For all you military trainee-wannabes out there, BLAMM! was one of the poor unfortunate souls who worked in the network communications center from hell as a 3C0X1 (System Admin); I worked on the same network as he did as a 3C0X2 (Programmer). For more insight into the horror, you can check my comments here.
These [Career Development Courses] are a series of manuals written by a senior NCO in the career feild who again is usually voluntold for this and receives no training on how to write a manual.
Voluntold?!:) LOL. Oh, that is soooo true.
Former 3C0X2 here (Communications-Computer Systems Programmer - at least when I was in) and everything you said is just as applicable.
I wasted^H^H^H^H^H^Hspent nearly 10 years of my life in the USAF and will probably regret it for the remaining years. What a waste of time. There were only two things I got of value: a clearance and an education (of which I paid a fair portion).
If you [the original poster] are looking at the military as a way to "high-tech" careers, look elsewhere. You could win the lottery and end up with a really sweet job - more than likely you'll end up with a year of "training" in obsolete hardware and programming languages, another year of obsolete training via correspondence courses (CDCs) and a job that sucks @$$.
My experience: I was a Comp-Sci major prior to enlisting. I ran out of money for school and wanted to get away from where I was so I enlisted in the USAF. Unlike many poor unfortunate souls, my recruiter was up front and straight with me - it was the guy at MEPS (the "in-process" place you go for your rectal exam) that screwed me (pun intended). I scored great on the ASVAB (or whatever they call them) tests - worst score: got an 80 in mechanical (98-99 on all the other areas). Told the MEPS guy who "helps" you pick out your job that I wanted to work in electronics or programming and that's where I made my fatal mistake: I allowed him to talk me into putting "mechanical" on my "Job Areas" form because he pointed out a few jobs that *sounded* like electronics jobs. That goof cost me three years in Alaska as a "General Purpose Vehicle Mechanic" - i.e. I changed a lot of oil and lubed a lot of chassis.
By the time I left Alaska I was married (goof #2) and felt my only choice was to reenlist so I could be a good husband and provide for my wife. Decided that I hated being a mechanic (big surprise) and that I would spend my one get-out-of-jail free card (you are almost guaranteed a job change, if you choose to take it, at the end of your first enlistment) and try (again) for a job in electronics or programming. Well, I got it.
Went to Keesler AFB, spent 12 weeks "learning" stuff that was probably out of date when I enlisted nearly four years prior and then on to my "permanent duty station". My job: maintaining a communications network that was so old we were still using 8-inch floppies (I didn't even know such things existed at the time!) and programming on a mainframe system with a, I kid you not, ENTIRE MEG OF RAM! A WHOLE-FREAKING-WHAT-AM-I-GONNA-DO-WITH-ALL-THIS-SP ACE meg of ram.
If you couldn't tell, my experience in the Air Force BLEW!
I got out of the military just in time to see the dot-com bubble burst and had to reconcile myself that I had two things of worth at that point: the aforementioned security clearance and the aforementioned education. Thankfully, the combination (and a resume that boasted of some consulting work I pursued independently of the Air Force) got me a job as a contractor.
Today, I can say that, while the technology I work with is not bleeding-edge, it is current and interesting. The upside to working for the DOD as a contractor is: the likelihood of my job being shipped overseas is currently about nil (my job requires a security clearance which is typically not given to foreign nationals). The downside: I still have to deal with a lot of the military crap: poorly defined requirements, got-to-have-it-yesterday attitudes after they have been sitting on something for months, and this sense (particularly from the Officers) that I exist to work whatever hours they want me to (which is true of the average-joe enlisted guy/gal).
If you were holding a gun to my head to get something done as quickly as possible, I would not hesitate to choose Perl over anything else...
The problem with this statement is that it only reflects your experience and those of similar experience. As always, the quickest tool to use is the one with which you are most familiar.
Personally, as a J2EE developer, I would never dream of using Perl to code anything quickly. I recognize the value of Perl but have had little reason to develop proficiency in it. For me, Java would be the quickest route to success. For you, it is Perl and, I am sure, for someone out there it is Visual Basic.
"Best", "Quickest", "Fastest" are very subjective terms.
Seems like every week, Cringely's article is posted to the front page of Slashdot. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy his articles but what I don't get is why his articles ever make it to the Front Page...I mean, geez, he's got his own Slashbox.
If you want to see his articles every week, linked from Slashdot, why not turn on the "I, Cringely" Slashbox via User Preferences? That way, some other article can make it to Slashdot.
First, let me say that I would really like to thank you for willing throwing yourselves on the sword before the Slashdot community, many of whom may not be open to hearing your side of the debate.
My question has to do with how you feel at the end of the day. I realize that opinions will probably vary among team members, but I am curious as to how many of you go home at the end of the night feeling regret over your role in prosecution? In other words, do you really believe the laws you are using to prosecute are Just or are you tossing aside your own stake in the outcome ala "The Law is the law"?
To clarify, the phrase "Everyone deserves a good defense" can be applied to the classic example of the defense lawyer who defends someone who they know is guilty of some heinous act.
When asked to prosecute a case, do you consider the long-term, chilling effects a "win" could potentially have on research and development, fair use, etc. and does it leave you feeling soiled or do you honestly believe it is your patriotic or moral duty to prosecute using laws in which you may or may not completely believe? Can you refuse to take a case based on your own convictions or does that equate to professional suicide (at least with regards to your position with the DOJ)?
That's 18,000 employees in the Newport News portion of Northrop Grumman. Northrop Grumman is much larger -- e.g. Northrop Grumman IT has nearly 23,000 employees.
Lately, NG has been the Borg of defense contracting swallowing both TRW and Logicon (which in turn swallowed PRC and Sterling). In one year, my company changed names three times! PRC -> Logicon -> Northrop Grumman. Talk about motivation.
I know its hard to quit when you have mouths to feed, etc., but if quitting is not an option, you're really at their mercy.
"hard to quit when you have mouths to feed, etc."? It's downright irresponsible in this economy. I'm all for the entrepreneurial spirit and I am certainly for the rights of the worker but to quit an IT job right now...without another job already lined up...is likely to spell 6+ months on unemployment and a lower paying job at the end.
I realize you are not saying the parent poster should quit but it just strikes me as funny that so many posters to slashdot yell "Quit!" as if jobs are growing on a 1990's-esque tree somewhere.
I think the better approach is to first ask yourself whether or not the employer has a history of doing this kind of thing. Do they treat you well when times are good and call on you to step up when times are bad?
Case in point: I recently led a small team developing a web application. The completion date was set by the customer even before we were able to analyze the requirements and once I had a chance to look at the requirements I told my managers that it would be really difficult to meet the date without working alot of overtime for an extended period of time. Management replied that their hands were tied (they were) and that we had to hit the mark i.e. I walked in this geek's shoes.
I had no choice. I wasn't going to walk out of my job on the off-chance that I might find another job. I'm salaried. I knew I was getting screwed, etc.
What happened: every step of the way, my management team was there fighting to get the schedule extended, attempting to reduce the requirements, etc. In the end, the schedule was extended by about a month and a half and a particularly troublesome requirement was dropped. Now that the job is done things have slackened off some, my team is looked upon favorably, nobody gives us hassles if we are not busy 100% of the time or come in under 40 hours for the week because they know that when push comes to shove we will get the job done and leave the attitudes, etc. for the project's post-mortem review.
So...if you are employed, like your job overall and management generally treats you well overall, etc. you might want to consider just biting the bullet for a the time it takes and go from there. The pendulum has swung from one extreme (the employee's market of the 1990's) to the other (employer's market of today) but it will eventually swing back towards center and, when it does, management will have, as Ricky Ricardo would say, "some 'splainin' to do". The fact that you stuck it out when times were hard can be leveraged into either a fat raise, new position or another job at a company that appreciates you more.
The reviewer never made it clear, though he stated frequently, how this device "minimizes wrist movement".
From looking at the pictures of the keyboard chords required, many require you to twist the domes from 6 o'clock to 12 o'clock. It seems to me that in order to get any kind of speed out of this device, you'll be twisting your wrists quite severely. The wrist movements required to use a standard keyboard seem minimal in comparison.
Possessiveness is bad, I'll give you that, but the main point of the original poster's post: that having someone change code *while* you are writing it would drive a programmer nuts is quite valid.
I'm constantly optimizing my code as I go along or refactoring for smaller, tighter routines. I can do this because I know what I have written. If someone were changing my code as I wrote it, that would be a VERY bad thing and would lead to a lot of confusion among developers.
I much prefer the standard practice of Controlled Versioning: check out a piece of code, make changes/rewrites/whatever, check it back in. Once I "check in" other programmers are free to do what they want to with *my* code. Hopefully, they will make it better....hopefully.:)
Coding example aside, the only thing that I can see this type of thing being useful for (off the top of my head) is brainstorming, chatting or other *non-critical* writing. I guess it could also be useful for training.
Hopefully, next time money will be diverted to something more beneficial, such as the military.
While I may not be convinced about a War in Iraq, I am convinced that we still need to support our military. If we don't, we are going to eventually be put in a position where we can't defend ourselves when the war comes to us (and given prevailing international opinion of America -- deserved or otherwise -- it is probably only a matter of time).
I spent almost ten years in the USAF so I'm speaking with some experience-- stuff is getting old (I worked on a militarized IBM 360 mainframe with 8" floppies and a single meg of RAM -- replacement parts were a b!tch to find when things broke!), stuff is wearing out (many aging fighters, etc.).
I'm a strong advocate for education but not a strong proponent of *Public* education (my wife and I plan to homeschool). My experience with public education was sour.
Like it or not, we do not live in a world where everyone plays nice together. One clear-cut area where our government should spend money is on the military. Yes, funds are mismanaged; yes, corruption and pork-barrel projects make the system even less tenable but these same problems are present in any large, bureaucratic organization -- the solution, like it or not, is smaller government with focused oversight committees.
"We're doing this to thwart piracy in order to make our business more profitable. As a pre-emptive reward, we're lowering the price of our products. Support anti-piracy steps, and we'll pass some of the savings on to you."
Yeah, I know, it's not likely to happen.
Unfortunately, what *is* likely to happen is that non-crippled disks will increase in price while crippled disks remain the same. Now the price *appears* to be lower but nothing has really changed...the RIAA still gets the same amount of money out of you *and* the higher price on "open" CDs encourages you to suck it up and pay the fees for the crippled disk.
Oh, and just to pre-empt the usual "you're just a Microsoft shill that's never used anything but Windows" that these sort of discussions usually devolve to, I'm a Unix sysadmin and spend most of my day sitting in front of a Mac. The only Wintel box I own at the moment is used for playing games.
It's unfortunate that you had to add this part in. I understand why you did (because, unfortunately, you are probably correct) but up until this statement, I was really enjoying the discussion we've been having. This statement was like a strike in the face.
We've got differences of opinion but neither one of us had reacted in any manner other than professional and I had no reason to believe that it would proceed in any other manner.
If I get a chance, I'll take another look at your response and see if I have anything of value to add. For the record, had things desolved into name-calling, I'd just have let the conversation drop -- I post infrequently and have little use for conversations with no merit in them (i.e. flame-fests, name-calling, etc.).
Microsoft aren't in the "throw a bunch of stuff together with some glue and a GUI skin" business, they're in the "whole widget business" like Apple are.
I'm sorry you feel that a Linux distro is "a bunch of stuff [thrown] together with some glue and a GUI skin". Linux is an operating system that emphasizes choice through (fairly) well-defined interfaces, open-standards and open APIs. The "whole widget" is great if you *want* the whole widget -- but if you really only want part of the widget then you are paying for something you don't intend to use. You also are opening yourself up to security risks -- one of the prime tenets of security is to remove (completely) software you are not using or do not want on your system; that way it is not there to bite you later.
On the side, I basically agree with you on Apple. While I do support Apple, the big distinction is that Apple's success is due to Apple's doing; had Microsoft not unfairly hobbled the free market and had Apple ever figured out that the home user cannot afford their prices Apple could be in a different position today. Apple is not perfect by any means -- but they are not a convicted monopolist who have used illegal means to get to their present position. The last statement of my original post stated that part of the reason Microsoft runs into these types of arguments and incenses so many people is because of how they got to be #1; they unfairly manipulated the market to the detriment of the consumer.
Their objective is to make a single, cohesive product that perform all the basic functions an end-user could want.
I think you are casting Microsoft's goals in a more altruistic light than they deserve. Bill Gates goal is the same as it has always been: to make money and to make gobs of it (and he is very good at it).
"Define this "domain"....Now justify why you said "yes" or "no" to any/all of the above."
Obviously, this would take a considerable amount of time, so I'm just going to speak to the heart of your point (as I understand it). Yes, there is overlap between what is an Operating System in the strict sense of the definition and what is an Operating System from the point of view of Joe Sixpack consumer. I think a quick guage would be to ask Joe Sixpack "What operating system do you use?". His response will likely be "Microsoft" (an astute Joe might even say "Microsoft Windows", "Win XP", "Win 2K", etc.). Now say to Joe, "Hey, open this MP3 in [Whatever term Joe used for his OS]". A likely response would be "Which program do I use?". At that point, Joe has made a distinction between the OS and a user-space program; its not perfect, YMMV, etc. but it serves the point that there is a distinction even for most average users (whether they realize it explicitly or not.). I would agree with you that basic shell activities, file management, etc. can be (and probably should be) considered part of the operating system.
As technical hobbyists/professionals on a discussion site with a technical slant, I would assume we could use a more technical definition.
"...the customers have convincingly voted for bundling in things like shells, web browsers and media viewers."
In general, I agree. However, while I agree that the bundling of certain apps (browser, media player, etc.) add value for the customer, that does not make those apps part of the operating system. They are still separate apps and should be removable (if the user desires). Keep in mind that in my original post, I wasn't really taking issue with bundling -- its the commingling that is the problem.
As to whether or not users have "convincingly voted" for this: How can you vote when you only have one choice (from Joe Sixpack's point of view -- until Apple lowers their prices and/or Linux gains more mindshare, Joe is gonna get a Wintel machine)? As a result of Microsoft's antitrust activities, Microsoft operating systems overwhelmingly dominate the desktop. Many manufacturers will not even offer you anything else (if you buy complete systems instead of building from scratch).
Why should they be ? Why does "using another product" entail "removing the original" ? Do you want to rip khtml out of KDE just to use Mozilla ?
Why? Security for one. If I'm using a Microsoft machine, I'll probably improve my "survivability" just by removing Outlook and IE. But I can't without detrimental harm to what remains because they are commingled with the OS. If you aren't using it, get it off your system.
As far as khtml goes: I'm not sure; I use Gnome. I also, to the best of my knowledge, have a minimum set of browsers installed: Mozilla for graphical browsing, w3m for text-based browsing and whatever other browsers are strictly required to support other applications I have chosen to install. If I decide to uninstall those "other" applications, I expect them to take their browsers with them.
Of course, you might break things that are interdependant (eg: the shell uses the IE libraries for rendering), but that's to be expected.
No. That *shouldn't* be expected. If I remove a web-browser, it should not cause my system to become unusable. If I remove a Mail User Agent, it should not cause my system to become unusable. This is not acceptable.
Re-using code and modularity are hallmarks of good software design.
So are loose-coupling and tight-cohesion. Something is hardly "modular" if it is not also loosely coupled and tightly cohesive. This is where Microsoft's engineering fails but its business strategy succeeds -- the engineers at Microsoft are too intelligent to not be doing this in accordance with either a) momentum so great that it is too costly or time-consuming to stop and fix it now or b) a corporate strategy that emphasizes market share across a wide array of markets.
If Microsoft were really interested in code reuse, they would have well-defined shared libraries and not wired in applications. There is no reason why I shouldn't be able to remove Internet Explorer or any other application; I don't mind having/using shared library (that's reuse) but I do mind being forced to keep tools known to be primary vectors for virus/worm propagation on my system because Microsoft's definition of "reuse" and "modularity" view the entire operating system with a host of user space programs as a single module that is so interdependent that to remove one aspect of it is to break the rest.
Why should Microsoft be forced to use bad programming practices, just so you can easily...
No one forced Microsoft to tightly couple their applications.
...get a warm fuzzy feeling that you've completely removed IE just to use Mozilla...
Its not *just* about "a warm fuzzy feeling". It could also be about security and/or disk space (it may be cheap for corporations, but I still don't have $100.00 laying around to buy more disk space!). I'm sure there are other reasons, but those two come immediately to mind.
Yeah... like all that GNU stuff that comes with every Linux distribution.
You've missed the point.
First, Red Hat "bundles" lots of different software *choices* -- many of which affect the same problem domain; Red Hat, therefore, encourages competition. Second, the apps Red Hat bundles are third party apps (in most cases) -- they are not apps that Red Hat specifically profits from or that allow Red Hat to unfairly secure a hold in a problem domain outside of Linux OS installation and administration; I am not aware of Red Hat bundling its own apps without including competing products that do the same thing (disclaimer: I'm a debian user) and even if they did, Red Hat does not prevent you from completely removing their product and installing a different one.
What Microsoft has done is to unfairly thwart competition by not only bundling software that clearly is outside the problem domain of "Operating Systems" in an attempt to push their own products but also by commingling their products; tying one product into another so tightly that the product cannot be removed without significant harm to the overall system.
Where is the option to remove Internet Explorer? Where is the option to remove Windows Media Player? They aren't there -- you can choose to use a different tool (one that likely does not operate as well because it is not as up-close-and-personal as the Microsoft equivalent) but you cannot completely remove Microsoft's tool. This gives Microsoft an unfair advantage over its competitors and thwarts competition in general (as proven by its monopoly conviction).
Now reconsider GNU "stuff": any of it can be removed and replaced with other software.
Don't like "ls"? Write/use a shell that uses "dir" instead. Don't like "gcc" -- don't install it (and don't bother bringing up the argument of how many OTHER tools require "gcc" in order to build them or whatever; those were dependency decisions made by the authors of THOSE tools -- GNU or otherwise).
If I were to write a complete replacement for the GNU libraries/tools and try to make a living off it in the Un*x/Linux world, how much money do you think I'd make?
Now that would depend on what your tool suite offers that other tool suites don't, wouldn't it? If your tool offers a better way of accomplishing the same thing, you *could* make a mint -- or not. That's one of the points of open source, isn't it? As a user, I can choose your tool if I like it better or stick with the proven tools; that is the real crux of why or why not your tool suite would succeed or fail.
GNU tools are established, stable, and well-documented; there is little incentive to adopt a new tool suite that does the same thing...but (and this is key) there is nothing preventing someone from doing so (and then removing the other tools).
In an open market, free from monopoly and antitrust activities, there is no guarantee that you will make money off of your efforts -- but there is a guarantee that you will have a fair
chance to try. When Microsoft acted in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, it brought the magnifying glass to bear on its actions -- the "bundling" of IE and WMP may not have been such an issue if they were not also "commingled".
but if I recall correctly Lal was the android Data made which developed emotions and he had to put down?
You are correct that Lal was Data's daughter. Now,
if I remember correctly, she died of natural causes -- her neural net disintegrated or some such thing.
She wasn't "put down".
Just a conjecture, but it wouldn't seem out of step with **AA tactics to take down DALnet in order to curb illegal file sharing.
If I was going to get into conspiracy theory, I'd
point the finger at any of the various commercial "Messengers" (AOL Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, etc.) before I'd point at the *AA's.
People addicted to chatting WILL pick up one of the other chat venues if IRC is not available which means more eyeballs for the ads that support those venues.
File traders already have other means: KaZaa, et. al.
Re:If you liked this book
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Starcraft
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· Score: 1
How can they charge $103 for a 112 page book?
Didn't L. Frank Baum write The Wizard of Oz books? This book is probably very rare and is, obviously, only of interest to collectors. That's probably why it is priced at almost $1.00 per page.
"Any good? "Making of" [imdb.com]. (Same as DVD "bonus disk."?)"
I enjoyed the bonus materials and I do think the film you referenced in IMDB is the same one that is on the bonus disk...but so far, I have only been disappointed in the bonus materials (when they had them -- "Sneakers" didn't have much) on one DVD: the audio commentary for "The Matrix" absolutely sucked.
"Frankly, I am very impressed.
You actually admitted buying "Tron"!"
Har-de-har-har.:) My wife wonders how I can stand to even watch that goofy movie.
All I can tell her is that I didn't buy it for the great acting or to spend forever watching that stupid bomb-blast door open before Flynn gets sucked into TRON's world (geez, couldn't they have cut that scene down some or found something to talk about) or to listen to that captivating, electronic, midi-esque soundtrack!:)
I bought it because of what it represents: At one point, TRON was state-of-the-art; the team that put that movie together pushed the limits and developed something that had never been seen before. It's a piece of computing/entertainment history. Watching TRON is a great way to look at how far we've come!
Generally, they have no obligation to offer a refund, open box or closed, unless they are at fault.
Story time...
A few months ago (August?), I bought the TRON 20th Anniversary Edition DVD from Target. Took it home, slapped it into my DVD player and started watching it -- it froze up at the point where Flynn is first talking to ROM, the screen pixelated and I'd have to eject and reinsert the CD to get a normal screen back. Okay, Bad DVD I figured...no biggie...I'll just return it to Target and get a new one.
Get in my car, head over to Target, same-title exchange, mild grumble, head back home, unwrap, insert, and...it happened again...same place. Now I'm getting suspicious and annoyed. I try a few of my other DVDs to rule out a problem with the DVD player. They play fine.
BACK in my car AGAIN. Back to Target, same-title exchange, vocal complaint, am told "Y'know, that sounds just like what happened with *insert title here*, a Disney movie. We had to return the whole batch!". "TRON IS a Disney movie", I grumble. Back home, unwrap, insert, play...I just had to laugh. Same problem, same place.
Now, I know that I've already opened the DVD and I know what the return policy is but I'll be damned if I'm going to keep that DVD. I go to Best Buy, purchase the same TRON 20th Anniversary Edition DVD, bring it home, unwrap, insert, play...no problem.
I take the defective DVD back to Target and tell them I want my money back. The poor girl behind the counter (and I was PO'd at this point) begins to tell me they can only do a same-title exchange. I (rudely) cut her off and told her, quite loudly, that "No, I will not take a same-title exchange. I already did that; your batch of DVDs is defective. They were probably stamped off the same master in the same run. I have no reason to believe that the next one will be any better than the other three I already tried. I want my money back!"
THEM: "But...", she replied, somewhat cowed.
ME: "NO! Get me a manager!"
I then proceeded to go round and round with the store manager, who told me it was out of her hand and finally retreated with a customer care number in hand.
Next Day.
I'm in my office (oh boy -- my office mates still talk about this) and on the phone with customer care. Same story -- There's nothing we can do.
ME: "You sold me 3 defective DVDs, I want my money back."
THEM: "I'm sorry, sir. There's nothing we can do..."
ME: "Give me your supervisor..."
THEM: "She's in a meeting."
ME: "Well...that's okay. You and I will just sit here and discuss the weather, sports or the topic of your choice until she is out of her meeting" (or something to that effect)
THEM: "Uh...hold on a minute."
Miraculously, the meeting her supervisor was in must have just ended because she was on the phone.
THEM: "Hi, this is So-and-So, I've heard what happened and I'm very sorry but there is..."
ME: "STOP! What is your complete name? What is your supervisor's complete name and what is his or her phone number. If you do not fix my problem, I will be calling him or her directly."
Miraculously, the problem was solved; a call was placed back to the store where I bought the DVD and I received a cash refund.
This entire spectacle would not have been a problem if the DVD had not been defective. I even went so far as to challenge them to put the stupid thing into one of their DVD players; if it worked, I'd keep it. They wouldn't do it. The fact that the DVD was defective and they would not return it was ridiculous; the fact that the law assumed I was a criminal was ridiculous; the fact that the first store manager didn't just accept the return and pay me out of some customer-care cash account they likely have is ridiculous (I even offered to accept a Target gift card or gift certificate -- we shopped there enough that I knew it would get used for groceries or incidentals or *something*!) The entire situation steamed me because I had given them more than enough opportunity to fix the problem and the problem was not fixed. In this case, I think the merchant IS obligated to accept the return -- if the media is defective (and has not been obviously defaced by the customer -- like big, deep scratches across the surface or something). If their distributor will not accept the return, then that is a problem they need to resolve with their distributor -- the fact that the distributor's product was defective was not MY fault.
When they tell you that they will not return opened media that is defective, stick to your guns and, as you climb the ladder, be sure to let them know how vocal you will be about the situation -- that you'll write letters to the local papers, tell your friends and family, refuse to purchase from their store again, etc. This is at least a battle you can win.
Unfortunately, if you buy a game and that game just sucks, you're stuck. I've been bit by this one and I agree with another poster -- I should have researched the game better. The game works as advertised, it is just not something I enjoy playing.
My prediction is there will be about 100,000 people in the US who won't switch. A year later, it'll be 2,000 people who haven't switched. 2 years later, it'll be 100 people.
Have you ever stopped watching TV? The hard part is probably the first month or so...after that, it gets significantly easier as you find other ways (most more productive) to occupy your time. By the time you are a season or two out, you don't care anymore and have already replaced your TV time with other activities. If 100,000 people don't switch and remain non-switchers for a year or so, they probably won't go back without compelling reason.
My wife and I gave up television for over 5 years. During that time the only thing we missed was the ability to watch videos in our own home. We bought a TV this past summer for two reasons: 1) I have a son who is going on two years old and we wanted to be able to get videos for him and 2) DVDs offer enough extra value for the buck that we thought they were worth the expense.
We do not subscribe to cable television and do not watch local, broadcast-through-the-air-spectrum-whatever-you-ca ll -it TV either (I think we can get a few local stations in but they are hazy and we never turn them on).
When I stopped watching TV it was because I was fed up with all the commercials, the cost for the value, and the lack of what I considered "quality programming". I missed a few shows (I was a big Trekkie, was just getting really into Farscape, etc.) but I got over it. After the first month or so, I barely even thought about it.
From talking with others who have kicked-the-boob-tube habit, this pattern seems pretty common. Of course, your experience may be/may have been different
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For all you military trainee-wannabes out there, BLAMM! was one of the poor unfortunate souls who worked in the network communications center from hell as a 3C0X1 (System Admin); I worked on the same network as he did as a 3C0X2 (Programmer). For more insight into the horror, you can check my comments here.
Voluntold?! :) LOL. Oh, that is soooo true.
Former 3C0X2 here (Communications-Computer Systems Programmer - at least when I was in) and everything you said is just as applicable.
I wasted^H^H^H^H^H^Hspent nearly 10 years of my life in the USAF and will probably regret it for the remaining years. What a waste of time. There were only two things I got of value: a clearance and an education (of which I paid a fair portion).
If you [the original poster] are looking at the military as a way to "high-tech" careers, look elsewhere. You could win the lottery and end up with a really sweet job - more than likely you'll end up with a year of "training" in obsolete hardware and programming languages, another year of obsolete training via correspondence courses (CDCs) and a job that sucks @$$.
My experience: I was a Comp-Sci major prior to enlisting. I ran out of money for school and wanted to get away from where I was so I enlisted in the USAF. Unlike many poor unfortunate souls, my recruiter was up front and straight with me - it was the guy at MEPS (the "in-process" place you go for your rectal exam) that screwed me (pun intended). I scored great on the ASVAB (or whatever they call them) tests - worst score: got an 80 in mechanical (98-99 on all the other areas). Told the MEPS guy who "helps" you pick out your job that I wanted to work in electronics or programming and that's where I made my fatal mistake: I allowed him to talk me into putting "mechanical" on my "Job Areas" form because he pointed out a few jobs that *sounded* like electronics jobs. That goof cost me three years in Alaska as a "General Purpose Vehicle Mechanic" - i.e. I changed a lot of oil and lubed a lot of chassis.
By the time I left Alaska I was married (goof #2) and felt my only choice was to reenlist so I could be a good husband and provide for my wife. Decided that I hated being a mechanic (big surprise) and that I would spend my one get-out-of-jail free card (you are almost guaranteed a job change, if you choose to take it, at the end of your first enlistment) and try (again) for a job in electronics or programming. Well, I got it.
Went to Keesler AFB, spent 12 weeks "learning" stuff that was probably out of date when I enlisted nearly four years prior and then on to my "permanent duty station". My job: maintaining a communications network that was so old we were still using 8-inch floppies (I didn't even know such things existed at the time!) and programming on a mainframe system with a, I kid you not, ENTIRE MEG OF RAM! A WHOLE-FREAKING-WHAT-AM-I-GONNA-DO-WITH-ALL-THIS-SP ACE meg of ram.
If you couldn't tell, my experience in the Air Force BLEW!
I got out of the military just in time to see the dot-com bubble burst and had to reconcile myself that I had two things of worth at that point: the aforementioned security clearance and the aforementioned education. Thankfully, the combination (and a resume that boasted of some consulting work I pursued independently of the Air Force) got me a job as a contractor.
Today, I can say that, while the technology I work with is not bleeding-edge, it is current and interesting. The upside to working for the DOD as a contractor is: the likelihood of my job being shipped overseas is currently about nil (my job requires a security clearance which is typically not given to foreign nationals). The downside: I still have to deal with a lot of the military crap: poorly defined requirements, got-to-have-it-yesterday attitudes after they have been sitting on something for months, and this sense (particularly from the Officers) that I exist to work whatever hours they want me to (which is true of the average-joe enlisted guy/gal).
No matter how bad I had it, the 3C0X1's (the,
The problem with this statement is that it only reflects your experience and those of similar experience. As always, the quickest tool to use is the one with which you are most familiar.
Personally, as a J2EE developer, I would never dream of using Perl to code anything quickly. I recognize the value of Perl but have had little reason to develop proficiency in it. For me, Java would be the quickest route to success. For you, it is Perl and, I am sure, for someone out there it is Visual Basic.
"Best", "Quickest", "Fastest" are very subjective terms.
C0dem0nkey
If you want to see his articles every week, linked from Slashdot, why not turn on the "I, Cringely" Slashbox via User Preferences? That way, some other article can make it to Slashdot.
After looking at all those pictures, I can certainly see how difficult it would have been for this 'bot to avoid shade. Sheesh.
My question has to do with how you feel at the end of the day. I realize that opinions will probably vary among team members, but I am curious as to how many of you go home at the end of the night feeling regret over your role in prosecution? In other words, do you really believe the laws you are using to prosecute are Just or are you tossing aside your own stake in the outcome ala "The Law is the law"?
To clarify, the phrase "Everyone deserves a good defense" can be applied to the classic example of the defense lawyer who defends someone who they know is guilty of some heinous act.
When asked to prosecute a case, do you consider the long-term, chilling effects a "win" could potentially have on research and development, fair use, etc. and does it leave you feeling soiled or do you honestly believe it is your patriotic or moral duty to prosecute using laws in which you may or may not completely believe? Can you refuse to take a case based on your own convictions or does that equate to professional suicide (at least with regards to your position with the DOJ)?
Lately, NG has been the Borg of defense contracting swallowing both TRW and Logicon (which in turn swallowed PRC and Sterling). In one year, my company changed names three times! PRC -> Logicon -> Northrop Grumman. Talk about motivation.
"hard to quit when you have mouths to feed, etc."? It's downright irresponsible in this economy. I'm all for the entrepreneurial spirit and I am certainly for the rights of the worker but to quit an IT job right now...without another job already lined up...is likely to spell 6+ months on unemployment and a lower paying job at the end.
I realize you are not saying the parent poster should quit but it just strikes me as funny that so many posters to slashdot yell "Quit!" as if jobs are growing on a 1990's-esque tree somewhere.
I think the better approach is to first ask yourself whether or not the employer has a history of doing this kind of thing. Do they treat you well when times are good and call on you to step up when times are bad?
Case in point: I recently led a small team developing a web application. The completion date was set by the customer even before we were able to analyze the requirements and once I had a chance to look at the requirements I told my managers that it would be really difficult to meet the date without working alot of overtime for an extended period of time. Management replied that their hands were tied (they were) and that we had to hit the mark i.e. I walked in this geek's shoes.
I had no choice. I wasn't going to walk out of my job on the off-chance that I might find another job. I'm salaried. I knew I was getting screwed, etc.
What happened: every step of the way, my management team was there fighting to get the schedule extended, attempting to reduce the requirements, etc. In the end, the schedule was extended by about a month and a half and a particularly troublesome requirement was dropped. Now that the job is done things have slackened off some, my team is looked upon favorably, nobody gives us hassles if we are not busy 100% of the time or come in under 40 hours for the week because they know that when push comes to shove we will get the job done and leave the attitudes, etc. for the project's post-mortem review.
So...if you are employed, like your job overall and management generally treats you well overall, etc. you might want to consider just biting the bullet for a the time it takes and go from there. The pendulum has swung from one extreme (the employee's market of the 1990's) to the other (employer's market of today) but it will eventually swing back towards center and, when it does, management will have, as Ricky Ricardo would say, "some 'splainin' to do". The fact that you stuck it out when times were hard can be leveraged into either a fat raise, new position or another job at a company that appreciates you more.
Doh! Thanks.
From looking at the pictures of the keyboard chords required, many require you to twist the domes from 6 o'clock to 12 o'clock. It seems to me that in order to get any kind of speed out of this device, you'll be twisting your wrists quite severely. The wrist movements required to use a standard keyboard seem minimal in comparison.
Anyone have any other insight?
I'm constantly optimizing my code as I go along or refactoring for smaller, tighter routines. I can do this because I know what I have written. If someone were changing my code as I wrote it, that would be a VERY bad thing and would lead to a lot of confusion among developers.
I much prefer the standard practice of Controlled Versioning: check out a piece of code, make changes/rewrites/whatever, check it back in. Once I "check in" other programmers are free to do what they want to with *my* code. Hopefully, they will make it better....hopefully. :)
Coding example aside, the only thing that I can see this type of thing being useful for (off the top of my head) is brainstorming, chatting or other *non-critical* writing. I guess it could also be useful for training.
codemonkey
While I may not be convinced about a War in Iraq, I am convinced that we still need to support our military. If we don't, we are going to eventually be put in a position where we can't defend ourselves when the war comes to us (and given prevailing international opinion of America -- deserved or otherwise -- it is probably only a matter of time).
I spent almost ten years in the USAF so I'm speaking with some experience-- stuff is getting old (I worked on a militarized IBM 360 mainframe with 8" floppies and a single meg of RAM -- replacement parts were a b!tch to find when things broke!), stuff is wearing out (many aging fighters, etc.).
I'm a strong advocate for education but not a strong proponent of *Public* education (my wife and I plan to homeschool). My experience with public education was sour.
Like it or not, we do not live in a world where everyone plays nice together. One clear-cut area where our government should spend money is on the military. Yes, funds are mismanaged; yes, corruption and pork-barrel projects make the system even less tenable but these same problems are present in any large, bureaucratic organization -- the solution, like it or not, is smaller government with focused oversight committees.
Yeah, I know, it's not likely to happen.
Unfortunately, what *is* likely to happen is that non-crippled disks will increase in price while crippled disks remain the same. Now the price *appears* to be lower but nothing has really changed...the RIAA still gets the same amount of money out of you *and* the higher price on "open" CDs encourages you to suck it up and pay the fees for the crippled disk.
Pessimistic, I know...but still likely.
It's unfortunate that you had to add this part in. I understand why you did (because, unfortunately, you are probably correct) but up until this statement, I was really enjoying the discussion we've been having. This statement was like a strike in the face.
We've got differences of opinion but neither one of us had reacted in any manner other than professional and I had no reason to believe that it would proceed in any other manner.
If I get a chance, I'll take another look at your response and see if I have anything of value to add. For the record, had things desolved into name-calling, I'd just have let the conversation drop -- I post infrequently and have little use for conversations with no merit in them (i.e. flame-fests, name-calling, etc.).
I'm sorry you feel that a Linux distro is "a bunch of stuff [thrown] together with some glue and a GUI skin". Linux is an operating system that emphasizes choice through (fairly) well-defined interfaces, open-standards and open APIs. The "whole widget" is great if you *want* the whole widget -- but if you really only want part of the widget then you are paying for something you don't intend to use. You also are opening yourself up to security risks -- one of the prime tenets of security is to remove (completely) software you are not using or do not want on your system; that way it is not there to bite you later.
On the side, I basically agree with you on Apple. While I do support Apple, the big distinction is that Apple's success is due to Apple's doing; had Microsoft not unfairly hobbled the free market and had Apple ever figured out that the home user cannot afford their prices Apple could be in a different position today. Apple is not perfect by any means -- but they are not a convicted monopolist who have used illegal means to get to their present position. The last statement of my original post stated that part of the reason Microsoft runs into these types of arguments and incenses so many people is because of how they got to be #1; they unfairly manipulated the market to the detriment of the consumer.
Their objective is to make a single, cohesive product that perform all the basic functions an end-user could want.
I think you are casting Microsoft's goals in a more altruistic light than they deserve. Bill Gates goal is the same as it has always been: to make money and to make gobs of it (and he is very good at it).
"Define this "domain"....Now justify why you said "yes" or "no" to any/all of the above."
Obviously, this would take a considerable amount of time, so I'm just going to speak to the heart of your point (as I understand it). Yes, there is overlap between what is an Operating System in the strict sense of the definition and what is an Operating System from the point of view of Joe Sixpack consumer. I think a quick guage would be to ask Joe Sixpack "What operating system do you use?". His response will likely be "Microsoft" (an astute Joe might even say "Microsoft Windows", "Win XP", "Win 2K", etc.). Now say to Joe, "Hey, open this MP3 in [Whatever term Joe used for his OS]". A likely response would be "Which program do I use?". At that point, Joe has made a distinction between the OS and a user-space program; its not perfect, YMMV, etc. but it serves the point that there is a distinction even for most average users (whether they realize it explicitly or not.). I would agree with you that basic shell activities, file management, etc. can be (and probably should be) considered part of the operating system.
As technical hobbyists/professionals on a discussion site with a technical slant, I would assume we could use a more technical definition.
"...the customers have convincingly voted for bundling in things like shells, web browsers and media viewers."
In general, I agree. However, while I agree that the bundling of certain apps (browser, media player, etc.) add value for the customer, that does not make those apps part of the operating system. They are still separate apps and should be removable (if the user desires). Keep in mind that in my original post, I wasn't really taking issue with bundling -- its the commingling that is the problem.
As to whether or not users have "convincingly voted" for this: How can you vote when you only have one choice (from Joe Sixpack's point of view -- until Apple lowers their prices and/or Linux gains more mindshare, Joe is gonna get a Wintel machine)? As a result of Microsoft's antitrust activities, Microsoft operating systems overwhelmingly dominate the desktop. Many manufacturers will not even offer you anything else (if you buy complete systems instead of building from scratch).
Why should they be ? Why does "using another product" entail "removing the original" ? Do you want to rip khtml out of KDE just to use Mozilla ?
Why? Security for one. If I'm using a Microsoft machine, I'll probably improve my "survivability" just by removing Outlook and IE. But I can't without detrimental harm to what remains because they are commingled with the OS. If you aren't using it, get it off your system.
As far as khtml goes: I'm not sure; I use Gnome. I also, to the best of my knowledge, have a minimum set of browsers installed: Mozilla for graphical browsing, w3m for text-based browsing and whatever other browsers are strictly required to support other applications I have chosen to install. If I decide to uninstall those "other" applications, I expect them to take their browsers with them.
Of course, you might break things that are interdependant (eg: the shell uses the IE libraries for rendering), but that's to be expected.
No. That *shouldn't* be expected. If I remove a web-browser, it should not cause my system to become unusable. If I remove a Mail User Agent, it should not cause my system to become unusable. This is not acceptable.
Re-using code and modularity are hallmarks of good software design.
So are loose-coupling and tight-cohesion. Something is hardly "modular" if it is not also loosely coupled and tightly cohesive. This is where Microsoft's engineering fails but its business strategy succeeds -- the engineers at Microsoft are too intelligent to not be doing this in accordance with either a) momentum so great that it is too costly or time-consuming to stop and fix it now or b) a corporate strategy that emphasizes market share across a wide array of markets.
If Microsoft were really interested in code reuse, they would have well-defined shared libraries and not wired in applications. There is no reason why I shouldn't be able to remove Internet Explorer or any other application; I don't mind having/using shared library (that's reuse) but I do mind being forced to keep tools known to be primary vectors for virus/worm propagation on my system because Microsoft's definition of "reuse" and "modularity" view the entire operating system with a host of user space programs as a single module that is so interdependent that to remove one aspect of it is to break the rest.
Why should Microsoft be forced to use bad programming practices, just so you can easily...
No one forced Microsoft to tightly couple their applications.
Its not *just* about "a warm fuzzy feeling". It could also be about security and/or disk space (it may be cheap for corporations, but I still don't have $100.00 laying around to buy more disk space!). I'm sure there are other reasons, but those two come immediately to mind.
You've missed the point.
First, Red Hat "bundles" lots of different software *choices* -- many of which affect the same problem domain; Red Hat, therefore, encourages competition. Second, the apps Red Hat bundles are third party apps (in most cases) -- they are not apps that Red Hat specifically profits from or that allow Red Hat to unfairly secure a hold in a problem domain outside of Linux OS installation and administration; I am not aware of Red Hat bundling its own apps without including competing products that do the same thing (disclaimer: I'm a debian user) and even if they did, Red Hat does not prevent you from completely removing their product and installing a different one.
What Microsoft has done is to unfairly thwart competition by not only bundling software that clearly is outside the problem domain of "Operating Systems" in an attempt to push their own products but also by commingling their products; tying one product into another so tightly that the product cannot be removed without significant harm to the overall system.
Where is the option to remove Internet Explorer? Where is the option to remove Windows Media Player? They aren't there -- you can choose to use a different tool (one that likely does not operate as well because it is not as up-close-and-personal as the Microsoft equivalent) but you cannot completely remove Microsoft's tool. This gives Microsoft an unfair advantage over its competitors and thwarts competition in general (as proven by its monopoly conviction).
Now reconsider GNU "stuff": any of it can be removed and replaced with other software.
Don't like "ls"? Write/use a shell that uses "dir" instead. Don't like "gcc" -- don't install it (and don't bother bringing up the argument of how many OTHER tools require "gcc" in order to build them or whatever; those were dependency decisions made by the authors of THOSE tools -- GNU or otherwise).
If I were to write a complete replacement for the GNU libraries/tools and try to make a living off it in the Un*x/Linux world, how much money do you think I'd make?
Now that would depend on what your tool suite offers that other tool suites don't, wouldn't it? If your tool offers a better way of accomplishing the same thing, you *could* make a mint -- or not. That's one of the points of open source, isn't it? As a user, I can choose your tool if I like it better or stick with the proven tools; that is the real crux of why or why not your tool suite would succeed or fail.
GNU tools are established, stable, and well-documented; there is little incentive to adopt a new tool suite that does the same thing...but (and this is key) there is nothing preventing someone from doing so (and then removing the other tools).
In an open market, free from monopoly and antitrust activities, there is no guarantee that you will make money off of your efforts -- but there is a guarantee that you will have a fair chance to try. When Microsoft acted in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, it brought the magnifying glass to bear on its actions -- the "bundling" of IE and WMP may not have been such an issue if they were not also "commingled".
You are correct that Lal was Data's daughter. Now, if I remember correctly, she died of natural causes -- her neural net disintegrated or some such thing. She wasn't "put down".
Where do you make that modification? Is it a file edit or available from the preferences screen? I didn't see any option like this anywhere....
Not that big of a deal...just curious...it has been a long time since I hit a page with Mozilla that Mozilla couldn't render.
If I was going to get into conspiracy theory, I'd point the finger at any of the various commercial "Messengers" (AOL Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, etc.) before I'd point at the *AA's.
People addicted to chatting WILL pick up one of the other chat venues if IRC is not available which means more eyeballs for the ads that support those venues.
File traders already have other means: KaZaa, et. al.
Didn't L. Frank Baum write The Wizard of Oz books? This book is probably very rare and is, obviously, only of interest to collectors. That's probably why it is priced at almost $1.00 per page.
codemonkey
I enjoyed the bonus materials and I do think the film you referenced in IMDB is the same one that is on the bonus disk...but so far, I have only been disappointed in the bonus materials (when they had them -- "Sneakers" didn't have much) on one DVD: the audio commentary for "The Matrix" absolutely sucked.
codemonkey
Har-de-har-har. :) My wife wonders how I can stand to even watch that goofy movie.
All I can tell her is that I didn't buy it for the great acting or to spend forever watching that stupid bomb-blast door open before Flynn gets sucked into TRON's world (geez, couldn't they have cut that scene down some or found something to talk about) or to listen to that captivating, electronic, midi-esque soundtrack! :)
I bought it because of what it represents: At one point, TRON was state-of-the-art; the team that put that movie together pushed the limits and developed something that had never been seen before. It's a piece of computing/entertainment history. Watching TRON is a great way to look at how far we've come!
codemonkey
Story time...
A few months ago (August?), I bought the TRON 20th Anniversary Edition DVD from Target. Took it home, slapped it into my DVD player and started watching it -- it froze up at the point where Flynn is first talking to ROM, the screen pixelated and I'd have to eject and reinsert the CD to get a normal screen back. Okay, Bad DVD I figured...no biggie...I'll just return it to Target and get a new one.
Get in my car, head over to Target, same-title exchange, mild grumble, head back home, unwrap, insert, and...it happened again...same place. Now I'm getting suspicious and annoyed. I try a few of my other DVDs to rule out a problem with the DVD player. They play fine.
BACK in my car AGAIN. Back to Target, same-title exchange, vocal complaint, am told "Y'know, that sounds just like what happened with *insert title here*, a Disney movie. We had to return the whole batch!". "TRON IS a Disney movie", I grumble. Back home, unwrap, insert, play...I just had to laugh. Same problem, same place.
Now, I know that I've already opened the DVD and I know what the return policy is but I'll be damned if I'm going to keep that DVD. I go to Best Buy, purchase the same TRON 20th Anniversary Edition DVD, bring it home, unwrap, insert, play...no problem.
I take the defective DVD back to Target and tell them I want my money back. The poor girl behind the counter (and I was PO'd at this point) begins to tell me they can only do a same-title exchange. I (rudely) cut her off and told her, quite loudly, that "No, I will not take a same-title exchange. I already did that; your batch of DVDs is defective. They were probably stamped off the same master in the same run. I have no reason to believe that the next one will be any better than the other three I already tried. I want my money back!"
THEM: "But...", she replied, somewhat cowed.
ME: "NO! Get me a manager!"
I then proceeded to go round and round with the store manager, who told me it was out of her hand and finally retreated with a customer care number in hand.
Next Day.
I'm in my office (oh boy -- my office mates still talk about this) and on the phone with customer care. Same story -- There's nothing we can do.
ME: "You sold me 3 defective DVDs, I want my money back."
THEM: "I'm sorry, sir. There's nothing we can do..."
ME: "Give me your supervisor..."
THEM: "She's in a meeting."
ME: "Well...that's okay. You and I will just sit here and discuss the weather, sports or the topic of your choice until she is out of her meeting" (or something to that effect)
THEM: "Uh...hold on a minute."
Miraculously, the meeting her supervisor was in must have just ended because she was on the phone.
THEM: "Hi, this is So-and-So, I've heard what happened and I'm very sorry but there is..."
ME: "STOP! What is your complete name? What is your supervisor's complete name and what is his or her phone number. If you do not fix my problem, I will be calling him or her directly."
Miraculously, the problem was solved; a call was placed back to the store where I bought the DVD and I received a cash refund.
This entire spectacle would not have been a problem if the DVD had not been defective. I even went so far as to challenge them to put the stupid thing into one of their DVD players; if it worked, I'd keep it. They wouldn't do it. The fact that the DVD was defective and they would not return it was ridiculous; the fact that the law assumed I was a criminal was ridiculous; the fact that the first store manager didn't just accept the return and pay me out of some customer-care cash account they likely have is ridiculous (I even offered to accept a Target gift card or gift certificate -- we shopped there enough that I knew it would get used for groceries or incidentals or *something*!) The entire situation steamed me because I had given them more than enough opportunity to fix the problem and the problem was not fixed. In this case, I think the merchant IS obligated to accept the return -- if the media is defective (and has not been obviously defaced by the customer -- like big, deep scratches across the surface or something). If their distributor will not accept the return, then that is a problem they need to resolve with their distributor -- the fact that the distributor's product was defective was not MY fault.
When they tell you that they will not return opened media that is defective, stick to your guns and, as you climb the ladder, be sure to let them know how vocal you will be about the situation -- that you'll write letters to the local papers, tell your friends and family, refuse to purchase from their store again, etc. This is at least a battle you can win.
Unfortunately, if you buy a game and that game just sucks, you're stuck. I've been bit by this one and I agree with another poster -- I should have researched the game better. The game works as advertised, it is just not something I enjoy playing.
codemonkey
Didn't Sony v. Betamax already prove this? Yet we still ended up with the DMCA...'
codemonkey
Have you ever stopped watching TV? The hard part is probably the first month or so...after that, it gets significantly easier as you find other ways (most more productive) to occupy your time. By the time you are a season or two out, you don't care anymore and have already replaced your TV time with other activities. If 100,000 people don't switch and remain non-switchers for a year or so, they probably won't go back without compelling reason.
My wife and I gave up television for over 5 years. During that time the only thing we missed was the ability to watch videos in our own home. We bought a TV this past summer for two reasons: 1) I have a son who is going on two years old and we wanted to be able to get videos for him and 2) DVDs offer enough extra value for the buck that we thought they were worth the expense.
We do not subscribe to cable television and do not watch local, broadcast-through-the-air-spectrum-whatever-you-ca ll -it TV either (I think we can get a few local stations in but they are hazy and we never turn them on).
When I stopped watching TV it was because I was fed up with all the commercials, the cost for the value, and the lack of what I considered "quality programming". I missed a few shows (I was a big Trekkie, was just getting really into Farscape, etc.) but I got over it. After the first month or so, I barely even thought about it.
From talking with others who have kicked-the-boob-tube habit, this pattern seems pretty common. Of course, your experience may be/may have been different
codemonkey