If the film industry doesn't want competition, just do what every other industry does: ask Congress to create regulations (that the movie industry itself will write). That way the barrier to entry is so high no newcomers can enter, and boom!: no competition and none of that Sherman Act nonsense.
The only true browser feature I want is to terminate all of the friggin' popup layers that harass for your email. In what way are these better/less intrusive than popup windows? No! I don't want to be on your mailing list.
Chrome and Firefox devs: Please damn this blight to hell. It's on almost every site I visit and it's such a pain in the ass. Especially if you can't use to close them.
He was the original creator of photo.net. These days it's somewhat fallen by the wayside for "Sony Cameras are teh Best!!!1111" (dpreview.com) and other photo sites. But it was a fantastic trove of information about a good many things, not just which camera has the greatest number of megapixels. I miss the olden days.
Now you damn kids get off of my lawn! I have a cloud to yell at!
It's a long read, but please teach yourself about the origins of "Fire in a crowded theatre" before using it to try and hack down the First Amendment again.
The Pixel 3 photo sensor is still only 1/2.3"... the same as my P&S camera from 2004. It's a phone. The photos are best for snapshots and, if the light is really good, the occasional "serious" photo. Who cares *that* much about image quality? It's still far better than a Kodak Disc camera. Or a 110. (Yes, I'm old.) And the phone is always in your pocket, ready to go.
More important question: when are they going to stop making phones so damned huge? The Internet sucks on a phone. Stop trying to make it a do-all web terminal.
DxO PhotoLab for photos. I found on1 RAW wasn't all that responsive and I wasn't happy with the interface. I found myself needing a new editor and DAM when I bought a new DSLR since Lightroom 5 had no support the EOS 80D. I wasn't about to pay monthly for anything by Adobe and tested a few other options including Luminar by Skylum and on1 RAW. I found that PhotoLab produced better-looking photos with less hassle. The down side is that DAM functionality is lacking and they really need to start at least supporting keywords. Now I mostly work with image collections for a given event and that satisfies my needs. Hopefully they can add keywording and additional metatagging in the near future.
Luminar I tried with the idea that the DAM module would be along "any day now". Well, it's been about a year. And it's probably going to be another year before they have a beta. So avoid. Especially if you don't like waiting for images to load since Luminar is also dog slow.
For graphics editing another option aside from Affinity Photo is Acorn from Flying Meat. Gets the job done, is snappy performance-wise, and inexpensive, while having the power of PS. And has been around a long time. But it's Mac only so be aware of that.
And I agree with others' statements that image editing software on Linux is... shall we say, lackluster. I've tried GIMP, and digiKam, and DarkTable and they're just not that great. Getting even moderately interesting images out of them takes a huge amount of work. Sometimes it's very much worth it to pay the money.
Boston has another special problem: a lousy spoke-hub design. By bicycle, Harvard Square to Coolidge Corner is about 10-15 minutes apart (riding quickly and maybe, uh, taking some liberties...). Via T? At least an hour down the Red Line to the Green Line at Park, then out to Coolidge.
If you want to go downtown, the T is great. If you want to get across town, time spent on the T vs. in a car is a wash.
Read a guitar message board sometime. The blooze lawyers on those sites buy a pedal, use it for a month, then return it. And then piss and moan when they have to pay return shipping. For an item on which the retailer just lost any possibility of profit.
Then again, the retailer shouldn't offer free shipping as UPS's rates keep going through the roof and there is little recourse for when they won't cover damage in shipping. Damage that was clearly from a handler putting his foot through the package (I work for a small online retailer and this is becoming a bigger and bigger problem).
Now with.NET, the MS backdoor takeover of RedHat is more or less complete: systemd and Gnome make it hard for me to tell the difference between the two. Or maybe it's the backdoor of RedHat into Microsoft... Either way, similar result.
(taken with a slight wink and nod to the humor-impaired amongst you)
Between this, the user experience spyware, the WinSXS nightmare, and the general vulnerability of the operating system overall, our company is moving all computers away from Windows. MS keeps shooting themselves in the foot. The schadenfreude is delicious. Unfortunately, UPS and FedEx shipping software still require Windows. But we keep them isolated and on Win7 (hopefully for as long as possible).
Anybody else doing likewise? I'd love to hear of a large company moving away from MS products.
The other big can of worms is the application of MA commonwealth law to a business *in another state*. MA likes to write laws like this all the time. But the reality is that MA has no jurisdiction outside of its borders. Or shouldn't - though we'll see how stupid the courts are on this one if it comes to trial.
What's really required is a provider that just gives customers a link - a DWDM fiber connection (which can handle a theoretical 160 10Gbps signals). You now have the ability to provide up to 160 different services to each customer. Voice gets wavelength 1, CATV: wavelength 2, Intertubes: wavelength 3, etc. Now the service providers pay the link provider and the customers pay the individual service providers, rather than pay directly for the link and then the services. Problem is, providing a fiber connection to each household is prohibitively expensive now. But if I could get my grubby hands on a few (dozen) billion, I'd start laying some fiber to homes and businesses. The payoff is that I would then have a potential wealth of providers who would want access to my fiber to each home. This could also fuel a whole new set of providers for phone, internet, video conference, MMORPG-specific connections, phone, etc.
It's just a thought. It's been in my head for years. Somebody else has probably also thought of it and come to the same conclusion: Verizon will then temporarily unbundle connection and services to allow others access to the fiber - just long enough to put this new fiber connection company out of business; then they'll lock up their network again, tight as a drum. You can do that when you pay enough politicians.
I was forced into this decision about four and a half years ago when the ASIC development industry went to India. After a nine month involuntary 'vacation' I sucked it up and went into the trades (electrical and high-efficiency heating repair). I took a 75% pay cut for the first year or two and enjoyed the work for a while. And still do, just not quite at much as the learning curve has flattened. But as others have said, there's a lot to the office job. Working in a hot, sweaty, fiberglass insulation-filled crawlspace in July ain't super-great either. But my job can't be outsourced, either. And I get to bill at engineering contractor rates.:)
But look at hobbies. Do things outside of work that have *nothing* to do with work. Don't touch a computer when you get home. I work on photography and I mountain bike. A lot. Your job is your job and if it pays well, especially right now, I'd say just stick with it and find within it some interesting facets to follow. And when you get home take the pent-up energy you want to spend on a more interesting job and pour it into hobbies. It's much more rewarding and since it's not work, you won't get sick of it. I thought about going into photography but I enjoy it too much. Doing it daily to put food on the table (and I'm single with no dependents) just wrecked the idea of doing it for a living.
So think long and hard about moving jobs. Ultimately work is going to be work. Nobody ever said it has to be fun.:) That's why you work - to have fun *outside* of the office.
Well, the random is better than Sony's original implementation of 'shuffle' for its CD players. I think it's better now in new players but I used to be able to put in a disc in old players (1993 and earlier) and the track ordering was the same for *every* disc. Eject disc A and put it back in to be played in 'shuffle'? Same order over and over. It was really quite annoying. Disc B? Same 'shuffled' track order. That's quite some effort they put into that algorithm.
Only if you purchase my special green marker for $19.99 and write a green line around the edges to prevent electron scattering. Those stray electrons can really show up in photos and you wouldn't want that. You also get higher definition too. Yeah, that's it!
Exactly. I worked as an ASIC developer for several networking companies and a medical imaging company. Then the industry in the U.S. went tits up. I'm now getting my electrical and plumbing licenses (my boss is a master plumber and master electrician). I'll make more as a tradesman than I ever did as an engineer. My job can't be outsourced. It's damn tough to get a license in Massachusetts so imports will be difficult.
It's tough work but in the long run will be worth more than my BSEE from BU. Well, sorta. One of the companies I worked for was a mostly successful startup.
My days are more fulfilling, I will end up making more money, and I can take my work anywhere if I decide to move. We don't work in the new construction industry - we work on service and installation of high-efficiency heating and A/C systems so there will always be work. Why waste time with tech anymore?
Are we living in the same Boston? I have friends with 8-10 years of multi-million gate ASIC design (BSEE's) and they're biting their nails as to whether they're going to have a job in the next year or so.
I graduated from BU in '96 (EE) and I looked for jobs for a year (from 2002-2003) and finally gave up (see further up this thread). It's tough to compete against a guy in India that can do the same work via his consulting firm for US$20k. But then again, I've been out of the market for over a year. Perhaps things are getting better. But web searches for ASIC jobs are worse now than when I was unemployed.
I also graduated from BU ('96) as a EE. I got lucky at one of my startups and made some money. But after getting laid off twice, once for 9 months, I just up and left and went to the trades: more money, honest work, and permanent demand (heating is always necessary). There are days I miss office work and flexible hours but not that much to go back. I even had a pretty decent chance to work in the ASIC group at a large graphics card manufacturer but turned it down b/c I didn't want the headaches again. I don't know about software, but ASIC design has all gone to consulting groups in Asia/India. And friends still in that field are biting their nails wondering how much longer they're going to keep their jobs.
Overall, I see what you're saying about Cinci though. While I've never moved to the mid-west, I did make the mistake of moving to Nashua, NH after graduating. I don't know why Forbes has called it the #1 city in America in which to live, it really just sucks arse. No culture other than the yogurt aisles at the supermarkets, and stripmalls as far as the eye can see. So I moved back to Boston and still live here.
As for the narrow-minded comment... I wouldn't (ever, ever, ever) call Massachusetts liberals open-minded. They're just narrow-minded in a different way than mid-west conservatives. I hate both sides, so call it what you like. If you don't support something like socialized medicine in MA then you're often considered the spawn of Satan 'round these parts.
But WTF do I know, I'm just a guy getting his electrician's/plumber's/builder's/refrigeration mechanic's licenses?
This will probably get lost in the noise, and for all I know it might already be in another response. But read this article by Steve Albini about the finances of being phuct by the majors:
Slashdot Mirror
If the film industry doesn't want competition, just do what every other industry does: ask Congress to create regulations (that the movie industry itself will write). That way the barrier to entry is so high no newcomers can enter, and boom!: no competition and none of that Sherman Act nonsense.
Clearly these movie people are rank amateurs.
I will add... I do use Adblock Plus and have for years. And Privacy Badger. Neither does the trick. Will look into uBlock Origin and uMatrix though.
The only true browser feature I want is to terminate all of the friggin' popup layers that harass for your email. In what way are these better/less intrusive than popup windows? No! I don't want to be on your mailing list.
Chrome and Firefox devs: Please damn this blight to hell. It's on almost every site I visit and it's such a pain in the ass. Especially if you can't use to close them.
And this is why my next LCD TV is going to be a large computer monitor, and not a TV at all.
Insert obligatory Homestar Runner reference here.
He was the original creator of photo.net. These days it's somewhat fallen by the wayside for "Sony Cameras are teh Best!!!1111" (dpreview.com) and other photo sites. But it was a fantastic trove of information about a good many things, not just which camera has the greatest number of megapixels. I miss the olden days.
Now you damn kids get off of my lawn! I have a cloud to yell at!
It's a long read, but please teach yourself about the origins of "Fire in a crowded theatre" before using it to try and hack down the First Amendment again.
https://www.popehat.com/2012/0...
I approve this message.
Damn kids!
The Pixel 3 photo sensor is still only 1/2.3"... the same as my P&S camera from 2004. It's a phone. The photos are best for snapshots and, if the light is really good, the occasional "serious" photo. Who cares *that* much about image quality? It's still far better than a Kodak Disc camera. Or a 110. (Yes, I'm old.) And the phone is always in your pocket, ready to go.
More important question: when are they going to stop making phones so damned huge? The Internet sucks on a phone. Stop trying to make it a do-all web terminal.
Some other options include:
DxO PhotoLab for photos. I found on1 RAW wasn't all that responsive and I wasn't happy with the interface. I found myself needing a new editor and DAM when I bought a new DSLR since Lightroom 5 had no support the EOS 80D. I wasn't about to pay monthly for anything by Adobe and tested a few other options including Luminar by Skylum and on1 RAW. I found that PhotoLab produced better-looking photos with less hassle. The down side is that DAM functionality is lacking and they really need to start at least supporting keywords. Now I mostly work with image collections for a given event and that satisfies my needs. Hopefully they can add keywording and additional metatagging in the near future.
Luminar I tried with the idea that the DAM module would be along "any day now". Well, it's been about a year. And it's probably going to be another year before they have a beta. So avoid. Especially if you don't like waiting for images to load since Luminar is also dog slow.
For graphics editing another option aside from Affinity Photo is Acorn from Flying Meat . Gets the job done, is snappy performance-wise, and inexpensive, while having the power of PS. And has been around a long time. But it's Mac only so be aware of that.
And I agree with others' statements that image editing software on Linux is... shall we say, lackluster. I've tried GIMP, and digiKam, and DarkTable and they're just not that great. Getting even moderately interesting images out of them takes a huge amount of work. Sometimes it's very much worth it to pay the money.
*shrug*
nick
Sarcasm? Oh, I thought this was paraphrased from the press release.
Boston has another special problem: a lousy spoke-hub design. By bicycle, Harvard Square to Coolidge Corner is about 10-15 minutes apart (riding quickly and maybe, uh, taking some liberties...). Via T? At least an hour down the Red Line to the Green Line at Park, then out to Coolidge.
If you want to go downtown, the T is great. If you want to get across town, time spent on the T vs. in a car is a wash.
Read a guitar message board sometime. The blooze lawyers on those sites buy a pedal, use it for a month, then return it. And then piss and moan when they have to pay return shipping. For an item on which the retailer just lost any possibility of profit.
Then again, the retailer shouldn't offer free shipping as UPS's rates keep going through the roof and there is little recourse for when they won't cover damage in shipping. Damage that was clearly from a handler putting his foot through the package (I work for a small online retailer and this is becoming a bigger and bigger problem).
Now with .NET, the MS backdoor takeover of RedHat is more or less complete: systemd and Gnome make it hard for me to tell the difference between the two. Or maybe it's the backdoor of RedHat into Microsoft... Either way, similar result.
(taken with a slight wink and nod to the humor-impaired amongst you)
Between this, the user experience spyware, the WinSXS nightmare, and the general vulnerability of the operating system overall, our company is moving all computers away from Windows. MS keeps shooting themselves in the foot. The schadenfreude is delicious. Unfortunately, UPS and FedEx shipping software still require Windows. But we keep them isolated and on Win7 (hopefully for as long as possible).
Anybody else doing likewise? I'd love to hear of a large company moving away from MS products.
Massachusetts is the other.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ma-supreme-judicial-court/1330122.html
The other big can of worms is the application of MA commonwealth law to a business *in another state*. MA likes to write laws like this all the time. But the reality is that MA has no jurisdiction outside of its borders. Or shouldn't - though we'll see how stupid the courts are on this one if it comes to trial.
What's really required is a provider that just gives customers a link - a DWDM fiber connection (which can handle a theoretical 160 10Gbps signals). You now have the ability to provide up to 160 different services to each customer. Voice gets wavelength 1, CATV: wavelength 2, Intertubes: wavelength 3, etc. Now the service providers pay the link provider and the customers pay the individual service providers, rather than pay directly for the link and then the services. Problem is, providing a fiber connection to each household is prohibitively expensive now. But if I could get my grubby hands on a few (dozen) billion, I'd start laying some fiber to homes and businesses. The payoff is that I would then have a potential wealth of providers who would want access to my fiber to each home. This could also fuel a whole new set of providers for phone, internet, video conference, MMORPG-specific connections, phone, etc.
It's just a thought. It's been in my head for years. Somebody else has probably also thought of it and come to the same conclusion: Verizon will then temporarily unbundle connection and services to allow others access to the fiber - just long enough to put this new fiber connection company out of business; then they'll lock up their network again, tight as a drum. You can do that when you pay enough politicians.
nick
I was forced into this decision about four and a half years ago when the ASIC development industry went to India. After a nine month involuntary 'vacation' I sucked it up and went into the trades (electrical and high-efficiency heating repair). I took a 75% pay cut for the first year or two and enjoyed the work for a while. And still do, just not quite at much as the learning curve has flattened. But as others have said, there's a lot to the office job. Working in a hot, sweaty, fiberglass insulation-filled crawlspace in July ain't super-great either. But my job can't be outsourced, either. And I get to bill at engineering contractor rates. :)
:) That's why you work - to have fun *outside* of the office.
But look at hobbies. Do things outside of work that have *nothing* to do with work. Don't touch a computer when you get home. I work on photography and I mountain bike. A lot. Your job is your job and if it pays well, especially right now, I'd say just stick with it and find within it some interesting facets to follow. And when you get home take the pent-up energy you want to spend on a more interesting job and pour it into hobbies. It's much more rewarding and since it's not work, you won't get sick of it. I thought about going into photography but I enjoy it too much. Doing it daily to put food on the table (and I'm single with no dependents) just wrecked the idea of doing it for a living.
So think long and hard about moving jobs. Ultimately work is going to be work. Nobody ever said it has to be fun.
Well, the random is better than Sony's original implementation of 'shuffle' for its CD players. I think it's better now in new players but I used to be able to put in a disc in old players (1993 and earlier) and the track ordering was the same for *every* disc. Eject disc A and put it back in to be played in 'shuffle'? Same order over and over. It was really quite annoying. Disc B? Same 'shuffled' track order. That's quite some effort they put into that algorithm.
Only if you purchase my special green marker for $19.99 and write a green line around the edges to prevent electron scattering. Those stray electrons can really show up in photos and you wouldn't want that. You also get higher definition too. Yeah, that's it!
Ugh.
Exactly. I worked as an ASIC developer for several networking companies and a medical imaging company. Then the industry in the U.S. went tits up. I'm now getting my electrical and plumbing licenses (my boss is a master plumber and master electrician). I'll make more as a tradesman than I ever did as an engineer. My job can't be outsourced. It's damn tough to get a license in Massachusetts so imports will be difficult.
It's tough work but in the long run will be worth more than my BSEE from BU. Well, sorta. One of the companies I worked for was a mostly successful startup.
My days are more fulfilling, I will end up making more money, and I can take my work anywhere if I decide to move. We don't work in the new construction industry - we work on service and installation of high-efficiency heating and A/C systems so there will always be work. Why waste time with tech anymore?
Are we living in the same Boston? I have friends with 8-10 years of multi-million gate ASIC design (BSEE's) and they're biting their nails as to whether they're going to have a job in the next year or so.
I graduated from BU in '96 (EE) and I looked for jobs for a year (from 2002-2003) and finally gave up (see further up this thread). It's tough to compete against a guy in India that can do the same work via his consulting firm for US$20k. But then again, I've been out of the market for over a year. Perhaps things are getting better. But web searches for ASIC jobs are worse now than when I was unemployed.
I also graduated from BU ('96) as a EE. I got lucky at one of my startups and made some money. But after getting laid off twice, once for 9 months, I just up and left and went to the trades: more money, honest work, and permanent demand (heating is always necessary). There are days I miss office work and flexible hours but not that much to go back. I even had a pretty decent chance to work in the ASIC group at a large graphics card manufacturer but turned it down b/c I didn't want the headaches again. I don't know about software, but ASIC design has all gone to consulting groups in Asia/India. And friends still in that field are biting their nails wondering how much longer they're going to keep their jobs.
Overall, I see what you're saying about Cinci though. While I've never moved to the mid-west, I did make the mistake of moving to Nashua, NH after graduating. I don't know why Forbes has called it the #1 city in America in which to live, it really just sucks arse. No culture other than the yogurt aisles at the supermarkets, and stripmalls as far as the eye can see. So I moved back to Boston and still live here.
As for the narrow-minded comment... I wouldn't (ever, ever, ever) call Massachusetts liberals open-minded. They're just narrow-minded in a different way than mid-west conservatives. I hate both sides, so call it what you like. If you don't support something like socialized medicine in MA then you're often considered the spawn of Satan 'round these parts.
But WTF do I know, I'm just a guy getting his electrician's/plumber's/builder's/refrigeration mechanic's licenses?
This will probably get lost in the noise, and for all I know it might already be in another response. But read this article by Steve Albini about the finances of being phuct by the majors:
http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/problemwithmusic. html
It'll give you a better understanding of why bands are like startups and the majors are just VCs.