Don't you need internet access on your cell phone before mobile search engines hit it big? In which case there would need to be almost nothing different than current websites. Maybe they should focus on getting decent broadband to mobile phones in the area of $20 a month before worrying about super-duper mobile phone websites. Otherwise nobody will use the websites....
Who says you need internet access on your phone for this? Those are the types of assumptions that hinder innovation. Couldn't you do some kind of query/response to a server somewhere? One of the things that always seems kind of obvious AFTER some kind of innovation is what assumptions were thought about in a different way. Think of the problem, and how it could be solved, without getting caught up in what already exists. That is just one way to do it, obviously another is to try and use what already exists. But all ways should be looked at to solve problems.
It's like looking back on the comments around flying before airplanes where they thought it was impossible because things were too heavy, so they tried to make things really light in order to fly. That is why I love the "50,100, 150 years ago" section in Scientific American magazine. It is really interesting to read the thoughts on science from those time periods. Sometimes it is amazing at how forward-thinking they were, and sometimes it is funny to see how far off they were.
Always look at your assumptions, and consider how to eliminate them if they are hindering your solution. Like Google's recent comments on PC power supplies (a href=http://informationweek.com/hardware/showArtic le.jhtml?articleID=193005875> here. It is one of those simple and innovative ideas.
I haven't been more confused since, well, about five minutes into Episode 1.
Which is, as I recall, halfway the scrolling text intro. Right?
Phbbt. Don't you have FFWD on your DVD player? I was about 1/4 of the way through the watchable parts in that amount of time. Finally, I can say these words to Mr. Lucas - "Thank you!"
Good job not explaining the difference; educating anyone who might read your post.
Eh, sorry.
QA = Quality Assurance
QC = Quality Control
SQA = Software Quality Assurance
I am sure you can look these terms up, but in a nutshell....
QA is ensuring the quality of a product from many different aspects, and in pure form does not involve testing. QC is testing. SQA is (from a CMM perspective anyway) [you'll have to look that one up too] the process of monitoring and auditing the software development processes and products to ensure that they conform to established standards.
In general, a lot of the industry calls testing 'QA'. I have kind of come to accept that, but still try to use standard terms. At one company I was at, they used the term 'QA' as a verb - i.e. to QA something. Very annoying, and it showed their lack of knowledge on the subject. (which became painfully obvious the longer I was there)
I just want to thank you for using the proper terminology, and not saying "QA this stuff". Pet peeve of mine, being involved in Software QA and QC for 13 years now. QA != QC != SQA
I have a bi-fold wallet made of Carbon Fiber that I bought at a Formula One race. It is still kind of stiff 5 years later, but looks brand new. Most people don't notice it, but when they do I get "nice wallet".
# Sales team. The first person you'll ever need is the VP for sales. Then you'll need a good, experienced sales team. No matter how expensive they are, these people will make or break a business.
Or they'll do both. They'll sell what doesn't exist in order to get the business going, and the development team will have to try and keep up. You will succeed, as long as the development team can do this. But you will reach a point where you grow a little bit too quickly, and sales starts to promise too much. The development team flounders, and mistakes start happening. Sales is able to sign bigger and bigger deals with bigger clients. But the expectation for development is that "they have always been able to pull it out in the past". Burnout ensues. This is where the execs will sell off the company and make out like bandits.
# Time frame and financial needs. One thing all startups underestimate is the need for quality assurance. Generally, testing for defects takes more time than assembling a product. Thus, the time to market should be at least tripled and the cost doubled from what you expect.
What? Did I just read that? Holy crap. I want to come work for you. I have been doing QA and testing for 13 years. Finally someone who gets it. Did you read my statments to the first point? QA and testing wasn't even considered an afterthought at one startup I was at. Not only did the execs not understand what it was or what it was for, they wouldn't listen to the people who did know. If your executives don't get it, and are only there to pump and dump a company, your best bet is to GET OUT. They will promise you anything, and deliver nothing.
Yes, I am bitter. But I am much happier since I got out of that environment. There is a reason that startups fail - because they end up being about someone somewhere in the company focusing on getting rich instead of building a company.
No, if he was 18 and the game affected that way he is not only a fully responsible adult, but the rating system says the game was okay for him. Once you are 18, you are mostly out of the impressionable age and have moved on to having to think for yourself, instead of your parents monitoring you.
I don't always drive my points home, I leave some room for people to think about it. This is kind of what my statement was getting at - ultimately the rating system is kind of ridiculous. All of a sudden when someone is 18 they are a fully responsible adult? I suppose in the eyes of the law that is true, but the eyes of the law are ultimately guidelines.
I totally agree with 1 and 3 from your points. But #2... I disagree. People throughout history have proven that violence is part of the human makeup. Some people manage to rise above it, but even the best of us still have violent urges. If the existance of violent video games can help people control those urges, instead of acting them out on the streets, I'm all for it.
True, I wouldn't even come close to saying that violence hasn't existed. I just kind of wish we wouldn't use that as an excuse to glorify it and make it commonplace. At some point I would hope we would kind of rise above that, and frickin' EVOLVE a little. Do violent video games give people an outlet for that to help them control their urges? There is absolutely no way to prove that (no more so than that they cause violence). In fact, it could be argued that obviously that doesn't happen! It can be argued both ways, and I think that it is kind of a moot point. That is why I said there is no way to really "solve" this. I just wished that it wasn't so accepted, that I get sick of seeing commercials for "Murder Dramas" on TV, and how violence is acceptable and sex or language is not. (Janet Jackson's boob causes such an uproar, yet we are happily spending trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on an unjustified war, and all people can do is put friggin' ribbons on their cars?)
I am not for regulating people and what they do, quite the opposite. I just wish these kinds of things would regulate themselves, because it seems like we are just a ridiculous, laughable nation sometimes.
Ok, so if the 14-year-old playing the rated "M" game (for those 17+) was playing obsessively for months, then I would argue that the fault lies with whomever was responsible for him.
I see. So if he was 18 and on his own, it would have all been ok?
I find several things deplorable:
1. People love laying blame on ONE thing as the cause of something. The game isn't at fault, but it may have been somewhat of a contributing factor. I know when I used to play some of those cockpit racing games at a Dave and Buster's, when I got in my car it felt a little weird. Gamers want to say that games have no impact on what a person does, but I think they do. So do movies, music, advertisements, etc. If they had no impact, then these things wouldn't exist. They have positive and negative IMPACTS. But they aren't the sole cause of anything.
2. That violent games like these are so popular. I loved Quake, and Half-Life, etc. They were violent as hell. But I wasn't obsessed with them. I hate the fact that our society is obsessed with violence as entertainment. Just stop and look around. I may be a small part of it, and I am not suggesting that getting rid of these video games will solve it. It just kind of disturbs me when I step back and look at it. I guess when you glorify war, and turn a blind eye to the reality of it, there isn't much else you can expect.
3. Our legal system, and what it has done to our society. Dispicable. It has tainted people to the point where nobody is willing to admit any fault with anything, for fear of being sued. The maker of these games can't say "yeah, ok, it is a pretty ruthless and violent game. But we certainly aren't responsible for this kid's actions." They have to say "We have a sticker on it! He shouldn't have been playing it anyway. It has no influence on people... Where were his PARENTS! It is their fault, not ours."
4. All of these reasons roll together nicely into one package - and nobody will sincerely mention that this is a tragedy, and people were needlessly killed. See items 1 - 3.
I had a company in California really want me to work for them a few years ago. They were one of the big players in the "tv on your phone" scene. The job sounded interesting, but then I thought - why would anyone want this? It just seemed like a dumb idea to me. They claimed they had a growing market, etc. But I just didn't get it. I worried that I might be missing something, and this was a good chance to get in on something before it became big. Maybe I was right for once.
I don't have the best track record. Here are some of my other ideas of what wouldn't take off...
When I was first introduced to Unix, I thought - this is dumb. It is way too complicated, who wants to remember all these commands? This was around 1990. 3 years later, I got my first job, and had to use Unix every day as we were on Unix servers. Here it is 13 years later and I am still using it, and Linux has been on my home computer for about 8 years.:)
I was introduced to SQL in one of my classes, and thought "this is weird. Select * from... huh? I don't get it. Who would ever want to use this, it is so cumbersome.
A college classmate did one of his senior projects on this burgeoning thing called (of all things) The World Wide Web. He was trying to explain it to me, and I thought it sounded kind of... unnecessary. I mean, we had ftp, usenet, gopher, BBS... what else could you want?
...there's either a good segment of the workforce at Google that still needs to be micro-managed or Google is quietly firing 10% of their staff every quarter to keep trimming out the slackers.
Well, considering it takes them about a full quarter to hire someone, that may be the case. Or maybe once you get burnt out, you are gone because someone else will replace you. I was recently out of work and looking for a job and checked into Google. I got part way into their interview process, and found out that I would need to call back in 3 weeks if I didn't hear anything. Their recruiter was very very busy, and if she didn't get back to me I should contact her to remind her. And the whole interview process would take 6 - 8 weeks minumum, and was very grueling according to rumor (several tough interviews). Yeah, Google may be awesome, but I just got out of a job where I worked my ass off, had inept management, and was burned out for an entire year. Then was back-stabbed and fired with no reason given, other than I should have "played the political game" and "managed my manager better".
Maybe Google is some utopia, but I highly doubt it. I am happy with where I am now, but Google has a lot of advantages that allow them to operate the way they do. Not every company is a hammer, not every employee is a nail. They are hiring the kind of people that fit their business, good for them. You can't apply their techniques to every company, and there are a lot of good people that wouldn't fit into Google. And this pretty much talks about IT folks, it takes more than that to make up most companies. Although most IT folks think that they are the only people that matter in a company.
Of course the first thing the auditors want to do is plug into our network so they can get their email. I said no, because if we do they it violates SOX and we fail their audit. They asked how they're supposed to audit us then if they can't use their e-mail? Not my problem, refer up to management:)
We had a similar discussion with our auditors. It wasn't SOX, it was SAS70, but still a process audit. What I thought was hilarious was when I walked past the conference room that the 3 auditors had occupied, and there sat their 3 laptops, screens unlocked and nobody in the room. The urge to set their background image to goatse was almost overwhelming, but I thought better of it.
The problem here is, even if you had a computer like the one described here, you still need to be able to understand your problem well enough to cogently explain it to your computer. And that's where most people will fail. They don't understand their problems in the first place, and have no idea how to communicate the solutions they actually need.
In Soviet Russia, computer understands your problem and explains it to you.
(If I just leave the comment at that, I am sure it will get modded down)
One of the things I have learned to do is question my assumptions. It is a great problem solving tool, and can also be used just for fun thought experiments. Like this one. Your statement assumes that we input things into the computer. In the theoretical world of AI, why would we need to do this? Maybe we just need to confirm things that the computer *intelligently* comes to a conclusion about.
It is really hard to imagine far into the future. I always wondered how you could explain computers to someone from before the time of electricity, and the questions you would get back from them. And that wasn't THAT long ago. So how can we possibly reliably envision the future? One of my favorite parts of Scientific American is their regular feature of short science news stories from 50, 100, and 150 years ago. It was always entertaining to read. You can get a preview of it on their site.
Beckerman: The only way I know to avoid the present litigation wave is to avoid having shared files of copyrighted songs.
I think we need to be VERY careful about how we say things. I think what you meant to say is that people should avoid having shared files of copyrighted songs, without the copyright holders permission to do so.
This is one of those things that bugs me, because it leans the general thought in one particular direction. Copying and sharing copyrighted music or other works is NOT illegal, in and of itself. It is only illegal if you don't have the rights to do so. There are many copyrighted works that you can legally copy and share.
I know, it is very pedantic, but I think it is something very important to keep clear.
You don't think it's possible that a computer geek from a rich family might have at some point in her life used IRIX, or at least used it enough to recognize a very distinctive tech demo that came with IRIX at the time and could be used as a file manager? Is it really that improbable that a ten year old might know at least enough about UNIX to know what/usr is? Or is the idea that girls don't use computers?
Yes, all that is very improbable. But the real BS about it is that if she was a real computer geek, she would have gone off on a scoffing tirade about how she couldn't believe that they didn't use [insert favorite *nix flavor].
OK, we all know the stupid things done with technology in movies. They do stupid things with everything else too, from medicine to police to martial arts. (Steven Seagal's amazing medical recovery in Hard to Kill was an awesomely bad rendition of all three) But what are the ones that did a decent job portraying technology? Sneakers? Weird Science? Real Genius?
Considering a great deal of America's news output... yes, things certainly are.
What I like, and what I think can be considered a vague benefit, is that it is news related comedy. I mean, there are hints of information in it. It's better than just watching MTV, E!, or NASCAR.
I will routinely hear stories on NPR on the way to work, and then wonder what The Daily Show or Colbert Report will do with it. I think the writers of those shows, and the way the hosts deliver it, are fantastic.
There's a great Wikipedia article on the video containing some of the little things you may have missed.
Pretty cool. Although, I am surprised at this statement from the wikipedia page: When the lyrics "Steven Hawking's in my library" are sung, Yankovic is shown holding A Brief History of Time, adorned in an unusual cover.
From best I can tell on the YouTube video, it seems to be the Illustrated Brief History of Time. I don't know why this would be considered "unusual". Of all the minute details on this page, I am surprised. If only there were a way to correct it.;)
Hmm, only 1 ethernet port? Guess I'll have to keep using my old P90 as my firewall/router box. The only fan is on the PS, so it is really quiet. But it does take up a bit of space. I would love a linux-on-a-chip tiny firewall/router box. Yeah yeah, I know. I can probably buy something off the shelf for $40 that will do the same thing. Any recommendations?
A professor rides the back of his students' work and findings?! Say it ain't so.
Nope, never been there. Never ever had a prof do that...o.k., maybe...I'm not bitter.
I had a professor in college who assigned us sections of his book he was working on, to proofread it and evaluate it for technical accuracy. I don't know if he ever published it or not. It was in the exciting field of computer logic design, in the early 90s. On the final exam, we were given a diagram of processing logic, and asked various questions about the state of it. When I got mine back, I went to him to question one of the answers I got wrong, becuase it just didn't make sense to me. He seemed confused at first, but then agreed I was right! So he had graded them all incorrectly. But he only changed the grade on mine, he didn't want to bother with updating everyone elses. I thought that was pretty crappy of him.
One other thing I remember about that class was a paper that I did on the revolutionary new processor that was going to be released soon - the "pentium".:)
As the parent eludes to, the only way to do it The Right Way (tm) is to have a Development environment, a QA environment, and a Production system.
Each of these systems should be using the same architecture when it comes to hardware and configuration.
The Development system is always in a state of flux, as its name implies.
The QA system should *at least* approximate (if not be identical to) the data and load of the production system, and it should be treated like a production system that QA tries to break.
Well, depending on how your release schedule works, you may want a separate system that mirrors production. Using the QA system for that will only let them test against the production-like environment. If you need to test anything new, you run the risk of making your production-like system less like production. You may want to try to reproduce a production issue, and tainting your QA system may not allow you to do that. BTDT. Again, it depends on your release approach.
Full dumps and restores are your friend. You might be able to get away with one QA system, but if it were me, I wouldn't recommend it.
(And to be the anal-retentive person that I am, QA *technically* refers to quality process management, and not testing, which would be QC. I know, I know - everyone refers to 'testing' as 'QA'. Just don't say you are going to 'QA' something, that really makes no sense.)
If I had a summary, it would be: goof off in college. Spend an extra year there. Talk to everyone. Take a difficult course twice. Don't be afraid to change concentrations. Go to parties. Get drunk. Meet the opposite sex, even the same sex if that floats your boat. Maybe even at the same time. Live. Learn everything. Cheat authority at every turn, 'cause that disrespect and ability to bypass idiot rules will give you real success at life -- conformity makes you a loser, no matter what toys they give you. There is no other time or place in your whole life that will let you be yourself again, so grab it while you can.
Spend an extra year? check
Take a difficult course twice? check (see above)
Go to parties, get drumk? check (ok, 2 checks)
Meet the opposite sex? check (what better place to meet your first wife?)
Learn everything... not quite
Don't get me wrong, college was a blast, but it was a ton of hard work. I learned how to apply a strong work ethic. I went to every class, I listened. I did my assignments as soon as I could, so I could have time to party without slacking. I did my share of partying, but school came first. I also worked while in school, to pay my own way. But still had to get student loans. I didn't learn everything I know in college. I was a CS major, and pretty much all they taught about it at that time was programming. There is a LOT more to software development than programming. Luckily, I took the one software engineering course offered where we did everything BUT programming (project plans, budgeting, design, requirements, test plans, etc), and the project from that course is what got me my first job. Then I started to apply some of the things I learned, but there is so much they can't teach you in college. There are things that I gained an interest in and learned a lot about 10 years after college. But I had a good foundation to build upon.
It is all about balance. You study too much, you lose. You party too much, you lose. I still try to apply balance to my daily life now, 14 years after graduating college. And I am happy.
Slashdot Mirror
Who says you need internet access on your phone for this? Those are the types of assumptions that hinder innovation. Couldn't you do some kind of query/response to a server somewhere? One of the things that always seems kind of obvious AFTER some kind of innovation is what assumptions were thought about in a different way. Think of the problem, and how it could be solved, without getting caught up in what already exists. That is just one way to do it, obviously another is to try and use what already exists. But all ways should be looked at to solve problems.
It's like looking back on the comments around flying before airplanes where they thought it was impossible because things were too heavy, so they tried to make things really light in order to fly. That is why I love the "50,100, 150 years ago" section in Scientific American magazine. It is really interesting to read the thoughts on science from those time periods. Sometimes it is amazing at how forward-thinking they were, and sometimes it is funny to see how far off they were.
Always look at your assumptions, and consider how to eliminate them if they are hindering your solution. Like Google's recent comments on PC power supplies (a href=http://informationweek.com/hardware/showArti
I can recite whole numbers from 0 to 100,000. Maybe more. Does that impress you?
Which is, as I recall, halfway the scrolling text intro. Right?
Phbbt. Don't you have FFWD on your DVD player? I was about 1/4 of the way through the watchable parts in that amount of time. Finally, I can say these words to Mr. Lucas - "Thank you!"
Eh, sorry.
QA = Quality Assurance
QC = Quality Control
SQA = Software Quality Assurance
I am sure you can look these terms up, but in a nutshell....
QA is ensuring the quality of a product from many different aspects, and in pure form does not involve testing. QC is testing. SQA is (from a CMM perspective anyway) [you'll have to look that one up too] the process of monitoring and auditing the software development processes and products to ensure that they conform to established standards.
In general, a lot of the industry calls testing 'QA'. I have kind of come to accept that, but still try to use standard terms. At one company I was at, they used the term 'QA' as a verb - i.e. to QA something. Very annoying, and it showed their lack of knowledge on the subject. (which became painfully obvious the longer I was there)
I just want to thank you for using the proper terminology, and not saying "QA this stuff". Pet peeve of mine, being involved in Software QA and QC for 13 years now. QA != QC != SQA
You paying out a a million dollars to the winners?
Since this is Slashdot, I'll go with the odds and say that the only winner in this situation would be the poster.
I have a bi-fold wallet made of Carbon Fiber that I bought at a Formula One race. It is still kind of stiff 5 years later, but looks brand new. Most people don't notice it, but when they do I get "nice wallet".
Or they'll do both. They'll sell what doesn't exist in order to get the business going, and the development team will have to try and keep up. You will succeed, as long as the development team can do this. But you will reach a point where you grow a little bit too quickly, and sales starts to promise too much. The development team flounders, and mistakes start happening. Sales is able to sign bigger and bigger deals with bigger clients. But the expectation for development is that "they have always been able to pull it out in the past". Burnout ensues. This is where the execs will sell off the company and make out like bandits.
# Time frame and financial needs. One thing all startups underestimate is the need for quality assurance. Generally, testing for defects takes more time than assembling a product. Thus, the time to market should be at least tripled and the cost doubled from what you expect.
What? Did I just read that? Holy crap. I want to come work for you. I have been doing QA and testing for 13 years. Finally someone who gets it. Did you read my statments to the first point? QA and testing wasn't even considered an afterthought at one startup I was at. Not only did the execs not understand what it was or what it was for, they wouldn't listen to the people who did know. If your executives don't get it, and are only there to pump and dump a company, your best bet is to GET OUT. They will promise you anything, and deliver nothing.
Yes, I am bitter. But I am much happier since I got out of that environment. There is a reason that startups fail - because they end up being about someone somewhere in the company focusing on getting rich instead of building a company.
I don't always drive my points home, I leave some room for people to think about it. This is kind of what my statement was getting at - ultimately the rating system is kind of ridiculous. All of a sudden when someone is 18 they are a fully responsible adult? I suppose in the eyes of the law that is true, but the eyes of the law are ultimately guidelines.
I totally agree with 1 and 3 from your points. But #2... I disagree. People throughout history have proven that violence is part of the human makeup. Some people manage to rise above it, but even the best of us still have violent urges. If the existance of violent video games can help people control those urges, instead of acting them out on the streets, I'm all for it.
True, I wouldn't even come close to saying that violence hasn't existed. I just kind of wish we wouldn't use that as an excuse to glorify it and make it commonplace. At some point I would hope we would kind of rise above that, and frickin' EVOLVE a little. Do violent video games give people an outlet for that to help them control their urges? There is absolutely no way to prove that (no more so than that they cause violence). In fact, it could be argued that obviously that doesn't happen! It can be argued both ways, and I think that it is kind of a moot point. That is why I said there is no way to really "solve" this. I just wished that it wasn't so accepted, that I get sick of seeing commercials for "Murder Dramas" on TV, and how violence is acceptable and sex or language is not. (Janet Jackson's boob causes such an uproar, yet we are happily spending trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on an unjustified war, and all people can do is put friggin' ribbons on their cars?)
I am not for regulating people and what they do, quite the opposite. I just wish these kinds of things would regulate themselves, because it seems like we are just a ridiculous, laughable nation sometimes.
I see. So if he was 18 and on his own, it would have all been ok?
I find several things deplorable:
1. People love laying blame on ONE thing as the cause of something. The game isn't at fault, but it may have been somewhat of a contributing factor. I know when I used to play some of those cockpit racing games at a Dave and Buster's, when I got in my car it felt a little weird. Gamers want to say that games have no impact on what a person does, but I think they do. So do movies, music, advertisements, etc. If they had no impact, then these things wouldn't exist. They have positive and negative IMPACTS. But they aren't the sole cause of anything.
2. That violent games like these are so popular. I loved Quake, and Half-Life, etc. They were violent as hell. But I wasn't obsessed with them. I hate the fact that our society is obsessed with violence as entertainment. Just stop and look around. I may be a small part of it, and I am not suggesting that getting rid of these video games will solve it. It just kind of disturbs me when I step back and look at it. I guess when you glorify war, and turn a blind eye to the reality of it, there isn't much else you can expect.
3. Our legal system, and what it has done to our society. Dispicable. It has tainted people to the point where nobody is willing to admit any fault with anything, for fear of being sued. The maker of these games can't say "yeah, ok, it is a pretty ruthless and violent game. But we certainly aren't responsible for this kid's actions." They have to say "We have a sticker on it! He shouldn't have been playing it anyway. It has no influence on people... Where were his PARENTS! It is their fault, not ours."
4. All of these reasons roll together nicely into one package - and nobody will sincerely mention that this is a tragedy, and people were needlessly killed. See items 1 - 3.
I don't have the best track record. Here are some of my other ideas of what wouldn't take off...
When I was first introduced to Unix, I thought - this is dumb. It is way too complicated, who wants to remember all these commands? This was around 1990. 3 years later, I got my first job, and had to use Unix every day as we were on Unix servers. Here it is 13 years later and I am still using it, and Linux has been on my home computer for about 8 years. :)
I was introduced to SQL in one of my classes, and thought "this is weird. Select * from... huh? I don't get it. Who would ever want to use this, it is so cumbersome.
A college classmate did one of his senior projects on this burgeoning thing called (of all things) The World Wide Web. He was trying to explain it to me, and I thought it sounded kind of ... unnecessary. I mean, we had ftp, usenet, gopher, BBS... what else could you want?
Well, considering it takes them about a full quarter to hire someone, that may be the case. Or maybe once you get burnt out, you are gone because someone else will replace you. I was recently out of work and looking for a job and checked into Google. I got part way into their interview process, and found out that I would need to call back in 3 weeks if I didn't hear anything. Their recruiter was very very busy, and if she didn't get back to me I should contact her to remind her. And the whole interview process would take 6 - 8 weeks minumum, and was very grueling according to rumor (several tough interviews). Yeah, Google may be awesome, but I just got out of a job where I worked my ass off, had inept management, and was burned out for an entire year. Then was back-stabbed and fired with no reason given, other than I should have "played the political game" and "managed my manager better".
Maybe Google is some utopia, but I highly doubt it. I am happy with where I am now, but Google has a lot of advantages that allow them to operate the way they do. Not every company is a hammer, not every employee is a nail. They are hiring the kind of people that fit their business, good for them. You can't apply their techniques to every company, and there are a lot of good people that wouldn't fit into Google. And this pretty much talks about IT folks, it takes more than that to make up most companies. Although most IT folks think that they are the only people that matter in a company.
We had a similar discussion with our auditors. It wasn't SOX, it was SAS70, but still a process audit. What I thought was hilarious was when I walked past the conference room that the 3 auditors had occupied, and there sat their 3 laptops, screens unlocked and nobody in the room. The urge to set their background image to goatse was almost overwhelming, but I thought better of it.
In Soviet Russia, computer understands your problem and explains it to you.
(If I just leave the comment at that, I am sure it will get modded down)
One of the things I have learned to do is question my assumptions. It is a great problem solving tool, and can also be used just for fun thought experiments. Like this one. Your statement assumes that we input things into the computer. In the theoretical world of AI, why would we need to do this? Maybe we just need to confirm things that the computer *intelligently* comes to a conclusion about.
It is really hard to imagine far into the future. I always wondered how you could explain computers to someone from before the time of electricity, and the questions you would get back from them. And that wasn't THAT long ago. So how can we possibly reliably envision the future? One of my favorite parts of Scientific American is their regular feature of short science news stories from 50, 100, and 150 years ago. It was always entertaining to read. You can get a preview of it on their site.
I think we need to be VERY careful about how we say things. I think what you meant to say is that people should avoid having shared files of copyrighted songs, without the copyright holders permission to do so.
This is one of those things that bugs me, because it leans the general thought in one particular direction. Copying and sharing copyrighted music or other works is NOT illegal, in and of itself. It is only illegal if you don't have the rights to do so. There are many copyrighted works that you can legally copy and share.
I know, it is very pedantic, but I think it is something very important to keep clear.
Yes, all that is very improbable. But the real BS about it is that if she was a real computer geek, she would have gone off on a scoffing tirade about how she couldn't believe that they didn't use [insert favorite *nix flavor].
OK, we all know the stupid things done with technology in movies. They do stupid things with everything else too, from medicine to police to martial arts. (Steven Seagal's amazing medical recovery in Hard to Kill was an awesomely bad rendition of all three) But what are the ones that did a decent job portraying technology? Sneakers? Weird Science? Real Genius?
What I like, and what I think can be considered a vague benefit, is that it is news related comedy. I mean, there are hints of information in it. It's better than just watching MTV, E!, or NASCAR.
I will routinely hear stories on NPR on the way to work, and then wonder what The Daily Show or Colbert Report will do with it. I think the writers of those shows, and the way the hosts deliver it, are fantastic.
Pretty cool. Although, I am surprised at this statement from the wikipedia page: When the lyrics "Steven Hawking's in my library" are sung, Yankovic is shown holding A Brief History of Time, adorned in an unusual cover.
From best I can tell on the YouTube video, it seems to be the Illustrated Brief History of Time. I don't know why this would be considered "unusual". Of all the minute details on this page, I am surprised. If only there were a way to correct it. ;)
Hmm, only 1 ethernet port? Guess I'll have to keep using my old P90 as my firewall/router box. The only fan is on the PS, so it is really quiet. But it does take up a bit of space. I would love a linux-on-a-chip tiny firewall/router box. Yeah yeah, I know. I can probably buy something off the shelf for $40 that will do the same thing. Any recommendations?
hrmpf. People without a sense of humor shouldn't have mod points.
You never know, they may be onto something. After all, they have people living in China that are older than our *country*.
A professor rides the back of his students' work and findings?! Say it ain't so.
Nope, never been there. Never ever had a prof do that...o.k., maybe...I'm not bitter.
I had a professor in college who assigned us sections of his book he was working on, to proofread it and evaluate it for technical accuracy. I don't know if he ever published it or not. It was in the exciting field of computer logic design, in the early 90s. On the final exam, we were given a diagram of processing logic, and asked various questions about the state of it. When I got mine back, I went to him to question one of the answers I got wrong, becuase it just didn't make sense to me. He seemed confused at first, but then agreed I was right! So he had graded them all incorrectly. But he only changed the grade on mine, he didn't want to bother with updating everyone elses. I thought that was pretty crappy of him.
One other thing I remember about that class was a paper that I did on the revolutionary new processor that was going to be released soon - the "pentium".
Each of these systems should be using the same architecture when it comes to hardware and configuration.
The Development system is always in a state of flux, as its name implies.
The QA system should *at least* approximate (if not be identical to) the data and load of the production system, and it should be treated like a production system that QA tries to break.
Well, depending on how your release schedule works, you may want a separate system that mirrors production. Using the QA system for that will only let them test against the production-like environment. If you need to test anything new, you run the risk of making your production-like system less like production. You may want to try to reproduce a production issue, and tainting your QA system may not allow you to do that. BTDT. Again, it depends on your release approach.
Full dumps and restores are your friend. You might be able to get away with one QA system, but if it were me, I wouldn't recommend it.
(And to be the anal-retentive person that I am, QA *technically* refers to quality process management, and not testing, which would be QC. I know, I know - everyone refers to 'testing' as 'QA'. Just don't say you are going to 'QA' something, that really makes no sense.)
Dude, I thought you were referring to this Crossroads .
Spend an extra year? check
Take a difficult course twice? check (see above)
Go to parties, get drumk? check (ok, 2 checks)
Meet the opposite sex? check (what better place to meet your first wife?)
Learn everything... not quite
Don't get me wrong, college was a blast, but it was a ton of hard work. I learned how to apply a strong work ethic. I went to every class, I listened. I did my assignments as soon as I could, so I could have time to party without slacking. I did my share of partying, but school came first. I also worked while in school, to pay my own way. But still had to get student loans. I didn't learn everything I know in college. I was a CS major, and pretty much all they taught about it at that time was programming. There is a LOT more to software development than programming. Luckily, I took the one software engineering course offered where we did everything BUT programming (project plans, budgeting, design, requirements, test plans, etc), and the project from that course is what got me my first job. Then I started to apply some of the things I learned, but there is so much they can't teach you in college. There are things that I gained an interest in and learned a lot about 10 years after college. But I had a good foundation to build upon.
It is all about balance. You study too much, you lose. You party too much, you lose. I still try to apply balance to my daily life now, 14 years after graduating college. And I am happy.