If you bought your Betamax deck in 1976, then you got at least a good 5 years' worth of use out of it before the VHS rental explosion of the early-to-mid-'80s cemented Beta as an also-ran. Likewise no iPod user should be worried about being 'stuck' with iTMS in 2005, because even if other online music stores take over (which is arguable), that event is still years away.
Apparently the answer to "when to leave your first tech job" is, in this gentleman's opinion, "before they lay you off". Which may be accurate, but it doesn't provide any insight for the rest of us.
My own advice could be summed up thusly:
1. If you HATE your job, leave and find another one. Nothing's worth being miserable for 1/2 to 3/4 of your waking hours every day.
2. If you think your job is just mostly OK, and you've been there for less than a year, stick it out for the full 12 months before you move on. Nobody's going to want to hire someone who has a history of job-hopping every six months, because they assume you'll do the same thing to them.
3. If you've been at your current company for more that five years, and the company has not shown you signs that they're trying hard to keep you there (fat raises, promotions, etc.), then it's likely time to move on.
4. If you can't imagine enjoying anything more than you enjoy your current job, stay with it!
I walk outside, sit on the curb and rip it to my powerbook in a higher bit rate than the downloadable version. Three minutes later, I walk back into the store and sell the disc back for $2.50.
At which point you are required (if you wish to stay on the legitimate side of copyright law) to delete the copy you just ripped to your Powerbook.
You only have a license for that music as long as you own the physical media it came on. Note that this definition of ownership is incompatible with digital-only download services, and that's an issue that the courts have yet to decide on definitively.
Um, considering Halo 2 sold $125 mil. in its first day I would have to say NO.
Um, considering that a game console title typically retails for 3-5 times the cost of a movie ticket, and that day-of-release performance has a lot more limitations on the movie side of things (finite number of seats and showings, etc.), I would have to say MAYBE.
(imagine a DVD player that doesn't output a picture unless the TV produced a digitally signed certificate).
Okay. I'm imagining it in the clearance section of Circuit City, which is where such a device would end up after a handful of consumers buy one and take it home only to find out that it doesn't work with their brand new $8,000 widescreen LCD HDTV.
However, not everybody who bought the product was using, or intended to use the compression features, so it was difficult to justify including all of them in the class.
Furthermore, it was not proven that everyone who did use the compression features had lost data as a result of the flaw that the update later fixed.
Evenfurthermore, Microsoft may not be liable for lost data even if their product was faulty. This is getting into EULA-land and the concept of software warranty, which is complex and uncertain and hurts my brain to think about.
So as much as we all love to hate Microsoft, Miers appears to have had the law on her client's side. Sorry.
A server at a sit-down restaurant could use this to take your order, and send it, via a wireless network, to a display in the kitchen, showing what orders are pending. Also, possibly, you could incorperate a small printer of some sort into the device to print off the bill for the customer (or you could just send the bill to wirelessly to a printer, doesn't matter to me).
For the price of this tablet alone (nevermind the wireless network, kitchen-proofed display, printer, etc.), you could buy two gross of regular paper notepads, plus a fresh pair of sneakers for the waitstaff to wear as they walk back and forth from the dining room to the kitchen to put in the orders.
Sometimes it's hard to improve on existing technologies.
For this thing to be anything more than a novelty--for it to be a true palmtop computer instead of a dressed-up PDA--it needs to have more storage capacity than 128MB onboard flash and a card slot for additional flash memory.
A 20-30GB hard drive, of the type Apple uses in their standard iPods, would add 7mm to the device's thickness and $100 to the price, but would add to the thing's usefulness immeasurably.
Nobody even wants MP3 Players with under 512MB of storage these days. Who are they going to sell this to?
So your customer gave you a bad spec, you developed a product that fulfilled that spec's requirements, and it was later discovered that they gave you incorrect requirements -- and you're blaming that failure on the SPEC rather than the CUSTOMER?
ASCAP is The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. They dictate who can play your music, such as music at a bar or in a restaurant.
ABSOLUTE misrepresentation of what ASCAP (and similar organizations, like BMI) does.
If you're a composer or songwriter, ASCAP is working FOR you. They're the only ones out there who are making sure that the ARTISTS, not the publishers, are getting paid.
Sure, bars and restaurants don't like ASCAP because licensing music costs them money. But if they were really dedicated to not paying, they always have the option of not playing music that's under license.
Artists have the option of releasing music that's not licensed to ASCAP, too. So at least in the case of performing rights, no one's being forced to do anything on any side.
I don't even need to point out that your Britney examples hardly reflect reality for ANY other act in the music business, except for maybe a dozen acts on par with Britney for popularity. Touring actually ISN'T the moneymaker for most acts, even if they drive their own equipment cross-country in a van and sleep in a Travelodge every night.
For those who haven't heard of Harvey Danger, they're a mid-90s rock band and their hit song was "Flagpole Sitta".
They can't really be called "mid-90s" if they're still making music in 2005, can they? But yes, their one hit song was "Flagpole Sitta" (aka "I'm not sick but I'm not well"), which was released in 1997.
This kind of publicity stunt seems like a can't-lose to a band in the position Harvey Danger is in right now. Either they continue to fade away, in which case downloads aren't costing them any money because they wouldn't have made any in the first place, or it triggers a resurgence of fan interest, which could lead to more money in the future. Win/win.
Does this mean I cant lend a DVD that I buy legally to my friend?
If you buy it legally: no, this is not what it means.
If you received a screener copy of the film from the studio, and it was accompanied by rules about who you may or may not share it with, then yes, you may not be allowed to loan the screener DVD to a friend.
Do they write about "illegal murder", "illegal robbery" etc too?
Those terms would be redundant. Murder is inherently illegal, as is robbery.
Filesharing is not inherently illegal. Thus, the term "illegal filesharing" is needed to distinguish the criminal behavior from legal forms of filesharing (Linux distros, buddy list icons, Creative Commons works, what have you)
If not, anyone know why they mostly go for the uploaders and not the downloaders?
If we're borrowing the idea that violating copyright is the same as stealing (they're different, but let's not argue that again right now), then:
- uploading is theft - downloading is merely receipt of stolen property
Possession may be 9/10ths of the law, but the other 1/10th is intent. It's more difficult to prove that someone who merely recieves an illegitimate copy of a work had intent to cause damage to the copyright owner.
(IANAL, I just have an interest in intellectual property)
George Lucas will NOT, I repeat NOT, be able to afford his new gold-plated shark tank this year.
But then where will his gold-plated sharks live???
Re:Palm's Mistakes or Microsoft's Tactics?
on
Palm's Mistakes
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· Score: 1
That's not Palm's fault. Microsoft keeps their protocols and file formats secret, so as to make it difficult for competitiors to develop products that interoperate with Microsoft's.
That doesn't explain how RIM managed to "nail it" with their Blackberry line, though.
The simplest explanation would be that RIM licensed the technology they needed from Microsoft. Palm should have done the same thing, considering how essential interoperability is/was to their business plan.
After your kid graduates highschool, don't let them go to college, but instead kick them out. Make them get an apartment, and a job, and bust their ass trying to pay rent and have enough food to eat.
Um, after your kid graduates high school, you don't get to tell them what to do anymore. If I'm 18 and I want to go to college, fuck you, I'm going whether you like it or not.
The real reason fewer people pursue engineering these days? My guess is that they're tired of dealing with insufferable self-congratulatory pricks like you being in all their classes.
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If you bought your Betamax deck in 1976, then you got at least a good 5 years' worth of use out of it before the VHS rental explosion of the early-to-mid-'80s cemented Beta as an also-ran. Likewise no iPod user should be worried about being 'stuck' with iTMS in 2005, because even if other online music stores take over (which is arguable), that event is still years away.
Apparently the answer to "when to leave your first tech job" is, in this gentleman's opinion, "before they lay you off". Which may be accurate, but it doesn't provide any insight for the rest of us.
My own advice could be summed up thusly:
1. If you HATE your job, leave and find another one. Nothing's worth being miserable for 1/2 to 3/4 of your waking hours every day.
2. If you think your job is just mostly OK, and you've been there for less than a year, stick it out for the full 12 months before you move on. Nobody's going to want to hire someone who has a history of job-hopping every six months, because they assume you'll do the same thing to them.
3. If you've been at your current company for more that five years, and the company has not shown you signs that they're trying hard to keep you there (fat raises, promotions, etc.), then it's likely time to move on.
4. If you can't imagine enjoying anything more than you enjoy your current job, stay with it!
consumer: "hey, so you can make DVDs for £3. Why are the rest £15?"
media cartel: "hey, people buy DVDs for £15. Why would we want to sell them for £3?"
I walk outside, sit on the curb and rip it to my powerbook in a higher bit rate than the downloadable version. Three minutes later, I walk back into the store and sell the disc back for $2.50.
At which point you are required (if you wish to stay on the legitimate side of copyright law) to delete the copy you just ripped to your Powerbook.
You only have a license for that music as long as you own the physical media it came on. Note that this definition of ownership is incompatible with digital-only download services, and that's an issue that the courts have yet to decide on definitively.
Um, considering Halo 2 sold $125 mil. in its first day I would have to say NO.
Um, considering that a game console title typically retails for 3-5 times the cost of a movie ticket, and that day-of-release performance has a lot more limitations on the movie side of things (finite number of seats and showings, etc.), I would have to say MAYBE.
(imagine a DVD player that doesn't output a picture unless the TV produced a digitally signed certificate).
Okay. I'm imagining it in the clearance section of Circuit City, which is where such a device would end up after a handful of consumers buy one and take it home only to find out that it doesn't work with their brand new $8,000 widescreen LCD HDTV.
However, not everybody who bought the product was using, or intended to use the compression features, so it was difficult to justify including all of them in the class.
Furthermore, it was not proven that everyone who did use the compression features had lost data as a result of the flaw that the update later fixed.
Evenfurthermore, Microsoft may not be liable for lost data even if their product was faulty. This is getting into EULA-land and the concept of software warranty, which is complex and uncertain and hurts my brain to think about.
So as much as we all love to hate Microsoft, Miers appears to have had the law on her client's side. Sorry.
How many companies are going to allow any data of any sort outside their environment?
How many companies have CTO's and other IS/IT executives who are substantially clueless about issues of data security?
Enough that ASP desktop services will be profitable, I'd wager.
A server at a sit-down restaurant could use this to take your order, and send it, via a wireless network, to a display in the kitchen, showing what orders are pending. Also, possibly, you could incorperate a small printer of some sort into the device to print off the bill for the customer (or you could just send the bill to wirelessly to a printer, doesn't matter to me).
For the price of this tablet alone (nevermind the wireless network, kitchen-proofed display, printer, etc.), you could buy two gross of regular paper notepads, plus a fresh pair of sneakers for the waitstaff to wear as they walk back and forth from the dining room to the kitchen to put in the orders.
Sometimes it's hard to improve on existing technologies.
For this thing to be anything more than a novelty--for it to be a true palmtop computer instead of a dressed-up PDA--it needs to have more storage capacity than 128MB onboard flash and a card slot for additional flash memory.
A 20-30GB hard drive, of the type Apple uses in their standard iPods, would add 7mm to the device's thickness and $100 to the price, but would add to the thing's usefulness immeasurably.
Nobody even wants MP3 Players with under 512MB of storage these days. Who are they going to sell this to?
So your customer gave you a bad spec, you developed a product that fulfilled that spec's requirements, and it was later discovered that they gave you incorrect requirements -- and you're blaming that failure on the SPEC rather than the CUSTOMER?
Specs are rarely useful breasts up-front.
I've been handling specs for five years at my current job, and I can't recall a single instance where they were Useful Breasts.
(and I would HOPE the breasts would be up-front...)
ASCAP is The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. They dictate who can play your music, such as music at a bar or in a restaurant.
ABSOLUTE misrepresentation of what ASCAP (and similar organizations, like BMI) does.
If you're a composer or songwriter, ASCAP is working FOR you. They're the only ones out there who are making sure that the ARTISTS, not the publishers, are getting paid.
Sure, bars and restaurants don't like ASCAP because licensing music costs them money. But if they were really dedicated to not paying, they always have the option of not playing music that's under license.
Artists have the option of releasing music that's not licensed to ASCAP, too. So at least in the case of performing rights, no one's being forced to do anything on any side.
I don't even need to point out that your Britney examples hardly reflect reality for ANY other act in the music business, except for maybe a dozen acts on par with Britney for popularity. Touring actually ISN'T the moneymaker for most acts, even if they drive their own equipment cross-country in a van and sleep in a Travelodge every night.
For those who haven't heard of Harvey Danger, they're a mid-90s rock band and their hit song was "Flagpole Sitta".
They can't really be called "mid-90s" if they're still making music in 2005, can they? But yes, their one hit song was "Flagpole Sitta" (aka "I'm not sick but I'm not well"), which was released in 1997.
This kind of publicity stunt seems like a can't-lose to a band in the position Harvey Danger is in right now. Either they continue to fade away, in which case downloads aren't costing them any money because they wouldn't have made any in the first place, or it triggers a resurgence of fan interest, which could lead to more money in the future. Win/win.
the only thing that's left is a silent sound card!
Shit, I'd be happy just to find one that doesn't have interference from other cards on the PCI bus audible on the analog line-out.
Upscailing DVD to HD with an upscaling such as ffdshow is extremely GPU intensive
Why would you do that, though? It's not as if the DVD was encoded with any extra detail that doesn't show up at 480p standard resolution.
Besides which, if your HDTV is capable of displaying 720p at native resolution, it's probably already upscaling your 480p signal for you.
I for one would happily pay more than $100 for a $100 laptop just for the geek factor.
I've got an 8-year-old Toshiba P100 laptop. I figure it can't be worth any more than $100 by now.
I'll sell it to you for $150.
Does this mean I cant lend a DVD that I buy legally to my friend?
If you buy it legally: no, this is not what it means.
If you received a screener copy of the film from the studio, and it was accompanied by rules about who you may or may not share it with, then yes, you may not be allowed to loan the screener DVD to a friend.
Do they write about "illegal murder", "illegal robbery" etc too?
Those terms would be redundant. Murder is inherently illegal, as is robbery.
Filesharing is not inherently illegal. Thus, the term "illegal filesharing" is needed to distinguish the criminal behavior from legal forms of filesharing (Linux distros, buddy list icons, Creative Commons works, what have you)
If not, anyone know why they mostly go for the uploaders and not the downloaders?
If we're borrowing the idea that violating copyright is the same as stealing (they're different, but let's not argue that again right now), then:
- uploading is theft
- downloading is merely receipt of stolen property
Possession may be 9/10ths of the law, but the other 1/10th is intent. It's more difficult to prove that someone who merely recieves an illegitimate copy of a work had intent to cause damage to the copyright owner.
(IANAL, I just have an interest in intellectual property)
George Lucas will NOT, I repeat NOT, be able to afford his new gold-plated shark tank this year.
But then where will his gold-plated sharks live???
That's not Palm's fault. Microsoft keeps their protocols and file formats secret, so as to make it difficult for competitiors to develop products that interoperate with Microsoft's.
That doesn't explain how RIM managed to "nail it" with their Blackberry line, though.
The simplest explanation would be that RIM licensed the technology they needed from Microsoft. Palm should have done the same thing, considering how essential interoperability is/was to their business plan.
After your kid graduates highschool, don't let them go to college, but instead kick them out. Make them get an apartment, and a job, and bust their ass trying to pay rent and have enough food to eat.
Um, after your kid graduates high school, you don't get to tell them what to do anymore. If I'm 18 and I want to go to college, fuck you, I'm going whether you like it or not.
The real reason fewer people pursue engineering these days? My guess is that they're tired of dealing with insufferable self-congratulatory pricks like you being in all their classes.
There is no point in smart but sub-genius level american's going into these fields right now.
Not when "Bob" has already sold our souls to the Xists for 'Frop money, anyway...