I've just seen the Matrix ; I left the cinema satisfied but with a strange sensation of something being "wrong" in the movie ; this sensation is very boring so I've tried to dissect the movie from different point of views, looking for the "wrong" point/s...your comments are welcome. ----------------------------------- Cinema-Geek point of view
Matrix is a summa/sum of a lot of ideas taken from different movies, with the concept of virtual reality bonding them all. The result of this collage is a fine movie with a great deal of very fast action and fine special effect, but far away from being the killer movie of the year.
I've seen many sequences and ideas that I've already seen in other movies, here's the list:
1) Terminator 2 - The concept of AI taking control of the world, trying to kill every human being. Agents never dies, but transfers from a body to another - looks like the liquid metal terminator. The posse of the good guys attacking the corporate building, house of evil, loaded with different arms.
2) Blade Runner, The Crow, Mission Impossible, Honk Kong action movies : all the dressings of the actors, the concept of coming back from the death to a new life of reaction to evil, the shootings sequences - extremly spectacular, I liked them a lot.
3) Jackie Chan movies and countless others - jumping from a building to another with spectacular jumps
4) Bruce Lee movies, Jackie Chan movies - all the nice martial arts sequences.
5) Waynes World - the "fly in the air" martial arts sequence, with its distinctive comic effect:>
6) Alien - the insectoid like bug that's planted under Neo's belly button
7) Neuromancer (book) - uploading different skills to the brain in a few seconds.
Hard Core Computer-geek point of view
The code showing on the monitors is unrealistic because nobody could read and understand such fast a stream of information. Plus, it's neither hex or binary but seems to be completely random. Ok it's a good fx if you want to show the "stream" of data, but not the information in the stream ; that's Hollywood:> One of the code readers, the " phone operator" isn't a cyborg so he simply can not understand the stream thanks to an implant.
As noted in another message, the telephone call used to come back to "reality" is pretty useless. The user could simply "think" of disconnecting ; but that's the foundation of all of the nice chasing sequences:>
Neo's home computer is running some weird operating system : doesn't seem to be Windows or Unix , but the machine should be working with 1999 operating systems ; seems like the AI has got no clue on that ! Hitting ESC on keyboard and Ctrl-X was not enough to convince me the movie is "realistic" or that the actor got a clue.
The magneto-optical disk that Neo sells to his friend is bulky ; next time just have look at new IBM microdrives.
I've noticed a nice Helwett Packard logo painted on the tunnel in the underground scenes.
Not a geek's point of view
"Ok nice actions but I didn't understood what was the plot of the movie, and the idea of virtual reality is still not clear to me". That was my girlfriend reaction ; She didn't understood that Agents couldn't die because they were programs, and she felt uneasy with jumping from a reality plane to another. She said the movie was completely targeted to me and my "geek" friends, and that it was plain science finction, and while she completely agrees with me that computers has got a great role in our society, she was scared of the concept of a brain to computer interface.
Ok, I can agree with her that Matrix it's plain science fiction, but the director failed to underline the points that connect the reality to the virtual reality, making common people think that after all that the "hackers" are dreamers who tend to be sociopats (Neo) and loners (Neo again). Being myself a "grown" hacker , I've got enough experience to say that I couldn't care less, please all of the non-geeks take the cue , I really don't care about assimilating you, please geeks use your magnetic card , avoid the cue and go see another movie:>
PorkZilla, son of The Matrix, born with a Maxtor in his head.
Interesting point there. Althought I'm not sure if I buy the whole e-communities as ecosystems of their own, I do see what you mean about different users having the biological traits of animals in an ecosystem. However, I think you're making one basic assumption that not everyone would hold true; the premise of your article is based on evolution and the idea that society evolves and changes into something better and more complex and that you can take any society and turn it into an ecosystem and label the hyenas, lions, spiders and wolves.
I disagree. First of all, I don't believe in evolution, I believe in creation. Pretty wacko for a self described geek, huh? Well ok so I believe in this God thing... so I think its not terribly relevant to put human beings in a box and give them animal characteristics - humans are of a higher life form than all other animals, and its comparing apples and oranges to identify me as a spider because i wait patiently for you, Mr.Katz, to post your next editorial.
However, even if one doesn't believe in God and does indeed believe in evolution, you are trying to apply evolution to the social distinctions and day to day lives of people and their everyday habits! This would most properly be deemed Social Darwinism (imho,) as it takes the ideas of survival of the fittest (most imac users would never make it into an online community their comp would crash:-), the evolution of species (users as they grow in intelligence and experience,) and applies animal traits to humans and their interactions with each other.
Sorry Mr.Katz, but Social Darwinism doesn't really work. It didn't work for the United states in the 19th century, didn't work for the US when we used it as an excuse to bulldoze indians off reservations and into firing squads, and it didn't work as a justification for Hitler and his ethnic cleansing.
I know I might be taking ur principal farther here then you wanted it to go, but if you are seriously comparing an e-community to real life then you are trying to apply Social Darwinism. Don't invoke evolution into your arguement and you might be a bit better off:-).
Btw, imho people flame other ppl because of those reasons you mentioned about no personal contact, lack of accountability, no time to think the idea over, etc...not because of some mother bird instinct that drives a would be newbie or whatever away from the nest.
I like your articles Mr.Katz, but please examine what you are saying sometimes and see whether or not u are stretching a point like I just exemplified in this reply:-)
Re:Overclocker barely escapes death after explosio
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Please - let's not degenerate into vitrolic attack about mass generalizations of geeks, or what is not a geek, or what a geek would like or not like, or the common attributes of any group of people.
Like it or not, we are not as individualistic as we would imagine. We share many likes and dislike with many others - especially those with similar interests. Just because one makes a generalization does not denegrade the distinct individual attributes of each one of us.
As for "The Matrix", even with it's flaws, I found it to be a very good movie. Of course, K. Reeves is best when he doesn't speaks ("Johnny Neumonic - retch!). Yet, I found the premise to very interesting, the story engaging, ane the special effects excellent. I left the movie theatre feeling that I had gotten my money's worth and thinking creatively and differently. Of course, the current state of AI, Virtual Reality, and programming pales in comaprision to the myth and fantasy of the movie or our imagination.
Phantom Menace??? I was seven when I went to see the original Star Wars - most definately one of the defining events in my life and for my generation. Yet the Phantom Menace left me empty - great special effects, but no edge and no seriousness to the story. Sorry G. Lucas, but not this time.
In recommending movies to my friends - go see the Matrix and wait for the DVD version of Phantom Menace (hopefully with a remove Jar Jar option).
I would have scroed you up, but I want to write;) You are corrent. The whole idea of the need to replace CD is than it IS too big. How many of you geeks wear baggy pants? And how many of you can fit a cd-player in your normal shirt. Don't tell me "You know my jacket..." excuse, it's summer now. Of course, we know what the adventage of cd media is. 4 years ago, I picked up the cheapest CD player (aiwa) in the store and I thought I could get it under 100 dollar was incredible. lately I keep reading this 40, 49.99 clearence sale on the flyers.
I don't think CD mp3 player will ever become mainstream though, because it uses too much battery power. The most powerful rechargable AA is NiMH and they are deadly heavy, you want Hi-Lion (I forget the name, something Sony uses) but it's expensive. So you say the battery price will come down. Yes it will but so will the solid state memory. A whoppong 10 hour CD-mp3 player that runs on 5 hour of Energizer Buddy battery doesn't make sense, you see? (Don't forget decoding mp3 consume more power.)
Also, there's no easy why to get mp3 to a cd (compare to other storage method which behave like a floppy/zip. I laugh when the geeks want a CD-rw readable mp3. You know how much hassle you have to gone through to reburn a cd-rw to its maximum limit.) If you want to sell a $100-$60 product to the mess market, you can't make it so difficult. Most people who choose cd-mp3 player over slightly more expensive solid state player don't have a burnner anyway. A compact flash/smart media card only needs a serie port.
as far as light speed- that's only without taking general relativity into account.
the human battery thing does seem lame, if only because there are a lot more effecient life sources that can be used. probably if this were needed in about 30 years or so, someone would simply genetically engineer something. humans might be effecient, but so many of our body functions would be superfluous if we were being used as batteries.
Danggit i Found this first
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Posted by Napalm4u:
man i told some people on mp3place.com about this then they put it up
anyway goto iomega.com to learn all about the clik discs and their applications, they claim that they can sell the discs for 9.99 each but i haven't seen any for this price
for me i'll probably run out of coding steam in my 40's, and indeed life will cease to have meaning. By that time I'll have paid off my parents, so I can kill myself with impunity.
I have to agree here, I thing the man has a very adult veiwpoint of the whole situation. In this day and in our particular society we no longer have the same needs for survival and success. Especially when your young, who cares about having more money than you can happily spend, why shaould we be putting things away for our kids? look at the kids of rick parents, dont they just get up your fucking nose? And why is that? because they never HAD to do anything, poverty builds charicter and pecarious situations are the make of a man. (or woman, or free thinking concious enity, or whatever)
What Im trying to say is that we no longer have to spend all our engiesin survival, we dont have to hunt for food and we certaily dont kneed to have lots of kids and support them. Go with decedence and do what you want to do because the only thing holding you back is a lack of imagination.
Optimized for Low System Cost By specifically designing the mP6 microprocessors with low-power consumption and superior architectural features, Rise is able to reduce the overall cost to OEM's and systems integrators by allowing for the reduction of hardware components in a system. The triple MMX(TM) allows the mP6 processor to reduce the cost of the system by eliminating expensive hardware components like DVD decoders and modem chipsets and implementing those functions in software. In addition, the BGA packaging allows OEM's to mount the mP6 processor directly on a motherboard reducing system costs even further. The BGA packaging is possible due to extremely low power consumption of the mP6 processor.
DC/Silicon Valley & $70Gs? Take a look at your housing costs! There are more of us who live in more rural conditions in the US, and like it that way. The working conditions you mention come because of the need companies have to compete with their neighbors, and because of the number of senior engineers in those companies promoted to management positions. They understand the software development style, and have learned how to manage accordingly. While it does seem that many appear to whine about low salaries, it is you who is naive about the general working conditions around the world. It's nice to live here in New England (US) where the pay is only slightly less than that of DC or SV, yet our housing costs are about 1/3 of theirs.:) Unfortunately, not nearly as many managers here are as versed about software development as yours have been.
Geeks needing management:
I agree. I think a better relationship would be to have a good SE/Manager manage the tech division, and have traditional management act as liasons to the business/marketing/sales aspects of the company. The pay would be more balanced that way. It is hard to see someone with a business degee (much easier than an engineering degree...) making 2-3x a senior engineer's salary, especially when the individual appears much less intelligent. Business people as liasons fix this problem. The overall pay scale can still be heirarchical, but the standard businessman now may make less than the senior engineers and not know it. Both contribute their necessary roles, but the pay is seeminly fairer.
I'm no physicist and may be totally wrong, but here goes...
Assume Time Travel is possible. You start here on Earth and somehow travel back 4 months without traveling around outer space at lightspeed. If you did so, taking into consideration that the Earth revolves around the sun, wouldn't you end up in the middle of outer space because the earth would be in an entirely different position than when you left? This is assuming you don't change your position in space in the process, only time.
This, of course, would only matter if you could stay in a stationary location to travel through time and you don't move from that position in the process.
Would it even be possible when stationary?
[please excuse errors in spelling or grammer, I am in a hury]
From what I gathered from the original post he/she was not tying to discredit FORTRAN or praise C. The post was just a funny story about the difficulties that occur when you take a verteran A programmer and try to make them a B programmer. I know I had a tough time once I left nursery school (Java) and moved out into the real world (C/C++).
Note: The comment above about Java and C/C++ was in no way intended to be against Java or for C/C++:^)
well, not everyone likes all that human interest crap. I personally only find life worth living when I'm coding. Will anyone remember you or care after you die whether or not you played frisbee with your g/f? No, of course not, and even if they did, who cares? You're dead! I don't give a rat's ass what people think of me after I'm dead.
Before I knew how to program, all I did was that real life crap you talked about. Sometimes I would go to a senior citizens community center and keep them company. Then, one day I came home, looked at the stars, cut wind (I'd had beans that night), and said "I don't give a damn about those old people. I don't care that they appreciated whatever I did for them, and everything I do is dull and boring."
So, I began to ccde, and that's all I've done since. And now when I have a sandwhich of oskar mayer chicken and turkey bologna, I look at the mess of chopped ratmeat dangling from my fingers and heace a big sigh of satisfaction. No g/f, no family, no bullshit. I get to code all day.
> Unfortunately QT has a license that restricts its > utilisation for commercial use (enterprises have > to pay TT) and only separated patchs are allowed by TT as source code modifications.
NOOOOOOOO!
QT impairs closed sourced applications. commercial closed source ones have to pay for developers licenses.
GPL forbids closed sourced applications. LGPL imposes no limits on closed sourced applications.
There are lots of sick, power-hungry people in the world. What separates Bill from the rest is more that he has vision, and is intelligent enough to carry it out.
His vision was to have the microsoft name everywhere. He had a stubborness that only his technology was good..a thumbing of the nose at everyone else's..and especially the technical community which rejected him.
He targeted the people who wrote the checks in companies..the people who made the purchases. Other companies targeted the nerds, but old Bill knew to talk to the PHBs.
What drives him is an unholy mix of love of money and a desire for the common people to love and worship him. I wonder if he despises technical people who don't grasp and worship his technical vision.
Hmmm Mr Katz I do indeed like your articles even if I'm not sure whether I just spelled Katz correctly. At any rate, I think you do indeed perform a great job in stirring up the pot, as one poster wrote in a while ago. I like your sweeping generalizations to a point, but sometimes it seems like you are believing what you write, and thats dangerous. For instance, take your series on "stories from the Hellmouth." Those were really good. Thought provoking. Made me want to abuse my power as Opinion Editor of my student paper and tell everyone why shootings happened. Luckily I have an Editor in Chief who is able to see both sides of an issue....man Mr. Katz your writing is more propoganda than truth sometimes! Albeit you are a very good writer, but uhm as my parents used to say when I'd show them an essay, cut the drama and make it something reasonable, I mean, not all your essays have to end with "and if this is applied, then the world will become a better place." There is seriously nothing wrong with observing that you thought the Matrix says a bit more than Star Wars, heck, if we're doing comparisons on movies that say things here, why not Gattica? But calling it the ultimate geek movie is a bit boxy...keep in mind all the plot holes etc. Most geeks are sticklers for little details, and its irritating when i see Neo climb out the window without a cell phone in hand, then right before he chickens out, the cell phone appears in his hand and what do you know? He drops it! Weird stuff like that. So Mr. Katz I'm not really bashing your writing, I do like it. Just make it a bit more realistic, and realize that, apart from Jar Jar, Star Wars was cool too, and the only reason I saw the Matrix 5 times is because I had many friends that hadn't seen it:-)
Actually, I "got into computers" because they're so trivial in comparison to general relativity and particle mechanics. Dropped out of school with 12 credits to go on my physics bs, grad school lurking around the corner, and I'd just burned out.
Since I needed to make money, I just gravitated toward something simple and easily profitable. I suppose I'm not a "true" geek...after all, I had an active sex life (until marriage, of course!), play sports, tan in the summer...however, I'm a jammin' engineer and architect.
I'm not a "peopler", or a "worker", or a "silverback" (whatever that is.) Trying to categorize geeks, engineers, and other techies into such narrow categories is doomed to failure. Not all the great ones are pasty-faced and socially awkward.
Yes it made sense. Using bioelectric energy to power electronic devices is not a new idea by far. I own a watch that is charged by bioelectric energy...don't ask me how it works...I haven't had the time to disect it yet...The Matrix was not the AI. It was a container for the minds of the power supply. and there wasn't any one AI, there were many, there's a line from it "...as soon as we started doing the work for you it became our world." Implying more than one AI. It probably wasn't the first time he had used his body, if you'd have been watching there was synaptic leakage when they were jacked into the matrix and they had muscle twitches and spasms...Of course, you're not going to care whether I agree or dissagree with you becasue you refuse to suspend disbelief. BTW it's just a movie.
How is more choice going to hurt consumers? The only possible answer is "because then Joe Consumer will have to know more before purchasing a computer".
That's something I'd really like to see happen, wouldn't you? -- "Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
Slashdot Mirror
Posted by porkzilla:
...your comments are welcome.
:>
:> One of the code readers, the " phone operator" isn't a cyborg so he simply can not understand the stream thanks to an implant.
:>
:>
I've just seen the Matrix ; I left the cinema satisfied but with a strange sensation of something being "wrong" in the movie ; this sensation is very boring so I've tried to dissect the movie from different point of views, looking for the "wrong" point/s
-----------------------------------
Cinema-Geek point of view
Matrix is a summa/sum of a lot of ideas taken from different movies, with the concept of virtual reality bonding them all. The result of this collage is a fine movie with a great deal of very fast action and fine special effect, but far away from being the killer movie of the year.
I've seen many sequences and ideas that I've already seen in other movies, here's the list:
1) Terminator 2 - The concept of AI taking control of the world, trying to kill every human being. Agents never dies, but transfers from a body to another - looks like the liquid metal terminator. The posse of the good guys attacking the corporate building, house of evil, loaded with different arms.
2) Blade Runner, The Crow, Mission Impossible, Honk Kong action movies : all the dressings of the actors, the concept of coming back from the death to a new life of reaction to evil, the shootings sequences - extremly spectacular, I liked them a lot.
3) Jackie Chan movies and countless others - jumping from a building to another with spectacular jumps
4) Bruce Lee movies, Jackie Chan movies - all the nice martial arts sequences.
5) Waynes World - the "fly in the air" martial arts sequence, with its distinctive comic effect
6) Alien - the insectoid like bug that's planted under Neo's belly button
7) Neuromancer (book) - uploading different skills to the brain in a few seconds.
Hard Core Computer-geek point of view
The code showing on the monitors is unrealistic because nobody could read and understand such fast a stream of information. Plus, it's neither hex or binary but seems to be completely random. Ok it's a good fx if you want to show the "stream" of data, but not the information in the stream ; that's Hollywood
As noted in another message, the telephone call used to come back to "reality" is pretty useless. The user could simply "think" of disconnecting ; but that's the foundation of all of the nice chasing sequences
Neo's home computer is running some weird operating system : doesn't seem to be Windows or Unix , but the machine should be working with 1999 operating systems ; seems like the AI has got no clue on that ! Hitting ESC on keyboard and Ctrl-X was not enough to convince me the movie is "realistic" or that the actor got a clue.
The magneto-optical disk that Neo sells to his friend is bulky ; next time just have look at new IBM microdrives.
I've noticed a nice Helwett Packard logo painted on the tunnel in the underground scenes.
Not a geek's point of view
"Ok nice actions but I didn't understood what was the plot of the movie, and the idea of virtual reality is still not clear to me". That was my girlfriend reaction ; She didn't understood that Agents couldn't die because they were programs, and she felt uneasy with jumping from a reality plane to another. She said the movie was completely targeted to me and my "geek" friends, and that it was plain science finction, and while she completely agrees with me that computers has got a great role in our society, she was scared of the concept of a brain to computer interface.
Ok, I can agree with her that Matrix it's plain science fiction, but the director failed to underline the points that connect the reality to the virtual reality, making common people think that after all that the "hackers" are dreamers who tend to be sociopats (Neo) and loners (Neo again). Being myself a "grown" hacker , I've got enough experience to say that I couldn't care less, please all of the non-geeks take the cue , I really don't care about assimilating you, please geeks use your magnetic card , avoid the cue and go see another movie
PorkZilla, son of The Matrix, born with a Maxtor in his head.
Posted by Happydaz:
:-), the evolution of species (users as they grow in intelligence and experience,) and applies animal traits to humans and their interactions with each other.
:-).
:-)
Interesting point there. Althought I'm not sure if I buy the whole e-communities as ecosystems of their own, I do see what you mean about different users having the biological traits of animals in an ecosystem. However, I think you're making one basic assumption that not everyone would hold true; the premise of your article is based on evolution and the idea that society evolves and changes into something better and more complex and that you can take any society and turn it into an ecosystem and label the hyenas, lions, spiders and wolves.
I disagree. First of all, I don't believe in evolution, I believe in creation. Pretty wacko for a self described geek, huh? Well ok so I believe in this God thing... so I think its not terribly relevant to put human beings in a box and give them animal characteristics - humans are of a higher life form than all other animals, and its comparing apples and oranges to identify me as a spider because i wait patiently for you, Mr.Katz, to post your next editorial.
However, even if one doesn't believe in God and does indeed believe in evolution, you are trying to apply evolution to the social distinctions and day to day lives of people and their everyday habits! This would most properly be deemed Social Darwinism (imho,) as it takes the ideas of survival of the fittest (most imac users would never make it into an online community their comp would crash
Sorry Mr.Katz, but Social Darwinism doesn't really work. It didn't work for the United states in the 19th century, didn't work for the US when we used it as an excuse to bulldoze indians off reservations and into firing squads, and it didn't work as a justification for Hitler and his ethnic cleansing.
I know I might be taking ur principal farther here then you wanted it to go, but if you are seriously comparing an e-community to real life then you are trying to apply Social Darwinism. Don't invoke evolution into your arguement and you might be a bit better off
Btw, imho people flame other ppl because of those reasons you mentioned about no personal contact, lack of accountability, no time to think the idea over, etc...not because of some mother bird instinct that drives a would be newbie or whatever away from the nest.
I like your articles Mr.Katz, but please examine what you are saying sometimes and see whether or not u are stretching a point like I just exemplified in this reply
Posted by Open Matrix:
:-)
This one needs to be sent to segfault.org
Better use a different container. Acetone will dissolve that styrofoam container instantly.
Posted by Napalm4u:
They did, goto mp3.com to find out which one but for the price of the drive its just not practicle for a consumer to buy this thing
Posted by kuler:
Please - let's not degenerate into vitrolic attack about mass generalizations of geeks, or what is not a geek, or what a geek would like or not like, or the common attributes of any group of people.
Like it or not, we are not as individualistic as we would imagine. We share many likes and dislike with many others - especially those with similar interests. Just because one makes a generalization does not denegrade the distinct individual attributes of each one of us.
As for "The Matrix", even with it's flaws, I found it to be a very good movie. Of course, K. Reeves is best when he doesn't speaks ("Johnny Neumonic - retch!). Yet, I found the premise to very interesting, the story engaging, ane the special effects excellent. I left the movie theatre feeling that I had gotten my money's worth and thinking creatively and differently. Of course, the current state of AI, Virtual Reality, and programming pales in comaprision to the myth and fantasy of the movie or our imagination.
Phantom Menace??? I was seven when I went to see the original Star Wars - most definately one of the defining events in my life and for my generation. Yet the Phantom Menace left me empty - great special effects, but no edge and no seriousness to the story. Sorry G. Lucas, but not this time.
In recommending movies to my friends - go see the Matrix and wait for the DVD version of Phantom Menace (hopefully with a remove Jar Jar option).
Later.
Posted by My_Favorite_Anonymous_Coward:
;)
I would have scroed you up, but I want to write
You are corrent. The whole idea of the need to replace CD is than it IS too big. How many of you geeks wear baggy pants? And how many of you can fit a cd-player in your normal shirt. Don't tell me "You know my jacket..." excuse, it's summer now. Of course, we know what the adventage of cd media is. 4 years ago, I picked up the cheapest CD player (aiwa) in the store and I thought I could get it under 100 dollar was incredible. lately I keep reading this 40, 49.99 clearence sale on the flyers.
I don't think CD mp3 player will ever become mainstream though, because it uses too much battery power. The most powerful rechargable AA is NiMH and they are deadly heavy, you want Hi-Lion (I forget the name, something Sony uses) but it's expensive. So you say the battery price will come down. Yes it will but so will the solid state memory. A whoppong 10 hour CD-mp3 player that runs on 5 hour of Energizer Buddy battery doesn't make sense, you see? (Don't forget decoding mp3 consume more power.)
Also, there's no easy why to get mp3 to a cd (compare to other storage method which behave like a floppy/zip. I laugh when the geeks want a CD-rw readable mp3. You know how much hassle you have to gone through to reburn a cd-rw to its maximum limit.) If you want to sell a $100-$60 product to the mess market, you can't make it so difficult. Most people who choose cd-mp3 player over slightly more expensive solid state player don't have a burnner anyway. A compact flash/smart media card only needs a serie port.
CY
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
as far as light speed- that's only without taking general relativity into account.
the human battery thing does seem lame, if only because there are a lot more effecient life sources that can be used. probably if this were needed in about 30 years or so, someone would simply genetically engineer something. humans might be effecient, but so many of our body functions would be superfluous if we were being used as batteries.
Posted by Napalm4u:
man i told some people on mp3place.com about this then they put it up
anyway goto iomega.com to learn all about the clik discs and their applications, they claim that they can sell the discs for 9.99 each but i haven't seen any for this price
-still cool but looks like a cell phone
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
for me i'll probably run out of coding steam in my 40's, and indeed life will cease to have meaning. By that time I'll have paid off my parents, so I can kill myself with impunity.
Posted by brent_clements:
So it was mineral oil that should be used...I've been using sprite for the past few times I tried to cool my motherboard...
Ow ow ow stop sparking me you damned motherboard!!!!
-Brent
Posted by Unit_52:
I have to agree here, I thing the man has a very adult veiwpoint of the whole situation. In this day and in our particular society we no longer have the same needs for survival and success. Especially when your young, who cares about having more money than you can happily spend, why shaould we be putting things away for our kids? look at the kids of rick parents, dont they just get up your fucking nose? And why is that? because they never HAD to do anything, poverty builds charicter and pecarious situations are the make of a man. (or woman, or free thinking concious enity, or whatever)
What Im trying to say is that we no longer have to spend all our engiesin survival, we dont have to hunt for food and we certaily dont kneed to have lots of kids and support them. Go with decedence and do what you want to do because the only thing holding you back is a lack of imagination.
Unit_52
Posted by dadieo:
Optimized for Low System Cost
By specifically designing the mP6 microprocessors with low-power consumption and superior architectural features, Rise is able to reduce the overall cost to OEM's and systems integrators by allowing for the reduction of hardware components in a system. The triple MMX(TM) allows the mP6 processor to reduce the cost of the system by eliminating expensive hardware components like DVD decoders and modem chipsets and implementing those functions in software. In addition, the BGA packaging allows OEM's to mount the mP6 processor directly on a motherboard reducing system costs even further. The BGA packaging is possible due to extremely low power consumption of the mP6 processor.
Posted by dadieo:
did i read it right that they are going to attach some directly to the bourd with no socket or slot making it impossible to upgrade?????????
Working conditions:
DC/Silicon Valley & $70Gs? Take a look at your housing costs! There are more of us who live in more rural conditions in the US, and like it that way. The working conditions you mention come because of the need companies have to compete with their neighbors, and because of the number of senior engineers in those companies promoted to management positions. They understand the software development style, and have learned how to manage accordingly. While it does seem that many appear to whine about low salaries, it is you who is naive about the general working conditions around the world. It's nice to live here in New England (US) where the pay is only slightly less than that of DC or SV, yet our housing costs are about 1/3 of theirs. :) Unfortunately, not nearly as many managers here are as versed about software development as yours have been.
Geeks needing management:
I agree. I think a better relationship would be to have a good SE/Manager manage the tech division, and have traditional management act as liasons to the business/marketing/sales aspects of the company. The pay would be more balanced that way. It is hard to see someone with a business degee (much easier than an engineering degree...) making 2-3x a senior engineer's salary, especially when the individual appears much less intelligent. Business people as liasons fix this problem. The overall pay scale can still be heirarchical, but the standard businessman now may make less than the senior engineers and not know it. Both contribute their necessary roles, but the pay is seeminly fairer.
Cheers,
TheCanoleCaptain
I'm no physicist and may be totally wrong, but here goes...
Assume Time Travel is possible. You start here on Earth and somehow travel back 4 months without traveling around outer space at lightspeed. If you did so, taking into consideration that the Earth revolves around the sun, wouldn't you end up in the middle of outer space because the earth would be in an entirely different position than when you left? This is assuming you don't change your position in space in the process, only time.
This, of course, would only matter if you could stay in a stationary location to travel through time and you don't move from that position in the process.
Would it even be possible when stationary?
[please excuse errors in spelling or grammer, I am in a hury]
From what I gathered from the original post he/she was not tying to discredit FORTRAN or praise C. The post was just a funny story about the difficulties that occur when you take a verteran A programmer and try to make them a B programmer. I know I had a tough time once I left nursery school (Java) and moved out into the real world (C/C++).
Note: The comment above about Java and C/C++ was in no way intended to be against Java or for C/C++ :^)
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
well, not everyone likes all that human interest crap. I personally only find life worth living when I'm coding. Will anyone remember you or care after you die whether or not you played frisbee with your g/f? No, of course not, and even if they did, who cares? You're dead! I don't give a rat's ass what people think of me after I'm dead.
Before I knew how to program, all I did was that real life crap you talked about. Sometimes I would go to a senior citizens community center and keep them company. Then, one day I came home, looked at the stars, cut wind (I'd had beans that night), and said "I don't give a damn about those old people. I don't care that they appreciated whatever I did for them, and everything I do is dull and boring."
So, I began to ccde, and that's all I've done since. And now when I have a sandwhich of oskar mayer chicken and turkey bologna, I look at the mess of chopped ratmeat dangling from my fingers and heace a big sigh of satisfaction. No g/f, no family, no bullshit. I get to code all day.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
the grammar was really bad. Not to nitpick, but come on-
>...the inherent conflict between man and his machines,and the humanity (or lack) it behind the masks.
no sentance deserves to have this done to it.
Posted by Moritz Moeller - Herrmann:
> Unfortunately QT has a license that restricts its
> utilisation for commercial use (enterprises have
> to pay TT) and only separated patchs are allowed by TT as source code modifications.
NOOOOOOOO!
QT impairs closed sourced applications. commercial closed source ones have to pay for developers licenses.
GPL forbids closed sourced applications.
LGPL imposes no limits on closed sourced applications.
Posted by Phantom of the Operating Syste:
There are lots of sick, power-hungry people in the world. What separates Bill from the rest is more that he has vision, and is intelligent enough to carry it out.
His vision was to have the microsoft name everywhere. He had a stubborness that only his technology was good..a thumbing of the nose at everyone else's..and especially the technical community which rejected him.
He targeted the people who wrote the checks in companies..the people who made the purchases. Other companies targeted the nerds, but old Bill knew to talk to the PHBs.
What drives him is an unholy mix of love of money and a desire for the common people to love and worship him. I wonder if he despises technical people who don't grasp and worship his technical vision.
-phantom
Posted by Happydaz:
:-)
Hmmm Mr Katz I do indeed like your articles even if I'm not sure whether I just spelled Katz correctly. At any rate, I think you do indeed perform a great job in stirring up the pot, as one poster wrote in a while ago. I like your sweeping generalizations to a point, but sometimes it seems like you are believing what you write, and thats dangerous.
For instance, take your series on "stories from the Hellmouth." Those were really good. Thought provoking. Made me want to abuse my power as Opinion Editor of my student paper and tell everyone why shootings happened. Luckily I have an Editor in Chief who is able to see both sides of an issue....man Mr. Katz your writing is more propoganda than truth sometimes! Albeit you are a very good writer, but uhm as my parents used to say when I'd show them an essay, cut the drama and make it something reasonable, I mean, not all your essays have to end with "and if this is applied, then the world will become a better place."
There is seriously nothing wrong with observing that you thought the Matrix says a bit more than Star Wars, heck, if we're doing comparisons on movies that say things here, why not Gattica? But calling it the ultimate geek movie is a bit boxy...keep in mind all the plot holes etc. Most geeks are sticklers for little details, and its irritating when i see Neo climb out the window without a cell phone in hand, then right before he chickens out, the cell phone appears in his hand and what do you know? He drops it! Weird stuff like that.
So Mr. Katz I'm not really bashing your writing, I do like it. Just make it a bit more realistic, and realize that, apart from Jar Jar, Star Wars was cool too, and the only reason I saw the Matrix 5 times is because I had many friends that hadn't seen it
Posted by coyotesf:
Actually, I "got into computers" because they're so trivial in comparison to general relativity and particle mechanics. Dropped out of school with 12 credits to go on my physics bs, grad school lurking around the corner, and I'd just burned out.
Since I needed to make money, I just gravitated toward something simple and easily profitable. I suppose I'm not a "true" geek...after all, I had an active sex life (until marriage, of course!), play sports, tan in the summer...however, I'm a jammin' engineer and architect.
I'm not a "peopler", or a "worker", or a "silverback" (whatever that is.) Trying to categorize geeks, engineers, and other techies into such narrow categories is doomed to failure. Not all the great ones are pasty-faced and socially awkward.
Posted by Severedbrain:
Yes it made sense. Using bioelectric energy to power electronic devices is not a new idea by far. I own a watch that is charged by bioelectric energy...don't ask me how it works...I haven't had the time to disect it yet...The Matrix was not the AI. It was a container for the minds of the power supply. and there wasn't any one AI, there were many, there's a line from it "...as soon as we started doing the work for you it became our world." Implying more than one AI. It probably wasn't the first time he had used his body, if you'd have been watching there was synaptic leakage when they were jacked into the matrix and they had muscle twitches and spasms...Of course, you're not going to care whether I agree or dissagree with you becasue you refuse to suspend disbelief. BTW it's just a movie.
-Severedbrain
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
How is more choice going to hurt consumers? The only possible answer is "because then Joe Consumer will have to know more before purchasing a computer".
That's something I'd really like to see happen, wouldn't you?
--
"Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda