Does the average American have to worry about NTSC v PAL when they go Blockbuster? No. I have to worry about when I want to order the DVD of last year's World Rally Championship season, but I'm buying it from a bloke in England....
Good point about the driver's license. But doing things safely on your computer is more akin to manufacturers making the cars safer rather than the driver knowing their car better. I may know how to service my brakes, but if the design is poor, there's little I can do about it.
If you're designing an operating system for grandma to send email, then it should be completely locked down. Even the default email client should be configured so that it doesn't automatically open attachments. It shouldn't follow the unix "enough rope to hang yourself" maxim...
It looks ASP.Net (Not ASP) is much more advance than JSP, as well as the development tool (VisualStudio.Net vs Netbeans).
There is some truth to that. ASP.Net has many built-in "tags" that make UI development much easier...with Java, you'd have to spend time either rolling your own taglibs, or finding open source taglibs that suite your purposes. That said, many of the ASP.Net tags are still very immature, and they don't do everything you might want -- and you're stuck with closed source, so it's harder to extend them.
VisualStudio.Net is a decent tool, though if you're running less half a gig of RAM, it'll be more frustrating than not. It is nice to be able to drag a DataTable (or whatever it's called -- it's been about 6 months;-)) onto the screen, and set its attributes and datasource from a GUI. Very quick. But again, if you need anything more than the basic functionality, you may be in for some surprises -- it is just version 1, so I found that we were thinking ahead of what the.Net developers had included in that release. Often we found ourselves saying "That's cool, but what if we could do this..."
So I wouldn't say ASP.Net is more _advanced_ than JSPs and tag libraries....the feature set simply allows for more rapid, cookie cutter development.
OK. Try the record labels' web sites. Most have songs you can download (some even offer Oggs). Granted, this requires a bit of work. Personally, I love looking for new music. When I actually had a functioning turntable, I used to buy 45s like they were going out of style. Of course, they probably already were out of style...
Also, check out Epitonic. This is a great resource for sampling bands. Find the bands you actually like, and get a list of other bands that fall into the same genre. Some artists have more downloads from others there, but I've found oodles of new stuff there.
I guess I'm spoiled being in a somewhat big city with a decent music scene. There are about half a dozen good indie music shops near my house. I actually don't even bother the radio most of the time...
How the fuck am I supposed to support indie music WHEN I CAN'T BUY THIER CDS because no store can carry them? When radio cannot play them for fear of RIAA retailation? Break the cartel and these guys won't be indie music, they'll be mainstream.
Ummm...try an independent music store. Screw the big record store chains while you're at it. Or buy directly from the record label. Most smaller indie labels sell direct for less than you'd pay in a store, and some don't even charge shipping. There are also online stores (Cheap CDs comes to mind) that have a very good selection of indie music.
And radio? How many non-independent radio stations aren't owned by a huge media conglomerate anyway? Stick to college radio....
Well, then support INDEPENDENT MUSIC. Musicians don't have to sign with a record label that is a member of RIAA. I agree that the RIAA is a cartel, but we've got to expect the musicians to shed the golden shackles and do what's right too.
Breaking copyright laws (see, I didn't call it stealing) isn't the solution, because the RIAA will have the ability to enforce copyright law. But if you spend your money elsewhere, they can't do anything about it.
I guess I was thinking more of MRP systems. Even many of those have been ported to linux, but many of these heavy manufacturing industries aren't feeling the pinch the rest of the economy is. I was developing a document management system for one client (via Progress/Symix/MAPICS) running on Solaris, and they had no problem buying more Sun iron to support the system. And even though they've had spotty service from Sun (sometime very very good, other times not so good), they're still very much enamoured of both Solaris and the servers.
Re:Sun Doesn't appeal to me
on
Sun's Last Stand
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
well, obviously it's easier for someone to cut their teeth on linux, since anyone can download a distro and install it. not so easy with sun/solaris.
but, you're still not going to convince a large, lumbering manufacturing company running decidely unsexy applications to switch to linux. i've worked with a number of clients that couldn't switch from solaris even if they wanted to, because their apps just don't exist for linux (think erp/mrp systems).
plus, if you need lots of processing power, you can certainly set up a cluster of cheap lintel boxes, but why spend the time/money on that when you could just throw an enterprise server in there, and just have it work?
amen. too bad your post will be modded down since it's not rah-rah for open source.
if microsoft was serious, they would bring in security folks as consultants, have them sign NDAs, and let them look at the code. that sounds a lot like peer review to me.
This issue has absolutely nothing to do with Linux. Stop trying to drag every OSS project under one big Linux umbrella.
Well, if you're involved in the OSS community, then you know this has nothing to do with linux. But for any manager that might get wind of this *discussion*, they WILL associate it with linux. For most people outside the tech industry, OSS == linux. This will give OSS and linux a bit of a bad of name if the pointy-haired types read about it.
I think most of my problems nowdays are with sites that are just ugly. However, I can't tell the difference -- or maybe I just don't care -- between the way any browsers handle fonts and whatnot. I also can't notice most of the differences between how sites render. I do appreciate the fact that most sites appear stable in all browsers now.
Actually, what has been keeping me using Navigator/Chimera on OS X and Phoenix on linux is quite simple....KHTML refuses to correctly parse my bank's online account management tools. I remember years ago the Konqueror folks pleading users to tell their banks to use valid HTML/Javascript, but if it's invalid, why does Mozilla/Phoenix/Chimera parse it correctly?
I'd love to Safari full-time on the Mac...I think it is a touch faster than Chimera, and it handles Flash a bit better (sometimes Chimera will crash), but I don't like having to open a new browser just to check my bank account.
Is it just me, or did anyone else get a version of Safari that works exactly like the last Software Update release? I check the info, and it says v.73, but alas, no tabbed browsing, or any other neat-o features....
So, I think slowly, music is changing. Attitudes are changing. The industry is changing. If I was to say one band has given me more joy over the course of my lifetime, I would have to say it was Less Than Jake. However, I'm seriously considering not purchasing LTJ's new album, because it's being put out by warner bros. records.
I generally stick to independent record labels when I purchase music (and I do purchase quite a bit), but the industry is not changing. Perhaps a few more people are exposed to indie music, but there will still be thousands and thousands of people that listen to the crap that the RIAA puts out. I don't think that'll ever change...not with ClearChannel controlling the airwaves...
I honestly think, in the long run, there are too many people willing to eat what they're given by the RIAA, and pay $21.99 for a CD. But the number of people who know what major labels put bands through and aren't willing to put up with it is increasing all the time.
Why is it that people think that CDs are supposed to be $17 at national chains? WTF? You can buy a burner for $60, and a truckload of blanks for next to nothing, but people still want to pay that much for a CD. I don't understand. Some indie labels are getting right, though. Check out the Jade Tree records site....CDs are $10, and you don't pay shipping. This is the sort of thing the indie labels have to do to prove to the RIAA that you don't have to arrest college kids for filesharing to make some cash and distribute your product.
The objective is to create a syntax which is the simplest way to convey the semantics of the program.
Right. I agree. But how do you define simple? Simple for the machine? Should we all assembly language?
"Four plus four times two divided by three"
Isn't this natural language? Anyone with a reasonable understanding of how our language works (and a basic understanding of math) knows what you're saying. But I can also see where you're going. I can describe a differntial equation with natural language, but that doesn't "solve" the problem for me, it only describes it. Languages like Perl and Python aren't "natural" languages, and I don't think their goal is to be a completely "natural" language, but they move their syntax closer to natural language. And shouldn't that be the goal of any compiled language?
I don't want to "speak" my program to my computer, I want to describe the algorithm in the most expressive and elgant way.
I like that. But here's a question...is it the inability to capture that algorithm with natural language, or is it the inability of the programming language to communicate the algorithm more naturally?
In fact never. Because while its okay human languages have a few problems
Well, yeah, but doesn't a computer language suffer from the same pitfalls? If that isn't the case, why do languages tend to "evolve" over time? Why are new languages that borrow elements from other languages so prevelant?
1) Redundancy, far to many ways to say or do one thing
Isn't one of the driving principles of Perl "There's more than one way to do it"? Some say this is one of Perl's best feature, other's say it sucks.
I won't argue with the point of ambiguity. You can remove ambiguity from a "spoken" language by applying rules to it. I do think we're quite far away from being to "speak" a program, but that's because we as a culture have moved away from a _grammar_ of English. Check the courses in a university and see what first year English and Linguistic students are taking. It's not Grammar, it's Grammars. Standard written English is a thing of the past. So we won't base a language on how we actually use our language, but we could base a language on certain grammars of the language. And, isn't that something else that languages like Perl and Python try to do? They try to create more "readable" programs?
One of the biggest problems for any consultant on projects is "scope creep". A good project manager will ensure that the client gets all that he has paid for, and no more. If the fee wasn't enough - too bad. The consuitant loses. If it was accurate or generous, he makes some money.
What the original poster is describing is the "extra mile" above and beyond the agreed scope. Consultants who do this for free too much go broke.
Well, yes and no. If you estimated the project correctly, you should be able to go back to your client and point out what they were going to pay for. You don't have to shove the contract in their face, but explain the situation and how long it might take to do the extra work. If they tell you to pound salt, then you've at least got your contract and project scope on your side.
A consultant should be willing to go that extra mile, but at a cost. But that's different than the parent comment, which had a much more arrogant ring to it..."I'm not doing anything more than what's outlined in the contract"....be a good person by trying to work out the situation with the client. If they aren't a total jerk, you'll probably make out in the long run, with both a better payoff from the current job, and a good impression for future work.
try cheap cds. Also, if you're into independent music, cheap out the record labels sites. First, you may be able to find a reasonable number of free songs to download, and their online stores (like jade tree) sell cds for low prices with no shipping charges.
I think we're missing something here. True-blue engineers design things, but they don't build them (especially in the case of mechanical engineers). They don't physically build the bridge or building...that is left to the skilled craftmen. It's the same with programming--system engineers should design large software systems, and code monkeys should build them. Sure, the system engineer should be able to create prototypes and test them, but they shouldn't be responsible for building it. A code monkey should be the skilled craftsman of the industry...give them a set of specs, and let them build it.
These types of articles and discussions always worry me because I'm self-taught programmer. I always begin to feel like I'm not worthy to code because I don't have a degree in CS (mine is in philosophy). But I don't try to pass myself off as an engineer. I like to think of myself as a skilled craftsman--I have my toolbox, and I know my tools well. Perhaps some of the problems come from management...they see we code monkeys have toolboxes, and perhaps they see a hammer, and therefore assume any problem is a nail...
I can't say anything about side buttons, but I got my Logitech WheelMouse to work without imwheel. In fact, I fought with my.imwheelrc for quite some time to get the scroll wheel working, then one day I just happened to look in the Mandrake control center, and found I could get the scroll wheel working there. The control is quite as fine grained as I could get with imwheel, but the one step configuration was nice...
Unfortunately, the pool of available talent apparently exceeds the number of jobs by a very large amount in Pittsburgh. We recently were hiring for three technical positions. We received several dozen resumes; only two (IIRC) were from people who were still employed. That's quite a bit different from three years ago.
Well, I'm sure that's the case, but I look at it this way: while there may be a lot of competition for the available jobs, at least there are available jobs. Myself and several friends/ex-coworkers have been able to entertain offers over the past 6 months, so the market can't be all that bad.
As a contractor I have never been so busy in my life... There is work out there, just not long term, stable, live on the teat of a big company kind of work...
I'm with you. And even if you aren't a consultant, the market is still pretty okay. In fact, there's a steady stream of jobs in Pittsburgh
In most corporations, "Good attitude" means taking whatever shit you're fed. Yes, people only get ahead in most corporations when they kiss ass. Sometimes they have to be good at their jobs, too, but sometimes kissing ass and not complaining about anything is all it takes.
Ummm...then leave corporate America. There are other ways to work in the software industry. It's really not hard to do. Sure, the cash may not be as good, but I'd rather have a pleasant work environment rather than a few extra dollars. And I've found that the people that run small software shops see through the ass-kissing and weed those people out during the interview process. I'm sure there are exceptions to that rule, but I've done work for a handful of shops that work that way.
I've already adopted Safari as my primary browser, non of its current deficiencies are so glaring that any other browser is better for me overall.
I really wanted to adopt Safari, even without tabs, but, since it's based on Konqueror, it suffers one of the same issues: my bank's online service doesn't display correctly. I remember a thread about this many moons ago, but I can't find it. That is just enough for me to continue to use Chimera.
I read the book soon after it came out (and it's been out for awhile), and I thought the first half of it was excellent. Chabon's style and tone reminded me of Kerouac's The Town and the City (one of my favorites). But...I thought the second half (beginning with the scenes in Antarctica IIRC) slowed down considerably, and I actually struggled to finish the book.
I've got a soft spot for Chabon, as he went to school in my hometown, and his first book is set in the 'burgh.
That won't work, as in order to update the system, you must supply the admin password. The admin [root, but not exactly] can do anything.
i do supply my admin password, but that's different from the root password. if i:
% vi/etc/httpd/httpd.conf
from my admin account (not root), the file is opened as read-only. of course, that's easily overriden, but there's still a difference between and admin and root.
Slashdot Mirror
Good responses, I think, but....
Does the average American have to worry about NTSC v PAL when they go Blockbuster? No. I have to worry about when I want to order the DVD of last year's World Rally Championship season, but I'm buying it from a bloke in England....
Good point about the driver's license. But doing things safely on your computer is more akin to manufacturers making the cars safer rather than the driver knowing their car better. I may know how to service my brakes, but if the design is poor, there's little I can do about it.
If you're designing an operating system for grandma to send email, then it should be completely locked down. Even the default email client should be configured so that it doesn't automatically open attachments. It shouldn't follow the unix "enough rope to hang yourself" maxim...
It looks ASP.Net (Not ASP) is much more advance than JSP, as well as the development tool (VisualStudio.Net vs Netbeans).
There is some truth to that. ASP.Net has many built-in "tags" that make UI development much easier...with Java, you'd have to spend time either rolling your own taglibs, or finding open source taglibs that suite your purposes. That said, many of the ASP.Net tags are still very immature, and they don't do everything you might want -- and you're stuck with closed source, so it's harder to extend them.
VisualStudio.Net is a decent tool, though if you're running less half a gig of RAM, it'll be more frustrating than not. It is nice to be able to drag a DataTable (or whatever it's called -- it's been about 6 months ;-)) onto the screen, and set its attributes and datasource from a GUI. Very quick. But again, if you need anything more than the basic functionality, you may be in for some surprises -- it is just version 1, so I found that we were thinking ahead of what the .Net developers had included in that release. Often we found ourselves saying "That's cool, but what if we could do this..."
So I wouldn't say ASP.Net is more _advanced_ than JSPs and tag libraries....the feature set simply allows for more rapid, cookie cutter development.
Want to suggest any other ideas...?
OK. Try the record labels' web sites. Most have songs you can download (some even offer Oggs). Granted, this requires a bit of work. Personally, I love looking for new music. When I actually had a functioning turntable, I used to buy 45s like they were going out of style. Of course, they probably already were out of style...
Also, check out Epitonic. This is a great resource for sampling bands. Find the bands you actually like, and get a list of other bands that fall into the same genre. Some artists have more downloads from others there, but I've found oodles of new stuff there.
I guess I'm spoiled being in a somewhat big city with a decent music scene. There are about half a dozen good indie music shops near my house. I actually don't even bother the radio most of the time...
How the fuck am I supposed to support indie music WHEN I CAN'T BUY THIER CDS because no store can carry them? When radio cannot play them for fear of RIAA retailation? Break the cartel and these guys won't be indie music, they'll be mainstream.
Ummm...try an independent music store. Screw the big record store chains while you're at it. Or buy directly from the record label. Most smaller indie labels sell direct for less than you'd pay in a store, and some don't even charge shipping. There are also online stores (Cheap CDs comes to mind) that have a very good selection of indie music.
And radio? How many non-independent radio stations aren't owned by a huge media conglomerate anyway? Stick to college radio....
Price fixing is also illegal. So are cartels.
Well, then support INDEPENDENT MUSIC. Musicians don't have to sign with a record label that is a member of RIAA. I agree that the RIAA is a cartel, but we've got to expect the musicians to shed the golden shackles and do what's right too.
Breaking copyright laws (see, I didn't call it stealing) isn't the solution, because the RIAA will have the ability to enforce copyright law. But if you spend your money elsewhere, they can't do anything about it.
I guess I was thinking more of MRP systems. Even many of those have been ported to linux, but many of these heavy manufacturing industries aren't feeling the pinch the rest of the economy is. I was developing a document management system for one client (via Progress/Symix/MAPICS) running on Solaris, and they had no problem buying more Sun iron to support the system. And even though they've had spotty service from Sun (sometime very very good, other times not so good), they're still very much enamoured of both Solaris and the servers.
well, obviously it's easier for someone to cut their teeth on linux, since anyone can download a distro and install it. not so easy with sun/solaris.
but, you're still not going to convince a large, lumbering manufacturing company running decidely unsexy applications to switch to linux. i've worked with a number of clients that couldn't switch from solaris even if they wanted to, because their apps just don't exist for linux (think erp/mrp systems).
plus, if you need lots of processing power, you can certainly set up a cluster of cheap lintel boxes, but why spend the time/money on that when you could just throw an enterprise server in there, and just have it work?
amen. too bad your post will be modded down since it's not rah-rah for open source.
if microsoft was serious, they would bring in security folks as consultants, have them sign NDAs, and let them look at the code. that sounds a lot like peer review to me.
This issue has absolutely nothing to do with Linux. Stop trying to drag every OSS project under one big Linux umbrella.
Well, if you're involved in the OSS community, then you know this has nothing to do with linux. But for any manager that might get wind of this *discussion*, they WILL associate it with linux. For most people outside the tech industry, OSS == linux. This will give OSS and linux a bit of a bad of name if the pointy-haired types read about it.
I think most of my problems nowdays are with sites that are just ugly. However, I can't tell the difference -- or maybe I just don't care -- between the way any browsers handle fonts and whatnot. I also can't notice most of the differences between how sites render. I do appreciate the fact that most sites appear stable in all browsers now.
Actually, what has been keeping me using Navigator/Chimera on OS X and Phoenix on linux is quite simple....KHTML refuses to correctly parse my bank's online account management tools. I remember years ago the Konqueror folks pleading users to tell their banks to use valid HTML/Javascript, but if it's invalid, why does Mozilla/Phoenix/Chimera parse it correctly?
I'd love to Safari full-time on the Mac...I think it is a touch faster than Chimera, and it handles Flash a bit better (sometimes Chimera will crash), but I don't like having to open a new browser just to check my bank account.
well, don't i look like a moron ;-)
perhaps i should rtfm next time.
Is it just me, or did anyone else get a version of Safari that works exactly like the last Software Update release? I check the info, and it says v.73, but alas, no tabbed browsing, or any other neat-o features....
So, I think slowly, music is changing. Attitudes are changing. The industry is changing. If I was to say one band has given me more joy over the course of my lifetime, I would have to say it was Less Than Jake. However, I'm seriously considering not purchasing LTJ's new album, because it's being put out by warner bros. records.
I generally stick to independent record labels when I purchase music (and I do purchase quite a bit), but the industry is not changing. Perhaps a few more people are exposed to indie music, but there will still be thousands and thousands of people that listen to the crap that the RIAA puts out. I don't think that'll ever change...not with ClearChannel controlling the airwaves...
I honestly think, in the long run, there are too many people willing to eat what they're given by the RIAA, and pay $21.99 for a CD. But the number of people who know what major labels put bands through and aren't willing to put up with it is increasing all the time.
Why is it that people think that CDs are supposed to be $17 at national chains? WTF? You can buy a burner for $60, and a truckload of blanks for next to nothing, but people still want to pay that much for a CD. I don't understand. Some indie labels are getting right, though. Check out the Jade Tree records site....CDs are $10, and you don't pay shipping. This is the sort of thing the indie labels have to do to prove to the RIAA that you don't have to arrest college kids for filesharing to make some cash and distribute your product.
The objective is to create a syntax which is the simplest way to convey the semantics of the program.
Right. I agree. But how do you define simple? Simple for the machine? Should we all assembly language?
"Four plus four times two divided by three"
Isn't this natural language? Anyone with a reasonable understanding of how our language works (and a basic understanding of math) knows what you're saying. But I can also see where you're going. I can describe a differntial equation with natural language, but that doesn't "solve" the problem for me, it only describes it. Languages like Perl and Python aren't "natural" languages, and I don't think their goal is to be a completely "natural" language, but they move their syntax closer to natural language. And shouldn't that be the goal of any compiled language?
I don't want to "speak" my program to my computer, I want to describe the algorithm in the most expressive and elgant way.
I like that. But here's a question...is it the inability to capture that algorithm with natural language, or is it the inability of the programming language to communicate the algorithm more naturally?
In fact never. Because while its okay human languages have a few problems
Well, yeah, but doesn't a computer language suffer from the same pitfalls? If that isn't the case, why do languages tend to "evolve" over time? Why are new languages that borrow elements from other languages so prevelant?
1) Redundancy, far to many ways to say or do one thing
Isn't one of the driving principles of Perl "There's more than one way to do it"? Some say this is one of Perl's best feature, other's say it sucks.
I won't argue with the point of ambiguity. You can remove ambiguity from a "spoken" language by applying rules to it. I do think we're quite far away from being to "speak" a program, but that's because we as a culture have moved away from a _grammar_ of English. Check the courses in a university and see what first year English and Linguistic students are taking. It's not Grammar, it's Grammars. Standard written English is a thing of the past. So we won't base a language on how we actually use our language, but we could base a language on certain grammars of the language. And, isn't that something else that languages like Perl and Python try to do? They try to create more "readable" programs?
One of the biggest problems for any consultant on projects is "scope creep". A good project manager will ensure that the client gets all that he has paid for, and no more. If the fee wasn't enough - too bad. The consuitant loses. If it was accurate or generous, he makes some money.
What the original poster is describing is the "extra mile" above and beyond the agreed scope. Consultants who do this for free too much go broke.
Well, yes and no. If you estimated the project correctly, you should be able to go back to your client and point out what they were going to pay for. You don't have to shove the contract in their face, but explain the situation and how long it might take to do the extra work. If they tell you to pound salt, then you've at least got your contract and project scope on your side.
A consultant should be willing to go that extra mile, but at a cost. But that's different than the parent comment, which had a much more arrogant ring to it..."I'm not doing anything more than what's outlined in the contract"....be a good person by trying to work out the situation with the client. If they aren't a total jerk, you'll probably make out in the long run, with both a better payoff from the current job, and a good impression for future work.
And $12? Where are you getting CDs so cheap?
try cheap cds. Also, if you're into independent music, cheap out the record labels sites. First, you may be able to find a reasonable number of free songs to download, and their online stores (like jade tree) sell cds for low prices with no shipping charges.
I think we're missing something here. True-blue engineers design things, but they don't build them (especially in the case of mechanical engineers). They don't physically build the bridge or building...that is left to the skilled craftmen. It's the same with programming--system engineers should design large software systems, and code monkeys should build them. Sure, the system engineer should be able to create prototypes and test them, but they shouldn't be responsible for building it. A code monkey should be the skilled craftsman of the industry...give them a set of specs, and let them build it.
These types of articles and discussions always worry me because I'm self-taught programmer. I always begin to feel like I'm not worthy to code because I don't have a degree in CS (mine is in philosophy). But I don't try to pass myself off as an engineer. I like to think of myself as a skilled craftsman--I have my toolbox, and I know my tools well. Perhaps some of the problems come from management...they see we code monkeys have toolboxes, and perhaps they see a hammer, and therefore assume any problem is a nail...
I can't say anything about side buttons, but I got my Logitech WheelMouse to work without imwheel. In fact, I fought with my .imwheelrc for quite some time to get the scroll wheel working, then one day I just happened to look in the Mandrake control center, and found I could get the scroll wheel working there. The control is quite as fine grained as I could get with imwheel, but the one step configuration was nice...
Unfortunately, the pool of available talent apparently exceeds the number of jobs by a very large amount in Pittsburgh. We recently were hiring for three technical positions. We received several dozen resumes; only two (IIRC) were from people who were still employed. That's quite a bit different from three years ago.
Well, I'm sure that's the case, but I look at it this way: while there may be a lot of competition for the available jobs, at least there are available jobs. Myself and several friends/ex-coworkers have been able to entertain offers over the past 6 months, so the market can't be all that bad.
As a contractor I have never been so busy in my life... There is work out there, just not long term, stable, live on the teat of a big company kind of work...
I'm with you. And even if you aren't a consultant, the market is still pretty okay. In fact, there's a steady stream of jobs in Pittsburgh
In most corporations, "Good attitude" means taking whatever shit you're fed. Yes, people only get ahead in most corporations when they kiss ass. Sometimes they have to be good at their jobs, too, but sometimes kissing ass and not complaining about anything is all it takes.
Ummm...then leave corporate America. There are other ways to work in the software industry. It's really not hard to do. Sure, the cash may not be as good, but I'd rather have a pleasant work environment rather than a few extra dollars. And I've found that the people that run small software shops see through the ass-kissing and weed those people out during the interview process. I'm sure there are exceptions to that rule, but I've done work for a handful of shops that work that way.
I've already adopted Safari as my primary browser, non of its current deficiencies are so glaring that any other browser is better for me overall.
I really wanted to adopt Safari, even without tabs, but, since it's based on Konqueror, it suffers one of the same issues: my bank's online service doesn't display correctly. I remember a thread about this many moons ago, but I can't find it. That is just enough for me to continue to use Chimera.
I read the book soon after it came out (and it's been out for awhile), and I thought the first half of it was excellent. Chabon's style and tone reminded me of Kerouac's The Town and the City (one of my favorites). But...I thought the second half (beginning with the scenes in Antarctica IIRC) slowed down considerably, and I actually struggled to finish the book.
I've got a soft spot for Chabon, as he went to school in my hometown, and his first book is set in the 'burgh.
That won't work, as in order to update the system, you must supply the admin password. The admin [root, but not exactly] can do anything.
i do supply my admin password, but that's different from the root password. if i: % vi /etc/httpd/httpd.conf
from my admin account (not root), the file is opened as read-only. of course, that's easily overriden, but there's still a difference between and admin and root.