In response to your poll: I left the office at midnight last night. I left a fellow programmer at his desk. He said that he was going to stay until "it" was done.
The Sysadmins all go home by 6 pm (we are generally nice to our sysadmins, and rarely interrupt them off hours).
I've pulled all-nighters only to have to finish the debugging of the program in the car on the way to the customer. But, I work for a government contractor, and I am the team lead. My deadlines are carved in stone, and if my team can't get the system working by the deadline, then it is my fault, because I was the one who negotiated the timeline (in theory). As a result, I am the one who has to pull the extra long overtime when things go wrong. I often request help from my team members, but I NEVER mandate OT. And believe me, things always go wrong. I generally try to pad my estimates to compensate, but that padding often gets yanked from the contracts, hence my "in theory" bit. I don't have my degree in Computer Science, and I don't make six figures. I also have over five years of experience in software development and live in Santa Barbara, which is not well known for being cheap to live in. But, I don't have much grounds to complain on (especially about the cost of living--it's worth it). I chose my job and negotiated my position. I work with people who are absolutely wonderful to work for--including our sysadmin staff, one of whom gave up his new years eve celebration to man the office for any possible Y2K problems.
I have root access to my machine. I can get root access to the servers. Why? Precisely so I don't have to call the sysadmin when the server goes down and it is my fault (or the CA power company's fault). That's why they make regular backups, because sometimes I can screw up.
There are only 25 employees at my company, and EVERYONE works together. Our marketing director knows how to use grep (that one surprised me). Our president wrote the code that started the company. Our old testing department (of 1) now works as a junior programmer.
I've never worked for a huge company. I've seen what it was like visiting friends at their workplaces. I don't know if I look good enough on paper to get a six figure job working at such a company. After reading some of the rants here, I can be sure that I don't need to try. Now excuse me, I have work to do...
I'll comfirm it for you. It is a well known fact that Sybase and Microsoft developed SQL Server together. Pick up a copy of O'Reilly's Transact-SQL Programming for a bit of the history of the two products. However, to call it a rip-off of Sybase might be a bit extreme. In 1993, the two companies ended their partnership, and have diverged quite a bit.
Actually, truth and justice are completely seperate from the american way. Remember Superman? Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Three distinct entities. Microsoft has had about enough truth and justice for their likings, so they figured all they have left is the American Way... which seems to be the right for a large corporation to libel and litigate individuals into submission. Not necessarily what superman would have fought for, but it is apparently true.
Download the voice SDK. I did (4.0). I voice enabled a VB app to print. There was also a window manager integrated program (microsoft voice). I could switch windows by saying "Switch to..." and then the name of the window on the title bar. It did better at starting the command line than it did at printing, but I was using a dictionary driven part of the SDK, and the voice recognition system used a combination of dictionary matching and pattern recognition. I got bored training it, though. Anyway, the URL is in the subject. It is stupid to say that integration is not possible.
(What will happen to us programmers when we finally write the A.I. that can do the programming for us?)
Here's a little quote I found in Knuth, volume 3, p. 583:
Instruction tables [programs] will have to be made up by mathematicians with computing experience and perhaps a certain puzzle solving ability. There will probably be a great deal of work of this kind to be done, for every known process has got to be translated into instruction table form at some stage.... This process of constructing instruction tables should be very fascinating. There need be no real danger of it ever becomming a drudge, for any processes that are quite mechanical may be turned over to the machine itself. -- Alan M Turing (1945)
Process Engineers and AI Computer Scientists are an interesting bunch. Both try all of their lives to make their jobs unnecessary. However, more often than not, they just create more work for themselves.
Do NOT get speakers that are made for mixing without listening to them. They have a flat response curve, which no home speaker system has. Listen to them first, you may not like the way they sound. Even the best home theater systems distort the sound that passes through them. That is how they are supposed to be. Your subwoofer should have a low 3db point, and your woofers should pick up right before the sub cuts out. I have many friends who are very good at mixing music, and none of them use their pro audio equipment in their entertainment centers.
I do agree with you, though, Bose are marketed as quality speakers but actually sound good through only a small set of audio spectra. It has to do with the response curve. Bose speakers distort the lower frequencies in such a way that most demo sounds will sound richer because the speakers provide false overtones. Pianos and guitars sound good. Piccolos sound like crap. Voices just sound different. Any instrument that isn't supposed to have rich overtones just won't sound sharp.
I found one way to get good sound is to see if a movie theater near you is upgrading their sound system. A friend of a friend did this and his system rocks!
Bottom line: Listen to what you buy (and take into account that most sound rooms are boxes designed to resonate). Also, buy a good sub (one where you FEEL explosions), it is necessary for movies like Heat or the Matrix.
Oh no, now I guess I owe them $50... Yeah, whatever
Maybe slashdot owes them $50. Could you imagine the wonderful slashdot articles if this was enforceable?
AC writes: "There's an article on NYT somewhere (no link, free registration) that says something (I'm not certain if any level of detail would be derogatory) about Linus and the new Kernel release date"
See what happens when you let lawyers near technology? Now, all we need to do is replace all of their computers with Etch-a-sketches and all will be good online.
Are you sure you aren't Pete of a 25 person company? My boss sounds just like you, he even gave me his 21" monitor. Just to let you know, if you are anything like my boss, your technique for keeping employees works.
I don't know about wanting to be an MCSE, as I can't fathom why a PhD in computer science would want to be a sysadmin, but I work with and know several PhD's in computer science that are working to become MCSD's. They all work in non-academia jobs writing/designing software for Windows. The company is willing to put up the 400 bucks for certification (4 tests * 100 bucks a test), and it gains them free subscriptions to a lot of the Microsoft stuff.
I have my degree in physics, and I have over five years of professional experience writing software. However, as a consultant, I was still getting passed up on contracts as "too expensive." After going through the certification process, not only did I find no trouble getting contracts, but I raised my required wages.
I've worked with PhD's in computer science that couldn't write software worth squat. They were mathematicians, not programmers. Just because someone has a degree doesn't make them a god in all fields related to their degree.
The problem is that different parts of the legal system evolve at different rates. The trial by a jury of one's peers is a little stupid, but it is provided for in the US Constitution. It has been ruled (anyone here taken an introductory history-of-law class that remembers?) that a jury of one's "peers" can be pretty much anyone. Your legal peers are hardly what you would consider socially or professionally to be your peers. It isn't feasible to create a jury of one's peers for a lot of people. Think about the OJ Simpson case. Who were his peers? Rich black athletes/actors? World record holders who were told as a child that they'd never be able to run again?
Perhaps you would prefer a bigger jury like the greeks had. A jury trial was held in front of hundreds of people (what was it? 500?). Of course, the greeks had no concept of "Peers" in their juries. Anyway, if you get that many people to watch the trial, a lot of randomness that shows up for only 12 people goes away. Seems more democratic to me. Seems impossible to implement today as well...
As far as a trial by experts, I would love to see a country other than the US try it. As we have a peer jury trial as a constitutional right, it is unlikely that we could change to such a system. I would guess that military courts are the closest thing to that here.
No kidding! I wouldn't be surprised to see such disclaimers, but also the delay of products or an increase in price to account for over-engineering all products. Perhaps this sets a dangerous precedent.
You already can buy fault tolerant systems. They cost a buttload. Now, if systems are required to be fault tolerant by law (this seems to be the first step), the average price of a PC is going to have to climb. On the other hand, if all PCs are fault tolerant, then the price for fault tolerant servers is going to decrease.
From a different viewpoint, maybe this law is just going to be circumvented by marketing: "You can buy our fault tolerant system for 5K or the sub 1K PC that is waivered from the lemon law." That would suck! Warranties on cheap PCs would become less and less viable.
Unfortunately, because of the boneheaded way American law works, once a law is passed, you pretty well can't get rid of it unless you can prove that it's "unconstitutional", and likewise, you can't create laws that conflict with the constitutional dogma...
Well, that's bullshit. You know it and I know it. Laws can get passed that strike a portion of existing laws (or repeal them altogether). There's always initiative and referendum... Get enough people to sign a petition, then let the population vote on it. Laws don't have to start in Congress.
As for not being able to create unconstitutional laws, Congress is free to do that as much as they want. It is up to the people and the Judicial System to keep them in check. If the Judicial System interprets it as constitutional, then it is allowed to stay. However, they don't look at every law. Recently a bill went through that allowed each state to define what marriage is. Sort of goes against Article 4 of the constitution, doesn't it?
NB: Article 4 provides that a legally binding contract in one state is valid in all of the states. If each state defines marriage differently, then a marriage contract is not really a contract. I'm just waiting for a gay couple in Hawaii (allows gay marriages IIRC) to sign a prenuptual contract, move to California (no gay marriages), then take the prenuptual contract through the courts. I'm curious how that will work.
I am just as disappointed as anyone here about the DeCSS ruling. But honestly, I hope nobody thought it was going to turn out the other way. I mean, we all wish it would, but there is way too much law to protect Corporations over individual rights (something I think fair use was intended for).
How's that go? Outlaw coding and only outlaws will code? Shit, doesn't have the same ring as when the NRA says it.:)
I don't actually know (much of anything), but I do know that CMOS gates are pretty awesome at not leaking power. Look up any reference on JFETs or CMOS as a starting place. In my wonderful ascii art, this is my interpretation of a JFET (ignore the periods, they are place holders. You are going to have to cut and paste into a fixed font, I can't make it look right)
basically, one of the pins on the transistor acts as a capacitor plate hiding behind a layer of insulator. This sets up an electric field, but allows no current to flow through the insulator. A current passing through the other two pins, however, will recognise the change in potential because of the field. The charge can stay on the plate "forever" (we had leakage in the picoamps in the lab, so as long as the number of electrons is initially large, it won't matter).
And now, to come back on topic. I think that there really aren't too many limits for SDRAM, as long as you can make a semiconductor that can switch fast with low power consumption. Maybe Si-Ge manufacturing is going to pick up in the future. I know that there are more exotic semiconductors with better properties than Si, but nobody has dumped the money into figuring out a manufacturing process that could bring them within an order of magnitude of the cost of Si manufacturing.
Hmm, I've seen some sketches for all-optical RAM, but I don't know anything about the research that has gone on in that area. Anyone an expert on optical computers?
And of course, in the real world, nobody ever actually inserts and selects at the same time.
I don't get this. Are you trying to be funny? If so, explain your Try to find legitimate things to complain about.
A common query I do (on a MS SQL Server 7 system) is something of the form:
INSERT... ; SELECT @@IDENTITY AS ID
Our database is heavily interconnected, as our system models the decision making process of a number of people. That being the case, you often need to input a record with all of the required fields, then do some analysis on the ripple effects before refining the data stored on the inserted record. Nearly any fuzzy logic system is going to want to do that. Also, it seems that web sites might want to use a similar query for logging user activity durring an active session.
Now, to be a little more on topic: There is a LOT to be said about tweaking SQL statements for a benchmark. A few months ago, I had a query that took over three minutes to execute, but was able to rewrite it as three seperate queries that extracted the same data that took a total of 10 miliseconds to execute. Oders of magnitude difference, all because I wanted a bunch of nulls to appear (the three queries generated a two dimensional coordinate system and left nulls out but ordered the data so that the nulls could be inferred). I've run into a number of instances that were similar. Some types of set processing are inherently faster than others.
And you people WONDER why it's hard to read PERL code?
And yes, I have written readable PERL code. I have also written a regex script to parse my VB code and alter function parameters as a global find and replace... If you can't read regex, you won't be able to read well written PERL code that uses it. I find that most people who accuse PERL of being dirty and hard to read simply can't read regex.
...And compression transforms based on fourier analysis (DCT being the most popular) won't be bothered by such an addition. Besides, most encoders have quality filters to remove 'noise', which includes high frequency hissing and a lot of inaudible crap. Odds are those filters would catch your mp3-buster with no need to alter existing encoders. In order to make them uncompressible, you would HAVE to mess with the sound. That, or change the CD format. They've been wanting to do that for a while. Too bad it can't work-->take the unharmed analog signal and resample it digitally and rip the mp3. Sure, you get a little signal degredation (unless your sound card is a lot nicer than mine), but who cares?
Great! Now the government can issue me an artificial chromosome ID and then track all of my offspring. And I was worried that new and innovative ways of "protecting" my privacy wouldn't happen until after I was long gone.
I am vastly more interested in how and why my computer works...
to his:
...and the best consequence will be that we will no longer have to think about technology.
I have to agree with you. Sometimes I actually write software for fun! I didn't put together my first machine because it would save me money, I did it because I wanted to know how it was done.
I also think that he his future is a fatalistic one. It is like Scott Adams says (in one of the Dilbert books): Human technology will progress to the point of the first holodeck, then all scientific progress will stop. Research, in its purest form, is done for the sake of research, progress is a byproduct. Some people need to keep the focus of technology on technology. The system grinds to a halt without that.
There's no way that I would expect a company to give away a product like that for free.
And just why not? They sell the technology to stream their formats. I truly would expect it not to have a catch to download the player. Shockwave and Flash both have free no-catch clients. Why? Because if the clients are truly free, then more people will download them. If everyone has the client, then it makes sense for a webmaster to buy Flash or Director or something from RealNetworks to create media on their formats.
Having a catch associated with downloading and using the client makes producing media under that format less desirable. You might not have as many people willing to download the client, and you are helping to participate in somebody else's (rather invasive) free marketing research.
IIRC, barnesandnoble.com uses NT because Microsoft helped them set up their system, reducing their development costs. This was done so that microsoft could market the fact that a real world.com company uses microsoft servers and SQL server. Microsoft Consulting Services exists solely to promote new technologies (I applied for a job with them, and they were very clear on this point), so they basically whore out free consultants to companies to promote the use of things like Win2K and SQL Server. Then marketing gets to point at said companies and say "look, a real company has already adopted our new stuff, so you should too."
This sounds more like Gateway bought systems from AMD (yeah, I know and you know, but still...) and discovered the bug for AMD. I thought that the slashdot headline was a little more fair. Besides, I almost always read the blurb that goes with the slashdot headline anyway, and timothy did justice to the story by pointing out that it was a Gateway problem.
Sure, individual artists should still be able to hold their rights. It will most likely hurt the big record labels, if anyone. Heck, I think we should sue as many people as possible over this issue (copyright). It's the American way!
Hey, can someone remind me what the real reason for having the US Justice System is? I don't remember "for entertainment" being in the Constitution...
Slashdot Mirror
The Sysadmins all go home by 6 pm (we are generally nice to our sysadmins, and rarely interrupt them off hours).
I've pulled all-nighters only to have to finish the debugging of the program in the car on the way to the customer. But, I work for a government contractor, and I am the team lead. My deadlines are carved in stone, and if my team can't get the system working by the deadline, then it is my fault, because I was the one who negotiated the timeline (in theory). As a result, I am the one who has to pull the extra long overtime when things go wrong. I often request help from my team members, but I NEVER mandate OT. And believe me, things always go wrong. I generally try to pad my estimates to compensate, but that padding often gets yanked from the contracts, hence my "in theory" bit. I don't have my degree in Computer Science, and I don't make six figures. I also have over five years of experience in software development and live in Santa Barbara, which is not well known for being cheap to live in. But, I don't have much grounds to complain on (especially about the cost of living--it's worth it). I chose my job and negotiated my position. I work with people who are absolutely wonderful to work for--including our sysadmin staff, one of whom gave up his new years eve celebration to man the office for any possible Y2K problems.
I have root access to my machine. I can get root access to the servers. Why? Precisely so I don't have to call the sysadmin when the server goes down and it is my fault (or the CA power company's fault). That's why they make regular backups, because sometimes I can screw up.
There are only 25 employees at my company, and EVERYONE works together. Our marketing director knows how to use grep (that one surprised me). Our president wrote the code that started the company. Our old testing department (of 1) now works as a junior programmer.
I've never worked for a huge company. I've seen what it was like visiting friends at their workplaces. I don't know if I look good enough on paper to get a six figure job working at such a company. After reading some of the rants here, I can be sure that I don't need to try. Now excuse me, I have work to do...
Here's a little quote I found in Knuth, volume 3, p. 583:
Instruction tables [programs] will have to be made up by mathematicians with computing experience and perhaps a certain puzzle solving ability. There will probably be a great deal of work of this kind to be done, for every known process has got to be translated into instruction table form at some stage. ... This process of constructing instruction tables should be very fascinating. There need be no real danger of it ever becomming a drudge, for any processes that are quite mechanical may be turned over to the machine itself. -- Alan M Turing (1945)
Process Engineers and AI Computer Scientists are an interesting bunch. Both try all of their lives to make their jobs unnecessary. However, more often than not, they just create more work for themselves.
I do agree with you, though, Bose are marketed as quality speakers but actually sound good through only a small set of audio spectra. It has to do with the response curve. Bose speakers distort the lower frequencies in such a way that most demo sounds will sound richer because the speakers provide false overtones. Pianos and guitars sound good. Piccolos sound like crap. Voices just sound different. Any instrument that isn't supposed to have rich overtones just won't sound sharp.
I found one way to get good sound is to see if a movie theater near you is upgrading their sound system. A friend of a friend did this and his system rocks!
Bottom line: Listen to what you buy (and take into account that most sound rooms are boxes designed to resonate). Also, buy a good sub (one where you FEEL explosions), it is necessary for movies like Heat or the Matrix.
Maybe slashdot owes them $50. Could you imagine the wonderful slashdot articles if this was enforceable?
AC writes: "There's an article on NYT somewhere (no link, free registration) that says something (I'm not certain if any level of detail would be derogatory) about Linus and the new Kernel release date"
See what happens when you let lawyers near technology? Now, all we need to do is replace all of their computers with Etch-a-sketches and all will be good online.
I have my degree in physics, and I have over five years of professional experience writing software. However, as a consultant, I was still getting passed up on contracts as "too expensive." After going through the certification process, not only did I find no trouble getting contracts, but I raised my required wages.
I've worked with PhD's in computer science that couldn't write software worth squat. They were mathematicians, not programmers. Just because someone has a degree doesn't make them a god in all fields related to their degree.
Perhaps you would prefer a bigger jury like the greeks had. A jury trial was held in front of hundreds of people (what was it? 500?). Of course, the greeks had no concept of "Peers" in their juries. Anyway, if you get that many people to watch the trial, a lot of randomness that shows up for only 12 people goes away. Seems more democratic to me. Seems impossible to implement today as well...
As far as a trial by experts, I would love to see a country other than the US try it. As we have a peer jury trial as a constitutional right, it is unlikely that we could change to such a system. I would guess that military courts are the closest thing to that here.
You already can buy fault tolerant systems. They cost a buttload. Now, if systems are required to be fault tolerant by law (this seems to be the first step), the average price of a PC is going to have to climb. On the other hand, if all PCs are fault tolerant, then the price for fault tolerant servers is going to decrease.
From a different viewpoint, maybe this law is just going to be circumvented by marketing: "You can buy our fault tolerant system for 5K or the sub 1K PC that is waivered from the lemon law." That would suck! Warranties on cheap PCs would become less and less viable.
Well, that's bullshit. You know it and I know it. Laws can get passed that strike a portion of existing laws (or repeal them altogether). There's always initiative and referendum... Get enough people to sign a petition, then let the population vote on it. Laws don't have to start in Congress.
As for not being able to create unconstitutional laws, Congress is free to do that as much as they want. It is up to the people and the Judicial System to keep them in check. If the Judicial System interprets it as constitutional, then it is allowed to stay. However, they don't look at every law. Recently a bill went through that allowed each state to define what marriage is. Sort of goes against Article 4 of the constitution, doesn't it?
NB: Article 4 provides that a legally binding contract in one state is valid in all of the states. If each state defines marriage differently, then a marriage contract is not really a contract. I'm just waiting for a gay couple in Hawaii (allows gay marriages IIRC) to sign a prenuptual contract, move to California (no gay marriages), then take the prenuptual contract through the courts. I'm curious how that will work.
I am just as disappointed as anyone here about the DeCSS ruling. But honestly, I hope nobody thought it was going to turn out the other way. I mean, we all wish it would, but there is way too much law to protect Corporations over individual rights (something I think fair use was intended for).
How's that go? Outlaw coding and only outlaws will code? Shit, doesn't have the same ring as when the NRA says it. :)
-----+|......|................
basically, one of the pins on the transistor acts as a capacitor plate hiding behind a layer of insulator. This sets up an electric field, but allows no current to flow through the insulator. A current passing through the other two pins, however, will recognise the change in potential because of the field. The charge can stay on the plate "forever" (we had leakage in the picoamps in the lab, so as long as the number of electrons is initially large, it won't matter).
And now, to come back on topic. I think that there really aren't too many limits for SDRAM, as long as you can make a semiconductor that can switch fast with low power consumption. Maybe Si-Ge manufacturing is going to pick up in the future. I know that there are more exotic semiconductors with better properties than Si, but nobody has dumped the money into figuring out a manufacturing process that could bring them within an order of magnitude of the cost of Si manufacturing.
Hmm, I've seen some sketches for all-optical RAM, but I don't know anything about the research that has gone on in that area. Anyone an expert on optical computers?
I don't get this. Are you trying to be funny? If so, explain your Try to find legitimate things to complain about.
A common query I do (on a MS SQL Server 7 system) is something of the form:
INSERT ... ; SELECT @@IDENTITY AS ID
Our database is heavily interconnected, as our system models the decision making process of a number of people. That being the case, you often need to input a record with all of the required fields, then do some analysis on the ripple effects before refining the data stored on the inserted record. Nearly any fuzzy logic system is going to want to do that. Also, it seems that web sites might want to use a similar query for logging user activity durring an active session.
Now, to be a little more on topic: There is a LOT to be said about tweaking SQL statements for a benchmark. A few months ago, I had a query that took over three minutes to execute, but was able to rewrite it as three seperate queries that extracted the same data that took a total of 10 miliseconds to execute. Oders of magnitude difference, all because I wanted a bunch of nulls to appear (the three queries generated a two dimensional coordinate system and left nulls out but ordered the data so that the nulls could be inferred). I've run into a number of instances that were similar. Some types of set processing are inherently faster than others.
Grand prize in most well-rounded in confusion (1986/wall.c)
Most Useful Obfuscation (1987/wall.c)
From ioccc.org
And you people WONDER why it's hard to read PERL code?
And yes, I have written readable PERL code. I have also written a regex script to parse my VB code and alter function parameters as a global find and replace... If you can't read regex, you won't be able to read well written PERL code that uses it. I find that most people who accuse PERL of being dirty and hard to read simply can't read regex.
I am vastly more interested in how and why my computer works...
to his:
I have to agree with you. Sometimes I actually write software for fun! I didn't put together my first machine because it would save me money, I did it because I wanted to know how it was done.
I also think that he his future is a fatalistic one. It is like Scott Adams says (in one of the Dilbert books): Human technology will progress to the point of the first holodeck, then all scientific progress will stop. Research, in its purest form, is done for the sake of research, progress is a byproduct. Some people need to keep the focus of technology on technology. The system grinds to a halt without that.
And just why not? They sell the technology to stream their formats. I truly would expect it not to have a catch to download the player. Shockwave and Flash both have free no-catch clients. Why? Because if the clients are truly free, then more people will download them. If everyone has the client, then it makes sense for a webmaster to buy Flash or Director or something from RealNetworks to create media on their formats.
Having a catch associated with downloading and using the client makes producing media under that format less desirable. You might not have as many people willing to download the client, and you are helping to participate in somebody else's (rather invasive) free marketing research.
This sounds more like Gateway bought systems from AMD (yeah, I know and you know, but still...) and discovered the bug for AMD. I thought that the slashdot headline was a little more fair. Besides, I almost always read the blurb that goes with the slashdot headline anyway, and timothy did justice to the story by pointing out that it was a Gateway problem.
just a thought...
Hey, can someone remind me what the real reason for having the US Justice System is? I don't remember "for entertainment" being in the Constitution...