The study was just concerned with links which prompt you to DL/install something malicious. Of course IE wins: it's the only browser with a built-in link check which validates the links you're going to with MS's servers.
Or, alternatively, you could just not install malware, that would work too. The study is kinda valid, though; if you're too dumb to not install/run random junk from suspicious sites online, you should probably be using something which blocks them for you, IE SmartScreen, anti-"virus" app, or otherwise.
It doesn't seem like this to me, but rather just an attempt to get people to pay more attention to the version they are running, and not update as frequently or automatically. If you don't know what's going to be affected/broken by an update (with a rough approximation of this being version number changes), you want to play it "safe", and not update. This change will just encourage users not to apply changes/patches until they go to an entirely new system, or switch to a more stable browser.
Of course, that's just my take... if that's not actually the intent, I'd say the developers are drooling morons. They make a decent product, though, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they mean to have people just not update.
Personally, I find the point very interesting (although perhaps not in the same way as the original commentator). If you account for all potential usage of your product without purchasing it new as conceptual lost revenue, then it's probably fairly accurate: used game sales "steals" more revenue from the company than piracy. However, you could easily extend the argument; for example, if only 3% of customers purchase DLC (a figure recently quoted by EA), then customer failure to purchase all the DLC probably "steals" even more revenue from the company.
I think the game companies are missing an opportunity to lobby Congress here. If you can outlaw "stealing" by not purchasing all of the DLC, no matter how worthless you might perceive it to be, game companies could make tons more money. I'm sure the total "lost revenue" from people not purchasing all the DLC is an impressive number, and if you could translate that into hypothetical "created or preserved" jobs, you could probably get the idiots in Congress to go for it. A decade ago, I might have said the idea was ludicrous, but in today's world, where government mandates to purchase things are justified, and people can just make up whatever figures they want to justify ludicrous policies, it just might work...
If anyone believes that the government needs to install a special chip in all cell phones so they can send you alert messages, I've got some prime beach-front real-estate which is totally immune from all housing bubbles you can invest in.
On the other hand, I have to at least acknowledge that the US government is getting out ahead of any potential anti-government organizing using cell phones and other mass communication devices which bypass traditional media outlets (which can be tightly controlled as necessary). If Egypt had a chip in every phone, Mubarak would still be running the country: he could just have tracked the leaders organizing the resistance, used their phones to pinpoint their locations, and have had them executed. Not that I think the US would stoop to executions to quiet dissidents, but making key people "go away" would do wonders for any regime, and what regime wouldn't jump at the chance to monitor and track all the people they ruled?
It's really a natural extension of other systems already in place (eg: telematics as standard, non-removable features of cars coming out of Government Motors, with well-documented third-party listening and tracking capabilities). After all, if you have nothing to hide, why would you object?
Gee wiz, someone came out with a format which - Doesn't look much better (if at all) - Is a PITA to get working right due to DRM - Requires "upgrade" cost - Costs more per disk - Doesn't work on ubiquitous players everyone else has - Has poor included software support - Has a miserable user experience - and is used to distribute moves in a format which seems purposefully designed to be as obnoxious as possible for users
... I wonder why it's not selling well. Oh, hold on, the Department of Stupidly Obvious called, something about a patent they hold...
I think a lot of people are missing the point, while ranting about the hypocrisy and perceived evils of the government's actions. While these may be valid points, that's not what the email is advocating.
The email is essentially just saying that in order to work for the State Department, it's very useful to be able to set aside logic, reason, and rationality, and blindly follow orders, no matter how idiotic you may perceive them to be (and conversely, the inability to refrain from participating in actions which help further the cause of freedom and might embarrass the government can be a career limiting move there). To that extent, it's good advice; based on my experience, I would also recommend that if you value freedom and transparency in government, you probably shouldn't be working for "them".
Think of how hard it would be to grope children in the TSA if you couldn't turn off the part of your brain which screamed about how it's a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment which does nothing for security and just increases government oppression; this is the same kind of thing. If you can't be a good soldier and follow orders, no matter how morally questionable or asinine they might be, you're probably not a good candidate for government office, especially in the State Department.
I do basically the same thing; not because I want to be dishonest, but because I know how the process works. For me, I know I can get a job if I get interviewed by a technical person: I have good technical skill. The "hard" part is getting passed the screening processes, where non-technical people eliminate candidates based on keywords, employment patterns, or other non-technical aspects of your on-paper appearance. You do what you need to do to get a conversation with the employer, and that's 90% of the difficulty in getting a job.
On the flip side, as someone who is trying to recruit people atm, I totally get the initial post sentiment too. I've gone through many resumes and many phone screenings, and the current process seems to be no better than pulling people off the street. There's got to be a better way to get competent people into jobs.
Probably an option you haven't considered, but for you consideration...
You might think about approaching the problem from a different direction than standard law enforcement, which is both ineffective and costly. For example, you might consider that speeding doesn't cause accidents; bad driving causes accidents, and the two are usually only incidentally related. Trying to police speeding is like trying to improve school test scores by kicking out all the children with a certain hair color: you might get lucky, and you might kick out some people with bad scores, but your metric isn't really related to the problem you're trying to solve.
Instead, maybe consider being part of a solution instead of just piling on more ineffective big-government type solutions, and focus on what causes bad driving, such as distractions, lack of social responsibility, lack of training, or road rage, as examples. Try working on some solutions to those problems, which you might actually be able to influence, and leave the bloated bureaucratic one-size-fits-all bad-idea "solutions" to the organizations that specialize in them (ie: the government).
As another member of the gaming community (who actually buys games), I go back and forth on this argument. On the one hand, it's a transparent attempt to milk even more money out of people like me for producing shoddy content, and will likely substantially degrade the game quality and experience. On the other hand, there's something to be said for gaming companies not needing to produce a meaningless "sequel" just to sell more content, and for having all the content integrated together instead of in separate games. Also, the capitalist side of me says they can do whatever they want, it's up to us (the market) to tell them if they are wrong.
I look at Dragon Age as a recent example (for me). I was really looking forward to purchasing the game: a genre I liked, the game looked good, and I was excited about it... right up until the point where I learned that it was actually being released in chunks of DLC for extra money, and some quests were literally of the "insert credit card to continue" variety. I ended up buying it, a year later, on sale, when I could get essentially all the current content for under the price of the original game. I enjoyed the game, but I won't be buying the sequel: the whole greedy money-leeching aspect of their game design/release philosophy has soured me to the company, and my initial excitement has turned to disgust.
Ultimately, the companies which produce products which people will continue to purchase will survive, so the market will decide if this strategy is right. I'm just doing my [small] part to influence that decision.
I'm unsure on what I think of this trend. On the one hand, I wouldn't ever use it, it would strongly incentivise me to quit using any online service which required this, and I would be a strong advocate for staying as far away from something like this as possible (for obvious reasons; I mean, using real names for random internet sites, that's bright, internet safety 101...). On the other hand, it would cut down on a lot of forum spam, and probably push some people away from the games as a result; and since WoW is pretty addictive as it is, anything which helps push people off the WoW-crack can't be that bad.
I'm a free market advocate generally, though, so Blizzard can do whatever it wants, imho. I'm willing to say I will not buy/play any online game which requires/displays my real name, but I'm just one consumer in the sea, and there are lots of other tasty naive fish out there.
I'm sure there's a good amount of corruption and waste going on here, but that's pretty typical for government programs; and it seems like the financial incentives also support it in this case. However, just cause it's not the popular opinion, another thought...
As someone in the software industry, it's exceedingly common to have projects where the person specifying the requirements has no concept of the actual work involved, and/or there's serious feature creep, and/or there's no consideration for the costs of maintenance and modifications when the code is being designed. All of these contribute to projects which, on their face, would appear to cost much less, actually end up costing significantly more.
Most people who are not in the software industry (and some people who are) look at projects as commodities, which take a certain amount of time/money depending on the scope of work, and ignore the internal workings. That's just not the way the real world works, especially when incompetence and beuracracy are present, regardless of the skill and efforts of the people actually trying to produce a good product.
I had a previous employer who gave me a pager so that I could be "on call" when I wasn't in the office; I left it at the office. Unless being on-call outside of work times is part of my employment agreement (ie: discussed and negotiated before I take the job), it's not something I feel obligated to be/do.
That being said, I have occasionally worked off-hours for employers I liked in response to specific situations, and I wouldn't recommend my approach if you're at all insecure in your job and/or employment prospects. For me, though, I agree with the parent post: I'd be happy to be available 24/7 for the right price, but that's significantly higher than my 40-50/week price...
This is great advice, IMHO, #1 especially. As a senior developer who has both switched companies a few times, and been responsible for trying to find other developers to hire, I have pulled in friends and colleges on many occasions, and I could get a good developer I knew from a previous company a job pretty easily (even today). The problem for people with other good developer friends is usually more that they don't live in the right place, and/or are already happily employed, and/or don't want to work at the particular company.
Man, this sounds so familiar from my experience with big companies ten+ years ago, and I'm sure it's gotten worse since then. Nothing impacts my productivity quite as much as a painful work environment, where you can't write good code no matter how smart you are, because the procedures just don't allow it. It takes a certain mindset to work in an environment like that, and usually it's not the mindset exhibited by the really productive developers. I always thought it would be a nice place to retire to when I care more about a steady paycheck and benefits than actually producing anything, but that time is still a while off.
Nobody is forcing you, the self-importance filled "American Citizen", to move abroad, work abroad, or take any job less than what You the Great want to make. IBM is moving the position overseas; you have the option to follow it, not the requirement. It's hard to fault IBM; the cost of employing people in the US is egregiously high compared to other countries, and the international business laws offer no strong disincentive for doing so. Regardless, though, nobody will be forcing You to take a job paying less than you want; there may just not be many jobs up to Your standards soon, though.
Totally agree with this sentiment. I purchased the game for the 360, it was reasonably fun, but not up to the level of Assassin's Creed IMHO and very console-y. I don't know how it will sell for the PC, especially coming out after? the console(s) release, and this feels like an excuse to blame piracy if their PC sales flop.
I'd love to see an independent study of how many copies are actually pirated based on torrent DL's, and not just based on Ubi's sales numbers, or lack thereof. Otherwise I call PR BS.
IMHO, their morality feature was pretty underwhelming. For example, the game claimed that you lived with consequences of your actions, yet you could slaughter a whole town and when you came back they'd all be alive again. You can donate money to change your alignment arbitrarily. You can take someone from utterly loathing you to in love with you with two minutes of hand-waving expressions (along with everyone nearby). In short, the morality and consequences system was a joke; the game itself was ok, but the morality aspect was one of the weakest and least compelling parts.
The point of the study is that your votes are only really important if you're in a swing state. I would actually inquire about the counter-point: as a California voter, how many times was California decided by less than 1% of the vote in the state? I'm guessing that number is pretty small, hence it's not really important at all if you vote in a non-swing state.
Re:Boost epitomizes everything that is wrong with
on
Boost 1.36 Released
·
· Score: 1
Disagree, but not by a lot. I would say that boost emphasizes the aspects of C++ which both make it a powerful language, but also can make it a nightmare to understand. Boost is kinda like plugging into a nuclear generator: lots of power but very dangerous, and if you're not careful you'll spew radioactive garbage all over your code tree.
The overall success of applying the tool depends on the skill with which it is used. In the hands of novices, boost can turn a normal program into an unmaintainable disaster. Used sparingly, clearly, and with good design, boost can, well, "boost" your ability to write good code.
Yes, it would be cleaner if all the paradigms were in a new, clean, theoretical perfect language. However, for those people writing code now, C++ is pretty good, and boost can be a very useful addition in the right hands. Just be sure you know how to write good code before you start using it, and avoid any nasty explosions.:)
I'll add a anecdotal. As an engineer in an ISV shop which does primarily Windows development, we have considered adding Linux-specific products to our product line, and come to basically the same conclusions (without spending all the money to develop them first). Basically, unless you can build something with very compelling and durable advantages against FOSS alternatives, you're wasting time and money (in the commercial business sense).
It's hard to build something which is very compelling without substantial investment, so there's no process for "do a first pass, then iterate" which makes business sense. Second, the only way to gain durable advantage against FOSS is patents, and they may not be applicable, take substantial time/money investment, and might be unreliable. In short, it's a very tenuous business proposition to try to make a small-scale ISV commercial product for Linux.
Thus, we don't make any products for Linux, and are unlikely to do so in the future. I'm sure this will be met with a resounding "who cares" from the/. community, and that is fine... but I hope this sheds some insight into why there will continue to be many more ISV's building software for Windows than for Linux, no matter how mainstream and compelling Linux becomes.
I feel for Blizzard; they have a tough job trying to keep adding new and challenging content while preserving the player base of casual players who pay the bills. I canceled just before 2.4 after playing since early closed beta, with 6 70's at the time.
The problem for me was a lack of meaningful progress without "playing" as a full-time job. Grinding is not fun for me, and if you don't play full time, it's very difficult to raid successfully. Blizzard was reluctant to add meaningful character improvement comparable to raiding which was attainable through casual, non-grind gameplay (understandable, since they didn't want to diminish the raiding rewards). They also did not spend any meaningful efforts accommodating people who wanted challenges, but had intermittent schedules (also understandable, as that would have been a significant design challenge). Ultimately, those two decisions cost them my ongoing subscription.
I think MMO's will need to address the "full time playing to progress end-game" problem at some point in order to survive long-term, and WoW has not done so to date. There's no easy solution, though, and it'll probably require a re-thinking of the whole raiding paradigm. But I enjoyed playing WoW while it was fun, I was glad to provide my feedback during the various betas to improve the game as much as I could, and I hope it helps future MMO's solve the end-game problems better.
That was roughly my first thought: black out the area of mainland China, and superimpose "censored on request of this country". Of course, leave Taiwan on the map, and the disputed islands, and all international waters, and any other area which wants to declare itself independent. Basically, use their request to emphasize the exact opposite of their presumed intent.
How funny would it be to have China blacked out and Taiwan shown normally, like a great big middle finger to China's censorship campaign?
For what it's worth (and I'm guessing not much on/.), this could be reasonably interpreted either way. On the one hand, working on open source in your free time shows a desire to actually code, and not just do a 9-5 for your regular salary/benefits. On the other hand, most people I have interviewed who had open source dev experience on their resume tended to be zealots, and I frequently got the strong impression they would be bringing their zealotry into the company (which, as a regular for-profit closed source software company, would be potentially both disruptive and undesirable), which was a big red flag for us.
My advice would be if you have OSS development on your resume, and you want to work for a closed source company, you make it very clear in your interview (via appearance, speech, and answers) that you do open source because you like to code, and not because you have seen the light and need to spread your ideology into the corporate machine to destroy if from the inside. OTOH, if you want to work in OSS and not touch closed source stuff, make that clear on your resume, for your benefit and the benefit of people looking at it.
My company makes network management apps for Windows, and I have the same basic thoughts regarding developing versions of our applications for Linux. Closed source apps are generally not preferred by people who run Linux, and open source doesn't pay the bills, unless you are a large, full-service "integrated solution support" organization, which we are not. Aside from that, the API's are awful, primitive, or non-existent, and many people who run Linux do so because it is the "cheap" solution, so the upside business potential is bad.
I guess the short answer to the original question is: because gaming is a for-profit on-sale (not support) business, and Linux (as an install base) doesn't support that business model. Same for most small-scale ISV's and software providers (which is why there are many, many more commercial applications for Windows).
Marketing is important; I found my current job through Monster randomly, it just happened to be there when I found myself out of work. I'd say that's the exception to the rule, though... most of my current company's engineering hires have been through personal references, contacts, and recruiting through contacts. Sorta like the LinkedIn thing.
As far as hiring people you find, it's all about benefits, environment, and matching what you have to offer with what the engineers want. Salary is not necessarily the most important consideration for people who are really good at what they do, although a high salary never hurts. Always remember that "free" (for you the company) benefits can go a long way too; eg: a company policy not to spy on their engineers, private offices, the right work environment, flexible hours / location, input on development methodologies, free drinks, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
The study was just concerned with links which prompt you to DL/install something malicious. Of course IE wins: it's the only browser with a built-in link check which validates the links you're going to with MS's servers.
Or, alternatively, you could just not install malware, that would work too. The study is kinda valid, though; if you're too dumb to not install/run random junk from suspicious sites online, you should probably be using something which blocks them for you, IE SmartScreen, anti-"virus" app, or otherwise.
It doesn't seem like this to me, but rather just an attempt to get people to pay more attention to the version they are running, and not update as frequently or automatically. If you don't know what's going to be affected/broken by an update (with a rough approximation of this being version number changes), you want to play it "safe", and not update. This change will just encourage users not to apply changes/patches until they go to an entirely new system, or switch to a more stable browser.
Of course, that's just my take... if that's not actually the intent, I'd say the developers are drooling morons. They make a decent product, though, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they mean to have people just not update.
Personally, I find the point very interesting (although perhaps not in the same way as the original commentator). If you account for all potential usage of your product without purchasing it new as conceptual lost revenue, then it's probably fairly accurate: used game sales "steals" more revenue from the company than piracy. However, you could easily extend the argument; for example, if only 3% of customers purchase DLC (a figure recently quoted by EA), then customer failure to purchase all the DLC probably "steals" even more revenue from the company.
I think the game companies are missing an opportunity to lobby Congress here. If you can outlaw "stealing" by not purchasing all of the DLC, no matter how worthless you might perceive it to be, game companies could make tons more money. I'm sure the total "lost revenue" from people not purchasing all the DLC is an impressive number, and if you could translate that into hypothetical "created or preserved" jobs, you could probably get the idiots in Congress to go for it. A decade ago, I might have said the idea was ludicrous, but in today's world, where government mandates to purchase things are justified, and people can just make up whatever figures they want to justify ludicrous policies, it just might work...
If anyone believes that the government needs to install a special chip in all cell phones so they can send you alert messages, I've got some prime beach-front real-estate which is totally immune from all housing bubbles you can invest in.
On the other hand, I have to at least acknowledge that the US government is getting out ahead of any potential anti-government organizing using cell phones and other mass communication devices which bypass traditional media outlets (which can be tightly controlled as necessary). If Egypt had a chip in every phone, Mubarak would still be running the country: he could just have tracked the leaders organizing the resistance, used their phones to pinpoint their locations, and have had them executed. Not that I think the US would stoop to executions to quiet dissidents, but making key people "go away" would do wonders for any regime, and what regime wouldn't jump at the chance to monitor and track all the people they ruled?
It's really a natural extension of other systems already in place (eg: telematics as standard, non-removable features of cars coming out of Government Motors, with well-documented third-party listening and tracking capabilities). After all, if you have nothing to hide, why would you object?
Gee wiz, someone came out with a format which
- Doesn't look much better (if at all)
- Is a PITA to get working right due to DRM
- Requires "upgrade" cost
- Costs more per disk
- Doesn't work on ubiquitous players everyone else has
- Has poor included software support
- Has a miserable user experience
- and is used to distribute moves in a format which seems purposefully designed to be as obnoxious as possible for users
I think a lot of people are missing the point, while ranting about the hypocrisy and perceived evils of the government's actions. While these may be valid points, that's not what the email is advocating.
The email is essentially just saying that in order to work for the State Department, it's very useful to be able to set aside logic, reason, and rationality, and blindly follow orders, no matter how idiotic you may perceive them to be (and conversely, the inability to refrain from participating in actions which help further the cause of freedom and might embarrass the government can be a career limiting move there). To that extent, it's good advice; based on my experience, I would also recommend that if you value freedom and transparency in government, you probably shouldn't be working for "them".
Think of how hard it would be to grope children in the TSA if you couldn't turn off the part of your brain which screamed about how it's a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment which does nothing for security and just increases government oppression; this is the same kind of thing. If you can't be a good soldier and follow orders, no matter how morally questionable or asinine they might be, you're probably not a good candidate for government office, especially in the State Department.
I do basically the same thing; not because I want to be dishonest, but because I know how the process works. For me, I know I can get a job if I get interviewed by a technical person: I have good technical skill. The "hard" part is getting passed the screening processes, where non-technical people eliminate candidates based on keywords, employment patterns, or other non-technical aspects of your on-paper appearance. You do what you need to do to get a conversation with the employer, and that's 90% of the difficulty in getting a job.
On the flip side, as someone who is trying to recruit people atm, I totally get the initial post sentiment too. I've gone through many resumes and many phone screenings, and the current process seems to be no better than pulling people off the street. There's got to be a better way to get competent people into jobs.
Probably an option you haven't considered, but for you consideration...
You might think about approaching the problem from a different direction than standard law enforcement, which is both ineffective and costly. For example, you might consider that speeding doesn't cause accidents; bad driving causes accidents, and the two are usually only incidentally related. Trying to police speeding is like trying to improve school test scores by kicking out all the children with a certain hair color: you might get lucky, and you might kick out some people with bad scores, but your metric isn't really related to the problem you're trying to solve.
Instead, maybe consider being part of a solution instead of just piling on more ineffective big-government type solutions, and focus on what causes bad driving, such as distractions, lack of social responsibility, lack of training, or road rage, as examples. Try working on some solutions to those problems, which you might actually be able to influence, and leave the bloated bureaucratic one-size-fits-all bad-idea "solutions" to the organizations that specialize in them (ie: the government).
Just a thought.
As another member of the gaming community (who actually buys games), I go back and forth on this argument. On the one hand, it's a transparent attempt to milk even more money out of people like me for producing shoddy content, and will likely substantially degrade the game quality and experience. On the other hand, there's something to be said for gaming companies not needing to produce a meaningless "sequel" just to sell more content, and for having all the content integrated together instead of in separate games. Also, the capitalist side of me says they can do whatever they want, it's up to us (the market) to tell them if they are wrong.
I look at Dragon Age as a recent example (for me). I was really looking forward to purchasing the game: a genre I liked, the game looked good, and I was excited about it... right up until the point where I learned that it was actually being released in chunks of DLC for extra money, and some quests were literally of the "insert credit card to continue" variety. I ended up buying it, a year later, on sale, when I could get essentially all the current content for under the price of the original game. I enjoyed the game, but I won't be buying the sequel: the whole greedy money-leeching aspect of their game design/release philosophy has soured me to the company, and my initial excitement has turned to disgust.
Ultimately, the companies which produce products which people will continue to purchase will survive, so the market will decide if this strategy is right. I'm just doing my [small] part to influence that decision.
I'm unsure on what I think of this trend. On the one hand, I wouldn't ever use it, it would strongly incentivise me to quit using any online service which required this, and I would be a strong advocate for staying as far away from something like this as possible (for obvious reasons; I mean, using real names for random internet sites, that's bright, internet safety 101...). On the other hand, it would cut down on a lot of forum spam, and probably push some people away from the games as a result; and since WoW is pretty addictive as it is, anything which helps push people off the WoW-crack can't be that bad.
I'm a free market advocate generally, though, so Blizzard can do whatever it wants, imho. I'm willing to say I will not buy/play any online game which requires/displays my real name, but I'm just one consumer in the sea, and there are lots of other tasty naive fish out there.
I'm sure there's a good amount of corruption and waste going on here, but that's pretty typical for government programs; and it seems like the financial incentives also support it in this case. However, just cause it's not the popular opinion, another thought...
As someone in the software industry, it's exceedingly common to have projects where the person specifying the requirements has no concept of the actual work involved, and/or there's serious feature creep, and/or there's no consideration for the costs of maintenance and modifications when the code is being designed. All of these contribute to projects which, on their face, would appear to cost much less, actually end up costing significantly more.
Most people who are not in the software industry (and some people who are) look at projects as commodities, which take a certain amount of time/money depending on the scope of work, and ignore the internal workings. That's just not the way the real world works, especially when incompetence and beuracracy are present, regardless of the skill and efforts of the people actually trying to produce a good product.
I had a previous employer who gave me a pager so that I could be "on call" when I wasn't in the office; I left it at the office. Unless being on-call outside of work times is part of my employment agreement (ie: discussed and negotiated before I take the job), it's not something I feel obligated to be/do.
That being said, I have occasionally worked off-hours for employers I liked in response to specific situations, and I wouldn't recommend my approach if you're at all insecure in your job and/or employment prospects. For me, though, I agree with the parent post: I'd be happy to be available 24/7 for the right price, but that's significantly higher than my 40-50/week price...
This is great advice, IMHO, #1 especially. As a senior developer who has both switched companies a few times, and been responsible for trying to find other developers to hire, I have pulled in friends and colleges on many occasions, and I could get a good developer I knew from a previous company a job pretty easily (even today). The problem for people with other good developer friends is usually more that they don't live in the right place, and/or are already happily employed, and/or don't want to work at the particular company.
Man, this sounds so familiar from my experience with big companies ten+ years ago, and I'm sure it's gotten worse since then. Nothing impacts my productivity quite as much as a painful work environment, where you can't write good code no matter how smart you are, because the procedures just don't allow it. It takes a certain mindset to work in an environment like that, and usually it's not the mindset exhibited by the really productive developers. I always thought it would be a nice place to retire to when I care more about a steady paycheck and benefits than actually producing anything, but that time is still a while off.
Nobody is forcing you, the self-importance filled "American Citizen", to move abroad, work abroad, or take any job less than what You the Great want to make. IBM is moving the position overseas; you have the option to follow it, not the requirement. It's hard to fault IBM; the cost of employing people in the US is egregiously high compared to other countries, and the international business laws offer no strong disincentive for doing so. Regardless, though, nobody will be forcing You to take a job paying less than you want; there may just not be many jobs up to Your standards soon, though.
Totally agree with this sentiment. I purchased the game for the 360, it was reasonably fun, but not up to the level of Assassin's Creed IMHO and very console-y. I don't know how it will sell for the PC, especially coming out after? the console(s) release, and this feels like an excuse to blame piracy if their PC sales flop.
I'd love to see an independent study of how many copies are actually pirated based on torrent DL's, and not just based on Ubi's sales numbers, or lack thereof. Otherwise I call PR BS.
IMHO, their morality feature was pretty underwhelming. For example, the game claimed that you lived with consequences of your actions, yet you could slaughter a whole town and when you came back they'd all be alive again. You can donate money to change your alignment arbitrarily. You can take someone from utterly loathing you to in love with you with two minutes of hand-waving expressions (along with everyone nearby). In short, the morality and consequences system was a joke; the game itself was ok, but the morality aspect was one of the weakest and least compelling parts.
The point of the study is that your votes are only really important if you're in a swing state. I would actually inquire about the counter-point: as a California voter, how many times was California decided by less than 1% of the vote in the state? I'm guessing that number is pretty small, hence it's not really important at all if you vote in a non-swing state.
Disagree, but not by a lot. I would say that boost emphasizes the aspects of C++ which both make it a powerful language, but also can make it a nightmare to understand. Boost is kinda like plugging into a nuclear generator: lots of power but very dangerous, and if you're not careful you'll spew radioactive garbage all over your code tree.
The overall success of applying the tool depends on the skill with which it is used. In the hands of novices, boost can turn a normal program into an unmaintainable disaster. Used sparingly, clearly, and with good design, boost can, well, "boost" your ability to write good code.
Yes, it would be cleaner if all the paradigms were in a new, clean, theoretical perfect language. However, for those people writing code now, C++ is pretty good, and boost can be a very useful addition in the right hands. Just be sure you know how to write good code before you start using it, and avoid any nasty explosions. :)
I'll add a anecdotal. As an engineer in an ISV shop which does primarily Windows development, we have considered adding Linux-specific products to our product line, and come to basically the same conclusions (without spending all the money to develop them first). Basically, unless you can build something with very compelling and durable advantages against FOSS alternatives, you're wasting time and money (in the commercial business sense).
/. community, and that is fine... but I hope this sheds some insight into why there will continue to be many more ISV's building software for Windows than for Linux, no matter how mainstream and compelling Linux becomes.
It's hard to build something which is very compelling without substantial investment, so there's no process for "do a first pass, then iterate" which makes business sense. Second, the only way to gain durable advantage against FOSS is patents, and they may not be applicable, take substantial time/money investment, and might be unreliable. In short, it's a very tenuous business proposition to try to make a small-scale ISV commercial product for Linux.
Thus, we don't make any products for Linux, and are unlikely to do so in the future. I'm sure this will be met with a resounding "who cares" from the
I feel for Blizzard; they have a tough job trying to keep adding new and challenging content while preserving the player base of casual players who pay the bills. I canceled just before 2.4 after playing since early closed beta, with 6 70's at the time.
The problem for me was a lack of meaningful progress without "playing" as a full-time job. Grinding is not fun for me, and if you don't play full time, it's very difficult to raid successfully. Blizzard was reluctant to add meaningful character improvement comparable to raiding which was attainable through casual, non-grind gameplay (understandable, since they didn't want to diminish the raiding rewards). They also did not spend any meaningful efforts accommodating people who wanted challenges, but had intermittent schedules (also understandable, as that would have been a significant design challenge). Ultimately, those two decisions cost them my ongoing subscription.
I think MMO's will need to address the "full time playing to progress end-game" problem at some point in order to survive long-term, and WoW has not done so to date. There's no easy solution, though, and it'll probably require a re-thinking of the whole raiding paradigm. But I enjoyed playing WoW while it was fun, I was glad to provide my feedback during the various betas to improve the game as much as I could, and I hope it helps future MMO's solve the end-game problems better.
That was roughly my first thought: black out the area of mainland China, and superimpose "censored on request of this country". Of course, leave Taiwan on the map, and the disputed islands, and all international waters, and any other area which wants to declare itself independent. Basically, use their request to emphasize the exact opposite of their presumed intent. How funny would it be to have China blacked out and Taiwan shown normally, like a great big middle finger to China's censorship campaign?
For what it's worth (and I'm guessing not much on /.), this could be reasonably interpreted either way. On the one hand, working on open source in your free time shows a desire to actually code, and not just do a 9-5 for your regular salary/benefits. On the other hand, most people I have interviewed who had open source dev experience on their resume tended to be zealots, and I frequently got the strong impression they would be bringing their zealotry into the company (which, as a regular for-profit closed source software company, would be potentially both disruptive and undesirable), which was a big red flag for us.
My advice would be if you have OSS development on your resume, and you want to work for a closed source company, you make it very clear in your interview (via appearance, speech, and answers) that you do open source because you like to code, and not because you have seen the light and need to spread your ideology into the corporate machine to destroy if from the inside. OTOH, if you want to work in OSS and not touch closed source stuff, make that clear on your resume, for your benefit and the benefit of people looking at it.
My company makes network management apps for Windows, and I have the same basic thoughts regarding developing versions of our applications for Linux. Closed source apps are generally not preferred by people who run Linux, and open source doesn't pay the bills, unless you are a large, full-service "integrated solution support" organization, which we are not. Aside from that, the API's are awful, primitive, or non-existent, and many people who run Linux do so because it is the "cheap" solution, so the upside business potential is bad.
I guess the short answer to the original question is: because gaming is a for-profit on-sale (not support) business, and Linux (as an install base) doesn't support that business model. Same for most small-scale ISV's and software providers (which is why there are many, many more commercial applications for Windows).
Marketing is important; I found my current job through Monster randomly, it just happened to be there when I found myself out of work. I'd say that's the exception to the rule, though... most of my current company's engineering hires have been through personal references, contacts, and recruiting through contacts. Sorta like the LinkedIn thing.
As far as hiring people you find, it's all about benefits, environment, and matching what you have to offer with what the engineers want. Salary is not necessarily the most important consideration for people who are really good at what they do, although a high salary never hurts. Always remember that "free" (for you the company) benefits can go a long way too; eg: a company policy not to spy on their engineers, private offices, the right work environment, flexible hours / location, input on development methodologies, free drinks, etc.