Among the industries taken over or overregulated by the Gov:
Rail Trains
Breaking up large monolithic industries into lots of little companies and contracts can also be bad. Look what happened to the railways in the UK. We originally had separate companies running the railways profitably in each part of the country. These were then nationalised into British Rail (and ended up requiring government subsidies to keep running). Then the government decided to privatize the company again. But instead of keeping each regional division together, they decided to split the maintenance of tracks, operation of stations and the running of train services into different companies. This led to various events including the Clapham rail disaster and trains having to travel slowly on the tracks because regular track maintenance had been reduced by a half.
DEAD OPERATING SYSTEM SKETCH Cast:
Mr. Praline: John Cleese
Shop Owner: Michael Palin
A customer enters an operating system shop.
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint. (The owner does not respond.) Mr. Praline: 'Ello, Miss? Owner: What do you mean "miss"? Mr. Praline: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint! Owner: We're closin' for lunch. Mr. Praline: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this operating system what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique. Owner: Oh yes, the, uh, Windows...What's,uh...What's wrong with it? Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it! Owner: No, no, it's uh,...it's resting. Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead operating system when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now. Owner: No no it's not dead, it's, it's restin'! Remarkable OS, Windows, idn'it, ay? Beautiful kernel! Mr. Praline: The kernel don't enter into it. It's stone dead. Owner: Nononono, no, no! It's resting! Mr. Praline: All right then, if it's restin', I'll wake it up! (bashes at the keyboard) 'Ello, Mister Windows! I've got a lovely security update for you if you show...
(i>(Owner hits the keys)
Owner: There, it spewed some debug output to the command line! Mr. Praline: No, it didn't, that was you hitting the keys! Owner: I never!! Mr. Praline: Yes, you did! Owner: I never, never did anything... Mr. Praline: (yelling and typing into the console repeatedly) 'ELLO DOS PROMPT!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock virus scan!
(Rips out hard drive from computer case and thumps it on the counter. Shoves it back inside the case and reboots the system - blue screen of death.)
Mr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead operating system. Owner: No, no.....No, it's stunned! Mr. Praline: STUNNED?!? Owner: Yeah! You stunned it, just as it was finishing an I/O task! Windows stuns easily, major. Mr. Praline: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That operating system is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of responsiveness was due to it bein' in the process of recompiling itself after a particularly comprehensive code update. Owner: Well, it's...it's, ah...probably pining for some dilettante dabbling. Mr. Praline: PININ' for some DILETTANTE DABBLING?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that? Look, why did it fall flat on its back the moment I started notepad? Owner: Windows prefers swapping everything out to the hard drive! Remarkable variant, id'nit, squire? Lovely kernel! Mr. Praline: Look, I took the liberty of examining the system when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been printing any text at all to the screen was because of all the EXCEPTION ERRORS encountered while it was checking for new hardware.
(pause) Owner: Well, o'course it was spitting out those warnings! If I hadn't updated the kernel with a service pack release, you might have had your FTP server compromised [slashdot.org], and VOOM! Bye bye to your business. Mr. Praline: "Server"?!? Mate, this OS wouldn't "serve" if you put four million volts through it! It's bleedin' demised! Owner: No no! It's pining! Mr. Praline: It's not pinin'! It's passed on! This OS is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! The numbers continue to decline for WindowsNT but Wind
Sounds like to me that they would have to provide the APIs (not the source!) to the SMB file sharing protocol, and, for instance, allow anyone, including Macs and Linux, to work seamlessly with Active Directory and Exchange.
They probably will release the API's, and then once all the dust has settled from the lawsuit, they will work on a next generation version which will once again be proprietary. Business as usual.
Killing a game after spending $3M on developing it? How does a game get that far only to be cancelled?
Sometimes because another company has released a game based on a similar theme. The counter-measure to this is to sign exclusive contracts with whoever/whatever you're basing the game on (Electronic Arts will sign exclusive deals with famous athletes).
Or maybe because the development runs late and isn't going to make a target date (Christmas, start of Summer holidays).
And maybe if a publisher decides to dispose of it's in-house development staff because returns aren't as high as expected. Some projects may be canned, and the development teams sold off.
I'm assisting my "slightly older" relatives learn to use computers (retired nurses who are used to working with medical equipment). For them, the newest Windows applications are too difficult to use. They were happy when Windows 98 came out, because then everything had a standard uniform interface (Wasn't that Microsoft's marketing strategy?).
But now that every single application nearly always comes it own set of skins, this has completely thrown them off. And trying to make an application use the standard interface requires delving deep into a multitude of menus and preferences (I still haven't figured out how to make Realplayer adopt the standard Windows look). So, this isn't likely to make the average home user even more confused than they are now.
When it comes to separating Egyptian twins or performing a plastic surgery on a burnt girl from Afganistan, this country is here to help.
Much of the research in medical surgery occurs through the treatment of actual patients. A large amount of knowledge was gained through the treatment of soldiers in World Wars I and II.
A majority of the kids thought of manned space travel as an escape from a disposable used up world.
I always thought the best way of figuring out how to do deep space travel, would be to (1) Find out ways of making existing travel completely self-contained (ie. cruise liners), and (2) find a way of building such systems up in space.
After watching the space shuttle experiment to measure the electric current running along a 100 metre length of copper cable, I've always wondered whether it would be possible to use the existing electric field to drive an electromagnetic accelerator in space.
North Americans like crossing the border with their Southern neighbor because despite the high crime rate and poverty, prices for medicines and electrical goods are cheaper.
Canadians like crossing the border with their Southern neighbor because despite the high crime rate and poverty, prices for medicines and electrical goods are cheaper.
It's not simply a case of buying the technology and canning it. It's more a case of buying the technology, incorporating it into existing projects, and moving the engineers onto something else (Non-Compete Agreements work wonders).
It also happens internally within corporations. A new division gets set up to target a selected marketing segment. They then start to grow and begin to compete against existing divisions. The existing groups respond by stating to management that the new divisions would fit well within their long term goals - and a re-organisation takes place. Very smooth.
Financial analysts have developed a series of rules that determnine how well they rate investment in publicly traded stock. These rules include:
A company should aim to have around 10% debt. Too little and it's not growing enough. Too much, and it may become bogged down in interest payments.
A company is expected to grow at a rate of 10% year. Usually divisions are given growth targets, and if they don't achieve these targets, they may very well be sold off.
A company should aim to have a percentage of management staff in the range 10% to 15%.
A company should aim to keep the avarage age of staff as low as possible (usually around 24).
This way they can keep staff costs down.
The side effects of all these rules is to make it extremely challenging to follow a technical path in a company.
R&D is the first target financial analysts pick on which profit margins fail to reach expectations, since there is no immediate short-term benefit. It's only when competitors start catching up, that the effects will be noticed. By then, it may be too late to regain the lead.
The fact of the matter is, outsourcing is the end result of the bloated salaries of programmers and designers in the US (among others.) The fact that they can make it for HALF as much in St. Petersburg just goes to show the problem.
The reason that salaries are high in California, and in other countries such as the UK, is due to the fact there is a shortage of housing in areas with good schools. Salaries are driven by the cost of house prices/rentals and vice versa. If company A pays their employees X amount to relocate to the area, then company B also has to do the same. Unfortunately, for the UK, everyone else is now competing against City stockbrokers earning 100K pounds/year and the people they are buying houses from. This isn't helped either by planning policies aimed at preventing middle-class sprawl.
It really looks impressive, but how long will this PDA run before the batteries go flat?
Having to remove the watch in order to recharge the battery is going to rapidly lose the coolness factor.
Slashdot Mirror
Among the industries taken over or overregulated by the Gov: Rail Trains
Breaking up large monolithic industries into lots of little companies and contracts can also be bad. Look what happened to the railways in the UK. We originally had separate companies running the railways profitably in each part of the country. These were then nationalised into British Rail (and ended up requiring government subsidies to keep running). Then the government decided to privatize the company again. But instead of keeping each regional division together, they decided to split the maintenance of tracks, operation of stations and the running of train services into different companies. This led to various events including the Clapham rail disaster and trains having to travel slowly on the tracks because regular track maintenance had been reduced by a half.
DEAD OPERATING SYSTEM SKETCH Cast:
Mr. Praline: John Cleese
Shop Owner: Michael Palin
A customer enters an operating system shop.
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint. (The owner does not respond.)
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, Miss?
Owner: What do you mean "miss"?
Mr. Praline: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!
Owner: We're closin' for lunch.
Mr. Praline: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this operating system what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
Owner: Oh yes, the, uh, Windows...What's,uh...What's wrong with it?
Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it!
Owner: No, no, it's uh,...it's resting.
Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead operating system when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
Owner: No no it's not dead, it's, it's restin'! Remarkable OS, Windows, idn'it, ay? Beautiful kernel!
Mr. Praline: The kernel don't enter into it. It's stone dead.
Owner: Nononono, no, no! It's resting!
Mr. Praline: All right then, if it's restin', I'll wake it up! (bashes at the keyboard) 'Ello, Mister Windows! I've got a lovely security update for you if you show...
(i>(Owner hits the keys)
Owner: There, it spewed some debug output to the command line!
Mr. Praline: No, it didn't, that was you hitting the keys!
Owner: I never!!
Mr. Praline: Yes, you did!
Owner: I never, never did anything...
Mr. Praline: (yelling and typing into the console repeatedly) 'ELLO DOS PROMPT!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock virus scan!
(Rips out hard drive from computer case and thumps it on the counter. Shoves it back inside the case and reboots the system - blue screen of death.)
Mr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead operating system.
Owner: No, no.....No, it's stunned!
Mr. Praline: STUNNED?!?
Owner: Yeah! You stunned it, just as it was finishing an I/O task! Windows stuns easily, major.
Mr. Praline: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That operating system is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of responsiveness was due to it bein' in the process of recompiling itself after a particularly comprehensive code update.
Owner: Well, it's...it's, ah...probably pining for some dilettante dabbling.
Mr. Praline: PININ' for some DILETTANTE DABBLING?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that? Look, why did it fall flat on its back the moment I started notepad?
Owner: Windows prefers swapping everything out to the hard drive! Remarkable variant, id'nit, squire? Lovely kernel!
Mr. Praline: Look, I took the liberty of examining the system when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been printing any text at all to the screen was because of all the EXCEPTION ERRORS encountered while it was checking for new hardware.
(pause) Owner: Well, o'course it was spitting out those warnings! If I hadn't updated the kernel with a service pack release, you might have had your FTP server compromised [slashdot.org], and VOOM! Bye bye to your business.
Mr. Praline: "Server"?!? Mate, this OS wouldn't "serve" if you put four million volts through it! It's bleedin' demised!
Owner: No no! It's pining!
Mr. Praline: It's not pinin'! It's passed on! This OS is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! The numbers continue to decline for WindowsNT but Wind
engineering doing marketing, than marketing doing engineering...
... get a solar-powered wrist sun-dial.
Sounds like to me that they would have to provide the APIs (not the source!) to the SMB file sharing protocol, and, for instance, allow anyone, including Macs and Linux, to work seamlessly with Active Directory and Exchange.
They probably will release the API's, and then once all the dust has settled from the lawsuit, they will work on a next generation version which will once again be proprietary. Business as usual.
Killing a game after spending $3M on developing it? How does a game get that far only to be cancelled?
Sometimes because another company has released a game based on a similar theme. The counter-measure to this is to sign exclusive contracts with whoever/whatever you're basing the game on (Electronic Arts will sign exclusive deals with famous athletes). Or maybe because the development runs late and isn't going to make a target date (Christmas, start of Summer holidays). And maybe if a publisher decides to dispose of it's in-house development staff because returns aren't as high as expected. Some projects may be canned, and the development teams sold off.
How many people have been frustrated that their mail server is down, yet not realised they can WALK over to their colleague and TALK to him?
Yes, I've tried, but he's always busy moderating slashdot comments.
What's next, support for force feedback chairs that scroll the browser based on which ass cheek I'm clenching?
Dang! We were about to file a patent on that concept.
.illegal - Anything that your mother wouldn't approve of.
I'm assisting my "slightly older" relatives learn to use computers (retired nurses who are used to working with medical equipment). For them, the newest Windows applications are too difficult to use. They were happy when Windows 98 came out, because then everything had a standard uniform interface (Wasn't that Microsoft's marketing strategy?).
But now that every single application nearly always comes it own set of skins, this has completely thrown them off. And trying to make an application use the standard interface requires delving deep into a multitude of menus and preferences (I still haven't figured out how to make Realplayer adopt the standard Windows look). So, this isn't likely to make the average home user even more confused than they are now.
I think you mis-spelled chimp....
When it comes to separating Egyptian twins or performing a plastic surgery on a burnt girl from Afganistan, this country is here to help.
Much of the research in medical surgery occurs through the treatment of actual patients. A large amount of knowledge was gained through the treatment of soldiers in World Wars I and II.
I guess in another 10 years, we'll have black light lasers which can write to 10 Terabyte DVD's.
A majority of the kids thought of manned space travel as an escape from a disposable used up world.
I always thought the best way of figuring out how to do deep space travel, would be to (1) Find out ways of making existing travel completely self-contained (ie. cruise liners), and (2) find a way of building such systems up in space.
After watching the space shuttle experiment to measure the electric current running along a 100 metre length of copper cable, I've always wondered whether it would be possible to use the existing electric field to drive an electromagnetic accelerator in space.
I don't know about the US, but in the UK, Dell will only ship to the credit card billing address and nowhere else.
Reminds me of a joke I once heard:
North Americans like crossing the border with their Southern neighbor because despite the high crime rate and poverty, prices for medicines and electrical goods are cheaper.
Canadians like crossing the border with their Southern neighbor because despite the high crime rate and poverty, prices for medicines and electrical goods are cheaper.
If the item has been used by the individual before returning to the UK, it is considered "personal effects". More details can be found here
It's something I'm interested in. Especially since the Dell Dimension XPS isn't available in the UK.
It's not simply a case of buying the technology and canning it. It's more a case of buying the technology, incorporating it into existing projects, and moving the engineers onto something else (Non-Compete Agreements work wonders).
It also happens internally within corporations. A new division gets set up to target a selected marketing segment. They then start to grow and begin to compete against existing divisions. The existing groups respond by stating to management that the new divisions would fit well within their long term goals - and a re-organisation takes place. Very smooth.
There are still plenty of jobs in the real estate and non-tradeable economy, at least until they figure out how to import houses.
I believe it is called conquest and invasion.
Financial analysts have developed a series of rules that determnine how well they rate investment in publicly traded stock. These rules include:
A company should aim to have around 10% debt. Too little and it's not growing enough. Too much, and it may become bogged down in interest payments.
A company is expected to grow at a rate of 10% year. Usually divisions are given growth targets, and if they don't achieve these targets, they may very well be sold off.
A company should aim to have a percentage of management staff in the range 10% to 15%.
A company should aim to keep the avarage age of staff as low as possible (usually around 24). This way they can keep staff costs down.
The side effects of all these rules is to make it extremely challenging to follow a technical path in a company.
R&D is the first target financial analysts pick on which profit margins fail to reach expectations, since there is no immediate short-term benefit. It's only when competitors start catching up, that the effects will be noticed. By then, it may be too late to regain the lead.
The fact of the matter is, outsourcing is the end result of the bloated salaries of programmers and designers in the US (among others.) The fact that they can make it for HALF as much in St. Petersburg just goes to show the problem.
The reason that salaries are high in California, and in other countries such as the UK, is due to the fact there is a shortage of housing in areas with good schools. Salaries are driven by the cost of house prices/rentals and vice versa. If company A pays their employees X amount to relocate to the area, then company B also has to do the same. Unfortunately, for the UK, everyone else is now competing against City stockbrokers earning 100K pounds/year and the people they are buying houses from. This isn't helped either by planning policies aimed at preventing middle-class sprawl.
... will they have any business left if slashdot readers don't post links to their site?
... but got fed up of having to go to sleep and get up every four hours.
If contact is made, will Microsoft try and offer discounts on all it's products? The thought of an non-Microsoft OS must be rather scary.
It really looks impressive, but how long will this PDA run before the batteries go flat?
Having to remove the watch in order to recharge the battery is going to rapidly lose the coolness factor.