I have a streaming Netflix account, and I get the two DVDs at a time disc-in-the-mail service. The streaming is good for TV series and specialty Netflix material, but the range of films available for streaming is tiny compared to what's available on disc. Foreign films, documentaries, obscure films, so much stuff not available to stream. Probably licensing issues. So I do both.
There are pockets where old developers still hang on.
I'm early 60s. I'm still fully employed, still programming. I have resisted all offers of management positions, and they stopped coming around 55. I'm thinking of retiring in 3 years. The guy in the office next to me is 70. He might retire next year. The guy in the office on my other side is late 50s. He might retire in about 5 years. I've been in the same company for 20 years. Kind of telco. The work is still interesting, mostly Python and Java. I am training my replacement, but the best way of easing a replacement in is rewriting all the old C stuff into Python and modernising it. Once I am done with that, it will be time for me to go.
I get DVDs from Netflix, and I stream. The list of DVDs is much larger than the list of streamables. If I want old classics, like Criterion series, then DVDs is what I have to get.
If the advertising groups are complaining about this already, it is probably going to be very effective, so I am all for Apple and every other browser maker going ahead with it. Fuck them.
I have them. I have studied small parts of some of them. I have been delving into them over 30 years.
For day to day programming, I do not need or use the detail in those books.
At various times in the past, I have delved into library writing, and then they were very helpful, mostly in understanding issues and problems that I had not thought about. But I think time has moved on. Hardly anyone needs the details in those books, and in many cases, some classes of problems are well solved.
Looking back, I am glad that I studied some parts. But today I would not recommend them. Unless you really wanted to look back at history.
I used to read many books when younger. Maybe four or five a week. Earlier this year, I realised that I was down to three or four books a year. I also had trouble reading longer articles. My years of web browsing and skimming had retrained my brain to only look at small amounts of text before moving on. I did not like this. So I started a programme in my life. If I came across a longer article on the web, I forced myself to read it in full. Man, that was hard at first. I had to force myself to complete this many times, until it became a habit. It also made me realise that not all long articles were crap.
Then I turned to books. I started reading again. Start with smaller fun books, and persevere till they were done. Note them, write small book reports for myself, and keep going. Almost one year later, I am reading a book a week. I will continue this and hope to increase back to two books a week.
Self-discipline is what did it for me. I am sure that there are many other ways of approaching this and changing your own behaviour.
I made a smooth and easy transition from Google Reader to Feedly, and that worked well. It's a very efficient way of getting through my news and blogs. Then I discovered that ownCloud (http://owncloud.org) has a built in RSS feeder. I use ownCloud on my Linode to provide a Dropbox like environment, plus my own Calendar and Contacts for my iPhone and iPad, plus bookmarks. I am currently working on replacing Evernote with ownCloud.
I already had a cloud installation with Linode, and I just added ownCloud to it. Then I started discovering all the extra stuff it can do. The RSS Feeder was a wonderful discovery. I lose the economy of scale that Feedly provides, but it works more closely to my mental model, and some of the formatting is nicer than Feedly. I've been using it for several months now, and totally love it. It's not for everyone, given the requirements (you have to set up your own webserver, then set up the ownCloud services), but the benefits are enormous. And I get a little more privacy, just me and Linode and the NSA.
Me too. I tried switching to XFCE again recently, but went back to FVWM after a day. I have too much configuration and automation built in to FVWM and it works neatly and quickly and I get my work done better. Looks like I'm stuck with it for another ten years of productive work.
I use the command line in Linux and Mac all the time for almost all my work. I browse with the GUI parts but everything else, including CD and DVD ripping is done on the command line. It's far more efficient FOR ME. It's where I prefer to work.
They go for it because of the convenience. You might have other options open to you, but regular folks just want to click a few buttons and have the book on the device and ready to read. They don't care about DRM or patents or rights or morality. They just want the book there, and they don't want to have to think about it, or go to any extra effort to satisfy someone else's views on right or wrong.
Statistically, your attitude that 5,000 jumps compared to 500 jumps is the same as heads or tails after 5,000 or 500 tosses, is quite correct. But it doesn't take into account the human factor involved in skydiving. The skydiver who has done 5,000 jumps might have become cocky, complacent, careless, and is therefore long overdue for an accident. Statistics are fine in big picture, but the human element can trump statistics.
I've bought two of the Unicomp keyboards and I appreciate them mightily. I got one for work and one for home. They are noisier than the plastic kiddie-keyboards but they make up for the noise by being superb keyboards. My accuracy and speed increased, my physical effort decreased, and my hands and wrists appreciate the key action.
And at a pinch, I can pick these massive keyboards up and use them as a deadly weapon.
If you can continue working here until you have your 40 quarters (10 years full-time work), then you are eligible for the Social Security benefits earned by those years of paying into Social Security. But you get a 3 year term with your H1B, and then you can get a second 3 year term, and then you have to leave. Unless you're in the Green Card process and then it's a year by year renewal until the Green Card process is completed and you are accepted or rejected. So if you do the basic H1B, you work for six years, pay your Social Security taxes, and then forget them when you leave. It's one way way of propping up Social Security for US citizens.
If you do become eligible for the Social Security benefits by paying in for the 40 quarters, when you do retire, you get some benefits. If the US has reciprocal tax and retirement arrangements with your home country, like Australia, then you can retire to your home country and get your Social Security benefits paid to your home country. Just like US citizens can retire to Mexico and get their Social Security benefits paid there.
Ignore the streaming side of Lala, go for the trading side of Lala. Trading is still alive on lala, still thriving. Trade your unwanted CDs out, get CDs in at $1.75 each, and that includes the postage. That's a good price for cds.
Lala is still a CD trading site. The trading is still going strong, but they are moving to a streaming model. But underneath all that streaming, the die-hard traders are still there, moving the phyiscal cds around and having a blast.
There's only once answer to this. Black text on white background, motherfuckers. We've been reading shit this way for hundreds of years for damned good reasons. We've evolved to suit this. Any other perversion of colours is just a bunch of whiny little gay folk experimenting with gay colours because they think it's cool. Black text on white background - it's the only way to go.
A couple hundred cds is not a huge CD collection. A couple thousand CDs is a big CD collection, 10,000 CDs is a huge CD collection. A couple hundred CDs is just a few songs.
> Oh, bullshit. I get spam in languages I can't > recognize. How fucking clever is that?
Ah yes, the fallacy that because **you** can't get past your own personal habits, then it must be worthless. The spammers are obviously a lot smarter than you. They see the big picture, they see past their own computer screen, weigh up the odds, organise Internet connections, stay a few jumps ahead of everyone, obtain software and email lists, and spray out billions of emails, hit a small number of targets and make plenty of money out of it. Or they are smart enough to set up the systems that control the millions of zombie boxes out there that pump the email out. Some of the schemes they use are pretty impressive. You're just collateral damage because you can't read a few of the emails in different languages. You might think you're the centre of the universe, but to them you're just a few bits in a vast email list that will brings in the cash.
> the system was designed for honest people
Bullshit. The system was designed without thought of security. Had nothing to do with honesty. Had to do with a major lack of foresight on the SMTP developers. Now that we have experienced the flaws in the system, and flaws that have nothing to do with honesty, it's time to develop a better design.
> Your genes aren't worth a damn, because you > believe that anyone who is dishonest enough to > lie about who they are should be able to turn > a profit on it. Fuck you.
You know, you really need to take a few lessons in comprehension. It might help you understand posts. It would appear that spammers are a lot cleverer than you, even the redneck hick spammers who live in trailers and don't have much clue about what they are doing, other than earning money. Spammers succeed because enough people respond to their spam and channel money to them. I don't care about morality or honesty. I see the results. They make money; you whine impotently in a forum. I don't admire them, but I laugh at you. If you had enough smarts to back up your lame flame, you'd be actively working against the spammers in one way or another. But no, you just accept all the spam thrown at you, what? hundreds a day, allowing the bandwidth of the Internet be clogged just that little bit more, and the best you can come up with is to filter it and then delete it. Is that it? Is that all you can do?
The spammers are as smart as any other American conman businessman. They just fit right in with the boys of Enron and the Savings and Loans boys. They found a way around the system because they are smart enough to do it, and they make money from it. Eventually, their business model will go away and they'll move on to something else. Maybe prison, maybe a mansion. You'll just be sitting at home same as always, frothing impotently about something or other.
My beliefs about who is allowed to earn money and how were not expressed in my original post. You made some typical childish assumptions. I spit on your pathetic assumptions.
The problem is that the spammers are cleverer, more tenacious, more manipulative, have better survival instincts, and are just BETTER than everyone else bleating and whining about spam. Their genes are worth keeping because they are better than yours. They're better than you, they will survive better, have more money, attract better women, and breed better. They are the improvement to the genepool, the future.
What we don't need in the genepool are the genes that promote a clumping of whiners, who do nothing except clump around and whine about things and do nothing except whine. Sort of like what we have here at Slashdot.
What we need to do is remove the other end of the genepool, the slow and stupid bottom-feeders who buy things from the spammers, respond to spam email, and provide the spammers with all the encouragement. Spam return-on-investment will shrink, spammers will then turn their talents to other activities, and maybe the new activities will benefit everyone. Maybe.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a streaming Netflix account, and I get the two DVDs at a time disc-in-the-mail service. The streaming is good for TV series and specialty Netflix material, but the range of films available for streaming is tiny compared to what's available on disc. Foreign films, documentaries, obscure films, so much stuff not available to stream. Probably licensing issues. So I do both.
There are pockets where old developers still hang on.
I'm early 60s. I'm still fully employed, still programming. I have resisted all offers of management positions, and they stopped coming around 55. I'm thinking of retiring in 3 years. The guy in the office next to me is 70. He might retire next year. The guy in the office on my other side is late 50s. He might retire in about 5 years. I've been in the same company for 20 years. Kind of telco. The work is still interesting, mostly Python and Java. I am training my replacement, but the best way of easing a replacement in is rewriting all the old C stuff into Python and modernising it. Once I am done with that, it will be time for me to go.
I get DVDs from Netflix, and I stream. The list of DVDs is much larger than the list of streamables. If I want old classics, like Criterion series, then DVDs is what I have to get.
If the advertising groups are complaining about this already, it is probably going to be very effective, so I am all for Apple and every other browser maker going ahead with it. Fuck them.
I have them. I have studied small parts of some of them. I have been delving into them over 30 years.
For day to day programming, I do not need or use the detail in those books.
At various times in the past, I have delved into library writing, and then they were very helpful, mostly in understanding issues and problems that I had not thought about. But I think time has moved on. Hardly anyone needs the details in those books, and in many cases, some classes of problems are well solved.
Looking back, I am glad that I studied some parts. But today I would not recommend them. Unless you really wanted to look back at history.
Isn't Eric Raymond in the middle of a major rewrite of the NTP software, with emphasis on security?
I used to read many books when younger. Maybe four or five a week. Earlier this year, I realised that I was down to three or four books a year. I also had trouble reading longer articles. My years of web browsing and skimming had retrained my brain to only look at small amounts of text before moving on. I did not like this. So I started a programme in my life. If I came across a longer article on the web, I forced myself to read it in full. Man, that was hard at first. I had to force myself to complete this many times, until it became a habit. It also made me realise that not all long articles were crap.
Then I turned to books. I started reading again. Start with smaller fun books, and persevere till they were done. Note them, write small book reports for myself, and keep going. Almost one year later, I am reading a book a week. I will continue this and hope to increase back to two books a week.
Self-discipline is what did it for me. I am sure that there are many other ways of approaching this and changing your own behaviour.
I made a smooth and easy transition from Google Reader to Feedly, and that worked well. It's a very efficient way of getting through my news and blogs. Then I discovered that ownCloud (http://owncloud.org) has a built in RSS feeder. I use ownCloud on my Linode to provide a Dropbox like environment, plus my own Calendar and Contacts for my iPhone and iPad, plus bookmarks. I am currently working on replacing Evernote with ownCloud.
I already had a cloud installation with Linode, and I just added ownCloud to it. Then I started discovering all the extra stuff it can do. The RSS Feeder was a wonderful discovery. I lose the economy of scale that Feedly provides, but it works more closely to my mental model, and some of the formatting is nicer than Feedly. I've been using it for several months now, and totally love it. It's not for everyone, given the requirements (you have to set up your own webserver, then set up the ownCloud services), but the benefits are enormous. And I get a little more privacy, just me and Linode and the NSA.
Me too. I tried switching to XFCE again recently, but went back to FVWM after a day. I have too much configuration and automation built in to FVWM and it works neatly and quickly and I get my work done better. Looks like I'm stuck with it for another ten years of productive work.
I use the command line in Linux and Mac all the time for almost all my work. I browse with the GUI parts but everything else, including CD and DVD ripping is done on the command line. It's far more efficient FOR ME. It's where I prefer to work.
They go for it because of the convenience. You might have other options open to you, but regular folks just want to click a few buttons and have the book on the device and ready to read. They don't care about DRM or patents or rights or morality. They just want the book there, and they don't want to have to think about it, or go to any extra effort to satisfy someone else's views on right or wrong.
Statistically, your attitude that 5,000 jumps compared to 500 jumps is the same as heads or tails after 5,000 or 500 tosses, is quite correct. But it doesn't take into account the human factor involved in skydiving. The skydiver who has done 5,000 jumps might have become cocky, complacent, careless, and is therefore long overdue for an accident. Statistics are fine in big picture, but the human element can trump statistics.
I've bought two of the Unicomp keyboards and I appreciate them mightily. I got one for work and one for home. They are noisier than the plastic kiddie-keyboards but they make up for the noise by being superb keyboards. My accuracy and speed increased, my physical effort decreased, and my hands and wrists appreciate the key action.
And at a pinch, I can pick these massive keyboards up and use them as a deadly weapon.
Didn't they just announce the presence of mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup, which is in almost every processed food and drink today?
If you can continue working here until you have your 40 quarters (10 years full-time work), then you are eligible for the Social Security benefits earned by those years of paying into Social Security. But you get a 3 year term with your H1B, and then you can get a second 3 year term, and then you have to leave. Unless you're in the Green Card process and then it's a year by year renewal until the Green Card process is completed and you are accepted or rejected. So if you do the basic H1B, you work for six years, pay your Social Security taxes, and then forget them when you leave. It's one way way of propping up Social Security for US citizens.
If you do become eligible for the Social Security benefits by paying in for the 40 quarters, when you do retire, you get some benefits. If the US has reciprocal tax and retirement arrangements with your home country, like Australia, then you can retire to your home country and get your Social Security benefits paid to your home country. Just like US citizens can retire to Mexico and get their Social Security benefits paid there.
Ignore the streaming side of Lala, go for the trading side of Lala. Trading is still alive on lala, still thriving. Trade your unwanted CDs out, get CDs in at $1.75 each, and that includes the postage. That's a good price for cds.
Lala is still a CD trading site. The trading is still going strong, but they are moving to a streaming model. But underneath all that streaming, the die-hard traders are still there, moving the phyiscal cds around and having a blast.
There's only once answer to this. Black text on white background, motherfuckers. We've been reading shit this way for hundreds of years for damned good reasons. We've evolved to suit this. Any other perversion of colours is just a bunch of whiny little gay folk experimenting with gay colours because they think it's cool. Black text on white background - it's the only way to go.
> either way she has a huge CD collection
A couple hundred cds is not a huge CD collection. A couple thousand CDs is a big CD collection, 10,000 CDs is a huge CD collection. A couple hundred CDs is just a few songs.
> from your ID, and your comment history, I can see
> that its friggin time you posted a comment
I forgot to click on "Post anonymously" this time.
> Oh, bullshit. I get spam in languages I can't
> recognize. How fucking clever is that?
Ah yes, the fallacy that because **you** can't get past your own personal habits, then it must be worthless. The spammers are obviously a lot smarter than you. They see the big picture, they see past their own computer screen, weigh up the odds, organise Internet connections, stay a few jumps ahead of everyone, obtain software and email lists, and spray out billions of emails, hit a small number of targets and make plenty of money out of it. Or they are smart enough to set up the systems that control the millions of zombie boxes out there that pump the email out. Some of the schemes they use are pretty impressive. You're just collateral damage because you can't read a few of the emails in different languages. You might think you're the centre of the universe, but to them you're just a few bits in a vast email list that will brings in the cash.
> the system was designed for honest people
Bullshit. The system was designed without thought of security. Had nothing to do with honesty. Had to do with a major lack of foresight on the SMTP developers. Now that we have experienced the flaws in the system, and flaws that have nothing to do with honesty, it's time to develop a better design.
> Your genes aren't worth a damn, because you
> believe that anyone who is dishonest enough to
> lie about who they are should be able to turn
> a profit on it. Fuck you.
You know, you really need to take a few lessons in comprehension. It might help you understand posts. It would appear that spammers are a lot cleverer than you, even the redneck hick spammers who live in trailers and don't have much clue about what they are doing, other than earning money. Spammers succeed because enough people respond to their spam and channel money to them. I don't care about morality or honesty. I see the results. They make money; you whine impotently in a forum. I don't admire them, but I laugh at you. If you had enough smarts to back up your lame flame, you'd be actively working against the spammers in one way or another. But no, you just accept all the spam thrown at you, what? hundreds a day, allowing the bandwidth of the Internet be clogged just that little bit more, and the best you can come up with is to filter it and then delete it. Is that it? Is that all you can do?
The spammers are as smart as any other American conman businessman. They just fit right in with the boys of Enron and the Savings and Loans boys. They found a way around the system because they are smart enough to do it, and they make money from it. Eventually, their business model will go away and they'll move on to something else. Maybe prison, maybe a mansion. You'll just be sitting at home same as always, frothing impotently about something or other.
My beliefs about who is allowed to earn money and how were not expressed in my original post. You made some typical childish assumptions. I spit on your pathetic assumptions.
> The genepool needs some cleaning.
The problem is that the spammers are cleverer, more tenacious, more manipulative, have better survival instincts, and are just BETTER than everyone else bleating and whining about spam. Their genes are worth keeping because they are better than yours. They're better than you, they will survive better, have more money, attract better women, and breed better. They are the improvement to the genepool, the future.
What we don't need in the genepool are the genes that promote a clumping of whiners, who do nothing except clump around and whine about things and do nothing except whine. Sort of like what we have here at Slashdot.
What we need to do is remove the other end of the genepool, the slow and stupid bottom-feeders who buy things from the spammers, respond to spam email, and provide the spammers with all the encouragement. Spam return-on-investment will shrink, spammers will then turn their talents to other activities, and maybe the new activities will benefit everyone. Maybe.