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Friday, March 23, 2007 |
Charlie Fialkowski of Siemens writes in his blog (by the way, your service needs to send a header so that my aggregator knows it's you) about recent travel experiences with airlines. The northeast weather affected a bunch of people at the ABB conference this week, too.
Then you get the pure stupidity stories. I found a seat at a gate at the Atlanta airport yesterday that had been cleared by a recent boarding. I'd been there through a bunch of paging about the flight to Daytona Beach (get it, it's spring break, go figure) boarding and closing. Since no one was around, I figured that was another gate as I sat there and worked with my $7.95 wireless connection. After at least 15 minutes, three young people (20s) showed up at the counter at the gate. Where's the plane, they demanded. It can't have left. You never came to get us. "Just call the pilots and tell them to come back and get us," demanded the young lady in the trio. I about fell out of my chair laughing at that one. She was serious. I guess mommy and daddy never allowed disappointment to follow her irresponsibility. Those extra beers for an early spring break cost them extra airport time. She received no sympathy from anyone around there.
4:31:13 PM 
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Jon Udell, long time InfoWorld columnist and now Microsoft evangelist has a post "I have met the enemy and it is tribalism." These thoughts have implications for your daily life as well as for politics and religion.
This idea for a personal organizer from Lifehacker sounds interesting.
Despite all the hype about Web-based software applications, do you find them often too slow when you use them? Here's a post from Webware indicating a trend toward using Web apps offline as well as on.
Want an excuse to go to Vancouver in July? ISA's SP100 Wireless committee is sponsoring a summit on wireless technology July 22-24. I think I'd like to go.
11:23:04 AM
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It wasn't always a given that Microsoft Windows would rule automation software. As late as the 1998 ARC Forum alternatives were discussed. By 1999, though, a couple of Sun guys presented the Java perspective as anti-Windows. But that never caught on. I bet a lot of you can program in Java. It's a cool language (I ran out and bought a book and a JDK when I first heard about it in the early-mid 90s). But Windows won the battle.
Note that there's no discussion of Linux in the above paragraph. When I worked for another magazine, I tried following real-time Linux for manufacturing. There are a few implementations, but the companies I followed either have died or morphed their emphases into devices such as mobile phones. There is still an open source Linux PLC project, however. The "main guy" lost his job a couple of years ago and had to take a job with a shop that was all Windows. So, he's gone. But if you are curious, check out the discussion on SourceForge. I still read it. A couple of companies have provided platforms for it to sit on. But, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
11:14:23 AM
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Jim Pinto has published his latest e-newsletter. In it, he discusses his visit to Infosys during his stay in India. We chatted about that in Automation Minutes 30 last week. He also discusses lack of motivation in US education. I responded to him:
First, you are mostly correct in your education analysis. I have some background in education (teacher, school board member) and my wife is retiring this year after 35 years as an elementary teacher. Weâo[dot accent]ve seen huge changes. While far too many administrators are simply clueless about management, the biggest change has undoubtedly been the lack of student motivation coupled with (maybe because of) lack of parental will to work with and motivate their children. Every teacher I talk with bemoans that lack of parental support. Parents are quick to criticize, but absent when it counts. The last thing to consider is that when comparing US to other countries, we use statistics for every child in the country. Unless this changed very recently in other countries, they donâo[dot accent]t. Children who drop out are not counted in all countriesâo[dot accent] statistics. As in all comparisons, it pays to dive beneath the well-publicized generalities.
11:00:59 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Gary Mintchell.
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