With the low respect the software development community has for the insane clusterfuck of a program that is Lotus Notes, I don't think it's strange at all.
Yes, but that Super Millionaire payout assumes that you always win. Jeopardy is more fault tolerant system. What you lost in pure performance (in dollars per day) you make up for with question redundancy...in fact, considering the high levels of energy used in furrowing the brow for the really tough questions, Jeopardy is more efficient in terms of brain cell usage per dollar.
Oh come on, it's just one guy. Hardly a revolution. Hardly anything new. America's always got their token smart guys. The average man knows Einstein, Sagan and Hawking. The average man knows Bill Gates. The average man know Asimov and Bradbury. The average man knows Alan Greenspan.
The problem is, smart people don't really have time to spend in the spotlight. They're busy learning and doing stuff that matters. Beautiful people have little to do all day after that four hour session at the gym. So they go on E! So they show up on chat shows. So they go to gala premieres with vapid actresses.
Fame is very high maintenance, and for most smart people, it's not worth it.
Yeah, you know I'm pretty pissed off at Rolex. $1500 for a watch that does nothing more than a $10 Timex, and did you know that you can make a sundial to tell time for free?
I should feel justified stealing Rolexes from my local diamond shop because they don't offer enough for the money. Sheesh. Put an idiot in front of a computer and he thinks he's justified for whatever immoral thing he does, and right after claiming that filesharing WASN'T degrading the morals of today's youth.
You know how many hours I worked this week to perfect a single function in our program? 32 so far. One function, 32 hours at $25 per (in my defense, it is an important and complicated function). Now, extrapolate that to the entire program, made up of thousands of functions and 5+ man years of programming labor alone and you realize: "whoa, software am expensive." Comparing it to films and music was a good idea, because it takes about as much money to produce a good program as it does to produce a good movie. Niche programs can be produced for about the price of a studio album. Now, consider that the paying audience for software is at least 1/100th or much, much less than a movie. If a movie can bring in 10 million people, that's pretty good. Software will be lucky to see 100,000 people. Most software sells on the order of hundreds and tens of thousands of copies, and niche software may only sell a few dozen or a few hundred copies.
See my point? Takes as much effort as a movie. Has a much smaller core audience than a movie. So how do you keep a profit? You charge more. It doesn't matter if you WANT the market to be commodity based...if Microsoft wants Office to be $400, and Microsoft can SELL Office for $400 EVEN in the midst of FREE competition, then $400 is a fair price. You don't get to make that choice. You're free to buy from a competitor, but the fact remains: if you need, or want, something only Microsoft has, you'll have to pay $400 for it. Or you'll have to go without. Same as the Rolex.
The only thing that isn't fair here is you demanding software for less because, well, you don't want to pay that much. This isn't a car dealership. You don't get to haggle for software prices (well, call my boss and he'd "smooth something out," but you can't haggle our bare minimum). You certainly don't get to infringe on Microsoft's copyrights just because you're feeling stingy.
I have worked non-union construction jobs and I have to say: while you get more money, the long hours, no benefits and near slave demands made upon non-union employees would get really old really fast. When the union finally bullied its way into the job, I could see the differences immediately. They worked half as hard for half as long for 60% of the pay and three times the bennies. I wish there were a happy medium between slave labor/high wages and slack labor/good bennies. There was, during the Boom anyway...we worked hard for good pay and good bennies. Unfortunately, the dollar signs in the boss's eyes meant we sold our solid little performer to a big bloated startup, and everybody got the short end in the back side.
incorporate yourself...at least you can write off your cell, broadband, etc. at the end of the year as YOUR company expense...
No need for incorporation. If these things are required for your job but your employer won't pay for them, you can already write them off as business expenses. Incorporation is expensive and all it really gains for you is partial indemnification...so that if you screw up and get sued or file for bankrupcy, they can't take your house, just your business assets. Unless they realize you're a one man shop, and sue YOU instead of the corporation. I think there are also credit considerations...such as, I didn't pay a bill last year as my business, because they never delivered the goods (a full T1, I got a slower-than-cable fractional line). I am fairly sure that's a black mark on MY credit record (who cares, I've always paid my mortgage and loan payments on time, and it's worth the the hassle to keep those cheaters from $700). If I were incorporated, it wouldn't be on my credit report at all.
Incidentally, not paying for employee's telecommuting expenses is REALLY cheap. That money decreases the amount of taxes your company pays -- if you're profitable, the company (shareholders) will only see maybe a 30% savings of the total cost of these services. A pretty low margin for a major loss in goodwill. I'm unlikely to want to work after hours anyway. I'm even less likely if I've got to pay for it.
Re:Why it wasn't put in already
on
Hacking Quartz
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· Score: 2, Interesting
So use COMMAND-TAB (switch applications) and COMMAND-TILDE (switch windows within an application). When you can't access your virtual desktop manager, I mean. I *ALWAYS* have one hand on the mouse for doing layout and such, and I try to stay out of shell as much as possible since this isn't the stone age and I am not a caveman.
Oh, and just so this isn't flamebait -- my own opinion of shells does not mean that yours is invalid. I bought a Mac because I like the graphical user interface. I understand a lot of people know the CLI like the back of their hand and would never THINK of writing an AppleScript to do what they can already do in Perl. But I've also seen a lot of people swear at a poorly written regular expression that would be much more understandable -- and reusable -- as a Macro in BBEdit. More options does not mean more control, it just means you need to learn more before you can obtain control.
Re:Why it wasn't put in already
on
Hacking Quartz
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· Score: 1
I dunno. Expose is fast enough on my wife's iBook. I color code my xterms if I have more than one open (otherwise I get lost anyway, Expose or no). Haven't used a Classic app in two years. And I can't abide fink...had WAY too much trouble getting anything to install okay. XFree86 has never worked on this machine, and after the fifth time mucking with it I realized there was nothing I could possibly want to do in XFree86 that was worth it.
Re:I'd like to rephrase that as...
on
Hacking Quartz
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· Score: 1
The C=64 was 320 X 200, kthx. 320x240 implies square pixels...and the TV monitors this machine used certainly didn't have them!
And I agree...what a beginning programmer learns today is pretty paltry compared to the commercial fare. This is the fault of most programming teachers sticking young coders with the command line THEY learned in. Bullshit. Your first hello world program should be in C#, Visual Basic, Java or any of the dozens of other programs that let you access a windowing toolkit with a handful of commands. In fact, I'll bet the C# Hello World app is on par with in terms of complexity:
using System.Windows.Forms; public class HelloWorld{
public static void Main(){
MessageBox.Show("Hello World!");
} }
You can make usable windows forms your first day coding in.NET/Java. Most of the grunt work is done for you.
The reason most computing classes start at the command line is that most computing teachers want you to learn basic syntax before getting caught up apocryphal API calls. But I think the rest of us could care less about pointers to pointers...we want to display nudie pics, damnit (System.Drawing.Graphics.DrawImage(fileName,X,Y))!
Re:Somewhere in the middle
on
Hacking Quartz
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· Score: 1
This hasn't become harder. It's become harder to do HYPEREFFICIENTLY. But the.NET Framework exposes most of the Win32 API with an awesome toolkit which is fast enough for kids' work. Here's C# code for drawing a triangle:
using System.Drawing; using System.Windows.Forms;
public class Triangle : Form {
public Triangle(){
this.Paint += new PaintEventHandler(painttriangle);
}
17 lines, 8 of which are whitespace or brackets. A bit more complex than BASIC, maybe, but not "learning the whole Win32 API + DirectX". I think it makes a bit more sense than graphics did in my BASIC days...and being able to DrawImage with a filename is cool, too.
Java also makes it very, very easy to access graphics (and in a cross platform manner as well). But I don't have a Java compiler in front of me;).
Re:Why it wasn't put in already
on
Hacking Quartz
·
· Score: 3, Informative
My PROBLEM is that i dont want to mess around finding my apps. Expose is simply too slow to use, i cannot find everything with a single click.
WHAT? THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT EXPOSE DOES -- SHOW/HIDE EVERYTHING WITH ONE CLICK.
F7: Find all windows for one app. F8: Find all non-hidden, non minimized windows. F9: Show desktop (Pushes all windows off to the sides).
One click for each. Hold down the button and you get mouse over selection, otherwise it's mouse click selection. You can remap the keys as is convenient (I map Expose All to the middle mouse button). And what's best -- all of your windows continue to update while Exposed. Damn useful. It means if I have Safari open full screen, and want to change the mp3 playing in iTunes in full screen, i press and hold the middle mouse button, mouse over itunes, let the button go. To get back to Safari, I do the same. This to me is the best aspects of click-to-highlight, mouse-over to highlight, virtual desktops and single desktops while utilizing existing hardware to perform new functionality.
What you're talking about -- granularly assigning arbitrary windows to a particular desktop set across applications -- is something new that expose can't do, this I'll grant you. It's also a very specific use. Most people's jobs are task oriented, not server oriented. Therefore, it makes sense for the desktop to be task oriented, to work with EVERYTHING you're doing, rather than spaces of work. And it also makes sense that a third party application which offers you a solution for your needs would be valuable.
But the default? I dunno about that. Most people don't want two desktops, let alone an arbitrary number of them. I *can* say that if Apple were to offer us a fourth programmable Expose button, one that would group arbitrary application windows visibility and placement, I'd definitely toy with it. But I imagine most of what I'd use that functionality for is already covered by the dashboard.
Both of these are explained. Godzilla's structure is altered by radiation and as such her abilities and indeed her size are in constant flux. Shit, she gets tired too. There aren't a lot of carbohydrates in the average building and she's globetrotting, killing everything in sight. Maybe she's hit the wall.
There's proactive prevention, and then there are greedy, self important grabs for power. Can you imagine if your HR director treated employees with the same respect you do?
"After carefully analyzing your opinions of other employees in posts on public forums, I have come to the conclusion that if I could save money by downsizing you and outsourcing your job to India, I would not wait until Friday to do so."
Hey, got to pimp this degree in rhetoric somehow. If my only gift to the literary world is using accurate onomatopoeia on Slashdot, I've still contributed more of use than some writers.
Word. I hate motherfuckers who act like their technology makes them the bomb. People, it's your USE of technology that makes you the bomb. If you use your technology for nothing more than sensual candy, what good are you and what good is it?
I always hide my tech. My iPod remains stowed in my pocket and it's wrapped in a nonchalant black rubber case. Every time I see some twit shining his brand new 15 gig in the sun like "lookit me, i'm hip," I just want to punch him. My iPod has 10 gig of mp3s, two gig of pictures and an installation of Linux on it (not running Linux, mind you, it's a unit test for my webserver). I expect somebody to be interested in one of those. I don't expect them to be interested in the clean white headphones.
I remember one time I was at dinner when some fool started showing off his Tungsten. "Look, I can play a movie at 200x200, 10 frames per second in a special format!" Meanwhile, I had the first season of The Simpsons at NTSC quality on my Pocket PC, along with the source code to the programs I was working on at the time. I kept it in my pocket.
insecure Windows environment... am I being redundant
Sure you are. Many civil defense programs are Windows-only and very much closed source. Many have no hope of execution on WINE. However, the computers running said programs do not have to worry about malware, as they do not have access to the internet in the first place.
Typical heavy handed IT lunacy. You're making it harder to use a possibly essential device on a machine you didn't know might need it, creating more work for yourself while gaining little to no security, as potential theives would just go to a machine that didn't have USB disabled.
I've been subverting this type of network policy since second grade, and it's easy because it lulls you into a false sense of security. "I don't have to worry about X machine, I've locked it down!" Meanwhile, us grade school kids are running video games through the shell in WordPerfect.
Want a secure network? Stop with the locks and start with the spies. Befriend your users and make them your eyes and ears. Remind them not to trust anybody and help them identify suspicious activities. Most of all, make them care. That's tough to do. But unlike being an asshole, it actually works.
I haven't used CAD since Generic Level 3, but I imagine it would take quite a few floppies to store modern files. Perhaps this is their way of making sure that, if you do steal sensitive information, you can only steal 1,440,000 bytes of it.
Word. I've noticed a lot of people seem to think that corporate IT policy is a chance to get everyone to comply to their extreme viewpoints or get out of dodge; basically, to create a set of rules everybody will have to circumvent to get their jobs done, all in the hopes of being able to wag a finger and punish when things don't work out perfectly.
I've got a big problem with this. For one, it's an overstepping of power...this may not be "my network," but it sure as shit isn't yours, either. Does the janitor own the toilets he cleans out? Do I own the spaghetti code I have to wade through? Hell no. They're all part of a bigger organization: the company. And if you're alienating the rest of the company on a regular basis, you're going to discover some hefty resistance to your policies -- which is asking for trouble.
Want the perfect network policy? "Only you can prevent forest fires." Keep your users happy, keep them informed, don't make a mountain out of a molehill, admit your mistakes, ask for help and make strong suggestions. People watching people of their own free will is a much better way to prevent viruses, spyware and espionage then indemnifying yourself while the rest of the company is smugglying MuVos in their underpants.
You're asking how sun can compete with Microsoft's.NET initiative in terms of confusing people?
Tell me, what version of the.NET framework are you running? What version of studio.net and what version of the project files? Do you know the differences between the syntax of line end points between library version 1.0.3333 and 1.0.5000 (the library version used with Framework 1.1)? Have you checked your global assembly cache lately?
Shit man. Most people still don't even know what.NET is. I've been writing in it for two years and my boss still thinks it has something to do with the internet maybe. The versioning system is very complex and promises to be reminiscent of DLL hell. Each version of the Framework has wierd, subtle bugs that pop up at the strangest times...there's one with visual inheritance and the passing of alt-key mnemonic events in VB variables declared WithEvents that will probably keep us off of Framework 1.1 forever. Luckily for my support department,.NET (unlike Java) is designed to maintain compatibility with previous versions, not by keeping deprecated methods, but by keeping the old CLI and Framework on the machine when a new one's installed (at about 140 meg a pop).
Incidentally, Java 2 is the platform. Java 2 competes with.NET. The other number, 1.x, is the version number of the runtime or the compiler/sdk for the Java language. Java 1.5 competes with C#. How hard is that?
First off, you get a lot more than "immediate gratification" when buying music off iTunes. You get the largest selection of music for immediate gratification -- . You don't have to pay HUGE CD store warehousing prices nor high online shipping costs. You also get the ability to buy a single song. A CD single will run you $5-$8. One track on iTunes is $1. That's a savings of 80%, a savings of 93% off the cost of buying the whole album and discovering it is shitty. Even buying the whole record at $10 is a big savings considering most records over a month old are $13-$18
Is it worth it, for the almost imperceptible drop in quality? Well, looking at things historically, people were willing to deal with the DRASTIC quality loss and format infexibility of cassette tapes in exchange for a 20-30% savings. AAC downloads keep about the same savings with much higher music quality while adding the "nuisance" of DRM that restricts you to only making 5 copies of a single playlist before having to copy all the songs in that playlist into another one. All iTunes songs have cover art embedded in them. And, depending on how you listen to your music, the iTMS may offer an even more convenient solution. I listen to all of my music on itunes or my ipod. When I buy a CD, first thing I do is rip all of the tracks off of it. I prefer the flexibility of having a jukebox to the (hardly definitive) precision of a CD. Usually, I'm listening at work, in the car, at the gym, etc, and can't be swapping CDs every time I want to listen to something different. So my CDs generally sit in a crate in my listening room, silently hoping someday I'll want to audition them in earnest.
Furthermore, nobody INVITES DRM. They tolerate it. In the same way we tolerate cameras at a department store. It is not that big a deal, unless you are a pirate or a hacker. If you are a pirate or a hacker, it's only a mild nuissance, so it's still not that big a deal. So who cares?
I'd say it's really more an issue of quality versus bandwidth. Apple's close to 100 millions songs downloaded. If they had used 192 kbit instead of 128 kbit, it would have taken an additional 100 terrabytes of transfer and another 22 terrabytes of storage for their 700,000 song collection. Maybe not that big a deal, but it surely would have cut into their already slim margins for an almost imperceptible quality different. 128 kbit AAC is not "crappy," it doesn't cause cymbal shudder like 128k MP3 nor does it destroy the overall dynamics in complex passages. It's less like 8-tracks to CD then it is like digital casette to CD. It's not ideal...but is it worth an additional $.10? I don't think it is...especially when the marketing for their music player relies on the "128 kbit is good enough for everyone" paradigm.
Maybe if rhapsody starts really competing, they'll ramp up their bitrates. Until then, I think it's unlikely.
Slashdot Mirror
With the low respect the software development community has for the insane clusterfuck of a program that is Lotus Notes, I don't think it's strange at all.
Yes, but that Super Millionaire payout assumes that you always win. Jeopardy is more fault tolerant system. What you lost in pure performance (in dollars per day) you make up for with question redundancy...in fact, considering the high levels of energy used in furrowing the brow for the really tough questions, Jeopardy is more efficient in terms of brain cell usage per dollar.
Oh come on, it's just one guy. Hardly a revolution. Hardly anything new. America's always got their token smart guys. The average man knows Einstein, Sagan and Hawking. The average man knows Bill Gates. The average man know Asimov and Bradbury. The average man knows Alan Greenspan.
The problem is, smart people don't really have time to spend in the spotlight. They're busy learning and doing stuff that matters. Beautiful people have little to do all day after that four hour session at the gym. So they go on E! So they show up on chat shows. So they go to gala premieres with vapid actresses.
Fame is very high maintenance, and for most smart people, it's not worth it.
Yeah, you know I'm pretty pissed off at Rolex. $1500 for a watch that does nothing more than a $10 Timex, and did you know that you can make a sundial to tell time for free?
I should feel justified stealing Rolexes from my local diamond shop because they don't offer enough for the money. Sheesh. Put an idiot in front of a computer and he thinks he's justified for whatever immoral thing he does, and right after claiming that filesharing WASN'T degrading the morals of today's youth.
You know how many hours I worked this week to perfect a single function in our program? 32 so far. One function, 32 hours at $25 per (in my defense, it is an important and complicated function). Now, extrapolate that to the entire program, made up of thousands of functions and 5+ man years of programming labor alone and you realize: "whoa, software am expensive." Comparing it to films and music was a good idea, because it takes about as much money to produce a good program as it does to produce a good movie. Niche programs can be produced for about the price of a studio album. Now, consider that the paying audience for software is at least 1/100th or much, much less than a movie. If a movie can bring in 10 million people, that's pretty good. Software will be lucky to see 100,000 people. Most software sells on the order of hundreds and tens of thousands of copies, and niche software may only sell a few dozen or a few hundred copies.
See my point? Takes as much effort as a movie. Has a much smaller core audience than a movie. So how do you keep a profit? You charge more. It doesn't matter if you WANT the market to be commodity based...if Microsoft wants Office to be $400, and Microsoft can SELL Office for $400 EVEN in the midst of FREE competition, then $400 is a fair price. You don't get to make that choice. You're free to buy from a competitor, but the fact remains: if you need, or want, something only Microsoft has, you'll have to pay $400 for it. Or you'll have to go without. Same as the Rolex.
The only thing that isn't fair here is you demanding software for less because, well, you don't want to pay that much. This isn't a car dealership. You don't get to haggle for software prices (well, call my boss and he'd "smooth something out," but you can't haggle our bare minimum). You certainly don't get to infringe on Microsoft's copyrights just because you're feeling stingy.
I have worked non-union construction jobs and I have to say: while you get more money, the long hours, no benefits and near slave demands made upon non-union employees would get really old really fast. When the union finally bullied its way into the job, I could see the differences immediately. They worked half as hard for half as long for 60% of the pay and three times the bennies. I wish there were a happy medium between slave labor/high wages and slack labor/good bennies. There was, during the Boom anyway...we worked hard for good pay and good bennies. Unfortunately, the dollar signs in the boss's eyes meant we sold our solid little performer to a big bloated startup, and everybody got the short end in the back side.
incorporate yourself...at least you can write off your cell, broadband, etc. at the end of the year as YOUR company expense...
No need for incorporation. If these things are required for your job but your employer won't pay for them, you can already write them off as business expenses. Incorporation is expensive and all it really gains for you is partial indemnification...so that if you screw up and get sued or file for bankrupcy, they can't take your house, just your business assets. Unless they realize you're a one man shop, and sue YOU instead of the corporation. I think there are also credit considerations...such as, I didn't pay a bill last year as my business, because they never delivered the goods (a full T1, I got a slower-than-cable fractional line). I am fairly sure that's a black mark on MY credit record (who cares, I've always paid my mortgage and loan payments on time, and it's worth the the hassle to keep those cheaters from $700). If I were incorporated, it wouldn't be on my credit report at all.
Incidentally, not paying for employee's telecommuting expenses is REALLY cheap. That money decreases the amount of taxes your company pays -- if you're profitable, the company (shareholders) will only see maybe a 30% savings of the total cost of these services. A pretty low margin for a major loss in goodwill. I'm unlikely to want to work after hours anyway. I'm even less likely if I've got to pay for it.
So use COMMAND-TAB (switch applications) and COMMAND-TILDE (switch windows within an application). When you can't access your virtual desktop manager, I mean. I *ALWAYS* have one hand on the mouse for doing layout and such, and I try to stay out of shell as much as possible since this isn't the stone age and I am not a caveman.
Oh, and just so this isn't flamebait -- my own opinion of shells does not mean that yours is invalid. I bought a Mac because I like the graphical user interface. I understand a lot of people know the CLI like the back of their hand and would never THINK of writing an AppleScript to do what they can already do in Perl. But I've also seen a lot of people swear at a poorly written regular expression that would be much more understandable -- and reusable -- as a Macro in BBEdit. More options does not mean more control, it just means you need to learn more before you can obtain control.
I dunno. Expose is fast enough on my wife's iBook. I color code my xterms if I have more than one open (otherwise I get lost anyway, Expose or no). Haven't used a Classic app in two years. And I can't abide fink...had WAY too much trouble getting anything to install okay. XFree86 has never worked on this machine, and after the fifth time mucking with it I realized there was nothing I could possibly want to do in XFree86 that was worth it.
And I agree...what a beginning programmer learns today is pretty paltry compared to the commercial fare. This is the fault of most programming teachers sticking young coders with the command line THEY learned in. Bullshit. Your first hello world program should be in C#, Visual Basic, Java or any of the dozens of other programs that let you access a windowing toolkit with a handful of commands. In fact, I'll bet the C# Hello World app is on par with in terms of complexity:You can make usable windows forms your first day coding in
The reason most computing classes start at the command line is that most computing teachers want you to learn basic syntax before getting caught up apocryphal API calls. But I think the rest of us could care less about pointers to pointers...we want to display nudie pics, damnit (System.Drawing.Graphics.DrawImage(fileName,X,Y))
Java also makes it very, very easy to access graphics (and in a cross platform manner as well). But I don't have a Java compiler in front of me
My PROBLEM is that i dont want to mess around finding my apps. Expose is simply too slow to use, i cannot find everything with a single click.
WHAT? THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT EXPOSE DOES -- SHOW/HIDE EVERYTHING WITH ONE CLICK.
F7: Find all windows for one app.
F8: Find all non-hidden, non minimized windows.
F9: Show desktop (Pushes all windows off to the sides).
One click for each. Hold down the button and you get mouse over selection, otherwise it's mouse click selection. You can remap the keys as is convenient (I map Expose All to the middle mouse button). And what's best -- all of your windows continue to update while Exposed. Damn useful. It means if I have Safari open full screen, and want to change the mp3 playing in iTunes in full screen, i press and hold the middle mouse button, mouse over itunes, let the button go. To get back to Safari, I do the same. This to me is the best aspects of click-to-highlight, mouse-over to highlight, virtual desktops and single desktops while utilizing existing hardware to perform new functionality.
What you're talking about -- granularly assigning arbitrary windows to a particular desktop set across applications -- is something new that expose can't do, this I'll grant you. It's also a very specific use. Most people's jobs are task oriented, not server oriented. Therefore, it makes sense for the desktop to be task oriented, to work with EVERYTHING you're doing, rather than spaces of work. And it also makes sense that a third party application which offers you a solution for your needs would be valuable.
But the default? I dunno about that. Most people don't want two desktops, let alone an arbitrary number of them. I *can* say that if Apple were to offer us a fourth programmable Expose button, one that would group arbitrary application windows visibility and placement, I'd definitely toy with it. But I imagine most of what I'd use that functionality for is already covered by the dashboard.
How the hell can something be both literal AND metaphorical?
This submitter sucks!
Both of these are explained. Godzilla's structure is altered by radiation and as such her abilities and indeed her size are in constant flux. Shit, she gets tired too. There aren't a lot of carbohydrates in the average building and she's globetrotting, killing everything in sight. Maybe she's hit the wall.
Users are like cattle
There's proactive prevention, and then there are greedy, self important grabs for power. Can you imagine if your HR director treated employees with the same respect you do?
"After carefully analyzing your opinions of other employees in posts on public forums, I have come to the conclusion that if I could save money by downsizing you and outsourcing your job to India, I would not wait until Friday to do so."
Good thing you posted anon.
Hey, got to pimp this degree in rhetoric somehow. If my only gift to the literary world is using accurate onomatopoeia on Slashdot, I've still contributed more of use than some writers.
Word. I hate motherfuckers who act like their technology makes them the bomb. People, it's your USE of technology that makes you the bomb. If you use your technology for nothing more than sensual candy, what good are you and what good is it?
I always hide my tech. My iPod remains stowed in my pocket and it's wrapped in a nonchalant black rubber case. Every time I see some twit shining his brand new 15 gig in the sun like "lookit me, i'm hip," I just want to punch him. My iPod has 10 gig of mp3s, two gig of pictures and an installation of Linux on it (not running Linux, mind you, it's a unit test for my webserver). I expect somebody to be interested in one of those. I don't expect them to be interested in the clean white headphones.
I remember one time I was at dinner when some fool started showing off his Tungsten. "Look, I can play a movie at 200x200, 10 frames per second in a special format!" Meanwhile, I had the first season of The Simpsons at NTSC quality on my Pocket PC, along with the source code to the programs I was working on at the time. I kept it in my pocket.
insecure Windows environment... am I being redundant
Sure you are. Many civil defense programs are Windows-only and very much closed source. Many have no hope of execution on WINE. However, the computers running said programs do not have to worry about malware, as they do not have access to the internet in the first place.
Typical heavy handed IT lunacy. You're making it harder to use a possibly essential device on a machine you didn't know might need it, creating more work for yourself while gaining little to no security, as potential theives would just go to a machine that didn't have USB disabled.
I've been subverting this type of network policy since second grade, and it's easy because it lulls you into a false sense of security. "I don't have to worry about X machine, I've locked it down!" Meanwhile, us grade school kids are running video games through the shell in WordPerfect.
Want a secure network? Stop with the locks and start with the spies. Befriend your users and make them your eyes and ears. Remind them not to trust anybody and help them identify suspicious activities. Most of all, make them care. That's tough to do. But unlike being an asshole, it actually works.
I haven't used CAD since Generic Level 3, but I imagine it would take quite a few floppies to store modern files. Perhaps this is their way of making sure that, if you do steal sensitive information, you can only steal 1,440,000 bytes of it.
Word. I've noticed a lot of people seem to think that corporate IT policy is a chance to get everyone to comply to their extreme viewpoints or get out of dodge; basically, to create a set of rules everybody will have to circumvent to get their jobs done, all in the hopes of being able to wag a finger and punish when things don't work out perfectly.
I've got a big problem with this. For one, it's an overstepping of power...this may not be "my network," but it sure as shit isn't yours, either. Does the janitor own the toilets he cleans out? Do I own the spaghetti code I have to wade through? Hell no. They're all part of a bigger organization: the company. And if you're alienating the rest of the company on a regular basis, you're going to discover some hefty resistance to your policies -- which is asking for trouble.
Want the perfect network policy? "Only you can prevent forest fires." Keep your users happy, keep them informed, don't make a mountain out of a molehill, admit your mistakes, ask for help and make strong suggestions. People watching people of their own free will is a much better way to prevent viruses, spyware and espionage then indemnifying yourself while the rest of the company is smugglying MuVos in their underpants.
Brings new meaning to the term "viral licensing."
*b'dum-chik*
You're joking, right?
.NET initiative in terms of confusing people?
.NET framework are you running? What version of studio .net and what version of the project files? Do you know the differences between the syntax of line end points between library version 1.0.3333 and 1.0.5000 (the library version used with Framework 1.1)? Have you checked your global assembly cache lately?
.NET is. I've been writing in it for two years and my boss still thinks it has something to do with the internet maybe. The versioning system is very complex and promises to be reminiscent of DLL hell. Each version of the Framework has wierd, subtle bugs that pop up at the strangest times...there's one with visual inheritance and the passing of alt-key mnemonic events in VB variables declared WithEvents that will probably keep us off of Framework 1.1 forever. Luckily for my support department, .NET (unlike Java) is designed to maintain compatibility with previous versions, not by keeping deprecated methods, but by keeping the old CLI and Framework on the machine when a new one's installed (at about 140 meg a pop).
.NET. The other number, 1.x, is the version number of the runtime or the compiler/sdk for the Java language. Java 1.5 competes with C#. How hard is that?
You're asking how sun can compete with Microsoft's
Tell me, what version of the
Shit man. Most people still don't even know what
Incidentally, Java 2 is the platform. Java 2 competes with
Wow, if that's insightful, I'll eat my hat.
First off, you get a lot more than "immediate gratification" when buying music off iTunes. You get the largest selection of music for immediate gratification -- . You don't have to pay HUGE CD store warehousing prices nor high online shipping costs. You also get the ability to buy a single song. A CD single will run you $5-$8. One track on iTunes is $1. That's a savings of 80%, a savings of 93% off the cost of buying the whole album and discovering it is shitty. Even buying the whole record at $10 is a big savings considering most records over a month old are $13-$18
Is it worth it, for the almost imperceptible drop in quality? Well, looking at things historically, people were willing to deal with the DRASTIC quality loss and format infexibility of cassette tapes in exchange for a 20-30% savings. AAC downloads keep about the same savings with much higher music quality while adding the "nuisance" of DRM that restricts you to only making 5 copies of a single playlist before having to copy all the songs in that playlist into another one. All iTunes songs have cover art embedded in them. And, depending on how you listen to your music, the iTMS may offer an even more convenient solution. I listen to all of my music on itunes or my ipod. When I buy a CD, first thing I do is rip all of the tracks off of it. I prefer the flexibility of having a jukebox to the (hardly definitive) precision of a CD. Usually, I'm listening at work, in the car, at the gym, etc, and can't be swapping CDs every time I want to listen to something different. So my CDs generally sit in a crate in my listening room, silently hoping someday I'll want to audition them in earnest.
Furthermore, nobody INVITES DRM. They tolerate it. In the same way we tolerate cameras at a department store. It is not that big a deal, unless you are a pirate or a hacker. If you are a pirate or a hacker, it's only a mild nuissance, so it's still not that big a deal. So who cares?
I'd say it's really more an issue of quality versus bandwidth. Apple's close to 100 millions songs downloaded. If they had used 192 kbit instead of 128 kbit, it would have taken an additional 100 terrabytes of transfer and another 22 terrabytes of storage for their 700,000 song collection. Maybe not that big a deal, but it surely would have cut into their already slim margins for an almost imperceptible quality different. 128 kbit AAC is not "crappy," it doesn't cause cymbal shudder like 128k MP3 nor does it destroy the overall dynamics in complex passages. It's less like 8-tracks to CD then it is like digital casette to CD. It's not ideal...but is it worth an additional $.10? I don't think it is...especially when the marketing for their music player relies on the "128 kbit is good enough for everyone" paradigm.
Maybe if rhapsody starts really competing, they'll ramp up their bitrates. Until then, I think it's unlikely.
Not if somebody else installed the machine for you. Like my friend who built my first one. Or the other members of the MIS committee at work.