I had a buddy that graduated from school about the same time that I did, and instead of doing the programming thing, he became a network administrator and did the fix-it-guy thing during the day. Then at night he played around with the pet projects.
I'm almost getting to the point, though, where I come home and just don't want to look at a keyboard or monitor, regardless of whether it's just email & games or personal programming. Then it really doesn't matter.
I would suggest waiting a while before acquiring this new grass since you never know how it'll wear after a few years of real use.
Case in point: after moving to Texas, we listened to a local gardening show to figure out what sod to use in the tract house we were having built. The local radio gardener d00d recommended Buffalo 609 hybrid as a good one to use: native, liked little water, resistant to weeds, etc. All fair and good, so we shell out kilobucks to have it put in.
It looked great the first two or three years, then bermudagrass crawled in. Well gee, wasn't it supposed to resist weeds? Yeah, as long as you don't water it. Then it looks brown and ratty and not resistent to kids trampling about, and the local homeowners association fines you. Oh yeah, you can't use pesticides on it since it's pretty close to a weed itself, and its closest cousin is, surprise, bermudagrass! And now with the rainy weather we've been having the past couple years, clover moves in. We've already replaced one section with St. Augustine (sucks water like there's no tomorrow, brown fungus patch, dies at the first sign of single-digit temps).
So let the golf courses have their fun. Just wait a couple years and see if Mr. Garden D00d still likes it before buying it yourself.
Whoops, I just lost all my nerd cred.
DT
Re:GNU/OPEN SOURCE ONLY COPIES, NEVER CREATES
on
AT&T Labs' Brain Drain
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The first is the United States' position that profit -- or even the potential for profit -- by major corporate donors to the current administration is more important than anything else.
Please don't tell me that this is the first time that people have figured this out.
Hey, let me see if I can get this right:
1. Involve the United States in anything, especially policy.
2....
3. Profit for United States corporations!!!
Bill wants you to renew your MSDN subscription and use C# and.NET so your apps can run on heterogeneous systems.
Do Bill's bidding. Do it now.
Trolling aside, go to Gibson Research and download some of their apps. They're most if not all written in assembly language, and they're fast. They'll portscan your system for you, too.
I didn't exercise my Mile-High Club privileges with any of them, if that's what you're hinting at.
Actually I was going for the humor angle with a touch of sexism thrown in.
Especially because for the past, say, twenty years or so, flight attendant attractiveness and demeanor has not appeared to be a career requirement. I also remember a Hanes hosiery commercial featuring a comely stewardess in essentially a figure skater's outfit with a leering businessman in the aisle checking her out, all with a, "Gentlemen prefer Hanes," jingle in the background. Don't see much of that these days. Unless I guess you're on the DC-10 and 747 routes, perhaps?
Actually I have had good luck on Northwest myself in the past three or so years. I just need to avoid American Airlines and Dallas, the source of 98% of my flying headaches.
That said, I flew a Northworst/KLM combination flight to Athens and back. KLM is no comparison to Northworst - wonderful service; attractive, friendly stewardesses...
Well, I guess we know why you like KLM. Exactly how friendly were they?
A friend of mine in IBM Austin said that one of the big reasons that they didn't switch to Linux on the desktop was because Lotus Notes doesn't run on Linux.
However, as you could read from another article linked at the bottom of the original article, IBM is dropping Lotus Notes. I wonder what's going to take its place.
I read the article (sorry, I was bored), and noticed at the bottom of the original article that the author, Joe Lavin, writes a weekly humor column at www.joelavin.com.
So, am I supposed to take the article seriously? Is it anywhere near April 1? I wonder what Dave Barry has to say about this.
Wasn't the U.N. going to draft something regarding how the spoils of mining the moon were to be shared among all the nations of the world, including the poor third-world countries who did nothing to contribute to the endeavour? Or was that to share all space profits in general?
What else has the U.N. done for us lately?
DT
I know the perfect use of EJBs
on
Bitter EJB
·
· Score: 1
Being in the Austin area, I've come across the best use of EJBs: the job market.
You look at most Java job postings, and they say EJB experience is required. Of course, they also want VB, ASP, C#, COBOL, LISP, assembler, Ant, JUnit, and Oracle. Stuff that really goes together, I know.
Oh yeah, and they're asking for Java certs, too. Never knew certs to be of good use when I was on the other side of the interviewing table; usually the inexperienced folk had them.
So go bone up on EJB. You'll need it to get the interview. BTW, it's spelled E J B.
Regarding your issue with having to (re)boot into Windows in order to do MS Word stuff is to get Win4Lin, from Netraverse. It lets you run Windows on top of Linux at near-real speeds. Near-real for me means that I can't tell the difference.
Anyway, see if it works for you. You can't play DirectX games with it, but it runs Office and just about anything else Windows (including Quicken and QuickTime) just fine. Around $90 for download license.
If Microsoft is looking for another company to buy, Netraverse, makers of Win4Lin, is a good target:
Their Win4Lin product lets you run Windows on top of Linux at near-native speed, and supports pretty much everything out of the box except for DirectX games (which itself is a major reason to run Microsoft OSs).
If Microsoft would buy them, then there'd be one less company that lets Linux and Windows coexist, thereby enlarging the OS chasm, which is what I guess they're after, besides the meta-issue of world domination of course.
(... and now to go get me some o' that Netraverse stock...)
Um, can't anyone just plain accept that Ballmer has to badmouth Open Source, and praise Microsoft to the high heavens? He's got a stake in the whole matter. It's his ass if he says anything different. It's his ass if he says nothing. It's his ass if he gives an inch. Spreading FUD is what he's getting paid for.
Duh.
DT
meta issue: can't read the article
on
Watching You
·
· Score: 1
Here's the one time that I can remember (and I'm sure other folks will set me straight) that I cannot get to the article in question since it's only in print in its full form. Unless things have changed in the past few years, you can't get the National Geographic on newsstands, or anywhere else for that matter without being a subscriber. Or you could wait about ten years to catch it in your dentist's waiting room.
I've got the CD-ROM of whence the reviewer speaks. Included novels are:
China Mountain Zhang
Red Mars
Steel Beach
Doomsday Book (Nebula winner)
(of course) A Fire Upon the Deep
Plus it also has all Hugo and Nebula nominated short fiction, samples from the Campbell Award Nominees for best new writer, Hugo nominated fan writing, fanzines, and fan art. And if that wasn't enough, four volumes of the rec.humor.funny joke books.
I wrote ClariNet to ask them when the '94 version was going to come out, but I don't recall ever getting an answer. Dang.
But you still have not given me a reason to use it....In order to make the time investment it has to offer something better which it clearly does not.
Um, a lot of companies in Austin have it on their "skill required" list, and the Austin outlook for paying jobs right now is close to zip-point-squat. That's a good reason.
Perhaps it's the only reason. But it's still a reason.
Back in '82, I had a Honda Civic 1300FE. Rated at 41 combined, 55 highway. Probably they can't make those figures anymore due to increased emissions standards. I would regularly meet the 41 combined, and would frequently go about 57 mpg highway. I remember one time heading back to Illinois from Colorado, and I got 62 mpg highway. Must have been going downhill most of that.
But it had no A/C, and was starting to get the body cancer (the '83s got dipped, dang), so I had to let it go before moving down South.
For having a "conventional" engine, I was surprised that they can't even get close to that nowadays without sticking a battery in. Could the emissions standards be that more stringent today? It wasn't anything special; just a regular econobox four-seater hatchback.
Gotta say that it's the parents' blame, not [necessarily] the game makers. If the game is marked appropriately, it's up to the parents to make sure that it doesn't make it into the house. And if the kids are trying to buy it on the sly, then it's the responsibility of the store they got it from to check ages vs. ratings. And the parents should be checking what games are being played, in case their buddies' more permissive parents allow them to buy Dust a Ho' and they bring it over.
Rule around our house is that there are no computers or consoles (or TVs for that matter) in bedrooms or other places where a passing parent can't see what's going on. And we've already returned a game that we felt wasn't appropriately marked -- hey, the store took it back opened, against policy, after they heard our case, but we think that they wanted another demo on the floor.
I'm just waiting for the time when kids routinely sue their parents for crummy upbringing. Save your game receipts for court!
One cheap (i.e., no prep) test from the outside is to head over to Gibson Research's site and have it run the Shields UP scanner on your system (links at the bottom of the page). Probably rudimentary, but it'll tell you what you look like from the outside, with pretty pictures, too. It also tells you when your firewall probes them back.
And of course, for the Windows users, there's our free friend Zone Alarm to help put another layer between your machine and the bad ol' Internet.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm almost getting to the point, though, where I come home and just don't want to look at a keyboard or monitor, regardless of whether it's just email & games or personal programming. Then it really doesn't matter.
DT
Case in point: after moving to Texas, we listened to a local gardening show to figure out what sod to use in the tract house we were having built. The local radio gardener d00d recommended Buffalo 609 hybrid as a good one to use: native, liked little water, resistant to weeds, etc. All fair and good, so we shell out kilobucks to have it put in.
It looked great the first two or three years, then bermudagrass crawled in. Well gee, wasn't it supposed to resist weeds? Yeah, as long as you don't water it. Then it looks brown and ratty and not resistent to kids trampling about, and the local homeowners association fines you. Oh yeah, you can't use pesticides on it since it's pretty close to a weed itself, and its closest cousin is, surprise, bermudagrass! And now with the rainy weather we've been having the past couple years, clover moves in. We've already replaced one section with St. Augustine (sucks water like there's no tomorrow, brown fungus patch, dies at the first sign of single-digit temps).
So let the golf courses have their fun. Just wait a couple years and see if Mr. Garden D00d still likes it before buying it yourself.
Whoops, I just lost all my nerd cred.
DT
DT
Please don't tell me that this is the first time that people have figured this out.
Hey, let me see if I can get this right:
1. Involve the United States in anything, especially policy. ...
2.
3. Profit for United States corporations!!!
DT
Bill wants you to renew your MSDN subscription and use C# and .NET so your apps can run on heterogeneous systems.
Do Bill's bidding. Do it now.
Trolling aside, go to Gibson Research and download some of their apps. They're most if not all written in assembly language, and they're fast. They'll portscan your system for you, too.
DT
Actually I was going for the humor angle with a touch of sexism thrown in.
Especially because for the past, say, twenty years or so, flight attendant attractiveness and demeanor has not appeared to be a career requirement. I also remember a Hanes hosiery commercial featuring a comely stewardess in essentially a figure skater's outfit with a leering businessman in the aisle checking her out, all with a, "Gentlemen prefer Hanes," jingle in the background. Don't see much of that these days. Unless I guess you're on the DC-10 and 747 routes, perhaps?
Actually I have had good luck on Northwest myself in the past three or so years. I just need to avoid American Airlines and Dallas, the source of 98% of my flying headaches.
DT
Well, I guess we know why you like KLM. Exactly how friendly were they?
DT
DT
However, as you could read from another article linked at the bottom of the original article, IBM is dropping Lotus Notes. I wonder what's going to take its place.
DT
You have to admit, these are reasons. Oh yeah, one more:
- MS Access
Sorry.DT
So, am I supposed to take the article seriously? Is it anywhere near April 1? I wonder what Dave Barry has to say about this.
DT
What else has the U.N. done for us lately?
DT
You look at most Java job postings, and they say EJB experience is required. Of course, they also want VB, ASP, C#, COBOL, LISP, assembler, Ant, JUnit, and Oracle. Stuff that really goes together, I know.
Oh yeah, and they're asking for Java certs, too. Never knew certs to be of good use when I was on the other side of the interviewing table; usually the inexperienced folk had them.
So go bone up on EJB. You'll need it to get the interview. BTW, it's spelled E J B.
DT
Anyway, see if it works for you. You can't play DirectX games with it, but it runs Office and just about anything else Windows (including Quicken and QuickTime) just fine. Around $90 for download license.
DT
Their Win4Lin product lets you run Windows on top of Linux at near-native speed, and supports pretty much everything out of the box except for DirectX games (which itself is a major reason to run Microsoft OSs).
If Microsoft would buy them, then there'd be one less company that lets Linux and Windows coexist, thereby enlarging the OS chasm, which is what I guess they're after, besides the meta-issue of world domination of course.
(... and now to go get me some o' that Netraverse stock ...)
DT
Duh.
DT
So, no, I didn't read the article.
Someone want to scan it in for us?
DT
- China Mountain Zhang
- Red Mars
- Steel Beach
- Doomsday Book (Nebula winner)
- (of course) A Fire Upon the Deep
Plus it also has all Hugo and Nebula nominated short fiction, samples from the Campbell Award Nominees for best new writer, Hugo nominated fan writing, fanzines, and fan art. And if that wasn't enough, four volumes of the rec.humor.funny joke books.I wrote ClariNet to ask them when the '94 version was going to come out, but I don't recall ever getting an answer. Dang.
DT
but its manufacturer is run by a die-hard GOP donor who vowed to deliver his state for Bush next year
Gee, so from the Republicans' standpoint, what's the problem?
DT
Um, a lot of companies in Austin have it on their "skill required" list, and the Austin outlook for paying jobs right now is close to zip-point-squat. That's a good reason.
Perhaps it's the only reason. But it's still a reason.
DT
But it had no A/C, and was starting to get the body cancer (the '83s got dipped, dang), so I had to let it go before moving down South.
For having a "conventional" engine, I was surprised that they can't even get close to that nowadays without sticking a battery in. Could the emissions standards be that more stringent today? It wasn't anything special; just a regular econobox four-seater hatchback.
DT
Rule around our house is that there are no computers or consoles (or TVs for that matter) in bedrooms or other places where a passing parent can't see what's going on. And we've already returned a game that we felt wasn't appropriately marked -- hey, the store took it back opened, against policy, after they heard our case, but we think that they wanted another demo on the floor.
I'm just waiting for the time when kids routinely sue their parents for crummy upbringing. Save your game receipts for court!
DT
And of course, for the Windows users, there's our free friend Zone Alarm to help put another layer between your machine and the bad ol' Internet.
DT
Microsoft?
DT
Hmmm... I'll assume you're a Windows user, then.
DT