The gentleman who wrote MMM, Fred Brooks, has somewhere in the book, I believe in the foreward of the 25th anniversary edition, that 'for the ability to earn my daily bread doing that which I would gladly do for free, I am eternally grateful'.
Honestly, that's almost the level of love you need to stay in this line of work.
I know this is going to sound like 'boring old fart lecturing the kiddies', but for those of you without 10+ yrs of experience in the biz, you need to remember that decent salaries for doing this are a pretty recent phenomenon. I didn't earn $40K a yr until '95, by which time I was already getting close to 20 yrs of experience. The salaries being handed out in the early to mid 80's, particularly to those who worked with PC's, were abysmal at best. Those who entered the field in the late 70's to early 80's had to do it for love, because it sure as hell wasn't for the money. I was grateful simply for the ability to get paid at all to do something that I got such a charge out of in high school.
So, to the hot dog and soup guys I say I'm glad you found your calling, and I hope it brings you as much pleasure as mine does me.
Game consoles 'blow away' PC sales??? PLEASE... when and if consoles can run Joe Office Worker's shrink wrapped crap from work (think Mickeysoft Orfice) and ONLY then. Who do they think is GULLIBLE enough to believe this junk? Oh, and the article is from some kind of N64 circle jerk 'zine... REALLY objective.
Let's think this through... PC sales are driven primarily by people who want to 1) run office software at home, 2) surf the web, and 3) play games. My, my... 1 out of 3 means consoles LOSE. And to get it straight, it's been *PC's* who have been catching up to game consoles in raw graphics processing power, NOT the other way around.
The main thing you have to look at too is that makers or real software packages have *NO* incentive to port their wares to consoles. Nintendo, Sony, etc., are SO busy soaking their developers that there's hardly any room for the actual producers of code to make a buck. It is WAY easier to make money on real development platforms. The failure rate on individual games and game companies is abysmal, even compared with the dog eat dog world of PC software.
Whoever wrote and believes this stuff, I want some of whatever they're taking...
Jeez, if I read one more post about 'how could Katz come down on the poor, downtrodden, unjustly treated (!!!) Mikey Milken' one more time I think I'll be nauseous.
As this article reminds us, Mikey got in trouble for the highly illegal practice of INSIDER TRADING, NOT because the 'big bad govt wanted to put down our oh so holy saint of blessed junk bonds'. As it also shows, he can't be bothered to obey the law even in recent times.
I guess in tomorrow's episode we'll be treated to the story of 'The Saintly, Mistreated Charlie Keating' and other fractured fairy tales...
The upshot is that the RIAA is still under the delusion that they can dictate format to the market, when the marketplace has always dictated media choice anyway. Just another example that the RIAA is about to join fossilized remains of T Rex's in the museum of history, and the part that fossilized first is from the neck up.
Funny, I seem to see (and HEAR) LOTS of these driving through my neighborhood in the summer, usually blasting (excuse me, thumping) hip hop tunes at INCREDIBLE volume (and distortion) levels.
Heck, I can even hear em indoors with the windows and doors closed. Maybe I've just stumbled onto this same technology and didn't know it...
Here's my proposed list of heroes who should have made the cut but didn't:
- Alan Turing - Eckhart and Mauchly, Atanasoff - Doug Englebart (the father of mouse based computing) - G.M. Hopper (laugh all you want, she saved you from doing machine code the rest of your life) - Thompson and Ritchie - Ted Nelson (invented concept of hypertext) - Tim Berners-Lee - Alan Kay, Bob Metcalfe and the Xerox Star Team
Tim Berners-Lee gets my vote. He invented the WWW out of nothing. Andresson should get credit too, but heck, he had something to start with, and basically gussied up the WWW with a graphical interface.
Others have mentioned these guys, and I'll do so again. I saw at least one comment about K&R earlier (something silly about not belonging on the list, and yes, I know Brian Kernighan isn't Ken Thompson), and all I have to say about that, is you were WRONG.
What I really found fascinating is that the linked article includes a blurb like this:
Of course, C and Unix had formalized the chicken and egg development model years before, so he was on firm ground.
Hmmm... let's see... 'he cribbed an idea from two guys who had basically invented the predominant O/S kernel and language development model for the next several decades, but we'll ignore them...'. Christ, besides Kildall, several others on his list mentioned in conjunction with O/S's freely lifted ideas from Unix as well. Let's face it, if Unix and C don't exist, then Linux, Perl and Python likely don't exist either.
Let's see... the 2 guys directly responsible for the playground that 90% of the innovations in the article were born on don't rate a mention in the article... wow, that makes sense.
I see it was a forlorn hope that school administrators and teachers had gotten any brighter since I was in high school. Let's see... mindless repression and abuse create monsters, the response to which is... more mindless repression and abuse. Makes sense...
Hey kids - if your teachers are this dumb, tell them to check out who the Donner party, Al Fish, Ed Gein and Charles Starkweather were. Nobody has thought up anything more grotesque or senseless since, and they were around a long time before anybody thought up the internet.
Sorry, but a test (particularly one that is supposed to be objective and scientific/engineering in nature) has but ONE GOAL: to determine the facts as objectively as possible.
That isn't 'your' goal or my goal, or Saddam Hussein's goal. It's THE goal, PERIOD. Anybody who makes statements like that admits they run a bovine excrement factory instead of a testing facility.
...three times over who also thinks you're full of excrement on this particular matter. The government (and especially moralists who want to control the levers of government) has NO BUSINESS dictating what my kids may or may not see. You feel comfortable with that sort of thing? There are plenty of banana republics with military juntas out there you can move to.
Be careful what you wish for... if the government legislates what your kids can see, guess what?? They'll also get a specific political and moralistic agenda pushed down their throats... for 'their own good', of course.
'Oh Please'? That's what I have to say too. You seem to want to harp on ONE of Katz's lines in the essay, which, in your view, invalidates everything he has to say. And then to try to quash any particular criticisms of your view by prejudging those that feel differently as 'sycophants'... oh, that's rich.
I'm sorry that someone out there has suggested that a member of your Holy Circle, namely the 'sainted corporation', might have some flaws, but I'm afraid it's so. Corporate America isn't inherently 'evil', but due its very nature individual parts of it can go off the beam at times.
It's best to remember that corporations have structures very much like those older parts of the Circle, namely government and large scale institutionalized religion. They also are not inherently evil, but they can become like a runaway train because of the way the parts combine to make a whole that can act indepently of the parts therein. A corporation is a legally separate entity, legally independent in many ways that as a whole is dedicated only to its own survival and self interest. Sometimes this causes corporations as a whole to steam roller (or try to anyway) individuals or smaller groups who get in the way of those goals.
If you want to believe that somehow large corporations have absolutely no downside involved, and that they don't sometimes reduce the freedom of individuals while acting in their own self interest, then I think you need to reexamine who's exhibiting signs of sycophancy.
'Is Freedom the right to do whatever one wants? Certainly noone complains of laws banning murder as an infringement on freedom.'
Within reason, yes. Where laws against murder come in is that your are free to do as you please until you infringe on the rights of others. Other sorts of freedom that involve philosophies and religions are not (IMHO) under the purview of what ought to be instutionalized or politically enforced.
'Freedom is not the right to do what you want, but the authority to do what you ought.'
This is personal spin, I'm afraid. And begs big questions, such as who determines what is 'what you ought'? The government? Your religious beliefs? Mine? The beliefs of the people who live on Main St in Wichita? The best you can do is make sure that people take responsibility for actions taken within their freedom. 'Doing what you ought' has NO business being legislated, enforced or coerced by others.
'Don't exchange this truth for a lie.'
Which particular 'lie' were you referring to? And which 'truth'? You quote the Bible, but in a very non specific way.
...loads of techies frying their minds on crack (WAYY too declasse) or ecstasy (too trendy and clubbish)? No way... techies are usually looking for mind expansion or a bit of mellowing out... the heavy stuff gets in the way of the fun stuff (work).
Which reminds me... the article forgets one thing. Most techies voluntarily work the crazy hours. The love for the work is the curse of the business.
In order, the drugs that are probably in heaviest use among techies are: caffeine (it's not even close), alcohol, herb, (insert prescription antidepressant/psychotropic here), nicotine (used to be much higher), psychedelics (LSD, psilocybins, etc.), milder downers (tranq's, ludes, etc.). Really heavy, hacksaw grade uppers like crack or crystal meth, honestly, I've never even heard anecdotes about a professional techie who's been around for a while using any of those.
I think it's pretty clearly stated that Lucas' personal belief is that God exists. I didn't see it in there that he was stating it flatly as a truth, or that he was looking for converts to show up at the Skywalker Ranch.
Religious beliefs fall on a spectrum from fanatacism to atheism... people have a perfect right to be on that scale anywhere they please.
...these myths are archetypical and reasonate so well. Somebody metioned Freudianism... heck, myths were therapy before anyone invented analysis.
Especially for boys in patriarchal societies, your father figure is your whole world, teacher, father, mentor and confidante all rolled into one. And then one day you grow up enough to see your father's flaws, and to see him as competition. It's no wonder that the 'heroic son finds put that his daddy is the paragon of evil' angle plays so well.
These archetypes are not only ancient, but repeat every time a new generation is born.
If you enjoy this sort of look at the paradigms and deeper meaning behind many of the world's myths and philosophies/religions, I would suggest the book 'The Power of Myth', which is done in interview style between Bill Moyers, and an expert in such matters, Joseph Campbell.
BTW, Lucas and Campbell worked together quite a bit when George was writing the story for Star Wars originally back in the 70's.
P.S. If the link to the book on Amazon doesn't work, forgive me... for some reason/. is being less than kind with the href.
As was pointed out in the Supreme Court scene of 'The People vs. Larry Flynt' (and the speech given by Flynt's attorney is virtually the same as Alan Isaacman's actual oral argument) you can't make legal distinctions based on taste.
I keep seeing a disturbing number of posts making note of how disgusting/vulgar/nasty the Dilbert Hole was while discussing its legal merits as parody. TASTE has NOTHING to do with the legal definition of parody; get used to it. If something offends your delicate sensibilities, LOOK AWAY. No one that I know of was ever forced to view the page.
In another vein hand, the way they got the source material (i.e., simply repasting new words on existing strips) may (I repeat, may) have gotten them into genuine legal hot water. Then again, it could be argued that Dennis Miller does the same thing on his HBO show, where at the end of each episode he puts captions and words into the mouths of people from real photos from news organizations. It's not nearly as cut and dried as some might prefer, and personal taste is definitely a poor measure of constitutional legality.
Since someone here already brought up Cinerama, I thought I'd post a link to a story that's local to me about some of the films, the process, etc.
The story is interesting, and goes into some detail about how the process works, and films done in the process.
The guy the article talks about lives in a town close to where I live, and there are pictures of a local theater that uses his equipment to show Cinerama flicks a couple of weekends a month. Just a little something for the movie buffs out there...
2001 was NOT filmed using the special Cinerama process.
One of the few non-schlock films I know of that was FILMED using the process is the western epic 'How The West Was Won'. The Cinerama process actually involved using special cameras that (I believe) ran the light path down onto three matched reels of film. True Cinerama flicks are projected onto 3 matched screens, and it looks seamless.
2001 was shot on 70mm. I have no doubt that it looks great in a Cinerama theater, simply because that's one of the few places that has true widescreen capability with the correct aspect ratios. Today's multiplexes that use pimply 16 yr olds as combination 'projectionists' and popcorn slingers (not to mention ratty screens and improperly lit projectors) don't have a clue what to do with a good 70mm print, let alone a Cinerama flick.
Paul was the only M$oftie in the early days who even knew halfway what he was doing. M$ only started getting a terminal case of rectal cranial inversion after he left. He had to go on medical leave for Hodgkin's disease, which has been in remission since a year or two after he left M$, I believe.
He might benefit a lot from M$'s stock valuations, but at least he doesn't work there anymore. Also, while not all his ideas since have been winners, at least he tries to ACTUALLY INNOVATE.
Personally, I doubt that/. has an axe to grind against Paul... although, if they volunteers with chainsaws and ball peen hammers to help 'adjust attitudes' for Billy G. and Stevie Ballmer, I'm there.
Slashdot Mirror
The gentleman who wrote MMM, Fred Brooks, has somewhere in the book, I believe in the foreward of the 25th anniversary edition, that 'for the ability to earn my daily bread doing that which I would gladly do for free, I am eternally grateful'.
Honestly, that's almost the level of love you need to stay in this line of work.
I know this is going to sound like 'boring old fart lecturing the kiddies', but for those of you without 10+ yrs of experience in the biz, you need to remember that decent salaries for doing this are a pretty recent phenomenon. I didn't earn $40K a yr until '95, by which time I was already getting close to 20 yrs of experience. The salaries being handed out in the early to mid 80's, particularly to those who worked with PC's, were abysmal at best. Those who entered the field in the late 70's to early 80's had to do it for love, because it sure as hell wasn't for the money. I was grateful simply for the ability to get paid at all to do something that I got such a charge out of in high school.
So, to the hot dog and soup guys I say I'm glad you found your calling, and I hope it brings you as much pleasure as mine does me.
Game consoles 'blow away' PC sales??? PLEASE... when and if consoles can run Joe Office Worker's shrink wrapped crap from work (think Mickeysoft Orfice) and ONLY then. Who do they think is GULLIBLE enough to believe this junk? Oh, and the article is from some kind of N64 circle jerk 'zine... REALLY objective.
Let's think this through... PC sales are driven primarily by people who want to 1) run office software at home, 2) surf the web, and 3) play games. My, my... 1 out of 3 means consoles LOSE. And to get it straight, it's been *PC's* who have been catching up to game consoles in raw graphics processing power, NOT the other way around.
The main thing you have to look at too is that makers or real software packages have *NO* incentive to port their wares to consoles. Nintendo, Sony, etc., are SO busy soaking their developers that there's hardly any room for the actual producers of code to make a buck. It is WAY easier to make money on real development platforms. The failure rate on individual games and game companies is abysmal, even compared with the dog eat dog world of PC software.
Whoever wrote and believes this stuff, I want some of whatever they're taking...
Jeez, if I read one more post about 'how could Katz come down on the poor, downtrodden, unjustly treated (!!!) Mikey Milken' one more time I think I'll be nauseous.
As this article reminds us, Mikey got in trouble for the highly illegal practice of INSIDER TRADING, NOT because the 'big bad govt wanted to put down our oh so holy saint of blessed junk bonds'. As it also shows, he can't be bothered to obey the law even in recent times.
I guess in tomorrow's episode we'll be treated to the story of 'The Saintly, Mistreated Charlie Keating' and other fractured fairy tales...
The upshot is that the RIAA is still under the delusion that they can dictate format to the market, when the marketplace has always dictated media choice anyway. Just another example that the RIAA is about to join fossilized remains of T Rex's in the museum of history, and the part that fossilized first is from the neck up.
Funny, I seem to see (and HEAR) LOTS of these driving through my neighborhood in the summer, usually blasting (excuse me, thumping) hip hop tunes at INCREDIBLE volume (and distortion) levels.
Heck, I can even hear em indoors with the windows and doors closed. Maybe I've just stumbled onto this same technology and didn't know it...
Here's my proposed list of heroes who should have made the cut but didn't:
- Alan Turing
- Eckhart and Mauchly, Atanasoff
- Doug Englebart (the father of mouse based computing)
- G.M. Hopper (laugh all you want, she saved you from doing machine code the rest of your life)
- Thompson and Ritchie
- Ted Nelson (invented concept of hypertext)
- Tim Berners-Lee
- Alan Kay, Bob Metcalfe and the Xerox Star Team
Tim Berners-Lee gets my vote. He invented the WWW out of nothing. Andresson should get credit too, but heck, he had something to start with, and basically gussied up the WWW with a graphical interface.
Others have mentioned these guys, and I'll do so again. I saw at least one comment about K&R earlier (something silly about not belonging on the list, and yes, I know Brian Kernighan isn't Ken Thompson), and all I have to say about that, is you were WRONG.
What I really found fascinating is that the linked article includes a blurb like this:
Of course, C and Unix had formalized the chicken and egg development model years before, so he was on firm ground.
Hmmm... let's see... 'he cribbed an idea from two guys who had basically invented the predominant O/S kernel and language development model for the next several decades, but we'll ignore them...'. Christ, besides Kildall, several others on his list mentioned in conjunction with O/S's freely lifted ideas from Unix as well. Let's face it, if Unix and C don't exist, then Linux, Perl and Python likely don't exist either.
Let's see... the 2 guys directly responsible for the playground that 90% of the innovations in the article were born on don't rate a mention in the article... wow, that makes sense.
Instead of the Cato Institute, next time try the Green Hornet Institute.
Everyone one knows their views were diametrically opposed... though there is no doubt that Bruce Lee's cool factor was MUCH higher...
I see it was a forlorn hope that school administrators and teachers had gotten any brighter since I was in high school. Let's see... mindless repression and abuse create monsters, the response to which is... more mindless repression and abuse. Makes sense...
Hey kids - if your teachers are this dumb, tell them to check out who the Donner party, Al Fish, Ed Gein and Charles Starkweather were. Nobody has thought up anything more grotesque or senseless since, and they were around a long time before anybody thought up the internet.
Read what you can about the Donner party... Albert Fish... Ed Gein... and Charles Starkweather.
Nothing has changed since... and those all did their grisly deeds a long time ago. LONG before the internet or video games.
Case closed.
Sorry, but a test (particularly one that is supposed to be objective and scientific/engineering in nature) has but ONE GOAL: to determine the facts as objectively as possible.
That isn't 'your' goal or my goal, or Saddam Hussein's goal. It's THE goal, PERIOD. Anybody who makes statements like that admits they run a bovine excrement factory instead of a testing facility.
...three times over who also thinks you're full of excrement on this particular matter. The government (and especially moralists who want to control the levers of government) has NO BUSINESS dictating what my kids may or may not see. You feel comfortable with that sort of thing? There are plenty of banana republics with military juntas out there you can move to.
Be careful what you wish for... if the government legislates what your kids can see, guess what?? They'll also get a specific political and moralistic agenda pushed down their throats... for 'their own good', of course.
'Oh Please'? That's what I have to say too. You seem to want to harp on ONE of Katz's lines in the essay, which, in your view, invalidates everything he has to say. And then to try to quash any particular criticisms of your view by prejudging those that feel differently as 'sycophants'... oh, that's rich.
I'm sorry that someone out there has suggested that a member of your Holy Circle, namely the 'sainted corporation', might have some flaws, but I'm afraid it's so. Corporate America isn't inherently 'evil', but due its very nature individual parts of it can go off the beam at times.
It's best to remember that corporations have structures very much like those older parts of the Circle, namely government and large scale institutionalized religion. They also are not inherently evil, but they can become like a runaway train because of the way the parts combine to make a whole that can act indepently of the parts therein. A corporation is a legally separate entity, legally independent in many ways that as a whole is dedicated only to its own survival and self interest. Sometimes this causes corporations as a whole to steam roller (or try to anyway) individuals or smaller groups who get in the way of those goals.
If you want to believe that somehow large corporations have absolutely no downside involved, and that they don't sometimes reduce the freedom of individuals while acting in their own self interest, then I think you need to reexamine who's exhibiting signs of sycophancy.
'Is Freedom the right to do whatever one wants? Certainly noone complains of laws banning murder as an infringement on freedom.'
Within reason, yes. Where laws against murder come in is that your are free to do as you please until you infringe on the rights of others. Other sorts of freedom that involve philosophies and religions are not (IMHO) under the purview of what ought to be instutionalized or politically enforced.
'Freedom is not the right to do what you want, but the authority to do what you ought.'
This is personal spin, I'm afraid. And begs big questions, such as who determines what is 'what you ought'? The government? Your religious beliefs? Mine? The beliefs of the people who live on Main St in Wichita? The best you can do is make sure that people take responsibility for actions taken within their freedom. 'Doing what you ought' has NO business being legislated, enforced or coerced by others.
'Don't exchange this truth for a lie.'
Which particular 'lie' were you referring to? And which 'truth'? You quote the Bible, but in a very non specific way.
Paul Allen hasn't had any involvement with M$ (outside of being a shareholder) for years.
In addition, Paul and Billy G. never have seen eye to eye on technical matters. Allen is a MUCH sharper techie.
I've heard plenty of stories told over goofy grins about booze, ganja and psychedelics for sure :-).
Never heard anyone talk, even in whispers, about crack, etc.
...loads of techies frying their minds on crack (WAYY too declasse) or ecstasy (too trendy and clubbish)? No way... techies are usually looking for mind expansion or a bit of mellowing out... the heavy stuff gets in the way of the fun stuff (work).
Which reminds me... the article forgets one thing. Most techies voluntarily work the crazy hours. The love for the work is the curse of the business.
In order, the drugs that are probably in heaviest use among techies are: caffeine (it's not even close), alcohol, herb, (insert prescription antidepressant/psychotropic here), nicotine (used to be much higher), psychedelics (LSD, psilocybins, etc.), milder downers (tranq's, ludes, etc.). Really heavy, hacksaw grade uppers like crack or crystal meth, honestly, I've never even heard anecdotes about a professional techie who's been around for a while using any of those.
I think it's pretty clearly stated that Lucas' personal belief is that God exists. I didn't see it in there that he was stating it flatly as a truth, or that he was looking for converts to show up at the Skywalker Ranch.
Religious beliefs fall on a spectrum from fanatacism to atheism... people have a perfect right to be on that scale anywhere they please.
...these myths are archetypical and reasonate so well. Somebody metioned Freudianism... heck, myths were therapy before anyone invented analysis.
Especially for boys in patriarchal societies, your father figure is your whole world, teacher, father, mentor and confidante all rolled into one. And then one day you grow up enough to see your father's flaws, and to see him as competition. It's no wonder that the 'heroic son finds put that his daddy is the paragon of evil' angle plays so well.
These archetypes are not only ancient, but repeat every time a new generation is born.
If you enjoy this sort of look at the paradigms and deeper meaning behind many of the world's myths and philosophies/religions, I would suggest the book 'The Power of Myth', which is done in interview style between Bill Moyers, and an expert in such matters, Joseph Campbell.
BTW, Lucas and Campbell worked together quite a bit when George was writing the story for Star Wars originally back in the 70's.
P.S. If the link to the book on Amazon doesn't work, forgive me... for some reason /. is being less than kind with the href.
As was pointed out in the Supreme Court scene of 'The People vs. Larry Flynt' (and the speech given by Flynt's attorney is virtually the same as Alan Isaacman's actual oral argument) you can't make legal distinctions based on taste.
I keep seeing a disturbing number of posts making note of how disgusting/vulgar/nasty the Dilbert Hole was while discussing its legal merits as parody. TASTE has NOTHING to do with the legal definition of parody; get used to it. If something offends your delicate sensibilities, LOOK AWAY. No one that I know of was ever forced to view the page.
In another vein hand, the way they got the source material (i.e., simply repasting new words on existing strips) may (I repeat, may) have gotten them into genuine legal hot water. Then again, it could be argued that Dennis Miller does the same thing on his HBO show, where at the end of each episode he puts captions and words into the mouths of people from real photos from news organizations. It's not nearly as cut and dried as some might prefer, and personal taste is definitely a poor measure of constitutional legality.
Since someone here already brought up Cinerama, I thought I'd post a link to a story that's local to me about some of the films, the process, etc.
The story is interesting, and goes into some detail about how the process works, and films done in the process.
The guy the article talks about lives in a town close to where I live, and there are pictures of a local theater that uses his equipment to show Cinerama flicks a couple of weekends a month. Just a little something for the movie buffs out there...
2001 was NOT filmed using the special Cinerama process.
One of the few non-schlock films I know of that was FILMED using the process is the western epic 'How The West Was Won'. The Cinerama process actually involved using special cameras that (I believe) ran the light path down onto three matched reels of film. True Cinerama flicks are projected onto 3 matched screens, and it looks seamless.
2001 was shot on 70mm. I have no doubt that it looks great in a Cinerama theater, simply because that's one of the few places that has true widescreen capability with the correct aspect ratios. Today's multiplexes that use pimply 16 yr olds as combination 'projectionists' and popcorn slingers (not to mention ratty screens and improperly lit projectors) don't have a clue what to do with a good 70mm print, let alone a Cinerama flick.
Paul was the only M$oftie in the early days who even knew halfway what he was doing. M$ only started getting a terminal case of rectal cranial inversion after he left. He had to go on medical leave for Hodgkin's disease, which has been in remission since a year or two after he left M$, I believe.
/. has an axe to grind against Paul... although, if they volunteers with chainsaws and ball peen hammers to help 'adjust attitudes' for Billy G. and Stevie Ballmer, I'm there.
He might benefit a lot from M$'s stock valuations, but at least he doesn't work there anymore. Also, while not all his ideas since have been winners, at least he tries to ACTUALLY INNOVATE.
Personally, I doubt that