The low startup cost to the new company will allow them to break even sooner, keep costs down, and make sure they're marketing to the right kinds of people - those who want cell phone service ANYWHERE.
The low startup costs might help, but in order to cover their operating expenses, these guys are going to have to charge astronomical amounts. It's a catch-22: they have to charge high prices to cover their costs, which decreases the size of their market, which increases their marginal costs,... [ repeat ad nauseum ]
What can we do as students to improve our experience?
First, do everything they ask of you. Do it quickly, and do it well.
Exactly! Back many moons ago, I had a couple of different coop jobs. Because I could always do what they gave me, and do it faster and with fewer errors than anyone else (and without any grumbling), I was given more interesting work to do.
The full-timers don't want you to waste their time. So they're just going to give you some quick, crappy job to get you out of their hair (the first thing they can think of). So if you do the quick, crappy job quickly (and not crappily) and go ask for more, they'll want you out of their hair again. This time, you'll probably get something a little more involved -- they want you gone for a longer period of time. Eventually, you'll see some patterns in the work you're doing, and you may be able to suggest some small projects for yourself (e.g. writing an automated test or creating some kind of test tool to remove the tedium from running the tests). Eventually (and this may not apply to h.s. students -- things might change in college) you'll start to get treated like a peer.
Generally when I've dealt with WRS, the expense has been in support. Yes, you have to pay a per-processor royalty too, but the thing you are really paying for is support. And let's face it: if you've used their IDE and some of their host-side tools, they suck. They could actually benefit by open sourcing their IDE and other tools ("tools" meaning beyond the GNU toolchain).
I have seen the source to the OS (under an NDA), and, as you might expect, it ain't rocket science. Most of the pieces bore a very striking resemblance to an in-house embedded OS we wrote -- but lacking the tricky bugs we introduced in our version!
Bottom line is that these guys are scared of open source. They've been promising linux versions of their toolset for two (or more) years and they haven't delivered. The reason I was given at one point is that they don't want to get into providing general linux support...
This increases the load on the competent while the incompetent weazle by managing the build and doing other such simple tasks.
Do you really want the incompetent to be writing code?!? Seriously, though, not everyone can code. It's just a fact of life: I can't draw, some people can't write coherent sentences, some people can't spell (it's "weasel"), some people can't code. That's why we have job specializations like build management, release management, etc.
Just because you see someone doing a job that you feel is "beneath you", ask yourself where you would be if that person wasn't in there in that support role. Thank those people! I, personally, am glad that we employ a janitor/maintenance/facilities person. That means that I don't have to change light bulbs, vacuum the floor, etc. And I don't give him any crap because he can't code!
Of course its fun! You haven't spent enough time debugging/reverse engineering/redesigning hairy code. About 95% of my paid work is maintaining/extending/debugging other people's code. Mostly the crappy stuff -- IME, the good code doesn't need much maintenance. You do this for long enough, you start to like it. It's really just problem solving of a different sort. But instead of inventing something to solve a problem, you have to figure out why a problem occurs and fix an existing invention.
It's like the BASF ads: "We don't make the things you use, we make the things you use better."
-bluebomber
Stallman "leader of Free Software 'movement'"???
on
Rebel Code
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· Score: 2
I don't think so. All of the people named in the article could be called "leaders" of the open source community, but no single person could be called "the leader". This community is way to fragmented and spread out for that to be true. Instead, you've got people who could definitely be considered leaders of certain areas of the community -- RMS and FSF/GNU, Miguel and GNOME, Torvalds/Cox and the kernel, etc. Don't forget that large portions of the community dislike any single one of these leaders for various political or other reasons, and some of the community dislikes the idea of any kind of leadership or centralized control.
Zimmerman doesn't actually say that 7.0.3 doesn't have back doors.
He does: go back and read the *entire* paragraph -- especially the first part, where he says "up to and including 7.0.3 have no back doors". We are just supposed to trust him because we can't see the source. I'm inclined to do so...
we as a society have gone overboard in shielding kids from reality and reducing competition in schools
You got this right, man. Everybody's on such a tear to make sure that everyone gets treated "fairly". That's crap. Life ain't fair. When you get out of high school, you're (maybe) going to be competing for a spot in a college. Of course, the competition for those spots is under pressure too, what with quotas/AA and all. And when you go to get a job? Heh, any intelligent, decent employer (i.e. anyone worth working for) is going to hire the brightest, most talented people they can find. If not they might as well relocate to the third world and hire a bunch of uneducated third-worlders for $0.10/day. (Not that I would support such a thing, but it happens.)
This is exactly right. A system designer looking to implement oracle on linux will research the requirements to be sure that the setup will work properly when everything is installed. I can't imagine that Oracle really cares about Joe Blow trying to run their software on the latest & greatest distro. They care more about the professional systems engineers, who are more likely to be using older, more stable/more well known stuff.
c) if your former employer is a real schmuck, you can make an anonymous call to the Department of Health saying that there's feces on the bathroom floor all the time.
And you call yourself a libertarian? Only a coward would use the government to bully someone.
This is why we need government regulation to protect privacy and the right to unionize.
I'm not sure how unionization comes into play here, but I'll set that aside.
Government regulation is not necessarily the right answer to privacy protection. I think education, fighting apathy, and consumer action are higher on the list. In that order. The general public (of which the/. audience is NOT representative) doesn't fully understand privacy, or even really care all that much about a lot of the issues. In order to fight apathy, you have to educate the general public about privacy issues and why they SHOULD care about them. Only then will you have consumer/voter action to reverse some of the (scary) trends that we are seeing with respect to loss of privacy.
By consumer action I mean not doing business with companies that have shady privacy practices. I don't mean a boycot -- that's too organized for what I'm talking about. I just mean that if people understand and care about privacy they won't do business with companies that don't take this into account; those companies wouldn't be providing the service that their (now ex-) customers require.
Voter action is somewhat less powerful, because there are so many issues that voters have to account for when casting their ballots. Being vocal about privacy to their representatives would be a tremendous boost. But I still think that "voting with your dollars" is a more powerful statement.
On a VERY small scale: For my part, I prefer to not do business with companies whose privacy activities (from what I can glean anyway) do not mesh with what I want. I don't shop at Best Buy in part because they insist on asking for personal information at the checkout -- which I refuse to give. I only shop at EMS if they're having a big sale and then refuse to give my phone number at the checkout. I ensure (as best I can) that my ISP is not going to monitor my online activities -- and even then I don't trust it.
Anyway, sorry for the long rant, but I wanted to point out that government is not the best way to ensure privacy. But then again, I don't trust the government to do anything right...
-bluebomber
Re:Screw Katz ... I LIKED Antitrust!
on
Antitrust
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· Score: 1
Referring to "three kings"... dumb. Very dumb. -bluebomber
Re:Public busines. Public website. No difference.
on
Freshmeat II
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· Score: 1
If the ADA can require a *private* business to install ramps so the disabled can have access, I see requiring a text only option on a public web page so that the visually impaired can have access as being no different.
That's crap. Even if we assume that it is right to require a private business to install ramps, a private business is not the same as a web page. I have a web page, I don't make any money off it, and I don't give a flying fart if someone blinder than me can't read it. I also don't have a ramp into my apartment; when my wheelchair-bound relative visits, he'll have to get hauled up the stairs. Life's tough, get over it. -bluebomber
I can't. I haven't seen a launch in 15 years; in fact, that Challenger launch was the only one I've ever watched. I guess I wish I had the courage to watch another launch...
I can't think of why you would have any loyalty to the company at all (to the point of thinking of leaving)? Sure, they pay you, and maybe give you other stuff, but you give them stuff too: your time. So nobody should owe anybody anything right now. What kind of "loyalty" does the company have for you?? If you answer anything other than "nothing", think again. -bluebomber
Finally, the costs of junk mail is used by the USPS to subsidize acutual postage.
Not quite. By law, each class of mail is required to be self-supporting. No class of mail is allowed to subsidize another class, as you purport. -bluebomber
IMHO, a particularly annoying bit of cheapness on the part of these companies. I'm half-tempted to remove 33 cents (or whatever it is now) from each of my bills to cover my postage costs.
Paying postage is a fact of life. Get over it, or sign up for automatic bill payment -- most of your creditors probably have this available. Call up the billing department and have them either automatically charge your credit card or deduct from your checking account. Then you also have, "no fee", "hassle free" bill payment as is often advertised for-pay all over the web...
You'll defeat the purpose if you overstuff: the envelopes may just get chucked without costing your target anything. Besides, why have it require effort? Just seal the thing and drop it in the mail...
-bluebomber
Re:Screw Katz ... I LIKED Antitrust!
on
Antitrust
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· Score: 1
Not having seen the film, I can't comment on its merits. I do agree, though, that half the enjoyment from watching a movie is suspension of disbelief. It is easier, admittedly, to do this when the movie is close to what we perceive as reality, and somewhat harder when there are major bungles (eg. truckloads of gold driving around... does anyone know how much a truckload of gold weighs? does anyone know how much a typical dump-truck is rated at?). Most of the time, though, a good movie will let you ignore the "whoopses" and just enjoy it for the entertainment value.
Sounds like I'll pass on this one, though. I'm waiting for "13 Days". -bluebomber
not expecting a great review...
on
Antitrust
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· Score: 1
if you go into this not expecting a great movie
Good thing I wasn't expecting great reviews. Geez. I didn't watch the movie, but you guys can't even get your reviews to be internally consistent: was it NURF or NURV? I haven't been following along all that closely, but when did GNOME add an operating system to their Desktop Environment and application framework? I don't see the updated status on their website?
Yet another Katz article with serious flaws in the quality of the grammar, editing, etc.
By making componenets larger, you merely make them hotter.
Size doesn't really have anything to do with it. It is mostly component density (i.e. transistor density). A PCI card with 10 components on it will generate less heat than a PCI card with 100 components on it!
Slashdot Mirror
Believe it. There are still people who believe the Earth is flat. Take a look at The International Flat Earth Society.
-bluebomber
The low startup costs might help, but in order to cover their operating expenses, these guys are going to have to charge astronomical amounts. It's a catch-22: they have to charge high prices to cover their costs, which decreases the size of their market, which increases their marginal costs, ... [ repeat ad nauseum ]
-bluebomber
First, do everything they ask of you. Do it quickly, and do it well.
Exactly! Back many moons ago, I had a couple of different coop jobs. Because I could always do what they gave me, and do it faster and with fewer errors than anyone else (and without any grumbling), I was given more interesting work to do.
The full-timers don't want you to waste their time. So they're just going to give you some quick, crappy job to get you out of their hair (the first thing they can think of). So if you do the quick, crappy job quickly (and not crappily) and go ask for more, they'll want you out of their hair again. This time, you'll probably get something a little more involved -- they want you gone for a longer period of time. Eventually, you'll see some patterns in the work you're doing, and you may be able to suggest some small projects for yourself (e.g. writing an automated test or creating some kind of test tool to remove the tedium from running the tests). Eventually (and this may not apply to h.s. students -- things might change in college) you'll start to get treated like a peer.
-bluebomber
I have seen the source to the OS (under an NDA), and, as you might expect, it ain't rocket science. Most of the pieces bore a very striking resemblance to an in-house embedded OS we wrote -- but lacking the tricky bugs we introduced in our version!
Bottom line is that these guys are scared of open source. They've been promising linux versions of their toolset for two (or more) years and they haven't delivered. The reason I was given at one point is that they don't want to get into providing general linux support...
-bluebomber
Do you really want the incompetent to be writing code?!? Seriously, though, not everyone can code. It's just a fact of life: I can't draw, some people can't write coherent sentences, some people can't spell (it's "weasel"), some people can't code. That's why we have job specializations like build management, release management, etc.
Just because you see someone doing a job that you feel is "beneath you", ask yourself where you would be if that person wasn't in there in that support role. Thank those people! I, personally, am glad that we employ a janitor/maintenance/facilities person. That means that I don't have to change light bulbs, vacuum the floor, etc. And I don't give him any crap because he can't code!
-bluebomber
It's like the BASF ads: "We don't make the things you use, we make the things you use better."
-bluebomber
I don't think so. All of the people named in the article could be called "leaders" of the open source community, but no single person could be called "the leader". This community is way to fragmented and spread out for that to be true. Instead, you've got people who could definitely be considered leaders of certain areas of the community -- RMS and FSF/GNU, Miguel and GNOME, Torvalds/Cox and the kernel, etc. Don't forget that large portions of the community dislike any single one of these leaders for various political or other reasons, and some of the community dislikes the idea of any kind of leadership or centralized control.
-bluebomber
He does: go back and read the *entire* paragraph -- especially the first part, where he says "up to and including 7.0.3 have no back doors". We are just supposed to trust him because we can't see the source. I'm inclined to do so...
-bluebomber
You got this right, man. Everybody's on such a tear to make sure that everyone gets treated "fairly". That's crap. Life ain't fair. When you get out of high school, you're (maybe) going to be competing for a spot in a college. Of course, the competition for those spots is under pressure too, what with quotas/AA and all. And when you go to get a job? Heh, any intelligent, decent employer (i.e. anyone worth working for) is going to hire the brightest, most talented people they can find. If not they might as well relocate to the third world and hire a bunch of uneducated third-worlders for $0.10/day. (Not that I would support such a thing, but it happens.)
-bluebomber
This is exactly right. A system designer looking to implement oracle on linux will research the requirements to be sure that the setup will work properly when everything is installed. I can't imagine that Oracle really cares about Joe Blow trying to run their software on the latest & greatest distro. They care more about the professional systems engineers, who are more likely to be using older, more stable/more well known stuff.
-bluebomber
And you call yourself a libertarian? Only a coward would use the government to bully someone.
-bluebomber
I'm not sure how unionization comes into play here, but I'll set that aside.
Government regulation is not necessarily the right answer to privacy protection. I think education, fighting apathy, and consumer action are higher on the list. In that order. The general public (of which the /. audience is NOT representative) doesn't fully understand privacy, or even really care all that much about a lot of the issues. In order to fight apathy, you have to educate the general public about privacy issues and why they SHOULD care about them. Only then will you have consumer/voter action to reverse some of the (scary) trends that we are seeing with respect to loss of privacy.
By consumer action I mean not doing business with companies that have shady privacy practices. I don't mean a boycot -- that's too organized for what I'm talking about. I just mean that if people understand and care about privacy they won't do business with companies that don't take this into account; those companies wouldn't be providing the service that their (now ex-) customers require.
Voter action is somewhat less powerful, because there are so many issues that voters have to account for when casting their ballots. Being vocal about privacy to their representatives would be a tremendous boost. But I still think that "voting with your dollars" is a more powerful statement.
On a VERY small scale: For my part, I prefer to not do business with companies whose privacy activities (from what I can glean anyway) do not mesh with what I want. I don't shop at Best Buy in part because they insist on asking for personal information at the checkout -- which I refuse to give. I only shop at EMS if they're having a big sale and then refuse to give my phone number at the checkout. I ensure (as best I can) that my ISP is not going to monitor my online activities -- and even then I don't trust it.
Anyway, sorry for the long rant, but I wanted to point out that government is not the best way to ensure privacy. But then again, I don't trust the government to do anything right...
-bluebomber
Referring to "three kings"... dumb. Very dumb.
-bluebomber
That's crap. Even if we assume that it is right to require a private business to install ramps, a private business is not the same as a web page. I have a web page, I don't make any money off it, and I don't give a flying fart if someone blinder than me can't read it. I also don't have a ramp into my apartment; when my wheelchair-bound relative visits, he'll have to get hauled up the stairs. Life's tough, get over it.
-bluebomber
I can't. I haven't seen a launch in 15 years; in fact, that Challenger launch was the only one I've ever watched. I guess I wish I had the courage to watch another launch...
-bluebomber
I can't think of why you would have any loyalty to the company at all (to the point of thinking of leaving)? Sure, they pay you, and maybe give you other stuff, but you give them stuff too: your time. So nobody should owe anybody anything right now. What kind of "loyalty" does the company have for you?? If you answer anything other than "nothing", think again.
-bluebomber
Not quite. By law, each class of mail is required to be self-supporting. No class of mail is allowed to subsidize another class, as you purport.
-bluebomber
The envelope cutters have fun with these too!
-bluebomber
As has been pointed out elsewhere in a separate thread, they've already paid postage! You're not costing them anything!
-bluebomber
Paying postage is a fact of life. Get over it, or sign up for automatic bill payment -- most of your creditors probably have this available. Call up the billing department and have them either automatically charge your credit card or deduct from your checking account. Then you also have, "no fee", "hassle free" bill payment as is often advertised for-pay all over the web...
-bluebomber
You'll defeat the purpose if you overstuff: the envelopes may just get chucked without costing your target anything. Besides, why have it require effort? Just seal the thing and drop it in the mail...
-bluebomber
Sounds like I'll pass on this one, though. I'm waiting for "13 Days".
-bluebomber
Good thing I wasn't expecting great reviews. Geez. I didn't watch the movie, but you guys can't even get your reviews to be internally consistent: was it NURF or NURV? I haven't been following along all that closely, but when did GNOME add an operating system to their Desktop Environment and application framework? I don't see the updated status on their website?
Yet another Katz article with serious flaws in the quality of the grammar, editing, etc.
-bluebomber
Size doesn't really have anything to do with it. It is mostly component density (i.e. transistor density). A PCI card with 10 components on it will generate less heat than a PCI card with 100 components on it!
-bluebomber
- NO FAN!
Right... and then you could cook on it too!
-bluebomber