The car companies are planning for the contingency that one day we won't want to pay an extra quarter for every gallon of gas we buy; or that we are put in a position where we are no longer allowed to buy petroleum fuels at all.
I've read the print version of this Wired article; and several other news/etc. articles on the topic. The idea that the car's engine could become one flat panel under the car is not a new concept; but turning those concepts into reality *is* a goal of major car manufacturers in the next decade or so. They're in the business of making money by selling cars/car parts/etc. - if this will let them sell more cars regardless of how long the car parts will last; and they can see a profit in it, they will do it. They will very likely design in MTBF or require programs that 'force' you to replace some of the longer-lasting parts - look at how much a 60,000 mile service at your car dealer costs and don't tell me they won't - but they "will" build alternative type vehicles if it is in their best interests. We have few 'compressed gas' refueling stations; far far fewer 'hydrogen' or 'electric recharge' stations in the country - not to mention the world - so right now it is not in their best interest. When the fuel infrastructure is forced to change - and I bet they will be forced - then the car industry will change. Besides; your local gas station will make the change if the cars make the change because they are not making a very high margin on fuel sales to begin with.
The BIG DEAL is those of us that receive on average 280 pieces of spam per day; often multiples of the same one. I used to use my hotmail account to subscribe to newsletters and trade publications as well as listserv digests; now I have to specifically find out which address each 'bot' is sending from so that I can make sure I get them. I've had to set each of my (now two; it used to be five but I closed them because I could never receive legitimate email they would lock up after the first 75 spams) accounts to accept only those addresses I manually enter in my address book in order to avoid huge amounts of time and energy wasted deleting the spam before I can get to the good stuff... and the collateral damage? New penpals have to make sure they share with me their address right away or the email is blocked; I have to email list admins to allow their stuff through - and I've already mentioned all the time I waste cleaning the stuff that manages to get through.
will end up right next to "Monkey Island" and the rest of the 'bargain bin' games from LucasArts. They may as well start printing the 'classics' boxes in white with the gold banners now. Slapping 'Star Wars' onto a product does not suddenly make it a good game. If it has the chutzpah that (apparently - I haven't bought a copy yet) NeverWinter Nights - from BioWare of course - does, then it'll have a good run.
I work from home and on the road; and don't like loading my laptop with a lot of MP3's so I stream everything. I don't *OWN* all of it; but 98% of what I have is available *directly from the artists themselves*, nevermind 'ripping' or getting the song from mp3.com.
Most of you have probably noticed the sudden surge of FYE stores? That's right, the several record chains that were competing are now owned by the same corporation, and discs went from 13 to 18 or 20 dollars a pop overnight. I refuse to pay $20 for the one song I like. If that means getting a stream, or doing without the song, so be it. The recording industry is losing money for two major reasons: the economy itself is in a downward trend and they shouldn't expect their own numbers to be any different when people can't even afford FOOD... and I truly believe the second reason is the horrible 'customer service' they provide. If they treat their customers as they have been, why would they expect us to buy records from them?
I bet anyone of those 'researchers' that they'll find their "network bandwidth problems" are due far less to 'inappropriate use' and far more to incorrectly configured switches, bad cables, and problems with their upstream service providers.
If I go to work in a "real" office ever again, I'll bring my Rio and an earbud with me, thank you.
that many companies are embracing the penguin not because they have any feeling towards open source whatsoever; but because they can get the framework code for their product for free. They only tap an extra customer base if they do not fret over [notice I didn't say encourage] hacking of this product; as more and more people will be encouraged to customize or even develop products for the platform.
42 percent of my income yet still being taxed as if I were bringing home 70 percent, my Jackson-Hewitt employed mother-in-law goes over my taxes with a fine-toothed comb and then I do as well. I do use the tax credits for continuing education and every computer book and non-game piece of software I may acquire is added to my deductions at the price on the box.
Sales/Marketing *does* run the support show at MS! Have you ever read any of the Knowledge Base? Wait, with the disclaimers maybe it's more the legal department...
Jordan, I completely agree that development and support should be kept separate, but not support and the remaining IT area. Often the IT area provides a lot of support themselves; in the event that they are too separate from the 'support division' they do a lot that the support division should be doing. When a problem comes around to tech support that the remaining IT area has been handling, support are completely clueless due to a lack of communication. I am 20 minutes from the main IT 'nerve center' and this happens quite frequently. We also get the "don't bother my development team" e-mails quite a bit from that team's leader.
I would be loathe to put a tech support division in a non-IT-related division because I feel it furthers the impression that they are lowly nobodies with little technical expertise and thus not worthy of being called IT staff or technology professionals. Continuing this thought I would not want to be a tech with a manager who did not understand my particular expertise or had no respect for what I do; particularly if they were ignorant of my "care and feeding" so to speak. This goes even if my immediate supervisor understood things but the next one or several up the food chain did not.
Kevin Shaw, MCP Network Field Support [for an anonymous national inspection company]
field and subcontract people; however we're not as busy as many people think. One of us teaches; the other deals with the serious problems (that's me). It just so happens that we have covered so many of Windoze95/98/NT and DOS3 to 6's problems, that no one calls us with bugs or glitches anymore because they have been taken care of or ARE taken care of on their laptop and workstation machines before they even encounter them.
Thanks for the reference to AmSats - I'll be sure to check that out later today.
I can't seem to read the Science Daily article right now.
Aren't there already TCP/IP modules loaded onto satellites in order for "wireless internet" units to work, or is this stuff still on cell-tower or "laser dissemination" type units?
I am excited at the prospect of us utilizing space in any manner; especially above and beyond deployment of weapons of war. I imagine in the future we could house worldwide disaster response teams in space (a la' Living Steel, a RPG based on the Phoenix Command system) that would be able to drop from orbit and assist with massive fires, flooding, earthquakes and other emergencies.
I guess I should not be surprised once I read the commentary - something like "widespread electrification" - however, would that not cover HVAC as well? They had refrigeration in the 1800s - it was just in a primitive form such as storage underground and the use of ice blocks and salt for preservative purposes. Why do you think modern homes are still built with basemements? For that matter, how many of you use your basement as it was originally intended; instead of turning it into a home entertainment facility?:)
I was introduced to Metallica by a young African American man who loved hard rock, especially Metallica; and got that way from listening to the band's earliest recordings. I cried, late one evening, when I heard Unforgiven II (oh my God did I just violate something or other? Please don't hurt me I'm too poor to pay anything more) and it literally bridged a gap of memories leading back to when I set out into this world on my own; worked two jobs and commuted 3 hours and went to college at night and was homeless and got my GED at 16 and struggled, struggled to reach that particular night in my life and their music touched on those emotions deeply and severely. This media fiasco completely ruined my perception of the band. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Metallica became popular because their demos and "garage" tapes and bootlegs were disseminated amongst their young, often penniless, fans; they then grew up and started buying albums and made these guys as rich and 'mainstream popular' as they are. I know I am not the only person that downloads a song or two and when I have the money buys the album. I wonder if Lars, James, and company realize this or if it's just their lawyers trying to create a precedent. In any case I'll return this S&M CD set before I open it; I'm too disillusioned now to enjoy it.
Slashdot Mirror
The car companies are planning for the contingency that one day we won't want to pay an extra quarter for every gallon of gas we buy; or that we are put in a position where we are no longer allowed to buy petroleum fuels at all.
I've read the print version of this Wired article; and several other news/etc. articles on the topic. The idea that the car's engine could become one flat panel under the car is not a new concept; but turning those concepts into reality *is* a goal of major car manufacturers in the next decade or so. They're in the business of making money by selling cars/car parts/etc. - if this will let them sell more cars regardless of how long the car parts will last; and they can see a profit in it, they will do it. They will very likely design in MTBF or require programs that 'force' you to replace some of the longer-lasting parts - look at how much a 60,000 mile service at your car dealer costs and don't tell me they won't - but they "will" build alternative type vehicles if it is in their best interests. We have few 'compressed gas' refueling stations; far far fewer 'hydrogen' or 'electric recharge' stations in the country - not to mention the world - so right now it is not in their best interest. When the fuel infrastructure is forced to change - and I bet they will be forced - then the car industry will change. Besides; your local gas station will make the change if the cars make the change because they are not making a very high margin on fuel sales to begin with.
The BIG DEAL is those of us that receive on average 280 pieces of spam per day; often multiples of the same one. I used to use my hotmail account to subscribe to newsletters and trade publications as well as listserv digests; now I have to specifically find out which address each 'bot' is sending from so that I can make sure I get them. I've had to set each of my (now two; it used to be five but I closed them because I could never receive legitimate email they would lock up after the first 75 spams) accounts to accept only those addresses I manually enter in my address book in order to avoid huge amounts of time and energy wasted deleting the spam before I can get to the good stuff... and the collateral damage? New penpals have to make sure they share with me their address right away or the email is blocked; I have to email list admins to allow their stuff through - and I've already mentioned all the time I waste cleaning the stuff that manages to get through.
will end up right next to "Monkey Island" and the rest of the 'bargain bin' games from LucasArts. They may as well start printing the 'classics' boxes in white with the gold banners now. Slapping 'Star Wars' onto a product does not suddenly make it a good game. If it has the chutzpah that (apparently - I haven't bought a copy yet) NeverWinter Nights - from BioWare of course - does, then it'll have a good run.
I work from home and on the road; and don't like loading my laptop with a lot of MP3's so I stream everything. I don't *OWN* all of it; but 98% of what I have is available *directly from the artists themselves*, nevermind 'ripping' or getting the song from mp3.com.
Most of you have probably noticed the sudden surge of FYE stores? That's right, the several record chains that were competing are now owned by the same corporation, and discs went from 13 to 18 or 20 dollars a pop overnight. I refuse to pay $20 for the one song I like. If that means getting a stream, or doing without the song, so be it. The recording industry is losing money for two major reasons: the economy itself is in a downward trend and they shouldn't expect their own numbers to be any different when people can't even afford FOOD... and I truly believe the second reason is the horrible 'customer service' they provide. If they treat their customers as they have been, why would they expect us to buy records from them?
I bet anyone of those 'researchers' that they'll find their "network bandwidth problems" are due far less to 'inappropriate use' and far more to incorrectly configured switches, bad cables, and problems with their upstream service providers.
If I go to work in a "real" office ever again, I'll bring my Rio and an earbud with me, thank you.
that many companies are embracing the penguin not because they have any feeling towards open source whatsoever; but because they can get the framework code for their product for free. They only tap an extra customer base if they do not fret over [notice I didn't say encourage] hacking of this product; as more and more people will be encouraged to customize or even develop products for the platform.
42 percent of my income yet still being taxed as if I were bringing home 70 percent, my Jackson-Hewitt employed mother-in-law goes over my taxes with a fine-toothed comb and then I do as well. I do use the tax credits for continuing education and every computer book and non-game piece of software I may acquire is added to my deductions at the price on the box.
"I used to wonder what was so holy about a silent night, now I have a child."
Amen to that.
Sales/Marketing *does* run the support show at MS! Have you ever read any of the Knowledge Base? Wait, with the disclaimers maybe it's more the legal department...
Jordan, I completely agree that development and support should be kept separate, but not support and the remaining IT area. Often the IT area provides a lot of support themselves; in the event that they are too separate from the 'support division' they do a lot that the support division should be doing. When a problem comes around to tech support that the remaining IT area has been handling, support are completely clueless due to a lack of communication. I am 20 minutes from the main IT 'nerve center' and this happens quite frequently. We also get the "don't bother my development team" e-mails quite a bit from that team's leader.
I would be loathe to put a tech support division in a non-IT-related division because I feel it furthers the impression that they are lowly nobodies with little technical expertise and thus not worthy of being called IT staff or technology professionals. Continuing this thought I would not want to be a tech with a manager who did not understand my particular expertise or had no respect for what I do; particularly if they were ignorant of my "care and feeding" so to speak. This goes even if my immediate supervisor understood things but the next one or several up the food chain did not.
Kevin Shaw, MCP
Network Field Support
[for an anonymous national inspection company]
field and subcontract people; however we're not as busy as many people think. One of us teaches; the other deals with the serious problems (that's me). It just so happens that we have covered so many of Windoze95/98/NT and DOS3 to 6's problems, that no one calls us with bugs or glitches anymore because they have been taken care of or ARE taken care of on their laptop and workstation machines before they even encounter them.
Thanks for the reference to AmSats - I'll be sure to check that out later today.
I can't seem to read the Science Daily article right now.
Aren't there already TCP/IP modules loaded onto satellites in order for "wireless internet" units to work, or is this stuff still on cell-tower or "laser dissemination" type units?
I am excited at the prospect of us utilizing space in any manner; especially above and beyond deployment of weapons of war. I imagine in the future we could house worldwide disaster response teams in space (a la' Living Steel, a RPG based on the Phoenix Command system) that would be able to drop from orbit and assist with massive fires, flooding, earthquakes and other emergencies.
I guess I should not be surprised once I read the commentary - something like "widespread electrification" - however, would that not cover HVAC as well? They had refrigeration in the 1800s - it was just in a primitive form such as storage underground and the use of ice blocks and salt for preservative purposes. Why do you think modern homes are still built with basemements? For that matter, how many of you use your basement as it was originally intended; instead of turning it into a home entertainment facility? :)
I was introduced to Metallica by a young African American man who loved hard rock, especially Metallica; and got that way from listening to the band's earliest recordings. I cried, late one evening, when I heard Unforgiven II (oh my God did I just violate something or other? Please don't hurt me I'm too poor to pay anything more) and it literally bridged a gap of memories leading back to when I set out into this world on my own; worked two jobs and commuted 3 hours and went to college at night and was homeless and got my GED at 16 and struggled, struggled to reach that particular night in my life and their music touched on those emotions deeply and severely. This media fiasco completely ruined my perception of the band. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Metallica became popular because their demos and "garage" tapes and bootlegs were disseminated amongst their young, often penniless, fans; they then grew up and started buying albums and made these guys as rich and 'mainstream popular' as they are. I know I am not the only person that downloads a song or two and when I have the money buys the album. I wonder if Lars, James, and company realize this or if it's just their lawyers trying to create a precedent. In any case I'll return this S&M CD set before I open it; I'm too disillusioned now to enjoy it.