2 years is enough for people to buy their next car - that goes farther - as an electric, and forget about the buying the gasoline ones.
Although cars can last 20-30 years or more, the average is around 10-15. If 2 years puts these batteries into cars, AND they're cheap, then we can calculate that in 17 years, gasoline cars will be an oddity or rarity... perhaps getting gas will be something specialized, like for enthusiasts.
Perhaps mass exodus isn't all that unreal... to have a complete change over of ubiquitous technology within 2 decades is actually pretty impressive... replacing 1 billion cars in 20 years... that means 50 million electric cars a year for the next 20 years... and in 15 years, the first electrics will be replaced, if not sooner, making that number bigger. (In 2000, the global production was 41 million per year)
There is tons of software that works really well, is mature FOSS and isn't all that different from using the purchased 'equivalents'.
When you need something specialized like matlab, buy it... if you like. However, Many people in the multitude of organizations don't need that power and don't or couldn't use it to any real extent in a company. Those are the ones that should be using FOSS.
Just think for a minute and you'll think of a half dozen that could save you tons of IT costs if you used FOSS instead. I'm not saying that the 1% of experts should necessarily use FOSS, but the rest could. I'll get you started: - OO - Gimp - Apache - Postgres - Ubuntu w firefox listed above could be a saving of around $2K
exactly, and by doing these blocks, it encourages the unscrupulous end-line telcos to go out of business, or change their ways, that benefit both Google and AT&T and others.
This is a conversation I've had many times as well.
The price of books or music or movies doesn't depend on the format.
People do pay for format. They pay more for perceived quality or collect-ability. But I agree, that content comes first.
I would throw you average Celine Dion album in a bargain bin
Again, this demonstrates that content matters.
I never watch movies in theaters anymore.
I laughed when a read that -- it just means he's getting old. My parents don't go to the theater any more either... and it's not 'because' of the ads. I go less than I used to when I was 20, because I'm not interested in the 'content'... Content is nearly everything, the container (DVD, MP3, cassette, book, IMAX) is next to meaningless.
I'm also one who doesn't see the same movie 12 times... once, maybe twice, is enough.
The problem is it is hard to make people pay for anything. Life is expensive, but anything beyond air, shelter and food, it requires some amount of effort to sell anything. The newspapers just don't tell me compelling reasons why I should bother with them. And on top of that, every time I read their sh*t, I'm disappointed, which doesn't help their angle.
The news companies are complaining that they have to work for their customers -- and, generally, the customers just don't believe them. There are local community news papers that actually are doing fine reporting on local news... delivered free (ad paid). Nobody talks about them with the "big" news papers either. Why?
It looks like it is time for the "big" news giants to die and get reborn. The gap will be filled, or it never mattered.
I agree - but the problem keeps being identified as thieves and this may be missing the crucial problem.
Perhaps these people aren't thieves (maybe some are) 'cause to me, a thief is going to somehow make a profit off stealing. In most cases here, it isn't being resold, remarketed, or whatever a thief may normally do to make a profit. It is being appreciated, played, evaluated, maybe shared, discussed, and so on (more often than not).
The problem may need to be re-identified as something else that allows the producers of the game/music/text to be rewarded/paid so they can continue to do this type of work. A fair tax is one way to do this. Advertising is another (which is a form of tax).
Everyone keeps falling back to the DRM which isn't really the desired method of distribution. It's a crumby way to enforce payment - and happily enforce re-paying for it again, and again.
I think that there has got to be a better alternative to actually retain value of the products without costing both the production team and the consumer (what is now being called 'thief').
The process IS broken and it makes WAY more work for people. Using collaborative software is superior than you make it sound.
On top of that, in many cases, getting people in a group and saying raise your hand if X would do better than sending a f**n spreadsheet to the masses.
This is just another diseased mind thinking that nostalgic reminiscing is when it was good. Ya, I remember when I was young and everything was so great! High quality stuff was everywhere. My Kraft dinner was so much better when my mom made it for me! That is just nonsense. Technology gets better all the time. "Good Enough" differs depending on the product. A CPU that doesn't quite do logic is not going to be "Good Enough", but a program that crashes some times might be "Good Enough".
Since people are generally stupid enough to not care until someone is sued, my prediction is that you will see no ban/contempt or consideration of protesting in any way. I think the best protest would be that no one go to the games until the agreement changes, but no - that wont happen either.
Stupid rules should lose them BIG money.
People are no longer political minded enough to care. The voting polls are an indication of that.
I can assure you that I wont go to any event unless I happen to get free tickets; then I will create a twitter account and post comments about a you-tube video I just posted about the event and invite others to do the same, or comment about CBS and their oppression.
I backed up a bunch of stuff 15 years ago on CD-R and they're just fine, except I used Microsoft Backup and nothing will read the files. Ya, I've heard that if I install MSDOS 5 or 6 on something and use the backup utils, I'll be able get the data off, but who the F*** has MSDOS disks that work? I have a couple sets, but the floppy's are corrupt! Nevermind that the floppy drives are barely functioning with all that dirt in them!
backing up on some propriety system is just stupid, but what did I know about Microsoft not reading old backups... I mean really! Who would have thought that their own software wouldn't be able to read it years later? Not me! I was a fool. Perhaps I still am, but more of a fool then.
To me, get an external drive to do backups. Also, make sure it is a RAID -- 0 or 5 or better 6. If you can afford it, get 2 just like this and rotate them daily, weekly or however often you do backups. The more history you have the better.
I use rsync on 2 Synology 407s each with 3 Terrabytes storage, RAID 5, rotated weekly, backups daily.
The justification is that we can afford to lose a maximum of a week worth of work, i.e. if there's a fire and somebody axes the boxes... more than that is way too costly... but the reality is that it is less than 2 days of work, and probably less, unless everyone's machines are on fire and are axed just right.
How much are you willing to lose?
Re:Software Projects vs. Traditional Projects
on
Why New Systems Fail
·
· Score: 1
Custom software is extremely hard to predict and way more difficult than most bridges.
The most obvious problem with software is that no-one knows what it should do when you start. A bridge, on the other hand, you know that it connects one side with another side and it carries stuff across. Hell, a rope can do that! Now make it bigger!
With software, it is a mess of user interactions with imagined unknown outcomes. Words like "maybe" and "probably" are used all the time with the major functionality. Never mind the end user is either technical or non-technical, which encompasses human psychology as much as logical inconsistencies. Even when you get something nailed down, we all know that is fleeting and next week, that's not what we meant anyway.
Software is a moving target of unknown proportions. When you have a final product that works, ten people will have ten different descriptions of what it is. Three of them will break it in ways it wasn't intended to be used. Two of them will not be able to make it work. One will be so enamoured that changing it will be considered a sin.
Software is an artistic expression and nothing less. Large projects are truly a group expression, which is pretty cool when you think about it.
I believe large projects fail, not because they are big, but because either the vision is not focussed enough early, or the vision is too rigid.
The "real" world will train you how to be a monkey well enough.
I agree, however, if you just want to learn to program, go to a technical college and learn that way. If you want an education, go to a university.
When I hire, I look for critical thinking on top of technical knowledge. If you have neither, I'm not interested. If you have one without the other, I'm minorly interested, and I might have a use for someone like that.
You should know a bunch of different programming languages by the time you're done. And they should be from different categories, like functional, procedural, logical, object oriented. Each have their strengths and weaknesses. And if you haven't written any independent programs to show or tell me by the end of that time, I wonder how interested you really are.
Also, you should know how to write some prose by the end. Surprisingly, that is not common enough.
A Bachelors Degree, IMO should be breadth AND depth. A Masters/Doctorate Degree, IMO should be more/much more depth.
IMHO Windows 3.x and M$ killed software innovation by appealing to accountants which made the decisions to buy whatever computer they felt was cheapest... "no color? no sound? let's buy it!"
In 1985 there was Atari ST and Amiga that blew the doors off anything else including the mac. Windows 3 hobbled in years later. I remember 4 color displays for the PC. I remember only having to buy sound cards for the pc . I remember... Then came the hardware innovations on the PC that left the rest of us wanting.
The PC allowed for hardware innovation like nothing else. Remember ISA boards? IMO, In the 90s, that is what made them appealing. Windows or DOS was just there to interface with these things. I think people forget that DOS is a tool, and it was simple.
After that, the kids thought that windows was computing.
In all seriousness... it shouldn't be, "can I share my cell phone with other devices?", it should be "may I use several devices with my phone number?" Notice, it is the phone number that is at issue here, not the "talkie" part.
The simple answer is yes, but not the way you want to. And no, because the cell phone company will likely not participate... yet. The cell phone companies don't want to provide just "data service" since they wouldn't be able to severely bill you for the extra features on your phone.
I see that in an ideal world, i.e. the one we don't live in, we would have data access on our phones and that's it... thus voice communication would be just something that your "cell" device can do.
Today, the easiest way to accomplish what you want here is to use VoIP.
Code reviews have a lot of value in two ways completely independent of how good they are at catching errors. First, they are a way to enforce various stylistic guidelines on code that make future maintenance much easier. Secondly, they are a tool for spreading knowledge about the code around to other members of your development team.
They can also catch some errors that are very hard to catch in any other way.
I agree, however, what I have implemented in my shop is before a commit to the repository is made, two programmers sit together and go through every line of code being committed (and of course the surrounding code). What that does is a minimal code review (i.e. only two people involved). However, it does allow the transmission of knowledge, improves style, catches all sorts of interesting bugs and all for minimal cost. It doesn't catch everything, but neither does a grand code review.
Everyone that does this type of thing actually appreciates it and is willing to do it. Specifically, no one complains about how much extra time it takes and what better things they could be doing. I recommend this as something that can be added to your development cycle and do grand code reviews too, when budget permits.
After working with engineers from other disciplines that create software, one begins to realize how different it is for those of us who create software for a living, especially stuff that a human can use. Engineers from other disciplines tend (and I'm generalizing) to be more derivative, when creating software.
Good software engineers, programmers, hackers, or whatever you want to call us think about problems differently. When we do our best work, it is because we see a problem that is new to us, and we see a solution or a potential solution. The result is software that the artistic, creative poets put together to function in a way that solves a problem. Sometimes it's elegant; other times it's horrendous. I'm sure you can think of many examples of each. But every time, it is something personal.
I agree that the idea of controlling development in some formulaic way is next to ludicrous. All you can really hope for is that the development is contained enough from getting unmanageable. Scope-creep, enhancements, limitations and their respective removals, all play havoc with rigour. I think you can easily see when software is getting to the unmanageable level; that's when you throw out and recreate. I've heard the cursing of other developers for decades and yet, no one escapes those curses. And it can go both ways... eg. Bob: Why TF did Joe do X?... and often enough... Joe: What TF was Bob thinking? X is now really broken!
There might be something to be said about a misinterpretation of what this means or represents. He states a bunch of attitudes are Communistic, but I think many of these same attitudes are Anarchistic.
It may very well be that the individual is important with the realization that the neighbour is also important. One's own survival is based on the survival of your neighbour.
We can also infer that the Super Hero is also an Anarchist. They all selectively ignore the law to achieve their goals in helping others, given a few priorities or rules they don't break (if at all possible).
Slashdot Mirror
You are a monster!
You're giving them a chance to be self reliant!
2 years is enough for people to buy their next car - that goes farther - as an electric, and forget about the buying the gasoline ones.
Although cars can last 20-30 years or more, the average is around 10-15. If 2 years puts these batteries into cars, AND they're cheap, then we can calculate that in 17 years, gasoline cars will be an oddity or rarity... perhaps getting gas will be something specialized, like for enthusiasts.
Perhaps mass exodus isn't all that unreal... to have a complete change over of ubiquitous technology within 2 decades is actually pretty impressive... replacing 1 billion cars in 20 years... that means 50 million electric cars a year for the next 20 years... and in 15 years, the first electrics will be replaced, if not sooner, making that number bigger. (In 2000, the global production was 41 million per year)
I think I see an investment future!
not if they are not actually present in the movie/game...
you don't get licenses for things that are merely representations of likeness.
There is tons of software that works really well, is mature FOSS and isn't all that different from using the purchased 'equivalents'.
When you need something specialized like matlab, buy it... if you like. However, Many people in the multitude of organizations don't need that power and don't or couldn't use it to any real extent in a company. Those are the ones that should be using FOSS.
Just think for a minute and you'll think of a half dozen that could save you tons of IT costs if you used FOSS instead. I'm not saying that the 1% of experts should necessarily use FOSS, but the rest could.
I'll get you started:
- OO
- Gimp
- Apache
- Postgres
- Ubuntu w firefox
listed above could be a saving of around $2K
exactly, and by doing these blocks, it encourages the unscrupulous end-line telcos to go out of business, or change their ways, that benefit both Google and AT&T and others.
It sounds like AT&T are just idiots here...
This is a conversation I've had many times as well.
The price of books or music or movies doesn't depend on the format.
People do pay for format. They pay more for perceived quality or collect-ability. But I agree, that content comes first.
I would throw you average Celine Dion album in a bargain bin
Again, this demonstrates that content matters.
I never watch movies in theaters anymore.
I laughed when a read that -- it just means he's getting old. My parents don't go to the theater any more either... and it's not 'because' of the ads. I go less than I used to when I was 20, because I'm not interested in the 'content' ... Content is nearly everything, the container (DVD, MP3, cassette, book, IMAX) is next to meaningless.
I'm also one who doesn't see the same movie 12 times... once, maybe twice, is enough.
The problem is it is hard to make people pay for anything. Life is expensive, but anything beyond air, shelter and food, it requires some amount of effort to sell anything. The newspapers just don't tell me compelling reasons why I should bother with them. And on top of that, every time I read their sh*t, I'm disappointed, which doesn't help their angle.
The news companies are complaining that they have to work for their customers -- and, generally, the customers just don't believe them. There are local community news papers that actually are doing fine reporting on local news... delivered free (ad paid). Nobody talks about them with the "big" news papers either. Why?
It looks like it is time for the "big" news giants to die and get reborn. The gap will be filled, or it never mattered.
I agree - but the problem keeps being identified as thieves and this may be missing the crucial problem.
Perhaps these people aren't thieves (maybe some are) 'cause to me, a thief is going to somehow make a profit off stealing. In most cases here, it isn't being resold, remarketed, or whatever a thief may normally do to make a profit. It is being appreciated, played, evaluated, maybe shared, discussed, and so on (more often than not).
The problem may need to be re-identified as something else that allows the producers of the game/music/text to be rewarded/paid so they can continue to do this type of work. A fair tax is one way to do this. Advertising is another (which is a form of tax).
Everyone keeps falling back to the DRM which isn't really the desired method of distribution. It's a crumby way to enforce payment - and happily enforce re-paying for it again, and again.
I think that there has got to be a better alternative to actually retain value of the products without costing both the production team and the consumer (what is now being called 'thief').
I must say that "Creating a Religion" is brilliant!
It worked, it demonstrated how incredibly stupid religions are (for some people), and the rest either get angry, or follow suit under the radar.
Morality aside, one should applaud the demonstration of it. It's a tremendous example of execution of a hypothesis: Creating a religion=rich.
You completely missed the point...
The process IS broken and it makes WAY more work for people. Using collaborative software is superior than you make it sound.
On top of that, in many cases, getting people in a group and saying raise your hand if X would do better than sending a f**n spreadsheet to the masses.
But it's good enough to get me annoyed!
This is just another diseased mind thinking that nostalgic reminiscing is when it was good. Ya, I remember when I was young and everything was so great! High quality stuff was everywhere. My Kraft dinner was so much better when my mom made it for me! That is just nonsense. Technology gets better all the time. "Good Enough" differs depending on the product. A CPU that doesn't quite do logic is not going to be "Good Enough", but a program that crashes some times might be "Good Enough".
Get over yourself, is what I say.
there are parking lots that do this already too.
It's the spot not the car that is occupied.
Since people are generally stupid enough to not care until someone is sued, my prediction is that you will see no ban/contempt or consideration of protesting in any way. I think the best protest would be that no one go to the games until the agreement changes, but no - that wont happen either.
Stupid rules should lose them BIG money.
People are no longer political minded enough to care. The voting polls are an indication of that.
I can assure you that I wont go to any event unless I happen to get free tickets; then I will create a twitter account and post comments about a you-tube video I just posted about the event and invite others to do the same, or comment about CBS and their oppression.
It's completely obvious why the claim was not deemed preposterous... incompetence!
The patent office now grants patents without test. It has stated that it will bring all contentions to court instead of pre-validating patents.
This is EXACTLY how it is supposed to work.
garbage in => court case => garbage out + richer lawyers... brilliant!
I backed up a bunch of stuff 15 years ago on CD-R and they're just fine, except I used Microsoft Backup and nothing will read the files. Ya, I've heard that if I install MSDOS 5 or 6 on something and use the backup utils, I'll be able get the data off, but who the F*** has MSDOS disks that work? I have a couple sets, but the floppy's are corrupt! Nevermind that the floppy drives are barely functioning with all that dirt in them!
backing up on some propriety system is just stupid, but what did I know about Microsoft not reading old backups... I mean really! Who would have thought that their own software wouldn't be able to read it years later? Not me! I was a fool. Perhaps I still am, but more of a fool then.
I'm completely confused with the question too.
To me, get an external drive to do backups. Also, make sure it is a RAID -- 0 or 5 or better 6. If you can afford it, get 2 just like this and rotate them daily, weekly or however often you do backups. The more history you have the better.
I use rsync on 2 Synology 407s each with 3 Terrabytes storage, RAID 5, rotated weekly, backups daily.
The justification is that we can afford to lose a maximum of a week worth of work, i.e. if there's a fire and somebody axes the boxes... more than that is way too costly... but the reality is that it is less than 2 days of work, and probably less, unless everyone's machines are on fire and are axed just right.
How much are you willing to lose?
Custom software is extremely hard to predict and way more difficult than most bridges.
The most obvious problem with software is that no-one knows what it should do when you start. A bridge, on the other hand, you know that it connects one side with another side and it carries stuff across. Hell, a rope can do that! Now make it bigger!
With software, it is a mess of user interactions with imagined unknown outcomes. Words like "maybe" and "probably" are used all the time with the major functionality. Never mind the end user is either technical or non-technical, which encompasses human psychology as much as logical inconsistencies. Even when you get something nailed down, we all know that is fleeting and next week, that's not what we meant anyway.
Software is a moving target of unknown proportions. When you have a final product that works, ten people will have ten different descriptions of what it is. Three of them will break it in ways it wasn't intended to be used. Two of them will not be able to make it work. One will be so enamoured that changing it will be considered a sin.
Software is an artistic expression and nothing less. Large projects are truly a group expression, which is pretty cool when you think about it.
I believe large projects fail, not because they are big, but because either the vision is not focussed enough early, or the vision is too rigid.
The "real" world will train you how to be a monkey well enough.
I agree, however, if you just want to learn to program, go to a technical college and learn that way. If you want an education, go to a university.
When I hire, I look for critical thinking on top of technical knowledge. If you have neither, I'm not interested. If you have one without the other, I'm minorly interested, and I might have a use for someone like that.
You should know a bunch of different programming languages by the time you're done. And they should be from different categories, like functional, procedural, logical, object oriented. Each have their strengths and weaknesses. And if you haven't written any independent programs to show or tell me by the end of that time, I wonder how interested you really are.
Also, you should know how to write some prose by the end. Surprisingly, that is not common enough.
A Bachelors Degree, IMO should be breadth AND depth. A Masters/Doctorate Degree, IMO should be more/much more depth.
I was there and I remember!
IMHO Windows 3.x and M$ killed software innovation by appealing to accountants which made the decisions to buy whatever computer they felt was cheapest... "no color? no sound? let's buy it!"
In 1985 there was Atari ST and Amiga that blew the doors off anything else including the mac. Windows 3 hobbled in years later. I remember 4 color displays for the PC. I remember only having to buy sound cards for the pc . I remember... Then came the hardware innovations on the PC that left the rest of us wanting.
The PC allowed for hardware innovation like nothing else. Remember ISA boards? IMO, In the 90s, that is what made them appealing. Windows or DOS was just there to interface with these things. I think people forget that DOS is a tool, and it was simple.
After that, the kids thought that windows was computing.
Clearly you've never tried to recover a tape! Especially problematic when the tape drive dies. How many tape drives do you have in stock?
Long term - my ass! Reliable - bah! Cheap? no.
Hard-drives are surprisingly superior.
In all seriousness... it shouldn't be, "can I share my cell phone with other devices?", it should be "may I use several devices with my phone number?" Notice, it is the phone number that is at issue here, not the "talkie" part.
The simple answer is yes, but not the way you want to. And no, because the cell phone company will likely not participate... yet. The cell phone companies don't want to provide just "data service" since they wouldn't be able to severely bill you for the extra features on your phone.
I see that in an ideal world, i.e. the one we don't live in, we would have data access on our phones and that's it... thus voice communication would be just something that your "cell" device can do.
Today, the easiest way to accomplish what you want here is to use VoIP.
Seriously,
Take a holiday.
Code reviews have a lot of value in two ways completely independent of how good they are at catching errors. First, they are a way to enforce various stylistic guidelines on code that make future maintenance much easier. Secondly, they are a tool for spreading knowledge about the code around to other members of your development team.
They can also catch some errors that are very hard to catch in any other way.
I agree, however, what I have implemented in my shop is before a commit to the repository is made, two programmers sit together and go through every line of code being committed (and of course the surrounding code). What that does is a minimal code review (i.e. only two people involved). However, it does allow the transmission of knowledge, improves style, catches all sorts of interesting bugs and all for minimal cost. It doesn't catch everything, but neither does a grand code review.
Everyone that does this type of thing actually appreciates it and is willing to do it. Specifically, no one complains about how much extra time it takes and what better things they could be doing. I recommend this as something that can be added to your development cycle and do grand code reviews too, when budget permits.
After working with engineers from other disciplines that create software, one begins to realize how different it is for those of us who create software for a living, especially stuff that a human can use. Engineers from other disciplines tend (and I'm generalizing) to be more derivative, when creating software.
Good software engineers, programmers, hackers, or whatever you want to call us think about problems differently. When we do our best work, it is because we see a problem that is new to us, and we see a solution or a potential solution. The result is software that the artistic, creative poets put together to function in a way that solves a problem. Sometimes it's elegant; other times it's horrendous. I'm sure you can think of many examples of each. But every time, it is something personal.
I agree that the idea of controlling development in some formulaic way is next to ludicrous. All you can really hope for is that the development is contained enough from getting unmanageable. Scope-creep, enhancements, limitations and their respective removals, all play havoc with rigour. I think you can easily see when software is getting to the unmanageable level; that's when you throw out and recreate. I've heard the cursing of other developers for decades and yet, no one escapes those curses. And it can go both ways... eg. Bob: Why TF did Joe do X?... and often enough... Joe: What TF was Bob thinking? X is now really broken!
Software is Art as much as it is anything else.
To quote Black Eyed Peas
"I'm so 3008, you're so 2000 late"
There might be something to be said about a misinterpretation of what this means or represents. He states a bunch of attitudes are Communistic, but I think many of these same attitudes are Anarchistic.
It may very well be that the individual is important with the realization that the neighbour is also important. One's own survival is based on the survival of your neighbour.
We can also infer that the Super Hero is also an Anarchist. They all selectively ignore the law to achieve their goals in helping others, given a few priorities or rules they don't break (if at all possible).
Anarchy is greatly misunderstood.
Anarchy != Chaos
Stupid == Temporary Chaos