Ha! Was working on a client's server this week which hosted a certain popular, web-based Intranet application. Don't ask me how I know this;-), but a full year after deployment, close to 80% of the users still retain their password as '1'. Not 1234, just '1'.
While I get your point on technologies and crappy music, I'm afraid I will have to disagree on the notion that digital music downloads are a "force to reckon with".
Fact is, they aren't; even Apple sells its iTunes tracks as a loss-leader for its iPod sales. Music companies have had a slowdown in growth and indeed, in places like Asia, it could be blamed on piracy, but even there, we're talking about "regular" piracy, you know, mostly about those Triad gangsters selling bootlegs at Mongkok in Hong Kong, for instance. There is still not enough evidence to suggest that p2p has had any sort of an imeediate, significant impact on the CD-buying habits of the masses.
What the RIAA is concerned about, and this is where it suing 13-year-old girls comes into play, is what p2p entails for the future. You have an entire generation that not only is into digital downloading like never before, but also thinks that paying for music is an anachronism; the RIAA's real concern is that when this generation enters the workforce, it wont look at buying a CD as a default option. That's when it'll go into a slump from which it might be difficult to recover; there is still no evidence that this has happened so far. (Discussing whether it will ever, of course, is a wholly different rant altogether; for some very obvious reasons, I think it's pile of steaming crap, but anyway).
To summarize, no p2p is not a major disruptive force in an immediate sense. To think otherwise would, ironically enough, be like that proverbial frog which thinks everyone in the world is as technologically-enabled as other like-minded frogs it sees in its own cyber-well.:-)
Heh, it's a literal translation of a beautiful Sanskrit expression, kuupasthamanDuukaM.
Essentially, it's an allegory on paradigms that limit your view; just as a frog in a certain well might think that the well is the entire world and makes its decisions on that basis, RIAA companies base their decisions on the assumption that CD's are the only medium that can, or should, survive.
That and I suppose quality. Had to hard-reset (or whatever) my HP PDA thrice before it got to a stage where I can use it on a daily basis.
There is also, I suppose, something to do with demographics; the iPod's main base is teens and folks in their 20's, while the PDA's are still seen as the tech toys of an older generation.
Already happens in a certain Swiss bank's support center here. There are four sets of teams, code-named Tokyo, London, Singapore and New York. No prizes for guessing what each team's work-hours are.
Yup, that's how I understood it, but I think the interesting part here, really, is that Google itself seems to be unsure of its legal victory. Remains to be seen how Google will handle existing gmail ID's if and when it really loses.
The way I read it, they seem to be saying that while they can't guarantee the continuation of their gmail domain, existing gmail users won't see any change.
So if you have registered, say, david.brent@gmail.com, you won't be forced by Google to change it to david.brent@googlemail.com for now. But since there is a possibility of Google losing the lawsuit, they can't guarantee it will last.
One possibility is to define not equal to as a special Unicode symbol that can be produced by typing '!' and '=' one after another. A bit like how you'd produce amlauts and all those cool European characters, and Indic characters on a US 101 keyboard.
Which, again, fails to ignore the fact that the White House is photoshopped on Google Maps and the Rashtrapati Bhavan isn't.
Btw, civilians can, naturally, take photos on the Rashtrapati Bhavan grounds as well; my mom, for instance, has taken a lot of pictures on the grounds of the Mughal Gardens for its horticultural collection.
Listen, don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to say either the White House or any of the buildings in Parliament Street need to be away from public scrutiny. All I'm saying is, there is a double standard on Google Maps when it comes to non-American high-security installations, and that's what Dr Kalam is really complaining about.
Right. I'd like you to provide a freely available, high-res map of the White House and its surroundings on the Internet. Here's a hint: it's not even up on Google Maps.
The Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi, in comparison, is, and therein lies the problem.
Dr Kalam is a respected satellite/missile scientist who's worked with the Indian Space Research Organisation for most of his life. Rather sure he made this statement because of his defence research experience and interest in technology, and not necessarily because he has been elected to the highest office in the country.
In India, our presidents are rarely career-politicians, mostly because they have very little oversight on policy matters; they are usually eminent statesmen who "guide" the Prime Minister and his cabinet in formulating policy. The PM can, naturally, disregard the President's advice.
Laugh if you want, but I'd dare you to produce one accurate topographical map of India with a decent scale and grid. Publically available maps simply don't have the amount of detail necessary in an operational sense; as any army person will tell you, knowing where a state's capitol ("Legislative Assembly" in India) is entirely different from being able to tell where a certain army bunker is, for example.
"developing countries, which are already in danger of terrorist attacks, have been singularly chosen" for providing high resolution images of their sites.
AKA, while certain American buildings have been photoshopped, secure establishments in India and other places haven't been accorded the same level of obfuscation. Indeed, information about these locations is generally restricted in their respective countries, just as specific information on the White House (for example) is restricted in the US.
While a case can, indeed, be made about the need for a free flow of information, to call the information in Google Maps as "publically available information", however, is to ignore this double-standard.
Maybe I'm a closeted bisexual or something... Then again, this may just be because I'm a geek.
Surely, you make your choices because of your unique self, and not because you belong to a certain sub-culture?
While I appreciate what you're saying, I nevertheless think you'd have made a much better point had you not chosen to explain yourself through labels.:-)
Yeah, and then there's this other issue of a marriage in India being not just between two people, but also two families; the success of your marriage is as dependent on how the two respective families mesh together, as it is on love between the two conjugal partners.
That said, I'll reserve judgement eitherways until I read the actual article the GP was talking about.
But that Pluto is a planet is an undeniable astrological truth
That's interesting. You have any references to back that up? Always thought that western astrologers didn't really take Uranus, Neptune or Pluto into account.
This year's an exception in that a "true" functional programming language won the competition. Last year's was C++, and if I'm not wrong, so was 2003's.
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Ha! Was working on a client's server this week which hosted a certain popular, web-based Intranet application. Don't ask me how I know this ;-), but a full year after deployment, close to 80% of the users still retain their password as '1'. Not 1234, just '1'.
The rest of the post, naturally, still stands.
Fact is, they aren't; even Apple sells its iTunes tracks as a loss-leader for its iPod sales. Music companies have had a slowdown in growth and indeed, in places like Asia, it could be blamed on piracy, but even there, we're talking about "regular" piracy, you know, mostly about those Triad gangsters selling bootlegs at Mongkok in Hong Kong, for instance. There is still not enough evidence to suggest that p2p has had any sort of an imeediate, significant impact on the CD-buying habits of the masses.
What the RIAA is concerned about, and this is where it suing 13-year-old girls comes into play, is what p2p entails for the future. You have an entire generation that not only is into digital downloading like never before, but also thinks that paying for music is an anachronism; the RIAA's real concern is that when this generation enters the workforce, it wont look at buying a CD as a default option. That's when it'll go into a slump from which it might be difficult to recover; there is still no evidence that this has happened so far. (Discussing whether it will ever, of course, is a wholly different rant altogether; for some very obvious reasons, I think it's pile of steaming crap, but anyway).
To summarize, no p2p is not a major disruptive force in an immediate sense. To think otherwise would, ironically enough, be like that proverbial frog which thinks everyone in the world is as technologically-enabled as other like-minded frogs it sees in its own cyber-well. :-)
Essentially, it's an allegory on paradigms that limit your view; just as a frog in a certain well might think that the well is the entire world and makes its decisions on that basis, RIAA companies base their decisions on the assumption that CD's are the only medium that can, or should, survive.
There is also, I suppose, something to do with demographics; the iPod's main base is teens and folks in their 20's, while the PDA's are still seen as the tech toys of an older generation.
Jackson's boxen would still presumably have to pass Aussie customs, what with him being a New Zealander. :-)
Salman Rushdie is Indian and the fatwa was issued by an Iranian cleric. The GP was asking about Arab humour.
Already happens in a certain Swiss bank's support center here. There are four sets of teams, code-named Tokyo, London, Singapore and New York. No prizes for guessing what each team's work-hours are.
Yup, that's how I understood it, but I think the interesting part here, really, is that Google itself seems to be unsure of its legal victory. Remains to be seen how Google will handle existing gmail ID's if and when it really loses.
So if you have registered, say, david.brent@gmail.com, you won't be forced by Google to change it to david.brent@googlemail.com for now. But since there is a possibility of Google losing the lawsuit, they can't guarantee it will last.
One possibility is to define not equal to as a special Unicode symbol that can be produced by typing '!' and '=' one after another. A bit like how you'd produce amlauts and all those cool European characters, and Indic characters on a US 101 keyboard.
Btw, civilians can, naturally, take photos on the Rashtrapati Bhavan grounds as well; my mom, for instance, has taken a lot of pictures on the grounds of the Mughal Gardens for its horticultural collection.
Listen, don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to say either the White House or any of the buildings in Parliament Street need to be away from public scrutiny. All I'm saying is, there is a double standard on Google Maps when it comes to non-American high-security installations, and that's what Dr Kalam is really complaining about.
Got the link from here. White House is obfuscated; I wasn't trying to show the White House.
The Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi, in comparison, is, and therein lies the problem.
In India, our presidents are rarely career-politicians, mostly because they have very little oversight on policy matters; they are usually eminent statesmen who "guide" the Prime Minister and his cabinet in formulating policy. The PM can, naturally, disregard the President's advice.
Laugh if you want, but I'd dare you to produce one accurate topographical map of India with a decent scale and grid. Publically available maps simply don't have the amount of detail necessary in an operational sense; as any army person will tell you, knowing where a state's capitol ("Legislative Assembly" in India) is entirely different from being able to tell where a certain army bunker is, for example.
While a case can, indeed, be made about the need for a free flow of information, to call the information in Google Maps as "publically available information", however, is to ignore this double-standard.
Nigeria-originated spam is just a contemporary version of the decades old 419 scams that apparently netted US$ 5 billion way back in 1996 itself.
While I appreciate what you're saying, I nevertheless think you'd have made a much better point had you not chosen to explain yourself through labels. :-)
Then again, success or failure of a marriage is more or less a science now. :-)
That said, I'll reserve judgement eitherways until I read the actual article the GP was talking about.
I don't know if this counts, but I enter/leave Singapore using a smart card that saves my thumbprint information.
Ah, so you're saying it was the last two years that was in fact an exception to the rule? I stand corrected then.
This year's an exception in that a "true" functional programming language won the competition. Last year's was C++, and if I'm not wrong, so was 2003's.