Poor MS, what with Vista they have been having a bad time of it recently.
Poor Microsoft? You've gotta be kidding me. If your main products are crap, you get what you deserve. Anyone who thinks that Windows or IE are great obviously hasn't even tried anything else seriously.
At the Trenton Computer Fair earlier this year I was handed an Ubuntu disc. I've subsequently loaned this disc to others, made copies, etc., etc, and everyone that actually put it in their computer and tried it came back to me to tell me how amazing it was.
If given a viable alternative, PEOPLE WILL SWITCH, and move away from MS/IE/Windows, and it's associated legacy crud.
And yes, I own a PC running Windows (2000). But I also own an iMac, an EEE-pc, and various SGI and SUN boxen. And a machine running Ubuntu.
You could have been frozen in the 70's and been prepared for all of that by watching Star Trek.
Computers -- Kirk and Spock *spoke* to their computers. 99% of us still have to type. Hell, Spock even holds up 3.5 floppies on the show and refers to them as "tapes"
Cell Phones -- "Scotty beam me up" Kirk used a cell phone nearly every episode. Many models even flip open the same way and are the same exact size as the original communicator. Spock even had that wacky Bluetooth headset in his ear often.
In fact, if you were frozen in the 70's you'd be disappointed by the LACK OF PROGRESS. Where the frack are our flying cars, jetpacks, transporters, warp drive, colonies on Mars, and all that other crap we were supposed to have by the year 2000?
There are temp agencies that "farm out" IT techs to larger businesses. I don't think they REQUIRE a degree, just that you pass their basic computer knowledge test before they start placing you in positions in their client's firms.
Having at least an A+ certification would obviously help, but if you show them you're smart and ambitious, they'll start placing you higher.
I can tell you from experience that an CS Degree and even certifications aren't that important, if you're willing to work your way up the ladder. What you do is get placed at various companies for a short duration as a temp, get some experience. When you find a good enough temp spot at a company you click with, talk with your immediate superior at the firm about hiring you away from the temp agency.
It can be done (as I said, I speak from experience), but it can also be a rocky road. Hang in there though - like I said, it's more important that you're smart, dedicated and able to solve problems.
According to what the NASA statement wants from the vehicle, this sounds exactly like what the DC-X already was capable of doing and that technology is already available and tested. Why re-invent the wheel here?
I mean, am I crazy, or does it seem that NASA just likes doing the exact same thing over and over again, except using a whole new technology each time just to make everything more expensive than it needs to be?
Well, call me a Washin'ton out-cider, don'cha know, betcha', shucks, all I gotta' do is wink and sure, by golly, that asteroid'll collide with Obama fer sure. 'Cause he's a terrist celebrity, by golly, gosh, so dangerous, and I'd like ta' ignore that question and talk 'bout energy.
They become meteors *once* they start to interact with the Earth's atmosphere. Until that time, they are classified as space objects, and the names seem to change dependent upon size and approximate mass.
That would be a football field to the power of a football field.
I think a more relevant question is: if 1 gram of graphene has the surface area of a footbal field, what weight are the football players? And is that "football" or "Soccer"?
Well goody for you; I'm so happy you can afford multiple TVs (one for each eye?). However, not everyone is in your income bracket. Many are struggling just to keep their homes, and the rising price of gas has made things even tougher (I assume with all those TVs, you must have watched the news at some point).
For over a year now I have been predicting riots in the streets when the people living in our ghettos are suddenly thrust into a situation where they have no more bread and circuses. Without their steady opitate of "American Idol", they might suddenly notice they are living in a country with no freedoms and a repressive government.
I'm not poor and neither are the people I associate with. Despite that, I know exactly TWO people with HDTV setups, and yet, I know even more with TV antennas and no digital boxes. I myself have DirectTV, so I'm unaffected, but I'm still watching it on a standard NTSC box, and I suspect I'm far from alone.
So just because you have two nice plasmas, don't assume the rest of America is the same as you. And have fun with them next time a nasty storm knocks out your power. Pull out your battery powered TV to get a weather update and then find out it doesn't work without your digital box.
Fortuantely, we have radio as backup, but how long until they make that unaccessible to us as well without paying fees, making it entirely digital, relying on a broken infrastructure, and causing more problems than it's worth.
What program is that? (Link please). I love the idea of being able to program my phone to self destruct if needed. This way if my phone is ever stolen, I can immediately brick it.
Is it my imagination, or has everyone gone crazy with flash, and now ever web page has to have some element of it that causes your speakers to make embarassing sounds at work? Why can't websites like HP's, which you figure people will look at AT WORK, friggin' WARN people that it's going to start playing music, or give your opportunity to MUTE *before* the msuic starts playing?
If this keeps up, I'm either going to stop surfing the web entirely, or, pull my speakers out. Unfortunately, these days some machines come with internal speakers (like the iMac), so if you disconnect the external speakers you activate the internal. Guess the volume controls are there onthe computer for a reason but still, when I'm on the web I'm there to read.
If I want to watch "TV", I'll turn on the goddamned TV, thank you.
Even Slashdot's front page has started having ads appear that make noise. Can't you just wait until something that's loaded with ads, like say 'Weather.com' starts having multiple ads playing sound simultaneously? Yeah, that'll be pleasant.
Never mind Web 2.0 -- I'm starting to look fondly on Web 0.2 -- text on a grey background.
I find it slightly revolting that some techs find that they could charge that much for some basic technical assistance.
I find it more revolting that the customer didn't sue Sony. After all, he PAID Sony for this service, Sony provided music that he should have been able to access. Sony *should* be running the authorization servers FOREVER, but they do not. How is that not "theft of service" by Sony, and perhaps they should be made to pay the entire cost of recovering the data from the dead PC?
Frankly, if that had been me in that position, I would have called Sony's tech support line(s) until THEY fixed the problem. At their end. Either that or Sony would need to provide me with DRM free copies of all music I had purchased from them (and no rootkit included, please).
I'm amazed there haven't been more CEO assasinations due to how corporations gleefully screw over their customers.
If it had *actually* been Duke Nukem Forever being released, this particular Slashdot meme would be forever dead... I mean, what else would there be for us to complain about?
D.R. and Quinch got made, but you wouldn't recognize it -- it's a film called O.C. and Stiggs, and takes place in Arizona or something. Made in the 80's I think and it's weird. Still, it's worth watching.
Anyone who cares about what they pay at the pump cannot vote Democratic (and have a leg to stand on when prices go up even faster) in the next election if they want the price to come down
-----
That's an interesting statement when you consider it was the insane policies of the Republicans that got us into this mess in the first place.
If wacko, insane, bumbling moron GWB hadn't destablized the entire mideast with his WMD-hunt (when Saddam had been a known, contained, and closely monitored element), then we'd still only be paying $1.50 per gallon at most. But, because of a few greedy individuals, we are now shoveling hundreds of billions into the pockets of a few and we've created the largest transfer of wealth in human history.
So, go on, spout on about how the democrats are to blame for everything. In the meantime, GWB will continue to lose popularity, and will likely be considered "Worst President in American History". Just remember the party he came from -- the party that represents wealthy, greedy, self-centered, fat white people who couldn't give a shit about the rest of the world.
Sounds like Ridley Scott and/or Jim Cameron has to make a new version of "Alien(s)" in which we *can* hear the scream. And frankly, if I remember the original correctly, all Lambert did was scream. Sheesh Lambert, shut the f**k up! And of course, this time, Ash has to be a hobbit robot.
Considering the vast majority of jokes on Slashdot are running memes: (examples: "1??? 2??? 3 PROFIT", "Natalie Portman/Hot Grits", "In Soviet Russia... YOU"
Irving Gould is as responsible for the death of the Amiga as Bill Gates, maybe more so. As much as I adore my C=64, 128, Amiga 1000 and 2000 w/Toaster, Commodore never had the slightest clue as to how to market the Amiga.
In 20/20 hindsight, it was the first true multimedia machine, and could playback video at decent framerates (the DCTV add-on was truely amazing for its time), however Commodore tried to market it as a business machine. As if they had a chance of competing with IBM for that marketshare.
Only too little, too late did they make an inspired version, the CDTV (and later the CD32), which made the Amiga a component of a home entertainment system, (which only now are Microsoft and Apple trying to do), but, typical Commodore, they cheap'ed it to death, and then never threw any money at actually marketing it. As such, almost no one has ever heard of the thing.
Newtek sold more Amigas than Commodore did, by rebranding it as a 'Video Toaster System', and many of those toasters are still in use today (although to be fair, many are also being offloaded on eBay).
But to say that Bill Gates killed the Amiga is to distort history as badly as most people do when they think that Bill invented the computer. Or think that Windows is the only 'PC' there is.
(God, to think that I'm actually defending Bill Gates, a person I'd like to have shot out of a canon more than any other individual in history....) Look what you've done to me, damn you!!!
Slashdot Mirror
Poor MS, what with Vista they have been having a bad time of it recently.
Poor Microsoft? You've gotta be kidding me. If your main products are crap, you get what you deserve. Anyone who thinks that Windows or IE are great obviously hasn't even tried anything else seriously.
At the Trenton Computer Fair earlier this year I was handed an Ubuntu disc. I've subsequently loaned this disc to others, made copies, etc., etc, and everyone that actually put it in their computer and tried it came back to me to tell me how amazing it was.
If given a viable alternative, PEOPLE WILL SWITCH, and move away from MS/IE/Windows, and it's associated legacy crud.
And yes, I own a PC running Windows (2000). But I also own an iMac, an EEE-pc, and various SGI and SUN boxen. And a machine running Ubuntu.
Thank you for a Star Blazers reference.
Almost no one knows what that is anymore!
You could have been frozen in the 70's and been prepared for all of that by watching Star Trek.
Computers -- Kirk and Spock *spoke* to their computers. 99% of us still have to type. Hell, Spock even holds up 3.5 floppies on the show and refers to them as "tapes"
Cell Phones -- "Scotty beam me up" Kirk used a cell phone nearly every episode. Many models even flip open the same way and are the same exact size as the original communicator. Spock even had that wacky Bluetooth headset in his ear often.
In fact, if you were frozen in the 70's you'd be disappointed by the LACK OF PROGRESS. Where the frack are our flying cars, jetpacks, transporters, warp drive, colonies on Mars, and all that other crap we were supposed to have by the year 2000?
Sheesh!
There are temp agencies that "farm out" IT techs to larger businesses. I don't think they REQUIRE a degree, just that you pass their basic computer knowledge test before they start placing you in positions in their client's firms.
Having at least an A+ certification would obviously help, but if you show them you're smart and ambitious, they'll start placing you higher.
I can tell you from experience that an CS Degree and even certifications aren't that important, if you're willing to work your way up the ladder. What you do is get placed at various companies for a short duration as a temp, get some experience. When you find a good enough temp spot at a company you click with, talk with your immediate superior at the firm about hiring you away from the temp agency.
It can be done (as I said, I speak from experience), but it can also be a rocky road. Hang in there though - like I said, it's more important that you're smart, dedicated and able to solve problems.
ttyl
You left out "Reality TV Show".
According to what the NASA statement wants from the vehicle, this sounds exactly like what the DC-X already was capable of doing and that technology is already available and tested. Why re-invent the wheel here?
I mean, am I crazy, or does it seem that NASA just likes doing the exact same thing over and over again, except using a whole new technology each time just to make everything more expensive than it needs to be?
Well, call me a Washin'ton out-cider, don'cha know, betcha', shucks, all I gotta' do is wink and sure, by golly, that asteroid'll collide with Obama fer sure. 'Cause he's a terrist celebrity, by golly, gosh, so dangerous, and I'd like ta' ignore that question and talk 'bout energy.
Sincerely;
Sarah Palin
They become meteors *once* they start to interact with the Earth's atmosphere. Until that time, they are classified as space objects, and the names seem to change dependent upon size and approximate mass.
That's 'cause the ALIENS took 'im.
And they kept the plane.
Uh, Sidekick for DOS? Anybody remember that? What year was that?
The concept of a little program running on top of another has been around practically as long as there have been programmable computers.
And my wife, a former NASA engineer at KSC,
Kentucky Space Chicken?
That would be a football field to the power of a football field.
I think a more relevant question is: if 1 gram of graphene has the surface area of a footbal field, what weight are the football players? And is that "football" or "Soccer"?
Well goody for you; I'm so happy you can afford multiple TVs (one for each eye?). However, not everyone is in your income bracket. Many are struggling just to keep their homes, and the rising price of gas has made things even tougher (I assume with all those TVs, you must have watched the news at some point).
For over a year now I have been predicting riots in the streets when the people living in our ghettos are suddenly thrust into a situation where they have no more bread and circuses. Without their steady opitate of "American Idol", they might suddenly notice they are living in a country with no freedoms and a repressive government.
I'm not poor and neither are the people I associate with. Despite that, I know exactly TWO people with HDTV setups, and yet, I know even more with TV antennas and no digital boxes. I myself have DirectTV, so I'm unaffected, but I'm still watching it on a standard NTSC box, and I suspect I'm far from alone.
So just because you have two nice plasmas, don't assume the rest of America is the same as you. And have fun with them next time a nasty storm knocks out your power. Pull out your battery powered TV to get a weather update and then find out it doesn't work without your digital box.
Fortuantely, we have radio as backup, but how long until they make that unaccessible to us as well without paying fees, making it entirely digital, relying on a broken infrastructure, and causing more problems than it's worth.
What program is that? (Link please).
I love the idea of being able to program my phone to self destruct if needed.
This way if my phone is ever stolen, I can immediately brick it.
Is it my imagination, or has everyone gone crazy with flash, and now ever web page has to have some element of it that causes your speakers to make embarassing sounds at work? Why can't websites like HP's, which you figure people will look at AT WORK, friggin' WARN people that it's going to start playing music, or give your opportunity to MUTE *before* the msuic starts playing?
If this keeps up, I'm either going to stop surfing the web entirely, or, pull my speakers out. Unfortunately, these days some machines come with internal speakers (like the iMac), so if you disconnect the external speakers you activate the internal. Guess the volume controls are there onthe computer for a reason but still, when I'm on the web I'm there to read.
If I want to watch "TV", I'll turn on the goddamned TV, thank you.
Even Slashdot's front page has started having ads appear that make noise. Can't you just wait until something that's loaded with ads, like say 'Weather.com' starts having multiple ads playing sound simultaneously? Yeah, that'll be pleasant.
Never mind Web 2.0 -- I'm starting to look fondly on Web 0.2 -- text on a grey background.
I find it slightly revolting that some techs find that they could charge that much for some basic technical assistance.
I find it more revolting that the customer didn't sue Sony. After all, he PAID Sony for this service, Sony provided music that he should have been able to access. Sony *should* be running the authorization servers FOREVER, but they do not. How is that not "theft of service" by Sony, and perhaps they should be made to pay the entire cost of recovering the data from the dead PC?
Frankly, if that had been me in that position, I would have called Sony's tech support line(s) until THEY fixed the problem. At their end. Either that or Sony would need to provide me with DRM free copies of all music I had purchased from them (and no rootkit included, please).
I'm amazed there haven't been more CEO assasinations due to how corporations gleefully screw over their customers.
To what use will this long, long prime be put?
So we can watch the stars go out,... one by one.
(the 9 billion names of god)
Who said you need to be trim and in shape to get laid?
My girlfriend.
If it had *actually* been Duke Nukem Forever being released, this particular Slashdot meme would be forever dead... I mean, what else would there be for us to complain about?
D.R. and Quinch got made, but you wouldn't recognize it -- it's a film called O.C. and Stiggs, and takes place in Arizona or something. Made in the 80's I think and it's weird. Still, it's worth watching.
I wish I had mod points. A "They Might Be Giants" reference. How many of the current Slashdot crowd are going to get that? Bravo Sir.
Anyone who cares about what they pay at the pump cannot vote Democratic (and have a leg to stand on when prices go up even faster) in the next election if they want the price to come down
-----
That's an interesting statement when you consider it was the insane policies of the Republicans that got us into this mess in the first place.
If wacko, insane, bumbling moron GWB hadn't destablized the entire mideast with his WMD-hunt (when Saddam had been a known, contained, and closely monitored element), then we'd still only be paying $1.50 per gallon at most. But, because of a few greedy individuals, we are now shoveling hundreds of billions into the pockets of a few and we've created the largest transfer of wealth in human history.
So, go on, spout on about how the democrats are to blame for everything. In the meantime, GWB will continue to lose popularity, and will likely be considered "Worst President in American History". Just remember the party he came from -- the party that represents wealthy, greedy, self-centered, fat white people who couldn't give a shit about the rest of the world.
Sounds like Ridley Scott and/or Jim Cameron has to make a new version of "Alien(s)" in which we *can* hear the scream. And frankly, if I remember the original correctly, all Lambert did was scream. Sheesh Lambert, shut the f**k up! And of course, this time, Ash has to be a hobbit robot.
Considering the vast majority of jokes on Slashdot are running memes:
(examples: "1??? 2??? 3 PROFIT", "Natalie Portman/Hot Grits", "In Soviet Russia... YOU"
All I can say is:
"You must be new here."
Irving Gould is as responsible for the death of the Amiga as Bill Gates, maybe more so. As much as I adore my C=64, 128, Amiga 1000 and 2000 w/Toaster, Commodore never had the slightest clue as to how to market the Amiga.
In 20/20 hindsight, it was the first true multimedia machine, and could playback video at decent framerates (the DCTV add-on was truely amazing for its time), however Commodore tried to market it as a business machine. As if they had a chance of competing with IBM for that marketshare.
Only too little, too late did they make an inspired version, the CDTV (and later the CD32), which made the Amiga a component of a home entertainment system, (which only now are Microsoft and Apple trying to do), but, typical Commodore, they cheap'ed it to death, and then never threw any money at actually marketing it. As such, almost no one has ever heard of the thing.
Newtek sold more Amigas than Commodore did, by rebranding it as a 'Video Toaster System', and many of those toasters are still in use today (although to be fair, many are also being offloaded on eBay).
But to say that Bill Gates killed the Amiga is to distort history as badly as most people do when they think that Bill invented the computer. Or think that Windows is the only 'PC' there is.
(God, to think that I'm actually defending Bill Gates, a person I'd like to have shot out of a canon more than any other individual in history....) Look what you've done to me, damn you!!!