Stay cool. Good news: You're half way there. The FOSS/*nix crowd can be a pesky bunch and appear quite hermetic at times, but don't get your knickers all in a knot. If you're willing to learn and do a little homework, you'll get there soon.
First of all: You should stop the distro-hopping at once! (And, btw., don't be ashamed, we've all been there.) With the pro-admin crowd there is but one distro you should use as your main one and that is Debian. For the simple fact that its package management is the best in the entire IT industry and has been for like 15 years. Everything you see in all OSes on the entire planet in terms of software package and update management is a sad-and-sorry rippoff of APT at best. Hence Debian Stable x86 Linux as main Linux Admin Workhorse (TM) and nothing else. It's that simple. So in a Nuthsell: *EVERYTHING* you do in *nix from here on out you do in Debian. If somewhere down the road you run into CentOS, RedHat, Solaris or SuSE or something, it will be a walk in the park for you. Aside from package management that is.
Second: Getting to know *nix is like getting to know personal computers. If you don't learn the keyboard keys, the clipboard, what the focus is and a few other basics in your very first hour sitting in front of it you will be going through hell for the next 20 years whenever you use a PC. Just look at some hapless secretary using a PC to see what I mean. It's a sad sight. Don't be that guy on *nix.
Here's what you need to know and understand inside out:
- Unix/Linux Daemons. It has to be a piece of cake for you to setup any piece of software as a daemon on Debian. Pratice that.
- Get a book - like sams "Learning C for Linux in 24 Days" or something and learn the basics of C for Linux coding and Standard In/Standard Out and other OS/binary tie-ins on Debian.
- Learn Versioning and use it. Git and nothing else. Version all your shit, including daemon setups, scripts and documentation. If you claim to be a *nix amin pro and don't version your stuff, we all will show up at your door one day, with pitchforks and burning torches and we will lynch you in the most painfull way possible. And then you will burn in hell for all eternity. That's a promise. Fucking version you shit and learn to handle and repair Git setups/trees. If you're forced to maintain some other versioning systems later on in your job, it will be painfull, but at least you'll know what you're doing. Also learn to teach versioning to happles web-dev wannabees, artists and designers in a way that doesn't scare them. Remember: You are there for them, not the other way around!!
- Learn and use one scripting language. Since you aim to be a Linux admin I'm afraid that PL will be Perl. You should be able to look at a Perl script without getting a heart-attack. Get Learning Perl and the Perl Cookbook from Oreilly and start toying around. You do want to learn another PL besides Perl though. I suggest Python, simply because it's not such a PITA as Perl. But Perl is very "Unixy" in a bizar fun sort of way, and admins have to be at least halfway proficient in it, so get used to it.... Be warned though: You will start growing a beard, getting a little smelly and your feel for fashion and social skills will degrade rapidly.:-)
- Use the CLI and only the CLI. Learn one of the two 'big' CLI editors by heart, Emacs or VI. I personally prefer Emacs, but VI is installed on everything that runs on electricity, so whereever you are, you will allway find it installed. I'd bet money that there actually is a VI somewhere on the iPhone (iOS) and somewhere on Android aswell. One of these to editors is going to be your main tool until you die, so get used to it. These tools where built before such things as CUAS, OS-wide clipboars and fat-clients/workstations, so get used to the fact that their handling is bizar beyond imagination. You actually have to actively pratice copy/paste on Emacs to be able to use it, for instance. Start us
There should be official standards in place to cover for crappy coding and bad security and professional developers should be held accountable.
This is tough for me to say, because I coulldn't say that I'm particularly solid at web security. But, and here's the big *but*: I and nobody else would want to cross a bridge with which some engineer might have thought about all the neccesities. We would want to be damn near sure that he *did* think about everything.
Online payment procedures are becoming an everyday thing, it's time we get public standards enforced by legal authorities into place. It is then that we developers can finally ask the same salareis that engineers get.
They can follow me around as much as they like, I'll just stick close to my motorbike with its nifty sidecar. So far, they're staying out of my way. In fact, they're pretty eager on removing obsticles for me. Sort of like my personal army of servants. Very nice. - Raven
Hardware available in regular stores is basically end-user hardware, even if professionals like us use it. The last time I upgraded a computer was 4 years ago, when I stuck an extra 2 GB into my 1 GB MacMini. Spare parts work like replacing broken HDDs or memory may be an issue here, but no so much. Ok, I did stick an 8GB MicroSD Card into my HTC Flyer tablet earlyer this year, but I'd stretch it and say that doesn't count or isn't what we're talking about here.
The point is that a) computers have become so powerfull, they don't really need upgrading during their lifetime anymore b) there is an everygrowing seperation between specialist and comodity computer hardware c) the newest type of computers - tablet and mobile devices - aren't even turing complete by geek standards (to much vendor and/or carrier lockin) - so why would you want to upgrade them anyway?
The future will see specialist devices and computers that are customizable and upgradeable and that people who know what they are doing can repair or maintain themselves and it will see more and more of lockin-consumer-comodity devices, where the device even isn't the most important thing, but the service or brand tied to it.
Heck, I don't even care anymore if my tablet has 64 or 32 GB - and I'm super-geek.
That the MB Pro Retina is all closed up is no big issue. OS and Software Distribution Lockin and less FOSS integration and Apple dropping Unix somewhere down the road is more my concern. If I have the money and the need/want to buy a new shiny protable device, I'll get it with the memory I need right away and I'd rather have Apple built a sturdy, good looking and slim enclosure than make room for screws and seperate compartments for exchangable stuff. My Dell Vostro isn't even in the same game as my MB Air - it's basically a completly different class and generation of hardware.
Bottom line: Geek tinker hardware and notebooks that you can take apart with a set of screwdrivers and a few extra hours of time are on the way out. I don't see that as much of a big problem.
I probably have slight ADD. One of the reasons could be that my mother ate lots of licorice when she was pregnant with me and there are studies that hint to a link between slight ADD - something that would today be called a disease, in other times a talent - to being a sweet tooth and pregnant women eating the stuff.
Slight or partial symptoms of ADD are called by some a genetic disposition that has solid advantages in certain societies but solid disadvantages in others, like ours today. A hunter in a gatherers world basically, to some theories go. Some experts say that ADD is an invented disease.
I curse my concentration problems that definitely are due to my brain chemistry and certain childhood conditions and maybe a few habitual other things. However, the emotional independance and the high frustration tolerance that comes with it are a gift. Its a very special talent that makes it very difficult to blend in and, for instance, find a regular job (a problem I'm having right now), on the other hand it does give you the agressiveness required to turn down a shitty job even if you're broke and your options are running out. It's, if you will, a bit of a moderated-risk-taker condition. I wouldn't be like that if I didn't have these problems, the social situations that occur due to them and the coping mechanisims I've developed to handle them. All that together give me an edge, I just have to use it correctly and avoid situations where I don't function.
It's the basic mental condition emperors or simular people (think 'the Steve Jobs Type') have. They either are bums, drunk and stoned loosers sitting on the curb, or in a small room toying around with some big dream or they are at the helm of a big empire or - nowadays - a large corporation.
If everyone were like me or even more so, the world would go to hell. But without people like me, it would aswell. People who compensate their desire for poetry and meaning due so either using poetry (Duh!) or some other form of art, philosophy or the turn to alcohol and drugs as a substitute.... I wouldn't want the world filled with boring unimaginative bland characters. I'd rather have the one or other struggle with their demons and have society develop methods of helping each other out.
Bottom line: I think it's to early for humans to decide what kind of personality actually is benefitial to society or not. We're simply not intelligent enough to do that yet. Maybe in a thousand years, if there isn't a giant setback.... But it's just a few decades ago that a few societies started to accept that women do have a soul and are 100% just as worthy humans as men - it's to early to judge unborn by their genetic disposition and not run the risk of doing serious long term harm to humanity.
The vendors are going to love this. Apple is going the way of MS, only hardware wise. Giving every vendor catering to their devices with peripherals an excuse to sell the same stuff all over again. Smart business move, and not a moment to early.
I have to call you out on your assessment of the IT worker shortage in Germany. As a manager looking to hire I can tell you that the shortage is very real, trying to get GOOD people is very hard and it is difficult to stomach the very high salaries being asked for from MEDIOCRE candidates. I don't know what your expertise are, but may I suggest that maybe you are going about it the wrong way.
There is maybe a slight bit of little truth in what you say, but not much.
I just recently decided not only to consider learning another prorpietary product besides you favorite x-plattform rich client technology, which I thought would be my first, last and only for my entire carreer, but instead decided to bite the bullet and get ready to learn and get familiar with some new prorpietary closed source product line like.Net, SAP or Oracle. Right now I'm systematically moving full-force away from FOSS-based and/or agency oriented web development. Salaries and working conditions there are a joke, but with boring, unspectacular business programming joints I have the feeling I might stand a chance for some advancement im my career. Just yesterday I had a talk with such a crew that made me actually feel I wasn't wasting my time - and the talk took 150 minutes!
But again: The way people, companies, teams, investors and founders go about hiring, building and maintaing teams and product pipelines here in Germany is silly beyond bizar. 80% of companies I encounter are pure shit in terms of software production. Volatile employment terms, crappy right up to flat-out non-existant product pipelines, absolutely zero HR strategies,... the list ist endless.
Two months ago I worked for a test day in a junk-storage/office with the teamlead playing heavy metal on his loudspeakers all day. I finished my task way ahead of time and the Director didn't even have the decency to get back to me in person. Its US-style hire-and-fire all around, but the want German style relyabilty from the workers. Well, f*ck you I can only say. Won't fly. If you want me to build your rich client player/reader on a weeks notice and deliver by the end of the year on January 1.1.2013 it's going to cost you 50 000€. If not, go screw yourself.
If you want good people for short-term projects fast (and today they all are short-term) you are going to have to pay. Its that way in every industry. And if you aren't even willing to train your next team, then you're up shit-creek.
In fact: I call *you* on *your* statements! Get in contact with me if you think you've got problems finding and/or integrating people for your projects. I also do work-management, contract and HR consulting for Softwareproduction, and I have yet to find a company moaning about staff shortage that isn't in deep trouble right at the heart of their production facilities with even the most basic prerequesites for professional software production not in place.... No seriously, call me! A weeks worth of consulting and I'll show you where you're companies lacking. And by the overall state of things thoughout the industry I bet it is.
I guess its a good thing that according to a astonishingly big portion of USians think the US dosn't require public gouvernment-funded health care. Guess the free market will take care of this too.... Just saying.... For the US sake, I hope some hardcore anti-healthcare people get bitten and learn a lesson or two.
"Kill the Flash, spill its blood, kill the Flash spill its blood, kill the Flash spill its blood... "
God, how I allways hate the half-assed Flash discussions on/.
I'm wondering why they don't FOSS it if they plan to let it die. Anyway, they missed a great opportunity when they could have lead the entire touch interface craze it they'd sought to keep Flash up to date in that respect. I will miss Flash and AS3. In terms of UI and Rich Client development its a step backwards - by a decade. A shame, really.
1st of all: If I would want to start a family I wouldn't plan to go anywhere for less than 20 years. Times are unruly enough as it is. With children you want a good school, a good community and - most important of all - a good wife and her our yours or both families near by. Everything else comes second!
If you want to start a family you should even consider a career change if that is required to provide for the other things mentioned above. The family will be your primary fullfillment, not the job, so you might as well work as a bricklayer, provided the income is enough. Also factor in: Free housing or easy real estate from your family or in-laws, quality of life, happiness of wife (where does she want to live and raise children) etc. All of these are *way* more important than monetary income. Especially in times like these.
If I'd start a family again, I'd move together with my girlfriend in the town she lives, simply because her career is way more solid than mine right now. And I wouldn't care if I were the main caregiver to children and would be driving a dump-truck on the side. Be prepared to do that aswell if your future wife turns out to be the vice-exec of some uprising company or having and wanting to keep a more stable career than you aparently have right now.
2.) If you want to earn money in IT and are prepared to leave everything behind, you do the full monty and should get prepared to move anywhere within a few weeks notice, at any time and occasion. Singapur, Silicon Valley, Moskow, Dubai perhaps and maybe some high-polpulation areas in china are where the partys at right now. Live out of the suitcase or in microapparments for the next 15 years, rake in some stable cash or real estate and buy/build a home for your old age.
3.) If you aren't prepared to go full-on cyberpunk and move around the globe for the rest of your working career you should stay put right where you are and adapt. If the Euro goes belly-up and the world finally notices that the US dollar isn't worth the paper its printed on then you'll be glad if you've got some contacts to a local farmer and some real-estate and a small shed on it somewhere in southern europe. And maybe some solar panels to power your computers. I'd be happy if I had that. I'm living in a single room sharing flat with 6 people in Germany and right now things aren't looking up, even for an expert like me. Living expenses are through the roof, the IT staff shortage is nothing but a legend to keep wages at the 2002 minimum and inflation is ramping up allready.
Bottom line: Move for the family you want to start, and *only* for that, go fully international and prepare to relocate to Timbuktu if the money and/or the benefits package is right or stay put, get by somehow and prepare for some elongated worldwide economic downtime.
I don't get the appeal of a 7 inch tablet at all. If you want to read novels on a 7" screen, go with e-ink. For comic books, technical articles, web, etc. a 10" screen is WAY more appropriate.
Use one. No, seriously: Use one. Borrow one for a week or so. You'll be suprised. Same with me. I'd almost bet money that the usage patterns are noticeably diffferent than with a 10" tablet.
I'd never thought that I'd be carrying around and using a tablet each and every day, but the 7" formfactor actually is very neat. Weight, space, handling... my hands are actually big enough to hold both edges of my 7" HTC Flyer with one hand. I was very late in the tablet-game, but I think now I'm hooked. A 10" would be to cumbersome in most situations where you'll be using the smaller one. And, no, a smartphone is not a substitue. I've had my HTC Flyer for more than twice as long as my HTC Flyer, and I'm using it considerably less nowadays.
I'm your average hardcore computer geek and didn't like the iPad-induced tablet hipe all that much - mostly because it favours devices that factually arent turing complete because I can't programm them (Apple Developer Lockin, iTunes lockin, Controll over Deployment, etc.), Android fragmentation hassles, etc.
Anyway: 6 months ago I gave in and bought the only tablet that I've seen to date that is or was actually interesting to me: A special bargain offer of the HTC Flyer. Turns out, I use it every day. It's a very neat device as far as tablets go, and I maybe even swap my smartphone (HTC Desire, also very nice) for a dumbphone somewhere down the line, because usage on the Flyer is so much more comfortable.
It's quite good right up to very great for almost anything besides programming. It's small enough to fit anywhere, the enclosure is the best on the market (even better than the Apple stuff), it runs Android 3, it's great to watch movies on, it's great to read novels on. - Neal Stephensons Reamde is my first Kindle Book and I've been reading it on the Flyer exclusively, using the kinlde app. I use it regularly in situations where a Notebook - even the MB Air I'm typing this on - just wouldn't suffice: The Bed, the Beanbag, leaning back in the seat on the train, standing at the bus stop, checking prices and reviews at the store or checking my schedule in meetings.
Everynote is a great experience, and the calendar, albeight not quite as good in functions and features as the blackberry ones (those are the best imho) is still awesome. And the stylus is great for navigating tricky stuff on the browser that isn't built for tablet navigation yet.
Long story short: The HTC Flyer showed me that tablets can actually be worthwhile for the relatively small niche they service. And the Flyers 7" size and its slightly elongated cinema display formfactor tops it off.
I expect this 7" hipe to continue and become the dominant formfactor of portable tabletcomputers. I for one will now probably slowly move away from dead-tree reading to this sort of tablet. From my experience in the last 6 months I think it's safe to say that that time has now actually come.
Get a Swopper. Expensive, but worth the money. Have heard only good things about it. Forces you to sit 'actively'. Switch the Swopper with standing every once in a while. I'm using a barstool as a poor mans Swopper and it ain't doing my back any good. I'll be getting a Swopper as soon as I can afford one.
The third option would be a recliner. However, setting up your workplace to be able to type and UI navigate comfortably in a reclined position probably is such a hassle that it is impractical.
I can pretty much say everyone I know in that category plays a small fraction of the amount they used to.
Yepp. I recently (a few months ago) sold out the last big boxes of my quite impressive 20-year-old Pen & Paper RPG collection. I picked up Tango dancing 5 years ago, met a few ladies along the way and met my girlfriend a year ago at a small Tango event. Upping your skills in Tango beats playing and improving on Unreal Tournament 2004 CTF or WoW most of the time. So does it beat playing Torg or GURPS most of the time. You get out, meet breathtakingly awesome and sexy girls, get to hug them for hours on end, your testosterone goes up, your stress goes down, you get exercise, you get healthier, you get cooler and calmer with the ladies, you get to have sex you've only dreamed of or seen in porn-clips... That all together beats any sort of gaming at any time if you ask me.
A few years ago I've decided to create the poetry and meaning I sought in P&P, Tabletop, TCG and computer gaming in my real life. If not required for the job I avoid and shun intolerant, inflexible and phantasy-lacking douchebags and with the people who's opinion and attention I value I continuosly pull mysellf together, improve my social skills and try to fit in as long as it's an improvement and doesn't collide with my self respect or my identity. The payoff is tenfold and the decades I've spent with nerdy intospection gives me the upper hand in seeing and understanding various forms of insecurity in others. You'd be suprised how nerdy and insecure fashionmodels and perfect 10 ladies are or can be on the inside when you get to know them.
I do still game at occasions. I play GTA Chinatown on my PSP once in a while, I'm chugging away at Prof. Laytons Time Machine Adventure and swap Prof. Layton and other titles with my daughter. And she, her friends and I do some MarioCart DS once in a while (at which then I usually lose most of the time). I've even just now got into contact with a local Shadowrun group again after basically a decade of RPG apstinece, just because I'm longing for a little nerd interaction and discorse with people who are a bit like me. But it isn't by far such a center of my life as it used to be. And that's a big improvement - especially if you think gaming is your only choice of entertainment, poetry and meaning.
Bottom line: If people get out more, do arts, do some social interaction that has a little more meaning than just sitting, talking and getting slightly drunk and thus overall videogaming decreases, that *is* an improvement in my book.
What your attemting isn't easy, it's actually difficult. Buy a cheap and big refurbished workstation or rackmount server, install a few extra SATA controllers and maybe a new power supply, hook up 12 2TB drives, install Debian, check out LVM and your all set.
Messing around with 12 - 24 external HDDs and their power supplys is a big hassle and asking for trouble. Don't do it. Do seriously go through the possibilty of building your own NAS. You'll be thankfull in the end and it won't take much longer, it might even go faster and be cheaper if you can get the parts fast.
I really don't get most of the crap and indifference here. Textmate is an editor that's actually making money being sold on Mac OS X - that the man decides to release it as FOSS is a very noble move. He probably made his share he'd hoped for ten times over, but he could have just kept it the way it was. He didn't, and now we've got a serious editor with solid chances of taking the throne for editors.... Once it's cross-plattform that is.
I've got my own story on Textmate: Back in 2003 my mobile computer of choice was a 13" G4 iBook, mainly to be able to do Flash development. I had my Flash IDE running, Eclipse for PHP, and some other stuff and the iBook performance was maxed out. I couldn't run my favorite Editor jEdit without serious issues - its built on Java. It was then that I decided to go with an Editor written in a C language. I seriously considered Textmate, but then I thought, if all this editor has going for it that you can programm it in its own script PL, then I might as well use Emacs and be completely independant. I installed Emacs the same night and started to learn some of its commands.... I use Aquamacs and Emacs to this very day when all else fails and I need a fast editor that can handle large files.
Textmate going FOSS might just have me try the switch.... This is awesome. Show some respect, guys!
Math is a filter. At least here in Germany. 120 Students start CS, by 3rd Semester 85% of them have left and given up. The lectures move from the auditorium to small rooms where the Prof. makes tea for all and then discusses advanced boolean algebra, logic boards or the neat learning computer he built over the years.
Math filters the cream from the crop. If you make it past the first 4 Semesters, Math disappears, never to be used again. Unless, that is, your joining your CS with an even more hardcore field like engineering or something.
I hate Math just as much as the next guy, mostly because I hate the inherent historically grown ambiguity of its notation standards, but in a way I'm also gratefull. That way, when in about 4 years I get my degree I won't feel like a wuss, but rather like someone who's actually studied something that is - you know - worthwhile going to college for.... I'm actually reading myself for a late career move into a degree in Business Informatics. And the Math stuff scares the shit out of me.... Guess I'll just have to grow some balls and man up. It will be tough, and I'll pass my math credits by the skin of my teeth, but I also discovered that the hard stuff is part of the fun.
Of course, wether or not I make lots of money once I have a degree, that is a different story. I'll be continuing my business moves on the side.... But, as mentioned, also doing a lot of math I've never heard of in 25 years of programming.
Cheap recruiters and contract shops are muddying the waters. There is so much percieved demand that these shops inflate the numbers even further. They're looking for fresh BAs to buy cheaply and sell at a high price. They are not interested in experienced personell. I've hat roughly 10 recruiters hit on me within the last 8 months or so and only two even got back to me with a oneliner email.
On the other side there are countless projects and lots of dormant investment money with all the threads running through the few overworked project managers who do 30 interviews a week to find "The exact right guy (TM)".
The truth is: It ain't easy. IT still is in its infancy, the world actually *is* getting more complicated and hiring and finding the right job is a slog and requires you to turn down 20 dimwits before you score a position on a team that isn't a complete waste of time. On the one hand you've got doucebags who couldn't version their code if their life depended on it, on the other hand you've got douchebags who'll bite your head of instantly if you can't set up a Unix demon by heart.... It ain't easy in our field, that's a simple fact. Yet I'd still rather do this than flip burgers.
For almost a decade now I've been moving back and forth between easy money / money to burn and super-broke and living of ramen. Right now I'm in a ramen phase and don't know how to pay the next rent.... I'll survive, I guesss. More and more the world is becoming just like a Neal Stephenson novel. I guess that's just the way it is. Learn to adopt and make the best of it is my motto right now.
Didn't think I'd post here because even though I I know many of the ones mentioned here, they've all kinda have worn out their scare to me.
Then I just remembered the 80ies German teenager novel "Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn". There's a UK edition called 'The Last Children'. It's like 'On the Beach' but like 10 times as much. A young teenager and his family experience a nuclear holocaust during a trip to his grandparents. The children born in the months and years after are heavyly mutated and handycapped. He's basically the youngest remaining 'normal'. The story is open ended and grim beyond anything else I've read.
The book is written as a cautionary tale and is an expression of the german environmentalist movement of the 80ies and later. Today it is part of the regular 8th grade German curriculum reading list in Germany.
Definitely the most realistic nuclear holocaust scenario I've read to date. I do not want to read again. Seriously.
This is a very good article, every/. nerd worth his honors should read it. It's pushed my paranoia levels almost up to normal again. That alone was worth the time. I've been dragging out that backup HDD for my MB Air far to long and will now change that.
I'm also going to solidly review my online presence and accounts, and how they could be linked. And fix any problems that pop up.
Bottom line: Read the article, it's a healthy wake-up call and if you're like me, you need that once in a while.
a) NASA and the Lunar program had some pretty smart people thinking about every option and outcome (Duh.). Given the way they maneuvered to and around the moon and other celestial bodies before, the 'slingshot' seems quite obvious actually. You might need an engineer with strong math skills to work out the orbit corrections to save fuel for later and come up with some ideas for the details, but the idea itself is quite straight forward. In fact I'm sure they didn't even consider any *other* option. I clearly remember a documentary where they mentioned that one of the problems early on was the power usage for calculating the math needed for the trip around the moon and back with the onboard computers. The engineers responsible had to promise they'd only need the power once to calculate the trajectory and wouldn't need it again thereafter. There had been a shortout and they were low on electricity after all.
b) I doubt that anybody at NASA was in the mood or mindset for answering random phonecalls back then. Or today that is. NASA has hundreds of engineers and specialists on site for every manned mission in case something goes wrong. They don't ask the public to call a hotline when a historic project is about to fail. Sounds like non-sense to me.
Give: You've got some brain damage and some handicaps resulting from that and what to get into XBox or some other sort of game development.
Your advantages: You've got life experience, a high frustration tolerance (so I'd definitely presume), are hard working and dedicated.
I strongly recommend that you join a modding crew inmediately, especially if you want into gamedev and you've allready gotten your hands dirty as much as you can with C#.
This would have quite a few advantages given your situation:
1.) You'd be infinitely closer to game dev right away than if you'd start out with scripting in some FOSS language on some obscure OS that only tinker-geeks use.
2.) You'd instantly be in a team with many people involved and could experiment with the areas that you're actually good at. If hardcore coding hurts your brain, there is tons of very important gruntwork to do, especially with game development. loadtesting, pipeline maintainence, protocol testing, app/persistance glue coding, scaffolding, rigging, technical direction, model cleanup, UV mapping (the last 4 are all 3D stuff), SFX testing, etc. Tons of stuff that doesn't need much of any nerdbrain superpower but a stable personality, a high frustration tolerance, dedication and at times the abitliy to give orders and be heard.
3.) If you are hard working and dedicated and have the life experience that comes for free with your destiny, you are an invaluable asset when it comes to motivation, discipline, planning and foresight. All things desperately needed in the modding and professional game development team. When a veteran like you speaks, the young and whiny wippersnappers usually shut up right away away, pull themselves together and get back to working on the next release.
4.) Non-trivial gamedev, as done with some of the modding crews, has so much to do, you can allways inmediately switch tasks if something becomes to frustrating and/or hard if your tired.
5.) Modding is the classical step-stone into pro gamedev.
6.) You'll quickly learn the real life lesson that coding is only a tiny, tiny part of a large projekt. Art, TD, production, HR, management, marketing chances are that if you are serious about your ambitions you'll quickly find a field where you are much more successfull and find much more satisfaction than what you'd find beyond chapter four in "Head First C#". I love coding, especially with Flash/ActionScript, but unless I get it into my head that I'll be earning infinetly more when managing and consulting and maybe doing a little ABAP and, you know, actually get paying jobs, I'm stuck with yesterdays tech, crappy pay and no future.
Bottom line: Don't try to do something you probably simply can't do. Broaden your perspective. The experience you got in coding right now is pointless if you want to be a XBox coder, it may be invaluable if you are a TD or producer. Don't forget that.
For years now I've been thinking that the FOSS *nix Community needs to move closer to the vertical models poping up left, right and center with Apple, Google, Amazon and others.
Think about it: With apt we have a software management tool that technically is/was at least 10 years ahead of the rest. What the FOSS community needs to add now is the ability to easyly transfer money back to the developers through basically the same channels. Steams strength isn't wether it's FOSS or not and frankly, I don't think anybody will really care. Steams advantage, as with Apple Appstore, Amazon and Google Play is the ability for developers to easyly get some cash for their work.
Right now, within the FOSS community, beyond the odd Paypal Donation Button this isn't possible. This has to change. We need a community driven solution to donating or buying or paying for certain pieces of software or specific features and bugfixes.
Manners are manners, culture is culture and etiquette is etiquette and most of those you can teach. Even nerdy grown-ups can learn them pretty fast. If you are worrying that your team will run into a sticky situation, establish a person of trust or review the situation in one-on-one talks frequently. If one day the new girl thinks that somebody has crossed the line she should feel comfortable saying it out loud, at least in a one-on-one or to her teamlead.
If done some sexistic behaviour myself without noticing right away and inmediately appologised a few moments in - not without humor and self-parody to take the edge off. Like explaining cinch plugs to a female PHD of electrical engineering who just so happend to be my dance partner at the time. It wasn't a work situation, and it was funny, mostly because I was making a complete idiot of myseld in front of her, but it was sexist in a way. We aren't used to girls knowing shit about electronics, it's that simple.
If she is good, have her take the lead in a project and prove her competence in discourse with the other guys. Sexisim will go down to the usual level right away and you will be able to deal with it the usual way.
BTW, there also is workplace sexism the other way around, even in computer companies. It's just much much more of a taboo. But that's ok. I think we can agree that the ladies still have more catch up to do and we can cut them some slack in that dept.
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Stay cool. Good news: You're half way there.
The FOSS/*nix crowd can be a pesky bunch and appear quite hermetic at times, but don't get your knickers all in a knot. If you're willing to learn and do a little homework, you'll get there soon.
First of all: You should stop the distro-hopping at once! (And, btw., don't be ashamed, we've all been there.) With the pro-admin crowd there is but one distro you should use as your main one and that is Debian. For the simple fact that its package management is the best in the entire IT industry and has been for like 15 years. Everything you see in all OSes on the entire planet in terms of software package and update management is a sad-and-sorry rippoff of APT at best. Hence Debian Stable x86 Linux as main Linux Admin Workhorse (TM) and nothing else. It's that simple.
So in a Nuthsell: *EVERYTHING* you do in *nix from here on out you do in Debian. If somewhere down the road you run into CentOS, RedHat, Solaris or SuSE or something, it will be a walk in the park for you. Aside from package management that is.
Second: Getting to know *nix is like getting to know personal computers. If you don't learn the keyboard keys, the clipboard, what the focus is and a few other basics in your very first hour sitting in front of it you will be going through hell for the next 20 years whenever you use a PC. Just look at some hapless secretary using a PC to see what I mean. It's a sad sight. Don't be that guy on *nix.
Here's what you need to know and understand inside out:
- Unix/Linux Daemons. It has to be a piece of cake for you to setup any piece of software as a daemon on Debian. Pratice that.
- Get a book - like sams "Learning C for Linux in 24 Days" or something and learn the basics of C for Linux coding and Standard In/Standard Out and other OS/binary tie-ins on Debian.
- Learn Versioning and use it. Git and nothing else. Version all your shit, including daemon setups, scripts and documentation. If you claim to be a *nix amin pro and don't version your stuff, we all will show up at your door one day, with pitchforks and burning torches and we will lynch you in the most painfull way possible. And then you will burn in hell for all eternity. That's a promise. Fucking version you shit and learn to handle and repair Git setups/trees. If you're forced to maintain some other versioning systems later on in your job, it will be painfull, but at least you'll know what you're doing. Also learn to teach versioning to happles web-dev wannabees, artists and designers in a way that doesn't scare them. Remember: You are there for them, not the other way around!!
- Learn and use one scripting language. Since you aim to be a Linux admin I'm afraid that PL will be Perl. You should be able to look at a Perl script without getting a heart-attack. Get Learning Perl and the Perl Cookbook from Oreilly and start toying around. You do want to learn another PL besides Perl though. I suggest Python, simply because it's not such a PITA as Perl. But Perl is very "Unixy" in a bizar fun sort of way, and admins have to be at least halfway proficient in it, so get used to it. ... Be warned though: You will start growing a beard, getting a little smelly and your feel for fashion and social skills will degrade rapidly. :-)
- Use the CLI and only the CLI. Learn one of the two 'big' CLI editors by heart, Emacs or VI. I personally prefer Emacs, but VI is installed on everything that runs on electricity, so whereever you are, you will allway find it installed. I'd bet money that there actually is a VI somewhere on the iPhone (iOS) and somewhere on Android aswell. One of these to editors is going to be your main tool until you die, so get used to it. These tools where built before such things as CUAS, OS-wide clipboars and fat-clients/workstations, so get used to the fact that their handling is bizar beyond imagination. You actually have to actively pratice copy/paste on Emacs to be able to use it, for instance. Start us
There should be official standards in place to cover for crappy coding and bad security and professional developers should be held accountable.
This is tough for me to say, because I coulldn't say that I'm particularly solid at web security.
But, and here's the big *but*: I and nobody else would want to cross a bridge with which some engineer might have thought about all the neccesities. We would want to be damn near sure that he *did* think about everything.
Online payment procedures are becoming an everyday thing, it's time we get public standards enforced by legal authorities into place. It is then that we developers can finally ask the same salareis that engineers get.
That's just my opinion though.
They can follow me around as much as they like, I'll just stick close to my motorbike with its nifty sidecar. So far, they're staying out of my way. In fact, they're pretty eager on removing obsticles for me. Sort of like my personal army of servants. Very nice. - Raven
Hardware available in regular stores is basically end-user hardware, even if professionals like us use it. The last time I upgraded a computer was 4 years ago, when I stuck an extra 2 GB into my 1 GB MacMini. Spare parts work like replacing broken HDDs or memory may be an issue here, but no so much.
Ok, I did stick an 8GB MicroSD Card into my HTC Flyer tablet earlyer this year, but I'd stretch it and say that doesn't count or isn't what we're talking about here.
The point is that
a) computers have become so powerfull, they don't really need upgrading during their lifetime anymore
b) there is an everygrowing seperation between specialist and comodity computer hardware
c) the newest type of computers - tablet and mobile devices - aren't even turing complete by geek standards (to much vendor and/or carrier lockin) - so why would you want to upgrade them anyway?
The future will see specialist devices and computers that are customizable and upgradeable and that people who know what they are doing can repair or maintain themselves and it will see more and more of lockin-consumer-comodity devices, where the device even isn't the most important thing, but the service or brand tied to it.
Heck, I don't even care anymore if my tablet has 64 or 32 GB - and I'm super-geek.
That the MB Pro Retina is all closed up is no big issue. OS and Software Distribution Lockin and less FOSS integration and Apple dropping Unix somewhere down the road is more my concern. If I have the money and the need/want to buy a new shiny protable device, I'll get it with the memory I need right away and I'd rather have Apple built a sturdy, good looking and slim enclosure than make room for screws and seperate compartments for exchangable stuff. My Dell Vostro isn't even in the same game as my MB Air - it's basically a completly different class and generation of hardware.
Bottom line:
Geek tinker hardware and notebooks that you can take apart with a set of screwdrivers and a few extra hours of time are on the way out. I don't see that as much of a big problem.
My 2 cents.
I probably have slight ADD. One of the reasons could be that my mother ate lots of licorice when she was pregnant with me and there are studies that hint to a link between slight ADD - something that would today be called a disease, in other times a talent - to being a sweet tooth and pregnant women eating the stuff.
Slight or partial symptoms of ADD are called by some a genetic disposition that has solid advantages in certain societies but solid disadvantages in others, like ours today. A hunter in a gatherers world basically, to some theories go. Some experts say that ADD is an invented disease.
I curse my concentration problems that definitely are due to my brain chemistry and certain childhood conditions and maybe a few habitual other things. However, the emotional independance and the high frustration tolerance that comes with it are a gift. Its a very special talent that makes it very difficult to blend in and, for instance, find a regular job (a problem I'm having right now), on the other hand it does give you the agressiveness required to turn down a shitty job even if you're broke and your options are running out. It's, if you will, a bit of a moderated-risk-taker condition. I wouldn't be like that if I didn't have these problems, the social situations that occur due to them and the coping mechanisims I've developed to handle them. All that together give me an edge, I just have to use it correctly and avoid situations where I don't function.
It's the basic mental condition emperors or simular people (think 'the Steve Jobs Type') have. They either are bums, drunk and stoned loosers sitting on the curb, or in a small room toying around with some big dream or they are at the helm of a big empire or - nowadays - a large corporation.
If everyone were like me or even more so, the world would go to hell. But without people like me, it would aswell. People who compensate their desire for poetry and meaning due so either using poetry (Duh!) or some other form of art, philosophy or the turn to alcohol and drugs as a substitute. ... I wouldn't want the world filled with boring unimaginative bland characters. I'd rather have the one or other struggle with their demons and have society develop methods of helping each other out.
Bottom line: I think it's to early for humans to decide what kind of personality actually is benefitial to society or not. We're simply not intelligent enough to do that yet. Maybe in a thousand years, if there isn't a giant setback. ... But it's just a few decades ago that a few societies started to accept that women do have a soul and are 100% just as worthy humans as men - it's to early to judge unborn by their genetic disposition and not run the risk of doing serious long term harm to humanity.
My 2 cents.
The vendors are going to love this. Apple is going the way of MS, only hardware wise. Giving every vendor catering to their devices with peripherals an excuse to sell the same stuff all over again. Smart business move, and not a moment to early.
I have to call you out on your assessment of the IT worker shortage in Germany. As a manager looking to hire I can tell you that the shortage is very real, trying to get GOOD people is very hard and it is difficult to stomach the very high salaries being asked for from MEDIOCRE candidates. I don't know what your expertise are, but may I suggest that maybe you are going about it the wrong way.
There is maybe a slight bit of little truth in what you say, but not much.
I just recently decided not only to consider learning another prorpietary product besides you favorite x-plattform rich client technology, which I thought would be my first, last and only for my entire carreer, but instead decided to bite the bullet and get ready to learn and get familiar with some new prorpietary closed source product line like .Net, SAP or Oracle. Right now I'm systematically moving full-force away from FOSS-based and/or agency oriented web development. Salaries and working conditions there are a joke, but with boring, unspectacular business programming joints I have the feeling I might stand a chance for some advancement im my career. Just yesterday I had a talk with such a crew that made me actually feel I wasn't wasting my time - and the talk took 150 minutes!
But again: The way people, companies, teams, investors and founders go about hiring, building and maintaing teams and product pipelines here in Germany is silly beyond bizar. 80% of companies I encounter are pure shit in terms of software production. Volatile employment terms, crappy right up to flat-out non-existant product pipelines, absolutely zero HR strategies, ... the list ist endless.
Two months ago I worked for a test day in a junk-storage/office with the teamlead playing heavy metal on his loudspeakers all day. I finished my task way ahead of time and the Director didn't even have the decency to get back to me in person. Its US-style hire-and-fire all around, but the want German style relyabilty from the workers. Well, f*ck you I can only say. Won't fly. If you want me to build your rich client player/reader on a weeks notice and deliver by the end of the year on January 1.1.2013 it's going to cost you 50 000€. If not, go screw yourself.
If you want good people for short-term projects fast (and today they all are short-term) you are going to have to pay. Its that way in every industry. And if you aren't even willing to train your next team, then you're up shit-creek.
In fact: I call *you* on *your* statements! Get in contact with me if you think you've got problems finding and/or integrating people for your projects. I also do work-management, contract and HR consulting for Softwareproduction, and I have yet to find a company moaning about staff shortage that isn't in deep trouble right at the heart of their production facilities with even the most basic prerequesites for professional software production not in place. ... No seriously, call me! A weeks worth of consulting and I'll show you where you're companies lacking. And by the overall state of things thoughout the industry I bet it is.
You'll find everything here: Team Active Content.
Ball's in your court.
I guess its a good thing that according to a astonishingly big portion of USians think the US dosn't require public gouvernment-funded health care. Guess the free market will take care of this too. ... ...
Just saying.
For the US sake, I hope some hardcore anti-healthcare people get bitten and learn a lesson or two.
"Kill the Flash, spill its blood, kill the Flash spill its blood, kill the Flash spill its blood ... "
God, how I allways hate the half-assed Flash discussions on /.
I'm wondering why they don't FOSS it if they plan to let it die.
Anyway, they missed a great opportunity when they could have lead the entire touch interface craze it they'd sought to keep Flash up to date in that respect.
I will miss Flash and AS3. In terms of UI and Rich Client development its a step backwards - by a decade. A shame, really.
1st of all: If I would want to start a family I wouldn't plan to go anywhere for less than 20 years. Times are unruly enough as it is. With children you want a good school, a good community and - most important of all - a good wife and her our yours or both families near by. Everything else comes second!
If you want to start a family you should even consider a career change if that is required to provide for the other things mentioned above. The family will be your primary fullfillment, not the job, so you might as well work as a bricklayer, provided the income is enough. Also factor in: Free housing or easy real estate from your family or in-laws, quality of life, happiness of wife (where does she want to live and raise children) etc. All of these are *way* more important than monetary income. Especially in times like these.
If I'd start a family again, I'd move together with my girlfriend in the town she lives, simply because her career is way more solid than mine right now. And I wouldn't care if I were the main caregiver to children and would be driving a dump-truck on the side. Be prepared to do that aswell if your future wife turns out to be the vice-exec of some uprising company or having and wanting to keep a more stable career than you aparently have right now.
2.) If you want to earn money in IT and are prepared to leave everything behind, you do the full monty and should get prepared to move anywhere within a few weeks notice, at any time and occasion. Singapur, Silicon Valley, Moskow, Dubai perhaps and maybe some high-polpulation areas in china are where the partys at right now. Live out of the suitcase or in microapparments for the next 15 years, rake in some stable cash or real estate and buy/build a home for your old age.
3.) If you aren't prepared to go full-on cyberpunk and move around the globe for the rest of your working career you should stay put right where you are and adapt. If the Euro goes belly-up and the world finally notices that the US dollar isn't worth the paper its printed on then you'll be glad if you've got some contacts to a local farmer and some real-estate and a small shed on it somewhere in southern europe. And maybe some solar panels to power your computers. I'd be happy if I had that. I'm living in a single room sharing flat with 6 people in Germany and right now things aren't looking up, even for an expert like me. Living expenses are through the roof, the IT staff shortage is nothing but a legend to keep wages at the 2002 minimum and inflation is ramping up allready.
Bottom line: Move for the family you want to start, and *only* for that, go fully international and prepare to relocate to Timbuktu if the money and/or the benefits package is right or stay put, get by somehow and prepare for some elongated worldwide economic downtime.
My 2 cents.
I don't get the appeal of a 7 inch tablet at all. If you want to read novels on a 7" screen, go with e-ink. For comic books, technical articles, web, etc. a 10" screen is WAY more appropriate.
Use one.
No, seriously: Use one. Borrow one for a week or so. You'll be suprised. Same with me. I'd almost bet money that the usage patterns are noticeably diffferent than with a 10" tablet.
I'd never thought that I'd be carrying around and using a tablet each and every day, but the 7" formfactor actually is very neat. Weight, space, handling ... my hands are actually big enough to hold both edges of my 7" HTC Flyer with one hand.
I was very late in the tablet-game, but I think now I'm hooked. A 10" would be to cumbersome in most situations where you'll be using the smaller one. And, no, a smartphone is not a substitue. I've had my HTC Flyer for more than twice as long as my HTC Flyer, and I'm using it considerably less nowadays.
I'm your average hardcore computer geek and didn't like the iPad-induced tablet hipe all that much - mostly because it favours devices that factually arent turing complete because I can't programm them (Apple Developer Lockin, iTunes lockin, Controll over Deployment, etc.), Android fragmentation hassles, etc.
Anyway:
6 months ago I gave in and bought the only tablet that I've seen to date that is or was actually interesting to me: A special bargain offer of the HTC Flyer. Turns out, I use it every day. It's a very neat device as far as tablets go, and I maybe even swap my smartphone (HTC Desire, also very nice) for a dumbphone somewhere down the line, because usage on the Flyer is so much more comfortable.
It's quite good right up to very great for almost anything besides programming. It's small enough to fit anywhere, the enclosure is the best on the market (even better than the Apple stuff), it runs Android 3, it's great to watch movies on, it's great to read novels on. - Neal Stephensons Reamde is my first Kindle Book and I've been reading it on the Flyer exclusively, using the kinlde app. I use it regularly in situations where a Notebook - even the MB Air I'm typing this on - just wouldn't suffice: The Bed, the Beanbag, leaning back in the seat on the train, standing at the bus stop, checking prices and reviews at the store or checking my schedule in meetings.
Everynote is a great experience, and the calendar, albeight not quite as good in functions and features as the blackberry ones (those are the best imho) is still awesome. And the stylus is great for navigating tricky stuff on the browser that isn't built for tablet navigation yet.
Long story short: The HTC Flyer showed me that tablets can actually be worthwhile for the relatively small niche they service. And the Flyers 7" size and its slightly elongated cinema display formfactor tops it off.
I expect this 7" hipe to continue and become the dominant formfactor of portable tabletcomputers. I for one will now probably slowly move away from dead-tree reading to this sort of tablet. From my experience in the last 6 months I think it's safe to say that that time has now actually come.
Get a Swopper. Expensive, but worth the money. Have heard only good things about it. Forces you to sit 'actively'. Switch the Swopper with standing every once in a while. I'm using a barstool as a poor mans Swopper and it ain't doing my back any good. I'll be getting a Swopper as soon as I can afford one.
The third option would be a recliner. However, setting up your workplace to be able to type and UI navigate comfortably in a reclined position probably is such a hassle that it is impractical.
I can pretty much say everyone I know in that category plays a small fraction of the amount they used to.
Yepp. I recently (a few months ago) sold out the last big boxes of my quite impressive 20-year-old Pen & Paper RPG collection. I picked up Tango dancing 5 years ago, met a few ladies along the way and met my girlfriend a year ago at a small Tango event. Upping your skills in Tango beats playing and improving on Unreal Tournament 2004 CTF or WoW most of the time. So does it beat playing Torg or GURPS most of the time. You get out, meet breathtakingly awesome and sexy girls, get to hug them for hours on end, your testosterone goes up, your stress goes down, you get exercise, you get healthier, you get cooler and calmer with the ladies, you get to have sex you've only dreamed of or seen in porn-clips ... That all together beats any sort of gaming at any time if you ask me.
A few years ago I've decided to create the poetry and meaning I sought in P&P, Tabletop, TCG and computer gaming in my real life. If not required for the job I avoid and shun intolerant, inflexible and phantasy-lacking douchebags and with the people who's opinion and attention I value I continuosly pull mysellf together, improve my social skills and try to fit in as long as it's an improvement and doesn't collide with my self respect or my identity. The payoff is tenfold and the decades I've spent with nerdy intospection gives me the upper hand in seeing and understanding various forms of insecurity in others. You'd be suprised how nerdy and insecure fashionmodels and perfect 10 ladies are or can be on the inside when you get to know them.
I do still game at occasions. I play GTA Chinatown on my PSP once in a while, I'm chugging away at Prof. Laytons Time Machine Adventure and swap Prof. Layton and other titles with my daughter. And she, her friends and I do some MarioCart DS once in a while (at which then I usually lose most of the time). I've even just now got into contact with a local Shadowrun group again after basically a decade of RPG apstinece, just because I'm longing for a little nerd interaction and discorse with people who are a bit like me. But it isn't by far such a center of my life as it used to be. And that's a big improvement - especially if you think gaming is your only choice of entertainment, poetry and meaning.
Bottom line: If people get out more, do arts, do some social interaction that has a little more meaning than just sitting, talking and getting slightly drunk and thus overall videogaming decreases, that *is* an improvement in my book.
My 2 cents.
What your attemting isn't easy, it's actually difficult.
Buy a cheap and big refurbished workstation or rackmount server, install a few extra SATA controllers and maybe a new power supply, hook up 12 2TB drives, install Debian, check out LVM and your all set.
Messing around with 12 - 24 external HDDs and their power supplys is a big hassle and asking for trouble. Don't do it. Do seriously go through the possibilty of building your own NAS. You'll be thankfull in the end and it won't take much longer, it might even go faster and be cheaper if you can get the parts fast.
My 2 cents.
I really don't get most of the crap and indifference here. ... Once it's cross-plattform that is.
Textmate is an editor that's actually making money being sold on Mac OS X - that the man decides to release it as FOSS is a very noble move. He probably made his share he'd hoped for ten times over, but he could have just kept it the way it was. He didn't, and now we've got a serious editor with solid chances of taking the throne for editors.
I've got my own story on Textmate: ... I use Aquamacs and Emacs to this very day when all else fails and I need a fast editor that can handle large files.
Back in 2003 my mobile computer of choice was a 13" G4 iBook, mainly to be able to do Flash development. I had my Flash IDE running, Eclipse for PHP, and some other stuff and the iBook performance was maxed out. I couldn't run my favorite Editor jEdit without serious issues - its built on Java. It was then that I decided to go with an Editor written in a C language. I seriously considered Textmate, but then I thought, if all this editor has going for it that you can programm it in its own script PL, then I might as well use Emacs and be completely independant. I installed Emacs the same night and started to learn some of its commands.
Textmate going FOSS might just have me try the switch. ... This is awesome.
Show some respect, guys!
My 2 cents.
Math is a filter. At least here in Germany. 120 Students start CS, by 3rd Semester 85% of them have left and given up. The lectures move from the auditorium to small rooms where the Prof. makes tea for all and then discusses advanced boolean algebra, logic boards or the neat learning computer he built over the years.
Math filters the cream from the crop. If you make it past the first 4 Semesters, Math disappears, never to be used again. Unless, that is, your joining your CS with an even more hardcore field like engineering or something.
I hate Math just as much as the next guy, mostly because I hate the inherent historically grown ambiguity of its notation standards, but in a way I'm also gratefull. That way, when in about 4 years I get my degree I won't feel like a wuss, but rather like someone who's actually studied something that is - you know - worthwhile going to college for. ... I'm actually reading myself for a late career move into a degree in Business Informatics. And the Math stuff scares the shit out of me. ... Guess I'll just have to grow some balls and man up. It will be tough, and I'll pass my math credits by the skin of my teeth, but I also discovered that the hard stuff is part of the fun.
Of course, wether or not I make lots of money once I have a degree, that is a different story. I'll be continuing my business moves on the side. ... But, as mentioned, also doing a lot of math I've never heard of in 25 years of programming.
Cheap recruiters and contract shops are muddying the waters. There is so much percieved demand that these shops inflate the numbers even further. They're looking for fresh BAs to buy cheaply and sell at a high price. They are not interested in experienced personell. I've hat roughly 10 recruiters hit on me within the last 8 months or so and only two even got back to me with a oneliner email.
On the other side there are countless projects and lots of dormant investment money with all the threads running through the few overworked project managers who do 30 interviews a week to find "The exact right guy (TM)".
The truth is: It ain't easy. IT still is in its infancy, the world actually *is* getting more complicated and hiring and finding the right job is a slog and requires you to turn down 20 dimwits before you score a position on a team that isn't a complete waste of time. On the one hand you've got doucebags who couldn't version their code if their life depended on it, on the other hand you've got douchebags who'll bite your head of instantly if you can't set up a Unix demon by heart. ... It ain't easy in our field, that's a simple fact. Yet I'd still rather do this than flip burgers.
For almost a decade now I've been moving back and forth between easy money / money to burn and super-broke and living of ramen. Right now I'm in a ramen phase and don't know how to pay the next rent. ... I'll survive, I guesss.
More and more the world is becoming just like a Neal Stephenson novel. I guess that's just the way it is. Learn to adopt and make the best of it is my motto right now.
My 2 cents.
Didn't think I'd post here because even though I I know many of the ones mentioned here, they've all kinda have worn out their scare to me.
Then I just remembered the 80ies German teenager novel "Die letzten Kinder von Schewenborn". There's a UK edition called 'The Last Children'. It's like 'On the Beach' but like 10 times as much. A young teenager and his family experience a nuclear holocaust during a trip to his grandparents. The children born in the months and years after are heavyly mutated and handycapped. He's basically the youngest remaining 'normal'. The story is open ended and grim beyond anything else I've read.
The book is written as a cautionary tale and is an expression of the german environmentalist movement of the 80ies and later. Today it is part of the regular 8th grade German curriculum reading list in Germany.
Definitely the most realistic nuclear holocaust scenario I've read to date. I do not want to read again. Seriously.
This is a very good article, every /. nerd worth his honors should read it. It's pushed my paranoia levels almost up to normal again. That alone was worth the time. I've been dragging out that backup HDD for my MB Air far to long and will now change that.
I'm also going to solidly review my online presence and accounts, and how they could be linked. And fix any problems that pop up.
Bottom line: Read the article, it's a healthy wake-up call and if you're like me, you need that once in a while.
My 2 cents.
That sounds unlikely.
a) NASA and the Lunar program had some pretty smart people thinking about every option and outcome (Duh.). Given the way they maneuvered to and around the moon and other celestial bodies before, the 'slingshot' seems quite obvious actually. You might need an engineer with strong math skills to work out the orbit corrections to save fuel for later and come up with some ideas for the details, but the idea itself is quite straight forward. In fact I'm sure they didn't even consider any *other* option. I clearly remember a documentary where they mentioned that one of the problems early on was the power usage for calculating the math needed for the trip around the moon and back with the onboard computers. The engineers responsible had to promise they'd only need the power once to calculate the trajectory and wouldn't need it again thereafter. There had been a shortout and they were low on electricity after all.
b) I doubt that anybody at NASA was in the mood or mindset for answering random phonecalls back then. Or today that is. NASA has hundreds of engineers and specialists on site for every manned mission in case something goes wrong. They don't ask the public to call a hotline when a historic project is about to fail. Sounds like non-sense to me.
My 2 cents.
Give: You've got some brain damage and some handicaps resulting from that and what to get into XBox or some other sort of game development.
Your advantages: You've got life experience, a high frustration tolerance (so I'd definitely presume), are hard working and dedicated.
I strongly recommend that you join a modding crew inmediately, especially if you want into gamedev and you've allready gotten your hands dirty as much as you can with C#.
This would have quite a few advantages given your situation:
1.) You'd be infinitely closer to game dev right away than if you'd start out with scripting in some FOSS language on some obscure OS that only tinker-geeks use.
2.) You'd instantly be in a team with many people involved and could experiment with the areas that you're actually good at. If hardcore coding hurts your brain, there is tons of very important gruntwork to do, especially with game development. loadtesting, pipeline maintainence, protocol testing, app/persistance glue coding, scaffolding, rigging, technical direction, model cleanup, UV mapping (the last 4 are all 3D stuff), SFX testing, etc. Tons of stuff that doesn't need much of any nerdbrain superpower but a stable personality, a high frustration tolerance, dedication and at times the abitliy to give orders and be heard.
3.) If you are hard working and dedicated and have the life experience that comes for free with your destiny, you are an invaluable asset when it comes to motivation, discipline, planning and foresight. All things desperately needed in the modding and professional game development team. When a veteran like you speaks, the young and whiny wippersnappers usually shut up right away away, pull themselves together and get back to working on the next release.
4.) Non-trivial gamedev, as done with some of the modding crews, has so much to do, you can allways inmediately switch tasks if something becomes to frustrating and/or hard if your tired.
5.) Modding is the classical step-stone into pro gamedev.
6.) You'll quickly learn the real life lesson that coding is only a tiny, tiny part of a large projekt. Art, TD, production, HR, management, marketing chances are that if you are serious about your ambitions you'll quickly find a field where you are much more successfull and find much more satisfaction than what you'd find beyond chapter four in "Head First C#". I love coding, especially with Flash/ActionScript, but unless I get it into my head that I'll be earning infinetly more when managing and consulting and maybe doing a little ABAP and, you know, actually get paying jobs, I'm stuck with yesterdays tech, crappy pay and no future.
Bottom line: Don't try to do something you probably simply can't do. Broaden your perspective. The experience you got in coding right now is pointless if you want to be a XBox coder, it may be invaluable if you are a TD or producer. Don't forget that.
Good luck.
My 2 cents.
You can clearly see by its shadow that it's moving in the wind. ...
For years now I've been thinking that the FOSS *nix Community needs to move closer to the vertical models poping up left, right and center with Apple, Google, Amazon and others.
Think about it:
With apt we have a software management tool that technically is/was at least 10 years ahead of the rest. What the FOSS community needs to add now is the ability to easyly transfer money back to the developers through basically the same channels.
Steams strength isn't wether it's FOSS or not and frankly, I don't think anybody will really care. Steams advantage, as with Apple Appstore, Amazon and Google Play is the ability for developers to easyly get some cash for their work.
Right now, within the FOSS community, beyond the odd Paypal Donation Button this isn't possible. This has to change. We need a community driven solution to donating or buying or paying for certain pieces of software or specific features and bugfixes.
My 2 cents.
You don't need a policy for that.
Manners are manners, culture is culture and etiquette is etiquette and most of those you can teach. Even nerdy grown-ups can learn them pretty fast. If you are worrying that your team will run into a sticky situation, establish a person of trust or review the situation in one-on-one talks frequently. If one day the new girl thinks that somebody has crossed the line she should feel comfortable saying it out loud, at least in a one-on-one or to her teamlead.
If done some sexistic behaviour myself without noticing right away and inmediately appologised a few moments in - not without humor and self-parody to take the edge off. Like explaining cinch plugs to a female PHD of electrical engineering who just so happend to be my dance partner at the time. It wasn't a work situation, and it was funny, mostly because I was making a complete idiot of myseld in front of her, but it was sexist in a way. We aren't used to girls knowing shit about electronics, it's that simple.
If she is good, have her take the lead in a project and prove her competence in discourse with the other guys. Sexisim will go down to the usual level right away and you will be able to deal with it the usual way.
BTW, there also is workplace sexism the other way around, even in computer companies. It's just much much more of a taboo. But that's ok. I think we can agree that the ladies still have more catch up to do and we can cut them some slack in that dept.
My 2 cents.