Use bittorrent for popular, fast downloads. Once the torrent gets old, nobody is seeding anymore, and it dies off. That's when you fire up your preferred eDonkey client and go browsing. Things tend to persist a hell of a lot longer out there. That bullshit about the files being polluted and corrupted is a myth, as well. Since you can preview them instantly as they are downloaded, it's easy to spot the crap files if you manage to find any.
Of course, now you need to be patient. This is where most people fail. It may take you a solid 90 days to download something old or obscure from eDonkey. It is not an instant-gratification network. Just let the sucker run and it'll come down in its own good time. Let the client software worry about it. I've fished out all manner of content from there that was impossible to find on bittorrent, usenet, or IRC. Old Mike Oldfield concerts, a mint copy of Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis, dozens of old TV shows... average time to download something like that is around seven days. The torrents of the old Dr. Who TV series (every single episode, 26 seasons) took nearly three months. It was around 212GB of data, of course.
You may want to make sure your firewall can handle a couple thousand connections. If your p2p experience is always sucking hind tit, that might be the cause of your problems. That little Linksys router isn't capable of doing it. Well, maybe if you put linux on it, but why bother when distros like m0n0wall, ipcop, and smoothwall exist? It helps loads if you prioritize ACK, DNS, and any small packets.
Our marketing director asks me, as a favor, to take a look at a temp worker's personal laptop (which we normally wouldn't support). I go and take a look at it... and it's a Toshiba 2535CDS (aka doorstop) running Windows 98 SE. The machine is running a bit slow and has some error messages. Great, I think... it's going to be an infected, degenerate mess. I re-activate that part of my brain filled with all that wonderful Win98 goodness and tool around in his laptop for awhile.
First thing I notice, he's using Firefox instead of IE. Good call. Second thing... there's no spyware, at all, after scans with three good tools. Third, he's got symantec firewall and AV running, and there doesn't appear to be any virii. The machine was virtually spotless.
Let me stress that this is a clueless computer user. He is completely non-technical. The only reason he was using Firefox was because it was faster than IE for him, and he was running the protection software because it came with the system and he had paid for upgrades regularly for several years. His machine was cleaner than any WinXP box I had seem come through in months. It was also sitting right on our cable internet connection, fully exposed, and had been for weeks. (Guests use that instead of the corporate network).
That old, POS version of Windows was damn near hackproof because of a couple simple programs and because it was so damn old that nobody was actively attacking Win98 anymore. It also ran like a champ on that doorstop of a laptop. His problem was an overabundance of temp files (fixed with a couple deletion scripts), and a few unregistered.DLL files in symantec's system repair utility from a botched upgrade (fixed with a few simple regsvr32 commands).
That made me think twice about the misconception that one must upgrade one's operating system. Apparently there is such a thing as being 'too old to hack'. Maybe that's why educational institutions like to keep everything important on those ancient VAX systems that no recent IT people understand anymore.
The "point" of certifications is the same as the point of work experience, references, college degrees, military experience, eagle scout badges or just about any damn merit-based reward you can think of... to sell your image to the people deciding who gets the interviews.
Sure, you need some relevant certifications. You also need a college degree. Hey, and work experience, a couple of years at least. Having all three of those things on your resume is the only way you can reasonably assume it'll have a chance.
None of these are perfect, all are fallible, and there is no magic bullet. Really, the closet thing to a magic bullet here is knowing someone who knows someone who is looking for someone to fill a position. It's networking. A list of IT professionals with whom you have worked in the past that have a good opinion of your skills is priceless when it comes time to look for jobs.
The only way you can shortcut this process is if you can somehow land an interview with the team you'll be working with. This is hard to do at large companies, but often possible at smaller ones.
There are bullshit certifications, degrees, work experiences, references, etc. If your boss can't tell the difference during an interview, frankly, there's no excuse for that and you shouldn't want to work for him in the first place.
Typically it's the face to face with the new boss that sells him. Of course, if he's an idiot, that's another story. If he's an idiot, and you still take the job, well... you made your own bed on that one. Don't get to thinking interviews are one-sided.
All of the arguments about being primarily a hardware company aside, I keep seeing people saying that "Apple will have to support 100s of different kinds of hardware products" if they move to standard Intel architecture.
That's bullshit. Apple doesn't have to support anything. They can pick five of each kind of hardware if they want, or none. Look at Solaris-Intel, for example... supports very little of the hardware out there, but folks still use it. There's plenty of PC hardware out there that Linux can't use, and plenty more that it can only use in a rudimentary sense. People would simply have to be more careful about what hardware they buy if they wanted a supported Intel platform for MacOS.
It'd be up to the hardware vendors to match Apple's specs and get the support, just like with Linux and Solaris. Microsoft seems to be the only company making an OS that'll use any junk circuit board with a driver file regardless of quality. Don't make the mistake of assuming Microsoft's way is the only way.
Have you ever considered adding a type of search that simply does not list retailers? Many times when I am looking for something strictly informational (like how to do xxx, what is yyy) I find the links swamped in junk sites and retail links. It would rock if there were a mode (something far more sophisticated and accurate than adding -review -buy -price etc) that once turned on, automatically adjusted the results so any retail links went to the bottom of the stack.
We've been enjoying the day just fine. The.wav files playing back on the phone support line are just small shell scripts we wrote to respond to the predictable user questions, should you have any. If you manage to have an actual problem that the scripts can't handle they'll forward to our pagers and cell phones. No calls so far today. Hey, be thankful you have internal support to call on; you could be talking to someone with an Indian accent who doesn't even understand your keyboard layout...
We're down at the local alehouse where they have 150 beers on tap, sampling our favorites out on the deck. It's a balmy 70'F, perfect outdoor eating weather. May I suggest starting with a pitcher of Hoegaarden, then moving on to Blue Moon, then Spaten Optimator, and finishing with a solid Beamish Oatmeal stout? (This is, of course, assuming you must return to the office today, which many of us will not.) Those of us who aren't into beer are enjoying a few fine martinis and daquiris, shooting the breeze over what backup solution to use next year or what new tech gadgets are on the market.
If you want to show your system administrator some love, all you need do is read his emails to the company when they are sent out, and actually respond to them. That's it. That will make most of us deliriously happy, not just today, but any day.
Tech gadgets are nice, but it's rather embarassing for you to buy them for us... we don't let our parents shop gadgets for us, and it's best you don't try either. Gift certificates are king. It's a rare geek who understands what his fellow geeks need.
I hear you man, I really do. I'm in the market for a new laptop as well, starting school shortly. I'm faced with finding a powerful laptop to use or settling for something weak, slow, but light and with good battery life instead. There's really no point in finding middle ground. Apple's got the best offerings in the small size market, and I'd probably enjoy having a Mac, it'd be my first.
I'd still prefer a dual-core Turion, but I don't believe those are out just yet. I don't want to be burdened with ATI's craptastic graphics systems, either. Forcing me to get my driver updates from the manufacturer (who will be many revisions behind at all times, even Dell doesn't keep up) is idiotic, and that's ATI's usual policy on laptop chipsets. Nvidia is also more linux-friendly, and I'll be running a lot of linux on it.
Really those are the two things I care about. Everything else is just icing. I need the horsepower of a dual-core since I'm going to be running multiple VMs (simultaneously) on the laptop, both for work and for school. It beats using crappy lab PCs any day. The dual core will also age considerably better... anyone who had a dual celeron (ala Abit BP6) knows exactly what I'm talking about. It'd be nice to still be using the laptop in six years without it feeling slow.
Every decent AMD laptop I find is inevitably paired with ATI graphics chips. The Asus A6000 mentioned in this article is actually the first one I've seen that is almost exactly what I am looking for. If it were dual core I'd be ordering one right now, despite being a tad leery about Asus.
Find me a laptop with ~8lbs- weight, dual core turion, 2+GB memory, nvidia graphics, and I'll buy it. Dual hard disks, good burner, wireless, gigabit lan, bluetooth, dvi, and HQ display are just icing. I don't care if it costs $3000.
The Rockdirect XTreme64 is a killer laptop, using the Athlon64 4800+ desktop CPU (which is dual core) and sporting a truckload of features. It's a better unit than the ones in the infamous 'Liebermann Notebook' scam. It still has ATI graphics, unfortunately, and with that desktop processor it'll double as a hibachi and last about eight seconds on full battery. It's probably the most powerful notebook on the market, though.
I picked it up and flipped through it today at the local gaming store. The price is $40. It's organized a bit better, and there's perhaps fifteen percent more DMing material in there than in the previous iteration. That'll probably seem heavy to anyone who's been in D&D3 for their entire experience, but overall there's nothing in there that hasn't been beaten to death in dozens of other books on the topic, most of them far cheaper. One can find more informative DMing instruction via Google for free. It's just another iteration, and readers won't find anything new unless they're pretty green at RPGs.
To make use of a slashdot colloquialism...
1) Make a bunch of good gaming books. 2) Make them real purdy so you can use printing costs as a justification for high book prices. 3) Release 'updated' versions of them similar to the originals, so folks keep rebuying the same book. (Like DVD special editions) 4) Rely on munchkins, the bragging factor, and annoying rule inconsistencies to push people into buying the latest versions. 5) Flood the market with a lot of expansions, most of which are fluff. (Everyone big does this.) 6) Release your (admittedly quite decent) gaming system openly so that the majority of third party products gravitate to your platform. 7) 1-6 get you dominant mindshare, which in turn increases the power of 1-6, giving you a bit of a feedback loop. 7) Massive, record breaking profit!
I don't fault WoTC for doing this... indeed, it's a brilliant bit of business strategy, and they are certainly giving the fans what they want. They are a very good gaming company. I'm just a bit disappointed over the collateral damage they are causing, the bad habits their game tends to breed in gamers, and that generally most gamers think the whole thing is just great because they don't know any better.
The purpose of this book is more to line the pockets of the folks at WoTC. If the book actually does teach people to be better GMs, that's great. Somehow, though, I doubt the book will tell you to stop buying books, dice, miniatures, and other distractions and instead concentrate on using imagination, story aspects, and learning better roleplaying.
It's great for all those reasons, sure. Open licenses, however, can have a downside if they become the most popular, just like closed ones. They precipitate a tyrrany of the majority, where the one single standard becomes the only standard, and anything else is lost in the ocean.
How many D20 players won't touch any system not based on D20? How many new players learn D20 and don't even know alternatives exist, or think that those alternatives aren't worth a second thought despite having never experienced them? If the D20 players are the majority, you release your game in a D20-compatible format or you perish, because nobody will even look at you twice just based on that one thing. It doesn't matter if you've got the finest game ever created, because you aren't catering to the expectations of the majority, and they can't be bothered to spend any time looking at you.
Feel free to draw whatever parallels you want between that and open software. There's plenty of commonality. Is TCPIP the best, last network protocol? Is the start-menu/desktop paradigm the only way to interface with a computer? Is D20 the best ruleset for an RPG?
These are the kinds of questions that nobody thinks to ask (or cares to hear answered) once some standard takes over public mindshare. It doesn't matter if the standard is closed or open. Once it is in place, by its popularity alone it drives everything else out to the edges of its space, or prevents alternatives from forming altogether. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends largely on the situation.
You got most of mine in there, although some of those you list are more complex than I like.
Let me add these...
Unknown Armies It's an occult RPG... if Cthulu weren't the standard this would be THE cult RPG. The sourcebook is dynamite reading, expertly well written, and the game is a blast of fresh air. It's gritty, evil, and tons of fun. You can be playing it after about fifteen minutes. I love the 'fight, flight, or freeze' mechanic.
Ironclaw It's a standard fantasy RPG, but with anthromorphs. Yeah, that's right, it's a furry RPG, so sue me. It's got one of the finest skill systems I've ever seen. The book also manages to seperate itself from 'furry culture' so it isn't carrying all of that baggage along for the ride.
Deadlands Wild West RPG, I mentioned it in my first post. Try it even if westerns sound kinda boring to you. The game system design is brilliant, and tailored to include poker elements. It's a lot of fun to play, and fairly fast paced, even in combat. Initiative is handled by drawing cards, as is spellcasting. Karma is handled with poker chips (fate chips). Dice are used for the numbers. This game is a great icebreaker to folks who are in that 'D20 haze' and need a shock to get them interested different kinds of game mechanics.
Earthdawn Earthdawn was FASA's fantasy RPG, back in the D&D 2nd edition days. It has a lot of similarities in the mechanics to D&D3, but without going so far overboard with them. I highly recommend this one if D&D3 is wearing thin on you and you want a different fantasy game. The atmosphere of this game is easily the finest of any fantasy game I've played. Positively Tolkienesque, if you dig into it, but without the pretentiousness. I think this game found the proper balance between a 'level based' and 'skill based' system, and it's unique in its handling of those mechanics.
Most of those have simple systems, but not minimalist. I've saved my favorite, by far, for last.
Continuum This is without equal in every roleplaying game I've read, and believe me I've had my nose in more than my fair share of books. The system is so simple a single D10 roll resolves hours of in-game combat. There's nothing to this game except for the story itself... the game forces you into the story, and many of the mechanics and conventions force plot developments in the story itself. The game is almost like a recursive storytelling hack. Another unique feature is that it is nearly impossible to have a conversation that is out of character. There are even some situations where one of the players ends up GMing for brief periods.
Just one ten sided die. There are no experience points. No levels. No advancement system. Just skills, and the skills improve through use as you play, almost as an afterthought. So do the three primary attributes. There's no skill list... just make them up and use them as you need them.
It's a damn good thing the rules are that simple, because Continuum is a time travel RPG, and you haven't got the brainpower to deal with complex mechanics and time travel in the same game. The setting is basically all of human history, and in the socieites that have grown up around time travel. This book will make your brain bleed... learning to think fourth dimensionally is not a natural act, but once you're into it, you'll love it. The real genius of this game is the way they handle time travel, and exploring the mechanics for time travel is half the fun.
You can also take this game's time travel rules and use them in absolutely any game, just by adding two new numbers to that game's character sheet. It's brilliant. The only downsides I can think of is that it puts a massive amount of story-strain on the GM, at least initially, and that you can't just jump right in to the 'high level' types of scenarios without fourth dimensional thinking experience. Otherwise you end up trying yourself up so tightly in the results of your time travel that you choke.
Has anyone besides myself noticed that at some point, the games became less about roleplaying and more about the rules? When did the rules lawyers become the new priesthood? People collect D&D3 books like they were stamps or baseball cards.
I can name a dozen RPGs that have rules so simple you can learn them in five minutes. The only thing they have in common is that they are usually superior in imagination and quality to the popular games, as well as unknown and ignored by the majority of roleplayers, as you can see simply by glancing at the games being run at conventions like GenCon. Page after page, and nothing but D20 and derivatives.
The rules aren't optional for the players. For this new breed of gamer, if it's written, it's the law. They've paid their thirty dollars for Tips and Tricks of Thievery Volume 7 Version 5 and by god, that book is the final word. How many games have you been in where one of the players tries to use these rules to push the GM around, and gets angry if they are denied?
Watching two rules lawyers at odds is like watching some perverse mental fencing match, and for fifteen minutes nothing gets done while the sacred rules of the game are read from dusty tomes in voices of hused awe and righteous fury. I used to laugh at it, but now it's just getting old.
D20 strikes me as one of the worst things to ever happen to the industry, and I mean that very sincerely. The unique, creative rules for each individual game used to be part of that game's atmosphere. Learning the new rules and seeing the new ways of doing things was part of the fun of playing a new game. It was not work. I can still remember how pleased I was when I first picked up Deadlands (a wild west RPG) and found the designers had worked in poker chips and playing cards as part of the system.
Now everything new just slaps D20 on because it's easy instead of getting creative, or because if they don't they'll be ignored by gamers who can't be bothered to learn a different paradigm for a change. D20 became the mindshare monopoly that GURPS always wanted to become.
If you like your D20, that's fine, but don't laugh when I tell you that you simply don't know what you're missing. There are games where the game is about what happens in the game, not about the rules defining the way the game works.
I can take one of these simple games, walk into a convention, pick up a half dozen gamers, and usually give them a session better than anything they've had in the last couple of years, all on a game they didn't even know how to play ten minutes ago. I am not that good at GMing, either. I much prefer to play. The reason they enjoy it is because it is unknown. They don't know the setting, they don't know all the rules or all the details, they can't predict every nuance of the game in their heads, and they know there's no arguing with the GM... things are just too simple. All that's left is story and roleplaying. That's where most of the fun is.
Sorry for the rant, but I was laughing at the idea of needing another revised expanded edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide. A stack of all of WoTC's D20 books over the last couple of years could probably build a bridge over the Mississippi river.
Where does Apple make most of their money? Hardware sales, right?
So now that the difference between Apple computers and mainstream PCs will boil down to a BIOS of some kind, what exactly is preventing every PC maker in the world from doing a bit of trivial, legal reverse engineering and creating Apple hardware clones that run Apple's operating systems?
FM radio complicates nothing. My iRivier H340 has FM radio, microphone recording, a full color screen, video playback, and USB on the Go which is handy when the camera gets full and I don't have a laptop around. It has a picture viewer, text viewer, and better audio format support than the iPod. It was cheaper, too, and comes without any software requirements beyond USB2/FAT32 support. Toss a linux image on there so I can use it to USB boot and it makes a decent digital swiss army knife. Apple's iPod is hardly the only thing (or the most feature rich) on the market.
While it is true that Clearchannel programming is universally worthless, I live in an area with a couple college stations and an extraordinarily good NPR affiliate (WXXI). Being able to tune them in is a bonus, especially when I'm using the iRivier for more computer-related tasks and haven't got any tunes loaded. Radio also has a lot of applications in other areas that are useful for some people (traffic, wilderness, etc).
I can think of only three features I'd like to see added... better video playback with video-out, record from radio, and Sirius support. Good to see the next model will almost certainly have the latter. Apple can keep their iPods, especially if they remain shortsighted enough to keep thinking of them as file-only devices. (Frankly, Jobs is not that foolish, so I don't think that'll be an issue.)
I can assure you that my tiny antennaless device gets exceptional broadcast clarity from all of the local radio stations. It bookmarks my stations, and the interface is a breeze. I'm also sure this feature cost them all of about 50 cents per unit to include. Radio is so easy it's a goddamn afterthought.
So, for anyone who's looking for an MP3 player with a radio tuner with video playback that's in the same price range as Apple's little toy, check out iRiver and the Mistic River user community for more information. Btw, their peripherals are exceptional, especially the docking stations.
If you're familiar with the open source mp3 player software called Rockbox, which was originally developed for the old Archos MP3 players, the Rockbox team is porting Rockbox to the iRiver. It's a far better MP3 player OS than any commercial ones I've used.
All you need to push through is a tiny group of nanites. They can build you a much more stable highway using other methods back in time on the other side.
Single reviewers are often unreliable, having bias and agendas of their own. If you want a more objective approach to the popularity of a film, you should look at sites that provide an overview of all reviews for a given film.
Rotten Tomatoes is one of the best examples of this. They simply assess a review as either favorable or unfavorable and do away with the less empirical ratings. They count up the total number of positive versus negative reviews, and give a percentage. They'll link every review, include a blurb from each, and pick the most well written ones (positive and negative) and put them in a sidebar.
Their film ratings so far on Star Wars are...
A New Hope - 93%
Empire Strikes Back - 98%
Return of the Jedi - 80%
Phantom Menace - 62%
Attack of the Clones - 65%
Revenge of the Sith - 84%
Looks like it's on par with Jedi in the opinion of most critics.
I share your enthusiasm for the Model M, however, there is one, and only one, thing about it that drives me nuts.
Size.
That keyboard is freakin' huge. Useful if you need a weapon and bulletproof shield to beat back a gang of muggers, sure, but not so good if you want a lot of desk space.
That's why my favorite is the silm-design version of the IBM Model M2. Same internal engineering, same key action, and same longevity (the one I'm typing this on came with my first computer, an IBM PS/2 circa 1993). Here are someimages of it. I've only ever seen one other, at a salvation army store, for $5. That one is sitting in a closet waiting for this one to fail. I think by the time it finally fails, computers won't have PS/2 interface connectors anymore. I will use a soldering iron and rebuilt the keyboard controller by hand before I give up this keyboard for any newer models. Also, to hell with Windows keys. They interfere with my gaming.
There are companies on the web that will sell you a remanufactured version of this keyboard (or any IBM series, for that matter), but so far I've yet to have one fail and need replacement. For the record, it's been through the dishwasher for a thorough cleaning seven times (little more than once a year). It has also survived dozens of meals (and spills) at the keyboard. I lost an entire can of Mt. Dew in it once, which sat overnight (damn cats). That'll kill any keyboard but these Model M types... one quick trip through the dishwasher and it's good as new.
It's just that someone would have to take his place. I don't mean some other random person, complete with history and name changes... I mean someone would literally have to step into his name, his life, his shoes, and become him. They would need to carry out Hitler's actions right up to the end. That would particularly suck for Hitler, as well. If there be a judgement day, how much would it suck if you'd been killed (and replaced by an actor) prior to committing your particular line of atrocities? Just who gets the blame in that situation? What if someone killed Einstein in a similar situation, when he was still a patent clerk, leaving him without the knowledge of his life's work? That's a new kind of identity theft, and a particularly nasty crime.
There's no such thing as "one time traveller." If a time machine is invented, it will lead to a time travelling society, with a multitude of time travellers. The creation of the invention invariably leads to a society (undoubtedly post-human) based upon its use. If you say the device would cause the destruction of the society that created it, then obviously this would have already happened, and no society that would destroy itself with time travelling could come into being. Only one that could use it properly would be able to exist. Any self-invalidating timeline cannot exist.
The creation of the time machine is inevitable; if it can be done, it will be done once our science permits it. Relativity has ruled it possible, but then we know fuck-all about the universe, really, so as far as I'm concerned it's up for debate. Even if you cannot go back past the creation of the time travelling device (as several ideas suggest), there may still be natural phenomenon that allow travel back to near the big bang (natural wormholes, etc) and subsequent creation of a temporal highway with a very long reach.
Sure, you can't push a man through that hole, but you could push nanites through, and electrons or information. Star-Trek style transporter technology (digitization via quantum entanglement) could render an information pattern that could be sent over such a highway and assembled from local materials on the far end. A Temporal Area Network sounds like quite an engineering challenge. I wonder if we're up to it.
There would undoubtedly be temporal pollution (time travellers changing events, intentionally or accidentally), however, none of it would change the known universe in the slightest, because, as you say, it would have already happened. No self-invalidating timeline can exist; therefore this timeline we travel down is not self-invalidating. This does not mean it must make sense to the observer, however. A "paradox" is only an apparent paradox; it exists only in the mind of the observer due to the observer lacking the relevant information to make sense of the apparent paradox. (Or, you can use the many worlds interpretation, if you choose, but frankly that one strikes me as nuts, though it does carry inherent immortality as a bonus, which is rather nice).
Meddling gets harder and harder the closer we get to an information society, but prior to the mass spread of recording devices, one could get away with a great deal, moreso and moreso as one goes further back in time. Go back even a hundred years from now and one could get away with just about anything. Any event can be tampered with, provided the outcome ends up the same in the end. If you think about this for very long, you will bleed from the ears when you realize just how many things can be altered with ease.
This logic is very useful in defeating the usual gamut of time-travel paradoxes that confound most people who haven't spent much time thinking about what it really means. No one who would decide to travel back and kill their parents would exist in the first place; if someone existed who could actually make the attempt, it would be because they were adopted and killing the wrong target, or because some other time traveller stepped in and corr
I don't know about the demise of feudalism. Take a long, hard look at the structure of most corporations, and how the executives of a corporation behave in relation to their employees. If you consider the executives as royalty and the employees as serfs, the analogy contains some striking similarities. Compare their options (and the scope of their options) to the options of their medieval counterparts.
Granted, we've come a long way since then, however one can clearly see the echoes of feudalism even in today's most modern societies. It didn't go away; it evolved and grew up with us.
One might even say the same of slavery, if one considers the standard of living enjoyed by minimum-wage earners compared to the middle class. This is much more of a stretch, though.;)
I just can't see how this is a bad thing. If I want to make shows in my basement, and distribute them via the internet, it is none of the big media's business or concern. Last time I checked, they did not have the exclusive right to be the sole broadcasters and media content creators in America. Let's be honest here, shows like Wayne's World or Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood are quite doable for next to no budget in a basement scenario. Their fears are quite justified.
Maybe they'll have to compete on quality again someday. What a goddamn greek tragedy that would be.
That's the key. There's really nothing wrong with leet-icizing your passwords, but you just can't go basing a password on an existing word. Ever. They are simply too easy to crack.
The easy solution is to make up a word. Like Gimflazzockery, or something. Then l33t that one to your heart's content. If you must use dictionary words, at least jubmle lteetrs aruodn.
Another really easy solution is to turn a phrase into an acronym and use that as your password. For example... "To be, or not to be?" becomes "2B;||!2b?". Easy to remember, but guaranteed to give brute forcers a massive headache.
Be gentle. It's fragile (still on a P-133; we tend to get little or no traffic). Sales team will probably be calling me asking where the spike came from when they check their monthly reports.
I can second this. I'm 28, and at least five years younger than anyone else working at my company. Fully two thirds of our employees are over 40, and we have several greybeards here who are in the late 50's, even late 60's. Believe me, programming skill does *not* lessen with age; it can sharpen to the point where, like the parent says... coding is simply instinct. We also have the kind of management that laughs uproariously when someone mentions overseas projects, and has taken up projects that are being brought back from overseas in shambles.
It's a really smooth, calm, sane work environment. It would literally take someone offering me more than double my current salary to get me to leave, because I'm reasonably sure this will be the best job I ever have, in terms of working environment.
I think that idea of 'only young people make good programmers' has passed its time. The field has become too mature for an illusion like that to continue any longer. Good programmers are good programmers, and that's all there is to it. If you're good, you're all set.
Slashdot Mirror
Use bittorrent for popular, fast downloads. Once the torrent gets old, nobody is seeding anymore, and it dies off. That's when you fire up your preferred eDonkey client and go browsing. Things tend to persist a hell of a lot longer out there. That bullshit about the files being polluted and corrupted is a myth, as well. Since you can preview them instantly as they are downloaded, it's easy to spot the crap files if you manage to find any.
Of course, now you need to be patient. This is where most people fail. It may take you a solid 90 days to download something old or obscure from eDonkey. It is not an instant-gratification network. Just let the sucker run and it'll come down in its own good time. Let the client software worry about it. I've fished out all manner of content from there that was impossible to find on bittorrent, usenet, or IRC. Old Mike Oldfield concerts, a mint copy of Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis, dozens of old TV shows... average time to download something like that is around seven days. The torrents of the old Dr. Who TV series (every single episode, 26 seasons) took nearly three months. It was around 212GB of data, of course.
You may want to make sure your firewall can handle a couple thousand connections. If your p2p experience is always sucking hind tit, that might be the cause of your problems. That little Linksys router isn't capable of doing it. Well, maybe if you put linux on it, but why bother when distros like m0n0wall, ipcop, and smoothwall exist? It helps loads if you prioritize ACK, DNS, and any small packets.
Our marketing director asks me, as a favor, to take a look at a temp worker's personal laptop (which we normally wouldn't support). I go and take a look at it... and it's a Toshiba 2535CDS (aka doorstop) running Windows 98 SE. The machine is running a bit slow and has some error messages. Great, I think... it's going to be an infected, degenerate mess. I re-activate that part of my brain filled with all that wonderful Win98 goodness and tool around in his laptop for awhile.
.DLL files in symantec's system repair utility from a botched upgrade (fixed with a few simple regsvr32 commands).
First thing I notice, he's using Firefox instead of IE. Good call. Second thing... there's no spyware, at all, after scans with three good tools. Third, he's got symantec firewall and AV running, and there doesn't appear to be any virii. The machine was virtually spotless.
Let me stress that this is a clueless computer user. He is completely non-technical. The only reason he was using Firefox was because it was faster than IE for him, and he was running the protection software because it came with the system and he had paid for upgrades regularly for several years. His machine was cleaner than any WinXP box I had seem come through in months. It was also sitting right on our cable internet connection, fully exposed, and had been for weeks. (Guests use that instead of the corporate network).
That old, POS version of Windows was damn near hackproof because of a couple simple programs and because it was so damn old that nobody was actively attacking Win98 anymore. It also ran like a champ on that doorstop of a laptop. His problem was an overabundance of temp files (fixed with a couple deletion scripts), and a few unregistered
That made me think twice about the misconception that one must upgrade one's operating system. Apparently there is such a thing as being 'too old to hack'. Maybe that's why educational institutions like to keep everything important on those ancient VAX systems that no recent IT people understand anymore.
The "point" of certifications is the same as the point of work experience, references, college degrees, military experience, eagle scout badges or just about any damn merit-based reward you can think of... to sell your image to the people deciding who gets the interviews.
Sure, you need some relevant certifications. You also need a college degree. Hey, and work experience, a couple of years at least. Having all three of those things on your resume is the only way you can reasonably assume it'll have a chance.
None of these are perfect, all are fallible, and there is no magic bullet. Really, the closet thing to a magic bullet here is knowing someone who knows someone who is looking for someone to fill a position. It's networking. A list of IT professionals with whom you have worked in the past that have a good opinion of your skills is priceless when it comes time to look for jobs.
The only way you can shortcut this process is if you can somehow land an interview with the team you'll be working with. This is hard to do at large companies, but often possible at smaller ones.
There are bullshit certifications, degrees, work experiences, references, etc. If your boss can't tell the difference during an interview, frankly, there's no excuse for that and you shouldn't want to work for him in the first place.
Typically it's the face to face with the new boss that sells him. Of course, if he's an idiot, that's another story. If he's an idiot, and you still take the job, well... you made your own bed on that one. Don't get to thinking interviews are one-sided.
Work to live. Don't live to work.
All of the arguments about being primarily a hardware company aside, I keep seeing people saying that "Apple will have to support 100s of different kinds of hardware products" if they move to standard Intel architecture.
That's bullshit. Apple doesn't have to support anything. They can pick five of each kind of hardware if they want, or none. Look at Solaris-Intel, for example... supports very little of the hardware out there, but folks still use it. There's plenty of PC hardware out there that Linux can't use, and plenty more that it can only use in a rudimentary sense. People would simply have to be more careful about what hardware they buy if they wanted a supported Intel platform for MacOS.
It'd be up to the hardware vendors to match Apple's specs and get the support, just like with Linux and Solaris. Microsoft seems to be the only company making an OS that'll use any junk circuit board with a driver file regardless of quality. Don't make the mistake of assuming Microsoft's way is the only way.
Heh, yes it does. That link is going into the hotbar. Exactly what I was asking for. Thanks!
Have you ever considered adding a type of search that simply does not list retailers? Many times when I am looking for something strictly informational (like how to do xxx, what is yyy) I find the links swamped in junk sites and retail links. It would rock if there were a mode (something far more sophisticated and accurate than adding -review -buy -price etc) that once turned on, automatically adjusted the results so any retail links went to the bottom of the stack.
We've been enjoying the day just fine. The .wav files playing back on the phone support line are just small shell scripts we wrote to respond to the predictable user questions, should you have any. If you manage to have an actual problem that the scripts can't handle they'll forward to our pagers and cell phones. No calls so far today. Hey, be thankful you have internal support to call on; you could be talking to someone with an Indian accent who doesn't even understand your keyboard layout...
We're down at the local alehouse where they have 150 beers on tap, sampling our favorites out on the deck. It's a balmy 70'F, perfect outdoor eating weather. May I suggest starting with a pitcher of Hoegaarden, then moving on to Blue Moon, then Spaten Optimator, and finishing with a solid Beamish Oatmeal stout? (This is, of course, assuming you must return to the office today, which many of us will not.) Those of us who aren't into beer are enjoying a few fine martinis and daquiris, shooting the breeze over what backup solution to use next year or what new tech gadgets are on the market.
If you want to show your system administrator some love, all you need do is read his emails to the company when they are sent out, and actually respond to them. That's it. That will make most of us deliriously happy, not just today, but any day.
Tech gadgets are nice, but it's rather embarassing for you to buy them for us... we don't let our parents shop gadgets for us, and it's best you don't try either. Gift certificates are king. It's a rare geek who understands what his fellow geeks need.
I hear you man, I really do. I'm in the market for a new laptop as well, starting school shortly. I'm faced with finding a powerful laptop to use or settling for something weak, slow, but light and with good battery life instead. There's really no point in finding middle ground. Apple's got the best offerings in the small size market, and I'd probably enjoy having a Mac, it'd be my first.
I'd still prefer a dual-core Turion, but I don't believe those are out just yet. I don't want to be burdened with ATI's craptastic graphics systems, either. Forcing me to get my driver updates from the manufacturer (who will be many revisions behind at all times, even Dell doesn't keep up) is idiotic, and that's ATI's usual policy on laptop chipsets. Nvidia is also more linux-friendly, and I'll be running a lot of linux on it.
Really those are the two things I care about. Everything else is just icing. I need the horsepower of a dual-core since I'm going to be running multiple VMs (simultaneously) on the laptop, both for work and for school. It beats using crappy lab PCs any day. The dual core will also age considerably better... anyone who had a dual celeron (ala Abit BP6) knows exactly what I'm talking about. It'd be nice to still be using the laptop in six years without it feeling slow.
Every decent AMD laptop I find is inevitably paired with ATI graphics chips. The Asus A6000 mentioned in this article is actually the first one I've seen that is almost exactly what I am looking for. If it were dual core I'd be ordering one right now, despite being a tad leery about Asus.
Find me a laptop with ~8lbs- weight, dual core turion, 2+GB memory, nvidia graphics, and I'll buy it. Dual hard disks, good burner, wireless, gigabit lan, bluetooth, dvi, and HQ display are just icing. I don't care if it costs $3000.
The Rockdirect XTreme64 is a killer laptop, using the Athlon64 4800+ desktop CPU (which is dual core) and sporting a truckload of features. It's a better unit than the ones in the infamous 'Liebermann Notebook' scam. It still has ATI graphics, unfortunately, and with that desktop processor it'll double as a hibachi and last about eight seconds on full battery. It's probably the most powerful notebook on the market, though.
I picked it up and flipped through it today at the local gaming store. The price is $40. It's organized a bit better, and there's perhaps fifteen percent more DMing material in there than in the previous iteration. That'll probably seem heavy to anyone who's been in D&D3 for their entire experience, but overall there's nothing in there that hasn't been beaten to death in dozens of other books on the topic, most of them far cheaper. One can find more informative DMing instruction via Google for free. It's just another iteration, and readers won't find anything new unless they're pretty green at RPGs.
To make use of a slashdot colloquialism...
1) Make a bunch of good gaming books.
2) Make them real purdy so you can use printing costs as a justification for high book prices.
3) Release 'updated' versions of them similar to the originals, so folks keep rebuying the same book. (Like DVD special editions)
4) Rely on munchkins, the bragging factor, and annoying rule inconsistencies to push people into buying the latest versions.
5) Flood the market with a lot of expansions, most of which are fluff. (Everyone big does this.)
6) Release your (admittedly quite decent) gaming system openly so that the majority of third party products gravitate to your platform.
7) 1-6 get you dominant mindshare, which in turn increases the power of 1-6, giving you a bit of a feedback loop.
7) Massive, record breaking profit!
I don't fault WoTC for doing this... indeed, it's a brilliant bit of business strategy, and they are certainly giving the fans what they want. They are a very good gaming company. I'm just a bit disappointed over the collateral damage they are causing, the bad habits their game tends to breed in gamers, and that generally most gamers think the whole thing is just great because they don't know any better.
The purpose of this book is more to line the pockets of the folks at WoTC. If the book actually does teach people to be better GMs, that's great. Somehow, though, I doubt the book will tell you to stop buying books, dice, miniatures, and other distractions and instead concentrate on using imagination, story aspects, and learning better roleplaying.
It's great for all those reasons, sure. Open licenses, however, can have a downside if they become the most popular, just like closed ones. They precipitate a tyrrany of the majority, where the one single standard becomes the only standard, and anything else is lost in the ocean.
How many D20 players won't touch any system not based on D20? How many new players learn D20 and don't even know alternatives exist, or think that those alternatives aren't worth a second thought despite having never experienced them? If the D20 players are the majority, you release your game in a D20-compatible format or you perish, because nobody will even look at you twice just based on that one thing. It doesn't matter if you've got the finest game ever created, because you aren't catering to the expectations of the majority, and they can't be bothered to spend any time looking at you.
Feel free to draw whatever parallels you want between that and open software. There's plenty of commonality. Is TCPIP the best, last network protocol? Is the start-menu/desktop paradigm the only way to interface with a computer? Is D20 the best ruleset for an RPG?
These are the kinds of questions that nobody thinks to ask (or cares to hear answered) once some standard takes over public mindshare. It doesn't matter if the standard is closed or open. Once it is in place, by its popularity alone it drives everything else out to the edges of its space, or prevents alternatives from forming altogether. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends largely on the situation.
You got most of mine in there, although some of those you list are more complex than I like.
Let me add these...
Unknown Armies
It's an occult RPG... if Cthulu weren't the standard this would be THE cult RPG. The sourcebook is dynamite reading, expertly well written, and the game is a blast of fresh air. It's gritty, evil, and tons of fun. You can be playing it after about fifteen minutes. I love the 'fight, flight, or freeze' mechanic.
Ironclaw
It's a standard fantasy RPG, but with anthromorphs. Yeah, that's right, it's a furry RPG, so sue me. It's got one of the finest skill systems I've ever seen. The book also manages to seperate itself from 'furry culture' so it isn't carrying all of that baggage along for the ride.
Deadlands
Wild West RPG, I mentioned it in my first post. Try it even if westerns sound kinda boring to you. The game system design is brilliant, and tailored to include poker elements. It's a lot of fun to play, and fairly fast paced, even in combat. Initiative is handled by drawing cards, as is spellcasting. Karma is handled with poker chips (fate chips). Dice are used for the numbers. This game is a great icebreaker to folks who are in that 'D20 haze' and need a shock to get them interested different kinds of game mechanics.
Earthdawn
Earthdawn was FASA's fantasy RPG, back in the D&D 2nd edition days. It has a lot of similarities in the mechanics to D&D3, but without going so far overboard with them. I highly recommend this one if D&D3 is wearing thin on you and you want a different fantasy game. The atmosphere of this game is easily the finest of any fantasy game I've played. Positively Tolkienesque, if you dig into it, but without the pretentiousness. I think this game found the proper balance between a 'level based' and 'skill based' system, and it's unique in its handling of those mechanics.
Most of those have simple systems, but not minimalist. I've saved my favorite, by far, for last.
Continuum
This is without equal in every roleplaying game I've read, and believe me I've had my nose in more than my fair share of books. The system is so simple a single D10 roll resolves hours of in-game combat. There's nothing to this game except for the story itself... the game forces you into the story, and many of the mechanics and conventions force plot developments in the story itself. The game is almost like a recursive storytelling hack. Another unique feature is that it is nearly impossible to have a conversation that is out of character. There are even some situations where one of the players ends up GMing for brief periods.
Just one ten sided die. There are no experience points. No levels. No advancement system. Just skills, and the skills improve through use as you play, almost as an afterthought. So do the three primary attributes. There's no skill list... just make them up and use them as you need them.
It's a damn good thing the rules are that simple, because Continuum is a time travel RPG, and you haven't got the brainpower to deal with complex mechanics and time travel in the same game. The setting is basically all of human history, and in the socieites that have grown up around time travel. This book will make your brain bleed... learning to think fourth dimensionally is not a natural act, but once you're into it, you'll love it. The real genius of this game is the way they handle time travel, and exploring the mechanics for time travel is half the fun.
You can also take this game's time travel rules and use them in absolutely any game, just by adding two new numbers to that game's character sheet. It's brilliant. The only downsides I can think of is that it puts a massive amount of story-strain on the GM, at least initially, and that you can't just jump right in to the 'high level' types of scenarios without fourth dimensional thinking experience. Otherwise you end up trying yourself up so tightly in the results of your time travel that you choke.
I know it sounds like bullshit tha
Has anyone besides myself noticed that at some point, the games became less about roleplaying and more about the rules? When did the rules lawyers become the new priesthood? People collect D&D3 books like they were stamps or baseball cards.
I can name a dozen RPGs that have rules so simple you can learn them in five minutes. The only thing they have in common is that they are usually superior in imagination and quality to the popular games, as well as unknown and ignored by the majority of roleplayers, as you can see simply by glancing at the games being run at conventions like GenCon. Page after page, and nothing but D20 and derivatives.
The rules aren't optional for the players. For this new breed of gamer, if it's written, it's the law. They've paid their thirty dollars for Tips and Tricks of Thievery Volume 7 Version 5 and by god, that book is the final word. How many games have you been in where one of the players tries to use these rules to push the GM around, and gets angry if they are denied?
Watching two rules lawyers at odds is like watching some perverse mental fencing match, and for fifteen minutes nothing gets done while the sacred rules of the game are read from dusty tomes in voices of hused awe and righteous fury. I used to laugh at it, but now it's just getting old.
D20 strikes me as one of the worst things to ever happen to the industry, and I mean that very sincerely. The unique, creative rules for each individual game used to be part of that game's atmosphere. Learning the new rules and seeing the new ways of doing things was part of the fun of playing a new game. It was not work. I can still remember how pleased I was when I first picked up Deadlands (a wild west RPG) and found the designers had worked in poker chips and playing cards as part of the system.
Now everything new just slaps D20 on because it's easy instead of getting creative, or because if they don't they'll be ignored by gamers who can't be bothered to learn a different paradigm for a change. D20 became the mindshare monopoly that GURPS always wanted to become.
If you like your D20, that's fine, but don't laugh when I tell you that you simply don't know what you're missing. There are games where the game is about what happens in the game, not about the rules defining the way the game works.
I can take one of these simple games, walk into a convention, pick up a half dozen gamers, and usually give them a session better than anything they've had in the last couple of years, all on a game they didn't even know how to play ten minutes ago. I am not that good at GMing, either. I much prefer to play. The reason they enjoy it is because it is unknown. They don't know the setting, they don't know all the rules or all the details, they can't predict every nuance of the game in their heads, and they know there's no arguing with the GM... things are just too simple. All that's left is story and roleplaying. That's where most of the fun is.
Sorry for the rant, but I was laughing at the idea of needing another revised expanded edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide. A stack of all of WoTC's D20 books over the last couple of years could probably build a bridge over the Mississippi river.
Where does Apple make most of their money? Hardware sales, right?
So now that the difference between Apple computers and mainstream PCs will boil down to a BIOS of some kind, what exactly is preventing every PC maker in the world from doing a bit of trivial, legal reverse engineering and creating Apple hardware clones that run Apple's operating systems?
FM radio complicates nothing. My iRivier H340 has FM radio, microphone recording, a full color screen, video playback, and USB on the Go which is handy when the camera gets full and I don't have a laptop around. It has a picture viewer, text viewer, and better audio format support than the iPod. It was cheaper, too, and comes without any software requirements beyond USB2/FAT32 support. Toss a linux image on there so I can use it to USB boot and it makes a decent digital swiss army knife. Apple's iPod is hardly the only thing (or the most feature rich) on the market.
While it is true that Clearchannel programming is universally worthless, I live in an area with a couple college stations and an extraordinarily good NPR affiliate (WXXI). Being able to tune them in is a bonus, especially when I'm using the iRivier for more computer-related tasks and haven't got any tunes loaded. Radio also has a lot of applications in other areas that are useful for some people (traffic, wilderness, etc).
I can think of only three features I'd like to see added... better video playback with video-out, record from radio, and Sirius support. Good to see the next model will almost certainly have the latter. Apple can keep their iPods, especially if they remain shortsighted enough to keep thinking of them as file-only devices. (Frankly, Jobs is not that foolish, so I don't think that'll be an issue.)
I can assure you that my tiny antennaless device gets exceptional broadcast clarity from all of the local radio stations. It bookmarks my stations, and the interface is a breeze. I'm also sure this feature cost them all of about 50 cents per unit to include. Radio is so easy it's a goddamn afterthought.
So, for anyone who's looking for an MP3 player with a radio tuner with video playback that's in the same price range as Apple's little toy, check out iRiver and the Mistic River user community for more information. Btw, their peripherals are exceptional, especially the docking stations.
If you're familiar with the open source mp3 player software called Rockbox, which was originally developed for the old Archos MP3 players, the Rockbox team is porting Rockbox to the iRiver. It's a far better MP3 player OS than any commercial ones I've used.
All you need to push through is a tiny group of nanites. They can build you a much more stable highway using other methods back in time on the other side.
Single reviewers are often unreliable, having bias and agendas of their own. If you want a more objective approach to the popularity of a film, you should look at sites that provide an overview of all reviews for a given film.
Rotten Tomatoes is one of the best examples of this. They simply assess a review as either favorable or unfavorable and do away with the less empirical ratings. They count up the total number of positive versus negative reviews, and give a percentage. They'll link every review, include a blurb from each, and pick the most well written ones (positive and negative) and put them in a sidebar.
Their film ratings so far on Star Wars are...
A New Hope - 93%
Empire Strikes Back - 98%
Return of the Jedi - 80%
Phantom Menace - 62%
Attack of the Clones - 65%
Revenge of the Sith - 84%
Looks like it's on par with Jedi in the opinion of most critics.
I share your enthusiasm for the Model M, however, there is one, and only one, thing about it that drives me nuts.
Size.
That keyboard is freakin' huge. Useful if you need a weapon and bulletproof shield to beat back a gang of muggers, sure, but not so good if you want a lot of desk space.
That's why my favorite is the silm-design version of the IBM Model M2. Same internal engineering, same key action, and same longevity (the one I'm typing this on came with my first computer, an IBM PS/2 circa 1993). Here are some images of it. I've only ever seen one other, at a salvation army store, for $5. That one is sitting in a closet waiting for this one to fail. I think by the time it finally fails, computers won't have PS/2 interface connectors anymore. I will use a soldering iron and rebuilt the keyboard controller by hand before I give up this keyboard for any newer models. Also, to hell with Windows keys. They interfere with my gaming.
There are companies on the web that will sell you a remanufactured version of this keyboard (or any IBM series, for that matter), but so far I've yet to have one fail and need replacement. For the record, it's been through the dishwasher for a thorough cleaning seven times (little more than once a year). It has also survived dozens of meals (and spills) at the keyboard. I lost an entire can of Mt. Dew in it once, which sat overnight (damn cats). That'll kill any keyboard but these Model M types... one quick trip through the dishwasher and it's good as new.
You could kill Hitler.
It's just that someone would have to take his place. I don't mean some other random person, complete with history and name changes... I mean someone would literally have to step into his name, his life, his shoes, and become him. They would need to carry out Hitler's actions right up to the end. That would particularly suck for Hitler, as well. If there be a judgement day, how much would it suck if you'd been killed (and replaced by an actor) prior to committing your particular line of atrocities? Just who gets the blame in that situation? What if someone killed Einstein in a similar situation, when he was still a patent clerk, leaving him without the knowledge of his life's work? That's a new kind of identity theft, and a particularly nasty crime.
There's no such thing as "one time traveller." If a time machine is invented, it will lead to a time travelling society, with a multitude of time travellers. The creation of the invention invariably leads to a society (undoubtedly post-human) based upon its use. If you say the device would cause the destruction of the society that created it, then obviously this would have already happened, and no society that would destroy itself with time travelling could come into being. Only one that could use it properly would be able to exist. Any self-invalidating timeline cannot exist.
The creation of the time machine is inevitable; if it can be done, it will be done once our science permits it. Relativity has ruled it possible, but then we know fuck-all about the universe, really, so as far as I'm concerned it's up for debate. Even if you cannot go back past the creation of the time travelling device (as several ideas suggest), there may still be natural phenomenon that allow travel back to near the big bang (natural wormholes, etc) and subsequent creation of a temporal highway with a very long reach.
Sure, you can't push a man through that hole, but you could push nanites through, and electrons or information. Star-Trek style transporter technology (digitization via quantum entanglement) could render an information pattern that could be sent over such a highway and assembled from local materials on the far end. A Temporal Area Network sounds like quite an engineering challenge. I wonder if we're up to it.
There would undoubtedly be temporal pollution (time travellers changing events, intentionally or accidentally), however, none of it would change the known universe in the slightest, because, as you say, it would have already happened. No self-invalidating timeline can exist; therefore this timeline we travel down is not self-invalidating. This does not mean it must make sense to the observer, however. A "paradox" is only an apparent paradox; it exists only in the mind of the observer due to the observer lacking the relevant information to make sense of the apparent paradox. (Or, you can use the many worlds interpretation, if you choose, but frankly that one strikes me as nuts, though it does carry inherent immortality as a bonus, which is rather nice).
Meddling gets harder and harder the closer we get to an information society, but prior to the mass spread of recording devices, one could get away with a great deal, moreso and moreso as one goes further back in time. Go back even a hundred years from now and one could get away with just about anything. Any event can be tampered with, provided the outcome ends up the same in the end. If you think about this for very long, you will bleed from the ears when you realize just how many things can be altered with ease.
This logic is very useful in defeating the usual gamut of time-travel paradoxes that confound most people who haven't spent much time thinking about what it really means. No one who would decide to travel back and kill their parents would exist in the first place; if someone existed who could actually make the attempt, it would be because they were adopted and killing the wrong target, or because some other time traveller stepped in and corr
I don't know about the demise of feudalism. Take a long, hard look at the structure of most corporations, and how the executives of a corporation behave in relation to their employees. If you consider the executives as royalty and the employees as serfs, the analogy contains some striking similarities. Compare their options (and the scope of their options) to the options of their medieval counterparts.
;)
Granted, we've come a long way since then, however one can clearly see the echoes of feudalism even in today's most modern societies. It didn't go away; it evolved and grew up with us.
One might even say the same of slavery, if one considers the standard of living enjoyed by minimum-wage earners compared to the middle class. This is much more of a stretch, though.
Ah, someone found out the truth.
I just can't see how this is a bad thing. If I want to make shows in my basement, and distribute them via the internet, it is none of the big media's business or concern. Last time I checked, they did not have the exclusive right to be the sole broadcasters and media content creators in America. Let's be honest here, shows like Wayne's World or Mr. Rodger's Neighborhood are quite doable for next to no budget in a basement scenario. Their fears are quite justified.
Maybe they'll have to compete on quality again someday. What a goddamn greek tragedy that would be.
I'd like to see her run, just so we could see New York State vote Republican en masse for the first time in decades.
Hillary Clinton vs Colin Powell would be one hellishly entertaining election.
Avoid real words.
That's the key. There's really nothing wrong with leet-icizing your passwords, but you just can't go basing a password on an existing word. Ever. They are simply too easy to crack.
The easy solution is to make up a word. Like Gimflazzockery, or something. Then l33t that one to your heart's content. If you must use dictionary words, at least jubmle lteetrs aruodn.
Another really easy solution is to turn a phrase into an acronym and use that as your password. For example... "To be, or not to be?" becomes "2B;||!2b?". Easy to remember, but guaranteed to give brute forcers a massive headache.
This is our website. The company is in Rochester, NY.
Be gentle. It's fragile (still on a P-133; we tend to get little or no traffic). Sales team will probably be calling me asking where the spike came from when they check their monthly reports.
I can second this. I'm 28, and at least five years younger than anyone else working at my company. Fully two thirds of our employees are over 40, and we have several greybeards here who are in the late 50's, even late 60's. Believe me, programming skill does *not* lessen with age; it can sharpen to the point where, like the parent says... coding is simply instinct. We also have the kind of management that laughs uproariously when someone mentions overseas projects, and has taken up projects that are being brought back from overseas in shambles.
It's a really smooth, calm, sane work environment. It would literally take someone offering me more than double my current salary to get me to leave, because I'm reasonably sure this will be the best job I ever have, in terms of working environment.
I think that idea of 'only young people make good programmers' has passed its time. The field has become too mature for an illusion like that to continue any longer. Good programmers are good programmers, and that's all there is to it. If you're good, you're all set.