My cable connection (Comcast) is the same, and specifically includes a disclaimer that no guarantee is made that I will actually receive the rated throughput.
In practice, it blazes in the off-hours, sludges out during prime time. And the most noticable effect when it's bad is latency, not throughput.
It's a lot more than the high school "keyboarding" course. That's at the high end of "Oh, look how computer-literate little Hortense is, now that she can use the computer!", meaning just run Word, e-mail, browse, play games and IM. For those outside the US school system, "keyboarding" is a course tought here in junior/middle or even high school and designed to teach familiarity with basic typing, document creation, e-mail, browser, and other simple skills.
A democracy requires educated citizens. Today, that means that citizens must know something about the actual power and limitations of computers. And that means that they must have at least some familiarity with programming. And it can't wait until college; the knowledge must be part of the basic educational program for everyone. Beyond that, the minimum knowledge level should include an overview of basic components of a computerized society, such as networks, databases, and their opportunities and threats. Without this basic knowledge, both citizens and the leaders they choose will make dangerous decisions. They already are.
I had a boss who used to say that everyones' birth certificate should come up for renewal every year, like a license. Basic knowledge of programming (not necessarily programming knowledge of Basic:-) is a great candidate for the test.
There are quite a few other subjects that similarly need more attention. Math and science generally should be on the list. In many schools, history is a check-box subject that should also get more attention.
That many disks for that much? Sounds like MSDN to me. Next thing will be to update the "making of" sections every year and make it a permanent subscription!
Just today, KQED radio in San Francisco played a story on their California Report segment saying that San Diego State University has a degree program in Indian casino management, funded by a tribal grant.
... will retail for $399.... will cost $494 to manufacture.
So, following the double taxation philosophy of cell phones (at least in California), buyers should be taxed on something closer to $494, not $399, even though we're ultimately taxed on the futures (games or minimum service contracts) that more than pay for the hardware.
The same goes for things like the Iron Chef. For me, it was at its best when they still showed the original version undubbed. Subtitles might have been nice, but dubbing began the slippery slope. The first US attempt, in a Superbowl theme, was bad in exactly the way that the parent complains about; a total lack of understanding of the concept. They're much closer on the second attempt, but still missing quite a bit. (Not that I'd want to see a stream of ads while Kaga II makes us wait for the verdict.)
As you say, that was Episode 4. "Volume 4", at least in the race between Knuth and Lucas, was effectively Episode 1. But it's all lost if one has to explain the joke.:-)
The usual IANAL, but a lot hinges on this: Intel apparently didn't indemnify its customers against patent infringement that might apply to its processors, so its customers are liable as well, since they also used the patented technology. The one exception so far is Dell, which apparently has a different agreement than the others who have been sued so far. See Intel Settles Intergraph Patent Litigation. Here's a quote:
Dell has a unique indemnity agreement with Intel that Dell claims obligates Intel to indemnify the company from patent infringement claims in the litigation which relate to combining Intel microprocessors and other components in Dell systems. Intel disagrees with Dell's interpretation of the agreement, but has decided to remove the current dispute from the courts and resolve the disagreement privately.
I only buy digital cameras with Compact Flash, and use my usb2 reader... Am I missing any features by doing this as opposed to plugging directly in..?
I also transfer only via CF through my laptop, even though the camera's USB interface is much simpler. The reason? The camera's software conveniently rotates any images based on the camera's sensor, but it doesn't do the rotate losslessly. I would much rather take the extra steps involved (remove card from camera, insert into PC card adapter, insert into laptop, transfer, remove, remove, run any of a number of free programs that can rotate JPEG images losslessly; versus plug in USB, point-'n-click). I also don't appreciate the often proprietary, unlikely-to-be-updated bundled image organizers that refuse to accept your images from other cameras or sources, or even one of its own images that's made a trip through an image editor. I'd rather choose my own that works properly. The "experience" (to use MS-speak) is definitely much nicer using a USB connection, but since the reason one gets a camera is ultimately the images, I put up with more workflow steps and forget about the lost "features".
I do worry about wearing out the camera's CF socket over time, particularly given the size constraints of cameras. I bent a pin in a handheld system's PC Card slot once, despite being careful all the time; I had to have it fixed twice, once by getting the motherboard replaced.
If the camera's drivers and/or the OS allow the camera to appear as an external drive, then you can still get unmolested copies and avoid the CF card shuffle. But I'll need an OS upgrade before that'll work for me.
From the parent:
Can digital cameras... act as really nice quality webcams if hooked directly with usb?
Some can and some can't. My daughter's cheap Concord EyeQ works just fine; she even used it with NetMeeting. But some don't. To be effective, you need two things: 1) an AC adapter, since such use drains the battery fast; my daughter's Concord doesn't. 2) A programming or scripting hook to control the camera.
For the G5, it looks like you could use its bundled RemoteCapture program and use its Interval Timer Shooting feature. Or, if you have Windows XP and it understands the G5, you could use the Webcam Timershot Powertoy here. But I haven't used either of those yet, so you're on your own.
Have a look here. They've been offering an ASP based Windows desktop with Office and other apps for years. As a test, I signed up as an individual some time ago and it worked. At the time, it had plenty of limitations, mostly of the lockdown variety (very difficult to create a desktop shortcut, many "dangerous" Windows Explorer options disabled, etc.). And decent interactive performance was dependent on a low latency connection.
Nevertheless, it worked as advertised, providing access to the apps and my files from anywhere without me having to keep the OS or apps up-to-date. I was able to reach it from fairly thin clients, like a Windows CE H/PC with a Citrix client installed, giving me access to full Office apps rather than the toys that came with the H/PC.
The service relies on a monthly subscription licensing model, which Microsoft has also supported for years. Even Visual Studio can be licensed this way. At the time I tried the service, some of the apps on the ASP list were not really ready for that model, still suffering from single user legacy implementation problems and such.
Nevertheless, for someone doing basic small/home office kinds of work (i.e., the "average user" mentioned in the original article), the service was more than adequate, and could be reached from a much dumber, smaller, simpler and thin platform than a full PC.
... refers to The World Calendar (described here) with substantially the same properties, and says "The World Calendar has won the support of many different groups.". And following a few links from the original article leads here, where it says "... the notion of a leap-week calendar was first introduced in 1926 by M. P. Delaporte.".
So this particular notion:
is very old (at least 50-75 years),
has had plenty of time to get sufficient support but hasn't,
Hello? Microsoft? 99% of the stuff on the Internet is unsigned.
MOST of the not-signed messages I get are when installing MICROSOFT's own updates. It just amazes me that Microsoft bothers to have a policy setting to enforce rejection of non-signed software, and it's one of the biggest offenders.
... tweak their drivers to perform better on benchmarks.
Another one: just look at the old Dhrystone benchmark and all of the over-the-top "optimizations" that were used to get better compiler/processor results. The SPEC organization, created in a direct attempt to deal with this very kind of problem, still must update its bendhmarks regularly in order to deal with loopholes (and changing technology in general). A good example was when a particular benchmark (matrix300; ref is 2/3 the way down) was defeated because it took no input. That made it possible in principle to collapse the entire program to a constant, and at some point, somebody did. That last link also gives a good description of why initially good benchmarks go stale.
And while those two examples are old enough to show that this has been going on a long time, there are plenty of examples far older.
As far as I can tell, this can't damage the iPod's hardware, can it?
How do you know? In many highly cost-reduced platforms, critical control is moved into software, so that it might be quite easy to break the hardware by breaking the software. Fiddle with the power management (charging) firmware on some mobile devices and you might blow up the batteries or at least create a serious overheating condition. This kind of thing happens often enough to cause recalls and firmware updates even in "official" firmware to easily back up a claim that hacking the software can break the hardware.
The earlier sibling's response is also sufficiently valid on its own: the vendor has no obligation to diagnose your problems if you've changed the (software) platform that provides the basis for their diagnosis capability. You didn't pay for an advanced hardware-only diagnostic service.
Well, the linked article significantly uses the adjective "enterprise", but the/. description doesn't. So I'm less surprised now. I use SpamBayes and it's been great.
Our older one is now in college with her own laptop, PDA and digital camera. She bought and installed her own firewall and virus scanner, and chose and installed OOo herself over the industry leader after running her own compatibility tests. She bought stuff online well before 18 as well. The other one is perfectly capable of using the home computer, even plays some games, but has wider interests elsewhere. Without prompting from us, she's been running her big sister's old typing program to improve her homework typing speed. Neither wasted school units on keyboarding classes merely to learn how to type; they found much more interesting electives to take.
I'm also somewhat dubious about the extent to which graphing calculators are used in some math classes. While it can increase the experimental aspect of the class, it has the potential to reduce real thought, much as the evil guess-and-check stuff they were assigned in early elementary school.
No unsupervised Internet access until age 13. This ties in with various legislated age limits on site access. In our house, that even included e-mail. Even on old Win95, I set up multiple user accounts and didn't provide theirs with dial-out access.
At 13, give them unsupervised access to the Internet, an e-mail account, and a lecture on Internet perils (you should understand them well yourself, first).
If you haven't already, install a firewall, virus scanner, spyware scanner. Choose good ones that minimize annoying and mysterious (to them) pop-ups, and tell the kids what to do with the ones that do pop up (find you).
Monitor the logs of these programs regularly, keep your patches up-to-date, and generally realize that you are a real sysadm (or else you'll pay the consequences).
Use a single, shared computer in a public place, such as a den or living room; not their bedroom. Ideally, put your stuff on a second computer.
Uninstall the IM clients. Netscape, Microsoft and RealNetworks have made this more or less difficult at times, but they're the first things to go on the family computer. In addition to the distractions they cause, they're yet another potential security hole.
No message boards.
Homework access takes priority over anything else such as games, e-mail, surfing.
Enforce these. If they break the rules, then remove their access or other related privilege.
Sound too draconian? It's absolutely no different than limiting TV access in the days when TV was the primary "pipe".
Think you're depriving them of something important that will stunt their abilities later? Think again. They will figure it all out within 30 minutes of their 18th birthday, and they will be better at it than you in another 30 minutes (if not before).
Part of my reasoning was that once I did give them access, I didn't want it to be through a lame parental filter program that would become yet another big sysadm task. If they were mature enough to use the Internet at all, then they were mature enough to watch their step.
How well did it work? The kids have done most of their written homework on the computer, had lots of fun, but have many activities elsewhere in and out of the house. We haven't had to force them off, and only needed to prod them off for things like minor chores. And their computer has never been compromised, despite being DOS/Win31/Win95/Win98/Win2K. And no, they don't have cell phones either.
Probably what you're looking for is a PEO, a Professional Employment Organization. States need enabling legislation for these, but last I looked, many did. A downside, for you, might be that many require a minimum number of employees, though the number can be as low as 5.
The idea is that your company gives shared authority over your employees to the PEO, and in return, the PEO acts as most of an HR department. This is not the same as transferring employment to the PEO (what you were probably referring to). They can handle payroll, employee handbooks (you do have company policies, don't you?), benefits, even employee search. Because of the shared authority, the PEO can take all of the liability for payroll taxes and such as long as you have money in the bank for payroll. Yet you still retain the authority and responsibility for running your business, hiring and firing, etc. A big, well-known one is Administaff (which I've used and can recommend, and have no other affilliation with), but there are many others. One big advantage of a PEO is that it can project a larger group to various service providers, such as health care, retirement plan, and purchasing.
Slashdot Mirror
My cable connection (Comcast) is the same, and specifically includes a disclaimer that no guarantee is made that I will actually receive the rated throughput.
In practice, it blazes in the off-hours, sludges out during prime time. And the most noticable effect when it's bad is latency, not throughput.
It's a lot more than the high school "keyboarding" course. That's at the high end of "Oh, look how computer-literate little Hortense is, now that she can use the computer!", meaning just run Word, e-mail, browse, play games and IM. For those outside the US school system, "keyboarding" is a course tought here in junior/middle or even high school and designed to teach familiarity with basic typing, document creation, e-mail, browser, and other simple skills.
A democracy requires educated citizens. Today, that means that citizens must know something about the actual power and limitations of computers. And that means that they must have at least some familiarity with programming. And it can't wait until college; the knowledge must be part of the basic educational program for everyone. Beyond that, the minimum knowledge level should include an overview of basic components of a computerized society, such as networks, databases, and their opportunities and threats. Without this basic knowledge, both citizens and the leaders they choose will make dangerous decisions. They already are.
I had a boss who used to say that everyones' birth certificate should come up for renewal every year, like a license. Basic knowledge of programming (not necessarily programming knowledge of Basic :-) is a great candidate for the test.
There are quite a few other subjects that similarly need more attention. Math and science generally should be on the list. In many schools, history is a check-box subject that should also get more attention.
That many disks for that much? Sounds like MSDN to me. Next thing will be to update the "making of" sections every year and make it a permanent subscription!
I blame ITT Tech.
Just today, KQED radio in San Francisco played a story on their California Report segment saying that San Diego State University has a degree program in Indian casino management, funded by a tribal grant.
So, following the double taxation philosophy of cell phones (at least in California), buyers should be taxed on something closer to $494, not $399, even though we're ultimately taxed on the futures (games or minimum service contracts) that more than pay for the hardware.
NPR covered this story as well.
Actually, NPR covered this story back in January, and mentioned Caltech's Gary Lorden as the consultant for the show. A Google search will find many other references from then until now.
The "Americanization" of BBC shows is WRONG.
The same goes for things like the Iron Chef. For me, it was at its best when they still showed the original version undubbed. Subtitles might have been nice, but dubbing began the slippery slope. The first US attempt, in a Superbowl theme, was bad in exactly the way that the parent complains about; a total lack of understanding of the concept. They're much closer on the second attempt, but still missing quite a bit. (Not that I'd want to see a stream of ads while Kaga II makes us wait for the verdict.)
"One eyed, one horned, flyin' portable people meter"
Sure sounds strange to me.
Because it continues to drive hits by you, you, you, ... and me. The RSS feeds many of us are watching don't include the disclaimer.
Yeah, I remember back in 2002 or so, I saw an ad for a job requring 5 years experience with Windows2000.
No, that's easy. Just hire 3 part-timers with 2 years experience each. That's how everybody else does it!
As you say, that was Episode 4. "Volume 4", at least in the race between Knuth and Lucas, was effectively Episode 1. But it's all lost if one has to explain the joke. :-)
For many years, I wondered which volume 4 would win the race; this one or Star Wars. Too bad the wrong one won!
Am I liable to pay a fine too?
The usual IANAL, but a lot hinges on this: Intel apparently didn't indemnify its customers against patent infringement that might apply to its processors, so its customers are liable as well, since they also used the patented technology. The one exception so far is Dell, which apparently has a different agreement than the others who have been sued so far. See Intel Settles Intergraph Patent Litigation. Here's a quote:
From the grandparent:
I only buy digital cameras with Compact Flash, and use my usb2 reader... Am I missing any features by doing this as opposed to plugging directly in..?
I also transfer only via CF through my laptop, even though the camera's USB interface is much simpler. The reason? The camera's software conveniently rotates any images based on the camera's sensor, but it doesn't do the rotate losslessly. I would much rather take the extra steps involved (remove card from camera, insert into PC card adapter, insert into laptop, transfer, remove, remove, run any of a number of free programs that can rotate JPEG images losslessly; versus plug in USB, point-'n-click). I also don't appreciate the often proprietary, unlikely-to-be-updated bundled image organizers that refuse to accept your images from other cameras or sources, or even one of its own images that's made a trip through an image editor. I'd rather choose my own that works properly. The "experience" (to use MS-speak) is definitely much nicer using a USB connection, but since the reason one gets a camera is ultimately the images, I put up with more workflow steps and forget about the lost "features".
I do worry about wearing out the camera's CF socket over time, particularly given the size constraints of cameras. I bent a pin in a handheld system's PC Card slot once, despite being careful all the time; I had to have it fixed twice, once by getting the motherboard replaced.
If the camera's drivers and/or the OS allow the camera to appear as an external drive, then you can still get unmolested copies and avoid the CF card shuffle. But I'll need an OS upgrade before that'll work for me.
From the parent:
Can digital cameras ... act as really nice quality webcams if hooked directly with usb?
Some can and some can't. My daughter's cheap Concord EyeQ works just fine; she even used it with NetMeeting. But some don't. To be effective, you need two things: 1) an AC adapter, since such use drains the battery fast; my daughter's Concord doesn't. 2) A programming or scripting hook to control the camera.
For the G5, it looks like you could use its bundled RemoteCapture program and use its Interval Timer Shooting feature. Or, if you have Windows XP and it understands the G5, you could use the Webcam Timershot Powertoy here. But I haven't used either of those yet, so you're on your own.
Have a look here. They've been offering an ASP based Windows desktop with Office and other apps for years. As a test, I signed up as an individual some time ago and it worked. At the time, it had plenty of limitations, mostly of the lockdown variety (very difficult to create a desktop shortcut, many "dangerous" Windows Explorer options disabled, etc.). And decent interactive performance was dependent on a low latency connection.
Nevertheless, it worked as advertised, providing access to the apps and my files from anywhere without me having to keep the OS or apps up-to-date. I was able to reach it from fairly thin clients, like a Windows CE H/PC with a Citrix client installed, giving me access to full Office apps rather than the toys that came with the H/PC.
The service relies on a monthly subscription licensing model, which Microsoft has also supported for years. Even Visual Studio can be licensed this way. At the time I tried the service, some of the apps on the ASP list were not really ready for that model, still suffering from single user legacy implementation problems and such.
Nevertheless, for someone doing basic small/home office kinds of work (i.e., the "average user" mentioned in the original article), the service was more than adequate, and could be reached from a much dumber, smaller, simpler and thin platform than a full PC.
In retrospect, Microsoft made a bunch of mistakes:
4) There were many, including no capability to delete a Passport, and transferring private data via ordinary e-mail when you tried.
( Getting the world to switch calendars ...)
... refers to The World Calendar (described here) with substantially the same properties, and says "The World Calendar has won the support of many different groups.". And following a few links from the original article leads here, where it says "... the notion of a leap-week calendar was first introduced in 1926 by M. P. Delaporte.".
So this particular notion:
Hello? Microsoft? 99% of the stuff on the Internet is unsigned.
MOST of the not-signed messages I get are when installing MICROSOFT's own updates. It just amazes me that Microsoft bothers to have a policy setting to enforce rejection of non-signed software, and it's one of the biggest offenders.
Another one: just look at the old Dhrystone benchmark and all of the over-the-top "optimizations" that were used to get better compiler/processor results. The SPEC organization, created in a direct attempt to deal with this very kind of problem, still must update its bendhmarks regularly in order to deal with loopholes (and changing technology in general). A good example was when a particular benchmark (matrix300; ref is 2/3 the way down) was defeated because it took no input. That made it possible in principle to collapse the entire program to a constant, and at some point, somebody did. That last link also gives a good description of why initially good benchmarks go stale.
And while those two examples are old enough to show that this has been going on a long time, there are plenty of examples far older.
Benchmarking has always been an arms race.
As far as I can tell, this can't damage the iPod's hardware, can it?
How do you know? In many highly cost-reduced platforms, critical control is moved into software, so that it might be quite easy to break the hardware by breaking the software. Fiddle with the power management (charging) firmware on some mobile devices and you might blow up the batteries or at least create a serious overheating condition. This kind of thing happens often enough to cause recalls and firmware updates even in "official" firmware to easily back up a claim that hacking the software can break the hardware.
The earlier sibling's response is also sufficiently valid on its own: the vendor has no obligation to diagnose your problems if you've changed the (software) platform that provides the basis for their diagnosis capability. You didn't pay for an advanced hardware-only diagnostic service.
Well, the linked article significantly uses the adjective "enterprise", but the /. description doesn't. So I'm less surprised now. I use SpamBayes and it's been great.
Start by treating the computer like old TV.
To which I would add:
Our older one is now in college with her own laptop, PDA and digital camera. She bought and installed her own firewall and virus scanner, and chose and installed OOo herself over the industry leader after running her own compatibility tests. She bought stuff online well before 18 as well. The other one is perfectly capable of using the home computer, even plays some games, but has wider interests elsewhere. Without prompting from us, she's been running her big sister's old typing program to improve her homework typing speed. Neither wasted school units on keyboarding classes merely to learn how to type; they found much more interesting electives to take.
I'm also somewhat dubious about the extent to which graphing calculators are used in some math classes. While it can increase the experimental aspect of the class, it has the potential to reduce real thought, much as the evil guess-and-check stuff they were assigned in early elementary school.
I live in Seattle. Just a wild guess... but I don't think these clocks are going to sell well here.
The University of Washington might disagree!
For our kids, we did this, with great success:
Sound too draconian? It's absolutely no different than limiting TV access in the days when TV was the primary "pipe".
Think you're depriving them of something important that will stunt their abilities later? Think again. They will figure it all out within 30 minutes of their 18th birthday, and they will be better at it than you in another 30 minutes (if not before).
Part of my reasoning was that once I did give them access, I didn't want it to be through a lame parental filter program that would become yet another big sysadm task. If they were mature enough to use the Internet at all, then they were mature enough to watch their step.
How well did it work? The kids have done most of their written homework on the computer, had lots of fun, but have many activities elsewhere in and out of the house. We haven't had to force them off, and only needed to prod them off for things like minor chores. And their computer has never been compromised, despite being DOS/Win31/Win95/Win98/Win2K. And no, they don't have cell phones either.
Probably what you're looking for is a PEO, a Professional Employment Organization. States need enabling legislation for these, but last I looked, many did. A downside, for you, might be that many require a minimum number of employees, though the number can be as low as 5.
The idea is that your company gives shared authority over your employees to the PEO, and in return, the PEO acts as most of an HR department. This is not the same as transferring employment to the PEO (what you were probably referring to). They can handle payroll, employee handbooks (you do have company policies, don't you?), benefits, even employee search. Because of the shared authority, the PEO can take all of the liability for payroll taxes and such as long as you have money in the bank for payroll. Yet you still retain the authority and responsibility for running your business, hiring and firing, etc. A big, well-known one is Administaff (which I've used and can recommend, and have no other affilliation with), but there are many others. One big advantage of a PEO is that it can project a larger group to various service providers, such as health care, retirement plan, and purchasing.