But see, your explanation just goes to show that Wal-Mart has no need to offer their employees more. Apparently, they're functioning just fine by using employment of apathetic or depressed people -- groups who don't seem to be good enough workers for anyone else to hire.
When you look at it that way, it seems like a bad idea to complain that they should pay their workers more! Why reward apathy? People always have "other choices", really. They just don't have other choices they're willing to put forth the effort to take advantage of. (And hey - that's human nature. I know *I* could do better for myself, financially, if I was willing to make some sacrifices I don't choose to make. But that's my own personal "comfort zone". And it sounds like for some of these Wal-Mart workers, theirs is having a steady paycheck and a job at "poverty level income", vs. having to learn new skills or deal with personal problems they may have.)
I don't disagree.... but I still have to keep asking myself *why* people keep working for Wal-Mart, given the raw deals they offer? There are numerous articles out there about Costco offering a FAR better deal to employees than Sam's Club (owned by Wal-Mart) does - yet they're the same format of business.
Ultimately, no business can continue offering poor pay and benefits and survive, unless people keep on signing up to work at those poor wages.
I mean, I get why Wal-Mart might have initially gotten away with it. The business model involved building in small towns where there wasn't much else around. But these days, you've got several in every major city too - where there are surely plenty of other retails outlets a person could work at.
First of all, PayPal does not act "like a bank" in all respects. Last I checked, it wasn't possible to get any type of business or even personal loan from them. That's a *huge* function of a "bank". They also don't seem to offer any types of "savings accounts"... merely a variation of a "checking account with interest" that foregoes usage of paper checks.
I'm not so sure that people would like the results if they got what they clamor for when they beg govt. to regular PayPal as though they're just another FDIC insured financial institution. It's certainly arguable that current banks never developed any of the handy features that made PayPal popular, precisely *because* they're too tied up with the "red tape" of govt. regulations to attempt to tackle it.
I know where I live, some of our major banks still can't even process direct deposit of employee payroll checks without the business dialing in at 9600 BPS with a modem! They haven't even gotten that whole system onto the Internet yet!
I think PayPal certainly deserves a few lawsuits to "force their hand" when they start playing games with freezing people's accounts without warning or good reason. But that can and *is* happening. With some of that straightened out, I think they perform a generally useful service that my bank has still failed to provide after all these years - so I'm reasonably ok with them.
Would I trust them with a large sum of money kept in their account? No way! But that's sort of like pre-paying one of your monthly bills a year or two in advance, and then freaking out if they go bankrupt and you never get it back. Use your FDIC regulated bank for money *storage*, and keep PayPal for money *transfer* when it's a convenient alternative.
True - but people using public transportation are, in effect, taxed twice. A public bus uses the same roads your personal car uses. Even railroads make use of the roadways so their maintenance vehicles can get to crossing gates to do maintenance on them, etc.
Who said this was supposed to be an unbiased review?? This is intended to compare and contrast Vista with OS X, and enlighten some of the non-Mac using computer users out there that some of Microsoft's "new features" aren't really so "new" to everybody.
In that respect, I agree completely with him.
Frankly, his review interested me more than the plethora of soon-to-come, objective reviews filled with benchmarks will.
I already own and use a Macbook Pro, and I was thinking about setting it up to dual-boot into Vista. (I have XP set up to boot via Bootcamp on it now, and that works quite well.) After reading about his power-management issues and problems with right-click support, I think I'll stick with XP on it for now, instead.
I agree with your first statement. Yes, a risk analysis is integral to setting up a new environment. But that should be a given. Any decent systems administrator is going to read up on the pros and cons of implementing a new package, or making a change to the network infrastructure. If the "word on the street" is, package A is really insecure or doesn't "play well" with package B without turning off some of the security features, then that's a huge red flag to avoid buying package A.
This also ties into the point I made in my original post. I think someone with a specfic skillset focused on computer security would be best utilized at the level of application development. These folks are needed to make sure that before a product hits the store shelf, it was coded properly, with security in mind. (Look at how many Windows apps are functionally broken for users unless you grant them full local "Administrator" rights on the PC first! That wouldn't ever have happened if security experts were working along with the developers.)
I simply feel that by the time you're talking about the "end users" of a computing environment, the users should come first. The security should have been integrated into the products *before* they even reached the hands of the customers. It shouldn't become a career getting paid to keep up with all the design flaws in commercial products and placing artificial restrictions on their use in an environment. The people doing that could put their talents to much better use if they were working "further up the chain". (EG. Fix a security hole in an app before it goes out the door, and thousands benefit. Secure it for a business after they buy it, and maybe only 10 or 20 people benefit.)
Unfortunately, at least in the U.S. - most public transportation seems to operate at a net loss all the time anyway. Our taxes always end up subsidizing broken business models for air, train and even bus travel.
So my guess is, even though people are trying harder to avoid air travel, it won't cause the airlines to fold up. They'll just run up higher operating costs that govt. steps in and pays to bail them out of.
(And yes, I *do* think fewer people are flying these days. Everyone I know working for a small to mid-sized company talks of their company looking into web-based training and video teleconferences in lieu of traveling to a site for training or meetings.)
Well, it may be quite true that I've "only worked with the bad ones"... but I guess I question the "value" they really add to the typical business workplace.
For starters, I'm of the opinion that the user *must* come first - so maybe I'm fundamentally at odds with the basic premise of their work. But from 15+ years of experience with computers and I.T., I've become convinced that usability MUST trump security, or else you've wasted your money. The trick is to make things as secure as possible, without crossing the line and damaging usability/usefulness of the environment.
It's not unlike what people do with their very own homes. A "security expert" could surely come into 99.9% of households and implement hundreds of rules that would make the place more secure against break-ins and theft. Perhaps he/she would eliminate all of the existing locks on the doors (too easy to pick?), change out all of the windows (too easy to be pried open?), and force all the valuables to be locked away in a bank's safe deposit box, instead of kept in dressers. Surely, an alarm system would be installed with motion and glass breakage sensors, and a long, difficult-to-guess passcode that has to be punched in to disarm it each and every time you enter. The list goes on, but you get the idea. People are usually willing to accept a slightly higher level of "risk" in return for the cost-savings and convenience afforded by skipping some of those measures.
With computing, at the end of the day, you *still* have to grant access to sensitive data/documents to certain people, or no work can be accomplished. Those people will *always* be able to digitally steal copies of that information if they so desire. You'll also suffer serious inefficiencies if, for example, your firewall is locked down so tightly that a software vendor can't remote control in via PC Anywhere or the like to assist an employee.
As I stated before, there are exceptions to all of this. If you work in a government-controlled, classified environment, then security probably DOES trump usability. But it's understood that the situation warrants the extra inconvenience and expenses that it will cost.
This may be a little off-topic, but I can't help but feel that the job title of "information security specialist/officer/manager/etc." is generally bogus from the start, at least as it pertains to "end users" of technology.
I'm *not* saying that we don't need or shouldn't respect people who make a point of studying information security. But rather, that these people are most effective when they're working to build security appliances, hardware, and software that will eventually be purchased by I.T. staff. Or perhaps, when they have a specific task related to tracking down fraud in a telecommunications environment.
In most corporations, it seems like the person or people appointed as "information security" are really just getting paid to be the fall guy(s) if and when something goes wrong. They want someone to point a finger at. The "infosec specialists" I've run across rarely have very many useful computer skills to offer a business. Rather, they're mainly good at writing up policies and procedures they insist everyone should follow for "safe computing". They can go into great detail about why a particular update patch for a router or TCP/IP stack is important for preventing a theoretical attack - yet they can't even troubleshoot a single hardware failure due to bad RAM or a failing hard disk in a workstation.
The "rank and file" I.T. staff and management probably have just about as good a track record of keeping a given computing enviroment reasonably "secure", as long as they're diligent about keeping things updated and patched, and following some common sense procedures. They may not know (or care!) about all the technical details of why a given patch is effective, but it doesn't end up making much difference.
What you're talking about are people who are physically working harder instead of using their minds to work smarter. The "hard working" janitor or factory laborer you refer to is most likely also among the rank of the "mentally lazy". Did he/she pursue a masters degree in college, for example? Did he/she devote much of his/her spare time to learning new things?
Throughout the history of the human race, tasks requiring intelligence or ingenuity are the most noteworthy ones accomplished. This isn't meant to be a "slam" against physical labor. If people did nothing other than sit around and think up great ideas, nothing would ever be acted upon.
But even from the "cave man" days, humans didn't survive because of their great physical abilities. We would have never succeeded in hunting practically anything for food if it weren't for people using their minds to invent things like spears, discover a way to make fire, and so on.
The point many people also seem to miss is that quite a few corporate CEOs out there are in the midst of enjoying the fruits of quite a bit of labor they already did to get where they're at today. (This is much like the people who look at a rock star and say "That sure must be an easy life!" Nevermind the fact that many lived below poverty level for years, putting in 14 hour days writing, practicing songs and gigging, with their mind focused on their dream or goal.)
All the chip manufacturers are hitting the Mhz barrier at around 3.xGhz speed. (Sure, some people are overclocking CPUs to 4+Ghz but not in a practical way that a CPU vendor could sell as a mass-marketed product.)
When Intel saw the success of the Core Duo, a light went on over someone's head and they realized "Hey! This is the solution! Keep increasing the number of cores!"
Right now, people against this idea are usually pointing out the lack of software/OS support for it as the reason it's not a good idea. But realistically, this is probably the easiest hurdle to overcome. With proper design, an OS shouldn't care whether it has 4 or 400 cores at its disposal. The same logic will get used to hand off processes to available cores, and applications will gradually be optimized for OS's that exhibt this behavior.
Like most things, it's just a matter of giving it some time to get developed.
But the more pressing issue is bus bandwidth. It won't take long for multiple cores to exceed the bandwidth limit to/from the system RAM - and this is already the "weak spot" on current PCs. (We're doing good to get front-side bus speeds of 50% of a CPU's processor speed right now.)
Furthermore, hard drives are a huge bottleneck too. Solid-state memory drives keep getting billed as the solution here - but again, you're talking devices chewing away at available bandwidth on the bus.
If AMD manages to develop higher Ghz speed CPUs rather than continuing down Intel's "more cores = better" path, they stand a good chance of having the superior price vs. performance CPU again in the not too distant future.
It seems to be the "in" thing to blame "the rich" and "big corporations" for every sort of evil. We all seem to like a good scapegoat.
But really, what you're saying is only true because the majority of people are relatively lazy and unmotivated. Wealth typically comes to those who have motivation/drive and put in the time and effort to achieve their goals.
I don't see this as a "bad" thing at all. Merely, a summary of the way the world works and always has worked. Not everyone wants to devote a big part of their life to achieving "wealth". They'd much rather just do the minimum amount of work necessary to reach their own personal "comfort zone".
If global warming does end up reducing the amount of available land, there are many ways to work towards solutions to the problem that are more useful/profitable than declaring war on another nation and trying to take over some of *their* remaining land! It's not outside the scope of possibilities to develop giant ships that serve as floating cities, for example.
The problem is, giving the people "citizen's band" as the solution is akin to giving a thirsty person a glass with just a few drops of water in the bottom of it.
CB radio, for starters, isn't enough spectrum. (Look at the more expensive "single sideband" CB radios that try to squeeze additional channels between the usual 40. I remember owning one of those for a little while, and the clarity and range on sideband was awful -- not to mention being incompatible with most other people's CB radios that didn't have the same feature.)
Plus, the FCC limits the broadcasting power of CB to around 4 watts. That's not enough to be useful at all, really. That's why all the truckers who actually use CB on a daily basis run illegal power amplifiers with theirs. (That also means you're going to get drowned out if you try to operate one within the law.)
The antennas required to make one work well are huge, too. In today's world where everyone is familiar with a cellphone, it seems ridiculous by comparison.
CB is really only practical for short 2-way conversations. (The whole thing of reserving channel 9 for reporting emergencies is a good example of CB being used effectively, for example.) It's not even remotely similar to giving the common citizen a way to broadcast his/her own radio show for the enjoyment of the general listening audience.
I also do a lot of on-site computer service, and although I've often dropped a suggestion that someone might benefit by making their next computer purchase a Mac, I don't attempt to change over their existing OS while I'm there to fix something.
I have no doubt you could construct an environment in open-source that initially pleases at least 1 out of 4 of your clients who need help. (Many people don't know enough about their computers to really understand what "Windows" is in the first place. I find a lot of confusion out there, especially with the OS and apps coming pre-loaded so often. People think Microsoft Office is part of Windows, etc.)
My concern would be long-term hassle and confusion. What if a family member brings over a shiny new piece of software the following XMas (maybe some Family Tree software for Windows, or a Print Shop Deluxe type package, or ??), and they discover their PC can't even run it anymore? Guess who will be blamed? Yep - that damn technician who wiped out my whole hard drive and set me up this other stuff that was supposed to be so much "better"!
Haha... that's what made this video all the *better* for me! I hate hip-hop, R&B and most rap music... and this incredibly annoying local hip-hop radio station put "Ridin'" in such hot rotation, even *I* had heard it dozens of times, unwillingly. Too many hair salons, people driving by with car stereos cranked up to 11, and so forth have that station on - and with maybe 15-20 songs total in their playlist, it's always coming up!
Even if YouTube lost a bunch of popularity, it would theoretically be left with at least *some* content it owned rights to. I thought part of their terms of service included the fact that they reserve the rights to whatever content you upload to them? Obviously, uploads of previously copyrighted works don't apply -- but there are probably loads of humorous "reality TV-esque" clips made by college students and the like that YouTube could sort though, package up, and resell.
Would that make them worth 1.5 billion? Nah... but it has some value you can't completely discount.
Effectively, I think many do. The article said some machines require access to switches found behind the front panel of the machine - which you're not going to be able to get at without unlocking it first.
And I say, get off your high horse! There are plenty of intelligent, rational people out there who may not be very computer-savvy and/or internet-savvy. Some of the phishing scams are quite well done, and would make *most* people at least take a second look at them.
In fact, despite working in I.T. for 15 years myself, I was tricked once into turning over my eBay username and password by a phishing scam. (Someone sent me a perfect duplicate of one of eBay's emails they send when you've sold enough product to become one of their "Powersellers", and asked me to click to sign in and activate said account.)
I actually had "Powerseller" status at one time, but didn't maintain enough $ volume each month to keep it. So when I got this email, I assumed they were offering it to me again (since it just so happened that I sold quite a few larger, more expensive items shortly before this email arrived).
Sure, you can be all smug about it, and say "Well, you should have examined the URL it took you to, to see that it wasn't really one of eBay's servers!" or what-not. But when you're in a hurry, trying to sift through and reply to a bunch of email - eventually, it's possible to slip up.
I used to think this too. I purchased a copy of "Muvaudio" for my PC, for just that purpose. Since it installs a "virtual audio patch cable" device that it routes though, it would seem the whole process stays digital (so no "loss" like you'd get from actually using analog patch cords from an earphone/spkr out to a Mic/Line in).
I converted a whole slew of music files out of protected WMA format to MP3 192-bit with it, and they sounded good.
*BUT*, I tried playing with one of those programs that simply strips the DRM off of the.WMV files, vs. re-recording the audio, and then used a converter tool to go from the DRM-free.WMV file to 192-bit MP3 in a seperate step. And I'm almost positive I'm getting better quality MP3s now as a result.
It's hard to describe the difference, but I especially notice it at lower listening volumes on my car stereo. The ones made via Muvaudio tend to make the listener want to turn the stereo up louder to hear the track more clearly. And when you do, it sounds good - but your ears get "fatigued" more quickly than normal. There's a little less "warmth" to the overall sound than there should be.
I think you're mostly right, but it's also not totally logical to "blow off" the entire "graphics arms race" going on. Depending on the genre of game you like to play, graphics are critically important. One prime example that comes to my mind is driving games. Sure, realistic physics, interesting tracks, and lots of different types of vehicles to race are key -- but the "eye candy" is also part of the fun. At some point, you're able to simulate a car race to the point where it's as close to real life as you can get, short of owning a car simulator to sit inside of and have all the same controls a real car has. Racing enthusiasts want to get immersed in the game as deeply as possible, and that means cars that look just like someone's favorites, a realistic simulation of what's really encountered on the road (such as the sun glaring through your windshield when you're driving into it, or accurate depictions of cloudy, rainy or foggy days), and attention to details like skid marks left behind when cars spin out. (Amazing how often games are written that get this right, except the marks disappear as soon as you drive back over the same area again!) You need really good graphics capabilities to pull all of this off in a photo-realistic and smooth manner.
I know I have a tough time going back to the really old driving games that I thought were "awesome" years ago (Pitstop 2, for example). The graphics are just too poor compared to what I'm used to now.
I completely hear you there! For starters, I think this "3rd. place" concept is flawed when applied to massively multiplayer online games, because you're generally still playing them in the "1st. place" - your house or apartment!
The reason places like the "corner bar" (a la "Cheers") are popular with some people is just as much the fact that it gets them out of the house (and someplace *other* than work) as it is the "social interaction" factor.
It's really about doing something that breaks up your routine, while letting you interact with some new people (and a few friends too).
From what I've seen of MMORPG's - users often become addicted to them and swear up and down that they've met this whole new world of friends on there. But those "friends" tend to disappear fast if they quit paying their monthly bill and find other interests. (It's a little like the drug user junkie who considers his dealer his good friend.)
Furthermore, MMORPGs *encourage* routine. You form these clans or guilds, and then they get pushy about you getting online every day at certain times so the group can organize for a battle or raid. You start playing just because you "need some more gold" to buy some object in the game... not necessarily because you really feel like playing for the pure fun of it. And all the while, you're trading off hours of your "real, physical life" for a virtual one. An awful lot of parents are ignoring their own children in order to play their MMORPGs - whereas if they really left the house to "go out", they'd at least be compelled to pay for a sitter to entertain and teach their kid a little bit while they're away.
After reading the article, I didn't get the idea it was trying to unravel a mystery, so much as point out that we're running a risk of becoming economically lopsided. The healthcare industry needs to take a closer look at achieving efficiency, rather than "scaling up" labor as the only solution.
Many folks actually working in hospitals and doctor's offices would be quick to tell you that nearly half of all the labor going on there revolves around paperwork and meeting legal requirements. I do some computer consulting and support work for a very small doctor's office, and they recently had to move to a larger office simply because they used up all of their floor space with file cabinets full of old patient records!
This is absurd! Nobody is forced to upload their content to YouTube! They haven't kept their terms a secret, as evidenced by the fact that you're aware that they claim ownership of all content uploaded to them.
Most of the homemade stuff put on YouTube is not worthy of copyrighting in the first place. It's just college students playing around with a camcorder and throwing some junk up there for their buddies to laugh at, and people trying to hone their skills at making documentaries by putting some "trial runs" online for the world to critique them.
YouTube is just hoping some quality "underground" material might get posted that ends up being profitable for them by a fluke. If they didn't stake a copyright claim on the uploads, they'd be out of the loop on profiting from it, despite footing the bill for all of the distribution costs.
The people posting commercial, copyrighted works are just doing so because they *can*. YouTube is probably smart not to proactively erase such content themselves, because as soon as they do so even one time, they destroy any legal argument that it's "just not feasible to police the uploaded content due to the quantity". (EG. An attempt at claiming a "common carrier" status.) But realistically, if something is already copyrighted, YouTube has no claim of "taking that copyright over" just because someone uploaded it.
Personally, I'd wait to see how it pans out before buying. First off, what kind of battery life is this going to have? With wi-fi and everything, I can't see how it'll be very good at all.
Second, what about the accessories? Right now, my iPod can be fully controlled from my Pioneer car stereo through their interface (and it charges the iPod for you too). Think they'll offer the same for Zune players? What about all the other iPod-related devices that have cropped up like clock radios with iPod docks, voice recorder add-ons, and digital camera storage adapters?
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But see, your explanation just goes to show that Wal-Mart has no need to offer their employees more. Apparently, they're functioning just fine by using employment of apathetic or depressed people -- groups who don't seem to be good enough workers for anyone else to hire.
When you look at it that way, it seems like a bad idea to complain that they should pay their workers more! Why reward apathy? People always have "other choices", really. They just don't have other choices they're willing to put forth the effort to take advantage of. (And hey - that's human nature. I know *I* could do better for myself, financially, if I was willing to make some sacrifices I don't choose to make. But that's my own personal "comfort zone". And it sounds like for some of these Wal-Mart workers, theirs is having a steady paycheck and a job at "poverty level income", vs. having to learn new skills or deal with personal problems they may have.)
And anyone who has played the GTA series should be scoffing at that remark right about now, considering their horrible aiming system!
I don't disagree.... but I still have to keep asking myself *why* people keep working for Wal-Mart, given the raw deals they offer? There are numerous articles out there about Costco offering a FAR better deal to employees than Sam's Club (owned by Wal-Mart) does - yet they're the same format of business.
Ultimately, no business can continue offering poor pay and benefits and survive, unless people keep on signing up to work at those poor wages.
I mean, I get why Wal-Mart might have initially gotten away with it. The business model involved building in small towns where there wasn't much else around. But these days, you've got several in every major city too - where there are surely plenty of other retails outlets a person could work at.
First of all, PayPal does not act "like a bank" in all respects. Last I checked, it wasn't possible to get any type of business or even personal loan from them. That's a *huge* function of a "bank". They also don't seem to offer any types of "savings accounts" ... merely a variation of a "checking account with interest" that foregoes usage of paper checks.
I'm not so sure that people would like the results if they got what they clamor for when they beg govt. to regular PayPal as though they're just another FDIC insured financial institution. It's certainly arguable that current banks never developed any of the handy features that made PayPal popular, precisely *because* they're too tied up with the "red tape" of govt. regulations to attempt to tackle it.
I know where I live, some of our major banks still can't even process direct deposit of employee payroll checks without the business dialing in at 9600 BPS with a modem! They haven't even gotten that whole system onto the Internet yet!
I think PayPal certainly deserves a few lawsuits to "force their hand" when they start playing games with freezing people's accounts without warning or good reason. But that can and *is* happening. With some of that straightened out, I think they perform a generally useful service that my bank has still failed to provide after all these years - so I'm reasonably ok with them.
Would I trust them with a large sum of money kept in their account? No way! But that's sort of like pre-paying one of your monthly bills a year or two in advance, and then freaking out if they go bankrupt and you never get it back. Use your FDIC regulated bank for money *storage*, and keep PayPal for money *transfer* when it's a convenient alternative.
True - but people using public transportation are, in effect, taxed twice. A public bus uses the same roads your personal car uses. Even railroads make use of the roadways so their maintenance vehicles can get to crossing gates to do maintenance on them, etc.
Who said this was supposed to be an unbiased review?? This is intended to compare and contrast Vista with OS X, and enlighten some of the non-Mac using computer users out there that some of Microsoft's "new features" aren't really so "new" to everybody.
In that respect, I agree completely with him.
Frankly, his review interested me more than the plethora of soon-to-come, objective reviews filled with benchmarks will.
I already own and use a Macbook Pro, and I was thinking about setting it up to dual-boot into Vista. (I have XP set up to boot via Bootcamp on it now, and that works quite well.) After reading about his power-management issues and problems with right-click support, I think I'll stick with XP on it for now, instead.
I agree with your first statement. Yes, a risk analysis is integral to setting up a new environment. But that should be a given. Any decent systems administrator is going to read up on the pros and cons of implementing a new package, or making a change to the network infrastructure. If the "word on the street" is, package A is really insecure or doesn't "play well" with package B without turning off some of the security features, then that's a huge red flag to avoid buying package A.
This also ties into the point I made in my original post. I think someone with a specfic skillset focused on computer security would be best utilized at the level of application development. These folks are needed to make sure that before a product hits the store shelf, it was coded properly, with security in mind. (Look at how many Windows apps are functionally broken for users unless you grant them full local "Administrator" rights on the PC first! That wouldn't ever have happened if security experts were working along with the developers.)
I simply feel that by the time you're talking about the "end users" of a computing environment, the users should come first. The security should have been integrated into the products *before* they even reached the hands of the customers. It shouldn't become a career getting paid to keep up with all the design flaws in commercial products and placing artificial restrictions on their use in an environment. The people doing that could put their talents to much better use if they were working "further up the chain". (EG. Fix a security hole in an app before it goes out the door, and thousands benefit. Secure it for a business after they buy it, and maybe only 10 or 20 people benefit.)
Unfortunately, at least in the U.S. - most public transportation seems to operate at a net loss all the time anyway. Our taxes always end up subsidizing broken business models for air, train and even bus travel.
So my guess is, even though people are trying harder to avoid air travel, it won't cause the airlines to fold up. They'll just run up higher operating costs that govt. steps in and pays to bail them out of.
(And yes, I *do* think fewer people are flying these days. Everyone I know working for a small to mid-sized company talks of their company looking into web-based training and video teleconferences in lieu of traveling to a site for training or meetings.)
Well, it may be quite true that I've "only worked with the bad ones" ... but I guess I question the "value" they really add to the typical business workplace.
For starters, I'm of the opinion that the user *must* come first - so maybe I'm fundamentally at odds with the basic premise of their work. But from 15+ years of experience with computers and I.T., I've become convinced that usability MUST trump security, or else you've wasted your money. The trick is to make things as secure as possible, without crossing the line and damaging usability/usefulness of the environment.
It's not unlike what people do with their very own homes. A "security expert" could surely come into 99.9% of households and implement hundreds of rules that would make the place more secure against break-ins and theft. Perhaps he/she would eliminate all of the existing locks on the doors (too easy to pick?), change out all of the windows (too easy to be pried open?), and force all the valuables to be locked away in a bank's safe deposit box, instead of kept in dressers. Surely, an alarm system would be installed with motion and glass breakage sensors, and a long, difficult-to-guess passcode that has to be punched in to disarm it each and every time you enter. The list goes on, but you get the idea. People are usually willing to accept a slightly higher level of "risk" in return for the cost-savings and convenience afforded by skipping some of those measures.
With computing, at the end of the day, you *still* have to grant access to sensitive data/documents to certain people, or no work can be accomplished. Those people will *always* be able to digitally steal copies of that information if they so desire. You'll also suffer serious inefficiencies if, for example, your firewall is locked down so tightly that a software vendor can't remote control in via PC Anywhere or the like to assist an employee.
As I stated before, there are exceptions to all of this. If you work in a government-controlled, classified environment, then security probably DOES trump usability. But it's understood that the situation warrants the extra inconvenience and expenses that it will cost.
This may be a little off-topic, but I can't help but feel that the job title of "information security specialist/officer/manager/etc." is generally bogus from the start, at least as it pertains to "end users" of technology.
I'm *not* saying that we don't need or shouldn't respect people who make a point of studying information security. But rather, that these people are most effective when they're working to build security appliances, hardware, and software that will eventually be purchased by I.T. staff. Or perhaps, when they have a specific task related to tracking down fraud in a telecommunications environment.
In most corporations, it seems like the person or people appointed as "information security" are really just getting paid to be the fall guy(s) if and when something goes wrong. They want someone to point a finger at. The "infosec specialists" I've run across rarely have very many useful computer skills to offer a business. Rather, they're mainly good at writing up policies and procedures they insist everyone should follow for "safe computing". They can go into great detail about why a particular update patch for a router or TCP/IP stack is important for preventing a theoretical attack - yet they can't even troubleshoot a single hardware failure due to bad RAM or a failing hard disk in a workstation.
The "rank and file" I.T. staff and management probably have just about as good a track record of keeping a given computing enviroment reasonably "secure", as long as they're diligent about keeping things updated and patched, and following some common sense procedures. They may not know (or care!) about all the technical details of why a given patch is effective, but it doesn't end up making much difference.
No, you can keep the cake....
What you're talking about are people who are physically working harder instead of using their minds to work smarter. The "hard working" janitor or factory laborer you refer to is most likely also among the rank of the "mentally lazy". Did he/she pursue a masters degree in college, for example? Did he/she devote much of his/her spare time to learning new things?
Throughout the history of the human race, tasks requiring intelligence or ingenuity are the most noteworthy ones accomplished. This isn't meant to be a "slam" against physical labor. If people did nothing other than sit around and think up great ideas, nothing would ever be acted upon.
But even from the "cave man" days, humans didn't survive because of their great physical abilities. We would have never succeeded in hunting practically anything for food if it weren't for people using their minds to invent things like spears, discover a way to make fire, and so on.
The point many people also seem to miss is that quite a few corporate CEOs out there are in the midst of enjoying the fruits of quite a bit of labor they already did to get where they're at today. (This is much like the people who look at a rock star and say "That sure must be an easy life!" Nevermind the fact that many lived below poverty level for years, putting in 14 hour days writing, practicing songs and gigging, with their mind focused on their dream or goal.)
All the chip manufacturers are hitting the Mhz barrier at around 3.xGhz speed. (Sure, some people are overclocking CPUs to 4+Ghz but not in a practical way that a CPU vendor could sell as a mass-marketed product.)
When Intel saw the success of the Core Duo, a light went on over someone's head and they realized "Hey! This is the solution! Keep increasing the number of cores!"
Right now, people against this idea are usually pointing out the lack of software/OS support for it as the reason it's not a good idea. But realistically, this is probably the easiest hurdle to overcome. With proper design, an OS shouldn't care whether it has 4 or 400 cores at its disposal. The same logic will get used to hand off processes to available cores, and applications will gradually be optimized for OS's that exhibt this behavior.
Like most things, it's just a matter of giving it some time to get developed.
But the more pressing issue is bus bandwidth. It won't take long for multiple cores to exceed the bandwidth limit to/from the system RAM - and this is already the "weak spot" on current PCs. (We're doing good to get front-side bus speeds of 50% of a CPU's processor speed right now.)
Furthermore, hard drives are a huge bottleneck too. Solid-state memory drives keep getting billed as the solution here - but again, you're talking devices chewing away at available bandwidth on the bus.
If AMD manages to develop higher Ghz speed CPUs rather than continuing down Intel's "more cores = better" path, they stand a good chance of having the superior price vs. performance CPU again in the not too distant future.
It seems to be the "in" thing to blame "the rich" and "big corporations" for every sort of evil. We all seem to like a good scapegoat.
But really, what you're saying is only true because the majority of people are relatively lazy and unmotivated. Wealth typically comes to those who have motivation/drive and put in the time and effort to achieve their goals.
I don't see this as a "bad" thing at all. Merely, a summary of the way the world works and always has worked. Not everyone wants to devote a big part of their life to achieving "wealth". They'd much rather just do the minimum amount of work necessary to reach their own personal "comfort zone".
If global warming does end up reducing the amount of available land, there are many ways to work towards solutions to the problem that are more useful/profitable than declaring war on another nation and trying to take over some of *their* remaining land! It's not outside the scope of possibilities to develop giant ships that serve as floating cities, for example.
The problem is, giving the people "citizen's band" as the solution is akin to giving a thirsty person a glass with just a few drops of water in the bottom of it.
CB radio, for starters, isn't enough spectrum. (Look at the more expensive "single sideband" CB radios that try to squeeze additional channels between the usual 40. I remember owning one of those for a little while, and the clarity and range on sideband was awful -- not to mention being incompatible with most other people's CB radios that didn't have the same feature.)
Plus, the FCC limits the broadcasting power of CB to around 4 watts. That's not enough to be useful at all, really. That's why all the truckers who actually use CB on a daily basis run illegal power amplifiers with theirs. (That also means you're going to get drowned out if you try to operate one within the law.)
The antennas required to make one work well are huge, too. In today's world where everyone is familiar with a cellphone, it seems ridiculous by comparison.
CB is really only practical for short 2-way conversations. (The whole thing of reserving channel 9 for reporting emergencies is a good example of CB being used effectively, for example.) It's not even remotely similar to giving the common citizen a way to broadcast his/her own radio show for the enjoyment of the general listening audience.
I also do a lot of on-site computer service, and although I've often dropped a suggestion that someone might benefit by making their next computer purchase a Mac, I don't attempt to change over their existing OS while I'm there to fix something.
I have no doubt you could construct an environment in open-source that initially pleases at least 1 out of 4 of your clients who need help. (Many people don't know enough about their computers to really understand what "Windows" is in the first place. I find a lot of confusion out there, especially with the OS and apps coming pre-loaded so often. People think Microsoft Office is part of Windows, etc.)
My concern would be long-term hassle and confusion. What if a family member brings over a shiny new piece of software the following XMas (maybe some Family Tree software for Windows, or a Print Shop Deluxe type package, or ??), and they discover their PC can't even run it anymore? Guess who will be blamed? Yep - that damn technician who wiped out my whole hard drive and set me up this other stuff that was supposed to be so much "better"!
Haha... that's what made this video all the *better* for me! I hate hip-hop, R&B and most rap music ... and this incredibly annoying local hip-hop radio station put "Ridin'" in such hot rotation, even *I* had heard it dozens of times, unwillingly. Too many hair salons, people driving by with car stereos cranked up to 11, and so forth have that station on - and with maybe 15-20 songs total in their playlist, it's always coming up!
Even if YouTube lost a bunch of popularity, it would theoretically be left with at least *some* content it owned rights to. I thought part of their terms of service included the fact that they reserve the rights to whatever content you upload to them? Obviously, uploads of previously copyrighted works don't apply -- but there are probably loads of humorous "reality TV-esque" clips made by college students and the like that YouTube could sort though, package up, and resell.
Would that make them worth 1.5 billion? Nah... but it has some value you can't completely discount.
Effectively, I think many do. The article said some machines require access to switches found behind the front panel of the machine - which you're not going to be able to get at without unlocking it first.
And I say, get off your high horse! There are plenty of intelligent, rational people out there who may not be very computer-savvy and/or internet-savvy. Some of the phishing scams are quite well done, and would make *most* people at least take a second look at them.
In fact, despite working in I.T. for 15 years myself, I was tricked once into turning over my eBay username and password by a phishing scam. (Someone sent me a perfect duplicate of one of eBay's emails they send when you've sold enough product to become one of their "Powersellers", and asked me to click to sign in and activate said account.)
I actually had "Powerseller" status at one time, but didn't maintain enough $ volume each month to keep it. So when I got this email, I assumed they were offering it to me again (since it just so happened that I sold quite a few larger, more expensive items shortly before this email arrived).
Sure, you can be all smug about it, and say "Well, you should have examined the URL it took you to, to see that it wasn't really one of eBay's servers!" or what-not. But when you're in a hurry, trying to sift through and reply to a bunch of email - eventually, it's possible to slip up.
I used to think this too. I purchased a copy of "Muvaudio" for my PC, for just that purpose. Since it installs a "virtual audio patch cable" device that it routes though, it would seem the whole process stays digital (so no "loss" like you'd get from actually using analog patch cords from an earphone/spkr out to a Mic/Line in).
.WMV files, vs. re-recording the audio, and then used a converter tool to go from the DRM-free .WMV file to 192-bit MP3 in a seperate step. And I'm almost positive I'm getting better quality MP3s now as a result.
I converted a whole slew of music files out of protected WMA format to MP3 192-bit with it, and they sounded good.
*BUT*, I tried playing with one of those programs that simply strips the DRM off of the
It's hard to describe the difference, but I especially notice it at lower listening volumes on my car stereo. The ones made via Muvaudio tend to make the listener want to turn the stereo up louder to hear the track more clearly. And when you do, it sounds good - but your ears get "fatigued" more quickly than normal. There's a little less "warmth" to the overall sound than there should be.
I think you're mostly right, but it's also not totally logical to "blow off" the entire "graphics arms race" going on. Depending on the genre of game you like to play, graphics are critically important. One prime example that comes to my mind is driving games. Sure, realistic physics, interesting tracks, and lots of different types of vehicles to race are key -- but the "eye candy" is also part of the fun. At some point, you're able to simulate a car race to the point where it's as close to real life as you can get, short of owning a car simulator to sit inside of and have all the same controls a real car has. Racing enthusiasts want to get immersed in the game as deeply as possible, and that means cars that look just like someone's favorites, a realistic simulation of what's really encountered on the road (such as the sun glaring through your windshield when you're driving into it, or accurate depictions of cloudy, rainy or foggy days), and attention to details like skid marks left behind when cars spin out. (Amazing how often games are written that get this right, except the marks disappear as soon as you drive back over the same area again!) You need really good graphics capabilities to pull all of this off in a photo-realistic and smooth manner.
I know I have a tough time going back to the really old driving games that I thought were "awesome" years ago (Pitstop 2, for example). The graphics are just too poor compared to what I'm used to now.
I completely hear you there! For starters, I think this "3rd. place" concept is flawed when applied to massively multiplayer online games, because you're generally still playing them in the "1st. place" - your house or apartment!
... not necessarily because you really feel like playing for the pure fun of it. And all the while, you're trading off hours of your "real, physical life" for a virtual one. An awful lot of parents are ignoring their own children in order to play their MMORPGs - whereas if they really left the house to "go out", they'd at least be compelled to pay for a sitter to entertain and teach their kid a little bit while they're away.
The reason places like the "corner bar" (a la "Cheers") are popular with some people is just as much the fact that it gets them out of the house (and someplace *other* than work) as it is the "social interaction" factor.
It's really about doing something that breaks up your routine, while letting you interact with some new people (and a few friends too).
From what I've seen of MMORPG's - users often become addicted to them and swear up and down that they've met this whole new world of friends on there. But those "friends" tend to disappear fast if they quit paying their monthly bill and find other interests. (It's a little like the drug user junkie who considers his dealer his good friend.)
Furthermore, MMORPGs *encourage* routine. You form these clans or guilds, and then they get pushy about you getting online every day at certain times so the group can organize for a battle or raid. You start playing just because you "need some more gold" to buy some object in the game
After reading the article, I didn't get the idea it was trying to unravel a mystery, so much as point out that we're running a risk of becoming economically lopsided. The healthcare industry needs to take a closer look at achieving efficiency, rather than "scaling up" labor as the only solution.
Many folks actually working in hospitals and doctor's offices would be quick to tell you that nearly half of all the labor going on there revolves around paperwork and meeting legal requirements. I do some computer consulting and support work for a very small doctor's office, and they recently had to move to a larger office simply because they used up all of their floor space with file cabinets full of old patient records!
This is absurd! Nobody is forced to upload their content to YouTube! They haven't kept their terms a secret, as evidenced by the fact that you're aware that they claim ownership of all content uploaded to them.
Most of the homemade stuff put on YouTube is not worthy of copyrighting in the first place. It's just college students playing around with a camcorder and throwing some junk up there for their buddies to laugh at, and people trying to hone their skills at making documentaries by putting some "trial runs" online for the world to critique them.
YouTube is just hoping some quality "underground" material might get posted that ends up being profitable for them by a fluke. If they didn't stake a copyright claim on the uploads, they'd be out of the loop on profiting from it, despite footing the bill for all of the distribution costs.
The people posting commercial, copyrighted works are just doing so because they *can*. YouTube is probably smart not to proactively erase such content themselves, because as soon as they do so even one time, they destroy any legal argument that it's "just not feasible to police the uploaded content due to the quantity". (EG. An attempt at claiming a "common carrier" status.) But realistically, if something is already copyrighted, YouTube has no claim of "taking that copyright over" just because someone uploaded it.
Personally, I'd wait to see how it pans out before buying. First off, what kind of battery life is this going to have? With wi-fi and everything, I can't see how it'll be very good at all.
Second, what about the accessories? Right now, my iPod can be fully controlled from my Pioneer car stereo through their interface (and it charges the iPod for you too). Think they'll offer the same for Zune players? What about all the other iPod-related devices that have cropped up like clock radios with iPod docks, voice recorder add-ons, and digital camera storage adapters?