I accidentally deleted a very important voicemail tonight. I was deleting one completely redundant voicemail (don't get me started on redundant unnecessary 'call me back' messages,) and pressed '7' one too many times, and deleted a message I never got to listen to. It was from an important recruiter.
I called Cingular and asked them whether they had a service for 'presshappy' people like myself to 'undelete' a voicemail in case of an emergency, and was brutally told that once a message is erased it's irretrievable. I kindly asked him to escalate my suggestion of having this capability so that Cingular would separate itself from the boys.
Needless to say, this incident was entirely my fault. But it brought up another issue I've been wrestling with for the last few months and I thought to share:
Today's cell phone technology seems to take away from the fundamental functions and add resource-hog features we don't use on a daily basis. These features drain the battery life dry and qualifies the 'cell phone' to an entity equivalent to a high maintenance girlfriend. How about making a cell phone that retains its battery life as long as possible, can store perhaps 50 phone numbers, has the best signal that that kind of a phone can provide, has a super-fast snappy interface, can easily slip in and out from my pocket jeans without me having to stand up, and still works despite all the abuse a device gets from being carried around with you all day? How about a cell phone you can tap on thrice with the tip of your finger while it's in your pocket to shut it up while sitting in a lecture? Maybe I haven't done my research, but if you find something that fits all that, let me know. I will buy you a beer. I will then buy you another beer. I'm talking Guinness.
My behemoth of a Motorola cell phone can pull these these cute numbers:
* play mp3s
* interface via bluetooth with other devices
* play movies
* download ringtones, like green days' latest song
* take 640*480 pictures, high quality vga pictures and send them to others
* provide me capability to play poker with other people on some proprietary network, along with being able to download other j2me games.
Why did I get such a phone? Amazon gave me $160 cash money (ok it was a rebate) and a free activation plan. Websites like phonescoop and cnet also gave it a rating of 8/10 or better. Maybe I didn't check the right websites. Maybe I didn't spend the extra 6 hours looking for a practical phone.
When are these Telcos going to get it? Or is some potential startup company sitting on a gold mine?
One day, here's hoping that I will have a cell phone that doesn't decide to change its ring style to silent while it sits in my pocket, here's hoping one day we don't have to listen to 40 second prevoicemail messages before leaving a voicemail. Here's hoping we will be able to buy a practical 'cell phone,' and this middle-of-the-road phase will indeed phase away like a bad fart.
you know, that's unfortunate and all, but no one is putting a gone on their head and forcing anyone to do anything...unless if you live a bit up north I guess....but yes, to each his own, and if you die from it, what can i say you died while doing something you loved.
i blame the parents...;-)
Here's a question you might first want to answer: do you want to be a specialist or a generalist? to be a generalist, you probably want to be a specialist at one field, security, database, web design, web programming..etc. The fact of the matter is that there is so much out there, that you have to be a bit disciplines to really get anywhere. Or you can find an IT job doing support or so, then on the side start learning the underpinnings of a certain vertical market. Perl + Unix + C would be very good fundamentals to look at. IT is not a field like medicine, it's hard to draw a path, since there's so much to know and so many options. I would consult with someone who is an IT pro and possibly follow his/her footsteps. But yes it's a challening feat to 'master'.
The book you claim all slashdotters 'know' is 1900 pages long, and it's pretty substantive and articulate. Why don't you check the TOC (it's freely available as pdf) and reconsider your statement. You might actually have to look into the story though instead of commenting on it with preconceived notions.
Point taken...then again though if my only chance of getting a ticket to sit by the ticket office for 3 days, I wouldn't be able to get a ticket, since I work for a living and that is impossible for me to do. Then again that could mean I don't deserve a ticket. There should be a way for both of those processes to meet in the middle somewhere...
Pearl Jam just played a show here in Santa Barbara a few weeks ago. To be fair to the people living around there, they sold their tickets disciminating by zip codes on credit cards. If you didn't have a zip code that fell within their accepted proximity to where they played (santa barbara bowl) you would not be able to buy a ticket.
A band that supports the cause and does things that make a lot of sense.
I have a lot of respect and admiration for Pearl Jam because of this.
Oh, they also make incredibly good music.
Haha...he still posted the story though, so I'm grateful. Thanks for the comments.
I usually go to appleinsider or afp548 for the apple news...intersting though how this became an apple story...plus I had some other comments at the end of my post, which I thought were the most important part. Cringely gives it a twist ending and asks "will google's vertical ambitions stunt its growth...?" I like ending the postings with a questions to get conversations stared, but maybe my posting was a bit too long.
One of the reasons I post and read slashdot is to see what kind of conversations and discussions are taking place. Yes, perhaps Cringely's opinions can get a bit far fetched, but it stimulates discussion and discourse, and that's a good thing.
My post was a bit longer before it was edited by Zonk. It was a bit long, so thank you Zonk for editing it.
It dealt with the twist ending of the article, which I thought was possibly the most important and thought provoking piece of the article: "Will Google's own vertical obsession hamper their growth?"
"here's a failure strategy for Google. While not intending so much to create a platform, Google has done just that. And once you control a platform, the way to best leverage that control is by sharing the platform generously. Google is right now the basis of much Web 2.0 creativity from third-party firms -- every one of which is afraid that they'll be put out of business next month by Google rolling-out its own version of whatever that ISV has built and proved. That's the Microsoft domination model, so why not? Because it poisons the well, that's why not.
It is great for Google to buy-up these little firms making millionaires along the way, but Google's obsession with reinventing the wheel might hurt them over time. I hope they are smart about this, but I fear that they aren't, and that Google's own vertical obsession might hamper their growth."
the problem with monopolies is that they make it much more convenient to use their products and a hell of a lot less convenient to use ther competitors products. The playing field is not leveled. This is why there are monopoly laws. Companies like MS and Apple have a lot of weight they push around. Sure you shouldn't punish them, but what about holding them accountable for mistakes they've made that we have to pay for ? What about IE being artifically and nonsenseically 'bundled' with MS just for legal reasons, and years later customers and companies paying billions for that mistake in spyware/security incidents? should we blame them for that? Because a small competitor sure as shit can't pull that off.
Very interesting. Perhaps I should remove the 'Irish' portion of that quote. I really like the quote, so this is why it's part of the my profile. Sorry if it offended you.
"The whole "microkernels are simpler" argument is
just bull, and it is clearly shown to be bull by the fact
that whenever you compare the speed of development of a
microkernel and a traditional kernel,the traditional kernel
wins. By a huge amount, too. He goes on to say, "It's
ludicrous how microkernel proponents claim that their system
is "simpler" than a traditional kernel. It's not. It's much
much more complicated, exactly because of the barriers that
it has raised between data structures." He states that the
most fundamental issue is the sharing of address spaces.
"Nothing else really matters. Everything else ends up
flowing from that fundamental question: do you share the
address space with the caller, or put in slightly different
terms: can the callee look at and change the callers state
as if it were its own?"
Good points caitsith. Though if you listened to the speech I posted today, Alan is just bringing up issues that'll be important in the future; he's not making any predictions like Cringely does. The next 50 years...sure that's a bit of a stretch, but the issues he brings up are fundemental, across the board and theoretically significant.
thanks for the comment
-baris
this is a very good point. I have hundreds of G4 and G3s at my work that are getting faster and faster as I upgrade them to the next version of OS X. Very ironic isn't it.
Good point to address, kudos.
Let me tell you a story...
All statisticians thought, in the 1970s that with the rise of population and nothing being done to thwart crime stats, Chicago's crime rates were going to go off the charts. NO ONE disagreed. Roe V. Wade came out and they legalized abortion. Guess what...crime rates dropped to the ground. Everyone was baffled.
Before all the conspiracy theorists start interpreting this observation of this princeton scientist, make sure you look into GNR. The bottom line is, guys, we have absolutely NO idea what's going to happen in the next 10 years. One thing for sure, is that it's going to be an amazing and exciting 10 years. It's pointless to make predictions at this point. Why? Because the world as we know it is changing so fast we don't know what the variables are to making any predictions.
and if you really want to be lightened up and all these hippies are depressing the hell out of you with their 'end of the world' stories, GO READ
THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR, by Ray Kurzweil.
baris
Slashdot Mirror
how timely is this article....
straight from my blog, enjoy:I accidentally deleted a very important voicemail tonight. I was deleting one completely redundant voicemail (don't get me started on redundant unnecessary 'call me back' messages,) and pressed '7' one too many times, and deleted a message I never got to listen to. It was from an important recruiter.
I called Cingular and asked them whether they had a service for 'presshappy' people like myself to 'undelete' a voicemail in case of an emergency, and was brutally told that once a message is erased it's irretrievable. I kindly asked him to escalate my suggestion of having this capability so that Cingular would separate itself from the boys.
Needless to say, this incident was entirely my fault. But it brought up another issue I've been wrestling with for the last few months and I thought to share:
Today's cell phone technology seems to take away from the fundamental functions and add resource-hog features we don't use on a daily basis. These features drain the battery life dry and qualifies the 'cell phone' to an entity equivalent to a high maintenance girlfriend. How about making a cell phone that retains its battery life as long as possible, can store perhaps 50 phone numbers, has the best signal that that kind of a phone can provide, has a super-fast snappy interface, can easily slip in and out from my pocket jeans without me having to stand up, and still works despite all the abuse a device gets from being carried around with you all day? How about a cell phone you can tap on thrice with the tip of your finger while it's in your pocket to shut it up while sitting in a lecture? Maybe I haven't done my research, but if you find something that fits all that, let me know. I will buy you a beer. I will then buy you another beer. I'm talking Guinness.
My behemoth of a Motorola cell phone can pull these these cute numbers:
* play mp3s* interface via bluetooth with other devices
* play movies
* download ringtones, like green days' latest song
* take 640*480 pictures, high quality vga pictures and send them to others
* provide me capability to play poker with other people on some proprietary network, along with being able to download other j2me games.
Why did I get such a phone? Amazon gave me $160 cash money (ok it was a rebate) and a free activation plan. Websites like phonescoop and cnet also gave it a rating of 8/10 or better. Maybe I didn't check the right websites. Maybe I didn't spend the extra 6 hours looking for a practical phone.
When are these Telcos going to get it? Or is some potential startup company sitting on a gold mine?
One day, here's hoping that I will have a cell phone that doesn't decide to change its ring style to silent while it sits in my pocket, here's hoping one day we don't have to listen to 40 second prevoicemail messages before leaving a voicemail. Here's hoping we will be able to buy a practical 'cell phone,' and this middle-of-the-road phase will indeed phase away like a bad fart.
barisYes, thank you. I myself am also a spelling nazi, too many Guinnesses tonight...
you know, that's unfortunate and all, but no one is putting a gone on their head and forcing anyone to do anything...unless if you live a bit up north I guess....but yes, to each his own, and if you die from it, what can i say you died while doing something you loved. i blame the parents... ;-)
Studying IT is waay too general.
Here's a question you might first want to answer: do you want to be a specialist or a generalist? to be a generalist, you probably want to be a specialist at one field, security, database, web design, web programming..etc. The fact of the matter is that there is so much out there, that you have to be a bit disciplines to really get anywhere. Or you can find an IT job doing support or so, then on the side start learning the underpinnings of a certain vertical market. Perl + Unix + C would be very good fundamentals to look at. IT is not a field like medicine, it's hard to draw a path, since there's so much to know and so many options. I would consult with someone who is an IT pro and possibly follow his/her footsteps. But yes it's a challening feat to 'master'.
The book you claim all slashdotters 'know' is 1900 pages long, and it's pretty substantive and articulate. Why don't you check the TOC (it's freely available as pdf) and reconsider your statement. You might actually have to look into the story though instead of commenting on it with preconceived notions.
JESUS enough already...! How about talking about the article now?
Wowzers....1900 pages uh uh uh uh uh...compllekks! - Jeff Lebowski
Point taken...then again though if my only chance of getting a ticket to sit by the ticket office for 3 days, I wouldn't be able to get a ticket, since I work for a living and that is impossible for me to do. Then again that could mean I don't deserve a ticket. There should be a way for both of those processes to meet in the middle somewhere...
Pearl Jam just played a show here in Santa Barbara a few weeks ago. To be fair to the people living around there, they sold their tickets disciminating by zip codes on credit cards. If you didn't have a zip code that fell within their accepted proximity to where they played (santa barbara bowl) you would not be able to buy a ticket. A band that supports the cause and does things that make a lot of sense. I have a lot of respect and admiration for Pearl Jam because of this. Oh, they also make incredibly good music.
so when do we outloaw jean pockets, because we know pickpocketers use them, and we can't have that. so let's outlaw pockets. fucking morons.
Haha...he still posted the story though, so I'm grateful. Thanks for the comments. I usually go to appleinsider or afp548 for the apple news...intersting though how this became an apple story...plus I had some other comments at the end of my post, which I thought were the most important part. Cringely gives it a twist ending and asks "will google's vertical ambitions stunt its growth...?" I like ending the postings with a questions to get conversations stared, but maybe my posting was a bit too long.
:-). thank Zonk, that wasn't me. I posted it under Technology, Google I think.
One of the reasons I post and read slashdot is to see what kind of conversations and discussions are taking place. Yes, perhaps Cringely's opinions can get a bit far fetched, but it stimulates discussion and discourse, and that's a good thing.
My post was a bit longer before it was edited by Zonk. It was a bit long, so thank you Zonk for editing it. It dealt with the twist ending of the article, which I thought was possibly the most important and thought provoking piece of the article: "Will Google's own vertical obsession hamper their growth?" "here's a failure strategy for Google. While not intending so much to create a platform, Google has done just that. And once you control a platform, the way to best leverage that control is by sharing the platform generously. Google is right now the basis of much Web 2.0 creativity from third-party firms -- every one of which is afraid that they'll be put out of business next month by Google rolling-out its own version of whatever that ISV has built and proved. That's the Microsoft domination model, so why not? Because it poisons the well, that's why not. It is great for Google to buy-up these little firms making millionaires along the way, but Google's obsession with reinventing the wheel might hurt them over time. I hope they are smart about this, but I fear that they aren't, and that Google's own vertical obsession might hamper their growth."
the problem with monopolies is that they make it much more convenient to use their products and a hell of a lot less convenient to use ther competitors products. The playing field is not leveled. This is why there are monopoly laws. Companies like MS and Apple have a lot of weight they push around. Sure you shouldn't punish them, but what about holding them accountable for mistakes they've made that we have to pay for ? What about IE being artifically and nonsenseically 'bundled' with MS just for legal reasons, and years later customers and companies paying billions for that mistake in spyware/security incidents? should we blame them for that? Because a small competitor sure as shit can't pull that off.
"No, I am merely saying that they learn what to fear and hate from their culture." righto.
haha...good point. Maybe the insightee thought that it was insightful of 'me' that i chose the quotes i did. Go figure.
Very interesting. Perhaps I should remove the 'Irish' portion of that quote. I really like the quote, so this is why it's part of the my profile. Sorry if it offended you.
"The whole "microkernels are simpler" argument is just bull, and it is clearly shown to be bull by the fact that whenever you compare the speed of development of a microkernel and a traditional kernel,the traditional kernel wins. By a huge amount, too. He goes on to say, "It's ludicrous how microkernel proponents claim that their system is "simpler" than a traditional kernel. It's not. It's much much more complicated, exactly because of the barriers that it has raised between data structures." He states that the most fundamental issue is the sharing of address spaces. "Nothing else really matters. Everything else ends up flowing from that fundamental question: do you share the address space with the caller, or put in slightly different terms: can the callee look at and change the callers state as if it were its own?"
Good points caitsith. Though if you listened to the speech I posted today, Alan is just bringing up issues that'll be important in the future; he's not making any predictions like Cringely does. The next 50 years...sure that's a bit of a stretch, but the issues he brings up are fundemental, across the board and theoretically significant. thanks for the comment -baris
Yes, but nr0p is free, so none of that really matters now does it? ;-0
hahaha thanks for making my day...
this is a very good point. I have hundreds of G4 and G3s at my work that are getting faster and faster as I upgrade them to the next version of OS X. Very ironic isn't it. Good point to address, kudos.
I like this statement, thanks for the message. See mine.
Let me tell you a story... All statisticians thought, in the 1970s that with the rise of population and nothing being done to thwart crime stats, Chicago's crime rates were going to go off the charts. NO ONE disagreed. Roe V. Wade came out and they legalized abortion. Guess what...crime rates dropped to the ground. Everyone was baffled. Before all the conspiracy theorists start interpreting this observation of this princeton scientist, make sure you look into GNR. The bottom line is, guys, we have absolutely NO idea what's going to happen in the next 10 years. One thing for sure, is that it's going to be an amazing and exciting 10 years. It's pointless to make predictions at this point. Why? Because the world as we know it is changing so fast we don't know what the variables are to making any predictions. and if you really want to be lightened up and all these hippies are depressing the hell out of you with their 'end of the world' stories, GO READ THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR, by Ray Kurzweil. baris