Slashdot will always be your site in my eyes, and in many ways it's shaped my career. While I can't say I've visited nearly as often in the past few years, when I do I always get nostalgic as soon as the green and white appears.
Thank you for creating and maintaining a the best place for intelligent geek discussion for so many years.
I'm in Hoboken which is densely populated. I had the lowest end cablevision package (part of a stupid "triple play" bundle). When the pricing expired on the triple play I canceled all 3 and opened a business line in order to get an SLA and a static IP address (and in order to ditch cable tv).
Without exception both services have been my most pleasant broadband experience. Just now (8pm locally) I got 12.08mbps down, 2.0mbps up. I can't recall the last outage I had.
Thanks Rob & the entire slashdot crew. I've been around, mostly lurking, since long before user accounts. Professionally, I've "grown up" with slashdot, and it's shaped a lot of my career, solved a lot of problems, and of course provided a dependable distraction. Other sites have come and gone (and as you allude to, some probably have staying power and many probably have features worth "stealing from"), but at the end of the day I'll keep refreshing/.
I have a CS degree from a state university that's not especially known for it's CS department.
I graduated in 2000 and didn't find the degree to be a hinderance at all. Granted this was at the tail of the bubble, but I was hired ahead of a Purdue and a U-Wisconsin graduate, both of which I'd consider to have far superior programs.
Why? First, because I interviewed well. I was able to interact with my future bosses and coworkers, I didn't lie on my resume, and I was eager to learn. Second, because I had relevent experience gained while I was a student. I found that working as a programmer for the campus IT department 15 hours/week and volunteering as a lead sysadmin for a student government / organization webserver to be far more relevent to the job then anything I learned in class.
Since that first job, I've found references and contacts to be the key to getting other interviews and offers. I don't feel like a state-U degree hurt me at all; college is what you make of it so learn to socialize, volunteer or take a part time job relevent to the field you want to work in, and concentrate on getting a good broad education. Take liberal arts classes and business classes, etc.
Last fall I bought an Infocus X1 and love it. I built a 16x9 "screen" using blackout cloth (again, AVS Forum for plans) and rarely go to the movies any more. I have a ~100" diagonal screen and things look phenomenal.
Some people will warn of rainbows with a lower end DLP projector; no one who has seen mine has had a problem, but it'd be worth checking out first. There are also sub-$1000 LCD projectors to be had.
Once I had a room to dedicate to home theater I started looking for an affordable upgrade to the 32" TV I had been watching on.
I bought an Infocus X1 a few months ago and have been amazed. It's nearly identical to the Screenplay 4800 reviewed in the article (some software/settings tweaks and extra cables for your few hundred bucks extra for the 4800).
I bought the X1 after seeing glowing reviews on AVS Forums. There are a number of good entry level choices in the projector market now. I did make sure I bought from a place with no restocking fees, as I was worried about rainbows (X1 has a 2x color wheel and some fraction of people seem to be sensitive to them, it's a potential problem with any low end DLP)... I can see rainbows if I try, but they haven't bothered any of the 15 or so people who've watched movies on my X1.
Once I got it home & set up, I was amazed... You have to have some level of light control in your viewing area, but it's such a huge difference... I've seen only 2 movies in the theater since I got the projector... I'm projecting a ~90" diagonal 16:9 screen (note the X1/4800 is natively 4:3, but scales fine to 16:9). DVDs are spectacular, 4 player split screen Gamecube is a lot of fun (vs. squinting at your little corner of the 32" tv).
Not sure why anyone spends the $$ on a big screen CRT/FPTV/RPTV anymore. I've already converted two coworkers to projectors (an X1 & a Z1).
Now, if anyone has an easy DIY screen I can get rid of this bed sheet nailed to the ceiling in my basement....
I'm still here too. Mostly just read, though... I remember there being a lot of threats about leaving when the moderation system was young, maybe people followed through?
Cooking has obviously been around in some form for ages, and the technology behind it has evolved some... What in your opionion are the most important recent (10 years? 20 years?) innovations in the art/science of cooking? What are the worst?
On business plans -- I guess I haven't been paying attention, but are any of the commercial radio station webcasts still advertising? I remember the blow up a few months ago when advertisers quit paying, so a number of stations cut off broadcasts. Has the RIAA nonsense complicated this?
On the parent comment -- how does this royalty paid to RIAA ever benefit the artists? I know you state you're no fan of the RIAA, but how does any of that money actually make it to the artists?
At my last job, I set up PHP Nuke, mainly as a way to give myself a decent looking place to post downtime announcements and links/downloads. It was "informally" marketed as a repository for relevent project information, but almost noone used it. I suspect it could have worked all right (would have few enough "stories" that it's not like stuff would scroll off the page too quickly), but there would have had to have been a lot more grassroots support, people using it every day.
As it was I think I had one developer who regularly posted things, and most who either didn't check it, or only read it when I sent out an email announcing downtime and pointing at the page for more information.
Something like Everything2 would be nice, but (correct me if I'm wrong), you kind of rely on people building up the links to disparate nodes/topics. As a place to store notes/information/real details about particular topics it seems like it might be a bit lacking.
The only other solutions I'm personally familiar with are basically simple cgi scripts that append notes to a flat file and display it. I use something like that for sysadmin notes as it's better then a text file, but that's about the best endorsement I can give it....
I'd be interested to see what something like php nuke or slash could do if you had support in a small company to use it.
I assume the original poster is talking about his 401(k) retirement account... A US retirement savings plan. Not $410,000 which I'm sure I could stretch into at least 8 months (:
And it does sound (read:appear) like the guy sucks at searching. If he/she doesn't know how to search for socks, without searching for protocols ("socks -protocol -socket -proxy") - then yes, it does sound like they suck at searching.
Someone moderate this guy up as funny...
Then tell my mom that if she wants to search for socks she has to be aware of the fact that the term is also used in geek-speak, and should therefore use boolean search terms to filter out some likely keywords... After all, we wouldn't want non-geeks using search engines effectively.
Funny Drew Carey quote from a rerun I saw recently...
Drew: "Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that... It's called 'Everyone', they meet at the bar"
I guess I've been lucky so far. I got my CS degree last May and went to work for a software company as an admin/developer, and am really enjoying it... I won't say I'd rather sit here at the office working then laying on a beach in Jamaica, but I also wouldn't say I hate my job... Cool coworkers, understanding boss, availability of diversions, etc, go a long way...
While I think anyone who uses their machine for more then a home workstation ought to be able to./configure/make/makeinstall and understand what's going on, I wouldn't condemn package managers or blame them for people not knowning how to move/copy/rename files... Linux on the desktop probably needs better package management (hopefully rpm 4 will combine the best of rpm and debian)...Making programs easy to install isn't a bad thing.
"too"? What other band is doing this? Just cuz slashdot writes it as a headline doesn't mean you shouldn't read the story.
That being said, I think it's funny. Ban me from/., but I've never really supported the way napster is used by 95% of the people. I dislike record companies manipulation of artists more, but two wrongs don't make a right in this case.
. College makes you aware of how much you DON'T know, and that many things you DON't know are potentially important.
This hits the nail on the head. I came out of college aware of how much I didn't know, and with the background to know how to learn it. I firmly believe that an undergraduate degree teaches you to learn. If that degree happens to be CS, it teaches you theory and gives you a framework into which you can plug new ideas and technologies.
I believe that my degree (a BA in CS with a minor in Business) helped me get my job. I'm a systems administrator in a company that is paying me very well and giving me the opportunity to expand my knowledge by attending training, getting certifications, taking classes, playing with new technologies, etc. I just don't see my peers who dropped out to be web monkeys or whatever getting these types of opportunities, and I don't see them surviving should the market come crashing down.
All that being said, a lot of this is totally individual. I sat in on an interview with a recent graduate completely and utterly convinced he knew everything, yet unable to demonstrate anything. This was, I believe, due to his personality... I'm sure he believed he knew everything in grade school as well.
Go to college. Learn how to learn, learn what you don't know, socialize, find out what you really want to do, meet people who want to do other things, drink, stay up late, cram... I wouldn't trade my 4 years of college for anything.
Slashdot Mirror
So, is there a separate thread for old timers?
Obviously a ton has changed, but I have fond memories of slashdot and credit it's consistent quality for a lot of my career progress!
Happy birthday slashdot!
Happy birthday slashdot. I can't believe it's been 15 years.
Slashdot will always be your site in my eyes, and in many ways it's shaped my career. While I can't say I've visited nearly as often in the past few years, when I do I always get nostalgic as soon as the green and white appears.
Thank you for creating and maintaining a the best place for intelligent geek discussion for so many years.
Best of luck!
I'm in Hoboken which is densely populated. I had the lowest end cablevision package (part of a stupid "triple play" bundle). When the pricing expired on the triple play I canceled all 3 and opened a business line in order to get an SLA and a static IP address (and in order to ditch cable tv).
Without exception both services have been my most pleasant broadband experience. Just now (8pm locally) I got 12.08mbps down, 2.0mbps up. I can't recall the last outage I had.
Thanks Rob & the entire slashdot crew. I've been around, mostly lurking, since long before user accounts. Professionally, I've "grown up" with slashdot, and it's shaped a lot of my career, solved a lot of problems, and of course provided a dependable distraction. Other sites have come and gone (and as you allude to, some probably have staying power and many probably have features worth "stealing from"), but at the end of the day I'll keep refreshing /.
I have a CS degree from a state university that's not especially known for it's CS department.
I graduated in 2000 and didn't find the degree to be a hinderance at all. Granted this was at the tail of the bubble, but I was hired ahead of a Purdue and a U-Wisconsin graduate, both of which I'd consider to have far superior programs.
Why? First, because I interviewed well. I was able to interact with my future bosses and coworkers, I didn't lie on my resume, and I was eager to learn. Second, because I had relevent experience gained while I was a student. I found that working as a programmer for the campus IT department 15 hours/week and volunteering as a lead sysadmin for a student government / organization webserver to be far more relevent to the job then anything I learned in class.
Since that first job, I've found references and contacts to be the key to getting other interviews and offers. I don't feel like a state-U degree hurt me at all; college is what you make of it so learn to socialize, volunteer or take a part time job relevent to the field you want to work in, and concentrate on getting a good broad education. Take liberal arts classes and business classes, etc.
Indeed, AVSForum will answer all your questions.
Last fall I bought an Infocus X1 and love it. I built a 16x9 "screen" using blackout cloth (again, AVS Forum for plans) and rarely go to the movies any more. I have a ~100" diagonal screen and things look phenomenal.
Some people will warn of rainbows with a lower end DLP projector; no one who has seen mine has had a problem, but it'd be worth checking out first. There are also sub-$1000 LCD projectors to be had.
Anways, for the 3rd time go to avsforum (:
Once I had a room to dedicate to home theater I started looking for an affordable upgrade to the 32" TV I had been watching on.
I bought an Infocus X1 a few months ago and have been amazed. It's nearly identical to the Screenplay 4800 reviewed in the article (some software/settings tweaks and extra cables for your few hundred bucks extra for the 4800).
I bought the X1 after seeing glowing reviews on AVS Forums. There are a number of good entry level choices in the projector market now. I did make sure I bought from a place with no restocking fees, as I was worried about rainbows (X1 has a 2x color wheel and some fraction of people seem to be sensitive to them, it's a potential problem with any low end DLP)... I can see rainbows if I try, but they haven't bothered any of the 15 or so people who've watched movies on my X1.
Once I got it home & set up, I was amazed... You have to have some level of light control in your viewing area, but it's such a huge difference... I've seen only 2 movies in the theater since I got the projector... I'm projecting a ~90" diagonal 16:9 screen (note the X1/4800 is natively 4:3, but scales fine to 16:9). DVDs are spectacular, 4 player split screen Gamecube is a lot of fun (vs. squinting at your little corner of the 32" tv).
Not sure why anyone spends the $$ on a big screen CRT/FPTV/RPTV anymore. I've already converted two coworkers to projectors (an X1 & a Z1).
Now, if anyone has an easy DIY screen I can get rid of this bed sheet nailed to the ceiling in my basement....
Perhaps they just need more subscribers? (:
I'm still here too. Mostly just read, though... I remember there being a lot of threats about leaving when the moderation system was young, maybe people followed through?
Or they just forgot their passwords...
Cooking has obviously been around in some form for ages, and the technology behind it has evolved some... What in your opionion are the most important recent (10 years? 20 years?) innovations in the art/science of cooking? What are the worst?
On business plans -- I guess I haven't been paying attention, but are any of the commercial radio station webcasts still advertising? I remember the blow up a few months ago when advertisers quit paying, so a number of stations cut off broadcasts. Has the RIAA nonsense complicated this?
On the parent comment -- how does this royalty paid to RIAA ever benefit the artists? I know you state you're no fan of the RIAA, but how does any of that money actually make it to the artists?
At my last job, I set up PHP Nuke, mainly as a way to give myself a decent looking place to post downtime announcements and links/downloads. It was "informally" marketed as a repository for relevent project information, but almost noone used it. I suspect it could have worked all right (would have few enough "stories" that it's not like stuff would scroll off the page too quickly), but there would have had to have been a lot more grassroots support, people using it every day.
As it was I think I had one developer who regularly posted things, and most who either didn't check it, or only read it when I sent out an email announcing downtime and pointing at the page for more information.
Something like Everything2 would be nice, but (correct me if I'm wrong), you kind of rely on people building up the links to disparate nodes/topics. As a place to store notes/information/real details about particular topics it seems like it might be a bit lacking.
The only other solutions I'm personally familiar with are basically simple cgi scripts that append notes to a flat file and display it. I use something like that for sysadmin notes as it's better then a text file, but that's about the best endorsement I can give it....
I'd be interested to see what something like php nuke or slash could do if you had support in a small company to use it.
I assume the original poster is talking about his 401(k) retirement account... A US retirement savings plan. Not $410,000 which I'm sure I could stretch into at least 8 months (:
Congratulations to both of you!
and people wonder why most of the original /.'ers have left.
And it does sound (read:appear) like the guy sucks at searching. If he/she doesn't know how to search for socks, without searching for protocols ("socks -protocol -socket -proxy") - then yes, it does sound like they suck at searching.
Someone moderate this guy up as funny...
Then tell my mom that if she wants to search for socks she has to be aware of the fact that the term is also used in geek-speak, and should therefore use boolean search terms to filter out some likely keywords... After all, we wouldn't want non-geeks using search engines effectively.
Funny Drew Carey quote from a rerun I saw recently...
Drew: "Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that... It's called 'Everyone', they meet at the bar"
I guess I've been lucky so far. I got my CS degree last May and went to work for a software company as an admin/developer, and am really enjoying it... I won't say I'd rather sit here at the office working then laying on a beach in Jamaica, but I also wouldn't say I hate my job... Cool coworkers, understanding boss, availability of diversions, etc, go a long way...
You'd wonder seeing as I can't even properly use a '<' in my post.
That's it, "delete from users where user_id180000" Hmmm.... wonder how many users over 18k have mod privleges? (:
Hmmm, and I thought you had to buy windows to use their update.
And no one says that Redhat's update services is exclusively paid.
and I don't deny that I didn't use RPMs
./configure/make/makeinstall and understand what's going on, I wouldn't condemn package managers or blame them for people not knowning how to move/copy/rename files... Linux on the desktop probably needs better package management (hopefully rpm 4 will combine the best of rpm and debian)...Making programs easy to install isn't a bad thing.
Now that we have that cleared up (:
While I think anyone who uses their machine for more then a home workstation ought to be able to
"too"? What other band is doing this? Just cuz slashdot writes it as a headline doesn't mean you shouldn't read the story.
/., but I've never really supported the way napster is used by 95% of the people. I dislike record companies manipulation of artists more, but two wrongs don't make a right in this case.
That being said, I think it's funny. Ban me from
The saying is
"Eat your cake and have it too"
It makes a lot more sense when you think about it (:
And isn't it "capish"?
. College makes you aware of how much you DON'T know, and that many things you DON't know are potentially important.
This hits the nail on the head. I came out of college aware of how much I didn't know, and with the background to know how to learn it. I firmly believe that an undergraduate degree teaches you to learn. If that degree happens to be CS, it teaches you theory and gives you a framework into which you can plug new ideas and technologies.
I believe that my degree (a BA in CS with a minor in Business) helped me get my job. I'm a systems administrator in a company that is paying me very well and giving me the opportunity to expand my knowledge by attending training, getting certifications, taking classes, playing with new technologies, etc. I just don't see my peers who dropped out to be web monkeys or whatever getting these types of opportunities, and I don't see them surviving should the market come crashing down.
All that being said, a lot of this is totally individual. I sat in on an interview with a recent graduate completely and utterly convinced he knew everything, yet unable to demonstrate anything. This was, I believe, due to his personality... I'm sure he believed he knew everything in grade school as well.
Go to college. Learn how to learn, learn what you don't know, socialize, find out what you really want to do, meet people who want to do other things, drink, stay up late, cram... I wouldn't trade my 4 years of college for anything.