Yeah, got the same impression. Shame though, because I found them pretty useful. What would also be nice if slashdot editors would have a slashdot development blog were we could ask questions like this on-topic.
The place I work has some nice Igel thin clients, and they are actually not that much cheaper than the newly-bought workstations. I think you'll find this for every brand, a sun ray 2fs is 500 dollar, whereas for 800 dollar you have a sun ultra 20 workstation.
The only reason they are there is to reduce noise and especially heat in the offices. Be sure to cram a lot of memory in it, otherwise they'll be underperforming. Nice thing is the fact that you can just reboot it if the workstation it is logged into locks up, and log in to another workstation. Bad thing is that you cannot do anything anymore at a full network lockup, but that is also true for the workstations when they cannot reach the $HOME on nfs anymore. And it's less of a fuss to administrate these things.
There are several virtual journals out there at the moment, they give an overview of interesting new articles in a certain topic, taken from all major journals:
I think you are correct here, I've seen already several cases where people first get their MS, then get their MBA, also next to a job. This combination is probably the best way to get a really nice job at a place of your choice. With only an MS, it's a bit more difficult, but there are still enough institutions (say banking, consulting), that look for people with an MS that requires abstraction skills (physics, mathematics, etc).
Also, don't forget extracurricular stuff. If you helped organizing, or was chairman of the organization, of even a small event during your education, you can relate to this during your application (Questions like: "Give an example where you lead a team in a certain direction", or whatever). Doing a year in a foreign country is also a good an alternative, not only for your resume, but also for yourself
I agree with the parent, no mod points to untroll him unfortunately.
Seriously. These firms make apparently only 1 software product, that is probably relatively complex, but no rocket science. How come that these two firms that I (as a general nerd, not someone working in the field) never ever heard of are worth a f**king 1 billion dollars each?!?!
Does that not make sense? Was it powerpoint, or the people that dealt with it that were to blame? Nice question that the Jack Thompsons of the world should ask themselves.
Thank you, didn't know the company. But I do know that research on protein folding in ice cream is not a joke. The big ice-cream companies in europe (nestle, unilever) are actually doing research on this kind of material, and this does involve computer simulations! So the GP is closer to reality than he probably knew:)
And to be honest, a research question like that is probably even a better defined one than just looking at the protein folding problem in general, and therefore not a bad way at all to spend your research money!
It's easy to see that point (4), copying the idea and standards to other hardware companies, couldn't have happened if they didn't give away all the documentation as in point (3). And, point (4) not only increased the impact of IBM on the history of PCs, but it also decreased their market share as a PC supplier enormously.
What I find interesting to speculate on, is if they would've been bigger now if they had used some sort of "trusted hardware" contract, the same as which microsoft already tries to put through for some time now: forcing suppliers to develop hardware/software only under contract, and making sure that only hardware from those suppliers will actually function on their platform (not that the hardware capacity was there to check stuff like that at the time, I guess).
Or, would they have been marginalized by the more open competition if they would've chosen that path, and their current technique to support open standards, but deliver paid service and support for companies that need reliable software/hardware, is actually the best one?
Hmmm, let me think, reintroducing something from the 80's as if it was your own innovation..... Maybe you should just wait for the next WWDC! Except that it won't be called 'turbo' anymore (that is really too 80's), but more something like "Engage". And it won't be an actual button, but more some sort of fancy transparent widget.
Since apparently there's even a creationist museum now in kentucky, where people try to show how fossils were put in the earth to mislead us all or whatever these crazy people believe. Let's hope that generations after us still get to learn actual scientific foundations on paleontology.
Some clearvoiant (how do you spell that actually?) already saw in advance that this won't hurt yahoo:
21528558 http com yahoo com wont hurt wont yahoo 2006-04-21 15:31:20
I'm amazed by the masses of stupid search strings that are given, why are so many search strings complete (or non working) http adresses? (e.g. www.yahoo.com) Seems like a lousy database to me anyway.
Which is probably how they manage to keep a bigger market cap and revenue compared to Dell. Seriously, to compete with Dell you'll have to keep the margins low, why even bother? Better sell service contracts, combined with expensive high-margin hardware if possible!
It was not even obvious, it probably was in NextSTEP (there's a manual lying around at work I guess, I could check:) )! I use GNUstep windowmaker (probably the last of the mohicans, but it's the only kde alternative installed by default at all machines at my workplace), and it had a fluent virtual desktop implementation, even when I used it at home on my pentium I with 2 mb trident card and 96 mb ram. Reading Every Mac comes equipped with powerful graphics technology, so you can take advantage of whiz-bang Leopard innovations like Spaces without worrying about whether your computer can deliver the goods. on the mac website sounds a bit silly in this way. Won't they learn that a feature is not an improvement if you need top-of-the-line hardware to perform an obvious task? Quick navigation around the desktops shouldn't be a problem, a simple keyboard map is all I needed.
But indeed, introduction of Virtual Desktops is a good thing in the end, that and not having the money hold me off of getting a mac. Now it's only the money;)
But my point is that the layman, just as I, just won't believe any 'new cure against cancer found' claims in the newspaper any more, as everyone already saw hundreds of these statements in the last 20 years, and no one ever worked out yet. Which is not to say there was no development in this field!
I agree that we scientists need funding, and need to pass the message of the beauty of our work in an understandable and attention-drawing manner to the ones giving the funding, and the public in general. But, as science needs to be done with great care, it is also important to bring the message with great care. This is of course very difficult, talking about science in an understandable way unfortunately is. But not impossible. Consider the title of the georgiatech site:
original title:Optical Breakthrough Makes Lab-on-a-Chip Possible
my quickly thought-up alternative:Georgiatech Group Presents Optical Breakthrough in Lab-on-a-Chip Technology
Now it is factual (I don't deny that this is a breakthrough), and still appealing.
The title on Piquepaille's blog was actually: A photonic 'lab-on-a-chip', so he's not really to blame there. Probably he does a good job on his blog, I just read a bit of the latest articles (normally I don't read it), and find that I end with more questions than answers, but maybe that's a good thing, creating curiosity and all:)
There's a whole journal devoted to lab on a chip, bringing this small part of the technique as the only thing needed to make labs on a chip (lab on a chips?) is a bit of an overstatement
As a scientist, this is what I don't really like about scientific journalism. Like the 'New breakthrough in fighting cancer' titles, etc. etc. These are laboratory research developments and will take at least 10 years to evaluate, some of them will end up being impractical before ever being put to use.
I think that scientific journalism should be more than just a PR machine for research labs. Of course they want the message out that they're doing nice stuff, but as it are all just small pieces of advancement, don't bring it as if you just developed a working nuclear fusion reactor ready to connect to the powergrid. Show that you're doing someting nice, what it can do, what the scientific/technical genial idea is that was done to get it, and in what frame we should see it, that should be enough.
As strange as it sounded to me, there apparently was already a PCMCIA version running the
USB EVDO interface. So the title is very factual and correct.
ok thank you, didn't have the option to use one of these lately unfortunately;)
Eclipz, djeez, where did they get that name? Did someone whatch too much dragonball Z here, or is this the marketing guy who later went to microsoft to introduce the Zune?
I'd guess so, and they have to know it's stable etc. But still it won't be much of a selling argument anymore, with the new intel dual cores coming. Why should corporations buy amd now if there is a current intel version that is faster and cheaper?
I think this is all on a whole different level than you and me buying a new PC, so I guess there must be some reasoning behind it.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, got the same impression. Shame though, because I found them pretty useful. What would also be nice if slashdot editors would have a slashdot development blog were we could ask questions like this on-topic.
Reminds me of an old joke
The only reason they are there is to reduce noise and especially heat in the offices. Be sure to cram a lot of memory in it, otherwise they'll be underperforming. Nice thing is the fact that you can just reboot it if the workstation it is logged into locks up, and log in to another workstation. Bad thing is that you cannot do anything anymore at a full network lockup, but that is also true for the workstations when they cannot reach the $HOME on nfs anymore. And it's less of a fuss to administrate these things.
Probably they still use the same pc's and will end up running old versions of slackware on it ;)
http://www.google.com/search?q=virtual+journal
If you don't have access to these journals, you can only read the abstracts, though.
Also, don't forget extracurricular stuff. If you helped organizing, or was chairman of the organization, of even a small event during your education, you can relate to this during your application (Questions like: "Give an example where you lead a team in a certain direction", or whatever). Doing a year in a foreign country is also a good an alternative, not only for your resume, but also for yourself
Welcome back to tech, sir clive sinclair! Hope your poker playing is still going strong as well, though.
Seriously. These firms make apparently only 1 software product, that is probably relatively complex, but no rocket science. How come that these two firms that I (as a general nerd, not someone working in the field) never ever heard of are worth a f**king 1 billion dollars each?!?!
Does that not make sense? Was it powerpoint, or the people that dealt with it that were to blame? Nice question that the Jack Thompsons of the world should ask themselves.
And to be honest, a research question like that is probably even a better defined one than just looking at the protein folding problem in general, and therefore not a bad way at all to spend your research money!
What I find interesting to speculate on, is if they would've been bigger now if they had used some sort of "trusted hardware" contract, the same as which microsoft already tries to put through for some time now: forcing suppliers to develop hardware/software only under contract, and making sure that only hardware from those suppliers will actually function on their platform (not that the hardware capacity was there to check stuff like that at the time, I guess).
Or, would they have been marginalized by the more open competition if they would've chosen that path, and their current technique to support open standards, but deliver paid service and support for companies that need reliable software/hardware, is actually the best one?
Hmmm, let me think, reintroducing something from the 80's as if it was your own innovation..... Maybe you should just wait for the next WWDC! Except that it won't be called 'turbo' anymore (that is really too 80's), but more something like "Engage". And it won't be an actual button, but more some sort of fancy transparent widget.
Since apparently there's even a creationist museum now in kentucky, where people try to show how fossils were put in the earth to mislead us all or whatever these crazy people believe. Let's hope that generations after us still get to learn actual scientific foundations on paleontology.
Hmm when I grow 60 I should remember to buy some McGuyver DVDs as well. Might spice up life a little bit, y'know.
21528558 http com yahoo com wont hurt wont yahoo 2006-04-21 15:31:20
I'm amazed by the masses of stupid search strings that are given, why are so many search strings complete (or non working) http adresses? (e.g. www.yahoo.com) Seems like a lousy database to me anyway.
Which is probably how they manage to keep a bigger market cap and revenue compared to Dell. Seriously, to compete with Dell you'll have to keep the margins low, why even bother? Better sell service contracts, combined with expensive high-margin hardware if possible!
But indeed, introduction of Virtual Desktops is a good thing in the end, that and not having the money hold me off of getting a mac. Now it's only the money ;)
I agree that we scientists need funding, and need to pass the message of the beauty of our work in an understandable and attention-drawing manner to the ones giving the funding, and the public in general. But, as science needs to be done with great care, it is also important to bring the message with great care. This is of course very difficult, talking about science in an understandable way unfortunately is. But not impossible. Consider the title of the georgiatech site:
original title:Optical Breakthrough Makes Lab-on-a-Chip Possible
my quickly thought-up alternative:Georgiatech Group Presents Optical Breakthrough in Lab-on-a-Chip Technology
Now it is factual (I don't deny that this is a breakthrough), and still appealing.
The title on Piquepaille's blog was actually: A photonic 'lab-on-a-chip', so he's not really to blame there. Probably he does a good job on his blog, I just read a bit of the latest articles (normally I don't read it), and find that I end with more questions than answers, but maybe that's a good thing, creating curiosity and all :)
As a scientist, this is what I don't really like about scientific journalism. Like the 'New breakthrough in fighting cancer' titles, etc. etc. These are laboratory research developments and will take at least 10 years to evaluate, some of them will end up being impractical before ever being put to use.
I think that scientific journalism should be more than just a PR machine for research labs. Of course they want the message out that they're doing nice stuff, but as it are all just small pieces of advancement, don't bring it as if you just developed a working nuclear fusion reactor ready to connect to the powergrid. Show that you're doing someting nice, what it can do, what the scientific/technical genial idea is that was done to get it, and in what frame we should see it, that should be enough.
connectors and other electronics! Jeez, are you a real geek or what? ;)
Complainers: do your fact checking.
Someone made Digg into a movie? :)
maybe they're outsourcing their costumers!
Eclipz, djeez, where did they get that name? Did someone whatch too much dragonball Z here, or is this the marketing guy who later went to microsoft to introduce the Zune?
I think this is all on a whole different level than you and me buying a new PC, so I guess there must be some reasoning behind it.