What the hell happens to the poor gamer whose console dies (because things like "red rings of death" NEEVVEERR happen....)?
Gamer buys replacement console, and game tells gamer to go pound sand??? Sorry pal, hit the bricks, you're own your own!
It's amazing that the music, movie and game industries are so self-destructive and hell-bent on enraging the dwindling paying customers that they have!
Disclaimer: I'm not a guru. There are probably people on here who have forgotten more about crypto than I've ever known.
It's a question of scale.
There is no such thing as "unbreakable cryptography", only crypto that is so secure that the only attack is brute force, and the brute force approach is so slow and costly (time & resources) that it's simply not worth it. Not even by orders of magnitude. Not even if CPUs speed up at a rate of 2x every 18 months or whatever.
Somewhere above, somebody posted that there are something like 2^500 prime numbers of length 512 bits. That's a helluva lot. 2^501 = 8^167, or probably something like 10^150 (too lazy to Wolfram it). From what I understand, there are something like 10^80 atoms in the universe.
Wanna know how many that is? Take every atom in the universe, yes every atom. Now, imagine fitting an entire universe's worth of atoms inside that atom, and also inside all the other atoms in the universe.
The point is that the scale of these numbers is essentially incomprehensible, at least to a mental midget like me.
Even with a "published" list, the numbers are so large (hundreds of thousands of digits), and when you figure the CPU and memory bottlenecks, even brute forcing hundreds of billions per second is still (cue Elton John) "gonna take a long, long time".
This clearly delineates the dichotomy that aging developers reach at some point. (I'm not even close to 50 yet, let alone 60, but I'm not 25 any more either...)
When you're young, and not really at the top of your game, you can still fill a role. Some kinds of testing, lab rat, meeting coordinator, etc. (I'm kind of saying this tongue-in-cheek, but the bottom line is that when you're young and cheap, and perhaps a bit underpowered, well we always need someone to fill the snack room and keep the copier filled with paper).
When you reach ~35, I'm really going to say 40, you (and your employer) need to have a very serious conversation. Typically you're not the cheapest guy in the organization any more. Either you fill a role a leader, an architect, a mentor, a specialized guru, etc. or you... uh, well, how'd you like to move into management? Sure there are always slots for "good" developers who are middle aged, but if you're not a student of history, you need to understand that there's a perception that you provide 25% more value than the 25 year old, but you cost 100% more. When it comes time to cut back, well... do I have to connect the dots for you?
I guess what I'm saying is this: if you're 40 and at the top of your game, the sky's the limit. I don't want to sound immodest, but I've been freelancing for ~15 years, and I'm turning away working all the time. I work incredibly hard to stay current, to stay relevant, to deliver value, etc. For every billable hour I work, there's another hour learning, invoicing, speaking publically, mentoring, etc. And I deliver focused, concentrated knowledge and value and relevant experience to my customers.
Having said that, if you're 40 and a middle-of-the-road kinda guy (or gal), well there are plenty of those, many of them younger and cheaper. Start looking over your shoulder. You're pricey, you're not respected by those less experienced (but perhaps actually more valuable than you), and you have a target on your back. If you're middling, either you just don't have the aptitude or ability, or (what's worse) you don't have the passion / drive. Either way, get ready to hit the bricks. I'm sorry, it's a cold world.
Most of the people I network with are also freelancers / independent consultants, but one thing that fascinates me, something that I've never experienced but I know it exists - the role of true gurus / experts *within* a company (typically a big one). I'm talking about guys like Jeff Dean at Google or Andrei Alexandrescu at Facebook. These guys could do incredibly well out on their own as freelancers, of course I suppose they do well with stock & options & perks, but still... I've always wondered what it's like to be a top-performer (industry-wide, not just in your little pond) within a larger organization. Do you get bored? Are you under-utilized? Is there a lot of politics & overhead? Or are you like a, excuse the term, "pig in shit"? Is the big organization exactly what you need to scratch those itches and pursue those crazy ideas that eventually become quantum leaps in technical circles?
Sorry the detour at the end, my point was more to explain the "fork in the road" at a certain age, but I figure this would be a great place to ask the question about super talent in larger organizations.
Absolutely agree. I've given talks about embedded devices and problems created by adding IP connectivity, but from what I can tell this has nothing to do with connectivity.
It does have to do with firmware/software, user interface, and correctness/reliability, but not security. An unreliable system can never be a secure system, but that often causes people to conflate the concepts of reliability and security.
Can I take you up on that "dollars to doughnuts" offer?
First of all, there are many, many programs that are very localized. It's essentially impossible to record all shows in all markets simultaneously. As just one obvious example, local news at 6pm (or whatever -- now it seems to be something like 4-7pm, not that I'm ever home to watch news at this time). Even states like North Dakota and Nebraska have 10 different "metro areas" with their own news.
Secondly, although you might laugh about this, even the same show (e.g. "Grey's Anatomy") has different localized advertisements, weather warnings, "breaking news" interruptions, etc. Someone from NYC is going to be perplexed, to say the least, when his recorded episode of "Law & Order: SVU" is interrupted by a news conference held by the LAPD discussing a verdict of police misconduct.
No, either you store what I record, or it doesn't work. This product / service is doomed, between the price, the upload speed bottleneck, the fact that your recordings are held hostage, etc..
(1) It was most likely an ICD (or pacemaker/ICD combination), not a pacemaker.
Pacemakers are used to establish a regular heartbeat (pacing) at a specific interval. Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators (ICDs) are used to deliver high-voltage shocks at a precise moment in time to stop an arrhythmia. Delivered at exactly the wrong time, this can induce an arrhythmia.
(2) "he issued a series of 830 volt shocks to the pacemaker using a laptop". Sorry pal, thanks for playing, hit the bricks, you're done. The ICD (not pacemaker) is the one issuing the shocks. At least the voltage level sounds about right. All of this starting from a ~3V battery too.
The wireless interfaces (telemetry) into pacemakers and ICDs are notoriously insecure, from all major device manufacturers. They are playing catch up now. Believe me, there is a lot of heartburn (no pun intended) in the ranks of corporate/executive management in the device companies when it comes to this topic.
A couple points worth remembering:
(1) These devices have very long lifetimes. The typical implant is expected to last 6-10 years (usually the battery is the limiting factor). So there are people walking around with devices in them with security problems from 10 years ago in some cases.
(2) It takes a tremendous amount of money to develop a new device in this class. All the testing, certification, trials, etc. The electronics and firmware are incredibly optimized for their specific function, the test suites are massive, the verification & validation processes are lengthy.
(3) Regarding (1) above about 10 year old firmware - essentially all devices support near-range telemetry, which allows a physician / tech within physical proximity (a few inches) to download logs about what events the device has seen / experienced. It also allows the device to be updated with firmware patches. Having been around this enough in different places, I'm pretty confident saying that it's always in the form of patches, as opposed to wholesale forklift updates.
Patches aren't just pushed out like Firefox releases, even the smallest one is a massive amount of effort -- even if the change is a one-line change in code. And more importantly, any patch requires the patient to visit the physician, the physician to be up to date on patches & warnings, etc.. I've seen data first-hand from 2 device manufacturers showing the distribution of devices & updates in the field, and believe me, not everyone is anywhere near up to date. Actually, it probably looks a lot like the Firefox version distribution...
Just reading this now, a few days after the original article - but it looks as if Adobe's Security Bulletin for this issue (linked at top in article summary) was updated on May 11 to indicate that they will indeed release a patch for CS5.x?
"Adobe Photoshop CS6 addresses these vulnerabilities. We are in the process of resolving these vulnerabilities in Adobe Photoshop CS5.x, and will update this Security Bulletin once the patch is available. "
If so, that's awesome that outrage & public pressure said, "This is not reasonable, release a fix for the previous version, which even a week ago is the version people would have bought."
I believe Nokia would be better off turning their engineering expertise...
Shameless attempt to get modded up as "funny", right? You *have* to be kidding -- Nokia's "engineering expertise"?
Don't get me wrong. Their middle-of-the-road engineering staff is downright brilliant compared to the idiots in the company's upper management. But trust me, at least from my own experience working with them, they're anything but "experts" in modern mobile phone engineering. (I am talking present day, not 1998 & candybar phones).
I do agree about them going "all in" for Android. Then again, they should have done that 3 years ago (that's on upper mgmt, not engineering). But I found their engineers, in general, to be complacent, arrogant and behind the times. There were definitely brilliant, forward-looking engineers there too, but they were much scarcer than in other companies I've worked with (you can guess the usual suspects).
Not sure if it's corporate culture, still resting on the laurels of 10 years ago, ignorance, blindness, denial, stupidity -- who knows? In the end it doesn't matter. The market is punishing, and will continue to punish, this hamstrung operation.
I was going to say essentially the same thing, but from a different part of the world. I'm one of the few Americans who not only drives a manual (stick shift) but enjoys it. Then again, I have a car that makes it fun.
Left hand at 10 o'clock (your 2 o'clock), right hand on gearshift. Never use cruise control, and I do a lot of driving.
I literally can't remember the last time I drove with both hands on the steering wheel, I think it was the last time I was on the track. (And no, fellas, I don't treat public roads like a race track, quite the opposite actually. If you spend any time with guys who race cars, you'll see that for the most part, on city streets, they're very disciplined, relaxed and restrained. "Save it for the track" is the motto. And on the track, being undisciplined gets you killed, I'm sorry to say I've seen it happen. Boy that was a digression, I just anticipated all sorts of opinions from those who read something & build up all sorts of fictional scenarios about people with racing / track experience.)
I admire the dude for subjecting himself to this, but am I the only one wondering if it's "not inconceivable" that this guy develops cancer in 10 years because of this?
My high-power physics is weak, my biology weaker, so I really don't know what I'm talking about. It just seems that the human body might react negatively to having this much energy pounded into it.
(Aside - not kidding - the captcha word I was asked to type was "gigawatt")
Sounds like he should consider consulting or a career change. You reach a certain point in your career where you have (IMO) 3 branches / choices:
(1) Stay a company employee; in theory you have security, but the tradeoff is that the company tells you what to do. If you're shoveling shit or working below your potential, it's unfortunate but it's also *your* problem. Companies, especially large ones, are not set up to optimize for each individual employee's personal growth and utilization.
(2) Go out on your own. This is a difficult road, not everyone's cut out for it (especially if your social skills are below average, or even average for that matter). The best (technical) consultants are both seriously strong technically (duh!) and also good with their interpersonal game. They listen to the client; they address the client's concerns while simultaneously pointing out blindspots / weaknesses in other areas; they provide high value, which is not inconsistent with a high rate. We've all heard the story about the old retired engineer, the hammer tap, and the $10K bill[*]
(3) Change careers. By mid-life, you should either be in your peak earning years, at the peak of your game, or consider the proverbial career change. Many engineers go into management (for better or for worse), technical sales, or something completely different (teaching, insurance sales, whatever...)
[*] for those who don't catch my reference, here is one variant of the story: A multi-million dollar power plant that had mysteriously ground to a halt. All efforts to restart it had failed and an expert was brought in. After studying the problem for a few minutes he took a hammer and hit one of the valves. With a rumble, the plant came back to life. Incredulous glances were shared, grateful cries and high-fives were exchanged. Later, the expert’s bill arrived for the amount of $10,000.00. The outraged executive in charge thought “All he did was hit a valve with a hammer, this bill is ridiculous.” He asked for an itemized breakdown and the consultant responded with a bill that read: “Hitting valve with hammer $10.00. Knowing which valve to hit: $9,990.00.”
2MB = ~ 2^2048000 possibly combinations, which is a pretty huge fucking number of unique chunks.
Wouldn't it be more like 2 ^ (8 * 2 * 1024 * 1024) -- the 2048000 vs. 2 * (1024 ^ 2 is just me being pedantic, but the bigger point is that each byte has 256 potential values.
If they were 2 byte blocks (not 2 MB blocks), there would be 256 ^ 2 possible permutations. 3 byte blocks, 256 ^ 3. 2M blocks, 256 ^ 2M, or 2 ^ (8 * 2M).
Western Digital makes a 1TB, 2.5" 9.5mm drive (WD10JPVT). If you need lots of storage for a laptop which will only take a 9.5mm drive, there aren't too many options.
About 2 months ago, I bought 10 of them for $129/each (list was something like $179 I believe). I told a local shop that builds custom laptops about them & they started using them in their builds. Fast forward - I haven't gotten around to using the drives, but the shop called me & asked me if I had any I wanted to sell. I quoted $250/each if they bought all 10, and they didn't even blink.
I wasn't trying to gouge, that was simply the price I needed to make it worth my while (that's why I started at my minimum, instead of starting even higher & working down). If I need the drives in 3 months & have to pay more, too bad for me. That's business 101 & (micro-) economics 101.
Sorry, I don't know you, but I've just seen this "typo" (which it isn't, hence the quotes) too many times today. What, did someone on Cracked or Slate or something just print an article with this same mistake? Nothing personal. Just trying to clean the place up a little bit.
when a 47 year old shows up who is completely bored of DB, and Application work and wants to do embedded work until they retire they want to pay him jr. wages. So it won't really work. No matter how much the person has accomplished. And designing and writing enterprise level soft what used around the world by thousands of people is far, far more complex then embedded code.
First, If you're 47 years old & trying to transition from enterprise/DB stuff to embedded, real embedded stuff, you have a hell of a road ahead of you. You should be paid for what you can do, not how old you are, or what you HAVE done that's not pertinent to embedded. Do you know what an H-Bridge is? Have you ever written an interrupt handler? Written board bring-up code? Used a scope? Do you know which end of a soldering iron to hold?
Secondly, I expect you to get blasted to oblivion for your arrogant and narrow-minded comment "designing and writing enterprise level soft what used around the world by thousands of people is far, far more complex then embedded code". It's so absurd that it almost seems like you're trolling. Do you understand that "embedded" encompasses anti-lock braking systems, elevator controls, fighter planes, nuclear reactors, life-critical medical devices, large-scale industrial robotics & control, etc. Talk about complexity! Many of us write firmware that is used by 10s of millions each day. Cellular system infrastructure, radar systems, medical equipment, traffic control, etc. But I guess that stuff is just Tinker-Toy level compared to your CRM database application, right?
I appreciate DB guys, C# guys, Java enterprise guys, IT guys, etc. I'm not one of them but the good ones know what they're doing. But for you to get up on your high horse (I sense a chip on your shoulder, BTW) and pronounce something about which you seem to know very little is just ridiculous.
I'm glad I get paid to work on really complex stuff, with hard real-time deadlines (in processing, not development schedules), where lives are on the line. Not everyone's cut out for it, but if you know what you're doing, you're not very easy to push aside.
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What the hell happens to the poor gamer whose console dies (because things like "red rings of death" NEEVVEERR happen....)?
Gamer buys replacement console, and game tells gamer to go pound sand??? Sorry pal, hit the bricks, you're own your own!
It's amazing that the music, movie and game industries are so self-destructive and hell-bent on enraging the dwindling paying customers that they have!
Disclaimer: I'm not a guru. There are probably people on here who have forgotten more about crypto than I've ever known.
It's a question of scale.
There is no such thing as "unbreakable cryptography", only crypto that is so secure that the only attack is brute force, and the brute force approach is so slow and costly (time & resources) that it's simply not worth it. Not even by orders of magnitude. Not even if CPUs speed up at a rate of 2x every 18 months or whatever.
Somewhere above, somebody posted that there are something like 2^500 prime numbers of length 512 bits. That's a helluva lot. 2^501 = 8^167, or probably something like 10^150 (too lazy to Wolfram it). From what I understand, there are something like 10^80 atoms in the universe.
Wanna know how many that is? Take every atom in the universe, yes every atom. Now, imagine fitting an entire universe's worth of atoms inside that atom, and also inside all the other atoms in the universe. The point is that the scale of these numbers is essentially incomprehensible, at least to a mental midget like me.
Even with a "published" list, the numbers are so large (hundreds of thousands of digits), and when you figure the CPU and memory bottlenecks, even brute forcing hundreds of billions per second is still (cue Elton John) "gonna take a long, long time".
Oh dear. It looks as though Muphry's Law strikes again!
When I think of PIC books, the only names that come to mind are Ibrahim, Morton and Wilmshurst. Any chance it's one of them?
Sounds to me like you're a beta tester.
This clearly delineates the dichotomy that aging developers reach at some point. (I'm not even close to 50 yet, let alone 60, but I'm not 25 any more either...)
When you're young, and not really at the top of your game, you can still fill a role. Some kinds of testing, lab rat, meeting coordinator, etc. (I'm kind of saying this tongue-in-cheek, but the bottom line is that when you're young and cheap, and perhaps a bit underpowered, well we always need someone to fill the snack room and keep the copier filled with paper).
When you reach ~35, I'm really going to say 40, you (and your employer) need to have a very serious conversation. Typically you're not the cheapest guy in the organization any more. Either you fill a role a leader, an architect, a mentor, a specialized guru, etc. or you... uh, well, how'd you like to move into management? Sure there are always slots for "good" developers who are middle aged, but if you're not a student of history, you need to understand that there's a perception that you provide 25% more value than the 25 year old, but you cost 100% more. When it comes time to cut back, well... do I have to connect the dots for you?
I guess what I'm saying is this: if you're 40 and at the top of your game, the sky's the limit. I don't want to sound immodest, but I've been freelancing for ~15 years, and I'm turning away working all the time. I work incredibly hard to stay current, to stay relevant, to deliver value, etc. For every billable hour I work, there's another hour learning, invoicing, speaking publically, mentoring, etc. And I deliver focused, concentrated knowledge and value and relevant experience to my customers.
Having said that, if you're 40 and a middle-of-the-road kinda guy (or gal), well there are plenty of those, many of them younger and cheaper. Start looking over your shoulder. You're pricey, you're not respected by those less experienced (but perhaps actually more valuable than you), and you have a target on your back. If you're middling, either you just don't have the aptitude or ability, or (what's worse) you don't have the passion / drive. Either way, get ready to hit the bricks. I'm sorry, it's a cold world.
Most of the people I network with are also freelancers / independent consultants, but one thing that fascinates me, something that I've never experienced but I know it exists - the role of true gurus / experts *within* a company (typically a big one). I'm talking about guys like Jeff Dean at Google or Andrei Alexandrescu at Facebook. These guys could do incredibly well out on their own as freelancers, of course I suppose they do well with stock & options & perks, but still... I've always wondered what it's like to be a top-performer (industry-wide, not just in your little pond) within a larger organization. Do you get bored? Are you under-utilized? Is there a lot of politics & overhead? Or are you like a, excuse the term, "pig in shit"? Is the big organization exactly what you need to scratch those itches and pursue those crazy ideas that eventually become quantum leaps in technical circles?
Sorry the detour at the end, my point was more to explain the "fork in the road" at a certain age, but I figure this would be a great place to ask the question about super talent in larger organizations.
Absolutely agree. I've given talks about embedded devices and problems created by adding IP connectivity, but from what I can tell this has nothing to do with connectivity.
It does have to do with firmware/software, user interface, and correctness/reliability, but not security. An unreliable system can never be a secure system, but that often causes people to conflate the concepts of reliability and security.
Can I take you up on that "dollars to doughnuts" offer?
First of all, there are many, many programs that are very localized. It's essentially impossible to record all shows in all markets simultaneously. As just one obvious example, local news at 6pm (or whatever -- now it seems to be something like 4-7pm, not that I'm ever home to watch news at this time). Even states like North Dakota and Nebraska have 10 different "metro areas" with their own news.
Secondly, although you might laugh about this, even the same show (e.g. "Grey's Anatomy") has different localized advertisements, weather warnings, "breaking news" interruptions, etc. Someone from NYC is going to be perplexed, to say the least, when his recorded episode of "Law & Order: SVU" is interrupted by a news conference held by the LAPD discussing a verdict of police misconduct.
No, either you store what I record, or it doesn't work. This product / service is doomed, between the price, the upload speed bottleneck, the fact that your recordings are held hostage, etc..
Pacemakers are used to establish a regular heartbeat (pacing) at a specific interval. Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators (ICDs) are used to deliver high-voltage shocks at a precise moment in time to stop an arrhythmia. Delivered at exactly the wrong time, this can induce an arrhythmia.
(2) "he issued a series of 830 volt shocks to the pacemaker using a laptop". Sorry pal, thanks for playing, hit the bricks, you're done. The ICD (not pacemaker) is the one issuing the shocks. At least the voltage level sounds about right. All of this starting from a ~3V battery too.
The wireless interfaces (telemetry) into pacemakers and ICDs are notoriously insecure, from all major device manufacturers. They are playing catch up now. Believe me, there is a lot of heartburn (no pun intended) in the ranks of corporate/executive management in the device companies when it comes to this topic.
A couple points worth remembering:
(1) These devices have very long lifetimes. The typical implant is expected to last 6-10 years (usually the battery is the limiting factor). So there are people walking around with devices in them with security problems from 10 years ago in some cases.
(2) It takes a tremendous amount of money to develop a new device in this class. All the testing, certification, trials, etc. The electronics and firmware are incredibly optimized for their specific function, the test suites are massive, the verification & validation processes are lengthy.
(3) Regarding (1) above about 10 year old firmware - essentially all devices support near-range telemetry, which allows a physician / tech within physical proximity (a few inches) to download logs about what events the device has seen / experienced. It also allows the device to be updated with firmware patches. Having been around this enough in different places, I'm pretty confident saying that it's always in the form of patches, as opposed to wholesale forklift updates.
Patches aren't just pushed out like Firefox releases, even the smallest one is a massive amount of effort -- even if the change is a one-line change in code. And more importantly, any patch requires the patient to visit the physician, the physician to be up to date on patches & warnings, etc.. I've seen data first-hand from 2 device manufacturers showing the distribution of devices & updates in the field, and believe me, not everyone is anywhere near up to date. Actually, it probably looks a lot like the Firefox version distribution...
Just reading this now, a few days after the original article - but it looks as if Adobe's Security Bulletin for this issue (linked at top in article summary) was updated on May 11 to indicate that they will indeed release a patch for CS5.x?
"Adobe Photoshop CS6 addresses these vulnerabilities. We are in the process of resolving these vulnerabilities in Adobe Photoshop CS5.x, and will update this Security Bulletin once the patch is available. "
If so, that's awesome that outrage & public pressure said, "This is not reasonable, release a fix for the previous version, which even a week ago is the version people would have bought."
Of course, not a soul will see this post.... :-(
I believe Nokia would be better off turning their engineering expertise...
Shameless attempt to get modded up as "funny", right? You *have* to be kidding -- Nokia's "engineering expertise"?
Don't get me wrong. Their middle-of-the-road engineering staff is downright brilliant compared to the idiots in the company's upper management. But trust me, at least from my own experience working with them, they're anything but "experts" in modern mobile phone engineering. (I am talking present day, not 1998 & candybar phones).
I do agree about them going "all in" for Android. Then again, they should have done that 3 years ago (that's on upper mgmt, not engineering). But I found their engineers, in general, to be complacent, arrogant and behind the times. There were definitely brilliant, forward-looking engineers there too, but they were much scarcer than in other companies I've worked with (you can guess the usual suspects).
Not sure if it's corporate culture, still resting on the laurels of 10 years ago, ignorance, blindness, denial, stupidity -- who knows? In the end it doesn't matter. The market is punishing, and will continue to punish, this hamstrung operation.
I was going to say essentially the same thing, but from a different part of the world. I'm one of the few Americans who not only drives a manual (stick shift) but enjoys it. Then again, I have a car that makes it fun.
Left hand at 10 o'clock (your 2 o'clock), right hand on gearshift. Never use cruise control, and I do a lot of driving.
I literally can't remember the last time I drove with both hands on the steering wheel, I think it was the last time I was on the track. (And no, fellas, I don't treat public roads like a race track, quite the opposite actually. If you spend any time with guys who race cars, you'll see that for the most part, on city streets, they're very disciplined, relaxed and restrained. "Save it for the track" is the motto. And on the track, being undisciplined gets you killed, I'm sorry to say I've seen it happen. Boy that was a digression, I just anticipated all sorts of opinions from those who read something & build up all sorts of fictional scenarios about people with racing / track experience.)
I've had a boss ... [who] was growing tits involuntarily, and horribly moody.
If I was growing man-tits, I'd *always* be in a bad mood.
I admire the dude for subjecting himself to this, but am I the only one wondering if it's "not inconceivable" that this guy develops cancer in 10 years because of this?
My high-power physics is weak, my biology weaker, so I really don't know what I'm talking about. It just seems that the human body might react negatively to having this much energy pounded into it.
(Aside - not kidding - the captcha word I was asked to type was "gigawatt")
I am however on the IQ scale a "genius"... Standardized tests regularly place me in the top 99%.
Hey Genius - do you realize that 99% of the population is in the top 99%?
Sounds like he should consider consulting or a career change. You reach a certain point in your career where you have (IMO) 3 branches / choices:
(1) Stay a company employee; in theory you have security, but the tradeoff is that the company tells you what to do. If you're shoveling shit or working below your potential, it's unfortunate but it's also *your* problem. Companies, especially large ones, are not set up to optimize for each individual employee's personal growth and utilization.
(2) Go out on your own. This is a difficult road, not everyone's cut out for it (especially if your social skills are below average, or even average for that matter). The best (technical) consultants are both seriously strong technically (duh!) and also good with their interpersonal game. They listen to the client; they address the client's concerns while simultaneously pointing out blindspots / weaknesses in other areas; they provide high value, which is not inconsistent with a high rate. We've all heard the story about the old retired engineer, the hammer tap, and the $10K bill[*]
(3) Change careers. By mid-life, you should either be in your peak earning years, at the peak of your game, or consider the proverbial career change. Many engineers go into management (for better or for worse), technical sales, or something completely different (teaching, insurance sales, whatever...)
[*] for those who don't catch my reference, here is one variant of the story:
A multi-million dollar power plant that had mysteriously ground to a halt. All efforts to restart it had failed and an expert was brought in. After studying the problem for a few minutes he took a hammer and hit one of the valves. With a rumble, the plant came back to life. Incredulous glances were shared, grateful cries and high-fives were exchanged. Later, the expert’s bill arrived for the amount of $10,000.00. The outraged executive in charge thought “All he did was hit a valve with a hammer, this bill is ridiculous.” He asked for an itemized breakdown and the consultant responded with a bill that read: “Hitting valve with hammer $10.00. Knowing which valve to hit: $9,990.00.”
iTunes is a horrible thing these days.
If by "these days" you mean "forever", then yes.
2MB = ~ 2^2048000 possibly combinations, which is a pretty huge fucking number of unique chunks.
Wouldn't it be more like 2 ^ (8 * 2 * 1024 * 1024) -- the 2048000 vs. 2 * (1024 ^ 2 is just me being pedantic, but the bigger point is that each byte has 256 potential values.
If they were 2 byte blocks (not 2 MB blocks), there would be 256 ^ 2 possible permutations. 3 byte blocks, 256 ^ 3. 2M blocks, 256 ^ 2M, or 2 ^ (8 * 2M).
Anyway, it's still a huge fucking number.
Hi Peggy. I like your commercials.
Anecdotal, but...
Western Digital makes a 1TB, 2.5" 9.5mm drive (WD10JPVT). If you need lots of storage for a laptop which will only take a 9.5mm drive, there aren't too many options.
About 2 months ago, I bought 10 of them for $129/each (list was something like $179 I believe). I told a local shop that builds custom laptops about them & they started using them in their builds. Fast forward - I haven't gotten around to using the drives, but the shop called me & asked me if I had any I wanted to sell. I quoted $250/each if they bought all 10, and they didn't even blink.
I wasn't trying to gouge, that was simply the price I needed to make it worth my while (that's why I started at my minimum, instead of starting even higher & working down). If I need the drives in 3 months & have to pay more, too bad for me. That's business 101 & (micro-) economics 101.
China: "We also protect the freedom of expression of citizens in China".
Sure. And "The check's in the mail" and "I won't come in your mouth."
On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.
Or a 49-year old grandmother.
Or a 16 year old boy posting as an Anonymous Coward and claiming to be a 49-year old grandmother.
Hear, Hear.
Sorry, I don't know you, but I've just seen this "typo" (which it isn't, hence the quotes) too many times today. What, did someone on Cracked or Slate or something just print an article with this same mistake? Nothing personal. Just trying to clean the place up a little bit.
when a 47 year old shows up who is completely bored of DB, and Application work and wants to do embedded work until they retire they want to pay him jr. wages. So it won't really work. No matter how much the person has accomplished. And designing and writing enterprise level soft what used around the world by thousands of people is far, far more complex then embedded code.
First, If you're 47 years old & trying to transition from enterprise/DB stuff to embedded, real embedded stuff, you have a hell of a road ahead of you. You should be paid for what you can do, not how old you are, or what you HAVE done that's not pertinent to embedded. Do you know what an H-Bridge is? Have you ever written an interrupt handler? Written board bring-up code? Used a scope? Do you know which end of a soldering iron to hold?
Secondly, I expect you to get blasted to oblivion for your arrogant and narrow-minded comment "designing and writing enterprise level soft what used around the world by thousands of people is far, far more complex then embedded code". It's so absurd that it almost seems like you're trolling. Do you understand that "embedded" encompasses anti-lock braking systems, elevator controls, fighter planes, nuclear reactors, life-critical medical devices, large-scale industrial robotics & control, etc. Talk about complexity! Many of us write firmware that is used by 10s of millions each day. Cellular system infrastructure, radar systems, medical equipment, traffic control, etc. But I guess that stuff is just Tinker-Toy level compared to your CRM database application, right?
I appreciate DB guys, C# guys, Java enterprise guys, IT guys, etc. I'm not one of them but the good ones know what they're doing. But for you to get up on your high horse (I sense a chip on your shoulder, BTW) and pronounce something about which you seem to know very little is just ridiculous.
I'm glad I get paid to work on really complex stuff, with hard real-time deadlines (in processing, not development schedules), where lives are on the line. Not everyone's cut out for it, but if you know what you're doing, you're not very easy to push aside.
You can offer him an Atmel, but he'll look at you with a puzzled look. He said "plcs", Programmable Logic Controllers, not "PICs".
-1 for reading comprehension, but +1 for PIC hate.