrected, I read a little more on the topic and now I think I understand that there is a performance improvement with framerate > refresh.. even if I don't understand exactly why.
I think that maybe I just feel a little guilty using an SMP workstation loaded with enough Xeons to heat a bag of popcorn.