I would agree with this. Coders tend to be considered in their prime during the early 20's simply because it's probably something they've been doing for 5 or 10 years anyway. It's the sort of hobby that gets picked up early on, and with enthusiasm.
Learning how to be a systems or network admin, or any of the specialized variants (Cisco admin, etc) isn't something most people even consider until they have to. It's not glamorous work. It doesn't have the immediate gratification that, say, building a web site or updating a piece of software does. Not only that, but if a sys admin does his job well, he goes unnoticed, which means anyone who places importance on satisfaction gained through recognition will quickly burn out, move into another field, or try for management.
There's a place for every age and personality type. The article does seem to be talking more about the coders than the admins, and that's a really important group of people to miss.
Speaking from experience, upper management generally doesn't influence things like that as much as people think. The whole "decisions are made on the golf course" arguments are generally bogus.
They certainly may have the final say in making IT get their own Mac's and whatever working, in violation of IT policy, but that's it.
It's fine and dandy that users like Apple products, but it's the administrators that determine what gets put in place behind the scenes, and that's where the money is. Apple products are cheap as hell compared to "Enterprise" solutions.
It doesn't matter how horribly Microsoft fails because there are no competitors trying to take over. Microsoft wins by default.
This is why companies like Canonical are making a big mistake by trying to chase after the Apple crowd, when they should be going after the enterprise.
So the head of our intelligence and spy agency can't keep an affair secret, and there was no way to sweep this under the rug? What the hell are we funding them for?
Casual gamers also fueled the Guitar Hero and Rock Band craze, which was a very lucrative business. I think what the article is trying to point out is that the next huge successes like those (or Angry Birds or Wii Fit or whatever) are more likely to happen on phones and pads than on consoles.
Yes, there will probably always be the Call of Duty's breaking sells records each year, and sports franchises will probably continue chugging out the same rehashed titles because their audience is fine with that. It's just that the huge numbers we have seen during this console cycle were largely fueled by ordinary people becoming casual gamers, rather than ordinary people becoming regular gamers who make it part of their lifestyle.
We've only reached a plateau with console graphics because the consoles are all old. It's also been dragging down the PC gaming market as a result, since developers all aim for the lowest common denominator, in this case being the xbox and ps3.
So yes, the WiiU might be OK for a year or so, being a system with competitive or slightly better graphics compared to xbox and ps3, but they'll hit the same wall as before when the next gen stuff comes out. Basically, three years from now, developers will be creating games around the system specs of the xbox 720 and PS4, and if the WiiU can't handle those games, it will just get flooded with crappy stripped down ports (CoD games, for example) and a billion 3rd party pet games. Except that, as others have pointed out, Nintendo's target audience will move towards iPads and stuff for casual gaming, in the same way they have moved to phones as a replacement for the handhelds.
I didn't see any information in the article, but what exactly is the problem with X11 full screen support? I don't game in Linux, and this is the first time I've even heard of this.
I don't know about full-blown compiled coding or anything, but sysadmins definitely should have a grasp of a scripting language relevant to their environment (such as vbscript for windows). There are too many times you get requests for stuff that inexplicably have no official support for, such setting up a default Outlook signature for all users that pulls information from their login profile. The sysadmin who can say "give me 30 minutes minutes and I'll have it ready for testing" will look a lot better than the sysadmin who says "we could buy an $800 program that will allow us to do that, but we'll still have to test it out."
I'll second this. I have a few clients in the medical industry that are tied down to XP due to the software like Medisoft or Lytec having zero support for Vista or 7. The software companies seem more interested in having you pay for newer versions, but when the software is 10 grand and up, it's no wonder people choose to stick with XP.
That has to be one of the most poorly edited articles I've ever read. I had to double-check and make sure I wasn't reading translated version from another language. Sadly, I wasn't.
What they are looking to do is create a device that epitomizes what a Win8 tablet should be. Microsoft has plenty of OEM vendors who are willing to market the cheap stuff, which allows Microsoft to be left as the "premium" manufacturer in the public eye. Because of this, they don't actually have to sell a ton of Surface tablets for the whole thing to be considered a success. They just need to create a high benchmark to build interest in Win8 tablets, and let the OEM guys fill out the price points.
Without the Surface, Microsoft would basically be relying on the hopes that an OEM partner will come out with their own high-end device that gains market traction. Something that really hasn't happened in the past, and they know it. They don't want Win8 to be ruined because the only devices running it are cheap crappy knockoffs of iPads. With the surface, it allows Microsoft to shift the blame of failed devices to the OEM's, and away from Win8. If HP releases CrapTablet8 and gets bad press, Microsoft can just point to the Surface and say "It may be a bad product, but it has nothing to do with Win8."
Of course, this all depends on the Surface actually living up to it's hype, and not being a crap product running a crap OS in the first place.
Flimsy as it is, one of the more reliable defenses against privacy invasion has always been the cost and difficulty of wide-scale monitoring. So unless you are actually targeted by the police for some reason, it's pretty unlikely your actions are at all monitored. Also, there is something a little creepy about having drones flying around overhead keeping tabs on a city...
I can see quite a bit of value for the military use of drones. They put fewer pilots at risk, and it's probably cheaper to train a drone pilot than the a "real" pilot, although I could be wrong.
Using drones by the state department or law enforcement, however, makes less sense. They aren't designed to displace, say, helicopter pilots, and I doubt they'll be doing missile strikes any time soon, so the only purpose they serve is yet another way around those pesky privacy laws.
No, which I now see my mod point didn't get assigned... I don't hand mod points out as often as I should, so I'm guessing you can only do one or the other in a topic? Honest question there.
96-2000. The only computer-related course we had at my high school was a typing class, run by the driving instructor. I think the program we were using must have been an old version of word perfect, because it had the blue background and white text. It always felt horribly outdated there.
Darwin Award is fine. It's just when people use the title where it wouldn't apply. You don't simply kill yourself and get an "award." You kill yourself in some kind of spectacularly stupid way, that results in your accidental death, implying that you just took place in natural selection.
A dude shooting himself in the head is just a suicide.
Slashdot Mirror
Reminds me of a TED talk...
http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_donnelly_shows_how_stats_fool_juries.html
I would agree with this. Coders tend to be considered in their prime during the early 20's simply because it's probably something they've been doing for 5 or 10 years anyway. It's the sort of hobby that gets picked up early on, and with enthusiasm.
Learning how to be a systems or network admin, or any of the specialized variants (Cisco admin, etc) isn't something most people even consider until they have to. It's not glamorous work. It doesn't have the immediate gratification that, say, building a web site or updating a piece of software does. Not only that, but if a sys admin does his job well, he goes unnoticed, which means anyone who places importance on satisfaction gained through recognition will quickly burn out, move into another field, or try for management.
There's a place for every age and personality type. The article does seem to be talking more about the coders than the admins, and that's a really important group of people to miss.
I swear there was supposed to be a planet here...
Speaking from experience, upper management generally doesn't influence things like that as much as people think. The whole "decisions are made on the golf course" arguments are generally bogus.
They certainly may have the final say in making IT get their own Mac's and whatever working, in violation of IT policy, but that's it.
It's fine and dandy that users like Apple products, but it's the administrators that determine what gets put in place behind the scenes, and that's where the money is. Apple products are cheap as hell compared to "Enterprise" solutions.
It doesn't matter how horribly Microsoft fails because there are no competitors trying to take over. Microsoft wins by default.
This is why companies like Canonical are making a big mistake by trying to chase after the Apple crowd, when they should be going after the enterprise.
So the head of our intelligence and spy agency can't keep an affair secret, and there was no way to sweep this under the rug? What the hell are we funding them for?
They got a thank you note as well!
Casual gamers also fueled the Guitar Hero and Rock Band craze, which was a very lucrative business. I think what the article is trying to point out is that the next huge successes like those (or Angry Birds or Wii Fit or whatever) are more likely to happen on phones and pads than on consoles.
Yes, there will probably always be the Call of Duty's breaking sells records each year, and sports franchises will probably continue chugging out the same rehashed titles because their audience is fine with that. It's just that the huge numbers we have seen during this console cycle were largely fueled by ordinary people becoming casual gamers, rather than ordinary people becoming regular gamers who make it part of their lifestyle.
We've only reached a plateau with console graphics because the consoles are all old. It's also been dragging down the PC gaming market as a result, since developers all aim for the lowest common denominator, in this case being the xbox and ps3.
So yes, the WiiU might be OK for a year or so, being a system with competitive or slightly better graphics compared to xbox and ps3, but they'll hit the same wall as before when the next gen stuff comes out. Basically, three years from now, developers will be creating games around the system specs of the xbox 720 and PS4, and if the WiiU can't handle those games, it will just get flooded with crappy stripped down ports (CoD games, for example) and a billion 3rd party pet games. Except that, as others have pointed out, Nintendo's target audience will move towards iPads and stuff for casual gaming, in the same way they have moved to phones as a replacement for the handhelds.
I didn't see any information in the article, but what exactly is the problem with X11 full screen support? I don't game in Linux, and this is the first time I've even heard of this.
You're thinking of Hackaday.com
Here's a fun project, even if it's limited in scope.
http://hackaday.com/2011/06/13/wifi-sniffing-digital-picture-frame/
I don't know about full-blown compiled coding or anything, but sysadmins definitely should have a grasp of a scripting language relevant to their environment (such as vbscript for windows). There are too many times you get requests for stuff that inexplicably have no official support for, such setting up a default Outlook signature for all users that pulls information from their login profile. The sysadmin who can say "give me 30 minutes minutes and I'll have it ready for testing" will look a lot better than the sysadmin who says "we could buy an $800 program that will allow us to do that, but we'll still have to test it out."
I'll second this. I have a few clients in the medical industry that are tied down to XP due to the software like Medisoft or Lytec having zero support for Vista or 7. The software companies seem more interested in having you pay for newer versions, but when the software is 10 grand and up, it's no wonder people choose to stick with XP.
That has to be one of the most poorly edited articles I've ever read. I had to double-check and make sure I wasn't reading translated version from another language. Sadly, I wasn't.
What they are looking to do is create a device that epitomizes what a Win8 tablet should be. Microsoft has plenty of OEM vendors who are willing to market the cheap stuff, which allows Microsoft to be left as the "premium" manufacturer in the public eye. Because of this, they don't actually have to sell a ton of Surface tablets for the whole thing to be considered a success. They just need to create a high benchmark to build interest in Win8 tablets, and let the OEM guys fill out the price points.
Without the Surface, Microsoft would basically be relying on the hopes that an OEM partner will come out with their own high-end device that gains market traction. Something that really hasn't happened in the past, and they know it. They don't want Win8 to be ruined because the only devices running it are cheap crappy knockoffs of iPads. With the surface, it allows Microsoft to shift the blame of failed devices to the OEM's, and away from Win8. If HP releases CrapTablet8 and gets bad press, Microsoft can just point to the Surface and say "It may be a bad product, but it has nothing to do with Win8."
Of course, this all depends on the Surface actually living up to it's hype, and not being a crap product running a crap OS in the first place.
WINE doesn't support games like "Frisbee" and "Learning to Ride a Bike at the Park," so you're better off just doing the real thing.
Flimsy as it is, one of the more reliable defenses against privacy invasion has always been the cost and difficulty of wide-scale monitoring. So unless you are actually targeted by the police for some reason, it's pretty unlikely your actions are at all monitored. Also, there is something a little creepy about having drones flying around overhead keeping tabs on a city...
I can see quite a bit of value for the military use of drones. They put fewer pilots at risk, and it's probably cheaper to train a drone pilot than the a "real" pilot, although I could be wrong.
Using drones by the state department or law enforcement, however, makes less sense. They aren't designed to displace, say, helicopter pilots, and I doubt they'll be doing missile strikes any time soon, so the only purpose they serve is yet another way around those pesky privacy laws.
Every mad scientist has banks of "computers" with flashing lights in the back somewhere. Maybe get a tape reel as well.
No, which I now see my mod point didn't get assigned... I don't hand mod points out as often as I should, so I'm guessing you can only do one or the other in a topic? Honest question there.
I did, which is the only reason I modded you up as "Informative" rather than "Funny."
Bad brand management.
96-2000. The only computer-related course we had at my high school was a typing class, run by the driving instructor. I think the program we were using must have been an old version of word perfect, because it had the blue background and white text. It always felt horribly outdated there.
I can't pronounce Diaspora without thinking I'm about to say "diarrhea."
Darwin Award is fine. It's just when people use the title where it wouldn't apply. You don't simply kill yourself and get an "award." You kill yourself in some kind of spectacularly stupid way, that results in your accidental death, implying that you just took place in natural selection.
A dude shooting himself in the head is just a suicide.