California, Florida, and Virginia are the only states to launch rockets into orbit? Did someone overlook the rather large spaceport in Houston?
Worked at a start-up lately?
on
NetSlaves
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I've been in Silicon Valley for three years now, and have only worked for startups. I came in as a lowly webmonkey with no experience, and in 7 months became the VP of Content Sales at the 20+ employee company. The reason this was even possible was the realities of a startup: 1. Startups can't afford to just throw bodies and money at problems. 2. Given 1, _all_ employees are pulling duties across multiple disciplines, giving them the opportunity to make a real difference in the performance of the company. 3. REAL startups (not some ex-HP or IBM Veeps with a bundle of cash) need the vision of employees to identify opportunities, and those who are most passionate about those opportunities get the chance to actually DO something about it. 4. Working 9-5, 5 days a week is just fine for engineers and IT folk wanting the gold watch at age 65...which has nothing to do with startup mentality. I've consistently taken under-market wages in order to increase the number of options I receive. I'm all for working 80 hours a week, 7 days a week, to make those options worth more than the paper they're printed on because I don't WANT to be punching the clock at Faceless Large Corporation at 65.
Startups aren't about the paradise of technical joy, nor are they remotely viable for those who crave security. They ARE about risk, not just financial but also emotional and intellectual. We risk losing our jobs, stunting our social lives, and creating products that we love but fail in the marketplace. And we take those risks because the rewards for success are, in our opinions, worth it.
The amusing thing is that current startup tech workers are much like the health care workers. Doctors are well-educated and technically skilled workers who are on call 24/7, and are paid well as a result. They chose that lifestyle because they believe in what they're doing, as do we. Nurses work the same "slavish" hours, and deal with disgruntled patients, emergency situations, and the sad reality that some things are beyond their help...which sound suspiciously like the people I know who work the help desks.;)
If you want regular hours with predictable and intellectually undemanding work, I suggest an exciting career in the janitorial or food service industries. Tech isn't better, or worse, than any other industry...it's just different.
I disagree with your assumption that the rest of industry is populated by the second-raters(I'll give you the fact that government is). The perception you have is based on the fact that the automotive, agriculture, whatever industry don't provide innovation at the same pace or magnitude of the computing industry. Now, with regards to the Internet, it's infinitely easier to build five revisions of a website than to build one good automotive engine design, or advanced aircraft frame, etc. BUT, the inherent difficulties of innovation in those industries are substantially increased by something that the Internet, as yet, does not have to contend with....regulation. In the current climate of "safety" and "consumer protection," can you honestly believe that a group of hackers could come together and in a year's time create a product weighing two tons, carrying flammable fuel, capable of travelling in excess of 140 miles per hour, and will be operated within feet of defenseless pedestrians on city sidewalks...or worse, next to playgrounds where CHILDREN play? Smart and creative people want the freedom to innovate and succeed on the basis of their ideas and results. Unfortunately, our current climate of NerfWorld(tm)-style legislation inhibits those who innovate, and reward those who cow-tow to interest groups, government bureaucrats, and the basest of emotional public appeal. In every new industry, unfettered by regulation or meddling, the best and brightest appear and innovate at a phenomenal speed. Remember that the personal computer revolution is now some 24 years old...it took us less time to go from propeller-driven aircraft to moon landings. The automobile went from amusing distraction to ubiquitous tool of society in a similar amount of time. Now look at the pace of innovation in the aircraft, automobile, or space industries after they were regulated "for the benefit of society." The only ones who have benefitted from this stifling are uncompetitive industries, and the second-raters that make their living erecting barriers to the innovators. Don't bemoan the Internet's attraction of innovators, celebrate the fact that at this point in time, we still have a venue to express our innovation. Don't worry, the regulators and meddlers are already drawing down on the Internet industry, so we'll just have to invent another unique market to succeed in.;)
Come on, I loved the Amiga...four years ago. Hell, I still have my 3000T with Vlab Motion, GVP Spectrum, etc etc. But I DO NOT expect the Amiga to suddenly rise from the grave and suddenly become viable. Yes, it rocked. Yes, the gui and cli were integrated at a level that still hasn't been replicated. Yes, it was inventive, creative, and downright sexy. Then again, so was Marilyn Monroe,but she's DEAD...and I don't expect anyone to be lusting after her corpse anytime soon. The nearly tens of diehard Amiga users left in the world need to realize that we all had our chance to make the platform worth something, and in the end we lost. Let's take a quick look at what would be needed to make the AmigaOS even remotely competitive now....
1. memory protection (which cannot be implemented without breaking existing Amiga APIs, rendering the existing software base obsolete) 2. virtual memory (see above problems) 3. halfway current graphics drivers (which I assume would be done under the CyberGraphX or Picasso API...hope those get opensourced as well if you want to have something compatible) 4. new scsi.device that supports very large partitions. Yes, I'm aware of td64 and the AI version, neither of which are remotely reasonable IMO. 5. rewriting Exec for a new processor, which should be especially amusing since it's all ASM/BCPL, as is much of the kernel. 6. multithreading 7. umm, apps. these are rather helpful, and will have to be generated anew since updating the OS will break all the older stuff.
Starting to see just how difficult it would be to bring the OS to current standards? By the time you get kernel hackers to actually bring things into spec for 1999, we'll be sitting at 2001 and the rules will have changed yet again.
Look, I sympathize (well, used to anyway) with those that bemoan the loss of the Amiga, but there ARE options out there that don't require you to run Microsoft software. Turn your energy to QNX, *BSD, Linux, BeOS, whatever... and mold those into what the spirit of the Amiga represented to you. Unfortunately, platform loyalty has all the trimmings of religion, and asking the zealots to change gods will generate an amusing number of emails in my box I imagine.
Um, amusing that IPIX feels the need to attack the open source plugins when LivePicture is already a commercial competitor to them in the panoramic imaging market. Having been forced to deal with IPIX panos for some sites I've built recently, I'm surprised that they haven't attacked people who create viewers, since theirs is fairly inferior to others I've seen. IPIX really fish-eyes compared to other viewers.
Sounds like Brin has been reading The Truth Machine, a recent SF book on the effects of a machine lie detector on society. While Brin does make some interesting points, perhaps I'm just reactionary in believing that principles of privacy exist not to serve society per se but to serve the individual, and through the chaotic interactions of individuals with those rights society is indirectly served.
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California, Florida, and Virginia are the only states to launch rockets into orbit? Did someone overlook the rather large spaceport in Houston?
I've been in Silicon Valley for three years now, and have only worked for startups. I came in as a lowly webmonkey with no experience, and in 7 months became the VP of Content Sales at the 20+ employee company. The reason this was even possible was the realities of a startup:
;)
1. Startups can't afford to just throw bodies and money at problems.
2. Given 1, _all_ employees are pulling duties across multiple disciplines, giving them the opportunity to make a real difference in the performance of the company.
3. REAL startups (not some ex-HP or IBM Veeps with a bundle of cash) need the vision of employees to identify opportunities, and those who are most passionate about those opportunities get the chance to actually DO something about it.
4. Working 9-5, 5 days a week is just fine for engineers and IT folk wanting the gold watch at age 65...which has nothing to do with startup mentality. I've consistently taken under-market wages in order to increase the number of options I receive. I'm all for working 80 hours a week, 7 days a week, to make those options worth more than the paper they're printed on because I don't WANT to be punching the clock at Faceless Large Corporation at 65.
Startups aren't about the paradise of technical joy, nor are they remotely viable for those who crave security. They ARE about risk, not just financial but also emotional and intellectual. We risk losing our jobs, stunting our social lives, and creating products that we love but fail in the marketplace. And we take those risks because the rewards for success are, in our opinions, worth it.
The amusing thing is that current startup tech workers are much like the health care workers. Doctors are well-educated and technically skilled workers who are on call 24/7, and are paid well as a result. They chose that lifestyle because they believe in what they're doing, as do we. Nurses work the same "slavish" hours, and deal with disgruntled patients, emergency situations, and the sad reality that some things are beyond their help...which sound suspiciously like the people I know who work the help desks.
If you want regular hours with predictable and intellectually undemanding work, I suggest an exciting career in the janitorial or food service industries. Tech isn't better, or worse, than any other industry...it's just different.
I disagree with your assumption that the rest of industry is populated by the second-raters(I'll give you the fact that government is). The perception you have is based on the fact that the automotive, agriculture, whatever industry don't provide innovation at the same pace or magnitude of the computing industry. Now, with regards to the Internet, it's infinitely easier to build five revisions of a website than to build one good automotive engine design, or advanced aircraft frame, etc. BUT, the inherent difficulties of innovation in those industries are substantially increased by something that the Internet, as yet, does not have to contend with....regulation. ;)
In the current climate of "safety" and "consumer protection," can you honestly believe that a group of hackers could come together and in a year's time create a product weighing two tons, carrying flammable fuel, capable of travelling in excess of 140 miles per hour, and will be operated within feet of defenseless pedestrians on city sidewalks...or worse, next to playgrounds where CHILDREN play?
Smart and creative people want the freedom to innovate and succeed on the basis of their ideas and results. Unfortunately, our current climate of NerfWorld(tm)-style legislation inhibits those who innovate, and reward those who cow-tow to interest groups, government bureaucrats, and the basest of emotional public appeal.
In every new industry, unfettered by regulation or meddling, the best and brightest appear and innovate at a phenomenal speed. Remember that the personal computer revolution is now some 24 years old...it took us less time to go from propeller-driven aircraft to moon landings. The automobile went from amusing distraction to ubiquitous tool of society in a similar amount of time. Now look at the pace of innovation in the aircraft, automobile, or space industries after they were regulated "for the benefit of society." The only ones who have benefitted from this stifling are uncompetitive industries, and the second-raters that make their living erecting barriers to the innovators.
Don't bemoan the Internet's attraction of innovators, celebrate the fact that at this point in time, we still have a venue to express our innovation. Don't worry, the regulators and meddlers are already drawing down on the Internet industry, so we'll just have to invent another unique market to succeed in.
Come on, I loved the Amiga...four years ago. Hell, I still have my 3000T with Vlab Motion, GVP Spectrum, etc etc. But I DO NOT expect the Amiga to suddenly rise from the grave and suddenly become viable.
Yes, it rocked. Yes, the gui and cli were integrated at a level that still hasn't been replicated. Yes, it was inventive, creative, and downright sexy. Then again, so was Marilyn Monroe,but she's DEAD...and I don't expect anyone to be lusting after her corpse anytime soon.
The nearly tens of diehard Amiga users left in the world need to realize that we all had our chance to make the platform worth something, and in the end we lost. Let's take a quick look at what would be needed to make the AmigaOS even remotely competitive now....
1. memory protection (which cannot be implemented without breaking existing Amiga APIs, rendering the existing software base obsolete)
2. virtual memory (see above problems)
3. halfway current graphics drivers (which I assume would be done under the CyberGraphX or Picasso API...hope those get opensourced as well if you want to have something compatible)
4. new scsi.device that supports very large partitions. Yes, I'm aware of td64 and the AI version, neither of which are remotely reasonable IMO.
5. rewriting Exec for a new processor, which should be especially amusing since it's all ASM/BCPL, as is much of the kernel.
6. multithreading
7. umm, apps. these are rather helpful, and will have to be generated anew since updating the OS will break all the older stuff.
Starting to see just how difficult it would be to bring the OS to current standards? By the time you get kernel hackers to actually bring things into spec for 1999, we'll be sitting at 2001 and the rules will have changed yet again.
Look, I sympathize (well, used to anyway) with those that bemoan the loss of the Amiga, but there ARE options out there that don't require you to run Microsoft software. Turn your energy to QNX, *BSD, Linux, BeOS, whatever... and mold those into what the spirit of the Amiga represented to you.
Unfortunately, platform loyalty has all the trimmings of religion, and asking the zealots to change gods will generate an amusing number of emails in my box I imagine.
Um, amusing that IPIX feels the need to attack the open source plugins when LivePicture is already a commercial competitor to them in the panoramic imaging market. Having been forced to deal with IPIX panos for some sites I've built recently, I'm surprised that they haven't attacked people who create viewers, since theirs is fairly inferior to others I've seen. IPIX really fish-eyes compared to other viewers.
Sounds like Brin has been reading The Truth Machine, a recent SF book on the effects of a machine lie detector on society. While Brin does make some interesting points, perhaps I'm just reactionary in believing that principles of privacy exist not to serve society per se but to serve the individual, and through the chaotic interactions of individuals with those rights society is indirectly served.