"As long as the audiences continue to look for cam-slut poses on the female clan pages, that's where the money will go. And of course, the female gamers have to give up the easy money. I don't doubt that there are many good looking or perhaps not so good looking female gamers who could do well. And no, I don't think the first successful female clan will have to be comprised of butt-ugly chicks either, but in reality it shouldn't matter whatsoever what they look like. It's the combination of audience and sponsor expectations, combined with willing participants, that creates the current environment."
Perhaps, in the gaming industry when it comes to women gamers, looks *are* valued more than gaming ability. Maybe if the gaming industry really did value gaming ability first and foremost when it comes to both men and women gamers, then overall women's gaming ability would improve. Obviously, as evident by the amount of money and attention spent on hot gamer girls, the industry panders to looks at the expense of ability when it comes to women gamers. If the industry wants better women gamers then that's where it should put the money and attention.
Until that happens, why should hot gamer girls with moderate skill improve their gaming ability if it's not required of them in order to achieve whatever it is they want to achieve (publicity, advertising/modeling contracts, etc...)? For some women, capitalizing on their looks and sexuality is what works for them so more power to them. It's their choice and right to do so.
The real question is, why does the gaming industry have a double standard where skill is valued in men gamers and looks valued in women gamers? Most likely it's because men make the games and they like looking at pretty girls so that's sets the tone for the industry as a whole.
All that said, I am a woman gamer and enjoy playing games. For me, the entertainment is in playing, not competing, and to be honest with you, I get bored after an hour or 2. My fingers get cramped and my eyes get tired and no, I'm not willing or interested in spending 4+ hours a day to figure out the exact key mash that will give me the secret power boost at the beginning of a race as opposed to my boyfriend who is driven to play and compete online which is fine, I just prefer to do other things, unless it's Tetris, I can play Tetris for 5+ hours at a stretch.;)
The incentive system to compete online and achieving a high ranking to earn rewards and points drives my boyfriend to keep going but are moot when it comes to me. Maybe there needs to be a different incentive system for women gamers to entice them to achieve a higher level of ability, I don't know.
Or maybe it's ok that there aren't professional women gamers.
As one of the few females on slashdot I must say that I f*%$ing HATE the color pink and I imagine some other female slashdotters feel the same way so if you don't want to lose the few 1.7% of us you have, SWITCH IT BACK.
Cell phone traffic isn't encrypted, is it? Couldn't someone spoof someone else's phone number and have them send money to them and then they disable the account as soon as they've collected?
When you consider the lengths that identity thieves and phishing scams will go to, it's not completely unfeasible.
But I could be completely on crack so if what I'm saying is completely ludicrous, please disregard.
I'm a girl/grrl/woman, whatever, who loves to play games.
I remember when the Atari came out and just salivating over it. I knew my large and barely middle class family could never afford it so I befriended a girl in my neighborhood I didn't really like who had Atari just so I could play it.
Pathetic? Totally, but it means I'm a gamer at heart and gamers like good games. Period.
My first and foremost love is and always will be Tetris, I used to go to great, silly, lengths to make sure I had the Tetris highscore at the local arcade. I remember being ridiculously ecstatic when the gameboy came out. I saved for it and bought one with a tetris card so it would be at my beck and call.
Currently, I'm mainly playing DOA 4 and my favorite character is Kasumi, one of the female characters with ridiculously large breasts. Of course, since I happen to have ridiculously large breasts, it just makes me relate to the game more and feel apart of the action.:p
Seriously though, so what? Figuring out all of the combo and special moves is fun, especially when it means pounding my boyfriend's DOA character into the pavement. We had a great time unlocking all of the extra characters and no, neither one of us is at cut or thin or whatever as any of the DOA characters. I enjoy it because it's a really well-crafted and entertaining game.
Whether it's a team of 5 developers or 500, if there isn't someone paying attention to the overall picture and architecture of a software product, be it a game or CMS, it's going to take longer.
I've worked on teams of 10 or less where everything was disorganized and took forever to complete, regardless of additional resources, and ones where there was a Tech Lead making sure everything was on track enabling us to produce far more than we had promised under schedule.
I've also worked in a big company on larger teams and the same logic holds true. An incompetent manager meant lots of programmers stepping on each others toes and producing conflicting code. A competent manager meant lots of parallel and complementary development.
Disclaimer: Of course, I'm generalizing based upon my anecdotal experience and leaving out a ton of external factors that affect development, (funding, policy, overriding and sometimes harmful decisions of executive management), so this is just my overall impression based upon my limited work experience that did NOT involve game development.
Voice Over IP is cutting into Verizon's and SBC's revenue from phone products. SBC already has to deal with cell phones taking away the standard landline but long distance and business voice accounts have always been their real cash cow. Losing that is what I think is really eating them, especially when you add video conferencing on top of it.
If more businesses start following the adoption of private VOIP networks like Department of Defense is doing, the telcos know they're screwed but since they can't stop the DoD, they're flexing their monopolistic leverage to blackmail content providers instead.
I'm just speculating, I could totally be on crack.
My unique algorithm prefix enables the extraction of data as contained within a one or multi dimensional data storage array that may or may not be indexed by key values of a primary or foreign nature.
I, hereby, charge a $1 licensing fee per instance of my patented algorithm used in all commercial or commercially viable applications.
There are so many scams and spam postings on craigslist now that I turn to my network of friends and an internal posting board at my work before bothering to use it.
Don't get me wrong, I love craigslist and used it back when it was just a list-serv. But success has its price and that price is a ton of clutter.
If craigslist had decent search capabilities that would help mitigate the problem but as it is, it's very frustrating. You can't search for anything in multiple neighborhoods in the same city, let alone search for something in multiple cities. Searching for housing is tedious since you can't filter it by number of bedrooms, bathrooms, whether it has off-street parking, etc.
I have found some utilities online that will do craigslist filtering but they can't help but miss a bunch of postings since they're just parsing a bunch of text. There is nothing that they can key off of in order to filter accurately.
I'll still use craigslist when I need to, of course, but I also use other things as well and don't solely rely on it.
If I had had physical access to my brother's computer, then of course I would have reformatted the disk and reinstalled the OS. The problem is, he's in the midwest and I'm on the west coast with a 3 hour time difference. I tried to help him over the phone, (he couldn't access email since his computer wouldn't boot), on how to remove the trojans so he could backup his data and then reformat. I spent hours on the phone with him. At one point, I tried to talk him through pulling the disk out and just dropping it into the mail to me so I could take care of it but he didn't feel comfortable doing that fearing he would damage the disk.
With his new computer, I've given him specific instructions on how to turn on remote support access for me which works out better for both of us.:)
I have a brother who is marred and has 2 kids between the ages of 12-15. Those kids killed his last computer, unwittingly installing all sorts of nonsense when they downloaded games and graphics. That was on a Win98 SP2 machine which, as hard as I tried, I simply could not secure or revive from all of the trojans and malware that had infected it.
My brother supports a family of 4 on his one salary. They live very well considering the cost of living in their small, midwestern town, but computers still cost the same and he hasn't been able to afford to buy a new one. He's quite proficient with computers when it comes to using and configuring them for what he and his family needs it to do. He just doesn't have time to keep up on all the security issues and patches since he's too busy working to support his family and trying to be a good father to his kids.
After he got laid off from his job not too long ago, I bought him and his family a new PC with WinXP Home, (I know XP Professional is much better when it comes to security but it would have overwhelmed my brother and the best PC package I could find at the price I could afford only offered XP Home). I walked him through how to secure the new PC by setting up an account for the kids with guest access so they can't install anything, configuring automatic updates, installing spybot and automatic scans, tuning the XP firewall, and having him switch to Firefox. I sent him urls for websites that explained how to secure a PC and maintain it.
I've just emailed him about installing the SiteAdvisor plug-in for Firefox which is absolutely brilliant for users like my brother. Hell, I've installed it just for the novelty of it.
The point is, my brother is taking care of his machine now and he loves Firefox. He has told everyone he knows in his little town about how great it is and to dump IE. All it took was someone taking the time to inform him.
So chill and if you have the time and inclination, take 10-15 minutes to explain to a user how to protect their PC. If that's not the kind of thing you feel like doing, fine, then as far as I'm concerned, you don't have a right to complain about it.
If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem, in my opinion.
I watched the entire Firefly series on DVD, saw the rough cut preview and Serenity last night at 11:59pm.
While there are many comedy relief moments that will make you laugh, Firefly/Serenity is an intelligent drama with strong characters and an engaging plot wrapped in the scifi + action genre.
Once I started watching the DVDs, I couldn't stop. It even seemd slow at first but as the characters build and the plot progresses, it is absolutely intoxicating.
Serenity is an excellent introduction to the Firefly world. Go see it, I promise if nothing else, you'll be entertained.
I tried to check the masthead, too, to get in touch with atleast one person I know who is still there, just to see if they're ok or if the merger means they're being laid off and offer to buy them a drink.
"I" is doing ok at the new job. We've been close friends ever since we met at IGN so I still see and talk to her. I'm still at my post-IGN job, except for a detour where I left to work for a dotcom for a year before returning.
I have many fond memories of IGN, along with the vile ones too, of course.;)
lol, you have me pegged. You definitely know who I'm talking about, in both cases.
And no, I'm not really still pissed anymore but I was at the time which is what I was trying to convey. Makes for a more interesting that way.;)
And for the record, I don't think EM is a bad person, just a horrible manager of anything IT related. EM would have been much more effective in the marketing/sales department.
And while "I" was right in saying things got better, they still got bad enough that I was relieved to see "I" leave and move to a different company.
I have to concur since I used to work for IGN, back in 1997 and left a year later. I'm amazed I lasted a year there now that I think of it. There were, and maybe still are, alot of great people who worked there but the managmenet was incompetent. Absolutely no clue about application development at all. Development, test and production were all on one server.
The guy who was my manager was an inexperienced, technically incompetent, egotistical, petty, tyrant. No one could stand him or understand how on earth he was promoted. I remember when I first started there and someone told me rife with sarcasm, you know what happens when [name of my former IGN manager] screws up? He gets a new car! You know what happens if he does it again? He gets a free vacation! He convinced the CEO to pay $50,000 for beta searching sofware because it could index images and video. I had to make it work with 5+ domains and all the domains were on SGI servers at the time and this beta software ran on Windows NT. At one point, he admitted to me that he had made a mistake and insisted that I had to make it work to cover up his error and justify the expense. On top of that, I worked minimum 14-16hr days and was paid crap, all the technical talent was paid crap. It was a nightmare.
I did have a friend who stayed on for a while into the snowball.com days and she did tell me that, eventually, the incompetents were let go but it was long after I left.
I do hope for the good people that still work at IGN, the merger is a positive direction for them.
- tokengeekgrrl
Employees are the biggest source of retail theft
on
Retail Fraud on the Rise
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
According to the Nov 2002 National Retail Security Survey, almost 50% of all theft was committed by employees, not consumers.
Oh, I try to reduce the scope but I work in the public sector where there is no chargeback and everyone asks for everything because it doesn't cost them anything to do so.
I like the candy bay analogy, though, I'll definitely be using that one, thanks.
1. You can have it done fast. 2. You can have it done cheap. 3. You can have it fully functional
Now pick 2.
Fast and cheap = means using average and inexpensive programmers and is not fully functional
Fast and fully functional = exceptional programmers and will cost an arm and a leg
Cheap and fully functional = means it will take a long, long, long, long time for the average and inexpensive programmers to build it
The timeline for the application, whether you need it tomorrow or can wait a few years, in addition to the budget determines what kind of programmers you can afford and need to hire.
Think about it. GTA is the perfect medium by which to teach guys how to *really* pleasure a woman. As long as the gameplay makes you work for the woman's orgasm, meaning you're going to have to work those controls for more than 5 minutes guys, I say bring it on.
It's not really so hard to figure out. Private schools do it all the time.
Many people think private schools are too expensive but my parents weren't rich at all and sent me and my 6 older sibilings, yes I said 6, to private high school and in spite of my protests at the time and some unpleasant experiences, it provided me with a fantastic education that no public school can match.
Then again, since my family wasn't very wealthy, I had a chip on my shoulder about being poor and got good grades out of pride since I couldn't compete in terms of clothes and money.
Regardless, if I ever have kids, they're going to private high school.
I think yahoo will always be playing catch up in regards to search because google changed the basic assumptions of search with their PageRank algorithm. So much is driven by PageRank in regards to advertising revenue, that yahoo and msn.com must tailor their search results according to google's terms.
The other services that yahoo provides are really in different markets and not in direct competition with google. For example, hosting and DSL services with SBC isn't a competitor in the search market. One could conclude that because yahoo concentrates on so many things other then search, it may not be as dedicated to tuning its search algorithm.
Add the fact that yahoo's focus is to sell its search results, even if it means placing irrelevant results at the top of the page, only works in google's "do no evil" favor.
I read/. somewhat regularly and I will always work in IT but I didn't major in CS in college. I took an intro to programming class, enjoyed it and got an A but as 1 of 2 women in the class, I and the other woman found ourselves rather isolated and kind of treated like pariahs by the 25 other guys in the class and the professor so neither of us pursued it as a major.
That said, I ended up working in computers anyway simply because I like it and apparently have an aptitude for it. I think that may be more important, more motivating to work in IT then having a degree (this coming from a poli sci major and music minor).
So I'm getting burnt out on programming and especially having to implement poor decisions by the management of my IT dept. Since I don't like to be a whiner, I figured if I think I can do better then I should move into IT management. So I went to grad school part-time to get a MBA. As soon as I finish my thesis, I'll graduate, officially.
I went to a fully accredited school with good name recognition and reputation, a solid state university, but not top tier. I could have gotten into a "better" school but none would do what the school I chose did: accommodate my work schedule, allow me to focus on IT for my graduate work and not put in me debt for years to come. Some of my classes were outstanding with professors who earned their PhDs at Stanford and Harvard. I enjoyed and learned a ton from my economics, operations and statistics, marketing, finance and accounting classes. Some of my classes were lame.
Regardless, I already have some interest from people hiring within my current department and friends of friends even though I haven't officially graduated yet so having a MBA, plus my 7+ years experience in IT, is opening IT management doors for me.
As many people said earlier, it depends what you want to do with it and what experience you have. The program I was in would not take someone just out of undergrad. You had to have a minimum of 5 years professional work experience and submit your objective as to what you wanted to get from having a MBA as a writing sample in addition to as minimum GMAT score.
That said, I have a friend who is at Columbia to get a MBA. He wants to work on Wall Street so Columbia is the perfect place for him to be. He told me the first year was a joke, alot of networking social events and schmoozing, very little actual work or studying. Since his undergrad degree was in business, there isn't anything being taught that he hasn't already been exposed to although he did say the second year has been a bit more rigorous. He told me that he realizes he's taken out 100K+ in loans so he can put Columbia on his resume and meet potential employers with whom Columbia has a relationship. Given what he wants to do, that's money well spent.
To the OP: take your time, figure out what you want to get out of it, weigh carefully the cost vs benefit of a top tier vs middle tier school and good luck!
- tokengeekgrrl
Comprehensive list of unsolved codes and ciphers
on
Intro to Encryption
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
If after reading the intro to encryption you are so inspired to try to crack one, I highly recommend this list:
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps, in the gaming industry when it comes to women gamers, looks *are* valued more than gaming ability. Maybe if the gaming industry really did value gaming ability first and foremost when it comes to both men and women gamers, then overall women's gaming ability would improve. Obviously, as evident by the amount of money and attention spent on hot gamer girls, the industry panders to looks at the expense of ability when it comes to women gamers. If the industry wants better women gamers then that's where it should put the money and attention.
Until that happens, why should hot gamer girls with moderate skill improve their gaming ability if it's not required of them in order to achieve whatever it is they want to achieve (publicity, advertising/modeling contracts, etc...)? For some women, capitalizing on their looks and sexuality is what works for them so more power to them. It's their choice and right to do so.
The real question is, why does the gaming industry have a double standard where skill is valued in men gamers and looks valued in women gamers? Most likely it's because men make the games and they like looking at pretty girls so that's sets the tone for the industry as a whole.
All that said, I am a woman gamer and enjoy playing games. For me, the entertainment is in playing, not competing, and to be honest with you, I get bored after an hour or 2. My fingers get cramped and my eyes get tired and no, I'm not willing or interested in spending 4+ hours a day to figure out the exact key mash that will give me the secret power boost at the beginning of a race as opposed to my boyfriend who is driven to play and compete online which is fine, I just prefer to do other things, unless it's Tetris, I can play Tetris for 5+ hours at a stretch.
The incentive system to compete online and achieving a high ranking to earn rewards and points drives my boyfriend to keep going but are moot when it comes to me. Maybe there needs to be a different incentive system for women gamers to entice them to achieve a higher level of ability, I don't know.
Or maybe it's ok that there aren't professional women gamers.
- tokengeekgrrl
As one of the few females on slashdot I must say that I f*%$ing HATE the color pink and I imagine some other female slashdotters feel the same way so if you don't want to lose the few 1.7% of us you have, SWITCH IT BACK.
Blech.
- tokengeekgrrl
Cell phone traffic isn't encrypted, is it? Couldn't someone spoof someone else's phone number and have them send money to them and then they disable the account as soon as they've collected?
When you consider the lengths that identity thieves and phishing scams will go to, it's not completely unfeasible.
But I could be completely on crack so if what I'm saying is completely ludicrous, please disregard.
- tokengeekgrrl
I'm a girl/grrl/woman, whatever, who loves to play games.
:p
I remember when the Atari came out and just salivating over it. I knew my large and barely middle class family could never afford it so I befriended a girl in my neighborhood I didn't really like who had Atari just so I could play it.
Pathetic? Totally, but it means I'm a gamer at heart and gamers like good games. Period.
My first and foremost love is and always will be Tetris, I used to go to great, silly, lengths to make sure I had the Tetris highscore at the local arcade. I remember being ridiculously ecstatic when the gameboy came out. I saved for it and bought one with a tetris card so it would be at my beck and call.
Currently, I'm mainly playing DOA 4 and my favorite character is Kasumi, one of the female characters with ridiculously large breasts. Of course, since I happen to have ridiculously large breasts, it just makes me relate to the game more and feel apart of the action.
Seriously though, so what? Figuring out all of the combo and special moves is fun, especially when it means pounding my boyfriend's DOA character into the pavement. We had a great time unlocking all of the extra characters and no, neither one of us is at cut or thin or whatever as any of the DOA characters. I enjoy it because it's a really well-crafted and entertaining game.
And I like all things Kung Fu.
- tokengamergrrl
Whether it's a team of 5 developers or 500, if there isn't someone paying attention to the overall picture and architecture of a software product, be it a game or CMS, it's going to take longer.
I've worked on teams of 10 or less where everything was disorganized and took forever to complete, regardless of additional resources, and ones where there was a Tech Lead making sure everything was on track enabling us to produce far more than we had promised under schedule.
I've also worked in a big company on larger teams and the same logic holds true. An incompetent manager meant lots of programmers stepping on each others toes and producing conflicting code. A competent manager meant lots of parallel and complementary development.
Disclaimer: Of course, I'm generalizing based upon my anecdotal experience and leaving out a ton of external factors that affect development, (funding, policy, overriding and sometimes harmful decisions of executive management), so this is just my overall impression based upon my limited work experience that did NOT involve game development.
- tokengeekgrrl
Voice Over IP is cutting into Verizon's and SBC's revenue from phone products. SBC already has to deal with cell phones taking away the standard landline but long distance and business voice accounts have always been their real cash cow. Losing that is what I think is really eating them, especially when you add video conferencing on top of it.
If more businesses start following the adoption of private VOIP networks like Department of Defense is doing, the telcos know they're screwed but since they can't stop the DoD, they're flexing their monopolistic leverage to blackmail content providers instead.
I'm just speculating, I could totally be on crack.
- tokengeekgrrl
My unique algorithm prefix enables the extraction of data as contained within a one or multi dimensional data storage array that may or may not be indexed by key values of a primary or foreign nature.
I, hereby, charge a $1 licensing fee per instance of my patented algorithm used in all commercial or commercially viable applications.
- smarta**geekgrrl
There are so many scams and spam postings on craigslist now that I turn to my network of friends and an internal posting board at my work before bothering to use it.
Don't get me wrong, I love craigslist and used it back when it was just a list-serv. But success has its price and that price is a ton of clutter.
If craigslist had decent search capabilities that would help mitigate the problem but as it is, it's very frustrating. You can't search for anything in multiple neighborhoods in the same city, let alone search for something in multiple cities. Searching for housing is tedious since you can't filter it by number of bedrooms, bathrooms, whether it has off-street parking, etc.
I have found some utilities online that will do craigslist filtering but they can't help but miss a bunch of postings since they're just parsing a bunch of text. There is nothing that they can key off of in order to filter accurately.
I'll still use craigslist when I need to, of course, but I also use other things as well and don't solely rely on it.
- tokengeekgrrl
If I had had physical access to my brother's computer, then of course I would have reformatted the disk and reinstalled the OS. The problem is, he's in the midwest and I'm on the west coast with a 3 hour time difference. I tried to help him over the phone, (he couldn't access email since his computer wouldn't boot), on how to remove the trojans so he could backup his data and then reformat. I spent hours on the phone with him. At one point, I tried to talk him through pulling the disk out and just dropping it into the mail to me so I could take care of it but he didn't feel comfortable doing that fearing he would damage the disk.
:)
With his new computer, I've given him specific instructions on how to turn on remote support access for me which works out better for both of us.
- tokengeekgrrl
I have a brother who is marred and has 2 kids between the ages of 12-15. Those kids killed his last computer, unwittingly installing all sorts of nonsense when they downloaded games and graphics. That was on a Win98 SP2 machine which, as hard as I tried, I simply could not secure or revive from all of the trojans and malware that had infected it.
My brother supports a family of 4 on his one salary. They live very well considering the cost of living in their small, midwestern town, but computers still cost the same and he hasn't been able to afford to buy a new one. He's quite proficient with computers when it comes to using and configuring them for what he and his family needs it to do. He just doesn't have time to keep up on all the security issues and patches since he's too busy working to support his family and trying to be a good father to his kids.
After he got laid off from his job not too long ago, I bought him and his family a new PC with WinXP Home, (I know XP Professional is much better when it comes to security but it would have overwhelmed my brother and the best PC package I could find at the price I could afford only offered XP Home). I walked him through how to secure the new PC by setting up an account for the kids with guest access so they can't install anything, configuring automatic updates, installing spybot and automatic scans, tuning the XP firewall, and having him switch to Firefox. I sent him urls for websites that explained how to secure a PC and maintain it.
I've just emailed him about installing the SiteAdvisor plug-in for Firefox which is absolutely brilliant for users like my brother. Hell, I've installed it just for the novelty of it.
The point is, my brother is taking care of his machine now and he loves Firefox. He has told everyone he knows in his little town about how great it is and to dump IE. All it took was someone taking the time to inform him.
So chill and if you have the time and inclination, take 10-15 minutes to explain to a user how to protect their PC. If that's not the kind of thing you feel like doing, fine, then as far as I'm concerned, you don't have a right to complain about it.
If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem, in my opinion.
Respectfully yours,
tokengeekgrrl
I just about snarfed my coffee when I read that, that's hilarious!
Thanks for the laugh.
- tokengeekgrrl
I watched the entire Firefly series on DVD, saw the rough cut preview and Serenity last night at 11:59pm.
While there are many comedy relief moments that will make you laugh, Firefly/Serenity is an intelligent drama with strong characters and an engaging plot wrapped in the scifi + action genre.
Once I started watching the DVDs, I couldn't stop. It even seemd slow at first but as the characters build and the plot progresses, it is absolutely intoxicating.
Serenity is an excellent introduction to the Firefly world. Go see it, I promise if nothing else, you'll be entertained.
I tried to check the masthead, too, to get in touch with atleast one person I know who is still there, just to see if they're ok or if the merger means they're being laid off and offer to buy them a drink.
;)
"I" is doing ok at the new job. We've been close friends ever since we met at IGN so I still see and talk to her. I'm still at my post-IGN job, except for a detour where I left to work for a dotcom for a year before returning.
I have many fond memories of IGN, along with the vile ones too, of course.
Are you one of the editors I used to work with?
Regardless, I hope you're doing well.
Cheers,
tokengeekgrrl
lol, you have me pegged. You definitely know who I'm talking about, in both cases.
;)
And no, I'm not really still pissed anymore but I was at the time which is what I was trying to convey. Makes for a more interesting that way.
And for the record, I don't think EM is a bad person, just a horrible manager of anything IT related. EM would have been much more effective in the marketing/sales department.
And while "I" was right in saying things got better, they still got bad enough that I was relieved to see "I" leave and move to a different company.
- tokengeekgrrl
I have to concur since I used to work for IGN, back in 1997 and left a year later. I'm amazed I lasted a year there now that I think of it. There were, and maybe still are, alot of great people who worked there but the managmenet was incompetent. Absolutely no clue about application development at all. Development, test and production were all on one server.
The guy who was my manager was an inexperienced, technically incompetent, egotistical, petty, tyrant. No one could stand him or understand how on earth he was promoted. I remember when I first started there and someone told me rife with sarcasm, you know what happens when [name of my former IGN manager] screws up? He gets a new car! You know what happens if he does it again? He gets a free vacation! He convinced the CEO to pay $50,000 for beta searching sofware because it could index images and video. I had to make it work with 5+ domains and all the domains were on SGI servers at the time and this beta software ran on Windows NT. At one point, he admitted to me that he had made a mistake and insisted that I had to make it work to cover up his error and justify the expense. On top of that, I worked minimum 14-16hr days and was paid crap, all the technical talent was paid crap. It was a nightmare.
I did have a friend who stayed on for a while into the snowball.com days and she did tell me that, eventually, the incompetents were let go but it was long after I left.
I do hope for the good people that still work at IGN, the merger is a positive direction for them.
- tokengeekgrrl
According to the Nov 2002 National Retail Security Survey, almost 50% of all theft was committed by employees, not consumers.
t y-crime-news0024.htm
http://jrrobertssecurity.com/security-news/securi
Oh, I try to reduce the scope but I work in the public sector where there is no chargeback and everyone asks for everything because it doesn't cost them anything to do so.
I like the candy bay analogy, though, I'll definitely be using that one, thanks.
Actually, I'm not much of an optimist these days since management at my job is always demanding all 3.
:)
But thanks for the laugh.
- tokengeekgrrl
1. You can have it done fast.
2. You can have it done cheap.
3. You can have it fully functional
Now pick 2.
Fast and cheap = means using average and inexpensive programmers and is not fully functional
Fast and fully functional = exceptional programmers and will cost an arm and a leg
Cheap and fully functional = means it will take a long, long, long, long time for the average and inexpensive programmers to build it
The timeline for the application, whether you need it tomorrow or can wait a few years, in addition to the budget determines what kind of programmers you can afford and need to hire.
- tokengeekgrrl
Think about it. GTA is the perfect medium by which to teach guys how to *really* pleasure a woman. As long as the gameplay makes you work for the woman's orgasm, meaning you're going to have to work those controls for more than 5 minutes guys, I say bring it on.
GTA: Turning Geeks into Better Lovers
~tokengeekgrrl
It's not really so hard to figure out. Private schools do it all the time.
Many people think private schools are too expensive but my parents weren't rich at all and sent me and my 6 older sibilings, yes I said 6, to private high school and in spite of my protests at the time and some unpleasant experiences, it provided me with a fantastic education that no public school can match.
Then again, since my family wasn't very wealthy, I had a chip on my shoulder about being poor and got good grades out of pride since I couldn't compete in terms of clothes and money.
Regardless, if I ever have kids, they're going to private high school.
I think yahoo will always be playing catch up in regards to search because google changed the basic assumptions of search with their PageRank algorithm. So much is driven by PageRank in regards to advertising revenue, that yahoo and msn.com must tailor their search results according to google's terms.
The other services that yahoo provides are really in different markets and not in direct competition with google. For example, hosting and DSL services with SBC isn't a competitor in the search market. One could conclude that because yahoo concentrates on so many things other then search, it may not be as dedicated to tuning its search algorithm.
Add the fact that yahoo's focus is to sell its search results, even if it means placing irrelevant results at the top of the page, only works in google's "do no evil" favor.
I read /. somewhat regularly and I will always work in IT but I didn't major in CS in college. I took an intro to programming class, enjoyed it and got an A but as 1 of 2 women in the class, I and the other woman found ourselves rather isolated and kind of treated like pariahs by the 25 other guys in the class and the professor so neither of us pursued it as a major.
That said, I ended up working in computers anyway simply because I like it and apparently have an aptitude for it. I think that may be more important, more motivating to work in IT then having a degree (this coming from a poli sci major and music minor).
- tokengeekgrrl
So I'm getting burnt out on programming and especially having to implement poor decisions by the management of my IT dept. Since I don't like to be a whiner, I figured if I think I can do better then I should move into IT management. So I went to grad school part-time to get a MBA. As soon as I finish my thesis, I'll graduate, officially.
I went to a fully accredited school with good name recognition and reputation, a solid state university, but not top tier. I could have gotten into a "better" school but none would do what the school I chose did: accommodate my work schedule, allow me to focus on IT for my graduate work and not put in me debt for years to come. Some of my classes were outstanding with professors who earned their PhDs at Stanford and Harvard. I enjoyed and learned a ton from my economics, operations and statistics, marketing, finance and accounting classes. Some of my classes were lame.
Regardless, I already have some interest from people hiring within my current department and friends of friends even though I haven't officially graduated yet so having a MBA, plus my 7+ years experience in IT, is opening IT management doors for me.
As many people said earlier, it depends what you want to do with it and what experience you have. The program I was in would not take someone just out of undergrad. You had to have a minimum of 5 years professional work experience and submit your objective as to what you wanted to get from having a MBA as a writing sample in addition to as minimum GMAT score.
That said, I have a friend who is at Columbia to get a MBA. He wants to work on Wall Street so Columbia is the perfect place for him to be. He told me the first year was a joke, alot of networking social events and schmoozing, very little actual work or studying. Since his undergrad degree was in business, there isn't anything being taught that he hasn't already been exposed to although he did say the second year has been a bit more rigorous. He told me that he realizes he's taken out 100K+ in loans so he can put Columbia on his resume and meet potential employers with whom Columbia has a relationship. Given what he wants to do, that's money well spent.
To the OP: take your time, figure out what you want to get out of it, weigh carefully the cost vs benefit of a top tier vs middle tier school and good luck!
- tokengeekgrrl
If after reading the intro to encryption you are so inspired to try to crack one, I highly recommend this list:
http://www.elonka.com/UnsolvedCodes.html
Enjoy.
- tokengeekgrrl