Most beautiful boxes are still the ones from Thinking Machines. They got a role in 'Jurassic Park', just because they are very photogenic, lots of fancy blinky lights! Their 'Cube' architecture was interesting, as the commonication between nodes was done in a cube-like fashion, and the form of the box was completely in line with the underlying hardware, very cool.
http://images.google.com/images?q=thinking%20machi nes
What about getting smart people from other countries to work in the US? I heard several cases where scientists had to skip conferences or just couldn't start working at their position because the visa was not arranged yet (even though requested way in advance). The US have a relatively short history, but already they seem to have forgotten how immigrants formed the way the US are now. (Even though they did this by mistreating the natives etc, but that's another story)
Maybe if they could get their OS bundled with some of the main hardware providers, that could help them! I'm thinking about Dell, but maybe also Toshiba, IBM, Gateway. Just think about it, if they pull that one through, they could get their OS to be the market leader on the desktop!!!
Thank you for all the info! The way you put it, this doesn't seem to be really 'hacking', everyone is allowed to offer pictures to be included in webpages, and they could ask money for doing it as well, nothing illegal in that! Of course asking 5 dollar/month for the services they offered is a scam, but so is myspace in general, and anyone wasting time and money on all this should just in general be pitied upon:) Furthermore, this doesn't seem to be about "badly written code" in myspace that much, but more about myspace not knowing what their users want. So far, nothing seems to be going on.
But I guess when they start blackmailing for lots of dollars, they just pass a line and it becomes an undisputable illegal activity. Actually it's a shame, they could've keep on earning a lot of money with just offering stupid people what they want, but know they cut in their own fingers...
Ad-Aware is installed with the google pack as well, eh? I'd say a good anti-adware program would probably advice you to uninstall 50% of the google pack programs anyway! Really, I don't want these "toolbars", screensavers, search helpers, no matter if they are from spyware companies or from google.
I don't really agree. First of all, news on simple cellphones apparently is news for nerds, and if you've read the comments enough you know that a lot of people out here just want one. (As a matter of fact, I have one of these phones without camera, mp3 player, bluetooth, etc, and am very pleased with it.).
Secondly, these all-in-ones have the disadvantage that corporate environments don't really like them, which seems to be the reason that samsung doesn't want it's own new super-phone be used within their company. (Although I have the idea that this is mostly a PR trick). And why don't they built in a camera in a Blackberry?
Furthermore, the Migo is not a useless phone. You might want to give your 8-year old a way to call you, but you don't want them to call every friend of them all the day long (think of the bill at the end of the month). Ok, so probably I wouldn't buy this one for my kid, but variations of this phone for elderly people are also available, and there are a lot that won't be able to push these little cellphone buttons with their unsteady fingers, and that have troubles reading the display, finding the right menu, etc. (WTH, even I have troubles finding a phonebook entry on some phones, it's really unpleasant).
Your company runs a Beta OS on the PC in your conference room? Maybe you misunderstood the word "Beta" for "eternal version" (Can happen if you've used google too much lately).
A lot of "amateurs" actually do work that is too much of a hassle for current science. E.g. mineralogy is mainly done by amateurs these days.
I think this current news item is very good for everyone, it shows that technology (and the abbility to develop software easily and freely) actually will help to "democratize" science, making it possible for less rich groups (e.g. in developing countries, or just groups of interested amateurs) to make refreshing contributions to science! This is a good thing, as science tends to move away from the general public, getting more complicated and requiring more investments in precize equipement by the day.
my only concern is if peer reviews take place in this 'amateur' science. As all scientists, everyone wants to have a big discovery, and there is a big need to check on this if no-one tries to claim success before thorougly checking it. This urge will be no worse, no less than in "real science", but I'm just not sure if there has or will be done any checking of the results in this case. Will they publish this (I read the article half, didn't see a mention of it).
I was hoping that your link would lead to some statement of AMD on this comparison on the slashdot venders site, but there doesn't seem to be one. Or at least, none that I can find. Can you give the exact link, I would be happy to read an other side of the story. Or where you just trying to make some vague statement on how AMD supports slashdot and we should be pro-AMD even when they are not in front of intel concerning CPU power.
In any case, I don't know how much this new intel is better or not, but I wouldn't mind that much. When any of those two manufacturers make a chip that's "better" than the other's, well, then let the other manufacturer improve their product! All good for us in the end, it's at least a good thing to know that AMD can't just stop developing now, because they have intel's breath in their neck. That means more fancy stuff to be expected, yay!
Personally I'll just buy the one with the best performance/price and performance/power-usage ratio.
djeez, don't be so shortsighted... the moment your OSS program won't install, you'll call it a bitch, now when it's too popular, you say it's a slut! How can they ever do it right if you think like this?
Yeah, this is like Sovjet times withthe government spying mainly on its own inhabitants all over again, but this time its the "good" site doing it. And with technological possibilities that the Sovjet leaders couldnt even dream of, as they are beyond the imagination of what was possible in the 50s-80s.
I wonder if theres a way out if this anymore. You could maybe move to the "rogue" states as the US doesnt seem to have a clue whats happening out there.
Actually I recently saw a documentary on East Germany (DDR), where they had phonetapping equipment consisting of batteries of tape recorders tapping all lines, that could turn on at the moment that certain "suspicious" words were spoken (most have been a very fancy piece of tech at the time).
yeah I also don't really see the point. It might be nice for watching movies, but in the office, with all the fluorescent lights at the ceiling, you'll just get very tired trying to read the text inbetween all the light reflections.
I don't think it has much to do with people being dumbed-down, but more with the fact that people want to get this over with efficiently, and won't spend too much time reading e-mails as there are enough of them already. If you put 4 paragraphs in an e-mail, and mention the questions you want answered somewhere spread out over this, you will probably not get any answer at all as the reciever will have to distill your questions from the e-mail each time he reads it. If you make it a numbered list, it draws the attention to your points, and when the reciever remembers that something had to be answered, he only needs to open the e-mail again and will directly see your questions again.
I think it's just a form of netiquette to write down short and clear e-mails, especially for first contact. You don't know how many mails your reciever gets, or how much time he wants to spend reading them. Now if you will get back longer e-mails with more detailed information, you can use the same style back, as there's clearly a need to have a thorough e-mail conversation. Actually, in this last case, you wouldn't want short one-point e-mails as this would end up in a big amount of short e-mails which will just scatter the information too much.
Oh and FYI, this is also valid outside of America;)
yes, sometimes you do struggle harder with windows, especially when you want to do advanced things.
BUT. Linux is not an out-of-box solution. I really like linux, I use it for work, but I'm damn happy that we have sysadmins there who prepare the systems and make sure they work. For my home PC, I have had suse running several years ago, but my recent tries to install linux stranded when I found out that I had to recompile kernel stuff, other source files, etc to get certain things running. Sorry but my PC is very slow for actually compiling stuff, and I don't want to risk breaking things and having to start all over again.
As a student, I still had fun in trying to figure out the installation of linux. I browsed the webs for changing keycaps, found exotic X11 options for solving the problem with my cursus shifting several pixels from its actual position, etc. Now I just don't bother anymore, I will have fun in using linux, writing small applications, etc, but spending a whole day getting my freaking soundcard or videocard running is just not my definition of 'a fun time' anymore.
Linux is ready for PC the moment that you don't need a manual to install it. OSX doesn't need it, winXP doesn't need it, but for linux it is just still impossible! I tried knoppix, this (and its brothers and sisters) is very close to install-and-work-out-of-the-box solution. But then I wanted to install knoppix on my PC as a OS, not just via the CD image. For this, there was no real option except searching on the web for some documentation etc etc.
Technology is there to help people make things easier. This comes various graduations, as there are various people. The non-tech savy want to do a few clicks and get a working install where they can watch a movie, write files, print, etc. The tech-savy want to save time clicking stuff by having editable configuration files, scripting possibilities, etc. Windows started with solutions for the non-tech savy, but as you can see by their recent work on command shells, they also want to cover the tech-savy. OSX, same story: OS9 and before were a bit of a pain if you wanted to automate stuff or change config files, in OSX it's paradise for everyone. Linux has the solutions for the tech-savy, but still lacks the non-tech savy part. Now, there are already nice applications, everyone is used to mozilla, openoffice is close to the quality of MS-office. but please, make my day and make an easy-to-install linux distribution! There should be a prize connected to this, anyone who can make a linux install where you can use a set of mainly used programs for the masses (word processor, browser (with all main plugins!), email, music, video, cd copying, etc), without having to search the internet for a solution once! And this on a series of standard PC systems (dell, why not an apple, standard PC from bestbuy or other big electronics shop, several big laptop sellers)
Well (disclaimer: I did not really read any of the articles), dielectrophoresis seems a 'static' separation technique, to influence position of particles, and this stuff from Cees Dekker seems a sort of dynamic procedure to influence flow of particles, which is a whole step more complex. I would take 10 years to go from one to the other;)
On a different note, I am a bit dissappointed that it is the same Cees Dekker who is a (or better: the only) big promotor in the Netherlands of the idea of Intelligent Design. This guy is doing such amazing research, that you start to wonder how he could ever combine this with the not very well-founded theory that ID is.
Note to people with mod points: I am stating my personal opinion here: if you disagree, don't mod me down because of this opinion, but give decent replies. If you think the post is crappy for what it is, then mod as you wish.
If you look at the imdb reviews, a lot of people are as positive as you are. Actually it's not really underrated, it's more that the movie producers didn't bother to promote the movie very much (they could've combined it with lots of funny actions, a similar sci-fi spoof in Germany ((t)raumschiff surprise) was accompanied by special offers at McDonalds). But this all probably has to do with the fact that 1999 was a very good movie year overall, and galaxy quest unfortunately got lost inbetween all this.
And furthermore I am not a trek fan at all, but still I really liked it, it's also good for anyone who is maybe no devoted sci fi fan, but knows about trekkie madness, but also sci fi series in general.
FTA: Mr. Isshow told me. "Your identity can be in flux. You go to these places not to present yourself, but to lose yourself. Lose your name, your position, your pride."
You know, this is a very smart move if microsoft. The main part of the public won't matter if the source of this all is open or not, just as long as they can get the stuff for free (and free of bugs). Being able to get MS SQL and the visual studio express for free will get a lot of people hooked on this combination of programs. Being able to use these tools to solve problems, in the end PHB's that see that it works will want to get the licensed versions -> profit!
Furthermore, since they don't couple this to the default install of their OS, it's not even bad monopolistic practice. It's just a very smart economic move. I wonder what php/mysql can do to keep their golden position in web applications.
I think space balls was a pretty nice movie! Maybe it's not hot shot intelligent kind of humor, but I laughed my ass off!
Qalaxy Quest with Tim Allen is much less known than the other ones you mentioned, but also pretty nice: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/ Especially because of the many references to Sci-Fi fans and their peculiarities. Or am I insulting people here now:)
when the reality is that only a person who is deeply in love with a particular field can pull off whatever super-cool thing is being pitched by teachers and parents
That is one thing, but it's even worse: The people that can really pull something off are only the people that have already reached the top. If you want to get to the top, you'll have to get in the favor of the right people that are already there. Without it, you won't get anywhere, no matter how dedicated, smart you are, or how many bright ideas you have. Unfortunately, this also means that sometimes, people with the crap ideas but the right connections will pass you to the top. It's a maffia, really, and you have to make sure you got into the right family.
Otherwise: you will need to have a deep deep deep love if you can dedicate yourself to a particular field knowing that you just might never get the resources to fully develop something but will have to stay at a suboptimal position for the rest of your career. I've seen several very smart people break morally just because of finding them in a dead end.
As for the original poster: there are few sideways to get into these fields of bioinformatics etc. When you are the all-time master in database handling or whatever (just an example), you might just be what is needed. But it's a very specific field, so in all other cases your chances are low. There are now already plenty of people that are completely into the field and have a lot of experience with the kind of problems involved. I come from a scientific computational field, so not that far away, but just won't be able to compete with the ones that have the specific background.
Just test it yourself: There are for example plenty of opportunities to play around with bioinformatics tools that are publically available (google on bioperl, biopython), but can you find out what actually the problems are that are to be answered?
Another option might be that you try to find a job similar to your current one in a company that does stuff you like. E.g. Every company has a website, and needs a webmaster. When you like what your company is doing, you might just enjoy working there more, even if you are only part of the administration. For that, you just have to find out where your interests are and not so much on where's the most work to find.
Slashdot Mirror
Most beautiful boxes are still the ones from Thinking Machines. They got a role in 'Jurassic Park', just because they are very photogenic, lots of fancy blinky lights! Their 'Cube' architecture was interesting, as the commonication between nodes was done in a cube-like fashion, and the form of the box was completely in line with the underlying hardware, very cool.i nes
http://images.google.com/images?q=thinking%20mach
What about getting smart people from other countries to work in the US? I heard several cases where scientists had to skip conferences or just couldn't start working at their position because the visa was not arranged yet (even though requested way in advance). The US have a relatively short history, but already they seem to have forgotten how immigrants formed the way the US are now. (Even though they did this by mistreating the natives etc, but that's another story)
It's a free scam ;)
Maybe if they could get their OS bundled with some of the main hardware providers, that could help them! I'm thinking about Dell, but maybe also Toshiba, IBM, Gateway. Just think about it, if they pull that one through, they could get their OS to be the market leader on the desktop!!!
But I guess when they start blackmailing for lots of dollars, they just pass a line and it becomes an undisputable illegal activity. Actually it's a shame, they could've keep on earning a lot of money with just offering stupid people what they want, but know they cut in their own fingers...
Ad-Aware is installed with the google pack as well, eh? I'd say a good anti-adware program would probably advice you to uninstall 50% of the google pack programs anyway! Really, I don't want these "toolbars", screensavers, search helpers, no matter if they are from spyware companies or from google.
Secondly, these all-in-ones have the disadvantage that corporate environments don't really like them, which seems to be the reason that samsung doesn't want it's own new super-phone be used within their company. (Although I have the idea that this is mostly a PR trick). And why don't they built in a camera in a Blackberry?
Furthermore, the Migo is not a useless phone. You might want to give your 8-year old a way to call you, but you don't want them to call every friend of them all the day long (think of the bill at the end of the month). Ok, so probably I wouldn't buy this one for my kid, but variations of this phone for elderly people are also available, and there are a lot that won't be able to push these little cellphone buttons with their unsteady fingers, and that have troubles reading the display, finding the right menu, etc. (WTH, even I have troubles finding a phonebook entry on some phones, it's really unpleasant).
Your company runs a Beta OS on the PC in your conference room? Maybe you misunderstood the word "Beta" for "eternal version" (Can happen if you've used google too much lately).
Well, then it wasn't a very good joke, but I'll be fair and admit that it wasn't a very good excuse for me to post this either ;)
I think this current news item is very good for everyone, it shows that technology (and the abbility to develop software easily and freely) actually will help to "democratize" science, making it possible for less rich groups (e.g. in developing countries, or just groups of interested amateurs) to make refreshing contributions to science! This is a good thing, as science tends to move away from the general public, getting more complicated and requiring more investments in precize equipement by the day.
my only concern is if peer reviews take place in this 'amateur' science. As all scientists, everyone wants to have a big discovery, and there is a big need to check on this if no-one tries to claim success before thorougly checking it. This urge will be no worse, no less than in "real science", but I'm just not sure if there has or will be done any checking of the results in this case. Will they publish this (I read the article half, didn't see a mention of it).
In any case, I don't know how much this new intel is better or not, but I wouldn't mind that much. When any of those two manufacturers make a chip that's "better" than the other's, well, then let the other manufacturer improve their product! All good for us in the end, it's at least a good thing to know that AMD can't just stop developing now, because they have intel's breath in their neck. That means more fancy stuff to be expected, yay!
Personally I'll just buy the one with the best performance/price and performance/power-usage ratio.
BTW, in Sovjet Russia, you correct the Spelling Nazis!
There is, but it's rather monolithic.
djeez, don't be so shortsighted... the moment your OSS program won't install, you'll call it a bitch, now when it's too popular, you say it's a slut! How can they ever do it right if you think like this?
Actually I recently saw a documentary on East Germany (DDR), where they had phonetapping equipment consisting of batteries of tape recorders tapping all lines, that could turn on at the moment that certain "suspicious" words were spoken (most have been a very fancy piece of tech at the time).
yeah I also don't really see the point. It might be nice for watching movies, but in the office, with all the fluorescent lights at the ceiling, you'll just get very tired trying to read the text inbetween all the light reflections.
I think it's just a form of netiquette to write down short and clear e-mails, especially for first contact. You don't know how many mails your reciever gets, or how much time he wants to spend reading them. Now if you will get back longer e-mails with more detailed information, you can use the same style back, as there's clearly a need to have a thorough e-mail conversation. Actually, in this last case, you wouldn't want short one-point e-mails as this would end up in a big amount of short e-mails which will just scatter the information too much.
Oh and FYI, this is also valid outside of America ;)
ok, sounds convincing enough! I'll give it a try for my next install.
BUT. Linux is not an out-of-box solution. I really like linux, I use it for work, but I'm damn happy that we have sysadmins there who prepare the systems and make sure they work. For my home PC, I have had suse running several years ago, but my recent tries to install linux stranded when I found out that I had to recompile kernel stuff, other source files, etc to get certain things running. Sorry but my PC is very slow for actually compiling stuff, and I don't want to risk breaking things and having to start all over again.
As a student, I still had fun in trying to figure out the installation of linux. I browsed the webs for changing keycaps, found exotic X11 options for solving the problem with my cursus shifting several pixels from its actual position, etc. Now I just don't bother anymore, I will have fun in using linux, writing small applications, etc, but spending a whole day getting my freaking soundcard or videocard running is just not my definition of 'a fun time' anymore.
Linux is ready for PC the moment that you don't need a manual to install it. OSX doesn't need it, winXP doesn't need it, but for linux it is just still impossible! I tried knoppix, this (and its brothers and sisters) is very close to install-and-work-out-of-the-box solution. But then I wanted to install knoppix on my PC as a OS, not just via the CD image. For this, there was no real option except searching on the web for some documentation etc etc.
Technology is there to help people make things easier. This comes various graduations, as there are various people. The non-tech savy want to do a few clicks and get a working install where they can watch a movie, write files, print, etc. The tech-savy want to save time clicking stuff by having editable configuration files, scripting possibilities, etc. Windows started with solutions for the non-tech savy, but as you can see by their recent work on command shells, they also want to cover the tech-savy. OSX, same story: OS9 and before were a bit of a pain if you wanted to automate stuff or change config files, in OSX it's paradise for everyone. Linux has the solutions for the tech-savy, but still lacks the non-tech savy part. Now, there are already nice applications, everyone is used to mozilla, openoffice is close to the quality of MS-office. but please, make my day and make an easy-to-install linux distribution! There should be a prize connected to this, anyone who can make a linux install where you can use a set of mainly used programs for the masses (word processor, browser (with all main plugins!), email, music, video, cd copying, etc), without having to search the internet for a solution once! And this on a series of standard PC systems (dell, why not an apple, standard PC from bestbuy or other big electronics shop, several big laptop sellers)
On a different note, I am a bit dissappointed that it is the same Cees Dekker who is a (or better: the only) big promotor in the Netherlands of the idea of Intelligent Design. This guy is doing such amazing research, that you start to wonder how he could ever combine this with the not very well-founded theory that ID is.
Note to people with mod points: I am stating my personal opinion here: if you disagree, don't mod me down because of this opinion, but give decent replies. If you think the post is crappy for what it is, then mod as you wish.
And furthermore I am not a trek fan at all, but still I really liked it, it's also good for anyone who is maybe no devoted sci fi fan, but knows about trekkie madness, but also sci fi series in general.
Sounds like a cubicle, all right...
Furthermore, since they don't couple this to the default install of their OS, it's not even bad monopolistic practice. It's just a very smart economic move. I wonder what php/mysql can do to keep their golden position in web applications.
Qalaxy Quest with Tim Allen is much less known than the other ones you mentioned, but also pretty nice: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177789/ Especially because of the many references to Sci-Fi fans and their peculiarities. Or am I insulting people here now :)
That is one thing, but it's even worse: The people that can really pull something off are only the people that have already reached the top. If you want to get to the top, you'll have to get in the favor of the right people that are already there. Without it, you won't get anywhere, no matter how dedicated, smart you are, or how many bright ideas you have. Unfortunately, this also means that sometimes, people with the crap ideas but the right connections will pass you to the top. It's a maffia, really, and you have to make sure you got into the right family.
Otherwise: you will need to have a deep deep deep love if you can dedicate yourself to a particular field knowing that you just might never get the resources to fully develop something but will have to stay at a suboptimal position for the rest of your career. I've seen several very smart people break morally just because of finding them in a dead end.
As for the original poster: there are few sideways to get into these fields of bioinformatics etc. When you are the all-time master in database handling or whatever (just an example), you might just be what is needed. But it's a very specific field, so in all other cases your chances are low. There are now already plenty of people that are completely into the field and have a lot of experience with the kind of problems involved. I come from a scientific computational field, so not that far away, but just won't be able to compete with the ones that have the specific background.
Just test it yourself: There are for example plenty of opportunities to play around with bioinformatics tools that are publically available (google on bioperl, biopython), but can you find out what actually the problems are that are to be answered?
Another option might be that you try to find a job similar to your current one in a company that does stuff you like. E.g. Every company has a website, and needs a webmaster. When you like what your company is doing, you might just enjoy working there more, even if you are only part of the administration. For that, you just have to find out where your interests are and not so much on where's the most work to find.