But your entire argument is undermined by how buggy IE has historically been. Despite all of that QA, they've never managed to fix some quite serious bugs.
While there's truth to your argument that updates should be less frequent, I don't think IE should be the standard you're using for quality.
Wireless monopoly: the large operators in the wireless industry have exclusive, monopoly rights to broadcast on the frequencies they own. Wireless is not a 'free market' -- once the spectrum is purchased, there is no additional spectrum left to sell.
Cable: you live in an excellent area, and it sounds like your local government is well-functioning and actually does allow for multiple franchise agreements in both name and in practie. I'd be less concerned about net neutrality if everyone's local governments functioned this way.
Sadly, in the city I live in (San Francisco), and the last city I lived in (Pittsburgh), Comcast and AT&T have effective monopolies on the poles. Even though there is a theoretical opportunity for expansion in these cities, the cities refuse to grant additional franchise agreements.
I would get behind any 'Internet Freedom' movement/lobby effort that would remove or make equitable the crappy local zoning laws and franchise agreements that block additional landline competitors from going in.
In SF, AT&T has been trying to drop fiber for years, and they keep getting blocked by zoning laws. Two small ISPs (Sonic.net and MonkeyBrains) have been trying to build their own fiber networks, and are getting thwarted as well. None of these companies want anything special: no subsidies or handouts--they'd pay all expenses for installation. They just want to be able to lay the lines and have not been able to do so.
There are many other cities that have this same problem.
Make no mistake: there's nothing "free" about the state-granted monopolies the wireless and cable industry have. Since they're monopolies, they ought to be regulated.
And if regulation is removed, you know that the telecom industry will be hitting up Google and Netflix for cash right away.
"Internet Freedom" means freedom for Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T to charge siteowners like Google and Amazon just because they feel like it.
"Internet Freedom" means every single thing you do on the Internet is going to cost more because Verizon and Comcast need to keep posting massive increases in profits.
"Internet Freedom" means freedom for the carriers to hold you hostage....and if you think that the 'free-market' will solve this, remember: bandwidth is scarce and already monopolized by the big carriers. You won't see landline competition either: the big carriers also have all the local governments locked up so there won't be any competition there. And you know that the Pauls won't be taking on the local governments so that there can be competition in the landline market.
Not correct. What you're describing as REAL NAME is your LEGAL NAME. I think it's just as likely that real name is what you're known as to the people around you.
I know many people who know Skud. SHE (not he!) is known to all of them as Skud. That is her real name.
Consider that when we're adding friends on Google+, we will all search for our friends and family members by the names we know them. We don't know the legal names of all our friends--so we're going to end up entering what we know them as, and we'd expect Google+ to come up with answers.
That Google is creating a system that forces people to use legal names and not real names is actually making it more difficult to link Google+ info to info about these people outside of Google+ -- since all of that info uses the person's real name.
It's tragic how our era's finest mathematical and technical minds are working on social networking. It's not right that they're wasting themselves trying to figure out how to monetize people sending pet photos to each other!
Why just a few short years ago people in that field were really doing great things for the world--like repurposing the Black-Scholes theorem to create increasingly complicated derivative financial instruments. Those instruments powered a revolution that brought prosperity to everyone.
If we can't get our best and brightest to go back to investment banks and get to work on developing new financial instruments, I don't know what will happen to our fine nation.
presumably, you really wanted to be an engineer AND you interviewed at a few places and got the job you wanted. few people are lucky enough to do what they want in life, and fewer still have the privilege of making things. you do. be excited.
appreciate that you get to be around people who are as excited about software engineering as you are. ask people about what they're working on. learn from them. if there's an opportunity to propose a good idea, do so. accept the feedback you get if you find that your idea wasn't perfect, but don't give up. keep in mind that you work in the software industry and not the mafia: you're not being paid for your silence, you're being paid for your ideas.
read every single line of code you can get your hands on. learn the system inside and out. be ready to pitch in and work on code you're responsible for.
i've been coding professionally for a while. everyday i get to collaborate with colleagues who are dedicated to making great software. i've learned so much from them, and i've been given many opportunities to contribute across the project i work on.
be kind to your colleagues: the industry is small, and you're going to be working with these people for years even as you switch companies. the colleagues you get along well with will help you find work when it's time for you to change jobs. that said, don't be a pushover either.
in short: play well with others, speak up, be curious, and do well.
the Palm Pre has a standard OpenEmbedded based distro. you can install packages from the OptWare repository. enjoy fully supported, debugged and tested Linux components that are updated on a regular basis--all written by very talented engineers who are committed to getting awesomeness to customers as often as they can. (has Nokia ever released updates as often as Palm has for webOS?)
don't like javascript apps? rip out the webOS window manager and put whatever you want on it. or maybe you want both. you can always switch between the two. the development community has already figured out how to do this.
and the Mojo javascript development environment does have its strengths. it's the first platform since the computers of the 80s where you can hack on it right out of the box.
how could you not love a company that made the contra code an officially-supported way of entering development mode?
mod parent up to 5. this book is amazing, amazing, amazing. he describes an array of heuristics people use to get through life, and how people trying to persuade you exploit those heuristics.
The last few paragraphs of the article are more-or-less unedited PR hype from a vendor:
"According to security management vendor Calum Macleod of Cyber-Ark..Macleod's solution is password management....'If privileged password management is not on your shopping list in 2007 it may already be too late.'"
This is preceded with a 'people who say you shouldn't buy my product may already be criminals':
"'if anyone of them disputes this, remember that arguing with colleagues was one of the clear signs of an impending attack.'"
I can't believe this ran! This reporter was shockingly lazy.
The iPhone hasn't been released. Yet all the Apple fan boys have s3cr3t intimate inside knowledge of the system. What gives? They step-up to defend how Apple won't really lock out third-parties, but how do they know?
Apple fanboys get more and more sickening the farther from reality they get.
No, the submitter is a far-left liberal. Seriously. I know that the Republicans won't change, but if enough people scream at the Democrats, things could change.
Excerpt: It's traditional for an exiting Gawker Media editor to write a farewell post. I don't have anything to get across, other than that I'm free for lunch and gig offers for the next few weeks, so I'll just thank the people who, as my friend Paul put it, "write Valleywag for free."
I always wonder if it just might be more efficient to drop sacks of cash on countries instead of bombs.
I'm also not saying that space has been done before, so don't bother anymore. I'm saying the moon has been done for the sake of doing it already, so don't do that again. Do REAL space exploration.
Thanks for a well-argued response. I want to look up the articles I read and put them here, but I don't have time right now. The most recent articles I read about the health care system were one article in the Economist and another in the NY Times in the last year. If you know the ones I'm referring too, great; otherwise, I'll be back later to post the links after I dig them up. My original response does not acknowledge the vast progress made in India in the last hundred years, but it should have. That said, clearly more needs to be done.
I'll sum-up my point about 'pick something else besides the moon' this way: George Bush is declaring a 'mars mission' that I consider to be equally stupid (if not moreso) than the Indian moon 'mission.' If you want to pick something truly inspiring, think bigger than the moon. Go for a truly robust space station, or terraforming to pre-empt global warming related issues, or work on a replacement for fossil fuels. Send up a series of space telescopes of heretofore unimaginable resolution, and link them to a space station. Cure AIDS. Build a really great reusable spacecraft, and figure out how to get many, many people into space.
You get the idea. There are loads of really inspiring ideas that haven't been done before. Pick one of those. Actually be inspiring. [please note: I make this charge to my own government too].
I agree. I'm ashamed of the medical system in the US. I want things to change here too. I'm doing what I can as an average person, and I hope others are as well.
> The moral of the story is "cram that latte up you're a$$ before you even think about imposing your "better" lifestyle". Let the Indians all enjoy a great > accomplishment that will no doubt transcend all.
Wow, we're fighting an army of straw here. I don't think anyone is trying to push not having 'high-fructose corn syrup' or TV as the definition of poverty, and I don't think anyone considers access to minimal nutrition and basic healthcare a "lifestyle" -- those are necessities. No one (I know I'm certainly not) is advocating for more than this. Every single article I've read about the poor in India says they lack these necessities, and that the infrastructure for providing it to them is amazingly corrupt. (There were a couple really great articles in the NY Times about this in the last year).
> Nice troll. Do you pay taxes in India? If you do, speak to your MP. If you don't, I'm sure Indians don't really gives a flying fuck about whether this offends you.
As I'm sure some of your MPs have said in defending the flow of outsourcing to India, globalization is spreading ideas all over the world. That means that your MP ought to give a flying fuck, for when I'm next in charge of outsourcing a project, it surely won't be going to India unless its social and physical infrastructure is improved.
I assure you, repeating something that already has been done instills confidence in no one. Correction: it instills confidence in the people accepting the bribes for this sham make-work project. That's about it though.
More inspiring is roads that work, doctors that do what they're paid to do, a life free from discrimination, and food for oneself and one's children.
A tall order? Yes. But India keep trying to assert itself as a world-leading country, yet fails to provide anywhere near the level of social support that other industrialized countries do. The poor are simply ignored, and I feel it's important to provide a counterpoint to the rah-rah-India-progress! propaganda to show that the country has yet to set its priorities in a truly just way.
For the simple-minded, this is not a racial or ethnic attack. There are many, many Indian citizens who are doing the right things, and I am clearly NOT referring to people outside the country. I'd even venture to say that had it not been for previous generations in the US (my country), we'd probably be neglecting the poor even worse than we are today. My argument is strictly about the greed of the upper and ruling classes in India.
Slashdot Mirror
But your entire argument is undermined by how buggy IE has historically been. Despite all of that QA, they've never managed to fix some quite serious bugs.
While there's truth to your argument that updates should be less frequent, I don't think IE should be the standard you're using for quality.
Wireless monopoly: the large operators in the wireless industry have exclusive, monopoly rights to broadcast on the frequencies they own. Wireless is not a 'free market' -- once the spectrum is purchased, there is no additional spectrum left to sell.
Cable: you live in an excellent area, and it sounds like your local government is well-functioning and actually does allow for multiple franchise agreements in both name and in practie. I'd be less concerned about net neutrality if everyone's local governments functioned this way.
Sadly, in the city I live in (San Francisco), and the last city I lived in (Pittsburgh), Comcast and AT&T have effective monopolies on the poles. Even though there is a theoretical opportunity for expansion in these cities, the cities refuse to grant additional franchise agreements.
I would get behind any 'Internet Freedom' movement/lobby effort that would remove or make equitable the crappy local zoning laws and franchise agreements that block additional landline competitors from going in.
In SF, AT&T has been trying to drop fiber for years, and they keep getting blocked by zoning laws. Two small ISPs (Sonic.net and MonkeyBrains) have been trying to build their own fiber networks, and are getting thwarted as well. None of these companies want anything special: no subsidies or handouts--they'd pay all expenses for installation. They just want to be able to lay the lines and have not been able to do so.
There are many other cities that have this same problem.
Totally true, and yet they're both involved.
"Internet Freedom" sounds like a phrase designed to make being anti-Net Neutrality sounds good.
And no wonder: Verizon and AT&T are heavy contributors to Rand Paul's campaign.
Make no mistake: there's nothing "free" about the state-granted monopolies the wireless and cable industry have. Since they're monopolies, they ought to be regulated.
And if regulation is removed, you know that the telecom industry will be hitting up Google and Netflix for cash right away.
"Internet Freedom" means freedom for Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T to charge siteowners like Google and Amazon just because they feel like it.
"Internet Freedom" means every single thing you do on the Internet is going to cost more because Verizon and Comcast need to keep posting massive increases in profits.
"Internet Freedom" means freedom for the carriers to hold you hostage. ...and if you think that the 'free-market' will solve this, remember: bandwidth is scarce and already monopolized by the big carriers. You won't see landline competition either: the big carriers also have all the local governments locked up so there won't be any competition there. And you know that the Pauls won't be taking on the local governments so that there can be competition in the landline market.
Not correct. What you're describing as REAL NAME is your LEGAL NAME. I think it's just as likely that real name is what you're known as to the people around you.
I know many people who know Skud. SHE (not he!) is known to all of them as Skud. That is her real name.
Consider that when we're adding friends on Google+, we will all search for our friends and family members by the names we know them. We don't know the legal names of all our friends--so we're going to end up entering what we know them as, and we'd expect Google+ to come up with answers.
That Google is creating a system that forces people to use legal names and not real names is actually making it more difficult to link Google+ info to info about these people outside of Google+ -- since all of that info uses the person's real name.
It's tragic how our era's finest mathematical and technical minds are working on social networking. It's not right that they're wasting themselves trying to figure out how to monetize people sending pet photos to each other!
Why just a few short years ago people in that field were really doing great things for the world--like repurposing the Black-Scholes theorem to create increasingly complicated derivative financial instruments. Those instruments powered a revolution that brought prosperity to everyone.
If we can't get our best and brightest to go back to investment banks and get to work on developing new financial instruments, I don't know what will happen to our fine nation.
presumably, you really wanted to be an engineer AND you interviewed at a few places and got the job you wanted. few people are lucky enough to do what they want in life, and fewer still have the privilege of making things. you do. be excited.
appreciate that you get to be around people who are as excited about software engineering as you are. ask people about what they're working on. learn from them. if there's an opportunity to propose a good idea, do so. accept the feedback you get if you find that your idea wasn't perfect, but don't give up. keep in mind that you work in the software industry and not the mafia: you're not being paid for your silence, you're being paid for your ideas.
read every single line of code you can get your hands on. learn the system inside and out. be ready to pitch in and work on code you're responsible for.
i've been coding professionally for a while. everyday i get to collaborate with colleagues who are dedicated to making great software. i've learned so much from them, and i've been given many opportunities to contribute across the project i work on.
be kind to your colleagues: the industry is small, and you're going to be working with these people for years even as you switch companies. the colleagues you get along well with will help you find work when it's time for you to change jobs. that said, don't be a pushover either.
in short: play well with others, speak up, be curious, and do well.
you can use that too! you have your choice.
the Palm Pre has a standard OpenEmbedded based distro. you can install packages from the OptWare repository. enjoy fully supported, debugged and tested Linux components that are updated on a regular basis--all written by very talented engineers who are committed to getting awesomeness to customers as often as they can. (has Nokia ever released updates as often as Palm has for webOS?)
don't like javascript apps? rip out the webOS window manager and put whatever you want on it. or maybe you want both. you can always switch between the two. the development community has already figured out how to do this.
and the Mojo javascript development environment does have its strengths. it's the first platform since the computers of the 80s where you can hack on it right out of the box.
how could you not love a company that made the contra code an officially-supported way of entering development mode?
Indeed, there are knowledgeable people in SCS, but CMU's administration never fails to bend over when asked to.
at my university, the lights are always on because GRAD STUDENTS DON'T SLEEP. my office has a hammock!
looks like they'll be locking us all up. good thing: now i can sleep!
mod parent up to 5. this book is amazing, amazing, amazing. he describes an array of heuristics people use to get through life, and how people trying to persuade you exploit those heuristics.
"Ms. Rand's argument?" Does anything further need to be said to invalidate whatever that argument is?
The last few paragraphs of the article are more-or-less unedited PR hype from a vendor:
"According to security management vendor Calum Macleod of Cyber-Ark..Macleod's solution is password management....'If privileged password management is not on your shopping list in 2007 it may already be too late.'"
This is preceded with a 'people who say you shouldn't buy my product may already be criminals':
"'if anyone of them disputes this, remember that arguing with colleagues was one of the clear signs of an impending attack.'"
I can't believe this ran! This reporter was shockingly lazy.
The iPhone hasn't been released. Yet all the Apple fan boys have s3cr3t intimate inside knowledge of the system. What gives? They step-up to defend how Apple won't really lock out third-parties, but how do they know?
Apple fanboys get more and more sickening the farther from reality they get.
No, the submitter is a far-left liberal. Seriously. I know that the Republicans won't change, but if enough people scream at the Democrats, things could change.
Because I know that those two Republicans can't be persuaded. Feinstein and Biden might be able to feel the wrath of the internets and change.
Of course, since Vista shipped on time, we should all believe that 'Fiji' will be out in 2007 and 'Vienna' will be out in 2008.
I see you laughing in the back. Stop it. We're serious.
See post
here.
Excerpt:
It's traditional for an exiting Gawker Media editor to write a farewell post. I don't have anything to get across, other than that I'm free for lunch and gig offers for the next few weeks, so I'll just thank the people who, as my friend Paul put it, "write Valleywag for free."
I wheel that one out for the military too!
I always wonder if it just might be more efficient to drop sacks of cash on countries instead of bombs.
I'm also not saying that space has been done before, so don't bother anymore. I'm saying the moon has been done for the sake of doing it already, so don't do that again. Do REAL space exploration.
Thanks for a well-argued response. I want to look up the articles I read and put them here, but I don't have time right now. The most recent articles I read about the health care system were one article in the Economist and another in the NY Times in the last year. If you know the ones I'm referring too, great; otherwise, I'll be back later to post the links after I dig them up. My original response does not acknowledge the vast progress made in India in the last hundred years, but it should have. That said, clearly more needs to be done.
I'll sum-up my point about 'pick something else besides the moon' this way: George Bush is declaring a 'mars mission' that I consider to be equally stupid (if not moreso) than the Indian moon 'mission.' If you want to pick something truly inspiring, think bigger than the moon. Go for a truly robust space station, or terraforming to pre-empt global warming related issues, or work on a replacement for fossil fuels. Send up a series of space telescopes of heretofore unimaginable resolution, and link them to a space station. Cure AIDS. Build a really great reusable spacecraft, and figure out how to get many, many people into space.
You get the idea. There are loads of really inspiring ideas that haven't been done before. Pick one of those. Actually be inspiring. [please note: I make this charge to my own government too].
I agree. I'm ashamed of the medical system in the US. I want things to change here too. I'm doing what I can as an average person, and I hope others are as well.
> The moral of the story is "cram that latte up you're a$$ before you even think about imposing your "better" lifestyle". Let the Indians all enjoy a great
> accomplishment that will no doubt transcend all.
Wow, we're fighting an army of straw here. I don't think anyone is trying to push not having 'high-fructose corn syrup' or TV as the definition of poverty, and
I don't think anyone considers access to minimal nutrition and basic healthcare a "lifestyle" -- those are necessities. No one (I know I'm certainly not) is advocating for more than this. Every single article I've read about the poor in India says they lack these necessities, and that the infrastructure for providing it to them is amazingly corrupt. (There were a couple really great articles in the NY Times about this in the last year).
> Nice troll. Do you pay taxes in India? If you do, speak to your MP. If you don't, I'm sure Indians don't really gives a flying fuck about whether this offends you.
As I'm sure some of your MPs have said in defending the flow of outsourcing to India, globalization is spreading ideas all over the world. That means that your MP ought to give a flying fuck, for when I'm next in charge of outsourcing a project, it surely won't be going to India unless its social and physical infrastructure is improved.
I assure you, repeating something that already has been done instills confidence in no one. Correction: it instills confidence in the people accepting the bribes for this sham make-work project. That's about it though.
Do they care? That's an easy one: no.
More inspiring is roads that work, doctors that do what they're paid to do, a life free from discrimination, and food for oneself and one's children.
A tall order? Yes. But India keep trying to assert itself as a world-leading country, yet fails to provide anywhere near the level of social support that other industrialized countries do. The poor are simply ignored, and I feel it's important to provide a counterpoint to the rah-rah-India-progress! propaganda to show that the country has yet to set its priorities in a truly just way.
For the simple-minded, this is not a racial or ethnic attack. There are many, many Indian citizens who are doing the right things, and I am clearly NOT referring to people outside the country. I'd even venture to say that had it not been for previous generations in the US (my country), we'd probably be neglecting the poor even worse than we are today. My argument is strictly about the greed of the upper and ruling classes in India.