How's it paid off great? The games are wonderful, of course, but I've seen nothing that wasn't technically possible on the N64 (again, if we didn't drop the FMV and constant audio dialog). I think it's bullshit when people prance around acting like Square parting ways with Nintendo was Nintendo's fault-- Nintendo chose to stick with cart's vs. CD's; because they knew good games COULD be done on them still. And guess what? Good games still are, and Nintendo themselves proved it with the Zelda games and many of their other titles. It's pretty sad when the hardware vendor has to carry the system because (and this is my belief) Sony has more money to throw at the 3rd parties that used to back Nintendo.
Third parties didn't support Sony because their system was technically superior, or because it was more popular, but because in my belief they were coerced into supporting it. It's really hard to believe that a big Nintendo backer like Square left over the lack of a CD-ROM...
I just hope Sony doesn't buy off the 3rd parties on the PS2 the same way they did before-- because the PS2 is TRUELY an awful system, DEFINATELY not worth the hype. (Or the stupid eBay auctions that raked in tons of money over the Christmas season.) The Gamecube finally ditches carts, but didn't go with full-out DVD-ROM support.. hopefully the 3rd parties don't make this their excuse to not support Nintendo this time around..
Well the thing is, they don't work fine as is, atleast in the case of ftp.exe. No support (that I can tell, anyways) for PASV ftp through firewalls/NAT, and very little in the way of support for restartable transfers (again, that I can tell). You could manually issue a REST command, but these are the sorts of things that should be built-in. =)
Shrug, I just think it's shoddy not to do some of the work yourself. I agree with you technically, there's no problem with it.
I wasn't talking about sales, and neither are you; I'm talking about gameplay. I was expecting more, especially after the sheer amount of time Nintendo expected everyone to wait.
You said Nintendo has "a lot of catching up to do", which the only real indicator of how successful a game company is by (ding ding) SALES! I'd say that they could have done better with the N64, but otherwise the only people to blame for the lackluster amount of support the N64 has is the 3rd party companies that bailed on Nintendo (read: Capcom, Konami, Square, et all.).. Big deal, they used cartridges instead of CD's-- I've yet to see a game on the Playstation that couldn't have been done on the N64 with a little effort. (Full motion video and constant vocals aside, of course.)
As for pissing Square off-- I might be wrong on this (and feel free to correct me), but I thought Nintendo offered them a license to do games and Square turned it down (due to lack of CD-ROM support on the N64)? Sounds like Square has some apologizing to do, not Nintendo.
And back to full motion video/ongoing vocal dialogue for a second-- one of the things he talked about in that interview was how game companies need to quit thinking they're movie companies. THEY'RE NOT, and he's absolutely correct-- half the time I see video (in PC games or in some PS/DC games) and I get ill. The fact that these companies are blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on digital artists or actors to make these things, instead of pouring more resources into actual game development is why we're getting a lot of the trash and repetitive shit we've seen lately.
I guess, to make a long story short, I'll be happy once this shakeup of game companies comes to a completion and we have two hardware vendors and our usual large handful of game development houses. (So far, it looks like the hardware vendors will be Nintendo and Sony, since Sega went and died.) Then maybe it'll be time to actually innovate, rather than be another Sega.
I disagree, the Nintendo 64 is doing FINE in sales, you don't see them folding camp like Sega did do you?
Another thing-- you SEVERLY underrate Zelda 64 (and Nintendo's other games for the N64). "And Zelda? Well, I heard the new ones were decent 3D remakes of the original, but that's it."? While I haven't played Majora's Mask, the Ocarina of Time kicked ass, you'd be a fool to say that game was 'just a remake'. Sure, the gameplay shares a lot of it's roots with the original top-down games, but it's a sequel, were you expecting a complete overhaul?
I think what he said was DEAD on-- the industry as a whole is becoming too engrossed in 'ooooh pretty'-gee whiz graphics and not with good content that involves the player. Some of gamings biggest hits weren't successful because of their presentation, but because the gameplay was ENGAGING. (Enter: Tetris, Pac-Man, etc, etc.) Exceptions of course exist, but not on the console platforms (the original Quake on the PC naturally being a break-through title) generally. If any company has a grasp on the gaming industry as a whole, it's Nintendo. Unfortunately, Nintendo just wasn't as good as Sony with courting 3rd party developers to their console. But I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in here that would say the PS1 was technically superior to the N64, except for the lack of a CD-ROM..
nslookup.exe has the copyright in it as well, funny thing is I never knew Microsoft ripped off so much of their 'utility' commands (I thought they just ripped the filenames so *nix users would have an easier time migrating to NT/2000) from BSD. Christ, you'd think it'd be worth their time to re-write SOME of these from scratch.
Thanks for the info. =) The probe itself was still designed and built by NASA, but you're correct that the credit for guiding it to a picture perfect landing should go to Johns Hopkins.
There's incorrect information alright-- yours. The CNN article goes on, at great length, about NASA when discussing the NEAR-Shoemaker probe and doesn't say a *thing* about Johns Hopkins.
Is there any proof that they were actually controlling it?
(BTW: This isn't meant to sound like a flame, but your attitude needs a little work.)
The problem I'm having with the prices is that there's no 'discount' version for Borland customers (as there is with Delphi and CBuilder). EG: The competitive upgrade versions of Delphi/CBuilder are also valid for Borland customers. Example: I own Borland Delphi Professional, and want to give Borland CBuilder Professional a shot-- I pay $300 for it instead of $800. That's a $500 savings for being a Borland loyalist-- but with Kylix, EVERYONE pays the same. Seems kinda lame, but I guess they need to make money somewhere..
As an aside, the free version will be nice, but I wonder what'll be missing.
But you're missing the most important point, which is that doing something costs money. A lot of money.
You're right, it costs money. I'm glad those economics classes weren't wasted. =) Again, someone smuggling something in is nice, but we have checks in place to stop that already-- airport security, border patrol, etc, etc. All of which are expected to get more funding under a Bush administration than Clinton gave under his.
The thing is, and I've tried to make this point and have either failed, or had it fall on deaf ears-- WE NEED SOMETHING FOR MISSILES LAUNCHED FROM ROGUE STATES OR TERRORIST REGIMES THAT AREN'T INTERESTED IN PEACE. Osama Bin Laden is a prime example of someone, who, if he could get ahold of the technology or some missiles, would not hesitate to launch them at our country. Your arguement that the technology still doesn't work is a baseless point; a lot of our modern 'marvels' wouldn't exist unless the money was poured into it for research and development. Things like the internet, the creation you're using right now, was funded by the military. If we followed your logic, this sort of spending would never have been made. Especially considering the internets original use WASN'T so we could banter back and forth on a web-based message forum.
A missile defense system has been a money losing proposition so far, but for the past eight years under the Clinton adminstration it hasn't really had much funding or been given a fair chance to prosper. Under Bush, I'm sure we'll not only see the funding increase and have future successful tests, but one day an actual defense against random unprovoked attacks by people bent on attacking us on 'holy' grounds.
Crossing our arms, giving money to the needy and funding other domestic issues isn't going to save us from anything if an attack like that described above were launched.
I dunno, I'd rather have something in place capable of shooting missiles out of the sky in case someone BUYS non-nuclear or nuclear based missiles from China and points them at us, than have nothing at all. The idea of someone smuggling in a bomb has merit, but what are we supposed to do when that [insert well-funded terrorist group] decides to just shoot missiles? Put on a pot of tea and go out onto the porch and enjoy the show?
Your arguement is that we do nothing at all to defend ourselves-- my arguement is that we DO something. Even if it's failing right now, atleast the research has been put into place and the efforts are moving forward; just because it won't shoot something out of the sky today doesn't mean it won't in the coming months and years as the technology evolves.
A national missile defense system WOULD work, however. They may send 'fake' missiles for us to shoot down, but atleast the system is in place in case of a surprise attack or an unprovoked attack.
Plus you need to keep in mind, our missile defense system ISN'T being put in place to keep China or Russia from attacking us-- it's for the smaller countries or terrorists that may have access to nuclear missile technology, or other kinds of missiles. CNN interviewed someone speaking for the NMD, and they pointed out that in it's current incarnation the system wouldn't be able to block a full attack by China/Russia. It's only intent was to defend against rogue states or terrorists.
With this in mind, it wouldn't stop China if they went all out; but it would atleast limit the amount of damage they could do. If they circumvent it, oh well, but atleast it's an early warning for us to know that they're planning an attack immediatly (afterall, we'll reset the system with new rockets fairly shortly, correct?).
This was posted just over a week ago already however. There's absolutely no reason to re-post something that's already been posted and hasn't changed since the last time it was put up.
You missed the part where I pointed out that 'just quitting' won't work eventually. You know, job market thinning out, more people with this skill than jobs, etc.
Shrug, I'd rather have someone to represent my interests. I think I gave a prime example of why as well-- your only comeback is that I'd lose some money to union dues. Big deal; atleast I wouldn't work 50-80 hours a week and then be told it wasn't enough on Sunday.
Granted, I'm still not in a union and my current job is amazing. Excellent team, nice hours, good pay and very flexible management.
But, as I said, wait another 5 or 10 years. IT will change, eventually people will want a lot of things from employers like--
a) paid training to keep current on new technologies.
b) better pay to keep up atleast somewhat with the rising costs our society always has.
c) better positions, or new positions dealing with newer technology-- not legacy technology that's "on the way out" (along with your job entirely).
The problem as I stated earlier, is that it seems a vast majority of posters here (so far, this topic just started so I'll hope for more pro-Union or atleast pro-organized labor) aren't for Unions because they view their jobs as safe, and the demand for their work as endless. It never crosses their mind that the same colleges they were through is bulging with fresher IT workers that are willing to take cheaper wages to pay off those expensive college loans.
Unions might not be the answer, but there must be some way of keeping our rights respected and our pay reasonable-- because honestly, I see this job and I'm happy with the pay, but I don't see myself in this job four or five years from now. And why? Because technology moves ahead at speeds that would require someone to go back to college every 4-5 years for new training and/or hit up seminars and/or read a library of books to keep up.
And the interval between new languages, technologies, hardware and software is only shortening.
I'd gladly give a union a portion of my pay, if it meant represntation and fair pay for new and old workers alike, and retraining where needed.
Me, personally, I wish I had a union or some larger group to represent me at my last company. Management at the company felt it would be SPLENDID to work us 6 days a week, 10 hours a day. Under a union? I doubt that would have ever happened. Ditto for the time I was sick, and management disclosed the VERY SURPRISING revelation to me that "you don't get any paid sick time". Nice.
My current company thankfully HAS paid sick time, unlimited in fact (beyond a month or so though, your disability kicks in). They also have flexible hours-- come and go as I please, as long as I a) finish my work on deadline and b) average 40 hours a week (pushing that theory, I could work 20 hours this week, and 60 hours next, and nobody would care).
A union would have atleast been someplace to turn to, instead of having to deal with the BS from the last job. (And yep, it was a dot-com start-up...)
To the folk who say unions have no place since we can all quit and have jobs in a few days/weeks-- I'm sorry pal, but those days are numbered. Eventually work like ours isn't going to be the specialty, it's going to be as common-place as auto-work related jobs. All those 'kids' in college majoring in Computer Science and other fields related to IT? Eventually they'll be out in the work force, and suddenly jobs like ours will need some sort of defense.
Are unions the answer? I honestly don't know.. I've heard good and bad about them, but IMHO, SOME form of representation is better than NO representation.
My 25 cents.
It's a press release from Microsoft directly (read the part where it says 'Source'). EVERY company that does press releases gives some sort of history of the company for investors. Sure, you'd have to live under a rock not to know who they are, which I suppose might be your point, but there ARE an awful lot of rocks out there. =)
Sun should have dropped their suit against Microsoft, atleast if Microsoft had kept their license and hadn't been sued Java would have taken off as a programming language-- now with Microsoft support due to die in seven years (if I read the report correctly) we can welcome C# in for the long haul. Java can still proliferate on Linux/etc, but I just don't see it making the kind of impact it could have had with Microsoft involved.
Yeah, I haven't asked yet, this question was more a "well, I think I know they won't give in if all I do is ask, so I might as well ask the general population what they think". Because, depending on how they respond to my initial request (like I said, we parted on bad terms, but that doesn't change my work at all-- I still wrote a vast majority of the code), I may want to immediatly call an attorney.
Plus, and I didn't mention this in the story submission, but it seems kind of a slap in the face for them to distribute it on popular download sites (CNET, 32bit.com, etc) and put this other employees name in for "author" (on sites that support such a field) and not mention mine.
It's probably just nit-picking, honestly, but I'd rather be informed in case I do want to pursue it, than just jump in head first. Thanks for the responses. =)
My biggest gripe with the DMCA has been the MPAA's use of it to squash any attempts at making 3rd party players for DVD's. I can easily see a future where merely TRYING to make a player for some media format that's all the rage was turned into a crime, punishable by harsh fines and even prison.
What's worse, is that the motion picture industry can say that just because 2600 POSTS source code to a method to circumvent DVD access protections, that they're violating the law. This is akin to owning a gun (in this case, the source code) but never shooting anyone with it (in this case, using it to decrypt a movie). The DMCA takes too much away from the average citizen and gives it to the large corporations.
On a broader scale, look at products like Bleem! that play Playstation games-- what if Nintendo includes 'anti-piracy' encryption techniques on those nifty new discs for the GameCube? Would writing a player be a punishable offense? Would distributing source code that reverses the encryption land one in the Federal Courts?
What about regular office applications and their file formats? Etc, etc.
IMHO I think more thought should be given to the DMCA.. copyright holders already have rights to protect their works (I'd say they have too many, but that's another story), they don't need a way to protect their 'secret handshake' to gain access to their exclusive clubhouse.
From the looks of the ruling by WIPO, this guy has a HUGE history of cybersquatting and using closely named websites to misdirect typo-laden users to his websites. Check out all of the US Court cases against him and the number of previous rulings against him.
Sure, if this was the ONLY case against him it might make sense to put a story up talking about how this guy was the latest victim of WIPO, but get real-- he brought the whole mess on himself because he's CLEARLY registering these latest sites as retaliation for the complaint regarding the guines.com domain. I don't want this coming off as a flame, but there comes a point where someone crosses the line from fair use to improper or childish use..
There is a myth that it is faster, but it is not: it would be if Unix used a sensible string format, but nul-terminated strings have to go a byte at a time anyways.
Just wanted to comment on this one part of your post (and don't take this as a flame)-- it's not a myth, case sensetive searches are faster than searches that ignore case. The simple reason is that in a search that ignores case, BOTH values must be converted to uppercase or lowercase before being compared using a REP CMPSB assembler statement. However, for searches that are case sensetive, you don't need to process uppercasing/lowercasing the values to be compared, you can just execute the comparison immediatly.
Also consider the implications of Unicode or multibyte character sets, and the fact that uppercasing or lowercasing a string isn't as simple as it used to be in 8-bit ASCII-days.
It may not be a huge performance hit, but it's definately slower at some point.
He said he was using BCB5, which is "Borland C++Builder 5". You're confusing BC5 with BCB5. =) It's a common mistake, but he is definately using the latest version.
As for suggestions, try visiting community.borland.com and checking out their TI (tech info) and FAQ sections for Borland C++ Builder. This may lead you in the right direction for finding a solution...
My personal belief is that it's just a setting issue or perhaps some of your sourcefiles are getting too large. Also keep in mind that there's "Turbo Debugger" debugging information, and then there's the C++Builder's debugging information-- C++Builder's IDE doesn't need the Turbo Debugger debugging info to step through code or set watches on variables. Disable that if you've had it on. =)
...is all I've got to say about this.
After the DeCSS trial, and the issue with Napster (which I think is half-right and half-wrong, sure artists should get compensated for their work, but for a community as large as Napster, it'd be impossible to police it in a way that someone wouldn't overcome in short-order) people should be writing in en masse to voice their opinions about the MPAA' actions and the proposed limitations on recording from television.
IMHO: If it's broadcast over the airwaves, it should be free game, not subject to some sort of control-freak legislation/ruling that the MPAA wants, beyond the obvious limitations on not re-distributing it.
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How's it paid off great? The games are wonderful, of course, but I've seen nothing that wasn't technically possible on the N64 (again, if we didn't drop the FMV and constant audio dialog). I think it's bullshit when people prance around acting like Square parting ways with Nintendo was Nintendo's fault-- Nintendo chose to stick with cart's vs. CD's; because they knew good games COULD be done on them still. And guess what? Good games still are, and Nintendo themselves proved it with the Zelda games and many of their other titles. It's pretty sad when the hardware vendor has to carry the system because (and this is my belief) Sony has more money to throw at the 3rd parties that used to back Nintendo.
Third parties didn't support Sony because their system was technically superior, or because it was more popular, but because in my belief they were coerced into supporting it. It's really hard to believe that a big Nintendo backer like Square left over the lack of a CD-ROM...
I just hope Sony doesn't buy off the 3rd parties on the PS2 the same way they did before-- because the PS2 is TRUELY an awful system, DEFINATELY not worth the hype. (Or the stupid eBay auctions that raked in tons of money over the Christmas season.) The Gamecube finally ditches carts, but didn't go with full-out DVD-ROM support.. hopefully the 3rd parties don't make this their excuse to not support Nintendo this time around..
Well the thing is, they don't work fine as is, atleast in the case of ftp.exe. No support (that I can tell, anyways) for PASV ftp through firewalls/NAT, and very little in the way of support for restartable transfers (again, that I can tell). You could manually issue a REST command, but these are the sorts of things that should be built-in. =)
Shrug, I just think it's shoddy not to do some of the work yourself. I agree with you technically, there's no problem with it.
I wasn't talking about sales, and neither are you; I'm talking about gameplay. I was expecting more, especially after the sheer amount of time Nintendo expected everyone to wait.
You said Nintendo has "a lot of catching up to do", which the only real indicator of how successful a game company is by (ding ding) SALES! I'd say that they could have done better with the N64, but otherwise the only people to blame for the lackluster amount of support the N64 has is the 3rd party companies that bailed on Nintendo (read: Capcom, Konami, Square, et all.).. Big deal, they used cartridges instead of CD's-- I've yet to see a game on the Playstation that couldn't have been done on the N64 with a little effort. (Full motion video and constant vocals aside, of course.)
As for pissing Square off-- I might be wrong on this (and feel free to correct me), but I thought Nintendo offered them a license to do games and Square turned it down (due to lack of CD-ROM support on the N64)? Sounds like Square has some apologizing to do, not Nintendo.
And back to full motion video/ongoing vocal dialogue for a second-- one of the things he talked about in that interview was how game companies need to quit thinking they're movie companies. THEY'RE NOT, and he's absolutely correct-- half the time I see video (in PC games or in some PS/DC games) and I get ill. The fact that these companies are blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on digital artists or actors to make these things, instead of pouring more resources into actual game development is why we're getting a lot of the trash and repetitive shit we've seen lately.
I guess, to make a long story short, I'll be happy once this shakeup of game companies comes to a completion and we have two hardware vendors and our usual large handful of game development houses. (So far, it looks like the hardware vendors will be Nintendo and Sony, since Sega went and died.) Then maybe it'll be time to actually innovate, rather than be another Sega.
...was written by someone named Carl S. Kaplan? I wonder if there's any relation to the Kaplan that ruled against 2600 in the DeCSS case?
I disagree, the Nintendo 64 is doing FINE in sales, you don't see them folding camp like Sega did do you?
Another thing-- you SEVERLY underrate Zelda 64 (and Nintendo's other games for the N64). "And Zelda? Well, I heard the new ones were decent 3D remakes of the original, but that's it."? While I haven't played Majora's Mask, the Ocarina of Time kicked ass, you'd be a fool to say that game was 'just a remake'. Sure, the gameplay shares a lot of it's roots with the original top-down games, but it's a sequel, were you expecting a complete overhaul?
I think what he said was DEAD on-- the industry as a whole is becoming too engrossed in 'ooooh pretty'-gee whiz graphics and not with good content that involves the player. Some of gamings biggest hits weren't successful because of their presentation, but because the gameplay was ENGAGING. (Enter: Tetris, Pac-Man, etc, etc.) Exceptions of course exist, but not on the console platforms (the original Quake on the PC naturally being a break-through title) generally. If any company has a grasp on the gaming industry as a whole, it's Nintendo. Unfortunately, Nintendo just wasn't as good as Sony with courting 3rd party developers to their console. But I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in here that would say the PS1 was technically superior to the N64, except for the lack of a CD-ROM..
nslookup.exe has the copyright in it as well, funny thing is I never knew Microsoft ripped off so much of their 'utility' commands (I thought they just ripped the filenames so *nix users would have an easier time migrating to NT/2000) from BSD. Christ, you'd think it'd be worth their time to re-write SOME of these from scratch.
Thanks for the info. =) The probe itself was still designed and built by NASA, but you're correct that the credit for guiding it to a picture perfect landing should go to Johns Hopkins.
There's incorrect information alright-- yours. The CNN article goes on, at great length, about NASA when discussing the NEAR-Shoemaker probe and doesn't say a *thing* about Johns Hopkins.
Is there any proof that they were actually controlling it?
(BTW: This isn't meant to sound like a flame, but your attitude needs a little work.)
Thanks for the info! =) I don't visit community.borland.com often, so I probably would have ended up paying the full $999.
[rushes off to pre-order]
The problem I'm having with the prices is that there's no 'discount' version for Borland customers (as there is with Delphi and CBuilder). EG: The competitive upgrade versions of Delphi/CBuilder are also valid for Borland customers. Example: I own Borland Delphi Professional, and want to give Borland CBuilder Professional a shot-- I pay $300 for it instead of $800. That's a $500 savings for being a Borland loyalist-- but with Kylix, EVERYONE pays the same. Seems kinda lame, but I guess they need to make money somewhere..
As an aside, the free version will be nice, but I wonder what'll be missing.
You're right, it costs money. I'm glad those economics classes weren't wasted. =) Again, someone smuggling something in is nice, but we have checks in place to stop that already-- airport security, border patrol, etc, etc. All of which are expected to get more funding under a Bush administration than Clinton gave under his.
The thing is, and I've tried to make this point and have either failed, or had it fall on deaf ears-- WE NEED SOMETHING FOR MISSILES LAUNCHED FROM ROGUE STATES OR TERRORIST REGIMES THAT AREN'T INTERESTED IN PEACE. Osama Bin Laden is a prime example of someone, who, if he could get ahold of the technology or some missiles, would not hesitate to launch them at our country. Your arguement that the technology still doesn't work is a baseless point; a lot of our modern 'marvels' wouldn't exist unless the money was poured into it for research and development. Things like the internet, the creation you're using right now, was funded by the military. If we followed your logic, this sort of spending would never have been made. Especially considering the internets original use WASN'T so we could banter back and forth on a web-based message forum.
A missile defense system has been a money losing proposition so far, but for the past eight years under the Clinton adminstration it hasn't really had much funding or been given a fair chance to prosper. Under Bush, I'm sure we'll not only see the funding increase and have future successful tests, but one day an actual defense against random unprovoked attacks by people bent on attacking us on 'holy' grounds.
Crossing our arms, giving money to the needy and funding other domestic issues isn't going to save us from anything if an attack like that described above were launched.
I dunno, I'd rather have something in place capable of shooting missiles out of the sky in case someone BUYS non-nuclear or nuclear based missiles from China and points them at us, than have nothing at all. The idea of someone smuggling in a bomb has merit, but what are we supposed to do when that [insert well-funded terrorist group] decides to just shoot missiles? Put on a pot of tea and go out onto the porch and enjoy the show? Your arguement is that we do nothing at all to defend ourselves-- my arguement is that we DO something. Even if it's failing right now, atleast the research has been put into place and the efforts are moving forward; just because it won't shoot something out of the sky today doesn't mean it won't in the coming months and years as the technology evolves.
A national missile defense system WOULD work, however. They may send 'fake' missiles for us to shoot down, but atleast the system is in place in case of a surprise attack or an unprovoked attack.
Plus you need to keep in mind, our missile defense system ISN'T being put in place to keep China or Russia from attacking us-- it's for the smaller countries or terrorists that may have access to nuclear missile technology, or other kinds of missiles. CNN interviewed someone speaking for the NMD, and they pointed out that in it's current incarnation the system wouldn't be able to block a full attack by China/Russia. It's only intent was to defend against rogue states or terrorists.
With this in mind, it wouldn't stop China if they went all out; but it would atleast limit the amount of damage they could do. If they circumvent it, oh well, but atleast it's an early warning for us to know that they're planning an attack immediatly (afterall, we'll reset the system with new rockets fairly shortly, correct?).
This was posted just over a week ago already however. There's absolutely no reason to re-post something that's already been posted and hasn't changed since the last time it was put up.
You missed the part where I pointed out that 'just quitting' won't work eventually. You know, job market thinning out, more people with this skill than jobs, etc.
Shrug, I'd rather have someone to represent my interests. I think I gave a prime example of why as well-- your only comeback is that I'd lose some money to union dues. Big deal; atleast I wouldn't work 50-80 hours a week and then be told it wasn't enough on Sunday.
Granted, I'm still not in a union and my current job is amazing. Excellent team, nice hours, good pay and very flexible management.
But, as I said, wait another 5 or 10 years. IT will change, eventually people will want a lot of things from employers like--
a) paid training to keep current on new technologies.
b) better pay to keep up atleast somewhat with the rising costs our society always has.
c) better positions, or new positions dealing with newer technology-- not legacy technology that's "on the way out" (along with your job entirely).
The problem as I stated earlier, is that it seems a vast majority of posters here (so far, this topic just started so I'll hope for more pro-Union or atleast pro-organized labor) aren't for Unions because they view their jobs as safe, and the demand for their work as endless. It never crosses their mind that the same colleges they were through is bulging with fresher IT workers that are willing to take cheaper wages to pay off those expensive college loans.
Unions might not be the answer, but there must be some way of keeping our rights respected and our pay reasonable-- because honestly, I see this job and I'm happy with the pay, but I don't see myself in this job four or five years from now. And why? Because technology moves ahead at speeds that would require someone to go back to college every 4-5 years for new training and/or hit up seminars and/or read a library of books to keep up.
And the interval between new languages, technologies, hardware and software is only shortening.
I'd gladly give a union a portion of my pay, if it meant represntation and fair pay for new and old workers alike, and retraining where needed.
Me, personally, I wish I had a union or some larger group to represent me at my last company. Management at the company felt it would be SPLENDID to work us 6 days a week, 10 hours a day. Under a union? I doubt that would have ever happened. Ditto for the time I was sick, and management disclosed the VERY SURPRISING revelation to me that "you don't get any paid sick time". Nice. My current company thankfully HAS paid sick time, unlimited in fact (beyond a month or so though, your disability kicks in). They also have flexible hours-- come and go as I please, as long as I a) finish my work on deadline and b) average 40 hours a week (pushing that theory, I could work 20 hours this week, and 60 hours next, and nobody would care). A union would have atleast been someplace to turn to, instead of having to deal with the BS from the last job. (And yep, it was a dot-com start-up...) To the folk who say unions have no place since we can all quit and have jobs in a few days/weeks-- I'm sorry pal, but those days are numbered. Eventually work like ours isn't going to be the specialty, it's going to be as common-place as auto-work related jobs. All those 'kids' in college majoring in Computer Science and other fields related to IT? Eventually they'll be out in the work force, and suddenly jobs like ours will need some sort of defense. Are unions the answer? I honestly don't know.. I've heard good and bad about them, but IMHO, SOME form of representation is better than NO representation. My 25 cents.
It's a press release from Microsoft directly (read the part where it says 'Source'). EVERY company that does press releases gives some sort of history of the company for investors. Sure, you'd have to live under a rock not to know who they are, which I suppose might be your point, but there ARE an awful lot of rocks out there. =)
Sun should have dropped their suit against Microsoft, atleast if Microsoft had kept their license and hadn't been sued Java would have taken off as a programming language-- now with Microsoft support due to die in seven years (if I read the report correctly) we can welcome C# in for the long haul. Java can still proliferate on Linux/etc, but I just don't see it making the kind of impact it could have had with Microsoft involved.
Yeah, I haven't asked yet, this question was more a "well, I think I know they won't give in if all I do is ask, so I might as well ask the general population what they think". Because, depending on how they respond to my initial request (like I said, we parted on bad terms, but that doesn't change my work at all-- I still wrote a vast majority of the code), I may want to immediatly call an attorney.
Plus, and I didn't mention this in the story submission, but it seems kind of a slap in the face for them to distribute it on popular download sites (CNET, 32bit.com, etc) and put this other employees name in for "author" (on sites that support such a field) and not mention mine.
It's probably just nit-picking, honestly, but I'd rather be informed in case I do want to pursue it, than just jump in head first. Thanks for the responses. =)
My biggest gripe with the DMCA has been the MPAA's use of it to squash any attempts at making 3rd party players for DVD's. I can easily see a future where merely TRYING to make a player for some media format that's all the rage was turned into a crime, punishable by harsh fines and even prison.
What's worse, is that the motion picture industry can say that just because 2600 POSTS source code to a method to circumvent DVD access protections, that they're violating the law. This is akin to owning a gun (in this case, the source code) but never shooting anyone with it (in this case, using it to decrypt a movie). The DMCA takes too much away from the average citizen and gives it to the large corporations.
On a broader scale, look at products like Bleem! that play Playstation games-- what if Nintendo includes 'anti-piracy' encryption techniques on those nifty new discs for the GameCube? Would writing a player be a punishable offense? Would distributing source code that reverses the encryption land one in the Federal Courts?
What about regular office applications and their file formats? Etc, etc.
IMHO I think more thought should be given to the DMCA.. copyright holders already have rights to protect their works (I'd say they have too many, but that's another story), they don't need a way to protect their 'secret handshake' to gain access to their exclusive clubhouse.
From the looks of the ruling by WIPO, this guy has a HUGE history of cybersquatting and using closely named websites to misdirect typo-laden users to his websites. Check out all of the US Court cases against him and the number of previous rulings against him.
Sure, if this was the ONLY case against him it might make sense to put a story up talking about how this guy was the latest victim of WIPO, but get real-- he brought the whole mess on himself because he's CLEARLY registering these latest sites as retaliation for the complaint regarding the guines.com domain. I don't want this coming off as a flame, but there comes a point where someone crosses the line from fair use to improper or childish use..
There is a myth that it is faster, but it is not: it would be if Unix used a sensible string format, but nul-terminated strings have to go a byte at a time anyways.
Just wanted to comment on this one part of your post (and don't take this as a flame)-- it's not a myth, case sensetive searches are faster than searches that ignore case. The simple reason is that in a search that ignores case, BOTH values must be converted to uppercase or lowercase before being compared using a REP CMPSB assembler statement. However, for searches that are case sensetive, you don't need to process uppercasing/lowercasing the values to be compared, you can just execute the comparison immediatly.
Also consider the implications of Unicode or multibyte character sets, and the fact that uppercasing or lowercasing a string isn't as simple as it used to be in 8-bit ASCII-days.
It may not be a huge performance hit, but it's definately slower at some point.
He said he was using BCB5, which is "Borland C++Builder 5". You're confusing BC5 with BCB5. =) It's a common mistake, but he is definately using the latest version.
As for suggestions, try visiting community.borland.com and checking out their TI (tech info) and FAQ sections for Borland C++ Builder. This may lead you in the right direction for finding a solution...
My personal belief is that it's just a setting issue or perhaps some of your sourcefiles are getting too large. Also keep in mind that there's "Turbo Debugger" debugging information, and then there's the C++Builder's debugging information-- C++Builder's IDE doesn't need the Turbo Debugger debugging info to step through code or set watches on variables. Disable that if you've had it on. =)
...is all I've got to say about this. After the DeCSS trial, and the issue with Napster (which I think is half-right and half-wrong, sure artists should get compensated for their work, but for a community as large as Napster, it'd be impossible to police it in a way that someone wouldn't overcome in short-order) people should be writing in en masse to voice their opinions about the MPAA' actions and the proposed limitations on recording from television. IMHO: If it's broadcast over the airwaves, it should be free game, not subject to some sort of control-freak legislation/ruling that the MPAA wants, beyond the obvious limitations on not re-distributing it.