A very interesting point. There have been stories lately about Google offering cheap fiber service in select areas.
It sounds to me like the same tactic they used releasing Chrome: not to get everyone to switch to their product, but to shame the the other browsers or ISPs with their superior quality, generate buzz, and make the other guys improved. End result: better browsers, better ISPs, and more Google traffic.
"How dare you provide the interesting, high-bandwidth content that help us sell our high-priced internet connections! We want a piece of that action!"
Yes, ISPs, it's time to demand your rights! And the movement is growing:
Justice will roll like a mighty tide!
...leading to the question of whether more such small Wikis should be created for certain verticals.
The first time I heard a sales guy use the term "verticals," I stopped him because I had no idea what that meant. He said that verticals are markets - health care, construction, etc. I said, "so a vertical is an industry?" Yep, he said.
I still hear the term a lot and think it's useless. To me, "vertical" implies a chain of processes leading towards a finished product. For example, the old railroad tycoons would get vertical monopolies by buying up the mines, the steel forges, the rail car manufacturers, etc, so that no competitor could threaten (or access) their supply of railroad ties and trains.
Competing businesses in the same field are not in the same "vertical" in that sense. It's easier for me to visualize them side by side.
But the main thing is, we already have a perfectly good word for this: "industry," or in certain contexts, "market." I'm preaching to the wrong crowd, I know, but please, let's avoid useless business jargon.
Animated banners in HTML5 are not better than in Flash. But with a better model, these will be more easy to control, limit, optimize.
This is a great point. Flash is obtuse - you can tell what domain it comes from and that's about it. It's hard to write smart blocking for it. HTML is much easier to figure out and deal with, from a user/browser point of view.
This is why HTML is preferable to Flash fonts and image fonts, and why HTML animation is preferable to Flash animation: it's more webby. The web has a philosophy that the user can control their own experience and see the source for what they're viewing. This is a Good Thing for developers and users alike.
I work in the cellular industry, and this isn't new, other than being kinda small like the MiFi. If you wanted WiFi with a cellular backhaul in your car, you could have gotten that from Linksys, Cradlepoint, or JBM (now Sixnet) and others anytime in the last few years that I've been in this industry, probably much longer. If you were content to get an Ethernet connection and add your own WiFi hotspot, the list expands to Airlink, Bluetree, Digi, etc. And that's just off the top of my head.
Of course, geeks will always find a way. A friend of mine in high school created a dash-controllable MP3 stereo system for his car in 1999. He had an entire PC running Linux in the trunk and the display was re-purposed from a home security system. But that's not exactly a consumer-friendly setup.
Product for free, support for $. Lots of companies solely thrive on this concept of support ( of others products ).
Why isn't this self-defeating? If you're supporting someone else's product, what's the incentive for them to make it? If you're supporting your own product, what's the incentive to improve it?
The more you improve your product, the less support you can sell. Doesn't that make you want to have an enticing, yet difficult-to-use product?
Unless all your support involves customer-specific modifications that can't be merged back into the trunk... which would be a huge headache in itself.
I can't see Adobe accepting the sale of something customizing paintshop pro without getting some bucks from it.
Especially if it uses the commercial product's name in its advertising.
everyone smokes down South
As a southerner, I'd like to point out 1) of course we don't all smoke, and 2) while yes, smoking is more widespread in the south, Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and Nevada are all in the top 10. 11, 12 and 13 are Alaska, Pennsylvania and Illinois.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Check out this map and the table linked at the bottom: http://www.smokefree.gov/map.aspx
Smarter people know its not a good idea to start smoking.
This is too simplistic. EVERYBODY knows that smoking is bad for you. Some just know in more detail.
My wife had an in medical school for her anatomy class. He showed the students how to dissect a cadaver, and showed them the horrible, shriveled, black lungs of a deceased smoker.
And then he went outside and took a smoke break.
My explanation? There's a HUGE difference between intelligence and wisdom. Intelligence is the ability to solve problems; it asks "how can I reach goal X?"
Wisdom is a big-picture thing; it asks "what kind of goals are worth having? What is good for me in the long run?" And I think it also includes the willpower to do those things. If you know what's best but don't do it, I'd say that's foolish.
(And of course, we are all foolish in some ways.)
Schoolchildren who have been found to have a lower IQ can be considered at risk to begin the habit
So does having a lower IQ lead to smoking? Or does smoking cause a lower IQ? Or do both result from a worse family environment? Maybe being exposed to second-hand smoke is a risk factor for both, or maybe being exposed to parents who knowingly and daily act against their own best interests stunts a child's desire to reason about the world and encourages them to make foolish, emotional decisions?
If it were as broad as "you can't modify our web site - you have to view it as-is", and that were enforced, it would basically destroy the web. After I request a page, it's my choice whether I want my browser to request each of the images in the source file or none of them.
Besides, how do they know if I have a cache or just don't care to see them? This would be totally impractical to enforce.
Hopefully it's just as another user has said, "you can't use our trademarked name in the name of your script."
If you are going to advertise one speed but only deliver a lower one, that's false advertising (or something).
YES. Although technically, they tell the truth - they say "up to" some speed, which is really a promise NOT to give you more than that, but says nothing about what they WILL give you. I'd like to tell them I'll pay "up to" X dollars for that, and vary my payment as I please. "Eh, it was kinda slow this month - I'm paying you $5."
I wish they were required to advertise an average speed or something that we can measure and hold them accountable for.
Personally, I just poke a stick in my eye and listen for new rattlings in the tin-can-on-a-string.
It doesn't bring a lot of comfort to the Mexicans in that situation. When I lived in Guadalajara, I was a short walk from a row of luxury car dealerships: Porsche, Lexus, Audi, BMW, etc. And I was a short bus ride from people living in dirt floor houses and not eating enough (I was involved in a Christian ministry to some of them).
I'm pretty conservative in general, but that doesn't seem like a healthy economy. It's not encouraging to think that the world's wealthiest person got that way through monopoly deals with a corrupt government whose citizenry is mostly poor.
I have still never met an "alpha geek" that uses a Mac.
I have. One of the best developers I know uses one, and loves it. (He's mainly a Rails developer, and Macs are popular with that crowd.)
It shouldn't really matter that much so long as most of the heat stays in the fuel.
Because hot fuel explodes harder inside an engine cylinder?
And for your information, honey is delicious and pre-eaten.
Technically, yes, but the bees didn't digest it and burn the calories out of it, or we'd call it 'poop' instead of 'honey.'
Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. -- Howard Kandel
