All these Buzzword of the Month fads seem to be attempts to make up for things found lacking in the real world. I was hoping that with "Business Intelligence" we had finally gotten to the root problem. Instead, it's just additional evidence of the root problem.
ILM CTO Cliff Plumer attributes this amazing leap to the increase in processing power and a migration from using Silicon Graphics RISC-Unix workstations to Intel-based Dell systems running Linux.
Well, I hope all you open-source advocates are happy now. You worked to develop Linux and other open source software because it was "cool," and I'm sure you all had a great time making it more and more powerful. I'll bet you never gave one minute of thought to the fact that the software you were producing might make it easier to make those awful, awful movies, did you?
Well, it's too late now. I just hope you're satisfied!
On the day that Slashdot ran the story about Apple buying Universal Music, there were also stories about Microsoft authorizing a port of Windows Media technology for embedded Linux [slashdot.org] and high-definition DVD [slashdot.org] at standard DVD bitrates using Microsoft-proprietary technology.
It's all part of the same story. The world is moving toward all-digital media formats. Microsoft wants all those formats to be Microsoft-owned. They sign up media producers with promises of copy control, pay-per-view and other DRM features. Already, some CDs have been released crippled for use on non-Windows computers (and some CD players).
I'm guessing someone at Apple sees a possible future in which new music won't play on any computer not running Windows. If all the major music companies sign on to lock down their content with MS technology, consumers may believe they have no choice but to stay "inside the lines." If Universal Music doesn't sign on to locked-down content, consumers probably won't tolerate severe restrictions from other content providers.
Microsoft makes some good stuff. But I'm hoping that we don't wind up in an all-Microsoft world.
Soooooooo, when Windows was bound to a single processor architecture, that was an EVIL DUOPOLY! But now that Windows is processor-neutral, and people can use whatever processor they want, then MICROSOFT IS SLITTING THEIR THROATS!
No, no, no... you misunderstand me.
Microsoft is evil. That goes without saying. Everybody knows it.
Because everybody knows it, anyone who partners with Microsoft is evil too. That's why AMD gains temporary membership in the Axis of Evil.
Windows NT ran on many different CPUs in the past. I think Microsoft thought NT running on established server hardware would help establish NT as an enterprise-class server OS; they were also hedging their bets, not knowing whether RISC architectures might blow CISC completely out of the water. NT sold a lot better on Pentiums than on the other platforms, and Microsoft dropped the non-Intel architectures one by one over the years.
They're hedging their bets again with the Opteron. Intel thinks there's not much of a market for 64-bit systems. Microsoft doesn't want to lose out if Intel happens to be wrong. Microsoft is evil, but they aren't stupid.
Microsoft has a history of forming partnerships, getting valuable technology from the partner and giving little in return but some photo-ops with Bill Gates, and then ending the partnership. To Microsoft, "partner" is a synonym for "organ donor." (Not an original line.) Don't be surprised if Microsoft drops Opteron support if the Opteron doesn't meet Microsoft's sales goals, or if Intel enters the same market space with its own CPUs.
In all seriousness, Opteron support is a good thing. It improves the odds for Opteron to catch on, and competition is good.
And does this make AMD part of the Axis of Evil now?
Once upon a time, Windows NT ran on Pentium, Alpha, MIPS, PowerPC and possibly other CPUs. AMD will be a member of the Axis of Evil until Microsoft decides the time has come to cut its throat, as it has with so many other of its "partners."
Well, we can talk about laws, or we can talk about rights that transcend any nation's laws. Some years ago, some smart fellas in a colonial backwater expressed the revolutionary notion that all people had "certain inalienable rights." Rights are not given by governments; they are exercised by those who are daring enough to live free.
Time once again for my obligatory alarmism about TiVo's anti-privacy potential. Unless you opt out, your TiVo can send info about every button you've pushed on your remote back to the mother ship.
Because it can do this, I don't trust it not to do this, even if I have opted-out. And under the Civil Liberties Nullification Act, if TiVo can get this data, the gummint can get it, too.
I was young and impressionable when I read 1984, and I still don't like the idea of my TV watching me.
I don't know whether this is a good idea... fill a robot's head with a bunch of free (as in speech) software, and who knows what kind of ideas it's likely to get. I mean, freedom is all well and good, but this could screw up the whole obedient robot slave thing before it gets started.
NASA did not believe that they could design a black box that could survive a shuttle disaster
I think they need to reconsider this judgment. I don't doubt that it would be very difficult to design a box that could withstand every possible failure mode. But the crew cabin survived the Challenger explosion, and this unhardened recorder survived a vehicle breakup at about 14,000 mph.
I hope we'll never lose another shuttle. But there will be successors to the shuttle. With enough flights, there will undoubtedly be future accidents. The only way to redeem a tragedy is to learn something from it. I think it makes good sense to put hardened black boxes on space vehicles, even if there might be some accidents the black box couldn't survive.
Everyone would like to hire folks with years of experience. They put that in the ads, in hopes of snagging such a candidate. But I'm aware of places where these jobs go begging.
Systems jobs call for good problem-solving skills above all. If you have experience with computers, if you are a good learner, and if you have problem-solving skills, apply even if you don't have the experience. If you don't get the job, you might get something else that can help prepare you for the big iron.
This kind of mass mailing should be treated the same as a deliberate denial of service attack. Dictionary spammers tie up target servers without any reasonable expectation that most messages will reach an actual user. It is a consciously malicious act, and should result in criminal penalties, including prison time.
Patenting the technology isn't the same as bringing it to the marketplace, and maybe it's intended for some other purpose, like guaranteeing the reference frequency for some time-sensitive circuitry or radio-transmitter chips or something like that.
But if they're trying to tie the hands of hardware hackers, then Intel is shooting themselves in the foot, and AMD has just got a big win on a forfeit.
This review told me practically nothing! What does this book have in it that is good for geeks?
Based on my reading of the first edition, there isn't much geek stuff in this book. Readers are told how to open a terminal window, and given a very quick gloss of the unix command line.
However, even geeks are likely to spend a significant amount of time working with the GUI, and the book covers a lot of fairly obscure features of OS X. A good bit of space is devoted to helping users of earlier Mac systems find equivalent functionality in the new OS, as rhe review notes. I read the book as a Mac user trying to make the transition to OS X, so my perception may be skewed, but I don't think there is a better introduction to OS X out there, no matter what environment you're switching from.
If you're a unix person and want to know how OS X differs from environments you're familiar with, there's an O'Reilly Book called Mac OS X for Unix Geeks [oreilly.com].
He also wrote some of the books that helped bring people like me up to speed with this strange new thing called the microcomputer. I'm certain that his books taught me some things so well that I no longer remember learning them--it's as if I always knew them.
For years, the Osborne/McGraw-Hill imprint put out some excellent books. Adam Osborne helped form a computer book division at a major publishing house, at a time when books about computers seemed like very esoteric stuff, indeed.
Unfortunately, this story is 100% content-free. There aren't even any good rumors about Panther. I can think of only two explanations for this: either Panther is going to be remarkably free of anything new and interesting, or Panther is going to be so amazingly ultra-mind-bogglingly spectacular that Apple relocated the development team to some secret Iraqi WMD labs to protect the secrecy of the project.
If 10.3 is as big a step forward as 10.1 and 10.2 were, I will be glad to pay for it. Heck, I'll be thrilled to pay for it!
I thought the Crazy Apple Rumors story was pretty funny. I thought Apple's linking to it from their news page made it hilarious. And yet, I've never had any warm 'n' fuzzy feeling about Steve Jobs sense of humor.
No prediction, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised to find that some spirited person at Apple has lost their job over this. Hope not.
This change seems to raise the profile of WWDC, probably at the expense of the New York/Boston summer Macworld Expo, which Apple had previously declared it would not attend.
Maybe Apple is trying to increase the visibility of its outreach to the geek community. I certainly hope this doesn't mean that WWDC is becoming just another trade show.
In his autobiograpical book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, physicist Richard Feynman wrote about his service on the State Curriculum Committee, which selected textbooks for California schools. There is an excerpt from the book here.
Slashdot Mirror
A press release announcing that there will be some announcement made next week, and it's a frontpage story on Slashdot?
News sure ain't what it used to be.
Business Intelligence... it's about time!
All these Buzzword of the Month fads seem to be attempts to make up for things found lacking in the real world. I was hoping that with "Business Intelligence" we had finally gotten to the root problem. Instead, it's just additional evidence of the root problem.
ILM CTO Cliff Plumer attributes this amazing leap to the increase in processing power and a migration from using Silicon Graphics RISC-Unix workstations to Intel-based Dell systems running Linux.
Well, I hope all you open-source advocates are happy now. You worked to develop Linux and other open source software because it was "cool," and I'm sure you all had a great time making it more and more powerful. I'll bet you never gave one minute of thought to the fact that the software you were producing might make it easier to make those awful, awful movies, did you?
Well, it's too late now. I just hope you're satisfied!
On the day that Slashdot ran the story about Apple buying Universal Music, there were also stories about Microsoft authorizing a port of Windows Media technology for embedded Linux [slashdot.org] and high-definition DVD [slashdot.org] at standard DVD bitrates using Microsoft-proprietary technology.
It's all part of the same story. The world is moving toward all-digital media formats. Microsoft wants all those formats to be Microsoft-owned. They sign up media producers with promises of copy control, pay-per-view and other DRM features. Already, some CDs have been released crippled for use on non-Windows computers (and some CD players).
I'm guessing someone at Apple sees a possible future in which new music won't play on any computer not running Windows. If all the major music companies sign on to lock down their content with MS technology, consumers may believe they have no choice but to stay "inside the lines." If Universal Music doesn't sign on to locked-down content, consumers probably won't tolerate severe restrictions from other content providers.
Microsoft makes some good stuff. But I'm hoping that we don't wind up in an all-Microsoft world.
Soooooooo, when Windows was bound to a single processor architecture, that was an EVIL DUOPOLY! But now that Windows is processor-neutral, and people can use whatever processor they want, then MICROSOFT IS SLITTING THEIR THROATS!
No, no, no... you misunderstand me.
Microsoft is evil. That goes without saying. Everybody knows it.
Because everybody knows it, anyone who partners with Microsoft is evil too. That's why AMD gains temporary membership in the Axis of Evil.
Windows NT ran on many different CPUs in the past. I think Microsoft thought NT running on established server hardware would help establish NT as an enterprise-class server OS; they were also hedging their bets, not knowing whether RISC architectures might blow CISC completely out of the water. NT sold a lot better on Pentiums than on the other platforms, and Microsoft dropped the non-Intel architectures one by one over the years.
They're hedging their bets again with the Opteron. Intel thinks there's not much of a market for 64-bit systems. Microsoft doesn't want to lose out if Intel happens to be wrong. Microsoft is evil, but they aren't stupid.
Microsoft has a history of forming partnerships, getting valuable technology from the partner and giving little in return but some photo-ops with Bill Gates, and then ending the partnership. To Microsoft, "partner" is a synonym for "organ donor." (Not an original line.) Don't be surprised if Microsoft drops Opteron support if the Opteron doesn't meet Microsoft's sales goals, or if Intel enters the same market space with its own CPUs.
In all seriousness, Opteron support is a good thing. It improves the odds for Opteron to catch on, and competition is good.
And does this make AMD part of the Axis of Evil now?
Once upon a time, Windows NT ran on Pentium, Alpha, MIPS, PowerPC and possibly other CPUs. AMD will be a member of the Axis of Evil until Microsoft decides the time has come to cut its throat, as it has with so many other of its "partners."
WMD = Windows of Mass Destruction?
accusing the RIAA of encouraging cooperation with universities but then bypassing those procedures with the current suit
For some reason, I mis-read "suit" as "stunt." On reflection, I do believe I had it right the first time.
Awful lot of law-stunts going on these days.
At what point did free speech become global?
Well, we can talk about laws, or we can talk about rights that transcend any nation's laws. Some years ago, some smart fellas in a colonial backwater expressed the revolutionary notion that all people had "certain inalienable rights." Rights are not given by governments; they are exercised by those who are daring enough to live free.
Time once again for my obligatory alarmism about TiVo's anti-privacy potential. Unless you opt out, your TiVo can send info about every button you've pushed on your remote back to the mother ship.
Because it can do this, I don't trust it not to do this, even if I have opted-out. And under the Civil Liberties Nullification Act, if TiVo can get this data, the gummint can get it, too.
I was young and impressionable when I read 1984, and I still don't like the idea of my TV watching me.
Keep on posting dupes, it makes the page more fun to read.
Well, it certainly is a time-saver.
I don't know whether this is a good idea... fill a robot's head with a bunch of free (as in speech) software, and who knows what kind of ideas it's likely to get. I mean, freedom is all well and good, but this could screw up the whole obedient robot slave thing before it gets started.
NASA did not believe that they could design a black box that could survive a shuttle disaster
I think they need to reconsider this judgment. I don't doubt that it would be very difficult to design a box that could withstand every possible failure mode. But the crew cabin survived the Challenger explosion, and this unhardened recorder survived a vehicle breakup at about 14,000 mph.
I hope we'll never lose another shuttle. But there will be successors to the shuttle. With enough flights, there will undoubtedly be future accidents. The only way to redeem a tragedy is to learn something from it. I think it makes good sense to put hardened black boxes on space vehicles, even if there might be some accidents the black box couldn't survive.
Finally, I understand the movie "The Matrix."
Neo and his cohorts are cheaters in the great game of life. "There is no spoon," indeed.
Everyone would like to hire folks with years of experience. They put that in the ads, in hopes of snagging such a candidate. But I'm aware of places where these jobs go begging.
Systems jobs call for good problem-solving skills above all. If you have experience with computers, if you are a good learner, and if you have problem-solving skills, apply even if you don't have the experience. If you don't get the job, you might get something else that can help prepare you for the big iron.
This kind of mass mailing should be treated the same as a deliberate denial of service attack. Dictionary spammers tie up target servers without any reasonable expectation that most messages will reach an actual user. It is a consciously malicious act, and should result in criminal penalties, including prison time.
Patenting the technology isn't the same as bringing it to the marketplace, and maybe it's intended for some other purpose, like guaranteeing the reference frequency for some time-sensitive circuitry or radio-transmitter chips or something like that.
But if they're trying to tie the hands of hardware hackers, then Intel is shooting themselves in the foot, and AMD has just got a big win on a forfeit.
This review told me practically nothing! What does this book have in it that is good for geeks?
Based on my reading of the first edition, there isn't much geek stuff in this book. Readers are told how to open a terminal window, and given a very quick gloss of the unix command line.
However, even geeks are likely to spend a significant amount of time working with the GUI, and the book covers a lot of fairly obscure features of OS X. A good bit of space is devoted to helping users of earlier Mac systems find equivalent functionality in the new OS, as rhe review notes. I read the book as a Mac user trying to make the transition to OS X, so my perception may be skewed, but I don't think there is a better introduction to OS X out there, no matter what environment you're switching from.
If you're a unix person and want to know how OS X differs from environments you're familiar with, there's an O'Reilly Book called Mac OS X for Unix Geeks [oreilly.com].
He also wrote some of the books that helped bring people like me up to speed with this strange new thing called the microcomputer. I'm certain that his books taught me some things so well that I no longer remember learning them--it's as if I always knew them.
For years, the Osborne/McGraw-Hill imprint put out some excellent books. Adam Osborne helped form a computer book division at a major publishing house, at a time when books about computers seemed like very esoteric stuff, indeed.
The link from Apple's news page is still up, days later.
Maybe Apple's a cool company after all.
Unfortunately, this story is 100% content-free. There aren't even any good rumors about Panther. I can think of only two explanations for this: either Panther is going to be remarkably free of anything new and interesting, or Panther is going to be so amazingly ultra-mind-bogglingly spectacular that Apple relocated the development team to some secret Iraqi WMD labs to protect the secrecy of the project.
If 10.3 is as big a step forward as 10.1 and 10.2 were, I will be glad to pay for it. Heck, I'll be thrilled to pay for it!
I thought the Crazy Apple Rumors story was pretty funny. I thought Apple's linking to it from their news page made it hilarious. And yet, I've never had any warm 'n' fuzzy feeling about Steve Jobs sense of humor.
No prediction, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised to find that some spirited person at Apple has lost their job over this. Hope not.
This change seems to raise the profile of WWDC, probably at the expense of the New York/Boston summer Macworld Expo, which Apple had previously declared it would not attend.
Maybe Apple is trying to increase the visibility of its outreach to the geek community. I certainly hope this doesn't mean that WWDC is becoming just another trade show.
I see a rapid spiral of escalation. What's next? Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader elected to the Microsoft Board of Directors?
In his autobiograpical book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, physicist Richard Feynman wrote about his service on the State Curriculum Committee, which selected textbooks for California schools. There is an excerpt from the book here.
George Bush?
With great power comes great responsibility. I don't think George has seen Spider-Man.