> At 34, I suppose I'm an old fart. The rate of > change is accelerating faster than an old fart > like me can keep up with anymore. Sure, I can > learn new technologies -- the problem is I can't > learn them ALL. The younger folks certainly > have me at a disadvantage.
I'm not sure about this. From my point of view it's not so much inability to keep up as you get older (up to the point where you get so old you're only fit for jobs in law or politics of course) as shifting priorities and demands on your time making it harder or less important to do so.
When you're 20 spending a day reading say stacks of RFCs may be feasible. By 35 the demands on time and other responsibilities can make it impossible for many people or you place different values and priorities on your time.
Also no one truly learns ALL technologies in any depth, unless you've used them in anger all this 'book learning' is of dubious value. One key to career success is picking the right technologies at the right time and specialising in the right things.
> All those college students reading this should > tone down the laughter a bit and remember... in > just ten short years, you'll be an old fart too.
This I agree with!
Also remember that experience is valuable, you get to avoid old mistakes and make new ones.
By a strange coincidence I read through most of the WAP 1.1 specs earlier this week (mind numbing stuff).
Call me cynical but most of the specs start with a blurb about how they're leveraging on existing internet technologies.
What's really pissing me off about all these patents is that people are taking a stuff that already exists, combining it with an obvious solution dictated by the constraints of the problem and claiming to have invented something new and thereby acquired a meal ticket from the entire world (after waiting a decent interval for people to use something they thought was free).
What's new about WAP / WML?
It includes byte compilation to save memory on the phone / pda device. Is that new? Err no.
It's got an ISO stack in it. Leading edge man.
It uses XML (cynic alert: These days I mentally #define XML as bandwagon.jumpOn(true) as it's become one of those fashionable things that people use but don't know why they're doing it.)
What exactly have they invented?
What would have happened if HTML and the NCSA WWW server had been patented? Would there be a billion WWW pages out there now?
As someone "across the pond" I will respond to this one and take the flames.
Most of these cameras aren't obvious to the casual observer. Those that are tend not to be reachable even if you wanted to take a baseball bat to them.
You can't hide in your house all the time, you have to use public spaces and you can't stop these cameras being deployed. Basically you have to ignore them or go nuts.
Unfortunately if anything crime (or maybe fear of crime) in London is higher than ever. Someone I know was beaten by a gang of thugs in full view of a CCTV camera very recently. No one has been caught.
I think the proponents of these things amongst the police are using the old "criminals are stupid and we are clever" argument. They claim all kinds of abilities for the software driving them that are clearly not practical in the hope that people will fall for it and do their crimes elsewhere. Next they'll be claiming to spot people who are thinking about comitting a crime.
I pretty much agree with this comment but don't forget that in 1984 the party was doing its best (via the control of language) to ensure that dissent could not even be expressed. Realistic or not (see Steven Pinkers books on language) this is as scary to me as the Brave New World scenario.
My hackles always rise when either of these books are trotted out by people like Katz in a cliched way. They have both been pretty much devalued by constant use as tokens in people's arguments.
It's always worth remembering that the nightmare totalitarian state of 1984 is essentially low tech and also that Orwell was really writing about events at the time, not predicting the future.
I've been using Sun hardware and software on projects for over 10 years and it has done a pretty good job scaling way beyond the wildest dreams of Bill and not crashing as soon as a load appears.
If their marketing and communications were as good as some of their technology then we'd have MCPs sitting on street corners with cardboard signs offering to reboot computers for food.
It's partly Suns own fault and this looks like another PR own goal but it's sometimes sad to see the slagging they get here no matter what they do. Among other things Sun created Java, not the dancing paperclip or the ten minute uptime. Take your pick but I know which camp I'm in.
The SCSL isn't a great deal in my opinion but they have yet to force people to sign it at gunpoint.
Slashdot Mirror
> At 34, I suppose I'm an old fart. The rate of
> change is accelerating faster than an old fart
> like me can keep up with anymore. Sure, I can
> learn new technologies -- the problem is I can't > learn them ALL. The younger folks certainly
> have me at a disadvantage.
I'm not sure about this. From my point of view it's not so much inability to keep up as you get older (up to the point where you get so old you're only fit for jobs in law or politics of course) as shifting priorities and demands on your time making it harder or less important to do so.
When you're 20 spending a day reading say stacks of RFCs may be feasible. By 35 the demands on time and other responsibilities can make it impossible for many people or you place different values and priorities on your time.
Also no one truly learns ALL technologies in any depth, unless you've used them in anger all this 'book learning' is of dubious value. One key to career success is picking the right technologies at the right time and specialising in the right things.
> All those college students reading this should
> tone down the laughter a bit and remember... in > just ten short years, you'll be an old fart too.
This I agree with!
Also remember that experience is valuable, you get to avoid old mistakes and make new ones.
By a strange coincidence I read through most of the WAP 1.1 specs earlier this week (mind numbing stuff).
Call me cynical but most of the specs start with a blurb about how they're leveraging on existing internet technologies.
What's really pissing me off about all these patents is that people are taking a stuff that already exists, combining it with an obvious solution dictated by the constraints of the problem and claiming to have invented something new and thereby acquired a meal ticket from the entire world (after waiting a decent interval for people to use something they thought was free).
What's new about WAP / WML?
It includes byte compilation to save memory on the phone / pda device. Is that new? Err no.
It's got an ISO stack in it. Leading edge man.
It uses XML (cynic alert: These days I mentally #define XML as bandwagon.jumpOn(true) as it's become one of those fashionable things that people use but don't know why they're doing it.)
What exactly have they invented?
What would have happened if HTML and the NCSA WWW server had been patented? Would there be a billion WWW pages out there now?
(Another) Martin
As someone "across the pond" I will respond to this one and take the flames.
Most of these cameras aren't obvious to the casual observer. Those that are tend not to be reachable even if you wanted to take a baseball bat to them.
You can't hide in your house all the time, you have to use public spaces and you can't stop these cameras being deployed. Basically you have to ignore them or go nuts.
Unfortunately if anything crime (or maybe fear of crime) in London is higher than ever. Someone I know was beaten by a gang of thugs in full view of a CCTV camera very recently. No one has been caught.
I think the proponents of these things amongst the police are using the old "criminals are stupid and we are clever" argument. They claim all kinds of abilities for the software driving them that are clearly not practical in the hope that people will fall for it and do their crimes elsewhere. Next they'll be claiming to spot people who are thinking about comitting a crime.
I pretty much agree with this comment but don't forget that in 1984 the party was doing its best (via the control of language) to ensure that dissent could not even be expressed. Realistic or not (see Steven Pinkers books on language) this is as scary to me as the Brave New World scenario.
My hackles always rise when either of these books are trotted out by people like Katz in a cliched way. They have both been pretty much devalued by constant use as tokens in people's arguments.
It's always worth remembering that the nightmare totalitarian state of 1984 is essentially low tech and also that Orwell was really writing about events at the time, not predicting the future.
I've been using Sun hardware and software on projects for over 10 years and it has done a pretty good job scaling way beyond the wildest dreams of Bill and not crashing as soon as a load appears.
If their marketing and communications were as good as some of their technology then we'd have MCPs sitting on street corners with cardboard signs offering to reboot computers for food.
It's partly Suns own fault and this looks like another PR own goal but it's sometimes sad to see the slagging they get here no matter what they do. Among other things Sun created Java, not the dancing paperclip or the ten minute uptime. Take your pick but I know which camp I'm in.
The SCSL isn't a great deal in my opinion but they have yet to force people to sign it at gunpoint.