His biggest liability was that he couldn't delegate properly (because of staff bickering, he ma.
On the plus side, apart from his humanitarian effors, because of his nuclear submarine background and training he was the only president that knew what a Bessel function was.
Dell laptops seem to be generally well-made, but the whole winmodem thing and getting X running on weird graphics cards have always made me leery of buying one for portable Linux.
I think there's an amazing number of Linux desktop users that carry around iBooks, though.
Stop playing name games. That's the sort of thing that can really hurt adoption.
You're right, that valuable brand recognition is damaged by name changes.
But there were enough problems with the Firebird moniker to justify the name change. And, arguably, with bare single digit percentage market penetration, it's still early in the game; name changes aren't as such a big deal to the party faithful.
I have no love for Redmond's imprint on the computer business since about 1984 either.
But with so much money and so many intelligent employees, it's nice that somebody plays around with new technologies and publishes them for the world to see.
And if recent history of executives leaving MS is any guide, you could well see new technologies and ideas blossoming outside the confines of the Borg.
If YOU won the lotto, what would you do? Would you still work in IT?
I'd set up a foundation to hire 5 of the sharpest, most personable programmers from 3 continents and commission them to produce a Powerpoint replacement based on SVG and get some good international outline fonts made for good measure.
Not only a good slide show interface, but a good composition interface as well. Vector graphics. Including TeX like formatting of text boxes for math, languages going right to left, left to right, as well as top to bottom. Make all the file formats completely open. Have dynamic effects, a choreographer of objects moving around the screen (just 2D; true 3D I'd leave for someone more ambitious).
I'm convince it would be a great gift to the world.
where (gasp) you might not like what the person is saying!
I find this is where MetaModeration enters the picture for me.
Moderating, I get so few points (how are you ever going to do a good moderating job with just 25 points, I mean) that I'll use them up quickly, mostly doing +1 on well-written, well-reasoned posts that I agree with, and maybe 10-15% of the time pushing trolls and flamebaits down into the basement.
But Meta Moderating I've re-inforced +1 ratings that other Moderators have given to well-written comments that oppose my own views.
Is there anything more boring than listening to like-minded people? Are we so insecure that we need constant ego inflation that "we're right. we're good. we're valued."?
If you are going to make a direct 1-to-1 communication to me (an intimate event) I have the right to know who you are.
If you want anonymity, then use a public forum, like Slashdot. Or put it on the web.
Once in a great while people are contacted by whisteblowers who wish to inform you of something but want to remain anonymous.
Messages along the lines of
Your boss was stabbing you in the back at a meeting.
Your wife is having an affair.
Your neighbor has been recording your actions with a video cam equiped with telescopic lens and shotgun mike.
Your son is buying crack.
Lay-offs will be announced in 3 months.
You might like to deal with people forthrightly and upfront, and I wish it were always so. I, for one, would rather not be informed of certain things in a public forum like Slashdot.
But occassionally there might be people who wish to inform you and yet remain anonymous because of risks to themselves if they were exposed.
Anonymous email does have its uses, but it is dying slowly in a cesspool of spam.
I'd like to preserve anonymity, but make large scale use use of it impractical. I can't see a valid need for 1 person to speak to 1 million people while preserving anonymity. Important messages (rally in Tianenman Square next Tuesday) can be reforwarded to achieve the proper distribution.
RFID (or any other technology) is not necessary for a police state
True.
But RFID and other technologies will make maintenance of a police state easier.
Police states will be a greater statistical probability as "subversive" activities are discovered sooner than what was previously possible.
Re:Anyone with two feet and perhaps access to a ca
on
The Trouble with RFID
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Here's an idea for a new community project:
Mega RFID Vest Library
Go to the dump where multiple people are throwing away RFID-laden products. Snag the lil suckers off discarded food products, garments, appliances, liquor bottles, baby food.
Sew them onto a vest.
Lots of `em.
When you walk through the scanner you'll be...... 246 different people.
Then, trade vests with others in other cities, other countries!
The problem has been that we're caught between chicken little alarmists on the one hand and monied interests on the other (Carbon emission problem? I don't think so! Here, fill up your tank and get a free cup of coffee with Janet Jackson's picture on it!)
The "not 100% compatible" complaint is about ten years old.
My experience, buying a 200 MHz K6 and an 800 MHz Duron, has been good with AMD chips.
The price/performance ratio has always been more attractive for AMD relative to Intel.
I will say that once I had a problem with a K6-III that would lock up after an hour or so - turned out the cheapo CPU cooling fan wasn't moving.
AMD produces fine chips, but their reputation as a "budget" CPU means they get tied into other components of mediocre quality in order to keep the price in the basement. That helps sales at the low end, but actually hurts sales at the high end. MyCorp, like many, pretty much buys Intel only hardware, paying more than they need to for x86 instructions and for systems integration, just to keep the potential support hassles down to a minimum.
If AMD made sure that a separate model line, such as the Opteron, were only used in MoBos and systems with high MTBF on all the parts they might have a better chance of getting more corporate business. But it will still take time to overcome the image of "CPU Backwards R Us".
A previous story talked about the noise level of spam increasing.
And a very entertaining NYT article that is in the process of expiring.
The upshot is that spam is being forced to look more and more like line noise. It will probably become less and less effective as the message has to submerge to the point where people can't recognize it.
The government and international security agencies have a desire to find, track and sometimes arrest people. Our system can be used to find them across the globe.
There will be some people who will feel more re-assured that such an effort is underway, that the "terrorist" threat will be diminished by developing these kinds of technologies.
These are the same people who will give you a confused look when you mention that the government of the Peoples Republic of China is very interested in exactly the same technology for exactly the same stated purpose.
I sympathize with your idealism. Certainly a transparent society would help people to make more accurate judgements.
Case A: Mr Derelict with a cardboard sign "Stranded Motorist" on the freeway offramp. He could really be a stranded motorist, and not someone that has been doing this for several months to raise money for his substance addiction.
Case B: Mr Politician with a TV commercial where he sez "Motherhood. Apple Pie. Flag. Low Taxes. High Spending." He could be that, or he could be exposed as having met with executives of the Apple Pie Manufacturers Association.
The big problem I see is misuse of differential privacy just as there is misuse of differential power and differential wealth.
People like to keep and accumulate their wealth and power, so they'd like for control over public exposure of their own transactions, and to be able to see opportunities or threats in the actions of others.
I expect the leaders of China and the largest holders of wealth in the US to shield themselves from the scrutiny (commercial and "antiterrorist") that is focussed on everyone else.
If I were wealthy, I'd certainly not be getting my face in front of some store camera. I'd send my valet with cash to purchase what I want.
Bad news: instant coffee will never come anywhere near the flavo[u]r of freshly-brewed coffee made from freshly-ground beans, roasted not too long ago.
A very long time ago I drank Taster's Choice and Maxim. The freeze-dried coffees tasted better than the instant coffees made by other means.
Why not keep a coffee pot and grinder at your desk as I do? The morning ritual of fetching water, grinding beans and brushing out the grinder (buy a small high-quality paint brush) doesn't take more than 7 or 8 minutes. And the result is a small piece of heaven and a pleasant edginess all morning long.
I used to resort to freeze-dried instant coffee, or to pre-ground robusta bean dishwater coffe, if I absolutely had to. Even then, those products are so different that, mentally, I didn't even really think of them as "coffee" (kind of like chicory "Postum"), but drank them nevertheless.
Now, I usually just go without rather than settle for a substitute that's so inferior to what I usually drink.
If all you have is hot water, you might consider tea.
This WOW64 looks like Microsoft is preparing to make the migration from 32 bit to 64 bit with the same mellowy smoothness that characterized their 16 bit to 32 bit migration. *shiver*
Nothing is deleted or destroyed. Ever. It's history.
I'm glad that's the official policy, anyway. Accountability is served when government officials can not revise history (as authoritarian governments have been wont).
"Electronic files that qualify as records, particularly in the form of e-mail, and also word processing and spreadsheet documents, are not being kept at all as records in many cases," NARA reported.
The use of e-mail for official business "has increased exponentially," according to the report, but "e-mail is generally not captured" in recordkeeping systems.
Use of email and electronic documents has really boomed since about 1990 or so.
The side effect, apart from saving trees and increasing efficienc, has been to allow government operations to become even more hidden, (verbal communications have provided a largely hidden channel since before the advent of electronic documentation).
The government seems to be making strides toward adapting to the new technology
I'm sure.
If they're like most corporations in the United States, they'll adopt some official records retention policy that prescribes periodic deletion of old emails and electronic documents.
The Netscape trial illustrated Microsoft's mistake in keeping old emails around.
Monica Lewinsky's old emails likewise proved to be an embarrassment for the administration.
And given Dick Cheney's penchant for secrecy, I'm sure that a lot of historically interesting and relevant emails and documents will be going through an e-shredder in short order.
Not every product needs to pander to the lowest common denominator.
No, but you'll get more sales if your product is so well-designed that it can be used by the lowest common denominator and by the more adept and demanding users as well.
Permit me the conceit of placing myself in the more adept category for a moment.
You know what I still appreciate in a product more than a gazillion configurable features?
A smooth, intuitive, linear learning curve.
When I first got my cell phone all I needed was to know how to answer the phone and to place calls. That sufficed. And I'll bet that knowledge alone suffices for all that a surprising fraction of our herd really wants with their cell phone.
But for the less common denominator people - we still appreciate being able to learn and use the whiz bang new features in manageable chunks. If there is an abrupt requirment that I sit down with a JVM manual for 3 weeks to figure out how to to do speed-dialing, it ain't gonna happen.
And all this is especially true with software applications...
Slashdot Mirror
The notable thing about Disney is that they've been able to sell their movies twice and sometimes three times to the same audience.
First, in the theatre release.
Second, in the video release as VHS.
Third, in the DVD release.
I don't expect Disney on its deathbed while there's the possibility of a newer more high res format available for re-release of old titles.
Now President Carter has had his share of critics
His biggest liability was that he couldn't delegate properly (because of staff bickering, he ma.
On the plus side, apart from his humanitarian effors, because of his nuclear submarine background and training he was the only president that knew what a Bessel function was.
Same boat.
Dell laptops seem to be generally well-made, but the whole winmodem thing and getting X running on weird graphics cards have always made me leery of buying one for portable Linux.
I think there's an amazing number of Linux desktop users that carry around iBooks, though.
standard to end all standards
I love standards. And XML, too.
But isn't there enough room in hidden DTD's and XSL to drive a semi tractor trailer full of NonStandards?
Stop playing name games. That's the sort of thing that can really hurt adoption.
You're right, that valuable brand recognition is damaged by name changes.
But there were enough problems with the Firebird moniker to justify the name change. And, arguably, with bare single digit percentage market penetration, it's still early in the game; name changes aren't as such a big deal to the party faithful.
A really important step to promote the growth of firefox might be overlooked: their little button logos available for you to put on your web site.
As a responsible web site maintainer, these buttons can go alongside some previously collected good button merit badges such as
- W3C complaince with standards HTML 4, CSS, XHTML 1, MathML, SVG, etc.
- works best with any browser
including text only.I usually ask "Why are we having this meeting? No. Really". It never gets answered satisfactorily. Am I asking anything wrong??
Not at all.
Your question hardly takes any time and is the only source of entertainment at the meeting.
I have no love for Redmond's imprint on the computer business since about 1984 either.
But with so much money and so many intelligent employees, it's nice that somebody plays around with new technologies and publishes them for the world to see.
And if recent history of executives leaving MS is any guide, you could well see new technologies and ideas blossoming outside the confines of the Borg.
If YOU won the lotto, what would you do? Would you still work in IT?
I'd set up a foundation to hire 5 of the sharpest, most personable programmers from 3 continents and commission them to produce a Powerpoint replacement based on SVG and get some good international outline fonts made for good measure.
Not only a good slide show interface, but a good composition interface as well. Vector graphics. Including TeX like formatting of text boxes for math, languages going right to left, left to right, as well as top to bottom. Make all the file formats completely open. Have dynamic effects, a choreographer of objects moving around the screen (just 2D; true 3D I'd leave for someone more ambitious).
I'm convince it would be a great gift to the world.
tend to draw a lot more tickets from police officers.
No, you're mistaken.
Traffic ticket magnets are red convertibles driven past coffee shops at 6am by pretty girls.
where (gasp) you might not like what the person is saying!
I find this is where MetaModeration enters the picture for me.
Moderating, I get so few points (how are you ever going to do a good moderating job with just 25 points, I mean) that I'll use them up quickly, mostly doing +1 on well-written, well-reasoned posts that I agree with, and maybe 10-15% of the time pushing trolls and flamebaits down into the basement.
But Meta Moderating I've re-inforced +1 ratings that other Moderators have given to well-written comments that oppose my own views.
Is there anything more boring than listening to like-minded people? Are we so insecure that we need constant ego inflation that "we're right. we're good. we're valued."?
If you are going to make a direct 1-to-1 communication to me (an intimate event) I have the right to know who you are.
If you want anonymity, then use a public forum, like Slashdot. Or put it on the web.
Once in a great while people are contacted by whisteblowers who wish to inform you of something but want to remain anonymous.
Messages along the lines of
- Your boss was stabbing you in the back at a meeting.
- Your wife is having an affair.
- Your neighbor has been recording your actions with a video cam equiped with telescopic lens and shotgun mike.
- Your son is buying crack.
- Lay-offs will be announced in 3 months.
You might like to deal with people forthrightly and upfront, and I wish it were always so. I, for one, would rather not be informed of certain things in a public forum like Slashdot.But occassionally there might be people who wish to inform you and yet remain anonymous because of risks to themselves if they were exposed.
Anonymous email does have its uses, but it is dying slowly in a cesspool of spam.
I'd like to preserve anonymity, but make large scale use use of it impractical. I can't see a valid need for 1 person to speak to 1 million people while preserving anonymity. Important messages (rally in Tianenman Square next Tuesday) can be reforwarded to achieve the proper distribution.
An idea like this occurred to me a couple years ago when I was listening to a computer security class.
Namely, the knocking attempts can become a communications channel if they're timed right. cf Also Red October ("One ping only.").
Low-speed, to be sure, and kind of "1-way" dominant, but more surreptitious, if there's a need for that.
And more difficult to detect in the log files, if knock timing is done for port 80.
RFID (or any other technology) is not necessary for a police state
True.
But RFID and other technologies will make maintenance of a police state easier.
Police states will be a greater statistical probability as "subversive" activities are discovered sooner than what was previously possible.
Here's an idea for a new community project: Mega RFID Vest Library
Go to the dump where multiple people are throwing away RFID-laden products. Snag the lil suckers off discarded food products, garments, appliances, liquor bottles, baby food.
Sew them onto a vest.
Lots of `em.
When you walk through the scanner you'll be ...... 246 different people.
Then, trade vests with others in other cities, other countries!
Sensational and alarmist, quite possibly.
Something to keep an eye on, absolutely.
The problem has been that we're caught between chicken little alarmists on the one hand and monied interests on the other (Carbon emission problem? I don't think so! Here, fill up your tank and get a free cup of coffee with Janet Jackson's picture on it!)
it's amazing the Mac has lasted this long after being pronounced dead several times.
Damn, it's like it's a religion or something!
The "not 100% compatible" complaint is about ten years old.
My experience, buying a 200 MHz K6 and an 800 MHz Duron, has been good with AMD chips.
The price/performance ratio has always been more attractive for AMD relative to Intel.
I will say that once I had a problem with a K6-III that would lock up after an hour or so - turned out the cheapo CPU cooling fan wasn't moving.
AMD produces fine chips, but their reputation as a "budget" CPU means they get tied into other components of mediocre quality in order to keep the price in the basement. That helps sales at the low end, but actually hurts sales at the high end. MyCorp, like many, pretty much buys Intel only hardware, paying more than they need to for x86 instructions and for systems integration, just to keep the potential support hassles down to a minimum.
If AMD made sure that a separate model line, such as the Opteron, were only used in MoBos and systems with high MTBF on all the parts they might have a better chance of getting more corporate business. But it will still take time to overcome the image of "CPU Backwards R Us".
A previous story talked about the noise level of spam increasing.
And a very entertaining NYT article that is in the process of expiring.
The upshot is that spam is being forced to look more and more like line noise. It will probably become less and less effective as the message has to submerge to the point where people can't recognize it.
The government and international security agencies have a desire to find, track and sometimes arrest people. Our system can be used to find them across the globe.
There will be some people who will feel more re-assured that such an effort is underway, that the "terrorist" threat will be diminished by developing these kinds of technologies.
These are the same people who will give you a confused look when you mention that the government of the Peoples Republic of China is very interested in exactly the same technology for exactly the same stated purpose.
Once everyone's life is part of a public record
I sympathize with your idealism. Certainly a transparent society would help people to make more accurate judgements.
Case A: Mr Derelict with a cardboard sign "Stranded Motorist" on the freeway offramp. He could really be a stranded motorist, and not someone that has been doing this for several months to raise money for his substance addiction.
Case B: Mr Politician with a TV commercial where he sez "Motherhood. Apple Pie. Flag. Low Taxes. High Spending." He could be that, or he could be exposed as having met with executives of the Apple Pie Manufacturers Association.
The big problem I see is misuse of differential privacy just as there is misuse of differential power and differential wealth.
People like to keep and accumulate their wealth and power, so they'd like for control over public exposure of their own transactions, and to be able to see opportunities or threats in the actions of others.
I expect the leaders of China and the largest holders of wealth in the US to shield themselves from the scrutiny (commercial and "antiterrorist") that is focussed on everyone else.
If I were wealthy, I'd certainly not be getting my face in front of some store camera. I'd send my valet with cash to purchase what I want.
Bad news: instant coffee will never come anywhere near the flavo[u]r of freshly-brewed coffee made from freshly-ground beans, roasted not too long ago.
A very long time ago I drank Taster's Choice and Maxim. The freeze-dried coffees tasted better than the instant coffees made by other means.
Why not keep a coffee pot and grinder at your desk as I do? The morning ritual of fetching water, grinding beans and brushing out the grinder (buy a small high-quality paint brush) doesn't take more than 7 or 8 minutes. And the result is a small piece of heaven and a pleasant edginess all morning long.
I used to resort to freeze-dried instant coffee, or to pre-ground robusta bean dishwater coffe, if I absolutely had to. Even then, those products are so different that, mentally, I didn't even really think of them as "coffee" (kind of like chicory "Postum"), but drank them nevertheless.
Now, I usually just go without rather than settle for a substitute that's so inferior to what I usually drink.
If all you have is hot water, you might consider tea.
This WOW64 looks like Microsoft is preparing to make the migration from 32 bit to 64 bit with the same mellowy smoothness that characterized their 16 bit to 32 bit migration. *shiver*
Nothing is deleted or destroyed. Ever. It's history.
I'm glad that's the official policy, anyway. Accountability is served when government officials can not revise history (as authoritarian governments have been wont).
Nevertheless, this FCW article says:
Use of email and electronic documents has really boomed since about 1990 or so.The side effect, apart from saving trees and increasing efficienc, has been to allow government operations to become even more hidden, (verbal communications have provided a largely hidden channel since before the advent of electronic documentation).
The government seems to be making strides toward adapting to the new technology
I'm sure.
If they're like most corporations in the United States, they'll adopt some official records retention policy that prescribes periodic deletion of old emails and electronic documents.
The Netscape trial illustrated Microsoft's mistake in keeping old emails around.
Monica Lewinsky's old emails likewise proved to be an embarrassment for the administration.
And given Dick Cheney's penchant for secrecy, I'm sure that a lot of historically interesting and relevant emails and documents will be going through an e-shredder in short order.
Not every product needs to pander to the lowest common denominator.
No, but you'll get more sales if your product is so well-designed that it can be used by the lowest common denominator and by the more adept and demanding users as well.
Permit me the conceit of placing myself in the more adept category for a moment.
You know what I still appreciate in a product more than a gazillion configurable features?
A smooth, intuitive, linear learning curve.
When I first got my cell phone all I needed was to know how to answer the phone and to place calls. That sufficed. And I'll bet that knowledge alone suffices for all that a surprising fraction of our herd really wants with their cell phone.
But for the less common denominator people - we still appreciate being able to learn and use the whiz bang new features in manageable chunks. If there is an abrupt requirment that I sit down with a JVM manual for 3 weeks to figure out how to to do speed-dialing, it ain't gonna happen.
And all this is especially true with software applications...