Slashdot Mirror


User: Samrobb

Samrobb's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
765
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 765

  1. Re:How about this for a ridiculous contract term? on Musicians vs. RIAA At USA Today · · Score: 1
    Getting a lawyer isn't like figuring out which grocery store to go to.

    Believe me, I know - I've got a couple in the family :-/ Still, any lawyer in a giver area can probably at least point you in the right direction, and recommend who you should talk to... that is, they know enough to say "Ah, an entertainment contract. This looks fairly standard, but you will probably want to talk to John Smith or Sally Jones - they both have experience dealing with this type of contract."

  2. Re:How about this for a ridiculous contract term? on Musicians vs. RIAA At USA Today · · Score: 2
    True, you should have demanded better terms.

    You know, in these discussions, I hear that point made over and over... what I don't hear are stories about bands that had half a clue and did get a lawyer, accountant, etc. to review the contracts and negotiate for a better one.

    So... is this because those bands are happy with their contracts, and don't have any reason to talk about them? Or is it because some sort of NDA was added to prevent them from discussing their contracts, so other artists wouldn't understand what they could get out of their record companies? Or is it because the RIAA and the record companies are powerful enough to simply say "This is the contract - take it or leave it"?

  3. Re:Agree: Time Travel, Holodeck, and Q plots suck on Star Trek: Pick A Plot · · Score: 1
    One of the reasons Voyager was so interesting, at least when it launched, was that it didn't do what so many Sci-Fi films have done before: it didn't rescue the heroes.

    They really didn't play this up that well, though. I mean, they had me primed and ready for it by the third episode... I was chanting "Die, Janeway - die, DIE, DIE!" near constantly during the show by that point. Annoyed my wife enought that she finally stopped trying to get me to watch it with her.

    By the end of the first season, I was sure they were going to reveal the truth:

    In a desperate last effort to save mankind, a horribly devastated future Federation sends one of their last representatives back in time. His mission: to warn a younger Federation that Janeway's melodrama and egotism, unless dealt with, would eventually cause a diplomatic incident with the Klingons that would drive them into an unholy alliance with the Borg... an alliance hellbent on destroying the race that spawned the cursed Janeway. Squeamish as always, rather than killing her, the Federation arranges her "exile". Three skilled operatives - Chakotay, Tuvok, and Belana - are assigned to keep her from returning to Federation space before the critical point in history, no matter what the cost. After a few years of wandering around in the Delta quadrant, they will reveal the truth to Janeway, beat the crud out of her, dump her out an airlock, and laugh themselves sick on the way home.
  4. Re:Another PHB, comin' up! on Master of Software Engineering: CMU or Elsewhere? · · Score: 2
    now you think you're ready to manage us? Oh crap

    So tell me... how long should he wait? Until he's got enough experience that moving into a starting-level management position would involve a pay cut? Until he's so uber-geeky knowledgeable about CS that he's unable to see the forest for the trees? Until he's mastered all of CS, so that he can evaluate your performance optimizations?

    He may be a bit premature, but if he's thinking about it now, he may get around to it in another year or two. And believe me, he will know more than enough about CS to do a good job, if he wants to be a development manager. If he wants to be a team lead on the other hand, yah, you're right - he needs more experience. Too many places merge the two, and expect a team lead to also be the development manager, or vice versa. The first case is generally salvageable, the second... well, that's where you start entering until Dilbert land, unless you're dealing with a really good manager (one who essentially takes the brightest developer and bootstraps him into a team lead position.)

    If you really have a brain-dead PHB for a manager, you have my sympathies. This gentleman seems to have the potential to become a decent development manager, if he doesn't end up convinced he needs to memorize all of Knuth before he can do the job.

    I like how he puts down the "general masters degree in CS" like it's somehow inferior to a program of study which specializes in the latest management fad.

    I like how you put down a master's degree in management like it's somehow inferior to a program of study which specializes in obscure technical arcana :-/ IMHO, management's a whole lot harder than technical knowledge and skill... and believe me, I've been on both sides of the fence. I'm a code monkey now and forever more because I don't want the headaches that management has to deal with on a daily basis.

    BTW, until a few years ago, I don't think CMU had a master's program in CS... they did give out a few, generally to doctoral students who either dropped out or who were obviously never going to graduate with a PhD. So, yah - at CMU, at least, there's a bit of a stigmata attached to a "master's" degree in CS. If this guy was at CMU at that time (and from the sound of it, he might have been), he very well may have picked up a bit of that attitude. CMU also has one of the rougest graduate programs in business management/administration out there (largely because of the technical focus)... so, you can see where he might consider one degree more significant than the other.

  5. Re:Less secretive please... on Making the Case Against Software Patents? · · Score: 2

    In this comment, he mentions:

    I worked for the Australian subsidiary of Wang Labs...

    Nothing seems to indicate he's moved elsewhere. Still working in Australia, heretic?

  6. Surprised no one has mentioned "Death March" on Do Long Work Hours Affect Code Quality? · · Score: 4, Informative

    Death March: The Complete Software Developer's Guide to Surviving 'Mission Impossible' Projects by Ed Yourdon.

    Buy, borrow, or spend a few minutes in a bookstore reading the first 2-3 chapters, where Yourdon describes the four different type of death march projects, the prersonalities and politics surrounding them, and what your options are.

    What you'll read there will likely be the same sort of advice you're getting here. Yourdon's presentation is a bit clearer, though, and he raises a lot of good points about how to make a decision with regards to whether or not you'll buy into a death march project. The middle section of the book details how to survive on such a project if you do, indeed, decide you're going to take it on.

    At the end of the book is "Death March as a Way of Life." The long and the short of it is that these type of projects are increasingly common. If the project fails, then then it's your fault - you didn't work hard enough; the next batch of folks will no doubt be harder workers than you were. If you succeed, and ship on time, you'll just show management that death march projects work. Either way, you'll be in a job where every project requires increasingly superhuman efforts.

    Better to decide if you want to deal with that now, instead of trying to do so after a few years of insane workloads have destroyed your marriage, health, and/or mental faculties.

  7. Re:Problems with GPL and APSL... on Apple Plans To Release Rendezvous As Open Source · · Score: 1
    The GPL does not require modifications of modified versions of software to be 'opensourced' if the modified program is not distributed to a third party, as explained in the GPL FAQ.

    What's the legal definition of a "third party"? Corporations these days are hardly monolithic entities... they contract out support functions (HR, IT, etc.), they have subsidiaries, they form close partnerships, hire outside firms for contract work, etc. Any of these situations might result in a claim that modified GPL software was distributed to a "third party".

    I'll corner a lawyer or two when I get the chance so I can ask the question. I suspect that this requirement is sufficiently vague enough to scare the pants off your average IP Lawyer.

  8. Utipoia as Dystopia on Slashback: Pop-Ups, Books, Qmail · · Score: 3, Interesting
    A favorite of mine is Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward...
    What if good were so totally triumphant that it became a worse danger than evil, and a band of unemployed evil characters had to go on a desperate quest to find the means of putting the saving bit of evil back into the world?
  9. Re:Rebuttal on 10 Reasons We Need Java 3 · · Score: 1
    7. Extend chars to four bytes.

    Meh. I don't use Unicode that much, so it's not as relevant to me, I'll trust you on this one. Just don't bloat up good ole US-ASCII character strings.

    Hmm. Would it be that horrible to introduce multiple String classes? Say, String (4-byte char, unicode string) and ByteString (1-byte unsigned char, ASCII string). This would introduce an extra bit of complexity, sure, but it would offer developers an acceptable tradeoff: continue to use default Strings (less effecient use of memory in exchange for maintaining source compatability and better unicode support), or elect to use ByteStrings in order to reduce memory footprint.

    3. Rationalize the collections.

    The author is making some fuzzy argument that the Collections APIis not cuddly enough or something.

    Annoying is more like it. Coming from a C++ programming background, the consistency in the STL is wonderful. You shouldn't have to consult API documentation to figure out if a collection class is threadsafe or not, or if foo.size() has the same semantics as bar.length(). API consistency means you only need to know a handful or rules to be productive, instead a plethora of a subtly different and potentially confusing rules (whose only purpose, it seems, is to create a fertile breeding ground for bugs.)

  10. Re:your web page on Slashdot Readers Visit Meatspace · · Score: 1
    The "How to Negotiate a Job Offer" link on your page doesn't work.

    Thanks for the heads up; I'll see about fixing it. In the meantime, you can reach the Geek Ed pages with the following links:

    How Stock Options Work
    How To Negotiate a Job Offer

  11. Re:Pittsburgh Sucks on Slashdot Readers Visit Meatspace · · Score: 2

    I wasn't able to attend (prior commitments, do I didn't even register.) Still, a suggestion for the next meetup: the Foundry Ale Works in the Strip. That's where we've been hosting Geek Night for the past 4 years... decent food, good beer, and (IIRC) they still have a standing wireless network connection provided by a local ISP.

    BTW, the next Geek Night gathering is this coming Thursday (August 1st), if you're just interested in meeting like-minded souls. We typically have 400-500 people show up over the course of the evening.

  12. Re:OT: Hey! Yes, YOU! "rediculous" IS NOT A WORD! on Open Source, Real Media Mega-player? · · Score: 1

    I guess I could try to claim that it was some fiendishly subtle attempt at sarcasm... but I won't make the attempt. :-)

    It honestly wasn't intended as a spelling flame - it's just that my tolerance for the continual misspelling of the word in recent posts had finally reached a limit, and I felt the need to vent. I mean, come on - I could understand getting the "iculous" part wrong, but how do you mistake "rid" for "red"?

    Sigh. Ah, well. Now that I've gotten it off my chest, at least the next few dozen posts that use "rediculous" won't bother me.

  13. OT: Hey! Yes, YOU! "rediculous" IS NOT A WORD! on Open Source, Real Media Mega-player? · · Score: 2

    I have to apologize, but I've seen this misspelling so many times on /. that it's just about driving me up a friggin' wall!

    On top of that, it seems to be spreading across /. like some sort of weird "enfection"!

    Don't ask me why this bugs me so... I can't explain it. Other gammar and spelling mistakes don't faze me. This one, on the other hand, is the visual equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard, or biting down on tinfoil, or... yet get the idea.

    From the online Mirriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary:

    Main Entry: ridiculous
    Pronunciation: r&-'di-ky&-l&s
    Function: adjective
    Etymology: Latin ridiculosus (from ridiculum jest, from neuter of ridiculus) or ridiculus, literally, laughable, from ridEre to laugh
    Date: 1550
    : arousing or deserving ridicule : ABSURD, PREPOSTEROUS
    synonym see LAUGHABLE
    - ridiculously adverb
    - ridiculousness noun
  14. Re:Screw him on John Gilmore Sues Ashcroft et al. for Freedom to Travel · · Score: 1
    His right to travel does NOT depend on the technology used to travel.

    Um, what part of this didn't you understand? That is his point: it is not legal for the government to require him to present ID in order to travel, regardless of the method of travel.

  15. OK, *why* is this not a front-page item? on Industry-Stacked DRM Workshop in D.C. Today · · Score: 3, Insightful

    C'mon, Taco et al. This is an issue that has generated a huge amount of debate in other /. discussions on the subject. So why is this call for action buried in YRO instead of being placed prominently on the front page?

  16. Re:God help them... on Software Engineering at Microsoft · · Score: 2, Informative

    Grrr. And of course, someone later on points to a blurb that describes SLM:

    Joel on Software

  17. Re:God help them... on Software Engineering at Microsoft · · Score: 1
    Uh, if this internal tool is better, why don't they sell this instead of SourceUnSafe? Could it be they use a 3rd party tool instead?

    Nope. Last I heard, they used something that had a weird abbreviation (SLME?) that got pronounced as "slime". It was an in-house collection of apps and scripts, grown over time, and pretty much completely unsuitable for packaging as a real SCC app.

  18. Re:Don't Do That on Do You Have The Time? · · Score: 1
    Have to confim the above post... when I set up my home network, it was a simple matter (about 15 minutes) to locate a list if NTP servers, find one that had a "let us know before you sync with us" policy, and send them some email. Less tha a day later I had someone reply saying, essentially, "Thanks, let us know if you have any problems."

    That was it... I just had to be polite about it, something that's (sadly) lacking in online interactions these days.

  19. "Hack Naked" from id.com on Geek and Gamer Wear Online? · · Score: 1

    No, not the game company. This is one of my favorite shirts, particularly after a friend commented:

    "If you really were into that, you'd have it tatooed on your back."p>

  20. Haven't seen this posted yet... on Evidence Found of Lake, Catastrophic Flood on Mars · · Score: 2

    Blue Mars

    A simple exploration of what happens if Mars gets flooded with water to the 0 level of the MOLA Data Set.

    Not really relevant to the discussion of wheteher or not water (or how much water) exists on mars right now, but interesting.

  21. Re:Give it a rest on Government Brings Antitrust Actions Against Rambus, Micron · · Score: 1
    Under Clinton, the Justice department vigorously pursued the Microsoft anti-trust case.

    Heh - they would have pursued anything in order to divert public attention from Chinagate, illegal campaign contributions, Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Monica L. Clinton was (and is) a consumate political survivlaist, and regardless of how much MS contributed to his campaign, he was more than willing to throw them to the wolves in order to generate some good publicity and save his own skin.

    I mean, come on... Republicans may not be any more honest, but at least when they're bought, they have the good grace to stay bought.

  22. Re:To those who are still in school.... on IBM Kernel Hackers Respond · · Score: 1

    For a recent grad, yah - ask for a transcript. It's exepected, and given the lack of significant work experience that many new grads have, it's a way to gauge their skill and general knowledge.

    What were they going to get from my 12-year-old transcript, though - particularly since it was one that detailed my educational achievements in a completely unrelated field (something that they would have understood if they would have just read the stupid thing)? At that point, I didn't even have my GPA on my resume - just that I graduated in '91 with a degree in MEMS. Also, while I had taken several continuing education and graduate courses in CS in the past few years, they didn't care about those... nope, they wanted my undergrad transcript.

    All in all, it sounded an awful lot like someone in HR came up with this policy after the sort of situation you described... someone more interested in covering their own butt than in actually doing a decent job screening candidates.

    The whole situation reminds me of the one I ran into when I got out of the Navy, before I decided to look for a job as a developer... I figured, since I had a degree in metallugical engineering, and I was living in Pittsburgh, hey! - it might be a good idea to inquire about open positions with some of the steel companies in the area. Half a dozen phone calls later, every company I called had told me that, essentially, they only hired people through the Pittsburgh Job Bank, and that I would have to file for unemployment before they would consider me. Grrrr... I suppose they must have had a different policy for new grads ("Hey! Great interview, we love you, just file for unemployment as soon as you graduate and maybe we'll hire you...") At that point in my life, filing for unemployment just wasn't a smart idea, so decided to do something else entirely.

  23. Re:To those who are still in school.... on IBM Kernel Hackers Respond · · Score: 1

    I've seen worse... I graduated from college with a degree in Metallurgical Engineering, then spent 4 years as an officer in the US Navy. When I got out, I came back to Pittsburgh and got into software development by dtudying, reading, and working on my own, and ended up working as a senior C++ developer for a couple of startup companies. Over 10 years of work experience, a motivated self-taught developer, with excellent references and more than half that time as a senior C++ developer working on a wide variety of projects.

    Last year, looking for a job, I ran into a company that refused to even look at my resume until I had my college send them a certified copy of my transcript. That wasn't just ignorant, it was insulting, and I told them so.

  24. Re:Making REAL light sabers on Fake Light Sabers Making Real Cash · · Score: 1

    Hmm. Perhaps the Star Wars light sabers are a variation of Niven's variable sword (monofilament wire held rigid by a stasis field.) Obviously, the stasis field is not quite perfect, and "smears" out a bit to form the blade of the saber. The burning plasma effect might be caused by random air molecules caught in the fringes of the field; or maybe a current is run along the monofilament, causing it to glow, and the plasma effect is the result of the energy leakage from the less-than-perfect stasis field.

    (Yes, I realize that this is completely useless speculation about a fictional weapon. Fun things aren't always rational.)

  25. Re:is there anything on Your Online Marketplace for Classified Jet Parts · · Score: 1
    Oilers are replaceable. Carriers aren't.

    Well, there are more active carriers in the fleet than oilers, so at least by one measurement, they're harder to replace :-) (AFAIK, the majority of the USN oilers have been replaced by USNS ships.)

    I don't think that oilers are "as valuable" as carriers... but in a combat situation, if a carrier group looses it's oiler, the choice is to either carry on, retreat to pick up a new oiler, or wait for a replacement to arrive. In the first case, the effectiveness of the carrier group is now limited by fuel supplies - sooner or later, they need to fall back to one of the other options. In the second case, the effectiveness is compltely negated. In the third case, while the carrier group can continue to operate tactically, you have to commit another group as an escort for the new oiler.

    The same holds true for other ships, obviously - depending on the tactical situation, an oiler might be more "expendable" than a cruiser. Strategically, though, loosing an oiler is a big deal, in any situation; while it won't have the same immediate impact as the loss of the carrier, it will have a long-term impact that makes it's intentional use as a carrier decoy problematic. As you point out, it's use as a decoy in this day and age is more a side effect of radar cross-section and position in the battle group than anything else.