MySpace apparently has a strong community for Indie music bands, and has a 'stickiness' quotient far higher than that of Friendster or other social networking sites.
BW Link
Mod parent over-rated. Buggy-whip? Opera is a darn good browser. Because it's not open-source and you have to *gasp* pay for it, FF fanboys seem to think it is cool to denigrate it.Grow up.
The browser wars are by no means over. If IE gets better, it means there will be competition for better features. And as for users switching, it won't take much for them to switch back if *gasp* IE does some things they need better. Tabs are neat, and once everyone has them, there will be other turfs to fight battles on. The consumer wins, doesn't he? Competition from FF forced MS to start work on fixing IE. And some neat feature in IE might mean it will appear in Firefox,Safari or any other browsers.
Disclosure: I work on contract for MS.
I am, honestly, sick and tired of this spiel about H1Bs being paid less than the regular Joe computer programmer in the US. I call bull on Prof. Matloff's 'statistics' about Masters and PhDs being paid less than comparable Americans. Why? Because pay is not decided on degrees, but on work. I have a colleague who is a PhD, but he earns in the same range as me (I am a H1B with a MS, he is a permanent resident). Why? Because we both write test code. The fact that he is a PhD means bull if we are both writing test automation. It may be true that international MS/PhDs are likelier to do work 'below' their degree qualifications (meaning work that you could get a Bachelors grad to do) because they like life in the US, and are unwilling to go back, or they are saving up to go back in a few years. Read up on the H1B legislation if you have a chance. H1 Bs cannot be paid less than a comparable American worker. All that bullcrap about H1Bs being 'exploited' is exactly that.
Costs is one thing, monopoly-forced bundling is another. Verizon does not provide DSL to my area without me getting at least a basic landline. I don't need one - my cellphone suffices. I am paying around $12 / month more for my phone line (min plan possible + taxes + a few dozen service fees.). So $30/month for 1576/768 DSL is hokum. Plus, add bandwidth throttling, and we have service that sucks a%$.
Awww....give me a break. Have you ever washed clothes by hand? I have. I lived in India, and when I lived in dorms during my engineering days, we had no laundry facilities. "Going home to do the laundry" acquires a totally new dimension then (My parents had a washing machine at home). Try wringing out a pair of jeans to dry on a cold morning at 40 F , and then we'll talk.
Slightly irrelevant:
From TFA:
For decades, (following, we are probably meant to assume, some breakthrough research at a school of education somewhere) young students have been not merely encouraged but required to fill pages of their notebooks with writing. Not stories, nor essays, nor any other defined genre of writing; just writing.
And what is wrong with that? I am not an expert at teaching, but I think this practice is a useful one. Too many people go through life without being really able to express anything clearly. IF (that's a big if) used well, this can be used to channel a child's creative energies. While writing a diary (and a blog), I've seen my writing become more focused and less random.
In this time and age, maybe not writing alone, but students could be encouraged to record (audio/video) what they feel is relevant to their life, or photograph, or blog. YMMV, but this is better than having no evocative artifacts of your childhood.
I can't help feeling that M$ is a company that can't decide whether they want to cater to the server market or the home market when it comes to Windows.
Honestly, they are interested in world domination (no, I'm serious about this). I know a guy who interned with them, and eventually accepted a full-time position as a program manager with them. Apparently, the most distinguishing (frightening to some) thing about Microsoft's vision is how big it is. They aren't interested in just getting into a market, but owning it or monopolizing it. They have the resources to take losses for years on end till they eliminate the small fry and own the market.
The Encarta search is an interesting idea. What stops Google from say putting a Wikipedia link to relevant searches in their results? It would really help in finding things like, say "population of Antigua".
Troll Alert:
China and India couldn't have damaged America's economy more if they had fought a war against us and won.
China and India are not out to damage America's economy. They are trying to make a living for themselves. Maybe American managers need to look beyond next quarter's revenues ?
"we're already doing what we can within our country's own TER system to combat pollution"
umm...while the US is doing a lot within a few spheres (aforementioned TERs), aren't "out of the box" ideas (at least w.r.t. the US) worth thinking over? Public transportation in many places isn't good enough to justify not using a car.
When I went to school in Pittsburgh, the transit was in perrenial danger of folding up because of funding constraints. In fact, they just introduced a proposal reducing services, and increasing fares.
After starting work in New Jersey, I was forced to buy a car though I did not want one, simply because of lack of public transportation in my area.
Mass transit has been consistently shown to provide more efficiency in fuel usage per person (and in reducing pollution, of course). Creating economic disincentives for car users (like $8 tolls at the entrances to NYC) work wonders.
Also, the US consistently refuses to pass gas-guzzler laws to make gas-guzzling SUVs and light trucks less attractive to users.
I'd say the US can do more. The government doesn't seem to be trying hard enough to break the resistance of the few parties who have the most to lose from this (the power co.s , the detroit lobby, and the oil lobby).
If you compare the services available to say a Japanese cellphone user compared to the average US one, your logic fails. The US cellphone industry is still in the old static voice environment, where they are trying to make their money by a plan offering you buckets of minutes, and not much of anything else (how well-advertised are data services on any cellphones today?)
Japan, Europe, and other countries (even ones with highly developed landline infrastructures) have moved on to very good wireless data services which is still really an under-serviced market in the US.
Ok...here are the answers for Carnegie Mellon - the original and the truth. Either those who answered the questions don't know jack, or something's seriously wrong with the methodology.
Is there a campuswide network? Yes Yes Is there a wireless network? Yes Yes Can students access e-mail away from school? Yes Yes Does the school provide Web pages? No You get webspace- you're supposed to write your own HTML
Is this even a criteria? Why does the school have to provide you with a webpage?
Does the school offer classes online? No Yes - not all of them, some departments do.
Can students register online? Yes Yes
Can students do other administrative functions online? Yes Yes
Are students required to own a computer? No No - except for the MBA and IS graduate students. All graduate students get their own computer and office/cube space.
Can students get discounted computers? Yes Yes
Does the school support handheld computers? No No
Does the school stream audio or video of any courses? No Yes- again, it is not a campus-wide thing, but departmentwise.
Is network access available in dorm rooms? Yes Yes
Is network access available in dormitory lounges? Yes Yes
Is a computer ethics policy in place for the school? No No
Do students have access to Usenet newsgroups? No WTF? Isn't access to Usenet irrespective of whether you are a student or not? Correct me if I'm wrong. Does tuition include a computer? No No Does the school provide multimedia equipment? No No Does the school offer courses in emerging technologies? No What do they mean by emerging technologies? A computer science OS course teaches you deadlocks,processes and threads, not the latest C# fu. Does the school stream its campus radio or TV stations? No Yes - www.wrct.org
Thats why I think its a good idea for them to claim it's in Beta. It's probably a full-fledged product with a few minor bugs in its working, but putting it out in the open gives them the luxury of feedback from a million eyeballs.
I'm sure that once they have this figured out( and most such objections/concerns addressed), we'll also see an Enterprise edition, with more bells and whistles.
I don't know about the rest of slashdot, but I love almost all of U2's work. They've definitely evolved as a band, and they're still relevant as songwriters and musicians. Maybe advocating "Peace on Earth" or Aung San Suu Kyi (Ref: "Walk On") isn't as 'relevant' as bashing the *AA on/.
They're savvy as marketers. That shouldn't take away from the fact that they are great musicians.
Oh, and I love their new single.
c'mon...you know where you've sent your resume (even if you're applying to a lot of co.s in a day...like i was a few months back). Legit people calling you about your resume WILL give their name, their number , their business with you, and will normally leave a normal phone no. to call back (not toll-free ones). Other calls are not worth returning. worked for me.
Because they get paid for it?How many people hire someone and pay an arm and a leg to fix their computer? More often than not, no one does anything about it, until their geek cousin/friend/nephew comes around, ("It's running really slowly, could you take a look at it?"), who then has to go around fixing it. Done it for at least two people (one of whom is incidentally, an EE engineer who designed VLSI circuits in grad school).I don't mind doing it,but I'm sure there are people who do.
There is regulation which requires phone companies to maintain 99.999% (five nines) availability. They have redundancy built-in for everything, including power supply sources. Physically distinct locations for switches are common.
In fact, if there is one place where regulation for VoIP may be good, it is here - for up-time , as well as for mandating 911 services. Kind of difficult to enforce, although technology should find a solution.
Right?
My opinion: the best thing about Google entering any market is that it forces companies to do something to improve and compete with them. Gmail made everyone offer more storage( I now have a gig plus of free web mailbox space, excluding gmail). Their making money off search forced everyone to re-examine it. We may just have better search engines on the way from all the people working on it (associative searches that really work, AI built-in,who knows?).
So, we live in interesting times. Enjoy it, and wait for the next disruptive innovation to make our lives better.
In another sidenote - Google is not really leading in any other market but search and related offshoots - its blogger play has not had that big a payoff. Froogle still isn't the comparison-shopping tool of choice, and Gmail..well, it kicks ass, but its still in beta, so let's wait before Google is officially declared king of anything but search,shall we?
Slashdot Mirror
AFAIK, Akamai provides DNS load-balancing for Microsoft. Not their CDN services.
Disclaimer: I work on contract for MSFT.
MySpace apparently has a strong community for Indie music bands, and has a 'stickiness' quotient far higher than that of Friendster or other social networking sites. BW Link
Mod parent over-rated. Buggy-whip? Opera is a darn good browser. Because it's not open-source and you have to *gasp* pay for it, FF fanboys seem to think it is cool to denigrate it.Grow up.
The browser wars are by no means over. If IE gets better, it means there will be competition for better features. And as for users switching, it won't take much for them to switch back if *gasp* IE does some things they need better. Tabs are neat, and once everyone has them, there will be other turfs to fight battles on. The consumer wins, doesn't he? Competition from FF forced MS to start work on fixing IE. And some neat feature in IE might mean it will appear in Firefox,Safari or any other browsers.
Disclosure: I work on contract for MS.
I am, honestly, sick and tired of this spiel about H1Bs being paid less than the regular Joe computer programmer in the US. I call bull on Prof. Matloff's 'statistics' about Masters and PhDs being paid less than comparable Americans. Why? Because pay is not decided on degrees, but on work. I have a colleague who is a PhD, but he earns in the same range as me (I am a H1B with a MS, he is a permanent resident). Why? Because we both write test code. The fact that he is a PhD means bull if we are both writing test automation. It may be true that international MS/PhDs are likelier to do work 'below' their degree qualifications (meaning work that you could get a Bachelors grad to do) because they like life in the US, and are unwilling to go back, or they are saving up to go back in a few years.
Read up on the H1B legislation if you have a chance. H1 Bs cannot be paid less than a comparable American worker. All that bullcrap about H1Bs being 'exploited' is exactly that.
And Cerf and Kahn ? The glue on which this Internet is built is the TCP/IP suite.
In Formula1 you don't drive it around only in circles. You have a few curves which turn the other way too.
Costs is one thing, monopoly-forced bundling is another. Verizon does not provide DSL to my area without me getting at least a basic landline. I don't need one - my cellphone suffices. I am paying around $12 / month more for my phone line (min plan possible + taxes + a few dozen service fees.). So $30/month for 1576/768 DSL is hokum. Plus, add bandwidth throttling, and we have service that sucks a%$.
Awww....give me a break. Have you ever washed clothes by hand? I have. I lived in India, and when I lived in dorms during my engineering days, we had no laundry facilities. "Going home to do the laundry" acquires a totally new dimension then (My parents had a washing machine at home). Try wringing out a pair of jeans to dry on a cold morning at 40 F , and then we'll talk.
Slightly irrelevant:
From TFA:
For decades, (following, we are probably meant to assume, some breakthrough research at a school of education somewhere) young students have been not merely encouraged but required to fill pages of their notebooks with writing. Not stories, nor essays, nor any other defined genre of writing; just writing.
And what is wrong with that? I am not an expert at teaching, but I think this practice is a useful one. Too many people go through life without being really able to express anything clearly. IF (that's a big if) used well, this can be used to channel a child's creative energies. While writing a diary (and a blog), I've seen my writing become more focused and less random.
In this time and age, maybe not writing alone, but students could be encouraged to record (audio/video) what they feel is relevant to their life, or photograph, or blog. YMMV, but this is better than having no evocative artifacts of your childhood.
I can't help feeling that M$ is a company that can't decide whether they want to cater to the server market or the home market when it comes to Windows.
Honestly, they are interested in world domination (no, I'm serious about this).
I know a guy who interned with them, and eventually accepted a full-time position as a program manager with them. Apparently, the most distinguishing (frightening to some) thing about Microsoft's vision is how big it is. They aren't interested in just getting into a market, but owning it or monopolizing it. They have the resources to take losses for years on end till they eliminate the small fry and own the market.
The Encarta search is an interesting idea. What stops Google from say putting a Wikipedia link to relevant searches in their results? It would really help in finding things like, say "population of Antigua".
Troll Alert: China and India couldn't have damaged America's economy more if they had fought a war against us and won.
China and India are not out to damage America's economy. They are trying to make a living for themselves. Maybe American managers need to look beyond next quarter's revenues ?
"we're already doing what we can within our country's own TER system to combat pollution"
umm...while the US is doing a lot within a few spheres (aforementioned TERs), aren't "out of the box" ideas (at least w.r.t. the US) worth thinking over? Public transportation in many places isn't good enough to justify not using a car.
When I went to school in Pittsburgh, the transit was in perrenial danger of folding up because of funding constraints. In fact, they just introduced a proposal reducing services, and increasing fares.
After starting work in New Jersey, I was forced to buy a car though I did not want one, simply because of lack of public transportation in my area.
Mass transit has been consistently shown to provide more efficiency in fuel usage per person (and in reducing pollution, of course). Creating economic disincentives for car users (like $8 tolls at the entrances to NYC) work wonders.
Also, the US consistently refuses to pass gas-guzzler laws to make gas-guzzling SUVs and light trucks less attractive to users.
I'd say the US can do more. The government doesn't seem to be trying hard enough to break the resistance of the few parties who have the most to lose from this (the power co.s , the detroit lobby, and the oil lobby).
If you compare the services available to say a Japanese cellphone user compared to the average US one, your logic fails. The US cellphone industry is still in the old static voice environment, where they are trying to make their money by a plan offering you buckets of minutes, and not much of anything else (how well-advertised are data services on any cellphones today?)
Japan, Europe, and other countries (even ones with highly developed landline infrastructures) have moved on to very good wireless data services which is still really an under-serviced market in the US.
> I don't know anyone who would want to deal with them, except maybe the guy with the horns and the tail.
err.... I don't think even he would like to deal with them
Ok...here are the answers for Carnegie Mellon - the original and the truth. Either those who answered the questions don't know jack, or something's seriously wrong with the methodology.
Is there a campuswide network? Yes Yes
Is there a wireless network? Yes Yes
Can students access e-mail away from school? Yes Yes
Does the school provide Web pages? No You get webspace- you're supposed to write your own HTML
Is this even a criteria? Why does the school have to provide you with a webpage?
Does the school offer classes online? No Yes - not all of them, some departments do.
Can students register online? Yes Yes
Can students do other administrative functions online? Yes Yes
Are students required to own a computer? No No - except for the MBA and IS graduate students. All graduate students get their own computer and office/cube space.
Can students get discounted computers? Yes Yes
Does the school support handheld computers? No No
Does the school stream audio or video of any courses? No Yes- again, it is not a campus-wide thing, but departmentwise.
Is network access available in dorm rooms? Yes Yes
Is network access available in dormitory lounges?
Yes Yes
Is a computer ethics policy in place for the school? No No
Do students have access to Usenet newsgroups? No WTF? Isn't access to Usenet irrespective of whether you are a student or not? Correct me if I'm wrong.
Does tuition include a computer? No No
Does the school provide multimedia equipment? No No
Does the school offer courses in emerging technologies? No What do they mean by emerging technologies? A computer science OS course teaches you deadlocks,processes and threads, not the latest C# fu.
Does the school stream its campus radio or TV stations? No Yes - www.wrct.org
Thats why I think its a good idea for them to claim it's in Beta. It's probably a full-fledged product with a few minor bugs in its working, but putting it out in the open gives them the luxury of feedback from a million eyeballs. I'm sure that once they have this figured out( and most such objections/concerns addressed), we'll also see an Enterprise edition, with more bells and whistles.
I don't know about the rest of slashdot, but I love almost all of U2's work. They've definitely evolved as a band, and they're still relevant as songwriters and musicians. Maybe advocating "Peace on Earth" or Aung San Suu Kyi (Ref: "Walk On") isn't as 'relevant' as bashing the *AA on /.
They're savvy as marketers. That shouldn't take away from the fact that they are great musicians.
Oh, and I love their new single.
Please, Yahoo! already offers this service since forever. 30 MB free, more if you pay. You can even set up which Yahoo! IDs can share it.
c'mon...you know where you've sent your resume (even if you're applying to a lot of co.s in a day...like i was a few months back). Legit people calling you about your resume WILL give their name, their number , their business with you, and will normally leave a normal phone no. to call back (not toll-free ones). Other calls are not worth returning. worked for me.
Because they get paid for it?How many people hire someone and pay an arm and a leg to fix their computer? More often than not, no one does anything about it, until their geek cousin/friend/nephew comes around, ("It's running really slowly, could you take a look at it?"), who then has to go around fixing it. Done it for at least two people (one of whom is incidentally, an EE engineer who designed VLSI circuits in grad school).I don't mind doing it,but I'm sure there are people who do.
There is regulation which requires phone companies to maintain 99.999% (five nines) availability. They have redundancy built-in for everything, including power supply sources. Physically distinct locations for switches are common.
In fact, if there is one place where regulation for VoIP may be good, it is here - for up-time , as well as for mandating 911 services. Kind of difficult to enforce, although technology should find a solution.
Right?
My opinion: the best thing about Google entering any market is that it forces companies to do something to improve and compete with them. Gmail made everyone offer more storage( I now have a gig plus of free web mailbox space, excluding gmail). Their making money off search forced everyone to re-examine it. We may just have better search engines on the way from all the people working on it (associative searches that really work, AI built-in,who knows?).
So, we live in interesting times. Enjoy it, and wait for the next disruptive innovation to make our lives better.
In another sidenote - Google is not really leading in any other market but search and related offshoots - its blogger play has not had that big a payoff. Froogle still isn't the comparison-shopping tool of choice, and Gmail..well, it kicks ass, but its still in beta, so let's wait before Google is officially declared king of anything but search,shall we?
Even easier... http://www.google.com/jobs/ Worked for me. I got through two interviews on the phone before being kicked out.