. 49? That's too young. How can that happen? He had a daughter in 1994...he sure didn't see this coming. It's not fucking fair. 49? How is that fair? God sucks.
Yeah, thinking about his daughter really punches you in the chest doesn't it? Those of us with kids can appreciate how much worse it is to not be there for your kids than to simply be dead. Jesus, she's only seven years old.
If you measure a person's value by the happiness they bring to others then we are an immensely poorer world today.
I remember reading the Hitchiker's Guide as a teenager, after watching the BBC series. I was absolutely blown away. What's more amazing is that no matter how many times I re-read those books or how old I get, I am still as amazed with them.
To me, HHGTTG represents the best of satire; it pokes fun at human foibles and failings without ever losing an underlying feeling of good humour. A difficult balancing act.
Oh, yeah. So Long, and thanks for the nick and the.sig, Mr. Adams...
Does anyone remember a BBS system from the late '80s that was like a combination MUD and proto-Slashdot?
It had Karma points which were earned for posting messages or correctly answering Trivia questions (how much more '80s does it get?), and a series of plateaus where you were given more and more administrative access (in the form of 'spells') based on your Karma?
I have fond memories of the one in my area (Windsor, Ontario - I think it was called "The Mountain of TSOTL", but maybe that was the name of the software) - I can remember being blasted down to 0 karma for casting harmful spells on newbies. Heh, thinking about those days makes me a little more forgiving of the immature behaviour I see online...
Had my own BBS, too. Wrote the software myself in AppleSoft BASIC as a practical exercise in programming to my 300 BPS Hayes modem. Never got more than a few friends on board, but I don't think I have very often matched the feeling of accomplishment I had as a 15 year old kid when the first callers logged on to my "homegrown" BBS system...
"I think most see Java as a server technology at this point. VB always sucked at this. " Out of curiousity, on what basis do you say this? I have a feeling you've no knowledge of COM, much less VB so how can you intelligently make such a comment?
Well, anecdotally, I am currently supporting a web-based app for the ASP that employs me. It's written in the standard Microsoft blend - VBscript on the server side, Javascript for client side, SQL 7.0 backend, IIS hosted. Everything (pretty much) plays nice except for one COM.DLL that was written in VB. It's always bringing down IIS and causing me a great deal of headaches. I've been through the code and it all looks like fine, MSDN textbook code, but it flat out doesn't work when there are a large number of instances running.
So for me, VB-based server code sucks ass. I'm lobbying for the budget to do a rewrite...
I supervised a few dozen construction workers for a couple years. The people who approach the job seriously and have a solid work ethic work extremely hard.
On the other hand, I've seen plenty of lazy labourers and skilled tradesmen. It's not hard to avoid working hard if that is your main goal, no matter what the industry. Especially in a specialized industry (I worked in natural gas transmission) where people know they cannot be replaced easily.
The really skilled welders and pipefitters are more difficult to find than skilled programmers or sysadmins, and they are treated accordingly. The Lego desk might have been an extravagance, but that is a one time thing. Check out the union rules that qualified pipeline welders have managed to put in place (very specific, right down to the quality and quantity of food at their free lunches) if you want to see a group of people who are really coddled.
Finally, if going up and down ladders, digging holes, etc. is really as hard as you say it is, how is it that such a large minority of workers manage to work (and keep their jobs) while drunk or high on drugs, or hung over from same. Believe me, I've seen it plenty of times. I knew one welder in particular, an alcoholic, who would consume a half case of beer by two o'clock every single day, while working. I don't ever see coders show up for work in that condition (technicians are another matter...).
But it also allows the developer to put the code out into the wild for the customer's competition to see, poke, prod and attempt to break. If I was contracting a programmer to write specialized code for my company I would want the ability to control exactly where that code could be published, especially if it was code I considered core to my business.
Interesting point. I have a couple of comments, though. First, is it in the developer's best interest to reveal this code to the general public? Probably not, if it is a written-to-order solution. Second, the GPL only requires the customer who receives the binary to have access to the source, not the public at large. I am not sure if a contract with the software author could specify this or not and still be GPL compatible..
finally, and most importantly, the customer recieves the benifit of having a copy of the source code for their application. If the vendor tanks or if a conflict arises, the customer still has the source code to work with. I would think that is a better situation to be in than to be stuck with binaries only and no support...
I'm a software developer, and I find myself working about 55 hours per week on average. That works out to (usually) 5 ten hour days with a few hours on the weekend.
That compares favourably to a previous life as a project supervisor for construction projects, where that work week would have been considered a slacker lifestyle.
Of course, all bets are off at deadline time - 14 hour days are the norm when trying to resolve issues at the end of a project...
very appropriate. Lewis is full of good quotes. I recall something about bureaucracy, as well...
found it! Gotta love Google.
I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.
All that good stuff and Narnia too.
Yeah, yeah, I know, off-topic. Moderate appropriately.
I remember watching the Schwartzenneger vehicle Commando with some buddies back in the '80s where we (callow youths) tried to keep an accurate body count. We were over 100 when he started blowing up buildings full of people, which made it kind of hard to keep track...
But what makes you think that they have a monopoly on restricting free speech? Have you not been paying attention to the people who actually TRY? It's not partisan.
You've got that right. It's the Andrea Dworkins of the world that I fear a hell of a lot more than the Ashcrofts. Hell, you know Republicans can be bought, right? They just want the Hollywood dollars and star power on their side.
True Believers like Dworkin, on the other hand, are a little bit creepier. I think that she believes in Feminism a hell of a lot more than she believes in Democracy, and that's a problem of priorities.
There ARE some first-amendment feminists out there, but they're not the ones in academia who are shaping the feminist dialectic. The scary, man-hating feminists are the ones with all the cushy academic positions...
I'm sure Slashdot would shut down as all the nerds are fleeing to Canada in hopes of dodging the draft.
I can assure you that the Canadian government already has plans for this contingency. We're stocked up on stuff sure to repel geeks at the border: sports equipment
soap
girls
power tools and woodworking equipment ...and of course massive hard-drive degaussing magnets at all critical border points
We've got enough problems with the french, we don't need a nation of geeks descending upon us...
why not use your considerable intellect to learn French? Girls really dig that stuff, unless of course she happens to be from France...
If you try to learn French to pick up chicks, take a trip to Montreal. Everyone there speaks english, so you don't have to really learn it all that well, and there will probably be some babes who find a french-speaking Yankee just delightful...
But do NOT try this in Quebec City or Baie Comeau or Hull etc., etc., it's pretty much a Montreal-only kind of thing...>
Seriously, though, what part of Windsor do you live in? Olde Walkerville and East Windsor seem to have very congested @home service, while mine is reliable day-in and day-out.
LaSalle, Ontario (Windsor's prettier neighbor) gets similar rates, but without the nightly outages.
Anecdotally, my pals in crowded, cable-modem loving Windsor have a much poorer 'net quality of life than those of us in cow country who are in the know...
Slashdot Mirror
. 49? That's too young. How can that happen? He had a daughter in 1994...he sure didn't see this coming. It's not fucking fair. 49? How is that fair? God sucks. Yeah, thinking about his daughter really punches you in the chest doesn't it? Those of us with kids can appreciate how much worse it is to not be there for your kids than to simply be dead. Jesus, she's only seven years old.
If you measure a person's value by the happiness they bring to others then we are an immensely poorer world today.
I remember reading the Hitchiker's Guide as a teenager, after watching the BBC series. I was absolutely blown away. What's more amazing is that no matter how many times I re-read those books or how old I get, I am still as amazed with them.
To me, HHGTTG represents the best of satire; it pokes fun at human foibles and failings without ever losing an underlying feeling of good humour. A difficult balancing act.
Oh, yeah. So Long, and thanks for the nick and the .sig, Mr. Adams...
Ever hear how the Spartans and the Theban Sacred Band used the "buddy system" to acheive their elite status?
Funny. We don't use XP methodology, but our customers end up making us feel like newly-initiated Sacred Banders anway...
Does anyone remember a BBS system from the late '80s that was like a combination MUD and proto-Slashdot?
It had Karma points which were earned for posting messages or correctly answering Trivia questions (how much more '80s does it get?), and a series of plateaus where you were given more and more administrative access (in the form of 'spells') based on your Karma?
I have fond memories of the one in my area (Windsor, Ontario - I think it was called "The Mountain of TSOTL", but maybe that was the name of the software) - I can remember being blasted down to 0 karma for casting harmful spells on newbies. Heh, thinking about those days makes me a little more forgiving of the immature behaviour I see online ...
Had my own BBS, too. Wrote the software myself in AppleSoft BASIC as a practical exercise in programming to my 300 BPS Hayes modem. Never got more than a few friends on board, but I don't think I have very often matched the feeling of accomplishment I had as a 15 year old kid when the first callers logged on to my "homegrown" BBS system...
"I think most see Java as a server technology at this point. VB always sucked at this. "
Out of curiousity, on what basis do you say this? I have a feeling you've no knowledge of COM, much less VB so how can you intelligently make such a comment?
Well, anecdotally, I am currently supporting a web-based app for the ASP that employs me. It's written in the standard Microsoft blend - VBscript on the server side, Javascript for client side, SQL 7.0 backend, IIS hosted. Everything (pretty much) plays nice except for one COM .DLL that was written in VB. It's always bringing down IIS and causing me a great deal of headaches. I've been through the code and it all looks like fine, MSDN textbook code, but it flat out doesn't work when there are a large number of instances running.
So for me, VB-based server code sucks ass. I'm lobbying for the budget to do a rewrite ...
uh, read my comment again.
I supervised a few dozen construction workers for a couple years. The people who approach the job seriously and have a solid work ethic work extremely hard.
On the other hand, I've seen plenty of lazy labourers and skilled tradesmen. It's not hard to avoid working hard if that is your main goal, no matter what the industry. Especially in a specialized industry (I worked in natural gas transmission) where people know they cannot be replaced easily.
The really skilled welders and pipefitters are more difficult to find than skilled programmers or sysadmins, and they are treated accordingly. The Lego desk might have been an extravagance, but that is a one time thing. Check out the union rules that qualified pipeline welders have managed to put in place (very specific, right down to the quality and quantity of food at their free lunches) if you want to see a group of people who are really coddled.
Finally, if going up and down ladders, digging holes, etc. is really as hard as you say it is, how is it that such a large minority of workers manage to work (and keep their jobs) while drunk or high on drugs, or hung over from same. Believe me, I've seen it plenty of times. I knew one welder in particular, an alcoholic, who would consume a half case of beer by two o'clock every single day, while working. I don't ever see coders show up for work in that condition (technicians are another matter...).
But it also allows the developer to put the code out into the wild for the customer's competition to see, poke, prod and attempt to break. If I was contracting a programmer to write specialized code for my company I would want the ability to control exactly where that code could be published, especially if it was code I considered core to my business.
Interesting point. I have a couple of comments, though. First, is it in the developer's best interest to reveal this code to the general public? Probably not, if it is a written-to-order solution. Second, the GPL only requires the customer who receives the binary to have access to the source, not the public at large. I am not sure if a contract with the software author could specify this or not and still be GPL compatible..
finally, and most importantly, the customer recieves the benifit of having a copy of the source code for their application. If the vendor tanks or if a conflict arises, the customer still has the source code to work with. I would think that is a better situation to be in than to be stuck with binaries only and no support...
heh.
all true, for sure.
What's also fun about construction is the dawn start times...
I show up at work now at 7:30 and look like a superstar, but to me it feels like sleeping in...
I'm a software developer, and I find myself working about 55 hours per week on average. That works out to (usually) 5 ten hour days with a few hours on the weekend.
That compares favourably to a previous life as a project supervisor for construction projects, where that work week would have been considered a slacker lifestyle.
Of course, all bets are off at deadline time - 14 hour days are the norm when trying to resolve issues at the end of a project...
Wa la! Beautiful printing from IE
Now I'm no grammar nazi, but I believe the word you're looking for here is Voila...
Last time I checked the newest ODBC driver for Windows PostgreSQL clients was 6.5.
Worked with 7.0, though.
Anyone tried 'em with 7.1?
yes that was/will be/has been/warll a problem.
c:\windows\command\fdisk /mbr
s /Q 69/0/13.ASP if you're goatse.cx paranoid..
Um, that will erase the master boot record.
See this link for details.
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/article
very appropriate. Lewis is full of good quotes. I recall something about bureaucracy, as well...
found it! Gotta love Google.
I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.
All that good stuff and Narnia too.
Yeah, yeah, I know, off-topic. Moderate appropriately.
In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the entire Universe is destroyed.
no, no, no. It will be destroyed. That's why the restaurant is where it is.
I remember watching the Schwartzenneger vehicle Commando with some buddies back in the '80s where we (callow youths) tried to keep an accurate body count. We were over 100 when he started blowing up buildings full of people, which made it kind of hard to keep track...
Otherwise, something like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would win, because they go forward through time, when everyone is already dead...
That's right.. I was/will be/am there!
But what makes you think that they have a monopoly on restricting free speech? Have you not been paying attention to the people who actually TRY? It's not partisan.
You've got that right. It's the Andrea Dworkins of the world that I fear a hell of a lot more than the Ashcrofts. Hell, you know Republicans can be bought, right? They just want the Hollywood dollars and star power on their side.
True Believers like Dworkin, on the other hand, are a little bit creepier. I think that she believes in Feminism a hell of a lot more than she believes in Democracy, and that's a problem of priorities.
There ARE some first-amendment feminists out there, but they're not the ones in academia who are shaping the feminist dialectic. The scary, man-hating feminists are the ones with all the cushy academic positions...
I'm sure Slashdot would shut down as all the nerds are fleeing to Canada in hopes of dodging the draft.
...and of course massive hard-drive degaussing magnets at all critical border points
I can assure you that the Canadian government already has plans for this contingency. We're stocked up on stuff sure to repel geeks at the border:
sports equipment
soap
girls
power tools and woodworking equipment
We've got enough problems with the french, we don't need a nation of geeks descending upon us...
why not use your considerable intellect to learn French? Girls really dig that stuff, unless of course she happens to be from France...
If you try to learn French to pick up chicks, take a trip to Montreal. Everyone there speaks english, so you don't have to really learn it all that well, and there will probably be some babes who find a french-speaking Yankee just delightful...
But do NOT try this in Quebec City or Baie Comeau or Hull etc., etc., it's pretty much a Montreal-only kind of thing...>
uh, sadly enough, plenty of people on /. were fooled.
I keep trying to tell myself that they were all just kidding...
I was just being funny.
..or not
homophobia is silly and pointless
..are you saying by implication that mysogyny isn't?
I guess we're not pals. ;)
Seriously, though, what part of Windsor do you live in? Olde Walkerville and East Windsor seem to have very congested @home service, while mine is reliable day-in and day-out.
LaSalle, Ontario (Windsor's prettier neighbor) gets similar rates, but without the nightly outages.
Anecdotally, my pals in crowded, cable-modem loving Windsor have a much poorer 'net quality of life than those of us in cow country who are in the know...