Posts by Britt Johnston 579 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Apr 2006
In our large Swiss company I've seen a lot of happy programmers over the last 20 years.
They often sold their skills at good prices to finance their way of life. Many enjoyed large projects, living in flats in town and eating out. Some have brought Irish pubs or rugby clubs to these shores. Others took up skiing. One I remember worked a 4-day 48 hour week, and flew to his lake district cottage on weekends.
AC "Re: Sense check " gives a quote from Hitler - that is surprising, as Hitler's retorical powers usually resulted from emotional appeal, rather than any thing quotable. I was unable to verify in German. I did find this gem from Bertolt Brecht, which might apply:
"Adolf Hitler, dem sein Bart, ist von ganz besondrer Art.
Kinder da ist etwas faul: Ein so kleiner Bart und ein so großes Maul.“
Adolf Hitler's facial hair is something seldom seen elsewhere.
Children, something's wrong in truth, such a small brush, and such a big mouth.
While I understand a journalist's need to puff thin copy and pass it off as quality, most foreign readers would do better with clear ideas and plain language; so would most English speakers, if it comes to that.
I'll stop short of telling you which 3000 words to use, because I sometimes enjoy the fun.
If Windows were 5$, it would be a great product. At 50$ it is an okay product. At 500$ it is unsellable. Why isn't Windows tracking other software or hardware costs down?
Isn't the definition of a malign monopoly one that hinders real competition to keep the price high? Rather than fines to EU coffers, I'd take the low price.
You guys are so pessimistic. Just look how things have improved since Calvin's day, when all cartoons, broadsheets, music and theatre were no-gos - at the behest of a single senior cleric.
Mind you, the Brits eventually had enough of 'verboten', and exiled the purpetrators to the US. I wonder where we can send the next wave to?
Rapamycin is used for transplants and, more recently cancer. It will thus be much more expensive than Viagra.
Regarding immune suppression, the idea of good drugs is to selectively block the immune system, rather than knock everything out. People with transplants survive fine, though they should take some care to check for infections and cancer.
However mTOR (look in Wikipedia) blockers are not really working via the classical immune systems. MTOR is a relatively recently recognized cellular mechanism which looks to be central, with any number of interesting effects. Wikipedia mentions losing weight, for instance.
Why did they decide to look at rats? I imagine the lifetime Tox. studies done by Wyeth must have already thrown up the property. Imaging explaining to your boss that the launch must be delayed for a year, because the rats aren't dieing properly.
This is the third generation of sound devices making progress, only to be hijacked by visualists. The useful functionality, which could be used for good sound playback, is piped into pictures, and handling or listening suffers. Why is a 4 inch screen better than 3 inch one? Why not wait for a 21 inch beauty? Or why not get a media laptop?
These things are all much better than tape walkmen. I enjoyed the step-up that the Shuffle brought, even with the earbud headphones, I'm moving on, for two reasons mainly: I'tunes has lost its simplicity, and the useful USP file access has been blocked by my IT department.
What had good sound, and is simple and enjoyable to use? Philips, as a hi-fi company, had a chance, but the enhanced MP3 playback of Creative or Sony made the front running - I ended up getting an X-FI.
OLED, cameras, bluetooth etc, are a risk of distraction from the main job.
The commission could address the main problem of monopolies, who try to charge more for their product instead of less. Windows 3.1 was <10% of the cost of PCs. On netbooks that means they should be charging no more than 30$ (+ 3$ for incremental improvements in the last 15 years).
They could also address the cause of the monopoly, the unpublished APIs in Windows. That probably means taking it away from them and making it open source.
If you point light sources skyward, the light disappears (into space). Light pollution disturbs your view when particles reflect the light, or if you look at a light source, like the moon, the horizon, or an aircraft. If horizon glow were a problem, waiting 6 hours puts the milky way overhead. So, while water vapour and air do some light scattering, the main culprit is smog.
For this reason, most star gazers would like to live in a pre-industrial society. The best they can do is live miles away from civilisation atop the Chilean Andes.
The chances of doing the right thing might be increased if the US didn't assume that the only correct way to pay taxes is the way the IRS sees it. (I stands for inland, not international).
The European position is clear, every country stands by its own tax laws, which encourages competition. This is not really a position, more a muddle.
Corporate tax laws needs fixing accross countries at the same time as personal tax havens, otherwise millionaires will only turn themselves into companies.
The tax havens' also have a position, that they are keeping the monopolistic tax authorities honest. Well, its a position.
This is a version of the consultant's dilemma.
If a hired company comes and states 'your processes are poor, incomplete, and different in every office' they will lose the contract. If they agree to build a nationwide data depot, and show max. seven slides, they get the job.
The textbook solution is to let the business run the project. That works as long as they care about the result.
Who said that - in this case they don't care?
Add-ons for christmas 2010
1) the A777 simulator, half real size, in hygenic, non-toxic polyethylene. The 88 switches and 57 dials can be simulated with a USB keyboard, and 2nd screen (cheaper but less fun).
2) the nuclear power station (Sinclair vapourware, at long last realised for Wii)
Amazing how much one-game junk is competing for cupboard space, given the small size of the CGU.
There are a lot of decided opinions here. That is progress, but willingness to change will be needed. I'll restrict myself to new ideas in a following post.
While we are at it, a bit of praise is in order to those politicians who recently pushed through a legal framework to allow the owner to benefit from linking their windmill to the grid.
It doesn't have to be 100% wind power, 15% would make a difference. I promise to junk my pentium toaster and buy a wind-up netbook.
Having grown up within an oil refinery, I think I'd prefer to live on a wind farm. But the current windmills are expensive, have only recently become efficient, and they make a thumping great noise. So, we need Steve Jobs team to design the windmill everyone wants in their back garden. And then a friendly asian power to start mass production at the unit price of a bicycle.
Last weekend, a Swiss referendum approved fingerprints on a passport chip by 5000-odd votes (50.14%). The government, as partner to Schengen, was relieved, but had to promise that police would have no access. The close result is starting a rethink about less justifiable use of centrally stored data.
The public concious still remembers official files on selected persons, including practicing politicians, and the difficulties in finding out who had been tracked, and what information had been collected.
Thats the nail you hit: the shampoo has some real value. When the Brand value is 90% of the product cost, the generics have it easier.
- Apple way: legitimate is using Research&Design to keep ahead
- Hollywood foam: Litigious and less impressive is fighting for the look of the perfume bottle.
People have been predicting for a while that GB might be the first state to make it back from developed to underdeveloped. This looks like a key step on the way.
When the installation doesn't work, or the utility OS is down, attach your house mains to the grid, bypassing the broken bit. Don't forget to wear insulated gloves.
Parlimentarians have pretty mediocre salaries - so, with a highly variable scruple quotient (SQ), they milk their expense system to stay afloat in a business where money = influence. More transparency for expenses isn't the answer, either.
I prefer Steve Job's approach where he doesn't get paid, he only has share options. Of course, expenses are paid by the firm, and selling his expertise is allowed (lectures, seats on other boards) . Too bad GB inc. isn't more profitable.
I bet the House of Lords members have better SQs, too.
HP is hardware-free, they make more money out of services (we run your printing shop) and consulting (and sell advice when things don't do what customers want). Why bother with chips, or engineering? Banking beats manufacturing was equally a motto for General Motors.
The real worry is when Intel move to the same idea, and the last chip is eaten by the grizzly.
Those who fight the proposals will be on soggy moral territory, they're the ones who've benefited from the loophole till now. I'd be surprised if he stops at the three countries, they will perhaps be markers of success.
R&D expenses can be fairly low in HiTech, compared to their legal and takeover costs - Microsoft might be the exception, though what they get for their money is another question. While a pure software company like Oracle might find it easy to move, Hardware sellers might find it harder.
Company tax isn't really comparable with personal taxes, though often one goes up when the other sinks. I'd be very happy to pay high rates on what is left at the end of the year, if I could exchange for VAT and income tax.
Alternatively, accept the culture, and design the systems as failsafe - here, for example, to accept human nature, and anonymise standard downloads. Or, following a popular idea in this thread, add a Windows pop-up that says "are you sure? Losing this file could cost you your job".
Mind you, I'm not sure I want a job that pays peanuts, lacks training, and threatens incorrect data entry or file downloads with the sack - better to work at a bank.
In the olden days, you got a patent by grovelling before a monarch. If he saw something in it for the nation, i.e. himself, he gave you a national monopoly of undefined scope and duration.
Today, the duration part is almost solved, except for add-ons. The scope is what the lawyers keep fighting about. But who is the Emperor of USA?
...the ermine flak-jacket, please
<You are either naive, taking the piss or just plain stupid.>
If I have to choose, I'll take option 2.
Please note that the previous content, suggesting Britain would be better off if it were treated as a prison for tax purposes, was also not meant entirely seriously, and was written to be palatable only to a nulab diehard - at the end of an era there are only tough pickings - though I felt it was worth capturing the thought.
This won't stop politicians trying to control the internet, though, you read about it every day in El Reg.
I think I get it. If the prison walls were expanded to, say, the size of GB, then nobody will be allowed to earn real money, and thus tax avoidance is a non-issue. And that solves the problems with money-grabbing companies blocking the internet. They just lose interest.
Internet blocking is in any event a job for politicians.
This is statistics for dummies of course, but the ideas are interesting, and allow for other conclusions. First, any comparison of two groups for fatness would reach a similar conclusion, BMI is just convenient as medical orthodoxy. Second, assuming that a normal population has no fat people is extremely optimistic. Normal is by definition today's standard, i.e. 40% being overweight. Third, the comparison between 1950s and today might show that we ate 20% less, with limited malnutrition. Fourth, energy intake, work and fatness are not bound by some tight physical formula - there are genes at work, and bodily mechanisms to release slight excesses of energy intake.
So the modelling exercise is not about working too little, or being too tall, but about excessive eating - as observed elsewhere, cutting out unnecessary energy use is a good place to start.
Thumbs up to your thumbs down.
While we're at it, the same problem applies to free cell phones and mortgages, and sloppy credit is the main cause of the Financial Crisis and moral decay.
However, just sorting Microsoft out is proving to be a knickertwister, is it okay for the EU leave the rest till later in the century?
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