My own programming "warm up" isn't much like most of the posts here (reading email, Slashdot, etc.). I do those things every morning, sure, but I don't consider them some kind of warm up for a coding session.
Instead, I load up the project, create remote sessions, etc. -- whatever I need to do the job -- take a look at the specific thing I need to work on, then background the whole thing and bring up some kind of logic game. Lately, it's been Bejeweled Deluxe.
I've discovered that a logic game puts me into the right frame of mind while simultaneously letting me "mull over" the work I'm about to do. I stay away from reflex-oriented games, or those involving words; they make me concentrate too closely on the game. By the time I've played a game or two I've already thought of several ways to attack the coding problem at hand, and I can get started.
The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch sensitive -- you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wnated to keep listening to the same programme.
Once again, science-fiction -- and comedy -- predicts the near future. Ha!
While I'm all for making things safer, there's a point at which absurdity kicks in. This particular implementation seems to be reaching that point.
The trend seems to be, "The average person is a moron; let's make the environment safer." I've seen pending legislation in the local government to increase the distance between telephone/light poles and a street, because cars hit them and injuries result. Hello? Can we just teach everyone to not drive on the damn sidewalk?
Darwinism, anyone?
Collision notification is good. Collision avoidance would be great except that it's not practical with our current level of technology. In a nutshell, our software just isn't good enough yet. I'd be happy with a warning light, buzzer, whatever. I would definitely not be happy with my car taking control and doing something without my express, written consent. I've successfully driven through accidents that happened in front of me, avoided the problem and also avoided the pileup that results when everyone slams on their brakes. That may not have been possible if I had a car with this "feature."
I echo what so many others here are saying: No thank you.
The suit details much of the Unix and Linux chronology, but still missing from the complaint's history of Linux are discussions of SCO's involvement in Linux development under its previous names, Caldera International and Caldera Systems.
It may be that information like what you've found is the reason those details are missing. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other items as well.
Much of the time, the problem I'm trying to solve is either not exactly solved by others' libraries or those libraries do far more than what I need.
I do, however, try to find those libraries before reinventing the wheel. Occassionally I do find one that will work, and then I'll be faced with integrating it into the project. At that point, I've always found it beneficial to go through and edit the source, for two reasons: 1) a consistent coding style throughout the project makes it easier to maintain, and 2) I tend to learn a hell of a lot by actually trying to understand what I'm editing. Then, maybe, next time I can reinvent the wheel all by myself.
Though I don't have any references to cite, I'd be willing to guess that one's body can become accustomed to virtually any drug and therefore more tolerant of that drug. To a certain extent, then, the more you ingest the more tolerant you become.
I've been drinking coffee in rather large quantities for a couple of decades now. I'm probably in the extreme range at this point: 30-40 cups a day, from the time I get up to to minutes before I go to bed. Unless I consume a large amount of caffeine in a short period of time -- such as two or three espressos in 15 minutes -- I don't get the jitters and don't have trouble falling asleep.
However: I know that I'm also highly dependent on it. If I don't have any caffeine for a few hours I'm damn-near incapacitated by headaches. But at least the cure is easy: One cup of coffee will cure that kind of headache completely in 30 minutes.
Apple has per-song and per-album pricing. Many of the albums I've run across are pinned at $9.99 if there are more than 10 tracks, but some of them are priced more. Presumably the exceptions are pricing-by-demand. The Wall is $25.74, for instance.
I've often wondered if some of the people I see driving on the freeway belong in the Human Genus, based purely on their lack of motor ability. If those people can make into that classification then surely our furry, feces-throwing relatives can make it. (I'm talking about the chimps, here.)
My girlfriend was a long-term Turbo Tax customer. I talked her out of it this year, citing the problems experienced by others with Intuit's DRM scheme. We both used one of the online filing services listed by the IRS.
Overall, the experience was positive. We used different services, but both services had the usual wizard-like walkthrough, error-checking, etc.. And we both got our refunds in short order.
I'm now recommending online filing to everyone who asks. It can be significantly less expensive (depending on the service) and you don't have to deal with the DRM issues.
I had that same reaction. I'm 38. "Old? How the hell is 30+ old?"
But to the topic at hand:
I discovered computers when I was 12 and was fascinated by the whole concept of programming. Bought one of the very first Apple II+ units and started writing software for the local high school before I was there yet. I even worked for Apple for seven years as a developer, then left to start my own custom software company. I'm still in business, even after the economic shakedown.
Bottom line: I don't give a shit how old my coders are. I don't care what their race is, or how many limbs they have. What I care about is how well they do their job, accept responsibility for their work and actions, and don't have to be handheld through every problem.
I thought this was one of the better comments in the article:
It is possible that people with the same subjective influences and implicit assumptions do well in college, because college faculty belong to the same dominant species of irrationality. So, the value of the verbal section of the SAT as a predictor of performance in college might be quite high. However, the side-effect of optimizing a test to better predict success in college is that truly objective minds might be punished for not keeping up with the latest delusions.
I've always felt that the U.S. education system "taught to itself," meaning that much of what you learned in school was directly relevant to school, but nowhere else. It's like the schools inhabit their own closed universe.
My 13 year-old son spends an inordinate amount of time in school studying and practicing for a thing called a TAKS test here in Texas. You have to pass it or you don't graduate to the next grade (that's the intention, anyway). What skill, exactly, is he learning? As far as I can tell, the skill is "how to take the TAKS test" -- something very useful in the post-school world, I'm sure.
I think this service is a great starting point for whole online/downloadable music biz. Apple will surely tweak the service, and competitors will probably do more, faster.
While I don't really like DRM, I can see where the music industry is coming from on the topic, and I suspect that they were the ones behind the whole thing.
What I'd like to see is a per-song DRM, where the artists or labels get to choose whether the song can be freely copied after purchase or not. Perhaps that, coupled with a price change for non-DRM-enforced songs, would push the rest of the industry in the direction we all want it to go. I'm sure the indie crowd would get behind the idea, as well as the brighter label execs and artists.
To maintain a good reputation, tell the truth and offer good service (where applicable). Whodathunkit.
I've always found it amazing that so many companies persist in putting a spin on things, no matter how trivial. They insist on elaborating perfectly good truths until they no longer sound sincere, and thereby drive away their customers. Or ignore the negatives that may be well known and lose customers that way.
What really gets me, though, is that the marketing departments think that that's how it should work. They just cannot fathom a world where you just do what you say and say what you do. It's too simple or something.
I just want the bottom line, good, bad or indifferent. Maybe I've been a programmer for too long.
Not to pick on this post in particular, but the phrase Once you understand that, the rest is easy brings to mind just how different everyone looks at these things.
This whole topic started off with the assumption that people want to change careers. You can safely assume that those people are unhappy with their current careers. The consensus appears to be that this change will cause financial hardship.
It now comes down to the "pain" of making those changes versus the "pain" of staying in the current job. It's very much a balancing act, with financial responsibilities/requirements and personal attitude playing important roles. Some people may find that clipping coupons and buying generic versions of only the necessities is invigorating. Others may not, especially if they have large responsibilities.
This is very much a personal balancing act. It is not categorically easy.
It's nice when you're able to change careers (or whatever you want to call the primary source of your income) but you have to have some way of supporting yourself while you're shifting gears.
I believe that many people are truly stuck in their current jobs because they don't have the savings or support to make the leap. Hence, most of the success stories you read are about those people who sold their company, or had a high income previously, simply because those are the people who were able to make the leap.
Another reason I suspect spam is a major issue in the misfires is that lots of spam filters do lookup on sender addresses and those frequently point to non existent domains. Also the spam senders rarely do the most basic filtering on their lists - you can tell that since every now and again you get a spam with a full sender list at the top and you can see the broken addresses right there.
I would also bet that a significant percentage of the bogus domain lookups are due to spam. However, I'd bet a significant percentage of those are due to moron recipients trying to follow up on the spam.
My company was deluged awhile back by people requesting information on our "new money making scheme." Turns out that they were all replying -- by email, fax, web hits, and telephone -- to a single piece of spam sent by some other dumbass that used our domain.
My iPod also seemed to be losing its charge. It got to where after only a day or two, sitting around while powered off (not asleep), I would find the battery nearly drained.
One day I happened to plug the iPod into the actual charger, rather than my G4. Ever since, the battery has been working flawlessly. I have no idea if the charger really works differently or not, but it certainly seemed to.
Slashdot Mirror
Instead, I load up the project, create remote sessions, etc. -- whatever I need to do the job -- take a look at the specific thing I need to work on, then background the whole thing and bring up some kind of logic game. Lately, it's been Bejeweled Deluxe.
I've discovered that a logic game puts me into the right frame of mind while simultaneously letting me "mull over" the work I'm about to do. I stay away from reflex-oriented games, or those involving words; they make me concentrate too closely on the game. By the time I've played a game or two I've already thought of several ways to attack the coding problem at hand, and I can get started.
This is one of the coolest accessories I've seen for the iPod. Maybe not as geeky-cool as Bluetooth, but it works today, with existing technology.
The trend seems to be, "The average person is a moron; let's make the environment safer." I've seen pending legislation in the local government to increase the distance between telephone/light poles and a street, because cars hit them and injuries result. Hello? Can we just teach everyone to not drive on the damn sidewalk?
Darwinism, anyone?
Collision notification is good. Collision avoidance would be great except that it's not practical with our current level of technology. In a nutshell, our software just isn't good enough yet. I'd be happy with a warning light, buzzer, whatever. I would definitely not be happy with my car taking control and doing something without my express, written consent. I've successfully driven through accidents that happened in front of me, avoided the problem and also avoided the pileup that results when everyone slams on their brakes. That may not have been possible if I had a car with this "feature."
I echo what so many others here are saying: No thank you.
... what is the air-speed velocity of an unladen African or European flamingo?
And next up from Apple: A computer with a CPU that's shipped only 2/3 of a billion, but feels like a billion.
I do, however, try to find those libraries before reinventing the wheel. Occassionally I do find one that will work, and then I'll be faced with integrating it into the project. At that point, I've always found it beneficial to go through and edit the source, for two reasons: 1) a consistent coding style throughout the project makes it easier to maintain, and 2) I tend to learn a hell of a lot by actually trying to understand what I'm editing. Then, maybe, next time I can reinvent the wheel all by myself.
I've been drinking coffee in rather large quantities for a couple of decades now. I'm probably in the extreme range at this point: 30-40 cups a day, from the time I get up to to minutes before I go to bed. Unless I consume a large amount of caffeine in a short period of time -- such as two or three espressos in 15 minutes -- I don't get the jitters and don't have trouble falling asleep.
However: I know that I'm also highly dependent on it. If I don't have any caffeine for a few hours I'm damn-near incapacitated by headaches. But at least the cure is easy: One cup of coffee will cure that kind of headache completely in 30 minutes.
"Deny criminals the use of the roads," indeed. Stupid criminals, maybe.
Slap slap slap
Step 2: One alien says, "Imaging a Beowulf cluster of these...."
Step 3: BOOM!
Apple has per-song and per-album pricing. Many of the albums I've run across are pinned at $9.99 if there are more than 10 tracks, but some of them are priced more. Presumably the exceptions are pricing-by-demand. The Wall is $25.74, for instance.
I've often wondered if some of the people I see driving on the freeway belong in the Human Genus, based purely on their lack of motor ability. If those people can make into that classification then surely our furry, feces-throwing relatives can make it. (I'm talking about the chimps, here.)
Overall, the experience was positive. We used different services, but both services had the usual wizard-like walkthrough, error-checking, etc.. And we both got our refunds in short order.
I'm now recommending online filing to everyone who asks. It can be significantly less expensive (depending on the service) and you don't have to deal with the DRM issues.
But to the topic at hand:
I discovered computers when I was 12 and was fascinated by the whole concept of programming. Bought one of the very first Apple II+ units and started writing software for the local high school before I was there yet. I even worked for Apple for seven years as a developer, then left to start my own custom software company. I'm still in business, even after the economic shakedown.
Bottom line: I don't give a shit how old my coders are. I don't care what their race is, or how many limbs they have. What I care about is how well they do their job, accept responsibility for their work and actions, and don't have to be handheld through every problem.
It's what you do that counts, not what you are.
My 13 year-old son spends an inordinate amount of time in school studying and practicing for a thing called a TAKS test here in Texas. You have to pass it or you don't graduate to the next grade (that's the intention, anyway). What skill, exactly, is he learning? As far as I can tell, the skill is "how to take the TAKS test" -- something very useful in the post-school world, I'm sure.
Very frustrating, at times.
While I don't really like DRM, I can see where the music industry is coming from on the topic, and I suspect that they were the ones behind the whole thing.
What I'd like to see is a per-song DRM, where the artists or labels get to choose whether the song can be freely copied after purchase or not. Perhaps that, coupled with a price change for non-DRM-enforced songs, would push the rest of the industry in the direction we all want it to go. I'm sure the indie crowd would get behind the idea, as well as the brighter label execs and artists.
The possibility of embedding registration numbers and the like on the CD is there, of course, and is probably part of the system.
All in all, given the fact that many people still can't download truly huge CD images from home, this seems like a promising idea.
I've always found it amazing that so many companies persist in putting a spin on things, no matter how trivial. They insist on elaborating perfectly good truths until they no longer sound sincere, and thereby drive away their customers. Or ignore the negatives that may be well known and lose customers that way.
What really gets me, though, is that the marketing departments think that that's how it should work. They just cannot fathom a world where you just do what you say and say what you do. It's too simple or something.
I just want the bottom line, good, bad or indifferent. Maybe I've been a programmer for too long.
This whole topic started off with the assumption that people want to change careers. You can safely assume that those people are unhappy with their current careers. The consensus appears to be that this change will cause financial hardship.
It now comes down to the "pain" of making those changes versus the "pain" of staying in the current job. It's very much a balancing act, with financial responsibilities/requirements and personal attitude playing important roles. Some people may find that clipping coupons and buying generic versions of only the necessities is invigorating. Others may not, especially if they have large responsibilities.
This is very much a personal balancing act. It is not categorically easy.
I believe that many people are truly stuck in their current jobs because they don't have the savings or support to make the leap. Hence, most of the success stories you read are about those people who sold their company, or had a high income previously, simply because those are the people who were able to make the leap.
I would also bet that a significant percentage of the bogus domain lookups are due to spam. However, I'd bet a significant percentage of those are due to moron recipients trying to follow up on the spam.
My company was deluged awhile back by people requesting information on our "new money making scheme." Turns out that they were all replying -- by email, fax, web hits, and telephone -- to a single piece of spam sent by some other dumbass that used our domain.
One day I happened to plug the iPod into the actual charger, rather than my G4. Ever since, the battery has been working flawlessly. I have no idea if the charger really works differently or not, but it certainly seemed to.