I agree, but there's a hairball working to choke that off a bit.;)
It's called dividends and keeping the stockholders happy
The Rule of 72 [1] means every three years will require an annual growth of 24%. That's hard to do year-in and year-out. To make the cut, you either increase sales at a frisky pace, increase the number of products people can buy, or buy someone else.
The responses to maintain whatever magic numbers are expected are obvious, finite, and generate a lot of pain. Those who are in pain are very good at showing people sh5t flows downhill. And the various levels of management who normally do one of their most important tasks, acting as a buffer have to put that aside.
I've been through it a couple of times.
The simplest example was in the computer book publishing world, where the executives wore gold handcuffs, which is the general method of motivation throughout the business world. Word was given to the parent company [that] the next year's sales would increase 20%. Word within the division (holding the imprints) was an increase of 30% would be required. If anything over 20% occurred, the divisional prez made his bosses happy. The internal 20% was a different story: it affected those who answered to him. The only problem at the CEO/Publisher level was: the number of titles published within each imprint couldn't change.
Cook the books? {snicker} Books were "pulled up a month" (either monthly, quarterly, or annually): if they were scheduled for early to mid September, an order to find ways to cut corners and get it into the August schedule was made. Scheduled for mid to late October? They'd find a way to pull it into September in order to make monthly and quarterly numbers. (Fun?) What happened if Borland or Microsoft didn't ship their software on schedule or made some changes, albeit minor, between their final build and the gold disk? It took some time before I could convince them to make their "Ship To Publisher" date the same as software's "Gold to Manufacturer" and there wouldn't be as much jumping around.
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[1] Doubling occurs when ( 72 == years * percentage)
Not as red as you might think. But we do observe Daylight Saving Time (finally).
This is the first time there's been a Republican Indiana governor in a very long time.
Lest anyone think this is a one-time thing for ES&S or Diebold, do some research. Googling ES&S will bring back enough hits it reminds me of a practice on the farm used to happen: back up the manure spreader and fill it up. Unfortunately, the only way to get it from one farm to the other was on the streets. Flashing lights and red triangles in a rural area still wasn't good enough for people and decided to show everyone their horn worked. For a long period of time. Oops! I hit the wrong lever. "Sorry, sir. I didn't mean for a layer of sh%t to cover your windshield and related areas. No, I didn't do it because it was a nice day out and your windows were open."
One of the things ES&S is notorious for is sneaking untested software onto the machines and by the time TPTB (The Powers That Be), it's too late to change the election. ES&S did that in '02 (for certain and practically any election which has been checked after the fact) and someone blew the whistle. She was fired on the spot for disclosing the company's trade secrets. She was elected by the city or state by lunch the next day as a watchdog.
Disclosing The Fact Untested Software Was Installed Without Telling Anyone" is a trade secret (not to mention illegal)?
There have been any number of discussions in Congress regarding methods of elections: OSS vs. proprietary, etc. The argument is OSS might make it possible for someone to study it and find exploits which could be used to maninulate election results.
What I have done through research is whilst the the penalties are paid to the upper echelons, what machines are used is at the precinct level. That means just under two years to find a way to make one precinct or one or two voting booths in a particular precinct work, then branch out.
We won't talk about the BMV. I was lucky to have received a new registration sticker after 7-10 days. Everyone else has been told 2-3 weeks minimum
The current issue of Discover magazine (with a large face shot of Einstein "The Einstein Dilemma") on the cover. The article on point is Shiny Happy People. "Can you reach nirvana with the aid of science?".
And...(OT)..."Will Wright (Sims et al., for those who have been living in a bomb bunker), The master of the "god game" tackles alien life and dreams up a world that would make Darwin drool".
really funny. There's been an Independent of times of late and Lieberman's only hopes are a tragic accident taking someone's life at the wrong time, and getting in on someone's termination, but get Lieberman in office and you'll hear just what you did with Vermont: "bi-partisan". If there are three parties represented in Congress, how can it be two?
It's obviously a means to make people think in terms of two parties, and only two parties.
A zero-sum game with two participants makes it real easy to know whom your opponent is. Scores of x and 100-x are the only values you have to know. Create an oligo* model (e.g., from the business world) and you'll find it can be done, but it's considerably more complex. And it wreaks havoc no those wanting to predict what's going to home. They don't want that to happen. For now, they'll be content to start spamming everyone and telemarketing (which is valid in most states).
It has nothing to do with what the search engines do or provide per se. Search engines aren't always needed to a certain extent any more, particularly when it comes to popular sites, specific uris, etc. The reason (IMO)?
Word of "mouth". Actually, email messages[1] are sending names of services or specific uris for a particular site (e.g., something particularly funny on youtube) and people are pointing their browser in that direction, then exploring what else is there. If there are uris to other locations on the web, people follow those. One of the local affiliates in Indy played a considerably portion of this last night and made sure everyone knew there was a link on their web site. Lots of people likely pointed their browsers and youtube had a lot of extra traffic[2]. On the youtube page is Explore other videos. Lots of information conveyed, but no search engine activity in the process.
The web has enough toys^w services which people regularly visit (e.g., blogs, youtube) they don't necessarily need search engines unless somethings isn't found via the normal means. And normal now includes the various discussion forums where people provide the advice from the voice of context. IMDb.com has a professional side (reasonably priced paid service) where people who are in the biz can post things they're looking for or are available for. A couple of nights ago, someone was asking about the best software for scriptwriting on a small budget. ca. eight people chimed in with what they knew about different packages, including a couple of free ones, a commercial one for $25, a template which can be downloaded for MS Word, and some of the pros & cons about the ones they'd used. Where will you find ad hoc information in that context on demand in a search engine?
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[1] Unless you're in the media and use "emails" as a noun.
[2] Several years ago, I had a client who helped small to medium newspapers get online. Someone build a web site for them (taking six months, #include files nested six deep, every call to the server required 20'000 lines of code to be processed, regardless of the function involved. Once more than twenty people hit a site, the server showed you its impression of the La Brea tar pits. One site for a reasonably small city, perhaps a handful of a thousand people had a sheriff's deputy arrested for pedophilia, a ten-car pileup on the nearby interstate, and the largest employer (a substantial percentage of the citizenry) was going to be dismissed. All of this hit CNN with a reference to their newspaper's web site. That's about the time Chrnobyl and Three Mile Island happened at the same time. Fortunately smarter people are starting to anticipate resource issues a little better than they used to.
If they're going after the use of a word or use of pod, what are they going to do about podcast?
Nothing. Podcast is just a word in the common language.
They're either going to have to remove that word from everyone's vocabulary (that genie has already left the bottle), or everyone will say they are using the fragment pod from podcast, not iPod.
That actually wouldn't be a defense. If they were to sue, what they have to show is that the use of the word "pod" is likely to cause confusion in the eyes of consumers about who makes the product. Now, I think they'd have a hell of a time convincing a jury that the name of the vending machine-related Profit Pod has any chance of confusing consumers, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can't try to scare them out of using it anyway.
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Actually, it is a defense. As I said, someone can claim their product containing the word pod is based named upon podcast, and as you've said, it's in the public domain. So if I create new piece of hardware called the podPlayer and they pursue me, my defense will be "it's a player which plays files which have a podCast format. The name podPlayer even indicates it's podPlayer -- a player of pod formats.
Unless & until you can show me how using the word pod in a name will stand up because Apple can claim it came from iPod and not from the pod in podCast, you won't have a case.[1] If you believe otherwise, I'd like to see logic beyond ukase or fiat.
Were Apple to set things up such that podcast is a proprietary & protected format (e.g.,GIF) and it can be created by any number of means but played only upon an Apple iPod, that might hold water. But I'm willing to bet that won't hold water, would it?
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From a message three or four down:
And isn't Podcast an Apple invention? Could have sworn they were the ones that created the name anyway.
If this is true, I'd expect to see podCast (or pod) with a TM, C, SM, R everywhere it's used (except Slashdot for reasons I shouldn't have to explain -- aside from it invokes Godwin's Law in no more than three messages). I'd also expect to see Apple protecting the pod in podCast as adamantly as they are the pod in iPod. If they don't, they don't have a leg to stand on for the reasons I've stated here and a previous message.
iPod and podCast treated separately will require Apple to show intent on the part of alleged infringers as to which source of pod they were using. There's no way a company is going to put its head in the noose and state the wrong one. (landshark preparation: "Whatever you do, don't say we're using pod from iPod. It is soley and wholly from podCast.
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[1] This leads into one area where patent law could be good, including submarines: stating via some document it will not be enforced and derivatives cannot be made private, preventing someone else from making it proprietary to themselves, thus letting everyone enjoy it. Prior art should prevent the patent to begin with, but because two or three companies seem to have convinced the USPTO prior art means nothing, one cannot count on prior art working correctly. It's like plastic additive patent ten or twelve years ago. Someone figured out how to add something to virtually all plastics without altering its desired properties. This made plastic show up on x-rays which wouldn't have done so before. This made it possible for plastic objects ingested (or entered their body through any number of means) to show up in the ER when they get an x-ray.
If they're going after the use of a word or use of pod, what are they going to do about podcast?
They're either going to have to remove that word from everyone's vocabulary (that genie has already left the bottle), or everyone will say they are using the fragment pod from podcast, not iPod.
Apple's not in a good defensive, let alone offensive, position.
This will produce some *very* unhappy campers.
on
Patent Reviews Via Wiki
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Specifically, those who would ordinarily slip through the cracks because someone doesn't catch prior art.
A significant population with an [almost] unmeasurable body of knowledge and information would do a pretty thorough job of flagging someone which the patent examiners working under extremely high pressure to push things down the assembly line. This would make the examiner's job one of validation of claims posted via wiki.
One question remains: What's going to happen if we see a couple of companies who shall remain nameless and are granted patents by filling out a pre-approved form are faced with prior art (or silly art) claims and the company receives the approval anyway? That might prove there's some monkey business is afoot. (Donating a Playboy Bunny to their favorite charity? (Charity begins at home)
In all seriousness, dBase is one of the two things Borland did to self-destruct -- without the help of Microsoft.
Borland purchased Ashton-Tate ('90?,'91?,'92?) for one reason: dBase. They practically shut down the other products (and support) almost overnight. One would have thought dBase/Windows would have been extremely high on their priority list.
{twiddle thumbs}...{twiddle thumbs}...{twiddle thumbs}
(...no perceivable activity from Borland...)
Low & behold, here comes Access 1.0 from Microsoft, November, '92. (it was either the 15th or 25th, I've lost track). At $99, Borland would have had no chance of retaining the market had they come out by Spring '93. I'm sure some copies became shelfware, but I know there was a lot of pressure to get Access books on the market because they sold like hotcakes. About the same time Krol's The Whole Internet came out as the first mass market Internet book and the Internet was no longer "the world's biggest secret club." (yes, that's my catchphrase)
The overall market ended up being FoxPro 2.6 for Windows, Paradox for Windows, dBase for Windows, and Access. As much as hardcore people want to put down Access, and the people who used it (not knowing how to normalize, write SQL without the query screen, etc.), it *did* provide a lot of tools above and beyond what they had had in dBase/DOS and they could become reasonably proficient in their day-to-day jobs.
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Oh, I said there were two things Borland did to catch something soft & fleshy in their zippers, didn't I?. It's OT, but germane to my original proposition.
By late '92, Borland had the lion's share of the C++ market, likely on the order of 85+%, and generally relied upon API (Charles Petzold's Programming Windows, or OWL. Microsoft's C++ development environment was a DOS application. A dimmer star in the constellation was Zortec. (am I leave additional ones out?)
Microsoft's Visual C++ 1.0 came out in the January '93 timeframe (20 diskettes?). Around that time is when Borland came out with a new version of C++ which had OWL II. OWL II was *not* upwardly compatible with OWL I. This meant major modifications, rewrites, or using Borland's migration wizard (not a good thing to do). This produced a pause where people could poke their heads up and see if there was anything else of merit. (if you're going to have to make a lot of changes, including rewriting, why not see how much the market has changed since your last opportunity to do so?) Someone let the air out of Borland's tires because their market deflated to an almost imperceptable level and MVC++ took off like a rocket.
And that is how they invented chicken soup and Borland committed seppuku.
(Microsoft isn't always the bad guy. Sometimes, people screw up and synchronicity happens.)
The basis of the article threads itself into and througout chess, and whilst I have a fondness for it, it cannot be the only form of being an expert, mental prowess, etc., can it?
If it had been "The Expert Chess Mind", that would be a different thing altogether.
I'd expected more until I realized the cover picture depicted the meat of the article.
I haven't renewed my subscription yet, but if it had come under the label of a subscription, I'd have asked for an extension to compensate for an inferior issue.
This covers a lot of ground. My parents bought a subscription for me when I was eight or nine and I'd borrow [older] copies from the library to have something to read when sitting in the back row of boring classes.
I don't remember having felt this way about any other issues.
I am, however, looking forward to the annual "single-topic" September issue.
Read through it and see how much software you're aware of which is as capable as it is, the bug count, the lack of nights of old pizza, etc.
There are a lot of Earth-bound companies which write software on a large scale (source line count) which should take a page from what this article details.
There's very little in the actual document which isn't in the published article when it comes to cost.
...I would thihnk that charging comercially[sic] for the service is nessesary to keep it from becoming a spammer tool...
Have you been living on Gilligan's Island?
5eu/month is, as pointed out in the FA, at the current exchange rate: $6.359.
Before Scotty Richter was castrated, he was bringing $2M into his office, yes, two million U$ monthly. And he wasn't the king of the mountain.
Can you explain how $6.359/month going to make a spammer think twice about using the service? Particularly when you consider the anonymity. No more looking for open proxies & relays.
They pay far, far, far more than that to set up shop in China, then send all of that crap back to the US. Most spam originates from the US as the 2003 U-CAN-SPAM law[1] basically gave them free reign, but the big boys still rely upon China.
But seriously. How do you think ~$6/month is going to stop a spammer. I'm not trying to present a loaded question here. I really do want to know your perspective on this because you may have insights no one else has considered.
The only way I can see this not becoming a spam haven is if there's a volume limit for that price and you have to pay $x/volume for each increment after that.
I'm all ears.
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[1] Very effective, wouldn't you say? Has your volume of spam decreased (without human intervention to separate the wheat from the chaffe?)
I bought a laptop for my wife about a year ago and we're on our fifth power cord.
The first place where there's an accordion-like piece of rubber bends a lot, particularly as I sit on the couch with it sitting on a decent size of plexiglas I've used as a lap desk for twenty-five years. The rubber starts fraying, the cover of the electrical cord becomes open to the outside, then it becomes a matter of moving the cord just so until it's in place and we see the icon in the system tray whilst calling Dell for a replacement. Because it's under warranty, we get a new one within two days, they never blink an eye.
Because the cord isn't moving that much, something has to be wrong, yet they never blink an eye (I'm certain some of that is they just do what they're told on the support line). I'd think if was a problem on a bigger scale something would happen to fix it but every cord has been the same (and had the same problem).
How is Ruby lacking where lesser languages have lasted for so long? This isn't a question with hidden value or a bait for a flame war, I figured you'd finish your own comments:
"Ruby is more likely to be another fad because..." where's your argument?
"AJAX is actually something new..." despite the cries it's been around in a former life known as remote scripting, which has been in the ASP-supported languages[1] for several years. The difference is you can do...in AJAX wherease remote scripting was restrictive in the way...
"but AJAX is definitely...important." because...
Unless you want to toss out karma points like toothbrushes when you find a hair in them, you might want to answer your own questions because you're leaving yourself open to challenge without making your point(s) known. You're either going to waste a karma point by posting incompletely or you'll have to come back in and waste a second one trying to defend your position.
This is going to sound nasty to some people, but I'm tossing a karma point out to you and anyone else who posts quick little quips. Take it as constructive criticism, even if you don't think it is.
I was really dirty in debates and public speaking (esp. the latter in college). In both of them, it was, "You're likely to hear this from someone following me. And when you do, I want you to listen for answers to the following questions. And if you get these answers, think about how appropriate they are for the given set of circumstances." The Persuasive speech (in college): "You're going to hear people get up here and talk about abortions & birth control, gun control & registration, involvement of the US as a force for peace in the world, yadda, yadda. I want you to think how much of that affects right now as you're sitting here. Most of us here are seniors and now live off-campus. Do you know what happens to you when you live off-campus? You still pay for one meal a day at the Dining Commons, even if you don't go. So if you're married, you're paying for a meal you're likely to never go to...yadda yadda". I watched a lot of pale faces as I sat down. Because almost everyone there had to get up and talk about everything I said basically said was a sucky topic yet found something they were paying for and never knew it. (I always went first because it was like Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent...no one ever knew what type of show was going to be put on and I wanted to get first shot at manipulating the crowd.
Take five minutes, at least write something that's reasonably complete. It doesn't have to be the magazine article some of us write who go through write, preview, edit, preview, edit, preview, etc. and spend twenty or twenty-five minutes to craft a post. Unless you've got a dilly of a one-liner. By all means, get it posted. But it'd better be good.
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[1] Remember: ASP != VBScript. ASP is a platform|umbrella. It could be PERLScript, JScript, PHP, VBScript, and a couple of other languages which were made to fly.
...had they used an earth ball. Not the dinky ones which are startig to pop up, but the ones which showed up at jugging festivals (alongside torches, unis, antique big wheeled bikes, etc..
The balls would have much higher centers of gravity (making the balance extremely easy) and fine tune the machinery required to remain balanced. From there, they could work their way into smaller and smaller balls, tweaking their materials (hardware & software) to a point of where it could handle pretty small pieces.
Starting large and migrating to smaller balls would mean you have fewer variables to deal with at the beginning and make the process simple[1] along the way.
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[1] "Make things simple, not simpler." -Erasmus
GenCon is going on right now - one of the few 'round the clock events held.
Were you here, you could likely either post a message of some type (e.g., cards with an email address -- a throwaway because of a spam magnet) or interview people at random
(I don't go SouthWest of there during May (Indy500) two weeks ago (Brickyard 400), the F1, or Gen Con. I was born without the racing gene and I won't say anything about GenCon. The state fair is going on this weekend and I love riding on the tram (the tractors all run biodiesel) and could spend all day watching the people. The missus gets bored of that quite fast.
Microsoft & IBM had a partnership underway. When it came to renewal & examination of what stood where, Microsoft gracefully bowed out. That left Windows and OS/2 on the market [as separate products]. I don't have dates for other releases, but I know Windows 3.1 was in the March<->May '92 timeframe and remember working on an OS/2 book (power users) in the late '92 or '93 timeframe. For some time, software packages which ran on one ran on the other. This was still a DOS environment as you couldn't boot Windows and there were several flavors of DOS.
Several Microsoft documents detailing meeting minutes indicated a discussion about making it such Windows wouldn't run upon anything but MS-DOS. The resolution was, "Only if it will absolutely, positively runs on MS-DOS [no matter what, no question whatsoever]; if it runs on something else, that's fine...it's better to err by running on too much than too little." The goal was to make it WOM[2]people would call and the response would be, "I'm sorry, Windows only runs on MS-DOS. I can put you in touch with the Sales[3] department so you can purchase a copy."
There are a few packages which are still OS/2-only, although they might be migrating if not having done so recently. The missus works at a large hospital and Pyxis (automated med dispenser, it tracks userid, password, station, date|time, medication, doseage, etc. Basically, it a data collection system where you enter the necessary info and a drawer with the meds opens up for you to remove the meds. If the hospital has moved from OS/2, it's been less than a year and was extremely painful. They've had plenty of problems anyway, so I don't remember which one of the agonizing pains brought home would have been the migration. (fortunately, they're better than SMS on the mainframe (from days of yore). I so hated trying to protect the machines the systems programmers|technical support were responsible for and SMS demanded God privileges in order to do their work, walking in like stormtroopers. That's when we found out they were all OJT.[4]
Someone mentioned CP/M and the turbo button. With the commercials today, one would expect an [Easy] button instead - slow things down & make them intolerably slow. I'm guessing any version of Windows would be like pushing the [Easy] button. Perhaps, push the [Easy] button and a list of Windows partitions (in order of slowness) would pop up and ask you which one you want to run.;)
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[1] The saying about OS/2 was DB/2, OS/2, PS/2: Half of a database running on half an operating system running on half of a PC.
[2] WOM = Write-Only Memory. Infinite storage capacity, but if you try to read...out comes the smoke and they call support. "Smoke came out of the cabinet? Are you certain? Did you try to read from it? Oh, I'm sorry. It's read-only. You can store as much as you want, but you cannot retrieve it. During a trip to an ACM conference in college '84, several of us who had a few too many glasses of gin (I hate vermouth) and bloody maries were working out the details to create a glossy brochure to send to the profs.
[3] Remember, Microsoft's strengths are Marketing, PR, and Sales; aka Huey, Dewey and Louie. I don't think people calling would understand if someone said, "I'll put you in touch with Donald Duck's nephew, Louie Duck.";)
[4] On the Job Training. "We'll hire you dirt-cheap but won't send you to any classes. That costs money. The best thing to do is send you out into the mean, harsh world and you'll figure things out with time. Providing you don't booger up the clients' systems first. This isn't a case of being hired and learn things fast. This is being hired today and sent to a client site tomorrow without a parachute or docs.
They're spazzing here at the Indianapolis International Airport.
Anytime the morning shows (Today, GMA, etc.) break back to local coverage, it's about twenty-one people being arrested on the Heathrow side, a warning to anyone expecting to leave Indy [that] no liquids, not even hair gels will be permitted (except in checked-in luggage, and people are in some serious (and slow) lines to check this luggage after adjusting everything.
The other time consumer consists of people waiting to pick up all of their baggage.
It shouldn't be that big a deal, but because so many people typically have one or two carry-ons, or one carry-on, and one check-in, their travel pattern|philosophy is shot and they're out of their element.
Although they haven't stated as much, one gets the feeling there's an issue with binary solutions, not a singular.
One of the other issues is one of the items on the taboo list looks pretty much like baby formula.
Does this (no formula) mean kids can't ride and there won't be any screaming brats on our flights? (God can only hope)
Here's another age fact|factor for you, derived from separate; i.e. independent, sources across a number of years.
1. It's been known for a long time that the tobacco industry knows if they don't get you by the time you're nineteen, you're likely to never be a smoker, although I don't know if that applies for social smoking (my term for those who smoke when they are social drinkers; i.e., the ony time they smoke is when they're out for a few drinks with their friends.
2. Several years ago, and before the hyper-caffeinic drinks, pills, gum, mints, and anything else you can think of, tea and coffee were considered the primary sources (chocolate has it as well and I have Mormon friends who come down both sides of the fence as to whether they will eat it or not). Coffee is an acquired taste and the coffee industry has known for a long time if they don't get you by the age of nineteen... (I'm a fussy eater & drinker. I tend to not eat or drink things which are acquired tastes. Too many times when I was forced to eat things, even if I didn't like them. This included things like gristle on pork chops. Once I left home...that was it. It drives my MIL crazy. I'll eat a hotdog with sour cream, brown mustard, cheese, tomato, and celery salt but won't eat "ham" (as in "sliced ham") because of the fond "gristle memories" from ham & pork chops.)
3. Within the previous ten years or so, research (unable to cite, too much reading from too many [hardcopy] newspapers and magazines) revealed if you aren't nineteen..., rap will likely sound as offensive as the mosquito tone we were having fun with several days ago.
Rather interesting, don't you think? (The nineteen year breakoff, not my eating habits)
p.s.
The "hot" item at the Indiana State Fair (#150) tomorrow? Deep Fried Sauerkraut and Deep Fried Chocolate Strawberries.
Although he saw the long-term potential in it and he should be commended for the timing in jumping on it before someone beat him to it,
seeing him on the cover of Wired (July '6) makes it appear as though it was his idea, his funding, his efforts, etc.
Sure, MySpace could|would a crash & burn if someone didn't jump in at an appropriate moment, and it's unkonwn how closely he beat out someone else to grab the real estate, but it'll remain to be seen how he adds this little jewel to his crown. i.e., what types of commitments will they have to make to keep the boss happy. You can claim the money can make you overlook a lot, but there's a reason why a lot of people will take the money & run: freedom.
On the other hand, the Business Week article cited several days ago, points out that VC isn't able to force the recipients to capitulate quite as much as they used to (management positions, board seats, etc.) This change, IMO, is a good thing. There are a few companies who aren't going to go quietly into the night. witness: Microsoft. (here's a number. take it or we'll do it ourselves in a year and squash you)
Rewrite the original post, even with the newfound knowledge.
I'm certain someone will mod you some karma in compensation if you provide an excellent example.
Tip: Take the time to write, preview, edit, spell check, grammar & punctuation check[1], edit, etc.
Lots of people write something, scan it for what they think might be embarrassing[1], and submit it. It's not a race to post first.
Invest a few minutes and show us your best.
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[1] see a message just a couple higher than this one: "who's" as possessive. (versus "whose") If everyone exploded apparent possessive pronoun contractions, "they'd" (they would) see "it's" (it is) not a tough thing to do. Write as well as you would on your resume, even if you don't proofread.
For those attempting to apply the label "Grammar Nazi", that's (that is) usually done by a "Grammar Idiot".
Yeah, it's long, but it's worth reading the second page. I take time & care in writing my posts. If you're going to mod it, at least read the whole thing and breath in & out a couple of times before you hit the wrong number. We're prodded to Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs! before posting. Do the posters who carefully craft their posts like magazine articles. n.b. appropriate parties: it would be nice if the preview showed us where a page break is going to appear so we know whether to risk either an incomplete post or modded because people won't go to page two.
I'll throw away a karma point to get this in at the top - and dig for the precise information later -- as in a precise link. I've made allusions once or twice in the previous few months.
Ever hear of SBIR/STTR? (Small BInnovation Research Program) / Small Business Technology Transfer Program) ???
There are plenty of links and lots of portals which front end various aspects -- depending upon the purpose of that site, but here's the SBA (Small Business Administration's) take on it -- sort of a SBIR/STTR for Dummies. If you're looking to go out on your own and don't want to live on hot dogs for lunch and weenie broth for supper for if|until you get some traction, you might want to take a look what's going on.
Without digging any deeper than the SBA's first page and reading that article, do you see enough connections (e.g., specific numbers and wording) to be more than a coincidence? (oh, you own the patent but the gov't can use it royalty-free.
The hot thing these days is to create incubators, particularly at universities, where the right resources can be focused.
Re: Gates? $100M tossed around like a volleyball several times to innoculate a goodly portion of 3rd-world children against some of the scurges people deal with every day which we'd scream about if more than four kids in the same school district, not even school or class, came down with the same thing. He's now leaving what he dropped out of Harvard to do and spend [what will likely be] the rest of his life doing what he stated several years ago: giving away 95% of his accumulated worth.
$900 hammers? to toss out a cliche (trite cliche if you want the overkill people usually write), SBIR/STTR is supposed to be a multi-win situation: the military doesn't have black eyes for outrageous spending on these things; products are put together which have as much a civilian solution as military[1]; those interested in raising funding can do so without large risks; civilians are getting products on the market which might have an entry investment high enough only those who sniff at all of their food before they eat it or rely on Web 2.0 -- no grey areas. Do you know how that type of pricing comes about? Once the contract is established, the money is jostled about in spreadsheets until certain things balance. Every business does it. But when you're looking at billionz 'n billionz of dollars for a project, the detail load is so high they aren't going to be able to hide everything...some things ooze out the cracks.
People talk about $5/aspirin tablets at a hospital. The price is established the same way. An expectation is handed down as to how much revenue the pharmacy must bring in during the next year based upon a handful of factors. Sometimes you don't even have the final prices handed down by the vendor (or they may change them during the year if things don't work out). price + (markup * factor). (price * factor) + markup. (pRiceRange + markup) * factor. (priceRange + PriceRange[Market]) * factor. Sit back and imagine the possibilities. Everything is shifted around until things balance and things don't look too outrageous. Trust me. I don't work at a
When the responding officers don't do anything, get their names and badge numbers (but, as we learned earlier, don't videotape them unless you want to be a martyr)
Really.
Last summer, one of the local affiliates aired a story which involved a private investigator who was practically tailgating a state trooper (no siren or emergency lights) on I-65 as it heads out of Indy on its way to Chicago. The PI was doing it as much out of fun as anything. After all, we see the cops go 10+ mph over the rest of traffic, knowing no one is going to do anything about it. His video showed his speed via local dash and the trooper's cruiser just up & over his steering wheel with the license plate in view for proper identification. This apparently went on for quite some time. The thing the reporter mentioned was that this guy was driving like the trooper's wing man and he never really seemed to notice and|or care. There was no followup as to what happened to the trooper.
Totally unrelated - galaxies away, but part of recent investigations (from the same affiliate): Basically Dumpster Diving Behind Rx. Extending Social Engineering beyond what we're used to (passwords & whatnot). What was wild was seeing some of the pill bottles which contained partial bottles of oxy* (the wildcard fits - there's a ton of joy pills fitting into the "oxy" mold). Someone actually had the cajones to use the 'script info, greet a woman at her front door, and ask for the remainder of her pills because they were a bad batch or they'd be exchanged, or something like that. The best part was when the stores were shown. One lady said they had no business digging in their trash, others still had a problem on follow-up visits.
If this breaks the page, it won't be by much. If you are modding - read it all, okay?
I'll be forty-five come April Fool's Day and I can hear it quite well despite severe tinnitus (concussion from a car accident twelve years ago), tv playing, and a noisy ceiling fan. My eyes, however, have hit the 40-year marker and I do have to use reading glasses. The doc said I used them too much by learning to read when I was two.
There's something which might be worth sharing in return and there's nothing noxious about it...i.e.directly. My parents had a sizeable piece of property and Japanese beetles were a problem (they owned a lot of trees which which the landscaper didn't recommend using anything noxious because there were dozens of trees, not to mention he had a pretty green approach to things. His recommendation was to use Japanese beetle traps. (The nasty part is when the bags are full you use twisty-ties or some other method to close off the bag and toss them into the trash - after a day or two, they'd start to smell like rotting meat.)
The cool part about whatever brand they were using at the time is the lure. (or lures, if you want to consider both genders) For the most part, you couldn't really smell the pheromone strip(s) unless yyou had them pretty close to your nose and they were very pleasant. (I think you can guess where this is going) Carefully positioned on a porch, inside a car whose windows are occasionally left with any type of opening, a house window (minus screen) left open, etc. If the beetles are around (I'm guessing the forces of nature could cause this to be easily measured in hundreds of yards), you could cause an invasion of some type. Whether the mosquito nuisance would have an effect is an exercise left to the reader.
About fifteen years ago, we had a neighbor problem who claimed our dogs were causing all sorts of problems. We finally resolved it before the zoning board (her loss). Unfortunately, she died before everything had a chance to cool down (2-3 years) with us and they were after someone else - this was a hobby of hers. Lots of time, nothing [else] to do. I learned from a "life of crime" in college (a book in and of itself) it was better to do something in return while the griddle was hot (with someone else) as most people aren't snipers (one event and they're done) and they figure if it's not the current situation, they don't know which of their previous opponents it is, particularly if you're somewhere in the middle). I had a long list of things waiting for her, things I knew worked from college as well as other things which were on permanent mental filing. But alas, she just sneaked off in the middle of the night.
Now, for the mature side:
You can start by sending a 3rd party representing your position, but without betraying who you are - he probably knows, if he's doing it to annoy you. If the message is to pound sand, find out what the local ordinances are with regard to noise...and monitor his nocturnal schedule. If you can shorten his sleep cycles considerably - you mentioned there were a number of you, so you aren't going to go 1::1 in a test of endurance, you can wear him down. Be nice about it. Schedule some [very early, but legal] "Early Bird" breakfast picnics (with appropriate audio entertainment, especially if it's from his era (you are being benevolent, right?) whose timing is appropriate for your locale and send him an invitation (literally) occasionally. If problems ensue, you can provide a copy and show you were trying to be a good neighbor by inviting him. Got a friend he's never seen before? Have them get him up at oh-dark-00 and ring his bell until he answers and ask for directions to find one of you.
Big tip:the best way to beat the system is to play by the system. There are always exceptions or conflicts which create opportunities for leverage.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree, but there's a hairball working to choke that off a bit.
It's called dividends and keeping the stockholders happy
The Rule of 72 [1] means every three years will require an annual growth of 24%. That's hard to do year-in and year-out. To make the cut, you either increase sales at a frisky pace, increase the number of products people can buy, or buy someone else.
The responses to maintain whatever magic numbers are expected are obvious, finite, and generate a lot of pain. Those who are in pain are very good at showing people sh5t flows downhill. And the various levels of management who normally do one of their most important tasks, acting as a buffer have to put that aside.
I've been through it a couple of times.
The simplest example was in the computer book publishing world, where the executives wore gold handcuffs, which is the general method of motivation throughout the business world. Word was given to the parent company [that] the next year's sales would increase 20%. Word within the division (holding the imprints) was an increase of 30% would be required. If anything over 20% occurred, the divisional prez made his bosses happy. The internal 20% was a different story: it affected those who answered to him. The only problem at the CEO/Publisher level was: the number of titles published within each imprint couldn't change.
Cook the books? {snicker} Books were "pulled up a month" (either monthly, quarterly, or annually): if they were scheduled for early to mid September, an order to find ways to cut corners and get it into the August schedule was made. Scheduled for mid to late October? They'd find a way to pull it into September in order to make monthly and quarterly numbers. (Fun?) What happened if Borland or Microsoft didn't ship their software on schedule or made some changes, albeit minor, between their final build and the gold disk? It took some time before I could convince them to make their "Ship To Publisher" date the same as software's "Gold to Manufacturer" and there wouldn't be as much jumping around.
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[1] Doubling occurs when ( 72 == years * percentage)
Someone correct me, please, but didn't Rio predate iPod?
Not as red as you might think. But we do observe Daylight Saving Time (finally).
This is the first time there's been a Republican Indiana governor in a very long time.
Lest anyone think this is a one-time thing for ES&S or Diebold, do some research. Googling ES&S will bring back enough hits it reminds me of a practice on the farm used to happen: back up the manure spreader and fill it up. Unfortunately, the only way to get it from one farm to the other was on the streets. Flashing lights and red triangles in a rural area still wasn't good enough for people and decided to show everyone their horn worked. For a long period of time. Oops! I hit the wrong lever. "Sorry, sir. I didn't mean for a layer of sh%t to cover your windshield and related areas. No, I didn't do it because it was a nice day out and your windows were open."
One of the things ES&S is notorious for is sneaking untested software onto the machines and by the time TPTB (The Powers That Be), it's too late to change the election. ES&S did that in '02 (for certain and practically any election which has been checked after the fact) and someone blew the whistle. She was fired on the spot for disclosing the company's trade secrets. She was elected by the city or state by lunch the next day as a watchdog.
Disclosing The Fact Untested Software Was Installed Without Telling Anyone" is a trade secret (not to mention illegal)?
There have been any number of discussions in Congress regarding methods of elections: OSS vs. proprietary, etc. The argument is OSS might make it possible for someone to study it and find exploits which could be used to maninulate election results.
What I have done through research is whilst the the penalties are paid to the upper echelons, what machines are used is at the precinct level. That means just under two years to find a way to make one precinct or one or two voting booths in a particular precinct work, then branch out.
We won't talk about the BMV. I was lucky to have received a new registration sticker after 7-10 days. Everyone else has been told 2-3 weeks minimum
The current issue of Discover magazine (with a large face shot of Einstein "The Einstein Dilemma") on the cover. The article on point is Shiny Happy People. "Can you reach nirvana with the aid of science?".
And...(OT)..."Will Wright (Sims et al., for those who have been living in a bomb bunker), The master of the "god game" tackles alien life and dreams up a world that would make Darwin drool".
really funny. There's been an Independent of times of late and Lieberman's only hopes are a tragic accident taking someone's life at the wrong time, and getting in on someone's termination, but get Lieberman in office and you'll hear just what you did with Vermont: "bi-partisan". If there are three parties represented in Congress, how can it be two?
It's obviously a means to make people think in terms of two parties, and only two parties.
A zero-sum game with two participants makes it real easy to know whom your opponent is. Scores of x and 100-x are the only values you have to know. Create an oligo* model (e.g., from the business world) and you'll find it can be done, but it's considerably more complex. And it wreaks havoc no those wanting to predict what's going to home. They don't want that to happen. For now, they'll be content to start spamming everyone and telemarketing (which is valid in most states).
It has nothing to do with what the search engines do or provide per se. Search engines aren't always needed to a certain extent any more, particularly when it comes to popular sites, specific uris, etc. The reason (IMO)?
Word of "mouth". Actually, email messages[1] are sending names of services or specific uris for a particular site (e.g., something particularly funny on youtube) and people are pointing their browser in that direction, then exploring what else is there. If there are uris to other locations on the web, people follow those. One of the local affiliates in Indy played a considerably portion of this last night and made sure everyone knew there was a link on their web site. Lots of people likely pointed their browsers and youtube had a lot of extra traffic[2]. On the youtube page is Explore other videos. Lots of information conveyed, but no search engine activity in the process.
The web has enough toys^w services which people regularly visit (e.g., blogs, youtube) they don't necessarily need search engines unless somethings isn't found via the normal means. And normal now includes the various discussion forums where people provide the advice from the voice of context. IMDb.com has a professional side (reasonably priced paid service) where people who are in the biz can post things they're looking for or are available for. A couple of nights ago, someone was asking about the best software for scriptwriting on a small budget. ca. eight people chimed in with what they knew about different packages, including a couple of free ones, a commercial one for $25, a template which can be downloaded for MS Word, and some of the pros & cons about the ones they'd used. Where will you find ad hoc information in that context on demand in a search engine?
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[1] Unless you're in the media and use "emails" as a noun.
[2] Several years ago, I had a client who helped small to medium newspapers get online. Someone build a web site for them (taking six months, #include files nested six deep, every call to the server required 20'000 lines of code to be processed, regardless of the function involved. Once more than twenty people hit a site, the server showed you its impression of the La Brea tar pits. One site for a reasonably small city, perhaps a handful of a thousand people had a sheriff's deputy arrested for pedophilia, a ten-car pileup on the nearby interstate, and the largest employer (a substantial percentage of the citizenry) was going to be dismissed. All of this hit CNN with a reference to their newspaper's web site. That's about the time Chrnobyl and Three Mile Island happened at the same time. Fortunately smarter people are starting to anticipate resource issues a little better than they used to.
If they're going after the use of a word or use of pod, what are they going to do about podcast?
Nothing. Podcast is just a word in the common language.
They're either going to have to remove that word from everyone's vocabulary (that genie has already left the bottle), or everyone will say they are using the fragment pod from podcast, not iPod.
That actually wouldn't be a defense. If they were to sue, what they have to show is that the use of the word "pod" is likely to cause confusion in the eyes of consumers about who makes the product. Now, I think they'd have a hell of a time convincing a jury that the name of the vending machine-related Profit Pod has any chance of confusing consumers, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can't try to scare them out of using it anyway.
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Actually, it is a defense. As I said, someone can claim their product containing the word pod is based named upon podcast, and as you've said, it's in the public domain. So if I create new piece of hardware called the podPlayer and they pursue me, my defense will be "it's a player which plays files which have a podCast format. The name podPlayer even indicates it's podPlayer -- a player of pod formats.
Unless & until you can show me how using the word pod in a name will stand up because Apple can claim it came from iPod and not from the pod in podCast, you won't have a case.[1] If you believe otherwise, I'd like to see logic beyond ukase or fiat.
Were Apple to set things up such that podcast is a proprietary & protected format (e.g.,GIF) and it can be created by any number of means but played only upon an Apple iPod, that might hold water. But I'm willing to bet that won't hold water, would it?
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From a message three or four down:
And isn't Podcast an Apple invention? Could have sworn they were the ones that created the name anyway.
If this is true, I'd expect to see podCast (or pod) with a TM, C, SM, R everywhere it's used (except Slashdot for reasons I shouldn't have to explain -- aside from it invokes Godwin's Law in no more than three messages). I'd also expect to see Apple protecting the pod in podCast as adamantly as they are the pod in iPod. If they don't, they don't have a leg to stand on for the reasons I've stated here and a previous message.
iPod and podCast treated separately will require Apple to show intent on the part of alleged infringers as to which source of pod they were using. There's no way a company is going to put its head in the noose and state the wrong one. (landshark preparation: "Whatever you do, don't say we're using pod from iPod. It is soley and wholly from podCast.
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[1] This leads into one area where patent law could be good, including submarines: stating via some document it will not be enforced and derivatives cannot be made private, preventing someone else from making it proprietary to themselves, thus letting everyone enjoy it. Prior art should prevent the patent to begin with, but because two or three companies seem to have convinced the USPTO prior art means nothing, one cannot count on prior art working correctly. It's like plastic additive patent ten or twelve years ago. Someone figured out how to add something to virtually all plastics without altering its desired properties. This made plastic show up on x-rays which wouldn't have done so before. This made it possible for plastic objects ingested (or entered their body through any number of means) to show up in the ER when they get an x-ray.
If they're going after the use of a word or use of pod, what are they going to do about podcast?
They're either going to have to remove that word from everyone's vocabulary (that genie has already left the bottle), or everyone will say they are using the fragment pod from podcast, not iPod.
Apple's not in a good defensive, let alone offensive, position.
Specifically, those who would ordinarily slip through the cracks because someone doesn't catch prior art.
A significant population with an [almost] unmeasurable body of knowledge and information would do a pretty thorough job of flagging someone which the patent examiners working under extremely high pressure to push things down the assembly line. This would make the examiner's job one of validation of claims posted via wiki.
One question remains: What's going to happen if we see a couple of companies who shall remain nameless and are granted patents by filling out a pre-approved form are faced with prior art (or silly art) claims and the company receives the approval anyway? That might prove there's some monkey business is afoot. (Donating a Playboy Bunny to their favorite charity? (Charity begins at home)
In all seriousness, dBase is one of the two things Borland did to self-destruct -- without the help of Microsoft.
Borland purchased Ashton-Tate ('90?,'91?,'92?) for one reason: dBase. They practically shut down the other products (and support) almost overnight. One would have thought dBase/Windows would have been extremely high on their priority list.
{twiddle thumbs}...{twiddle thumbs}...{twiddle thumbs}
(...no perceivable activity from Borland...)
Low & behold, here comes Access 1.0 from Microsoft, November, '92. (it was either the 15th or 25th, I've lost track). At $99, Borland would have had no chance of retaining the market had they come out by Spring '93. I'm sure some copies became shelfware, but I know there was a lot of pressure to get Access books on the market because they sold like hotcakes. About the same time Krol's The Whole Internet came out as the first mass market Internet book and the Internet was no longer "the world's biggest secret club." (yes, that's my catchphrase)
The overall market ended up being FoxPro 2.6 for Windows, Paradox for Windows, dBase for Windows, and Access. As much as hardcore people want to put down Access, and the people who used it (not knowing how to normalize, write SQL without the query screen, etc.), it *did* provide a lot of tools above and beyond what they had had in dBase/DOS and they could become reasonably proficient in their day-to-day jobs.
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Oh, I said there were two things Borland did to catch something soft & fleshy in their zippers, didn't I?. It's OT, but germane to my original proposition.
By late '92, Borland had the lion's share of the C++ market, likely on the order of 85+%, and generally relied upon API (Charles Petzold's Programming Windows, or OWL. Microsoft's C++ development environment was a DOS application. A dimmer star in the constellation was Zortec. (am I leave additional ones out?)
Microsoft's Visual C++ 1.0 came out in the January '93 timeframe (20 diskettes?). Around that time is when Borland came out with a new version of C++ which had OWL II. OWL II was *not* upwardly compatible with OWL I. This meant major modifications, rewrites, or using Borland's migration wizard (not a good thing to do). This produced a pause where people could poke their heads up and see if there was anything else of merit. (if you're going to have to make a lot of changes, including rewriting, why not see how much the market has changed since your last opportunity to do so?) Someone let the air out of Borland's tires because their market deflated to an almost imperceptable level and MVC++ took off like a rocket.
And that is how they invented chicken soup and Borland committed seppuku.
(Microsoft isn't always the bad guy. Sometimes, people screw up and synchronicity happens.)
The basis of the article threads itself into and througout chess, and whilst I have a fondness for it, it cannot be the only form of being an expert, mental prowess, etc., can it?
If it had been "The Expert Chess Mind", that would be a different thing altogether.
I'd expected more until I realized the cover picture depicted the meat of the article.
I haven't renewed my subscription yet, but if it had come under the label of a subscription, I'd have asked for an extension to compensate for an inferior issue.
This covers a lot of ground. My parents bought a subscription for me when I was eight or nine and I'd borrow [older] copies from the library to have something to read when sitting in the back row of boring classes.
I don't remember having felt this way about any other issues.
I am, however, looking forward to the annual "single-topic" September issue.
This article from Fast Company is coming up on ten years old and I've carried a bookmark for it since that time.
Read through it and see how much software you're aware of which is as capable as it is, the bug count, the lack of nights of old pizza, etc.
There are a lot of Earth-bound companies which write software on a large scale (source line count) which should take a page from what this article details.
There's very little in the actual document which isn't in the published article when it comes to cost.
Have you been living on Gilligan's Island?
5eu/month is, as pointed out in the FA, at the current exchange rate: $6.359.
Before Scotty Richter was castrated, he was bringing $2M into his office, yes, two million U$ monthly. And he wasn't the king of the mountain.
Can you explain how $6.359/month going to make a spammer think twice about using the service? Particularly when you consider the anonymity. No more looking for open proxies & relays.
They pay far, far, far more than that to set up shop in China, then send all of that crap back to the US. Most spam originates from the US as the 2003 U-CAN-SPAM law[1] basically gave them free reign, but the big boys still rely upon China.
Here are the top 200 spammers responsible for 80% of the crap which is dropped in your inbox.
Some of these guys (e.g. Ralsky) have substantial setups in their basements or an office (when they-he aren't|isn't getting caught running around in nothing but a black thong -- yes, there's a picture of it in an anti-spam archive.
But seriously. How do you think ~$6/month is going to stop a spammer. I'm not trying to present a loaded question here. I really do want to know your perspective on this because you may have insights no one else has considered.
The only way I can see this not becoming a spam haven is if there's a volume limit for that price and you have to pay $x/volume for each increment after that.
I'm all ears.
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[1] Very effective, wouldn't you say? Has your volume of spam decreased (without human intervention to separate the wheat from the chaffe?)
I bought a laptop for my wife about a year ago and we're on our fifth power cord.
The first place where there's an accordion-like piece of rubber bends a lot, particularly as I sit on the couch with it sitting on a decent size of plexiglas I've used as a lap desk for twenty-five years. The rubber starts fraying, the cover of the electrical cord becomes open to the outside, then it becomes a matter of moving the cord just so until it's in place and we see the icon in the system tray whilst calling Dell for a replacement. Because it's under warranty, we get a new one within two days, they never blink an eye.
Because the cord isn't moving that much, something has to be wrong, yet they never blink an eye (I'm certain some of that is they just do what they're told on the support line). I'd think if was a problem on a bigger scale something would happen to fix it but every cord has been the same (and had the same problem).
How is Ruby lacking where lesser languages have lasted for so long? This isn't a question with hidden value or a bait for a flame war, I figured you'd finish your own comments:
"Ruby is more likely to be another fad because..." where's your argument?
"AJAX is actually something new..." despite the cries it's been around in a former life known as remote scripting, which has been in the ASP-supported languages[1] for several years. The difference is you can do...in AJAX wherease remote scripting was restrictive in the way
"but AJAX is definitely...important." because...
Unless you want to toss out karma points like toothbrushes when you find a hair in them, you might want to answer your own questions because you're leaving yourself open to challenge without making your point(s) known. You're either going to waste a karma point by posting incompletely or you'll have to come back in and waste a second one trying to defend your position.
This is going to sound nasty to some people, but I'm tossing a karma point out to you and anyone else who posts quick little quips. Take it as constructive criticism, even if you don't think it is.
I was really dirty in debates and public speaking (esp. the latter in college). In both of them, it was, "You're likely to hear this from someone following me. And when you do, I want you to listen for answers to the following questions. And if you get these answers, think about how appropriate they are for the given set of circumstances." The Persuasive speech (in college): "You're going to hear people get up here and talk about abortions & birth control, gun control & registration, involvement of the US as a force for peace in the world, yadda, yadda. I want you to think how much of that affects right now as you're sitting here. Most of us here are seniors and now live off-campus. Do you know what happens to you when you live off-campus? You still pay for one meal a day at the Dining Commons, even if you don't go. So if you're married, you're paying for a meal you're likely to never go to...yadda yadda". I watched a lot of pale faces as I sat down. Because almost everyone there had to get up and talk about everything I said basically said was a sucky topic yet found something they were paying for and never knew it. (I always went first because it was like Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent...no one ever knew what type of show was going to be put on and I wanted to get first shot at manipulating the crowd.
Take five minutes, at least write something that's reasonably complete. It doesn't have to be the magazine article some of us write who go through write, preview, edit, preview, edit, preview, etc. and spend twenty or twenty-five minutes to craft a post. Unless you've got a dilly of a one-liner. By all means, get it posted. But it'd better be good.
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[1] Remember: ASP != VBScript. ASP is a platform|umbrella. It could be PERLScript, JScript, PHP, VBScript, and a couple of other languages which were made to fly.
The balls would have much higher centers of gravity (making the balance extremely easy) and fine tune the machinery required to remain balanced. From there, they could work their way into smaller and smaller balls, tweaking their materials (hardware & software) to a point of where it could handle pretty small pieces.
Starting large and migrating to smaller balls would mean you have fewer variables to deal with at the beginning and make the process simple[1] along the way.
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[1] "Make things simple, not simpler." -Erasmus
GenCon is going on right now - one of the few 'round the clock events held.
Were you here, you could likely either post a message of some type (e.g., cards with an email address -- a throwaway because of a spam magnet) or interview people at random
(I don't go SouthWest of there during May (Indy500) two weeks ago (Brickyard 400), the F1, or Gen Con. I was born without the racing gene and I won't say anything about GenCon. The state fair is going on this weekend and I love riding on the tram (the tractors all run biodiesel) and could spend all day watching the people. The missus gets bored of that quite fast.
Windows killed OS/2.[1]
Microsoft & IBM had a partnership underway. When it came to renewal & examination of what stood where, Microsoft gracefully bowed out. That left Windows and OS/2 on the market [as separate products]. I don't have dates for other releases, but I know Windows 3.1 was in the March<->May '92 timeframe and remember working on an OS/2 book (power users) in the late '92 or '93 timeframe. For some time, software packages which ran on one ran on the other. This was still a DOS environment as you couldn't boot Windows and there were several flavors of DOS.
Several Microsoft documents detailing meeting minutes indicated a discussion about making it such Windows wouldn't run upon anything but MS-DOS. The resolution was, "Only if it will absolutely, positively runs on MS-DOS [no matter what, no question whatsoever]; if it runs on something else, that's fine...it's better to err by running on too much than too little." The goal was to make it WOM[2]people would call and the response would be, "I'm sorry, Windows only runs on MS-DOS. I can put you in touch with the Sales[3] department so you can purchase a copy."
There are a few packages which are still OS/2-only, although they might be migrating if not having done so recently. The missus works at a large hospital and Pyxis (automated med dispenser, it tracks userid, password, station, date|time, medication, doseage, etc. Basically, it a data collection system where you enter the necessary info and a drawer with the meds opens up for you to remove the meds. If the hospital has moved from OS/2, it's been less than a year and was extremely painful. They've had plenty of problems anyway, so I don't remember which one of the agonizing pains brought home would have been the migration. (fortunately, they're better than SMS on the mainframe (from days of yore). I so hated trying to protect the machines the systems programmers|technical support were responsible for and SMS demanded God privileges in order to do their work, walking in like stormtroopers. That's when we found out they were all OJT.[4]
Someone mentioned CP/M and the turbo button. With the commercials today, one would expect an [Easy] button instead - slow things down & make them intolerably slow. I'm guessing any version of Windows would be like pushing the [Easy] button. Perhaps, push the [Easy] button and a list of Windows partitions (in order of slowness) would pop up and ask you which one you want to run.
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[1] The saying about OS/2 was DB/2, OS/2, PS/2: Half of a database running on half an operating system running on half of a PC.
[2] WOM = Write-Only Memory. Infinite storage capacity, but if you try to read...out comes the smoke and they call support. "Smoke came out of the cabinet? Are you certain? Did you try to read from it? Oh, I'm sorry. It's read-only. You can store as much as you want, but you cannot retrieve it. During a trip to an ACM conference in college '84, several of us who had a few too many glasses of gin (I hate vermouth) and bloody maries were working out the details to create a glossy brochure to send to the profs.
[3] Remember, Microsoft's strengths are Marketing, PR, and Sales; aka Huey, Dewey and Louie. I don't think people calling would understand if someone said, "I'll put you in touch with Donald Duck's nephew, Louie Duck."
[4] On the Job Training. "We'll hire you dirt-cheap but won't send you to any classes. That costs money. The best thing to do is send you out into the mean, harsh world and you'll figure things out with time. Providing you don't booger up the clients' systems first. This isn't a case of being hired and learn things fast. This is being hired today and sent to a client site tomorrow without a parachute or docs.
They're spazzing here at the Indianapolis International Airport.
Anytime the morning shows (Today, GMA, etc.) break back to local coverage, it's about twenty-one people being arrested on the Heathrow side, a warning to anyone expecting to leave Indy [that] no liquids, not even hair gels will be permitted (except in checked-in luggage, and people are in some serious (and slow) lines to check this luggage after adjusting everything.
The other time consumer consists of people waiting to pick up all of their baggage.
It shouldn't be that big a deal, but because so many people typically have one or two carry-ons, or one carry-on, and one check-in, their travel pattern|philosophy is shot and they're out of their element.
Although they haven't stated as much, one gets the feeling there's an issue with binary solutions, not a singular.
One of the other issues is one of the items on the taboo list looks pretty much like baby formula.
Does this (no formula) mean kids can't ride and there won't be any screaming brats on our flights? (God can only hope)
Here's another age fact|factor for you, derived from separate; i.e. independent, sources across a number of years.
1. It's been known for a long time that the tobacco industry knows if they don't get you by the time you're nineteen, you're likely to never be a smoker, although I don't know if that applies for social smoking (my term for those who smoke when they are social drinkers; i.e., the ony time they smoke is when they're out for a few drinks with their friends.
2. Several years ago, and before the hyper-caffeinic drinks, pills, gum, mints, and anything else you can think of, tea and coffee were considered the primary sources (chocolate has it as well and I have Mormon friends who come down both sides of the fence as to whether they will eat it or not). Coffee is an acquired taste and the coffee industry has known for a long time if they don't get you by the age of nineteen... (I'm a fussy eater & drinker. I tend to not eat or drink things which are acquired tastes. Too many times when I was forced to eat things, even if I didn't like them. This included things like gristle on pork chops. Once I left home...that was it. It drives my MIL crazy. I'll eat a hotdog with sour cream, brown mustard, cheese, tomato, and celery salt but won't eat "ham" (as in "sliced ham") because of the fond "gristle memories" from ham & pork chops.)
3. Within the previous ten years or so, research (unable to cite, too much reading from too many [hardcopy] newspapers and magazines) revealed if you aren't nineteen..., rap will likely sound as offensive as the mosquito tone we were having fun with several days ago.
Rather interesting, don't you think? (The nineteen year breakoff, not my eating habits)
p.s.
The "hot" item at the Indiana State Fair (#150) tomorrow? Deep Fried Sauerkraut and Deep Fried Chocolate Strawberries.
Although he saw the long-term potential in it and he should be commended for the timing in jumping on it before someone beat him to it,
seeing him on the cover of Wired (July '6) makes it appear as though it was his idea, his funding, his efforts, etc.
Sure, MySpace could|would a crash & burn if someone didn't jump in at an appropriate moment, and it's unkonwn how closely he beat out someone else to grab the real estate, but it'll remain to be seen how he adds this little jewel to his crown. i.e., what types of commitments will they have to make to keep the boss happy. You can claim the money can make you overlook a lot, but there's a reason why a lot of people will take the money & run: freedom.
On the other hand, the Business Week article cited several days ago, points out that VC isn't able to force the recipients to capitulate quite as much as they used to (management positions, board seats, etc.) This change, IMO, is a good thing. There are a few companies who aren't going to go quietly into the night. witness: Microsoft. (here's a number. take it or we'll do it ourselves in a year and squash you)
Challenge: Name that tune.
Rewrite the original post, even with the newfound knowledge.
I'm certain someone will mod you some karma in compensation if you provide an excellent example.
Tip: Take the time to write, preview, edit, spell check, grammar & punctuation check[1], edit, etc.
Lots of people write something, scan it for what they think might be embarrassing[1], and submit it. It's not a race to post first.
Invest a few minutes and show us your best.
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[1] see a message just a couple higher than this one: "who's" as possessive. (versus "whose") If everyone exploded apparent possessive pronoun contractions, "they'd" (they would) see "it's" (it is) not a tough thing to do. Write as well as you would on your resume, even if you don't proofread.
For those attempting to apply the label "Grammar Nazi", that's (that is) usually done by a "Grammar Idiot".
Yeah, it's long, but it's worth reading the second page. I take time & care in writing my posts. If you're going to mod it, at least read the whole thing and breath in & out a couple of times before you hit the wrong number. We're prodded to Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs! before posting. Do the posters who carefully craft their posts like magazine articles. n.b. appropriate parties: it would be nice if the preview showed us where a page break is going to appear so we know whether to risk either an incomplete post or modded because people won't go to page two.
I'll throw away a karma point to get this in at the top - and dig for the precise information later -- as in a precise link. I've made allusions once or twice in the previous few months.
Ever hear of SBIR/STTR? (Small BInnovation Research Program) / Small Business Technology Transfer Program) ???
There are plenty of links and lots of portals which front end various aspects -- depending upon the purpose of that site, but here's the SBA (Small Business Administration's) take on it -- sort of a SBIR/STTR for Dummies. If you're looking to go out on your own and don't want to live on hot dogs for lunch and weenie broth for supper for if|until you get some traction, you might want to take a look what's going on.
Without digging any deeper than the SBA's first page and reading that article, do you see enough connections (e.g., specific numbers and wording) to be more than a coincidence? (oh, you own the patent but the gov't can use it royalty-free.
The hot thing these days is to create incubators, particularly at universities, where the right resources can be focused.
Re: Gates? $100M tossed around like a volleyball several times to innoculate a goodly portion of 3rd-world children against some of the scurges people deal with every day which we'd scream about if more than four kids in the same school district, not even school or class, came down with the same thing. He's now leaving what he dropped out of Harvard to do and spend [what will likely be] the rest of his life doing what he stated several years ago: giving away 95% of his accumulated worth.
$900 hammers? to toss out a cliche (trite cliche if you want the overkill people usually write), SBIR/STTR is supposed to be a multi-win situation: the military doesn't have black eyes for outrageous spending on these things; products are put together which have as much a civilian solution as military[1]; those interested in raising funding can do so without large risks; civilians are getting products on the market which might have an entry investment high enough only those who sniff at all of their food before they eat it or rely on Web 2.0 -- no grey areas. Do you know how that type of pricing comes about? Once the contract is established, the money is jostled about in spreadsheets until certain things balance. Every business does it. But when you're looking at billionz 'n billionz of dollars for a project, the detail load is so high they aren't going to be able to hide everything...some things ooze out the cracks.
People talk about $5/aspirin tablets at a hospital. The price is established the same way. An expectation is handed down as to how much revenue the pharmacy must bring in during the next year based upon a handful of factors. Sometimes you don't even have the final prices handed down by the vendor (or they may change them during the year if things don't work out). price + (markup * factor). (price * factor) + markup. (pRiceRange + markup) * factor. (priceRange + PriceRange[Market]) * factor. Sit back and imagine the possibilities. Everything is shifted around until things balance and things don't look too outrageous. Trust me. I don't work at a
When the responding officers don't do anything, get their names and badge numbers (but, as we learned earlier, don't videotape them unless you want to be a martyr)
Really.
Last summer, one of the local affiliates aired a story which involved a private investigator who was practically tailgating a state trooper (no siren or emergency lights) on I-65 as it heads out of Indy on its way to Chicago. The PI was doing it as much out of fun as anything. After all, we see the cops go 10+ mph over the rest of traffic, knowing no one is going to do anything about it. His video showed his speed via local dash and the trooper's cruiser just up & over his steering wheel with the license plate in view for proper identification. This apparently went on for quite some time. The thing the reporter mentioned was that this guy was driving like the trooper's wing man and he never really seemed to notice and|or care. There was no followup as to what happened to the trooper.
Totally unrelated - galaxies away, but part of recent investigations (from the same affiliate): Basically Dumpster Diving Behind Rx. Extending Social Engineering beyond what we're used to (passwords & whatnot). What was wild was seeing some of the pill bottles which contained partial bottles of oxy* (the wildcard fits - there's a ton of joy pills fitting into the "oxy" mold). Someone actually had the cajones to use the 'script info, greet a woman at her front door, and ask for the remainder of her pills because they were a bad batch or they'd be exchanged, or something like that. The best part was when the stores were shown. One lady said they had no business digging in their trash, others still had a problem on follow-up visits.
unf%ck'nbelievable.
If this breaks the page, it won't be by much. If you are modding - read it all, okay?
I'll be forty-five come April Fool's Day and I can hear it quite well despite severe tinnitus (concussion from a car accident twelve years ago), tv playing, and a noisy ceiling fan. My eyes, however, have hit the 40-year marker and I do have to use reading glasses. The doc said I used them too much by learning to read when I was two.
There's something which might be worth sharing in return and there's nothing noxious about it...i.e.directly. My parents had a sizeable piece of property and Japanese beetles were a problem (they owned a lot of trees which which the landscaper didn't recommend using anything noxious because there were dozens of trees, not to mention he had a pretty green approach to things. His recommendation was to use Japanese beetle traps. (The nasty part is when the bags are full you use twisty-ties or some other method to close off the bag and toss them into the trash - after a day or two, they'd start to smell like rotting meat.)
The cool part about whatever brand they were using at the time is the lure. (or lures, if you want to consider both genders) For the most part, you couldn't really smell the pheromone strip(s) unless yyou had them pretty close to your nose and they were very pleasant. (I think you can guess where this is going) Carefully positioned on a porch, inside a car whose windows are occasionally left with any type of opening, a house window (minus screen) left open, etc. If the beetles are around (I'm guessing the forces of nature could cause this to be easily measured in hundreds of yards), you could cause an invasion of some type. Whether the mosquito nuisance would have an effect is an exercise left to the reader.
About fifteen years ago, we had a neighbor problem who claimed our dogs were causing all sorts of problems. We finally resolved it before the zoning board (her loss). Unfortunately, she died before everything had a chance to cool down (2-3 years) with us and they were after someone else - this was a hobby of hers. Lots of time, nothing [else] to do. I learned from a "life of crime" in college (a book in and of itself) it was better to do something in return while the griddle was hot (with someone else) as most people aren't snipers (one event and they're done) and they figure if it's not the current situation, they don't know which of their previous opponents it is, particularly if you're somewhere in the middle). I had a long list of things waiting for her, things I knew worked from college as well as other things which were on permanent mental filing. But alas, she just sneaked off in the middle of the night.
Now, for the mature side:
You can start by sending a 3rd party representing your position, but without betraying who you are - he probably knows, if he's doing it to annoy you. If the message is to pound sand, find out what the local ordinances are with regard to noise...and monitor his nocturnal schedule. If you can shorten his sleep cycles considerably - you mentioned there were a number of you, so you aren't going to go 1::1 in a test of endurance, you can wear him down. Be nice about it. Schedule some [very early, but legal] "Early Bird" breakfast picnics (with appropriate audio entertainment, especially if it's from his era (you are being benevolent, right?) whose timing is appropriate for your locale and send him an invitation (literally) occasionally. If problems ensue, you can provide a copy and show you were trying to be a good neighbor by inviting him. Got a friend he's never seen before? Have them get him up at oh-dark-00 and ring his bell until he answers and ask for directions to find one of you.
Big tip: the best way to beat the system is to play by the system. There are always exceptions or conflicts which create opportunities for leverage.