I was wondering how long it would take Adobe to adopt The Steve's model of attaching your industry as a leech to gullible consumers. The Adobe PR machine and its shills will spin this a dozen different ways to make it sound like you're getting a great bargain, but the reality is that if you use this software on a daily basis, you're going to be paying for it on a daily basis from now until the end of time.
This is undoubtedly a response to sagging overall sales of what are now rather stale and grossly overpriced products, much as Microsoft has discovered with Office. When was the last time Photoshop got a real upgrade? And don't you love how they keep crippling Lightroom to make sure you have to own Photoshop if you want to do any real image processing? Lightroom arguably has the better UI, but they're not about to port that to Photoshop and cut out the chance of yet another subscription.
I honestly don't see a lot of innovation going on at Adobe. Let's hope the Gimp gets to be a little more user-friendly and then we can all ditch Photoshop forever. What a good riddance that would be.
Lots of great stuff here already, but as a corporate executive in charge of R&D, I'll put in my additional two cents worth...
The first rule of business: don't take it personally. It isn't all fun and games. You're not there to make friends or have fun - you're there to do a job. Yes, ideally, on the whole, you should enjoy it - if not, you're in the wrong line of work; but there will be times that the job sucks ass no matter where you work. There will be assholes that rip on you, rightly or wrongly. Don't take it personally. Keep your spirits up and focus on the work at hand. This will get you way ahead of the rest of the crowd.
Act as though time is of the essence - it is. You'll be amazed at how quickly you go from being a green kid out of college to being an old geezer like me. Don't waste your time on piddly bullshit. Work your ass off at all times - not for the company's sake, but for yours. Your life is ticking away by the minute - the only reason it doesn't seem that way is because you are young. Youth is wasted on the young - the sooner you understand why, the better off you'll be.
Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Take on the hardest work you can handle, then ask for something even harder. You don't grow by taking it easy; strength comes from adversity, not comfort. If you're comfortable, you're dead. Ask for help when you need it - there is no shame in admitting that one is in way over one's head; real achievers always are.
Good luck!
For those of you not wanting to endure E-Weak's spam, a better summary can be found here: http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/707
This group of scam artists has been around the wireless industry for ages, and what a great way to steal. Take something the government already owns and sell it back to them. What will they think of next?
The sad thing is that even many of the science and education channels have now been dumbed down to where they are often of little interest. Remember when TLC was "The Learning Channel" instead of the "Flip This House Channel"? Remember when the History Channel actually discussed history? Now even semi-respectable channels like Geographic are showing crap like "Search for Bigfoot" and "Doomsday Prophecies of the Bible".
The networks aren't stupid. They know where their audience is. Why else do you think the channel formerly known as "CNN Headline News" that used to show a nice summary of the major stories in a half-hour is now nothing but four hours of some idiot blabbing about the latest Britney Spears fiasco?
I know it's a sign of my old age, but seriously, the only television worth watching is an occasional show like Nova or Frontline on PBS, and sometimes something on CSPAN. As for the rest, it's all trash. The new dark ages indeed.
Clearly there is a lot of noise being made on both sides of the ethanol issue, and I'm not sure that any of it is particularly helpful. The farmers will tell you that corn-based ethanol is the greatest thing ever, since it has done wonders for corn prices (which prior to ethanol, have remained relatively static for nearly 100 years). The oil companies and their paid mouthpieces will tell you that ethanol (of all varieties) is going to bring about the end of the world. I would argue that neither is true.
One issue that is frequently ignored in the gross energy input versus gross energy output argument is the utility of the final product. The sad reality is, most motor vehicles today need some form of high-energy liquid fuel such as gasoline or ethanol. Sure, electrically powered vehicles would be nice, but we're not there right now. For the next 20 to 50 years, it's really hard to imagine a vehicle that doesn't require something like gasoline. Given this, then perhaps it's OK to turn one form of energy that is inexpensive and abundant, like coal, into another that is more useful, like gasoline. Not that this is the example here, but you get the general idea. I'm willing to accept a fairly inefficient process, so long as the input is energy that I can't use to get where I'm going, in exchange for an output that I can use for this purpose. So that's one argument you rarely hear anyone mention.
A question I have for all the whiners is: where is your solution? It's OK to be against something, but only if you bring an acceptable alternative to the table. Simply advocating that we remain dependent on foreign oil forever isn't going to cut it. Neither is something outrageous like suggesting we just ban all automobiles tomorrow. There has to be a long term goal, a transitional plan on how to get there, and leadership at ALL levels of society to get there. Sadly, I think we are presently lacking all three of these, but there is hope. Make it your mission in life to press the important issues like this. Not by writing your senator, or starting a flame war, but by having intelligent conversations with everyone you know. Even if people don't agree with your ideas, at least let them understand the importance of the topic.
Corn-based ethanol is not the answer to our problems, but it is a small step in the right direction (away from oil). Cellulosic ethanol is another step in the right direction. Cellulosic butanol is an even better step in the right direction, though it is even further down the road than cellulosic ethanol. Hydrogen fuel cells consuming fuel produced using wind or solar based electricity are arguable the last step on the path, but we can't get there overnight.
And for the naysayers, there is another alternative to solving problems in a constructive manner. If everyone would simply kill one other person, the world's problems would immediately be reduced by 50 percent. Which option works best for you?
And this is news? Come on, you don't really think Canada (or any other "civilized" country is soverign, do you? What Hollywood (or any big business, for that matter) wants, they get, governments be damned. Face it, the only vote anyone on this planet really has is measured by how much money they have in their wallet.
I guess this is why my usenet service from Roadrunner here in Nebraska dropped from about 4Mbps to about 300Kbps a week ago. It is altogether useless now. What, I'm supposed to pay $45 a month just so I can browse sites and use email? I don't think so. Let's face it, the only use for broadband is downloading shitloads of mp3z, warez, pron, etc. Take that away and the internet is pretty much useless.
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I was wondering how long it would take Adobe to adopt The Steve's model of attaching your industry as a leech to gullible consumers. The Adobe PR machine and its shills will spin this a dozen different ways to make it sound like you're getting a great bargain, but the reality is that if you use this software on a daily basis, you're going to be paying for it on a daily basis from now until the end of time. This is undoubtedly a response to sagging overall sales of what are now rather stale and grossly overpriced products, much as Microsoft has discovered with Office. When was the last time Photoshop got a real upgrade? And don't you love how they keep crippling Lightroom to make sure you have to own Photoshop if you want to do any real image processing? Lightroom arguably has the better UI, but they're not about to port that to Photoshop and cut out the chance of yet another subscription. I honestly don't see a lot of innovation going on at Adobe. Let's hope the Gimp gets to be a little more user-friendly and then we can all ditch Photoshop forever. What a good riddance that would be.
Lots of great stuff here already, but as a corporate executive in charge of R&D, I'll put in my additional two cents worth... The first rule of business: don't take it personally. It isn't all fun and games. You're not there to make friends or have fun - you're there to do a job. Yes, ideally, on the whole, you should enjoy it - if not, you're in the wrong line of work; but there will be times that the job sucks ass no matter where you work. There will be assholes that rip on you, rightly or wrongly. Don't take it personally. Keep your spirits up and focus on the work at hand. This will get you way ahead of the rest of the crowd. Act as though time is of the essence - it is. You'll be amazed at how quickly you go from being a green kid out of college to being an old geezer like me. Don't waste your time on piddly bullshit. Work your ass off at all times - not for the company's sake, but for yours. Your life is ticking away by the minute - the only reason it doesn't seem that way is because you are young. Youth is wasted on the young - the sooner you understand why, the better off you'll be. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Take on the hardest work you can handle, then ask for something even harder. You don't grow by taking it easy; strength comes from adversity, not comfort. If you're comfortable, you're dead. Ask for help when you need it - there is no shame in admitting that one is in way over one's head; real achievers always are. Good luck!
For those of you not wanting to endure E-Weak's spam, a better summary can be found here: http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/707 This group of scam artists has been around the wireless industry for ages, and what a great way to steal. Take something the government already owns and sell it back to them. What will they think of next?
The sad thing is that even many of the science and education channels have now been dumbed down to where they are often of little interest. Remember when TLC was "The Learning Channel" instead of the "Flip This House Channel"? Remember when the History Channel actually discussed history? Now even semi-respectable channels like Geographic are showing crap like "Search for Bigfoot" and "Doomsday Prophecies of the Bible". The networks aren't stupid. They know where their audience is. Why else do you think the channel formerly known as "CNN Headline News" that used to show a nice summary of the major stories in a half-hour is now nothing but four hours of some idiot blabbing about the latest Britney Spears fiasco? I know it's a sign of my old age, but seriously, the only television worth watching is an occasional show like Nova or Frontline on PBS, and sometimes something on CSPAN. As for the rest, it's all trash. The new dark ages indeed.
...that Janet Jackson can now show her nipple on tv and it will be OK since nobody will be able to see it?
Clearly there is a lot of noise being made on both sides of the ethanol issue, and I'm not sure that any of it is particularly helpful. The farmers will tell you that corn-based ethanol is the greatest thing ever, since it has done wonders for corn prices (which prior to ethanol, have remained relatively static for nearly 100 years). The oil companies and their paid mouthpieces will tell you that ethanol (of all varieties) is going to bring about the end of the world. I would argue that neither is true.
One issue that is frequently ignored in the gross energy input versus gross energy output argument is the utility of the final product. The sad reality is, most motor vehicles today need some form of high-energy liquid fuel such as gasoline or ethanol. Sure, electrically powered vehicles would be nice, but we're not there right now. For the next 20 to 50 years, it's really hard to imagine a vehicle that doesn't require something like gasoline. Given this, then perhaps it's OK to turn one form of energy that is inexpensive and abundant, like coal, into another that is more useful, like gasoline. Not that this is the example here, but you get the general idea. I'm willing to accept a fairly inefficient process, so long as the input is energy that I can't use to get where I'm going, in exchange for an output that I can use for this purpose. So that's one argument you rarely hear anyone mention.
A question I have for all the whiners is: where is your solution? It's OK to be against something, but only if you bring an acceptable alternative to the table. Simply advocating that we remain dependent on foreign oil forever isn't going to cut it. Neither is something outrageous like suggesting we just ban all automobiles tomorrow. There has to be a long term goal, a transitional plan on how to get there, and leadership at ALL levels of society to get there. Sadly, I think we are presently lacking all three of these, but there is hope. Make it your mission in life to press the important issues like this. Not by writing your senator, or starting a flame war, but by having intelligent conversations with everyone you know. Even if people don't agree with your ideas, at least let them understand the importance of the topic.
Corn-based ethanol is not the answer to our problems, but it is a small step in the right direction (away from oil). Cellulosic ethanol is another step in the right direction. Cellulosic butanol is an even better step in the right direction, though it is even further down the road than cellulosic ethanol. Hydrogen fuel cells consuming fuel produced using wind or solar based electricity are arguable the last step on the path, but we can't get there overnight.
And for the naysayers, there is another alternative to solving problems in a constructive manner. If everyone would simply kill one other person, the world's problems would immediately be reduced by 50 percent. Which option works best for you?
And this is news? Come on, you don't really think Canada (or any other "civilized" country is soverign, do you? What Hollywood (or any big business, for that matter) wants, they get, governments be damned. Face it, the only vote anyone on this planet really has is measured by how much money they have in their wallet.
I guess this is why my usenet service from Roadrunner here in Nebraska dropped from about 4Mbps to about 300Kbps a week ago. It is altogether useless now. What, I'm supposed to pay $45 a month just so I can browse sites and use email? I don't think so. Let's face it, the only use for broadband is downloading shitloads of mp3z, warez, pron, etc. Take that away and the internet is pretty much useless.