If you have a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.
A lot of managers don't know about scripting - so they see programming as the solution to everything. Let's face it - scripting is often behind the scenes, doesn't fit well into standards at times, and isn't as flashy on the surface.
On the flipside, I've often seen scripting-heavy people not communicate the necessity of their work, whereas more coders I know seem to have developed that skill.
The result? Management doesn't know about the options, so they'll go with what they know.
Now that this information has been posted here and on various news sites, will this pressure Citibank to fix their problem - or open up new lawsuits and claims that such postings helped/caused crimes . ..
In an age of Information Technology, the medium, the message, and the misuse can be the same thing.
I still remember days when being a programmer meant legal concerns were far distant from me.
Now, I'm following news like this, and wondering what it means for my job. It means a time where patent law, copyright law, business games, and acts of Congress can vastly affect my job, and lawsuits and patent claims can suddenly pop up and change the playing field.
I wonder at the CIS majors coming out of college are aware of the bizarre amount of issues that they may confront.
There's always at least one winner in any major court case: The Lawyers. They managed to tie this up for 3.5 years. I can't even imagine how expensive the legal bill on this one would be.
True, I stand corrected here. If this becomes the next "fad", then I expect it will benefit quite a few lawyers and law firms.
I've seen various posts about who 'wins' from this and my assesment is - no one.
End developers can get screwed by this.
There are probably other "time bombs" of this nature out there in other software, Microsoft or not. This may well start a round of "fad" lawsuits.
The idea this is going to hurt Microsoft and move people to Open Source is something I question. Microsoft is well-hated enough anyway, and not enough companies pay attention to Open Source - The latest SQL Server migration I've seen is to Oracle, not Open Source.
I can't see this having a big effect on patent reform because A) It's Microsoft, people are used to them being surrounded by legal gobbeldygook and B) It's not the kind of thing the general public gets riled about.
Let's appeal to human laziness! Yah, that doesn't work all the time.
It works a lot of the time - I should know, I'm a programmer.
But you're right. In fact you're very right.
The Segway would appeal to the lazy. However, the advantage it provides (transporation) is outweighed by the cost - where can you use it, how much does it cost, will you have many opportunities to use it, would it be better to get off your butt and exercise, etc.
In short, on one level it appeals to laziness. But to take advantage of it you have to confront a large host of issues that just make it not worth it.
I'm reminded of Victor Tugelbend in Terry Pratchett's "Moving Pictures" who put more effort into avoiding work than most people did AT work.
The Segway, no matter how advanced it is, is not something people were anxious to have. Maybe there are uses for it, but people don't see them, and they don't want them.
Toss in the down economy, and it's no surprise.
I don't think the plans for selling Segway were any more than "it's so cool and the guy behind it has a great reputation," and that is NOT enough.
I've seen the various comments about Office Space being realistic as to its portrayal of programmers, but I beg to differ.
The movie was a comedy, perhaps not as over-the-top as "Dilbert," but a comedy nonetheless. The issues of stress and indignity were realistic, but as for the film itself . ..
I don't think I've ever seen a truly accurate portrayal of a programmer's life, of my life, in mass media.
When a programmer character is trying to study up on a new technology, make time to have a life, try to find the guy to deal with the crashed server, and explain OOP/OOD to someone who doesn't get it, while maintaining an out-of-date system s/he didn't write, THEN you'll have something close to my life.
I haven't seen it yet. Though I note I may have missed something.
This article brings up the quest for nanontech- we've got plenty of functional "nanotechnology" right now in the form of living cells. Maybe its a good idea to see what they can do before reinventing the wheel.
I recall using antibody-based dyes when I was a grad student in Neuroanatomy a decade ago. One basically used cultured antibodies to attach to certain substances in tissue being examined, carrying dyes with them. Primitive compared to this, but it did use pre-existing "biotechnology"
I also think if it would be possible to implant such bacteria for additional computational power in human brains -- just in case we have to upgrade them."
I'm all for self-hacking, but in today's environment I'm not going to trust the developers.
I can just see it now - I'm doing an advanced calculation far beyond previous human capcity, my mind BSODs (Brain Seizure Of Distraction), and my co-workers have to call my wife and ask how to reboot me.
Palladium as a whole, to me, sounds impossible to implement, maintain, and get buy-in on. The potential for backfire, for cracking, for failure, seems large.
So, how much does Microsoft really plan to implement?
Maybe this is a significant percent of publicity-playing. See what people think, get out the word you're "doing something" to deter the competition, then put in something far less in function (and effort, and cost) than you started and say its what people "want." Meanwhile you can hopefully discourage others innovating.
It isn't clear to me how Symantec could know, hours in advance, about a worm which took ten minutes to spread throughout the entire Internet, unless they had something to do with its release.
Want to be we're going to hear plenty of conspiracy theories about this idea?
Interesting thought here - how much cyberwarfare will end up automated? Will people develop automated defenses to "hack back", considering how fast virii and attacks can spread?
Now imagine one attack triggering off retaliation, that in turn triggers off others, then others . ..
Forget Slammer's 15 minutes of fame. We can have a cyberwar in 15 minutes!
I'd heard the same thing - that China's got an active cyberwarfare project.
I'm not surprised by this - I can criticize the Chinese government until Hell freezes over, but they seem to know when to jump on something.
Of course, as noted in other posts, this is only what WE hear. Who knows what else is going on - though all things considered, I wouldn't be surprised if Cyberwarfare work is overall far behind its potential.
I've rarely seen a career advice book that had any useful advice, and this sounds as if it fits into that pile.
I've changed directions several times in my life, and in most cases it's been a leap up (or at least not a leap back). The main thing is finding what you like to do, what you want to achieve, and a way to do it legally while making money. Sure there's compromises, stretches, and training, but no one promised life would be easy.
I expect to see more and more books on Careers with this economy. Look soon for a book where some author explains or studies people who left IT for other careers.
What if the AI elements prove to be far more interesting than the gamer's own efforts?
What if the gamer's efforts give the AI too little to work with to make things interesting?(AI - "Oh, great, ANOTHER journey to ANOTHER dungeon . ..")
What if the AI is not "artistic" enough to keep a person's interest.
Food for thought. Or at least cotton candy.
Not everyone is going to want endless plotlines
on
Infinite Games?
·
· Score: 1
Though I'm all behind this effort and behind creating games-as-living-stories, I don't think everyone is going to be interested in "endless" AI-profelled games.
A game that goes on forever, that has no ending point, and that has no factors in common with someone else's experience, may be very personal, but can also be very lonely. How do you share your experience - except for logging others into your world.
Among my gaming friends, part of the fun is swapping tips, telling how they reacted to certain plot twists, and so on. An AI game, for all its wonders, will alter the shared gamer experience, and perhaps remove commonality.
That being said I'm all for this. I think the research is fascinating. I think there is a market for such "endless" games and for creating games-as-evolving narrative.
But I wonder how much freedom and variability gamers want, versus shared experience.
My guess about grade inflation, based on the article and the response, is that these problems come because of the focus on grades.
In the end, the focus is on getting a good grade. Not knowing something. Not necessarily demonstrating knowledge. Getting a grade since grades are important (to getting into programs, etc.).
Therefore, the focus is upon getting the grade, not what the grade is supposed to represent. Over time, grades become separated from what they represent.
End result - grades can be virtually meaningless, but they are still valued if only for what people assume they mean.
I work with a variety of people in IT. Pretty much I look at knowledge.
Veryold news in the states. Dave Barry did an article on these a few years ago. He notes you can launch many things with them (including a Barbie doll). Not that he advocates that or anything.
That being said - this article seems pretty irrelevant to slashdot. Not only is the potato cannon old news, I'm sure assorted techies have come up with far more interesting stuff than that.
Maybe Cringley is trying to be polite, but I think he's being far too gentle. I'm not a lawyer, but . ..
Legal or not, the patent seems to be the implementation of a very obvious idea on the internet that has already existed in real life. I push a button on my remote, my TV channel changes. I push a button on my calculator, the display changes.
So now the company is quietly testing the waters to see if, by owning this, they can suck a ton of money out of people. Maybe this is legal, but it may just mean we have serious problems with the law.
And it'd be nice to dig up prior art, but who knows if someone ELSE can claim this right and THEY can go on trying to get money out of people for implementing the bleedingly obvious.
I'm all for being polite. I debate if issues this ridiculous warrant politeness anymore.
"We figure there will be benefits to helping out law enforcement, so it's jumping on the bandwagon time."
After cutting through the buzzwords and acronyms, thats all I could really get out of this article.
Now, how long until there are copycat activities claiming better methods, more efficiency? Watch as various security consultants have yet another bag of tricks to bring out to sell their services.
Here is a company whose goal is, simply, to sabotage an existing system/service. All talks of legality aside, there's something amazingly pathetic about this. Forget trying to make something people want, just hire someone to wreck the competition.
Of course someone will find a way around this. And it won't stop fileswapping on P2P networks or other methods.
Hmmmm. Maybe this guy has the ultimate scam. As file traders find new ways around what he does, he can sell new methods to his clients . ..
Slashdot Mirror
If you have a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.
A lot of managers don't know about scripting - so they see programming as the solution to everything. Let's face it - scripting is often behind the scenes, doesn't fit well into standards at times, and isn't as flashy on the surface.
On the flipside, I've often seen scripting-heavy people not communicate the necessity of their work, whereas more coders I know seem to have developed that skill.
The result? Management doesn't know about the options, so they'll go with what they know.
Just my 2 cents at current exchange rates.
Now that this information has been posted here and on various news sites, will this pressure Citibank to fix their problem - or open up new lawsuits and claims that such postings helped/caused crimes . . .
In an age of Information Technology, the medium, the message, and the misuse can be the same thing.
I still remember days when being a programmer meant legal concerns were far distant from me.
Now, I'm following news like this, and wondering what it means for my job. It means a time where patent law, copyright law, business games, and acts of Congress can vastly affect my job, and lawsuits and patent claims can suddenly pop up and change the playing field.
I wonder at the CIS majors coming out of college are aware of the bizarre amount of issues that they may confront.
There's always at least one winner in any major court case: The Lawyers. They managed to tie this up for 3.5 years. I can't even imagine how expensive the legal bill on this one would be.
True, I stand corrected here. If this becomes the next "fad", then I expect it will benefit quite a few lawyers and law firms.
Winners? Victors? I don't see any, I'm afraid.
Though this WAS worth a hell of a laugh.
Just my 1/250 of $5.00.
Let's appeal to human laziness! Yah, that doesn't work all the time.
It works a lot of the time - I should know, I'm a programmer.
But you're right. In fact you're very right.
The Segway would appeal to the lazy. However, the advantage it provides (transporation) is outweighed by the cost - where can you use it, how much does it cost, will you have many opportunities to use it, would it be better to get off your butt and exercise, etc.
In short, on one level it appeals to laziness. But to take advantage of it you have to confront a large host of issues that just make it not worth it.
I'm reminded of Victor Tugelbend in Terry Pratchett's "Moving Pictures" who put more effort into avoiding work than most people did AT work.
The Segway, no matter how advanced it is, is not something people were anxious to have. Maybe there are uses for it, but people don't see them, and they don't want them.
Toss in the down economy, and it's no surprise.
I don't think the plans for selling Segway were any more than "it's so cool and the guy behind it has a great reputation," and that is NOT enough.
It's basic economics.
I've seen the various comments about Office Space being realistic as to its portrayal of programmers, but I beg to differ.
.
The movie was a comedy, perhaps not as over-the-top as "Dilbert," but a comedy nonetheless. The issues of stress and indignity were realistic, but as for the film itself . .
I don't think I've ever seen a truly accurate portrayal of a programmer's life, of my life, in mass media.
When a programmer character is trying to study up on a new technology, make time to have a life, try to find the guy to deal with the crashed server, and explain OOP/OOD to someone who doesn't get it, while maintaining an out-of-date system s/he didn't write, THEN you'll have something close to my life.
I haven't seen it yet. Though I note I may have missed something.
This article brings up the quest for nanontech- we've got plenty of functional "nanotechnology" right now in the form of living cells. Maybe its a good idea to see what they can do before reinventing the wheel.
I recall using antibody-based dyes when I was a grad student in Neuroanatomy a decade ago. One basically used cultured antibodies to attach to certain substances in tissue being examined, carrying dyes with them. Primitive compared to this, but it did use pre-existing "biotechnology"
I also think if it would be possible to implant such bacteria for additional computational power in human brains -- just in case we have to upgrade them."
I'm all for self-hacking, but in today's environment I'm not going to trust the developers.
I can just see it now - I'm doing an advanced calculation far beyond previous human capcity, my mind BSODs (Brain Seizure Of Distraction), and my co-workers have to call my wife and ask how to reboot me.
Interesting thought on Palladium - bear with me.
Palladium as a whole, to me, sounds impossible to implement, maintain, and get buy-in on. The potential for backfire, for cracking, for failure, seems large.
So, how much does Microsoft really plan to implement?
Maybe this is a significant percent of publicity-playing. See what people think, get out the word you're "doing something" to deter the competition, then put in something far less in function (and effort, and cost) than you started and say its what people "want." Meanwhile you can hopefully discourage others innovating.
Just a thought.
It isn't clear to me how Symantec could know, hours in advance, about a worm which took ten minutes to spread throughout the entire Internet, unless they had something to do with its release.
Want to be we're going to hear plenty of conspiracy theories about this idea?
Saying there isn't going to be a lawsuit
Figure I'd toss in my 1/50 of a Euro at current exchange rates.
Interesting thought here - how much cyberwarfare will end up automated? Will people develop automated defenses to "hack back", considering how fast virii and attacks can spread?
.
Now imagine one attack triggering off retaliation, that in turn triggers off others, then others . .
Forget Slammer's 15 minutes of fame. We can have a cyberwar in 15 minutes!
I'd heard the same thing - that China's got an active cyberwarfare project.
I'm not surprised by this - I can criticize the Chinese government until Hell freezes over, but they seem to know when to jump on something.
Of course, as noted in other posts, this is only what WE hear. Who knows what else is going on - though all things considered, I wouldn't be surprised if Cyberwarfare work is overall far behind its potential.
However, there are other questions this brings up:
Food for thought.
I've rarely seen a career advice book that had any useful advice, and this sounds as if it fits into that pile.
I've changed directions several times in my life, and in most cases it's been a leap up (or at least not a leap back). The main thing is finding what you like to do, what you want to achieve, and a way to do it legally while making money. Sure there's compromises, stretches, and training, but no one promised life would be easy.
I expect to see more and more books on Careers with this economy. Look soon for a book where some author explains or studies people who left IT for other careers.
Yes, we may give people AI in games, but . .
Food for thought. Or at least cotton candy.
Though I'm all behind this effort and behind creating games-as-living-stories, I don't think everyone is going to be interested in "endless" AI-profelled games.
.
A game that goes on forever, that has no ending point, and that has no factors in common with someone else's experience, may be very personal, but can also be very lonely. How do you share your experience - except for logging others into your world.
Among my gaming friends, part of the fun is swapping tips, telling how they reacted to certain plot twists, and so on. An AI game, for all its wonders, will alter the shared gamer experience, and perhaps remove commonality.
That being said I'm all for this. I think the research is fascinating. I think there is a market for such "endless" games and for creating games-as-evolving narrative.
But I wonder how much freedom and variability gamers want, versus shared experience.
I suppose that's something else to research . .
My guess about grade inflation, based on the article and the response, is that these problems come because of the focus on grades.
In the end, the focus is on getting a good grade. Not knowing something. Not necessarily demonstrating knowledge. Getting a grade since grades are important (to getting into programs, etc.).
Therefore, the focus is upon getting the grade, not what the grade is supposed to represent. Over time, grades become separated from what they represent.
End result - grades can be virtually meaningless, but they are still valued if only for what people assume they mean.
I work with a variety of people in IT. Pretty much I look at knowledge.
Veryold news in the states. Dave Barry did an article on these a few years ago. He notes you can launch many things with them (including a Barbie doll). Not that he advocates that or anything.
That being said - this article seems pretty irrelevant to slashdot. Not only is the potato cannon old news, I'm sure assorted techies have come up with far more interesting stuff than that.
Maybe Cringley is trying to be polite, but I think he's being far too gentle. I'm not a lawyer, but . . .
Legal or not, the patent seems to be the implementation of a very obvious idea on the internet that has already existed in real life. I push a button on my remote, my TV channel changes. I push a button on my calculator, the display changes.
So now the company is quietly testing the waters to see if, by owning this, they can suck a ton of money out of people. Maybe this is legal, but it may just mean we have serious problems with the law.
And it'd be nice to dig up prior art, but who knows if someone ELSE can claim this right and THEY can go on trying to get money out of people for implementing the bleedingly obvious.
I'm all for being polite. I debate if issues this ridiculous warrant politeness anymore.
"We figure there will be benefits to helping out law enforcement, so it's jumping on the bandwagon time."
After cutting through the buzzwords and acronyms, thats all I could really get out of this article.
Now, how long until there are copycat activities claiming better methods, more efficiency? Watch as various security consultants have yet another bag of tricks to bring out to sell their services.
Here is a company whose goal is, simply, to sabotage an existing system/service. All talks of legality aside, there's something amazingly pathetic about this. Forget trying to make something people want, just hire someone to wreck the competition.
.
Of course someone will find a way around this. And it won't stop fileswapping on P2P networks or other methods.
Hmmmm. Maybe this guy has the ultimate scam. As file traders find new ways around what he does, he can sell new methods to his clients . .
I'm glad to see a group addresing international IP. I'd like to know more about her plans to combine efforts with other groups, such as the EFF.
I am glad someone is working on the international level. The big picture does need to be addressed.