I am also a foreign student in the US currently. And I've changed my usage of common phrases because of similar incidents. While some of the responses from the American counterparts seemed exaggerated in the article, I often have to repeat myself (2-3 times sometimes..) when I use my Indianised phrases. This feels slightly embarassing for me and probably other first time visitors. Which is probably why most Indian students that I know of adapt to these new phrases almost immediately.
As a matter of fact, the teams of people that I'm working with in India and Japan agree that the lack of face time is a serious problem with the offshore model.
I worked for an Indian software firm for a couple of years. What we did in the projects that I worked in, was simple. Call one or two developers from the team in India over to the US, once in 3 or 6 months for about a couple of weeks. A lot of the big design decisions were agreed upon and the big plans were drawn during that time. And after that weekly calls to keep track of the progress for the rest of the period. What this did was to force the development team and the management team to organize themselves so that the most important discussions were set up for the face-time discussions. Also Business visas to the US were easy to arrange for people who were not first time visitors (couple of years back..). Visits could be arranged with just a couple of weeks notice in case there was an emergency. Of course this required a little more spending from the US company, but I think the model worked well for us. The team grew in size over time.
Well, I guess that means all the closed source developers have the same problem. And I guess they probably don't know either.
Just wondering, if open source software facilitates somewhat easier detection of subversions, are undetected subversions in OSS, also not at a greater risk of being exploited by hackers, especially because the code is in plain view to a larger audience? (as compared to a much smaller closed source development team..)
Just downloaded it from their site.
+ Seems lighter and faster.
+ Look-and-feel is very much like Office which might huge win points with non techy people who dont want to learn a new UI.
+ It also has an export to PDF functionality.
+ Its just 14MB as compared to OO1.1 63 MB.
- Almost no standard templates. Maybe you can download them separately.
- The Spreadsheet does not seem as functional since the charting utilities seems a little too plain.
-.doc files import functionality is as bad or worse than OpenOfice. I had doc file that would be displayed totally warped on OpenOffice1.1 and this one does the same. (Its got 2-3 nested tables and stuff, I think that is what screws it up.)
+/- A lot of buttons that are usually visible in Word are not visible on this one. You could say it avoids button clutter. But that could either be because some of the functionality is not there, but the essential editing buttons are all there..
Overall I think junta might take towards it because it has a look-and-feel that is not very different from M$Office. Though functionality wise , and polish wise OO1.1 is WAY better. (I love the new uncluttered OO1.1 UI.)
And the same is the case in my uni. In most of the labs SPARC machines constitute about 30-50% of the machines. Most of the other machines are Dells. About 5% are Macs. And they recently brought in a fresh batch of SunBlade machines as well. Solaris seems to be the unix environment of choice. They also seem to have licenses to all required scientific applications. OpenOffice is the M$Office alternative..
Of course if you are on linux you always have mplayer from mplayerhq.hu. That plays real, windows media and almost anything else that you can think of.
Actually in general in Windows and in Gnome/KDE I find that there is too much place being taken up by infrequently used tabs and menus. These tabs should be made available only when I want to use it.
I really like having a lot of screen space devoted solely to my primary point of interest - in an editor its the code (its why I love my terminal version of VI though more mouse interaction would have been gr8), in a browser its the web page. Even the borders of the windows seem to be getting thicker. I really wonder what a thin 2 pixel wide border would look like. Menus and task bars must be activated by simply moving the mouse over specific regions (like the auto-hide taskbars in Windows and KDE).
Disclaimer: I havent worked on OS X but maybe this stuff is already there on the OS X.
As someone else pointed out, you have not figured that this research is really quite useful since it could be a viable source for stem cells.
However I am also critical about your notion of doing only research that is of "benefit to mankind". Any research good or bad only helps to increase awareness of the unknown. If the research results in something harmful to society and mankind you have identified it and can thus can keep it in check if people try to misuse it. Besides at the start of any research nobody is in a position to say if some research is potentially useful or harmful to mankind.
A small (and not necessarily accurate) example would help drive this point. Just assume that some country does not pursue research on Nuclear science since they perceive that it can be used to make bombs that can destroy mankind. Now if some dude like Hitler secretly carries out this research and knows how to make bombs, how would this country be able to protect itself against something it knows nothing about? Also apart from making bombs nuclear science can be used to produce energy. But we wouldnt have known that if we did not research about it.. The key here is information. Whether it leads to beneit or harm it is always good to have as much information as possible so that it can be checked if it is harmful and utilized if it is useful.
IMHO most of this inhibition is rooted at people's belief that God has to have made some rules about what we can and we cannot do and how things should be and how they should not. However there is a high possibility that there are no such rules. For centuries people believed that homosexuality is something that cannot exist because God's rulebook could not have allowed it. But the fact that millions of people in the world actually experience attraction towards the same sex is empirical proof that such a rule does not exist. Did God mean for humans to be gnetically fused with rabbits? Who knows? So then how do we decide what can be done and what cannot be done or what such rules are? Lets do it the scientific way. Lets just try to actually do it. If it succeeds then we can and if it does not then we cannot. And, all along the way while we try to achieve it, we have gained important information about the topic which will help us control and regulate it if it is indeed harmful for us. At this point I dont think we have enough information to decide whether cloning is good or bad for humanity.
IBM also sells a USB keyboard with not just the trackpoint but also the touchpad all on the keyboard (marketing jargon : UltraNav). I have always hated taking my hands off the keyboard to operate the mouse 'cos it takes some orientation time to get my fingers back on position. And I really love the trackpoint. No strain on your (already overworked??;-)) hand..
Problem with RIAAs policy in South East Asia...
on
The Effect of Pirated CDs
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
To curb piracy in South East Asia the RIAA must consider reducing the cost of the CDs drastically.
This is something pretty similar to what all the technical publishing houses are doing. They have something called as a Eastern Economy edition which is maybe about 1/5th the price of the cost of the books in the US. (Mainstream novels etc. are still very widely pirated in countries in South East Asia since they dont have this concept of an economy edition.) While the recording industry will not be making any profit on the sales of these CDs (maybe they will!!;)) they will at least lay down a good user base in developing countries so they can get a hold of the market when the economy of the country goes up later on. Its just good business sense.
Important thing that the recording companies should realize is that in countries like India where the average monthly salary is about $100 - $200 per month, who in their sane mind is going to spend a fifth or a tenth of their salary to buy one CD.
Even Apple's strongest businesses, like the home computer market in the United States, where it now has a 3.4 percent market share down from more than twice that percentage in the mid-1990's, are weak, Mr. Kay said.
The numbers just prove the parents point I think. It still is just too much money to spend to get a "forget-the-OS-sluggishness" type of a system that the average user in the market really needs.
I am also looking to buy a new laptop soon and yes I am in love with the Mac but I still would not spend $500-800 more since I know that Windows XP/2K is stable and responsive enough AND I can always install Linux on dual boot giving me a really good *nix environment as well when I need it. Of course if and when I do development work on my laptop the chances that I would be developing for a windows system are far too great to ignore.
The flaw in the argument I think is that memories could have been passed in a reliable manner to descendants. For eg. the only way that we know that our ancestors were apes and they lived by hunting animals is through observations and discoveries of what is currently available. Who is to say that these pieces of evidence were not planted to be discovered by us so we form our opinions about our past?
Maybe the first generation of denizens of the matrix were indeed humans with memories of the real world but were imprisoned by the machines and forced to live in the simulations. For the machine it is only a matter of running these simulations for a few generations interspersed with some pseudo-apocalyptic catastrophies and manipulation of data to make sure that less and less of prior memory can be transmitted accurately to future generations.
Of course if the computers are smart they would find ways to speed up this initial set of simulations so that it only takes say five years in real world time to simulate say a hundred years of simulation time. After a few tens or hundreds of generations and by carefully monitoring what information gets passed on between generations by eliminating key facts and planting alternative ones the computers can arrive at a set of people that it could plant in the Matrix.
Also it would not be required that these initial simulations be run on a very large number of people. Something like initiating and maintaining a culture of relatively small number of humans in a mini-Matrix "petri dish" for a few generations until they are ready to be transferred in the actual Matrix...
I'm from India. Sunday mornings used to be kids time on television cos' many schools worked on Saturdays. Usually consisted of Disney cartoons (dubbed into Hindi) and mythological serials. (Where kids programs in the US show technologically advanced robots and gadgets, kids programs in India had all powerful gods and godessess with tantrically charged bows and arrows fighting against demons and beasts.:-))
What's important is that the symbol is obvious enough to be clearly seen even if partly obscured, while subtle enough that it doesn't get in the way.
I agree. Imagine that you have 5 secure doggy_names_on_borders windows open, and now the perpetrator introduces the 6th insecure window that has random names on the window border. Which user is going to be able to notice the difference between the secure windows and the insecure one while quickly switching through them? You might as well have said that the secure windows always have X barcode on the border - who can differentiate between barcodes?
Very true. Also, (as was the case at my previous employer) I think what managers are looking for is accountability. If something goes wrong with a extremely sensitive (open source) component, the chances are that they dont have the time or the manpower to devote to looking into what went wrong or how to fix it. On the other hand if it was proprietary software, they could demand an immediate resolution for the problem from the provider or sue their asses if they are unable to provide one. Who will they blame if some open source product bug causes their software to crash?
I am not sure but I suppose Redhat and IBM are providing this kind of accountability by undertaking software installations and service contracts. If this solution is more cost effective and reliable as compared to one using proprietary software then the management will surely adopt it. Frankly I doubt if they will give a rats ass about if the software is open source or not.
I am seriously considering this one, because of its amazing features though its bigger than the iPod. It has some really cool features like FM radio, recording from radio or any audio source, FM transmitter, recording voice notes, bidirectional "plug'n'sychronize" (to synch your device playlists with your PC and vise versa). The site also says you can record an excerpt of a song (on the radio say..) and identify it later using their PC software. Another really cool thing is the detachable drive, in case you feel you have filled up your drive you can migrate to a bigger one easily or maybe have 2 drives. It also supports playlist editing on the device itself.
Some problems: Supports USB 1.1 (though they say the USB2.0 version is coming in a couple of months), supports only mp3 (but again they say supporting more formats is just a firmware upgrade away). Also support for Linux and OGG is in the pipeline.
The best part is however support for developers, who can put in their own customizations.
Actually this kind of petty fighting serves an important purpose: that of exposure to others opinions and prejudices (the really raw ones) and an opportunity for self analysis. While the debate is a dumb one, points being raised against both parties helps people realize a lot of things about their own countries. In the end its all good...
Hi,
Offtopic really. But does anyone know if there are settings in Netscape (7.0) mail client to *not* open any HTML mail by default. (Like what opera does.!) Spammers go crazy once they know someone is opening the damn mails. Spam activity increased at least 2-3 times the regular levels ever since I opened one of the spam emails by mistake. (Netscape 7.0 mail client opened the darn mail in the preview pane.)
Also users of Opera: has the new opera update version 7.10 screwed up the junk mail classifier thingy? My junk mail was very nicely separated out before in 7.0 but ever since I have applied the update it has gone to the dogs.
This is still not a guaranteed way of generating a secure password though. For instance I have known some people pick their passwords by replacing every letter in their name with the letter just above (or below or left etc..) that letter on the keyboard. For eg. johndoe as username would have u9yhe93 as the password. This may look like a good password but the algorithm itself is not so difficult to think of. A password cracking program would surely include this I would think. You may think that your algorithm is really unique and unguessable but thats what most people think about their passwords as well. A good algorithm with hard to guess "seed" values would probably be the best.
We'll modify ourselves to the point where we're no longer recognisably human. At that point, "we" are dead, and a new species will have taken our place. Yes, I mean that -- eventually, the genetically modified will not be able to interbreed with the unmodified.
Who is to say that we may not alter ourselves using genetic combinations from other species to improve ourselves. (Say night vision from the Owl.. )? Probably we might become a genetically blurred species with characteristics of many other species capable of interbreeding with almost anything else.
Afterthought: Hmm. Animal pornos may actually *not* be a perversion in the future!...:-) Weird.. Can't think weird camp movies ("Tiger princess")becoming daily sitcoms and soap operas on TV.
Slashdot Mirror
I am also a foreign student in the US currently. And I've changed my usage of common phrases because of similar incidents. While some of the responses from the American counterparts seemed exaggerated in the article, I often have to repeat myself (2-3 times sometimes..) when I use my Indianised phrases. This feels slightly embarassing for me and probably other first time visitors. Which is probably why most Indian students that I know of adapt to these new phrases almost immediately.
As a matter of fact, the teams of people that I'm working with in India and Japan agree that the lack of face time is a serious problem with the offshore model.
I worked for an Indian software firm for a couple of years. What we did in the projects that I worked in, was simple. Call one or two developers from the team in India over to the US, once in 3 or 6 months for about a couple of weeks. A lot of the big design decisions were agreed upon and the big plans were drawn during that time. And after that weekly calls to keep track of the progress for the rest of the period. What this did was to force the development team and the management team to organize themselves so that the most important discussions were set up for the face-time discussions. Also Business visas to the US were easy to arrange for people who were not first time visitors (couple of years back..). Visits could be arranged with just a couple of weeks notice in case there was an emergency. Of course this required a little more spending from the US company, but I think the model worked well for us. The team grew in size over time.
Well, I guess that means all the closed source developers have the same problem. And I guess they probably don't know either. Just wondering, if open source software facilitates somewhat easier detection of subversions, are undetected subversions in OSS, also not at a greater risk of being exploited by hackers, especially because the code is in plain view to a larger audience? (as compared to a much smaller closed source development team..)
Just downloaded it from their site. .doc files import functionality is as bad or worse than OpenOfice. I had doc file that would be displayed totally warped on OpenOffice1.1 and this one does the same. (Its got 2-3 nested tables and stuff, I think that is what screws it up.)
+ Seems lighter and faster.
+ Look-and-feel is very much like Office which might huge win points with non techy people who dont want to learn a new UI.
+ It also has an export to PDF functionality.
+ Its just 14MB as compared to OO1.1 63 MB.
- Almost no standard templates. Maybe you can download them separately.
- The Spreadsheet does not seem as functional since the charting utilities seems a little too plain.
-
+/- A lot of buttons that are usually visible in Word are not visible on this one. You could say it avoids button clutter. But that could either be because some of the functionality is not there, but the essential editing buttons are all there..
Overall I think junta might take towards it because it has a look-and-feel that is not very different from M$Office. Though functionality wise , and polish wise OO1.1 is WAY better. (I love the new uncluttered OO1.1 UI.)
And the same is the case in my uni. In most of the labs SPARC machines constitute about 30-50% of the machines. Most of the other machines are Dells. About 5% are Macs. And they recently brought in a fresh batch of SunBlade machines as well. Solaris seems to be the unix environment of choice. They also seem to have licenses to all required scientific applications. OpenOffice is the M$Office alternative..
Of course if you are on linux you always have mplayer from mplayerhq.hu. That plays real, windows media and almost anything else that you can think of.
Obligatory pun: Could it be the Microsoft Office System Lynch Event??
Come on!!! Who moded the parent up so high? Sounds like a lot of marketing crap taken from some IBM advertisement.
Do not fear. Big Brother will take care of you...
Actually in general in Windows and in Gnome/KDE I find that there is too much place being taken up by infrequently used tabs and menus. These tabs should be made available only when I want to use it.
I really like having a lot of screen space devoted solely to my primary point of interest - in an editor its the code (its why I love my terminal version of VI though more mouse interaction would have been gr8), in a browser its the web page. Even the borders of the windows seem to be getting thicker. I really wonder what a thin 2 pixel wide border would look like. Menus and task bars must be activated by simply moving the mouse over specific regions (like the auto-hide taskbars in Windows and KDE).
Disclaimer: I havent worked on OS X but maybe this stuff is already there on the OS X.
As someone else pointed out, you have not figured that this research is really quite useful since it could be a viable source for stem cells.
However I am also critical about your notion of doing only research that is of "benefit to mankind". Any research good or bad only helps to increase awareness of the unknown. If the research results in something harmful to society and mankind you have identified it and can thus can keep it in check if people try to misuse it. Besides at the start of any research nobody is in a position to say if some research is potentially useful or harmful to mankind.
A small (and not necessarily accurate) example would help drive this point. Just assume that some country does not pursue research on Nuclear science since they perceive that it can be used to make bombs that can destroy mankind. Now if some dude like Hitler secretly carries out this research and knows how to make bombs, how would this country be able to protect itself against something it knows nothing about? Also apart from making bombs nuclear science can be used to produce energy. But we wouldnt have known that if we did not research about it.. The key here is information. Whether it leads to beneit or harm it is always good to have as much information as possible so that it can be checked if it is harmful and utilized if it is useful.
IMHO most of this inhibition is rooted at people's belief that God has to have made some rules about what we can and we cannot do and how things should be and how they should not. However there is a high possibility that there are no such rules. For centuries people believed that homosexuality is something that cannot exist because God's rulebook could not have allowed it. But the fact that millions of people in the world actually experience attraction towards the same sex is empirical proof that such a rule does not exist. Did God mean for humans to be gnetically fused with rabbits? Who knows? So then how do we decide what can be done and what cannot be done or what such rules are? Lets do it the scientific way. Lets just try to actually do it. If it succeeds then we can and if it does not then we cannot. And, all along the way while we try to achieve it, we have gained important information about the topic which will help us control and regulate it if it is indeed harmful for us. At this point I dont think we have enough information to decide whether cloning is good or bad for humanity.
IBM also sells a USB keyboard with not just the trackpoint but also the touchpad all on the keyboard (marketing jargon : UltraNav). I have always hated taking my hands off the keyboard to operate the mouse 'cos it takes some orientation time to get my fingers back on position. And I really love the trackpoint. No strain on your (already overworked?? ;-)) hand..
To curb piracy in South East Asia the RIAA must consider reducing the cost of the CDs drastically.
;)) they will at least lay down a good user base in developing countries so they can get a hold of the market when the economy of the country goes up later on. Its just good business sense.
This is something pretty similar to what all the technical publishing houses are doing. They have something called as a Eastern Economy edition which is maybe about 1/5th the price of the cost of the books in the US. (Mainstream novels etc. are still very widely pirated in countries in South East Asia since they dont have this concept of an economy edition.) While the recording industry will not be making any profit on the sales of these CDs (maybe they will!!
Important thing that the recording companies should realize is that in countries like India where the average monthly salary is about $100 - $200 per month, who in their sane mind is going to spend a fifth or a tenth of their salary to buy one CD.
They are both _incredibly_ intelligent people.
And they went with Microsoft for software to be used in defence environments?
From the NYT
Even Apple's strongest businesses, like the home computer market in the United States, where it now has a 3.4 percent market share down from more than twice that percentage in the mid-1990's, are weak, Mr. Kay said.
The numbers just prove the parents point I think. It still is just too much money to spend to get a "forget-the-OS-sluggishness" type of a system that the average user in the market really needs.
I am also looking to buy a new laptop soon and yes I am in love with the Mac but I still would not spend $500-800 more since I know that Windows XP/2K is stable and responsive enough AND I can always install Linux on dual boot giving me a really good *nix environment as well when I need it. Of course if and when I do development work on my laptop the chances that I would be developing for a windows system are far too great to ignore.
The flaw in the argument I think is that memories could have been passed in a reliable manner to descendants. For eg. the only way that we know that our ancestors were apes and they lived by hunting animals is through observations and discoveries of what is currently available. Who is to say that these pieces of evidence were not planted to be discovered by us so we form our opinions about our past?
Maybe the first generation of denizens of the matrix were indeed humans with memories of the real world but were imprisoned by the machines and forced to live in the simulations. For the machine it is only a matter of running these simulations for a few generations interspersed with some pseudo-apocalyptic catastrophies and manipulation of data to make sure that less and less of prior memory can be transmitted accurately to future generations.
Of course if the computers are smart they would find ways to speed up this initial set of simulations so that it only takes say five years in real world time to simulate say a hundred years of simulation time. After a few tens or hundreds of generations and by carefully monitoring what information gets passed on between generations by eliminating key facts and planting alternative ones the computers can arrive at a set of people that it could plant in the Matrix.
Also it would not be required that these initial simulations be run on a very large number of people. Something like initiating and maintaining a culture of relatively small number of humans in a mini-Matrix "petri dish" for a few generations until they are ready to be transferred in the actual Matrix...
I'm from India. Sunday mornings used to be kids time on television cos' many schools worked on Saturdays. Usually consisted of Disney cartoons (dubbed into Hindi) and mythological serials. (Where kids programs in the US show technologically advanced robots and gadgets, kids programs in India had all powerful gods and godessess with tantrically charged bows and arrows fighting against demons and beasts. :-))
What's important is that the symbol is obvious enough to be clearly seen even if partly obscured, while subtle enough that it doesn't get in the way.
I agree. Imagine that you have 5 secure doggy_names_on_borders windows open, and now the perpetrator introduces the 6th insecure window that has random names on the window border. Which user is going to be able to notice the difference between the secure windows and the insecure one while quickly switching through them? You might as well have said that the secure windows always have X barcode on the border - who can differentiate between barcodes?
Very true. Also, (as was the case at my previous employer) I think what managers are looking for is accountability. If something goes wrong with a extremely sensitive (open source) component, the chances are that they dont have the time or the manpower to devote to looking into what went wrong or how to fix it. On the other hand if it was proprietary software, they could demand an immediate resolution for the problem from the provider or sue their asses if they are unable to provide one. Who will they blame if some open source product bug causes their software to crash?
I am not sure but I suppose Redhat and IBM are providing this kind of accountability by undertaking software installations and service contracts. If this solution is more cost effective and reliable as compared to one using proprietary software then the management will surely adopt it. Frankly I doubt if they will give a rats ass about if the software is open source or not.
I am seriously considering this one, because of its amazing features though its bigger than the iPod. It has some really cool features like FM radio, recording from radio or any audio source, FM transmitter, recording voice notes, bidirectional "plug'n'sychronize" (to synch your device playlists with your PC and vise versa). The site also says you can record an excerpt of a song (on the radio say..) and identify it later using their PC software. Another really cool thing is the detachable drive, in case you feel you have filled up your drive you can migrate to a bigger one easily or maybe have 2 drives. It also supports playlist editing on the device itself.
Some problems: Supports USB 1.1 (though they say the USB2.0 version is coming in a couple of months), supports only mp3 (but again they say supporting more formats is just a firmware upgrade away). Also support for Linux and OGG is in the pipeline. The best part is however support for developers, who can put in their own customizations.
Actually this kind of petty fighting serves an important purpose: that of exposure to others opinions and prejudices (the really raw ones) and an opportunity for self analysis. While the debate is a dumb one, points being raised against both parties helps people realize a lot of things about their own countries. In the end its all good...
A lot of people in UK keep falling into manholes 'cos manhole covers keep falling through?
Hi, Offtopic really. But does anyone know if there are settings in Netscape (7.0) mail client to *not* open any HTML mail by default. (Like what opera does.!) Spammers go crazy once they know someone is opening the damn mails. Spam activity increased at least 2-3 times the regular levels ever since I opened one of the spam emails by mistake. (Netscape 7.0 mail client opened the darn mail in the preview pane.)
Also users of Opera: has the new opera update version 7.10 screwed up the junk mail classifier thingy? My junk mail was very nicely separated out before in 7.0 but ever since I have applied the update it has gone to the dogs.
This is still not a guaranteed way of generating a secure password though. For instance I have known some people pick their passwords by replacing every letter in their name with the letter just above (or below or left etc..) that letter on the keyboard. For eg. johndoe as username would have u9yhe93 as the password. This may look like a good password but the algorithm itself is not so difficult to think of. A password cracking program would surely include this I would think. You may think that your algorithm is really unique and unguessable but thats what most people think about their passwords as well. A good algorithm with hard to guess "seed" values would probably be the best.
I think passwords are inherently not secure.
umm nope. Saw it on tv a long time back. Dont have any links..
We'll modify ourselves to the point where we're no longer recognisably human. At that point, "we" are dead, and a new species will have taken our place. Yes, I mean that -- eventually, the genetically modified will not be able to interbreed with the unmodified.
:-) Weird.. Can't think weird camp movies ("Tiger princess")becoming daily sitcoms and soap operas on TV.
Who is to say that we may not alter ourselves using genetic combinations from other species to improve ourselves. (Say night vision from the Owl.. )? Probably we might become a genetically blurred species with characteristics of many other species capable of interbreeding with almost anything else.
Afterthought: Hmm. Animal pornos may actually *not* be a perversion in the future!...