True. Except the old site wasn't like that. Because it changed (like I said in my reply), it's okay now. The old page made no sense, and wasn't a personal webpage at all... being it had no personal info on it at all.
But that raises a good point... how do we distribute personal domain names fairly? How come corporations can get domain names (or fight over them for a prolonged time) quite easily, while individuals don't have a TLD and have to hope that some towing company or obsolete software company doesn't have the same name?
Yea, a personal TLD would be a mess as well, but it's a way of resolving SOME namespace conflicts...
Hey, it's not like domain names have been exactly fair so far...
Take, for example, me.
My nick has been BrianVan since about 1992. Lo and behold, within the last few years, someone registered brianvan.com before I could find a decent reason to grab it myself.
Go, I dare you to take a look. (nothing involving goats, sex, or anuses) I had better web design skills than that in sophomore year of high school.
It's slander, I tell ya.
Back to the point, any system that's different than the one that allowed THAT travesty to take place.
By the way, I tried to bribe the guy into giving me the domain name, but I got no response. I'll have to settle for brianvan.net instead...
Wow, first time I saw a news story exceed two screen lengths on the front page. A record.
I see that the (Read More) directive is there, but somehow it isn't necessary, is it?
The funny part was when it said there was another 1400 bytes to read. Hey, it's long enough already! Just paste it on the end, so we don't have to click a link for the last paragraph!
Next thing you know, the top 5 comments will be on the front page as well...
Guy sitting at computer... In the background you hear "You've Got Mail!"... close up of computer screen, at least 150 messages in his Inbox. He hits the forward button, selects all 50 people in his address book, and hits the send button. Immediately, a kangaroo with boxing gloves appears and knocks the living daylights out of the guy.
* Wireless Firewire - can mean wireless SCSI, networking, hard drive interfaces, scanners, printers, terminals, hi-fi speakers, personal electronic devices, etc. The key is that it'll support a lot of stuff altogether, and it can be the unifying wireless standard for any kind of data transfer.
* Blazing fast transfers without stuffing Ethernet cords under doorways and around ceilings.
* Wireless Hot Plug-n-play. Now Grandma will be teaching YOU how to install a hard drive.
* Goes through walls. I can see it now... a small, hidden camera mounted on an office wall, and on the other side of the wall, a huge 7 foot tall plasma display showing what's going on in the room next door. One-sided mirrors are obsolete.
* Now you don't have to get up to walk down the hall to get your co-worker's new Linux distro CD - it's faster to just hit a button.
* Church will teach that two things are omnipresent: God, and Napster.
* In 50 years, the Re-Commuting revolution: people get sick and tired of working in their pajamas at home with the kids, so they demand to go back to the office, wait in traffic every morning, dress in suits every day, and stare the boss in the eye when he says something like "This Firewire router isn't wireless... I have to plug in this power cord!"
* Sneaky hackers send pirate Firewire signals to Bill Gates' toaster, making him start off every day on the wrong foot when he burns his toaster strudel.
* Combine Wireless Firewire, IPV6 Multicasting, and Jenna Jameson. You may never leave your bedroom again.
Bad things:
* If you think too many of us are lazy, nerdy, and obese NOW...
* Movie theaters, restaurants, and other public places become highly annoying when all you hear is "File's Done!" from everyone's Palm Pilots.
* Privacy becomes a non-option. Hackers know everything you type, everything you download, and every web site you visit. Blackmail becomes the world's most profitable organized crime business - people get frustrated to the point where they'd rather be murdered.
* Randomly inserted 30-second commercials in EVERYTHING. That digital picture frame of Aunt Mabel on your desk becomes a Preparation-H advertisement 3 times a day.
* Doctors increase the average lifespan from 40 to 70 magically with new subcutaneous electromagnetic shielding. But then your cellular head-implant telepathic device stops working when you turn your head a certain way.
* Cmdr Taco enjoys your porn folder so much that it becomes Link-of-The-Day. Your hard drive burns your house down, kills your two dogs, and half the Tri-State region is Slashdotted. You cry on the curb about your lost porn folder.
* Larry Ellison's Network Computer predictions come true. But he still won't shut up.
* You know those annoying songs that you can't get out of your head? The RIAA does that quite literally down the line.
* The next World War foregoes traditional weapons for psychological warfare - Allied forces clog the spectrum with Vanilla Ice songs, and Axis powers transmit episodes of "Full House".
* Finally, you can't get into the hot New York clubs with overclocked pants anymore. It's their way of weeding out the undesirables.
Communication is the key here. Stupidity might get in the way though. Not to sound like an echo here, but you:
* Cannot accept the project as-is, in any case.
* Must tell your boss about your side project and that you won't work on their project due to a conflict of interest (you don't want to compete with yourself) - but that once you complete the side project, it's a possible licensing solution to look into.
* Reassure your boss that you didn't touch this project on work-time, and that you're not willing to at this point because of the IP issues.
* Pray that your boss doesn't fire you, reprimand you, come up with a cheesy solution that screws you over, order you to quit working on or hand over your side project, sue you, etc. Not that there would be any grounds or fairness in these actions, but managers are... managers.
* Cannot tell your boss that you can't do it and then do it for the client company behind your employer's back. Highly unethical.
It all depends on how your boss reacts, really. You HAVE to say something. You're entitled to, you could benefit greatly from this situation, and it's just plain unfair if you have to silently hand over the rights of your personal work to any company because of a situation like this. Don't try to sneak anything past anyone, it's too risky and you stand to lose a lot if your employer finds out.
Also, take some time to make your side project really spiffy. The upswing of that would be that you can perhaps impress all your clients, your employer's client, and your employer as well... so that not only does everyone benefit, but you may be in line for a promotion as well. So don't make any spelling or grammar errors! ("You have no chance to survive make your time" for example)
Moff Jerjerrod: Bill Gates is releasing IE 6.0?
Darth Vader: That is correct, Commander. And, he is most displeased with your apparent lack of progress.
Moff Jerjerrod: We shall double our efforts!
Darth Vader: I hope so, Commander, for your sake. The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am.
Moff Jerjerrod: For great justice!
Darth Vader: All your base are belong to us...
Actually, there's a substantial amount of kids nowadays that have never really hung out in a real arcade... many municipal governments in the US have fought long and hard to make arcades... aka juvenile delinquent hangouts, as they saw them... a non-existent part of the landscape. Hence, there is no local arcade anymore, no place to really hang out and play all kinds of games.
Before you argue with me, an arcade is NOT:
1. a movie theater
2. an indoor amusement park that's rather large and is not easily accessible by foot for most people (some lucky kids have these nearby, but it's like the movie theaters now... you gotta drive a distance to get to one)
3. a deli or small shop with less than 3 arcade machines
4. anyplace that charges admission
5. a local-area tourist attraction or highway rest stop
Not to say you can't get your game on in those places, but in general, those are NOT hangouts for the purposes of playing arcade games. Specifically, a lot of those places are faraway for most kids, not easily accessible, expensive, and generally unsuitable for hanging out with the guys (or girls). You could hangout there, for whatever reason, but it's not like an arcade. It's not the same atmosphere.
I really wish that didn't happen, but there were too many pedophiles, drug dealers, thugs packin heat and knives, and all other kinds of seedy elements gathering there after a while to ruin it for everyone. I mean, it's not that it got bad at most arcades... but it was excuse enough for the cops to harrass the places. And since they got to be too much trouble to run, people stopped running them. I can personally think of 4 or 5 arcades in walking distance from my house that went belly-up when I was growing up. Hell, I had an amusement park in my town that got knocked down a few years before I was born (to make condos, no less) for the exact same reasons.
Video game consoles just replaced arcades... it's not that they made them extinct. They were already becoming extinct.
For proof, there's a lot of coin-op companies getting out of the business (or already out). Williams, the grand-pinball company, is one of them. It's sad, really.
One might define anything dealing with programming as an art not entirely unlike visual design, architecture, literary composition, or musical composition.
One might look at it this way: computers can't entirely write their own programs, given a problem (task) that needs a solution (programmed routine). At least, not yet anyway. Humans, however, don't think like computers when they write programs. There is no brute force in writing a program, there is no deterministic solution mapped out for every programming task. Instead, we take a general idea - that is, what we want a program to do - and sculpt it with the available tools. While assembly language programmers are more similar to engineers operating a machine... high level programmers are abstracted far enough from the absolute technical details such that programming constructs are more like ideas of execution flow, rather than absolute commands.
This is the great thing about game programming, though. If you're more of an artist and less of an engineer, and you enjoy working with a broad range of creative fields, game programming is almost perfect. You get to combine programming, visual elements, artwork, architechture, musical elements, strategic planning, competitive balancing, storytelling, etc. all into one project. Take another field of programming... say, AI... and although it's also a creative field, it's not very broad - it's kind of like how a painting on its own cannot have a song or a love story attached to it.
Of course, the biggest problems with game programming are dragged in from their respective artistic components - you need to be a lot smarter than your average Joe Shmoe job (the programming and strategy aspects), you need specialized knowledge (programming, game rule design), you may wind up starving (visual and musical arts), getting it all to match up together is not a simple task (programming, visual arts, musical arts, and storytelling)... and other pitfalls. For example:
It needs to run acceptably fast, no music at all is better than having a shitty soundtrack, you can't give everyone a BFG to start, it can't be the fiftieth game about fantasy ninja American-soldier magician mercenaries shooting up all the Communist alien demonic Orcs with crates, you gotta stay away from making models with black belts and brown shoes, you can't write lines like "All your base are belong to us", you should not have to play it 26 hours straight through to beat it without being able to save it, it needs to be compatible with as much hardware as possible, it should not require that you hold down Q, L, F6, and the right mouse button for any cruicial game action, it needs to fit on a CD-ROM, and it needs to be in a pretty box.
Smooth Internet multiplayer mode, proximity mines, and a sniper rifle with magnified scope are nice extras.;)
SATs and other college admission standards are slightly flawed in one way, certainly...
That is, they don't accomodate for learning disabilities very well.
First of all, there's no accomodations to level the playing field for people with LD. Sure, they can get more time on the test, but that's about all they can get... and to take the test LONGER is probably a DISADVANTAGE on its own, considering that kids aren't used to taking 3 hour tests on a Saturday morning as it is. And more time doesn't make taking the test easier for dyslexics, for example... it just gives you more time to struggle with it. If you're a real fighter, you'll manage to pull through... yet the fact that you probably fought harder to take that test than anyone else in the room won't probably be reflected in the score. The lazy kid with a brain across the room will probably have finished in 2 1/2 hours and got a 1600 by luck...
Second, a lot of learning disabilities go untreated and undiagnosed (or mistreated and misdiagnosed) through high school, because a lot of school systems are ill-equipped to deal with it - other than sending the kids to school on the "little yellow bus". Hence the kids are at an educational disadvantage at that point, even though they may be just as smart as anyone else.
Oh, and third, there's no standard way of communicating learning disability situations to universities... there's no little black circle to fill in for dyslexia or attention deficit disorder, for example. And if you decide to send a note to every school you apply to so that they'll know and adjust for it... their adjustment will probably be more like not letting you in because they know you'll cost them more money and time than, let's say, any of the normal alcoholics attending colleges today.
First of all, all us Slashdot readers are well aware of the whole "Hellmouth" scenario. That is, if it is absolutely crucial to test an adolescent's intelligence, high school is NOT the place to do it. High school is full of distractions: bitter teachers, bullies, thugs, social cliques, athletic competition, emphasis on passing state-based "dummy" aptitude tests, joke courses, pressure NOT to be the big nerd, extracirricular activities, etc. I'm not saying that all these factors are worthless to the education of a person... as a matter of fact, they ALL get us ready for the real world (bitter bosses, criminals, adult cliques, drinking games, taxes, insurance papers, and other bureaucratic forms, out-of-work interests and hobbies). But, by god, the high school system is so damaging today, that it's a horror that anyone would put any weight on the performance of a person who is currently dealing with it. I mean, what about the SAT scores of all those kids from Columbine... I bet the whole thing of "Our school was nearly bombed and some of my friends and teachers died" surely weighed down on more scores than helped them for the next year's SATs. I mean, that was at least a 3 month lapse in studying ridiculous lists of obscure vocabulary words....
Also, university admissions are already a mess today. I went through it myself... I applied to 7 schools, and they all had ridiculous-length admissions forms that needed to be hand-typed. I didn't apply to U.Penn simply because I didn't wanna type out another 20-page booklet! Nowadays, colleges are overcrowded, there are so many people trying to get in with all kinds of merits, there are no really reliable performance measures (the SAT is the best thing they've got), colleges are always trying to fill minority and culture quotas, and in the end they wind up with a bunch of party animals anyway.
And think of other priorities too. My best friend got into MIT with less than a 1300 on his SATs... he was 3rd in his class though, in a not-too-easy high school. But why did he get in? He'll even admit that he thinks it's because he was a good Division 3 football prospect, and he had a "good enough" brain to go with it. He didn't recieve a lick of scholorship money, though, and he needed the money, so he didn't go. He hardly regrets it, too.
I always think of how Princeton won't accept a lot of kids from New Jersey, being they don't want to be pegged out as a New Jersey school... but how they'll BRAG about how they let a student in who attached a picture to his application of him standing with his prizewinning cow in a corn field in Iowa. As it stands today, it's so much easier to get into an Ivy if you're from North Dakota than if you're from an East Coast metro area simply because the competition is a lot stiffer in those latter-mentioned regions. Schools want diversity, and they don't care if you're more than good enough for their school if they've already got enough kids from your area to attend.
And, to think, that many kids apply to 6-10 schools today just to make sure they get in somewhere. The flood of applications is overwhelming, and enrollments are not guaranteed based on acceptances. Some schools are picky and yet get jilted because students will pick a better scholarship deal elsewhere... other schools, like mine (U. Delaware), try to deal with overenrollment by cutting admissions... and they consistently get HIGHER enrollments every year anyway, simply because a higher percentage of admissions wind up enrolling every year.
Thank you thank you... I appreciate that SOMEONE on here doesn't make me feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone when it comes to having a real discussion about these topics...
I mean, what the Justice Dept. wants to do is GREAT for me! My family (not me personally) owns MSFT stock, and while I'd rather not see my parents die old and poor... I think two is better than one in this case. But ignoring that...
The whole point of the posting was about a book that consistently says "Microsoft has fallen"... when it's not true at all. But it's wishful thinking on part of the Slashdot crowd. I just don't like that idea... everyone on here hates Bill Gates, that's fine, he's a great villian. But they're still around, and I think there's a lot of GOOD reasons why the government shouldn't try their best to bankrupt them... although I don't mind if another company does that on their own, as it would be fair competition (and fun to watch).
However, I don't see that happening soon. Linux can't do it, and probably shouldn't. I'd rather see Linux destroy Sun anyway. Sun represents everything evil against the Open Source movement - closed source, expensive hardware, few options, dumb lawsuits and bullying to protect shoddy technology (Java). Microsoft sells an operating system that none of you like but isn't targeted toward you anyway... and they don't represent real competition to anything that anyone on here does anyway. And they make more money on investments and MS Office anyway. It's like saying, instead of just admitting you don't like cheesy teen romantic comedies, that you want Freddie Prinze Jr. and the rest of them to die horribly.
Or maybe not. It's late, my analogies suck.
Anyway, my first idea was that we'd rather see an honest MS than a dead MS. Can anyone agree on that?
No I don't work for Microsoft. I have my reasons for biases, but whatever.
I still believe it's a perfectly valid point that whatever little vengeful plans anyone in the computer world has against Microsoft would not just affect Bill Gates in a profoundly negative way.
The world can operate without Microsoft. But I don't think we're ready for that yet. We would need an adequate replacement for a desktop OS (don't say Linux, it's not ready yet), we would need the stock market to jump ship on them slowly (as in not causing a market crash), and we would need 19,000 Microserfs to have new jobs lined up. If that happens, I think it's perfectly fine if Gates and Co. go down in flames. Otherwise, who are you really hurting there? A lot more people who don't deserve it than ones who do.
Don't forget that you'd be stranding MILLIONS of licensed Windows users, who depend on that OS and programs written for it in their business and personal lives. Few of these people can pick up Linux or MacOS tomorrow and make a smooth transition. Granted, the software will be there and the company won't be... but you still need tech support and bugfixes (lots of em), and no other company will want to do that for the sake of charity.
Notice that none of my arguement tries to downplay or deny what they've done in the past. I know they have been unethical... although not THAT bad recently in my opinion... and I believe people have a right to feel that way. Just think of the consequences first, though, to OTHER PEOPLE when you plot your revenge.
And no, Microsoft doesn't hold up the world. As a matter of fact, if they ever went away, I'm sure other companies would step up to the plate to take their place, although it would be a painful transition. But it would be possible. Just don't think that anyone's ready for that yet.
One more thing... with the dominance of Windows and the advent of Linux, the business of operating systems isn't too profitable anymore. Linux is free, it's difficult to start another OS from scratch and get a lot of people to use it (e.g. BeOS), and it's not really feasible to make a Windows clone without breaking a few copyrights. So why would anyone else wanna be in the operating system business right now? Let MS have it for now and let them deal with all the bullshit like new peripherals/drivers, compatibility, bugfixes, security and stability, etc. I don't see anyone else lining up to deal with these responsibilities....
I know that there's this standpoint within the industry that Microsoft, not being the world's biggest unstoppable company anymore, is better off dead. Hence the wishful thinking that they are dead.
Once again, we fail to see the irresponsibility of our desires. MSFT is still listed on the DJIA. It still heavily swings the NASDAQ index too. Gates, Allen, and Ballmer might be still filthy rich off their own company's stock, but there are a large number of middle class, blue-collar investors that have a significant amount of Microsoft shares... not for lack of portfolio diversity, but because their share value went steadily up for a while and the overall eventual wealth of MSFT holdings well outweighed the wealth of... let's say, AT&T or Exxon stock. And don't forget the large number of mutual funds with a big portion of Microsoft stock... generally the financial world still thinks that it's something to hold onto, maybe even a bargain right now.
I don't condone unethical behavior, but compared with the other giants in the industry, they're in good company. (Intel, Sun, Oracle... hell, even Hemos is whining about RAMBUS today, and you tell me which company you'd rather see die) But more importantly, we'd rather see Microsoft REFORM and avoid unethical behavior... correct? A company of their size and clout could contribute very much to the computer industry... as they have already, although not as much to our line of interests... and I think they would be more beneficial honest than dead.
Of course, the typical 3-year-old child way of thinking is to bring bulldozers to Redmond, put 20,000 people out of work, destroy the personal finances of millions of middle class people, crash the stock market, remove the current lynchpin of the OS business (possibly collapsing the computer industry if people go back to using bank calculators rather than learn *nix), create a nightmare for the retail world, and hand the wheel over to... well, no one is quite ready to take their place just yet.
Just to reference what has been said a number of times already... age and experience does matter in multiple ways, in terms of overall knowledge, social skills, and cockiness. Age does not equal experience, but generally age does determine where you are on the pecking order anyway.
That said: I think a lot of people are going the "young people aren't mature" route in answering the question, and that sucks a lot. (which should reveal my age right there... I'm 21)
It's true that younger people are more likely to make mistakes in the business world that can be resolved by maturity. But I see two problems with dismissing younger people like that. First of all, younger people are doing just as much work as older people in the same jobs, and if anything, they need more attention, training, and understanding. The idea of older people saying "Hah, you don't know better, you're young, wait another 15 years to get respect" is immaturity on the part of older people. Second, if you hire or work with younger people, and you're going to make them feel disrespected, unappreciated, and powerless, then why the hell do you even bother? Just go about your prejudiced ways and work with or hire only older people, if you can help it; they're the only ones you'll ultimately get along with.
Young people have the same problems with dealing with the older crowd, too. This is the reverse situation of something I've seen complained about a LOT on Slashdot before... that is, older people get no respect because younger people are more knowledgeable about newer technology, and the workplace strives to put them out to pasture. It's more of a problem that way, though, because younger people could actually use the maturity and experience of the older people in some situations, but at least as an example of how to act and develop in the workplace. If you have sufficently intelligent older, more experienced people around, then chances are you won't miss the young people.
Age discrimination is terrible no matter what side it comes from. Respect and understanding go a long way in the workplace. EVERYONE could learn that lesson.
Mother: "What would you like for Christmas this year?"
epeus: "I want a non-zero sum game!"
Mother: (under her breath) "Little F*ckin choosy bastard, he's getting a Tickle-me Elmo, a Furby, or a PS2 instead..."
And, as always, Christmas morning would involve a lot of crying, yelling, and Jack Daniels. Of course, this was nothing compared to the year that Santa Claus got stuck in the chimney and died there, but that's another story altogether.
Gee, after reading this story, it's like I'd rather see more about the PayPal...
I live with a Mac sympathizer, so I know what it's like to have that viewpoint that Apple keeps coming out with cool things even though they sell like ice cubes in Alaska. I do have a certain amount of sentimental feeling that wishes Apple to stay alive, as well as an eye for aestetics that really likes the computer models that came out in the past few years... but at the same time, I'd be pretty ignorant to say that a company should stay alive if I personally wouldn't buy anything they sold even though I could USE it.
Then again, the main point of this message wasn't to bash Apple... it was to make fun of timothy for coming up with a lame dept.:)
One day, I had invented the thing which we will refer to as IT... the greatest revolution of our time, greater than the Internet, sliced bread, and Larry Ellison combined. So I took a stroll down to the local bank so I could get financing to create prototypes of IT, so I could pitch IT to filthy rich computer billionaires, so I could have a book written about IT, so I could get on the cover of Wired and Time Magazine, knocking off that loser boy Shawn Fanning...
But then I went down there and found out I once had an unlicensed copy of Windows 3.1 on my old 486 in the closet, and I owed Microsoft $350 or else I wouldn't get the loan to create IT.
The funny thing is, I installed Slackware on that box years ago!
Unfortunately, Microsoft themselves didn't remember me owing them $350... when I sent them the money, they thought it was for something else, and send me pictures back of a hot naked sweaty Steve Ballmer. As such I'm scarred for life, and all the proceeds from IT now must go toward my therapy.
Reportedly I'll be seeing the same shrink as that kook Jeff "Hemos" Bates.
Sometimes some people have little respect for the amount of time and effort people put into their hobbies. I do find that disgusting, and I wish all of you the best of luck in maintaining order in spite of this problem.
Slashdot Mirror
True. Except the old site wasn't like that. Because it changed (like I said in my reply), it's okay now. The old page made no sense, and wasn't a personal webpage at all... being it had no personal info on it at all.
But that raises a good point... how do we distribute personal domain names fairly? How come corporations can get domain names (or fight over them for a prolonged time) quite easily, while individuals don't have a TLD and have to hope that some towing company or obsolete software company doesn't have the same name?
Yea, a personal TLD would be a mess as well, but it's a way of resolving SOME namespace conflicts...
The site changed. No web pages, just images in a directory.
Trust me it's a lot better than what used to be there.
Hey, it's not like domain names have been exactly fair so far...
Take, for example, me.
My nick has been BrianVan since about 1992. Lo and behold, within the last few years, someone registered brianvan.com before I could find a decent reason to grab it myself.
Go, I dare you to take a look. (nothing involving goats, sex, or anuses) I had better web design skills than that in sophomore year of high school.
It's slander, I tell ya.
Back to the point, any system that's different than the one that allowed THAT travesty to take place.
By the way, I tried to bribe the guy into giving me the domain name, but I got no response. I'll have to settle for brianvan.net instead...
Wow, first time I saw a news story exceed two screen lengths on the front page. A record.
I see that the (Read More) directive is there, but somehow it isn't necessary, is it?
The funny part was when it said there was another 1400 bytes to read. Hey, it's long enough already! Just paste it on the end, so we don't have to click a link for the last paragraph!
Next thing you know, the top 5 comments will be on the front page as well...
Guy sitting at computer... In the background you hear "You've Got Mail!"... close up of computer screen, at least 150 messages in his Inbox. He hits the forward button, selects all 50 people in his address book, and hits the send button. Immediately, a kangaroo with boxing gloves appears and knocks the living daylights out of the guy.
Word appears at bottom: "SPAM"
Foster's beer bottle shown: "BEEEAAAH!"
"Foster's. Austrailian for BEEEAAAH!"
Good ideas here:
* Wireless Firewire - can mean wireless SCSI, networking, hard drive interfaces, scanners, printers, terminals, hi-fi speakers, personal electronic devices, etc. The key is that it'll support a lot of stuff altogether, and it can be the unifying wireless standard for any kind of data transfer.
* Blazing fast transfers without stuffing Ethernet cords under doorways and around ceilings.
* Wireless Hot Plug-n-play. Now Grandma will be teaching YOU how to install a hard drive.
* Goes through walls. I can see it now... a small, hidden camera mounted on an office wall, and on the other side of the wall, a huge 7 foot tall plasma display showing what's going on in the room next door. One-sided mirrors are obsolete.
* Now you don't have to get up to walk down the hall to get your co-worker's new Linux distro CD - it's faster to just hit a button.
* Church will teach that two things are omnipresent: God, and Napster.
* In 50 years, the Re-Commuting revolution: people get sick and tired of working in their pajamas at home with the kids, so they demand to go back to the office, wait in traffic every morning, dress in suits every day, and stare the boss in the eye when he says something like "This Firewire router isn't wireless... I have to plug in this power cord!"
* Sneaky hackers send pirate Firewire signals to Bill Gates' toaster, making him start off every day on the wrong foot when he burns his toaster strudel.
* Combine Wireless Firewire, IPV6 Multicasting, and Jenna Jameson. You may never leave your bedroom again.
Bad things:
* If you think too many of us are lazy, nerdy, and obese NOW...
* Movie theaters, restaurants, and other public places become highly annoying when all you hear is "File's Done!" from everyone's Palm Pilots.
* Privacy becomes a non-option. Hackers know everything you type, everything you download, and every web site you visit. Blackmail becomes the world's most profitable organized crime business - people get frustrated to the point where they'd rather be murdered.
* Randomly inserted 30-second commercials in EVERYTHING. That digital picture frame of Aunt Mabel on your desk becomes a Preparation-H advertisement 3 times a day.
* Doctors increase the average lifespan from 40 to 70 magically with new subcutaneous electromagnetic shielding. But then your cellular head-implant telepathic device stops working when you turn your head a certain way.
* Cmdr Taco enjoys your porn folder so much that it becomes Link-of-The-Day. Your hard drive burns your house down, kills your two dogs, and half the Tri-State region is Slashdotted. You cry on the curb about your lost porn folder.
* Larry Ellison's Network Computer predictions come true. But he still won't shut up.
* You know those annoying songs that you can't get out of your head? The RIAA does that quite literally down the line.
* The next World War foregoes traditional weapons for psychological warfare - Allied forces clog the spectrum with Vanilla Ice songs, and Axis powers transmit episodes of "Full House".
* Finally, you can't get into the hot New York clubs with overclocked pants anymore. It's their way of weeding out the undesirables.
All your project are belong to us.
Communication is the key here. Stupidity might get in the way though. Not to sound like an echo here, but you:
* Cannot accept the project as-is, in any case.
* Must tell your boss about your side project and that you won't work on their project due to a conflict of interest (you don't want to compete with yourself) - but that once you complete the side project, it's a possible licensing solution to look into.
* Reassure your boss that you didn't touch this project on work-time, and that you're not willing to at this point because of the IP issues.
* Pray that your boss doesn't fire you, reprimand you, come up with a cheesy solution that screws you over, order you to quit working on or hand over your side project, sue you, etc. Not that there would be any grounds or fairness in these actions, but managers are... managers.
* Cannot tell your boss that you can't do it and then do it for the client company behind your employer's back. Highly unethical.
It all depends on how your boss reacts, really. You HAVE to say something. You're entitled to, you could benefit greatly from this situation, and it's just plain unfair if you have to silently hand over the rights of your personal work to any company because of a situation like this. Don't try to sneak anything past anyone, it's too risky and you stand to lose a lot if your employer finds out.
Also, take some time to make your side project really spiffy. The upswing of that would be that you can perhaps impress all your clients, your employer's client, and your employer as well... so that not only does everyone benefit, but you may be in line for a promotion as well. So don't make any spelling or grammar errors! ("You have no chance to survive make your time" for example)
Moff Jerjerrod: Bill Gates is releasing IE 6.0?
Darth Vader: That is correct, Commander. And, he is most displeased with your apparent lack of progress.
Moff Jerjerrod: We shall double our efforts!
Darth Vader: I hope so, Commander, for your sake. The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am.
Moff Jerjerrod: For great justice!
Darth Vader: All your base are belong to us...
Actually, there's a substantial amount of kids nowadays that have never really hung out in a real arcade... many municipal governments in the US have fought long and hard to make arcades... aka juvenile delinquent hangouts, as they saw them... a non-existent part of the landscape. Hence, there is no local arcade anymore, no place to really hang out and play all kinds of games.
Before you argue with me, an arcade is NOT:
1. a movie theater
2. an indoor amusement park that's rather large and is not easily accessible by foot for most people (some lucky kids have these nearby, but it's like the movie theaters now... you gotta drive a distance to get to one)
3. a deli or small shop with less than 3 arcade machines
4. anyplace that charges admission
5. a local-area tourist attraction or highway rest stop
Not to say you can't get your game on in those places, but in general, those are NOT hangouts for the purposes of playing arcade games. Specifically, a lot of those places are faraway for most kids, not easily accessible, expensive, and generally unsuitable for hanging out with the guys (or girls). You could hangout there, for whatever reason, but it's not like an arcade. It's not the same atmosphere.
I really wish that didn't happen, but there were too many pedophiles, drug dealers, thugs packin heat and knives, and all other kinds of seedy elements gathering there after a while to ruin it for everyone. I mean, it's not that it got bad at most arcades... but it was excuse enough for the cops to harrass the places. And since they got to be too much trouble to run, people stopped running them. I can personally think of 4 or 5 arcades in walking distance from my house that went belly-up when I was growing up. Hell, I had an amusement park in my town that got knocked down a few years before I was born (to make condos, no less) for the exact same reasons.
Video game consoles just replaced arcades... it's not that they made them extinct. They were already becoming extinct.
For proof, there's a lot of coin-op companies getting out of the business (or already out). Williams, the grand-pinball company, is one of them. It's sad, really.
One might define anything dealing with programming as an art not entirely unlike visual design, architecture, literary composition, or musical composition.
;)
One might look at it this way: computers can't entirely write their own programs, given a problem (task) that needs a solution (programmed routine). At least, not yet anyway. Humans, however, don't think like computers when they write programs. There is no brute force in writing a program, there is no deterministic solution mapped out for every programming task. Instead, we take a general idea - that is, what we want a program to do - and sculpt it with the available tools. While assembly language programmers are more similar to engineers operating a machine... high level programmers are abstracted far enough from the absolute technical details such that programming constructs are more like ideas of execution flow, rather than absolute commands.
This is the great thing about game programming, though. If you're more of an artist and less of an engineer, and you enjoy working with a broad range of creative fields, game programming is almost perfect. You get to combine programming, visual elements, artwork, architechture, musical elements, strategic planning, competitive balancing, storytelling, etc. all into one project. Take another field of programming... say, AI... and although it's also a creative field, it's not very broad - it's kind of like how a painting on its own cannot have a song or a love story attached to it.
Of course, the biggest problems with game programming are dragged in from their respective artistic components - you need to be a lot smarter than your average Joe Shmoe job (the programming and strategy aspects), you need specialized knowledge (programming, game rule design), you may wind up starving (visual and musical arts), getting it all to match up together is not a simple task (programming, visual arts, musical arts, and storytelling)... and other pitfalls. For example:
It needs to run acceptably fast, no music at all is better than having a shitty soundtrack, you can't give everyone a BFG to start, it can't be the fiftieth game about fantasy ninja American-soldier magician mercenaries shooting up all the Communist alien demonic Orcs with crates, you gotta stay away from making models with black belts and brown shoes, you can't write lines like "All your base are belong to us", you should not have to play it 26 hours straight through to beat it without being able to save it, it needs to be compatible with as much hardware as possible, it should not require that you hold down Q, L, F6, and the right mouse button for any cruicial game action, it needs to fit on a CD-ROM, and it needs to be in a pretty box.
Smooth Internet multiplayer mode, proximity mines, and a sniper rifle with magnified scope are nice extras.
SATs and other college admission standards are slightly flawed in one way, certainly...
That is, they don't accomodate for learning disabilities very well.
First of all, there's no accomodations to level the playing field for people with LD. Sure, they can get more time on the test, but that's about all they can get... and to take the test LONGER is probably a DISADVANTAGE on its own, considering that kids aren't used to taking 3 hour tests on a Saturday morning as it is. And more time doesn't make taking the test easier for dyslexics, for example... it just gives you more time to struggle with it. If you're a real fighter, you'll manage to pull through... yet the fact that you probably fought harder to take that test than anyone else in the room won't probably be reflected in the score. The lazy kid with a brain across the room will probably have finished in 2 1/2 hours and got a 1600 by luck...
Second, a lot of learning disabilities go untreated and undiagnosed (or mistreated and misdiagnosed) through high school, because a lot of school systems are ill-equipped to deal with it - other than sending the kids to school on the "little yellow bus". Hence the kids are at an educational disadvantage at that point, even though they may be just as smart as anyone else.
Oh, and third, there's no standard way of communicating learning disability situations to universities... there's no little black circle to fill in for dyslexia or attention deficit disorder, for example. And if you decide to send a note to every school you apply to so that they'll know and adjust for it... their adjustment will probably be more like not letting you in because they know you'll cost them more money and time than, let's say, any of the normal alcoholics attending colleges today.
I think the SAT is the least of our problems.
First of all, all us Slashdot readers are well aware of the whole "Hellmouth" scenario. That is, if it is absolutely crucial to test an adolescent's intelligence, high school is NOT the place to do it. High school is full of distractions: bitter teachers, bullies, thugs, social cliques, athletic competition, emphasis on passing state-based "dummy" aptitude tests, joke courses, pressure NOT to be the big nerd, extracirricular activities, etc. I'm not saying that all these factors are worthless to the education of a person... as a matter of fact, they ALL get us ready for the real world (bitter bosses, criminals, adult cliques, drinking games, taxes, insurance papers, and other bureaucratic forms, out-of-work interests and hobbies). But, by god, the high school system is so damaging today, that it's a horror that anyone would put any weight on the performance of a person who is currently dealing with it. I mean, what about the SAT scores of all those kids from Columbine... I bet the whole thing of "Our school was nearly bombed and some of my friends and teachers died" surely weighed down on more scores than helped them for the next year's SATs. I mean, that was at least a 3 month lapse in studying ridiculous lists of obscure vocabulary words....
Also, university admissions are already a mess today. I went through it myself... I applied to 7 schools, and they all had ridiculous-length admissions forms that needed to be hand-typed. I didn't apply to U.Penn simply because I didn't wanna type out another 20-page booklet! Nowadays, colleges are overcrowded, there are so many people trying to get in with all kinds of merits, there are no really reliable performance measures (the SAT is the best thing they've got), colleges are always trying to fill minority and culture quotas, and in the end they wind up with a bunch of party animals anyway.
And think of other priorities too. My best friend got into MIT with less than a 1300 on his SATs... he was 3rd in his class though, in a not-too-easy high school. But why did he get in? He'll even admit that he thinks it's because he was a good Division 3 football prospect, and he had a "good enough" brain to go with it. He didn't recieve a lick of scholorship money, though, and he needed the money, so he didn't go. He hardly regrets it, too.
I always think of how Princeton won't accept a lot of kids from New Jersey, being they don't want to be pegged out as a New Jersey school... but how they'll BRAG about how they let a student in who attached a picture to his application of him standing with his prizewinning cow in a corn field in Iowa. As it stands today, it's so much easier to get into an Ivy if you're from North Dakota than if you're from an East Coast metro area simply because the competition is a lot stiffer in those latter-mentioned regions. Schools want diversity, and they don't care if you're more than good enough for their school if they've already got enough kids from your area to attend.
And, to think, that many kids apply to 6-10 schools today just to make sure they get in somewhere. The flood of applications is overwhelming, and enrollments are not guaranteed based on acceptances. Some schools are picky and yet get jilted because students will pick a better scholarship deal elsewhere... other schools, like mine (U. Delaware), try to deal with overenrollment by cutting admissions... and they consistently get HIGHER enrollments every year anyway, simply because a higher percentage of admissions wind up enrolling every year.
Enough ranting, though. You get my point.
Thank you thank you... I appreciate that SOMEONE on here doesn't make me feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone when it comes to having a real discussion about these topics...
I mean, what the Justice Dept. wants to do is GREAT for me! My family (not me personally) owns MSFT stock, and while I'd rather not see my parents die old and poor... I think two is better than one in this case. But ignoring that...
The whole point of the posting was about a book that consistently says "Microsoft has fallen"... when it's not true at all. But it's wishful thinking on part of the Slashdot crowd. I just don't like that idea... everyone on here hates Bill Gates, that's fine, he's a great villian. But they're still around, and I think there's a lot of GOOD reasons why the government shouldn't try their best to bankrupt them... although I don't mind if another company does that on their own, as it would be fair competition (and fun to watch).
However, I don't see that happening soon. Linux can't do it, and probably shouldn't. I'd rather see Linux destroy Sun anyway. Sun represents everything evil against the Open Source movement - closed source, expensive hardware, few options, dumb lawsuits and bullying to protect shoddy technology (Java). Microsoft sells an operating system that none of you like but isn't targeted toward you anyway... and they don't represent real competition to anything that anyone on here does anyway. And they make more money on investments and MS Office anyway. It's like saying, instead of just admitting you don't like cheesy teen romantic comedies, that you want Freddie Prinze Jr. and the rest of them to die horribly.
Or maybe not. It's late, my analogies suck.
Anyway, my first idea was that we'd rather see an honest MS than a dead MS. Can anyone agree on that?
No I don't work for Microsoft. I have my reasons for biases, but whatever.
I still believe it's a perfectly valid point that whatever little vengeful plans anyone in the computer world has against Microsoft would not just affect Bill Gates in a profoundly negative way.
The world can operate without Microsoft. But I don't think we're ready for that yet. We would need an adequate replacement for a desktop OS (don't say Linux, it's not ready yet), we would need the stock market to jump ship on them slowly (as in not causing a market crash), and we would need 19,000 Microserfs to have new jobs lined up. If that happens, I think it's perfectly fine if Gates and Co. go down in flames. Otherwise, who are you really hurting there? A lot more people who don't deserve it than ones who do.
Don't forget that you'd be stranding MILLIONS of licensed Windows users, who depend on that OS and programs written for it in their business and personal lives. Few of these people can pick up Linux or MacOS tomorrow and make a smooth transition. Granted, the software will be there and the company won't be... but you still need tech support and bugfixes (lots of em), and no other company will want to do that for the sake of charity.
Notice that none of my arguement tries to downplay or deny what they've done in the past. I know they have been unethical... although not THAT bad recently in my opinion... and I believe people have a right to feel that way. Just think of the consequences first, though, to OTHER PEOPLE when you plot your revenge.
And no, Microsoft doesn't hold up the world. As a matter of fact, if they ever went away, I'm sure other companies would step up to the plate to take their place, although it would be a painful transition. But it would be possible. Just don't think that anyone's ready for that yet.
One more thing... with the dominance of Windows and the advent of Linux, the business of operating systems isn't too profitable anymore. Linux is free, it's difficult to start another OS from scratch and get a lot of people to use it (e.g. BeOS), and it's not really feasible to make a Windows clone without breaking a few copyrights. So why would anyone else wanna be in the operating system business right now? Let MS have it for now and let them deal with all the bullshit like new peripherals/drivers, compatibility, bugfixes, security and stability, etc. I don't see anyone else lining up to deal with these responsibilities....
I know that there's this standpoint within the industry that Microsoft, not being the world's biggest unstoppable company anymore, is better off dead. Hence the wishful thinking that they are dead.
Once again, we fail to see the irresponsibility of our desires. MSFT is still listed on the DJIA. It still heavily swings the NASDAQ index too. Gates, Allen, and Ballmer might be still filthy rich off their own company's stock, but there are a large number of middle class, blue-collar investors that have a significant amount of Microsoft shares... not for lack of portfolio diversity, but because their share value went steadily up for a while and the overall eventual wealth of MSFT holdings well outweighed the wealth of... let's say, AT&T or Exxon stock. And don't forget the large number of mutual funds with a big portion of Microsoft stock... generally the financial world still thinks that it's something to hold onto, maybe even a bargain right now.
I don't condone unethical behavior, but compared with the other giants in the industry, they're in good company. (Intel, Sun, Oracle... hell, even Hemos is whining about RAMBUS today, and you tell me which company you'd rather see die) But more importantly, we'd rather see Microsoft REFORM and avoid unethical behavior... correct? A company of their size and clout could contribute very much to the computer industry... as they have already, although not as much to our line of interests... and I think they would be more beneficial honest than dead.
Of course, the typical 3-year-old child way of thinking is to bring bulldozers to Redmond, put 20,000 people out of work, destroy the personal finances of millions of middle class people, crash the stock market, remove the current lynchpin of the OS business (possibly collapsing the computer industry if people go back to using bank calculators rather than learn *nix), create a nightmare for the retail world, and hand the wheel over to... well, no one is quite ready to take their place just yet.
Hey, you're entitled to your own opinion.
Just to reference what has been said a number of times already... age and experience does matter in multiple ways, in terms of overall knowledge, social skills, and cockiness. Age does not equal experience, but generally age does determine where you are on the pecking order anyway.
That said: I think a lot of people are going the "young people aren't mature" route in answering the question, and that sucks a lot. (which should reveal my age right there... I'm 21)
It's true that younger people are more likely to make mistakes in the business world that can be resolved by maturity. But I see two problems with dismissing younger people like that. First of all, younger people are doing just as much work as older people in the same jobs, and if anything, they need more attention, training, and understanding. The idea of older people saying "Hah, you don't know better, you're young, wait another 15 years to get respect" is immaturity on the part of older people. Second, if you hire or work with younger people, and you're going to make them feel disrespected, unappreciated, and powerless, then why the hell do you even bother? Just go about your prejudiced ways and work with or hire only older people, if you can help it; they're the only ones you'll ultimately get along with.
Young people have the same problems with dealing with the older crowd, too. This is the reverse situation of something I've seen complained about a LOT on Slashdot before... that is, older people get no respect because younger people are more knowledgeable about newer technology, and the workplace strives to put them out to pasture. It's more of a problem that way, though, because younger people could actually use the maturity and experience of the older people in some situations, but at least as an example of how to act and develop in the workplace. If you have sufficently intelligent older, more experienced people around, then chances are you won't miss the young people.
Age discrimination is terrible no matter what side it comes from. Respect and understanding go a long way in the workplace. EVERYONE could learn that lesson.
Mother: "What would you like for Christmas this year?"
epeus: "I want a non-zero sum game!"
Mother: (under her breath) "Little F*ckin choosy bastard, he's getting a Tickle-me Elmo, a Furby, or a PS2 instead..."
And, as always, Christmas morning would involve a lot of crying, yelling, and Jack Daniels. Of course, this was nothing compared to the year that Santa Claus got stuck in the chimney and died there, but that's another story altogether.
Gee, after reading this story, it's like I'd rather see more about the PayPal...
:-(
What about the "They-blew-it" dept?
:)
I live with a Mac sympathizer, so I know what it's like to have that viewpoint that Apple keeps coming out with cool things even though they sell like ice cubes in Alaska. I do have a certain amount of sentimental feeling that wishes Apple to stay alive, as well as an eye for aestetics that really likes the computer models that came out in the past few years... but at the same time, I'd be pretty ignorant to say that a company should stay alive if I personally wouldn't buy anything they sold even though I could USE it.
Then again, the main point of this message wasn't to bash Apple... it was to make fun of timothy for coming up with a lame dept.
ding!
... alas, the Vogons have already beat them at that.
Extra points if someone can dig up their original H2G2 book and tell me the name of the girl who was the ABSOLUTE worst in the universe.
These three companies were chosen to do this? I want a recount!
Answer: An election.
Question: What if we had a Beowulf cluster of these...
... and, would they call it the Blue Screen of Manual Recount now?
One day, I had invented the thing which we will refer to as IT... the greatest revolution of our time, greater than the Internet, sliced bread, and Larry Ellison combined. So I took a stroll down to the local bank so I could get financing to create prototypes of IT, so I could pitch IT to filthy rich computer billionaires, so I could have a book written about IT, so I could get on the cover of Wired and Time Magazine, knocking off that loser boy Shawn Fanning...
But then I went down there and found out I once had an unlicensed copy of Windows 3.1 on my old 486 in the closet, and I owed Microsoft $350 or else I wouldn't get the loan to create IT.
The funny thing is, I installed Slackware on that box years ago!
Unfortunately, Microsoft themselves didn't remember me owing them $350... when I sent them the money, they thought it was for something else, and send me pictures back of a hot naked sweaty Steve Ballmer. As such I'm scarred for life, and all the proceeds from IT now must go toward my therapy.
Reportedly I'll be seeing the same shrink as that kook Jeff "Hemos" Bates.
I'll post a better one.
;)
I was only supposed to copy one line. It copied the whole thing. Windows sux, I'm switching to Linux
Sometimes some people have little respect for the amount of time and effort people put into their hobbies. I do find that disgusting, and I wish all of you the best of luck in maintaining order in spite of this problem.
;)
By the way, you're cute