PDFLib GmbH (german LLC) build exactly one product: PDFLib. And they've been doing that since 1997. AFAIK the company was run by one guy - the initial developer - alone for most of the time. Now it's probably a shop of 5 or so.
So it's not FOSS - yeah, that's a real shame. But the devs get to eat, you can demand service and response if you run into a bug and you can expect a good product and with PDFLib you're probably going to get it too.
I haven't come across a single project doing non-trivial PDF stuff that doesn't use PDFLib. I've used it myself a little, and the cookbook that comes with the product was very good, so it comes recommended.
Feasible electric cars and their battery technology could be exactly the thing the world needs to decentralise electric power. Let's hope for it. The energy companies are way to powerful for their own and societies good. I'm sure it would help the environment to - not just the electric car thing but the decentralisation.
Jebus H. Christ, Tlds are bits on an HDD. Who can 'own' those? The whole concept of 'intellectual property' is laughable and disintegrates after 3 stages of rationalisation the latest. Especially with network meta directories such as the DNService. I can send them a HDD full of Tlds, including ones that I just made up. If they pay me a little more I might even take a used server and set up a DNS to serve them. 1000 Euros and it's theirs.
I've never heard about this ACM thing. From the looks of the website it seems like some academic oriented CS club or something from the US. They even got a "german chapter" - suprised much I am. Don't know if I need to be in that club though. I doubt any programmer of importance I look up to is a member either. Linus Torwalds? RMS? Projekt Lead of Node.js? Don't think so.... For example, I'd be suprised if more than 10% of the Blender crew even heard about this, let alone were a member.
Even god almighty couldn't make Italian transit work, Mussolini never stood a chance.
The italians couldn't even manage to invade greece once the war started. Hitler had to send troops to help out and they ended up doing most of the work (no joke). Anecdotes say he was fuming, that with allies like Italy no one needed enemies. As WW2 goes, The Third Reich would've probably actually errm... 'done better' (pardon my choice of words) without Italy as an ally. If you want a project to fail, give it to italians, I guess.:-)
Seriously, the GCC is a prestige project just like the kernel. You have to have the basics of your particular software development field down, otherwise you have no business whatsoever lost in these projects. I don't know the details and I certainly can't judge them, but from the broad perspective it seems like somebody did something akin to not avalidating and filtering your input or pushing windows-1252 but presenting it as UTF-8 or something in webdevelopment and it passed all the way through evaluation, testing, merging, release management, etc. right into the final GCC release. Which does reflect on to the entire team and project.
Bottom line: When Linus has released rants like these in the past he usually was spot on and dead right. The GCC has gotten some flak for it's shittyness lately, and it looks like they haven't improved their process much yet.
It's well known that cheap android phones have always been bad, and will always be bad.
Errrm, no!?
Just bought a Huawei Y530 for 113 Euros for my SO. It runs Android 4.2.x. The camera is sub-par for todays standards and even weaker than on my 3-year old HTC Desire HD, but with 5MP more than sufficient for taking shots of cats or the family on a trip. Or videos for that matter. That aside, the screen is awesome, the processing power is more than sufficient, Chrome works like a charm and so does hangouts, email and such. No problem with special apps so far. Video playback works as intended. The widgets look fine. The UI is dumbed down a little - installed Apps are automatically placed on the UI, there is no seperate "installed apps" drawer - but that simply makes things less complicated for normal users.
The battery is replaceable and the case looks cool (designed by the fin who did some Nokia cases and the case for the Jolla, IIRC).
Bottom line: If you take your time searching, you can get cheap Android phones that have an amazing price/performance ratio and do their job just fine.
Slavian Farmers Militia ("Seperatists") bored and trigger-happy and with easy access to Russian military hardware. To dumb to doulbe-check their targets or to dumb to care. Wether this is Ukranian seperatists or not is of no significance - there all just pawns in a Game. I think Putin has since this begun weighing the risks of supporting seperatists and making russia fell big again - whatever that is - and keeping a low(er) profile. This could shift sentiment considerably. Either way, I don't trust the guy but I don't consider east-ukranian militia folks rational enough to be under any usefull control by russian. When push comes to shove, they'll do whatever they feel like doing, as long as they've got enough ammo and toys and enough dumbwits who support their cause - whatever that's supposed to be.
I've never heard of this guy, but calling your Computer "Mailüfterl" in contrast to other ones named "Wirlwind" definitely gives him instant credit with me. Must have been a fun guy to be lectured by.... Seriously, this may actually be the very first non-gigantomaniac humourous computer name in history.
Smartwatch wishlist: Shockproof Waterproof (200 m) Solar Powered Flat but Sturdy - Think a combination of Casio G-Shock and Skagen Pressure Sensor / Height Meter / Variometer Temperature Sensor Environment Sensor Complete Biosensor Package FOSS OS with every aspect configurable, especially blocking of corporate tracking (Google, Facebook, etc.) Speed-charging mode Assistance AI ('please' of course being optional:-) )
--> Watch, when does the milonga in collogne start today?
--> Watch, are the regional trains to collogne on schedule?
--> Watch, please warn me if I cross the speed limit.
--> Watch, please navigate me along the fastest route to school.
--> Watch, I hear cheering from all the windows around me - who just scored a goal?
--> Watch, guide me to the nearest DM that stocks dental care. (Watch knows that I'm on foot and guides me to the nearest Tramstation if required.)
--> Watch, has the bike shop gotten back to us yet? (Watch checks voicebox and all message channels including mail)
--> Watch, please tell me if todays schedule is still valid or if there are any unforseen changes.
--> Watch, what was her name again? Just show, don't say.
--> Watch, please record a tracklist of everything the DJ is playing tonight. Use any analytical software available, not just shazam. And establish what it would cost to buy that tracklist on the music platforms that we're registred on.
--> Watch, please silence youself and all my devices in proximity until tomorrow 7:30 in the morning. Silence all priority notifications except the "Company Server Down" Alert. And go into "Push to show" mode for your clockface and turn of all screensavers and backlights. (Thinks to himself: I want to enjoy this evening/night with this tango-cutie here without any further disturbance.:-) )...
you get the picture.
Furhtermore: Standardised wrist strap connections Cheap and available spare wriststraps in variing colors and materials Cheap and available spare and extra bumber cases in variing colors and materials 1st hand 3D printing files of wriststraps and variant bumper cases Quick change from wriststrap to pocket'watch' / pocketdevice mode... And probably some other things I haven't thought of yet....Allthoug I couldn't say if such a watch would be good for me. With that type of AI my brain would probably start to rott from under-usage quite soon:-) .
"A multithreaded file system is only a performance hack. When there is only one job active, the normal case on a small PC, it buys you nothing and adds complexity to the code. On machines fast enough to support multiple users, you probably have enough buffer cache to insure a hit cache hit rate, in which case multithreading also buys you nothing." - Andy Tanenbaum on the "LINUX is obsolete" Thread from 30 Jan '92
Nice to see a so called "expert" so far off. Seriously, not the first CS Professor to be completely backwards. I've met a few of those too.:-)
Just like most of the Emirates, Dubai is a Disneyland. Only bigger.
Seriously, I don't know what crack these bedus are smoking, but there are more books translated into spanish each year than into any language of the emirates in the past 100 years. These people base huge chunks of their view of the world on an ancient facist monotheistic religion, live in societies that by social structure resemble the grimmest of dark ages, sharia law and all, and all they have is truckloads of money from selling their oil and no real idea what to do with it other than squander obscene amounts of resources to build a huge disneyland out in the desert. The amounts of water wasted alone are beyond imagination.
I'd have no problem with building a high-tech nation within a few years, if I'd actually be seeing some real progress, but I don't. I'm seriously sceptical of Dubai and its likes gaining critical mass and actually building sustainable societies
The prince of Dubai would be well advised to use all that money of his of building universities, implementing basic human rights and getting a modern society going and perhaps building a modern armed force to defend it. Since it doesn't look that way, I'm not placing my bets to high on this whole Dubai thing.
I wouldn't be suprised if this all collapses within 20 years and we have a bunch of impressive ruins but nothing more.
...they'll say something to the effect: "I don't care, Retina Display is better."
I hate to break it to you and I'm certainly not and Apple Zeolot - my phone is an HTC Desire HD which I happen to be quite happy with - but the retina display actually *is* better, compared to the G3, if not perhaps in size. It has a wider viewing angle and a higher brightness range. Both only slightly, but noticable under certain conditions. How do I know? Just saw a detailed video review on the LG G3.
Given the choice between 400dpi and 538dpi with slightly less brighness and slightly tighter viewing angle I'd take the latter. I bet that goes for most people here.
I see it in my self, on the rare occasions that I actually post, which is roughly 5-10 times a year and I see it with others whenever I go online to browse a little in the posts of the people I'm connected with... called "Friends" (Fingerquotes!) on FB:
Facebook and other "social networks" encourage posing. No two ways about it.
If you get all worked up and batter your self esteem just because somebody posted himself in cool poses or on some event that you "missed out" on... I get this a lot, since I'm only on FB for my tango dancing connections, a pastime where posing sometimes actually is part of the game. Actually knowing the person behind a neat facade on FB does put things into perspective.
Bottom line: People shouldn't get more attached to these things than it is good for them. If this neat little stund by FB shows them that, then all the better.
I predicted this sort of thing back in 2006. And let's be honest: It's not that suprising, is it? Globalisation is once around the globe by now. In the US, entire landscapes are out of jobs and glad for anything. In China more than a decades worth of 8%+ growth has started to saturate markets and upped the price for labor, shrinking the margins.
Next up will be robots. And they don't care where they stand, neither does the corp that owns them. They will be placed closest to the buyer to reduce transport costs. The avantgarde will start building modern factories in western countries now again. Like Tesla.
I've had this issue myself here on/. a few times in the last 2-3 years.
Here's my current take on it: People discriminate based on age, in any field or situation. That's simple psychology. You can tip the reactions in your favor, based on how you behave. I'm skinny, move a lot and wear a relatively up-to-date hipster / better-dressed nerd mix of clothing and my basic temper is sanguine, so people usually judge me roughly 6-8 years younger than I actually am. That does help me when trying to get a quick hire in the webshop next door, although that is getting more difficult in certain ways. In the field you're easier in for a cheap quick hire if you appear young and nimble. Emphasis on cheap and quick. Easy in, easy out, no hurt feelings on either side. At a first glance, getting such a gig is definitely more difficult if you have a deer-gut, are approaching your 50ies and looking it too.
Then again, take that same deer gut 50ies body, dress it in a good suit and a well chosen shirt and tie combo, adjust your behavior and your speaking a little, perhaps take some training or stage classes, print some neat business cards with "Consultant" written on them and your salary instantly rises by 15K per year easily. Try that as a mid-twenties guy - it's going to be very difficult. This only starts to work in your favor once you've got wrinkles and gray hair to show. I call it the 'gray-hair-bonus'. You need one guy from that camp for every contract worth 100k and up. They are indispensable, especially if they can talk and have the decades of experience to back it up. I'm turning into that sort of guy and helping the transition with some extra 'finally-grow-up' efforts. It does magic to my rates. And it's simply that I look the age that make 50% of all that possible. I just have to get used to letting that fat student kid do the setup of the next server, even if he makes tons of mistakes... after all, I'm there to help him out if he's in a jam. But forcing yourself to keep your hands off is a bit of a challenge, I do admit.:-)
If you're looking for the most relevant RAD Language today and the one that's the strongest upcoming, that would be JavaScript. No two ways about it. Python is definitely the more interesting, simply because its syntax is more modern - JS is basically a member of the C + Java line of languages and a prime objective of Python was to do away with the clutter.
But in terms of momentum, there's no single doubt about the rapidly increasing significance of JS. With Node.js it has gotten hold on the serverside again, as it used to have back when Netscape Webserver was the only webserver around, and since the dimishing importance of Flash and the parallel increase in importance of mobile web-centric devices it has become the got-to technology for client-side logic in the mobile space. It's cross-platform and there's an engine for it in every browser. It's that simple. The increasing fragmentation of end-user devices is driving battalions of developers to JS as we speak and with the second half of humanity to be connected to the intarweb via cheap mobile devices within the next few years I don't think JSs' momentum is going to dimish anytime soon.
Bottom line: If you need or want to bet on a single RAD PL today, JavaScript it is. Frontend to backend. Strange but true.
NEWSFLASH! JUST IN! Classic Eskimo diet only suitable for classic eskimo climate!
Brilliant new scientist team finds out that 10 bazillion calories-per-day and lets-eat-tons-of-raw-meat-because-we-have-no-other-source-of-micronutrient-iron-and-vitamin-c-out-here-in-a-countryside-made-of-pure-ice escimo diet suitable for an arctic climate with regular temperatures of -30 Celsius and lower actually isn't suitable or very healthy at temperatures around +15C and raises risk of CADs.
Really? You're going to end the corrupting influence of corporate money in politics by out-fundraising them?
No. You're going to get most of the people behind the unified cause of repairing the US electorial system. Big difference. Them donating money is a secondary side effect. The technical part of what is required to change something. The first step is to get *all* of the 99% of US citizens of their lazy fat asses and actually be willing to do something to 'effing repair their broken system. The money-meter is just a gauge of that will to finally make a change that lasts. And I mean we, the people, making that change.
It's like in eastern German. When fat-cats say "This is how it goes." like they have been for decades and 99% say "Nope. Not anymore. Game's over. New rules." you have a peaceful revolution and the wall goes down the next day. It's really that easy.
Same here. If Lessig and his crew can get this show on the road and the 'effed up US electorial system repaired that would be really cool. And I see a real chance of that happening here.
You should all get behind this folks. You can do it. It's not that hard. Keeping my fingers crossed for this SuperPAC.
The updates seem unspectacular, but they're not neccesarly bad. The Flat UI look is a matter of taste, that's for sure... and they've kept the green button, the only thing on the inmediate apple UI with no predictable behaviour what-so-ever... seriously, I'm wondering why MS hasn't been making jokes about this during the last decade.
However, this Swift PL thing might just be something that turns out in Apples favor. The barrier of entry to native apps probably has been there for some people, and they probably want to prevent HTML5/CSS/JS Apps taking over too much of the market. Xcode 6 looks better than ever and if Apple carries on that way, MS Visual Studio might someday lose its 1st place in simple idiot-proof yet serious development - one of the rare things MS still has going for its ecosystem these days. If the FOSS community adopts Swift and offers compilers and apple isn't a douche about giving the FOSS community some support, I might even learn it.... Until then I'm currently sticking with JS and FOSS languages though. Web is where everything is at right now and that's increasing - and it's not looking as if anything is going to change in that debt. anytime soon.
As for the whining about the anual release cycle of OS X: I've just recently updated from Snow Leopard to Maveriks, my first major upgrade in 3.5 years. All worked fine, including using the same TimeMachine with the new system. No one is forcing anyone to upgrade and I certainly won't until Yosemite or a successor to it is well established. In my experience apple systems are among those that keep their value the longest without an update.
Having an IT Background whilst doing PR and marketing can be great, if you are able to handle the discrepancy between talk and knowledge by most of your collegues and customers. Being the only guy in a crew of 25 that has done web development and knows versioning and *nix CLI stuff and can help writing usecases that are actually implementable in the given timeframe and budget and helping agency folks actually organize their work can be quite rewarding. And the pay is nice too.
Doing wordpress plugin hacks is actually quite bearable, as long as people don't expect you to do it every day all day and also give you other assignment, such as requirements analysis and such.
I'm doing that type of work right now and it feels good. I can deliver value, the team is glad to have me and I get to learn new trends and technologies as part of my job. Customer politics can be quite anyoing though, but that's what PMs and Bosses are for.:-)
My 2 cents.
I confirm: The Beta UI is really shitty!
on
PHP Next Generation
·
· Score: 2
See the double post? You can thank beta for that. Mod this one down or turn it off if you are an editor, the one below is the final version. No more beta for me.
This is why PHP continues to thrive
on
PHP Next Generation
·
· Score: 1, Redundant
Despite all hatred - and let's face it, PHP is a really strange phenomenon - this is why PHP continues to thrive. The PHP community gets from A to B by the most bizar reroutes across Z, Mary Poppins and f(x)=x^2e^x-2. PHP is a fractal of bad design, but they always seem to focus on the next issue that's simply in the way of getting the next real world job done. I've written a post on that a few weeks ago.
Them checking the performance of Wordpress (one of the large popular CMSes out there, with a really shitty architecture... like most of its kind) as a benchmark for the foundation of a VM show how 'fast result' oriented the PHP community is. The idea itself of testing like this would seem insane to any serious developer, AFAICT.
Point in case for PHPs insanity that always seems to work out in a strange way: I've fought it for over 12 years, but now I've finally given in and am working myself into Typo3, a big-league player in the world of PHP Web CMSes. Let me tell you: If you think Wordpress, Drupal or Joomla have an architecture that was designed by chimpansees (I should now, I've deployed Drupal and Joomla professionally and was on the Joomla Bugsquad), Typo3s has one that was designed by amobeas. With TypoScript - the T3 template and config language - they've got the textbook example of an inner platform (think PHP but non-turing complete for configuration and with magic numbers... sort of like line-numbers, but not quite... its really crazy...). If PHP is a fractal of bad design, Typo3 classic is that ^2. It's very difficult to describe, you have to experience it for yourself to fully understand. It's like taking the red and the blue pill at the same time. Seriously.
Anyway, I'm veering off. The point is: Knowing Typo3 is basically job security galore for any web developer in Germany. Period. I've agreed to dive into T3 and am right now scoring more than 60 Euros an hour. Being able to edit templates in the CMS Admin area isn't bad either.... Although TypoScript is one of the strangest things I've seen in my 28 years of computing, I have to admit. Think of Typo3 as the Vi and Emacs of CMSes, all rolled into one. Yet there are over 2000 official Typo3 agencies here in Germany. Being an online agency basically means being a Typo3 agency over here. What do you say, it's what people want. T3 is a household brand, it has an official association, a neat website and the vibe of "big, complicated and professional" all over it. The customers want it, and they're willing to pay for deployment in T3. Who am I to complain?
Bottom line: PHP is bad, and nobody cares. Its barrier of entry is basically non-existant, security issues be damned, and they have a slew of pointy-clicky stuff for the peddlers to sell to end-customers. All for free. The most succesful FOSS projects are written in it and if the PHP crew are going to stick to their crazy "make it work, then make it beautiful" approach, it's probably going to stay that way for a long time.
My 2 cents.
This is why PHP continues to thrive
on
PHP Next Generation
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Despite all hatred - and let's face it, PHP is a really strange phenomenon - this is why PHP continues to thrive. The PHP community gets from A to B by the most bizar reroutes across Z, Mary Poppins and f(x)=x^2e^x-2. PHP is a fractal of bad design, but they always seem to focus on the next issue that's simply in the way of getting the next real world job done. I've written a post on that a few weeks ago.
Them checking the performance of Wordpress (one of the large popular CMSes out there, with a really shitty architecture... like most of its kind) as a benchmark for the foundation of a VM show how 'fast result' oriented the PHP community is. The idea itself of testing like this would seem insane to any serious developer, AFAICT.
Point in case for PHPs insanity that always seems to work out in a strange way: I've fought it for over 12 years, but now I've finally given in and am working myself into Typo3, a big-league player in the world of PHP Web CMSes. Let me tell you: If you think Wordpress, Drupal or Joomla have an architecture that was designed by chimpansees (I should now, I've deployed Drupal and Joomla professionally and was on the Joomla Bugsquad), Typo3s has one that was designed by amobeas. With TypoScript - the T3 template and config language - they've got the textbook example of an inner platform (think PHP but non-turing complete for configuration and with magic numbers... sort of like line-numbers, but not quite... its really crazy...). If PHP is a fractal of bad design, Typo3 classic is that ^2. It's very difficult to describe, you have to experience it for yourself to fully understand. It's like taking the red and the blue pill at the same time. Seriously.
Anyway, I'm veering off. The point is: Knowing Typo3 is basically job security galore for any web developer in Germany. Period. I've agreed to dive into T3 and am right now scoring more than 60Ã an hour. Being able to edit templates in the CMS Admin area isn't bad either.... Although TypoScript is one of the strangest things I've seen in my 28 years of computing, I have to admit. Think of Typo3 as the Vi and Emacs of CMSes, all rolled into one. Yet there are over 2000 official Typo3 agencies here in Germany. Being an online agency basically means being a Typo3 agency over here. What do you say, it's what people want. T3 is a household brand, it has an official association, a neat website and the vibe of "big, complicated and professional" all over it. The customers want it, and they're willing to pay for deployment in T3. Who am I to complain?
PHP is bad, and nobody cares. Its barrier of entry is basically non-existant, security issues be damned, and they have a slew of pointy-clicky stuff for the peddlers to sell to end-customers. All for free. The most succesful FOSS projects are written in it and if the PHP crew are going to stick to their crazy "make it work, then make it beautiful" approach, it's probably going to stay that way for a long time.
Slashdot Mirror
"Given a sufficient amount of time all software either becomes free open source software or goes extinct."
PDFLib GmbH (german LLC) build exactly one product: PDFLib. And they've been doing that since 1997. AFAIK the company was run by one guy - the initial developer - alone for most of the time. Now it's probably a shop of 5 or so.
So it's not FOSS - yeah, that's a real shame. But the devs get to eat, you can demand service and response if you run into a bug and you can expect a good product and with PDFLib you're probably going to get it too.
I haven't come across a single project doing non-trivial PDF stuff that doesn't use PDFLib. I've used it myself a little, and the cookbook that comes with the product was very good, so it comes recommended.
My 2 cents.
Feasible electric cars and their battery technology could be exactly the thing the world needs to decentralise electric power. Let's hope for it. The energy companies are way to powerful for their own and societies good. I'm sure it would help the environment to - not just the electric car thing but the decentralisation.
My 2 cents.
Jebus H. Christ, Tlds are bits on an HDD. Who can 'own' those? The whole concept of 'intellectual property' is laughable and disintegrates after 3 stages of rationalisation the latest. Especially with network meta directories such as the DNService.
I can send them a HDD full of Tlds, including ones that I just made up. If they pay me a little more I might even take a used server and set up a DNS to serve them.
1000 Euros and it's theirs.
I've never heard about this ACM thing. From the looks of the website it seems like some academic oriented CS club or something from the US. They even got a "german chapter" - suprised much I am. Don't know if I need to be in that club though. I doubt any programmer of importance I look up to is a member either. Linus Torwalds? RMS? Projekt Lead of Node.js? Don't think so. ... For example, I'd be suprised if more than 10% of the Blender crew even heard about this, let alone were a member.
My 2 cents.
Even god almighty couldn't make Italian transit work, Mussolini never stood a chance.
The italians couldn't even manage to invade greece once the war started. Hitler had to send troops to help out and they ended up doing most of the work (no joke). Anecdotes say he was fuming, that with allies like Italy no one needed enemies. As WW2 goes, The Third Reich would've probably actually errm ... 'done better' (pardon my choice of words) without Italy as an ally. :-)
If you want a project to fail, give it to italians, I guess.
Seriously, the GCC is a prestige project just like the kernel. You have to have the basics of your particular software development field down, otherwise you have no business whatsoever lost in these projects. I don't know the details and I certainly can't judge them, but from the broad perspective it seems like somebody did something akin to not avalidating and filtering your input or pushing windows-1252 but presenting it as UTF-8 or something in webdevelopment and it passed all the way through evaluation, testing, merging, release management, etc. right into the final GCC release. Which does reflect on to the entire team and project.
Bottom line: When Linus has released rants like these in the past he usually was spot on and dead right. The GCC has gotten some flak for it's shittyness lately, and it looks like they haven't improved their process much yet.
It's well known that cheap android phones have always been bad, and will always be bad.
Errrm, no!?
Just bought a Huawei Y530 for 113 Euros for my SO. It runs Android 4.2.x. The camera is sub-par for todays standards and even weaker than on my 3-year old HTC Desire HD, but with 5MP more than sufficient for taking shots of cats or the family on a trip. Or videos for that matter. That aside, the screen is awesome, the processing power is more than sufficient, Chrome works like a charm and so does hangouts, email and such. No problem with special apps so far. Video playback works as intended. The widgets look fine. The UI is dumbed down a little - installed Apps are automatically placed on the UI, there is no seperate "installed apps" drawer - but that simply makes things less complicated for normal users.
The battery is replaceable and the case looks cool (designed by the fin who did some Nokia cases and the case for the Jolla, IIRC).
Bottom line:
If you take your time searching, you can get cheap Android phones that have an amazing price/performance ratio and do their job just fine.
Slavian Farmers Militia ("Seperatists") bored and trigger-happy and with easy access to Russian military hardware. To dumb to doulbe-check their targets or to dumb to care. Wether this is Ukranian seperatists or not is of no significance - there all just pawns in a Game. I think Putin has since this begun weighing the risks of supporting seperatists and making russia fell big again - whatever that is - and keeping a low(er) profile. This could shift sentiment considerably.
Either way, I don't trust the guy but I don't consider east-ukranian militia folks rational enough to be under any usefull control by russian. When push comes to shove, they'll do whatever they feel like doing, as long as they've got enough ammo and toys and enough dumbwits who support their cause - whatever that's supposed to be.
I've never heard of this guy, but calling your Computer "Mailüfterl" in contrast to other ones named "Wirlwind" definitely gives him instant credit with me. Must have been a fun guy to be lectured by. ... Seriously, this may actually be the very first non-gigantomaniac humourous computer name in history.
Smartwatch wishlist: :-) ) :-) ) ...
Shockproof
Waterproof (200 m)
Solar Powered
Flat but Sturdy - Think a combination of Casio G-Shock and Skagen
Pressure Sensor / Height Meter / Variometer
Temperature Sensor
Environment Sensor
Complete Biosensor Package
FOSS OS with every aspect configurable, especially blocking of corporate tracking (Google, Facebook, etc.)
Speed-charging mode
Assistance AI ('please' of course being optional
--> Watch, when does the milonga in collogne start today?
--> Watch, are the regional trains to collogne on schedule?
--> Watch, please warn me if I cross the speed limit.
--> Watch, please navigate me along the fastest route to school.
--> Watch, I hear cheering from all the windows around me - who just scored a goal?
--> Watch, guide me to the nearest DM that stocks dental care. (Watch knows that I'm on foot and guides me to the nearest Tramstation if required.)
--> Watch, has the bike shop gotten back to us yet? (Watch checks voicebox and all message channels including mail)
--> Watch, please tell me if todays schedule is still valid or if there are any unforseen changes.
--> Watch, what was her name again? Just show, don't say.
--> Watch, please record a tracklist of everything the DJ is playing tonight. Use any analytical software available, not just shazam. And establish what it would cost to buy that tracklist on the music platforms that we're registred on.
--> Watch, please silence youself and all my devices in proximity until tomorrow 7:30 in the morning. Silence all priority notifications except the "Company Server Down" Alert. And go into "Push to show" mode for your clockface and turn of all screensavers and backlights. (Thinks to himself: I want to enjoy this evening/night with this tango-cutie here without any further disturbance.
you get the picture.
Furhtermore: ... ...Allthoug I couldn't say if such a watch would be good for me. With that type of AI my brain would probably start to rott from under-usage quite soon :-) .
Standardised wrist strap connections
Cheap and available spare wriststraps in variing colors and materials
Cheap and available spare and extra bumber cases in variing colors and materials
1st hand 3D printing files of wriststraps and variant bumper cases
Quick change from wriststrap to pocket'watch' / pocketdevice mode
And probably some other things I haven't thought of yet.
My 2 cents.
"A multithreaded file system is only a performance hack. When there is only one job active, the normal case on a small PC, it buys you nothing and adds complexity to the code. On machines fast enough to support multiple users, you probably have enough buffer cache to insure a hit cache hit rate, in which case multithreading also buys you nothing." - Andy Tanenbaum on the "LINUX is obsolete" Thread from 30 Jan '92
Nice to see a so called "expert" so far off. Seriously, not the first CS Professor to be completely backwards. I've met a few of those too. :-)
Just like most of the Emirates, Dubai is a Disneyland. Only bigger.
Seriously, I don't know what crack these bedus are smoking, but there are more books translated into spanish each year than into any language of the emirates in the past 100 years. These people base huge chunks of their view of the world on an ancient facist monotheistic religion, live in societies that by social structure resemble the grimmest of dark ages, sharia law and all, and all they have is truckloads of money from selling their oil and no real idea what to do with it other than squander obscene amounts of resources to build a huge disneyland out in the desert. The amounts of water wasted alone are beyond imagination.
I'd have no problem with building a high-tech nation within a few years, if I'd actually be seeing some real progress, but I don't. I'm seriously sceptical of Dubai and its likes gaining critical mass and actually building sustainable societies
The prince of Dubai would be well advised to use all that money of his of building universities, implementing basic human rights and getting a modern society going and perhaps building a modern armed force to defend it. Since it doesn't look that way, I'm not placing my bets to high on this whole Dubai thing.
I wouldn't be suprised if this all collapses within 20 years and we have a bunch of impressive ruins but nothing more.
My 2 cents.
...they'll say something to the effect:
"I don't care, Retina Display is better."
I hate to break it to you and I'm certainly not and Apple Zeolot - my phone is an HTC Desire HD which I happen to be quite happy with - but the retina display actually *is* better, compared to the G3, if not perhaps in size. It has a wider viewing angle and a higher brightness range. Both only slightly, but noticable under certain conditions. How do I know? Just saw a detailed video review on the LG G3.
Given the choice between 400dpi and 538dpi with slightly less brighness and slightly tighter viewing angle I'd take the latter. I bet that goes for most people here.
My 2 cents.
I see it in my self, on the rare occasions that I actually post, which is roughly 5-10 times a year and I see it with others whenever I go online to browse a little in the posts of the people I'm connected with ... called "Friends" (Fingerquotes!) on FB:
Facebook and other "social networks" encourage posing. No two ways about it.
If you get all worked up and batter your self esteem just because somebody posted himself in cool poses or on some event that you "missed out" on ... I get this a lot, since I'm only on FB for my tango dancing connections, a pastime where posing sometimes actually is part of the game. Actually knowing the person behind a neat facade on FB does put things into perspective.
Bottom line:
People shouldn't get more attached to these things than it is good for them. If this neat little stund by FB shows them that, then all the better.
My 2 cents.
I predicted this sort of thing back in 2006. And let's be honest: It's not that suprising, is it? Globalisation is once around the globe by now. In the US, entire landscapes are out of jobs and glad for anything. In China more than a decades worth of 8%+ growth has started to saturate markets and upped the price for labor, shrinking the margins.
Next up will be robots. And they don't care where they stand, neither does the corp that owns them. They will be placed closest to the buyer to reduce transport costs. The avantgarde will start building modern factories in western countries now again. Like Tesla.
My 2 cents.
I've had this issue myself here on /. a few times in the last 2-3 years.
Here's my current take on it:
People discriminate based on age, in any field or situation. That's simple psychology. You can tip the reactions in your favor, based on how you behave. I'm skinny, move a lot and wear a relatively up-to-date hipster / better-dressed nerd mix of clothing and my basic temper is sanguine, so people usually judge me roughly 6-8 years younger than I actually am. That does help me when trying to get a quick hire in the webshop next door, although that is getting more difficult in certain ways.
In the field you're easier in for a cheap quick hire if you appear young and nimble. Emphasis on cheap and quick. Easy in, easy out, no hurt feelings on either side. At a first glance, getting such a gig is definitely more difficult if you have a deer-gut, are approaching your 50ies and looking it too.
Then again, take that same deer gut 50ies body, dress it in a good suit and a well chosen shirt and tie combo, adjust your behavior and your speaking a little, perhaps take some training or stage classes, print some neat business cards with "Consultant" written on them and your salary instantly rises by 15K per year easily. Try that as a mid-twenties guy - it's going to be very difficult. ... after all, I'm there to help him out if he's in a jam. But forcing yourself to keep your hands off is a bit of a challenge, I do admit. :-)
This only starts to work in your favor once you've got wrinkles and gray hair to show. I call it the 'gray-hair-bonus'. You need one guy from that camp for every contract worth 100k and up. They are indispensable, especially if they can talk and have the decades of experience to back it up. I'm turning into that sort of guy and helping the transition with some extra 'finally-grow-up' efforts. It does magic to my rates. And it's simply that I look the age that make 50% of all that possible. I just have to get used to letting that fat student kid do the setup of the next server, even if he makes tons of mistakes
My 2 cents.
If you're looking for the most relevant RAD Language today and the one that's the strongest upcoming, that would be JavaScript. No two ways about it. Python is definitely the more interesting, simply because its syntax is more modern - JS is basically a member of the C + Java line of languages and a prime objective of Python was to do away with the clutter.
But in terms of momentum, there's no single doubt about the rapidly increasing significance of JS. With Node.js it has gotten hold on the serverside again, as it used to have back when Netscape Webserver was the only webserver around, and since the dimishing importance of Flash and the parallel increase in importance of mobile web-centric devices it has become the got-to technology for client-side logic in the mobile space. It's cross-platform and there's an engine for it in every browser. It's that simple. The increasing fragmentation of end-user devices is driving battalions of developers to JS as we speak and with the second half of humanity to be connected to the intarweb via cheap mobile devices within the next few years I don't think JSs' momentum is going to dimish anytime soon.
Bottom line:
If you need or want to bet on a single RAD PL today, JavaScript it is. Frontend to backend. Strange but true.
NEWSFLASH! JUST IN!
Classic Eskimo diet only suitable for classic eskimo climate!
Brilliant new scientist team finds out that 10 bazillion calories-per-day and lets-eat-tons-of-raw-meat-because-we-have-no-other-source-of-micronutrient-iron-and-vitamin-c-out-here-in-a-countryside-made-of-pure-ice escimo diet suitable for an arctic climate with regular temperatures of -30 Celsius and lower actually isn't suitable or very healthy at temperatures around +15C and raises risk of CADs.
Gees, what an insight. How would've thunk? ...
Seriously, how do these guys get funding?
Really? You're going to end the corrupting influence of corporate money in politics by out-fundraising them?
No. You're going to get most of the people behind the unified cause of repairing the US electorial system. Big difference.
Them donating money is a secondary side effect. The technical part of what is required to change something. The first step is to get *all* of the 99% of US citizens of their lazy fat asses and actually be willing to do something to 'effing repair their broken system. The money-meter is just a gauge of that will to finally make a change that lasts. And I mean we, the people, making that change.
It's like in eastern German. When fat-cats say "This is how it goes." like they have been for decades and 99% say "Nope. Not anymore. Game's over. New rules." you have a peaceful revolution and the wall goes down the next day. It's really that easy.
Same here. If Lessig and his crew can get this show on the road and the 'effed up US electorial system repaired that would be really cool. And I see a real chance of that happening here.
You should all get behind this folks. You can do it. It's not that hard.
Keeping my fingers crossed for this SuperPAC.
My 2 cents.
The updates seem unspectacular, but they're not neccesarly bad. The Flat UI look is a matter of taste, that's for sure ... and they've kept the green button, the only thing on the inmediate apple UI with no predictable behaviour what-so-ever ... seriously, I'm wondering why MS hasn't been making jokes about this during the last decade.
However, this Swift PL thing might just be something that turns out in Apples favor. The barrier of entry to native apps probably has been there for some people, and they probably want to prevent HTML5/CSS/JS Apps taking over too much of the market. Xcode 6 looks better than ever and if Apple carries on that way, MS Visual Studio might someday lose its 1st place in simple idiot-proof yet serious development - one of the rare things MS still has going for its ecosystem these days. If the FOSS community adopts Swift and offers compilers and apple isn't a douche about giving the FOSS community some support, I might even learn it. ... Until then I'm currently sticking with JS and FOSS languages though. Web is where everything is at right now and that's increasing - and it's not looking as if anything is going to change in that debt. anytime soon.
As for the whining about the anual release cycle of OS X: I've just recently updated from Snow Leopard to Maveriks, my first major upgrade in 3.5 years. All worked fine, including using the same TimeMachine with the new system. No one is forcing anyone to upgrade and I certainly won't until Yosemite or a successor to it is well established. In my experience apple systems are among those that keep their value the longest without an update.
Having an IT Background whilst doing PR and marketing can be great, if you are able to handle the discrepancy between talk and knowledge by most of your collegues and customers. Being the only guy in a crew of 25 that has done web development and knows versioning and *nix CLI stuff and can help writing usecases that are actually implementable in the given timeframe and budget and helping agency folks actually organize their work can be quite rewarding. And the pay is nice too.
Doing wordpress plugin hacks is actually quite bearable, as long as people don't expect you to do it every day all day and also give you other assignment, such as requirements analysis and such.
I'm doing that type of work right now and it feels good. I can deliver value, the team is glad to have me and I get to learn new trends and technologies as part of my job. Customer politics can be quite anyoing though, but that's what PMs and Bosses are for. :-)
My 2 cents.
See the double post? You can thank beta for that. Mod this one down or turn it off if you are an editor, the one below is the final version.
No more beta for me.
Despite all hatred - and let's face it, PHP is a really strange phenomenon - this is why PHP continues to thrive. The PHP community gets from A to B by the most bizar reroutes across Z, Mary Poppins and f(x)=x^2e^x-2. PHP is a fractal of bad design, but they always seem to focus on the next issue that's simply in the way of getting the next real world job done. I've written a post on that a few weeks ago.
Them checking the performance of Wordpress (one of the large popular CMSes out there, with a really shitty architecture ... like most of its kind) as a benchmark for the foundation of a VM show how 'fast result' oriented the PHP community is. The idea itself of testing like this would seem insane to any serious developer, AFAICT.
Point in case for PHPs insanity that always seems to work out in a strange way: ... sort of like line-numbers, but not quite ... its really crazy ...). If PHP is a fractal of bad design, Typo3 classic is that ^2. It's very difficult to describe, you have to experience it for yourself to fully understand. It's like taking the red and the blue pill at the same time. Seriously.
I've fought it for over 12 years, but now I've finally given in and am working myself into Typo3, a big-league player in the world of PHP Web CMSes. Let me tell you: If you think Wordpress, Drupal or Joomla have an architecture that was designed by chimpansees (I should now, I've deployed Drupal and Joomla professionally and was on the Joomla Bugsquad), Typo3s has one that was designed by amobeas. With TypoScript - the T3 template and config language - they've got the textbook example of an inner platform (think PHP but non-turing complete for configuration and with magic numbers
Anyway, I'm veering off. The point is: ... Although TypoScript is one of the strangest things I've seen in my 28 years of computing, I have to admit. Think of Typo3 as the Vi and Emacs of CMSes, all rolled into one. Yet there are over 2000 official Typo3 agencies here in Germany. Being an online agency basically means being a Typo3 agency over here. What do you say, it's what people want. T3 is a household brand, it has an official association, a neat website and the vibe of "big, complicated and professional" all over it. The customers want it, and they're willing to pay for deployment in T3. Who am I to complain?
Knowing Typo3 is basically job security galore for any web developer in Germany. Period. I've agreed to dive into T3 and am right now scoring more than 60 Euros an hour. Being able to edit templates in the CMS Admin area isn't bad either.
Bottom line:
PHP is bad, and nobody cares. Its barrier of entry is basically non-existant, security issues be damned, and they have a slew of pointy-clicky stuff for the peddlers to sell to end-customers. All for free. The most succesful FOSS projects are written in it and if the PHP crew are going to stick to their crazy "make it work, then make it beautiful" approach, it's probably going to stay that way for a long time.
My 2 cents.
Despite all hatred - and let's face it, PHP is a really strange phenomenon - this is why PHP continues to thrive. The PHP community gets from A to B by the most bizar reroutes across Z, Mary Poppins and f(x)=x^2e^x-2. PHP is a fractal of bad design, but they always seem to focus on the next issue that's simply in the way of getting the next real world job done. I've written a post on that a few weeks ago.
Them checking the performance of Wordpress (one of the large popular CMSes out there, with a really shitty architecture ... like most of its kind) as a benchmark for the foundation of a VM show how 'fast result' oriented the PHP community is. The idea itself of testing like this would seem insane to any serious developer, AFAICT.
Point in case for PHPs insanity that always seems to work out in a strange way: ... sort of like line-numbers, but not quite ... its really crazy ...). If PHP is a fractal of bad design, Typo3 classic is that ^2. It's very difficult to describe, you have to experience it for yourself to fully understand. It's like taking the red and the blue pill at the same time. Seriously.
I've fought it for over 12 years, but now I've finally given in and am working myself into Typo3, a big-league player in the world of PHP Web CMSes. Let me tell you: If you think Wordpress, Drupal or Joomla have an architecture that was designed by chimpansees (I should now, I've deployed Drupal and Joomla professionally and was on the Joomla Bugsquad), Typo3s has one that was designed by amobeas. With TypoScript - the T3 template and config language - they've got the textbook example of an inner platform (think PHP but non-turing complete for configuration and with magic numbers
Anyway, I'm veering off. The point is: ... Although TypoScript is one of the strangest things I've seen in my 28 years of computing, I have to admit. Think of Typo3 as the Vi and Emacs of CMSes, all rolled into one. Yet there are over 2000 official Typo3 agencies here in Germany. Being an online agency basically means being a Typo3 agency over here. What do you say, it's what people want. T3 is a household brand, it has an official association, a neat website and the vibe of "big, complicated and professional" all over it. The customers want it, and they're willing to pay for deployment in T3. Who am I to complain?
Knowing Typo3 is basically job security galore for any web developer in Germany. Period. I've agreed to dive into T3 and am right now scoring more than 60Ã an hour. Being able to edit templates in the CMS Admin area isn't bad either.
PHP is bad, and nobody cares. Its barrier of entry is basically non-existant, security issues be damned, and they have a slew of pointy-clicky stuff for the peddlers to sell to end-customers. All for free. The most succesful FOSS projects are written in it and if the PHP crew are going to stick to their crazy "make it work, then make it beautiful" approach, it's probably going to stay that way for a long time.
My 2 cents.