That's a bullshit excuse, and should be very easy to get to the bottom of. Programming isn't alchemy -- software is made with known tools and building blocks that perform in a known way. So exactly which packages, classes, etc., were used in creating software that runs only on MS' VM? This information can be gotten by calling programmer witnesses, who could testify to this without giving away any important information about the software they wrote, or even MS' bad Java. And as far as I'm concerned, this would be just more evidence that MS tried to foil Java with its usual "embrace and extend" skullduggery.
The problem with MS'Java is not that it isn't real Java, but that it's woefully outdated. Therefore, users can only run old-style Java software, which is severely limited compared to what can be done with Java today.
A good analogy would be some imaginary operating system promising Windows compatibility, but when you actually try it, you find it only supports Windows up to 3.1. Well Windows has changed an awful lot since then, and Java has changed similarly between 1.1 and 1.3/1.4.
Why does anyone use Real for streaming, etc? What's in it for them? I can understand big companies wanting to partner with others that have garnered an audience, and can function as a marketing channel, but I see no evidence that Real actually delivers this. Of course, Real presents themselves like they're where the action is, but is it really? Do companies really believe Real can do anything for them? Do they even ask for some numbers? Are they so stupid they believe Real's free server sofware is their only alternative? Why the hell not just use streaming MP3, or even streaming Ogg, like the BBC does?
A common target of ridicule here on Slashdot is the MBA with little or no techcical knowledge trying to run a tech company. But the armchair MBAs in this discussion, trying to second-guess Mandrake's business operations, are pretty ridiculous themselves. It's like listening to a bunch of twelve year old paperboys criticizing the business strategies of the New York Times.
The biggest danger I see in the DRM battle is the OSS movement putting their utopian obsessions before everything else. Whether DRM is adopted or not is out of our hands. If it is adopted, there's nothing we can do about it. But one thing's for sure -- if we go stomping out of the room in disgust, like a bunch of dumbass college sophomores, we can forget about having any control over the standards that do develop, and we concede all control to the Big Evil Corporations.
But if we embrace DRM, we can at least help foster the development of open standards.
All this does is reinforce the positions of the current big ecommerce players -- Amazon, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, etc. -- because they can most easily afford the software upgrades and new software packages/services that will be required.
A lot of small businesses found new life on the internet, becuase they were able to extend their reach. Now they're faced with huge new expenses to either develop new software themselves, or be chained to a third party who can. Unfortunately, this will probably Microsoft, Intuit, Yahoo Store, etc., who will rake in a fortune selling new ecommerce-in-a-can systems with tax tables built in.
I have a couple of clients who were thinking about expanding into web sales in the next year, but in light of this will probably nix the idea.
...beats the hell out of pointing and clicking around GUI apps for repetitive tasks like the file conversions used in this test. Try doing that on a PC...
Apple does have Colorsync built in, which enables matching of scanner, monitor, and printer. Now, you *can* get software for the PC that does the same thing -- and it works well. However, the entire graphics and publishing industry is built around the Mac, Mac software, Mac color profiles, and Mac people who do things the Mac way. So unless your business is completely self contained, it doesn't make sense to use anything else. (If it is, fine, do what you want.)
Thanks, my eyes can't handle that website...
on
TiVo and Rendezvous
·
· Score: 2
Sorry Mr. King! While your website has lots of neat material, you won't have me as a reader because tiny white text on a light blue background is too damned hard to read!
Tracking sattelite dishes have been very popular on boats. The only problem is the expense -- lately, they're down to about $3000, but until the last couple of years they cost several times that. Maybe this will pave the way for cheap marine units, and cheap internet access for boats.
There's nothing like programming from a quiet cove in British Columbia -- but I still have to go into a marina to pick up my email.
The problem with today's power grid is that it's so heavily centralized -- from the beginning, power plants have become relatively larger and larger, with relatively fewer of them. The key to widespread adoption of alternatives like solar energy is not for existing power companies to build huge solar installations, which is all that will work with the existing grid. It's for power companies to be able to buy back power produced by their customers' solar panels, microturbines, fuel cells, or whatever -- distributed power generation. The problem is that they don't have the infrastructure to be able to do that -- ie, switching and metering equipment -- nor are they interested in changing the status quo. Wired magazine had a good article on this awhile back.
As is coming with wireless phones, there's no reason GPS technology couldn't be employed to solve this problem. All that's needed is for someone to provide that service or software -- resolving GPS coordinates to addresses.
The Foveon sensor has been much hyped, and due "any time now" for years. Well, it's finally here, being used in a digital SLR by Sigma. It does indeed seem to have a lot of potential, but it's not perfect yet. Basically, camera makers need to play with it some more to get their firmware exactly right. Also, the sensor itself isn't as sensitive in low light as current models. But it's competitive already. Future versions should be even moreso, but it depends on how much it can be improved, and at reasonable cost. Only time will tell...
Do you really want every ISP to be like AOL? In the beginning, that *was* the internet -- AOL, Compuserve, Netcom, Prodigy, etc. Consumers rejected that in favor of choosing their own content. ISPs make their money by providing connectivity. Let's keep it that way.
...how in the hell did they piss away *80 million dollars* since starting up? Entire publishing empires have been founded, or bought and sold, for way less money. No realistic number of micropayments, or macropayments, will save sinking luxury liners like this one.
You have nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter if you don't have "computer science" anywhere on your resume. The shakers and movers in most tech organizations don't, more often than not. This has been true since the beginning of the tech boom, and it's still true today.
A friend of mine works for a big government contractor, programming sattelites. Neither he, nor anyone else his dept. has hired in the last 5 years, has a CS degree or credential of any kind. Most of them have backgrounds like yours.
What's most important is a demonstrated ability in the area of concern, and demonstrated ability to think creatively in technical/science work in general. Having *some* kind of science/technical degree in this area is part of that, but it needn't be CS. Good technical minds can be made into good programmers very easily.
Remeber, the truth is in you. Whoever innovate wins go fuck the prom queen. Losers go under the food chain. That's exactly how the economy should work, right ?
That's the best Asian English I've heard all week! And a point well taken!
Just like the Moonies and other predatory groups swooped in to take advantage of the nation's wayward youth in the 60s, the AFL-CIO has had its sights on disillusioned tech workers for years. They made a grab for displaced aerospace workers in the 80s, and they're moving in on IT workers now. They'd love to have a piece of every IT worker's (substantial) paycheck. Please, don't drink their Kool-Aid.
For all the talk about hardship and obstacles in countries like India and China, these workers have one big advantage over Americans -- no bills! These people may come from the poorest backgrounds, but if they do manage to do well in school, they usually get free educations.
Americans, with very few exceptions, have to mortgage their souls for 10-20 years to get an education. They graduate college with a mountain of debt. They simply can't afford to compete with foreign graduates who are debt free, and maybe don't have to worry about saving for retirement, either. It's like poor kids from Harlem trying to compete with trust fund brats for Wall St. jobs -- even if they have the ability and education, they're screwed because they can't afford to tread water in NY, with so many bills to pay. H1-B workers have to pay the same Silicon Valley rents that native workers do. But there's much more that's keeping their boats afloat...
Get out of the house and go to shows! Pick up a copy of the "alternative" newspaper in your town, see what's going on, and hit the clubs. When you find bands you like, buy their CDs, talk to them about what music they like, check out their websites, and take it from there. One thing will lead to another, and another, and before you know it you'll be plugged into another whole scene you never knew existed.
Who knows, you might even make some friends and meet some girls.
That's OK, everyone will just drive down south to buy them in states where there are few rules, and no enforcement, like South Carolina and Florida. Most handguns used in crimes in NYC already come from those places.
It's unfortunate there's a stigma against blue collar work. Sometimes it pays pretty well, much better than you think. But the biggest advantage is that it's amenable to making your own hours, and it's much easier to get a business going. Everyone nowadays is trying to be a freelance web designer, programmer, graphic artist, technical writer, etc. It's a crowded field, and with the economy being a little slow there just isn't enough work to go around. Not to mention that any bright high school kid these days can/will do this stuff for pocket change, and the opportunities are slim.
However, with everyone trying to land a glam white collar gig, there's still plenty of gritty work to be done, and it pays pretty well. You could easily clean pools, wash windows, do landscaping, property management, handyman stuff, paint, etc. The demand for this stuff never goes away, even when the economy is slow. And the people left doing it are often incompetent and flaky. If you have your shit together, you already have a huge advantage. All you have to do is show up for work, because chances are the other guy didn't.
The "good" $/hr figures being quoted in this thread seem like a total joke to me in comparison. My window washer in Irvine, CA, for example, charges around $40/hr, and has almost zero overhead. Pool men make almost that much too. So do carpet cleaners. Most painters are complete flakes, but the ones who aren't are booked all the time.
So get off your fat ass, do some honest work, and collect a real paycheck. Part time anyway, it will be a nice change of pace, just good exercise. Your time is valuable to yourself and your family -- don't give it away. Anyone who would take a job at Best Buy for $7/hr is a moron. Jobs like that are for kids who don't know any better. Anyone over 19 should have figured out by now what else is out there for them.
Slashdot Mirror
That's a bullshit excuse, and should be very easy to get to the bottom of. Programming isn't alchemy -- software is made with known tools and building blocks that perform in a known way. So exactly which packages, classes, etc., were used in creating software that runs only on MS' VM? This information can be gotten by calling programmer witnesses, who could testify to this without giving away any important information about the software they wrote, or even MS' bad Java. And as far as I'm concerned, this would be just more evidence that MS tried to foil Java with its usual "embrace and extend" skullduggery.
The problem with MS'Java is not that it isn't real Java, but that it's woefully outdated. Therefore, users can only run old-style Java software, which is severely limited compared to what can be done with Java today.
A good analogy would be some imaginary operating system promising Windows compatibility, but when you actually try it, you find it only supports Windows up to 3.1. Well Windows has changed an awful lot since then, and Java has changed similarly between 1.1 and 1.3/1.4.
Why does anyone use Real for streaming, etc? What's in it for them? I can understand big companies wanting to partner with others that have garnered an audience, and can function as a marketing channel, but I see no evidence that Real actually delivers this. Of course, Real presents themselves like they're where the action is, but is it really? Do companies really believe Real can do anything for them? Do they even ask for some numbers? Are they so stupid they believe Real's free server sofware is their only alternative? Why the hell not just use streaming MP3, or even streaming Ogg, like the BBC does?
A common target of ridicule here on Slashdot is the MBA with little or no techcical knowledge trying to run a tech company. But the armchair MBAs in this discussion, trying to second-guess Mandrake's business operations, are pretty ridiculous themselves. It's like listening to a bunch of twelve year old paperboys criticizing the business strategies of the New York Times.
The biggest danger I see in the DRM battle is the OSS movement putting their utopian obsessions before everything else. Whether DRM is adopted or not is out of our hands. If it is adopted, there's nothing we can do about it. But one thing's for sure -- if we go stomping out of the room in disgust, like a bunch of dumbass college sophomores, we can forget about having any control over the standards that do develop, and we concede all control to the Big Evil Corporations.
But if we embrace DRM, we can at least help foster the development of open standards.
All this does is reinforce the positions of the current big ecommerce players -- Amazon, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, etc. -- because they can most easily afford the software upgrades and new software packages/services that will be required.
A lot of small businesses found new life on the internet, becuase they were able to extend their reach. Now they're faced with huge new expenses to either develop new software themselves, or be chained to a third party who can. Unfortunately, this will probably Microsoft, Intuit, Yahoo Store, etc., who will rake in a fortune selling new ecommerce-in-a-can systems with tax tables built in.
I have a couple of clients who were thinking about expanding into web sales in the next year, but in light of this will probably nix the idea.
...beats the hell out of pointing and clicking around GUI apps for repetitive tasks like the file conversions used in this test. Try doing that on a PC...
Apple does have Colorsync built in, which enables matching of scanner, monitor, and printer. Now, you *can* get software for the PC that does the same thing -- and it works well. However, the entire graphics and publishing industry is built around the Mac, Mac software, Mac color profiles, and Mac people who do things the Mac way. So unless your business is completely self contained, it doesn't make sense to use anything else. (If it is, fine, do what you want.)
Sorry Mr. King! While your website has lots of neat material, you won't have me as a reader because tiny white text on a light blue background is too damned hard to read!
Tracking sattelite dishes have been very popular on boats. The only problem is the expense -- lately, they're down to about $3000, but until the last couple of years they cost several times that. Maybe this will pave the way for cheap marine units, and cheap internet access for boats.
There's nothing like programming from a quiet cove in British Columbia -- but I still have to go into a marina to pick up my email.
...is that they only work when we don't need to turn the lights on anyway.
The problem with today's power grid is that it's so heavily centralized -- from the beginning, power plants have become relatively larger and larger, with relatively fewer of them. The key to widespread adoption of alternatives like solar energy is not for existing power companies to build huge solar installations, which is all that will work with the existing grid. It's for power companies to be able to buy back power produced by their customers' solar panels, microturbines, fuel cells, or whatever -- distributed power generation. The problem is that they don't have the infrastructure to be able to do that -- ie, switching and metering equipment -- nor are they interested in changing the status quo. Wired magazine had a good article on this awhile back.
As is coming with wireless phones, there's no reason GPS technology couldn't be employed to solve this problem. All that's needed is for someone to provide that service or software -- resolving GPS coordinates to addresses.
The Foveon sensor has been much hyped, and due "any time now" for years. Well, it's finally here, being used in a digital SLR by Sigma. It does indeed seem to have a lot of potential, but it's not perfect yet. Basically, camera makers need to play with it some more to get their firmware exactly right. Also, the sensor itself isn't as sensitive in low light as current models. But it's competitive already. Future versions should be even moreso, but it depends on how much it can be improved, and at reasonable cost. Only time will tell...
...may be exactly what you're looking for. It gets expensive if you have a lot of items, but it's the cheapest and easiest way to go if you don't.
Do you really want every ISP to be like AOL? In the beginning, that *was* the internet -- AOL, Compuserve, Netcom, Prodigy, etc. Consumers rejected that in favor of choosing their own content. ISPs make their money by providing connectivity. Let's keep it that way.
...how in the hell did they piss away *80 million dollars* since starting up? Entire publishing empires have been founded, or bought and sold, for way less money. No realistic number of micropayments, or macropayments, will save sinking luxury liners like this one.
You have nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter if you don't have "computer science" anywhere on your resume. The shakers and movers in most tech organizations don't, more often than not. This has been true since the beginning of the tech boom, and it's still true today.
A friend of mine works for a big government contractor, programming sattelites. Neither he, nor anyone else his dept. has hired in the last 5 years, has a CS degree or credential of any kind. Most of them have backgrounds like yours.
What's most important is a demonstrated ability in the area of concern, and demonstrated ability to think creatively in technical/science work in general. Having *some* kind of science/technical degree in this area is part of that, but it needn't be CS. Good technical minds can be made into good programmers very easily.
Remeber, the truth is in you. Whoever innovate wins go fuck the prom queen. Losers go under the food chain. That's exactly how the economy should work, right ?
That's the best Asian English I've heard all week! And a point well taken!
Just like the Moonies and other predatory groups swooped in to take advantage of the nation's wayward youth in the 60s, the AFL-CIO has had its sights on disillusioned tech workers for years. They made a grab for displaced aerospace workers in the 80s, and they're moving in on IT workers now. They'd love to have a piece of every IT worker's (substantial) paycheck. Please, don't drink their Kool-Aid.
For all the talk about hardship and obstacles in countries like India and China, these workers have one big advantage over Americans -- no bills! These people may come from the poorest backgrounds, but if they do manage to do well in school, they usually get free educations.
Americans, with very few exceptions, have to mortgage their souls for 10-20 years to get an education. They graduate college with a mountain of debt. They simply can't afford to compete with foreign graduates who are debt free, and maybe don't have to worry about saving for retirement, either. It's like poor kids from Harlem trying to compete with trust fund brats for Wall St. jobs -- even if they have the ability and education, they're screwed because they can't afford to tread water in NY, with so many bills to pay. H1-B workers have to pay the same Silicon Valley rents that native workers do. But there's much more that's keeping their boats afloat...
Get out of the house and go to shows! Pick up a copy of the "alternative" newspaper in your town, see what's going on, and hit the clubs. When you find bands you like, buy their CDs, talk to them about what music they like, check out their websites, and take it from there. One thing will lead to another, and another, and before you know it you'll be plugged into another whole scene you never knew existed.
Who knows, you might even make some friends and meet some girls.
Problem solving ability would probably be included in "aptitude."
That's OK, everyone will just drive down south to buy them in states where there are few rules, and no enforcement, like South Carolina and Florida. Most handguns used in crimes in NYC already come from those places.
It's unfortunate there's a stigma against blue collar work. Sometimes it pays pretty well, much better than you think. But the biggest advantage is that it's amenable to making your own hours, and it's much easier to get a business going. Everyone nowadays is trying to be a freelance web designer, programmer, graphic artist, technical writer, etc. It's a crowded field, and with the economy being a little slow there just isn't enough work to go around. Not to mention that any bright high school kid these days can/will do this stuff for pocket change, and the opportunities are slim.
However, with everyone trying to land a glam white collar gig, there's still plenty of gritty work to be done, and it pays pretty well. You could easily clean pools, wash windows, do landscaping, property management, handyman stuff, paint, etc. The demand for this stuff never goes away, even when the economy is slow. And the people left doing it are often incompetent and flaky. If you have your shit together, you already have a huge advantage. All you have to do is show up for work, because chances are the other guy didn't.
The "good" $/hr figures being quoted in this thread seem like a total joke to me in comparison. My window washer in Irvine, CA, for example, charges around $40/hr, and has almost zero overhead. Pool men make almost that much too. So do carpet cleaners. Most painters are complete flakes, but the ones who aren't are booked all the time.
So get off your fat ass, do some honest work, and collect a real paycheck. Part time anyway, it will be a nice change of pace, just good exercise. Your time is valuable to yourself and your family -- don't give it away. Anyone who would take a job at Best Buy for $7/hr is a moron. Jobs like that are for kids who don't know any better. Anyone over 19 should have figured out by now what else is out there for them.