I'd say that you had a good idea, except my whole message was completely tongue-in-cheek and I figured that everyone would pick up on the sarcasm... especially with the last line... but of course, this is Slashdot, and since no humor stories have been posted in the last 24 hours, no one is in that frame of mind at all...
No, I don't think everyone should be shot into space, put behind the wheel of a submarine, etc... although if such things would deter kids from seeking the lesser thrill of shooting up their high school and planning a military takeover, I'll support them...
I've seen a lot of good arguments for him going into space, and a couple of highly convincing ones for him not to go...
But my point is, you argue that this guy paid to go into space, so he should go? That his monetary contribution to the International Space Station (or the Russian space program in general) entitles him to a ride sooner or later?
I mean, at that rate, we all pay taxes. We should ALL go into space. For that matter, we should all get a couple of minutes to drive around in a tank, fly an Army Helicopter, sit in the copilot seat of the Stealth Bomber, and command a nuclear submarine...
No, wait, civillians aren't apparently too good at doing a couple of those things.
Hehehe... Slashdot is red cuz it's a BSD story. It has little color schemes for different stories... while I find that entirely annoying at times (I hate, for example, the one where it's mixed purple and yellow), I guess it's a way to distinguish certain topics...
Then again, most topics are the same old green colorscheme, so I don't understand why anyone bothered with making just a few topics different colors. But these guys are well-paid hobbyists, so they can do what they want, more power to them.
I think $9 is fine on its own... I just wish that you didn't have to buy something ELSE from RealPlayer too (their GoldClub or whatever they call it... basically you're buying more shitty content from a shitty company with a shitty media player)... so it's gonna be more than $9, and you're gonna be buying something you DON'T really want beyond that $9. If they offered a Windows Media Player version for $13, I'd do it...
About movies and broadband... I think it's a good thing that we have DiVX;) on our side, but "broadband" as it stands now is hardly able to deal with the filesizes of even highly compressed movies... normal users may go once or twice to download something overnight, but it's just not CONVENIENT... it's worth it to go to Blockbuster instead and pickup anything you want in 5 minutes (Blockbuster Video does offer some good deals for DVDs if you have a player). Also, I have a DSL line, but 90kbps is a rarity for me. That said, once it only takes an hour to download a movie... which, if it's 1.2 GBytes, would require the capacity of 5 typical DSL lines running full speed for an hour straight (and I've never seen that happen ever)... people will start to think about doing it. But that's a lot of money to pay for an illegal activity... it's still quicker to go to Blockbuster, and Blockbuster (or for that matter, Cable TV) still has them beat if they charge more than 3 dollars for such a download... and the availability of the Internet overall prevents a large amount of such fast downloads. It would take a LOT for fast movie downloads to become reality, and the benefits aren't there yet. By the time it gets here, the movie industry will charge a decent amount for it probably, and we'll all be happy. They're not as evil as the RIAA...
I agree about the MP3 thing. The industry does not have their act together on digital downloads. But, like I said before, it's just cause they never want it to happen... regardless of whether or not you would like it to be available.
- The music industry is all about making money - too much money. The reason why they won't put music on the Internet isn't that they were waiting for a control system for what would be a profitable distribution method... it's because it would turn upside down their entire system of ripping off everyone. First of all, too many middlemen in the business would be left out of the picture with Internet sales, and if they ever took off, there would be murder among current bedfellows. Second, considering the ways that the money is currently distributed to certain parties, it would be ultimately very hard to replicate that with MP3 downloads: let's assume that you're cutting out the unnecessary middlemen and that only the people who are actually involved in every step of the recording and distribution process are getting paid. There's still a lot of pieces of the pie to cut up, and it would be more difficult to do it with MP3s - considering that now we have downloads tracked, transactions recorded, and people to be paid. The math is the same, but the payments are more difficult to make. Third, the market for online downloads is smaller than you think. All those people on Napster who say "Well, I wouldn't have bought the CD anyway" wouldn't be buying it for cheap online either. Piracy is still a tiny fraction of real-life sales, but that means so would be online purchases - so they haven't been missing out on a big market, but they're trying to squash out anything that might be up and coming. And finally... they charge so friggen much for a CD nowadays, that to match the profitability of real-life sales, MP3's would be ridiculously expensive. And that's for something that's of lesser quality, of less convenience (you need to sit at your computer and play them on crummy speakers... and MP3 portable/car players are not ubiquitous or cheap like CD and cassette players are), and that has less added value (a CD has liner notes and a case, at least).
- In terms of the business, the music industry is a very slow moving beast... and a very willful one at that. They already have a successful (albeit highly immoral) distribution system, they do have complete control, and their main business is their PROMOTION monopoly as well as their distribution monopoly. Online downloads are very bad for them in a number of ways. First of all, yes they would lose control... but as long as you make money, that's okay I guess. That's what the movie industry had to settle for, and although they profited greatly from more convenient content distribution methods (VHS, DVD, even television), they still fight those battles every step of the way. Remember, they tried to sue VCRs out of existence... half the studios wanted to go with DiVX instead of DVD... and they fought television with a number of technical methods (widescreen, 3D, giant rumbling theaters, etc.). Next, if the current distribution system (of price gouging) is doing great for them, not only would they not do anything to defeat it (offer MP3s as well), but they'll fight anything on the outside that tries to. That's good business, except when you're paying off Congress to pass laws to kill off competitors... which has been happening since the days of payola and the beginning of rock and roll. However, assuming they sucked it up and assumed loss of control a bit, and if they found out that they would make more money with MP3s... here's where they get killed. The record industry is all about promotion. They do not just sit there and press CDs all day and sell them to the stores... the clothing industry does that. The record industry, however, takes someone like Britney Spears and puts her on billboards, on the radio, in magazine articles, on MTV, on Saturday Night Live, etc. It's what they offer in exchange for being a slimy business. Online distribution methods may lead to mass online promotions, however... and there's nothing that kicks them in the gut more than to see N'Sync lose sales to a talented artist on an indie label. What they really want to do is keep people offline altogether... I mean, the porn industry is massively available and present online, and they've embraced computers every step of the way. The music industry? Well, unless the artist knows enough about the web to insist on a really good website, all you'll get is a fluff homepage with a few images and tour dates for any given artist. Usually such sites are way out of date, as well. They can't control online promotions like they can in real-life (cause Joe Shmoe can't build anything like the Virgin Megastore, but he can make an online store and info site that looks and feels much better than anything the record industry can cook up) and they'd rather not see people get into the act of getting online for any aspect of music.
The problem now is that they control the distribution by law, they control the music by contract, and they control promotions through massive amounts of money and ability. If the general public really catches onto digital online music, they lose distribution control, they may not be the promotions juggernaut that they are currently, and subsequently no one will want to sign recording contracts with them because it would be better for artists and consumers alike to distribute and promote the music online. Therefore, their entire business would collapse, and either they would have to change their business or get out of business. You think any of those fat cats want to risk that?
Granted, it's a risk, not a certainty. Online movie distribution isn't taking off anytime soon... it's not feasible. The movie industry has a very strong prescence online (better than the music industry anyway) and they're making more money from it. But they can't sell movies online because no one can download them.
Then again, at this point we definitely have proof-of-concept. Music is feasible to pass around online... look at Napster... and the value of real-life legit music distribution products just plain sucks. It costs more to listen to a one-hour CD than it does to go see a two-hour movie in a theatre (or similarly, for two times the price of a CD, you get a DVD movie that is twice as long, has pictures and sound, is of high quality, and has extra features - deleted scenes, director commentary, trailers, soundtrack videos, etc. That's still a better value). Never mind if you buy something that sucks... the fact that you paid for it at all is still frustrating. Thinking about what you enjoy alone, the value is always greater. Having "American Beauty" (favorite movie released last year) on DVD is still ultimately more satisfying for me than having "The Marshall Mathers LP" (favorite album released last year). And I paid the same amount for both. In comparison, downloading "The Marshall Mathers LP" on MP3 (about a week before it came out, might I add) was great for me; downloading a VCD rip of "American Beauty" (which took HOURS) wasn't really worth it at all, and I deleted it. For the record, I downloaded BOTH before I owned either one; but I still have the MP3s for "The Marshall Mathers LP", which shows you how the legit copy/online value ratio is tremendously greater for full albums than movies. Don't get me started on singles, even...
Anyway, one day I'll have a DVD burner and a OC-3 connection to the Net, and things may change. But not greatly so. Assuming I had that now, and I downloaded "American Beauty" in 20 minutes in DVD format before it came out in theaters, and burned to DVD... I believe I still would have bought the DVD as well. Because I did that with "Marshall Mathers", and no one got screwed. But the point is, I still would have gotten more for my money in that situation. Which is why the movie industry won't really be in trouble... but the record industry is in BIG trouble if anyone gets a leg up on them in any way.
And I think that time has almost come... the revolution isn't too far away, condsidering once they shed some blood, it'll stir up the appetites of the artists (who hate them), the consumers (who hate them passionately), the lawmakers (who are annoyed with them), and their business competitors (who REALLY want them DEAD, considering all the shit they've had to deal with for the last century). Once it starts, it'll be over pretty quickly. And, everyone else will be left standing, but they won't be. Everyone's had enough of them.
If I lost $600,000, I'd have to take a beating from Vinnie in the back alley... he'd probably break both my legs and an arm as well.
Spread that out over a million or so shares, and it doesn't look as bad though, right? I mean, that near break-even status is fantastic news compared to the bath that all the shareholders have taken if they got in at the IPO...
I'm not trying to bash Red Hat as a company... I think they make a fantastic (albeit relatively shitty) product and I think they're involved in a good (albeit financially stinko) cause. I wish them well. Just don't say congratulations when your money would have been better invested in shares of Krispy Kreme.
Okay, over the course of human history, I believe that one thing is quite clear and obvious to everyone:
People do not like to pay for information or content. And they generally do not unless they are absolutely forced to, and there's something really good in it for them.
Here's why:
Books: We have bookstores, yes. But we also have a very large system of free public libraries. So, everything is available for free pretty much, and people buy books for convenience only. There is no pleasure in owning a book... if I had a library around the corner that loaned me every book or magazine that I wanted when I wanted it, why would I pay a cent for books? I'm very reluctant to buy books anyway, even when I DON'T have that perfect library around...
Music: People do buy CDs and cassettes for convenience. But if there was no radio (and MTV to an extent), I seriously doubt that people would buy CDs at all. MP3's make the situation worse... they present the music more conveniently than the radio does, hence eliminating the need to buy CDs in a lot of cases.
Visual Productions: We have movie theaters and video stores, sure. We also have television. Lots of people stay home and watch TV. Lots of people get cable to really expand the selection of things to watch... as well as get stuff that isn't available on broadcast TV. Cable is more convenient than having a gigantic video store around the corner where you have to rent EVERYTHING you watch. Otherwise, people go to the movies and video stores to watch films that aren't available on TV yet and that are convenient to watch. Lots of people don't bother with that, though. And some people have descramblers to get endless movies for free, hence eliminating the need to ever leave the house.
The Internet: We know the deal. The best example I can think of... who ever paid for Infoseek searches when they cost 10 cents a piece?!?!? No one likes to pay on the Net. Even porn is available freely in massive quanitites.
Software: Shareware is hardly registered (not to the degree it SHOULD be). I bet half of Windows and MS Office installations in personal use settings are illegal to some degree (unlicensed upgrades, pirated CDs, etc.).
Now, some people DO pay for their content, but: they never pay a lot (cable TV is cheap, no one goes to the movies 3 days a week, no one buys 20 singles a week that they listened to on the radio during their commute to work, etc..), they usually pay indirectly (taxes support public libraries, they subscribe to ISPs to get Internet access, they pay the cable company for installation and convenience, they pay for the convenience of owning a good CD themselves, etc.), and they avoid buying anything that they aren't convinced that they really want or need.
I know this sounds obvious, but here's the point: Micropayments won't work because people don't like to pay for information. That is, no matter how small the payment is, it's still money out the window. And unless you're rich (the rich tend to be even more stingy), people have better priorities than dropping one tenth of a penny in the jar every time they visit CNN.com or Slashdot.
Granted, I would pay a nominal subscription fee for the websites I visit... if I were to get something good in return for it BEYOND what I'm already doing. Micropayments are essentially paying for something that has no additional value... so I won't do it.
Plus, people are more likely to pay for something they like before they see it, but they are less likely to try it out if they have to pay to look at it first.
You're young AND female. Sheesh, I thought I had it tough in the job market...
Well, good luck to you, and god bless. I hope you have decent people working with you in the future... if you're as smart as it seems from your typing, I'd be honored to work along side you, and I wouldn't touch your ass without explicit permission.
I really don't believe we're even having this argument.
Okay, lemme get this straight. You're trying to compare the UK - a centuries old parlimentary democracy/monarchy in Europe with a fair amount of people, tolerable weather, and a stable economy - to California - settled in decent quantities only a century and a half ago, a state in the USA, loaded with guns, Mexicans, gay people, hippie activists, actors, having very nice weather, ridiculous real-estate prices in the hot tech areas, and no electricity.
Okay, let me just point out where I personally disagree here, even though I've never seen the UK and I was in CA for two weeks when I was tweleve years old:
California is highly racially segregated. Cities in California are not known for having people of all races work together in perfect harmony. There is a fair amount of tension and xenophobia going around amongst different cultural groups in both LA and SF. It has nothing to do with race, but cultural differences DO segregate people. Generally, people from South Central LA don't hang out with the people in Beverly Hills. Asians in SF don't associate with the gays as a cultural group. (Individually they may, but gays and Asians are both rather notorious in my mind for sticking to their own kind... although with what we've done to both groups in this country, I don't blame them)
More people migrate to California for a number of reasons. First of all, CA is better than Mexico, and somewhat more attractive than Arizona or New Mexico. People also move to Hollywood because they're star-struck... hence the never-ending pool of gas-station attendants and busboys. People go to Silicon Valley thinking they'll get on the money train that chugged out of the station a LONG time ago. Some people think San Diego is a really beautiful city. And the weather is nice in general. But why else would anyone go to California? There's nothing drastically better about California than any other place in the world. I mean, everywhere you go, you have other fucking people to deal with, so it's not like you avoid that anywhere in CA (maybe Death Valley).
Most hardware and software companies happen to be already there in California for a while there, buddy. I can't see how that's a smart move for hardware companies either... one good earthquake and your fab facility is toasted, leaving you in bankruptcy. Otherwise, CA has a large university system as well as Stanford in Palo Alto, and it just so happens that a lot of people stuck around in certain areas to develop tech companies in a concentrated area. That MIGHT have been caused by the fact that there are a couple of fairly large tech companies in the area that always needed employees if you didn't cut it on your own, and always HAD employees that you could get to quit and join your visionary startup. This is way before the dot-com revolution, though... then, too many people were hiring for too little jobs, real estate went sky high, and everyone was there for the money - so it became a center for slimy biz people to go out and make a quick buck. This happened in a lot of big cities, though, so don't let it pump your ego too much. More than half those startups are gone right now, and if anything, being in Silicon Valley probably hastened their demise.
The UK isn't unfriendlier to immigrants, it has bandwidth too, and I think you can start companies there. It's all a matter of your personal needs, and I think you can't compare each BIG territory and say one is better than the other. I'll tell you right now, I can think of some places in the US alone where it's also REALLY good to start up a company now AND move to if you need somewhere to go. Most aren't in California. With all the problems CA has been having lately, I'd be reluctant to move there. England isn't exactly my prime destination either, but being from the Northeastern US, I think I'd do okay there. I think you would too.
*sigh* another person who thinks the universe revolves around the United States...
Side note: my academic career has been one big fuckup anyway, so you can imagine why I'd be unhappy when my main goal in college turned into "graduate ASAP" almost immediately. I'll get out in 4 total years, thankfully... but the fact that I'll run screaming means I probably could have gotten more out of college.
That said, my unique perspective allows me to insightfully and sarcastically pick out all the faults in the situation in general:)
I chose CS because in high school, I'm SURE that's what I wanted to do. Shows how much I knew in HS, eh?
I like your suggestions... right now I'm in a tight spot because I'm geographically isolated from my target locale for when I graduate, so it's hard to get the hookup from 200 miles away. I'm trying. The stress is in this: if I don't have a job BEFORE I graduate, I get to move back in with my parents in Florida! It's quite miserable down there. Now you know why I'm stressed out and bitter.;)
That sounds like exactly the situation I'm in... I don't want to be a computer scientist per se, but then again, that's what my school HAS.
Of course, coming out of high school, you don't know these things. I had a pretty shitty guidance counselor (no, really... infinitely more shitty than the school I wound up going to).
haha... we only had the arcane! Not a single Windows PC available to the whole CS dept. If you want to TOUCH Windows, you had to take MIS here. (Hey, guess what I'm doing, I'm taking MIS!)
They taught all that stuff. I'm just not sure I want to be a programmer after all this. *shrug*
And yea, I'm nearly distraught at what I paid for it.
Will I go into HTML programming? I have no clue. I'm both afraid of my lack of artistic ability and lack of desire to be a programmer overall. So I'm not sure where I'd fit in, but I think it's more of a confidence problem than anything. I actually like making webpages, and perhaps if I can get paid to make them, things won't be all that bad.
Second, I was obligated by MYSELF to go to college. I didn't want a HS diploma to be my grand achievement in life, and I had no Bill-Gates-type exit plan to go start a company. For all practical concerns, why would I not want to earn a college degree with this 4 year period in my life? And there's a lot more to college than a degree...
Third, I have no idea what I want at this point, and I've never wanted anything badly enough to really seriously pursue it in outside study. If anything of that sort has come up for me, usually I have too many problems being a consistent student in school to focus enough on outside projects.
In other words, I can only stay interested in something for a week before I wind up having to cram and rush to get homework done for classes, which then becomes the main focus of my life for 3 weeks until I get everything done - the end result being I forgot what I was doing previously. I never dropped something I LOVED doing because of this, but a lot of things I was messing around with got lost in my schedule this way. This is simply because I'm a crummy student in school, and I have problems getting homework done. Not that the difficulty is beyond my capabilities (I actually breeze through everything once I get started), but I can't keep up with 5 different subjects at once EVER and do all the homework for everything. I always get into trouble with that.
I've had no inspiring teachers. I've had teachers that I've liked, but who do interesting things that I'm not interested in doing as a career myself. There was never a professor who did something that I wish I could do... on the contrary, I felt that I would be in hell if I was ever reincarnated as one of my professors. I did get a good education overall though... some areas were sketchy, but most were pretty solid.
Grad school is a no-no for me. Okay, it's not a definite NO, but it's more like a "not here". I do hate the school and the locale for many reasons (which is where most of the bitterness comes from, to my CS dept's credit), and I see no future for myself here. Furthermore, I'm such an inconsistent student that grad school seems like prolonging the torture for me... I gotta get out of the academic environment. I don't rule out grad school, but it's not like I have any goals that could be met at grad school either. It's basically more loans for me, and it needs a lot of justification.
Finally, I should mention that through 4 years of college, there was NEVER any graphics programming (Graphics was a grad-level obscure-based elective course, I took Telecom and Databases instead), never any Java (another elective, but I could never get into it, and my schedule did not permit it in the end), not a single ounce of programming anything outside a Solaris command-line environment, never any decent outside projects, no co-ops available, poor job postings, and crummy computer resources available (honestly, we all use computer accounts that EVERY OTHER STUDENT IN THE SCHOOL HAS to do our programming work). We do have SIG lectures, networking, a LUG, and a bunch of other perks, but nothing that ever seemed like my cup of tea. I tried a lot of different things... even outside of comp sci as well. This school just sucks rocks, though. I had no way of knowing this from high school though. You live, you learn.
I have a bunch of other gripes, but I'm sure the available parking and the quality of the writing in the school newspaper are both off-topic.
That sounds pretty good... I have some other posts on this thread that have been bouncing around some of my other "bitter" ideas (I fully admit being bitter), but here's what I wanna say specifically without echoing myself:
I'm glad you had everything work out for you. Personally, graduation is 2 1/2 months away, I have no job lined up, I have a couple of interviews with iffy companies coming up in a few weeks, my career services dept is totally unhelpful (my interviews are coming from my resume being posted in my best friend's school's job search system!), and I have no inside links to any jobs at this point. I started from nothing, pretty much... and after pushing my resume out and working hard in school, I may end up with nothing. Granted, I'm not a typical case by any means (there are lots of ways in which my college story is WAY different from most others'), but when I have to be anxious over whether or not I can get job interviews set up at all, you know something's wrong...
I'm bitter at my school because of this: I don't like the computer industry, and I don't want to get dipped head first into the rat race. I'm willing to bide my time for a few years doing something I don't like, but I can't even find that... yet if I don't like a job, I can't figure out what I actually DO like to pursue that.
The main difference between me and you... other than living at school (I like living at school, it was a learning experience)... is that the deadline is coming for me, and I still have no after college plans yet. I did what I was told in regards to working with Career Services to find something, and I've tried to set up interviews with the few opportunities that are available for me. (I have location requirements that are not in the locality of the school, yet it's not like there's a lot offerings from companies that might have other branch offices... it's all been sparse) I would pursue something, except I get the impression that I would hate a lot of the things I learned about here, since I hated it while I was here. Finally, I don't know much beyond what my school taught me, I'm clueless as to what is available beyond what I was taught, and I'm unqualified for such things anyway.
Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places. I do know the right place, in my case, ISN'T within my department or my career services center. And I think that's reason enough to get pissed that I paid a lot of money so that those things would be helpful to me when I finished my education.
That said, if I find a job in another discipline that they're willing to train for, my CS degree certainly doesn't look bad at all...
I felt obligated to get a college degree. So one way or another, I was going to college. Furthermore, I decided to be a CS major because I was good at that, I was interested in it, and I didn't have any other interests that I thought were worth majoring in. None of this has changed much since, although I regret the absolute certainty I had that CS was my primary interest.
What I'm saying is, for $20,000 a year, my school showed me nothing that made me feel like I made a great decision 4 years ago. I didn't want to be a web site designer 4 years ago, and I don't want to be one today. I want to make money, though, and I'll take what I can get... mostly because I have no idea what I want to do (I have no career direction from this school) and our career services center is 95% useless to everyone here (no career help from this school, either).
My outlook would have been a lot rosier had I seen a couple of things in college that made me say "Hey, I really wanna look into doing something like that after college!" More specifically, I've learned nothing in school that left such a good impression on me. Rather, I get to see other people making Flash movies and all kinds of snazzy websites and programs, and I'm nearly totally ignorant on how to make things like that. I have some working knowledge of some of those kinds of thing on my own, at least, and I can't point fingers at our CS dept. for not teaching us cutting edge tech... but at the same time, for the money I've spent here, I should have a clearer vision of where I want to go with my life. That's why I'm here, cause that's exactly what a dumb kid out of high school doesn't have.
In general, the CS dept. totally blew it if I'm sitting here wondering why I didn't take Finance or Journalism. Yes, maybe I chose the wrong major, but then again, I like computers, I like technology, and I'm rather good at working with those things. I can't figure out why I'm so creatively lost in school, other than to say that all the work I've done here has been miserable and uninspiring. I'm sure other people agree in a lot of cases, and it's an opportunity for improvement in the field if they want more people to get into it.
Glad to see your career path worked out. I still have 2 1/2 months of school left, so I could still very well wind up in your position eventually. However, my anxiety at this point has me playing devil's advocate.:)
Nothing wrong with CS, but like I've said in other postings in this thread, CS should teach more real-world stuff AND inspire students with ideas... you don't have to edge out the Lisp or Assembly language to do this, you just have to COMPLEMENT it with this stuff.
I'm not exactly looking to be a dot-com zillionaire, but it's also true that I feel that I may know how to work with all the technology in the world at this point... but it doesn't mean I want to. I like computers, don't get me wrong. Some of the stuff in the industry really makes my head spin. But I wouldn't know where to begin on any of this stuff... I know I have the base skills to do it, but beyond that I don't know how it's done at all. This is because in 4 years of college, I was never shown ANYTHING that I thought I might want to do when I graduate. And being practical minded, I don't pursue interesting projects without knowing what will be in store for me.
You might feel that this is closed minded and lazy, but remember: I've been going to school full-time and I have a part-time job that takes up 20-30 hours a week of my time. Plus, I make it a point to spend time socializing in college (not that/. people don't socialize, but time must be budgeted for that), and I'm not in the middle of any metropolis with easy access to programming houses. So, other than/. and school, I have no access to news about interesting programming projects. Also, I have little time to pursue projects outside of school, since I have a hard enough time getting my school projects done when they're due. But it's a chicken and egg problem then... I need to spend time doing research to find an interesting job, but I need to graduate college and support myself with a job before I do research. The easy solution is to get the first available miserable job, stick with it, and not worry about finding the dream job. But I'm more ambitious than that...
CS shouldn't be "teach me Cold Fusion" on any level. And I was taught all of those concepts that Lisp and Assembly language build upon. I feel it was all very useful, interesting information. I'm a smarter person for it.
That doesn't mean that I can pay back my college loans, though. Virtually no one hires Lisp or Assembly programmers. A good CS education should be COMPLEMENTED with real world practical examples. Usually, a typical CS education sticks to the obscure stuff, never inspiring the student with concepts in use today. And, even when they do teach the "buzzword" languages (Java, SQL, C++) they stick to a totally academic cirriculum... which isn't bad at all, but once in a while it would be nice to give students some ideas of what could be done with their education.
To contrast, I took a web site design course in the Art dept. - totally VC oriented, not CS. The first week of class, they showed us gabocorp.com. Now, that's what I'm talking about... everyone's jaw dropped to the floor. I understand that source code from large programs typically doesn't have that "wow" effect (it more has a "Jesus Christ this is long!" effect) but after 4 years of a solid CS education, I have no idea how I want to use it. Most likely I'll take the first web design job I can get - and I knew HTML in sophomore year of high school, so if I stick with that then I wasted 4 years in college.
Before someone starts blasting me how I could go on Sourceforge or something... I blame my school for not inspiring me, but let's not expand the conversation beyond my school. Also, like I've said, I need to eat. For me, learning how to contribute to OS projects would be a full-time job in itself, and the actual benefits aren't encouraging to me. This isn't a swipe at OS projects at all, but most likely I need to make finding a real job my #1 priority for the next 3 months, and the path of: learn how to program in Linux/contribute to OS projects/hope someone notices and hires me - is way too roundabout and infeasable for me at this point. I shoulda kept up with those LUG meetings, eh?
I went into CS thinking that I would like it... and I didn't. Not to say I found the subject material entirely boring and difficult... some of it is quite interesting... but at the end of a 4 year education, I'm totally uninspired for a career in the field.
I never went into it for the money, but I'm a very practical person... I passed up a lot of other subject areas knowing full well that there was a lot of volatility and uncertainty in those fields. CS seemed, if anything, "safe". People to this day still preach to me that I'll have no problem finding a job and that I'll make a lot of money. Granted, these people don't know much else from what they see on TV, but it very much was like that for a while. Nowadays you can make a lot of money doing something really boring, but you can't make a lot of money by winging it with a dot-com anymore.
I agree that a lot of what I was taught, no matter how hard or obscure, was for my own good. And I never found those subject areas to be entirely boring and dull, but I'd rather not pursue a career doing those kinds of things. My entire college education consists of different courses in those kinds of subject areas, however. So I didn't learn anything that I actually liked in the end... I'm just barely getting out with my neck intact, and for all I care every computer could be thrown in the ocean tomorrow and we could all go back to farming.
My bigger problem is with the real world, though. I need to eat after this. And I don't like the industry at all. And I don't like the idea of working for a dot-com at all. And because the dot-coms imploded, there is no room in the field anymore for inspired start-ups and creative ventures. It's all business now. As if the fantasy-land world of dot-coms wasn't annoying enough, now you're fighting with vultures to get a piece of the action. It'll be a while before even solid companies get back on their feet after this mess. And who suffers in all of this? Us. Why? Cause it's all about money. Who gives a shit about programmers? We were highly unappreciated from the beginning. The dot-com fiasco wasn't caused by programmers... it was all business people cashing in on a speculative mirage. I think there's more honest programmers looking for work now than there are grand success and/or failure stories out there... I don't think there were a hell of a lot of coders who fucked around, snorted blow, and fell hard when the shit hit the fan. Most of them watched that happen to others, and now everyone's looking for a job.
This story about the one-day job only reinforces my points. It proves that the computer industry doesn't care about people... hence why should people care about the computer industry? Fuck it, I'll be an actor.
Enrollments in computer science are steadily declining because no-one wants to be a half-baked engineering student who isn't guaranteed a steady job out of college! So sign up today! We have small but over-enrolled classes with non-English speaking professors ready to teach you things that would make most human beings cry! Learn obscure languages and methodologies, cause who wants to learn Cold Fusion? Assembly language and Lisp are the future! Pay $80,000 to spend 4 years with society's worst alcoholics and drug abusers clad in Abercrombie and Fitch! Earn no marketable career skills! Prepare for a future in a turbulent industry where 90% of the companies are a joke and the rest of them will have you in a cubicle until the end of eternity! Learn to cry when the NASDAQ plummets! Regret not being a Journalism major! Make your 1450 on the SAT's totally meaningless! Become a real life Dilbert! And best of all, keep a straight face when your MBA idiot CEO asks you to keep working for the next month for no pay... so you can make marketing calls and schmooze gullible VC's.
Dude, you're a staff member of Slashdot. You don't need to follow Signal 11's method of karma whoring (posts an opinion everyone wants to disagree with, just to get modded up as interesting).
All Open Source projects will always be completed. It's your kind of pessimism we don't need in the world of OS programming. If you think it's not gonna get done, why don't you take some of your free time and go help them? No, it's a lot easier to sit there and not do a goddamn thing but berate everyone else for not writing programs that do exactly what you like.
(okay, if you've been agreeing with me so far, may I point out three reasons you're on crack:
1. michael has a valid point based on the complexity of such projects alone... artwork, gameplay, and plot are all factors as well
2. michael has a life other than dropping everything to write a game to give out to the rest of the world.
3. No project is guaranteed to get completed, for a variety of plausible or oddball reasons. After all, a meteor might land tomorrow... do you want God to hold it against you that you didn't make the deadline for your DeCSS Mozilla plugin?
Slashdot Mirror
I'd say that you had a good idea, except my whole message was completely tongue-in-cheek and I figured that everyone would pick up on the sarcasm... especially with the last line... but of course, this is Slashdot, and since no humor stories have been posted in the last 24 hours, no one is in that frame of mind at all...
No, I don't think everyone should be shot into space, put behind the wheel of a submarine, etc... although if such things would deter kids from seeking the lesser thrill of shooting up their high school and planning a military takeover, I'll support them...
I've seen a lot of good arguments for him going into space, and a couple of highly convincing ones for him not to go...
But my point is, you argue that this guy paid to go into space, so he should go? That his monetary contribution to the International Space Station (or the Russian space program in general) entitles him to a ride sooner or later?
I mean, at that rate, we all pay taxes. We should ALL go into space. For that matter, we should all get a couple of minutes to drive around in a tank, fly an Army Helicopter, sit in the copilot seat of the Stealth Bomber, and command a nuclear submarine...
No, wait, civillians aren't apparently too good at doing a couple of those things.
Hehehe... Slashdot is red cuz it's a BSD story. It has little color schemes for different stories... while I find that entirely annoying at times (I hate, for example, the one where it's mixed purple and yellow), I guess it's a way to distinguish certain topics...
Then again, most topics are the same old green colorscheme, so I don't understand why anyone bothered with making just a few topics different colors. But these guys are well-paid hobbyists, so they can do what they want, more power to them.
I think $9 is fine on its own... I just wish that you didn't have to buy something ELSE from RealPlayer too (their GoldClub or whatever they call it... basically you're buying more shitty content from a shitty company with a shitty media player)... so it's gonna be more than $9, and you're gonna be buying something you DON'T really want beyond that $9. If they offered a Windows Media Player version for $13, I'd do it...
About movies and broadband... I think it's a good thing that we have DiVX ;) on our side, but "broadband" as it stands now is hardly able to deal with the filesizes of even highly compressed movies... normal users may go once or twice to download something overnight, but it's just not CONVENIENT... it's worth it to go to Blockbuster instead and pickup anything you want in 5 minutes (Blockbuster Video does offer some good deals for DVDs if you have a player). Also, I have a DSL line, but 90kbps is a rarity for me. That said, once it only takes an hour to download a movie... which, if it's 1.2 GBytes, would require the capacity of 5 typical DSL lines running full speed for an hour straight (and I've never seen that happen ever)... people will start to think about doing it. But that's a lot of money to pay for an illegal activity... it's still quicker to go to Blockbuster, and Blockbuster (or for that matter, Cable TV) still has them beat if they charge more than 3 dollars for such a download... and the availability of the Internet overall prevents a large amount of such fast downloads. It would take a LOT for fast movie downloads to become reality, and the benefits aren't there yet. By the time it gets here, the movie industry will charge a decent amount for it probably, and we'll all be happy. They're not as evil as the RIAA...
I agree about the MP3 thing. The industry does not have their act together on digital downloads. But, like I said before, it's just cause they never want it to happen... regardless of whether or not you would like it to be available.
Oh, and your English is fine.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Here's some ideas I'd like to add to this:
- The music industry is all about making money - too much money. The reason why they won't put music on the Internet isn't that they were waiting for a control system for what would be a profitable distribution method... it's because it would turn upside down their entire system of ripping off everyone. First of all, too many middlemen in the business would be left out of the picture with Internet sales, and if they ever took off, there would be murder among current bedfellows. Second, considering the ways that the money is currently distributed to certain parties, it would be ultimately very hard to replicate that with MP3 downloads: let's assume that you're cutting out the unnecessary middlemen and that only the people who are actually involved in every step of the recording and distribution process are getting paid. There's still a lot of pieces of the pie to cut up, and it would be more difficult to do it with MP3s - considering that now we have downloads tracked, transactions recorded, and people to be paid. The math is the same, but the payments are more difficult to make. Third, the market for online downloads is smaller than you think. All those people on Napster who say "Well, I wouldn't have bought the CD anyway" wouldn't be buying it for cheap online either. Piracy is still a tiny fraction of real-life sales, but that means so would be online purchases - so they haven't been missing out on a big market, but they're trying to squash out anything that might be up and coming. And finally... they charge so friggen much for a CD nowadays, that to match the profitability of real-life sales, MP3's would be ridiculously expensive. And that's for something that's of lesser quality, of less convenience (you need to sit at your computer and play them on crummy speakers... and MP3 portable/car players are not ubiquitous or cheap like CD and cassette players are), and that has less added value (a CD has liner notes and a case, at least).
- In terms of the business, the music industry is a very slow moving beast... and a very willful one at that. They already have a successful (albeit highly immoral) distribution system, they do have complete control, and their main business is their PROMOTION monopoly as well as their distribution monopoly. Online downloads are very bad for them in a number of ways. First of all, yes they would lose control... but as long as you make money, that's okay I guess. That's what the movie industry had to settle for, and although they profited greatly from more convenient content distribution methods (VHS, DVD, even television), they still fight those battles every step of the way. Remember, they tried to sue VCRs out of existence... half the studios wanted to go with DiVX instead of DVD... and they fought television with a number of technical methods (widescreen, 3D, giant rumbling theaters, etc.). Next, if the current distribution system (of price gouging) is doing great for them, not only would they not do anything to defeat it (offer MP3s as well), but they'll fight anything on the outside that tries to. That's good business, except when you're paying off Congress to pass laws to kill off competitors... which has been happening since the days of payola and the beginning of rock and roll. However, assuming they sucked it up and assumed loss of control a bit, and if they found out that they would make more money with MP3s... here's where they get killed. The record industry is all about promotion. They do not just sit there and press CDs all day and sell them to the stores... the clothing industry does that. The record industry, however, takes someone like Britney Spears and puts her on billboards, on the radio, in magazine articles, on MTV, on Saturday Night Live, etc. It's what they offer in exchange for being a slimy business. Online distribution methods may lead to mass online promotions, however... and there's nothing that kicks them in the gut more than to see N'Sync lose sales to a talented artist on an indie label. What they really want to do is keep people offline altogether... I mean, the porn industry is massively available and present online, and they've embraced computers every step of the way. The music industry? Well, unless the artist knows enough about the web to insist on a really good website, all you'll get is a fluff homepage with a few images and tour dates for any given artist. Usually such sites are way out of date, as well. They can't control online promotions like they can in real-life (cause Joe Shmoe can't build anything like the Virgin Megastore, but he can make an online store and info site that looks and feels much better than anything the record industry can cook up) and they'd rather not see people get into the act of getting online for any aspect of music.
The problem now is that they control the distribution by law, they control the music by contract, and they control promotions through massive amounts of money and ability. If the general public really catches onto digital online music, they lose distribution control, they may not be the promotions juggernaut that they are currently, and subsequently no one will want to sign recording contracts with them because it would be better for artists and consumers alike to distribute and promote the music online. Therefore, their entire business would collapse, and either they would have to change their business or get out of business. You think any of those fat cats want to risk that?
Granted, it's a risk, not a certainty. Online movie distribution isn't taking off anytime soon... it's not feasible. The movie industry has a very strong prescence online (better than the music industry anyway) and they're making more money from it. But they can't sell movies online because no one can download them.
Then again, at this point we definitely have proof-of-concept. Music is feasible to pass around online... look at Napster... and the value of real-life legit music distribution products just plain sucks. It costs more to listen to a one-hour CD than it does to go see a two-hour movie in a theatre (or similarly, for two times the price of a CD, you get a DVD movie that is twice as long, has pictures and sound, is of high quality, and has extra features - deleted scenes, director commentary, trailers, soundtrack videos, etc. That's still a better value). Never mind if you buy something that sucks... the fact that you paid for it at all is still frustrating. Thinking about what you enjoy alone, the value is always greater. Having "American Beauty" (favorite movie released last year) on DVD is still ultimately more satisfying for me than having "The Marshall Mathers LP" (favorite album released last year). And I paid the same amount for both. In comparison, downloading "The Marshall Mathers LP" on MP3 (about a week before it came out, might I add) was great for me; downloading a VCD rip of "American Beauty" (which took HOURS) wasn't really worth it at all, and I deleted it. For the record, I downloaded BOTH before I owned either one; but I still have the MP3s for "The Marshall Mathers LP", which shows you how the legit copy/online value ratio is tremendously greater for full albums than movies. Don't get me started on singles, even...
Anyway, one day I'll have a DVD burner and a OC-3 connection to the Net, and things may change. But not greatly so. Assuming I had that now, and I downloaded "American Beauty" in 20 minutes in DVD format before it came out in theaters, and burned to DVD... I believe I still would have bought the DVD as well. Because I did that with "Marshall Mathers", and no one got screwed. But the point is, I still would have gotten more for my money in that situation. Which is why the movie industry won't really be in trouble... but the record industry is in BIG trouble if anyone gets a leg up on them in any way.
And I think that time has almost come... the revolution isn't too far away, condsidering once they shed some blood, it'll stir up the appetites of the artists (who hate them), the consumers (who hate them passionately), the lawmakers (who are annoyed with them), and their business competitors (who REALLY want them DEAD, considering all the shit they've had to deal with for the last century). Once it starts, it'll be over pretty quickly. And, everyone else will be left standing, but they won't be. Everyone's had enough of them.
Hooray! They lost money!
If I lost $600,000, I'd have to take a beating from Vinnie in the back alley... he'd probably break both my legs and an arm as well.
Spread that out over a million or so shares, and it doesn't look as bad though, right? I mean, that near break-even status is fantastic news compared to the bath that all the shareholders have taken if they got in at the IPO...
I'm not trying to bash Red Hat as a company... I think they make a fantastic (albeit relatively shitty) product and I think they're involved in a good (albeit financially stinko) cause. I wish them well. Just don't say congratulations when your money would have been better invested in shares of Krispy Kreme.
No, but all those free MasterCard t-shirts you signed up for in college might.
Okay, over the course of human history, I believe that one thing is quite clear and obvious to everyone:
People do not like to pay for information or content. And they generally do not unless they are absolutely forced to, and there's something really good in it for them.
Here's why:
Books: We have bookstores, yes. But we also have a very large system of free public libraries. So, everything is available for free pretty much, and people buy books for convenience only. There is no pleasure in owning a book... if I had a library around the corner that loaned me every book or magazine that I wanted when I wanted it, why would I pay a cent for books? I'm very reluctant to buy books anyway, even when I DON'T have that perfect library around...
Music: People do buy CDs and cassettes for convenience. But if there was no radio (and MTV to an extent), I seriously doubt that people would buy CDs at all. MP3's make the situation worse... they present the music more conveniently than the radio does, hence eliminating the need to buy CDs in a lot of cases.
Visual Productions: We have movie theaters and video stores, sure. We also have television. Lots of people stay home and watch TV. Lots of people get cable to really expand the selection of things to watch... as well as get stuff that isn't available on broadcast TV. Cable is more convenient than having a gigantic video store around the corner where you have to rent EVERYTHING you watch. Otherwise, people go to the movies and video stores to watch films that aren't available on TV yet and that are convenient to watch. Lots of people don't bother with that, though. And some people have descramblers to get endless movies for free, hence eliminating the need to ever leave the house.
The Internet: We know the deal. The best example I can think of... who ever paid for Infoseek searches when they cost 10 cents a piece?!?!? No one likes to pay on the Net. Even porn is available freely in massive quanitites.
Software: Shareware is hardly registered (not to the degree it SHOULD be). I bet half of Windows and MS Office installations in personal use settings are illegal to some degree (unlicensed upgrades, pirated CDs, etc.).
Now, some people DO pay for their content, but: they never pay a lot (cable TV is cheap, no one goes to the movies 3 days a week, no one buys 20 singles a week that they listened to on the radio during their commute to work, etc..), they usually pay indirectly (taxes support public libraries, they subscribe to ISPs to get Internet access, they pay the cable company for installation and convenience, they pay for the convenience of owning a good CD themselves, etc.), and they avoid buying anything that they aren't convinced that they really want or need.
I know this sounds obvious, but here's the point: Micropayments won't work because people don't like to pay for information. That is, no matter how small the payment is, it's still money out the window. And unless you're rich (the rich tend to be even more stingy), people have better priorities than dropping one tenth of a penny in the jar every time they visit CNN.com or Slashdot.
Granted, I would pay a nominal subscription fee for the websites I visit... if I were to get something good in return for it BEYOND what I'm already doing. Micropayments are essentially paying for something that has no additional value... so I won't do it.
Plus, people are more likely to pay for something they like before they see it, but they are less likely to try it out if they have to pay to look at it first.
in the words of the Wassup! guys: true, true.
You're young AND female. Sheesh, I thought I had it tough in the job market...
Well, good luck to you, and god bless. I hope you have decent people working with you in the future... if you're as smart as it seems from your typing, I'd be honored to work along side you, and I wouldn't touch your ass without explicit permission.
I really don't believe we're even having this argument.
Okay, lemme get this straight. You're trying to compare the UK - a centuries old parlimentary democracy/monarchy in Europe with a fair amount of people, tolerable weather, and a stable economy - to California - settled in decent quantities only a century and a half ago, a state in the USA, loaded with guns, Mexicans, gay people, hippie activists, actors, having very nice weather, ridiculous real-estate prices in the hot tech areas, and no electricity.
Okay, let me just point out where I personally disagree here, even though I've never seen the UK and I was in CA for two weeks when I was tweleve years old:
California is highly racially segregated. Cities in California are not known for having people of all races work together in perfect harmony. There is a fair amount of tension and xenophobia going around amongst different cultural groups in both LA and SF. It has nothing to do with race, but cultural differences DO segregate people. Generally, people from South Central LA don't hang out with the people in Beverly Hills. Asians in SF don't associate with the gays as a cultural group. (Individually they may, but gays and Asians are both rather notorious in my mind for sticking to their own kind... although with what we've done to both groups in this country, I don't blame them)
More people migrate to California for a number of reasons. First of all, CA is better than Mexico, and somewhat more attractive than Arizona or New Mexico. People also move to Hollywood because they're star-struck... hence the never-ending pool of gas-station attendants and busboys. People go to Silicon Valley thinking they'll get on the money train that chugged out of the station a LONG time ago. Some people think San Diego is a really beautiful city. And the weather is nice in general. But why else would anyone go to California? There's nothing drastically better about California than any other place in the world. I mean, everywhere you go, you have other fucking people to deal with, so it's not like you avoid that anywhere in CA (maybe Death Valley).
Most hardware and software companies happen to be already there in California for a while there, buddy. I can't see how that's a smart move for hardware companies either... one good earthquake and your fab facility is toasted, leaving you in bankruptcy. Otherwise, CA has a large university system as well as Stanford in Palo Alto, and it just so happens that a lot of people stuck around in certain areas to develop tech companies in a concentrated area. That MIGHT have been caused by the fact that there are a couple of fairly large tech companies in the area that always needed employees if you didn't cut it on your own, and always HAD employees that you could get to quit and join your visionary startup. This is way before the dot-com revolution, though... then, too many people were hiring for too little jobs, real estate went sky high, and everyone was there for the money - so it became a center for slimy biz people to go out and make a quick buck. This happened in a lot of big cities, though, so don't let it pump your ego too much. More than half those startups are gone right now, and if anything, being in Silicon Valley probably hastened their demise.
The UK isn't unfriendlier to immigrants, it has bandwidth too, and I think you can start companies there. It's all a matter of your personal needs, and I think you can't compare each BIG territory and say one is better than the other. I'll tell you right now, I can think of some places in the US alone where it's also REALLY good to start up a company now AND move to if you need somewhere to go. Most aren't in California. With all the problems CA has been having lately, I'd be reluctant to move there. England isn't exactly my prime destination either, but being from the Northeastern US, I think I'd do okay there. I think you would too.
*sigh* another person who thinks the universe revolves around the United States...
Yea, you're right.
:)
Side note: my academic career has been one big fuckup anyway, so you can imagine why I'd be unhappy when my main goal in college turned into "graduate ASAP" almost immediately. I'll get out in 4 total years, thankfully... but the fact that I'll run screaming means I probably could have gotten more out of college.
That said, my unique perspective allows me to insightfully and sarcastically pick out all the faults in the situation in general
I chose CS because in high school, I'm SURE that's what I wanted to do. Shows how much I knew in HS, eh?
;)
I like your suggestions... right now I'm in a tight spot because I'm geographically isolated from my target locale for when I graduate, so it's hard to get the hookup from 200 miles away. I'm trying. The stress is in this: if I don't have a job BEFORE I graduate, I get to move back in with my parents in Florida! It's quite miserable down there. Now you know why I'm stressed out and bitter.
That sounds like exactly the situation I'm in... I don't want to be a computer scientist per se, but then again, that's what my school HAS.
Of course, coming out of high school, you don't know these things. I had a pretty shitty guidance counselor (no, really... infinitely more shitty than the school I wound up going to).
haha... we only had the arcane! Not a single Windows PC available to the whole CS dept. If you want to TOUCH Windows, you had to take MIS here. (Hey, guess what I'm doing, I'm taking MIS!)
They taught all that stuff. I'm just not sure I want to be a programmer after all this. *shrug*
And yea, I'm nearly distraught at what I paid for it.
Will I go into HTML programming? I have no clue. I'm both afraid of my lack of artistic ability and lack of desire to be a programmer overall. So I'm not sure where I'd fit in, but I think it's more of a confidence problem than anything. I actually like making webpages, and perhaps if I can get paid to make them, things won't be all that bad.
Second, I was obligated by MYSELF to go to college. I didn't want a HS diploma to be my grand achievement in life, and I had no Bill-Gates-type exit plan to go start a company. For all practical concerns, why would I not want to earn a college degree with this 4 year period in my life? And there's a lot more to college than a degree...
Third, I have no idea what I want at this point, and I've never wanted anything badly enough to really seriously pursue it in outside study. If anything of that sort has come up for me, usually I have too many problems being a consistent student in school to focus enough on outside projects.
In other words, I can only stay interested in something for a week before I wind up having to cram and rush to get homework done for classes, which then becomes the main focus of my life for 3 weeks until I get everything done - the end result being I forgot what I was doing previously. I never dropped something I LOVED doing because of this, but a lot of things I was messing around with got lost in my schedule this way. This is simply because I'm a crummy student in school, and I have problems getting homework done. Not that the difficulty is beyond my capabilities (I actually breeze through everything once I get started), but I can't keep up with 5 different subjects at once EVER and do all the homework for everything. I always get into trouble with that.
I've had no inspiring teachers. I've had teachers that I've liked, but who do interesting things that I'm not interested in doing as a career myself. There was never a professor who did something that I wish I could do... on the contrary, I felt that I would be in hell if I was ever reincarnated as one of my professors. I did get a good education overall though... some areas were sketchy, but most were pretty solid.
Grad school is a no-no for me. Okay, it's not a definite NO, but it's more like a "not here". I do hate the school and the locale for many reasons (which is where most of the bitterness comes from, to my CS dept's credit), and I see no future for myself here. Furthermore, I'm such an inconsistent student that grad school seems like prolonging the torture for me... I gotta get out of the academic environment. I don't rule out grad school, but it's not like I have any goals that could be met at grad school either. It's basically more loans for me, and it needs a lot of justification.
Finally, I should mention that through 4 years of college, there was NEVER any graphics programming (Graphics was a grad-level obscure-based elective course, I took Telecom and Databases instead), never any Java (another elective, but I could never get into it, and my schedule did not permit it in the end), not a single ounce of programming anything outside a Solaris command-line environment, never any decent outside projects, no co-ops available, poor job postings, and crummy computer resources available (honestly, we all use computer accounts that EVERY OTHER STUDENT IN THE SCHOOL HAS to do our programming work). We do have SIG lectures, networking, a LUG, and a bunch of other perks, but nothing that ever seemed like my cup of tea. I tried a lot of different things... even outside of comp sci as well. This school just sucks rocks, though. I had no way of knowing this from high school though. You live, you learn.
I have a bunch of other gripes, but I'm sure the available parking and the quality of the writing in the school newspaper are both off-topic.
That sounds pretty good... I have some other posts on this thread that have been bouncing around some of my other "bitter" ideas (I fully admit being bitter), but here's what I wanna say specifically without echoing myself:
I'm glad you had everything work out for you. Personally, graduation is 2 1/2 months away, I have no job lined up, I have a couple of interviews with iffy companies coming up in a few weeks, my career services dept is totally unhelpful (my interviews are coming from my resume being posted in my best friend's school's job search system!), and I have no inside links to any jobs at this point. I started from nothing, pretty much... and after pushing my resume out and working hard in school, I may end up with nothing. Granted, I'm not a typical case by any means (there are lots of ways in which my college story is WAY different from most others'), but when I have to be anxious over whether or not I can get job interviews set up at all, you know something's wrong...
I'm bitter at my school because of this: I don't like the computer industry, and I don't want to get dipped head first into the rat race. I'm willing to bide my time for a few years doing something I don't like, but I can't even find that... yet if I don't like a job, I can't figure out what I actually DO like to pursue that.
The main difference between me and you... other than living at school (I like living at school, it was a learning experience)... is that the deadline is coming for me, and I still have no after college plans yet. I did what I was told in regards to working with Career Services to find something, and I've tried to set up interviews with the few opportunities that are available for me. (I have location requirements that are not in the locality of the school, yet it's not like there's a lot offerings from companies that might have other branch offices... it's all been sparse) I would pursue something, except I get the impression that I would hate a lot of the things I learned about here, since I hated it while I was here. Finally, I don't know much beyond what my school taught me, I'm clueless as to what is available beyond what I was taught, and I'm unqualified for such things anyway.
Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places. I do know the right place, in my case, ISN'T within my department or my career services center. And I think that's reason enough to get pissed that I paid a lot of money so that those things would be helpful to me when I finished my education.
That said, if I find a job in another discipline that they're willing to train for, my CS degree certainly doesn't look bad at all...
I believe you misinterpreted my post.
I felt obligated to get a college degree. So one way or another, I was going to college. Furthermore, I decided to be a CS major because I was good at that, I was interested in it, and I didn't have any other interests that I thought were worth majoring in. None of this has changed much since, although I regret the absolute certainty I had that CS was my primary interest.
What I'm saying is, for $20,000 a year, my school showed me nothing that made me feel like I made a great decision 4 years ago. I didn't want to be a web site designer 4 years ago, and I don't want to be one today. I want to make money, though, and I'll take what I can get... mostly because I have no idea what I want to do (I have no career direction from this school) and our career services center is 95% useless to everyone here (no career help from this school, either).
My outlook would have been a lot rosier had I seen a couple of things in college that made me say "Hey, I really wanna look into doing something like that after college!" More specifically, I've learned nothing in school that left such a good impression on me. Rather, I get to see other people making Flash movies and all kinds of snazzy websites and programs, and I'm nearly totally ignorant on how to make things like that. I have some working knowledge of some of those kinds of thing on my own, at least, and I can't point fingers at our CS dept. for not teaching us cutting edge tech... but at the same time, for the money I've spent here, I should have a clearer vision of where I want to go with my life. That's why I'm here, cause that's exactly what a dumb kid out of high school doesn't have.
In general, the CS dept. totally blew it if I'm sitting here wondering why I didn't take Finance or Journalism. Yes, maybe I chose the wrong major, but then again, I like computers, I like technology, and I'm rather good at working with those things. I can't figure out why I'm so creatively lost in school, other than to say that all the work I've done here has been miserable and uninspiring. I'm sure other people agree in a lot of cases, and it's an opportunity for improvement in the field if they want more people to get into it.
Glad to see your career path worked out. I still have 2 1/2 months of school left, so I could still very well wind up in your position eventually. However, my anxiety at this point has me playing devil's advocate. :)
/. people don't socialize, but time must be budgeted for that), and I'm not in the middle of any metropolis with easy access to programming houses. So, other than /. and school, I have no access to news about interesting programming projects. Also, I have little time to pursue projects outside of school, since I have a hard enough time getting my school projects done when they're due. But it's a chicken and egg problem then... I need to spend time doing research to find an interesting job, but I need to graduate college and support myself with a job before I do research. The easy solution is to get the first available miserable job, stick with it, and not worry about finding the dream job. But I'm more ambitious than that...
Nothing wrong with CS, but like I've said in other postings in this thread, CS should teach more real-world stuff AND inspire students with ideas... you don't have to edge out the Lisp or Assembly language to do this, you just have to COMPLEMENT it with this stuff.
I'm not exactly looking to be a dot-com zillionaire, but it's also true that I feel that I may know how to work with all the technology in the world at this point... but it doesn't mean I want to. I like computers, don't get me wrong. Some of the stuff in the industry really makes my head spin. But I wouldn't know where to begin on any of this stuff... I know I have the base skills to do it, but beyond that I don't know how it's done at all. This is because in 4 years of college, I was never shown ANYTHING that I thought I might want to do when I graduate. And being practical minded, I don't pursue interesting projects without knowing what will be in store for me.
You might feel that this is closed minded and lazy, but remember: I've been going to school full-time and I have a part-time job that takes up 20-30 hours a week of my time. Plus, I make it a point to spend time socializing in college (not that
CS shouldn't be "teach me Cold Fusion" on any level. And I was taught all of those concepts that Lisp and Assembly language build upon. I feel it was all very useful, interesting information. I'm a smarter person for it.
That doesn't mean that I can pay back my college loans, though. Virtually no one hires Lisp or Assembly programmers. A good CS education should be COMPLEMENTED with real world practical examples. Usually, a typical CS education sticks to the obscure stuff, never inspiring the student with concepts in use today. And, even when they do teach the "buzzword" languages (Java, SQL, C++) they stick to a totally academic cirriculum... which isn't bad at all, but once in a while it would be nice to give students some ideas of what could be done with their education.
To contrast, I took a web site design course in the Art dept. - totally VC oriented, not CS. The first week of class, they showed us gabocorp.com. Now, that's what I'm talking about... everyone's jaw dropped to the floor. I understand that source code from large programs typically doesn't have that "wow" effect (it more has a "Jesus Christ this is long!" effect) but after 4 years of a solid CS education, I have no idea how I want to use it. Most likely I'll take the first web design job I can get - and I knew HTML in sophomore year of high school, so if I stick with that then I wasted 4 years in college.
Before someone starts blasting me how I could go on Sourceforge or something... I blame my school for not inspiring me, but let's not expand the conversation beyond my school. Also, like I've said, I need to eat. For me, learning how to contribute to OS projects would be a full-time job in itself, and the actual benefits aren't encouraging to me. This isn't a swipe at OS projects at all, but most likely I need to make finding a real job my #1 priority for the next 3 months, and the path of: learn how to program in Linux/contribute to OS projects/hope someone notices and hires me - is way too roundabout and infeasable for me at this point. I shoulda kept up with those LUG meetings, eh?
I went into CS thinking that I would like it... and I didn't. Not to say I found the subject material entirely boring and difficult... some of it is quite interesting... but at the end of a 4 year education, I'm totally uninspired for a career in the field.
I never went into it for the money, but I'm a very practical person... I passed up a lot of other subject areas knowing full well that there was a lot of volatility and uncertainty in those fields. CS seemed, if anything, "safe". People to this day still preach to me that I'll have no problem finding a job and that I'll make a lot of money. Granted, these people don't know much else from what they see on TV, but it very much was like that for a while. Nowadays you can make a lot of money doing something really boring, but you can't make a lot of money by winging it with a dot-com anymore.
I agree that a lot of what I was taught, no matter how hard or obscure, was for my own good. And I never found those subject areas to be entirely boring and dull, but I'd rather not pursue a career doing those kinds of things. My entire college education consists of different courses in those kinds of subject areas, however. So I didn't learn anything that I actually liked in the end... I'm just barely getting out with my neck intact, and for all I care every computer could be thrown in the ocean tomorrow and we could all go back to farming.
My bigger problem is with the real world, though. I need to eat after this. And I don't like the industry at all. And I don't like the idea of working for a dot-com at all. And because the dot-coms imploded, there is no room in the field anymore for inspired start-ups and creative ventures. It's all business now. As if the fantasy-land world of dot-coms wasn't annoying enough, now you're fighting with vultures to get a piece of the action. It'll be a while before even solid companies get back on their feet after this mess. And who suffers in all of this? Us. Why? Cause it's all about money. Who gives a shit about programmers? We were highly unappreciated from the beginning. The dot-com fiasco wasn't caused by programmers... it was all business people cashing in on a speculative mirage. I think there's more honest programmers looking for work now than there are grand success and/or failure stories out there... I don't think there were a hell of a lot of coders who fucked around, snorted blow, and fell hard when the shit hit the fan. Most of them watched that happen to others, and now everyone's looking for a job.
This story about the one-day job only reinforces my points. It proves that the computer industry doesn't care about people... hence why should people care about the computer industry? Fuck it, I'll be an actor.
Enrollments in computer science are steadily declining because no-one wants to be a half-baked engineering student who isn't guaranteed a steady job out of college! So sign up today! We have small but over-enrolled classes with non-English speaking professors ready to teach you things that would make most human beings cry! Learn obscure languages and methodologies, cause who wants to learn Cold Fusion? Assembly language and Lisp are the future! Pay $80,000 to spend 4 years with society's worst alcoholics and drug abusers clad in Abercrombie and Fitch! Earn no marketable career skills! Prepare for a future in a turbulent industry where 90% of the companies are a joke and the rest of them will have you in a cubicle until the end of eternity! Learn to cry when the NASDAQ plummets! Regret not being a Journalism major! Make your 1450 on the SAT's totally meaningless! Become a real life Dilbert! And best of all, keep a straight face when your MBA idiot CEO asks you to keep working for the next month for no pay... so you can make marketing calls and schmooze gullible VC's.
What are you waiting for!?!
Dude, you're a staff member of Slashdot. You don't need to follow Signal 11's method of karma whoring (posts an opinion everyone wants to disagree with, just to get modded up as interesting).
All Open Source projects will always be completed. It's your kind of pessimism we don't need in the world of OS programming. If you think it's not gonna get done, why don't you take some of your free time and go help them? No, it's a lot easier to sit there and not do a goddamn thing but berate everyone else for not writing programs that do exactly what you like.
(okay, if you've been agreeing with me so far, may I point out three reasons you're on crack:
1. michael has a valid point based on the complexity of such projects alone... artwork, gameplay, and plot are all factors as well
2. michael has a life other than dropping everything to write a game to give out to the rest of the world.
3. No project is guaranteed to get completed, for a variety of plausible or oddball reasons. After all, a meteor might land tomorrow... do you want God to hold it against you that you didn't make the deadline for your DeCSS Mozilla plugin?
Thank you.)
Now I can get my own personal giant ED-209 guard robot within the next few years! Now no one will fuck with me again!
I haven't been this excited since I saw Kenny on South Park wearing an ED-209 halloween costume...