So let's see...over a year after OSX is introduced into a captive market they have...1 million units installed. Out of about 30 million machines? That's a whopping 3%. Oh, but they expect to have 5 million by the end of the year. A whopping 16%!
I am sitting here writing a cross-platform client for a startup. Mac is 5% of the market and OSX is 16% of that by the end of the year, so guess what target I am working on? I'm sure we will get to the OSX version one day, but not for a few months yet.
OS9 is alive and well. So, it appears, is Steve's Reality Distortion Field(tm).
I am not advocating "workers own the company" liberal commie horse crap, but I am not taking this National Socialism any more!
Why not? And it doesn't have to be communist - there are plenty of _functioning_ anarchist models out there that do just this (the 50 year old Mondragon cooperative system to name just one).
You are a slave at work because you have no political rights at work. But if you have a realistic say in how the business is run (i.e. equal shares as opposed to token stock options) then there is much less of the us vs. them mentality dominating this thread.
Pullman may have been _trying_ to condemn those who seek power, but Asriel is a decidedly heroic figure. Asriel's fate seemed to me to be very much in line with Pagan ideas on action and reaction - he finds redemption in his Phyrric victory, and this is heroic.
He is certainly given more sympathy than the church, which strikes me as a flaw. If the church leadership had been presented in a similarly complex manner, I don't think it would have bothered me as much. Yes, I am a Christian, but not of the kind that you seem to expect - I also enjoyed the Narnia books, but I am not blind or stupid and I would agree with some of Pullman's criticisms of the series while debating others.
Pullman's portrayal of heaven and hell is nothing I haven't seen before, but it is also a caricature and I object to it on _literary_ grounds - if he wants to use aspects of christian authoritarianism to condemn tyranny (which as an anarchist I can definitely see the logic of) he should do a better job of it. That is all.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this series, but I have to say I did enjoy it despite some very upsetting flaws.
Good things: Very well written, beautiful even, in an almost classical sort of way. Strong characters and strong emotions, serious coming of age issues. His compassion for his protaganists is deep.
Bad things: I hate it when people use Everett-Wheeler as a narrative device because EW basically destroys the meaning of human action. Think of it - there is another universe where the characters make all the same choices until suddenly they do something random. Or there is another universe in which the same events happen, except a bee farts in the Andromeda galaxy. Posit parallel universes if you like, but leave EW out of it.
Ugly things: It was mentioned that "organized religion" is presented in a bad light. More accurately, Mr. Pullman appears to be some sort of rabid pagan with a massive chip on his shoulder. But that is his right. What bothered me was how he spent the first book describing a particularly ugly situation created by the church and condemning it, then had one of his protaganists (Asriel) do exactly the same thing (kill innocents for power) and portrayed it as virtue. As ethics, this is hypocricy, pure and simple. I suppose his characters are entitled to be hypocrites, but there is something smug and self-righteous about his presentation that goes beyond that and pissed me off.
This is Vernor Vinge "Signularity" theory. It assumes that growth does not have a natural bound (i.e. is not asymtotic in the long term). No idea if this is true or not.
It also assumes we won't blow ourselves up or something (e.g. "Blood Music").
Re:WTC bombing prophesied on rap album cover.
on
More WTC News
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· Score: 1
The most _anti_-prophetic thing I have seen was the WSJ front page sub headline in column 1 that day:
"D.C. will not burn"
I guess the powers that be aren't as much in charge as they would like us to think they are...
There is nothing you can do except hold on to you gun untill revolution version 2 comes? You think the corporations can't afford bigger, better guns than average person on the street?
Exactly. And since they control the government, they control the army. Look, I have a 3rd dan black belt with 16 years of training and I have no illusions about my ability to stand up in hand-to-hand combat with members of the armed forces. I would last a bit longer than the average Joe, but not much. I have no idea why these gun nuts think that a few hours of practice a week will enable them and a few of their friends to stand up to a US army battalion.
Maybe you should actually try democracy.
Unfortunately, the US is not a democracy, as many pointed out here during the election mess. It is a republic, which gives inordinate power to right wing minorites in a few states like Wyoming (15% of the US population elects 50% of the senate.) Not only that, but the US form of government is not really set up to form coalitions like the ones you mention. This is what happened to Al Gore: instead of trying to form an alliance with the Naderites before the election, he just patronized them. Net result: he lost the election. Maybe he will remember next time, but I'm not holding my breath.
So a revolution is the only thing that will work, and that requires the support of the military. The largest bastion of support for the right wing, pro-business agenda and the gawdalmighty dollar in the country.
En mass, people are dumb, and make dumb decisions,... but with a republic, we get a lot more common sense thrown into the mix.
Huh? I would say that living in a republic is precisely the problem here.
People make dumb decisions, but mostly they want free stuff. I really doubt that the great unwashed in Mr. Hatch's district are clamouring for this bill. To get this sort of nonsense usually requires someone powerful with an agenda.
So let's see, who could possibly want draconian penalties for "computer crime"? Probably the usual gang of small (and not so small) businessmen who are terrified by technology and its threats (real and imagined) but can't stay away from it because it reeks of money. The same folks who fund Mr. Hatch's campaigns. And because Utah is crawling with this kind of businessman (Amway anyone?) the usual happens.
I'm glad we are getting some reporting on it, but "follow the money" (or Qui bono? as the Romans used to say) is still the most valid form of political analysis.
Re:OT: RE: ...or to save your soul?
on
Geek Charities?
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As an Anglican (as opposed to Roman) Catholic, I have to say with you, "Where to start?"
Despite your apparent attempt to villify catholics for some reason (are you an American fundamentalist of some stripe?) your summary of the theology is pretty universal. I don't know where the original poster got this idea of charity being a way of buying your way into heaven, but the notion of grace being unearned is pretty fundamental. There have been various distortions of it over the years (Roman indulgances, and Calvinist work ethic to name two) but to say that Christians are charitable because they are saving their own soul is heretical (i.e. against accepted denominational teaching) in just about any sect I am aware of, including the Roman church.
Now there is a good argument to be made that one should try to discern where one's gifts are best used before doing anything, but this is just general good advice and I have heard the same argument from a Zen monk. On the other side of that coin is the argument that giving as a form of self-discipline will make you more charitable, but the motivation here is to bring your inner emotional life into line with your reason, not to earn anything. Grace motivates you to be more charitable.
And please don't claim that Roman Catholics are not Christians. I have no trouble accepting both them and you as fellow Christians. Despite the fact that the three of us would have some very spirited arguments on all sorts of topics (starting with biblical authority), the fact that we all accept the basic truth of what you describe gives us an awful lot in common.
When I was out speaking at an e-Biz conference in San Diego last February, somebody asked me this question ("What do you suggest for retaining your top talent?") I answered "Call him a vice president and send him to San Diego to speak at a conference." It was only partly a joke.
Of course this is not a joke. Unfortunately, you can't make everyone a vice president. Or can you?
The real problem is that everyone is treating employees like commodities these days and then are surprised when they act that way. If a company has a right to fire me because they aren't making enough money to pay both me and the shareholders, then I have a right to leave for the same reason. More so if you believe (as I do) that companies do not have the same rights as individuals. And no amount of whining about lack of loyalty will hold on to them.
The best way to hold on to employees is to make them owners. And I don't mean the token bullshit that comanies like Amazon.com do. Real employee ownership will keep them there. Then they get to decide how much to pay themselves, what the benefits are (including training) and they have a real voice in redressing their grievances. As a business owner (i.e. majority shareholder) you probably don't want to hear this, but it is true.
And don't tell me it can't be done. It has been done far too many times with far too much success for lame counter-arguments to still be around. We can argue about the trade-offs involved, but not the basic feasibility.
Good question. One of Oliver Sacks' books has an essay on this. _An Anthropologist on Mars_ maybe?
The simple answer is that they can't. The first experiments to restore sight in the late 1700s with cataract replacement surgery were a failure because there is a small window of opportunity in the development of the visual cortex. Even people who are not born blind but have been blind a long time have a lot of trouble becoming visual again and many don't succeed. Blind people seem to have significantly different models of the world (e.g. they generally conceptualize distance in terms of time, not spacial referents) and changing back is often more than most can manage.
By the same token, people who are sighted often have a lot of trouble adapting to being blind because they are not wired correctly either.
What he doesn't seem to realize (and Gore either, for that matter) is that the Internet would have developed without him -- it certainly didn't need his help.
Yes, and I'm sure that The Bill (or some kind hearted capitalist like him) would have done it and we would all now be paying him/her to read Slashdot.
Improve you skills every single day of your life. I have kids and a home yet I still find at least 1+ hours a night to learn. (I only sleep 6 hours total through:).
What does this have to do with the cost of labor? Given two equally skilled workers, one of whom charges 40% less and can't talk back, who would you choose?
Become a leader at your workplace. Dont just do the bare minimum to get by. Go beyond what you are expected to do.
Why? Am I being paid to do this? Will it beenfit me in any way other than not being beaten quite so much?
Make suggestions regarding new ideas you might have to your boss and sell it to others
Great. They take the ideas and then fire you (this has happened to me).
Make yourself essential in your work environment by getting into important projects
Ditto. Makes no difference.
Teach others in your workplace and expand their knowledge. It will only help you in the long run and display your leadership skills (but dont teach them every trick:) gotta keep a few tricks in the bag:).
Is your employer going to compensate you for these activities or are you just going to provide them with free training?
Train, Train, Train! Get a job at a company that offers 2 weeks training a year. Take it! Use it to make yourself more valuable.
Making yourself more valuable is counterproductive. If you charge more, they will fire you and replace you with someone cheaper. probably with an H-1B visa.
If you are working on mainframes or fox pro or other dying technologies.. then get off your ass and learn some new tech.
Another self training argument.
Keep up with tech news and industry trends.
Ditto
If you dont LOVE computers then become a cop or fireman or something. Computer work requires that you love doing what you do.
No it doesn't. Like any profession, it helps, but it is not essential. Not hating it, however, is more important.
Wake up! Life moves very fast. If you dont stop and take a look around every once in a while you will miss it, Buhler:)
Not sure that this has to do with H-1B visas, aside from the fact that our corporate masteres have managed to create a world in which we have no time to do anything and are then made to feel guilty that we don't spend what little time we have evaluating long distance plans.
Yesterday, our upstairs neighbors (who I had never met) came down to our office desperately looking for anyone who understood JSP. It appears that they contracted with a foreign software house to have a web application built, and it is both late and non-functional. They knew we were programmers and were hoping that we had a clue. We don't, but some friends of ours do, so I hooked everyone up.
I hope they now realize that technical competence is more than a commodity. And I must say that I also hope that my buddy takes what little cash they have left before they go down in flames.
There seem to be a few comments in here about the "price" of the OSX beta. Developers will be recieving a free seed CD in the mail. (Hopefully tomorrow as I really need it to work on some of my development tools.)
Many of the desires of the characters in "Deepness" are impossible to fulfill in the Slow Zone, and they are not even aware of the existence of the Zones, which appear to be possibly artificial measures to protect the birth and development of infant civilizations from otherwise being overwhelmed by any single expansive species (This is one of the more original answers to Fermi's paradox concerning the apparent absence of detectable extraterrestrial civilizations).
Huh, I must have missed that. I got the impression that it was a physical constraint, maybe related to Penrose's notions about consciousness and graviton mass. The closer in you get to a galactic gravity well, the less complex your quantum computer can be before the waveform collapses. And hence a limit on how complex your mind can be. And many other authors (e.g. C. J. Cherryh)have placed limits on FTL around gravity wells.
I'm not sure what you are referring to in B5, though. Stracynski claims to have had the basic 5 year plot worked out in the late 80s. But someone should ask him.
Does anyone think that one could make a legal argument that the NDA was signed under protest, or duress, due to the complete industry lockout of anyone who won't sign an NDA?
Funny, this is essentially the argument for a minimum wage. As the choice is between working for what you can get and starvation, I would argue that most workers are working under duress for less than they would normally sell their labour for if they had access to the necessary resources to survive. The fact that these resources are all owned by a few individuals who can charge what they like for them, and that these same individuals control the monetary system needed, means that most of us are simply their slaves.
Slashdot Mirror
"Anyone who reads a novelization of a screenplay deserves professional help, not our pity."
Why on earth are you using Carbon for non-OSX development? Just write a Classic version.
So let's see...over a year after OSX is introduced into a captive market they have...1 million units installed. Out of about 30 million machines? That's a whopping 3%. Oh, but they expect to have 5 million by the end of the year. A whopping 16%!
I am sitting here writing a cross-platform client for a startup. Mac is 5% of the market and OSX is 16% of that by the end of the year, so guess what target I am working on? I'm sure we will get to the OSX version one day, but not for a few months yet.
OS9 is alive and well. So, it appears, is Steve's Reality Distortion Field(tm).
Why not? And it doesn't have to be communist - there are plenty of _functioning_ anarchist models out there that do just this (the 50 year old Mondragon cooperative system to name just one).
You are a slave at work because you have no political rights at work. But if you have a realistic say in how the business is run (i.e. equal shares as opposed to token stock options) then there is much less of the us vs. them mentality dominating this thread.
Pullman may have been _trying_ to condemn those who seek power, but Asriel is a decidedly heroic figure. Asriel's fate seemed to me to be very much in line with Pagan ideas on action and reaction - he finds redemption in his Phyrric victory, and this is heroic.
He is certainly given more sympathy than the church, which strikes me as a flaw. If the church leadership had been presented in a similarly complex manner, I don't think it would have bothered me as much. Yes, I am a Christian, but not of the kind that you seem to expect - I also enjoyed the Narnia books, but I am not blind or stupid and I would agree with some of Pullman's criticisms of the series while debating others.
Pullman's portrayal of heaven and hell is nothing I haven't seen before, but it is also a caricature and I object to it on _literary_ grounds - if he wants to use aspects of christian authoritarianism to condemn tyranny (which as an anarchist I can definitely see the logic of) he should do a better job of it. That is all.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this series, but I have to say I did enjoy it despite some very upsetting flaws.
Good things: Very well written, beautiful even, in an almost classical sort of way. Strong characters and strong emotions, serious coming of age issues. His compassion for his protaganists is deep.
Bad things: I hate it when people use Everett-Wheeler as a narrative device because EW basically destroys the meaning of human action. Think of it - there is another universe where the characters make all the same choices until suddenly they do something random. Or there is another universe in which the same events happen, except a bee farts in the Andromeda galaxy. Posit parallel universes if you like, but leave EW out of it.
Ugly things: It was mentioned that "organized religion" is presented in a bad light. More accurately, Mr. Pullman appears to be some sort of rabid pagan with a massive chip on his shoulder. But that is his right. What bothered me was how he spent the first book describing a particularly ugly situation created by the church and condemning it, then had one of his protaganists (Asriel) do exactly the same thing (kill innocents for power) and portrayed it as virtue. As ethics, this is hypocricy, pure and simple. I suppose his characters are entitled to be hypocrites, but there is something smug and self-righteous about his presentation that goes beyond that and pissed me off.
This is Vernor Vinge "Signularity" theory. It assumes that growth does not have a natural bound (i.e. is not asymtotic in the long term). No idea if this is true or not.
It also assumes we won't blow ourselves up or something (e.g. "Blood Music").
The most _anti_-prophetic thing I have seen was the WSJ front page sub headline in column 1 that day:
"D.C. will not burn"
I guess the powers that be aren't as much in charge as they would like us to think they are...
"But Yossarian still didn't understand how Milo could make a profit buying eggs for 7 cents apiece and selling them for 5 cents."
- Joseph Heller, _Catch-22_
Exactly. And since they control the government, they control the army. Look, I have a 3rd dan black belt with 16 years of training and I have no illusions about my ability to stand up in hand-to-hand combat with members of the armed forces. I would last a bit longer than the average Joe, but not much. I have no idea why these gun nuts think that a few hours of practice a week will enable them and a few of their friends to stand up to a US army battalion.Unfortunately, the US is not a democracy, as many pointed out here during the election mess. It is a republic, which gives inordinate power to right wing minorites in a few states like Wyoming (15% of the US population elects 50% of the senate.) Not only that, but the US form of government is not really set up to form coalitions like the ones you mention. This is what happened to Al Gore: instead of trying to form an alliance with the Naderites before the election, he just patronized them. Net result: he lost the election. Maybe he will remember next time, but I'm not holding my breath.
So a revolution is the only thing that will work, and that requires the support of the military. The largest bastion of support for the right wing, pro-business agenda and the gawdalmighty dollar in the country.
We are well and truly fucked.
People make dumb decisions, but mostly they want free stuff. I really doubt that the great unwashed in Mr. Hatch's district are clamouring for this bill. To get this sort of nonsense usually requires someone powerful with an agenda.
So let's see, who could possibly want draconian penalties for "computer crime"? Probably the usual gang of small (and not so small) businessmen who are terrified by technology and its threats (real and imagined) but can't stay away from it because it reeks of money. The same folks who fund Mr. Hatch's campaigns. And because Utah is crawling with this kind of businessman (Amway anyone?) the usual happens.
I'm glad we are getting some reporting on it, but "follow the money" (or Qui bono? as the Romans used to say) is still the most valid form of political analysis.
As an Anglican (as opposed to Roman) Catholic, I have to say with you, "Where to start?"
Despite your apparent attempt to villify catholics for some reason (are you an American fundamentalist of some stripe?) your summary of the theology is pretty universal. I don't know where the original poster got this idea of charity being a way of buying your way into heaven, but the notion of grace being unearned is pretty fundamental. There have been various distortions of it over the years (Roman indulgances, and Calvinist work ethic to name two) but to say that Christians are charitable because they are saving their own soul is heretical (i.e. against accepted denominational teaching) in just about any sect I am aware of, including the Roman church.
Now there is a good argument to be made that one should try to discern where one's gifts are best used before doing anything, but this is just general good advice and I have heard the same argument from a Zen monk. On the other side of that coin is the argument that giving as a form of self-discipline will make you more charitable, but the motivation here is to bring your inner emotional life into line with your reason, not to earn anything. Grace motivates you to be more charitable.
And please don't claim that Roman Catholics are not Christians. I have no trouble accepting both them and you as fellow Christians. Despite the fact that the three of us would have some very spirited arguments on all sorts of topics (starting with biblical authority), the fact that we all accept the basic truth of what you describe gives us an awful lot in common.
can be found here.
The real problem is that everyone is treating employees like commodities these days and then are surprised when they act that way. If a company has a right to fire me because they aren't making enough money to pay both me and the shareholders, then I have a right to leave for the same reason. More so if you believe (as I do) that companies do not have the same rights as individuals. And no amount of whining about lack of loyalty will hold on to them.
The best way to hold on to employees is to make them owners. And I don't mean the token bullshit that comanies like Amazon.com do. Real employee ownership will keep them there. Then they get to decide how much to pay themselves, what the benefits are (including training) and they have a real voice in redressing their grievances. As a business owner (i.e. majority shareholder) you probably don't want to hear this, but it is true.
And don't tell me it can't be done. It has been done far too many times with far too much success for lame counter-arguments to still be around. We can argue about the trade-offs involved, but not the basic feasibility.
Good question. One of Oliver Sacks' books has an essay on this. _An Anthropologist on Mars_ maybe?
The simple answer is that they can't. The first experiments to restore sight in the late 1700s with cataract replacement surgery were a failure because there is a small window of opportunity in the development of the visual cortex. Even people who are not born blind but have been blind a long time have a lot of trouble becoming visual again and many don't succeed. Blind people seem to have significantly different models of the world (e.g. they generally conceptualize distance in terms of time, not spacial referents) and changing back is often more than most can manage.
By the same token, people who are sighted often have a lot of trouble adapting to being blind because they are not wired correctly either.
Stop whining about American workers.
What does this have to do with the cost of labor? Given two equally skilled workers, one of whom charges 40% less and can't talk back, who would you choose?
Why? Am I being paid to do this? Will it beenfit me in any way other than not being beaten quite so much?
Great. They take the ideas and then fire you (this has happened to me).
Ditto. Makes no difference.
Is your employer going to compensate you for these activities or are you just going to provide them with free training?
Making yourself more valuable is counterproductive. If you charge more, they will fire you and replace you with someone cheaper. probably with an H-1B visa.
Another self training argument.
Ditto
No it doesn't. Like any profession, it helps, but it is not essential. Not hating it, however, is more important.
Not sure that this has to do with H-1B visas, aside from the fact that our corporate masteres have managed to create a world in which we have no time to do anything and are then made to feel guilty that we don't spend what little time we have evaluating long distance plans.
Yesterday, our upstairs neighbors (who I had never met) came down to our office desperately looking for anyone who understood JSP. It appears that they contracted with a foreign software house to have a web application built, and it is both late and non-functional. They knew we were programmers and were hoping that we had a clue. We don't, but some friends of ours do, so I hooked everyone up.
I hope they now realize that technical competence is more than a commodity. And I must say that I also hope that my buddy takes what little cash they have left before they go down in flames.
There seem to be a few comments in here about the "price" of the OSX beta. Developers will be recieving a free seed CD in the mail. (Hopefully tomorrow as I really need it to work on some of my development tools.)
I'm not sure what you are referring to in B5, though. Stracynski claims to have had the basic 5 year plot worked out in the late 80s. But someone should ask him.
Nice summary of Vinge's work, though.
This could be great for reverse engineering bottom feeders.
I mean headhunters.
Welcome to anarchism.
Sounds like an article of faith for you...
If we define an OS as a means for scheduling hardware usage, then the first OS must have been the clipboard outside the lab!