The telecomms slaughter just caught up with my office. 40 engineers hit the local market. Two of us (at last count) have found new jobs. I was lucky to land a job that had been on the market for months. Not because they couldn't find anyone to fill it, but because they could pick and choose applicants and just turn them down until they got the one they wanted. I know this for a fact, because they've (to date) rejected three of my coworkers, two good developers and one really ace guy (I was lucky!).
The salary at my new employer is the same as my old one (which was frozen for 2 years), with minimal benefits and the quite honest disclosure that the company will be gone in two years, either gone titsup, or stripped and the technology sold. The only upside is the promised stock options, but this has turned out to be a scam: nobody there has received any for a year. At this salary, I have had once again had to delay starting any kind of pension provision or investment. After six years in the tech sector, and as a non-smoker, non-drinker with no kids or vices or expensive hobbies and a small mortage (£40k ~= $60K outstanding), this does not bode well for social security in the UK.
Note that this was one of perhaps three tech job going in my city (of a million people) at the moment. You think I'm exaggerating? Think again. I was told (via my agent) that the salary (less than I had asked for) was a final offer, and that if I didn't like it, I was welcome to look elsewhere. The current employees are all top developers, and are being treated like shit, with no raises or the promised stock options, simply because the company plans to not be employing them by the time they can get other jobs.
And yet, for all this, I still feel lucky, because I'm still in employment, and most of my ex-colleagues aren't. However, I'm increasingly inclined to think that software development is a mug's game. The only people that make money at it are the guys in suits, and perhaps one or two tech leads that are lucky enough to be in at the very beginning of one of the 10% of startups that actually survive. For the rest of us, it's going to be a lifetime of two-years working, six months unemployed (if we're lucky), and salaries that - averaged over the hours we actually have to work - really aren't anything special. For example, I'd make more money pro-rata leading a sales-weasel team in PC World, or more money in absolute terms as a train driver.
Anyone else thinking of a career switch? I certainly am.
Sure, we all hate ads. But when you're actually in the market to buy stuff, wouldn't you rather have relevant ads?
Instead of bitching about the mendacity (they're a.com!) the chilling implications for privacy (oh no, I bought Dianne Wynn Jones, J.K. Rowling'll kick my arse!) or the fucked up patent system (tell your elected representative, we already know), could we not rub our collective brain cells together and try and come up with ways to make this work for our benefit?
For example, more optional steering. Instead of just dumb feeding of ads, why not use the interactivety for mutual benefit? What if there were a little button beside each ad, saying "Not interested" (you don't need an "interested", that's the clickthrough). That way you could at least tell them about ads that actively piss you off (X10?) so that they're not just burning bandwidth. Anyone got any other ideas?
That's a vile thought. People catching on that the War on Drugs is mostly a way of keeping a paramilitary militia active? Declare a War on Terror! Uh oh, those damn Christ-killing liberal media bitches are daring to ask what the actual connection is between fundamentalist Al Quada and the secular regime in Iraq. What can we demonize next?
Pirates are pretty scary, right? And Joe Sixpack hates Poindexters, and everyone that burns CD's is a Poindexter, right?
Let's have a War on Copying.
It's such a vile thought that it's almost certainly true.
Will we stop accepting whiny submissions from sad Everwhores who bitch about how much they hate the game and how much it sucks, then sign themselves "Level 99 Goober-snitch". This isn't about Everquest, it's about a sad, lonely person who hates that they have no life.
I recommend a healthy dose of Progress Quest, getting laid, and spending less time on Slashdot as well.
You know all those people that graduated with you 20 years ago, the ones that now don't have 20 years experience in whatever. What are they doing now? When did they switch careers, and why?
You're just reenforcing the point that engineering is a dead end for the majority of young folk. Well done.
Please explain the benefits to society of working faster than jobs become available. You'd rather that they finished each job in half the time, then spent the other half on welfare waiting for another job to appear?
Leaving aside the obvious counterexample, what do the other 496 USians do? Flip the burgers and clean the pools of the 4 with jobs? You're rather making the parent's point for him.
Oh come on, you know fine well what the correct answer is. "Unemployed, and can we hurry this up, I have to get home in time for the rasslin'."
Alternatively, you could lobby your elected representatives to fix the farce of jury selection. What the hell business does paid legal council have dictating who decides the facts of the case? Imagine what sort of legal system we'd have if we allowed politicians to decide what parts of the electorate have their vote counted.
Yes, right up there. "Many CD's bought this Christmas will come with little stickers that say they contain copy protection technology designed to defeat music pirates". And so on. Evil music pirates, starving artists, copy protection rather than rights removal. No hint that it's snake oil, no suggestion that all it does it piss people off and actively drive them to P2P. A rather ambiguous assertion at the end that "But some people who have got used to getting music for free might not buy it at all." What the hell that's meant to signify, I don't know, other than that the BBC employs way too many inbred RADA rejects in their features department.
I have used P2P recently to suck down copies of Dungeon Keeper 2 and Master of Orion 2. I own purchased CD's for both of them, but the CD's are hiding in my disc collection somewhere and it was quicker and easier to suck that information down a cable than it was to find the same information on hard media.
Is that technically legal? Probably not. Is it wrong? Of course it isn't wrong. There's no victim, no loser, no moral or ethical issue.
Your argument is that the person making it available for downloading is in the wrong. Uh, why? Is it wrong for shops to put CD's on shelves? Surely people with criminal intent will just steal them without paying! We must crack down on this irresponsible behaviour immediately.
Sophistry indeed. Your argument is the same as was used to try and ban the VCR, that because the most likely use of the technology is to breach copyright, the technology should be banned. OK, let's do that. Where do I hand in my VCR, and more importantly, where do I claim back all the money that I've given to the MPAA's members over the years?
If the most common use of P2P is to breach copyright, the answer isn't to try and put the genie back in the bottle, it's for rights owners to figure out how to make money off of it. They've managed it plenty of times in the past. Why should it be different now?
Before they went Dark Side, Music City (Morpheus) allowed you to specify a "leech limit" so that only people sharing a certain number of files could download from you. It was a pretty simple check, and relied on the peer at the other side being honest, but it was a good start.
Kazaa (well, Kazaa Lite) also has a concept of involvement and blocking, but it's too complex to be easily understandable, and isn't used much AFAIK. It's certainly a good idea though.
How quickly can you refresh... sorry, sorry redraw the entire screen on an LCD monitor?
Just because it doesn't flicker to and from blank doesn't mean it's not (when e.g. playing a game) displaying a series of discrete images at a limited rate.
Liquid crystal displays have moving parts. Just because they're no-see-ums (well, no-see-shape-ums) doesn't make it less true.
You're right that most people can't distinguish consciously between 40 and 100Hz, but the headache you get from extended close up concentrated viewing (as when using a monitor actively rather than watching a TV or film passively) of bright 40Hz moving images is just as real as if you could.
That they claim one hundred and eleven patents on DRM? Dear god, how can they have thought of that many different ways to say "All your code base belong to us"?
Uh, perhaps they're just looking for a payoff? Sure, the lawyers are probably bred in vats, but if this gets to court, some top execs could be called as witnesses, and that'll cost Microsoft money.
While we're at it, let's ban Colt semi-automatic pistols, Saab cars, and Hitachi VCR's, because they're all specific examples of technology that can be used for bad things. That'll set an example, and everyone will stop making and using that technology and we can put the genie back in the bottle, right?
Alternatively, we could live in the real world. Remember Napster? When that was destroyed, people moved to Kazaa. Destroy Kazaa, and people will move to Morpheus. Destroy Morpheus, and they will move to (e.g.) Gnutella. Destroy Gnutella (how?) and they'll move to Freenet. Destroy Freenet and, well at that point we've destroyed the internet in its current form. Let's give ourselves Ashcroftian superpowers and pretend we can do it. Do that, and people will go to BBS's or to Neighbourhood Area Networks. Do what you like, people will keep sharing.
Are you getting it yet? We can't put the genie back in the bottle. So go ahead and destroy Kazaa if it makes you feel good. The War on Sharing is about as winnable as the War on Drugs or War on Terror. They all have the same purpose anyway: making the hard-of-thinking feel safe and happy and protected. So you enjoy your cozy little fantasy world. Send us a postcard!
I develop apps for handheld devices (PDA's and phones), and this stuff is anathema to us. There isn't the screen real estate to show these fancy new fangled "windows", so everything appears in the foreground. Consequently, our browser pathologically blocks anything that might interrupt the user.
As handhelds become more popular for browsing (and it is doable even on teeny screens with the right display paradigms) this is going to become a bigger issue. If you think popups are bad on your 1600x1200 monitor, try dealing with them on a sub 320x240 screen. Yuk.
Slashdot Mirror
Hasn't Amazon got a bunch of patents on this?
The telecomms slaughter just caught up with my office. 40 engineers hit the local market. Two of us (at last count) have found new jobs. I was lucky to land a job that had been on the market for months. Not because they couldn't find anyone to fill it, but because they could pick and choose applicants and just turn them down until they got the one they wanted. I know this for a fact, because they've (to date) rejected three of my coworkers, two good developers and one really ace guy (I was lucky!).
The salary at my new employer is the same as my old one (which was frozen for 2 years), with minimal benefits and the quite honest disclosure that the company will be gone in two years, either gone titsup, or stripped and the technology sold. The only upside is the promised stock options, but this has turned out to be a scam: nobody there has received any for a year. At this salary, I have had once again had to delay starting any kind of pension provision or investment. After six years in the tech sector, and as a non-smoker, non-drinker with no kids or vices or expensive hobbies and a small mortage (£40k ~= $60K outstanding), this does not bode well for social security in the UK.
Note that this was one of perhaps three tech job going in my city (of a million people) at the moment. You think I'm exaggerating? Think again. I was told (via my agent) that the salary (less than I had asked for) was a final offer, and that if I didn't like it, I was welcome to look elsewhere. The current employees are all top developers, and are being treated like shit, with no raises or the promised stock options, simply because the company plans to not be employing them by the time they can get other jobs.
And yet, for all this, I still feel lucky, because I'm still in employment, and most of my ex-colleagues aren't. However, I'm increasingly inclined to think that software development is a mug's game. The only people that make money at it are the guys in suits, and perhaps one or two tech leads that are lucky enough to be in at the very beginning of one of the 10% of startups that actually survive. For the rest of us, it's going to be a lifetime of two-years working, six months unemployed (if we're lucky), and salaries that - averaged over the hours we actually have to work - really aren't anything special. For example, I'd make more money pro-rata leading a sales-weasel team in PC World, or more money in absolute terms as a train driver.
Anyone else thinking of a career switch? I certainly am.
Ah, you're just bitter because you didn't think of just offering stock (tee hee) options (snigger) instead of actual money.
Sure, we all hate ads. But when you're actually in the market to buy stuff, wouldn't you rather have relevant ads?
Instead of bitching about the mendacity (they're a .com!) the chilling implications for privacy (oh no, I bought Dianne Wynn Jones, J.K. Rowling'll kick my arse!) or the fucked up patent system (tell your elected representative, we already know), could we not rub our collective brain cells together and try and come up with ways to make this work for our benefit?
For example, more optional steering. Instead of just dumb feeding of ads, why not use the interactivety for mutual benefit? What if there were a little button beside each ad, saying "Not interested" (you don't need an "interested", that's the clickthrough). That way you could at least tell them about ads that actively piss you off (X10?) so that they're not just burning bandwidth. Anyone got any other ideas?
That's a vile thought. People catching on that the War on Drugs is mostly a way of keeping a paramilitary militia active? Declare a War on Terror! Uh oh, those damn Christ-killing liberal media bitches are daring to ask what the actual connection is between fundamentalist Al Quada and the secular regime in Iraq. What can we demonize next?
Pirates are pretty scary, right? And Joe Sixpack hates Poindexters, and everyone that burns CD's is a Poindexter, right?
Let's have a War on Copying.
It's such a vile thought that it's almost certainly true.
Will we stop accepting whiny submissions from sad Everwhores who bitch about how much they hate the game and how much it sucks, then sign themselves "Level 99 Goober-snitch". This isn't about Everquest, it's about a sad, lonely person who hates that they have no life.
I recommend a healthy dose of Progress Quest, getting laid, and spending less time on Slashdot as well.
You know all those people that graduated with you 20 years ago, the ones that now don't have 20 years experience in whatever. What are they doing now? When did they switch careers, and why?
You're just reenforcing the point that engineering is a dead end for the majority of young folk. Well done.
Please explain the benefits to society of working faster than jobs become available. You'd rather that they finished each job in half the time, then spent the other half on welfare waiting for another job to appear?
Leaving aside the obvious counterexample, what do the other 496 USians do? Flip the burgers and clean the pools of the 4 with jobs? You're rather making the parent's point for him.
Oh come on, you know fine well what the correct answer is. "Unemployed, and can we hurry this up, I have to get home in time for the rasslin'."
Alternatively, you could lobby your elected representatives to fix the farce of jury selection. What the hell business does paid legal council have dictating who decides the facts of the case? Imagine what sort of legal system we'd have if we allowed politicians to decide what parts of the electorate have their vote counted.
Oh, wait...
Yes, right up there. "Many CD's bought this Christmas will come with little stickers that say they contain copy protection technology designed to defeat music pirates". And so on. Evil music pirates, starving artists, copy protection rather than rights removal. No hint that it's snake oil, no suggestion that all it does it piss people off and actively drive them to P2P. A rather ambiguous assertion at the end that "But some people who have got used to getting music for free might not buy it at all." What the hell that's meant to signify, I don't know, other than that the BBC employs way too many inbred RADA rejects in their features department.
He could not care less, or he couldn't care less, not he could care less. It's not a difficult concept.
Hurrah, you get to be the guy that puts it on the list. Take a penny, leave a penny.
Psst, you're typing in the wrong tab. This is Slashdot, not Kuro5hin. The hint was that the article is an inaccurate unedited troll to begin with.
I have used P2P recently to suck down copies of Dungeon Keeper 2 and Master of Orion 2. I own purchased CD's for both of them, but the CD's are hiding in my disc collection somewhere and it was quicker and easier to suck that information down a cable than it was to find the same information on hard media.
Is that technically legal? Probably not. Is it wrong? Of course it isn't wrong. There's no victim, no loser, no moral or ethical issue.
Your argument is that the person making it available for downloading is in the wrong. Uh, why? Is it wrong for shops to put CD's on shelves? Surely people with criminal intent will just steal them without paying! We must crack down on this irresponsible behaviour immediately.
Sophistry indeed. Your argument is the same as was used to try and ban the VCR, that because the most likely use of the technology is to breach copyright, the technology should be banned. OK, let's do that. Where do I hand in my VCR, and more importantly, where do I claim back all the money that I've given to the MPAA's members over the years?
If the most common use of P2P is to breach copyright, the answer isn't to try and put the genie back in the bottle, it's for rights owners to figure out how to make money off of it. They've managed it plenty of times in the past. Why should it be different now?
Look harder. What are you using? Kazaa on Windows, most likely.
If so, try clicking on this (or change the port number to the one Kazaa is actually using): http://localhost:1214
Lookit all that information being served to you! What do you think is doing that: the tooth fairy?
Before they went Dark Side, Music City (Morpheus) allowed you to specify a "leech limit" so that only people sharing a certain number of files could download from you. It was a pretty simple check, and relied on the peer at the other side being honest, but it was a good start.
Kazaa (well, Kazaa Lite) also has a concept of involvement and blocking, but it's too complex to be easily understandable, and isn't used much AFAIK. It's certainly a good idea though.
How quickly can you refresh... sorry, sorry redraw the entire screen on an LCD monitor?
Just because it doesn't flicker to and from blank doesn't mean it's not (when e.g. playing a game) displaying a series of discrete images at a limited rate.
You're right, we do need a (-1) Moron. For you.
Liquid crystal displays have moving parts. Just because they're no-see-ums (well, no-see-shape-ums) doesn't make it less true.
You're right that most people can't distinguish consciously between 40 and 100Hz, but the headache you get from extended close up concentrated viewing (as when using a monitor actively rather than watching a TV or film passively) of bright 40Hz moving images is just as real as if you could.
That they claim one hundred and eleven patents on DRM? Dear god, how can they have thought of that many different ways to say "All your code base belong to us"?
Uh, perhaps they're just looking for a payoff? Sure, the lawyers are probably bred in vats, but if this gets to court, some top execs could be called as witnesses, and that'll cost Microsoft money.
Doesn't matter. The only winners here are the IP lawyers, and we all love IP lawyers, right?
While we're at it, let's ban Colt semi-automatic pistols, Saab cars, and Hitachi VCR's, because they're all specific examples of technology that can be used for bad things. That'll set an example, and everyone will stop making and using that technology and we can put the genie back in the bottle, right?
Alternatively, we could live in the real world. Remember Napster? When that was destroyed, people moved to Kazaa. Destroy Kazaa, and people will move to Morpheus. Destroy Morpheus, and they will move to (e.g.) Gnutella. Destroy Gnutella (how?) and they'll move to Freenet. Destroy Freenet and, well at that point we've destroyed the internet in its current form. Let's give ourselves Ashcroftian superpowers and pretend we can do it. Do that, and people will go to BBS's or to Neighbourhood Area Networks. Do what you like, people will keep sharing.
Are you getting it yet? We can't put the genie back in the bottle. So go ahead and destroy Kazaa if it makes you feel good. The War on Sharing is about as winnable as the War on Drugs or War on Terror. They all have the same purpose anyway: making the hard-of-thinking feel safe and happy and protected. So you enjoy your cozy little fantasy world. Send us a postcard!
I develop apps for handheld devices (PDA's and phones), and this stuff is anathema to us. There isn't the screen real estate to show these fancy new fangled "windows", so everything appears in the foreground. Consequently, our browser pathologically blocks anything that might interrupt the user.
As handhelds become more popular for browsing (and it is doable even on teeny screens with the right display paradigms) this is going to become a bigger issue. If you think popups are bad on your 1600x1200 monitor, try dealing with them on a sub 320x240 screen. Yuk.
Sure, because all developers customise their html for that vital 0.000001% of the market.
Don't get me wrong. I use Lynx too, I just don't kid myself that anybody cares.