That would have been impractical when considering Google to be a public company with stockholders. If they did that, they would have "looked stupid" purchasing a company in the throes of suit, their shares would have plummeted, and public opinion would have been confused. As it stands, they looked great, their stocks benefited from the purchase (IIRC), and they have us marveling at their forethought.
A significant aspect of this release is the move away from blogger's original infrastructure. The blogging service (still free!) is now on a much more robust and better performing back end.
I find it odd that this aspect of the upgrade isn't front page news, but I guess that would point to a significant shortcoming of the previous version. Bottom line is that now the service is primed from the base up for progress. We'll see what that actually looks like.
p.s. Lastly, AFAIK, the transition of blogs from the old infrastructure to the new one has been seamless and failure-free. That means a lot to me as well as Google shows immense respect for the content of blogs and they are willing to move slowly and take the hit from public perception all in the spirit of being responsible. I like that about Google.
This is me karma whoring.
I caught two shows of the Adrian Belew Power Trio last week in Solana Beach and Long Beach. This gave excellent ops for me to indulge my burgeoning photography bug so I've posted learnings, thoughts, and pictures from Tuesday and Wednesday.
I don't think this article or/. entry adds value in any significant sense. Sure, it's great to consider in hindsight theis experience, but the criticism is unnecessary if not unfounded.
Apple addressed PowerTalk and OpenDoc (and various other initiatives) by moving to a completely different operating system. They saw the fundamental shortcomings of their ideas and their approaches and addressed them. Now, they are leveraging all the potential of OS X's *nix core in a myriad of ways.
They didn't forget the failure. They addressed it.
I don't agree with your analogy. WoW vs MS Office is apples and oranges.
The point of WoW is the online interaction. A subscription to that service makes sense since the experience is based on time connected.
The point of MS Office is productivity. While productivity is measured over time as well, there's no intrinsic need to be connected online in order to be productive.
I appreciate subscriptions for coverage, as in Microsoft's Software Assurance, though that's of dubious value when releases occur so infrequently). Unless MS overcomes reliability and performance issues due to connectivity, I see no value whatsoever in running productivity software online. The only exception would be collaboration or as an alternative to my personal desktop machine.
My Mac Book, a wonderfully affordable Very Good Quality laptop, is now serving as my one and only machine at work. I'm an IT Manager for a 65/35 Windows/Mac house and I LOVE the fact that I now have options like Parallels and Crossover to give me true cross-platform ability....BUT...!
My CPU is maxed out. I've got plenty of RAM (2GB) and I can only wait to get a faster hard drive as >5400RPM SATA drives aren't readily available. Give me a user-installable multi-core CPU PLEASE!
I wish I could convey how wonderful it is to be able to support my Windows users from my very portable Mac. Once Crossover gets fully compatible, that looks to be the solution of choice as it performs quite well now. My only gripe with Parallels at this time is the load it puts on my CPU due to the running of the entire Windows environment.
This easy upgrade would solve that with an initial entry point of $1099 for the base CPU. While the 2GB RAM is an extra cost, a comparable Windows laptop might match the price, but not the cross-platform ability.
From first hand experience, my time spent on Welbutrin and Zoloft was profoundly helpful in treating my depression. I have been off all medication for over four months now and my brain functions are working well.
My personal growth has been in leaps and bounds over the course of my therapy and I've never been happier in my life.
BUT, I've also experienced the depths of sadness and anger (and all their variations). I am now able to experience those feelings without being drawn down to the depths of depression nor am I compelled to perpetuate dysfunctional behavior.
I think it's hard for people with healthy emotional and physical upbringings to relate to the distorted thinking and perceptions of depressed people. I'm not talking "sad" depressed. I'm talking about "clinically" depressed. There's a huge difference.
In my experience, my clinical depression stemmed from a number of factors including upbringing, genetics (possibly), miseducation (or lack of education), and the effects of personal decisions from that framework (poor choice of marriage, poor choice of lifestyle, etc...). I also know that my experience was my own, no one else's, and that I don't have the capability of knowing what is best for some one else, nor can I fully comprehend another person's experience.
In other words, as a dear friend put it, "who the fuck am I to think I know better than you..." as to what is best for your life? We're not talking parent-child relations, we're talking peer-to-peer.
I see this research as significant from the perspective of learning about biological mechanism. It's research, period. The applications will come later and I can make my decisions on those at that time.
Aside from that, I welcome our Ever Happy Furry Little Rodent Overlords.
Googling define:catharsis gives "The release of tension and anxiety by recounting and/or acting out past experience," from www.dphilpotlaw.com and "The emotional reenactment in thought or symbolic form of a painful experience that brings relief of the distress caused by the original experience," from www.hec.ohio-state.edu.
I find that playing violent games does not, and has not, lead to me being a more violent person. I also find that playing games like Gauntlet, Lego Star Wars, Full Throttle, and others with my six year old daughter does not lead her to conclude that violence is the answer to her problems. In fact, the net result of playing these violent games is that we have fun and entertain ourselves.
Looking at the #1 "Most Violent Game" per this cited study, I was wondering what would compel a person to play something like "Nuclear Strike 64". I came up with two reasons (there are probably more). 1) someone wanted to enjoy breaking things down a little via harmless video images, or 2) someone wanted to practice making nuclear strikes on someone and this was the best simulation they could come up with.
Yes, those are facetious, but none of the games listed propose to be acts of realism and that's very obvious in the same way that Bugs Bunny was simply funny because it was a cartoon. That is in contrast to prime time television that is reality-based drama or documentary where violence is acted out and manipulated as a form of entertainment. Not only is violence displayed outright but television also provokes an emotional longing for it by leaving shows with cliff-hangers and tension.
As an adult, I can view television with context and objectivity. Children who are still developing emotionally can be dramatically affected from viewing those sorts of images much more so than by interacting with a game or cartoon. I am much more concerned with exposing my daughter to prime time drama television than I am to cartoons and/or video games like the ones cited in the research.
p.s. Bear in mind that I would NOT arbitrarily expose her to GTA or realistic military games either.
Burton Lo 11585 Caminito La Bar, #19 San Diego, CA 92126
760-917-0219
blo@27.org
June 25, 2006
Mr. & Mrs. Bill & Melinda Gates Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation PO Box 23350
Seattle, WA 98102
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Gates,
I have two sincere hopes for this letter: 1) that you get a clear sense of the gratitude I have for your examples of character and, 2) that I'm not the only to relay these sentiments to you.
Mr. Gates, I've been a computer professional for over 20 years and have followed your career over that span of time. Ms. Gates, I noticed a profound change in public image of Mr. Gates upon his marriage to you, a large part of that in the form of this foundation that you've built together. To both of you, I stand and applaud loudly for your efforts and generosity to the rest of the world. I've repeatedly been inspired by your examples of charity and I thank you.
Upon today's news of Mr. Buffett's generous charity, I felt compelled to share with you all how much of an impact you've had in my life and, I believe, others. My personal fantasy is that without the two of you leading by example, Mr. Buffett may not have been as generous of himself. Of course, that is without any basis in fact, but my heart hopes that more people will follow what you, now three, have proffered. I know that you are contributing much more than quantifiable donations to our world and I believe the generous aspects of your character and love are more precious and more effective than the very significant funds that you provided.
I offer this letter as a token of my support to your efforts. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
As far as the kruft, I was under the impression that there was some sense of order to the orbits that things are placed in with regard to altitudes, directions and speeds. Great points about how other objects act as shields.
My initial response was simply a reaction to the parent posts' seemingly dismissive attitude toward structure vs. spaceborn projectiles.
Cool conversation, though. Way better than Sarbanes-Oxley compliance...
I am not a physicist, but it seems like your statement is kinda naive. The fact is that the moon has practically no atmosphere to fend off particles of any size, so while this latest one was large enough to view from here, there _may_ be a large number of fast moving particles that could cause significant damage.
We don't notice it here on Earth at all because we have miles of gas to buffer the surface from most projectiles. While it might still be a very slim chance, I think it might be more frequent than you think and more destructive than you expect.
All of the top moderated comments here use "Wii" as a proper noun, as if it was a legitimate moniker (no longer speculative or a belated April Fool's joke). The comments also refer to it with respect as if it was a reasonable control device. Maybe it's easy to see now that Sony has announced such a relatively lame product in comparison, but I find it humorous that there are no more jokes at Wii's expense.
Seems like Nintendo's marketing has worked well. It's been, what, two weeks, and even/. has bought into it!
I don't know of any in particular. I was responding in a general sense. Success or Failure isn't simply based on commercial achievement to me. It's not a simple Yes/No to the entire project.
Please don't perceive me as being on a soap box because I don't have the energy to argue or debate this. This is just my way of looking at things and I reacted this way after seeing all the +4 and +5 comments with "*failure*" ad nauseam.
Here's another way of looking at it. Ever get an "A" in a class but not absorb the content? Ever ace all the tests in a class but miss the "A" because of a poor essay? Ever have a great essay down graded because of grammar, spelling, or structure rather than content?
All of those criticisms can be valid yet the detract from the success of the efforts. I don't care to investigate Nick Baker's career because I have my own to focus on. I just don't feel so cynical as to believe the he has such responsibility for a project like the Xbox 360 when having _nothing_ to show but the failures cited in the posting.
Blame his management for his failures. He was probably subordinate to many in key decisions. I would praise his for going after such diverse and technically challenging projects as he has.
What's the alternative? He slept with the right people? Come on. Each of his "failures" has been really high profile for each of the company's he's worked with. I think it's shortsighted to simply blame him.
Thanks for the info. I've only bought Dell servers so I never experienced that.
While it's easy to believe it happens, I just hadn't heard of it so openly as this top level artivle shows. That was the basis for my comment, plus I wanted to get info like you provided.
I'm not trying to express anything besides my genuine surprise. I can't remember ever hearing of a computer manufacturer upgrading their entire release of a product for free.
Typically my skeptic expects companies to throttle delivering features so that they can get more longevity out of a product, and, while I can understand Apple trying to magnify the bang for the buck from this new product, it still strikes me as exceptional.
Any previous examples of this? If so, can you explain what the situation was to compell the decision?
Because Wiki is becoming more of an objective source of information, we need to hold those accountable who would distort or add subjectivity to it. That can't happen in an anonymous venue.
This is the great challenge for Wiki now, as I see it, how to meld the internet's spirit of anonymity with the _direct_ responsibility to others.
p.s. Once again, we see the corruption of politics...
Be careful not to over simplify the issue
on
Insider Threat
·
· Score: 1
The parent comment uses the example of bulk candy being lifted from a grocery store. This is an extreme example that doesn't accurately describe the situations that are addressed by the book. The comment also states that the issue at hand is a simple "cost/benefit analysis".
What I can say is that protecting a company's financial information or intellectual property is of much greater value to our company than some missing inventory. I also know that after having read this review, I am interested in understanding more of the possible loopholes or weak points in our infrastructure. The use of technology in the work place has increased dramatically and some of its applications demand more sophisticated precautions. Video cameras and the like are inadequate to the task.
At the least, I would hope to garner more ideas on how or where to look for shortcomings in our organization. Whether or not to implement them would _then_ come down to cost/benefits.
I would be more concerned if the "bias" was contrived, i.e. some faction outside of the staff was influencing the content of the stories. Instead, this seems like reasonable human behavior when describing their world.
I would still expect objectivity in the form of stating facts without distortion, but in a subjective sense, how can a person NOT inject bias into any content they create?
When these holdouts finally do upgrade, it's only because they are having issues with using documents from other facilities that are in the new format (non-backward-compatible by design...thank you so much, Bill), and when they do, they commonly skip at least one release.
I'd like to string up Adobe for their lack of responsibility in maintaining compatibility. The past two {facetious} "major" {/facetious} upgrades have frequently failed when saving documents as the previous version's.
Corruption in these cases includes causing system crashes (OS X Panther or Tiger) and document corruption (unable to open at all).
While I have to own responsibility towards accepting the "compelling" reasons for the upgrade, my defense is simply in the high demand for quick turnaround in design production. A few features here or there can amount to major savings in time. Shame on me for being fooled twice in a row into believing that backward compatibility would work for us.
Adobe's slow enough on bug fixes (time between vX.0 and vX.01) on top of this, so my frustration level is pretty high. We're working around this, at the least simply downgrading installations, but jeez. If it's not going to work, don't offer the "feature" or FIX IT!
p.s. Second on my list is Microsoft with their limited benefit upgrade to Office 2004.
Slashdot Mirror
That would have been impractical when considering Google to be a public company with stockholders. If they did that, they would have "looked stupid" purchasing a company in the throes of suit, their shares would have plummeted, and public opinion would have been confused. As it stands, they looked great, their stocks benefited from the purchase (IIRC), and they have us marveling at their forethought.
That's savvy, IMHO.
A significant aspect of this release is the move away from blogger's original infrastructure. The blogging service (still free!) is now on a much more robust and better performing back end.
I find it odd that this aspect of the upgrade isn't front page news, but I guess that would point to a significant shortcoming of the previous version. Bottom line is that now the service is primed from the base up for progress. We'll see what that actually looks like.
p.s. Lastly, AFAIK, the transition of blogs from the old infrastructure to the new one has been seamless and failure-free. That means a lot to me as well as Google shows immense respect for the content of blogs and they are willing to move slowly and take the hit from public perception all in the spirit of being responsible. I like that about Google.
This is me karma whoring. I caught two shows of the Adrian Belew Power Trio last week in Solana Beach and Long Beach. This gave excellent ops for me to indulge my burgeoning photography bug so I've posted learnings, thoughts, and pictures from Tuesday and Wednesday.
I don't think this article or /. entry adds value in any significant sense. Sure, it's great to consider in hindsight theis experience, but the criticism is unnecessary if not unfounded.
Apple addressed PowerTalk and OpenDoc (and various other initiatives) by moving to a completely different operating system. They saw the fundamental shortcomings of their ideas and their approaches and addressed them. Now, they are leveraging all the potential of OS X's *nix core in a myriad of ways.
They didn't forget the failure. They addressed it.
I don't agree with your analogy. WoW vs MS Office is apples and oranges.
The point of WoW is the online interaction. A subscription to that service makes sense since the experience is based on time connected.
The point of MS Office is productivity. While productivity is measured over time as well, there's no intrinsic need to be connected online in order to be productive.
I appreciate subscriptions for coverage, as in Microsoft's Software Assurance, though that's of dubious value when releases occur so infrequently). Unless MS overcomes reliability and performance issues due to connectivity, I see no value whatsoever in running productivity software online. The only exception would be collaboration or as an alternative to my personal desktop machine.
Google embodies innovation, applying that to whatever they can. I see them as continuing to be focused...on innovation, not ideas.
Ack. I posted before RTFA, then I noticed Anand testing a desktop rather than a laptop. Please mentally edit my last paragraph.
My Mac Book, a wonderfully affordable Very Good Quality laptop, is now serving as my one and only machine at work. I'm an IT Manager for a 65/35 Windows/Mac house and I LOVE the fact that I now have options like Parallels and Crossover to give me true cross-platform ability. ...BUT...!
My CPU is maxed out. I've got plenty of RAM (2GB) and I can only wait to get a faster hard drive as >5400RPM SATA drives aren't readily available. Give me a user-installable multi-core CPU PLEASE!
I wish I could convey how wonderful it is to be able to support my Windows users from my very portable Mac. Once Crossover gets fully compatible, that looks to be the solution of choice as it performs quite well now. My only gripe with Parallels at this time is the load it puts on my CPU due to the running of the entire Windows environment.
This easy upgrade would solve that with an initial entry point of $1099 for the base CPU. While the 2GB RAM is an extra cost, a comparable Windows laptop might match the price, but not the cross-platform ability.
From first hand experience, my time spent on Welbutrin and Zoloft was profoundly helpful in treating my depression. I have been off all medication for over four months now and my brain functions are working well.
My personal growth has been in leaps and bounds over the course of my therapy and I've never been happier in my life.
BUT, I've also experienced the depths of sadness and anger (and all their variations). I am now able to experience those feelings without being drawn down to the depths of depression nor am I compelled to perpetuate dysfunctional behavior.
I think it's hard for people with healthy emotional and physical upbringings to relate to the distorted thinking and perceptions of depressed people. I'm not talking "sad" depressed. I'm talking about "clinically" depressed. There's a huge difference.
In my experience, my clinical depression stemmed from a number of factors including upbringing, genetics (possibly), miseducation (or lack of education), and the effects of personal decisions from that framework (poor choice of marriage, poor choice of lifestyle, etc...). I also know that my experience was my own, no one else's, and that I don't have the capability of knowing what is best for some one else, nor can I fully comprehend another person's experience.
In other words, as a dear friend put it, "who the fuck am I to think I know better than you..." as to what is best for your life? We're not talking parent-child relations, we're talking peer-to-peer.
I see this research as significant from the perspective of learning about biological mechanism. It's research, period. The applications will come later and I can make my decisions on those at that time.
Aside from that, I welcome our Ever Happy Furry Little Rodent Overlords.
Googling define:catharsis gives "The release of tension and anxiety by recounting and/or acting out past experience," from www.dphilpotlaw.com and "The emotional reenactment in thought or symbolic form of a painful experience that brings relief of the distress caused by the original experience," from www.hec.ohio-state.edu.
I find that playing violent games does not, and has not, lead to me being a more violent person. I also find that playing games like Gauntlet, Lego Star Wars, Full Throttle, and others with my six year old daughter does not lead her to conclude that violence is the answer to her problems. In fact, the net result of playing these violent games is that we have fun and entertain ourselves.
Looking at the #1 "Most Violent Game" per this cited study, I was wondering what would compel a person to play something like "Nuclear Strike 64". I came up with two reasons (there are probably more). 1) someone wanted to enjoy breaking things down a little via harmless video images, or 2) someone wanted to practice making nuclear strikes on someone and this was the best simulation they could come up with.
Yes, those are facetious, but none of the games listed propose to be acts of realism and that's very obvious in the same way that Bugs Bunny was simply funny because it was a cartoon. That is in contrast to prime time television that is reality-based drama or documentary where violence is acted out and manipulated as a form of entertainment. Not only is violence displayed outright but television also provokes an emotional longing for it by leaving shows with cliff-hangers and tension.
As an adult, I can view television with context and objectivity. Children who are still developing emotionally can be dramatically affected from viewing those sorts of images much more so than by interacting with a game or cartoon. I am much more concerned with exposing my daughter to prime time drama television than I am to cartoons and/or video games like the ones cited in the research.
p.s. Bear in mind that I would NOT arbitrarily expose her to GTA or realistic military games either.
Burton Lo
11585 Caminito La Bar, #19
San Diego, CA 92126
760-917-0219
blo@27.org
June 25, 2006
Mr. & Mrs. Bill & Melinda Gates
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
PO Box 23350
Seattle, WA 98102
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Gates,
I have two sincere hopes for this letter: 1) that you get a clear sense of the gratitude I have for your examples of character and, 2) that I'm not the only to relay these sentiments to you.
Mr. Gates, I've been a computer professional for over 20 years and have followed your career over that span of time. Ms. Gates, I noticed a profound change in public image of Mr. Gates upon his marriage to you, a large part of that in the form of this foundation that you've built together. To both of you, I stand and applaud loudly for your efforts and generosity to the rest of the world. I've repeatedly been inspired by your examples of charity and I thank you.
Upon today's news of Mr. Buffett's generous charity, I felt compelled to share with you all how much of an impact you've had in my life and, I believe, others. My personal fantasy is that without the two of you leading by example, Mr. Buffett may not have been as generous of himself. Of course, that is without any basis in fact, but my heart hopes that more people will follow what you, now three, have proffered. I know that you are contributing much more than quantifiable donations to our world and I believe the generous aspects of your character and love are more precious and more effective than the very significant funds that you provided.
I offer this letter as a token of my support to your efforts. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Sincerely yours,
Burton Lo
As far as the kruft, I was under the impression that there was some sense of order to the orbits that things are placed in with regard to altitudes, directions and speeds. Great points about how other objects act as shields.
My initial response was simply a reaction to the parent posts' seemingly dismissive attitude toward structure vs. spaceborn projectiles.
Cool conversation, though. Way better than Sarbanes-Oxley compliance...
I am not a physicist, but it seems like your statement is kinda naive. The fact is that the moon has practically no atmosphere to fend off particles of any size, so while this latest one was large enough to view from here, there _may_ be a large number of fast moving particles that could cause significant damage.
We don't notice it here on Earth at all because we have miles of gas to buffer the surface from most projectiles. While it might still be a very slim chance, I think it might be more frequent than you think and more destructive than you expect.
All of the top moderated comments here use "Wii" as a proper noun, as if it was a legitimate moniker (no longer speculative or a belated April Fool's joke). The comments also refer to it with respect as if it was a reasonable control device. Maybe it's easy to see now that Sony has announced such a relatively lame product in comparison, but I find it humorous that there are no more jokes at Wii's expense.
/. has bought into it!
Seems like Nintendo's marketing has worked well. It's been, what, two weeks, and even
I don't know of any in particular. I was responding in a general sense. Success or Failure isn't simply based on commercial achievement to me. It's not a simple Yes/No to the entire project.
Please don't perceive me as being on a soap box because I don't have the energy to argue or debate this. This is just my way of looking at things and I reacted this way after seeing all the +4 and +5 comments with "*failure*" ad nauseam.
Here's another way of looking at it. Ever get an "A" in a class but not absorb the content? Ever ace all the tests in a class but miss the "A" because of a poor essay? Ever have a great essay down graded because of grammar, spelling, or structure rather than content?
All of those criticisms can be valid yet the detract from the success of the efforts. I don't care to investigate Nick Baker's career because I have my own to focus on. I just don't feel so cynical as to believe the he has such responsibility for a project like the Xbox 360 when having _nothing_ to show but the failures cited in the posting.
Blame his management for his failures. He was probably subordinate to many in key decisions. I would praise his for going after such diverse and technically challenging projects as he has.
What's the alternative? He slept with the right people? Come on. Each of his "failures" has been really high profile for each of the company's he's worked with. I think it's shortsighted to simply blame him.
Thanks for the info. I've only bought Dell servers so I never experienced that.
While it's easy to believe it happens, I just hadn't heard of it so openly as this top level artivle shows. That was the basis for my comment, plus I wanted to get info like you provided.
Thanks again.
I'm not trying to express anything besides my genuine surprise. I can't remember ever hearing of a computer manufacturer upgrading their entire release of a product for free.
Typically my skeptic expects companies to throttle delivering features so that they can get more longevity out of a product, and, while I can understand Apple trying to magnify the bang for the buck from this new product, it still strikes me as exceptional.
Any previous examples of this? If so, can you explain what the situation was to compell the decision?
Was this from the Beorge W. Bush School of Rationalization?
Because Wiki is becoming more of an objective source of information, we need to hold those accountable who would distort or add subjectivity to it. That can't happen in an anonymous venue.
This is the great challenge for Wiki now, as I see it, how to meld the internet's spirit of anonymity with the _direct_ responsibility to others.
p.s. Once again, we see the corruption of politics...
The parent comment uses the example of bulk candy being lifted from a grocery store. This is an extreme example that doesn't accurately describe the situations that are addressed by the book. The comment also states that the issue at hand is a simple "cost/benefit analysis".
What I can say is that protecting a company's financial information or intellectual property is of much greater value to our company than some missing inventory. I also know that after having read this review, I am interested in understanding more of the possible loopholes or weak points in our infrastructure. The use of technology in the work place has increased dramatically and some of its applications demand more sophisticated precautions. Video cameras and the like are inadequate to the task.
At the least, I would hope to garner more ideas on how or where to look for shortcomings in our organization. Whether or not to implement them would _then_ come down to cost/benefits.
Doesn't the government's IP belong to its citizens?
I would be more concerned if the "bias" was contrived, i.e. some faction outside of the staff was influencing the content of the stories. Instead, this seems like reasonable human behavior when describing their world.
I would still expect objectivity in the form of stating facts without distortion, but in a subjective sense, how can a person NOT inject bias into any content they create?
Corruption in these cases includes causing system crashes (OS X Panther or Tiger) and document corruption (unable to open at all).
While I have to own responsibility towards accepting the "compelling" reasons for the upgrade, my defense is simply in the high demand for quick turnaround in design production. A few features here or there can amount to major savings in time. Shame on me for being fooled twice in a row into believing that backward compatibility would work for us.
Adobe's slow enough on bug fixes (time between vX.0 and vX.01) on top of this, so my frustration level is pretty high. We're working around this, at the least simply downgrading installations, but jeez. If it's not going to work, don't offer the "feature" or FIX IT!
p.s. Second on my list is Microsoft with their limited benefit upgrade to Office 2004.
Hell, I did that tuning my dad's car radio back in 1969.