As a project manager I usually try and hire people who have hobbies that are computer related. Why? They tend to have more creative insights into they day to day problems that arise. Also, the skills of a "geek" tend to stay current over time. The same can't be said for someone who is just interested in a pay check.
The problem is knowing if something has been invented. I'm a circuit designer and the older I get the more convinced I am that you can't design a modern circuit without violating a patent. There are so many crap patents that you just can't.
So, what does this lead to? As an engineer I'm told to stay away from anything related to the patent office. If I knowingly violate a patent its much much worse so we aren't allowed to even look. This attitude is necessary but throws the whole idea of a patent on its head.
In exchange for disclosing a new idea to the public you are supposed to get 20 years to use the idea without fear of competition. The problem is the public can no longer afford to look at the patents for fear of litigation. So, the idea of patents furthering the state of various industries is BS.
I much simplier solution to just logging miles would be to just use the odometer. The problem with that is if you drive out of state or on private property then you would be paying CA taxes. The GPS would have enough information to insure you were only taxed when using public roads.
Now, I think this is totally overkill. The odometer solution would be equivalent to the previous gas tax. Your essentially paying for how many miles you drive.
Generally I'm all for use taxes. They are the most fair system. If you use something pay for it. The GPS solution just wreaks of big brother and is overkill for the revenue problem
Disclaimer, I'm an engineer but I think your post couldn't be farther from what I've seen in my 12 year career.
Engineers are practical. We want to know details because we know that is where the problems are going to be encountered.
When we get into meetings with marketing and they want to think "broad" it usually means they want to skip over how things like physics, budgets, man power, ip, software needs,...
When managment comes and asks us to do something and we ask for clarification it because the last time they asked us to do this we came up with a great solution but it wasn't what management really wanted. Its much easier to break something down then come up with a new approach yourself.
I ask because I've been and electrical engineer working in chip design for 12 years now and I've yet to meet anyone who give a crap about the EIT or professional engineer title.
I have to say, as a long time PC user I'm intrigued. The $600 (yeah, 600) price to get a mini-mac going may make it something I would play with.
That said, I don't see much leading happening with this product. Mini-sized PCs have been out for some time and are pretty popular in certain areas. The lan party and home theater areas are really nice places. To say the mac will lead to smaller desktops is just revisionist history.
Smaller PCs were catching on the desktop and then Apple came out with a mini-box. I suppose you could argue the iMac was in this class but I don't really think so. Anyway, I applaud Apples move to try and compete in new markets. If more games were out I might really consider one for my main machine.
Looking at dictionary.com the most relevant definition
"Something, such as a practice or a product, that is widely recognized or employed, especially because of its excellence"
Now the excellence part is in doubt but I dont' think any sane person will argue that windows DirectX 9 isn't "widely employed." Because most people have access to this platform it is very standard and thus useful to the majority of people.
Oh, or were you just ranting because you can't use it on your Mac or Linux machine?
While I'm no MS fan, doesn't anyone else see that they HAVE do start offering virus and spyware applications?
MS gets killed for being vulnerable everyday here on slashdot. Now they are trying to put some tools in place to help the standard user and they get beat on for using their monopoly.
This is a bit different than debating MS adding a media player or even a browser.
I bought EQII first. After quickly getting bored I managed to find a copy of Wow (no small task).
Wow pretty much creams EQII in every way. The only people I've heard differ are hard-core EQ players. Many people do like the EQII graphics better but personally i like the more cartoonish Wow look.
Three of my friends and me recently went through hell trying to find copies. They are sold out everywhere. Its only by luck that I was in a store when a shipement came in.
From what I've read Blizzard cut back production because they could bring on support staff and servers quickly enough to support the number of copies sold. They do have an issue with responding to issues in a timely manner right now. Hopefully as they train service reps and people drop out the response time will get better.
After a recent slashdot article I looked on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog). By this definition slashdot itself is indeed a blog.
I find this ridiculous. By the definition on the site almost every site I look at is a blog. The base definition seems to say that any page that has some element of chronological order is a blog. This certainly doesn't fit my view of what a blog originally was.
So, no wonder blog readership is up. The definition of a blog has been expanded by 58%!!
I'm an engineer and work with a bunch on technically savy people. I know of one one person who commonly reads blogs. He is a ultra conservative, very religious, weirdo who uses blogs as a way to confirm his own beliefs. Other than that cares.
Most of them are crap. The only ones I've ever come upon that are even a bit worthwhile are ones where people log cool techno projects. These aren't any different than written descriptions that have been on the web since it started. Nothing new here.
I'm a EE design engineer. The EDA software we utilize can run well upwards of $100K per license. The big players are Synopsys, Mentor, and Cadence. Now, if you look on all these sites you'll see they support RHE. Thats it. So at least in my realm the statement is right on.
It might offend some but this statement is true...at least for EE EDA tools.
Look at what the big players (Synopsys, Cadence, Mentor) support. Its all RHE. The industry consortium that tries to align things has RHE. This doesn't mean the software won't work on other platforms but most corporations don't want to mess with that and will just license RHE.
Slashdot Mirror
haha,
As if the ranking democrats aren't the same.
Bringing a lawyer in when your trying to get a job doesn't usually give the best first impression. It will most likely be you last impression
Maybe because she can't act?
Been using floppies for some 20 odd years and I can't recall this ever happening to me.
As a project manager I usually try and hire people who have hobbies that are computer related. Why? They tend to have more creative insights into they day to day problems that arise. Also, the skills of a "geek" tend to stay current over time. The same can't be said for someone who is just interested in a pay check.
Hmmm, different strokes I guess. I really like the into and theme.
The problem is knowing if something has been invented. I'm a circuit designer and the older I get the more convinced I am that you can't design a modern circuit without violating a patent. There are so many crap patents that you just can't.
So, what does this lead to? As an engineer I'm told to stay away from anything related to the patent office. If I knowingly violate a patent its much much worse so we aren't allowed to even look. This attitude is necessary but throws the whole idea of a patent on its head.
In exchange for disclosing a new idea to the public you are supposed to get 20 years to use the idea without fear of competition. The problem is the public can no longer afford to look at the patents for fear of litigation. So, the idea of patents furthering the state of various industries is BS.
This is why they probably want GPS.
I much simplier solution to just logging miles would be to just use the odometer. The problem with that is if you drive out of state or on private property then you would be paying CA taxes. The GPS would have enough information to insure you were only taxed when using public roads.
Now, I think this is totally overkill. The odometer solution would be equivalent to the previous gas tax. Your essentially paying for how many miles you drive.
Generally I'm all for use taxes. They are the most fair system. If you use something pay for it. The GPS solution just wreaks of big brother and is overkill for the revenue problem
Disclaimer, I'm an engineer but I think your post couldn't be farther from what I've seen in my 12 year career.
...
Engineers are practical. We want to know details because we know that is where the problems are going to be encountered.
When we get into meetings with marketing and they want to think "broad" it usually means they want to skip over how things like physics, budgets, man power, ip, software needs,
When managment comes and asks us to do something and we ask for clarification it because the last time they asked us to do this we came up with a great solution but it wasn't what management really wanted. Its much easier to break something down then come up with a new approach yourself.
Hmmm, are you a civil engineer?
I ask because I've been and electrical engineer working in chip design for 12 years now and I've yet to meet anyone who give a crap about the EIT or professional engineer title.
Not the way I see it.
I usually have one online game that I pay for at a time. The ~$15 I pay is by far cheaper than other types of entertainment.
Been to the movies lately? Played a round of golf? Bowling? A bar?
I have to say, as a long time PC user I'm intrigued. The $600 (yeah, 600) price to get a mini-mac going may make it something I would play with.
That said, I don't see much leading happening with this product. Mini-sized PCs have been out for some time and are pretty popular in certain areas. The lan party and home theater areas are really nice places. To say the mac will lead to smaller desktops is just revisionist history.
Smaller PCs were catching on the desktop and then Apple came out with a mini-box. I suppose you could argue the iMac was in this class but I don't really think so. Anyway, I applaud Apples move to try and compete in new markets. If more games were out I might really consider one for my main machine.
Whew, I was starting to doubt the power of slashdot. I had read 5 posts without a mac reference.
Guess its all in how you define "standard."
Looking at dictionary.com the most relevant definition
"Something, such as a practice or a product, that is widely recognized or employed, especially because of its excellence"
Now the excellence part is in doubt but I dont' think any sane person will argue that windows DirectX 9 isn't "widely employed." Because most people have access to this platform it is very standard and thus useful to the majority of people.
Oh, or were you just ranting because you can't use it on your Mac or Linux machine?
While I'm no MS fan, doesn't anyone else see that they HAVE do start offering virus and spyware applications?
MS gets killed for being vulnerable everyday here on slashdot. Now they are trying to put some tools in place to help the standard user and they get beat on for using their monopoly.
This is a bit different than debating MS adding a media player or even a browser.
I bought EQII first. After quickly getting bored I managed to find a copy of Wow (no small task).
Wow pretty much creams EQII in every way. The only people I've heard differ are hard-core EQ players. Many people do like the EQII graphics better but personally i like the more cartoonish Wow look.
Three of my friends and me recently went through hell trying to find copies. They are sold out everywhere. Its only by luck that I was in a store when a shipement came in.
From what I've read Blizzard cut back production because they could bring on support staff and servers quickly enough to support the number of copies sold. They do have an issue with responding to issues in a timely manner right now. Hopefully as they train service reps and people drop out the response time will get better.
I don't buy the "rest of the world uses VHDL."
I work for a large ASIC company. We do business all over the world and have all but dropped VHDL. The demand just isn't there.
VHDL is a better language but for most things is overkill and more difficult to learn. Sometimes simplier is better.
How about you switch to Verilog with the rest of the industry?
After a recent slashdot article I looked on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog). By this definition slashdot itself is indeed a blog.
I find this ridiculous. By the definition on the site almost every site I look at is a blog. The base definition seems to say that any page that has some element of chronological order is a blog. This certainly doesn't fit my view of what a blog originally was.
So, no wonder blog readership is up. The definition of a blog has been expanded by 58%!!
Ahhh, now I see why blogs are catching on.
Everything is defined as a blog. I suppose CNN is a blog as well. How about wikipedia? It has a number of links as well.
I mean really, who reads these things?
I'm an engineer and work with a bunch on technically savy people. I know of one one person who commonly reads blogs. He is a ultra conservative, very religious, weirdo who uses blogs as a way to confirm his own beliefs. Other than that cares.
Most of them are crap. The only ones I've ever come upon that are even a bit worthwhile are ones where people log cool techno projects. These aren't any different than written descriptions that have been on the web since it started. Nothing new here.
I'm a EE design engineer. The EDA software we utilize can run well upwards of $100K per license. The big players are Synopsys, Mentor, and Cadence. Now, if you look on all these sites you'll see they support RHE. Thats it. So at least in my realm the statement is right on.
It might offend some but this statement is true...at least for EE EDA tools.
Look at what the big players (Synopsys, Cadence, Mentor) support. Its all RHE. The industry consortium that tries to align things has RHE. This doesn't mean the software won't work on other platforms but most corporations don't want to mess with that and will just license RHE.
Well so far I think I like WOW better.
I'm in the open beta for WOW and bought EQII. At level 9 I'm already feeling like EQII is a bit of a grind. WOW just seems to flow better.
That said, I'll be playing EQ2 until WOW is released and who knows. Maybe something will change my mind.