Does anyone -- perhaps an Indian -- know why India is building roads, and not rail?
If they built rail, they could transport more goods and people at a lower cost -- but with greater latency and planning required.
Because India is a poor country, don't they need more bang for their transportation buck, and not necessarily more convenience? Are they at least going to make the people who use the roads responsible for paying for them -- e.g. the cars and (especially) trucks that wear them out?
Why would they want to commit to a gas-based transportaiton system when, if they built trains, they could generate electricity and use that to power most of their transportation?
The fact that Carl Icahn is a Jew (as were/are with most of the participants in the takeover business) is quite relevant. Judaism (as a religion) has nothing to do with it -- but his ethnicity, and that of his peers was critical. I'm referring to the fact that most of them had great-grandparents from that lived within a few hundred miles of each other.
Their ethnic cohesion allowed them to run their enterprise successfully, and that enterprise both helped Jews and Israel, and hurt the goyim. What a mitzvah! The takeover game is something Jews should be proud of: Jews made so much money (so quickly!) at the expense of their goyische competitors. They unseated the WASPs whole industries. Jews got the money from the Savings and Loans, receiving the savings of an entire generation of Americans -- and that allowed them to make donations to Israel and other Jewish charities. Mazel Tov! And for the most part, the gentiles didn't catch on that it was Jews benefitting at their expense.
Here's something from the Washington Report on the importance of the ethnicity of the participants, and the phenom in general:
"... A careful examination showed, however, that his public support for Israel, rather than being Jewish, was the key to how a figure of Boesky's prominence could, over a long period, corrupt so many Wall Street insiders without in turn being subjected to extortion or exposure.
He had selected as potential collaborators fellow Jews identified with pro-Israel charities. A recipient of his illegal overtures who might turn out to be too honest to accept Boesky's offers of money or stocks for insider information very likely would also be reluctant to report such an illegal proposition by an ardent, generous, and prominent supporter of Israeli causes. To do so might turn the informer into a pariah in what the Jewish press calls "the pro-Israel community."
This is may or may not be good for consumers -- but it will make Mr. Icahn some money. An understanding of who Carl Icahn is, and what he does, may help.
Carl Icahn is an old guy (born to a middle-class Jewish family in
Queens, NY). He makes his money by buying controlling interests in
firms and reorganizing them in ways that increase the share price. In
this regard, he and other corporate raiders have made American
capitalism work more the way it is supposed to (according to the law). Sometimes they've broken the law, and screwed over minority investors; clearly that's awful
The methods of someone like Carl Icahn produce anger, hatred and even anti-semitism -- even though what he does is consistent with American law.
The basic idea of "corporate raiding" is to get enough of a
controlling interest in a firm that the raider can convince the board
to let him break the "unwritten" rules of American capitalism, for the
benefit of the shareholders.
For instance, at big firms, younger employees used to get paid less
than at other firms, but had job security. When they got old, they
still got paid, even though the company would have been better off
without them. Also, often the pension funds for the workers contained
more money than they were required to have by law. That money could instead go to shareholders.
Doing those things rubs a lot of folks the wrong way, but that's usually because they imagine that a company has a duty to its workers -- which, in America, is not the case. The company is only beholden to its owners. Until the law changes and the owning class is disposessed, that's the law (and please remember to call me when the revolution happens, guys).
Carl Icahn's brilliant ideas, among others, were to fire the older
workers and give the extra pension fund money to the
shareholders. Perhaps a little "creative accounting" allowed him to
give more and then some. This was great for shareholders.
The bosses running American companies had always been legally able to
act like Carl; they just didn't have the chutzpah to do it. The
American system was less meritocratic, chummy and run by whites.
The corporate raiding could have happened in the 60s or 70s, but banks
wouldn't loan money to outsiders like Carl Icahn and his fellow
corporate raiders. Without the money, they couldn't buy a controlling
interest in a firm and reorganize things.
The banks didn't loan to folks like Carl partly out of
self-preservation: by loaning money to people like Carl Icahn, they'd
be alienating the other bosses of the companies they served, and that
could result in them getting cut out of routine transactions that were
their bread and butter.
E.g. if a bank helped Icahn to to a takeover, it would lose some
business customers, because pissed off company bosses would withold
their company's business -- even if the bank had low rates and not using them
was bad for the shareholders!
The reluctance of bankers to loan money to corporate raiders changed
in the 80s when Michael Milken, working at Drexel, Burnham and
Lambert, appeared on the scene. With high yield bonds, he had the
money from investors. Michael and his bank (Drexel, Burnham and Lambert) was willing
to loan money to corporate raiders, because the Jewish bank (that's
not meant to be "antisemitic" --- but just a statement of who owned,
ran and staffed the bank) didn't have much corporate business to lose.
As documented in the book "Predator's Ball", by the Jewish journalist Connie
Bruck, to a man, almost all of the corporate raiders and bankers who
provided the money were Jews with roots in Poland or Russia. A number
of things came together: they were intelligent, hard working,
insensitive to criticism, full of love for money (I don't want to use
the word "greedy" in connection with "Jews", lest I be accused of
"antisemitism" by the hypersensitive), able to do business with each
other (genetic relatedness helps people to establish trust) and uncaring about the needs/feelings o
There's energy coming in the system though, right? The sun heats the air on the bottom.
It is a bit like the guy who wanted to run a tube from the ocean floor to the surface, and use the temperature differential to do work.
The thing can be terribly inefficient (in terms of wasting the solar energy) -- the thing that matters is just the price of the kWHs that come out of it.
My heuristics don't work well for the DARPA challenge, but the teams that placed in the DARPA challenge are not AI startups.
The teams that entered the challenge are heavily slanted to universities (CMU, Virginia Tech, UCB, Stanford), defense contractors (Mitre) and companies that operate fleets of vehicles.
But just looking at the university teams that entered, you'll notice that the ones that have a lower reputation (Ohio State and Viriginia Tech) didn't place in the top 5. The ones that have the best reps (Stanford and CMU) did place. That's in keeping with my heuristics.
The team from Metairie is the most odd -- but if you research them, you'll see that a guy on their team comes from a family that operates a fleet of vehicles. It is up their alley.
I'm not too surprised the bulk of the defense contractors and vehicle companies didn't do so well -- that's not their thing. They'd do better to acquire startups created by the guys from Stanford, CMU and perhaps Metairie!
"please get a life, people base their server decision on needs (internal needs, developer, security, speed, ease of use, deployment, history) , not some religous belief of some product is always better."
Actually I'm not saying WHY they do anything -- I'm just saying what I've noticed. The company mentioned in the article doesn't fit the pattern of successful AI-oriented startups.
The companies you've listed aren't startups -- and I'd argue that Dell isn't technically sophisticated, in the sense that Altavista, ITA or Google is.
I'm basing it on my experience -- which was gained through doing research, over a period of months. I guess I could have written up a report on my results, but that's not how I keep body and soul together. I just filed it away in my brain.
You write: "So what if I told you that my experience with interacting with Linux users were that they were all pompous arrogant bastards?"
What, are we 10 for 10? 8 out of 20? 30 out of 40? If you've got a sample size > 10, I'd definitely give that some weight. But if they were all from the same general area, I'd hold out that maybe other Linux users not from the sampled group are not "pompous arrogant bastards." E.g. if you sample 30 random Democrats, that tells you a lot about Democrats, but not necessarily non-Democrats.
BTW, I'm a *BSD user -- and I fit the elitist, asshole stereotype to a very high degree.
Me: So if you look at who's running what, you get some idea of where they cluster. A bit like looking at someone's zipcode, SAT scores, etc. to figure out how much money they make.
"No. You're making a judgement about an individual without knowing them at all."
I don't need to know you in order to make inferences about you.
I just need to know things are correlated with other things I know about you. E.g. if you read Slashdot, you are probably a white male between the ages of 18-35. The odds that you are a black woman over 50 are very, very low.
In my case, I've researched what webservers technically competent companies run. Besides Microsoft and Godaddy, I can't think of one that does. I can think of tons of technically savvy companies that run Apache and Linux/*BSD, and a few that run Solaris. On the other hand, there are a lot of technically un-savvy companies that use Windows.
If something looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, and I say it is a duck, are you really going to argue that I'm prejudging the thing that looks, walks and quacks like a duck?
At a certain point, I started ID'ing the webservers of various companies.
First I'd look at the site and ask myself -- "what server?"
After I guessed, I'd ID the webserver.
After a few months of doing that off and on, you get pretty good at it. Spotting Linux and Microsoft is quite easy -- there are a variety of traits generally specific to each, like sluggish performance and production values.
Then I noticed that besides Microsoft, I couldn't remember a technical company running their software on the webserver. Almost all the tech startups that look legit run Apache on Linux or FreeBSD.
I've not read any statistics on this stuff -- I've inferred it myself from doing the research.
"Did it every occur that just *maybe* those that do AI research and development have nothing to do with website development and deployment (which includes the servers OS)?"
Well, yes, of course. I started paying attention, and then I noticed the pattern.
That's what smart people do, right? They try to understand the world.
> "Utterly irrelevant. You do realise that clever, capable people exist, live and work in other geographical areas, right? For example, a lot of very good security-related stuff comes out of Israel."
Clever people live in many places, but the AI tends to happen where I said it does. And yes, if it was a security product coming from Israel, I wouldn't bat an eye. But that's not what we're talking about here, is it?
> "Now I know you're taking the piss. The guys working on the AI are not the same ones admining the webserver, and don't necessarily care about it either."
Actually, if it is a technical company, there's probably a culture in place that leads them to running non-Windows. Indeed, the AI geniuses are probably too busy to run the webserver -- but if it is a startup, they've hired people they know from academia, and they'd almost certainly be running Apache and some free OS.
At least, that's what I've observed. I can't remember the last time I saw a nerdy academic bunch running a Windows webserver.
MicroSoft hosting -- non-technical types Linux types -- cheap, technical types, fashionable types who go with the herd FreeBSD -- cheap, savvier technical types OpenBSD -- paranoiacs, reliability freaks NetBSD -- super geeks Sun (other proprietary BSDs) -- technically demanding folks who have too much money
So if you look at who's running what, you get some idea of where they cluster. A bit like looking at someone's zipcode, SAT scores, etc. to figure out how much money they make.
I don't think it is "prejudiced" to do this -- unless you consider statistical inference prejudiced.
Interesting to see how the guy went from selling satellite TV equipment to having the best AI ever. This is a truly amazing trajectory -- so either the guys are frauds, or they really have great tech chops.
I use a few heuristics to evaluate the claims of developing AI -- they are based on a few patterns I've noticed over the years:
1) Are the founders techies? Do they have PhDs from places like MIT, Caltech, UC Berkeley or Stanford?
2) Where is the company based? Boston Area? Silicon Valley?
3) Is the problem constrained, or is it very general? If too general, it is likely bogus. E.g. web search = narrow. Super-duper AI == very general.
4) Using Open Source for their webserver?
If you look at these guys, there's no easily-available news on the founders and their educations. They are based in Henderson, Nevada - -quite far from any tech/AI center. Their website looks like it runs on a Windows server.
So I'd guess it is a lot of b.s., until I see otherwise.
And, I'd guess (without looking to check) that Zonk is the editor that let this one past.
This is a complex technical issue. I can easily imagine that users of the Google software will say to themselves:
Google Toolbar allows badguy to get data -> Google software bad
But on the other hand, perhaps the users will say to themselves:
Oh -- MicroSoft made yet another security mistake. Rats!
But normally I've seen people blame the additional software -- but as software folks, we know that if you have to add a feature (in this case, the IE plugin) on a crappy foundation, normally you see the faults in the addition, and not necessarily in the main software.
I bet MS is kinda scared about this. At this stage in the game, I think there are a lot of satisfied Apple customers who'd love to bring an 'iPod' quality media device into their living room.
I don't think MicroSoft has built up this sort of goodwill.
In fact, I saw on TV -- "The Apprentice", where they has MicroSoft on the show. Trump said to them, "I use a lot of MicroSoft, and it works." As if that was news.
Not "it works fanTASTIcally!" -- but just a limp-sounding "it works."
Given how much Trump exaggerates, it automatically downgraded his statement to, "on good days it kinda works," -- basically, if something is half-assed, Trump says it is the best thing ever. So I think MicroSoft has a customer-perception problem.
I found this at Caltech, a piece on quantum computers. I've never really taken quantum computation seriously -- it just seemed too far-fetched. If they've really got 8-bits, maybe quantum computing will matter in my lifetime.
From reading the piece, it sounds like we will have some major problems with our current cryptographic systems if quantum computers become available.
Typically, if someone does something bad to someone, the person doing the bad has to compensate the harmed person.
So if Ellison did something bad to the shareholders, he should pay the shareholders.
The fact that Ellison is a shareholder too doesn't matter -- all it means is, in the big scheme of things Ellison did something bad to the minority shareholders.
So Ellison could just as easily compensate only the minority shareholders -- but only as much as he hurt them.
It doesn't make sense for the judge to say, "Oh my! This case is so complex, let's just have Larry flush some money down the toilet or give it to charity, and we'll call it even."
Some work environments are such that everything has to work as often as possible.
Doing any sort of migration is a bad ideas -- as soon as you have problems, you'll have hordes of pissed off folks screaming.
I'd recommend against doing a linux migration under those circumstances -- it will only be bad for you and Linux.
Eventually such ossified environments will likely vanish -- they'll go out of business. If you really want to use Linux at work, it is probably easier to find a job at a Linux shop.
So-called "click fraud" seems to be the weak link here.
Microsoft should fund a click-fraud network, to undermine the whole PPC/advertising-based model. Microsoft can't expect to play that game like Google, so if they destroy that business model, Google will be worse off.
And then we can all go back to Desktop applications - and Bill will become all the money.
I can imagine that if Bellsouth didn't set the bar at something big, like a lawsuit, you'd have folks exercising their grudges through Bellsouth.
E.g. I get zerged in a game, so I plant some false info about me in the Wikipedia, then call up and claim that their customer put it there, etc. If I do it well, he's got to shop around for an ISP. That's when I raid his fortress.
Without something like a lawsuit, or requiring the complainer to pay Bellsouth to investigate, it seems they'll get buried in silly complaints.
I suspect this is why hosts that get takedown notices typically just torpedo the allegedly bad stuff: you've got a legal duty to take it down, and determining that it isn't bad is too much effort. So you just take it down and piss off your customer.
About 90% of these stores in New York and New Jersey are owned by hasidic Jews. The cheating methods they use are standard practice.
I'm just talking about peoples' experiences, not what you've read.
E.g. Hasidim are infamous for cheating people -- including other non-hasidim who consider themselves Jews. Ask any Israeli -- it causes a lot of conflict.
Likewise, please consider the case of Mexicans and Blacks. Mexicans are infamous for killing their girlfriends when they get in disputes. Blacks are famous for carjackings. But if you read what they think of as their holy book (The Holy Bible), it is clear that stealing and killing girlfriends (or just premarital sex) are forbidden. And if a black or Mexican were to do those things, he'd have to do a great deal of penance.
However, as you may or may not know, Hasidim have different standards for cheating Jews vs. cheating gentiles. It is part of their religion. A hasid published a book on this recently, and it is a big deal, because he lays it all out: http://www.rense.com/general48/newbook.htm -- where Orthodox Jews recommend to other Orthodox that the gentiles are evil and a different species. And that a Jew should deceive them about their true feelings -- e.g. don't tell the gentiles that you think they are evil, and of a different species.
Slashdot Mirror
Does anyone -- perhaps an Indian -- know why India is building roads, and not rail?
If they built rail, they could transport more goods and people at a lower cost -- but with greater latency and planning required.
Because India is a poor country, don't they need more bang for their transportation buck, and not necessarily more convenience? Are they at least going to make the people who use the roads responsible for paying for them -- e.g. the cars and (especially) trucks that wear them out?
Why would they want to commit to a gas-based transportaiton system when, if they built trains, they could generate electricity and use that to power most of their transportation?
This looks like pretty bad public policy.
Dear Anonymous Coward,
c kissues/0490/9004005.htm
The fact that Carl Icahn is a Jew (as were/are with most of the participants in the takeover business) is quite relevant. Judaism (as a religion) has nothing to do with it -- but his ethnicity, and that of his peers was critical. I'm referring to the fact that most of them had great-grandparents from that lived within a few hundred miles of each other.
Their ethnic cohesion allowed them to run their enterprise successfully, and that enterprise both helped Jews and Israel, and hurt the goyim. What a mitzvah! The takeover game is something Jews should be proud of: Jews made so much money (so quickly!) at the expense of their goyische competitors. They unseated the WASPs whole industries. Jews got the money from the Savings and Loans, receiving the savings of an entire generation of Americans -- and that allowed them to make donations to Israel and other Jewish charities. Mazel Tov! And for the most part, the gentiles didn't catch on that it was Jews benefitting at their expense.
Here's something from the Washington Report on the importance of the ethnicity of the participants, and the phenom in general:
http://www.wrmea.com/Washington-Report_org/www/ba
a nice excerpt:
"... A careful examination showed, however, that his public support for Israel, rather than being Jewish, was the key to how a figure of Boesky's prominence could, over a long period, corrupt so many Wall Street insiders without in turn being subjected to extortion or exposure.
He had selected as potential collaborators fellow Jews identified with pro-Israel charities. A recipient of his illegal overtures who might turn out to be too honest to accept Boesky's offers of money or stocks for insider information very likely would also be reluctant to report such an illegal proposition by an ardent, generous, and prominent supporter of Israeli causes. To do so might turn the informer into a pariah in what the Jewish press calls "the pro-Israel community."
This deal looks neat.
But Sun has a whole line of Opteron-based computers.
Does anyone have anything good/bad to say about their entry model, the X2100?
Here's the review I saw: http://anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2530
I like the idea that it is an off-the shelf minimal server.
This is may or may not be good for consumers -- but it will make Mr. Icahn some money. An understanding of who Carl Icahn is, and what he does, may help.
Carl Icahn is an old guy (born to a middle-class Jewish family in Queens, NY). He makes his money by buying controlling interests in firms and reorganizing them in ways that increase the share price. In this regard, he and other corporate raiders have made American capitalism work more the way it is supposed to (according to the law). Sometimes they've broken the law, and screwed over minority investors; clearly that's awful
The methods of someone like Carl Icahn produce anger, hatred and even anti-semitism -- even though what he does is consistent with American law.
The basic idea of "corporate raiding" is to get enough of a controlling interest in a firm that the raider can convince the board to let him break the "unwritten" rules of American capitalism, for the benefit of the shareholders.
For instance, at big firms, younger employees used to get paid less than at other firms, but had job security. When they got old, they still got paid, even though the company would have been better off without them. Also, often the pension funds for the workers contained more money than they were required to have by law. That money could instead go to shareholders.
Doing those things rubs a lot of folks the wrong way, but that's usually because they imagine that a company has a duty to its workers -- which, in America, is not the case. The company is only beholden to its owners. Until the law changes and the owning class is disposessed, that's the law (and please remember to call me when the revolution happens, guys). Carl Icahn's brilliant ideas, among others, were to fire the older workers and give the extra pension fund money to the shareholders. Perhaps a little "creative accounting" allowed him to give more and then some. This was great for shareholders.
The bosses running American companies had always been legally able to act like Carl; they just didn't have the chutzpah to do it. The American system was less meritocratic, chummy and run by whites.
The corporate raiding could have happened in the 60s or 70s, but banks wouldn't loan money to outsiders like Carl Icahn and his fellow corporate raiders. Without the money, they couldn't buy a controlling interest in a firm and reorganize things.
The banks didn't loan to folks like Carl partly out of self-preservation: by loaning money to people like Carl Icahn, they'd be alienating the other bosses of the companies they served, and that could result in them getting cut out of routine transactions that were their bread and butter.
E.g. if a bank helped Icahn to to a takeover, it would lose some business customers, because pissed off company bosses would withold their company's business -- even if the bank had low rates and not using them was bad for the shareholders!
The reluctance of bankers to loan money to corporate raiders changed in the 80s when Michael Milken, working at Drexel, Burnham and Lambert, appeared on the scene. With high yield bonds, he had the money from investors. Michael and his bank (Drexel, Burnham and Lambert) was willing to loan money to corporate raiders, because the Jewish bank (that's not meant to be "antisemitic" --- but just a statement of who owned, ran and staffed the bank) didn't have much corporate business to lose.
As documented in the book "Predator's Ball", by the Jewish journalist Connie Bruck, to a man, almost all of the corporate raiders and bankers who provided the money were Jews with roots in Poland or Russia. A number of things came together: they were intelligent, hard working, insensitive to criticism, full of love for money (I don't want to use the word "greedy" in connection with "Jews", lest I be accused of "antisemitism" by the hypersensitive), able to do business with each other (genetic relatedness helps people to establish trust) and uncaring about the needs/feelings o
There's energy coming in the system though, right? The sun heats the air on the bottom.
It is a bit like the guy who wanted to run a tube from the ocean floor to the surface, and use the temperature differential to do work.
The thing can be terribly inefficient (in terms of wasting the solar energy) -- the thing that matters is just the price of the kWHs that come out of it.
My heuristics don't work well for the DARPA challenge, but the teams that placed in the DARPA challenge are not AI startups.
The teams that entered the challenge are heavily slanted to universities (CMU, Virginia Tech, UCB, Stanford), defense contractors (Mitre) and companies that operate fleets of vehicles.
But just looking at the university teams that entered, you'll notice that the ones that have a lower reputation (Ohio State and Viriginia Tech) didn't place in the top 5. The ones that have the best reps (Stanford and CMU) did place. That's in keeping with my heuristics.
The team from Metairie is the most odd -- but if you research them, you'll see that a guy on their team comes from a family that operates a fleet of vehicles. It is up their alley.
I'm not too surprised the bulk of the defense contractors and vehicle companies didn't do so well -- that's not their thing. They'd do better to acquire startups created by the guys from Stanford, CMU and perhaps Metairie!
"please get a life, people base their server decision on needs (internal needs, developer, security, speed, ease of use, deployment, history) , not some religous belief of some product is always better."
Actually I'm not saying WHY they do anything -- I'm just saying what I've noticed. The company mentioned in the article doesn't fit the pattern of successful AI-oriented startups.
The companies you've listed aren't startups -- and I'd argue that Dell isn't technically sophisticated, in the sense that Altavista, ITA or Google is.
Why? What's your logic here?
I'm basing it on my experience -- which was gained through doing research, over a period of months. I guess I could have written up a report on my results, but that's not how I keep body and soul together. I just filed it away in my brain.
You write: "So what if I told you that my experience with interacting with Linux users were that they were all pompous arrogant bastards?"
What, are we 10 for 10? 8 out of 20? 30 out of 40?
If you've got a sample size > 10, I'd definitely give that some weight. But if they were all from the same general area, I'd hold out that maybe other Linux users not from the sampled group are not "pompous arrogant bastards." E.g. if you sample 30 random Democrats, that tells you a lot about Democrats, but not necessarily non-Democrats.
BTW, I'm a *BSD user -- and I fit the elitist, asshole stereotype to a very high degree.
Me: So if you look at who's running what, you get some idea of where they cluster. A bit like looking at someone's zipcode, SAT scores, etc. to figure out how much money they make.
"No. You're making a judgement about an individual without knowing them at all."
I don't need to know you in order to make inferences about you.
I just need to know things are correlated with other things I know about you. E.g. if you read Slashdot, you are probably a white male between the ages of 18-35. The odds that you are a black woman over 50 are very, very low.
In my case, I've researched what webservers technically competent companies run. Besides Microsoft and Godaddy, I can't think of one that does. I can think of tons of technically savvy companies that run Apache and Linux/*BSD, and a few that run Solaris. On the other hand, there are a lot of technically un-savvy companies that use Windows.
If something looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, and I say it is a duck, are you really going to argue that I'm prejudging the thing that looks, walks and quacks like a duck?
Because that's what's going on here.
At a certain point, I started ID'ing the webservers of various companies.
First I'd look at the site and ask myself -- "what server?"
After I guessed, I'd ID the webserver.
After a few months of doing that off and on, you get pretty good at it. Spotting Linux and Microsoft is quite easy -- there are a variety of traits generally specific to each, like sluggish performance and production values.
Then I noticed that besides Microsoft, I couldn't remember a technical company running their software on the webserver. Almost all the tech startups that look legit run Apache on Linux or FreeBSD.
I've not read any statistics on this stuff -- I've inferred it myself from doing the research.
"Did it every occur that just *maybe* those that do AI research and development have nothing to do with website development and deployment (which includes the servers OS)?"
Well, yes, of course. I started paying attention, and then I noticed the pattern.
That's what smart people do, right? They try to understand the world.
> "Utterly irrelevant. You do realise that clever, capable people exist, live and work in other geographical areas, right? For example, a lot of very good security-related stuff comes out of Israel."
Clever people live in many places, but the AI tends to happen where I said it does. And yes, if it was a security product coming from Israel, I wouldn't bat an eye. But that's not what we're talking about here, is it?
> "Now I know you're taking the piss. The guys working on the AI are not the same ones admining the webserver, and don't necessarily care about it either."
Actually, if it is a technical company, there's probably a culture in place that leads them to running non-Windows. Indeed, the AI geniuses are probably too busy to run the webserver -- but if it is a startup, they've hired people they know from academia, and they'd almost certainly be running Apache and some free OS.
At least, that's what I've observed. I can't remember the last time I saw a nerdy academic bunch running a Windows webserver.
No, not really.
There's a general pattern:
MicroSoft hosting -- non-technical types
Linux types -- cheap, technical types, fashionable types who go with the herd
FreeBSD -- cheap, savvier technical types
OpenBSD -- paranoiacs, reliability freaks
NetBSD -- super geeks
Sun (other proprietary BSDs) -- technically demanding folks who have too much money
So if you look at who's running what, you get some idea of where they cluster. A bit like looking at someone's zipcode, SAT scores, etc. to figure out how much money they make.
I don't think it is "prejudiced" to do this -- unless you consider statistical inference prejudiced.
Here's the history -- it isn't pretty.
= LVRJNV.story&STORY=/www/story/11-15-2005/000421661 7&EDATE=Nov+15,+2005
i te_wars.html
First, there's a cryptic press release about a "Mr. Hagen", and the changing of the company name:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT
They don't list the full name of "Mr. Hagen" -- but if you search you find this amazing thing:
http://www.businessnc.com/archives/2004/09/satell
and here's a really rude summary:
http://www.stocklemon.com/11_14_05.html
Interesting to see how the guy went from selling satellite TV equipment to having the best AI ever. This is a truly amazing trajectory -- so either the guys are frauds, or they really have great tech chops.
I use a few heuristics to evaluate the claims of developing AI -- they are based on a few patterns I've noticed over the years:
1) Are the founders techies? Do they have PhDs from places like MIT, Caltech, UC Berkeley or Stanford?
2) Where is the company based? Boston Area? Silicon Valley?
3) Is the problem constrained, or is it very general? If too general, it is likely bogus. E.g. web search = narrow. Super-duper AI == very general.
4) Using Open Source for their webserver?
If you look at these guys, there's no easily-available news on the founders and their educations. They are based in Henderson, Nevada - -quite far from any tech/AI center. Their website looks like it runs on a Windows server.
So I'd guess it is a lot of b.s., until I see otherwise.
And, I'd guess (without looking to check) that Zonk is the editor that let this one past.
This is a complex technical issue. I can easily imagine that users of the Google software will say to themselves:
Google Toolbar allows badguy to get data -> Google software bad
But on the other hand, perhaps the users will say to themselves:
Oh -- MicroSoft made yet another security mistake. Rats!
But normally I've seen people blame the additional software -- but as software folks, we know that if you have to add a feature (in this case, the IE plugin) on a crappy foundation, normally you see the faults in the addition, and not necessarily in the main software.
It will be neat to see how this plays out.
I bet MS is kinda scared about this. At this stage in the game, I think there are a lot of satisfied Apple customers who'd love to bring an 'iPod' quality media device into their living room.
I don't think MicroSoft has built up this sort of goodwill.
In fact, I saw on TV -- "The Apprentice", where they has MicroSoft on the show. Trump said to them, "I use a lot of MicroSoft, and it works." As if that was news.
Not "it works fanTASTIcally!" -- but just a limp-sounding "it works."
Given how much Trump exaggerates, it automatically downgraded his statement to, "on good days it kinda works," -- basically, if something is half-assed, Trump says it is the best thing ever. So I think MicroSoft has a customer-perception problem.
I found this at Caltech, a piece on quantum computers. I've never really taken quantum computation seriously -- it just seemed too far-fetched. If they've really got 8-bits, maybe quantum computing will matter in my lifetime.
From reading the piece, it sounds like we will have some major problems with our current cryptographic systems if quantum computers become available.
The judgement doesn't make sense to me.
Typically, if someone does something bad to someone, the person doing the bad has to compensate the harmed person.
So if Ellison did something bad to the shareholders, he should pay the shareholders.
The fact that Ellison is a shareholder too doesn't matter -- all it means is, in the big scheme of things Ellison did something bad to the minority shareholders.
So Ellison could just as easily compensate only the minority shareholders -- but only as much as he hurt them.
It doesn't make sense for the judge to say, "Oh my! This case is so complex, let's just have Larry flush some money down the toilet or give it to charity, and we'll call it even."
Some work environments are such that everything has to work as often as possible.
Doing any sort of migration is a bad ideas -- as soon as you have problems, you'll have hordes of pissed off folks screaming.
I'd recommend against doing a linux migration under those circumstances -- it will only be bad for you and Linux.
Eventually such ossified environments will likely vanish -- they'll go out of business. If you really want to use Linux at work, it is probably easier to find a job at a Linux shop.
So-called "click fraud" seems to be the weak link here.
Microsoft should fund a click-fraud network, to undermine the whole PPC/advertising-based model. Microsoft can't expect to play that game like Google, so if they destroy that business model, Google will be worse off.
And then we can all go back to Desktop applications - and Bill will become all the money.
I can imagine that if Bellsouth didn't set the bar at something big, like a lawsuit, you'd have folks exercising their grudges through Bellsouth.
E.g. I get zerged in a game, so I plant some false info about me in the Wikipedia, then call up and claim that their customer put it there, etc. If I do it well, he's got to shop around for an ISP. That's when I raid his fortress.
Without something like a lawsuit, or requiring the complainer to pay Bellsouth to investigate, it seems they'll get buried in silly complaints.
I suspect this is why hosts that get takedown notices typically just torpedo the allegedly bad stuff: you've got a legal duty to take it down, and determining that it isn't bad is too much effort. So you just take it down and piss off your customer.
About 90% of these stores in New York and New Jersey are owned by hasidic Jews. The cheating methods they use are standard practice.
I'm just talking about peoples' experiences, not what you've read.
E.g. Hasidim are infamous for cheating people -- including other non-hasidim who consider themselves Jews. Ask any Israeli -- it causes a lot of conflict.
Likewise, please consider the case of Mexicans and Blacks. Mexicans are infamous for killing their girlfriends when they get in disputes. Blacks are famous for carjackings. But if you read what they think of as their holy book (The Holy Bible), it is clear that stealing and killing girlfriends (or just premarital sex) are forbidden. And if a black or Mexican were to do those things, he'd have to do a great deal of penance.
However, as you may or may not know, Hasidim have different standards for cheating Jews vs. cheating gentiles. It is part of their religion. A hasid published a book on this recently, and it is a big deal, because he lays it all out: http://www.rense.com/general48/newbook.htm -- where Orthodox Jews recommend to other Orthodox that the gentiles are evil and a different species. And that a Jew should deceive them about their true feelings -- e.g. don't tell the gentiles that you think they are evil, and of a different species.
Are these camera stores in question run by Hasidim?
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E.g. I looked at the photos of the camera stores, and saw a lot of Hasidim in the neighborhood:
http://donwiss.com/pictures/BrooklynStores/h0202.
http://donwiss.com/pictures/BrooklynStores/h0147.
http://donwiss.com/pictures/BrooklynStores/h0006.
If that's the case, it kind of explains the rip-off experience. They are infamous for this sort of stuff.