I thought the same thing for years. That would be the logical course of action to develop a good, solid product, that requires little actual investment on their part. BUT, you left out the I & C factor (Idiocy & Corruption). How do you play the lock-in game when the system is open and your victims can migrate away? How do you force them to keep purchasing stuff from you? If you give them a choice, some will not choose what you want. The wretches. How do you extract multiple streams of revenue (backdoor deals with marketers and spy agencies) when everyone can see what's going on? This all makes the logical system the worst choice. FOR THEM.
So, most of your argument boils down to you being able to play "My Little Pony goes on a Picnic"? That's a magnificent argument for the superiority of proprietary code! I'm dumping my decades worth of *nix training and code right now as I type!
I first learned AT&T SVR4 Unix in 1991. I also learned Dos 5.0. Guess which is still useful?
Would you purchase a car if you had to buy its' "special" tires from the dealer with a 800% markup, or run Pontiac gas at $8.12/gallon? If so, please contact me. Have I got some deals for you !:)
Have you ever heard the expression, "They peaked early, but low"? That seems to be descriptive of many MS products. You whine about there not being alternatives to proprietary code that you like. Tough cookies. Either fix the situation (hire coders, or learn different methods to run your code) or voluntarily stay in your cage on the sinking ship. I really don't care what you do.
Actually, I do care. I'll be more than happy to sell you a life preserver after you get tired of paddling. But you think you're getting raped now, wait till you have no choice! Bwah Hah Hah Hah (insert more evil laughter)!!
"I feel a little bit like I just gave you old-man advice." That's alright, even old men sometimes know useful things. Wait a minute... my kids call me old, too.... damn....
Your bit of advice is actually the basis for a great startup I'm going to work for (http://www.onshoretechnology.com/). They've come to our rural town looking for people to train into Sun Certified Java Programmers because the overhead here is so very low. How rural are we? I live 25 miles out of town and can only get a decent link to the net via satellite. Our office is a former factory building downtown with access to fiber, that closed when the company went overseas. We aren't expecting to start for much more than $10-$13/hr, but that is actually a very decent wage for this area (rural Missouri).
I'm currently raising 3 kids (one is mine). Mine is autistic with ADHD and is a challenge. His teacher says that he is the severest autistic she has ever worked with, but also one of the best behaved. The secret was that my wife "convinced" me that the only winning strategy that was going to work was patient consistency. I won't claim that I'm super-dad, but I try to be the best I can.
Tired of the rants? Don't read them. Legacy compatibility? That's what Qemu is for. Changes in the UI? Change the Window Manager. Oops, sorry. I forgot that you can't tailor Vista like XP or Linux, you're just stuck. It took years for the bugs to get ironed out of XP, just so MS could NOT use a debugged system. They could have just sold an upgrade pack, but the encrypted internal data streams (what sucks down the resources) wouldn't have been implemented. The hardware manufacturers wouldn't have any "reason" for people to buy new systems if their old ones would still work.
Will MS die? Maybe someday, but not soon. They have too much money, too much power, too much influence. DOJ never enforced their judgments against them for back office deals, legal harassing, or monopolistic practices. If the ref is crooked, guess who wins the game? Linux will never take over the desktop until IBM and SUN jointly form a company to compete with MS for mindshare, and let the attack dogs loose (marketers, lawyers, and shady deal makers, oh my!) The only time MS will compete in an open market, on relevant issues of quality and support, is if their back is to the wall and their feet to the fire.
Please don't take this personally, but you sound like a snot nosed 20-something CS major that's never had a real job, or whose ability to support their family has relied on a crappy piece of software. I take it back, go ahead and take it personally. I have to use a laptop with Vista for work. I would rather dip my hands in shit. It has a dual core CPU, 2 GB ram, and 130GB HD, and it is running at 25% CPU capacity just running Vista, while Ubuntu uses 3%. This is an obscene abuse of my machines resources, that could be used for compiling code or performing background tasks.
I've over 30 years in computers & electronics, and a decade in aerospace and test equipment, so I do have a background in complex systems and reliability, and MS NEVER gets used for anything critical, not even the test stations. Just the PHB and sexitary's desktops. Vista use is expanding in the home market slowly, and even more slowly in the professional arena. The home users don't know better, and the pros have to support the home users.
One last thing: whining over RAM usage? Not everyone is a rich, pampered prick that can afford the latest gold plated crapper. Most of us have to make do with what we have, old, used equipment. If it still runs, it's not getting replaced. The accountants don't give a damn about how "hot" a new laptop would be. Fortunately, some people DO get fired for spec'ing MicroShaft.
I'm learning Java right now, and even though I love it, I also know it's not great for everything or everyones cup of tea. There is one thing that might help mitigate the gPhones jvm-only structure - bytecode. Jython lets you write your Python code and compile it into intermediate-level bytecode. Same for Ruby, and other languages.
It might be a hassle, but I don't think that anyone with OOP training will have any problems adapting to the gPhone.
All this talk about 'Slimming down Vista' is funny. I've got a brand new Gateway laptop 2 Core w/2 GB RAM and Vista 'Home Advanced' whatever that is. The boss says Vista stays, so Vista stays. But I tried Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon as a live CD and guess what? It was FASTER than running Vista off the HARDDRIVE! I really love this machine, and would LOVE to put just about any flavor of Linux on it, or ReactOS when it is ready. It's already a minimal kernal, ready for a 'Windows Distro' to be built around it. It just felt soooo weird to say 'Windows Distro'.
In the Ozarks we call that a "Hatfield and McCoy Scenario". The only way to keep them from killing innocents in the crossfire is to totally destroy both groups. Every man, woman, child, and elder. If you leave one group alive they will simply pick a new target group. They are congenitally incapable of peaceful co-existance with anyone.
There, blood feud solved. You didn't give any parameters re:violence used. A logical, bloodthirsty response will also act to make them an example to other groups. I hate to say it, but Saddam was maybe handling them in the correct fashion.
The one true failing of both Blender and GIMP is the UI. Someone had a real brainwave and built GIMPshop, a skin that makes GIMP look & act like Photoshop. Brilliant! Now people can get started using it immediately, and shift to its' native configuration when ready.
Why don't the Blender devs do the same thing? I would love to have a skin so I can use Blender instead of Unigraphics ($20K for a full seat!) A skin for the 3DS crowd, or the ACAD people, would have Blender in use in most offices by the end of the day!
If the UI is what is killing it, make it changeable!
Many current distros seem to be getting hosed by users applying Automatix to install various programs and A/V codex. It's just a series of scripts, written to help automate the process, but it does have weaknesses and breaks sometimes.
Yes, I know that the distros (Ubuntu among them), can't ship with these because they are proprietary. Someone here already stated,"I don't care." Users DON'T CARE why you can't do something, they just know you failed them (their pov). I think that this also ties into the previously mentioned Uniform Installation Process. If we had one, an Automatix-type script would be so simple that it shouldn't be able to break.
User transparent multi-threading/clustering might be an interesting pond to throw a rock into. I don't care who you are, eventually you'll find yourself wishing your hardware was faster, and wondering what you'll do with your current machine. I think that a lot of people would love to be able to throw a liveCD or a minimal install on a series of networked machines, and have their current "Master" Desktop unit become noticeably faster, and the storage space grow via networked RAID, like Gmail! It should improve the performance of Virtualized Systems and concurrent processes, like running a search for a datafile, improved rendering and animation of your 3D desktop spaces, seeding a torrent, serving a Doom LAN-party, and playing Jethro Tull perfectly in the background. Okay, the datafile search can stay slow. Building a Beowulf Cluster back-end to a desktop shouldn't require a BS in CS. With the new multi-core CPUs head for the street soon, I'd imagine that a lot of the same technology will be used.
These are just off-the-cuff opinions of a hobbyist, and I'm sure that none of this is easy.
Decouple the power generation from the propulsion system, and you introduce flexibility and adaptability, two things you really need to survive a "harsh" situation.
I was talking to my bro-in-law about this just today. Hydrogen cars will never work 'cause H2 is difficult to handle in a form-factor that is compatable with a role in transportation. Hybrids driven by flex-fuel generators are the logical best system, able to use whatever fuel is most affordable/available, including solar/wind generated electricity. I don't think I'll be seeing any tanks powered by a little windmill on top anytime soon, though.:P
I've spent almost 30 years in tech (started when I was 11 yo with a teletype, keep your friggin jokes to yourselves), and the last decent product MS made was called DOS 5.0 ! Even that was just playing "keep up" with the market. Anyone that says,"Microsoft made this or that great product!" might want to check again. They either bought it from someone else, aped their design, or hired someone else to create it for them. They are serious, old-school, "buy and conquer" business people, not dedicated techies. They would rather get paid a billion $s for raping customers with a pile of crap, than invest the time and effort into making a good product.
Yea, I know the mantra,"If they didn't have to provide backwards compatability for third-party hard/software, it would be a better system." Wake up. They DON'T provide backward compatability! They're just tacking new crap on top of old, and they break shit all the time! If your app from DOS or Win95 still works you're lucky, that's all. I've had several apps that broke on new OS releases, just like they're doing with Vista, and XP before that, and NT before that. If you want backwards compatability, the only good way I can think of to do that is to run the old OS in a VM. That way you get the benefits of the new OS, and can run all your old stuff on the old OS.
I've talked about Linux with my family and friends, and they all bring up the same points: their games (or Apps) won't play on Linux; who cares about whether it's free or not, they just pirate windows and its' apps anyways. When I point out that Linux has very few (effectively none) virus or spyware weaknesses, they just say that they use (pirated) Norton. Why should they use GIMP when they've got the latest (pirated) Photoshop? Windows has built up an accepted culture of theft in modern society, and conditioned people to think that it's okay.
I used to pirate. I used to collect software and cracks and trade them with others. Then I found free/shareware programs that were really good, and I started looking for and using more of it. It felt good to not have to be afraid of getting caught with $80K worth of stolen software on my machines. I've gradually moved to using legit and free software, and it feels good. It wasn't quick or comprehensive, there are still apps we use that are proprietary, but they are getting fewer as I find freeware replacements.
MS has given us a fairly consistent (fairly F*ed up) computer environment for the last 20 yrs, yet it has also made thieves of most everyone I know. Has it been worth it?
I've read some (pseudo) scientific articles about a Dr. Rife who worked for the Carl Zeiss company and supposedly developed a UV microscope that appears to have combined principles of holography and optical hetrodyning to shift the frequency into the visual spectrum.
Various sites (enthusiasts/nutballs) claim that using it, he was able to isolate various living organisms, including a cancer-causing virus , and kill them with electromagnetic wave harmonics.
What I'm really wondering is: Are there any Optical microscopes using these principles? Or is it technically unfeasible?
Maybe because todays geeks know thats' how it's SUPPOSED to work, but in actuality the way it works is reminicent of a nasty corporate soap opera.
I've worked in a "World Class" electronics test equip company of well over 1000 people (Think "Marconi Electronics" and their owners "IFR Americas"), management raped the employees, asked for input and then ignored it, marketing was screwing the secretaries, and the upper management was doing lines of coke at "Executive Retreats" down in Florida, and pulling insider trading. None of the managers gave a shit, as long as their ass was covered and nobody started showing pictures of last years Chistmas party. The running non-joke was who was getting ready to leave and sue the company for sexual harrasment/violation of Equal Opportunity labor laws/other non-disclosed legal violation. I knew one guy that was skilled, talented, helped the customers, made money for the company, was a great guy, etc.. and he actually got a raise! All he had to do was bug the dept. managers office to get dirt on him. I know. I helped him.
None of the above is a joke. It's not even funny when you have to live through it. It's a wonder my liver still works after that ordeal. But it really openned my eyes to what goes on at a lot of places. I don't think I worked at anyplace else as bad as that, but some were close.
Now if the original poster works in that kind of outfit, if he follows your suggestion he's going to find himself blackballed. No raises, performance is never quite up to expectations, anonymous customer complaints, accusations of not being a "team player", written up for not following "updated procedures" that were never posted, etc..
What he needs to do is scope out who's screwing who, who's got an ax to grind, and who's got the political clout. Who does everyone fear? Get chummy with some of the office gossips, maybe buy a beer and lend an ear to someone in IT to figure out what's going on. Being tech competent may get you in the door, but being people savvy will make you successful. Pick your battles carefully, and only fight the ones you can win. It's better if you can get someone else with bigger guns to fight the battle for you, and think they did it for themselves.
Yes, it's sneaky, Machiavellian backstabbing and politics. But it will work.
Voice is okay for simple commands to perform pre-programmed actions, but it can be terribly unprecise and get on your nerves pretty damn quick.
That pretty much means that you're stuck with a gui/touchscreen/web browser or TV display and remote, or maybe you could use a cordless phone and menu system. Or all the above. Just setup all the interfaces to be able to access all the program functions. After all, different people like to do things different ways, i.e. how many ways can you cook an egg?
Some functions will be easier to do using one interface over another. If I'm in the backyard grilling burgers, I'm more likely to have the cordless phone with me, and if I'm in my home office I've got multiple PCs at my fingertips. I'm not going to try to program a new function using the voice system. I'll use the PC to write scripts, or build a VB-type module. I'd set it up so my mom could use the TV remote and maybe the phone for the simple stuff, but the more advanced features would require more capable interfaces. Just remember: when in doubt, ask a small child or elderly person to try and do something without coaching them. If they have to ask any questions, write them down and fix the problem! Design icons, images, and program flow so the user never needs to read a manual or help file. You might also have different "levels" of interface, like a game does: beginner (easy, with animated explainations), intermediate (scripting, popup hint balloons), and advanced (complex, plug-ins, API docs and SDKs).
Remember: most people aren't geeks like us. They hire us to make this shit easy for them!
Last I heard the only employees were the secretary, and the CEO that cashed the checks, and they had rented office space in some stripmall that was empty. It was just a mailbox to collect checks.
After reading TFA, is seems to me the whole thing was about who gets to be lazy. The city officials said that he could have the list, but he had to hand copy it himself. He sued to get them to just give him a copy of the list, and compensate his lawyer.
I can sort of see his point. He was comparing two lists: a city newsletter, and one the mayor was using to build up political support. If he hand copied it, they could alway say he made a mistake or changed it, there would be no tracability. But an actual, official copy couldn't be denied. Now I understand why the mayor didn't want to give it out. It was a case of CYA.
QNX is a long running Posix-compliant real-time OS, complete with embedded developement tools. But if you need to keep the sourcecode "tight to your chest" the *BSD license allows that, i.e. it's free to you, but you don't have to give out your changes if you don't want to.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm afraid that when it comes to Hydrogen technology, you should listen to the people that really know how it works, i.e. physics grads, fuel cell developers, et al. Not marketing droids playing up the "clean energy" angle, when current industrial Hydrogen production is MORE polluting than regular gasoline.
As for "Planting Seeds", if the tree hasn't started to grow by now, it's dead. This technology is older than I am (40 yrs), and they STILL don't have the bugs worked out to make it efficient? There are several very real technical problems that MIGHT be solved, but only at great expense. Efficiencies need to increase, not a few percent, but by orders of magnitude, if it is to be an economically competitive option. Safety issues are also a hairy proposition in these litigous times.
Please don't think I'm against alternative energy! I've studied and worked toward a Zero Energy Home for years. But I've also learned several things along the way. ALL the supporting infrastructure needs to be in place before any new major technology can come onto the scene. If it works in the lab, great! But quite often practical considerations will keep it there. Is it cheaper/easier/better than a known and proven technology? Who do you call for parts and service? Conservation and efficient use of existing resources is usually easier and cheaper than developing new resources for quite some time. Powered transportation requires portable and high-density power storage. Hydrogen is very low density, and is portable only with difficulty: it might work for a fixed installation, but is inherently unsuited for the transportation industry.
There are lots more arguments, but I think you get the picture.
Back when I was in college (and quickly freezing to death in a rattrap trailer) a friend told me about a trick they used to use in the hills of Arkansas: hang blankets on the walls over unwanted windows and seldom used doors. They blocked drafts and acted as drapes. I used old quilts hung from drape poles for that antique look. It was quite nice, and made decorating easy. Just be aware that if anyone in the house smokes, you'll have to launder them to get the smell out.
Quilts (insulation blankets) over the refigerator and water heater help improve their efficiency also!
We've got rolling hills and valleys that prevent short-to-medium towers (less than 250 ft.) from making a decent connection, lots of trees to help block signals, and not enough people to justify building tall towers. A lot of the landlines have 1970's equipment (24 Kbps is what I'm getting right now, sometimes it's worse), and no carrier wants to bring in cable or dsl (they say that we won't live long enough to see THEM bring it out here.)
I'm only able to access streaming media/audio if I travel 20 miles into town, and get on the computers at school, and then I'm restricted by the schools' proxy servers, and the ability to store files/data on portable media (no burners in the machines).
The ONLY option available is satellite internet, which is very expensive to setup and run and subject to a high rate of link failure (according to a friendly installer). We're a small captive market with no viable options, in the middle of the US. We NEED this. The few people I've talked to about this said that it would be great, but if the balloons are too low all the inbred assholes around here would think they were for target practice!
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I thought the same thing for years. That would be the logical course of action to develop a good, solid product, that requires little actual investment on their part.
BUT, you left out the I & C factor (Idiocy & Corruption). How do you play the lock-in game when the system is open and your victims can migrate away? How do you force them to keep purchasing stuff from you? If you give them a choice, some will not choose what you want. The wretches. How do you extract multiple streams of revenue (backdoor deals with marketers and spy agencies) when everyone can see what's going on? This all makes the logical system the worst choice. FOR THEM.
So, most of your argument boils down to you being able to play "My Little Pony goes on a Picnic"? That's a magnificent argument for the superiority of proprietary code! I'm dumping my decades worth of *nix training and code right now as I type!
I first learned AT&T SVR4 Unix in 1991. I also learned Dos 5.0. Guess which is still useful?
:)
Would you purchase a car if you had to buy its' "special" tires from the dealer with a 800% markup, or run Pontiac gas at $8.12/gallon? If so, please contact me. Have I got some deals for you !
Have you ever heard the expression, "They peaked early, but low"? That seems to be descriptive of many MS products. You whine about there not being alternatives to proprietary code that you like. Tough cookies. Either fix the situation (hire coders, or learn different methods to run your code) or voluntarily stay in your cage on the sinking ship. I really don't care what you do.
Actually, I do care. I'll be more than happy to sell you a life preserver after you get tired of paddling. But you think you're getting raped now, wait till you have no choice! Bwah Hah Hah Hah (insert more evil laughter)!!
"I feel a little bit like I just gave you old-man advice." That's alright, even old men sometimes know useful things. Wait a minute ... my kids call me old, too .... damn....
Your bit of advice is actually the basis for a great startup I'm going to work for (http://www.onshoretechnology.com/). They've come to our rural town looking for people to train into Sun Certified Java Programmers because the overhead here is so very low. How rural are we? I live 25 miles out of town and can only get a decent link to the net via satellite. Our office is a former factory building downtown with access to fiber, that closed when the company went overseas. We aren't expecting to start for much more than $10-$13/hr, but that is actually a very decent wage for this area (rural Missouri).
I'm currently raising 3 kids (one is mine). Mine is autistic with ADHD and is a challenge. His teacher says that he is the severest autistic she has ever worked with, but also one of the best behaved. The secret was that my wife "convinced" me that the only winning strategy that was going to work was patient consistency. I won't claim that I'm super-dad, but I try to be the best I can.
Tired of the rants? Don't read them. Legacy compatibility? That's what Qemu is for. Changes in the UI? Change the Window Manager. Oops, sorry. I forgot that you can't tailor Vista like XP or Linux, you're just stuck. It took years for the bugs to get ironed out of XP, just so MS could NOT use a debugged system. They could have just sold an upgrade pack, but the encrypted internal data streams (what sucks down the resources) wouldn't have been implemented. The hardware manufacturers wouldn't have any "reason" for people to buy new systems if their old ones would still work.
Will MS die? Maybe someday, but not soon. They have too much money, too much power, too much influence. DOJ never enforced their judgments against them for back office deals, legal harassing, or monopolistic practices. If the ref is crooked, guess who wins the game? Linux will never take over the desktop until IBM and SUN jointly form a company to compete with MS for mindshare, and let the attack dogs loose (marketers, lawyers, and shady deal makers, oh my!) The only time MS will compete in an open market, on relevant issues of quality and support, is if their back is to the wall and their feet to the fire.
Please don't take this personally, but you sound like a snot nosed 20-something CS major that's never had a real job, or whose ability to support their family has relied on a crappy piece of software. I take it back, go ahead and take it personally. I have to use a laptop with Vista for work. I would rather dip my hands in shit. It has a dual core CPU, 2 GB ram, and 130GB HD, and it is running at 25% CPU capacity just running Vista, while Ubuntu uses 3%. This is an obscene abuse of my machines resources, that could be used for compiling code or performing background tasks.
I've over 30 years in computers & electronics, and a decade in aerospace and test equipment, so I do have a background in complex systems and reliability, and MS NEVER gets used for anything critical, not even the test stations. Just the PHB and sexitary's desktops. Vista use is expanding in the home market slowly, and even more slowly in the professional arena. The home users don't know better, and the pros have to support the home users.
One last thing: whining over RAM usage? Not everyone is a rich, pampered prick that can afford the latest gold plated crapper. Most of us have to make do with what we have, old, used equipment. If it still runs, it's not getting replaced. The accountants don't give a damn about how "hot" a new laptop would be. Fortunately, some people DO get fired for spec'ing MicroShaft.
I'm learning Java right now, and even though I love it, I also know it's not great for everything or everyones cup of tea. There is one thing that might help mitigate the gPhones jvm-only structure - bytecode. Jython lets you write your Python code and compile it into intermediate-level bytecode. Same for Ruby, and other languages.
It might be a hassle, but I don't think that anyone with OOP training will have any problems adapting to the gPhone.
All this talk about 'Slimming down Vista' is funny. I've got a brand new Gateway laptop 2 Core w/2 GB RAM and Vista 'Home Advanced' whatever that is. The boss says Vista stays, so Vista stays. But I tried Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon as a live CD and guess what? It was FASTER than running Vista off the HARDDRIVE! I really love this machine, and would LOVE to put just about any flavor of Linux on it, or ReactOS when it is ready. It's already a minimal kernal, ready for a 'Windows Distro' to be built around it. It just felt soooo weird to say 'Windows Distro'.
In the Ozarks we call that a "Hatfield and McCoy Scenario". The only way to keep them from killing innocents in the crossfire is to totally destroy both groups. Every man, woman, child, and elder. If you leave one group alive they will simply pick a new target group. They are congenitally incapable of peaceful co-existance with anyone.
There, blood feud solved. You didn't give any parameters re:violence used. A logical, bloodthirsty response will also act to make them an example to other groups. I hate to say it, but Saddam was maybe handling them in the correct fashion.
The one true failing of both Blender and GIMP is the UI. Someone had a real brainwave and built GIMPshop, a skin that makes GIMP look & act like Photoshop. Brilliant! Now people can get started using it immediately, and shift to its' native configuration when ready.
Why don't the Blender devs do the same thing? I would love to have a skin so I can use Blender instead of Unigraphics ($20K for a full seat!) A skin for the 3DS crowd, or the ACAD people, would have Blender in use in most offices by the end of the day!
If the UI is what is killing it, make it changeable!
Many current distros seem to be getting hosed by users applying Automatix to install various programs and A/V codex. It's just a series of scripts, written to help automate the process, but it does have weaknesses and breaks sometimes.
Yes, I know that the distros (Ubuntu among them), can't ship with these because they are proprietary. Someone here already stated,"I don't care." Users DON'T CARE why you can't do something, they just know you failed them (their pov). I think that this also ties into the previously mentioned Uniform Installation Process. If we had one, an Automatix-type script would be so simple that it shouldn't be able to break.
User transparent multi-threading/clustering might be an interesting pond to throw a rock into. I don't care who you are, eventually you'll find yourself wishing your hardware was faster, and wondering what you'll do with your current machine. I think that a lot of people would love to be able to throw a liveCD or a minimal install on a series of networked machines, and have their current "Master" Desktop unit become noticeably faster, and the storage space grow via networked RAID, like Gmail! It should improve the performance of Virtualized Systems and concurrent processes, like running a search for a datafile, improved rendering and animation of your 3D desktop spaces, seeding a torrent, serving a Doom LAN-party, and playing Jethro Tull perfectly in the background.
Okay, the datafile search can stay slow.
Building a Beowulf Cluster back-end to a desktop shouldn't require a BS in CS. With the new multi-core CPUs head for the street soon, I'd imagine that a lot of the same technology will be used.
These are just off-the-cuff opinions of a hobbyist, and I'm sure that none of this is easy.
Decouple the power generation from the propulsion system, and you introduce flexibility and adaptability, two things you really need to survive a "harsh" situation.
:P
I was talking to my bro-in-law about this just today. Hydrogen cars will never work 'cause H2 is difficult to handle in a form-factor that is compatable with a role in transportation. Hybrids driven by flex-fuel generators are the logical best system, able to use whatever fuel is most affordable/available, including solar/wind generated electricity. I don't think I'll be seeing any tanks powered by a little windmill on top anytime soon, though.
I've spent almost 30 years in tech (started when I was 11 yo with a teletype, keep your friggin jokes to yourselves), and the last decent product MS made was called DOS 5.0 ! Even that was just playing "keep up" with the market. Anyone that says,"Microsoft made this or that great product!" might want to check again. They either bought it from someone else, aped their design, or hired someone else to create it for them. They are serious, old-school, "buy and conquer" business people, not dedicated techies. They would rather get paid a billion $s for raping customers with a pile of crap, than invest the time and effort into making a good product.
Yea, I know the mantra,"If they didn't have to provide backwards compatability for third-party hard/software, it would be a better system." Wake up. They DON'T provide backward compatability! They're just tacking new crap on top of old, and they break shit all the time! If your app from DOS or Win95 still works you're lucky, that's all. I've had several apps that broke on new OS releases,
just like they're doing with Vista, and XP before that, and NT before that. If you want backwards compatability, the only good way I can think of to do that is to run the old OS in a VM. That way you get the benefits of the new OS, and can run all your old stuff on the old OS.
I've talked about Linux with my family and friends, and they all bring up the same points: their games (or Apps) won't play on Linux; who cares about whether it's free or not, they just pirate windows and its' apps anyways. When I point out that Linux has very few (effectively none) virus or spyware weaknesses, they just say that they use (pirated) Norton. Why should they use GIMP when they've got the latest (pirated) Photoshop? Windows has built up an accepted culture of theft in modern society, and conditioned people to think that it's okay.
I used to pirate. I used to collect software and cracks and trade them with others. Then I found free/shareware programs that were really good, and I started looking for and using more of it. It felt good to not have to be afraid of getting caught with $80K worth of stolen software on my machines. I've gradually moved to using legit and free software, and it feels good. It wasn't quick or comprehensive, there are still apps we use that are proprietary, but they are getting fewer as I find freeware replacements.
MS has given us a fairly consistent (fairly F*ed up) computer environment for the last 20 yrs, yet it has also made thieves of most everyone I know. Has it been worth it?
No.
I've read some (pseudo) scientific articles about a Dr. Rife who worked for the Carl Zeiss company and supposedly developed a UV microscope that appears to have combined principles of holography and optical hetrodyning to shift the frequency into the visual spectrum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Rife
Various sites (enthusiasts/nutballs) claim that using it, he was able to isolate various living organisms, including a cancer-causing virus , and kill them with electromagnetic wave harmonics.
What I'm really wondering is: Are there any Optical microscopes using these principles? Or is it technically unfeasible?
What did it taste like? Grizzly or Polar?
Anyone that depends on an external party for their marketing had better get it in writing. No contract? Tough luck.
You get what you pay for, if you're lucky.
Maybe because todays geeks know thats' how it's SUPPOSED to work, but in actuality the way it works is reminicent of a nasty corporate soap opera.
I've worked in a "World Class" electronics test equip company of well over 1000 people (Think "Marconi Electronics" and their owners "IFR Americas"), management raped the employees, asked for input and then ignored it, marketing was screwing the secretaries, and the upper management was doing lines of coke at "Executive Retreats" down in Florida, and pulling insider trading. None of the managers gave a shit, as long as their ass was covered and nobody started showing pictures of last years Chistmas party. The running non-joke was who was getting ready to leave and sue the company for sexual harrasment/violation of Equal Opportunity labor laws/other non-disclosed legal violation. I knew one guy that was skilled, talented, helped the customers, made money for the company, was a great guy, etc.. and he actually got a raise! All he had to do was bug the dept. managers office to get dirt on him. I know. I helped him.
None of the above is a joke. It's not even funny when you have to live through it. It's a wonder my liver still works after that ordeal. But it really openned my eyes to what goes on at a lot of places. I don't think I worked at anyplace else as bad as that, but some were close.
Now if the original poster works in that kind of outfit, if he follows your suggestion he's going to find himself blackballed. No raises, performance is never quite up to expectations, anonymous customer complaints, accusations of not being a "team player", written up for not following "updated procedures" that were never posted, etc..
What he needs to do is scope out who's screwing who, who's got an ax to grind, and who's got the political clout. Who does everyone fear? Get chummy with some of the office gossips, maybe buy a beer and lend an ear to someone in IT to figure out what's going on. Being tech competent may get you in the door, but being people savvy will make you successful. Pick your battles carefully, and only fight the ones you can win. It's better if you can get someone else with bigger guns to fight the battle for you, and think they did it for themselves.
Yes, it's sneaky, Machiavellian backstabbing and politics. But it will work.
You mean UI design, right?
Voice is okay for simple commands to perform pre-programmed actions, but it can be terribly unprecise and get on your nerves pretty damn quick.
That pretty much means that you're stuck with a gui/touchscreen/web browser or TV display and remote, or maybe you could use a cordless phone and menu system. Or all the above. Just setup all the interfaces to be able to access all the program functions. After all, different people like to do things different ways, i.e. how many ways can you cook an egg?
Some functions will be easier to do using one interface over another. If I'm in the backyard grilling burgers, I'm more likely to have the cordless phone with me, and if I'm in my home office I've got multiple PCs at my fingertips.
I'm not going to try to program a new function using the voice system. I'll use the PC to write scripts, or build a VB-type module. I'd set it up so my mom could use the TV remote and maybe the phone for the simple stuff, but the more advanced features would require more capable interfaces. Just remember: when in doubt, ask a small child or elderly person to try and do something without coaching them. If they have to ask any questions, write them down and fix the problem! Design icons, images, and program flow so the user never needs to read a manual or help file. You might also have different "levels" of interface, like a game does: beginner (easy, with animated explainations), intermediate (scripting, popup hint balloons), and advanced (complex, plug-ins, API docs and SDKs).
Remember: most people aren't geeks like us. They hire us to make this shit easy for them!
Last I heard the only employees were the secretary, and the CEO that cashed the checks, and they had rented office space in some stripmall that was empty. It was just a mailbox to collect checks.
I could be wrong. But it doesn't sound like it.
After reading TFA, is seems to me the whole thing was about who gets to be lazy. The city officials said that he could have the list, but he had to hand copy it himself. He sued to get them to just give him a copy of the list, and compensate his lawyer.
I can sort of see his point. He was comparing two lists: a city newsletter, and one the mayor was using to build up political support. If he hand copied it, they could alway say he made a mistake or changed it, there would be no tracability. But an actual, official copy couldn't be denied. Now I understand why the mayor didn't want to give it out. It was a case of CYA.
Strap a Linux PDA to your wrist, and have it show a world map and the phase of the moon!
QNX is a long running Posix-compliant real-time OS, complete with embedded developement tools. But if you need to keep the sourcecode "tight to your chest" the *BSD license allows that, i.e. it's free to you, but you don't have to give out your changes if you don't want to.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm afraid that when it comes to Hydrogen technology, you should listen to the people that really know how it works, i.e. physics grads, fuel cell developers, et al. Not marketing droids playing up the "clean energy" angle, when current industrial Hydrogen production is MORE polluting than regular gasoline.
As for "Planting Seeds", if the tree hasn't started to grow by now, it's dead. This technology is older than I am (40 yrs), and they STILL don't have the bugs worked out to make it efficient? There are several very real technical problems that MIGHT be solved, but only at great expense. Efficiencies need to increase, not a few percent, but by orders of magnitude, if it is to be an economically competitive option. Safety issues are also a hairy proposition in these litigous times.
Please don't think I'm against alternative energy! I've studied and worked toward a Zero Energy Home for years. But I've also learned several things along the way. ALL the supporting infrastructure needs to be in place before any new major technology can come onto the scene. If it works in the lab, great! But quite often practical considerations will keep it there. Is it cheaper/easier/better than a known and proven technology? Who do you call for parts and service? Conservation and efficient use of existing resources is usually easier and cheaper than developing new resources for quite some time. Powered transportation requires portable and high-density power storage. Hydrogen is very low density, and is portable only with difficulty: it might work for a fixed installation, but is inherently unsuited for the transportation industry.
There are lots more arguments, but I think you get the picture.
Back when I was in college (and quickly freezing to death in a rattrap trailer) a friend told me about a trick they used to use in the hills of Arkansas: hang blankets on the walls over unwanted windows and seldom used doors. They blocked drafts and acted as drapes. I used old quilts hung from drape poles for that antique look. It was quite nice, and made decorating easy. Just be aware that if anyone in the house smokes, you'll have to launder them to get the smell out.
Quilts (insulation blankets) over the refigerator and water heater help improve their efficiency also!
We've got rolling hills and valleys that prevent short-to-medium towers (less than 250 ft.) from making a decent connection, lots of trees to help block signals, and not enough people to justify building tall towers. A lot of the landlines have 1970's equipment (24 Kbps is what I'm getting right now, sometimes it's worse), and no carrier wants to bring in cable or dsl (they say that we won't live long enough to see THEM bring it out here.)
I'm only able to access streaming media/audio if I travel 20 miles into town, and get on the computers at school, and then I'm restricted by the schools' proxy servers, and the ability to store files/data on portable media (no burners in the machines).
The ONLY option available is satellite internet, which is very expensive to setup and run and subject to a high rate of link failure (according to a friendly installer). We're a small captive market with no viable options, in the middle of the US. We NEED this. The few people I've talked to about this said that it would be great, but if the balloons are too low all the inbred assholes around here would think they were for target practice!