Almanac: 19 October 2000
By J.D. Hildebrand
Greetings!
Today is the 292nd day of 2000; 73 days remain in the year. Today
we celebrate the 219th anniversary of Lord
Cornwallis's surrender to American general George Washington at the Battle
of Yorktown and the 173rd anniversary of Napoleon's defeat in Russia.
Novelist John
LeCarre turns 69 today, and it is the 33rd birthday of Amy
Carter, daughter of former U.S. president Jimmy Carter.
Thirty-one years ago, millions of Americans -- including 50 members of
Congress -- participated in Vietnam
Moratorium observances with candlelight vigils and calls for peace. But not
everyone observed the holiday. In Washington, U.S. vice-president Spiro
Agnew referred to the participants as "an
effete corps of impudent snobs."
So...here at Borland Developer Community HQ, we'll call this Impudent Snob
Day and observe the occasion with all due pomp and ceremony. Let the impudence
begin!
JUSTIFYING A DELPHI DECISION. Community member Bob McCabe reminds me
that developers who choose Delphi sometimes face opposition from managers,
customers, and clients who assume another language would be a better choice.
"As a consultant," McCabe writes, "I'm frequently asked to
justify my preference for Delphi."
Thanks for the nudge, Bob. Presto-google-o, here's a set of links to every
Delphi vs. Visual Basic comparison I can find on the Internet. Many of these
comparisons are several years old, so I wouldn't count on them to be 100 percent
accurate regarding the features of either product. What I find most striking is
that Delphi has overwhelmingly won the comparisons year after year.
CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE. Some of today's biggest stories are coming
from the World Resources Institute's Creating
Digital Dividends conference, which is taking place this week in Seattle.
Co-sponsored by BusinessWeek, 3Com, Compaq, Ericsson, HP, iGeneration, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia,
RealNetworks, Weyerhaeuser, and WorldCom, the conference is concerned with
expansion of the Internet, computers, and telecommunications into the third
world.
MSNBC's Alan Boyle has filed stories (1,
2) that
outline the issues being covered at the conference. The presentations seem
weighted toward speakers who see the world's unwired masses as potential markets
to be tapped. A typical presentation was the one Mark Anderson described
in Wired: A member of the MIT Media Lab e-Development group drew a
distinction between mere Internet access and "enriched access" that
gives individuals and communities in the undeveloped world the information they
need to solve problems.
Microsoft's Bill Gates injected the most realistic note into the proceedings.
According to Manny Frishberg's Wired
report, Gates was the only speaker who dared suggest that technology wasn't
a panacea for the world's poor:
Eighty percent of the global population lives on less than one dollar a day,
and most -- according to the World Resources Institute, which organized the
conference -- have never made a telephone call, let alone used the Internet.
...
"The percent of growth that an IT firm like Hewlett-Packard will get
from people who make less than a dollar a day is minimal," Gates said.
"Do people have any concept of what it means to live on less than a dollar
a day? There's no electricity. Do they have PCs that don't use
electricity?"
...
In his address, the Microsoft chairman talked about the need to tackle
problems of disease and literacy as essential first steps to lifting the bottom
tier of society. He said an estimated 8 million children die each year from
easily treated or preventable diseases because they do not have access to
vaccinations and medical care.
Judging from the news coverage, Gates's
address brought a much-needed dose of reality to the proceedings.
CONGRESSIONAL PANEL SAYS NO TO FILTERS. A commission charged with
protecting children while they are online is delivering a surprise
recommendation to the Congress that empanelled it. The 18-member panel, set up
under the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, is expected to advise against the
use of Web filters in schools and libraries when it submits its report to
Congress tomorrow.
A recent survey shows that 92 percent of Americans believe filters should
block porn sites on school computers, but the commission disagreed. According to
commission chairman Donald Telage, "not even the most conservative members
of the commission felt that was the road to go down."
Congress is nonetheless debating legislation that would require the use of
such filters.
This
article summarizes the latest happenings.
INTERNET SALARY SURVEY AVAILABLE. Are you making what you're worth?
Inter@ctive Week has completed its annual survey of salaries in Internet and
high-tech careers...get a copy here
and check it out.
DVORAK GLIMPSES THE FUTURE THROUGH HIGH-TECH GLASSES. Finally, check
out this
article by John Dvorak, who recently tried on a pair of glasses with
built-in computer-monitor circuitry. Dvorak finds the technology promising and
looks forward to having a set of lenses to work with his PDA. Cool!
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