I think the statement needs a little intellectual honesty. I do agree that the scientific method when used properly is wonderful thing and this case is an example as such. However to limit "close mindedness" to "relgious" people sounds good on/. and gets you some cred with the groupthink crowd, but is pretty weak.
It takes a high degree of personal humility to be open-minded. Particularly when you have a vested interest in a particular outcome, (beit relgious, scientific, political, etc...) many people to greater or lessor extents need to actively pursue impartiality. There are many spheres of life such as politics, sports, business, science, etc. where you find members of those communities not engaging in meaninful dialogue, because they have a vested interest in a particular ideology or theory or methodology.
I have been in lectures where Ph.D.'s would not intellegently debate and discuss a particular set of data or therom contradictory of their own research/worldview. In some scientific fields there are positions you can take that will effectively kill your chances at a tenure-track faculty position; even if you are taken to those positions by the data against your will.
On the other hand I've been in discussions of a religious or political nature where those in discussion where members were looking for insight from other members; including those who were diametrically opposed, because they recognized that they didn't have it all figured out and they'd either be convinced of an alternate or affirmed in their existing position. This isn't to say that religious, poltical, business communities are better or more open minded, or anything to that effect, just that your generalization simply isn't accurate.
Science is great when it is really science. Science is truly lamentable when the theory trumps the data because the theorizer has far too much to lose if the theory is disproven or radically challenged; and broken theories are taught as immutable truth.
I find the term annoying myself. I'd have a lot easier time taking the thing seriously if it had a name like SMS-over-IP. If I pitched it as a campaign avenue to my 60 year old boss, I'd get a response something like "If we're going to send our customers "tweets", we might as well go all out and send them fart blossoms or some other made up nonsense."
That is what kills the big-boxes. The folks "in the know" (which is generally who are willing to pay for the higher-quality, higher margin products) come in and try out all the goodies, decide which one they want, and end up buying the thing online at a better price. They effectively become showrooms for any major purposes (except for items that are generally difficult to ship due to size), like stereos, computers, cameras, and end up only selling big-screens which are becoming more and more low-margin, and are bring purchased less due to the economy, and are easier to ship (being flat) than TVs used to be, video games/DVDs which are low-margin and things like cables, making them a big version of RadioShack, but with a lot more overhead.
Their second bread-and-butter is the extended warranty plans, which are harder to sell as more and more people see consumer electronics as disposable, and with less-skilled sales staff either pushing too hard on stuff on one would ever cover ($3 for a game?) or not pushing at all.
I have to disagree. I have little applets I have written specificly for me, but if I had a little tiny incentive, I might make them a little more suitable for public use. I know, I know, I sould be doing this anyway as a measure of "correctness" (writing apps that are more configurable, generally suited) and I shouldn't need a token gesture to get me to upload it to SourceForge, but that tiny ammount would make me think "I should be uploading this, therefore I should be coding more generally."
I'll avoid the browser war for the moment, and simply comment that it makes sense (as somone who is a developer) and who has been in support roles; that is is arguably the right decision to encourage users (or even force under some circumstances) to use the most current version of the broser of their chosing. IE 6 is out of date, and is almost (when IE 8 hits the scene) 2 versions out of date. That would be like running Firefox 1.x when the world is at 3.x. There comes a point where new functionality is worth losing those who can't/won't update even though it would be safer (generally speaking); and there has to be a point where you cut them loose.
However even though the mobile market is becoming more desktop-esque; having at least the facility to support browsers with less features is very important, and if you set the lowest common denominator to a phone browser, then getting all up in a tizzy over IE6 seems over-excessive (as much as I would prefer to see folks on modern software, since most are free and run on almost any platform.)
Unlike Apple, MS has to invest heavy in R&D because unlike Apple, they don't opperate like a consumer hardware company. Secondly, MS is growing stagnant in the operating system market, because the OS has become ubiquitious, and they have regulators scruitinizing everything they plan to do with their OS offering. Thirdly, if MS does millions in R&D, and their competitors or FOSS can take that and produce a free or cheaper interoperable product, their consumer/desktop software lines are threatened.
MS is moving to the edge of bubble, they need to either realize that they are becoming the next IBM and begin to move away from the desktop market into server/solutions development; or begin to become more of a consumer electronics company, which would require creating "good" consumer electronics and be competitive in that market, not use it as a loss-leader to harm their competitors or further intrench their Windows position. Desktop computing in the past 3-4 years has offered very little that is groundbreaking for the average user, and the best-of-the best in '01 is still good enough for most people. PC manufacturers aren't seeing major growth, only sales in "back-to-school" periods where students become first time buyers rather than using mom & dads aging box, or replacement when existing boxes fail; which more and more consumers and companies are working to reduce.
In a strapped market, where people are much more willing part with hard earned dollars for 6 more inches on their screen with HD more than chips 400MHz faster (but feel slower on bloated software), MS needs to find a new market that they can win, and win big in; or they are going to see their share decreasing.
I have to disagree. Some, like I, listen to the rumors to help drive their pruchasing decisions. For example, if I found out that Apple was going to release a faster Mini, or drop the price on the iMac, or release an 64GB iPhone; depending on my goals, I may wait to make a purchase to get that 64GB version or wait until so the 32GB price drops.
I have people all the time who are considering a new computer (or are considering making the switch) talk to me, and sometimes I can say "I've heard they are releasing a new model with a better screen, and better specs for the same price soon. If you can wait 2-3 months, you can get a faster box for your money" or "I saw a leaked picture of the new Macbooks which look really nice and/or have more ports. I'd hold off for a bit." In the case of those wierd iMac "flower" models (with the LCD on a stick) I had a friend who wanted one really bad, and I heard they were going to be discontinued for the newer model, and she was able to go out and get one before they would be hard to come by new.
All in all, I guess what really matters is how much your situation allows you to flexible to get the most for your money considering "rumors."
That being said, some rumors are a lot more useful than others. (e.g. Apple might be developing a phone vs. a tablet might be released at MacWorld next month).
It would seem more beneficial to try to give specific animal abilities to humans such as increased sensory or physical ability rather than make animals more human. I would think that the only real ability we have is our thumbs and higher reasoning skills, which would need to be intact to truly benefit the animal. Making a dog.5 IQ points smarter by inserting human genes to stimulate brain development makes great science, but isn't that useful in practice. It would need to be a huge jump to make much difference for the animal. Making a human produce more red-blood cells, or more muscles, or stronger immunity, could make a huge difference in athletics (where world-records are broken by milliseconds) or medicine.
I worked at a shop where every client and server was named after the Dell Service tag. It did help identify the box, but made it awfully cumbersome to identify what the server was for without checking the inventory system; which had all that annotated in it. However, it worked well for the clients because we could have users find the service tag Dell had printed on the front of the box very quickly so we could remote in over the phone.
It would seem like a majority of this work is already done as between iChat and Quicktime; most if not all of this functionality in OS X since at least 10.3 (maybe earlier). It would seem all they have to do as the poster said, would be to be able to capture the image on the front of the device or have some sort of add-on and code a front-end for the smaller screen.
I am not surprised Apple didn't release this on 1.x models under Edge and the weaker battery, but even on 3G at a low-scale, it would seem like it would be "good enough" for most applications. I wonder if their problem lies with the agreement with AT&T since they are working to prevent VoIP on the platform. It would be interesting if the carrier could detect packets on a protocol, or maintain the servers that connect the video-calls and charge wireless minutes for this kind of traffic. However, I think carriers ought to move away from the call-minutes model in favor of a flat-fee, as in most calling situations I am in (M2M or Nights/Weekends) that is effectively what they are doing. Though I am sure their two biggest cash cows are overages and SMS, which has been discussed before.
Calvinists have hisorically (in sociological literature) been considered hard workers, because they felt called to work hard and rejected (often times) "worldly pleasures" such as entertainment, therefore worked longer hours, and therefore earned more. They felt it a "sin" to purchase luxuries. Granted, some interpereted their success as divine favor.However, when you generalize a people group by any metric (religion, race, culture) you're going to have a mixture in how the members internalize specific social norms or relgious tenants. It is the same kind of generalization that lends itself to bigotry; to say all $people_group does $trait.
For the sake of intellectual honesty, it would also be very unsafe to look at historic Calvinism and people who would consider themselves "Calvinists" today, as the same thing. Much in the same way you can't look at "Americans" generally speaking today as the same as you would 18-20th centrury Americans. Significant cultural differences make the exercise of their beliefs very differently today; even amongst modern-day Calvinists which spans many national, cultural, racial, and socioeconomic classes of people, you'll find many different expressions of a common religious confession. I've lived all over the US in very different socio-political climates and have seem as much variance in "Calvinistic" circles as any other societal group.
For more reading on the historical sociological understanding of Protestantism (and Calvinism in general) see wikipedia.
Aren't quite a few of the major botnets and viruses coming out of Russia? I don't think Dell or anyone else is questioning that there are some good anf talented programmers who come out of Russia; just that those good programmers aren't working for the government and they might want to hire some consultants for which Dell would be happy to provide at a good price if they can get a Dell on very desk in the Kremlin.
On a side note, why does he bring up that they have good programmers given that Dell is primarly a hardware company simply looking for a government contract?
I think at first it would be useful to define what "higher education" is. If you're talking about University, you'll find that most have been traditional hot-beds for UNIX adoption and development. Most CIS classes these days are being done in Java which is directly portable to OSS platforms.
If you're talking about day-time television advertised trade schools/certification mills; by using Windows they are teaching what the majority of entry level positions are going to encounter, which is being the jack-of-all-trades might manage some older XP boxes, a few laser printers, and maybe a high-end-pc-turned file server in a closet and maybe a switch or two. Using the MS Certification curiculum gives them some credibility with incoming students and makes their life a whole lot easier. I teach at one of these programs on the side, and the command line and scripting is avoided like the plauge in the 80% of the class that is Windows based, and then the Linux/OSS module is very short, and has a huge learning curve.
If you're talking about K-12 schools; the problem is that technology is a small subset of classes taught. It isn't overly important that the English teacher doesn't know that OO.org is "good enough" for them to type their term papers on. If you are refering to the CIS/IT instructors, often their "lab facilities" are dictated by the District central IT, who wants that lab to be standardized accross the board. Having Linux labs for Programming classes, Macs for multimedia, and Windows for Computer App (office, typing, computer literacy) classes makes administration much more difficult for a generally small, underfunded department who has facilities over a large geographic area. For that reason, most schools have Mac or Windows PCs on every teacher desk, and thats what the labs run. MS Office is "very compatible" and "very cheap" for academic institutions and has a greater userbase and most teachers are "good enough" to figure it out. I'm with everyone here when I say that OO.org 3.x is more like MS Office 97-2003 than MS Office 2007 is; but most of those Computer Apps classes are using off-the-shelf MS Office ciriculum that is scarce or doesn't exist for OO.org.
To address the problem that K-12 teachers don't know what they are doing, is that most are union (Disclaimer: Until I get this gig I was union), and unless they bitch slap a kid or show up drunk, or do something un-"PC", they aren't going to fire them. This is particularly true for IT/CIS teachers, because Administrators don't know how deficient they are, and there is no objective state-exam to prove his students are not being taught versus the rest of the state like in the core-subject areas like math or reading. There is next to no incentive for teachers to learn new skills more than enough to get students to be able to answer the questions out of the book (other than their own knowledge), and particularly at the 9-12 range, teachers are put into subject-areas rather than specific courses. I had a teacher who moon-lights as an Accounting prof, who was amazing at MS Office/Excel, but they dropped her into a multimedia class 2 weeks before the course started (against her will) and it was unreasonable that she'd be "stellar" teaching that course having had no experience.
Sometimes we falsely assume that teachers are mental heavyweights that can pick up new knowledge at the drop of the hat. Most of us here on/. pick stuff up as we go along, but to go from no-knowledge to being able to teach others in a short period is unrealistic for most people whose college education was 70% teaching methods, 30% subject area and was probably 10-20 years ago.
All that being said, I wish teachers would see the merit in improving their skills for the good of their students or their own knowledge, but many simply don't care because it doesn't effect them; and many are very set in their ways. (I am married to; and work with teachers).
Cost is very important particularly in business, but for home users the price for a "good enough" PC has been in the same 600-1200 price range for a long time. What I think will drive sales particularly in the home, and mobile professional is size, have less wires, and use less energy. Folks are willing to pay more for that; rather than more powerful chips that they don't need. This should be good news for OEMs, because it is easier to show the "average" user a more aesthetic case, or more wireless peripherals, or a better/faster OS, than convincing them that Word, IE and MSN Messenger are going to be "better" on a 2.4GHz chip over a 2.0GHz chip.
The only companies that should be frightened are CPU manufactuers (particularly as more and more functions are being passed off to GPUs; and as developers are not catching up to multi-core development as fast as they'd like).
As other posters have said, the company does care quite a bit about the shareholders, however, if the subscriber is neglected and quits the service; they don't meet their profit forecasts, their shareholders are going to jump ship. Every customer gets to vote with their dollars, which is generally very co-related in the company's stock price, which is what the shareholders care about.
The companies do not care about the customer when they are a total monopoly in a market; or care only enough to not get slammed by the state (as was the case of SBC/Ameritech in Ohio), but more and more customers are open to more-and-more choice in their TV/Phone/Internet provider, and companies that don't value the customer is going to find their customers going elsewhere.
When will these companies realize who their customers are? It is the subscriber.
If they'll give my information to a corrupt trade organization whose strategy is suing grandmas, kids dead people and folks without computers, who else would they be willing to sell my personal information to?
They are either getting some money from the labels to do this to offset the customers who they are going to piss off, or they are counting on being a natural monopoly in certain markets. That or they've sold more broadband at cheap prices to get folks off dial up and realized that they can't turn a profit when you have folks choking down their connection. If Net Neutrality wins the day, and they can't throttle or shape the user's traffic any more, the only recourse companies will have is kicking their "excessive" users off the plan by either invoking the AUP or getting the RIAA to sue them into being a non-customer so they can let the *AA look like assholes instead of the ISP.
The issue comes with "current" sales being less than their "goals." (A fundamental always present problem in capitalism, particularly of companies with shareholders). If you make an RIAA blessed file sharing service and let them set the price on their goals, you've at best, produced a less-financially viable alternative (due to their poor public persona) to other all-you-can-eat music services, and at worst further intrenched their near-monopoly when it comes to price setting.
The second problem would be that the only way for them to "keep" customers paying for the service (which would be required or the cost-of-entry to meet that goal would be astronomically high on sign-up, which would detur customers) would be to use DRM, and as much as I hate DRM, the last person I want holding that digital key is a firm that believes customers ought to re-buy the content everytime technology changes (VHS->DVD->BluRay->Stream).
Thirdly, if by some miracle they didn't use DRM, nothing would stop sharing of the files between non-member users, and they'd still be in the same boat: sharing by customers who can't (because they are under 18 and can't get a credit card), won't (idealism, cheap, lazy, lack of other legal channels) or legal sharing that they'd love to see illegalized (e.g. on all my devices, PCs, including my laptop and work PC, which they insist I ought to buy over-and-over).
Given the large number of althletes who do not have any of these symptoms, but are injured in the same way; it is great that there is a body of knowledge out there to encourage those to be tested as well so there can be a sort of "control" group. I would think it would help deturmine "what kind" or "what extent" of damage the brain can handle and what health factors make others less susceptible to the symptoms (genetics, cell density, injury location, protien/biochemical differences, etc.)
I'm not a doctor but it seems if there is causal evidence for "Alzheimer's like" damage, and non-symptomatic athletes have the same damage(s), it would help researchers isolate causes and contributing (or preventative) factors of the disease for the general population, specifically lessor athletes (amatuer or pre-professional) to make sports safer.
I've always been under the impression that NTFS is inherently slower (though I do not know exactly "how much") because of the processing of ACLs/Audit events that do not take place under FAT32, and that other than for these "features" NTFS and FAT32 are very similar.
Most folks that are on dial-up plans are in the $20-30/month neighborhood in addition to the cost of the landline phone. The cost for lower-speed broadband connections is in the same neighborhood and often times can be combined on their telephone or cable bill, rather than to a 3rd party company. I can't think of any reason why anyone on one of these plans doesn't switch other than laziness. In the past, I've heard the argument that they didn't "want holes drilled in their walls" to run a new cable (e.g. no CATV outlet near their huge computer enclosure desk). With the advent of WiFi nothing is stoping these folks from setting the Cable modem at any CATV jack and putting up a cheap AP (in fact most companies will sell you the equipment and set it up for free/cheap.)
You'd think that we'd do anything to save time, but there are all kinds of folks (particularly older and/or uneducated) that are willing to do things the tedious, long, hard way rather than be troubled to learn anything new. Everytime I've been in a job in IT and watched employees waste company time doing things inefficently (e.g. doing labels one-at-a-time), I've tried to teach them and if they were completely unwilling to even listen or try it, I go to their supervisor and say "I can make a lot more efficent for your department but he/she is completely unwilling to consider it" and usually they come around or are disciplined if they continue to waste time. Half of the battle is knowing.
I don't know a lot about black holes, but if one where to be able to be started on Earth, and consume the entire planet; I would imagine that it wouldn't take much more effort to take the Earth if it started on Mars.
That being said, having research facilities in space or the moon/Mars would allow us to do research that is "too dangerous" to do near people or that would benefit from zero to very low gravity environments.
Using YouTube allows them to have comments, rankings, and seem like the Government is interested in being a member of the internet community; which most agree was a large part of how Obama was able to raise so much support, particularly amongst the under 30 crowd.
If they posted it to their own HTTP server, it would seem just like another PSA. If they hosted it themselves, there would (I would imagine) huge implications regarding comment-moderation, every single design decision in the system open to every possible conspiricy theory (everything is a worm on the hook). If they do it this way, they avoid all that nonsense and and let YouTube be the content/comment police.
Having the community element is huge; as it makes them look more relevant to the internet culture, and probably works well with the fact that most Obama whitehouse staffers probably already know how do physically "produce and post" a video to youtube with very little change in training, which is efficent. Not to mention that a portion of folks that would never visit whitehouse.gov or would visit the youtube video to just bitch about it or flame are still watching it. You're getting eyes you would have probably never gotten. Having the video on YouTube also allows every youth political club or blogger to embed the video directly to their site/blog without the Government incuring bandwidth cost.
Given the ability to look use HTTP Referers; and IP-to-Geography resolution software, the Gov't can get all the useful information it needs about surfers without using cookies, and the fact that it can't "publicly" get the logs from YouTube for the sole purpose of gathering demographic data, means that the cookie is pretty benign; and no more invasive than whatever YouTube does with the cookies whenever you watch a video on any site.
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I think the statement needs a little intellectual honesty. I do agree that the scientific method when used properly is wonderful thing and this case is an example as such. However to limit "close mindedness" to "relgious" people sounds good on /. and gets you some cred with the groupthink crowd, but is pretty weak.
It takes a high degree of personal humility to be open-minded. Particularly when you have a vested interest in a particular outcome, (beit relgious, scientific, political, etc...) many people to greater or lessor extents need to actively pursue impartiality. There are many spheres of life such as politics, sports, business, science, etc. where you find members of those communities not engaging in meaninful dialogue, because they have a vested interest in a particular ideology or theory or methodology.
I have been in lectures where Ph.D.'s would not intellegently debate and discuss a particular set of data or therom contradictory of their own research/worldview. In some scientific fields there are positions you can take that will effectively kill your chances at a tenure-track faculty position; even if you are taken to those positions by the data against your will.
On the other hand I've been in discussions of a religious or political nature where those in discussion where members were looking for insight from other members; including those who were diametrically opposed, because they recognized that they didn't have it all figured out and they'd either be convinced of an alternate or affirmed in their existing position. This isn't to say that religious, poltical, business communities are better or more open minded, or anything to that effect, just that your generalization simply isn't accurate.
Science is great when it is really science. Science is truly lamentable when the theory trumps the data because the theorizer has far too much to lose if the theory is disproven or radically challenged; and broken theories are taught as immutable truth.
I find the term annoying myself. I'd have a lot easier time taking the thing seriously if it had a name like SMS-over-IP. If I pitched it as a campaign avenue to my 60 year old boss, I'd get a response something like "If we're going to send our customers "tweets", we might as well go all out and send them fart blossoms or some other made up nonsense."
I don't think this is analgous to taking notes in a journal, so much as taking notes on the 3rd floor mens' room stall door.
That is what kills the big-boxes. The folks "in the know" (which is generally who are willing to pay for the higher-quality, higher margin products) come in and try out all the goodies, decide which one they want, and end up buying the thing online at a better price. They effectively become showrooms for any major purposes (except for items that are generally difficult to ship due to size), like stereos, computers, cameras, and end up only selling big-screens which are becoming more and more low-margin, and are bring purchased less due to the economy, and are easier to ship (being flat) than TVs used to be, video games/DVDs which are low-margin and things like cables, making them a big version of RadioShack, but with a lot more overhead.
Their second bread-and-butter is the extended warranty plans, which are harder to sell as more and more people see consumer electronics as disposable, and with less-skilled sales staff either pushing too hard on stuff on one would ever cover ($3 for a game?) or not pushing at all.
I have to disagree. I have little applets I have written specificly for me, but if I had a little tiny incentive, I might make them a little more suitable for public use. I know, I know, I sould be doing this anyway as a measure of "correctness" (writing apps that are more configurable, generally suited) and I shouldn't need a token gesture to get me to upload it to SourceForge, but that tiny ammount would make me think "I should be uploading this, therefore I should be coding more generally."
I'll avoid the browser war for the moment, and simply comment that it makes sense (as somone who is a developer) and who has been in support roles; that is is arguably the right decision to encourage users (or even force under some circumstances) to use the most current version of the broser of their chosing. IE 6 is out of date, and is almost (when IE 8 hits the scene) 2 versions out of date. That would be like running Firefox 1.x when the world is at 3.x. There comes a point where new functionality is worth losing those who can't/won't update even though it would be safer (generally speaking); and there has to be a point where you cut them loose.
However even though the mobile market is becoming more desktop-esque; having at least the facility to support browsers with less features is very important, and if you set the lowest common denominator to a phone browser, then getting all up in a tizzy over IE6 seems over-excessive (as much as I would prefer to see folks on modern software, since most are free and run on almost any platform.)
Unlike Apple, MS has to invest heavy in R&D because unlike Apple, they don't opperate like a consumer hardware company. Secondly, MS is growing stagnant in the operating system market, because the OS has become ubiquitious, and they have regulators scruitinizing everything they plan to do with their OS offering. Thirdly, if MS does millions in R&D, and their competitors or FOSS can take that and produce a free or cheaper interoperable product, their consumer/desktop software lines are threatened.
MS is moving to the edge of bubble, they need to either realize that they are becoming the next IBM and begin to move away from the desktop market into server/solutions development; or begin to become more of a consumer electronics company, which would require creating "good" consumer electronics and be competitive in that market, not use it as a loss-leader to harm their competitors or further intrench their Windows position. Desktop computing in the past 3-4 years has offered very little that is groundbreaking for the average user, and the best-of-the best in '01 is still good enough for most people. PC manufacturers aren't seeing major growth, only sales in "back-to-school" periods where students become first time buyers rather than using mom & dads aging box, or replacement when existing boxes fail; which more and more consumers and companies are working to reduce.
In a strapped market, where people are much more willing part with hard earned dollars for 6 more inches on their screen with HD more than chips 400MHz faster (but feel slower on bloated software), MS needs to find a new market that they can win, and win big in; or they are going to see their share decreasing.
I have to disagree. Some, like I, listen to the rumors to help drive their pruchasing decisions. For example, if I found out that Apple was going to release a faster Mini, or drop the price on the iMac, or release an 64GB iPhone; depending on my goals, I may wait to make a purchase to get that 64GB version or wait until so the 32GB price drops.
I have people all the time who are considering a new computer (or are considering making the switch) talk to me, and sometimes I can say "I've heard they are releasing a new model with a better screen, and better specs for the same price soon. If you can wait 2-3 months, you can get a faster box for your money" or "I saw a leaked picture of the new Macbooks which look really nice and/or have more ports. I'd hold off for a bit." In the case of those wierd iMac "flower" models (with the LCD on a stick) I had a friend who wanted one really bad, and I heard they were going to be discontinued for the newer model, and she was able to go out and get one before they would be hard to come by new.
All in all, I guess what really matters is how much your situation allows you to flexible to get the most for your money considering "rumors."
That being said, some rumors are a lot more useful than others. (e.g. Apple might be developing a phone vs. a tablet might be released at MacWorld next month).
It would seem more beneficial to try to give specific animal abilities to humans such as increased sensory or physical ability rather than make animals more human. I would think that the only real ability we have is our thumbs and higher reasoning skills, which would need to be intact to truly benefit the animal. Making a dog .5 IQ points smarter by inserting human genes to stimulate brain development makes great science, but isn't that useful in practice. It would need to be a huge jump to make much difference for the animal. Making a human produce more red-blood cells, or more muscles, or stronger immunity, could make a huge difference in athletics (where world-records are broken by milliseconds) or medicine.
I worked at a shop where every client and server was named after the Dell Service tag. It did help identify the box, but made it awfully cumbersome to identify what the server was for without checking the inventory system; which had all that annotated in it. However, it worked well for the clients because we could have users find the service tag Dell had printed on the front of the box very quickly so we could remote in over the phone.
It would seem like a majority of this work is already done as between iChat and Quicktime; most if not all of this functionality in OS X since at least 10.3 (maybe earlier). It would seem all they have to do as the poster said, would be to be able to capture the image on the front of the device or have some sort of add-on and code a front-end for the smaller screen.
I am not surprised Apple didn't release this on 1.x models under Edge and the weaker battery, but even on 3G at a low-scale, it would seem like it would be "good enough" for most applications. I wonder if their problem lies with the agreement with AT&T since they are working to prevent VoIP on the platform. It would be interesting if the carrier could detect packets on a protocol, or maintain the servers that connect the video-calls and charge wireless minutes for this kind of traffic. However, I think carriers ought to move away from the call-minutes model in favor of a flat-fee, as in most calling situations I am in (M2M or Nights/Weekends) that is effectively what they are doing. Though I am sure their two biggest cash cows are overages and SMS, which has been discussed before.
Calvinists have hisorically (in sociological literature) been considered hard workers, because they felt called to work hard and rejected (often times) "worldly pleasures" such as entertainment, therefore worked longer hours, and therefore earned more. They felt it a "sin" to purchase luxuries. Granted, some interpereted their success as divine favor.However, when you generalize a people group by any metric (religion, race, culture) you're going to have a mixture in how the members internalize specific social norms or relgious tenants. It is the same kind of generalization that lends itself to bigotry; to say all $people_group does $trait.
For the sake of intellectual honesty, it would also be very unsafe to look at historic Calvinism and people who would consider themselves "Calvinists" today, as the same thing. Much in the same way you can't look at "Americans" generally speaking today as the same as you would 18-20th centrury Americans. Significant cultural differences make the exercise of their beliefs very differently today; even amongst modern-day Calvinists which spans many national, cultural, racial, and socioeconomic classes of people, you'll find many different expressions of a common religious confession. I've lived all over the US in very different socio-political climates and have seem as much variance in "Calvinistic" circles as any other societal group.
For more reading on the historical sociological understanding of Protestantism (and Calvinism in general) see wikipedia.
Aren't quite a few of the major botnets and viruses coming out of Russia? I don't think Dell or anyone else is questioning that there are some good anf talented programmers who come out of Russia; just that those good programmers aren't working for the government and they might want to hire some consultants for which Dell would be happy to provide at a good price if they can get a Dell on very desk in the Kremlin.
On a side note, why does he bring up that they have good programmers given that Dell is primarly a hardware company simply looking for a government contract?
I think at first it would be useful to define what "higher education" is. If you're talking about University, you'll find that most have been traditional hot-beds for UNIX adoption and development. Most CIS classes these days are being done in Java which is directly portable to OSS platforms.
/. pick stuff up as we go along, but to go from no-knowledge to being able to teach others in a short period is unrealistic for most people whose college education was 70% teaching methods, 30% subject area and was probably 10-20 years ago.
If you're talking about day-time television advertised trade schools/certification mills; by using Windows they are teaching what the majority of entry level positions are going to encounter, which is being the jack-of-all-trades might manage some older XP boxes, a few laser printers, and maybe a high-end-pc-turned file server in a closet and maybe a switch or two. Using the MS Certification curiculum gives them some credibility with incoming students and makes their life a whole lot easier. I teach at one of these programs on the side, and the command line and scripting is avoided like the plauge in the 80% of the class that is Windows based, and then the Linux/OSS module is very short, and has a huge learning curve.
If you're talking about K-12 schools; the problem is that technology is a small subset of classes taught. It isn't overly important that the English teacher doesn't know that OO.org is "good enough" for them to type their term papers on. If you are refering to the CIS/IT instructors, often their "lab facilities" are dictated by the District central IT, who wants that lab to be standardized accross the board. Having Linux labs for Programming classes, Macs for multimedia, and Windows for Computer App (office, typing, computer literacy) classes makes administration much more difficult for a generally small, underfunded department who has facilities over a large geographic area. For that reason, most schools have Mac or Windows PCs on every teacher desk, and thats what the labs run. MS Office is "very compatible" and "very cheap" for academic institutions and has a greater userbase and most teachers are "good enough" to figure it out. I'm with everyone here when I say that OO.org 3.x is more like MS Office 97-2003 than MS Office 2007 is; but most of those Computer Apps classes are using off-the-shelf MS Office ciriculum that is scarce or doesn't exist for OO.org.
To address the problem that K-12 teachers don't know what they are doing, is that most are union (Disclaimer: Until I get this gig I was union), and unless they bitch slap a kid or show up drunk, or do something un-"PC", they aren't going to fire them. This is particularly true for IT/CIS teachers, because Administrators don't know how deficient they are, and there is no objective state-exam to prove his students are not being taught versus the rest of the state like in the core-subject areas like math or reading. There is next to no incentive for teachers to learn new skills more than enough to get students to be able to answer the questions out of the book (other than their own knowledge), and particularly at the 9-12 range, teachers are put into subject-areas rather than specific courses. I had a teacher who moon-lights as an Accounting prof, who was amazing at MS Office/Excel, but they dropped her into a multimedia class 2 weeks before the course started (against her will) and it was unreasonable that she'd be "stellar" teaching that course having had no experience.
Sometimes we falsely assume that teachers are mental heavyweights that can pick up new knowledge at the drop of the hat. Most of us here on
All that being said, I wish teachers would see the merit in improving their skills for the good of their students or their own knowledge, but many simply don't care because it doesn't effect them; and many are very set in their ways. (I am married to; and work with teachers).
Cost is very important particularly in business, but for home users the price for a "good enough" PC has been in the same 600-1200 price range for a long time. What I think will drive sales particularly in the home, and mobile professional is size, have less wires, and use less energy. Folks are willing to pay more for that; rather than more powerful chips that they don't need. This should be good news for OEMs, because it is easier to show the "average" user a more aesthetic case, or more wireless peripherals, or a better/faster OS, than convincing them that Word, IE and MSN Messenger are going to be "better" on a 2.4GHz chip over a 2.0GHz chip.
The only companies that should be frightened are CPU manufactuers (particularly as more and more functions are being passed off to GPUs; and as developers are not catching up to multi-core development as fast as they'd like).
As other posters have said, the company does care quite a bit about the shareholders, however, if the subscriber is neglected and quits the service; they don't meet their profit forecasts, their shareholders are going to jump ship. Every customer gets to vote with their dollars, which is generally very co-related in the company's stock price, which is what the shareholders care about.
The companies do not care about the customer when they are a total monopoly in a market; or care only enough to not get slammed by the state (as was the case of SBC/Ameritech in Ohio), but more and more customers are open to more-and-more choice in their TV/Phone/Internet provider, and companies that don't value the customer is going to find their customers going elsewhere.
When will these companies realize who their customers are? It is the subscriber.
If they'll give my information to a corrupt trade organization whose strategy is suing grandmas, kids dead people and folks without computers, who else would they be willing to sell my personal information to?
They are either getting some money from the labels to do this to offset the customers who they are going to piss off, or they are counting on being a natural monopoly in certain markets. That or they've sold more broadband at cheap prices to get folks off dial up and realized that they can't turn a profit when you have folks choking down their connection. If Net Neutrality wins the day, and they can't throttle or shape the user's traffic any more, the only recourse companies will have is kicking their "excessive" users off the plan by either invoking the AUP or getting the RIAA to sue them into being a non-customer so they can let the *AA look like assholes instead of the ISP.
The issue comes with "current" sales being less than their "goals." (A fundamental always present problem in capitalism, particularly of companies with shareholders). If you make an RIAA blessed file sharing service and let them set the price on their goals, you've at best, produced a less-financially viable alternative (due to their poor public persona) to other all-you-can-eat music services, and at worst further intrenched their near-monopoly when it comes to price setting.
The second problem would be that the only way for them to "keep" customers paying for the service (which would be required or the cost-of-entry to meet that goal would be astronomically high on sign-up, which would detur customers) would be to use DRM, and as much as I hate DRM, the last person I want holding that digital key is a firm that believes customers ought to re-buy the content everytime technology changes (VHS->DVD->BluRay->Stream).
Thirdly, if by some miracle they didn't use DRM, nothing would stop sharing of the files between non-member users, and they'd still be in the same boat: sharing by customers who can't (because they are under 18 and can't get a credit card), won't (idealism, cheap, lazy, lack of other legal channels) or legal sharing that they'd love to see illegalized (e.g. on all my devices, PCs, including my laptop and work PC, which they insist I ought to buy over-and-over).
Given the large number of althletes who do not have any of these symptoms, but are injured in the same way; it is great that there is a body of knowledge out there to encourage those to be tested as well so there can be a sort of "control" group. I would think it would help deturmine "what kind" or "what extent" of damage the brain can handle and what health factors make others less susceptible to the symptoms (genetics, cell density, injury location, protien/biochemical differences, etc.)
I'm not a doctor but it seems if there is causal evidence for "Alzheimer's like" damage, and non-symptomatic athletes have the same damage(s), it would help researchers isolate causes and contributing (or preventative) factors of the disease for the general population, specifically lessor athletes (amatuer or pre-professional) to make sports safer.
I've always been under the impression that NTFS is inherently slower (though I do not know exactly "how much") because of the processing of ACLs/Audit events that do not take place under FAT32, and that other than for these "features" NTFS and FAT32 are very similar.
Good eye. No they didn't teach me Latin. They taught me Spanish and that went poorly enough.
The full text of the research paper is available at-- http://faculty.psy.ohio-state.edu/marchalant/pdf/marchalantetalneurobiolaging2008.pdf on the co-author's Departmental website. Might be helpful since TFA is an article out of the University's student newspaper which tends to be a little light on details (speaking as an alumni).
Most folks that are on dial-up plans are in the $20-30/month neighborhood in addition to the cost of the landline phone. The cost for lower-speed broadband connections is in the same neighborhood and often times can be combined on their telephone or cable bill, rather than to a 3rd party company. I can't think of any reason why anyone on one of these plans doesn't switch other than laziness. In the past, I've heard the argument that they didn't "want holes drilled in their walls" to run a new cable (e.g. no CATV outlet near their huge computer enclosure desk). With the advent of WiFi nothing is stoping these folks from setting the Cable modem at any CATV jack and putting up a cheap AP (in fact most companies will sell you the equipment and set it up for free/cheap.)
You'd think that we'd do anything to save time, but there are all kinds of folks (particularly older and/or uneducated) that are willing to do things the tedious, long, hard way rather than be troubled to learn anything new. Everytime I've been in a job in IT and watched employees waste company time doing things inefficently (e.g. doing labels one-at-a-time), I've tried to teach them and if they were completely unwilling to even listen or try it, I go to their supervisor and say "I can make a lot more efficent for your department but he/she is completely unwilling to consider it" and usually they come around or are disciplined if they continue to waste time. Half of the battle is knowing.
I don't know a lot about black holes, but if one where to be able to be started on Earth, and consume the entire planet; I would imagine that it wouldn't take much more effort to take the Earth if it started on Mars.
That being said, having research facilities in space or the moon/Mars would allow us to do research that is "too dangerous" to do near people or that would benefit from zero to very low gravity environments.
Using YouTube allows them to have comments, rankings, and seem like the Government is interested in being a member of the internet community; which most agree was a large part of how Obama was able to raise so much support, particularly amongst the under 30 crowd.
If they posted it to their own HTTP server, it would seem just like another PSA. If they hosted it themselves, there would (I would imagine) huge implications regarding comment-moderation, every single design decision in the system open to every possible conspiricy theory (everything is a worm on the hook). If they do it this way, they avoid all that nonsense and and let YouTube be the content/comment police.
Having the community element is huge; as it makes them look more relevant to the internet culture, and probably works well with the fact that most Obama whitehouse staffers probably already know how do physically "produce and post" a video to youtube with very little change in training, which is efficent. Not to mention that a portion of folks that would never visit whitehouse.gov or would visit the youtube video to just bitch about it or flame are still watching it. You're getting eyes you would have probably never gotten. Having the video on YouTube also allows every youth political club or blogger to embed the video directly to their site/blog without the Government incuring bandwidth cost.
Given the ability to look use HTTP Referers; and IP-to-Geography resolution software, the Gov't can get all the useful information it needs about surfers without using cookies, and the fact that it can't "publicly" get the logs from YouTube for the sole purpose of gathering demographic data, means that the cookie is pretty benign; and no more invasive than whatever YouTube does with the cookies whenever you watch a video on any site.