As a graying 60 plus who also started with Z80 assembler then progressed through Forth, Fortran, Lisp and 7 other languages, I have considerable feel for your situation. However, having endured lots of online discussion about today's 'real programming jobs' being for younger folk, I regret to suggest that full employment is an unlikely outcome (if a nice dream) in the tight financial environment we have all been living through. But I have found personal renewal and significant career and financial payoff in iOS app development for publication, then cross-development for Android, although the iOS payoff has been nearly 10x greater than for a similar Android product. And as one of my renowned neuroscience mentors taught, learning difficult new skills is the best way to keep an aging brain healthy... Fortunately, programming isn't my main career, but my downsized programmer brother (over 10 years my junior) has also had significant recent success learning to program mobile apps (Android) bringing in new income and job prospects. We both started out trying to tap the still hot market for mobile devices, and it would seem a shame to ignore higher-level independent mobile developer prospects if you couldn't land a rare ARM assembly coding job with a commercial firm. But with about 90% of the current coding on my day job being for multi-device web applications (in a world where 20- and 30- something web designers are 'a dime a dozen'), staying flexible and diversified, finding a niche and evolving new applications for new technology seem to have been the most important strategies for long term survival as a programmer.
Oy! Mind meld, my recto-tectal tract! Functional assertions not withstanding, MRI derived blood flow and oxygen usage patterns are not algorithmically equatable with thought...
Existing MRI scanners are overwhelming auditory assault systems, and I can (in my sf-enthusiast imagination) conceive of no better way of limiting military drone pilot endurance than to link one to a state of the art MRI scanner. As if current Raptor trailer sessions probably don't produce enough "Hellfire" stress, in theory...
Of course, since the pop-sci overlay came first from a reputable sci pub, it must be gospel... Um torah...
Put me DOWN? Heh. Heh. How slow on the uptake do you have to be over 2K Km? The Israeli grad student and his institution clearly won this week's sci-hype contest.
Serious heavy metal jewelry: Solar powered quartz anatog-digital, multizone, with E6B flight computer (i.e. slide rule) bezel. No need to leave the smartphone behind, but wtf: this is a different kind of tech statement. Program something else. - ['DB]
OK Apple, here's your chance to serve all us other plebian drivers on the road!
Howsabout some Siri functionality to nag upper class (and wanna be) Benz drivers who behave as predicted by today's preceding PNAS study item (on unethical behavior in the upper class, including driving).
Shrill harridan warnings for running reds, being more than the second left turn after the red, egregious speeding, passing in the right turn lane on red lights, illegal u-turns, rolling non-stops at 4 way intersections, high-speed drafting/tailgating, etc.
Yeah, I 'spose that the Prius owners should pay extra, but upper class Land Rovers and Bimmers should get it as a stock option too...
Probally happen when St. Steve's widow puts plates on his silver SL...
Just finished teaching the units on male and female sexual development at a major medical school last week. Even my students know that you need part of the human Y chromosome (SRY gene) to make testes differentiate from primordial gonad tissue. It also makes the 'pre-Fallopian tubes' and what would become uterus and much of vagina (Mullerian duct system) "go away" in developing male fetuses. If SRY gene "jumps" to another chromosome, you don't get proper differentiation of gonads and genitalia. No SRY, general 'female type' morphogenesis. No Y, no sperm, no babies without cloning or parthenogenesis. Without the X and Y autosomes we really lose the basis for most human sexual reproduction... No fun (for standard hetero sex repro) even if you do like sci-fi and scenarios of massive gene and body engineering! Still I seem to recall one or two sci-fi Amazon (non-dot com) societies with parthenogenesis out there in the meta-universe.
If people were really interested in this functionality, they could share the library of IR control code audio files.
General musings on iPod recording capabilities etc (from one successfully using an MD Walkman for years of pro audio recording):
A) Wonder if the 8 Khz recording bandwidth of the iPod would be enough to record the IR pulses directly? (Lessee, I got a homebrew [Radio Shack plan and parts] IR detector around here, throw a 1/8" jack on the output and plug into the Belkin Universal Microphone Adapter for iPod....)
B) Bug Steve-o about the wisdom allowing 44.1 Khz stereo recording on iPod. What the hell, I'm gonna buy a high-end Sony Hi-MD Walkman ANYWAY since he won't go for it....
C) Four easy steps for making my professional school lectures available to students on-line: 1) Record lectures on iPod using lavalier mic; 2) Drop audio file and exported lecture Powerpoint JPEGs into iMovie; and 3) edit and export to CD or class Web server. 4) There is no step 4....
D) Of course, at 8 KHz the iPod recorded audio won't be as crisp as what I get off my MD Walkman. On the other hand, I eliminate the step of importing narrative audio files through a pro MD deck with optical S/PDIF outputs.
E) Yeah, Duke is SO lame for giving incoming students iPods;-) (Wonder if the radiologists in their medical school use iPods for carrying medical image files like our radiologists do?).
It doesn't look that different, heatsink-wise, from my current G5 dual (size about right, but the new heatsink enclosure appears to be one instead of two boxes). The old picture is for a single processor model.
However, looking closely, there doesn't seem to be a set of front fans in the processor air path of the new dual....
Trolling, "I don't get it", and humorous posts aside, here are some observations based on 6 years of supporting professional education, most recently on PDAs:
-For serious students, class schedules and other events can be distributed to calendars;
-Lectures can be recorded by the school or prof and distributed as MP3s (easiest method--MD recorder, digitize, load from Web server). This really works if lectures have real value;
-Audio class project assignments;
-Audio books are tough because there may be little incentive for academic publishers;
-iSync can help, though too bad there's no Web-clipping capability like AvantGo!
- text and notes can be distributed, but low information density has to be considered (Pod2Go).
Downsides: Even if people groove on the tunes (and it's a music class for Gen Y-ers) these things may not have a long lifetime if they are not more thoroughly integrated with new teaching methods and practices - lessons learned from Diffusion of Technology, by Everett Rogers.
Yo, Pudge: Keep an eye out for us for ANY benchmark numbers for serious PhotoShop, BLAST, Maya rendering jobs or the like on the gameboys' Rotten Apple. The Rotten paint job doesn't QUITE have me itching to pop an Alpha Screamer into my old Packard Bell TV console for a clock-speed shredding showdown.... ("Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, at Irwindale Raceway, a Nitro-snorting funny box showdown between....)
(Wonder what I can put those old ZX-81s in? Gotta dune buggy shell out back with a flamin' paint job)
Oh, I got it: Strip 8 TiBooks and mount the boards in an ATX case, paint it Blue and....
I've been wondering why I've been waiting six weeks for a fairly straightforward XServe custom configuration to ship. As the ITWorld article pointed out, the demand has been higher than Apple anticipated due to new commercial sales.
As an educational user used to fast turnaround on orders, there's some compensation in noting the extra wait reflects Apple picking up new business with enterprise server resellers.
Testimony of an OS X Maya user: Got Maya running on a dual G4 gig box. It renders lots faster than a 2 GHz Win2K box, for identical models..... Spawning batch render jobs to other G4s in the lab is a straignt shot.
Making educational videos and VR, so I need a cost effective setup..... Wouldn't try to do these projects on our budget with Win2K, Linux, or SGI boxes (time wasted hardware/software hacking far exceeds Linux/Intel cost savings)....,
OS X Maya is fast and cost effective, and fits into the integrated digital video/multimedia stream, from Final Cut Pro, through DVD Studio Pro. Gee, and it also goes out on the cluster's OS X QuickTime Streaming Server....
The point: It sure looks like Apple has a cost-effective environment in OS X that makes high-end, Unix-based visualization/video production a high-speed snap.
(Memories of the mid-80's and publishing the first scientific jounal produced entirely with DTP [Quark] on a hybrid AT/Mac system.... Remember hearing that DTP MADE the Mac.... The hardware is SO much more bitchin' now....)
Then there's digital multimedia production: Pretty interesting market, eh?
Thankfully, the situation regarding VST plugins and Cubase SX is not as dire as you think. (I also have a sh!tload of VSTs from 4.0 days I want to use...) This is what Steinberg's Cubase SX FAQ says about that (read to the bottom where it says existing VST plugins are supported):
"FEATURES: How many PlugIns are included within Cubase SX? There is a huge number of audio and MIDI plug-ins included in SX to cover possibly every demand in your music making and production process such as: Audio Plug-Ins: Flanger, Phaser, Overdrive, Chorus, Symphonic, Reverb B, Reverb A, QuadraFuzz, DeEsser, DoubleDelay, ModulationDelay, Dynamics, Chopper, Transformer, Metalizer, Rotary, Vocoder, StepFilter, Bitcrusher, Ringmodulator, SMPTE Generator, Grungalizer, Mix 6to2, Datube, etc. MIDI Plug-Ins: Arpache 1, Chorder, Microtune, Quantize, Auto Panner, Control, MIDI compressor, Echo Processor, Notes 2 Volume, Track Controls, Track Para FX and Transformer. In addition, you will of course also be able to continue to use any current Cubase VST Plug-Ins within Cubase SX."
Addendum: This from the Cubase SX FAQ: "What happens to Cubase 5.1? Are you going to continue developing Cubase VST 32? Cubase VST? Cubase VST Score? We will continue to fix outstanding issues within Cubase 5.1 and you will see an upgrade including VST System Link functionality however, you will not see any other new major feature updates. This is true for all three versions of Cubase 5.1 and the reason is simple: Cubase SX is based on a completely new code base which allows us to do things we cannot do with the older code used in Cubase 5.1. It also marks the beginning of a new era/product line for Steinberg. SX is not a continuation of an older product; it is the start of something new!"
Re USB interfaces: I'm using a couple of different boxes from Edirol (Roland subsidiary) and I can recommend them. UA-30 (no longer sold, but replaced by UA-3) and UA-5. These are more than bare basic units since they have digital (S/PDIF) I/O as well as line, mike, and guitar analog, and the UA-5 will digitize 24 bit 96 kHz audio, as well as 44/48 kHz 16 bit. They also have cheaper, bare basic units, as well as high-end professional stuff, including MIDI, synths, and video systems
The USB and MIDI products work with OS X, and also come with Win drivers.
BTW, I submitted a story about these interfaces with my Cubase item, but the Powers That Be rejected them...
From what I've read, they want to migrate people from the Cubase 5 line (there is an ugrade policy for existing Cubase users),and this may be their final idea of Cubase (and Nuendo) OS X support.
TiBook: Sexy but needs to be more rigid??
on
The Sexiest Metal
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· Score: 1
Umm... yeah. Titanium is way flexible in sheets (and TiBook case), but it can also be rigid by design (I remember the Air Force Materials Lab learning to fast-forge nearly indestructible drive shafts with Ti in the mid-90's)....
So maybe the main point is still Apple's designers needed to do more work on making the case rim/structure more tumescent.... (Fortunately, there's no chance of my TiBook leaking fuel like the Ti SR-71 Blackbird used to!)
What I still wanna know is who's gonna recycle all this Ti tech after we wear it out or fall outta lust with it!
Ho-ah indeed.
So where's the piece on the XP copyleft?
on
April Fools Wrap Up
·
· Score: 1
Too easy a target?
April fool--OS X on Intel
on
OS X for Intel
·
· Score: 3, Funny
This article is serious?? (Yeah, right)
How about Cmdr Tostada: Pompous MacOS users? Hmmm... Guess they have nothing on the Linux faithful!
The Linux Journal dateline for Doc and Brent's online article is April 1, 2002. Heh, heh. Knew you were messin' with us!
(That damn broken ADB keyboard on my TiBook/OS_X couldn't stop me from compiling Open Source apps, other *nix source, Java 1.3 apps/applets/servlets, building MySQL DBs, JSPs, running a research Web site, streaming QuickTime, and building a datamining system. Could someone what I'm doing wrong?)
Slashdot Mirror
As a graying 60 plus who also started with Z80 assembler then progressed through Forth, Fortran, Lisp and 7 other languages, I have considerable feel for your situation. However, having endured lots of online discussion about today's 'real programming jobs' being for younger folk, I regret to suggest that full employment is an unlikely outcome (if a nice dream) in the tight financial environment we have all been living through. But I have found personal renewal and significant career and financial payoff in iOS app development for publication, then cross-development for Android, although the iOS payoff has been nearly 10x greater than for a similar Android product. And as one of my renowned neuroscience mentors taught, learning difficult new skills is the best way to keep an aging brain healthy... Fortunately, programming isn't my main career, but my downsized programmer brother (over 10 years my junior) has also had significant recent success learning to program mobile apps (Android) bringing in new income and job prospects. We both started out trying to tap the still hot market for mobile devices, and it would seem a shame to ignore higher-level independent mobile developer prospects if you couldn't land a rare ARM assembly coding job with a commercial firm. But with about 90% of the current coding on my day job being for multi-device web applications (in a world where 20- and 30- something web designers are 'a dime a dozen'), staying flexible and diversified, finding a niche and evolving new applications for new technology seem to have been the most important strategies for long term survival as a programmer.
(6 x 7)
Oy! Mind meld, my recto-tectal tract! Functional assertions not withstanding, MRI derived blood flow and oxygen usage patterns are not algorithmically equatable with thought...
Existing MRI scanners are overwhelming auditory assault systems, and I can (in my sf-enthusiast imagination) conceive of no better way of limiting military drone pilot endurance than to link one to a state of the art MRI scanner. As if current Raptor trailer sessions probably don't produce enough "Hellfire" stress, in theory...
Of course, since the pop-sci overlay came first from a reputable sci pub, it must be gospel... Um torah...
Put me DOWN? Heh. Heh. How slow on the uptake do you have to be over 2K Km? The Israeli grad student and his institution clearly won this week's sci-hype contest.
Serious heavy metal jewelry: Solar powered quartz anatog-digital, multizone, with E6B flight computer (i.e. slide rule) bezel. No need to leave the smartphone behind, but wtf: this is a different kind of tech statement. Program something else. - ['DB]
OK Apple, here's your chance to serve all us other plebian drivers on the road!
Howsabout some Siri functionality to nag upper class (and wanna be) Benz drivers who behave as predicted by today's preceding PNAS study item (on unethical behavior in the upper class, including driving).
Shrill harridan warnings for running reds, being more than the second left turn after the red, egregious speeding, passing in the right turn lane on red lights, illegal u-turns, rolling non-stops at 4 way intersections, high-speed drafting/tailgating, etc.
Yeah, I 'spose that the Prius owners should pay extra, but upper class Land Rovers and Bimmers should get it as a stock option too...
Probally happen when St. Steve's widow puts plates on his silver SL...
Fo' sho'!
['DB]
Just finished teaching the units on male and female sexual development at a major medical school last week. Even my students know that you need part of the human Y chromosome (SRY gene) to make testes differentiate from primordial gonad tissue. It also makes the 'pre-Fallopian tubes' and what would become uterus and much of vagina (Mullerian duct system) "go away" in developing male fetuses. If SRY gene "jumps" to another chromosome, you don't get proper differentiation of gonads and genitalia. No SRY, general 'female type' morphogenesis. No Y, no sperm, no babies without cloning or parthenogenesis. Without the X and Y autosomes we really lose the basis for most human sexual reproduction... No fun (for standard hetero sex repro) even if you do like sci-fi and scenarios of massive gene and body engineering! Still I seem to recall one or two sci-fi Amazon (non-dot com) societies with parthenogenesis out there in the meta-universe.
If people were really interested in this functionality, they could share the library of IR control code audio files.
;-) (Wonder if the radiologists in their medical school use iPods for carrying medical image files like our radiologists do?).
General musings on iPod recording capabilities etc (from one successfully using an MD Walkman for years of pro audio recording):
A) Wonder if the 8 Khz recording bandwidth of the iPod would be enough to record the IR pulses directly? (Lessee, I got a homebrew [Radio Shack plan and parts] IR detector around here, throw a 1/8" jack on the output and plug into the Belkin Universal Microphone Adapter for iPod....)
B) Bug Steve-o about the wisdom allowing 44.1 Khz stereo recording on iPod. What the hell, I'm gonna buy a high-end Sony Hi-MD Walkman ANYWAY since he won't go for it....
C) Four easy steps for making my professional school lectures available to students on-line: 1) Record lectures on iPod using lavalier mic; 2) Drop audio file and exported lecture Powerpoint JPEGs into iMovie; and 3) edit and export to CD or class Web server. 4) There is no step 4....
D) Of course, at 8 KHz the iPod recorded audio won't be as crisp as what I get off my MD Walkman. On the other hand, I eliminate the step of importing narrative audio files through a pro MD deck with optical S/PDIF outputs.
E) Yeah, Duke is SO lame for giving incoming students iPods
Hardware hacking 4 ever.
It doesn't look that different, heatsink-wise, from my current G5 dual (size about right, but the new heatsink enclosure appears to be one instead of two boxes). The old picture is for a single processor model.
However, looking closely, there doesn't seem to be a set of front fans in the processor air path of the new dual....
Great shots of robot showing insides. Pretty sparse!
Speaking of sparse, few signs of any shock absorbers....
Hope the depth perception and navigation rules are taut.
While potential competition in the *nix "community" ties itself in legal knots....
Not ONE word about it? Hmmmm....
Trolling, "I don't get it", and humorous posts aside, here are some observations based on 6 years of supporting professional education, most recently on PDAs:
-For serious students, class schedules and other events can be distributed to calendars;
-Lectures can be recorded by the school or prof and distributed as MP3s (easiest method--MD recorder, digitize, load from Web server). This really works if lectures have real value;
-Audio class project assignments;
-Audio books are tough because there may be little incentive for academic publishers;
-iSync can help, though too bad there's no Web-clipping capability like AvantGo!
- text and notes can be distributed, but low information density has to be considered (Pod2Go).
Downsides: Even if people groove on the tunes (and it's a music class for Gen Y-ers) these things may not have a long lifetime if they are not more thoroughly integrated with new teaching methods and practices - lessons learned from Diffusion of Technology, by Everett Rogers.
Thank you kindly, sir.
" The rumour mill has it that Adobe is holding back - or possibly has cancelled - Distiller for OS X...."
Could somebody puh-leeze ask the rumor mill what the heck Distiller is doing in my recently installed OS X Acrobat 5.05 directory?
You're so gracious, Pudge: It was a really dumb article....
I'm sorry if you rate this trollish, but it was less of an antidote than the replies it generated (including the one rated 2 - Troll).
Yo, Pudge: Keep an eye out for us for ANY benchmark numbers for serious PhotoShop, BLAST, Maya rendering jobs or the like on the gameboys' Rotten Apple. The Rotten paint job doesn't QUITE have me itching to pop an Alpha Screamer into my old Packard Bell TV console for a clock-speed shredding showdown....
("Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, at Irwindale Raceway, a Nitro-snorting funny box showdown between....)
(Wonder what I can put those old ZX-81s in? Gotta dune buggy shell out back with a flamin' paint job)
Oh, I got it: Strip 8 TiBooks and mount the boards in an ATX case, paint it Blue and....
ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I've been wondering why I've been waiting six weeks for a fairly straightforward XServe custom configuration to ship. As the ITWorld article pointed out, the demand has been higher than Apple anticipated due to new commercial sales.
As an educational user used to fast turnaround on orders, there's some compensation in noting the extra wait reflects Apple picking up new business with enterprise server resellers.
Awright!
Testimony of an OS X Maya user:
Got Maya running on a dual G4 gig box. It renders lots faster than a 2 GHz Win2K box, for identical models..... Spawning batch render jobs to other G4s in the lab is a straignt shot.
Making educational videos and VR, so I need a cost effective setup..... Wouldn't try to do these projects on our budget with Win2K, Linux, or SGI boxes (time wasted hardware/software hacking far exceeds Linux/Intel cost savings)....,
OS X Maya is fast and cost effective, and fits into the integrated digital video/multimedia stream, from Final Cut Pro, through DVD Studio Pro. Gee, and it also goes out on the cluster's OS X QuickTime Streaming Server....
The point: It sure looks like Apple has a cost-effective environment in OS X that makes high-end, Unix-based visualization/video production a high-speed snap.
(Memories of the mid-80's and publishing the first scientific jounal produced entirely with DTP [Quark] on a hybrid AT/Mac system.... Remember hearing that DTP MADE the Mac.... The hardware is SO much more bitchin' now....)
Then there's digital multimedia production: Pretty interesting market, eh?
OS X: How I got my weekends back.
Thankfully, the situation regarding VST plugins and Cubase SX is not as dire as you think. (I also have a sh!tload of VSTs from 4.0 days I want to use...)
This is what Steinberg's Cubase SX FAQ says about that (read to the bottom where it says existing VST plugins are supported):
"FEATURES:
How many PlugIns are included within Cubase SX?
There is a huge number of audio and MIDI plug-ins included in SX to cover possibly every demand in your music making and production process such as: Audio Plug-Ins: Flanger, Phaser, Overdrive, Chorus, Symphonic, Reverb B, Reverb A, QuadraFuzz, DeEsser, DoubleDelay, ModulationDelay, Dynamics, Chopper, Transformer, Metalizer, Rotary, Vocoder, StepFilter, Bitcrusher, Ringmodulator, SMPTE Generator, Grungalizer, Mix 6to2, Datube, etc. MIDI Plug-Ins: Arpache 1, Chorder, Microtune, Quantize, Auto Panner, Control, MIDI compressor, Echo Processor, Notes 2 Volume, Track Controls, Track Para FX and Transformer.
In addition, you will of course also be able to continue to use any current Cubase VST Plug-Ins within Cubase SX."
Addendum: This from the Cubase SX FAQ:
"What happens to Cubase 5.1? Are you going to continue developing Cubase VST 32? Cubase VST? Cubase VST Score?
We will continue to fix outstanding issues within Cubase 5.1 and you will see an upgrade including VST System Link functionality however, you will not see any other new major feature updates. This is true for all three versions of Cubase 5.1 and the reason is simple: Cubase SX is based on a completely new code base which allows us to do things we cannot do with the older code used in Cubase 5.1. It also marks the beginning of a new era/product line for Steinberg. SX is not a continuation of an older product; it is the start of something new!"
Re USB interfaces: I'm using a couple of different boxes from Edirol (Roland subsidiary) and I can recommend them. UA-30 (no longer sold, but replaced by UA-3) and UA-5. These are more than bare basic units since they have digital (S/PDIF) I/O as well as line, mike, and guitar analog, and the UA-5 will digitize 24 bit 96 kHz audio, as well as 44/48 kHz 16 bit. They also have cheaper, bare basic units, as well as high-end professional stuff, including MIDI, synths, and video systems
The USB and MIDI products work with OS X, and also come with Win drivers.
BTW, I submitted a story about these interfaces with my Cubase item, but the Powers That Be rejected them...
From what I've read, they want to migrate people from the Cubase 5 line (there is an ugrade policy for existing Cubase users),and this may be their final idea of Cubase (and Nuendo) OS X support.
Umm... yeah. Titanium is way flexible in sheets (and TiBook case), but it can also be rigid by design (I remember the Air Force Materials Lab learning to fast-forge nearly indestructible drive shafts with Ti in the mid-90's)....
So maybe the main point is still Apple's designers needed to do more work on making the case rim/structure more tumescent.... (Fortunately, there's no chance of my TiBook leaking fuel like the Ti SR-71 Blackbird used to!)
What I still wanna know is who's gonna recycle all this Ti tech after we wear it out or fall outta lust with it!
Ho-ah indeed.
Too easy a target?
This article is serious?? (Yeah, right)
How about Cmdr Tostada: Pompous MacOS users? Hmmm...
Guess they have nothing on the Linux faithful!
The Linux Journal dateline for Doc and Brent's online article is April 1, 2002. Heh, heh. Knew you were messin' with us!
(That damn broken ADB keyboard on my TiBook/OS_X couldn't stop me from compiling Open Source apps, other *nix source, Java 1.3 apps/applets/servlets, building MySQL DBs, JSPs, running a research Web site, streaming QuickTime, and building a datamining system. Could someone what I'm doing wrong?)