We also know what happens to normal chickens in normal gravity. I raised chickens on a farm in New Hampshire quite some time ago and these chickens were "roasters" bred and fed to grow to the size of a small turkey. They got really big.
In fact they got so heavy that their bones twisted and they could not walk well.
This strongly suggests that, since Superman was developed from a race of people who lived in high gravity, the makeup of their bones and joints was significantly different as compared to ours. While muscles might atrophy in lighter gravity, the underlying skelatal structure and capabilities would enable some pretty great feats of strength.
The original Superman could only "leap over tall buildings in a single bound." The flying thing came about later and it is absolutely non-scientific as is the use of the cape to "protect" him from airless space travel. While we could benefit from the development of stronger muscles by using weight suits and centrifuges, anything that doubled our weight would certainly cause problems. Additionally, children who have softer bones are not supposed to lift weights until they are of a certain age, so being raised in a centrifuge would certainly be injurious to humans.
The story about the super chickens is about using a different animal with significantly different bone strength-to-weight than we have. It doesn't really translate well to humans.
You are 100% right that Apple's strategy is to sell more boxes. They create killer applications and sell them in a manner that will encourage the purchase of more Macs.
With Shake you are not going to sit down with a client behind you in the room and interactively change around your composite while the client makes comments, viewing changes on a broadcast monitor.
I disagree that Shake is never used in a facility with someone looking over one's shoulder. Art Directors insinuate themselves into every process in the world I work in, and a Shake compositing suite is definitely one of them. I would argue that the Shake-FCP workflow is a little bit of a problem for that because, with art directors, one tends to get a person who cannot visualize how everything is going to come together. I would prefer to never have to deal with them, though I might be tempted were they to be outfitted with a shock collar that will stun them whenever they become excessively stupid (which tends to happen within five minutes of their entry).
If you are working more on film and less on television, I do see your point. Editors and Compositors are taken seriously in that realm and are offered respect and status. I tend to work with television, where we're generally viewed as scum that does not substantially add to the product.
My primary tool is the Avid DS-Nitris. The workflow on the DS is superior to that on Shake-FCP as you can edit as you composite. Some of the tools on the Autodesk boxes are outstripping the Avid product presently, which is causing some consternation within the ranks of DS artists. Apple's Shake has a better blue/green screen keyer and so do the Autodesk tools, there are issues with the way the DS handles premultiplied and non-premultiplied keys that cause us problems, but we do get on the air pretty fast with a DS where I don't think the Apple solution could deliver.
I have added you as a friend. Your comments are insightful and based on reality.
No they didn't. And, really truly it doesn't matter. The price drop here is to try to attract users of other software, like Autodesk Discreet Flame or the Avid DS-Nitris. The former runs about $80,000 for a full workstation and the latter is $125,000.
Apple here is unbundling render farm licenses and providing potential users with a look-see that is designed to sell Macintosh computers. The Mac version works better with Apple's Motion, so you can see that this is being marketed at the hobbyist and the very small studio with lots of time to render (on one machine, rather than a farm).
The high end motion picture and feature people who are working at film resolution totally don't care about a relatively minor price drop like this. They're willing to pay what they're willing to pay to get their job done. Is it cheaper than film processing? Yes? OK, let's invest. They don't care if it's cheaper now, they care that their visual effects artist knows the application. And they'll be buying whatever their VFX artist knows (and recommends).
So you can see this in two ways:
Apple is selling hardware by reducing the Mac-only cost.
Apple is trying to seed more people who know the application into the stream of up-and-coming VFX artists
Either way looks good for Apple.
Disclosure: I use Avid's DS-Nitris for compositing for a national television network in the United States.
Actually, the relationship one has with one's phone is much more subtile than that.
There have been a number of studies that seem to point to the way a telephone user will express one's self as if though the person they are talking with on the telephone was actually there. Phone conversations with intimate associates tend to contain body languages that express that relationship, while a telephone conversation with one's boss will result, generally, in postures that reflect that relationship.
Additionally there is the relationship with one's device in terms of how one is validated by one's buying choice. I have seen people show off their cell phone as if it were some kind of statement about themself.
What I think is most profound here is an incident that happened to me about a week ago.
My fiancee washed my Nokia 2260 cell phone, as I left it in my shirt pocket. She was horrified and I started thinking about how I was probably going to have to replace the phone. I removed its back and its battery and let it air dry for a day. Then I put it back together and turned it on. It worked just fine. I could almost hear the voice of John Cameron Swayze in the backgrond intoning: "It takes a licking and keeps on ticking..."
The newer cell phones most probably could not survive a washing in a laundry. And I'll bet the ones designed by these students -- if made -- wouldn't. But I'd have to say that I now have a sentimental feeling about my cell phone. It's a survivor.
By the way, I get married on 24 June, 2006. My fiancee likes my phone, too.
Seriously, folks this is a situation where a story about a candidate for a Darwin Award has been spun so hard I'm still reeling. From the article, he climbed over a safety fence. One would presume the fence was there because the robot within that fence was not designed to shut itself off in the event someone entered. And then he complicates matters by [failing] to switch the robot off properly.
This unsigned article-writer from The Economist really wants to talk about Robots and making them safe and "human-proof." And that's probably a good idea. But Darwin Awards candidates probably are bad examples to start with.
It is generally considered "dirty pool" to have someone train a replacement for any job because the end result is generally someone with all of the bad habits of their predecessor. But in this case, Bank of America is not letting someone go for bad habits, unless one considers a living wage to be a bad habit.
I would suggest this is a prime opportunity for training methodology that results in a type of Hungarian Phrasebook effect. That would be the most appropriate response to this request.
I'm not a lawyer, either but the Supreme Court decision regarding the release of telco records (and please notice, I stipulate that they belong to the telephone companies) was based on a particular device placed on one person's line to record who he called (and not the content of his calls). This was in order to give law enforcement proof that he was, indeed, telephoning a complainant and threatening her.
What we have here is not the application of a device on one person's telephone. We have a wholsale fishing expedition
with no warrant by a government that is extremely secretive and interested in finding its own leakers of internal information to the press so that it may attack the press. The government may tap its own lines and tell everyone at the White House or within the administration that all phone calls from the White House will be tapped, recorded, etc. But leakers have to go home sometime and they tend to talk to the press from lines that are not necessarily in the domain of the administration.
If the reader thinks that this kind of information was procured and processed only to go after al-Qaeda operatives, I would accuse the reader of being naïve.
Microsoft was interested in releasing this pre-Beta 2 (call it Beta 1.5) to this particular writer because doing so hypes the product and starts geting people talking about it 6 to 9 months before the OS is released. This is typical of the Microsoft PR Engine.
Additionally, the writer's comment that Vista "... is a good looking operating system with a number of new features, which will be familiar to you if you've played with recent versions of Apple's OS X." is designed to try to stop Windows users from switching to Apple's hardware and operating system due to Mac-Envy. Read it like this: "Just wait until Vista comes out and you'll get all of the things the Mac Fanboys have been chortling about on their operating system."
The instalation headaches are a pretty good way of decreasing expectations; it's kind of like how the US government will lower expectations for a conference by saying things like "the two sides are nowhere near an agreement." Read this like: "You'll get close to 60% of the ease of use and function the Mac Fanboys have been chortling about on their operating system."
The author works for MSNBC and you'd better believe that the cable channel will present a report from him as if it were "news" and it will show lots of images of the operating system running correctly on his computer (or on a specially-provided one from Microsoft). This should be seen as: "Just look at all of the coolness of Vista, like the Mac Fanboys have been chortling about on their operating system."
I should mention that I did a lot of work for Microsoft in years past and was involved in the promotion of the release of a not-very insignificant operating system release, called "Windows 95" (some here are young enough to remember back then). Microsoft released hundreds of tapes (or edited promo packages via satellite) to "news" outfits to run on their "news" programs. These consisted of video news releases (promotion masquerading as a real news story), clip reels that show everything from manufacturing to how it works (to provide the stations with something to air while they talk about it so that they'd run stories -- or free advertising -- about the new exciting Microsoft product) and answers to "interview" questions from Microsoft executives and project leaders so that they could be used as soundbites within station "news" stories. Microsoft is presently preparing to flood the airways and the press with information about their new operating system in a campaign to get users to not switch to other operating systems and to prepare to buy the Vista upgrade.
Executives are, even now, sallying forth from Microsoft to "do the circuit" of Technology talk shows as the hype engine prepares to swing into gear. I would imagine that Vista will get the same treatment in "roll out" hype as did Windows 95.
I should also mention that the release version of Microsoft Windows 95 convinced me that I ought to switch to Apple's operating system. I installed it on my personal computer and it proceeded to wipe out all data on two 512M hard drives (that would be the one it was being installed on as well as the other one on which it was not being installed. I reasoned, at the time, that if I was going to need to completely upgrade my way of working with an operating system, I ought to switch to something that did not tend to destroy data. Thankfully, I did have a tape backup of both drives.
I find graphing in Microsoft Excel to be completely unacceptable. I know that Excel will export data to the applications listed here and I wonder if Open Office's Calc program will do the same.
Of course maybe Open Office Org could see if they cannot find a means by which they could create a competitor to something like Wolfram's Mathematica.
I do understand your fine point but one continues to have the right to demand that the phone company not sell your records or distribute your records to third parties and I have done that.
In this case, at least two telephone companies readily gave up information to the government without any court order, subpeona or warrant -- regardless of whether or not the customers made a demand that the phone companies not distribute this information.
The thing that bothers me is that this administration can choose to do anything they like with the data -- including search for leaks that are not specifically authorized by this administration and attack the reporters for receiving leaks (this has all ready happened in the Valerie Plame case). These kinds of wholesale attacks on freedom of the press violate the First Amendment by ignoring the Fourth Amendment.
Quest, in this case (and the various cable companies that offer VOIP) refused to hand over records without a court order, warrant or subpeona.
Full disclosure here: I work for a press outfit and America sees my work on television daily.
The issue with NSA spying is all about how the Constitution guarantees us rights to not be searched against our will and without reasonable cause or a judge's order. The administration says that, when Congress passed the so-called "patriot" act, it gave the President (the Executive Branch of our government) the go-ahead to take this extraordinary measure of searches and siezures (wiretapping falls under that) without a warrant.
Here is what a warrant does:
It involves another official of government, one who is supposed to be impartial and not on either the side of the individual or on the side of the Executive Branch.
It involves someone from another branch of government that holds itself (somewhat) aloof from the politics of the day.
It involves a branch of government dedicated to the examination, on a case-by-case basis of the actions of both the Executive and Legislative branches of government.
It involves a branch of government that may be overruled by appeals that end at the US Supreme Court (or for state laws at their State Supreme Courts).
The Executive (in this case) says it has a two-to-three majority against the Judiciary and believes it is unassilable because "Congress told me I could." Presently, a lot of people in Congress are having a serious problem admitting that they did decide to allow searches without warrants.
Now that's the general environment into which this release of all telephone records plays. According to the US Supreme Court, a "warrantless installation of (a) pen register (does) not violate the Fourth Amendment." Follow the link to read the case law. Qwest decided that the government was not installing a pen register (a device to record the numbers called from one telephone to all others) and stated that, in their opinion, the release of all records does not constitute that permitted warantless intrusion into their records on their clients. The other telcos blinked.
But the issue that has dogged this very secretive administration the most is not their casual violation of the Constitution that they swore to uphold and protect, it's those pesky leaks from people who work for them who, presumably, wish that they weren't so darned casual about First and Fourth Amendment protections and wish they hadn't lied about their reasons for declaring war that will never end in order to get re-elected.
Those leaks could be real problematic, because they cause reporters (even ours, who seem more like lapdogs to this administration than anything else) to ask questions that make them feel uncomfortable and make it hard for them to justify their positions on other matters, like Immigration "reform" and Social Security "reform." The administration would like to think its "bank of political capital" is not overdrawn.
They don't want oversight by any branch of the government, which includes both the Legislative and the Judiciary. They also don't want oversight by the press (yes, dear reader, guilty as charged) or by the public as a whole, especially as it reacts to revelations of their secretive doings published by the press.
Now, they're warning the press that they have all of the records of all of the calls the members of the press have made to the leakers in this administration and they're going to go after them one by one.
I would ask, if they're so worried about oversight, why do anything that the majority might consider wrong? Americans are currently split (51%-49% but within the margin for error) on whether or not the administration's demand for these telco records without a warrant is justifyable, but one might consider the fact that the press (and that would blame me, too) has not sufficiently educated the public as to the narrowness of the Supreme Court decision, nor has it taken a position that the protection of all rig
I took his comment to mean that Open Office could not accurately reproduce the actual structure of his files. To be fair though, Microsoft's translators do not always do a good job of accurately reproducing documents when one is using earlier versions of the Microsoft Office Suite (as I did for years on my Macintosh).
Overall, I liked the article, as his final conclusion is that Microsoft does have some competition from Linux. One does have to dedicate one's self to being a hobbyist -- or increasing one's computer literacy in order to successfully run Linux but I think that's probably appropriate.
I remember my first IBM pee cee. It was the pre-XT model and I eventually installed a hard drive (30 megabytes!!) in it and I spent hours exploring what MS-DOS could do and how I could set the computer up to work for me. I had the time and I took the time to become very computer-literate, pretty much a power-user of the character-based MS-DOS system. I did the same with Windoze when that came out. I switched to Macintosh when Microsoft came out with Windoze 95 and the installation of that operating system on my computer destroyed all the data I had on my pee cee. Thankfully, I had a usable tape backup. I knew at the time that I was going to upgrade my operating system and would need a computer upgrade soon. I decided that, since Windoze had become totally new and was capable of b0rking all of my data, I might as well switch to something better with fewer headaches.
As a result, I have had to develop computer literacy on the Macintosh but I would have to say that it's easier on a Mac to do that. It's more intuitive, once you get the main gist of the operating system. It's also easier to maintain.
Except now.
Apple's OS X is a flavor of Unix and, as such, a lot of my old "hobbyist" knowledge from MS-DOS has become useful to know. Under Apple's old System software, I generally could operate a very low-maintenance computer. Problem was, it only worked with Mac-compatible gear so one had to be careful to select that when making purchases. And that Mac-compatibility usually cost "extra." (I put "extra" in quotes because the ease-of-use and the guarantee of performance that was an integral part of the Macintosh universe can be seen as cost-reduction.)
Nowadays, more stuff is compatible with Macintosh, which is good. But I'm back to needing to take time to maintain things. It's not as bad as when I was operating in Windoze on a pee cee because, after a while, windoze tends to drown in its own excrement. IT people tell me that it's a good idea to periodically "refresh" a Windoze installation (read reinstall everything) to keep it working at optimum performance. I have a real problem with that.
For Linux to effectively challenge any operating system, it needs to be more maintenance-free. I would accept the Windoze-level of maintenance, would prefer a OS-X level of maintenance and would really like a System 7.5 level of maintenance (essentially none) -- only with a modern operating system with threads, pre-emptive multitasking and so on...
It didn't get mass coverage because things like this never get mass coverage.
Huh?
It aired the next day on NBC Nightly News. I know, I promoed it in the Nightly Headlines I edited for air the next day.
MSNBC had it on all day the following day -- and they aired the complete performance (I hope they had rights, else NBC will do staff cutbacks to pay for the lawsuit like they did after MSNBC aired whole performances of Frank Sinatra way outside of the "Fair Use" window after he died).
I definitely did see a clip on CNN, though I don't know how much time they devoted to it.
I also saw someone tuned to Fox "news" channel and they had it on.
Frankly, I looked at this as an attempt by a pretty politically bankrupt administration trying to look like "the good guys who can take a joke" more than anything else. But this may run in the family. Bush I invited Dana Carvey to do his routine on him in his waning days as President -- and that got lots of airtime.
I like your comment. And the reason why I like it so much has to do with my (past) experience on a University system. Universities developed servers and file sharing with Macs using Sun's servers because Apple really didn't have a server. I mean you could put a Mac (usually an older one) on a network and tell it to share files with everyone but it lacked lots of stuff you would expect to have in a server and it tended to be pretty slow.
I would argue that it was the University exposure that lead Apple to offer Ethernet on Macs. Appletalk was great and people hooked themselves up very quickly with Appletalk (you could buy cabling at your local Radio Shack or use almost any twisted-pair cabling, including electrical cables) but Ethernet was a lot faster and more reliable. I'll bet the folks who developed 10 Base-T Ethernet were thinking Appletalk when they came up with the design for the connector and the twisted pair.
But I digress...
I did a fair amount of work with a hard Science department and they all had Suns as servers. They were strictly Sun Unix for the geeks and they developed systems and applications on that model. But for those who actually had to function in an office environment, the Macs were standard. They used Microsoft's Office for memos, reports and spreadsheets and TeX for document publishing. Everything you did worked.
Frankly, I think this legacy is part of the reason why Apple got fascinated with Unix again (that, and Jobs' NeXt company). It would be a good marriage. Apple's X-Serve RAIDs with Sun. Sweet!
I think I have you by tenfold with my artificial right knee. Installed in me in 1997 by Dr. Scott (an highly-recommended surgeon with almost no bedside manner) I'm headed for another knee replacement on the left, due to a kind of osteoarthritis that runs in my family.
The article shows several major advancements and is nothing really new. I heard about the experimentation on the artificial eye some years back. The prosthetic hand is a pretty good advance, though it has a way to go to match the fine motor control we have in our hands and fingers. A device that lets us effortlessly carry an additional 200 pounds is nice, though we do have vehidles that carry much more.
I believe we have a long way to go before we can even mimic the human body. My knee, for example, will do a "twist-lock" that a human knee will do. But I cannot sit on my heels. In designing the knee, doctors were faced with an "either-or" proposition and chose twist-lock.
I also cannot pass through an airport magnetometer without setting it off. But the inconvenience is certainly worth the lack of pain I have in the joint.
The Supreme Court of the United States will continue until or unless our constitution is annulled (another revolution happens and a new constitution is written). It is, as is the Congress and the Executive Branch, an organization that outlives the individual lives of its membership. And this is why I figure on 20 years. It's another generation removed from this one, which has not taken any action against the abuse of executive power under the current regime.
At Guantanamo, the prisoners don't have any rights to a trial or access to the American Justice system -- until the US Supreme Court decides that it is not Constitutional for the Executive branch to accuse, convict and execute the sentence on a person with no trial. I figure he'd be there for about 20 years with no trial until this Supreme Court wakes up.
What he ought to fear is an overseas detention compound as this is where one British releasee suffered torture, not at Gitmo.
While I agree this is a ploy by his lawyer to try this case in the Court of Public Opinion (at least in England where Guantanamo is not very popular), the US apparently doesn't torture prisoners there. They torture them elsewhere because Guantanamo is under too much public scrutiny
I agree with you that Cringely is trying to project his desires on his predictions but you are forgetting something about business.
I work at a worldwide corporation. The computer I am using presently uses Windoze 2000. Some of the high-end workstations use Windoze XP but most of what everyone works on is using 2000.
Why is this important?
Corporations are not thirsting after the concept of upgrading their computers to the next big thing, be it Vista or OS X. By and large, big Corps don't ever upgrade their computers' OS because it is financially wasteful to do so. They install patches and upgrades -- especially where there are needs caused by malware but they don't do upgrades. Those cost money and require their MIS-DP departments to go to each computer and do the update or configure a network upgrade in hopes that it will work on all computers (and these things seldom do).
I believe you are an early adopter and the type of computer user that turns you into a "hobbyist." You like messing around with computers and find the operating system environment to be an interesting thing to explore. You probably edit configuration files so that your computer dances to your tune and not necessarily the one played by the manufacturer. Big corporations don't do this. And the people who work for these companies don't either. They think Windows is the only OS worth using because that's what is installed on almost all computers. Many of the companies' users are only minimally proficient in the operating system and the applications. They know one or two applications in which they do stuff and those applications are pretty much where they live. They resist having to learn something new.
Apple's superior operating system is not on the radar screen for these companies and their workers. They'd never install it on their computers, anyway.
Apple cannot release a generic operating system for the average pee cee. They're a hardware company that makes software that isn't clunky. In one sense, they're like HP is for printers. HP puts together software for their printers so you can use them. And they include that software with every printer you buy from them. But they're not out there trying to make printer drivers for Epson printers -- even though one of their drivers may get one to work. HP wants to sell HP printers, not Epson ones. Apple wants to sell Apple computers, not Dell computers.
I believe Mr. Cringely is flat wrong. Apple did an experiment with the clones and Jobs killed it. Apple simply ceased authorizing new clones to work with their operating system. They didn't like the competition in hardware. They won't invite it back.
I have a Nokia 6010 and it interferes with my Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Now these are some expensive headphones ($300 SRP) and I honestly think that Mr. Bose ought to have had his people design a cord that would not pick up interference from cell phones for that price.
I also pick up interference from other people's cell phones and blackberry devices as well. While that interference is less than the kind I get from my Nokia in my shirt pocket with the headset cable nearby (or on top), I still hear it and it is an annoyance.
Should airlines allow cellular calling in the air, this may actually cause damage to the ears while on board long flights -- especially if one's seat is located near the cellular station on the aircraft.
I, too, read Being Digital as well as Gates' book. Gates hired a ghostwriter to spin his thoughts into something readable. He does have vision: namely "Information at your fingertips," unfortunately his company doesn't tend to allow the users of their technology to realize that.
I'll give you an example: With my Macintosh and a.Mac account, I can hot-sync my Palm T|X (or any other Palm device, including their cell phones) and I can access my calendar and contacts from anywhere in the world by signing onto my.Mac account via a web browser. The data is actually stored in three places: my Mac, my Palm T|X and on Apple's servers. Apple's iSync program keeps everything synchronized. I can access my.Mac account's e-mail directly through my T|X's wireless connection.
Microsoft doesn't play well with others. If you have a Palm device you have to purchase a non Palm and non Microsoft application to synchronize your contacts and calendar with Microsoft's e-mail program, Outlook. There is no such service as.Mac so your contact information is on your pee cee running windoze and on your Palm. If you buy into the handheld windoze software, it synchronizes more easily with Outlook in that you don't have to purchase a third-party application but your information is not available anywhere -- only on your computer and your handheld.
Negroponte's ideas for a user interface that require no learning are classic examples of how one has to become computer literate -- essentially learning another language -- in order to function in modern society. This adds another barrier -- especially to those who are "have nots."
Slashdot's user community has a lot of people who write code. I recommend Negroponte's Being Digital to anyone who writes code because, if one thinks about his message, one tends to think in terms of someone who is not necessarily computer literate and tries to accomodate that in their applications. I think that makes computer applications better.
I don't find myself recommending Gates' book.
Gates' philanthropy is wonderful. He is to be praised for his foundation and the work it does. But this foundation is not representative of Bill Gates' thinking, it is representative of his wealth and his desire to be a good citizen in this world. I think everyone wants to be a good citizen. Gates doesn't think "outside of the box." Negroponte does.
Everyone is very quick to speak ill of Negroponte's efforts here which are all about building a project that works and places computers onto the desks (or laps) of the "have-nots." Based on what I have read of the man he's an original thinker and very creative.
Usually, the entrenched tend to be very frightened of those types.
I generally like what he has been doing, which mostly amounts to leveling the playing field between big business and the people -- but one can easily see the opportunitism here of a very political animal in the cases he takes on and how his PR machine works it. He was elected by mostly Democrats to be the Attorney General under a Republican Governor with whom he has had a mostly uneven relationship. He did not challenge this Governor (Pataki) until the Governor announced that he is planning on leaving office, though he has gone after many of the Governor's financiers and political cronies.
In not running against this particular governor, he has set his office up as a stepping-stone to the office of Governor for himself. A very shrewd move. Were he to have remained as a candidate for Attorney General (especially with the favorable press he has been receiving in the state of New York) I'd say he's close to 90% altruistic -- a very hard-working prosecutor with an eye for the kind of justice that sells newspapers. By virtue of his run for Governor and the timing of that run, I'd say he's about 50 to 55% altruistic and would probably make a pretty good, if not combative Governor.
I recall another prosecutor who is rumored to have made a good executive: Giuliani. But Rudy Giuliani was best-suited to crisis management. He tended to get bored and pick fights (usually with the helpless) when things got quiet. Unfortunately I think Rudy has sold his soul to the Republican right (which is wrong).
My overall favorable impression of Mr. Spitzer will, likewise, tumble should he sell his soul to a national political machine. These types are best when they're fighting the good fight with no hangers-on and no encumbrances.
MS would have much more time to make Vista if OS X weren't showing it up so often.
I am going to disagree with this one statement you made in your article (which was very insightful, by the way).
Microsoft (and later, Apple) discovered that people would pay to upgrade their operating system and that would enhance their bottom line. All of a sudden the OS became an application where adding features and complexity was something that would increase revenues.
Microsoft is late on Vista for lots of reasons. But Microsoft is in a hurry to pump it out because it garners the same revenue from sales for the company that the selling of application upgrades does.
I'm not upgrading Microsoft's Office on my Mac. I'm sure it bothers Microsoft that I'm not doing that but I wait until there is enough reason to upgrade and, for me, the reason to upgrade will be when Microsoft comes out with a universal binary. That way I'll be ready for my next Mac. Microsoft wants its money so they made it harder for me to upgrade from Office 4.2.1 to Office X. I first had to buy a copy of Word that was newer than the one I had, install that and then I could install the Office X upgrade. But, over the years, I saved a lot in not upgrading and Office 4.2.1 was just fine for me. To its discredit, it worked a lot like the version of Office I used with Windows 3.1 before I switched to a Mac in 1996.
There are people who do not upgrade their Microsoft operating system. There are lots of good reasons, hardware issues, financial issues and "works fine for me" issues. I work with Windows 2000 at the office because it has not been upgraded due to the current OS not having been "checked out" fully by our IT department (the company I work for is spread out all over the world). We do have XP installed on some of our high-end workstations but for normal stuff, it's Windoze 2000 Pro.
But I do believe you underestimate the importance of the financial reward for Microsoft (and Apple) in coaxing people into buying an OS upgrade.
With respect to Saudi Arabia as it is today, you are correct. Their history is quite different, as the al-Saud royal family allied themselves with Wahibist extremist clerics. See Saudi holds cards to Islam's future for a brief history.
I suppose I could drone on about various other readings, mostly published books covering the rise of the Moorish state in Iberia as well as the formation and history of Saudi Arabia under Abdul Aziz Ibn Al-Saud but there is ample opportunity for you to discover these yourself if you are truly interested.
I have read a lot of history about the Islamic empire that stretched from India to Iberia. This is largely an extension of my desire to understand Spanish history.
To say that Islam created these wonders is to ignore what was actually happening in the society that was the Islamic empire. The empire was tolerant of all religions and beliefs, including people "not of the book," which would include persons that were not Jews and Christians. This empire preached tolerance and benefitted from having non-believers because the government taxed non-believers more (which may have influenced the less-firm in their beliefs to convert).
The end result was a polycultural society that valued innovation, high art and wonderful architecture. And I would argue that it's not the dominant religion that was responsible but the society.
If you look at the last century, you'll see lots of Nobel Prize winners in the sciences coming from America (that would be The Great Satan to many Islamic societies -- especially Iran). Could it be that a polycultural society with vast natural resources is what helps in the creation of these innovations?
I look at these monocultural and intolerant societies as non-creators of advancements. For examples, one merely needs to look at Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iran and China under the Cultural Revolution.
I agree that it is important to look to history and appreciate those innovations and inventions that came before but to suggest that a religion created these is to ignore what really happened.
I should note that, when Iberia turned monocultural and intolerent under the Kings of Castile and Aragon, they created and innovated such wonderous examples as the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion and forced conversion (and further persecution) of Jews and the encomienda system of tributory labor that was used to enslave and destroy Native American nations and civilizations. [sarcasm]It's a shame these innovations happened so long ago; they surely would have been awarded Nobel prizes for them.[/sarcasm]
I do not wish to detract from the religion that is Islam. I know a great number of practicing muslims and they are good people with whom I have very good friendships. I believe that people should get along with their neighbors and appreciate them more by striving to understand them. But the article seems to gloss over the fact that the culture probably begat the advancements rather than the religion.
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We also know what happens to normal chickens in normal gravity. I raised chickens on a farm in New Hampshire quite some time ago and these chickens were "roasters" bred and fed to grow to the size of a small turkey. They got really big.
In fact they got so heavy that their bones twisted and they could not walk well.
This strongly suggests that, since Superman was developed from a race of people who lived in high gravity, the makeup of their bones and joints was significantly different as compared to ours. While muscles might atrophy in lighter gravity, the underlying skelatal structure and capabilities would enable some pretty great feats of strength.
The original Superman could only "leap over tall buildings in a single bound." The flying thing came about later and it is absolutely non-scientific as is the use of the cape to "protect" him from airless space travel. While we could benefit from the development of stronger muscles by using weight suits and centrifuges, anything that doubled our weight would certainly cause problems. Additionally, children who have softer bones are not supposed to lift weights until they are of a certain age, so being raised in a centrifuge would certainly be injurious to humans.
The story about the super chickens is about using a different animal with significantly different bone strength-to-weight than we have. It doesn't really translate well to humans.
You are 100% right that Apple's strategy is to sell more boxes. They create killer applications and sell them in a manner that will encourage the purchase of more Macs.
With Shake you are not going to sit down with a client behind you in the room and interactively change around your composite while the client makes comments, viewing changes on a broadcast monitor.
I disagree that Shake is never used in a facility with someone looking over one's shoulder. Art Directors insinuate themselves into every process in the world I work in, and a Shake compositing suite is definitely one of them. I would argue that the Shake-FCP workflow is a little bit of a problem for that because, with art directors, one tends to get a person who cannot visualize how everything is going to come together. I would prefer to never have to deal with them, though I might be tempted were they to be outfitted with a shock collar that will stun them whenever they become excessively stupid (which tends to happen within five minutes of their entry).
If you are working more on film and less on television, I do see your point. Editors and Compositors are taken seriously in that realm and are offered respect and status. I tend to work with television, where we're generally viewed as scum that does not substantially add to the product.
My primary tool is the Avid DS-Nitris. The workflow on the DS is superior to that on Shake-FCP as you can edit as you composite. Some of the tools on the Autodesk boxes are outstripping the Avid product presently, which is causing some consternation within the ranks of DS artists. Apple's Shake has a better blue/green screen keyer and so do the Autodesk tools, there are issues with the way the DS handles premultiplied and non-premultiplied keys that cause us problems, but we do get on the air pretty fast with a DS where I don't think the Apple solution could deliver.
I have added you as a friend. Your comments are insightful and based on reality.
No they didn't. And, really truly it doesn't matter. The price drop here is to try to attract users of other software, like Autodesk Discreet Flame or the Avid DS-Nitris. The former runs about $80,000 for a full workstation and the latter is $125,000.
Apple here is unbundling render farm licenses and providing potential users with a look-see that is designed to sell Macintosh computers. The Mac version works better with Apple's Motion, so you can see that this is being marketed at the hobbyist and the very small studio with lots of time to render (on one machine, rather than a farm).
The high end motion picture and feature people who are working at film resolution totally don't care about a relatively minor price drop like this. They're willing to pay what they're willing to pay to get their job done. Is it cheaper than film processing? Yes? OK, let's invest. They don't care if it's cheaper now, they care that their visual effects artist knows the application. And they'll be buying whatever their VFX artist knows (and recommends).
So you can see this in two ways:
Apple is selling hardware by reducing the Mac-only cost.
Apple is trying to seed more people who know the application into the stream of up-and-coming VFX artists
Either way looks good for Apple.
Disclosure: I use Avid's DS-Nitris for compositing for a national television network in the United States.
Actually, the relationship one has with one's phone is much more subtile than that.
There have been a number of studies that seem to point to the way a telephone user will express one's self as if though the person they are talking with on the telephone was actually there. Phone conversations with intimate associates tend to contain body languages that express that relationship, while a telephone conversation with one's boss will result, generally, in postures that reflect that relationship.
Additionally there is the relationship with one's device in terms of how one is validated by one's buying choice. I have seen people show off their cell phone as if it were some kind of statement about themself.
What I think is most profound here is an incident that happened to me about a week ago.
My fiancee washed my Nokia 2260 cell phone, as I left it in my shirt pocket. She was horrified and I started thinking about how I was probably going to have to replace the phone. I removed its back and its battery and let it air dry for a day. Then I put it back together and turned it on. It worked just fine. I could almost hear the voice of John Cameron Swayze in the backgrond intoning: "It takes a licking and keeps on ticking..."
The newer cell phones most probably could not survive a washing in a laundry. And I'll bet the ones designed by these students -- if made -- wouldn't. But I'd have to say that I now have a sentimental feeling about my cell phone. It's a survivor.
By the way, I get married on 24 June, 2006. My fiancee likes my phone, too.
Seriously, folks this is a situation where a story about a candidate for a Darwin Award has been spun so hard I'm still reeling. From the article, he climbed over a safety fence. One would presume the fence was there because the robot within that fence was not designed to shut itself off in the event someone entered. And then he complicates matters by [failing] to switch the robot off properly.
This unsigned article-writer from The Economist really wants to talk about Robots and making them safe and "human-proof." And that's probably a good idea. But Darwin Awards candidates probably are bad examples to start with.
It is generally considered "dirty pool" to have someone train a replacement for any job because the end result is generally someone with all of the bad habits of their predecessor. But in this case, Bank of America is not letting someone go for bad habits, unless one considers a living wage to be a bad habit.
I would suggest this is a prime opportunity for training methodology that results in a type of Hungarian Phrasebook effect. That would be the most appropriate response to this request.
I'm not a lawyer, either but the Supreme Court decision regarding the release of telco records (and please notice, I stipulate that they belong to the telephone companies) was based on a particular device placed on one person's line to record who he called (and not the content of his calls). This was in order to give law enforcement proof that he was, indeed, telephoning a complainant and threatening her.
What we have here is not the application of a device on one person's telephone. We have a wholsale fishing expedition
with no warrant by a government that is extremely secretive and interested in finding its own leakers of internal information to the press so that it may attack the press. The government may tap its own lines and tell everyone at the White House or within the administration that all phone calls from the White House will be tapped, recorded, etc. But leakers have to go home sometime and they tend to talk to the press from lines that are not necessarily in the domain of the administration.If the reader thinks that this kind of information was procured and processed only to go after al-Qaeda operatives, I would accuse the reader of being naïve.
Microsoft was interested in releasing this pre-Beta 2 (call it Beta 1.5) to this particular writer because doing so hypes the product and starts geting people talking about it 6 to 9 months before the OS is released. This is typical of the Microsoft PR Engine.
Additionally, the writer's comment that Vista "... is a good looking operating system with a number of new features, which will be familiar to you if you've played with recent versions of Apple's OS X." is designed to try to stop Windows users from switching to Apple's hardware and operating system due to Mac-Envy. Read it like this: "Just wait until Vista comes out and you'll get all of the things the Mac Fanboys have been chortling about on their operating system."
The instalation headaches are a pretty good way of decreasing expectations; it's kind of like how the US government will lower expectations for a conference by saying things like "the two sides are nowhere near an agreement." Read this like: "You'll get close to 60% of the ease of use and function the Mac Fanboys have been chortling about on their operating system."
The author works for MSNBC and you'd better believe that the cable channel will present a report from him as if it were "news" and it will show lots of images of the operating system running correctly on his computer (or on a specially-provided one from Microsoft). This should be seen as: "Just look at all of the coolness of Vista, like the Mac Fanboys have been chortling about on their operating system."
I should mention that I did a lot of work for Microsoft in years past and was involved in the promotion of the release of a not-very insignificant operating system release, called "Windows 95" (some here are young enough to remember back then). Microsoft released hundreds of tapes (or edited promo packages via satellite) to "news" outfits to run on their "news" programs. These consisted of video news releases (promotion masquerading as a real news story), clip reels that show everything from manufacturing to how it works (to provide the stations with something to air while they talk about it so that they'd run stories -- or free advertising -- about the new exciting Microsoft product) and answers to "interview" questions from Microsoft executives and project leaders so that they could be used as soundbites within station "news" stories. Microsoft is presently preparing to flood the airways and the press with information about their new operating system in a campaign to get users to not switch to other operating systems and to prepare to buy the Vista upgrade.
Executives are, even now, sallying forth from Microsoft to "do the circuit" of Technology talk shows as the hype engine prepares to swing into gear. I would imagine that Vista will get the same treatment in "roll out" hype as did Windows 95.
I should also mention that the release version of Microsoft Windows 95 convinced me that I ought to switch to Apple's operating system. I installed it on my personal computer and it proceeded to wipe out all data on two 512M hard drives (that would be the one it was being installed on as well as the other one on which it was not being installed. I reasoned, at the time, that if I was going to need to completely upgrade my way of working with an operating system, I ought to switch to something that did not tend to destroy data. Thankfully, I did have a tape backup of both drives.
I find graphing in Microsoft Excel to be completely unacceptable. I know that Excel will export data to the applications listed here and I wonder if Open Office's Calc program will do the same.
Of course maybe Open Office Org could see if they cannot find a means by which they could create a competitor to something like Wolfram's Mathematica .
I do understand your fine point but one continues to have the right to demand that the phone company not sell your records or distribute your records to third parties and I have done that.
In this case, at least two telephone companies readily gave up information to the government without any court order, subpeona or warrant -- regardless of whether or not the customers made a demand that the phone companies not distribute this information.
The thing that bothers me is that this administration can choose to do anything they like with the data -- including search for leaks that are not specifically authorized by this administration and attack the reporters for receiving leaks (this has all ready happened in the Valerie Plame case). These kinds of wholesale attacks on freedom of the press violate the First Amendment by ignoring the Fourth Amendment.
Quest, in this case (and the various cable companies that offer VOIP) refused to hand over records without a court order, warrant or subpeona.
Full disclosure here: I work for a press outfit and America sees my work on television daily.
The issue with NSA spying is all about how the Constitution guarantees us rights to not be searched against our will and without reasonable cause or a judge's order. The administration says that, when Congress passed the so-called "patriot" act, it gave the President (the Executive Branch of our government) the go-ahead to take this extraordinary measure of searches and siezures (wiretapping falls under that) without a warrant.
Here is what a warrant does:
It involves another official of government, one who is supposed to be impartial and not on either the side of the individual or on the side of the Executive Branch.
It involves someone from another branch of government that holds itself (somewhat) aloof from the politics of the day.
It involves a branch of government dedicated to the examination, on a case-by-case basis of the actions of both the Executive and Legislative branches of government.
It involves a branch of government that may be overruled by appeals that end at the US Supreme Court (or for state laws at their State Supreme Courts).
The Executive (in this case) says it has a two-to-three majority against the Judiciary and believes it is unassilable because "Congress told me I could." Presently, a lot of people in Congress are having a serious problem admitting that they did decide to allow searches without warrants.
Now that's the general environment into which this release of all telephone records plays. According to the US Supreme Court, a "warrantless installation of (a) pen register (does) not violate the Fourth Amendment." Follow the link to read the case law. Qwest decided that the government was not installing a pen register (a device to record the numbers called from one telephone to all others) and stated that, in their opinion, the release of all records does not constitute that permitted warantless intrusion into their records on their clients. The other telcos blinked.
But the issue that has dogged this very secretive administration the most is not their casual violation of the Constitution that they swore to uphold and protect, it's those pesky leaks from people who work for them who, presumably, wish that they weren't so darned casual about First and Fourth Amendment protections and wish they hadn't lied about their reasons for declaring war that will never end in order to get re-elected.
Those leaks could be real problematic, because they cause reporters (even ours, who seem more like lapdogs to this administration than anything else) to ask questions that make them feel uncomfortable and make it hard for them to justify their positions on other matters, like Immigration "reform" and Social Security "reform." The administration would like to think its "bank of political capital" is not overdrawn.
They don't want oversight by any branch of the government, which includes both the Legislative and the Judiciary. They also don't want oversight by the press (yes, dear reader, guilty as charged) or by the public as a whole, especially as it reacts to revelations of their secretive doings published by the press.
Now, they're warning the press that they have all of the records of all of the calls the members of the press have made to the leakers in this administration and they're going to go after them one by one.
I would ask, if they're so worried about oversight, why do anything that the majority might consider wrong? Americans are currently split (51%-49% but within the margin for error) on whether or not the administration's demand for these telco records without a warrant is justifyable, but one might consider the fact that the press (and that would blame me, too) has not sufficiently educated the public as to the narrowness of the Supreme Court decision, nor has it taken a position that the protection of all rig
I took his comment to mean that Open Office could not accurately reproduce the actual structure of his files. To be fair though, Microsoft's translators do not always do a good job of accurately reproducing documents when one is using earlier versions of the Microsoft Office Suite (as I did for years on my Macintosh).
Overall, I liked the article, as his final conclusion is that Microsoft does have some competition from Linux. One does have to dedicate one's self to being a hobbyist -- or increasing one's computer literacy in order to successfully run Linux but I think that's probably appropriate.
I remember my first IBM pee cee. It was the pre-XT model and I eventually installed a hard drive (30 megabytes!!) in it and I spent hours exploring what MS-DOS could do and how I could set the computer up to work for me. I had the time and I took the time to become very computer-literate, pretty much a power-user of the character-based MS-DOS system. I did the same with Windoze when that came out. I switched to Macintosh when Microsoft came out with Windoze 95 and the installation of that operating system on my computer destroyed all the data I had on my pee cee. Thankfully, I had a usable tape backup. I knew at the time that I was going to upgrade my operating system and would need a computer upgrade soon. I decided that, since Windoze had become totally new and was capable of b0rking all of my data, I might as well switch to something better with fewer headaches.
As a result, I have had to develop computer literacy on the Macintosh but I would have to say that it's easier on a Mac to do that. It's more intuitive, once you get the main gist of the operating system. It's also easier to maintain.
Except now.
Apple's OS X is a flavor of Unix and, as such, a lot of my old "hobbyist" knowledge from MS-DOS has become useful to know. Under Apple's old System software, I generally could operate a very low-maintenance computer. Problem was, it only worked with Mac-compatible gear so one had to be careful to select that when making purchases. And that Mac-compatibility usually cost "extra." (I put "extra" in quotes because the ease-of-use and the guarantee of performance that was an integral part of the Macintosh universe can be seen as cost-reduction.)
Nowadays, more stuff is compatible with Macintosh, which is good. But I'm back to needing to take time to maintain things. It's not as bad as when I was operating in Windoze on a pee cee because, after a while, windoze tends to drown in its own excrement. IT people tell me that it's a good idea to periodically "refresh" a Windoze installation (read reinstall everything) to keep it working at optimum performance. I have a real problem with that.
For Linux to effectively challenge any operating system, it needs to be more maintenance-free. I would accept the Windoze-level of maintenance, would prefer a OS-X level of maintenance and would really like a System 7.5 level of maintenance (essentially none) -- only with a modern operating system with threads, pre-emptive multitasking and so on...
It didn't get mass coverage because things like this never get mass coverage.
Huh?
It aired the next day on NBC Nightly News. I know, I promoed it in the Nightly Headlines I edited for air the next day.
MSNBC had it on all day the following day -- and they aired the complete performance (I hope they had rights, else NBC will do staff cutbacks to pay for the lawsuit like they did after MSNBC aired whole performances of Frank Sinatra way outside of the "Fair Use" window after he died).
I definitely did see a clip on CNN, though I don't know how much time they devoted to it.
I also saw someone tuned to Fox "news" channel and they had it on.
Frankly, I looked at this as an attempt by a pretty politically bankrupt administration trying to look like "the good guys who can take a joke" more than anything else. But this may run in the family. Bush I invited Dana Carvey to do his routine on him in his waning days as President -- and that got lots of airtime.
I like your comment. And the reason why I like it so much has to do with my (past) experience on a University system. Universities developed servers and file sharing with Macs using Sun's servers because Apple really didn't have a server. I mean you could put a Mac (usually an older one) on a network and tell it to share files with everyone but it lacked lots of stuff you would expect to have in a server and it tended to be pretty slow.
I would argue that it was the University exposure that lead Apple to offer Ethernet on Macs. Appletalk was great and people hooked themselves up very quickly with Appletalk (you could buy cabling at your local Radio Shack or use almost any twisted-pair cabling, including electrical cables) but Ethernet was a lot faster and more reliable. I'll bet the folks who developed 10 Base-T Ethernet were thinking Appletalk when they came up with the design for the connector and the twisted pair.
But I digress...
I did a fair amount of work with a hard Science department and they all had Suns as servers. They were strictly Sun Unix for the geeks and they developed systems and applications on that model. But for those who actually had to function in an office environment, the Macs were standard. They used Microsoft's Office for memos, reports and spreadsheets and TeX for document publishing. Everything you did worked.
Frankly, I think this legacy is part of the reason why Apple got fascinated with Unix again (that, and Jobs' NeXt company). It would be a good marriage. Apple's X-Serve RAIDs with Sun. Sweet!
I think I have you by tenfold with my artificial right knee. Installed in me in 1997 by Dr. Scott (an highly-recommended surgeon with almost no bedside manner) I'm headed for another knee replacement on the left, due to a kind of osteoarthritis that runs in my family.
The article shows several major advancements and is nothing really new. I heard about the experimentation on the artificial eye some years back. The prosthetic hand is a pretty good advance, though it has a way to go to match the fine motor control we have in our hands and fingers. A device that lets us effortlessly carry an additional 200 pounds is nice, though we do have vehidles that carry much more.
I believe we have a long way to go before we can even mimic the human body. My knee, for example, will do a "twist-lock" that a human knee will do. But I cannot sit on my heels. In designing the knee, doctors were faced with an "either-or" proposition and chose twist-lock.
I also cannot pass through an airport magnetometer without setting it off. But the inconvenience is certainly worth the lack of pain I have in the joint.
The Supreme Court of the United States will continue until or unless our constitution is annulled (another revolution happens and a new constitution is written). It is, as is the Congress and the Executive Branch, an organization that outlives the individual lives of its membership. And this is why I figure on 20 years. It's another generation removed from this one, which has not taken any action against the abuse of executive power under the current regime.
At Guantanamo, the prisoners don't have any rights to a trial or access to the American Justice system -- until the US Supreme Court decides that it is not Constitutional for the Executive branch to accuse, convict and execute the sentence on a person with no trial. I figure he'd be there for about 20 years with no trial until this Supreme Court wakes up.
What he ought to fear is an overseas detention compound as this is where one British releasee suffered torture, not at Gitmo.
While I agree this is a ploy by his lawyer to try this case in the Court of Public Opinion (at least in England where Guantanamo is not very popular), the US apparently doesn't torture prisoners there. They torture them elsewhere because Guantanamo is under too much public scrutiny
I agree with you that Cringely is trying to project his desires on his predictions but you are forgetting something about business.
I work at a worldwide corporation. The computer I am using presently uses Windoze 2000. Some of the high-end workstations use Windoze XP but most of what everyone works on is using 2000.
Why is this important?
Corporations are not thirsting after the concept of upgrading their computers to the next big thing, be it Vista or OS X. By and large, big Corps don't ever upgrade their computers' OS because it is financially wasteful to do so. They install patches and upgrades -- especially where there are needs caused by malware but they don't do upgrades. Those cost money and require their MIS-DP departments to go to each computer and do the update or configure a network upgrade in hopes that it will work on all computers (and these things seldom do).
I believe you are an early adopter and the type of computer user that turns you into a "hobbyist." You like messing around with computers and find the operating system environment to be an interesting thing to explore. You probably edit configuration files so that your computer dances to your tune and not necessarily the one played by the manufacturer. Big corporations don't do this. And the people who work for these companies don't either. They think Windows is the only OS worth using because that's what is installed on almost all computers. Many of the companies' users are only minimally proficient in the operating system and the applications. They know one or two applications in which they do stuff and those applications are pretty much where they live. They resist having to learn something new.
Apple's superior operating system is not on the radar screen for these companies and their workers. They'd never install it on their computers, anyway.
Apple cannot release a generic operating system for the average pee cee. They're a hardware company that makes software that isn't clunky. In one sense, they're like HP is for printers. HP puts together software for their printers so you can use them. And they include that software with every printer you buy from them. But they're not out there trying to make printer drivers for Epson printers -- even though one of their drivers may get one to work. HP wants to sell HP printers, not Epson ones. Apple wants to sell Apple computers, not Dell computers.
I believe Mr. Cringely is flat wrong. Apple did an experiment with the clones and Jobs killed it. Apple simply ceased authorizing new clones to work with their operating system. They didn't like the competition in hardware. They won't invite it back.
I have a Nokia 6010 and it interferes with my Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Now these are some expensive headphones ($300 SRP) and I honestly think that Mr. Bose ought to have had his people design a cord that would not pick up interference from cell phones for that price.
I also pick up interference from other people's cell phones and blackberry devices as well. While that interference is less than the kind I get from my Nokia in my shirt pocket with the headset cable nearby (or on top), I still hear it and it is an annoyance.
Should airlines allow cellular calling in the air, this may actually cause damage to the ears while on board long flights -- especially if one's seat is located near the cellular station on the aircraft.
I, too, read Being Digital as well as Gates' book. Gates hired a ghostwriter to spin his thoughts into something readable. He does have vision: namely "Information at your fingertips," unfortunately his company doesn't tend to allow the users of their technology to realize that.
I'll give you an example: With my Macintosh and a .Mac account, I can hot-sync my Palm T|X (or any other Palm device, including their cell phones) and I can access my calendar and contacts from anywhere in the world by signing onto my .Mac account via a web browser. The data is actually stored in three places: my Mac, my Palm T|X and on Apple's servers. Apple's iSync program keeps everything synchronized. I can access my .Mac account's e-mail directly through my T|X's wireless connection.
Microsoft doesn't play well with others. If you have a Palm device you have to purchase a non Palm and non Microsoft application to synchronize your contacts and calendar with Microsoft's e-mail program, Outlook. There is no such service as .Mac so your contact information is on your pee cee running windoze and on your Palm. If you buy into the handheld windoze software, it synchronizes more easily with Outlook in that you don't have to purchase a third-party application but your information is not available anywhere -- only on your computer and your handheld.
Negroponte's ideas for a user interface that require no learning are classic examples of how one has to become computer literate -- essentially learning another language -- in order to function in modern society. This adds another barrier -- especially to those who are "have nots."
Slashdot's user community has a lot of people who write code. I recommend Negroponte's Being Digital to anyone who writes code because, if one thinks about his message, one tends to think in terms of someone who is not necessarily computer literate and tries to accomodate that in their applications. I think that makes computer applications better.
I don't find myself recommending Gates' book.
Gates' philanthropy is wonderful. He is to be praised for his foundation and the work it does. But this foundation is not representative of Bill Gates' thinking, it is representative of his wealth and his desire to be a good citizen in this world. I think everyone wants to be a good citizen. Gates doesn't think "outside of the box." Negroponte does.
Everyone is very quick to speak ill of Negroponte's efforts here which are all about building a project that works and places computers onto the desks (or laps) of the "have-nots." Based on what I have read of the man he's an original thinker and very creative.
Usually, the entrenched tend to be very frightened of those types.
Actually, niether. He's a politician.
I generally like what he has been doing, which mostly amounts to leveling the playing field between big business and the people -- but one can easily see the opportunitism here of a very political animal in the cases he takes on and how his PR machine works it. He was elected by mostly Democrats to be the Attorney General under a Republican Governor with whom he has had a mostly uneven relationship. He did not challenge this Governor (Pataki) until the Governor announced that he is planning on leaving office, though he has gone after many of the Governor's financiers and political cronies.
In not running against this particular governor, he has set his office up as a stepping-stone to the office of Governor for himself. A very shrewd move. Were he to have remained as a candidate for Attorney General (especially with the favorable press he has been receiving in the state of New York) I'd say he's close to 90% altruistic -- a very hard-working prosecutor with an eye for the kind of justice that sells newspapers. By virtue of his run for Governor and the timing of that run, I'd say he's about 50 to 55% altruistic and would probably make a pretty good, if not combative Governor.
I recall another prosecutor who is rumored to have made a good executive: Giuliani. But Rudy Giuliani was best-suited to crisis management. He tended to get bored and pick fights (usually with the helpless) when things got quiet. Unfortunately I think Rudy has sold his soul to the Republican right (which is wrong).
My overall favorable impression of Mr. Spitzer will, likewise, tumble should he sell his soul to a national political machine. These types are best when they're fighting the good fight with no hangers-on and no encumbrances.
MBCook (132727) wrote:
MS would have much more time to make Vista if OS X weren't showing it up so often.
I am going to disagree with this one statement you made in your article (which was very insightful, by the way).
Microsoft (and later, Apple) discovered that people would pay to upgrade their operating system and that would enhance their bottom line. All of a sudden the OS became an application where adding features and complexity was something that would increase revenues.
Microsoft is late on Vista for lots of reasons. But Microsoft is in a hurry to pump it out because it garners the same revenue from sales for the company that the selling of application upgrades does.
I'm not upgrading Microsoft's Office on my Mac. I'm sure it bothers Microsoft that I'm not doing that but I wait until there is enough reason to upgrade and, for me, the reason to upgrade will be when Microsoft comes out with a universal binary. That way I'll be ready for my next Mac. Microsoft wants its money so they made it harder for me to upgrade from Office 4.2.1 to Office X. I first had to buy a copy of Word that was newer than the one I had, install that and then I could install the Office X upgrade. But, over the years, I saved a lot in not upgrading and Office 4.2.1 was just fine for me. To its discredit, it worked a lot like the version of Office I used with Windows 3.1 before I switched to a Mac in 1996.
There are people who do not upgrade their Microsoft operating system. There are lots of good reasons, hardware issues, financial issues and "works fine for me" issues. I work with Windows 2000 at the office because it has not been upgraded due to the current OS not having been "checked out" fully by our IT department (the company I work for is spread out all over the world). We do have XP installed on some of our high-end workstations but for normal stuff, it's Windoze 2000 Pro.
But I do believe you underestimate the importance of the financial reward for Microsoft (and Apple) in coaxing people into buying an OS upgrade.
With respect to Saudi Arabia as it is today, you are correct. Their history is quite different, as the al-Saud royal family allied themselves with Wahibist extremist clerics. See Saudi holds cards to Islam's future for a brief history.
With respect to Al-Andalus, which is what the Moors called the Iberian pennensula under their rule, I would suggest you read The Islamic world of Al-Andalus, the Andalusian Umayyad dynasty and its golden age and A Brief History of Al-Andalus.
I suppose I could drone on about various other readings, mostly published books covering the rise of the Moorish state in Iberia as well as the formation and history of Saudi Arabia under Abdul Aziz Ibn Al-Saud but there is ample opportunity for you to discover these yourself if you are truly interested.
I have read a lot of history about the Islamic empire that stretched from India to Iberia. This is largely an extension of my desire to understand Spanish history.
To say that Islam created these wonders is to ignore what was actually happening in the society that was the Islamic empire. The empire was tolerant of all religions and beliefs, including people "not of the book," which would include persons that were not Jews and Christians. This empire preached tolerance and benefitted from having non-believers because the government taxed non-believers more (which may have influenced the less-firm in their beliefs to convert).
The end result was a polycultural society that valued innovation, high art and wonderful architecture. And I would argue that it's not the dominant religion that was responsible but the society.
If you look at the last century, you'll see lots of Nobel Prize winners in the sciences coming from America (that would be The Great Satan to many Islamic societies -- especially Iran). Could it be that a polycultural society with vast natural resources is what helps in the creation of these innovations?
I look at these monocultural and intolerant societies as non-creators of advancements. For examples, one merely needs to look at Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iran and China under the Cultural Revolution.
I agree that it is important to look to history and appreciate those innovations and inventions that came before but to suggest that a religion created these is to ignore what really happened.
I should note that, when Iberia turned monocultural and intolerent under the Kings of Castile and Aragon, they created and innovated such wonderous examples as the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion and forced conversion (and further persecution) of Jews and the encomienda system of tributory labor that was used to enslave and destroy Native American nations and civilizations. [sarcasm]It's a shame these innovations happened so long ago; they surely would have been awarded Nobel prizes for them.[/sarcasm]
I do not wish to detract from the religion that is Islam. I know a great number of practicing muslims and they are good people with whom I have very good friendships. I believe that people should get along with their neighbors and appreciate them more by striving to understand them. But the article seems to gloss over the fact that the culture probably begat the advancements rather than the religion.