This ignores the fact that people and companies adapt. I'm sure the 911 service won't just hope things don't fail; for example, I cluster the servers that handle 911 dialing on our campus because I don't "hope they won't fail." It's like in the 70s when people thought we'd be out of gas by 1996. They forgot to consider that people make adjustments as the world around them changes. We have more gas now than ever. Same with bandwidth.
I don't think Brin has the foresight to think this, but I say, go for it. All the communication and business is going to destroy Chinese control and censorship in a few years anyway. PRofit-driven though they are, they're inadvertantly likely going to destroy censorship.
On the other hand, they could be establishing a trend of censorship and further engraining it. But I doubt it.
I got a chassis of HP BL25ps in the basement... heck, why not put a flat-panel on it and lug it around. Weighs the same and has 10x the power.
This product will likely miss the market...
I just applied for a press pass soI can read the whole thing.
According to their numbers, the Windows boxes were down about 10-15 hours a year, while Linux was down 19. I agree documentation is not as good, and my initial impression is that this means the Linux boxes are down because the administrators don't know how to use them. They do stress in the overview that these numbers are dependent on your own shop however, and vary from one organization to another. This means the data is not consistent. Small shops with one or two men who really know Linux can do some amazing stuff; large shops with many people of many different skill sets do better with distros because more people can work with them. I've been trying to make up my mind on whether to advise people "Linux" or "Windows." This reinforces my present state: It depends.
I've been beta testing 3 since February, and our datacenter (of roughly 200 servers) is migrating to an almost-entirely ESX shop. I've beeen using it for a long while now, if anyone has any questions. IT's saved us TONS of money.
Drew
LOL... whoever investing $70 million, I'd love to have that list... funny.
The $69 million loss isn't too surprising--almost every starteup operates at a loss. That's normal. Moving along this far and already having stock-scam lawsuits AND no product... that's not. But this is my favorite...
"The Board of Directors believes that the name change (to Phantom whatever) would be in the best interests of the Company because the new name better reflects the long-term growth strategy of the Company." Translation: Our strategy is that we're banking everything on this Phantom gizmo, because it's all we've got. We're renaming the company to demonstrate this. We reeeeeally hope someone down the road inveted time-travel and brings something cool and Pahntom-like back to us." And then this... "Our Board of Directors has unanimously approved, subject to stockholder approval, an amendment to our Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of Common Stock from 600,000,000 to 1,200,000,000... (WHAT?! You're DOUBLING your stocks in the middle of all this? #1, that move should have been tried before your auditors announced to the world that you're screwed. #2, that could completely rearrange ownership of the company--current stockholders get first crack at new shares, but I'm guessing NO ONE WANTS ANY MORE, which means anyone with a lot of money and some wild scheme could take over. Which I doubt wil happen, since YOU HAVE NO PRODUCT) The Board believes that the increase in authorized common shares would provide the Company greater flexibility with respect to the Company's capital structure (translation: the board believes that if people buy more stock, we'll have more money) for such purposes as additional equity financing (for such purposes...? Wait, you're saying you want to get more money through equity... so you can get more money through equity? This reads like "We're going to sell off more shares of the company... so that we can, then, sell more shares after that." Maybe the Board wants people to buy more shares so that they can sell their shares... except that's, well, legally risky at best.), and stock based acquisitions, (we're praying someone out there has a product that they will sell to us for stock)." I'm no stock broker, but... i'll list this one as a 'sell'...
Good luck storing that. I'll be sure to start a Government-level storage company if that gets signed in. Then I can live in a house made of money with platinum siding.
I remember looking over Microsoft's financials and thinking, "they're growing old." By this I mean, in a business sense, they're reaching middle-age; they just paid their first divident, per-share profits are levelling out, etc. They've got the stock buyback going on, but that's probably just to make outstanding shares look more valuable. Frankly, I think they're getting old. This results from not innovating as well as their competitors (they like to buy up whatever innovation they can find. And look at their latest original creation, Vista--it took them three years to make this thing and it's crap), and instead of competing are relying more and more on litigation and past success to maintain market share (I like to call this 'monopoly'; you'll find this strategy only works if they engage in illegal or at least unfair market practices; but don't worry, monopolies by their nature don't last). They don't like alliances, so they'll buy anyone who has innovated if Microsoft thinks it will help, rather than partner. But they aren't the sharpest knife in th tech drawer, and will probably rely on their position to perpetuate the market (IE7 search bar).
So, no, I'm betting no alliance. But I could be wrong. And hey, I don't even think the whole search-engine-portal-war is worth anything. I think it's a bubble. Someone's gonna get more ad revenue, and that's all.
I looked over Microsofts financial's within the last year, and one thing I remember standing out to me was that, as companies go, they are "aging" into a middle-life company. Profits and growth are levelling out and they just paid their first dividend, for example. This is interesting, given that the company is in a market that wwants to change at the speed of light. Aside from arguments about Monopoly power (which I will gladly make), one has to wonder; are they getting too old to innovate? I don't think they will partner, and I think it's due to corporate "aging;" they're not as creative, they aren't keeping up with the innovators (just look at Vista; it took three years to make this crap?) and are relying more and more on litigation to maintain market share (monopoly). They're out of touch technologically, but they're all tech-high and can't avoid growing old and fizzling out.
Michael Jordan gave a famous speech on how he got so good, and simply he said "drill the fundamentals." While other guys were learning all the fancy moves in college, he just drilled the basics of dribbling, passing, etc. and that (the basic mastery) is what allowed to him do so well at the game.
This "drill the fundamentals" principle applies anywhere, be it law (studying justice and procdure), economics (understanding incentives and how money works), or IT/computer science.
I argue that the fundamentals in IT, the things which are ALWAYS persistent and important no matter what you do, are as follows:
1. Basic code. Familiarize yourself with basic programming concepts. Get an intro to Java or C++ book. If you get down what's in one of these, you'll be able to understand the basic nuts and bolts of 90% of whatever it is you're doing from now on. I've got a guy in my office, he's been cutting code for 30 years and he still hasn't taken the time to learn recursion. For the uninitiated, this means a lot of his code is fundamentally terrible, and about 4 times as long as it needs to be.
2. Hardware concepts. Most IT stuff doesn't require much hardware know-how, but definately understand how it all works. When your software is doing a billion operations a day, fractions of seconds in data transfer rates add up fast.
I'd say don't bother yourself with math or physics at this stage. That's like saying you need to understand organic chemical reactions to master rollerblading. Yeah, down the road your diet might matter, and there are a handful of people who specialize in this, but for right now it doesn't. Same with advanced math and phsyics.
I'm writing this from off the top of my head, and might not even agree with this tomorrow (except #1. Definately learn basic coding principles). Anyone else have any (better) ideas for IT fundamentals?
Interesting. I'm from Ohio and attend school in Utah (I lived in Orange County for two years, but not during high school). Both states are much more open about charter school enrollment.
I bailed out of high school two years early as part of a conjoined enrollment program and went to college instead:). Props to you; CPSB's a great school.
Perhaps the schools are organized differently where you are. Where I live, and where I'm from (opposite sides of the country) the charter schools have nothing to do with the public schools. They are entirely separate in most of the nation.
Let the public schools do what they please. If they do it well, they'll thrive. If they do it poorly, charter schools will eat them alive.
Meanwhile, whatever happened to free speech, at ay cost?
Slashdot Mirror
This ignores the fact that people and companies adapt. I'm sure the 911 service won't just hope things don't fail; for example, I cluster the servers that handle 911 dialing on our campus because I don't "hope they won't fail." It's like in the 70s when people thought we'd be out of gas by 1996. They forgot to consider that people make adjustments as the world around them changes. We have more gas now than ever. Same with bandwidth.
I don't think Brin has the foresight to think this, but I say, go for it. All the communication and business is going to destroy Chinese control and censorship in a few years anyway. PRofit-driven though they are, they're inadvertantly likely going to destroy censorship. On the other hand, they could be establishing a trend of censorship and further engraining it. But I doubt it.
I got a chassis of HP BL25ps in the basement... heck, why not put a flat-panel on it and lug it around. Weighs the same and has 10x the power. This product will likely miss the market...
I just applied for a press pass soI can read the whole thing. According to their numbers, the Windows boxes were down about 10-15 hours a year, while Linux was down 19. I agree documentation is not as good, and my initial impression is that this means the Linux boxes are down because the administrators don't know how to use them. They do stress in the overview that these numbers are dependent on your own shop however, and vary from one organization to another. This means the data is not consistent. Small shops with one or two men who really know Linux can do some amazing stuff; large shops with many people of many different skill sets do better with distros because more people can work with them. I've been trying to make up my mind on whether to advise people "Linux" or "Windows." This reinforces my present state: It depends.
I've been beta testing 3 since February, and our datacenter (of roughly 200 servers) is migrating to an almost-entirely ESX shop. I've beeen using it for a long while now, if anyone has any questions. IT's saved us TONS of money. Drew
LOL... whoever investing $70 million, I'd love to have that list... funny. The $69 million loss isn't too surprising--almost every starteup operates at a loss. That's normal. Moving along this far and already having stock-scam lawsuits AND no product... that's not. But this is my favorite... "The Board of Directors believes that the name change (to Phantom whatever) would be in the best interests of the Company because the new name better reflects the long-term growth strategy of the Company." Translation: Our strategy is that we're banking everything on this Phantom gizmo, because it's all we've got. We're renaming the company to demonstrate this. We reeeeeally hope someone down the road inveted time-travel and brings something cool and Pahntom-like back to us." And then this... "Our Board of Directors has unanimously approved, subject to stockholder approval, an amendment to our Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of authorized shares of Common Stock from 600,000,000 to 1,200,000,000... (WHAT?! You're DOUBLING your stocks in the middle of all this? #1, that move should have been tried before your auditors announced to the world that you're screwed. #2, that could completely rearrange ownership of the company--current stockholders get first crack at new shares, but I'm guessing NO ONE WANTS ANY MORE, which means anyone with a lot of money and some wild scheme could take over. Which I doubt wil happen, since YOU HAVE NO PRODUCT) The Board believes that the increase in authorized common shares would provide the Company greater flexibility with respect to the Company's capital structure (translation: the board believes that if people buy more stock, we'll have more money) for such purposes as additional equity financing (for such purposes...? Wait, you're saying you want to get more money through equity... so you can get more money through equity? This reads like "We're going to sell off more shares of the company... so that we can, then, sell more shares after that." Maybe the Board wants people to buy more shares so that they can sell their shares... except that's, well, legally risky at best.), and stock based acquisitions, (we're praying someone out there has a product that they will sell to us for stock)." I'm no stock broker, but... i'll list this one as a 'sell'...
Good luck storing that. I'll be sure to start a Government-level storage company if that gets signed in. Then I can live in a house made of money with platinum siding.
I remember looking over Microsoft's financials and thinking, "they're growing old." By this I mean, in a business sense, they're reaching middle-age; they just paid their first divident, per-share profits are levelling out, etc. They've got the stock buyback going on, but that's probably just to make outstanding shares look more valuable. Frankly, I think they're getting old. This results from not innovating as well as their competitors (they like to buy up whatever innovation they can find. And look at their latest original creation, Vista--it took them three years to make this thing and it's crap), and instead of competing are relying more and more on litigation and past success to maintain market share (I like to call this 'monopoly'; you'll find this strategy only works if they engage in illegal or at least unfair market practices; but don't worry, monopolies by their nature don't last). They don't like alliances, so they'll buy anyone who has innovated if Microsoft thinks it will help, rather than partner. But they aren't the sharpest knife in th tech drawer, and will probably rely on their position to perpetuate the market (IE7 search bar). So, no, I'm betting no alliance. But I could be wrong. And hey, I don't even think the whole search-engine-portal-war is worth anything. I think it's a bubble. Someone's gonna get more ad revenue, and that's all.
I looked over Microsofts financial's within the last year, and one thing I remember standing out to me was that, as companies go, they are "aging" into a middle-life company. Profits and growth are levelling out and they just paid their first dividend, for example. This is interesting, given that the company is in a market that wwants to change at the speed of light. Aside from arguments about Monopoly power (which I will gladly make), one has to wonder; are they getting too old to innovate? I don't think they will partner, and I think it's due to corporate "aging;" they're not as creative, they aren't keeping up with the innovators (just look at Vista; it took three years to make this crap?) and are relying more and more on litigation to maintain market share (monopoly). They're out of touch technologically, but they're all tech-high and can't avoid growing old and fizzling out.
Michael Jordan gave a famous speech on how he got so good, and simply he said "drill the fundamentals." While other guys were learning all the fancy moves in college, he just drilled the basics of dribbling, passing, etc. and that (the basic mastery) is what allowed to him do so well at the game. This "drill the fundamentals" principle applies anywhere, be it law (studying justice and procdure), economics (understanding incentives and how money works), or IT/computer science. I argue that the fundamentals in IT, the things which are ALWAYS persistent and important no matter what you do, are as follows: 1. Basic code. Familiarize yourself with basic programming concepts. Get an intro to Java or C++ book. If you get down what's in one of these, you'll be able to understand the basic nuts and bolts of 90% of whatever it is you're doing from now on. I've got a guy in my office, he's been cutting code for 30 years and he still hasn't taken the time to learn recursion. For the uninitiated, this means a lot of his code is fundamentally terrible, and about 4 times as long as it needs to be. 2. Hardware concepts. Most IT stuff doesn't require much hardware know-how, but definately understand how it all works. When your software is doing a billion operations a day, fractions of seconds in data transfer rates add up fast. I'd say don't bother yourself with math or physics at this stage. That's like saying you need to understand organic chemical reactions to master rollerblading. Yeah, down the road your diet might matter, and there are a handful of people who specialize in this, but for right now it doesn't. Same with advanced math and phsyics. I'm writing this from off the top of my head, and might not even agree with this tomorrow (except #1. Definately learn basic coding principles). Anyone else have any (better) ideas for IT fundamentals?
Interesting. I'm from Ohio and attend school in Utah (I lived in Orange County for two years, but not during high school). Both states are much more open about charter school enrollment.
:). Props to you; CPSB's a great school.
I bailed out of high school two years early as part of a conjoined enrollment program and went to college instead
Perhaps the schools are organized differently where you are. Where I live, and where I'm from (opposite sides of the country) the charter schools have nothing to do with the public schools. They are entirely separate in most of the nation.
Let the public schools do what they please. If they do it well, they'll thrive. If they do it poorly, charter schools will eat them alive. Meanwhile, whatever happened to free speech, at ay cost?