By hourly break, i meant lunch or a cigarette or a quick email check whatever. Not anOTHer break... then it just gets a bit silly...
Anyway, nobody codes nonstop. If you try for more than a couple of hours you just tune out and stare blankly at your screen thinking about something else.
When you come back after 5 minutes you get straight back into it. When I said take up smoking, I was joking, obviously; but some other displacement activity would be just as good. If I found another one I might give up.
I hate to say this, but sometimes it is the answer.
I've seen a number of projects (mainly large scale eb dev) at my company and others where unrealistic deadlines are met by long hours.
In my average 8hr day, i probably take 1/2 hour lunch, surf and check email for maybe an hour, and smoke for 1/2 an hour. That leaves 6 hours to work, with a break at least once per hour.
Of those 6 hours, at least 1, probably 2 hours will be meetings. You can kind of count that as a break.
Now, when crunch time comes and I start working 14hr days, I generally find that the ratio of work/slack stays the same. The quality of code isn't noticably affected - same #lines/hour, and about the same proportion ripped up in code review.
I do find I'm dead at the end of the day, and 1 day a week off is essential. But... if you take regular breaks and don't burn yourself up, working longer hours is good.
So, kids, the moral of the story is... if you have to work more than 10 hours a day, start smoking.
I'll just quickly reiterate my other answer to this. If you're trying to do proper DTP stuff, use Quark. It was made for it. If you're trying to update a legal doc and write at 100wpm and not have it automatically do stuff, fine, use WP. If you're trying to quickly produce a document (like 99% of people actually are) use word. And get used to it. Bitch.
Yes, I'm sure if you know your way around the 15 function keys, and understand how to read the control codes then WP is lovely to use. I don't... I find Word easy enough to use, they keep adding features that get around my problems (e.g. format painter), and after a while, you come to understand why it's doing what it's doing... you empathise. Well, some of the time anyway.
I guess my point is that Word is easy and friendly if you're NOT a 90wpm legal sec, but someone who does a different job but still needs to knock out the occasional half-decent document.
Oh, and you can undo anything that word helpfully (bless it) tries to do for you. Ctrl-Z undoes first word's attempts at helpfulness, and then whatever you last did.
Watch me disappear beneath the waves of ACs now for having actually stood up for microsoft...
And what exactly are they going to build? Swamps where all the Jedis can get together and learn the ways of the force?
Personally, if they did build a monument to Jedi-dom I'd be happy, and I'd definitely visit. I think it would serve a real purpose in terms of raising awareness about the modern attitude to religion, and would also be a superb day out with the kids:)
Let 'em build it, the last thing we need is another bloody Catholic church.
So, despite the fact that the open source movement is a baby bird that can barely fly, already the infighting begins. Why on earth are people criticising redhat (who have made many contributions to the stability and usability of Linux? Shouldn't they be working on getting something that 99% of the population don't freak out over?? Ah well, I guess it's inevitable. Someone smelt money in opensource and so the crappy politicking starts. My opinion : This isn't news, it's pulp journo-jism. Slashdot editors - do you have to throw this rubbish in our faces?
from Chronic Logic, you have the superb 1 man (i think) effort, Pontifex. (Sounds like crap but play it... it's so much more fun than it sounds!)
And another one that made./ a while back (which probably whacked their sales up 400%) - Introversion's Uplink... Not so good, but minimal dev team and zero marketing (except for the viral kind...).
It can still be done. It just takes a bit of luck, some real dedication and a decent game before you actually get noticed.
You're missing the much-stated (perhaps 5 times on 5 different pages) condition that code to be executed on a given machine has to be compiled on that machine.
Which will certainly lead to a hell of a long install for the office suite...
No, because as he said in the article... There are 6 different rendering engines for different cards, but they all do the same thing, only at differing resolutions.
The big point he made (which I like a lot) was that he wants it to look the same on any hardware. So your flashy new effects aren't going to be used... but at least it's consistent.
And I expect the xbox will be able to cope. Well, in 320x200 at 8bit colour anyway:)
btw does anybody know how well cg aligns with what he's talking about - higher level apis by which you just specify what you want done and get the card to do it in whichever way is best? From what I know this isn't even close to cg (or is it gc..?), so he's wandering off on his own by the looks of things.
So, firstly if you're a terrorist aware that your brain may be scanned, you'll smoke a spliff. Or meditate. Secondly, if you're nervous about having your brain scanned, you'll get more nervous and end up getting cavity searched.
It's like the arguments on spam mail yesterday - terrorists can adapt to terrorist filters pretty easily, and this is CERTAINLY not a 0 false positives scenario.
Yeah. The only reason people made text-based games was because they couldn't do graphics.
It's the same with books and films. Now that we can do cool special effects in films, no-one bothers writing novels anymore.
Right.
Re:Give me some targetted marketing
on
Slashdot Updates
·
· Score: 1
I think there's a business problem here.
Advertisers pay for a number of views. If the number of people who want to see the ad is tiny, then (admittedly they chose the wrong place to advertise, but) they won't get their number of placements, and slashdot wont get the dollars.
Though I guess there are workarounds. If there are ad placements available in categories you've specified then you get your preferred ads. Otherwise you get the default.
The question then is how much effect it would actually have on the ads you see, and how you decide what ads to give when more than one is available. Someone who understands the business model behind advertising should adress this i guess! (Or perhaps this is slashdot's opportunity to make a working, targetted model that both advertisers and readers like... though good luck...)
Having such a portal also act as a download point for small independant artists is a great idea - taking the business model of things like WorldPay (who manage online transactions/orders for countless small companies who want an ecommerce front) makes this almost certainly viable, and by linking to mainstream record labels' downloads directly, there's no reason it shouldn't be the first stop.
This kind of phenomenon is not uncommon already - if you want to buy a rare book, then chances are amazon has it. If not, you google it and find that small site that stocks it.
All that will happen is that some enterprising guy will set up a meta-shop where you go and enter whatever criteria you like (name, genre etc), and it'll go off and search all the record stores out there. If it isn't on X label, it's on Y instead.
The net result is that if people WANT the broader range that isn't provided by the label-specific sites, then someone will come along and fill the void.
Don't panic, people, the internet is more powerful than that; it'll take more than a record label trying to be restrictive to halt the information flood.
I work at a consultancy that provides technology solutions, and from my experience, if you want people to actually use something, you need to do a lot more than just code it.
You need (among other things) an understanding of your users (this was covered in more detail here) and the way they think, a proper direction (no point doing stuff that no-one will use) and so on. Thought leadership may sound like verbal wankage, but if they get you in the news, get you addressing the right issues, get you more generally understood and recognised, then you're on to a winner.
Of course, if they try to take credit for it all, and then go ahead and make millions from their status as open-source movement leader, then you've either got to condemn them or think 'I wish I'd done that'...
Disclaimer : As i said, i work for a consultancy. Therefore most of what I say is bullshit. Oh well
Either browse with irritating ads for free, or visit the same site minus the ads, provided you end up paying the same as the site would have made from showing you the ads?
In fact, why don't we get adserver to manage this? if you have a cookie (or whatever) then when a site links to an ad, it'll be ignored or replaced by a 1pix gif for the same charge?
Slashdot Mirror
By hourly break, i meant lunch or a cigarette or a quick email check whatever. Not anOTHer break... then it just gets a bit silly...
Anyway, nobody codes nonstop. If you try for more than a couple of hours you just tune out and stare blankly at your screen thinking about something else.
When you come back after 5 minutes you get straight back into it. When I said take up smoking, I was joking, obviously; but some other displacement activity would be just as good. If I found another one I might give up.
6/8 = 0.75
0.75 * 14 = 10.5
can you say algebra?
It's not a troll. It's not the full story either.
Obviously working that amount of time for long periods isn't possible. We're talking deadlines only here - a month max.
And I want holiday in lieu. Preferably a paid weekend trip somewhere sunny.
And a pay rise, for dealing with it all so calmly.
I hate to say this, but sometimes it is the answer.
I've seen a number of projects (mainly large scale eb dev) at my company and others where unrealistic deadlines are met by long hours.
In my average 8hr day, i probably take 1/2 hour lunch, surf and check email for maybe an hour, and smoke for 1/2 an hour. That leaves 6 hours to work, with a break at least once per hour.
Of those 6 hours, at least 1, probably 2 hours will be meetings. You can kind of count that as a break.
Now, when crunch time comes and I start working 14hr days, I generally find that the ratio of work/slack stays the same. The quality of code isn't noticably affected - same #lines/hour, and about the same proportion ripped up in code review.
I do find I'm dead at the end of the day, and 1 day a week off is essential. But... if you take regular breaks and don't burn yourself up, working longer hours is good.
So, kids, the moral of the story is... if you have to work more than 10 hours a day, start smoking.
I'll just quickly reiterate my other answer to this.
If you're trying to do proper DTP stuff, use Quark. It was made for it.
If you're trying to update a legal doc and write at 100wpm and not have it automatically do stuff, fine, use WP.
If you're trying to quickly produce a document (like 99% of people actually are) use word.
And get used to it. Bitch.
Ever try resizing text in columns in Word?
No, I use Quark for DTP (which curiously despite lack of control codes is still superbly usable and industry standard for publishing...)
Yes, I'm sure if you know your way around the 15 function keys, and understand how to read the control codes then WP is lovely to use.
I don't... I find Word easy enough to use, they keep adding features that get around my problems (e.g. format painter), and after a while, you come to understand why it's doing what it's doing... you empathise. Well, some of the time anyway.
I guess my point is that Word is easy and friendly if you're NOT a 90wpm legal sec, but someone who does a different job but still needs to knock out the occasional half-decent document.
Oh, and you can undo anything that word helpfully (bless it) tries to do for you. Ctrl-Z undoes first word's attempts at helpfulness, and then whatever you last did.
Watch me disappear beneath the waves of ACs now for having actually stood up for microsoft...
And what exactly are they going to build? Swamps where all the Jedis can get together and learn the ways of the force?
:)
Personally, if they did build a monument to Jedi-dom I'd be happy, and I'd definitely visit. I think it would serve a real purpose in terms of raising awareness about the modern attitude to religion, and would also be a superb day out with the kids
Let 'em build it, the last thing we need is another bloody Catholic church.
Yep, 6am in the REAL GMT area too. And obviously, being a brit it's gotta be strong tea all night long :-)
So, despite the fact that the open source movement is a baby bird that can barely fly, already the infighting begins.
Why on earth are people criticising redhat (who have made many contributions to the stability and usability of Linux? Shouldn't they be working on getting something that 99% of the population don't freak out over??
Ah well, I guess it's inevitable. Someone smelt money in opensource and so the crappy politicking starts.
My opinion : This isn't news, it's pulp journo-jism. Slashdot editors - do you have to throw this rubbish in our faces?
from Chronic Logic, you have the superb 1 man (i think) effort, Pontifex. (Sounds like crap but play it... it's so much more fun than it sounds!) ./ a while back (which probably whacked their sales up 400%) - Introversion's Uplink... Not so good, but minimal dev team and zero marketing (except for the viral kind...).
And another one that made
It can still be done. It just takes a bit of luck, some real dedication and a decent game before you actually get noticed.
You're missing the much-stated (perhaps 5 times on 5 different pages) condition that code to be executed on a given machine has to be compiled on that machine.
Which will certainly lead to a hell of a long install for the office suite...
No, because as he said in the article... There are 6 different rendering engines for different cards, but they all do the same thing, only at differing resolutions.
:)
The big point he made (which I like a lot) was that he wants it to look the same on any hardware. So your flashy new effects aren't going to be used... but at least it's consistent.
And I expect the xbox will be able to cope. Well, in 320x200 at 8bit colour anyway
btw does anybody know how well cg aligns with what he's talking about - higher level apis by which you just specify what you want done and get the card to do it in whichever way is best? From what I know this isn't even close to cg (or is it gc..?), so he's wandering off on his own by the looks of things.
So, firstly if you're a terrorist aware that your brain may be scanned, you'll smoke a spliff. Or meditate.
Secondly, if you're nervous about having your brain scanned, you'll get more nervous and end up getting cavity searched.
It's like the arguments on spam mail yesterday - terrorists can adapt to terrorist filters pretty easily, and this is CERTAINLY not a 0 false positives scenario.
Yeah. The only reason people made text-based games was because they couldn't do graphics.
It's the same with books and films. Now that we can do cool special effects in films, no-one bothers writing novels anymore.
Right.
I think there's a business problem here.
Advertisers pay for a number of views. If the number of people who want to see the ad is tiny, then (admittedly they chose the wrong place to advertise, but) they won't get their number of placements, and slashdot wont get the dollars.
Though I guess there are workarounds. If there are ad placements available in categories you've specified then you get your preferred ads. Otherwise you get the default.
The question then is how much effect it would actually have on the ads you see, and how you decide what ads to give when more than one is available. Someone who understands the business model behind advertising should adress this i guess! (Or perhaps this is slashdot's opportunity to make a working, targetted model that both advertisers and readers like... though good luck...)
Still 2, it just takes longer to interpret...
I meant the latter.
;)
Having such a portal also act as a download point for small independant artists is a great idea - taking the business model of things like WorldPay (who manage online transactions/orders for countless small companies who want an ecommerce front) makes this almost certainly viable, and by linking to mainstream record labels' downloads directly, there's no reason it shouldn't be the first stop.
Thanks for taking the idea one step further
Now lets go get some VC...
This kind of phenomenon is not uncommon already - if you want to buy a rare book, then chances are amazon has it. If not, you google it and find that small site that stocks it.
All that will happen is that some enterprising guy will set up a meta-shop where you go and enter whatever criteria you like (name, genre etc), and it'll go off and search all the record stores out there. If it isn't on X label, it's on Y instead.
The net result is that if people WANT the broader range that isn't provided by the label-specific sites, then someone will come along and fill the void.
Don't panic, people, the internet is more powerful than that; it'll take more than a record label trying to be restrictive to halt the information flood.
'Switch to Torture leash'
'Tie Cow to web site'
'Back'
'View Document Source'
'Cast fireball on source'
Hah! your website has come to believe in my browser! I now have control over your animated monkey gif.
That means, if you add the 75 seconds for windows to boot, you get... oh. about same as it was.
Sounds terrible...
For example, almost every slashdot page links to Goatse.cx more than 20 times...
I work at a consultancy that provides technology solutions, and from my experience, if you want people to actually use something, you need to do a lot more than just code it.
You need (among other things) an understanding of your users (this was covered in more detail here) and the way they think, a proper direction (no point doing stuff that no-one will use) and so on. Thought leadership may sound like verbal wankage, but if they get you in the news, get you addressing the right issues, get you more generally understood and recognised, then you're on to a winner.
Of course, if they try to take credit for it all, and then go ahead and make millions from their status as open-source movement leader, then you've either got to condemn them or think 'I wish I'd done that'...
Disclaimer : As i said, i work for a consultancy. Therefore most of what I say is bullshit. Oh well
Either browse with irritating ads for free, or visit the same site minus the ads, provided you end up paying the same as the site would have made from showing you the ads?
In fact, why don't we get adserver to manage this? if you have a cookie (or whatever) then when a site links to an ad, it'll be ignored or replaced by a 1pix gif for the same charge?
Let the people decide!