You are absolutely correct when you mention "the dose makes the poison" , which I meant implicitly in my post, i.e., the amounts of the stuff in the foods is the problem.
Yes there are many natural occurences of MSG, but there are too many foods with exorbitant amounts of the stuff (almost said xorbitol amounts...). And there is much evidence MSG causes symptoms.
Thanks for the snopes reference on aspartame. I'm already aware there
are lots of crazy claims around various chemicals and their effects from ingestion. So, I get it, aspartame doesn't cause lukemia. However there are many documented cases and plenty of anecdotal evidence that a major and not-so-rare side effect is headaches, which is the only symptom I mentioned in my post.
As for olestra being no different than eating several bowls of bran that's probably mostly true, but the taste and texture and experience of munching on olestra laden chips is much more attractive and more likely to occur, and comparatively speaking the amount consumed necessary to "trigger" the bran reaction is tiny compared to how full one would feel eating several bowls of bran. And, who's to say there are no ill effects of the intestinal tract being evacuated like that? There are all kinds of potential problems with this. For example, nutrients that otherwise would have been absorbed in the digestive tract are flushed out way to quickly for the body to absorb them. Also there are some studies suggesting olestra could interfere with absorbtion of nutrients.
Then there's the issue of flushing out all the bacteria in the digestive system, not a good thing.
Well as one who has struggled with asthma forever I find this interesting news
and could offer potential explanations for the ratcheting up of symptoms when
going to bed (always, weird). It would have been nice if the article offered up more
ideas about approaches to attenuate the exposure and risk of the fungi. For those
who scanned, the best and only tidbit I could find in the entire article was
this indirect advice: "Fortunately, hospital pillows have
plastic covers and so are unlikely to cause problems,..."
What's missing in this picture is some approach that makes food safe, period.
While it's laudable to want to have our long arms of the law around the whole
food chain of command, it hardly addresses (in my opinion) real evil, and
general detriment to the humanity collective health. There are products and
chemicals in food today that for various percentages of the population cause
severe side effects, and potentially (probably) are more
dangerous than the highly publicized "contamination" food issues.
If you want an example of one good read about just one chemical (MSG, introduced
in many nefarious and hidden forms to our foods), read and branch out on
this site.
The RFID idea doesn't address:
artificial sweeteners (I am one of the "urban myth" people who gets
excruciating migraines if I ingest nutrasweet.)
synthesized fats (olestra?) (make sure you're keeping track of the nearest available
rest rooms!)
MSG (see above) (and read the referenced site, you're likely to be surprised --
the biggest surprise for me was how many different forms MSG takes, i.e., what
amounts to MSG can take forms in which the manufacturer is not required to label
it. Even more insidious, they can label their product "MSG Free"!)
preservatives
salts (I'm just guessing, but if you take common foods (mainstream), and
by the time you ate the RDA calorie-wise, the sodium that came along for the ride
would exceed the RDA by at least a factor of 2)
I see what this article talks about as useful in some sense, but the sum total
malaise caused by contamination of our food supply with weird (and to many, unknown)
chemicals outpaces, outweighs, and almost trumps the money that would be spent on
a massive RFID program.
One of my biggest beefs in non-standard behavior (since this article talks
about the safety benefits of standards) is highway construction and layout. I could
go on about bizarre practices for signage, etc., but I'll just take a couple:
Warning signage: I currently live in Washington state and they have the MOST
bizarre ways for warning of construction and other hazards on their highways. I
literally have come around a blind curve where a sign says "Flagger Ahead" and I
almost hit some construction worker with his "SLOW" sign. Literally not enough
warning to slow down without almost slamming on one's brakes.
Another example was in Bellevue, WA, and I'm not making this up. There
was a line of cones angling out from the curb, closing off a lane around
construction of a new high-rise. Nestled behind those cones in the "dead zone"
of the closed off lane was one of those generator run highway signs that said,
"Right Lane Closed Ahead"! Wow! I wished for my digital camera.
On the other hand, there is the state of Illinois where I also lived for a
long time. Their warning practices are amazing. I one time was way north of Peoria
driving south on the interstate, and I saw signs warning of "Construction Ahead,
40 miles"! It may seem ludicrous, but I at least had it in my consciousness I would
expect delays and construction, obviously with plenty of time. I wouldn't say THAT
would have to be the standard, but in WA there seem to be none.
Freeways: notably, the decision to put merging ramps from the left hand side. Again,
I'll cite Bellevue WA. They recently redid their I405 and N.E. 4th street interchange
and, yep, the northbound merge onto an HOV lane no less now comes in from the left!
(It used to come in from the right, go figure.) Until then I'd sort of figured
left side ramps were artifacts and had been deemed dangerous and obsolete.
I could go on, but I wonder how many accidents and deaths could be prevented on
our highway systems if there were more sane and consistently applied standards. (And
don't even get me started about Europe where they've got ALL of their cars on the
wrong side of the road going the wrong way! (kidding))
They should keep digging. I'm betting they've stumbled across an old Lajia
University dormitory and discovered students' supplies of Ramen. (Well at least
that's what we lived on in college.)
cuts reflect a change in emphasis away from robotic technology and toward human exploration of space
I know it's way over simplifying, but does anyone sense a certain irony that now as we move to a payload of humans in space travel rather than robotics, the workforce to support that is reduced?
o, exactly what victory is had here? AMD beat Intel in retail sales? Is that units (cpu's) shipped? Is it gross sales? And, the article says this doesn't include direct sales from vendors like Dell. Hwah? That sounds like a pretty large chunk of total sales of processors to be glibly claiming victory. What percentage of Dell's PCs ship with Intel vs. AMD and what effect does that have on the total numbers?
So, if you could point out to me where in my post I stated that AMD is making these claims, I would be most grateful. I intentionally did not cite AMD as the source since this was a post and comment about the article.
Hi scott7477.... I'm your new foe, (or you're my new freak....). Sorry if I've done something to offend... Anyway, I've added you to my friends list (this was the only contact conduit I could find...)
So, exactly what victory is had here? AMD beat Intel in retail sales? Is that
units (cpu's) shipped? Is it gross sales? And, the article says this doesn't include
direct sales from vendors like Dell. Hwah? That sounds like a pretty large chunk
of total sales of processors to be glibly claiming victory. What percentage of
Dell's PCs ship with Intel vs. AMD and what effect does that have on the total numbers?
As for winning in retail sales, to me this is more market spin (seemingly of which
many slashdot articles are) and little real information. When I talk to people who
are going to buy, or have bought a PC recently I virtually never hear them
discussing the finer points of their decision to buy a particular brand or
processor, mostly because 99% of PC consumers don't know and don't care what the
processor is (though they really should when it comes to something like a Celeron).
So to me this just means AMD has been successful in getting their products on
the eye-level shelves in the stores. Customers are buying what looks sexy, and what costs
the least.
I've been happy with a couple of AMD machines I've purchased and I like that AMD
continues to compete with Intel and hope AMD keeps Intel from becoming the Microsoft
of the chip industry (some claim they already have), but I can't pull much real or
meaningful information from this article.
I'm not even able to figure out what question is being asked here.
are the programmer upset something they developed in their spare time is
now being required and with a deadline? (and what does "in their spare time" mean?, it
can have implications over different discussions (IP, etc.))
are they upset because now it's going "national", (and what the heck does THAT
mean?)
It sounds to me like they've created something, probably wanted to show the bosses
to get some love pats (btw, DON'T DO THAT! HAVE YOU NOT BEEN READING RECENT/. ARTICLES?). And now, they're upset because the bosses want to run with the
stuff. That's kind of what happens. Sounds like the "service reps" were a little
naive, and the bosses were greedy and stupid.
(Aside: I used to work in IT, and if service rep people wanted to roll their own,
there was little to be done to stop them. But PHB's who were gushing over these
home grown "apps" that were successful talking the rest of the company to adopt and
deploy ALWAYS ended up costing the company tons of money.... the apps were never
scalable, maintainable, compatible with anything else. I'll allow that it's possible
but I've seen this kind of scenario many times, and they've NEVER brought positive
ROI.
Most people fall in love
because they have shared values, but they stay in love because their
personalities mesh
I remember, but can't cite, an article or study that pretty much shows the odds
of people staying together are pretty much the same in marriages where couples
fall in love (e.g., in the United States), or in arranged marriages (many cultures),
even in arranged marriages where the betrothed are extremely young (sometimes as
young as 12 or 13), and even in arranged marriages with large age disparities.
First, does anyone else remember any similar studies? I've found "staying
together" seems to have much to do with chemistry, and little observable
similarities and tastes correlate. Just curious. What are others' observations?
will update the conference on his company's 'Unix and open
source-related activities, including their efforts to provide a POSIX
environment in Windows, and to integrate Windows and Unix systems.'
I call bullhockey on this. A lot of slashdotters probably aren't even old enough to
remember when Microsoft first came out with NT. Their PR releases were all abuzz
with their new advanced technology OS with special emphasis on their intent
to have a POSIX compliant OS. At the same time they talked me
into working for them (took three offers, a signing bonus, and a pretty nice
stock option offer), under the ostensible work they'd have for me to provide
support for their POSIX subsystem.
Once I was in the door, and within the first week I attended what was described
as a "presentation on NT's POSIX subsystem", presented by the POSIX
team. That team turned out to be a guy named Matt (don't know his last name).
The project manager Margaret (don't remember HER last name) got up before the
presentation and said (and I can only paraphrase, I don't remember verbatim, but
guarantee the accuracy of the spirit of her comments): "Before
we proceed with this presentation, there's one thing I (Microsoft) want to make
clear. The POSIX subsystem is a check box. We're only doing it to fulfill the
requirement to have POSIX so we can get government contracts."
I was almost physically ill, what was to be MY role (my background was Unix) if
their POSIX was to be a sham? (BTW, not only did they not intend to support it, they
only implemented the API portion of POSIX, not the user environment and utilities.)
I called Larry Kroger who was in charge of things and desparately asked him
what I was supposed to tell people who were asking POSIX support questions. He
told me, "tell them we don't support it.". What if they ask about future
plans for POSIX? He replied, "tell them we have no plans.".
Forgive me if have doubts about Microsoft's purity in "plans" today to
do POSIX.
Oh, and for the record, anyone who doubts my accounts... the entire presentation
was videotaped (1992), as were all of their internal presentations. I only assume it
would still be available today but if it is, it will reflect my accounting of events.
With each damning new report and every shred if indicting evidence that
indeed the earth is entering into massive warming because of human activity
it scares me a little more. As an average citizen, I am trying to help by:
keeping my hot tub set at 101 degrees or less
never setting the thermostat higher than 78 in the winter, or less than 72
in the summer
avoiding jack rabbit accelerations in my HumVee during my 60 mile commute to and
from work
never, never using acclerants to start fires when clearing the
trees from my property
always making sure my tv, stereo, and five computers are turned off when I leave
the house
being careful to stay mostly on the trails when I'm riding my off-rode motorcycle
(hmmmm, same goes for the HumVee)
filling the bathtub only 3/4 full when taking a bath each day
I only wish others would wake up and smell the coffee and be diligent too.
And citing a slashdot summary as your proof is nothing short of moronic.
And, for your part, you must not have looked at my linked comments. I recommend you read them. Once it was pointed out to me that the article WAS NOT a news article, I looked, and after a bit of work was able to figure that out. I've NEVER claimed it was an article.... I originally reacted to it as an article. But my subsequent posts, and comments were more directly to the issue that FOX didn't clearly show that. They've even gone so far as to issue their own correction.
Again, while I don't take slashdot as gospel, there wasn't anything that led me to believe the article was anything but... originally. To realize it was op-ed, you'd have to know that on the FOX site they label it as "Views" (I didn't), AND you'd have to override your tendency to ignore banner ads, since the "Views" moniker was kind of buried in what looked like a banner ad to me.
Back to your point, the piece was an opinion piece, nothing more, nothing less... you're absolutely right.
I can't believe you're getting insightful on this, since you are misquoting the original article, and you're being kind of a prick...
From your post: The original piece was not an article, but from the original slashdot story, "Anonymous Coward wrote to mention a Fox News article...".
If you do a "search page" when bringing up the "read more"..., you'll not get a hit on "commentary" until way down the comments page where posters start pissing about it being a commentary.
You dodged a bullet not getting modded flame while at the same time being such a prick and being wrong.
For those who may be interested in my take on the whole thing you can read this comment, this comment, and even this concession that my original position had merit (note I didn't say right or wrong...)
It'll be interesting to see if correcting someone clearly flaming ends up getting me modded troll or flamebait. That's okay, I've got karma to burn.
designed to promote greater youth involvement in technology careers.
Ahem.
Anyway, I searched and searched for more information on Gates' special visit
and what he really might have said. Alas, the closest I came was buried on
a meta-referred pages was the helpful:
General public: An archived version of the webcast will be available on F
riday, Oct. 14.
I hate to jump the gun here, but any wagers on the content of his presentation?
Any bets "involvement in technology careers" was pretty much a pitch for Microsoft?
I'm not saying Gates shouldn't pitch his company, hell he should even die for it
(insert your own interpretation here...)! But a surprise guest speaker? Is this
a common thing? Regardless, I liken it to political free air time, and the
university, to be fair and balanced (ahem), should offer another surprise guest
professor, perhaps Linus (and I'm not talking Lucy's brother here)?
Excellent article, a bit long of a read but worth it. Read it!
As for pending relaase of stable OOo 2.0, the article mentions:
No one knows for certain when OOo 2.0 stable will be released, but
Mad Penguin's bet is that the stable 2.0 release will come before any
recently purchased cartons of milk expire in your refrigerator.
I need more specific data. I buy Ultra-Pasteurized milk, and the carton I recently
bought has an expiration date of late November! I guess I can wait until then, I've
waited this long. But, could I possibly be optimistic enough to hope he only means
regular pasteurized milk? That would get me OO a couple weeks sooner!
Another interesting observation in the article:
Gary explains, Microsoft's Word ML will only interoperate with its own
locked stack, require customers to become complete Microsoft shops if
they hope to achieve the same level of fluid information flow available
through truly open SOAs.
Discounting that Gary obviously completely advocating OO and probably had a disdain
for Microsoft's XML implementation, I think to the extent that what he is pointing
out is true, IT managers should take note.
Unfortunately most won't or don't.
We live in an age where decision makers chant the "nobody ever got fired for
choosing Microsoft" mantra, and the threat that continued Microsoft upgrade stand
to completely lock in a shop to only Microsoft products probably won't frighten
them. But with slightly less myopia, IT managers should realize this pending
lockin could jeapordize subsequent ability to exchange information and perform
transactions with other organizations (factor in the additional pending Trusted
Computing technology and this gets downright scary).
And should you choose not to read the entire article, read this gem of a question
and response from page two:
MP: Is this lock down aimed at blunting the spread of OpenOffice.org 2.0?
As a long time user and fan of Palm, (I kind of consider them the tivo of the
hand held industry -- maybe not the very first there, but one of the ones that got
a lot of things right ergonomically before they got steamrolled by the industry and
their own inertia), the time and technology seems about right for me.
Looking at the features list it seems to fulfill much of what I've waited for (good
memory, expandable vi SD, nice screen, improved and enhanced original apps).
But a question for any who really know: Will the user be able to use this wireless
capability to move pictures and mp3s to the device? That would just about lock it for
me, but it's not clear from the feature list and description that that is doable.
Also, are there any users out there who would vouch for today's screen quality? I
would be upgrading from the Palm m5xx which has a color screen, but that screen is
of less than great quality and is quite anemic. I've seen other newer devices with
screens that scream -- is Palm doing the same?
gaim works for me, but loses ground from here
on
Linux Instant Messengers
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I think gaim does a pretty good job, and I've actually converted lots of friends
to gaim with no negative after taste. And most love the tabbed interface for multiple
conversations in one window. It's nice also to have multiple protocols all
available in the one application. My parents now chat with multiple people, in
multiple environments, and they're not even aware that's happening. No more
splaining that they have to start the yahoo messenger if they want to talk
with Uncle Duane.
There's also the huge value add of no advertising.
But, I seem never to be able to upgrade gaim, at least not easily. I always have
to do an rpm upgrade with the Force option because of "conflicts" with other gaim
packages. And the last couple of new releases of gaim won't even install with
"Force".
So, for my money, gaim comes close. Depending on the user, I've found many are
okay using gaim.
As for the "state of the union" in Windows, with the recently announced merger
of the Yahoo and MSN protocols (as in, freely communicate with each other), it does
appear Microsoft is making its move to get closer to their tipping point to dominate
the messaging market. They have some interesting features, none that I can't live
without, but probably a good draw for the "hip" young crowd. I find most of the
described features annoying, but then, I come from the old BSD/Sun "talk" days. Heck
I guess I even come from the old Unix "write" days (get out your history books).
Let Microsoft add the fluff. But, a cautionary note, if history serves, what
Microsoft is doing has the petina of old tricks. Should they manage to climb to
the top and snuff out other IM services the way they've snuffed out other competitors
I predict they once again will begin charging for what once was free. Or at least
start charging for features that used to be free but have become addictive to their
target demographic. (Hey, little girl/boy, want some streaming video with your
chat?)
Wow! You remember BYTE? Actually that was one of my favorite magazines. I thought the in-depth articles were great, and the fluff was handy reading for a quick sitdown;-).
So, if you remember BYTE, I wonder if you remember its demise and how it was handled if you were a subscriber. I one day received in the mail instead of my anticipated BYTE, instead an issue of PC Magazine (I believe that was the substitute...), a shill for Microsoft platforms and applications. I got a letter splaining BYTE was no longer being published but the remainder of my subscription (measured in years) would be delivered with the value-added subscription to PC Magazine.... hwah? I called, wrote, and begged and yelled to just get a refund as PC Magazine was not a magazine I liked, nor would EVER read. But, to no avail. So, for the remainder of the subscription, one more useless magazine to the recycle bin. Sigh.
(Aside, one of my very favorite in-depths from BYTE was a long-read article on modems, and how they squeezed 56k out of a 3000Hz conditioned phone line -- very cool. Learned a lot of tricks from BYTE.)
Since then I've been extremely reluctant to sign up for any magazines for more than one year at a time. That way, the Expected Value, E, of bogus issues should it happen again would be around six. Sigh again.
For all the Sony-bashing I've done, I have to salute Sony for stepping up to this one, no matter their motivation, though it looks mostly to be customer service and satisfaction. There are probably many of these defectives far out of warranty. Good for Sony!
I posted on this a while back, and predicted a shortage, especially in the upcoming holiday season. I thought, and still think, this could be somewhat artificial so Microsoft can roll it out under way-too-high prices under the auspices of "rare" goods (anyone remember the Cabbage Patch Dolls?).
So, they create an artificial shortage, whip up crazed demand, sell way over price through the holiday season with the additional wallop of great sales afterwards from all of the parents who weren't able to get the box for their kids, but promised they'd get it for them as soon as they became available. Good marketing... turns my stomach a bit.
I think this is a very cool device and have often wondered why more devices
haven't come with wireless re-chargability (think electric toothbrushes). But
I wonder about the efficiency of this method. Is it? And if it's not, how less
efficient is it than direct contact recharging? As more and more gadgets and devices
become rechargable technology this would seem to be more important. I don't know much
about electronics at the engineering level, so any erudite replies would be
appreciated.
Slashdot Mirror
You are absolutely correct when you mention "the dose makes the poison" , which I meant implicitly in my post, i.e., the amounts of the stuff in the foods is the problem.
Yes there are many natural occurences of MSG, but there are too many foods with exorbitant amounts of the stuff (almost said xorbitol amounts...). And there is much evidence MSG causes symptoms.
Thanks for the snopes reference on aspartame. I'm already aware there are lots of crazy claims around various chemicals and their effects from ingestion. So, I get it, aspartame doesn't cause lukemia. However there are many documented cases and plenty of anecdotal evidence that a major and not-so-rare side effect is headaches, which is the only symptom I mentioned in my post.
As for olestra being no different than eating several bowls of bran that's probably mostly true, but the taste and texture and experience of munching on olestra laden chips is much more attractive and more likely to occur, and comparatively speaking the amount consumed necessary to "trigger" the bran reaction is tiny compared to how full one would feel eating several bowls of bran. And, who's to say there are no ill effects of the intestinal tract being evacuated like that? There are all kinds of potential problems with this. For example, nutrients that otherwise would have been absorbed in the digestive tract are flushed out way to quickly for the body to absorb them. Also there are some studies suggesting olestra could interfere with absorbtion of nutrients.
Then there's the issue of flushing out all the bacteria in the digestive system, not a good thing.
Well as one who has struggled with asthma forever I find this interesting news and could offer potential explanations for the ratcheting up of symptoms when going to bed (always, weird). It would have been nice if the article offered up more ideas about approaches to attenuate the exposure and risk of the fungi. For those who scanned, the best and only tidbit I could find in the entire article was this indirect advice: " Fortunately, hospital pillows have plastic covers and so are unlikely to cause problems, ..."
What's missing in this picture is some approach that makes food safe, period. While it's laudable to want to have our long arms of the law around the whole food chain of command, it hardly addresses (in my opinion) real evil, and general detriment to the humanity collective health. There are products and chemicals in food today that for various percentages of the population cause severe side effects, and potentially (probably) are more dangerous than the highly publicized "contamination" food issues.
If you want an example of one good read about just one chemical (MSG, introduced in many nefarious and hidden forms to our foods), read and branch out on this site .
The RFID idea doesn't address:
I see what this article talks about as useful in some sense, but the sum total malaise caused by contamination of our food supply with weird (and to many, unknown) chemicals outpaces, outweighs, and almost trumps the money that would be spent on a massive RFID program.
I'm not, I'm posting on slashdot... driving and typing is way too dangerous!
One of my biggest beefs in non-standard behavior (since this article talks about the safety benefits of standards) is highway construction and layout. I could go on about bizarre practices for signage, etc., but I'll just take a couple:
Another example was in Bellevue, WA, and I'm not making this up. There was a line of cones angling out from the curb, closing off a lane around construction of a new high-rise. Nestled behind those cones in the "dead zone" of the closed off lane was one of those generator run highway signs that said, "Right Lane Closed Ahead"! Wow! I wished for my digital camera.
On the other hand, there is the state of Illinois where I also lived for a long time. Their warning practices are amazing. I one time was way north of Peoria driving south on the interstate, and I saw signs warning of "Construction Ahead, 40 miles"! It may seem ludicrous, but I at least had it in my consciousness I would expect delays and construction, obviously with plenty of time. I wouldn't say THAT would have to be the standard, but in WA there seem to be none.
I could go on, but I wonder how many accidents and deaths could be prevented on our highway systems if there were more sane and consistently applied standards. (And don't even get me started about Europe where they've got ALL of their cars on the wrong side of the road going the wrong way! (kidding))
They should keep digging. I'm betting they've stumbled across an old Lajia University dormitory and discovered students' supplies of Ramen. (Well at least that's what we lived on in college.)
From the article and slashdot post:
I know it's way over simplifying, but does anyone sense a certain irony that now as we move to a payload of humans in space travel rather than robotics, the workforce to support that is reduced?
From my post:
So, if you could point out to me where in my post I stated that AMD is making these claims, I would be most grateful. I intentionally did not cite AMD as the source since this was a post and comment about the article.
Hi scott7477.... I'm your new foe, (or you're my new freak....). Sorry if I've done something to offend... Anyway, I've added you to my friends list (this was the only contact conduit I could find...)
So, exactly what victory is had here? AMD beat Intel in retail sales? Is that units (cpu's) shipped? Is it gross sales? And, the article says this doesn't include direct sales from vendors like Dell. Hwah? That sounds like a pretty large chunk of total sales of processors to be glibly claiming victory. What percentage of Dell's PCs ship with Intel vs. AMD and what effect does that have on the total numbers?
As for winning in retail sales, to me this is more market spin (seemingly of which many slashdot articles are) and little real information. When I talk to people who are going to buy, or have bought a PC recently I virtually never hear them discussing the finer points of their decision to buy a particular brand or processor, mostly because 99% of PC consumers don't know and don't care what the processor is (though they really should when it comes to something like a Celeron).
So to me this just means AMD has been successful in getting their products on the eye-level shelves in the stores. Customers are buying what looks sexy, and what costs the least.
I've been happy with a couple of AMD machines I've purchased and I like that AMD continues to compete with Intel and hope AMD keeps Intel from becoming the Microsoft of the chip industry (some claim they already have), but I can't pull much real or meaningful information from this article.
Nothing to see here, move along.
I'm not even able to figure out what question is being asked here.
It sounds to me like they've created something, probably wanted to show the bosses to get some love pats (btw, DON'T DO THAT! HAVE YOU NOT BEEN READING RECENT /. ARTICLES?). And now, they're upset because the bosses want to run with the
stuff. That's kind of what happens. Sounds like the "service reps" were a little
naive, and the bosses were greedy and stupid.
(Aside: I used to work in IT, and if service rep people wanted to roll their own, there was little to be done to stop them. But PHB's who were gushing over these home grown "apps" that were successful talking the rest of the company to adopt and deploy ALWAYS ended up costing the company tons of money.... the apps were never scalable, maintainable, compatible with anything else. I'll allow that it's possible but I've seen this kind of scenario many times, and they've NEVER brought positive ROI.
From the slashdot article:
I remember, but can't cite, an article or study that pretty much shows the odds of people staying together are pretty much the same in marriages where couples fall in love (e.g., in the United States), or in arranged marriages (many cultures), even in arranged marriages where the betrothed are extremely young (sometimes as young as 12 or 13), and even in arranged marriages with large age disparities.
First, does anyone else remember any similar studies? I've found "staying together" seems to have much to do with chemistry, and little observable similarities and tastes correlate. Just curious. What are others' observations?
From the slashdot article:
I call bullhockey on this. A lot of slashdotters probably aren't even old enough to remember when Microsoft first came out with NT. Their PR releases were all abuzz with their new advanced technology OS with special emphasis on their intent to have a POSIX compliant OS. At the same time they talked me into working for them (took three offers, a signing bonus, and a pretty nice stock option offer), under the ostensible work they'd have for me to provide support for their POSIX subsystem.
Once I was in the door, and within the first week I attended what was described as a "presentation on NT's POSIX subsystem", presented by the POSIX team. That team turned out to be a guy named Matt (don't know his last name).
The project manager Margaret (don't remember HER last name) got up before the presentation and said (and I can only paraphrase, I don't remember verbatim, but guarantee the accuracy of the spirit of her comments): "Before we proceed with this presentation, there's one thing I (Microsoft) want to make clear. The POSIX subsystem is a check box. We're only doing it to fulfill the requirement to have POSIX so we can get government contracts."
I was almost physically ill, what was to be MY role (my background was Unix) if their POSIX was to be a sham? (BTW, not only did they not intend to support it, they only implemented the API portion of POSIX, not the user environment and utilities.)
I called Larry Kroger who was in charge of things and desparately asked him what I was supposed to tell people who were asking POSIX support questions. He told me, "tell them we don't support it.". What if they ask about future plans for POSIX? He replied, "tell them we have no plans.".
Forgive me if have doubts about Microsoft's purity in "plans" today to do POSIX.
Oh, and for the record, anyone who doubts my accounts... the entire presentation was videotaped (1992), as were all of their internal presentations. I only assume it would still be available today but if it is, it will reflect my accounting of events.
With each damning new report and every shred if indicting evidence that indeed the earth is entering into massive warming because of human activity it scares me a little more. As an average citizen, I am trying to help by:
I only wish others would wake up and smell the coffee and be diligent too.
And, for your part, you must not have looked at my linked comments. I recommend you read them. Once it was pointed out to me that the article WAS NOT a news article, I looked, and after a bit of work was able to figure that out. I've NEVER claimed it was an article.... I originally reacted to it as an article. But my subsequent posts, and comments were more directly to the issue that FOX didn't clearly show that. They've even gone so far as to issue their own correction.
Again, while I don't take slashdot as gospel, there wasn't anything that led me to believe the article was anything but... originally. To realize it was op-ed, you'd have to know that on the FOX site they label it as "Views" (I didn't), AND you'd have to override your tendency to ignore banner ads, since the "Views" moniker was kind of buried in what looked like a banner ad to me.
Back to your point, the piece was an opinion piece, nothing more, nothing less... you're absolutely right.
I can't believe you're getting insightful on this, since you are misquoting the original article, and you're being kind of a prick...
From your post: The original piece was not an article, but from the original slashdot story, "Anonymous Coward wrote to mention a Fox News article...". If you do a "search page" when bringing up the "read more"..., you'll not get a hit on "commentary" until way down the comments page where posters start pissing about it being a commentary.
You dodged a bullet not getting modded flame while at the same time being such a prick and being wrong.
For those who may be interested in my take on the whole thing you can read this comment, this comment, and even this concession that my original position had merit (note I didn't say right or wrong...)
It'll be interesting to see if correcting someone clearly flaming ends up getting me modded troll or flamebait. That's okay, I've got karma to burn.
From the Post:
Ahem.
Anyway, I searched and searched for more information on Gates' special visit and what he really might have said. Alas, the closest I came was buried on a meta-referred pages was the helpful:
I hate to jump the gun here, but any wagers on the content of his presentation? Any bets "involvement in technology careers" was pretty much a pitch for Microsoft? I'm not saying Gates shouldn't pitch his company, hell he should even die for it (insert your own interpretation here...)! But a surprise guest speaker? Is this a common thing? Regardless, I liken it to political free air time, and the university, to be fair and balanced (ahem), should offer another surprise guest professor, perhaps Linus (and I'm not talking Lucy's brother here)?
Excellent article, a bit long of a read but worth it. Read it!
As for pending relaase of stable OOo 2.0, the article mentions:
I need more specific data. I buy Ultra-Pasteurized milk, and the carton I recently bought has an expiration date of late November! I guess I can wait until then, I've waited this long. But, could I possibly be optimistic enough to hope he only means regular pasteurized milk? That would get me OO a couple weeks sooner!
Another interesting observation in the article:
Discounting that Gary obviously completely advocating OO and probably had a disdain for Microsoft's XML implementation, I think to the extent that what he is pointing out is true, IT managers should take note . Unfortunately most won't or don't. We live in an age where decision makers chant the "nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft" mantra, and the threat that continued Microsoft upgrade stand to completely lock in a shop to only Microsoft products probably won't frighten them. But with slightly less myopia, IT managers should realize this pending lockin could jeapordize subsequent ability to exchange information and perform transactions with other organizations (factor in the additional pending Trusted Computing technology and this gets downright scary).And should you choose not to read the entire article, read this gem of a question and response from page two:
Interesting stuff...
As a long time user and fan of Palm, (I kind of consider them the tivo of the hand held industry -- maybe not the very first there, but one of the ones that got a lot of things right ergonomically before they got steamrolled by the industry and their own inertia), the time and technology seems about right for me.
Looking at the features list it seems to fulfill much of what I've waited for (good memory, expandable vi SD, nice screen, improved and enhanced original apps).
But a question for any who really know: Will the user be able to use this wireless capability to move pictures and mp3s to the device? That would just about lock it for me, but it's not clear from the feature list and description that that is doable.
Also, are there any users out there who would vouch for today's screen quality? I would be upgrading from the Palm m5xx which has a color screen, but that screen is of less than great quality and is quite anemic. I've seen other newer devices with screens that scream -- is Palm doing the same?
I think gaim does a pretty good job, and I've actually converted lots of friends to gaim with no negative after taste. And most love the tabbed interface for multiple conversations in one window. It's nice also to have multiple protocols all available in the one application. My parents now chat with multiple people, in multiple environments, and they're not even aware that's happening. No more splaining that they have to start the yahoo messenger if they want to talk with Uncle Duane.
There's also the huge value add of no advertising.
But, I seem never to be able to upgrade gaim, at least not easily. I always have to do an rpm upgrade with the Force option because of "conflicts" with other gaim packages. And the last couple of new releases of gaim won't even install with "Force".
So, for my money, gaim comes close. Depending on the user, I've found many are okay using gaim.
As for the "state of the union" in Windows, with the recently announced merger of the Yahoo and MSN protocols (as in, freely communicate with each other), it does appear Microsoft is making its move to get closer to their tipping point to dominate the messaging market. They have some interesting features, none that I can't live without, but probably a good draw for the "hip" young crowd. I find most of the described features annoying, but then, I come from the old BSD/Sun "talk" days. Heck I guess I even come from the old Unix "write" days (get out your history books).
Let Microsoft add the fluff. But, a cautionary note, if history serves, what Microsoft is doing has the petina of old tricks. Should they manage to climb to the top and snuff out other IM services the way they've snuffed out other competitors I predict they once again will begin charging for what once was free. Or at least start charging for features that used to be free but have become addictive to their target demographic. (Hey, little girl/boy, want some streaming video with your chat?)
Wow! You remember BYTE? Actually that was one of my favorite magazines. I thought the in-depth articles were great, and the fluff was handy reading for a quick sitdown ;-).
So, if you remember BYTE, I wonder if you remember its demise and how it was handled if you were a subscriber. I one day received in the mail instead of my anticipated BYTE, instead an issue of PC Magazine (I believe that was the substitute...), a shill for Microsoft platforms and applications. I got a letter splaining BYTE was no longer being published but the remainder of my subscription (measured in years) would be delivered with the value-added subscription to PC Magazine.... hwah? I called, wrote, and begged and yelled to just get a refund as PC Magazine was not a magazine I liked, nor would EVER read. But, to no avail. So, for the remainder of the subscription, one more useless magazine to the recycle bin. Sigh.
(Aside, one of my very favorite in-depths from BYTE was a long-read article on modems, and how they squeezed 56k out of a 3000Hz conditioned phone line -- very cool. Learned a lot of tricks from BYTE.)
Since then I've been extremely reluctant to sign up for any magazines for more than one year at a time. That way, the Expected Value, E, of bogus issues should it happen again would be around six. Sigh again.
For all the Sony-bashing I've done, I have to salute Sony for stepping up to this one, no matter their motivation, though it looks mostly to be customer service and satisfaction. There are probably many of these defectives far out of warranty. Good for Sony!
I posted on this a while back, and predicted a shortage, especially in the upcoming holiday season. I thought, and still think, this could be somewhat artificial so Microsoft can roll it out under way-too-high prices under the auspices of "rare" goods (anyone remember the Cabbage Patch Dolls?).
So, they create an artificial shortage, whip up crazed demand, sell way over price through the holiday season with the additional wallop of great sales afterwards from all of the parents who weren't able to get the box for their kids, but promised they'd get it for them as soon as they became available. Good marketing... turns my stomach a bit.
from the article: Internal memory is 80Mb, and this is expandable through Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo cards (64Mb is included, 2Gb maximum).
'Nuff said.
Enough with the proprietary memory stick technology already!
I hate company's that use a stick to sell their product.
A memory carrot would be more to my liking. (Can you say SD, or MMC?)
I think this is a very cool device and have often wondered why more devices haven't come with wireless re-chargability (think electric toothbrushes). But I wonder about the efficiency of this method. Is it? And if it's not, how less efficient is it than direct contact recharging? As more and more gadgets and devices become rechargable technology this would seem to be more important. I don't know much about electronics at the engineering level, so any erudite replies would be appreciated.