Outside of the end-user type applications (ESRI's ArcGIS and co.), open source in GIS is quite widespread.
Refractions Research maintains the PostGIS module for PostgreSQL, and while it is not yet complete (fix the ACROSS function guys!) it certainly makes the wrangling of data much easier as it implements the OpenGIS SQL specification.
Compare this to the old days of a dozen different formats which weren't convertable, it's much nicer with GML (Geographic Markup Language) and standard representations of geographic features made possible by the find folks involved in the OpenGIS consortium.
Props to the team at the University of Minnesota for MapServer, it's made my life a whole lot easier.
Surely this guy should be swimming in offers from the aerospace industry, or any related field. If he can hammer out a homegrown cruise missile, there must be some talent there.
Perhaps he doesn't want to work in such an environment and wants to go solo. Fair enough.
Don't ever make your company public. Once you do, it stops being a company and instead a money-collector. Instead of a commercial entity which produces (hopefully) a superior product, you are controlled by people who more than likely don't give a rat's ass about what is made, unless it's money.
This is the problem, they don't care how the money is made, so they'll press for cutting corners at every opportunity, and make a prime target for "mergers". Mergers are just an excuse to cut even more corners, by taking advantage of economy of scale. However, once one player in the field does this, the others must follow or be eaten up. Thus is perpetuates until we reach a number of large companies which are too large and bloated to react to demand and conditions, and fudge the books, or stifle innovation in order to keep what rightfully should be a corpse alive.
True innovation will always be carried out by dedicated individuals or small groups, possibly in a private company, but these large ones are just disasters waiting to happen.
Of course, I could also leave the house, be struck by lightning twice, and continue on to win the big lottery jackpot. As we say, not bloody likely.
This is a good thing
on
GPS on Mars?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Building a Navstar-like constellation around Mars, while the obvious benefits may be elusive outside of a few probes in the next few years, will keep everyone focused on Mars itself. This can be only a good thing.
The more we send to Mars, the more likely that there'll eventually be a manned mission. People don't like to abandon projects once they've invested a great deal of time and effort.
Sure, I know there's a lot of "more useful" and "efficient" things to spend the money on. Then again, who wants to be "efficient", let's explore!
I'm not sure what your setup is, but I haven't found Mozilla/Firefox intolerably slow since the milestone builds. This is across Linux and Windows, from a lowly P2-300 to a Athlon XP 2800.
On the Athlon XP, which runs Win2k, Mozilla 1.7 not only loads faster than IE (when using quick launch of course), the page loads are much faster as well.
But I suppose I'm just an old-time user. I can still remember using Netscape before IE even existed. But perhaps there is no outcry for a faster Firefox because the software itself has no problem, rather you have a configuration problem.
What we're witnessing is the change from a dynamic, idealistic company to one whose primary aim is to stifle innovation and maintain marketshare. Of course, one of the first things to go is the benefits offered to their employees.
With $52 billion in unused cash, I can certainly see the need to save an extra few billion, but instead of cutting management salaries, we'll take it out of the drones. If we don't do this Microsoft will go out of business.
Slashdot Mirror
Outside of the end-user type applications (ESRI's ArcGIS and co.), open source in GIS is quite widespread.
Refractions Research maintains the PostGIS module for PostgreSQL, and while it is not yet complete (fix the ACROSS function guys!) it certainly makes the wrangling of data much easier as it implements the OpenGIS SQL specification.
Compare this to the old days of a dozen different formats which weren't convertable, it's much nicer with GML (Geographic Markup Language) and standard representations of geographic features made possible by the find folks involved in the OpenGIS consortium.
Props to the team at the University of Minnesota for MapServer, it's made my life a whole lot easier.
Now some punk kid can bluejack your ear.
The potential for fun is boundless...
Surely this guy should be swimming in offers from the aerospace industry, or any related field. If he can hammer out a homegrown cruise missile, there must be some talent there.
Perhaps he doesn't want to work in such an environment and wants to go solo. Fair enough.
Don't ever make your company public. Once you do, it stops being a company and instead a money-collector. Instead of a commercial entity which produces (hopefully) a superior product, you are controlled by people who more than likely don't give a rat's ass about what is made, unless it's money. This is the problem, they don't care how the money is made, so they'll press for cutting corners at every opportunity, and make a prime target for "mergers". Mergers are just an excuse to cut even more corners, by taking advantage of economy of scale. However, once one player in the field does this, the others must follow or be eaten up. Thus is perpetuates until we reach a number of large companies which are too large and bloated to react to demand and conditions, and fudge the books, or stifle innovation in order to keep what rightfully should be a corpse alive. True innovation will always be carried out by dedicated individuals or small groups, possibly in a private company, but these large ones are just disasters waiting to happen.
Of course, I could also leave the house, be struck by lightning twice, and continue on to win the big lottery jackpot. As we say, not bloody likely.
Building a Navstar-like constellation around Mars, while the obvious benefits may be elusive outside of a few probes in the next few years, will keep everyone focused on Mars itself. This can be only a good thing.
The more we send to Mars, the more likely that there'll eventually be a manned mission. People don't like to abandon projects once they've invested a great deal of time and effort.
Sure, I know there's a lot of "more useful" and "efficient" things to spend the money on. Then again, who wants to be "efficient", let's explore!
I'm not sure what your setup is, but I haven't found Mozilla/Firefox intolerably slow since the milestone builds. This is across Linux and Windows, from a lowly P2-300 to a Athlon XP 2800.
On the Athlon XP, which runs Win2k, Mozilla 1.7 not only loads faster than IE (when using quick launch of course), the page loads are much faster as well.
But I suppose I'm just an old-time user. I can still remember using Netscape before IE even existed. But perhaps there is no outcry for a faster Firefox because the software itself has no problem, rather you have a configuration problem.
$ @SYS$SYSTEM:SHUTDOWN
The first step to upgrading to Windows 2003!
What we're witnessing is the change from a dynamic, idealistic company to one whose primary aim is to stifle innovation and maintain marketshare. Of course, one of the first things to go is the benefits offered to their employees.
With $52 billion in unused cash, I can certainly see the need to save an extra few billion, but instead of cutting management salaries, we'll take it out of the drones. If we don't do this Microsoft will go out of business.
hit me up