I talked to the folks doing this in Detroit for saftey systems. It's a consortium of automotive companies that are using 802.11N to communiacte with each other and share GPS location, CAN vehicle data, such as speed, traction, etc. There'll also be boxes at fixed locations giving GPS correction data as well as stoplight status. They'll be able to sense thing like oncoming pile-ups in fog, traffic jam info, etc. It's quite interesting.
And of course the infotainment folks are drooling all over it too.
Then it would have some sort of protocol for the commercial stuff. Say you're allowed to listen to a song 2 or 3 times to determine if you like it, and then you have to buy it if you want to keep listening. And these songs could be distributed in some sort of protected format until they're bought. And of course, Napster would have some sort of system in place to make sure nobody's distributing unlocked versions of the songs.
Nope, sorry. The gate's allready open. The horses are long gone. Even if the RIAA wins against Napster there's still a bunch of open-source look-alikes out there.
For any protection scheme we come up with, there are hundreds of smart people in the world who will find a way to circumvent it.
I've been telecommuting on and off as a contract programmer since '91. I like it a lot, espically since I am a night person and am nearly incapable of getting up before 10am.
Downsides include what has been stated before, and the fact that you can get into a mode where you never leave work; "I could be going out with freinds, but I slacked today, so I really should be doing work tonight." That can cause a lot of stress.
At other times it can be th opposite, "well I can do some annoying gruntwork or I can do the dishes..." My house was the cleanest it's ever been when I had a bunch of work that I didn't want to do.
Even with all of these problems, this is still the best way to program. No distractions, just get the job done. I find that 4 hours at home usually equals 9-10 hours at the office.
Lately I've been having some trouble finding jobs/contracts that will allow me to keep my preferred schedule, probably a combination of living in Michigan, and my specialization (RT & Embedded Systems). Most places aren't interested in hiring you in with that stipulation (they want to get to know you before), or the're idea of flex time is different than yours, "sure we have flex-time, you can get in anywhere from 6am to 7:30am!" Now I'm looking for work in SF just because I'm expecting that most companies out there will be more tolerant of unusual schedules.
When I first started as a programmer (back in the stone ages 15 years ago) I was working 60+ hours as a matter of routine. Now I consult 32-40 hour weeks, and charge a lot more for my time. Am I less productive? IMO no, in fact I'm more productive. I've been doing this long enough that I've figured out most of the usual pitfalls, I now know where to look for the information to solve my problems, etc. I'm still 'working' about the same number of hours, but now I'm not at the office the entire time, rather at home doing the fun 'work'.
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I talked to the folks doing this in Detroit for saftey systems. It's a consortium of automotive companies that are using 802.11N to communiacte with each other and share GPS location, CAN vehicle data, such as speed, traction, etc. There'll also be boxes at fixed locations giving GPS correction data as well as stoplight status. They'll be able to sense thing like oncoming pile-ups in fog, traffic jam info, etc. It's quite interesting.
And of course the infotainment folks are drooling all over it too.
Nope, sorry. The gate's allready open. The horses are long gone. Even if the RIAA wins against Napster there's still a bunch of open-source look-alikes out there.
For any protection scheme we come up with, there are hundreds of smart people in the world who will find a way to circumvent it.
-Eric
Downsides include what has been stated before, and the fact that you can get into a mode where you never leave work; "I could be going out with freinds, but I slacked today, so I really should be doing work tonight." That can cause a lot of stress.
At other times it can be th opposite, "well I can do some annoying gruntwork or I can do the dishes..." My house was the cleanest it's ever been when I had a bunch of work that I didn't want to do.
Even with all of these problems, this is still the best way to program. No distractions, just get the job done. I find that 4 hours at home usually equals 9-10 hours at the office.
Lately I've been having some trouble finding jobs/contracts that will allow me to keep my preferred schedule, probably a combination of living in Michigan, and my specialization (RT & Embedded Systems). Most places aren't interested in hiring you in with that stipulation (they want to get to know you before), or the're idea of flex time is different than yours, "sure we have flex-time, you can get in anywhere from 6am to 7:30am!" Now I'm looking for work in SF just because I'm expecting that most companies out there will be more tolerant of unusual schedules.
When I first started as a programmer (back in the stone ages 15 years ago) I was working 60+ hours as a matter of routine. Now I consult 32-40 hour weeks, and charge a lot more for my time. Am I less productive? IMO no, in fact I'm more productive. I've been doing this long enough that I've figured out most of the usual pitfalls, I now know where to look for the information to solve my problems, etc. I'm still 'working' about the same number of hours, but now I'm not at the office the entire time, rather at home doing the fun 'work'.