With all the research on going around us, one would have expected some new breakthrough in cures for some of the diseases that plague us. However, since there is only one broad category for medicine and physiology, chances are that new techniques to identify/cure diseases would always take precedence over research of this kind - which though not earth shattering, would have taken as much decidation and perseverance.
I am not sure how these numbers will look after employment rates, out-sourcing etc. are taken into consideration but I can say this, the situation does seem to be getting a little better. I joined my present company when the industry was going into free-fall. For the first two years, my work was not even appraised because there was no room for even token pay hikes, what with the company being in the red and all. Then almost after 3 years, a few months ago, I was given a pay increase.
Another sign of things being on the mend - last week I got a call from a recruiter and I thought the species were near extinction!
This raises all sorts of interesting questions. Since folks like Netflix and Walmart have to buy the copies of the movies they rent out, the movies that are distributed via hard disks will need to be licensed copies as well. I wonder how the owners of the rights will keep track of the copies that are put on the hard disks - especially since the intention is to reuse the media.
The mode of distribution is not also as simple as the Netflix mechanism. Sending hard drives by mail cannot be as easy or cost effective as sending CDs by mail.
Some of what he says does sound futuristic - it may well become feasible in the future, but would it be possible now?
With the introduction of the relatively inexpensive CDMA service in India by Reliance, the number of households that have only cellphones is on the rise. This is true especially for young people setting up new homes. What makes this service even more attractive is that it makes nationwide calling very affordable when compared to the regular landline service.
Imagine how far we've come in 72 years - from an average of 25 stopwatches to high speed cameras and microchips in shoes. It makes one really wonder how much more accurate such devices would have to be in the future when men (and women) get faster and races have closer finishes. Maybe we will end up relying more on quantum physics. Then the uncertainity principle kicks in and since "the position and momentum of a particle cannot be simultaneously measured with arbitrarily high precision" - you would either be able to say who won or how fast the winner ran!:)
The report says that the second largest group of users (at 58%) were children between the ages of 2 and 11. It is not as if these users can subscribe to a broadband connection by themselves! I wonder who consumes such numbers. Perhaps these numbers are used to target ads to the right group - but that would mean using services like AOL (shudder).
This could be a little off-topic, but the new Prius introduced in Japan has this cool feature - it parallel parks automatically. New Toyota Takes Pain Out of Parallel Parking
Makes me wonder - the feature does help folks that are parallel-parking challenged, but will it do anything by way of letting them develop a new talent? Sigh!
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe its just a slump year!
With all the research on going around us, one would have expected some new breakthrough in cures for some of the diseases that plague us. However, since there is only one broad category for medicine and physiology, chances are that new techniques to identify/cure diseases would always take precedence over research of this kind - which though not earth shattering, would have taken as much decidation and perseverance.
And in the end "The judges decision is final"!
I am not sure how these numbers will look after employment rates, out-sourcing etc. are taken into consideration but I can say this, the situation does seem to be getting a little better. I joined my present company when the industry was going into free-fall. For the first two years, my work was not even appraised because there was no room for even token pay hikes, what with the company being in the red and all. Then almost after 3 years, a few months ago, I was given a pay increase.
Another sign of things being on the mend - last week I got a call from a recruiter and I thought the species were near extinction!
My 0.02.
This raises all sorts of interesting questions.
Since folks like Netflix and Walmart have to buy the copies of the movies they rent out, the movies that are distributed via hard disks will need to be licensed copies as well. I wonder how the owners of the rights will keep track of the copies that are put on the hard disks - especially since the intention is to reuse the media.
The mode of distribution is not also as simple as the Netflix mechanism. Sending hard drives by mail cannot be as easy or cost effective as sending CDs by mail.
Some of what he says does sound futuristic - it may well become feasible in the future, but would it be possible now?
With the introduction of the relatively inexpensive CDMA service in India by Reliance, the number of households that have only cellphones is on the rise. This is true especially for young people setting up new homes. What makes this service even more attractive is that it makes nationwide calling very affordable when compared to the regular landline service.
Imagine how far we've come in 72 years - from an average of 25 stopwatches to high speed cameras and microchips in shoes. It makes one really wonder how much more accurate such devices would have to be in the future when men (and women) get faster and races have closer finishes. Maybe we will end up relying more on quantum physics. Then the uncertainity principle kicks in and since "the position and momentum of a particle cannot be simultaneously measured with arbitrarily high precision" - you would either be able to say who won or how fast the winner ran! :)
There is hope yet!?
The report says that the second largest group of users (at 58%) were children between the ages of 2 and 11. It is not as if these users can subscribe to a broadband connection by themselves! I wonder who consumes such numbers. Perhaps these numbers are used to target ads to the right group - but that would mean using services like AOL (shudder).
This could be a little off-topic, but the new Prius introduced in Japan has this cool feature - it parallel parks automatically.
New Toyota Takes Pain Out of Parallel Parking
Makes me wonder - the feature does help folks that are parallel-parking challenged, but will it do anything by way of letting them develop a new talent? Sigh!