Why are all these governments endorsing and planning to use OSS on one hand, and then passing retarded laws that could cause serious problems for OSS on the other? Hello Mr. Foot this is Mr. Hand and his gun to shoot you.
As opposed to the completely fucked up US system. Jebus, give them some credit! At least they are making some kind of progress.
Just like with the Apple Newton , first to market doesn't ensure that you will succeed. You need a few other things. Xbox has pretty much failed so far on those things (price point, and in the case of a games system - good games). If they are true to form, they will simply throw money at the problem, and try to buy their way into the market.
I knew a guy when I was contracting to the Air Force that used to put it like this:
Cheap, Fast, Good - pick 2.
Except "good" can be interpreted in different ways. That is why it's more clear if you split it out into scope and quality. Scope refers to what you say you will produce, quality refers to how well you produce it.:-)
This January I basically presented myself as a needed member of the team, explained my salary adjustment request (using an Infoworld-like survey) and got my boss to back it up to management (not hard, because we treat each other well). There's methods to increase your chances of getting a good pay raise.
Congrats on your 20% increase. I worked my ass off this year too, and received an annual review of "exceeds expectations". You know what my raise was? The same as everyone else's: 0%. Even the fuckstick who takes 2 hour lunches, disappears for hours at a time during the day, and doesn't get his shit done at all, let alone on time. I am not sure if we are making the same amount, but we are at the same grade level.
This is for a very large company, where the CEO made $9 mil in salary ALONE last year, and whose total compensation was over $50 mil. Every salaried employee in the company gets no raise this year, and we don't have a bonus program. And we were told that we were "lucky to have jobs" and that "there are no other jobs out there". I have already started looking, and really hope that the market opens up a little so I can get the F out of here. While those things are technically true, it is not how you keep your employees happy. I don't need to hear that when the CEO almost made more in millions than I made in thousands. And since the company policy is that they cannot give any recommendations if used as a reference (they can only verify that I was employed here) then you can be sure that I am going to lay it on the line when I leave, and they aren't going to get one second more than 2 weeks notice. (if that) For some reason, the bad economy can be used as an excuse by employers to fuck the employees.
I worked for a guy who wasn't very technical. He was old school Navy, but he knew all the contacts in the government so he could keep them at bay while we were trying to write software. He used to say... Three men and a woman can't make a baby in 3 months.
That is a damn good statement. I just got back from a 2 day CMM (Capability Maturity Model) class, and luckily my boss came too, as did his boss. They got to hear first hand from a very good instructor with years of real-world development and management experience what the CMM *IS* and what it *ISN'T*. Too many people think that the CMM has nothing to do with producing good software - and they are 100% right. The Software CMM has to do with getting a handle on how you MANAGE SOFTWARE PROJECTS. One of the benefits is to be able to more accurately hit your schedules. To the parent poster's point, sometimes you can only do things so fast. One of the great charts for project management is this:
Optimize....Constrain....Accept COST SCHEDULE S COPE QUALITY
You can Optimize one, Constrain one, and Accept the other two. (sorry for the format, F'n Slashdot filters) Imagine it is a grid, and you have to put a check in the columns
Data suggests that customer satisfaction goes DOWN when you go from L1 to L2. This is because you are figuring out how to get control of your projects. After that, customer sat goes UP. This is because while your estimates and schedules may not seem that great, you are more likely to hit them. Once your customers get it, they are happy. What is better, saying you can deliver it in 6 months then actually delivering in 12, or saying you can deliver in 6 and doing so in 7?
And the CMM is no guarantee of anything, it is simply a demonstration of your maturity in being able to manage your projects. Of coures, that is if the CMM is done CORRECTLY.
Please stop perpetuating the 24-hour myth. Length of posession has absolutely nothing to do with copyright law. 30 seconds is just as illegal as 24 hours.
Well fuck, you might as well keep them then. As long as you have broken the law, deleting them won't absolve you from any wrongdoing then, right?
So if I play a friend's CD in my computer, I have broken the law? The songs load up in memory, so I have a copy of them. Even if it is only for the length of the song (longer than 30 seconds).
Funny how slippery these ignorant slopes are getting.
If I remember correctly the past season saw the tragic death of a driver and co-driver from a Subaru team in this series.
Maybe this is the information that needs to get out in order to get Americans interested in the sport. Morbid, but true.
But this brings up an interesting point - NAASSSCOOORRR is boring. Fans love the wrecks. Rally is frigging exciting, and I don't think people want to see the wrecks. They want to see the limits pushed, and some amazing driving. THAT is exciting. I don't want to see F1 drivers crash, I want to see RACING. When I went to that Indy 500, people became interested only when there was a wreck. Steven Tyler sang the national anthem that year, which was cool. But some drunk redneck pig-fucker kept yelling "J-J-J-Jaded" ALL DAY LONG at about half hour intervals. I wanted to leave after about an hour anyway, he just expedited the desire.
When I switch on Speedvision at my friend's house to watch Formula One, what amazes me most about these cars is not just their speed but their ability to turn left (of course) but also to the right. As a NASCAR fan, this "bidirectional steering" thing the Europeans are doing is truly amazing. Maybe someday it will come to the states.
I have been to the Indy 500, and the US Grand Prix. I can tell you that to me, F1 is much more impressive than Indy cars. Thankfully, I have never been to a NAASCOOORRR race, but there were plenty of ignorant rednecks at the Indy 500 for my tastes. What is most impressive to me about F1 is their handling. Holy Crap! When I went, it was raining part of the time, and they were still going insanely fast through the corners. When it dried out, they were even faster. Unbelievable. The downforce on those cars, and the suspension/tires is amazing. Not to mention the braking ability. The sheer speed is nothing sto sneeze at either. Hell, their *average* speeds are impressive.
I have heard NAASCOOOORRR fans say that F1 is too much technology and not enough driving, but F1 has the best of the best when it comes to sheer driving ability. Then there are those absolute FREAKS who do rally. Those guys are nuts.
If you are buying a computer from scratch, still buy an Apple, because the hardware is great.
Yes, Apples are nice, but you should add to your list of questions - Do you ever plan on buying any additional hardware for it? Apple hardware is nice, but expensive. That doesn't speak to the OS, but more to the platform.
I have had lots of fun point out that OpenOffice.org can export directly to PDF whereas MS Office can't. And Firefox and Thunderbird are better already than anything that Microsoft or Apple can offer.
I hear that. But usually there are the counter arguments, that there are freeware/shareware out there that can do the same thing. The key is that Linux software has the ability to simply pull away from the competition through innovation. I am not 100% confident that they will, but they have the ability to.
I was just out of town on business, and the hotel offered free wi-fi. They had loaner PCMCIA wi-fi cards, and this was my first experience with it. I loaded the driver on my laptop (WinXP) and after some installing, the card was detected and everything was fine. Then I wondered how Knoppix would handle it. I had a Knoppix 3.2 CD in my bag, and booted it up. Everything was auto-detected, and I was on the net with no problems. Nice. I had heard in the past that wi-fi wasn't very straightforward with Linux, but Knoppix has never been like the other kids on the playground.:-)
This is precisely why I hate Linux so much. When I read about Windows vulnerabilities, it is something easy like "Port 1234 left wide open" or "Outlook will email everyone in the world with your penis size if you launch IE." I can comprehend those bugs. When a Linux exploit is discovered, it is all "SIGALRM this" and "__jiggawhat_ that".
I was really surprised I didn't hear any flak over this, but a week or so ago Comedy Central ran the South Park movie late on a Sunday night. It was around 10:00 PM. I was flipping around, and started watching it. I thought it was just a regular episode at first, then they said the F word. No bleeping. I wasn't sure I heard it right, but they went right on with the expletives, uncensored.
Now I know that technically Comedy Central is "cable" but even cable channels can't do that. I thought. Anyone else see this? What gives?
My worry would be if the police started tracking speeders with this.
OK, so is it more likely that they would track speeders with RFID tags if they did or didn't have them installed on every car? The system has to be in frickin' place before they can abuse it. What, you think there WON'T be attempts to abuse something like this?
Otherwise, I'm not worried about them tracking my moves. Who wants to track me? And how can they track me and everyone else at the same time and keep records of this. The states don't have that kind of money.
Hmm, I wonder if the feds have enough money to do this though. Stir in a little "Patriot Act", maybe a little "DMCA", and everything is tied up in a nice, neat, legal package.
This "I have nothing to worry about anyway" attitude really sickens me.
Linux is NOT obviously more rock solid. People have been saying this for years but it is simply no longer true. Win2k and XP effectively eliminated the stability gap, especially when compared to KDE or Gnome.
Hate to be a stickler, but XP is an OS, KDE and Gnome are not. Yes, it does make a difference when talking about it *technically*. To the end user, it doesn't really matter.
I run RedHat 7.3 at home, with a newer version of KDE. My machine was up for almost 6 months before a power outage took it down. KDE crashes every couple of weeks, sometimes for very odd reasons, but the OS doesn't go down. Here at work I use XP. I think it has only crashed on me once. BUT.... I have been forced to reboot it several times. While it doesn't crash, it does require a reboot every so often to refresh itself.
XP is definitely a good OS in that regard, if you consider a reboot every so often as OK. I don't mind it here at work. At home it would annoy me a little more, because that is MY time. The comparisons aren't really fair ones, you aren't comparing the same things really. And to compare Fedora to Win2k isn't fair - compare Win2k to a Linux OS that was created when Win2k was and you'll be closer to fair.
Here is the thing - Linux has the opportunity here to wipe the floor with MS because they can evolve much faster. Technically, Linux should be able to win the desktop. I don't really know if it will though, and I honestly don't care. I'll keep using it as much as possible, regardless of if it gains "mainstream" acceptance.
I find myself much more productive in a Linux / Unix environment. Linux is just much more user friendly for me.
Well, I am not a developer. OK, I used to be - I got a BSCS back in 93, but have been doing software QA since about 95. But there are two huge thing that keep me on Linux - SSH and scripting.
Many many times at work (Windows) I have nearly pulled my own arms off because of how frustrating the Windows interface can be. The kicker is there is no alternative with it. I know all about cygwin. But it isn't the same.
I write my own shell scripts to do a lot. Everything from auto-downloading, uhh, stuff (yay for brag !) to generating my own thumbnail pages and HTML for photos. Being able to ssh into my box and do things is great. While on vacation in Paris, I was able to go into an internet cafe, download PuTTY, SSH into my home machine, and email the family. In and out in 10 minutes.
I only boot up Windows to play a game or to do some video editing. My DVD Burner is on my Windows machine, because I knew the Windows software would just work with it. But my main machine has been GNU/Linux for about 5 years now.
.the 2005 challenge will involve creating autonomous vehicles that can navigate one mile along a flat, empty highway with a clearly marked, solid center strip.
Based on what I see every day on my commute, it would be a tough enough challenge to have a manned vehicle complete this task.
Maybe if you would get off your goddamn phone you wouldn't be swerving into my lane!!
These tips are great, but i think that everyone would see a big improvement in their picture quality if they followed the #1 of photography - fill the frame.
This is where SLRs are great - because what you see through the viewfinder is what you get in the picture. Not so with almost all non-SLR cameras, including digitals. You always get more picture than you wanted, and it sucks.
BTW, I hate using LCDs for taking pictures. One of my new pet peeves is when people take pictures just using the screen. Hey, I use mine when I have to, but that is rare. I put the damn thing to my eye. It isn't that hard. My mother-in-law has a new 8 megapixel Sony, and there is no viewfinder on it at all. When you look through the eyepiece, you see a digital representation of the shot. It is weird.
Interesting, as it seems to be getting at the idea of launching different applications based on how long you hold down a hardware button, rather than how long you click and hold on the screen.
Yep, Microsoft does own this technology, or at least they made it popular. That hardware button is the computer's reset button.
As for the price, there's a shop up the road with a crate full of pentium mobos with chips and RAM for a buck a piece (untested, but so far I'm 3 for 3 grabbing working ones).
I am 2 for 3 on getting free systems when they are cleaning out IT closets here at work. One working one became my firewall/router, one non-working one was scavenged for parts (screws, leds, etc) and the other one was a working Compaq dual-Pentium server with 3 ultra-wide 4GB SCSI drives. That thing weighed about 80 lbs, and had a huge redundant power supply. So what did I do? Gutted it, and built a regular machine in it. It is quiet (steel) and cool (volume). The hard drives fit right into the SCSI trays. It is a monster.
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As opposed to the completely fucked up US system. Jebus, give them some credit! At least they are making some kind of progress.
Just like with the Apple Newton , first to market doesn't ensure that you will succeed. You need a few other things. Xbox has pretty much failed so far on those things (price point, and in the case of a games system - good games). If they are true to form, they will simply throw money at the problem, and try to buy their way into the market.
Cheap, Fast, Good - pick 2.
Except "good" can be interpreted in different ways. That is why it's more clear if you split it out into scope and quality. Scope refers to what you say you will produce, quality refers to how well you produce it.
Congrats on your 20% increase. I worked my ass off this year too, and received an annual review of "exceeds expectations". You know what my raise was? The same as everyone else's: 0%. Even the fuckstick who takes 2 hour lunches, disappears for hours at a time during the day, and doesn't get his shit done at all, let alone on time. I am not sure if we are making the same amount, but we are at the same grade level.
This is for a very large company, where the CEO made $9 mil in salary ALONE last year, and whose total compensation was over $50 mil. Every salaried employee in the company gets no raise this year, and we don't have a bonus program. And we were told that we were "lucky to have jobs" and that "there are no other jobs out there". I have already started looking, and really hope that the market opens up a little so I can get the F out of here. While those things are technically true, it is not how you keep your employees happy. I don't need to hear that when the CEO almost made more in millions than I made in thousands. And since the company policy is that they cannot give any recommendations if used as a reference (they can only verify that I was employed here) then you can be sure that I am going to lay it on the line when I leave, and they aren't going to get one second more than 2 weeks notice. (if that) For some reason, the bad economy can be used as an excuse by employers to fuck the employees.
That is a damn good statement. I just got back from a 2 day CMM (Capability Maturity Model) class, and luckily my boss came too, as did his boss. They got to hear first hand from a very good instructor with years of real-world development and management experience what the CMM *IS* and what it *ISN'T*. Too many people think that the CMM has nothing to do with producing good software - and they are 100% right. The Software CMM has to do with getting a handle on how you MANAGE SOFTWARE PROJECTS. One of the benefits is to be able to more accurately hit your schedules. To the parent poster's point, sometimes you can only do things so fast. One of the great charts for project management is this:
Optimize....Constrain....Accept
COST
SCHEDULE
QUALITY
You can Optimize one, Constrain one, and Accept the other two. (sorry for the format, F'n Slashdot filters) Imagine it is a grid, and you have to put a check in the columns
Data suggests that customer satisfaction goes DOWN when you go from L1 to L2. This is because you are figuring out how to get control of your projects. After that, customer sat goes UP. This is because while your estimates and schedules may not seem that great, you are more likely to hit them. Once your customers get it, they are happy. What is better, saying you can deliver it in 6 months then actually delivering in 12, or saying you can deliver in 6 and doing so in 7?
And the CMM is no guarantee of anything, it is simply a demonstration of your maturity in being able to manage your projects. Of coures, that is if the CMM is done CORRECTLY.
Well fuck, you might as well keep them then. As long as you have broken the law, deleting them won't absolve you from any wrongdoing then, right?
So if I play a friend's CD in my computer, I have broken the law? The songs load up in memory, so I have a copy of them. Even if it is only for the length of the song (longer than 30 seconds).
Funny how slippery these ignorant slopes are getting.
Maybe this is the information that needs to get out in order to get Americans interested in the sport. Morbid, but true.
But this brings up an interesting point - NAASSSCOOORRR is boring. Fans love the wrecks. Rally is frigging exciting, and I don't think people want to see the wrecks. They want to see the limits pushed, and some amazing driving. THAT is exciting. I don't want to see F1 drivers crash, I want to see RACING. When I went to that Indy 500, people became interested only when there was a wreck. Steven Tyler sang the national anthem that year, which was cool. But some drunk redneck pig-fucker kept yelling "J-J-J-Jaded" ALL DAY LONG at about half hour intervals. I wanted to leave after about an hour anyway, he just expedited the desire.
You mean like the US Grand Prix ? (I know you were joking)
I have been to the Indy 500, and the US Grand Prix. I can tell you that to me, F1 is much more impressive than Indy cars. Thankfully, I have never been to a NAASCOOORRR race, but there were plenty of ignorant rednecks at the Indy 500 for my tastes. What is most impressive to me about F1 is their handling. Holy Crap! When I went, it was raining part of the time, and they were still going insanely fast through the corners. When it dried out, they were even faster. Unbelievable. The downforce on those cars, and the suspension/tires is amazing. Not to mention the braking ability. The sheer speed is nothing sto sneeze at either. Hell, their *average* speeds are impressive.
I have heard NAASCOOOORRR fans say that F1 is too much technology and not enough driving, but F1 has the best of the best when it comes to sheer driving ability. Then there are those absolute FREAKS who do rally. Those guys are nuts.
Countermeasures: a garden hose.
Yes, Apples are nice, but you should add to your list of questions - Do you ever plan on buying any additional hardware for it? Apple hardware is nice, but expensive. That doesn't speak to the OS, but more to the platform.
I have had lots of fun point out that OpenOffice.org can export directly to PDF whereas MS Office can't. And Firefox and Thunderbird are better already than anything that Microsoft or Apple can offer.
I hear that. But usually there are the counter arguments, that there are freeware/shareware out there that can do the same thing. The key is that Linux software has the ability to simply pull away from the competition through innovation. I am not 100% confident that they will, but they have the ability to.
I was just out of town on business, and the hotel offered free wi-fi. They had loaner PCMCIA wi-fi cards, and this was my first experience with it. I loaded the driver on my laptop (WinXP) and after some installing, the card was detected and everything was fine. Then I wondered how Knoppix would handle it. I had a Knoppix 3.2 CD in my bag, and booted it up. Everything was auto-detected, and I was on the net with no problems. Nice. I had heard in the past that wi-fi wasn't very straightforward with Linux, but Knoppix has never been like the other kids on the playground. :-)
That whooshing sound is the joke going over your head.
Yeah, we'd end up with Poochie the dog talking to us while we search for files.
How am I supposed to keep up with this stuff?
Hmm, contest for a highly ranked nonsensical sounding website? Slash Dot Dot Org
Gee, you mean like using it as an excuse to push out the release date?
Now I know that technically Comedy Central is "cable" but even cable channels can't do that. I thought. Anyone else see this? What gives?
OK, so is it more likely that they would track speeders with RFID tags if they did or didn't have them installed on every car? The system has to be in frickin' place before they can abuse it. What, you think there WON'T be attempts to abuse something like this?
Otherwise, I'm not worried about them tracking my moves. Who wants to track me? And how can they track me and everyone else at the same time and keep records of this. The states don't have that kind of money.
Hmm, I wonder if the feds have enough money to do this though. Stir in a little "Patriot Act", maybe a little "DMCA", and everything is tied up in a nice, neat, legal package.
This "I have nothing to worry about anyway" attitude really sickens me.
Hate to be a stickler, but XP is an OS, KDE and Gnome are not. Yes, it does make a difference when talking about it *technically*. To the end user, it doesn't really matter.
I run RedHat 7.3 at home, with a newer version of KDE. My machine was up for almost 6 months before a power outage took it down. KDE crashes every couple of weeks, sometimes for very odd reasons, but the OS doesn't go down. Here at work I use XP. I think it has only crashed on me once. BUT.... I have been forced to reboot it several times. While it doesn't crash, it does require a reboot every so often to refresh itself.
XP is definitely a good OS in that regard, if you consider a reboot every so often as OK. I don't mind it here at work. At home it would annoy me a little more, because that is MY time. The comparisons aren't really fair ones, you aren't comparing the same things really. And to compare Fedora to Win2k isn't fair - compare Win2k to a Linux OS that was created when Win2k was and you'll be closer to fair.
Here is the thing - Linux has the opportunity here to wipe the floor with MS because they can evolve much faster. Technically, Linux should be able to win the desktop. I don't really know if it will though, and I honestly don't care. I'll keep using it as much as possible, regardless of if it gains "mainstream" acceptance.
Your momma's so fat it took me 3 days to download her using internet2.
Well, I am not a developer. OK, I used to be - I got a BSCS back in 93, but have been doing software QA since about 95. But there are two huge thing that keep me on Linux - SSH and scripting.
Many many times at work (Windows) I have nearly pulled my own arms off because of how frustrating the Windows interface can be. The kicker is there is no alternative with it. I know all about cygwin. But it isn't the same.
I write my own shell scripts to do a lot. Everything from auto-downloading, uhh, stuff (yay for brag !) to generating my own thumbnail pages and HTML for photos. Being able to ssh into my box and do things is great. While on vacation in Paris, I was able to go into an internet cafe, download PuTTY, SSH into my home machine, and email the family. In and out in 10 minutes.
I only boot up Windows to play a game or to do some video editing. My DVD Burner is on my Windows machine, because I knew the Windows software would just work with it. But my main machine has been GNU/Linux for about 5 years now.
Based on what I see every day on my commute, it would be a tough enough challenge to have a manned vehicle complete this task.
Maybe if you would get off your goddamn phone you wouldn't be swerving into my lane!!
"MSCE and Ph.D" returned one result, and it was an OR condition - MSCE with 5+ years experience, or PhD with 3+ years experience.
This is where SLRs are great - because what you see through the viewfinder is what you get in the picture. Not so with almost all non-SLR cameras, including digitals. You always get more picture than you wanted, and it sucks.
BTW, I hate using LCDs for taking pictures. One of my new pet peeves is when people take pictures just using the screen. Hey, I use mine when I have to, but that is rare. I put the damn thing to my eye. It isn't that hard. My mother-in-law has a new 8 megapixel Sony, and there is no viewfinder on it at all. When you look through the eyepiece, you see a digital representation of the shot. It is weird.
Yep, Microsoft does own this technology, or at least they made it popular. That hardware button is the computer's reset button.
I am 2 for 3 on getting free systems when they are cleaning out IT closets here at work. One working one became my firewall/router, one non-working one was scavenged for parts (screws, leds, etc) and the other one was a working Compaq dual-Pentium server with 3 ultra-wide 4GB SCSI drives. That thing weighed about 80 lbs, and had a huge redundant power supply. So what did I do? Gutted it, and built a regular machine in it. It is quiet (steel) and cool (volume). The hard drives fit right into the SCSI trays. It is a monster.