Hear, hear. Just the formal introduction of 'fun' into a workplace that has other, serious problems does not a better job make. I started as an intern at a small, privately-held company, writing graphics software (I worked the integration side). Between us -- the developers (who worked hard to write the core software package), the integrators (who worked had to satisfy client needs), and the support folks (who had to answer to a seemingly-capricious collection of customers) -- we devised our own way of having fun -- playing Half-Life after COB and making a beer run on Fridays.
Then, the company was bought out by a corporation, twice over. Several rounds of layoffs happened (because each corporation was in its own dire straits), the pay rises pretty much ceased (while our output had to roughly double to meet their profit demands), everything was locked down, and we generally got no support or direction from corporate headquarters. Our phrase for it was "red-headed stepchild". Yet, somehow, despite this, folks over at corporate thought that certain morale boosters should happen, like ice-cream socials or movie outings.
I can tell you, hardly anybody was jumping for joy. These attempts to interject fun (sometimes before a layoff happened) fully backfired because they couldn't have cared less about the problems. I finally gave up the ghost when there are only three employees left of the original company and I had to help close my own office and work from home. Where I am now may not have ice cream socials or movie outings (or anything that folks here might rank as 'fun'), but at least I have a company that doesn't have anywhere near the problems of the old one (knock on wood). That right there is worth all the 'fun' times they could possibly provide.
Can I know for sure? Perhaps not. But, how can you be sure that the quintessence that makes a human what they are is there before a potential storage mechanism is there? Where is the seat of the 'soul'? While we're at it, can we also discontinue the statement that people "boot down" every night. This is empirically not true. The brain is active all throughout the night, operating only at a different cycle frequency (between.5 and 4 hertz) and with different functions either on idle or at reduced capacity. Kindly contrast this with a collection of cells that has no functional organ up to a point. I think the more proper analogy is to make a comparison to someone who is in a persistent vegetative state, but even then, someone in a PVS still has more function than 'none'.
I respect your choice to consider every human life valuable. We both agree on this. In fact, I think that once the brain has had enough time to produce differentiating functions (~8-9 weeks), dropping that fetus becomes a very tricky matter. Where we differ is on when the 'human' begins. I do not believe that it begins at conception and I think comparing a zygote to an out-of-the-womb human being is an irrational argument (further compounded when there are those that support protecting that zygote by law are more than willing to let the out-of-the-womb individual die by law; but, that's not really a part of this thread of discussion). You are, of course, free to think or feel as you wish...
I'd say that it's safe to say that before an embryo (so classified between weeks 3 and 9) has a brain (which/starts/ development at 3-4 weeks, not even speaking of having higher brain function until later), it'd be pretty hard to boot anything up on it. So, perhaps the GP was referring to this period of time, hm?
If you're reasonably ticked that you can't legally get around encrypted files to get at the media you've bought, start writing a coherent stance for the USCO today.
Some of the code I've had to work with/modify might as well have been written in india. I often wind up looking at minimal to no comments, poorly written chunks of code, and meaningless variable names.
You said it. I've had code come back from offshore developers that was just horrid. My company had decided to outsource work for a conversion filter to a firm in India (who was a connection of the CEO). The gist of the conversion was to take a token-based structured file format and convert it to an XML format. No small feat, but well within the reach of one of the local developers they laid off a year prior (he was an expert in the token-based file format). They didn't want to pay him, even for a short contract job, so they sent it out to the Indian firm.
What came back was uncommented, poorly written, and woefully unoptimized. When compiled and run, it took ~5-10 minutes to convert even a small, nearly empty structure-wise file, and was so disk intensive that we formed a joke around it (*makes excessive disc head crunching noises* "Hey, Mary, can you... Oh, sorry, you must be converting a file. I'll come back."). Heck, some of the files that took five minutes, I could have written out/by hand/ only slightly slower.
I'm sure, too, that there are quality programmers and shops out there. But, I think they are in the significant minority. As for rest, I say you get what you pay for.
Wow... That/is/ a blast from the past. I remember having a lot of difficulty with it when my brother first got it -- he was the game maniac. When it fell to me, after he gave up on the NES, I played it a couple of times, but got nowhere. Yet, several years later, I'd found it to be my favorite game, had mastered flying maneuvers with the hook, and added it as one of the few NES games I've ever beaten (I wish I could say the same of Legacy of the Wizard).
To this day, I remember a few things: 1) The music of the sewers level; 2) Shoot the helicopter cockpit window with the rocket launcher; and 3) The climb out of the shaft at the end is the most royal pain the a--...
The Phantom is to Video Games as the Segway Scooter is to Personal Transportation.
Uh... huh. +5 Insightful? Jeez.
Well, I can tell you, and I'm not the first, that Segways *do* actually exist. But I'll grant they definitely are not as widespread as they should want to be. Fun little fact is that police department in the bayside, state capitol in which I work has at least one. Surprised the sh*te out of me the first time I saw the cop riding one. I drove past him and carefully tried not to run him over. The next time I saw him, he tried less as hard not to run me over on the sidewalk. I still wonder, though, how far he can get on the thing before having to tail it back to HQ for a recharge.
"...but the gameplay is infinatly more rewarding then the super zones once you get it down."
If you say so... I'm of the completely opposite mind. I absolutely love playing in the "insta-kill" zones, even if some of the battles there turn into clusterfscks and you can get whacked by some cheap shots. Yeah, there are some downsides to it, but the pace is nice (SVS just bores the hell out of me; no offense intended). And, there is some skill in trying to keep your *ss intact when any one of the ten bombs coming at you can take you out. The only thing I'll admit that the super zones do not have is any real ship balance. For zones like EG, the differences between the ships are so minute that you might as well only four types: a fast sniper, a multi-bombing fighter, a heavy bomber, and a cloaker. But, that's what makes those zones so accessible. And, honestly, you can get by in most of the ships there and each has its own strategy.
...However, this seems like the case of another company thinking it won the judicial lottery because they found a clear cut instance copyright infringement...
I think you hit the nail on the head. While I agree with and support the right of individuals (and, grudgingly, corporations) to persue blatant (I mean out-and-out) infringements on IP, this lawsuit seems like just such a sham. Especially telling towards this end are: 1) the fact that Corbis is suing Amazon (which has the money) instead of the small retail shops; 2) they are continuing on with the lawsuit despite Amazon's stated best efforts to rectify the situation; 3) they are seeking "several forms of relief, including maximum... damages of up to $150,000 per copyrighted work infringed"; and 4) they are claiming "hundreds" of works infringed (bet real money that the figure turns into 'thousands'). There's defending your IP and then there's DEFENDING your IP. $$$$$
You're absolutely right: the analogy doesn't work...
The reason for this is that, software, for all intents and purposes, has no per-unit production cost -- you can produce copies a given program ad nauseum, without incurring cost (unless you want to get ridiculous and count storage space, electricity, etc.). It is only when you go to publish/distribute the software that you really incur anything approaching significant costs, whether they be CDs and manuals, and/or Web bandwidth (for direct downloadz- er, I mean try-and-buy trial versions). Of course, there are development costs that are taken into account when pricing software...
Still, I think that some companies arbitrarily overinflate their prices to make their bottom line look really good, instead of passing some of that back to the consumer...
Damn them and their misguided sense of profitability! *sigh*
Hey, when you really want some un-biased, quality, even, news reporting, you can't get much better than CNN... or Fox News... or MSNBC... *ducks and goes to watch BBC; they may have their own bias but at least it's not American*
Slashdot Mirror
Hear, hear. Just the formal introduction of 'fun' into a workplace that has other, serious problems does not a better job make. I started as an intern at a small, privately-held company, writing graphics software (I worked the integration side). Between us -- the developers (who worked hard to write the core software package), the integrators (who worked had to satisfy client needs), and the support folks (who had to answer to a seemingly-capricious collection of customers) -- we devised our own way of having fun -- playing Half-Life after COB and making a beer run on Fridays.
Then, the company was bought out by a corporation, twice over. Several rounds of layoffs happened (because each corporation was in its own dire straits), the pay rises pretty much ceased (while our output had to roughly double to meet their profit demands), everything was locked down, and we generally got no support or direction from corporate headquarters. Our phrase for it was "red-headed stepchild". Yet, somehow, despite this, folks over at corporate thought that certain morale boosters should happen, like ice-cream socials or movie outings.
I can tell you, hardly anybody was jumping for joy. These attempts to interject fun (sometimes before a layoff happened) fully backfired because they couldn't have cared less about the problems. I finally gave up the ghost when there are only three employees left of the original company and I had to help close my own office and work from home. Where I am now may not have ice cream socials or movie outings (or anything that folks here might rank as 'fun'), but at least I have a company that doesn't have anywhere near the problems of the old one (knock on wood). That right there is worth all the 'fun' times they could possibly provide.
Can I know for sure? Perhaps not. But, how can you be sure that the quintessence that makes a human what they are is there before a potential storage mechanism is there? Where is the seat of the 'soul'? While we're at it, can we also discontinue the statement that people "boot down" every night. This is empirically not true. The brain is active all throughout the night, operating only at a different cycle frequency (between .5 and 4 hertz) and with different functions either on idle or at reduced capacity. Kindly contrast this with a collection of cells that has no functional organ up to a point. I think the more proper analogy is to make a comparison to someone who is in a persistent vegetative state, but even then, someone in a PVS still has more function than 'none'.
I respect your choice to consider every human life valuable. We both agree on this. In fact, I think that once the brain has had enough time to produce differentiating functions (~8-9 weeks), dropping that fetus becomes a very tricky matter. Where we differ is on when the 'human' begins. I do not believe that it begins at conception and I think comparing a zygote to an out-of-the-womb human being is an irrational argument (further compounded when there are those that support protecting that zygote by law are more than willing to let the out-of-the-womb individual die by law; but, that's not really a part of this thread of discussion). You are, of course, free to think or feel as you wish...
I'd say that it's safe to say that before an embryo (so classified between weeks 3 and 9) has a brain (which /starts/ development at 3-4 weeks, not even speaking of having higher brain function until later), it'd be pretty hard to boot anything up on it. So, perhaps the GP was referring to this period of time, hm?
If you're reasonably ticked that you can't legally get around encrypted files to get at the media you've bought, start writing a coherent stance for the USCO today.
Coincidentally, NaNoWriMo is all of November...
Independence Day.
Some of the code I've had to work with/modify might as well have been written in india. I often wind up looking at minimal to no comments, poorly written chunks of code, and meaningless variable names.
/by hand/ only slightly slower.
You said it. I've had code come back from offshore developers that was just horrid. My company had decided to outsource work for a conversion filter to a firm in India (who was a connection of the CEO). The gist of the conversion was to take a token-based structured file format and convert it to an XML format. No small feat, but well within the reach of one of the local developers they laid off a year prior (he was an expert in the token-based file format). They didn't want to pay him, even for a short contract job, so they sent it out to the Indian firm.
What came back was uncommented, poorly written, and woefully unoptimized. When compiled and run, it took ~5-10 minutes to convert even a small, nearly empty structure-wise file, and was so disk intensive that we formed a joke around it (*makes excessive disc head crunching noises* "Hey, Mary, can you... Oh, sorry, you must be converting a file. I'll come back."). Heck, some of the files that took five minutes, I could have written out
I'm sure, too, that there are quality programmers and shops out there. But, I think they are in the significant minority. As for rest, I say you get what you pay for.
Wow... That /is/ a blast from the past. I remember having a lot of difficulty with it when my brother first got it -- he was the game maniac. When it fell to me, after he gave up on the NES, I played it a couple of times, but got nowhere. Yet, several years later, I'd found it to be my favorite game, had mastered flying maneuvers with the hook, and added it as one of the few NES games I've ever beaten (I wish I could say the same of Legacy of the Wizard).
To this day, I remember a few things: 1) The music of the sewers level; 2) Shoot the helicopter cockpit window with the rocket launcher; and 3) The climb out of the shaft at the end is the most royal pain the a--...
Da Vinci... What do ya think the 'Da Vinci Code' really was?
The Phantom is to Video Games as the Segway Scooter is to Personal Transportation.
Uh... huh. +5 Insightful? Jeez.
Well, I can tell you, and I'm not the first, that Segways *do* actually exist. But I'll grant they definitely are not as widespread as they should want to be. Fun little fact is that police department in the bayside, state capitol in which I work has at least one. Surprised the sh*te out of me the first time I saw the cop riding one. I drove past him and carefully tried not to run him over. The next time I saw him, he tried less as hard not to run me over on the sidewalk. I still wonder, though, how far he can get on the thing before having to tail it back to HQ for a recharge.
But, that's just my -1 Offtopic ramble.
Eh... So long as you're not wearing the ubiquitous school girl's uniform, you should be alright.
"...but the gameplay is infinatly more rewarding then the super zones once you get it down."
If you say so... I'm of the completely opposite mind. I absolutely love playing in the "insta-kill" zones, even if some of the battles there turn into clusterfscks and you can get whacked by some cheap shots. Yeah, there are some downsides to it, but the pace is nice (SVS just bores the hell out of me; no offense intended). And, there is some skill in trying to keep your *ss intact when any one of the ten bombs coming at you can take you out. The only thing I'll admit that the super zones do not have is any real ship balance. For zones like EG, the differences between the ships are so minute that you might as well only four types: a fast sniper, a multi-bombing fighter, a heavy bomber, and a cloaker. But, that's what makes those zones so accessible. And, honestly, you can get by in most of the ships there and each has its own strategy.
*shrug* To each his own.
...However, this seems like the case of another company thinking it won the judicial lottery because they found a clear cut instance copyright infringement...
I think you hit the nail on the head. While I agree with and support the right of individuals (and, grudgingly, corporations) to persue blatant (I mean out-and-out) infringements on IP, this lawsuit seems like just such a sham. Especially telling towards this end are: 1) the fact that Corbis is suing Amazon (which has the money) instead of the small retail shops; 2) they are continuing on with the lawsuit despite Amazon's stated best efforts to rectify the situation; 3) they are seeking "several forms of relief, including maximum... damages of up to $150,000 per copyrighted work infringed"; and 4) they are claiming "hundreds" of works infringed (bet real money that the figure turns into 'thousands'). There's defending your IP and then there's DEFENDING your IP. $$$$$
You're absolutely right: the analogy doesn't work...
The reason for this is that, software, for all intents and purposes, has no per-unit production cost -- you can produce copies a given program ad nauseum, without incurring cost (unless you want to get ridiculous and count storage space, electricity, etc.). It is only when you go to publish/distribute the software that you really incur anything approaching significant costs, whether they be CDs and manuals, and/or Web bandwidth (for direct downloadz- er, I mean try-and-buy trial versions). Of course, there are development costs that are taken into account when pricing software...
Still, I think that some companies arbitrarily overinflate their prices to make their bottom line look really good, instead of passing some of that back to the consumer...
Damn them and their misguided sense of profitability! *sigh*
Hey, when you really want some un-biased, quality, even, news reporting, you can't get much better than CNN... or Fox News... or MSNBC... *ducks and goes to watch BBC; they may have their own bias but at least it's not American*