I buy my dead-tree books used at brick+mortar used bookstores. I often pay cash because they're only a couple of bucks usually and I tend to have a couple of bucks on me. So: not noted. I'm not going out of my way to prevent the Big Brothers of industry and gov't from tracking my reading habits, yet. I'm just a cheap bastard and I like the character of physical books. This article is giving me another reason to become an exclusive cash+used-book buyer. I can see no attributes of ebook readers or ebooks that add value to ME over paper books, and they will only continue to mutate into privacy viruses.
What I'll do when dead-tree books are killed off, I don't know.
I can't wait for the reviewers to test the Frictionless Surface model. After trying to keep it in their laps, after trying to type on *that* keyboard, they'll have a few choice words for M$.
Government creates freedoms, it doesn't take them away. I'm free to walk down the street without the fear of getting mugged in most places because We The People have pooled our resources via the governnment to make the streets safe. I have the freedom to be unafraid of acquiring a large number of infectious diseases that my parents and grandparents did not have the freedom to ignore, because We The People pooled our resources to fund medical research into these diseases. Like many in the US, I would like our government to invest our resources into creating more freedoms for us.
Which is not to say that it doesn't have to mend its ways in other areas, such as eliminating the current policy of Never-Ending War.
The key may be, along with learning the hot skill of the moment (another poster suggested mobile apps which is probably hottest now), to seek out remote work, where, if you only reveal your most recent experience, The Man doesn't generally know how old you are. There's a fair amount of it out there - keep an eye on the news.ycombinator.com forums among other places. I see a lot of work-from-anywhere mobile gigs. Also, small companies - startups especially - want cheap hackers but they also have very short time horizons. The company could be gone in six months and has better things to worry about than your retirement plans if any.
You got the dick option? I could only afford a dongle though later I bought a USB extender for it but it didn't do anything.
That sounds like serious surgery on the T60, and in the end you'll have a machine with a monster LCD(ick) but with a weakling physique behind it. I'm not sure that will impress the ladies though you can never tell with them.
This panel I got was a drop-in replacement for the original WSXGA+ panel that I wrecked. No, when this dies I'll probably replace it with one of the the 32-core, 64G machines they're pushing then, or whatever's at the sweet spot of the price/perf curve, and put up with the shitty 1920x1080 display or whatever fucked-up resolution the The Market dictates at the time.
I've got 1900x1200 on my Inspiron 6400. I'll do everything I can to keep this thing alive, put up with the speed and lack of memory, just to have this native resolution. I code, and vertical resolution is very important.
Scala rocks. Scala + Play rocks even more.
Coming from Java, it's kind of a toss-up to me whether Scala+Play or Python+Django would be more work to wrap one's mind around. I suspect that the latter might be less mind-bending. Both Scala and Python are beautiful languages, Django is very mature, and Play *feels* like "Django on the JVM" to me.
+1 on Play. +1 on Scala too but, coming purely from Java (as I once was) that's a bit to bite off *on top of* a whole new web framework. Play is fantastic.
Are you looking for Dick Tracy-wear, or would you consider uber-retro geek? You can find stand-out vintage watches, even mechanical ones, with lots of dials and gimmickry. I haven't looked recently, but I imagine that you can still find yourself a fancy, vintage, atomic-age chronograph with a radium dial that will eventually give you superhero powers (think Hulk) and in the meantime will set off every radiation-detector in your city.
++Agree. Antique, or antique-ish mechanical watches can be really beautiful, and it's not often, other than your 20-year-old nerd trade-show T-shirts (I have drawers full) that you get to wear a piece of history. It'll take a while to find something nice though - you'll have to go to a lot of antique/junk shops, comb a lot of craigslist ads. At one point I'd scoured fleaBay but prices are crazy and half the stuff is probably fake. I realize this is not what the OP is after at this point though. I wonder if there's vintage nerdware watches to be had. Red LEDs!
The vertical resoultion is a big issue for this developer too. I'm used to 1920x1200 on my 24" desktop display. My old Inspiron 6400 with its WSXGA+ (1680x1050) was usable, but barely so, for exteneded serious hacking sessions. When I somehow mashed the screen and damaged it recently, I started looking for a replacement and there were very few 1920x1200 laptops to be found anywhere. I don't know why, because the panels are readily available it seems. I got a new 1920x1200 panel off fleaBay and it turned out, happily, to be a drop-in replacement for the old.
No, cassette tape is not yet "in" (but I'm waiting, with a drawer full of 90min chrome), but these are:
http://digitize.textfiles.com/items/1983-alloy-computer-products/
Maybe Alloy, the engineering company, not the distributor, will rise from the dead so that I can finally back up my Winchester disk again.
Somewhat OT, but I was a DDG user not long ago until switching to Startpage. With the latter I get Google-based searches while avoiding at least some of G's privacy invasions. And their optional proxy is cool. I wasn't aware that DDG was using Bing. I would think that M$ and Google would not be happy with these alternative services leeching off them.
I've had Sprint and Virgin Mobile (same network) forever and while I don't have any problems in cities, their coverage elsewhere blows. Five or ten miles outside the city (of Spokane) and I'm SOL, never mind that their coverage map shows coverage all along the major highways here. Sprint, Virgin, phone maker A or phone maker B, didn't matter, same crap coverage. Fortunately I'm in the city 99.9% of the time and furthermore, the VM low-cost, all-you-can-eat (data/SMS) deal is hard to beat.
I'm not sure how you meant this, but I can easily imagine that if you gave the average person a few reasons to like such a PFIC, they'd be happy to own one or two of them and have them floating around 24/7 despite the fact that the devices were transmitting a constant stream of information to "the authorities". Maybe the PFIC would cause doors to open for you, or would fly into Starbucks and get your triple-chocolcate-sauce-and-whipped-cream ultra-humungus-ay "cup of coffee" for you so you wouldn't have to roll out of your SUV and waddle in? What's a little Big-Brothering compared to that, the convenience if it, the time-saving!? Your GPS location would be recorded continually and displayed on your very own Facebook timeline, no need for you to lift a finger. Indispensable.
I've been hoping to one day move there too, partly for the grandeur of the land but mostly for the spirit of freedom that you mention. And for the fact that their tax dollars mostly stay at home rather than funding never-ending foreign wars. I'm concerned however that things might be going the wrong way in Kanuckistan... politics getting more right-wing, corporate power increasing... Quebec secession might start to look like a smart move for its citizens. Except that then it won't have an MLB team.
I have not had a TV in something like eight years now, and by coincidence just canceled my Comcast broadband account to move to the local DSL provider. In theory (and I DO mean theory) I'll be getting 2x the bandwidth at 1/2 the cost. I've only ever had one cable data provider, and that is Comcast, and while the service was always OK, they've long left something of a bad taste in my mouth. Two reasons, first, all the times I've called to cancel only to have them fill my ear with abject FUD about the allegedly poor quality of service with DSL and the alleged poor support I'lll get from the provider - claims that the average consumer would not understand are FUD. Second, their willingness in the end to cut my rate by 40-50% in order to retain me as a customer, which shows the obscene profit they're making off me in the first place. From TFA - "Cable's broadband gross margins are about 95 percent".
I realize that Comcast is not one of the companies mentioned that are considering the new pricing structure, but you've got to figure it's coming.
Slashdot Mirror
I buy my dead-tree books used at brick+mortar used bookstores. I often pay cash because they're only a couple of bucks usually and I tend to have a couple of bucks on me. So: not noted. I'm not going out of my way to prevent the Big Brothers of industry and gov't from tracking my reading habits, yet. I'm just a cheap bastard and I like the character of physical books. This article is giving me another reason to become an exclusive cash+used-book buyer. I can see no attributes of ebook readers or ebooks that add value to ME over paper books, and they will only continue to mutate into privacy viruses.
What I'll do when dead-tree books are killed off, I don't know.
I can't wait for the reviewers to test the Frictionless Surface model. After trying to keep it in their laps, after trying to type on *that* keyboard, they'll have a few choice words for M$.
Don't forget Germany. A shambles I tell you.
Government creates freedoms, it doesn't take them away. I'm free to walk down the street without the fear of getting mugged in most places because We The People have pooled our resources via the governnment to make the streets safe. I have the freedom to be unafraid of acquiring a large number of infectious diseases that my parents and grandparents did not have the freedom to ignore, because We The People pooled our resources to fund medical research into these diseases. Like many in the US, I would like our government to invest our resources into creating more freedoms for us.
Which is not to say that it doesn't have to mend its ways in other areas, such as eliminating the current policy of Never-Ending War.
Our solution to all our hiring, has been to focus on finding youth...
In other words, assuming that you're in the US, you've been focusing on illegal age discrimination. http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm
It's "plural", not "plutal". Pedantry Fail. Just a heads up so you don't look like such a clown in the future.
The key may be, along with learning the hot skill of the moment (another poster suggested mobile apps which is probably hottest now), to seek out remote work, where, if you only reveal your most recent experience, The Man doesn't generally know how old you are. There's a fair amount of it out there - keep an eye on the news.ycombinator.com forums among other places. I see a lot of work-from-anywhere mobile gigs. Also, small companies - startups especially - want cheap hackers but they also have very short time horizons. The company could be gone in six months and has better things to worry about than your retirement plans if any.
You got the dick option? I could only afford a dongle though later I bought a USB extender for it but it didn't do anything. That sounds like serious surgery on the T60, and in the end you'll have a machine with a monster LCD(ick) but with a weakling physique behind it. I'm not sure that will impress the ladies though you can never tell with them. This panel I got was a drop-in replacement for the original WSXGA+ panel that I wrecked. No, when this dies I'll probably replace it with one of the the 32-core, 64G machines they're pushing then, or whatever's at the sweet spot of the price/perf curve, and put up with the shitty 1920x1080 display or whatever fucked-up resolution the The Market dictates at the time.
I've got 1900x1200 on my Inspiron 6400. I'll do everything I can to keep this thing alive, put up with the speed and lack of memory, just to have this native resolution. I code, and vertical resolution is very important.
Scala rocks. Scala + Play rocks even more. Coming from Java, it's kind of a toss-up to me whether Scala+Play or Python+Django would be more work to wrap one's mind around. I suspect that the latter might be less mind-bending. Both Scala and Python are beautiful languages, Django is very mature, and Play *feels* like "Django on the JVM" to me.
+1 on Play. +1 on Scala too but, coming purely from Java (as I once was) that's a bit to bite off *on top of* a whole new web framework. Play is fantastic.
I have warned Canadian friends of this very threat & to keep a wary eye on the south.
Are you looking for Dick Tracy-wear, or would you consider uber-retro geek? You can find stand-out vintage watches, even mechanical ones, with lots of dials and gimmickry. I haven't looked recently, but I imagine that you can still find yourself a fancy, vintage, atomic-age chronograph with a radium dial that will eventually give you superhero powers (think Hulk) and in the meantime will set off every radiation-detector in your city.
++Agree. Antique, or antique-ish mechanical watches can be really beautiful, and it's not often, other than your 20-year-old nerd trade-show T-shirts (I have drawers full) that you get to wear a piece of history. It'll take a while to find something nice though - you'll have to go to a lot of antique/junk shops, comb a lot of craigslist ads. At one point I'd scoured fleaBay but prices are crazy and half the stuff is probably fake. I realize this is not what the OP is after at this point though. I wonder if there's vintage nerdware watches to be had. Red LEDs!
Crap and I just wasted all my mod points earlier today. Well, +1 Insightful for you.
The vertical resoultion is a big issue for this developer too. I'm used to 1920x1200 on my 24" desktop display. My old Inspiron 6400 with its WSXGA+ (1680x1050) was usable, but barely so, for exteneded serious hacking sessions. When I somehow mashed the screen and damaged it recently, I started looking for a replacement and there were very few 1920x1200 laptops to be found anywhere. I don't know why, because the panels are readily available it seems. I got a new 1920x1200 panel off fleaBay and it turned out, happily, to be a drop-in replacement for the old.
No, cassette tape is not yet "in" (but I'm waiting, with a drawer full of 90min chrome), but these are: http://digitize.textfiles.com/items/1983-alloy-computer-products/ Maybe Alloy, the engineering company, not the distributor, will rise from the dead so that I can finally back up my Winchester disk again.
Somewhat OT, but I was a DDG user not long ago until switching to Startpage. With the latter I get Google-based searches while avoiding at least some of G's privacy invasions. And their optional proxy is cool. I wasn't aware that DDG was using Bing. I would think that M$ and Google would not be happy with these alternative services leeching off them.
I've had Sprint and Virgin Mobile (same network) forever and while I don't have any problems in cities, their coverage elsewhere blows. Five or ten miles outside the city (of Spokane) and I'm SOL, never mind that their coverage map shows coverage all along the major highways here. Sprint, Virgin, phone maker A or phone maker B, didn't matter, same crap coverage. Fortunately I'm in the city 99.9% of the time and furthermore, the VM low-cost, all-you-can-eat (data/SMS) deal is hard to beat.
Devastating.
Oh the humanity!
I'm not sure how you meant this, but I can easily imagine that if you gave the average person a few reasons to like such a PFIC, they'd be happy to own one or two of them and have them floating around 24/7 despite the fact that the devices were transmitting a constant stream of information to "the authorities". Maybe the PFIC would cause doors to open for you, or would fly into Starbucks and get your triple-chocolcate-sauce-and-whipped-cream ultra-humungus-ay "cup of coffee" for you so you wouldn't have to roll out of your SUV and waddle in? What's a little Big-Brothering compared to that, the convenience if it, the time-saving!? Your GPS location would be recorded continually and displayed on your very own Facebook timeline, no need for you to lift a finger. Indispensable.
I've been hoping to one day move there too, partly for the grandeur of the land but mostly for the spirit of freedom that you mention. And for the fact that their tax dollars mostly stay at home rather than funding never-ending foreign wars. I'm concerned however that things might be going the wrong way in Kanuckistan ... politics getting more right-wing, corporate power increasing... Quebec secession might start to look like a smart move for its citizens. Except that then it won't have an MLB team.
I have not had a TV in something like eight years now, and by coincidence just canceled my Comcast broadband account to move to the local DSL provider. In theory (and I DO mean theory) I'll be getting 2x the bandwidth at 1/2 the cost. I've only ever had one cable data provider, and that is Comcast, and while the service was always OK, they've long left something of a bad taste in my mouth. Two reasons, first, all the times I've called to cancel only to have them fill my ear with abject FUD about the allegedly poor quality of service with DSL and the alleged poor support I'lll get from the provider - claims that the average consumer would not understand are FUD. Second, their willingness in the end to cut my rate by 40-50% in order to retain me as a customer, which shows the obscene profit they're making off me in the first place. From TFA - "Cable's broadband gross margins are about 95 percent". I realize that Comcast is not one of the companies mentioned that are considering the new pricing structure, but you've got to figure it's coming.
Curious: if the last situation that you mention is the case, who would they be in trouble *with* ?
There's got to be a massive fine coming for this.