In the second year there is a group project where people are forced to work together, developing those unpleasant communication and group programming skills, which I assume would help with future work.
In the software engineering course I took in my final year, we did an entire group project all the way up until programming. We had to come up with an idea, a proposal, a budget, a schedule, requirements (ambiguous by design, so you had to ask questions!), designs, test plans, etc. It was great, and at times very frustrating. We only had 4 members on each team, but I got to experience the slacker, control freak, and the worker bees. When I went on my first big job interview, I took my final project with me, it was about a 50 page document that contained all of the above items. The interview was with a very large company, and when asked about applicable experience, I showed them that project. The interviewer looked at it, and said "show this to every other person you interview with today." I had 5 more interviews, and did just that. I found out later that project was a big factor in getting the job. (and I almost didn't even bother to bring it)
Was it a fantastic project? Not really, I still have it. But it showed that I had done more than just programming, and that is a huge step. Having worked on a group project was a big part of it. Knowing what the term "requirements" meant, and having done a design document and schedule. It was all good experience, even if it was in a classroom setting. To this day I meet people with 10, 15, 20 years experience who wouldn't know a good requirement from a horrible one. I have worked at several companies, very large and small, and none have seemed to get things right. There seems to be the same types of problems with software development, and the same cluelessness about what is causing the problems. Most places are really just content to plod ahead, attacking things with brute force.
Computing Scientists are not all Programmers. Not all Programmers are Computing Scientists.
THANK YOU. I was about to post the same comment. But let me expand on this concept that people don't seem to understand (especially programmers).
We need more CS people in general. Why? Becuase the CS degree will give people a decent technical background and understanding of computer related technology. I would much rather have a project manager with a CS degree than a marketing degree or communications degree. But I have yet to see one. Programmers tend to think that the only thing you need is a good programming staff. While that will get you pretty far, there are many other pieces of the software puzzle besides programming. I have been doing software testing and QA for 13 years. I made the choice to go down this path instead of programming. However, many programmers think that I am somehow some kind of "failed" programmer. And no, ex-programmers don't make the best QA people, no matter what Google thinks.
I think that the more people we have in the software industry with CS degrees, the better. I guess I had better qualify this with the statement that I have no real idea what CS degrees these days are like, I got mine back in '93. There was only 1 software engineering class, the rest was math, hardware/circuits, or programming. I hope that these days they have added more to the curriculum that deals with the process of developing software. (taking a few writing classes wouldn't kill you either)
I used to use GnuCash a couple of years ago, but I just quit using it. It was a PITA. It couldn't import my online bank statements, and the hassle just became too great. My wife took over handling the finances when we had our first child because she stayed home, and she bought Quicken. According to her, it has been hassle-free, apart from the forced upgrade. So why would I switch? That is the key here - we have something that works, that did cost money but gave good value for the money, and continues to work. So why change that? GnuCash couldn't meet our needs when we decided to use software to manage our finances, so we went with something that could. THAT is one of the reasons that OSS will have a hard time cracking into the mainstream, it takes a long time to properly fill a niche. Note the word "properly". With commercial software, they take the time to design and make a product usable BEFORE launching it to customers. I fully understand and can appreciate the way OSS works, but I am also practical enough to go with what works.
If you want to shoot movies, why wouldn't you buy a video camera?
This is like saying "Don't buy screwdrivers because they don't drive nails very well."
Because I don't want to shoot movies, I want to shoot video clips. I can take short clips of my daughter so my parents can see their grandkid growing up. SHORT is the operative word. I can take a minute video of all the various cute stuff my daughter does. It isn't boring-ass hours of nothing that people tend to shoot with their video cameras. I don't have to worry about editing, all I really have to do is re-encode it and possibly adjust the light level. I can take 1 small device on trips that can take great pictures and video clips.
In reality, it is all about the right tool for the job. There are uses for dedicated video cameras. There are times when my digital camera is the perfect tool, and times I wish I had a DSLR. (shutter lag sucks, and burst shooting would be nice) I look at it more like a cordless drill - I can use it as a drill or a power screwdriver. Most of the time that is all I will need, although it doesn't work best for all situations.
If you smoke three packs a day for 40 years and die of lung cancer, your family sues the tobacco company.
I hate all the lawsuit crap too... but when it comes to the tobacco companies, it's a tough call. With all the information that has come out about how they knew of the health risks, how they market to kids, and how they falsified information about the health risks... they need to pay. I am not saying lawsuits are the answer, but how else should they be punished? They behaved in reckless and reprehensible ways. We can all say "duh, smoking is bad for you" but they made clear and obvious efforts to report that smoking was not bad for your health when they knew otherwise. They encouraged addiction to their product knowing full well the dangers. How else can they be held accountable?
So, if I die while parked in front of this computer, I want you all on my behalf to sue Bill Gates...
Whoops, you just outed yourself on Slashdot! You'd better prepare for the backlash.:)
If I die in front of this computer, give RMS his wish and sue him. After all, Linux is just the kernel!:)
I've found mistakes in the college text books that I pay hundreds of dollars for, so if your only going by one source your bound to get screwed. What I really like about wikipedia is that it gives you great sources that you can use, check up on those sources as well.
Let me guess - they weren't English textbooks, were they?
Multi-displays is relatively easy under XP, and amazing easy if you compare to linux.
I've never run XP on a machine I own. But I do know that for my laptop at work, it works pretty smoothly when I work from home. I plug one of my monitors into the docking bar, and it reverts to the configuration of a dual-monitor setup when I boot it up. When I boot it up without the 2nd monitor, it comes up just fine. It is really nice, I don't have to reconfigure anything. I do appreciate how easy it is in that regard. And since I am contracting for a very large company, they have their remote access and vpn software installed that works very nicely too.
I am not so much anti-Windows anymore, I am just pro-Linux (for myself).
Of course I use mplayer.:)
I have never heard of this. But the funny thing is that according to xset, DPMS is in fact on. So maybe mplayer isn't re-enabling it correctly? Weird. Well, that gives me somewhere to look at least. thx
And I forgot about DPMS. I have NEVER had a problem with this on Windows, but for some reason I can never get it to work on Linux. I set it in my xorg.conf, and it doesn't work. I set it using xset, and it works a couple of times in a row, but then just stops working. (even though according to 'xset q' it is still on) I just don't get it, this is absolutely not new technology, but I still have to turn my monitors off when not in use. Just another one of those little annoyances that the average computer user would expect to work, but for Linux systems it is a mystery.
and when things don't Just Work (tm), make it Really Easy to Fix (tm). gui eye candy is nice and all, but it does no good if the underlying software is flakey and generally hard to use.
I would agree. But in general, computers can really piss me off. I can't fix problems when they happen in Windows, I feel like I am wearing big thick mittens when I use a Mac, and sometimes I want to set my Linux machine on fire.
I could give countless examples, but a dual monitor setup is a good one. I was running Windows at my last job because my boss told me I had to, even though most of the dev team ran Linux (I am in QA). We were all running a dual monitor setup (21" flat panels - sweet). For some reason, Windows would swap around my monitors when it felt like it after a reboot. I had the right monitor as my main, and wanted the desktop to extend to the left, but keep my panel on the right one. Every time it would freak out, it took me about 1/2 hour to fix it. It was frustrating, and completely inconsistent.
I ended up install Linux on it, and everything was great. I got a 2nd monitor for home because I liked it so much. Since I had an Nvidia dual-head card, it took a while to get it to work. While there was information out there on how to do it, there was a lot of conflicting info. I finally got it working. Then I upgraded to Kubuntu, and got it re-working after more effort. I recently did the system upgrade to 6.10. For some reason, my xorg.conf that worked before quit working. I eventually just started over with my xorg.conf, and got it working in an hour or so.
But what a PITA! Things like this would kill an average user, although most probably wouldn't have a dual monitor setup. But still, having to wrestle with the Nvidia drivers really irritated me, and I knew it was coming when I upgraded. I went through several of the "here is all you have to do" guides, and none of them worked or were exact fits for my situation.
All in all, I think that GNU/Linux is ready for the basic desktop, but there are still plenty of hurdles to overcome. I am not convinced that it needs to overcome them. I think it has gained acceptance, and is so much better off than it was when I first installed it some 8 years ago. I still love it with all its flaws! It is my OS of choice, and I choose it despite the flaws because it fits me better than the alternatives out there.
Thank you for that recap, I really didn't understand what the story was talking about. Now that I understand...
What a bunch of loser dorks! HAHA. Wow, really something to get bent out of shape about. Why don't you write some angry emails to the company, and get on some chat rooms and flame them? HAHA.
I am sure this is only an issue for the dork-wannabes anyway. I am sure the true uber-dorks who play this game wouldn't bother with this. I don't know much about it, but from what I hear it reminds me of the other similar fads - D&D, Magic, Pokemon.
Re:There is no lack of material
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An Ode To Al
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One of the best cultural references was in their 138th Episode Spectacular . They showed "outtakes" and "alternate endings" from episodes, one of those being from "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" (yet another take-off, of Dallas). In it, host Troy Mclure talked about one of the alternate endings to that episode..."But of course, for that ending to work, you would have to ignore all the Simpson DNA evidence. [laughs] And that would be downright nutty."
What a great commentary on the O.J. trial! Absolutely fantastic.
Some flash movies that hogged Firefox UI with old player work flawlessy now. Audio is now in sync with video.
YES! finally. I hated that with the old version I had, it was a resource hog, and the audio was slightly off-sync with the video. Also, at least on my machine, the previous version had problems grabbing the audio device. i.e. I would play a video (with mplayer), and then a swf file via the browser plugin. There would be no audio. I would have to kill Firefox in order for it to have sound for swf files again.
I have a collection of swf and mpg files that my daughter likes to watch, and the swf files were honestly a real pain because of this. I just installed the new version, and it appears flawless.
Have one machine with fancy GUI's that are easy for people to use, which PRINTS a clear paper ballot on which the marks are both human and computer-readable (think of the little ovals you used to fill in with #2 pencil, only bigger ovals) and then a *seperate machine* which does nothing but scan and count the ovals.
How would you account for reprints? Misprints? Printing errors/jams? You have to eliminate the possibility of multiple ballots. I suppose you could have unique barcodes printed on each ballot, and the user would have to confirm their changes electronically... and then the reading machine would have to be able to throw out the non-valid ones and only process the valid ones. (and any reprinted invalid ballot would have to be accounted for as well)
All of these could be handled, it just makes them more complex. I think what needs to be eliminated is the idea that results should be tallied and sent over the internet or other such nonsense. And why are there central counting facilities? Why can't each polling place count and verify the numbers (use multiple counters and signatures) and just report those? Is it because we have to have immediate results? Why do we have to know on election day who won? Take a week, process all the votes, verify them, then get back to us with the ACCURATE results. How about having the international community participate in auditing our elections? We force our involvement in theirs, but don't allow them into ours.
Howard Stern was amusing when he was the only "Village Idiot" in the Media. Unfortunately, the Media now has a plethora of Village Idiots, so he is just another inane babbling voice. I agree that we should think for ourselves, but I don't agree that we are being told that thinking for ourselves is dangerous; rather I think that we are finding it increasingly difficult to find (relatively) unbiased information or have the time to listen to multiple biased sources and form our own synthesis of contradictory views. Of course, thinking for oneself takes time and effort, and it is much more convenient to absorb and regurgitate the views of whichever "Talking Head" one happens to agree with in the first one minute of listening.
To be fair, Howard isn't just a village idiot - he is the original village idiot.:)
I used to listen to Howard every day, and thoroughly enjoyed his show. A lot of it is just blabber, but can be fairly entertaining. I didn't have a problem just changing the channel if he wasn't talking about something that interested me. (i.e. I am not one of the rabid fans who worship him as some kind of genius) When he went to satellite, I was kind of bummed. I thought about getting Sirius. But after doing a cost/benefit/hassle analysis, I realized that it wasn't even worth my time to do a cost/benefit/hassle analysis. Sure, I miss his show a little, but it isn't going to have a negative impact on my life. It just isn't that important. I pretty much despise all other talk shows, and music? Well, nothing really excites me. I have 60 GB of MP3s at home, and my car CD player reads MP3s on CD. So I can make my own mixes, or pull from my vast collection of things to listen to. There is the radio if I want to hear the latest punk-rock wannabes, or the hit songs from 2 years ago, or endless uber-annoying commercials. I listen to NPR to and from work, and I am better informed for it. I hear people expounding the virtues of satellite radio, just like people ooh and ahh over TiVO. Yeah, they are cool - but I guess it just isn't worth it to me. If I get a TiVO, then I'll have all this recorded crap I would feel the need to watch - or worse yet, I would have nothing recorded because there isn't too much I want to watch on TV anymore. I've heard it is more liberating because you can watch what you want when you want, but to me it is still restricting because you are still WATCHING. I'm not one of those "get rid of your TV" people, I just don't want it to be a controlling factor in my life. Same goes for satellite radio. I find that once I remove myself from it, I just really don't care about it all that much. And I am really OK with that.
Hmm, well, not exactly. If you only put down the skills that you have that are your best, you may miss opportunities. I have gone over many resumes, interviewed a lot of people in my day (probably 50) and have been a hiring manager. I like seeing a list of their skills grouped by their level of understanding of the subject. If using Linux is a must-have skill, but I don't need a guru, I might be willing to look at someone who has a decent understanding of it. I have talked to people who said "yes, I have used Unix". My next question is always "What shell do you use?" If I get a blank stare, I already got my answer. But it is much easier for someone to learn MORE about Unix than to have never used it at all. I don't have a problem with people putting everything they've ever used on their resume, as long as they qualify it. Oh, and aren't stupid about it... listing all the versions of Windows you have ever used is silly. I put on mine "MS Windows - 3.11 through XP" That covers it.
Yes, that can maybe be gleaned from job descriptions and whatnot, but things like programming knowlege can't always. I have a CS degree, and used to do programming. But I have been involved in QA and testing for my whole career of 13 years. I still have the various languages I am familiar with on my resume, with the caveat that my experience with them is fairly low. Of course, I still get people asking me about programming jobs, probably because they don't even READ my resume and probably have someone keyword matching on it.
I can tell you, finding technical QA people is difficult, so I make sure to point out on my resume that I do have a technical background. It makes a big difference when interacting with the programming team to have a CS degree. I can read Java and pretty much figure out what is going on, but I wouldn't want to have to write anything in it. I know enough to leave that to the experts. But if my job involved writing some Java, it wouldn't be too far of a leap for me.
Re:You need to work it out...
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IT and Divorce?
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I've been married for eight years now and I have a child. Some of that married time has been REALLY hard. But I treat my marriage like my child. It would take a LOT for me to give up on my child. Same for my marriage.
Just curious if you think the children are the deciding factor here. I mean, do you give marriage the same regard if there aren't children involved?
I was married, right out of college. And got divorced a few years later. Thank goodness that there were no kids involved. But that divorce was the right thing to do. I am remarried now, with one child and one on the way. My two marriages were like night and day, and I was involved in IT during both of them. You have to marry the right person, and have good communication with them. It isn't IT that causes the problems - but it sure as hell doesn't help much either. I went through a rough year and a half at my last job, where I was always working. My wife wasn't happy, mainly because I wasn't happy. When I was home, she said I wasn't really there, and I wasn't myself. Lucily, we are past that now, and I don't want to let that happen again. I take my career seriously, but I take my family more seriously.
I respect the people who are able to keep a life outside of work much more than those who let their jobs run their lives.
First, I find 2 or even 3 17-19 inch screens are better than one big one.
After using dual 19" LCDs at my last job, I bought another monitor for home, and I love it. I have a 21" and 19" dual monitor setup. Takes up a ton of space, but I don't need much desk space at home. It even makes me more productive at home... My daughter can sit on my lap and watch her Noggin videos on one screen while I do whatever on the other. If I switch over to my Windows box on the KVM, which only displays on one monitor, I can play a game and have the walkthrough up on the other screen just in case I need it. (I am way behind the times, still playing Half-Life single player mods) When I work from home, I have my laptop and one monitor as a dual setup, and can have IM up on the other monitor. Wish I could afford flat panels for the space savings, but I can't imagine going back to a single monitor setup again. When I am in the office, working off of the one laptop screen is sometimes excruciating. I am way past the "cool" factor of dual screens, it is extremely productive.
Hmm, was it wrong? I believe that, according to your religious beliefs, it was right. I mean, Jesus himself could have stopped it, but didn't because it was God's plan for him to die. If it was wrong that Jesus died, then God would have been wrong. We can't have that now, can we?
Imagine all the televangelists who would be in the poor house if things had been different, and Jesus had lived a normal life. You can't quite sell the message "Remember, Jesus died for your sins - in a chariot accident."
I think this demonstrates how important "many eyeballs" are in problem solving.
I think it also demonstrates how the oft-used mantra of "if it needs to be done, it will be done" doesn't always work without some incentive. One of the hurdles of OSS is that the only things that get worked on are the things that people want to work on. The love of developing software can only get you so far (and wow, has it gotten us far). But for some things to advance, it will need financial backing. It's a prickly problem for the OSS community.
Absolutely! I can't get into MAME in a cabinet, but I do love my arcade games.. I don't know what the difference is, but I just like my standard games better. Congratulations on the galaga cabinet, I'd love to get that and Ms. Pac Man (or the combo machine). I picked up a SFII Turbo for $200 at auction.. hell, I probably spent more than that on it as a kid;)
My first machine was Bad Dudes, which I got at auction for $75. That became my horizontal JAMMA after adding a couple of buttons. Then a Zaxxon (not working) for $25, which became my vertical. It had a nice front opening panel, made it easy to change boards. Then I got a JAMMA cocktail, which I also still have. I also had a cool standup Vanguard cocktail, which is what I traded for my non-working Galaga. Game auctions were awesome, after all the desirable stuff was gone, you could pick up working oddball games for next to nothing. A couple of my friends were big collectors, with dozens of cabinets and pinballs. They had the connections, and I would go with them sometimes to warehouses to rummage through the boxes of boards. You could spend $100 on a box of boards, and come out with some really good stuff.
But nothing really replaces the memories of riding my bike to the arcade with a pocket full of quarters. Seeing new games when they came in, putting your quarters up on the game so you had next, etc etc.
I have seen Bubble Bobble on several posts. This is the game that made me get into the addictive world of arcade game collecting about 10 years ago. Several of my friends had a few machines each. Some classics, like Tempest, but some more obscure games. Bubble Bobble was a hard boardset to come by, I searched for about a year before I found one for sale. (this was back in the days of rec.games.video.arcade.collecting) Me and a buddy finished Bubble Bobble one night. One weekend I got bored, and finished it back to back by myself. (it had a different ending the 2nd time!) I got up to 4 different cabinets, and could play about 20 games out of those. My fingers had many blisters from late-night soldering of JAMMA harnesses. I owned some of my favorite games from my childhood, and if I didn't have it one of my friends probably did. I had Bubble Bobble, Zaxxon, Gyruss, Elevator Action, Vanguard, Time Pilot, and of course, the one machine I have kept - an original Galaga cabaret. Of course, MAME and an X-Arcade are great, but not quite the same thing.
My list:
Solitaire (Pysol)
Galaga (arcade machine)
Half-Life (I am still playing single-player mods for the original, haven't upgraded my video card for HL2 yet)
Quake Mega TF (although there don't seem to be many servers out there anymore)
Frozen Bubble
But I don't get to play many games anymore. I am just really grateful that I grew up in the age of arcades. Such fantastic memories.
In fact, the analysis demonstrated that proprietary code is, on average, more than five times less buggy. On the other hand, the open-source software was found to be of greater average overall quality.
OK, what is the definition of quality? Most people like to say "free of bugs", but that isn't a true indicator of quality. My working definition is that a high quality product meets or exceeds the client's expectations. Now with OSS, my expectations aren't really that high. I mean, if it crashes, or the UI is kind of clunky, or it is hard to install... I just kind of expect there to be some of that. But if I pay for something, I expect it to be of higher quality in these regards. And if a client hires someone to create software for them, it had better meet their requirements. Of course, that is all pretty much a game nowadays, where promises are made, requirements are poor, and it all just turns into a used car sale. Roll out the dog and pony show, let the smooth talkers "work" the clients to explain why they didn't get what they asked for...
"Come on, man -- I mean, *look* at this shit! It isn't a question of whether or not you're paranoid; it's a question of whether or not you're paranoid ENOUGH." -- from the movie _Strange_Days_
Two things about this movie - Juliette Lewis topless, and the soundrack kicks ass.
YouTube links are the only "You gotta see this." links that I get that I actually open on occassion. I think Google is making a great move here, if it's true.
I jump on links friends send me from YouTube as well, because I know that I'd better watch the videos before they get pulled from the site. I know after a recent PPV event (Ultimate Fighting Championship), a friend sent me a link to one of the fights that was up on YouTube. It got pulled a day later. I know that there used to be those types of videos up on Google, but have all been pulled. If Google does buy YouTube, I think that the content will be much more strictly controlled. (Google is a nice ripe target for lawsuits, and will be on top of that)
Slashdot Mirror
In the software engineering course I took in my final year, we did an entire group project all the way up until programming. We had to come up with an idea, a proposal, a budget, a schedule, requirements (ambiguous by design, so you had to ask questions!), designs, test plans, etc. It was great, and at times very frustrating. We only had 4 members on each team, but I got to experience the slacker, control freak, and the worker bees. When I went on my first big job interview, I took my final project with me, it was about a 50 page document that contained all of the above items. The interview was with a very large company, and when asked about applicable experience, I showed them that project. The interviewer looked at it, and said "show this to every other person you interview with today." I had 5 more interviews, and did just that. I found out later that project was a big factor in getting the job. (and I almost didn't even bother to bring it)
Was it a fantastic project? Not really, I still have it. But it showed that I had done more than just programming, and that is a huge step. Having worked on a group project was a big part of it. Knowing what the term "requirements" meant, and having done a design document and schedule. It was all good experience, even if it was in a classroom setting. To this day I meet people with 10, 15, 20 years experience who wouldn't know a good requirement from a horrible one. I have worked at several companies, very large and small, and none have seemed to get things right. There seems to be the same types of problems with software development, and the same cluelessness about what is causing the problems. Most places are really just content to plod ahead, attacking things with brute force.
THANK YOU. I was about to post the same comment. But let me expand on this concept that people don't seem to understand (especially programmers).
We need more CS people in general. Why? Becuase the CS degree will give people a decent technical background and understanding of computer related technology. I would much rather have a project manager with a CS degree than a marketing degree or communications degree. But I have yet to see one. Programmers tend to think that the only thing you need is a good programming staff. While that will get you pretty far, there are many other pieces of the software puzzle besides programming. I have been doing software testing and QA for 13 years. I made the choice to go down this path instead of programming. However, many programmers think that I am somehow some kind of "failed" programmer. And no, ex-programmers don't make the best QA people, no matter what Google thinks.
I think that the more people we have in the software industry with CS degrees, the better. I guess I had better qualify this with the statement that I have no real idea what CS degrees these days are like, I got mine back in '93. There was only 1 software engineering class, the rest was math, hardware/circuits, or programming. I hope that these days they have added more to the curriculum that deals with the process of developing software.
(taking a few writing classes wouldn't kill you either)
I used to use GnuCash a couple of years ago, but I just quit using it. It was a PITA. It couldn't import my online bank statements, and the hassle just became too great. My wife took over handling the finances when we had our first child because she stayed home, and she bought Quicken. According to her, it has been hassle-free, apart from the forced upgrade. So why would I switch? That is the key here - we have something that works, that did cost money but gave good value for the money, and continues to work. So why change that? GnuCash couldn't meet our needs when we decided to use software to manage our finances, so we went with something that could. THAT is one of the reasons that OSS will have a hard time cracking into the mainstream, it takes a long time to properly fill a niche. Note the word "properly". With commercial software, they take the time to design and make a product usable BEFORE launching it to customers. I fully understand and can appreciate the way OSS works, but I am also practical enough to go with what works.
Because I don't want to shoot movies, I want to shoot video clips. I can take short clips of my daughter so my parents can see their grandkid growing up. SHORT is the operative word. I can take a minute video of all the various cute stuff my daughter does. It isn't boring-ass hours of nothing that people tend to shoot with their video cameras. I don't have to worry about editing, all I really have to do is re-encode it and possibly adjust the light level. I can take 1 small device on trips that can take great pictures and video clips.
In reality, it is all about the right tool for the job. There are uses for dedicated video cameras. There are times when my digital camera is the perfect tool, and times I wish I had a DSLR. (shutter lag sucks, and burst shooting would be nice) I look at it more like a cordless drill - I can use it as a drill or a power screwdriver. Most of the time that is all I will need, although it doesn't work best for all situations.
I hate all the lawsuit crap too
So, if I die while parked in front of this computer, I want you all on my behalf to sue Bill Gates...
Whoops, you just outed yourself on Slashdot! You'd better prepare for the backlash.
If I die in front of this computer, give RMS his wish and sue him. After all, Linux is just the kernel!
Let me guess - they weren't English textbooks, were they?
I've never run XP on a machine I own. But I do know that for my laptop at work, it works pretty smoothly when I work from home. I plug one of my monitors into the docking bar, and it reverts to the configuration of a dual-monitor setup when I boot it up. When I boot it up without the 2nd monitor, it comes up just fine. It is really nice, I don't have to reconfigure anything. I do appreciate how easy it is in that regard. And since I am contracting for a very large company, they have their remote access and vpn software installed that works very nicely too.
I am not so much anti-Windows anymore, I am just pro-Linux (for myself).
Of course I use mplayer. :)
I have never heard of this. But the funny thing is that according to xset, DPMS is in fact on. So maybe mplayer isn't re-enabling it correctly? Weird. Well, that gives me somewhere to look at least. thx
And I forgot about DPMS. I have NEVER had a problem with this on Windows, but for some reason I can never get it to work on Linux. I set it in my xorg.conf, and it doesn't work. I set it using xset, and it works a couple of times in a row, but then just stops working. (even though according to 'xset q' it is still on) I just don't get it, this is absolutely not new technology, but I still have to turn my monitors off when not in use. Just another one of those little annoyances that the average computer user would expect to work, but for Linux systems it is a mystery.
I would agree. But in general, computers can really piss me off. I can't fix problems when they happen in Windows, I feel like I am wearing big thick mittens when I use a Mac, and sometimes I want to set my Linux machine on fire.
I could give countless examples, but a dual monitor setup is a good one. I was running Windows at my last job because my boss told me I had to, even though most of the dev team ran Linux (I am in QA). We were all running a dual monitor setup (21" flat panels - sweet). For some reason, Windows would swap around my monitors when it felt like it after a reboot. I had the right monitor as my main, and wanted the desktop to extend to the left, but keep my panel on the right one. Every time it would freak out, it took me about 1/2 hour to fix it. It was frustrating, and completely inconsistent.
I ended up install Linux on it, and everything was great. I got a 2nd monitor for home because I liked it so much. Since I had an Nvidia dual-head card, it took a while to get it to work. While there was information out there on how to do it, there was a lot of conflicting info. I finally got it working. Then I upgraded to Kubuntu, and got it re-working after more effort. I recently did the system upgrade to 6.10. For some reason, my xorg.conf that worked before quit working. I eventually just started over with my xorg.conf, and got it working in an hour or so.
But what a PITA! Things like this would kill an average user, although most probably wouldn't have a dual monitor setup. But still, having to wrestle with the Nvidia drivers really irritated me, and I knew it was coming when I upgraded. I went through several of the "here is all you have to do" guides, and none of them worked or were exact fits for my situation.
All in all, I think that GNU/Linux is ready for the basic desktop, but there are still plenty of hurdles to overcome. I am not convinced that it needs to overcome them. I think it has gained acceptance, and is so much better off than it was when I first installed it some 8 years ago. I still love it with all its flaws! It is my OS of choice, and I choose it despite the flaws because it fits me better than the alternatives out there.
What a bunch of loser dorks! HAHA. Wow, really something to get bent out of shape about. Why don't you write some angry emails to the company, and get on some chat rooms and flame them? HAHA.
I am sure this is only an issue for the dork-wannabes anyway. I am sure the true uber-dorks who play this game wouldn't bother with this. I don't know much about it, but from what I hear it reminds me of the other similar fads - D&D, Magic, Pokemon.
What a great commentary on the O.J. trial! Absolutely fantastic.
YES! finally. I hated that with the old version I had, it was a resource hog, and the audio was slightly off-sync with the video. Also, at least on my machine, the previous version had problems grabbing the audio device. i.e. I would play a video (with mplayer), and then a swf file via the browser plugin. There would be no audio. I would have to kill Firefox in order for it to have sound for swf files again.
I have a collection of swf and mpg files that my daughter likes to watch, and the swf files were honestly a real pain because of this. I just installed the new version, and it appears flawless.
How would you account for reprints? Misprints? Printing errors/jams? You have to eliminate the possibility of multiple ballots. I suppose you could have unique barcodes printed on each ballot, and the user would have to confirm their changes electronically... and then the reading machine would have to be able to throw out the non-valid ones and only process the valid ones. (and any reprinted invalid ballot would have to be accounted for as well)
All of these could be handled, it just makes them more complex. I think what needs to be eliminated is the idea that results should be tallied and sent over the internet or other such nonsense. And why are there central counting facilities? Why can't each polling place count and verify the numbers (use multiple counters and signatures) and just report those? Is it because we have to have immediate results? Why do we have to know on election day who won? Take a week, process all the votes, verify them, then get back to us with the ACCURATE results. How about having the international community participate in auditing our elections? We force our involvement in theirs, but don't allow them into ours.
To be fair, Howard isn't just a village idiot - he is the original village idiot. :)
I used to listen to Howard every day, and thoroughly enjoyed his show. A lot of it is just blabber, but can be fairly entertaining. I didn't have a problem just changing the channel if he wasn't talking about something that interested me. (i.e. I am not one of the rabid fans who worship him as some kind of genius) When he went to satellite, I was kind of bummed. I thought about getting Sirius. But after doing a cost/benefit/hassle analysis, I realized that it wasn't even worth my time to do a cost/benefit/hassle analysis. Sure, I miss his show a little, but it isn't going to have a negative impact on my life. It just isn't that important. I pretty much despise all other talk shows, and music? Well, nothing really excites me. I have 60 GB of MP3s at home, and my car CD player reads MP3s on CD. So I can make my own mixes, or pull from my vast collection of things to listen to. There is the radio if I want to hear the latest punk-rock wannabes, or the hit songs from 2 years ago, or endless uber-annoying commercials. I listen to NPR to and from work, and I am better informed for it. I hear people expounding the virtues of satellite radio, just like people ooh and ahh over TiVO. Yeah, they are cool - but I guess it just isn't worth it to me. If I get a TiVO, then I'll have all this recorded crap I would feel the need to watch - or worse yet, I would have nothing recorded because there isn't too much I want to watch on TV anymore. I've heard it is more liberating because you can watch what you want when you want, but to me it is still restricting because you are still WATCHING. I'm not one of those "get rid of your TV" people, I just don't want it to be a controlling factor in my life. Same goes for satellite radio. I find that once I remove myself from it, I just really don't care about it all that much. And I am really OK with that.
Hmm, well, not exactly. If you only put down the skills that you have that are your best, you may miss opportunities. I have gone over many resumes, interviewed a lot of people in my day (probably 50) and have been a hiring manager. I like seeing a list of their skills grouped by their level of understanding of the subject. If using Linux is a must-have skill, but I don't need a guru, I might be willing to look at someone who has a decent understanding of it. I have talked to people who said "yes, I have used Unix". My next question is always "What shell do you use?" If I get a blank stare, I already got my answer. But it is much easier for someone to learn MORE about Unix than to have never used it at all. I don't have a problem with people putting everything they've ever used on their resume, as long as they qualify it. Oh, and aren't stupid about it... listing all the versions of Windows you have ever used is silly. I put on mine "MS Windows - 3.11 through XP" That covers it.
Yes, that can maybe be gleaned from job descriptions and whatnot, but things like programming knowlege can't always. I have a CS degree, and used to do programming. But I have been involved in QA and testing for my whole career of 13 years. I still have the various languages I am familiar with on my resume, with the caveat that my experience with them is fairly low. Of course, I still get people asking me about programming jobs, probably because they don't even READ my resume and probably have someone keyword matching on it.
I can tell you, finding technical QA people is difficult, so I make sure to point out on my resume that I do have a technical background. It makes a big difference when interacting with the programming team to have a CS degree. I can read Java and pretty much figure out what is going on, but I wouldn't want to have to write anything in it. I know enough to leave that to the experts. But if my job involved writing some Java, it wouldn't be too far of a leap for me.
Just curious if you think the children are the deciding factor here. I mean, do you give marriage the same regard if there aren't children involved?
I was married, right out of college. And got divorced a few years later. Thank goodness that there were no kids involved. But that divorce was the right thing to do. I am remarried now, with one child and one on the way. My two marriages were like night and day, and I was involved in IT during both of them. You have to marry the right person, and have good communication with them. It isn't IT that causes the problems - but it sure as hell doesn't help much either. I went through a rough year and a half at my last job, where I was always working. My wife wasn't happy, mainly because I wasn't happy. When I was home, she said I wasn't really there, and I wasn't myself. Lucily, we are past that now, and I don't want to let that happen again. I take my career seriously, but I take my family more seriously.
I respect the people who are able to keep a life outside of work much more than those who let their jobs run their lives.
After using dual 19" LCDs at my last job, I bought another monitor for home, and I love it. I have a 21" and 19" dual monitor setup. Takes up a ton of space, but I don't need much desk space at home. It even makes me more productive at home... My daughter can sit on my lap and watch her Noggin videos on one screen while I do whatever on the other. If I switch over to my Windows box on the KVM, which only displays on one monitor, I can play a game and have the walkthrough up on the other screen just in case I need it. (I am way behind the times, still playing Half-Life single player mods) When I work from home, I have my laptop and one monitor as a dual setup, and can have IM up on the other monitor. Wish I could afford flat panels for the space savings, but I can't imagine going back to a single monitor setup again. When I am in the office, working off of the one laptop screen is sometimes excruciating. I am way past the "cool" factor of dual screens, it is extremely productive.
Hmm, was it wrong? I believe that, according to your religious beliefs, it was right. I mean, Jesus himself could have stopped it, but didn't because it was God's plan for him to die. If it was wrong that Jesus died, then God would have been wrong. We can't have that now, can we?
Imagine all the televangelists who would be in the poor house if things had been different, and Jesus had lived a normal life. You can't quite sell the message "Remember, Jesus died for your sins - in a chariot accident."
I think it also demonstrates how the oft-used mantra of "if it needs to be done, it will be done" doesn't always work without some incentive. One of the hurdles of OSS is that the only things that get worked on are the things that people want to work on. The love of developing software can only get you so far (and wow, has it gotten us far). But for some things to advance, it will need financial backing. It's a prickly problem for the OSS community.
My first machine was Bad Dudes, which I got at auction for $75. That became my horizontal JAMMA after adding a couple of buttons. Then a Zaxxon (not working) for $25, which became my vertical. It had a nice front opening panel, made it easy to change boards. Then I got a JAMMA cocktail, which I also still have. I also had a cool standup Vanguard cocktail, which is what I traded for my non-working Galaga. Game auctions were awesome, after all the desirable stuff was gone, you could pick up working oddball games for next to nothing. A couple of my friends were big collectors, with dozens of cabinets and pinballs. They had the connections, and I would go with them sometimes to warehouses to rummage through the boxes of boards. You could spend $100 on a box of boards, and come out with some really good stuff.
But nothing really replaces the memories of riding my bike to the arcade with a pocket full of quarters. Seeing new games when they came in, putting your quarters up on the game so you had next, etc etc.
My list:
Solitaire (Pysol)
Galaga (arcade machine)
Half-Life (I am still playing single-player mods for the original, haven't upgraded my video card for HL2 yet)
Quake Mega TF (although there don't seem to be many servers out there anymore)
Frozen Bubble
But I don't get to play many games anymore. I am just really grateful that I grew up in the age of arcades. Such fantastic memories.
OK, what is the definition of quality? Most people like to say "free of bugs", but that isn't a true indicator of quality. My working definition is that a high quality product meets or exceeds the client's expectations. Now with OSS, my expectations aren't really that high. I mean, if it crashes, or the UI is kind of clunky, or it is hard to install... I just kind of expect there to be some of that. But if I pay for something, I expect it to be of higher quality in these regards. And if a client hires someone to create software for them, it had better meet their requirements. Of course, that is all pretty much a game nowadays, where promises are made, requirements are poor, and it all just turns into a used car sale. Roll out the dog and pony show, let the smooth talkers "work" the clients to explain why they didn't get what they asked for...
Two things about this movie - Juliette Lewis topless, and the soundrack kicks ass.
I jump on links friends send me from YouTube as well, because I know that I'd better watch the videos before they get pulled from the site. I know after a recent PPV event (Ultimate Fighting Championship), a friend sent me a link to one of the fights that was up on YouTube. It got pulled a day later. I know that there used to be those types of videos up on Google, but have all been pulled. If Google does buy YouTube, I think that the content will be much more strictly controlled. (Google is a nice ripe target for lawsuits, and will be on top of that)