Bystander #2: "Even though, due to international trademark laws, I must inform you that it's not actually Godzilla!"
Re:Sounds better than I thought
on
"Traffic"
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· Score: 1
Reminds me of the McBain movie in the Simpsons where he's fighting a drug lord who is threatening to market a new drug "ten times more addictive than marijuana!" Rather ironic swing at the whole anti-drug thang...
Under Windows (or at least, Windows 2000) you can also set up your system so that you can hit CTRL-ALT-0 for QWERTY, CTRL-ALT-1 for DVORAK(for example).
Unfortunately, at work I also use Exceed, an X Windows client for MS Windows(don't ask why--I'm switching to Linux ASAP), and the key mappings for MS Windows don't affect Exceed--although you can also set it to switch between QWERTY and DVORAK in similar fashion. So for someone like me, a hardware solution might be nice, rather than toggling several different settings.
Aack, I don't mean to sound so whiney. But I've emailed my resume to 10-12 places and only heard back from the ones where I already had contacts. Maybe my standards are too high, or my resume had some typos, or something. Or I could be one of those people who believes they deserve better than they actually should get--but I doubt that.:-)
Not to name names too much, but at Ars Digita, which until recently had a fairly aggressive recruitment policy, there are no openings for development engineers at the moment. Granted, they are in web development, but a shortage of openings there and at related companies must be having some kind of effect on the job market overall...
As a programmer with about 2 years of experience plus a master's degree now, I thought it would be easy to find work in the Boston area. But a lot of HR departments sound really busy right now, and I'm wondering if the.com fallout is affecting things. Some stories I've picked up over the past few weeks:
Two consulting companies which friends of mine work or worked for have each laid off web development people in the triple digits within the past month. I believe that in both cases, this included programmers. My roommate's company, which is exclusively devoted to web development, has put a hiring freeze on programmers.
A fourth company I know of is suffering from lost business, because even though big corporations still want good websites, with the.coms failing, there is less pressure on them to get them out there. So there will be business in the next 2-3 years for web development from the big companies, but it won't match the boom we've already had.
If this is the anecdotal evidence I have on hand, it makes me wonder how bad the overall scene is. I think that the HR departments for "solid" tech companies must be getting swamped with resumes from all the people losing work from the.coms. If I weren't looking for work at the same time, I would find it merely interesting...
Has anyone actually read Valenti's deposition in the DeCSS case? It is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen, and Goldstein's idea to sell the DVD of it is pretty funny.
Basically these scientists have taken core samples off the ocean floor which go
back 60 million years, and measured the amount of carbonic acid stored in seashells at all levels, which is
a fairly reliable indicator of how much CO2 is in the atmosphere. Their finding: the last time
CO2 levels were as high as they currently are was 20 million years ago. Just another datum, but a bit longer-range than the recorded weather history.
I just finished reading Accidental Empires, and quite liked it. One of the things I really enjoyed were the anecdotes about industry leaders, like Bill Gates trying(and failing) to talk with black guys on a street corner. Do you have any new ones that you'd like to share?
In the past, the government has shown willingness to subsidize art via the NEA. Now certainly art and code are (somewhat) different things, but I really can't see how subsidizing OS projects would be detrimental to the community, and it would provide a more useful function than art(apologies to any art lovers).
In a similar vein, tons of academic computer projects are subsidized by government, including the military. If the government is willing to provide funding for all this, it surely should be happy to give some money to, say, Debian or Helixcode(for support of GNOME) among others. And think how much that would benefit the general public. The government may do some really stupid things sometimes, and has the power to do even more, but giving open source a gentle shove in the form of financial backing cannot be entirely harmful.
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot to mention the Portland Mercury, a really excellent alternative weekly with sweet cover artwork, nasty letters to the editor, and sweet celebrity gossip.
The sad thing is, I read the comments of this story just because I knew a link to this would be here, and I wanted to see it again.
Not necessarily a direct quote:
Bystander #1: "Oh no! It's Godzilla! Run!"
Bystander #2: "Even though, due to international trademark laws, I must inform you that it's not actually Godzilla!"
Reminds me of the McBain movie in the Simpsons where he's fighting a drug lord who is threatening to market a new drug "ten times more addictive than marijuana!" Rather ironic swing at the whole anti-drug thang...
Unfortunately, at work I also use Exceed, an X Windows client for MS Windows(don't ask why--I'm switching to Linux ASAP), and the key mappings for MS Windows don't affect Exceed--although you can also set it to switch between QWERTY and DVORAK in similar fashion. So for someone like me, a hardware solution might be nice, rather than toggling several different settings.
Not to name names too much, but at Ars Digita, which until recently had a fairly aggressive recruitment policy, there are no openings for development engineers at the moment. Granted, they are in web development, but a shortage of openings there and at related companies must be having some kind of effect on the job market overall...
just my 0.02...
Two consulting companies which friends of mine work or worked for have each laid off web development people in the triple digits within the past month. I believe that in both cases, this included programmers. My roommate's company, which is exclusively devoted to web development, has put a hiring freeze on programmers.
A fourth company I know of is suffering from lost business, because even though big corporations still want good websites, with the .coms failing, there is less pressure on them to get them out there. So there will be business in the next 2-3 years for web development from the big companies, but it won't match the boom we've already had.
If this is the anecdotal evidence I have on hand, it makes me wonder how bad the overall scene is. I think that the HR departments for "solid" tech companies must be getting swamped with resumes from all the people losing work from the .coms. If I weren't looking for work at the same time, I would find it merely interesting...
Read the deposition here.
Here's a link to a Guardian(UK) story talking about long-term changes...hope people find it informative... http://ww w.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4 052241,00.html
Basically these scientists have taken core samples off the ocean floor which go back 60 million years, and measured the amount of carbonic acid stored in seashells at all levels, which is a fairly reliable indicator of how much CO2 is in the atmosphere. Their finding: the last time CO2 levels were as high as they currently are was 20 million years ago. Just another datum, but a bit longer-range than the recorded weather history.
Taken with everything else, I'm concerned...
I just finished reading Accidental Empires, and quite liked it. One of the things I really enjoyed were the anecdotes about industry leaders, like Bill Gates trying(and failing) to talk with black guys on a street corner. Do you have any new ones that you'd like to share?
In the past, the government has shown willingness to subsidize art via the NEA. Now certainly art and code are (somewhat) different things, but I really can't see how subsidizing OS projects would be detrimental to the community, and it would provide a more useful function than art(apologies to any art lovers).
In a similar vein, tons of academic computer projects are subsidized by government, including the military. If the government is willing to provide funding for all this, it surely should be happy to give some money to, say, Debian or Helixcode(for support of GNOME) among others. And think how much that would benefit the general public. The government may do some really stupid things sometimes, and has the power to do even more, but giving open source a gentle shove in the form of financial backing cannot be entirely harmful.