3D has been "The next big thing" for more than 150 years. Starting with crude Stereoscope viewers in the mid 1800's, a resurgence in the 70's with the first mass market 3D movies, an attempt at another resurgence in the 2000's, and a push by the industry for 3D TV's more recently. Each of these technologies has shown the exact same pattern - a bit of novelty when they're first introduced, then tiredness, and quickly - a clear consumer rejection.
The amount of money tech companies have invested in 3D over the last century is staggering, and the consumer rejection has been consistent. I can't think of a better disconnect between producer and consumer.
So here we are again. We're supposed to get excited over yet another 3D Next Big Thing. No thanks. Just like every example that's come before, I'm perfectly happy and even prefer the current state of my photography. I am an avid first-adopter, but I have absolutely no intention of ever adopting 3D photography.
I've had a very successful career in IT with only a BA in liberal arts. In IT, there really is no need for formal credentials, the entire industry essentially follows a sink-or-swim model. If you've got what it takes, you'll do well.
The interesting part, is the "got what it takes" bit. It's probably not what you think it is.
For example, my employer is arguably the single most successful IT consulting company. One of the "big 5". We do a lot of different work, in a lot of different industries, with a lot of different technologies. You might think that hiring for all these industries and technologies is difficult - but you'd be wrong. In fact, this Big Time Consulting firm typically searches out smart competitive people, often those with little no technology or specific industry knowledge. We take people who know how to work hard and learn, and then we put them in situations where they'll learn the technologies, and learn the industry, and (hopefully) prosper. The idea that the 4 years you spend in college defines your career is to us, categorically false.
I'm (right now), in the middle of teaching a class of our new recruits how to program in Java. %80 of my class has effectively no technological background. Some of them have engineering degrees, but some also have geography degrees. If my class is typical (and I hear that it is...) then less than %10 of them come from CS type backgrounds. And, we take these people, and eventually - they'll build the next stock exchange, or 911 system, or flight control system on a large passenger aircraft, because that's the work that we do.
Which is all interesting, but ultimately, just one example of how to get started in IT. Strangely, my career didn't follow this path at all. When I graduated with my BA, I went to work for Molson Breweries (dream job for a recent grad!) and focused on their growing Internet and Intranet projects. I was writing Microsoft.asp, but keep in mind this was 12 years ago, so most of the open stuff we love now didn't exist back then. But still,.asp was lame and I knew it, but I also knew that job was the only step I needed, and when I left Molson I had the credentials I needed to get hired elsewhere.
The truth is, that there are a lot of companies like consulting firms that won't care what kind of degree you've got as long as you like to run with the bulls, and there's companies like Molson that will hire you if you've got the skills they need. Ultimately, once you get just a touch of experience, nobody will ever care what your degree is, only what you can do for them.
None of the companies I've worked for, nor the clients I've consulted for, valued a graduate degree in CS any more than an undergrad one. Knowing how to design an OS will not help you one bit when you're asked to design a trading system, for example.
It's possible that they also look at the chicago stock exchange and the NYSE and the fact that their apps are running on Linux and have decided to move to a proven, successful system.
I think you meant the National Stock Exchange in Chicago, not the Chicago Stock Exchange (formerly Midwest).
Granted, I don't think either exchange has enough volume to credibly highlight its technology.
I'm an "semi-profesional" photographer in my part time, and I bounce back and forth between printing my own on my home printer and using a service like Shutterfly.
I can't imagine ever using a retail service like Walmart. Good quality photo printers are just too innexpensive to justify using a retail service. This is hardly limited to "profesionals" either.
Print your prints at home! Everyone! Yes, I mean you!
Geeks have a great opportunity to take ownership of thier prints by printing themselves. Printers are cheap, paper and ink is cheap, and it's not much work at all. A decent photo printer can be had for under a hundred bucks.
Back when developing prints meant expensive equipment and dangerous chemicals we had a ton of excuses to outsource developing, but those days are long gone.
On another note, now speaking as a profesional, clients order prints from Shutterfly directly and never see high quality JPG's. If I ever release JPG's to clients they get branded with "COPYRIGHT" watermarks accross the center of the image.
Rights to digital photos are incredibly simple to protect as long as you never release high quality digital prints.
To all these Profesional photographers sueing Walmart, I really have to ask what in hell they're doing releasing high-rez digital files in the first place. What the hell do they expect? I guard my digital files as I would negatives.
I've never seen a high quality scan that looked remotely like the original, so someone scanning a print and then printing it themselves is not a big concern of mine. Quite frankly if someone is willing to go to all that work for a shitty print, all the power to them. I only ask that they leave my signature off.
North Carolina telecommunications company accused of deliberately blocking Internet phone traffic has reached a deal with federal regulators to halt the controversial practice.
Sony equipment is over-priced junk. You're buying a name and nothing else. I recommend that people buy any other Japanese knock-off brand. You'll be happier and have more dollars left in your pocket.
In terms of camcorders, this could not be more wrong.
I'm a freefall videographer. This means I jump from not-so-perfectly good airplanes with a camera bolted to my helmet. Because of weight issues, we use consumer grade "camcorders" almost exclusively. We never use "profesional" cameras, they're just too damn heavy. I'm currently using a Sony DRC-PC120BT.
Skydiving is clearly a harsh environment. Cameras get put into 200MPH winds, intense vibrations and g-forces as the parachute opens.
I've never seen a Panasonic, JVC, Sharp or Canon survive more then a few monthes.
I've never seen a Sony survive less then a few years.
Everytime I see someone show up with a brand new non-sony camera, I shake my head. Usually within 3 monthes it's tossed into the bin, and that person is buying a Sony - which will usually last for years.
There's a rule in skydiving videography: Always buy Sony, there IS a difference.
Our apologies, we picked up an old version of our TOS when we went live. We will NOT be allowing 3rd parties to send unsolicted email to our userbase. Please check the site this evening for the updated and correct TOS. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience.
It seems to me, on a philisophical note, that as the genome continues to be explored, we will continue to be surprised at what's found. However, the really interesting part will be when the project is finished, and we discover what was NOT found.
One important point that Michael Moore missed, is that while Canadians to have a higher gun ownership per capita then the US, they are almost exclusively long guns - rifles and shotguns used almost exclusively for hunting and protection from animals.
It's extremely dificult to legally get a handgun in Canada. It's been like that the last 30 years, at least. Controls on handguns and assault weapons in Canada has a long history.
Where I agree with Moore, is that Americans carry guns out of fear of people, where Canadians mostly use guns as tools against animals.
The idea that people must carry guns to protect themselves from other people is largely unique to the US, and I think goes to the high rate of gun violence here.
but the biochemical method for manipulating the genese of the mouse to create the Harvard mouse is.
Actually, the mouse is. Specifically, the patent covers the offspring of the mice as well. Indeed, it ALSO covers the offspring of other animals that were bred with the mice.
true. In the skydiving industry, many companies refuse to sell their products in the US. Granted that this is because of the litigous nature of the US, and not related to any specific law. My point, which I think is valid and relevant, is that companies ARE avoiding doing business in the US because of fear of the courts - criminal OR civil.
The following European manufacturers will ship to Canada but not the US:
Re:"Gaining speeds of up to 140mph"?
on
Skydriving
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
140mph? Is that right? It seems awfully slow to me. I would have thought that the terminal velocity of a car would have been much higher than that.
Yes. Cars fall EXTREMELY unstable. They tumble, literally. Sometimes they do rotations, sometime they do what we call "potatoe chipping", where they just teeter-totter back and forth.
They tend to fall generally with their axels to the ground, meaning their biggest flat surface area is creating all that drag.
A human body in a belly to earth position has a terminal velocity of about 120 MPH. Put that human body into a verticle position (very dificult to hold), and speeds tend to go up to about 180 mph, but can go as high as 300mph.
Yes, I'm a skydiver. 400 jumps so far, and a "D" (master) licence from the United States Parachute Association.
_Am
My opinion...
on
Skydriving
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I'm a skydiver, I've got over 400 jumps to my name.
Joe Jennings and crew have been tossing stuff out of airplanes in Arizona for quite a few years now. Joe does it because he's a profesional cinematographer, he's the guy that filmed the skydiving scenes in most of the recent James Bond films, plus recently Charlie's Angels and XXX. If there's an ad that features skydiving, Joe shot it.
Joe films these, and puts them on DVD - his most recent one is called "Good Stuff" - and you can buy it from www.joejennings.com. Buy it. It's worth it. Lots of incredible (and funny!) work.
Geeks will appreciate this. One of the funnier scenes, Joe throws a living room out of the back of the Skyvan. (note the skyvan is a turbo-prop, not a "jet".) I said they threw a living room out. They did it twice, they rigged up sofa's and loveseats, table lamps, telephones, tv sets, bolted it togeather on a platform, stuck two skydivers in the loveseat, the rolled the whole contraption out the back of the tailgate. What made is so cool is the tablelamps actually WORKED, and the TV was turned on. The tv worked all the way to impact.
I chuckled to myself when I read in the article "There have been no close calls, near misses or injuries in any of the jumps." On one of the "living room drops", the living room landed 20 feet from the ground film crew. Overheard on the video is "fuck that was close..."
Anyways I hate to make a post that's largely a sales pitch for a DVD, but for gods sake check this out. It's called "Good Stuff", and you can get it on www.joejennings.com
Its got full video of all of the car drops, both living room drops, the "chuteless" jumps, and whole lotta other REALLY cool shit.
_Am
Re:Chuteless jump
on
Skydriving
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Just to clarify the "chuteless" jump, the stuntman who did its name is Greg Gasson. You can see the full video of it on the DVD called "Good Stuff", which you can buy from www.joejennings.com
During Freefall Greg was attached to the rig via an invisible harness and cable system.
However, upon deploying the parachute he disconnects the harness and alternates between hanging from his hands to his feet, then eventually climbing up and puts on the rig for landing. It's very cool, but if you think about it, no more dificult then much of the trapeze work done in circuses.
(yes, I'm a skydiver, with over 400 jumps to my name. I've always worn my parachute.)
I think the only use for big drives is for pirating and warezing.
Must be nice.
My laptop came with a 20 gig HD.
Add XP, Office, Photoshop, Resin, SQLServer, token Oracle install, a few hundred MB databases, and a few of my favorite IDE's and guess what? I have 1.5 gigs free.
No warez. No games. No.mp3's.
I bought an external firewire disk JUST so I could have a half decent.mp3 collection.
I remember the days when I thought my 80 MB disk was hot shit. The fact that it was running on my 386@25mhz is irreleavant.
I agree about Resin. We run it exclusively on our production machines.
It is "sort-of" open source, you can see the code, make changes, just not redistribute it. The makers of resin (caucho.com) are very good about taking good code, though...
Development licence is free, and production licence is $500 / server.
Resin blows both webLogic and tomcat out of the water.
This has been out for a while. I saw the Icebox at the Atlanta Builders show last february. At the time my company was considering partnering with them.
The booth lackey clearly liked demoing throwing the keyboard into the sink in the booth. IMHO, this was it's best feature.
My single biggest complaint is that the entire machine is done in firmware. There is no disk, and no OS per se.
At the time (last year) the Icebox shipped with it's own custom browser. It didn't have Adobe or flash plugins, and because the software was done in firmware, there was no ability to install these plugins.
This machine is entirely rigid in it's application. This makes no sense in the world of Internet where standards seem to change monthly.
The people behind the Icebox clearly come from a consumer electronics background. These machines have more in common with a DVD player then a PC.
As I mentioned, the waterproof keyboard is the only "feature" of this machine that actually has value. I'd like to see more "Internet Appliances" pick up on this.
One thing the author didn't touch on is the power of the RIAA. I wonder what kind of leway the RIAA gives distributers in pricing CD's?
Rather then looking at CD's, the author should've discussed home electronics. Bizrate is a great example of bargains available online. I once bought a Sony camcorder that retails at the Sony Store for $1,800 - I bought it through Bizrate for $800 - a whole $1000 cheaper!
I'm in a similar position, except that I'm now 28. I have a liberal arts degree, and have been coding since 1981 - I was seven.
I'm still making a six figure salary in Chicago, despite the.com meltdown.
It seems that you don't want to retire a coder. The key, as you know - is to gradually get yourself out of coding jobs. The first steps are to project management. PHB's love their project managers to have technical experience, they like this more then a CS degree. A business degree with tech experience is the gold standard.
Instead of going back to school for a CS undergrad, look at MBA's. You can usually take an MBA with an undergrad arts degree. You can also fast track an MBA into two years. Hell, you could do an "executive MBA" in two monthes, but that's jus silly.
An MBA will also prime you for a senior management position like CTO.
Slashdot Mirror
3D has been "The next big thing" for more than 150 years. Starting with crude Stereoscope viewers in the mid 1800's, a resurgence in the 70's with the first mass market 3D movies, an attempt at another resurgence in the 2000's, and a push by the industry for 3D TV's more recently. Each of these technologies has shown the exact same pattern - a bit of novelty when they're first introduced, then tiredness, and quickly - a clear consumer rejection.
The amount of money tech companies have invested in 3D over the last century is staggering, and the consumer rejection has been consistent. I can't think of a better disconnect between producer and consumer.
So here we are again. We're supposed to get excited over yet another 3D Next Big Thing. No thanks. Just like every example that's come before, I'm perfectly happy and even prefer the current state of my photography. I am an avid first-adopter, but I have absolutely no intention of ever adopting 3D photography.
That text is absurd. While it may be a figurative war, it is not a literal one.
I've had a very successful career in IT with only a BA in liberal arts. In IT, there really is no need for formal credentials, the entire industry essentially follows a sink-or-swim model. If you've got what it takes, you'll do well.
The interesting part, is the "got what it takes" bit. It's probably not what you think it is.
For example, my employer is arguably the single most successful IT consulting company. One of the "big 5". We do a lot of different work, in a lot of different industries, with a lot of different technologies. You might think that hiring for all these industries and technologies is difficult - but you'd be wrong. In fact, this Big Time Consulting firm typically searches out smart competitive people, often those with little no technology or specific industry knowledge. We take people who know how to work hard and learn, and then we put them in situations where they'll learn the technologies, and learn the industry, and (hopefully) prosper. The idea that the 4 years you spend in college defines your career is to us, categorically false.
I'm (right now), in the middle of teaching a class of our new recruits how to program in Java. %80 of my class has effectively no technological background. Some of them have engineering degrees, but some also have geography degrees. If my class is typical (and I hear that it is...) then less than %10 of them come from CS type backgrounds. And, we take these people, and eventually - they'll build the next stock exchange, or 911 system, or flight control system on a large passenger aircraft, because that's the work that we do.
Which is all interesting, but ultimately, just one example of how to get started in IT. Strangely, my career didn't follow this path at all. When I graduated with my BA, I went to work for Molson Breweries (dream job for a recent grad!) and focused on their growing Internet and Intranet projects. I was writing Microsoft .asp, but keep in mind this was 12 years ago, so most of the open stuff we love now didn't exist back then. But still, .asp was lame and I knew it, but I also knew that job was the only step I needed, and when I left Molson I had the credentials I needed to get hired elsewhere.
The truth is, that there are a lot of companies like consulting firms that won't care what kind of degree you've got as long as you like to run with the bulls, and there's companies like Molson that will hire you if you've got the skills they need. Ultimately, once you get just a touch of experience, nobody will ever care what your degree is, only what you can do for them.
None of the companies I've worked for, nor the clients I've consulted for, valued a graduate degree in CS any more than an undergrad one. Knowing how to design an OS will not help you one bit when you're asked to design a trading system, for example.
_Am
It's possible that they also look at the chicago stock exchange and the NYSE and the fact that their apps are running on Linux and have decided to move to a proven, successful system.
I think you meant the National Stock Exchange in Chicago, not the Chicago Stock Exchange (formerly Midwest).
Granted, I don't think either exchange has enough volume to credibly highlight its technology.
_Am
What does this actually mean?
Seriously!What's a default judgment, why is it being vacated, and how does this impact the case against Santagelo?
The cost savings of going on a month-to-month plan are tremendous.
Um, Epson sells Dye-Sub printers for under a hundred bucks. Buy one today and it'll last you a decade. Avoid HP because their ink sucks.
/4x6.
Paper and Ink are far cheaper than $.19
If you're worried about cost, then do it yourself.
If you want to take ownership and be proud of your work, do it yourself.
Either way, do it yourself.
_Am
Seriously!
I'm an "semi-profesional" photographer in my part time, and I bounce back and forth between printing my own on my home printer and using a service like Shutterfly.
I can't imagine ever using a retail service like Walmart. Good quality photo printers are just too innexpensive to justify using a retail service. This is hardly limited to "profesionals" either.
Print your prints at home! Everyone! Yes, I mean you!
Geeks have a great opportunity to take ownership of thier prints by printing themselves. Printers are cheap, paper and ink is cheap, and it's not much work at all. A decent photo printer can be had for under a hundred bucks.
Back when developing prints meant expensive equipment and dangerous chemicals we had a ton of excuses to outsource developing, but those days are long gone.
On another note, now speaking as a profesional, clients order prints from Shutterfly directly and never see high quality JPG's. If I ever release JPG's to clients they get branded with "COPYRIGHT" watermarks accross the center of the image.
Rights to digital photos are incredibly simple to protect as long as you never release high quality digital prints.
To all these Profesional photographers sueing Walmart, I really have to ask what in hell they're doing releasing high-rez digital files in the first place. What the hell do they expect? I guard my digital files as I would negatives.
I've never seen a high quality scan that looked remotely like the original, so someone scanning a print and then printing it themselves is not a big concern of mine. Quite frankly if someone is willing to go to all that work for a shitty print, all the power to them. I only ask that they leave my signature off.
_Am
Telco agrees to stop blocking VoIP calls
I still use the Mozilla suite over Firefox for one basic reason.
"Password manager" on Firefox is horrendously crippled. See bug here
This bug is a showstopper for me and countless others, but it continues to categorized as "minor". How odd.
_Am
Sony equipment is over-priced junk. You're buying a name and nothing else. I recommend that people buy any other Japanese knock-off brand. You'll be happier and have more dollars left in your pocket.
In terms of camcorders, this could not be more wrong.
I'm a freefall videographer. This means I jump from not-so-perfectly good airplanes with a camera bolted to my helmet. Because of weight issues, we use consumer grade "camcorders" almost exclusively. We never use "profesional" cameras, they're just too damn heavy. I'm currently using a Sony DRC-PC120BT.
Skydiving is clearly a harsh environment. Cameras get put into 200MPH winds, intense vibrations and g-forces as the parachute opens.
I've never seen a Panasonic, JVC, Sharp or Canon survive more then a few monthes.
I've never seen a Sony survive less then a few years.
Everytime I see someone show up with a brand new non-sony camera, I shake my head. Usually within 3 monthes it's tossed into the bin, and that person is buying a Sony - which will usually last for years.
There's a rule in skydiving videography: Always buy Sony, there IS a difference.
_Am
I just got this email from support@mailblocks.com
Our apologies, we picked up an old version of our TOS when we went live. We will NOT be allowing 3rd parties to send unsolicted email to our userbase. Please check the site this evening for the updated and correct TOS. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience.
It seems to me, on a philisophical note, that as the genome continues to be explored, we will continue to be surprised at what's found. However, the really interesting part will be when the project is finished, and we discover what was NOT found.
_Am
One important point that Michael Moore missed, is that while Canadians to have a higher gun ownership per capita then the US, they are almost exclusively long guns - rifles and shotguns used almost exclusively for hunting and protection from animals.
It's extremely dificult to legally get a handgun in Canada. It's been like that the last 30 years, at least. Controls on handguns and assault weapons in Canada has a long history.
Where I agree with Moore, is that Americans carry guns out of fear of people, where Canadians mostly use guns as tools against animals.
The idea that people must carry guns to protect themselves from other people is largely unique to the US, and I think goes to the high rate of gun violence here.
_Am
but the biochemical method for manipulating the genese of the mouse to create the Harvard mouse is.
Actually, the mouse is. Specifically, the patent covers the offspring of the mice as well. Indeed, it ALSO covers the offspring of other animals that were bred with the mice.
Read the article.
_Am
so, we are better off not dealing with them then
true. In the skydiving industry, many companies refuse to sell their products in the US. Granted that this is because of the litigous nature of the US, and not related to any specific law. My point, which I think is valid and relevant, is that companies ARE avoiding doing business in the US because of fear of the courts - criminal OR civil.
The following European manufacturers will ship to Canada but not the US:
Thomas Sports Equitment
Parachute de France
ParAAvis Co
_Am
140mph? Is that right? It seems awfully slow to me. I would have thought that the terminal velocity of a car would have been much higher than that.
Yes. Cars fall EXTREMELY unstable. They tumble, literally. Sometimes they do rotations, sometime they do what we call "potatoe chipping", where they just teeter-totter back and forth.
They tend to fall generally with their axels to the ground, meaning their biggest flat surface area is creating all that drag.
A human body in a belly to earth position has a terminal velocity of about 120 MPH. Put that human body into a verticle position (very dificult to hold), and speeds tend to go up to about 180 mph, but can go as high as 300mph.
Yes, I'm a skydiver. 400 jumps so far, and a "D" (master) licence from the United States Parachute Association.
_Am
I'm a skydiver, I've got over 400 jumps to my name.
Joe Jennings and crew have been tossing stuff out of airplanes in Arizona for quite a few years now. Joe does it because he's a profesional cinematographer, he's the guy that filmed the skydiving scenes in most of the recent James Bond films, plus recently Charlie's Angels and XXX. If there's an ad that features skydiving, Joe shot it.
Joe films these, and puts them on DVD - his most recent one is called "Good Stuff" - and you can buy it from www.joejennings.com. Buy it. It's worth it. Lots of incredible (and funny!) work.
Geeks will appreciate this. One of the funnier scenes, Joe throws a living room out of the back of the Skyvan. (note the skyvan is a turbo-prop, not a "jet".) I said they threw a living room out. They did it twice, they rigged up sofa's and loveseats, table lamps, telephones, tv sets, bolted it togeather on a platform, stuck two skydivers in the loveseat, the rolled the whole contraption out the back of the tailgate. What made is so cool is the tablelamps actually WORKED, and the TV was turned on. The tv worked all the way to impact.
I chuckled to myself when I read in the article "There have been no close calls, near misses or injuries in any of the jumps." On one of the "living room drops", the living room landed 20 feet from the ground film crew. Overheard on the video is "fuck that was close..."
Anyways I hate to make a post that's largely a sales pitch for a DVD, but for gods sake check this out. It's called "Good Stuff", and you can get it on www.joejennings.com
Its got full video of all of the car drops, both living room drops, the "chuteless" jumps, and whole lotta other REALLY cool shit.
_Am
Just to clarify the "chuteless" jump, the stuntman who did its name is Greg Gasson. You can see the full video of it on the DVD called "Good Stuff", which you can buy from www.joejennings.com
During Freefall Greg was attached to the rig via an invisible harness and cable system.
However, upon deploying the parachute he disconnects the harness and alternates between hanging from his hands to his feet, then eventually climbing up and puts on the rig for landing. It's very cool, but if you think about it, no more dificult then much of the trapeze work done in circuses.
(yes, I'm a skydiver, with over 400 jumps to my name. I've always worn my parachute.)
_Am
Must be nice.
My laptop came with a 20 gig HD.
Add XP, Office, Photoshop, Resin, SQLServer, token Oracle install, a few hundred MB databases, and a few of my favorite IDE's and guess what? I have 1.5 gigs free.
No warez. No games. No
I bought an external firewire disk JUST so I could have a half decent
I remember the days when I thought my 80 MB disk was hot shit. The fact that it was running on my 386@25mhz is irreleavant.
Times change. I wanna big disk.
_Am
I agree about Resin. We run it exclusively on our production machines.
It is "sort-of" open source, you can see the code, make changes, just not redistribute it. The makers of resin (caucho.com) are very good about taking good code, though...
Development licence is free, and production licence is $500 / server.
Resin blows both webLogic and tomcat out of the water.
_Am
What happens when you walk accross the floor of your office and your DHCP server disapears?
Or maybe a better example would be your intranet mail server disapears because now you're hooked into the Starbucks network?
Is thought being dedicated to when the user wants to switch providers?
_Am
This has been out for a while. I saw the Icebox at the Atlanta Builders show last february. At the time my company was considering partnering with them.
The booth lackey clearly liked demoing throwing the keyboard into the sink in the booth. IMHO, this was it's best feature.
My single biggest complaint is that the entire machine is done in firmware. There is no disk, and no OS per se.
At the time (last year) the Icebox shipped with it's own custom browser. It didn't have Adobe or flash plugins, and because the software was done in firmware, there was no ability to install these plugins.
This machine is entirely rigid in it's application. This makes no sense in the world of Internet where standards seem to change monthly.
The people behind the Icebox clearly come from a consumer electronics background. These machines have more in common with a DVD player then a PC.
As I mentioned, the waterproof keyboard is the only "feature" of this machine that actually has value. I'd like to see more "Internet Appliances" pick up on this.
_Am
One thing the author didn't touch on is the power of the RIAA. I wonder what kind of leway the RIAA gives distributers in pricing CD's? Rather then looking at CD's, the author should've discussed home electronics. Bizrate is a great example of bargains available online. I once bought a Sony camcorder that retails at the Sony Store for $1,800 - I bought it through Bizrate for $800 - a whole $1000 cheaper!
I'm in a similar position, except that I'm now 28. I have a liberal arts degree, and have been coding since 1981 - I was seven.
.com meltdown.
I'm still making a six figure salary in Chicago, despite the
It seems that you don't want to retire a coder. The key, as you know - is to gradually get yourself out of coding jobs. The first steps are to project management. PHB's love their project managers to have technical experience, they like this more then a CS degree. A business degree with tech experience is the gold standard.
Instead of going back to school for a CS undergrad, look at MBA's. You can usually take an MBA with an undergrad arts degree. You can also fast track an MBA into two years. Hell, you could do an "executive MBA" in two monthes, but that's jus silly.
An MBA will also prime you for a senior management position like CTO.
_Am