This article was in linux journal about two years ago, but most of the discussion is still fairly interesting to read. He brings up a lot of very good points and has some interesting numbers to back him up.
Take a 7200 rpm SCSI drive. Take a 7200 rpm IDE drive. Rip off the electronics.
You now have two identical drives.
Maybe not. This could be a load of crap, but:
I was told by an IBM support rep that SCSI drives used a different lubricant on the axel the platters are mounted to. The difference is that the SCSI version is better for situations where the disk is always on. The lube isn't subjected to starting in a cold and less viscous state and operates in a narrow temp range. His claim was that this lube wouldn't handle the roll of a desktop very well....starting and stopping all the time, different temp ranges.
Like I said, this might be crap, but it was interesting to consider.
This is silly. I pay my damned cable company ~50 for the right to watch whatever portion I want of what they send down the wire. I didn't agree to watch everything they offer.
Are they going to come and beat me now up if I flip the channel during a commercial. I almost always do.
Hell yes....but it doesn't suck. The pay is pretty good and you always have something to do. Nobody really forces a dress code on you and you can set your own hours...within reason.
As long as you're doing your job well nobody screws with you and you get a certain amount of respect. The company will always need leadership, so as long as you don't screw anything up you will have a job.
And the same things go for programming. This was a silly question.
20 years ago Heinlein discussed in his books a storage system he calls fine grained Welton cubes. They are closed independent systems, accessible wirelessly, very small, and expensive.
I think someone at IBM must have just read Time Enough For Love or another of the books in which Weltons are present.
I bet their next product annocement will be a new series of computers that are setient and want to become really hot human women so they can have a lot of sex with you. I think they will sell fairly well.
Time Enough For Love is one of the greatest books ever written. Go read it now....you are just wasting time anyway.
Sure, it would be great if every new graduate knew these things, and had ten years worth of experience to go with it. But that isn't the way our university system works. It pissed me off when I was in school, but I understand it a little more now.
I think something that would be a very good adition to our current university system is the requirement of a co-op, internship or apprenticeship. This would provide students with a little bit of practical, hands-on experience, but in a way where their focus could be on learning rather than productivity.
MS may be around for a while, but I doubt.NET will..NET will go away one day. MS will get bored with it, or will discover it is too expensive to adapt it to work with new ideas and technologies. Then they will scrap it and invent a new proprietary semi-standard..NET is a flash-in-the-pan, flavor-of-the-day, fad kind of beast.
Also, CS courses are not supposed to give you the skills you will need in the workplace. CS courses are supposed to teach you the methods and theories that will allow you to be trained by your employer for specific tasks. A new graduate should not be expected to know 12 programing languages and to have mastered 9 different IDEs on 4 OSes.
A graduate should not need to know about a proprietary semi-standard framework invented by a powerful company found guilty of violating federal anti-trust laws.
I think that a lot of his message comes from the fact that so many of the programmers in the industry have very little of no formal training in computer science. I have only 3/4 of a degree in CS and NONE of my friends who work in the industry got as far as I did before heading to work.
The difference being that a computer scientist is a weird combination of a mathematician and an artist. The math because at the fundamential level a computer is a calculator and all programs are just big equations. The art because makeing a calculator do something interesting with your equation IS art. The level of design knowledge needed to create a usable application with a coherent and graceful structure full of good clean code is equal or greater than the design knowledge that goes into creating a building.
But the average Programmer doesn't have all of that. He just hammers out code as needed. it usually works, but often there was a better way to do it.....or it had already been done and was on page 42 of the textbook of the software engineering class he didn't take. I am one of these guys...I know what I'm doing, and I think I do it fairly well, but I know my flaws. I know my code has flaws I can't see.
The statements about how much progress has been made are really what gave me the idea. Sure, we may not have made a lot of progress in CS threory...but so what. We have made a ton of progress in other areas. The amount of quality software in the public domain or available at a low cost is mind numbing. For almost anything you wish to do there is a peice of software that will make it a little easier. Sure, the software doesn't do all the work....and it DOES REQUIRE YOU TO KNOW HOW TO USE IT! Many of the most serious problems with computers today do stem from fallacy number 1.
I don't think the technology was ready then, but with the widespread availability of dsl/cable and the amazing graphics abilities of modern PCs(with enough processor capacity left over for impressive game AI), I think this game is becoming more realistic.
Tribes 2 does come close. It just needs an organized and regulated Chain of Command. I think this feature could be implemented with an experience points like system. I would say that a player could become qualified to lead a team of snipers after he achieved a XXX kills/XX deaths ratio(earning him points) and maintained his success rate in leadership There are a lot of possibilities there.
Another must have is vehicles...they have been overlooked for far too long. The three man bomber in Tribes 2 is brilliant. It takes coordination, specialization, and communication to be effective with that weapon. Those things are lacking in too many games....especially FPS.
I hope I see this game on a shelf soon. I'd make it myself if I wasn't such a lazy bastard.
Geeking out is probably close to the truth for most people, but there often is a practical reason to have all that hardware around....education and experience.
I just bought a used sun ultra 10 on ebay for $400. I have no real NEED for this thing. But it will enable me to work with solaris in the enviorment it was written for. And, I'd like to learn whether sun hardware is worth the big $ they charge for it.
This makes four systems and a raid array I have humming away in my cramped home office. Yes, its loud and a pain in the ass some days. But I'm learning from it all.
Slashdot Mirror
This article was in linux journal about two years ago, but most of the discussion is still fairly interesting to read. He brings up a lot of very good points and has some interesting numbers to back him up.
Maybe not.
This could be a load of crap, but:
I was told by an IBM support rep that SCSI drives used a different lubricant on the axel the platters are mounted to. The difference is that the SCSI version is better for situations where the disk is always on. The lube isn't subjected to starting in a cold and less viscous state and operates in a narrow temp range. His claim was that this lube wouldn't handle the roll of a desktop very well....starting and stopping all the time, different temp ranges.
Like I said, this might be crap, but it was interesting to consider.
This is silly. I pay my damned cable company ~50 for the right to watch whatever portion I want of what they send down the wire. I didn't agree to watch everything they offer.
Are they going to come and beat me now up if I flip the channel during a commercial. I almost always do.
This is silly.
Hell yes....but it doesn't suck. The pay is pretty good and you always have something to do. Nobody really forces a dress code on you and you can set your own hours...within reason.
As long as you're doing your job well nobody screws with you and you get a certain amount of respect. The company will always need leadership, so as long as you don't screw anything up you will have a job.
And the same things go for programming. This was a silly question.
Life steals from art.
20 years ago Heinlein discussed in his books a storage system he calls fine grained Welton cubes. They are closed independent systems, accessible wirelessly, very small, and expensive.
I think someone at IBM must have just read Time Enough For Love or another of the books in which Weltons are present.
I bet their next product annocement will be a new series of computers that are setient and want to become really hot human women so they can have a lot of sex with you. I think they will sell fairly well.
Time Enough For Love is one of the greatest books ever written. Go read it now....you are just wasting time anyway.
Sure, it would be great if every new graduate knew these things, and had ten years worth of experience to go with it. But that isn't the way our university system works. It pissed me off when I was in school, but I understand it a little more now.
I think something that would be a very good adition to our current university system is the requirement of a co-op, internship or apprenticeship. This would provide students with a little bit of practical, hands-on experience, but in a way where their focus could be on learning rather than productivity.
Just a thought.
MS may be around for a while, but I doubt
Also, CS courses are not supposed to give you the skills you will need in the workplace. CS courses are supposed to teach you the methods and theories that will allow you to be trained by your employer for specific tasks. A new graduate should not be expected to know 12 programing languages and to have mastered 9 different IDEs on 4 OSes.
A graduate should not need to know about a proprietary semi-standard framework invented by a powerful company found guilty of violating federal anti-trust laws.
I think that a lot of his message comes from the fact that so many of the programmers in the industry have very little of no formal training in computer science. I have only 3/4 of a degree in CS and NONE of my friends who work in the industry got as far as I did before heading to work.
The difference being that a computer scientist is a weird combination of a mathematician and an artist. The math because at the fundamential level a computer is a calculator and all programs are just big equations. The art because makeing a calculator do something interesting with your equation IS art. The level of design knowledge needed to create a usable application with a coherent and graceful structure full of good clean code is equal or greater than the design knowledge that goes into creating a building.
But the average Programmer doesn't have all of that. He just hammers out code as needed. it usually works, but often there was a better way to do it.....or it had already been done and was on page 42 of the textbook of the software engineering class he didn't take. I am one of these guys...I know what I'm doing, and I think I do it fairly well, but I know my flaws. I know my code has flaws I can't see.
The statements about how much progress has been made are really what gave me the idea. Sure, we may not have made a lot of progress in CS threory...but so what. We have made a ton of progress in other areas. The amount of quality software in the public domain or available at a low cost is mind numbing. For almost anything you wish to do there is a peice of software that will make it a little easier. Sure, the software doesn't do all the work....and it DOES REQUIRE YOU TO KNOW HOW TO USE IT! Many of the most serious problems with computers today do stem from fallacy number 1.
blah blah...I'm losing my point.
I have dreamed of this game for three years...
I don't think the technology was ready then, but with the widespread availability of dsl/cable and the amazing graphics abilities of modern PCs(with enough processor capacity left over for impressive game AI), I think this game is becoming more realistic.
Tribes 2 does come close. It just needs an organized and regulated Chain of Command. I think this feature could be implemented with an experience points like system. I would say that a player could become qualified to lead a team of snipers after he achieved a XXX kills/XX deaths ratio(earning him points) and maintained his success rate in leadership
There are a lot of possibilities there.
Another must have is vehicles...they have been overlooked for far too long. The three man bomber in Tribes 2 is brilliant. It takes coordination, specialization, and communication to be effective with that weapon. Those things are lacking in too many games....especially FPS.
I hope I see this game on a shelf soon. I'd make it myself if I wasn't such a lazy bastard.
Geeking out is probably close to the truth for most people, but there often is a practical reason to have all that hardware around....education and experience.
I just bought a used sun ultra 10 on ebay for $400. I have no real NEED for this thing. But it will enable me to work with solaris in the enviorment it was written for. And, I'd like to learn whether sun hardware is worth the big $ they charge for it.
This makes four systems and a raid array I have humming away in my cramped home office. Yes, its loud and a pain in the ass some days. But I'm learning from it all.
Plus, it looks really cool.hehe.
I love the sig...WFR...Goodkind rocks.