Apart from the NASA systems, and similarly Boeing which use multiply redundant hardware, the other option is to accept the possibility of coding error.
The flight control systems for Airbus aircraft were written by more than one team of developers and then run on independent hardware and they cross check each other.
This produced a highly complex and highly functional system - for example the crash at a German airshow where the aircraft ploughed through a forest showed that the flight dynamic stabilisation worked even when flying through a forest, most planes would have tumbled once into the forest.
So though each piece of software "may" have had flaws the system itself didn't.
Rolls Royce (Aerospace) used to and may still pay in 13 "accounting period" cycles. The 13th was then normally used for all that expenditure at Christmas.
the value of investments can go down as well as up.
If you play with stocks / shares then only play with the money you are prepared to lose.
I expect from the previous postings that what they are doing at eTrade is covering their own back by only allowing "responsible" / "knowledgeable" traders to trade without "guidance".
Unforetunately I do not know of many - computer centered SF books - which are particularly accurate in predicting future forms. However I would suggest:-
Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson Synners - Pat Cadigan Islands in the Net - Bruce Sterling
Other HARD SF novels I would recommend - i.e. those with GOOD science as a basis for extrapolation.
Dragons Egg - Robert L Forward Rocheworld - Robert L Forward Mission of Gravity - Hal Clement
and of course the early classics such as I Robot by Isaac Asimov ( the laws of robotics ).
Oh so true - in the dim and distant past porting Pathworks v.4 to v.5. We requested 6 weeks to install, test, modify, re-test etc. We were given 2 weeks so unsurprisingly a major "bug" / "feature" turned up 4 weeks after we started.
This is fairly typical of an industry where all the management can see is where they think they want to be but have no concept of what is required to get there.
Likewise - GET your degree first. If nothing else it gives you more options in the big world - you can't even get into Switzerland without a degree. Oh and as an aside its also a good place to meet like-minded people - and where legal drink vast quantities of alcohol or do whatever takes your fancy. (p.s. this last bit only really applies where grants are available)
As mentioned by another commentator CONTRACT. Get paid for your hours and suddenly things become much rosier. The best bet is to get them to pay you to carry the pager, a minimum per call taken, double time for actually doing anything. Then you not only get to knock yourself out working 100 hr weeks but earn the equivalent of 160 hrs - or 4 weeks per week - which means in 13 weeks you earn what you would in 12 months. Then you have the choice money or time. Currently I choose the time option whenever possible as most people don't REALLY want to pay $150 per hour because their PC doesn't work after they loaded the latest game.
So in short if you price it right you only work excessive hours when it has business implications and additionally there is a financial argument for having 2 people rather than one. If you let them they will walk all over you.
Speaking from experience working 24/7 for NO extra pay when a lowly paid oik is NOT why I spent 4 years studying ( well OK in the Pub)
I am sure that the owners of these companies are ecstatic but this company and their ilk - amazon, barnes&noble online, ebay,etcetera, etcetera - just don't make any money. Yes they do have "exposure" but I cannot see them ever actually making money. If you are a serious longterm investor I would be "very careful" about where I put my money.
Great for a short-term flutter but the bubble WILL burst.
19 July - DN Wire -- America Online is to launch its own free Internet access service next month in a bid to win back custom from no-charge rival Freeserve. The new service - to be called Netscape Online - will be offered alongside AOL's subscription-based AOL and CompuServe services.
AOL is hoping that the introduction of Netscape Online won't dent revenue from the other AOL services because all three are aimed at different markets.
Whereas AOL is targeted at a family audience, and CompuServe business users, Netscape Online is expected to prove popular with young, male and single cost-conscious consumers.
While unlikely to offer the same range of services as AOL and CompuServe, Netscape Online will include America Online's popular instant messenger and buddy list chat features.
The introduction of the new service should help AOL fight back against no-subs giant Freeserve. Freeserve has attracted 1.32-million active users since its launch last September. AOL currently has about a million members.
Although software company Netscape - which AOL bought for $4-billion this January - will provide the brand-name and look for Netscape Online, the full extent of Netscape's involvement in the running of the new service is not yet known.
So there are some last bastions of the netscape name.
Ah... not so much that DOS is consistent but that a usable operating system needs consistency. Your example of three games and three different exit shortcuts is really an issue of application consistency. If you used early versions of Authorware - which were Mac ports - these did not follow the Windows "rules". Equally I believe that various Linux applications use different commands to perform the same function?
If I had to pick on operating system for its consistency then VMS would get my vote - its been around for years and the same commands give the same results - though once you come to terms with a UNIX or UNIX like variant then they are also consistent over time.
Also see this link to Wired (http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/1 8982.html) Obviously MIT are the place to be for wearable computing... I liked the idea of using the walking motion for power generation.
So how long until we can get one for less than the $6.5k xybernaut (http://www.xybernaut.com/F00005.htm). As has been mentioned by others if you plug a series of currently available items together this becomes MUCH cheaper.
Then its "just" a question of getting the inter-operability between the items to work.
It is very true that a users attitude to an operating system is dependent on their prior knowledge. I know a medical secretary who can perform her job using key-stroke shortcuts in WordPerfect (DOS) and is having difficulty learning the Windows GUI.
A good command line interface can be as easy to use as a GUI. It is consitency and "help" that are important.
If you remove the need for a screen from a laptop and add a second power source to power the replacement then you can cram more oomph into the same size box and it should last longer as well. The only problem I can see is I would need to learn to touch type as I would not be able to see the keyboard.
Alternatively if you use a chord input device - once considered to be the way to go - you can make the portable any shpae you want as you are nolonger hampered by screen or keyboard.
And thirdly if you want to save space then a monitorless desk is smaller and less costly than the current set up in trading floors... you add the motion sensor and you can pan through multiple screens answer the phone etc., etc. The merchant banks currently throw large amounts of money at getting more people onto their trading floors so the price would be no obstacle.
Slashdot Mirror
Apart from the NASA systems, and similarly Boeing which use multiply redundant hardware, the other option is to accept the possibility of coding error.
The flight control systems for Airbus aircraft were written by more than one team of developers and then run on independent hardware and they cross check each other.
This produced a highly complex and highly functional system - for example the crash at a German airshow where the aircraft ploughed through a forest showed that the flight dynamic stabilisation worked even when flying through a forest, most planes would have tumbled once into the forest.
So though each piece of software "may" have had flaws the system itself didn't.
Rolls Royce (Aerospace) used to and may still pay in 13 "accounting period" cycles. The 13th was then normally used for all that expenditure at Christmas.
If your interested in this see http://www.tethers.com/ . Also as you can see this company is run by Dr Robert L Forward.
Who has written a number of SF stories based on these tethers and other technology currently at the edges of the feasible.
The stories are good and the technology reasonable. Therefore Great hard SF.
I think the standard missive is :-
the value of investments can go down as well as up.
If you play with stocks / shares then only play with the money you are prepared to lose.
I expect from the previous postings that what they are doing at eTrade is covering their own back by only allowing "responsible" / "knowledgeable" traders to trade without "guidance".
Unforetunately I do not know of many - computer centered SF books - which are particularly accurate in predicting future forms. However I would suggest:-
Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
Synners - Pat Cadigan
Islands in the Net - Bruce Sterling
Other HARD SF novels I would recommend - i.e. those with GOOD science as a basis for extrapolation.
Dragons Egg - Robert L Forward
Rocheworld - Robert L Forward
Mission of Gravity - Hal Clement
and of course the early classics such as I Robot by Isaac Asimov ( the laws of robotics ).
Hope this helps
Oh so true - in the dim and distant past porting Pathworks v.4 to v.5. We requested 6 weeks to install, test, modify, re-test etc. We were given 2 weeks so unsurprisingly a major "bug" / "feature" turned up 4 weeks after we started.
This is fairly typical of an industry where all the management can see is where they think they want to be but have no concept of what is required to get there.
Likewise - GET your degree first. If nothing else it gives you more options in the big world - you can't even get into Switzerland without a degree. Oh and as an aside its also a good place to meet like-minded people - and where legal drink vast quantities of alcohol or do whatever takes your fancy. (p.s. this last bit only really applies where grants are available)
As mentioned by another commentator CONTRACT. Get paid for your hours and suddenly things become much rosier. The best bet is to get them to pay you to carry the pager, a minimum per call taken, double time for actually doing anything. Then you not only get to knock yourself out working 100 hr weeks but earn the equivalent of 160 hrs - or 4 weeks per week - which means in 13 weeks you earn what you would in 12 months. Then you have the choice money or time. Currently I choose the time option whenever possible as most people don't REALLY want to pay $150 per hour because their PC doesn't work after they loaded the latest game.
So in short if you price it right you only work excessive hours when it has business implications and additionally there is a financial argument for having 2 people rather than one. If you let them they will walk all over you.
Speaking from experience working 24/7 for NO extra pay when a lowly paid oik is NOT why I spent 4 years studying ( well OK in the Pub)
Books of interest to the cyber-punk :-
see this URL ( and others )
http://www.lysator.liu.se/etexts/hacker/
an interesting if now historical work on the internet BEFORE the web and its "criminal" fringes (?).
Also I think an interesting idea in and of itself. Literary freeware.
I am sure that the owners of these companies are ecstatic but this company and their ilk - amazon, barnes&noble online, ebay ,etcetera, etcetera - just don't make any money. Yes they do have "exposure" but I cannot see them ever actually making money. If you are a serious longterm investor I would be "very careful" about where I put my money.
Great for a short-term flutter but the bubble WILL burst.
The following appeared on Monday :-
AOL Uses Netscape Name For New Free Net Service
19 July - DN Wire -- America Online is to launch its own free Internet access service next month in a bid to win back custom from no-charge rival Freeserve.
The new service - to be called Netscape Online - will be offered alongside AOL's subscription-based AOL and CompuServe services.
AOL is hoping that the introduction of Netscape Online won't dent revenue from the other AOL services because all three are aimed at different markets.
Whereas AOL is targeted at a family audience, and CompuServe business users, Netscape Online is expected to prove popular with young, male and single cost-conscious consumers.
While unlikely to offer the same range of services as AOL and CompuServe, Netscape Online will include America Online's popular instant messenger and buddy list chat features.
The introduction of the new service should help AOL fight back against no-subs giant Freeserve. Freeserve has attracted 1.32-million active users since its launch last September. AOL currently has about a million members.
Although software company Netscape - which AOL bought for $4-billion this January - will provide the brand-name and look for Netscape Online, the full extent of Netscape's involvement in the running of the new service is not yet known.
So there are some last bastions of the netscape name.
Lickleider's fine sentiments are fine, but the net was built to build better bombs.
Actually not so much to make the bombs but to allow them to be deployed after a pre-emptive strike.
Ah... not so much that DOS is consistent but that a usable operating system needs consistency. Your example of three games and three different exit shortcuts is really an issue of application consistency. If you used early versions of Authorware - which were Mac ports - these did not follow the Windows "rules". Equally I believe that various Linux applications use different commands to perform the same function?
If I had to pick on operating system for its consistency then VMS would get my vote - its been around for years and the same commands give the same results - though once you come to terms with a UNIX or UNIX like variant then they are also consistent over time.
Also see this link to Wired (http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/1 8982.html) Obviously MIT are the place to be for wearable computing... I liked the idea of using the walking motion for power generation.
So how long until we can get one for less than the $6.5k xybernaut (http://www.xybernaut.com/F00005.htm). As has been mentioned by others if you plug a series of currently available items together this becomes MUCH cheaper.
Then its "just" a question of getting the inter-operability between the items to work.
It is very true that a users attitude to an operating system is dependent on their prior knowledge. I know a medical secretary who can perform her job using key-stroke shortcuts in WordPerfect (DOS) and is having difficulty learning the Windows GUI.
A good command line interface can be as easy to use as a GUI. It is consitency and "help" that are important.
If you remove the need for a screen from a laptop and add a second power source to power the replacement then you can cram more oomph into the same size box and it should last longer as well. The only problem I can see is I would need to learn to touch type as I would not be able to see the keyboard.
Alternatively if you use a chord input device - once considered to be the way to go - you can make the portable any shpae you want as you are nolonger hampered by screen or keyboard.
And thirdly if you want to save space then a monitorless desk is smaller and less costly than the current set up in trading floors... you add the motion sensor and you can pan through multiple screens answer the phone etc., etc. The merchant banks currently throw large amounts of money at getting more people onto their trading floors so the price would be no obstacle.
Also being persued by Digital - Compaq and the Galaxy systems see here http://www.openvms.digital.com/affinity/galaxy.htm l