Yeah, but I think cars is a totally different ballgame. The cost of producing a car has historically had a MUCH bigger impact on the price of the car, then the cost of producing software has had on the price of producing software.
I mean, has Microsoft lowered their price on a single product as a result of having to compete with linux which has a slight competitive advantage in the price arena.
Software prices seem entirely set by demand... as supply is practically infinite and the cost of producing software (once it's written) is minute.
True, I'm no economist... but I just don't think this passes the "common sense test".
OK, first of all, where is the evidence outsourcing jobs overseas makes anything cheaper?
Last time I checked the market set the price (with obvious unnamed monopoly exceptions *coughMicrosoftcough*). The price the company pays for the production of the item has negligable impact on price--and that's fine. The price people are willing to pay for something has a much bigger impact on the price. All outsourcing overseas does is fatten the profit margin for the sales of these IT projects. So right there, her basic premise is crap.
I mean, is she REALLY saying that companies will have more money to pay you with, because they don't have to pay you? WTF.
Totally agree with you. I didn't mean to imply in my post that Word was perfect or bug free.
I only meant to imply that, given its complexity and given the nature of complex system, it's amazing it works as well as it does and it must be an enormour freakin' task to QA that monstrosity whenever new features are added.
Now, as to whether or not that complexity is necessary or is the result of bloat is a totally different topic of conversation.;) It definitely could be the case that it's overly complex.
More than 850 command functions (e.g. Bold and Italic are the same command function)
More than 1600 distinct commands (e.g. Bold and Italic are distinct commands)
At any given time roughly 50% of these commands are enabled (conservative estimate)
With just 3 steps, the possible combinations of code execution paths exceeds 500 million
Adding new features and abilities to Word would affect a complex system like this in totally unpredictable ways. And, trying to debug such a complex system seems like an almost impossibly complicated task.
Now I know sarcastic answers will abound to this, but I wonder how much MS invests in testing such complicated programs? It has to be way, WAY more than they invest in the development of the program.
Now, I'm no Microsoft fanboy, but I am seriously impressed with Word. It never crashes on me, features always work as expected with other features and the interface does rock. I had no idea how complex the program was, and I am even more awed.
By the way, if you don't know much about complexity or chaos theory I recommend reading the following books to give you a nice appreciation of complex systems like this: COMPLEXITY and CHAOS.
it seems like the courts are getting things right lately (see also: SCO). It's a long time comin'.
Maybe the knowledge of the judges, lawyers and whatnot is finally catching up with the times, and they are displaying some comprehension of the high tech fields on which they're ruling.
One can only hope this trend of understanding continues.
Stuff like this is definitely the way of the future. With all of the stem cell research and cloning research going on, it won't be THAT long before we could potentially have organs and other body parts in storage that was grown from our own stem cells or other cells.
Need a liver transplant? No problem, here is one we already made for you. Lung? Spleen? No problem. And now, we apparently have the technology to make the body grow bones of any shape we like and to surgically put those back in the body. That's unbelievably cool.
And, because all of these things are genetically identical to the recipient of the transplant, there is no kind of rejection problem at all.
I don't think it'll be that far down the road before "transplants" are a thing of the past. All organ/tissue replacement will be made for an individual.
they originally designed it for the disabled and it only runs on "Software requirements: Windows XP / 2000 / Millennium Edition / 98 "? I guess they know what their target demographic is using...
So, the patent is filed for August 10th, 2004... I checked out the history of SUDO page at:
http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/history.html and it looks like SUDO dates back to 1980.
In reading the patent, it does look pretty obvious that it's doing what SUDO is doing... I think this should be blown up with little effort.
Is there any penalty for filing patents for which you KNOW prior art exists? If not, there definitely should be.
OK, my wife just graduated from nursing school a couple of years ago... which means I've had blood drawn and IV's started at least two dozen times... and a majority of those were done very very poorly.
I swear, I looked like a total friggin' addict. I heard to wear sweaters to keep that crap covered up on my arms for like 2 years.
Apparently, citrus fruits make a good replacement for human veins. She spent a lot of time practicing on oranges, grapefruits and whatnot.
I hope, for all husbands and roommates everywhere, that these come out soon and that they're very very cheap.
SPAM has become a total cancer on the internet. It's growing and sucking resources away from legitimate activities... it's discouraging use of email and costing ISPs and corporations way too much money.
This tumor is so rooted in the Internet, that there is no way to cut it all out without removing some healthy tissue. There is probably no perfect solution to this problem, but it HAS to be addressed.
I truly can't see people resorting to trying to advertise competitor's web sites via SPAM to get them shut down. They'd open themselves up to way too much liability if that actually happened.
IMHO: This solution does a pretty decent job of targetting the tumor without removing much healthy tissue. Again, no solution will perfectly home in on just spammers... innocents will always get caught up in the effort to remove this problem. The trick is to just come up with items and balance it's positive effects against its negative effects.
Did you ever get the feeling...
on
Semper WiFi
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
that sometimes, just sometimes, entire news stories are written around a pun the author thought of for a title while sitting on the throne or diving home from work?
Real seems to be implying some kind of guarantee that their music will play on the iPod... Apple has already stated that won't be the case for much longer...
Will users with iPods who buy these cheapo songs be left holding the bag (a bag of useless songs), or will songs they buy and upload to their iPod now work no matter how Apple "updates" their iPod?
That sail makes a nice big, easy to penetrate target (no BBW jokes, please).
The article describes the sail as thinner than a garbage back. Even the tiniest speck of space junk would would easily blow a hole in this. And, if that happens enough times, and especially with bigger pieces of space junk, won't it be filled with thousands of various sized holes?
It doesn't seem like it's being put into orbit high enough to avoid this kind of damage. Obviously they thought of this... are the holes inconsequential?
I'm no physicist, but that seems easy to figure out. If I'm totally wrong, I'm totally wrong.
1) Assume a cell phone antenna is 1 inch away from your head.
2) Assume a 50,000 watt AM transmitter
3) Assume a 1 watt cell phone.
4) We know radio energy diminishes from the source outward at 1/r^2.
5) The square root of 50,000 is approx 224.
So, the energy being pumped into your head by your cell phone is roughly equivalent to standing 224 times farther away from the AM transmitter than your cell phone is from your head (which is one inch).
224 inches is around 19 feet. A 1 watt cell phone pumps more energy into your head than standing 20 feet away from a 50,000 watt AM transmitter.
It pumps more energy into your head than standing 27 feet away from a 100,000 watt transmitter.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean, has Microsoft lowered their price on a single product as a result of having to compete with linux which has a slight competitive advantage in the price arena.
Software prices seem entirely set by demand... as supply is practically infinite and the cost of producing software (once it's written) is minute.
True, I'm no economist... but I just don't think this passes the "common sense test".
Last time I checked the market set the price (with obvious unnamed monopoly exceptions *coughMicrosoftcough*). The price the company pays for the production of the item has negligable impact on price--and that's fine. The price people are willing to pay for something has a much bigger impact on the price. All outsourcing overseas does is fatten the profit margin for the sales of these IT projects. So right there, her basic premise is crap.
I mean, is she REALLY saying that companies will have more money to pay you with, because they don't have to pay you? WTF.
I only meant to imply that, given its complexity and given the nature of complex system, it's amazing it works as well as it does and it must be an enormour freakin' task to QA that monstrosity whenever new features are added.
Now, as to whether or not that complexity is necessary or is the result of bloat is a totally different topic of conversation. ;) It definitely could be the case that it's overly complex.
Adding new features and abilities to Word would affect a complex system like this in totally unpredictable ways. And, trying to debug such a complex system seems like an almost impossibly complicated task.
Now I know sarcastic answers will abound to this, but I wonder how much MS invests in testing such complicated programs? It has to be way, WAY more than they invest in the development of the program.
Now, I'm no Microsoft fanboy, but I am seriously impressed with Word. It never crashes on me, features always work as expected with other features and the interface does rock. I had no idea how complex the program was, and I am even more awed.
By the way, if you don't know much about complexity or chaos theory I recommend reading the following books to give you a nice appreciation of complex systems like this: COMPLEXITY and CHAOS.
Maybe the knowledge of the judges, lawyers and whatnot is finally catching up with the times, and they are displaying some comprehension of the high tech fields on which they're ruling.
One can only hope this trend of understanding continues.
Need a liver transplant? No problem, here is one we already made for you. Lung? Spleen? No problem. And now, we apparently have the technology to make the body grow bones of any shape we like and to surgically put those back in the body. That's unbelievably cool.
And, because all of these things are genetically identical to the recipient of the transplant, there is no kind of rejection problem at all.
I don't think it'll be that far down the road before "transplants" are a thing of the past. All organ/tissue replacement will be made for an individual.
He has a link to mirrors of his photos and videos of the device (which I'm mainly interested in anyway). They are:
WMV: External Overview of Creative Zen PMC (temporarily down) Mirror 1 Mirror 2
WMV: Demo of Portable Media Center UI (temporarily down) Mirror 1 Mirror 2
Gallery of Images from Creative Zen PMC Mirror 1 Mirror 2
of what is science fiction... How can Raiders of the Lost Ark not be in the top 10?! And, what about Tremors??
Build fails: Coffee dispenser starts spitting out cups of java.
Build succeeds: Beer dispenser starts spitting out cans of Olde English.
And I don't think you get karma for funny modded posts, even ones that make fun of Microsoft and retards.
they originally designed it for the disabled and it only runs on "Software requirements: Windows XP / 2000 / Millennium Edition / 98 "? I guess they know what their target demographic is using...
Surely, SUDO was part of this vital UNIX technology...
Hell, they just filed a patent for technology they actually licensed. That has to be a new low.
In reading the patent, it does look pretty obvious that it's doing what SUDO is doing... I think this should be blown up with little effort.
Is there any penalty for filing patents for which you KNOW prior art exists? If not, there definitely should be.
I swear, I looked like a total friggin' addict. I heard to wear sweaters to keep that crap covered up on my arms for like 2 years.
Apparently, citrus fruits make a good replacement for human veins. She spent a lot of time practicing on oranges, grapefruits and whatnot.
I hope, for all husbands and roommates everywhere, that these come out soon and that they're very very cheap.
I have the phrase "HQ405" burned into the top of my thigh... All the chicks think it's a prison tatoo.
This tumor is so rooted in the Internet, that there is no way to cut it all out without removing some healthy tissue. There is probably no perfect solution to this problem, but it HAS to be addressed.
I truly can't see people resorting to trying to advertise competitor's web sites via SPAM to get them shut down. They'd open themselves up to way too much liability if that actually happened.
IMHO: This solution does a pretty decent job of targetting the tumor without removing much healthy tissue. Again, no solution will perfectly home in on just spammers... innocents will always get caught up in the effort to remove this problem. The trick is to just come up with items and balance it's positive effects against its negative effects.
I did check it out though, and the term 'Semper Wi-Fi' was used previous to mean wireless Internet for Marines... by the Marine Corps itself. http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/0/B2C90 2831D9E2D8A85256E7D004BA4A5?opendocument
It's amazing what guys are willing to go through to avoid getting out of the damn car and asking for directions. ;)
Real seems to be implying some kind of guarantee that their music will play on the iPod... Apple has already stated that won't be the case for much longer...
Will users with iPods who buy these cheapo songs be left holding the bag (a bag of useless songs), or will songs they buy and upload to their iPod now work no matter how Apple "updates" their iPod?
That sail makes a nice big, easy to penetrate target (no BBW jokes, please).
The article describes the sail as thinner than a garbage back. Even the tiniest speck of space junk would would easily blow a hole in this. And, if that happens enough times, and especially with bigger pieces of space junk, won't it be filled with thousands of various sized holes?
It doesn't seem like it's being put into orbit high enough to avoid this kind of damage. Obviously they thought of this... are the holes inconsequential?
1) Assume a cell phone antenna is 1 inch away from your head.
2) Assume a 50,000 watt AM transmitter
3) Assume a 1 watt cell phone.
4) We know radio energy diminishes from the source outward at 1/r^2.
5) The square root of 50,000 is approx 224.
So, the energy being pumped into your head by your cell phone is roughly equivalent to standing 224 times farther away from the AM transmitter than your cell phone is from your head (which is one inch).
224 inches is around 19 feet. A 1 watt cell phone pumps more energy into your head than standing 20 feet away from a 50,000 watt AM transmitter.
It pumps more energy into your head than standing 27 feet away from a 100,000 watt transmitter.