Developers seem just as unwilling to understand the business side as the business side seems unwilling to understand developers. Both camps benefit from understanding the other
Yup. I was lucky in that my first job out of school included a heavy dose of customer support, a lot of contact with "management" and even order-taking (it was a ~10 person operation). Although I absolutely hated it at the time, I now realize it made me a better developer and gave me a much wider perspective on technology business as a whole. 15 years later, at a multibillion dollar corp, part of my job is supporting internal customers and occasionally external beta test users. It's eye-opening to see how they view the machines vs. how we, the developers do. It's difficult to be a good high-level developer without a lot of domain knowledge and an understanding of how the product will be used. For low-level, bit-twiddling stuff you can just sit in a corner all day and never talk to anyone.
I'm not familiar with the chip you used, but there are more available alternatives. Digi-Key has the ISDxxx parts from Information Storage Devices(? i think that's their name) that are analog sound recorders and quite easy to use: just add mic and speaker and a few passive components et voila. I haven't played with them in years, but back then they were $10 for 30 seconds of sound. Bandwidth is suitable for speech or very simple music.
Now you've put ideas in my head. My son has some toys with really annoying voices/sounds that should be replaced. And I know I have a few of those ISD chips in my junk box...
I can see that the typical slashdotter has more interest in making a possibly snide/cute/humorous/clever remark about Grant's lessons in the IT business than putting it to use. How sad.
But not surprising. I'm sometimes amazed by the level of venom unleashed against non-technical people here. There are quite a few/.ers who use their technical skills to "validate" their supposed superiority. An article that focuses on the human, rather than the technical, aspects of being in business for oneself gives them a lot of ammunition. I for one love these types of articles. It's interesting to see a different perspective and observe how people turn knowledge of technology into money. Then again, I subscribe to misc.entrepreneurs.moderated:-)
a) Find out the prevailing rate and discount it by 30% or so b) Find out how much the average auto shop charges and set your rate within $10/hour of theirs. What you do is at least as skilled as a mechanic's job and you're working at a billing level that people are used to.
Don't be afraid to charge heavily for work you enjoy. I like my job, but if they stopped paying me, I'd be gone the next day!
What kind of CAD? I downloaded the free version of Cadsoft Eagle PCB/Schematic editor. It looks nice, but I haven't actually designed any boards with it just yet... I got stuck trying to define an unusual SMT package.
Airplanes crash, yet millions still take planes to places they could drive. People still pay for "fun flights" in aerobatic airplanes. In the early days of aviation, crashes were common. The same is probably going to happen with private space travel. And of course the governments will regulate it for safety. Why wouldn't they? Businesses (like the one I work for) cross regulatory hurdles every day. We have an entire department devoted to satisfying gov't regulations.
I'm not disagreeing with you, just showing that it's really not an unexpected outcome, and the businesses will take it in stride.
It makes me wonder why the military has less stringent requirements
My understanding, from someone who used to design avionics, is that the military is willing to accept a certain percentage of failures in exchange for high performance (cost/benefit). After all, even without system failure, pilots crash all the time in training.
In civilian airliners, on the other hand, any fault that leads to loss of life is unacceptable.
My first thought on reading that it came with software for viewing the images was that it's only a matter of time until someone sniffs the connection between camera and PC and... goodbye disposable, hello cheap $10.99 camera:-)
Not that it matters, Office Max has $11 USB digital cameras, tho I can't make mine work under Linux.
It's a programming tool. By design its output is expected to be distributed -- except in the case of the Educational versions that don't allow commercial use. For Microsoft (or any other toolmaker) to claim that after the fact is like Stanley Toolworks claiming that since you built a house using one of their hammers and sold it to someone, that means they can put a lien on that house. I'd like to see that stand up in court.
That said, there are some DLLs that come with Visual Studio that can't be redistributed. I don't remember where the list is, but I do remember coming across it a long time ago.
Thanks for the Safari reference. Hadn't explored the O'Reilly site enough to have found it before.
Generally speaking, if I need a book, I'd prefer to purchase a bound paper volume. It's just easier to read. Ideally, it would also come with a CD rom so I could search for certain text, etc.
As I think more deeply about this, I wonder how my views would change if I had a flat, light, high-resolution reader that removed the requirement for a paper volume, as it would more closely approximate how I read books (i.e., no desktop/hot, heavy laptop needed). Then "free" online versions start to look more appealing.
In the end, though, I think Tim O is right. I'd end up just paying for the publisher's electronic copies to save time & effort. I have a grand total of 3 songs and a few games I got off Kazaa. Two of the songs I plan on buying the CDs for in part cause the MP3 encoding sucks, & in part because I just want more by those artists. The third is just a song I had an urge to hear one night and lost interest in immediately. The games are from the Commander Keen series because after reading the Masters of Doom (heard about on/.) book about Carmack and id, I wanted to see what the game looked like. My point is that even though I can get music and software (and porn:0) free from Kazaa, my time is valuable enough that it's cheaper for me to just go to known places where I can pay money and get exactly what I need with minimal effort and time expenditure. So, even if as the OP said, O'Reilly's copyrighted works were free on Kazaa, and I could read them on a paper-like screen, I'd just buy them legally. Were I still a poor undergraduate, my priorities would probably be a lot different.
What would that prove? That his sales would increase? I, and I imagine most of his target customers, would just use that to preview books that otherwise we wouldn't want to risk buying and not like. Most people with the money to afford books they need prefer physical copies and don't want to be bothered using up toner/ink & paper to end up with poorly bound imitations of a professionally done volume. Look at the success of Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java & Thinking in C++, both available free on his website. I can't remember how many people I've told to go to the site to read the volumes online to see if they like them. I don't know a single person who uses the website/downloads as their primary copy and I do know other people who have purchased the published versions based on his online content. I wish all booksellers would have content online. Even if it's just every other chapter. I'd buy a lot more books then.
Cars, computers, TVs, and pretty much everything else except for housing and food will cost around the same as it does in the USA
Yeah, but you don't need a new car, computer or TV every month: you could just save up for it. But you do have to pay rent/mortgage and eat every month, and those recurring costs tend to be the most important.
. I think Micheal Moore is 90% bullsh*t, but he's right about what happened to the economy there when automation, globalization, and foreign competition came to the American auto worker.
Yes, but they were either blind to the coming change, or ignored it. A similar (in some respects) change is happening to the IT industry. I am a software engineer who develops medical instruments. It's unlikely that my job is going to be farmed out to India any time soon. What with the developer needing a $100,000+ piece of machinery to test on, plus all the mechanical and electrical engineers I need to interact with, it would be pretty expensive to ship a job like that overseas. But I still pay attention to the programmer jobs moving abroad adn try to understand the reasons for it because I don't want to wake up one day and discover that my profession doesn't exist any more, or that my usefulness to it has ended. I constantly update my knowledge and value with training so I remain flexible in the job market. The point I'm trying to make is that everything changes; adapt or die.
Some of the ideas espoused in the article are things I have thought about. The instruments we write code for automate medical/hospital labs. While they make the lab workers tremendously productive and significantly reduce the chance of error, I'm sure they also put more than a few out of work. The techs can probably be retrained or find new jobs easily, but I do wonder if they're nervous when this 800lb monster is wheeled into their workplace for the first time. On the other hand, we have had to hugely ramp up hiring for manufacturing techs to build these things, customer service techs to answer operator questions, and service reps to go install and service them. I think this is the pattern you'll see with most new robotics and automation devices.
I think you're insane and will be sadly disappointed.
Just couldn't let that one go. I think he has a great sense of adventure and I wish him an amazing journey. Too many people sit around bemoaning their piss-poor boring lives, yet do nothing about it. I have never backpacked anywhere, but: he could take buses (a la Greyhound), trains, talk to truckers in truckstops: often they welcome someone to keep them company as they drive hundreds of miles. THe net is your friend: see if you can find a college student travelling home/to school to share travel expenses with. Make online friends and visit them (I have a rather slutty friend who would meet guys online to visit in person during her business trips so she didn't have to explore a strange city alone -- worked for her anyway). America is a lot less dangerous on a one-on-one level than our media likes to make out, but common sense and due caution is a must for all travelers everywhere.
ob geek suggestions: visit the Museum of Nat. History in NYC, but give it at least a full day to get through. The USS Intrepid WWII/Korea era carrier is a floating museum in NY harbor.
What kind of things do you expect to see in a programming language that are there for the user's benefit, where "user" is not defined as "the programmer"???
Only problem is, how do I reduce 84 switches down to 10 wires? There must be another component out there that does things like this.
Two words: shift registers. Reduce 84+ switches to 2 I/O lines (3 for safety -- I'd never design a circuit without a reset). I'll even be nice and look in the basement for a handful if you want to pay the postage:-)
Sell uncompressed audio and I'd buy it. I have no interest in MP3 as I can't play it in my CD player car or home, or DVD player and I'm not going to change them just for that purpose. My home audio system is orders of magnitude better than the speakers on the computers, so I won't play MP3s there either. But very often I've wished I could just buy a song I liked without the entire album. I can burn it onto a CD myself (CD single) or get enough of them and make my own album. Don't need liner notes, artwork, etc. We have 500+ CDs and no longer store them in the jewel case as it takes up too much room.
I'd love to hire a whole bunch of experts like this -- but in the current industry climate, I believe it might be difficult to find such a person who is willing to take a risk with a start-up that gives away the recipe for free:).
Are you at or near a university? Can you contact any grad. business students (MBA)? You might find, esp. in the MBA students, a body with experience in sales or marketing, or at least knowledge of both, looking to get experience the same way programmers do OSS work for the resume credits. I'm sure you can find a few people willing to do marketing work on a contingency, or "work" for you as a project in their coursework. Be imaginative and remember that the "OSS programmer mentality" exists in other fields as well.
Be sure you know exactly why they are buying you out. Does it really make sense? By that I mean do the acquirers know what they're doing? When the (under 10 employees) company I was working for was acquired, the owner's response was a succinct "These guys are idiots. If I could raise that kind of money I'd start my own company." He realized he was being offered a good deal and took the money and ran. The rest of us didn't make out quite so well! He was right: they had no knowledge of the business, ignored the advice of all the employees who had been there for years and ran the company into the ground. A common request when these things happen is that you're asked to sign an employment contract so they know the important talent just won't quit. Don't bother! If you're that valuable, they're not likely to fire you anyway and the contract is unlikely to offer you anything you need. Request an immediate raise and if it isn't offered, start looking elsewhere. Not treasury stock, not stock options -- cash!!
One thing I learned from the experience is just how easy it is to take a profitable, smoothly run company and start hemorrhaging money from every orifice within months. If the business takes a direction that doesn't make sense, ask for an explanation. If one isn't forthcoming, start looking elsewhere. The place you may have enjoyed working for can do a 180 within weeks.
It'd be much cooler to just strap a segway to a regular mower though. For both designs the auto balancing isn't needed.
Or a remote-controlled mower. I thought of fully automating my mower, but dealing with the safety issues of an unattended 5hp motor spinning a sharp blade isn't worth the effort for something I do about once every 10 days. However, by radio control, safety is easier to deal with and it goes from being an annoying, sweaty chore to an entertaining one. The only problem I foresee is steering -- at the end of a strip, I turn my mower around by pivoting it on its rear wheels. To emulate this, I'd need skid-steering or other turn-in-place method. What I really need is to find a cheap $30 mower I can work on so my regular one isn't out of commission while (if:-) I build the project
Slashdot Mirror
Yup. I was lucky in that my first job out of school included a heavy dose of customer support, a lot of contact with "management" and even order-taking (it was a ~10 person operation). Although I absolutely hated it at the time, I now realize it made me a better developer and gave me a much wider perspective on technology business as a whole. 15 years later, at a multibillion dollar corp, part of my job is supporting internal customers and occasionally external beta test users. It's eye-opening to see how they view the machines vs. how we, the developers do. It's difficult to be a good high-level developer without a lot of domain knowledge and an understanding of how the product will be used. For low-level, bit-twiddling stuff you can just sit in a corner all day and never talk to anyone.
Yes, but that's beside the point. He said it couldn't be done; not that it could be done, but you'd have to charge an arm and a leg.
I'm not familiar with the chip you used, but there are more available alternatives. Digi-Key has the ISDxxx parts from Information Storage Devices(? i think that's their name) that are analog sound recorders and quite easy to use: just add mic and speaker and a few passive components et voila. I haven't played with them in years, but back then they were $10 for 30 seconds of sound. Bandwidth is suitable for speech or very simple music.
Now you've put ideas in my head. My son has some toys with really annoying voices/sounds that should be replaced. And I know I have a few of those ISD chips in my junk box...
But not surprising. I'm sometimes amazed by the level of venom unleashed against non-technical people here. There are quite a few
I for one love these types of articles. It's interesting to see a different perspective and observe how people turn knowledge of technology into money. Then again, I subscribe to misc.entrepreneurs.moderated
That's odd. Lawyers seem to manage just fine.
a) Find out the prevailing rate and discount it by 30% or so
b) Find out how much the average auto shop charges and set your rate within $10/hour of theirs. What you do is at least as skilled as a mechanic's job and you're working at a billing level that people are used to.
Don't be afraid to charge heavily for work you enjoy. I like my job, but if they stopped paying me, I'd be gone the next day!
What kind of CAD? I downloaded the free version of Cadsoft Eagle PCB/Schematic editor. It looks nice, but I haven't actually designed any boards with it just yet... I got stuck trying to define an unusual SMT package.
Airplanes crash, yet millions still take planes to places they could drive. People still pay for "fun flights" in aerobatic airplanes. In the early days of aviation, crashes were common. The same is probably going to happen with private space travel. And of course the governments will regulate it for safety. Why wouldn't they? Businesses (like the one I work for) cross regulatory hurdles every day. We have an entire department devoted to satisfying gov't regulations.
I'm not disagreeing with you, just showing that it's really not an unexpected outcome, and the businesses will take it in stride.
My understanding, from someone who used to design avionics, is that the military is willing to accept a certain percentage of failures in exchange for high performance (cost/benefit). After all, even without system failure, pilots crash all the time in training.
In civilian airliners, on the other hand, any fault that leads to loss of life is unacceptable.
My first thought on reading that it came with software for viewing the images was that it's only a matter of time until someone sniffs the connection between camera and PC and ... goodbye disposable, hello cheap $10.99 camera :-)
Not that it matters, Office Max has $11 USB digital cameras, tho I can't make mine work under Linux.
It's a programming tool. By design its output is expected to be distributed -- except in the case of the Educational versions that don't allow commercial use. For Microsoft (or any other toolmaker) to claim that after the fact is like Stanley Toolworks claiming that since you built a house using one of their hammers and sold it to someone, that means they can put a lien on that house. I'd like to see that stand up in court.
That said, there are some DLLs that come with Visual Studio that can't be redistributed. I don't remember where the list is, but I do remember coming across it a long time ago.
So what's wrong with that? I entered the exact thing into Google and most of the hits on the first page were
Go figure.
Thanks for the Safari reference. Hadn't explored the O'Reilly site enough to have found it before.
/.) book about Carmack and id, I wanted to see what the game looked like. :0) free from Kazaa, my time is valuable enough that it's cheaper for me to just go to known places where I can pay money and get exactly what I need with minimal effort and time expenditure. So, even if as the OP said, O'Reilly's copyrighted works were free on Kazaa, and I could read them on a paper-like screen, I'd just buy them legally. Were I still a poor undergraduate, my priorities would probably be a lot different.
Generally speaking, if I need a book, I'd prefer to purchase a bound paper volume. It's just easier to read. Ideally, it would also come with a CD rom so I could search for certain text, etc.
As I think more deeply about this, I wonder how my views would change if I had a flat, light, high-resolution reader that removed the requirement for a paper volume, as it would more closely approximate how I read books (i.e., no desktop/hot, heavy laptop needed). Then "free" online versions start to look more appealing.
In the end, though, I think Tim O is right. I'd end up just paying for the publisher's electronic copies to save time & effort. I have a grand total of 3 songs and a few games I got off Kazaa. Two of the songs I plan on buying the CDs for in part cause the MP3 encoding sucks, & in part because I just want more by those artists. The third is just a song I had an urge to hear one night and lost interest in immediately. The games are from the Commander Keen series because after reading the Masters of Doom (heard about on
My point is that even though I can get music and software (and porn
What would that prove? That his sales would increase? I, and I imagine most of his target customers, would just use that to preview books that otherwise we wouldn't want to risk buying and not like. Most people with the money to afford books they need prefer physical copies and don't want to be bothered using up toner/ink & paper to end up with poorly bound imitations of a professionally done volume. Look at the success of Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java & Thinking in C++, both available free on his website. I can't remember how many people I've told to go to the site to read the volumes online to see if they like them. I don't know a single person who uses the website/downloads as their primary copy and I do know other people who have purchased the published versions based on his online content.
I wish all booksellers would have content online. Even if it's just every other chapter. I'd buy a lot more books then.
Yeah, but you don't need a new car, computer or TV every month: you could just save up for it. But you do have to pay rent/mortgage and eat every month, and those recurring costs tend to be the most important.
$200 a day??? Why not just get a plumber's license and charge $80/hour?
Yes, but they were either blind to the coming change, or ignored it. A similar (in some respects) change is happening to the IT industry. I am a software engineer who develops medical instruments. It's unlikely that my job is going to be farmed out to India any time soon. What with the developer needing a $100,000+ piece of machinery to test on, plus all the mechanical and electrical engineers I need to interact with, it would be pretty expensive to ship a job like that overseas. But I still pay attention to the programmer jobs moving abroad adn try to understand the reasons for it because I don't want to wake up one day and discover that my profession doesn't exist any more, or that my usefulness to it has ended. I constantly update my knowledge and value with training so I remain flexible in the job market. The point I'm trying to make is that everything changes; adapt or die.
Some of the ideas espoused in the article are things I have thought about. The instruments we write code for automate medical/hospital labs. While they make the lab workers tremendously productive and significantly reduce the chance of error, I'm sure they also put more than a few out of work. The techs can probably be retrained or find new jobs easily, but I do wonder if they're nervous when this 800lb monster is wheeled into their workplace for the first time.
On the other hand, we have had to hugely ramp up hiring for manufacturing techs to build these things, customer service techs to answer operator questions, and service reps to go install and service them. I think this is the pattern you'll see with most new robotics and automation devices.
Just couldn't let that one go. I think he has a great sense of adventure and I wish him an amazing journey. Too many people sit around bemoaning their piss-poor boring lives, yet do nothing about it.
I have never backpacked anywhere, but: he could take buses (a la Greyhound), trains, talk to truckers in truckstops: often they welcome someone to keep them company as they drive hundreds of miles. THe net is your friend: see if you can find a college student travelling home/to school to share travel expenses with. Make online friends and visit them (I have a rather slutty friend who would meet guys online to visit in person during her business trips so she didn't have to explore a strange city alone -- worked for her anyway).
America is a lot less dangerous on a one-on-one level than our media likes to make out, but common sense and due caution is a must for all travelers everywhere.
ob geek suggestions: visit the Museum of Nat. History in NYC, but give it at least a full day to get through. The USS Intrepid WWII/Korea era carrier is a floating museum in NY harbor.
What kind of things do you expect to see in a programming language that are there for the user's benefit, where "user" is not defined as "the programmer"???
Two words: shift registers. Reduce 84+ switches to 2 I/O lines (3 for safety -- I'd never design a circuit without a reset). I'll even be nice and look in the basement for a handful if you want to pay the postage
Sell uncompressed audio and I'd buy it. I have no interest in MP3 as I can't play it in my CD player car or home, or DVD player and I'm not going to change them just for that purpose. My home audio system is orders of magnitude better than the speakers on the computers, so I won't play MP3s there either.
But very often I've wished I could just buy a song I liked without the entire album. I can burn it onto a CD myself (CD single) or get enough of them and make my own album. Don't need liner notes, artwork, etc. We have 500+ CDs and no longer store them in the jewel case as it takes up too much room.
Are you at or near a university? Can you contact any grad. business students (MBA)? You might find, esp. in the MBA students, a body with experience in sales or marketing, or at least knowledge of both, looking to get experience the same way programmers do OSS work for the resume credits. I'm sure you can find a few people willing to do marketing work on a contingency, or "work" for you as a project in their coursework. Be imaginative and remember that the "OSS programmer mentality" exists in other fields as well.
Be sure you know exactly why they are buying you out. Does it really make sense? By that I mean do the acquirers know what they're doing?
When the (under 10 employees) company I was working for was acquired, the owner's response was a succinct "These guys are idiots. If I could raise that kind of money I'd start my own company." He realized he was being offered a good deal and took the money and ran. The rest of us didn't make out quite so well! He was right: they had no knowledge of the business, ignored the advice of all the employees who had been there for years and ran the company into the ground.
A common request when these things happen is that you're asked to sign an employment contract so they know the important talent just won't quit. Don't bother! If you're that valuable, they're not likely to fire you anyway and the contract is unlikely to offer you anything you need. Request an immediate raise and if it isn't offered, start looking elsewhere. Not treasury stock, not stock options -- cash!!
One thing I learned from the experience is just how easy it is to take a profitable, smoothly run company and start hemorrhaging money from every orifice within months.
If the business takes a direction that doesn't make sense, ask for an explanation. If one isn't forthcoming, start looking elsewhere. The place you may have enjoyed working for can do a 180 within weeks.
Or a remote-controlled mower. I thought of fully automating my mower, but dealing with the safety issues of an unattended 5hp motor spinning a sharp blade isn't worth the effort for something I do about once every 10 days. However, by radio control, safety is easier to deal with and it goes from being an annoying, sweaty chore to an entertaining one. The only problem I foresee is steering -- at the end of a strip, I turn my mower around by pivoting it on its rear wheels. To emulate this, I'd need skid-steering or other turn-in-place method.
What I really need is to find a cheap $30 mower I can work on so my regular one isn't out of commission while (if
It can push a 200+ lb adult around at 15mph and you're wondering if it can move a lawn mower?