When I started to work as a junior software engineer at one of the dot coms, everybody wanted me to add complicated tasks to my programs. Finally, when I was buried under piles and piles of requests and functional specifications, I asked one of my superiors what to do. His answer was simple: I had to learn basic principles of software engineering:
a. Some tasks can never be sold with software
b. A good software engineer comes up with new code, an excellent software engineer learns how to re-use already existing code
c. Assumption is a mother of all fuck-ups
I have learned how to say "no" very quickly and here is what I how. Before you write the first line of code, make sure that you have requirements and specifications. There is an excellent book written by Michael Jackson (no, not the pop-star) on how to do that. If you are confident that you cannot meet the requirements, tell it to your boss/customer; chances are that if you cannot write robust and error proof code to do something, then either nobody else can do it or you are not well prepared for the task. If what they ask for is truly ridiculous, every decent software engineer will give them the same answer and anybody who takes the assignment will screw it up. Either way you are off the hook. Its better to be honest up front then being a scape goat.
I am sorry to break it to you, but I think that getting a Ph.D. in Computer Science is a dead end, unless you plan on relocating to India, China or other countries that will do most of IT work of the world in a couple of years. It seems that general population of this country along with elected politicians are not interested in new talent and research; instead, people are interested in cheaper goods and higher profits.
According to Money magazine, Computer Science grads experienced almost a 5% drop in start salaries; mix it with current unemployment rate and you get your answer. Just remember: engineers are money spenders, and business people are money makers. Do you want to make money or would you rather join the unemployment line?
I understand how people can be outraged by the actions of the United States and its government, but what some non-U.S. (and U.S.) residents have to understand is that governments across the world would exactly the same thing, except it would not show up on the web sites and newspapers due to the limits on the freedom of speech. Would states try to find and prosecute memebers and assistants of groups who have carried out terrorist acts on the territory of these states? Absolutely! Will countries change their political views and alliances? Yes; as a matter of fact, many of them have been doing it for quite some time: read some history books. If my memory is correct, European states have been jumping from one union into the other for the past two centuries.
I believe that if any country lost three thousand people in a terrorist attack, it would try and investigate every possible link. This is just another form of the question: would you sacrifice the freedoms of one in order to benefit the majority? Sure, it was incorrect to keep the guy for five weeks without a charge, but what if he had disappeared during the process and then turned out to be a mastermind behind some high-tech attack aimed at the citizens of your country? How much is your life worth?
This is just my opinion. Unfortunatley nobody will ever know what really happened behind the walls of this investigation. Just remember: "grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."
Freelancing is good if you have time, patience, a running vehicle, a source for medical insurance (a family memeber that can provide you with it or something like that), and lack of private life. The last one is really important: how much does your free time cost?
I could not survive through college without doing something on the side, so I started freelancing. I had some decent jobs for $60+/hr and I really enjoyed them. That was until I realized that I had my health insurance paid for (thanks mom!) and that freelancing was not the job that I wanted to do until the retirement. It was a decent source of income until I had clients calling me at 9 p.m. during my vacation time in Maine. Moreover there were several issues that bothered me the most.
First of all, there were clients that wanted more for less all the time. They were pain in my neck and I could not handle them anymore. Secondly, my moral values kicked in: I could not charge an old lady $60/hr for fixing her background or moving menu items around. I knew some people who made $400/night for performing really easy stuff, like setting up an email account in Mac OS X and playing with the dock; unfortunately, I could not do it. Most of the people that I delt with were not smart enough to figure out how to do simple tasks and I felt bad for making them pay for their own stupidity. Additionally, I did felt frustrated whenever I had to explain how Internet worked for the tenth time.
When I graduated from college freelancing was not an option anymore: I had to have medical insurance and some stability. A freelancing job could offer none. Plus, none of the freelancing jobs that I have ever seen seemed to be challenging and that is what I disliked the most. With the economy down the crapper, I chose to be a manager at a local company. It pays my bills and allows me to take advanced computer science and business classes. I'd rather learn something cool and apply it in my future open source projects than play with somebody's 'home page.'
Please do not judge me hard, that is my own opinion and I do not claim that everybody who does freelancing feels the same way. The better question to post is whether unemployed IT professionals should storm the White House and demand job security rather than settle for freelancing and instability.
It might be offtopic, but there is a good article in The Wall Street Journal (July the 18th, 2003) about how some spammers might benefit from anti-spam laws. The idea is that big corporations that do legid business via e-mail marketing are trying to eliminate competition that gives them, spammers, a bad name. By reducing the amount of 'get rich quick' or 'increase your penis size to 18 inches' e-mails and following strict guidelines, today's spammers have a chance of being legid, reduce costs of operations and have a well established market base. For example, knowing that people opt-in for some offers means that companies can target the consumers more precisely.
Ahh, I knew there was a catch. Meanwhile, I am going to post my email addresses as 'my_name at domain dot com.'
Seriously, this is just another attempt by the U.S. government aimed to increase government spending and give a false sense of security to millions of Americans believe that yet another technological wonder will save our lives.
I am afraid that this so-called bio-passport will let us fall in the path of high-tech internet boom of late nineties: everybody thought that Internet would positively change our lives and the way we did business, unfortunately nobody thought of outsourcing and digitally imported foreign labor. Sure, the idea of something electronic that serves as a signature for our identity is nice; however, why would our government spend tons of money on something that might work instead of directing this money to proven methods like hiring security guards with common sense and proper training?
Additionally, I am afraid that this new technology will be another excuse for not paying attention to broader aspects of the issue; will the checkpoints rely more on the magic chip or on the skills of security officers? Personally, I would rather see well equipped security guards that are in excellent physical condition rather an old lady with "An Idiot's Guide to Biometrics."
I've been a long time Open Source fan and I have noticed one trend that the movement lacked and still continues to lack on a major scale (although its improving); that is quality assurance. There are many great ideas and excellent programs that I would use, like KOffice, unfortunately it seems that there are very little resources invested in quality assurance. As far as I know, most of the Open Source projects rely on user who submit bug notifications; then these bugs are fixed in future realeases. What about dedicated quality assurance teams that treat any Open Source project like if it were a commercial program? Also, I think that the movement needs more release engineers and testers to ensure less painful installations for people who have very little or no experience with Linux. Do that and watch the numbers of potential users grow.
Okay, I totally agree with you that there are ways of developing cross-platform web apps, but we are not talking about a simple 'my home page with a small database' type, but an tool that was orth more than half a million. Perhaps, I should rephrase my quote; what I meant to say was that it was cheaper to develop an application that targes one platform at the beginning and then go for the rest. That is exactly what we did in the long run. Generally, it doesn't matter what platform one chooses for the initial design and development, but in this particular case the Government had to select Windows because of the assumption that this OS has the biggest share of the market. Sorry for any confusion.
I know that I am going to get some static from/. crowd for being 'pro' Microsoft, but here is my two cents on the issue. Anybody who has designed a complicated web-based application will tell you that trying to support a variety of browsers and platforms can turn into a nightmare. I worked as a qa engineer for two companies that specialized in very complicated large scale web application and both of the companies had to restrict their software to Windows and Internet Explorer. Why? Simply because it was easier to design, develop and test the applications that had less variables involved in a short run. Additionally, these application targeted businesses and individuals who used Windows as their desktop platform. The companies that I worked for did start developing their applications for different platforms, but it was only after the Windows based programs proved to be a great success. Same goes for the United States government. Want it or not, Windows still have the largest share of the desktop market and it does makes sense to deploy an application for this platform and then worry about the rest of the players.
I don't think that a Window based voting system is an ultimate solution in terms of covering hundred percent voters and being absolutely secure, but the fact is that money talks and if it is cheaper to develop an application that targets only Windows at the beginning, well.. more power to Uncle Sam. Afterall,/. readers and voters who use OSes other than Windows represent a small fraction of the United States' citizens.
The do-not-call list is a nice idea, but it is going to be worthless due to some exceptions. For example, any company that can affiliate itself with a political or a charity organization is automatically allowed to contact you. That brings me to a question: why does the law allow for political and charity organizations to do telemarketing on the first place? If I want to donate money to a charity, I will do so without them telling me. If I want to support a politician and/or a party, I will do so upon my free will. Also, telemarketing companies will not give up their business easily; I suspect that we are going to face more spam in our inboxes and flyers in our mail. Moreover, by registering our numbers with the government we provide it with a list of valid phone numbers: expect more political soliciting. Unless there is a way to stop all unwated phone calls related to telemarketing/charity/politics people will not win.
I have purchased only 6 CDs in my entire life. All of them were classical music performed by the very best of this world. Why did I buy it instead of downloading it? Well, I liked having an original that I keep and listen to for many years. Let's face it, Mozart, Chaikovsky and Rahmaninov will remain popular for many years to come and it is worth buying that music. As for the rest of the pop world, give me a fucking break, when was the last time we got something worthwhile from singers like Shakira, Mandy Moore, Brooks & Dunn, etc.?
Brooks & Dunn, multi-Platinum country music artists said, "We want the next Brooks & Dunn to have a chance. Piracy hurts that chance. There are a lot of really talented hardworking people making music. For them it's a job... If music gets stolen, it's hard for them to continue. So help us ensure the future of good music."
The Dixie Chicks, Grammy award winning and two-time Diamond award recipients said, "It may seem innocent enough, but every time you illegally download music a songwriter doesn't get paid. And, every time you swap that music with your friends a new artist doesn't get a chance. Respect the artists you love by not stealing their music. You're in control. Support music, don't steal it."
Ya rednecks, how about many artists that became popular, like Darude & his "Sandstorm", because they shared their music?
Mary J. Blige, multi-Platinum award winning artist: âoeIf you create something and then someone takes it without your permission, that is stealing. It may sound harsh, but it is true.â
My grandmother has a collection of Pushkin's works. I did not pay for any of those books and Pushkin is not alive: I can't ask for his permission. How the fuck am I going to read "Evgenii Onegin"?
John W. Styll, President of the Gospel Music Association (GMA) said, âoeFrom ancient times onward, it has been understood by all people that taking someoneâ(TM)s property without their permission is wrong. The GMA supports the RIAAâ(TM)s efforts to use the court system to enforce the intellectual property rights of the creative community, but also calls upon people of faith to consider that this is not just a legal issue, but also a matter of morality.â
Jesus fucking Christ, there are people who pay to listen to Gospel? Isn't religion about sharing and crap? Didn't Jesus mass produce fish and wine in order to feed the poor? I bet local traders were pissed about him flooding the market.
Frances Preston, President and CEO of BMI: âoeIllegal downloading of music is theft, pure and simple. It robs songwriters, artists and the industry that supports them of their property and their livelihood. Ironically, those who steal music are stealing the future creativity they so passionately crave. We must end this destructive cycle now.â
Creativity? You call people like Eminem, Britney, Justin & Co., and other pop *stars* creative? If so, then every special education kid in this country is a member of MENSA.
Finally I do recommend everybody to read the article published on RIAAs web site. Please do it carefully and note the people who are mentioned there. Most of them are untalented fucks that strive to rip general publi off by producing half-baked hits. If people truly appreciated their work they would buy it, would not they?
Thank you! You described your feelings as well as mine and I totally agree with you. Apple is one of the few companies that got usability engineering right and that is very important because that's what users want. Most of the books on human-computer interaction use Apple's examples and standards because those guys did their homework and succeeded. Everything from the design of the actual computer to the GUI layout of Mac OS X is user oriented: a box is easy to open without any screws, hardware is easy to reach, the operating system appeals to a broad range of people. Updates and development are a breeze as well as overall system maintenance. Thank you.
Apple has been lagging behind the PCs for years in the performance field. This made Apple's user base frustrated, angry and/or anxious.
Could you please elaborate on this lag because the statement that you gave is very vague. First of all, what is performance? If you think that performance is defined solely by the number of MHz that a chip can crunch out then you better read up on computer architecture. Apple succeed in adopting a new architecture (PowerPC) while Intel and AMD still try to patch x86 fix it inherent flaws from scratch. Also, what about vector processing, low power consumption, vector permute functions that allow rearranging data in the registers? Right from the beginning PowerPC chips outperformed x86 family in terms of floating-point computation and video (d)encoding. What about the Velocity Engine on G4 that allowed data processing in 128-bit chunks? These (and many other) examples show that Apple is not quite *behind* PCs in terms of performance. Thank you.
I have been a Mac and a Linux/FreeBSD fan for quite some time now. Originally, I started using RedHat but it turned out to be a nightmare compared to FreeBSD. Still, I think that Linux has a great potential if its developers achieve the following:
1. Whoever does GUI interfaces for Open Source must be top notch. Afterall, Apple Inc. managed to gather the best of the best in terms of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) professionals. Almost every course HCI course that is taught in this country refers to Apple and their neat ideas: simple things that make life easier and more appealing.
2. OS Management! Whoever thinks that I like being in front of the computer for eight hours a day and then come home and maintain more computers got it wrong. The reason why I switched my desktop to OS X from Linux was the amount of time I had to spend when I wanted to update the system. If Linux distros want to be better, they have to learn from FreeBSD and its 'ports.' Easy system updates and builds via cvs are breeze and should be used by linux in the future.
3. People who develop apps for Linux must have some sort of enforced standard. One of the few reasons that make me want use os X is its consistency. Apple has published a set of guidelines that are to be followed during the development and it makes all applications look and feel the same. Things like having "OK" and "Cancel" buttons in the same places across all programs make it easier to navigate. I know that some standards exist in KDE and GNOME communities, but what about the rest of applications?
4. Better Java support. Yes, it is lame, but many people use Java now and I would love to write Java code on Linux, except that it does not work as good as it does on Mac OS X (as of today).
5. Better laptop support.
6. More business software. Sorry, Linux does not have a good pack of usable business software yet. I used KOffice for most of my work; it was good, but still sucked compared to Microsoft Office (I can myself being moderated down) in terms of portability and some weird bugs that occured quite often. Mac OS does not have a hudge business software base, but at least there are more stable products. Also, more multi-media products could help (again, something that is stable, not pre-alpha).
That's what I have on my list. Some people may have more or less, based on their preferences. Additionally, I think that there should be more companies that sell Linux ready desktops with adequate (read professional) support that knows what's it is doing. When I started using Linux, I was frustrated with techs who could not help me due to their lack of knowledge. When I called Apple tech support because of some problems they helped me without wasting my time and I was glad that I was a Mac owner.
Dear nerds, the only things that should be GPLed are your own asses, because nobody's going to pay for them anyway. As for free software... it sounds like fun, until software developers have to pay the bills. If nobody pays for your software how the hell are you going to make a profit? I know many open source developers who contribute on a constant basis, but all of them have full time jobs. Without a steady paycheck writing software that sells sounds like a good idea...
Don't bitch about farmers with your mouth full. Do you realize that these people have to live with shit and less than semi-decent paychecks while feeding our asses at the same time. I spent several years in Vermont and witnessed how farmers, especially dairy, have to struggle for survival, not because they can't produce, but due to the underpriced farm products. I am surprised that our government hasn't banned most of imported agricultural products that compete with U.S. markets. I doubt that you will understand my point unless have to dig shit every day in order to feed your family of five, send kids to college and cope with a revenue of $40,000 per year while being in constant debt.
Come on, people, not everything has to be negative about all this copy-protection stuff. In fact, I favor it! Why? Because I want this "land of the free and home of the brave" to realize that in fact this is a "land of the unprivileged and home of the slaves." May be this dick move will show our fat-assed fellow Americans that its time to start voting, thinking, and disregarding horse shit Hollywood calls entertainment industry. Do you hear this, you MTV and E! fans? Hollywood, Sony, Disney, Fox... they own you.
I remember watching The Running Man and wondering why would anybody want to have an underground TV/Radio stations that oppose to mass media. Now I know why.
There are many reasons why somebody would want this bill to be legalized. For example, the senator who proposes it is a composer that earned 18,000 USD last year in royalties and it is clear that his proposal will benefit him. Why would any other sane person like this idea? I would love to see it happen because it will finally show what happens if young people (the goddamn future of our country) don't vote or choose dumb fucks to govern our country. Also, I would really love to see the implementation of this protocol: I like to see how things work so I can break them.
It is not a surprise that IT workers are the ones who experience the most horrors in this economy. Why? The answer is simple: the IT industry carries the most responsibility for screwing itself over because it pushed for a flood of underqualified professionals.
During the mid nineties everybody, mostly immigrants, on my block were 'developers.' People who were fresh off the boat, including my mom, went to community colleges and technical schools because anybody who could put a couple of catch phrases had a potential to be hired. There were many people who did not consider going to college or do anything meaningful with their lives. Why bother if you could earn money by doing something that not everybody is born to do: coding. I remember some people bragging about how little they learnt and how much money they were getting for almost having almost no skills. Companies were eager to hire newly created 'developers' because they hoped to use them in the future. When the ideas fell through, these companies began to lay people off. These layoffs created a class of unemployed IT professionals; the irony is that some of those people don't even belong in IT.
I have known many of people that got into IT in the middle of the nineties only because of money. They did not like what they did at work, the did not show any interest in technology or what was the driving force behind it. They thought that taking a bunch of course at a local community college will provide them with enough experience for the rest of their lives. Right? Wrong!! Yet, for some magical reason, companies hired them! I have talked to some of these developers: not only they lacked the basics, but they were not interested in improving things, learning, and benefitting their own companies! Eventhough some of these people sucked, they managed to get several years of experience and now they compete with both real IT professionals and students who graduate with technical degrees. The consequences are horrible: IT unemployment is on the rise and managers think that there is a whole lot of professionals looking for jobs. Yeah, I know a lot of professionals, people with 10+ years of experience who have to work at a local retail store in order to support their families. At the same time I know several 'software engineers' who asked me what 'threads' were. Moreover, everytime I turn on my TV I see yet another commercial that advertises a 1 year technical college with programs that will bring deep knowledge of a certain IT field and economic prosperity. It seems that companies have learnt that IT demands knowledge, experience and interest just like any other industry.
People should not blame computers for carpal tunnel and tendonesis because users are the ones who are responsible for an ergonomically correct setup of their desks. I have suffered from a very difficult cases of tendonesis during the past year. Basically, its a result of inflamed tendents that jam your radial nerve; the latter can lead to carpal tunnel. The cause was simple: my desk was not designed for computer use and my keyboard was too high. The solution to the problem was relatively simple: I had to get a new desk. As soon as I got a proper desk, the one with a keyboard tray, the symptoms went away. I have been pain free for almost two months!The other thing that can cause a lot of trouble is the mouse setting. Many people have very high acceleration on their mouse because that way you do not have to move it all around the pad. Turns out that when you use limited writst motions, you tend to do more harm then good. My doctor suggested me to have slower acceleration on my mouse, because when I moved the whole hand, as opposed to just the wrist, it put less stress on the tendents. I changed the setting on my mouse and the results were amazing: my right wrist was feeling much better. I did have to get a larger mouse pad, but that was a low price compared to the price that I paid for my splints. Finally, if you're really concerned about your setup and don't know how to imporove it, I would suggest a visit to an occupantional therapist or a professional organizer. It may cost you some money, but save you from pain.
Why? Becuase charing $8.25 for watching a poor designed computer game with MTV-like action style is way too fucking much. U.S. government and BBB constantly go after businesses which have false advertising, poor service, and lack customer satisfaction; its about the time Hollywood became one of the targets becuase of the crap it tries to shove our throats on a regular basis.
I can't belive that somebody managed to stretch Matrix Reloaded into 138 minute long horror show that lacked plot and included completely useless scenes of sex, dancing, and nonsense. I don't know about you guys, but that flick was a total insult to Matrix fans world wide... I just wish my sys. admin were a hot girl who would trade me root passwords (or something like that) for kisses.
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When I started to work as a junior software engineer at one of the dot coms, everybody wanted me to add complicated tasks to my programs. Finally, when I was buried under piles and piles of requests and functional specifications, I asked one of my superiors what to do. His answer was simple: I had to learn basic principles of software engineering:
a. Some tasks can never be sold with software
b. A good software engineer comes up with new code, an excellent software engineer learns how to re-use already existing code
c. Assumption is a mother of all fuck-ups
I have learned how to say "no" very quickly and here is what I how. Before you write the first line of code, make sure that you have requirements and specifications. There is an excellent book written by Michael Jackson (no, not the pop-star) on how to do that. If you are confident that you cannot meet the requirements, tell it to your boss/customer; chances are that if you cannot write robust and error proof code to do something, then either nobody else can do it or you are not well prepared for the task. If what they ask for is truly ridiculous, every decent software engineer will give them the same answer and anybody who takes the assignment will screw it up. Either way you are off the hook. Its better to be honest up front then being a scape goat.
I am sorry to break it to you, but I think that getting a Ph.D. in Computer Science is a dead end, unless you plan on relocating to India, China or other countries that will do most of IT work of the world in a couple of years. It seems that general population of this country along with elected politicians are not interested in new talent and research; instead, people are interested in cheaper goods and higher profits.
According to Money magazine, Computer Science grads experienced almost a 5% drop in start salaries; mix it with current unemployment rate and you get your answer. Just remember: engineers are money spenders, and business people are money makers. Do you want to make money or would you rather join the unemployment line?
I understand how people can be outraged by the actions of the United States and its government, but what some non-U.S. (and U.S.) residents have to understand is that governments across the world would exactly the same thing, except it would not show up on the web sites and newspapers due to the limits on the freedom of speech. Would states try to find and prosecute memebers and assistants of groups who have carried out terrorist acts on the territory of these states? Absolutely! Will countries change their political views and alliances? Yes; as a matter of fact, many of them have been doing it for quite some time: read some history books. If my memory is correct, European states have been jumping from one union into the other for the past two centuries.
I believe that if any country lost three thousand people in a terrorist attack, it would try and investigate every possible link. This is just another form of the question: would you sacrifice the freedoms of one in order to benefit the majority? Sure, it was incorrect to keep the guy for five weeks without a charge, but what if he had disappeared during the process and then turned out to be a mastermind behind some high-tech attack aimed at the citizens of your country? How much is your life worth?
This is just my opinion. Unfortunatley nobody will ever know what really happened behind the walls of this investigation. Just remember: "grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."
Freelancing is good if you have time, patience, a running vehicle, a source for medical insurance (a family memeber that can provide you with it or something like that), and lack of private life. The last one is really important: how much does your free time cost?
I could not survive through college without doing something on the side, so I started freelancing. I had some decent jobs for $60+/hr and I really enjoyed them. That was until I realized that I had my health insurance paid for (thanks mom!) and that freelancing was not the job that I wanted to do until the retirement. It was a decent source of income until I had clients calling me at 9 p.m. during my vacation time in Maine. Moreover there were several issues that bothered me the most.
First of all, there were clients that wanted more for less all the time. They were pain in my neck and I could not handle them anymore. Secondly, my moral values kicked in: I could not charge an old lady $60/hr for fixing her background or moving menu items around. I knew some people who made $400/night for performing really easy stuff, like setting up an email account in Mac OS X and playing with the dock; unfortunately, I could not do it. Most of the people that I delt with were not smart enough to figure out how to do simple tasks and I felt bad for making them pay for their own stupidity. Additionally, I did felt frustrated whenever I had to explain how Internet worked for the tenth time.
When I graduated from college freelancing was not an option anymore: I had to have medical insurance and some stability. A freelancing job could offer none. Plus, none of the freelancing jobs that I have ever seen seemed to be challenging and that is what I disliked the most. With the economy down the crapper, I chose to be a manager at a local company. It pays my bills and allows me to take advanced computer science and business classes. I'd rather learn something cool and apply it in my future open source projects than play with somebody's 'home page.'
Please do not judge me hard, that is my own opinion and I do not claim that everybody who does freelancing feels the same way. The better question to post is whether unemployed IT professionals should storm the White House and demand job security rather than settle for freelancing and instability.
It might be offtopic, but there is a good article in The Wall Street Journal (July the 18th, 2003) about how some spammers might benefit from anti-spam laws. The idea is that big corporations that do legid business via e-mail marketing are trying to eliminate competition that gives them, spammers, a bad name. By reducing the amount of 'get rich quick' or 'increase your penis size to 18 inches' e-mails and following strict guidelines, today's spammers have a chance of being legid, reduce costs of operations and have a well established market base. For example, knowing that people opt-in for some offers means that companies can target the consumers more precisely.
Ahh, I knew there was a catch. Meanwhile, I am going to post my email addresses as 'my_name at domain dot com.'
Seriously, this is just another attempt by the U.S. government aimed to increase government spending and give a false sense of security to millions of Americans believe that yet another technological wonder will save our lives.
I am afraid that this so-called bio-passport will let us fall in the path of high-tech internet boom of late nineties: everybody thought that Internet would positively change our lives and the way we did business, unfortunately nobody thought of outsourcing and digitally imported foreign labor. Sure, the idea of something electronic that serves as a signature for our identity is nice; however, why would our government spend tons of money on something that might work instead of directing this money to proven methods like hiring security guards with common sense and proper training?
Additionally, I am afraid that this new technology will be another excuse for not paying attention to broader aspects of the issue; will the checkpoints rely more on the magic chip or on the skills of security officers? Personally, I would rather see well equipped security guards that are in excellent physical condition rather an old lady with "An Idiot's Guide to Biometrics."
P.S.: can you imagine a beowulf cluster of those?
I've been a long time Open Source fan and I have noticed one trend that the movement lacked and still continues to lack on a major scale (although its improving); that is quality assurance. There are many great ideas and excellent programs that I would use, like KOffice, unfortunately it seems that there are very little resources invested in quality assurance. As far as I know, most of the Open Source projects rely on user who submit bug notifications; then these bugs are fixed in future realeases. What about dedicated quality assurance teams that treat any Open Source project like if it were a commercial program? Also, I think that the movement needs more release engineers and testers to ensure less painful installations for people who have very little or no experience with Linux. Do that and watch the numbers of potential users grow.
Okay, I totally agree with you that there are ways of developing cross-platform web apps, but we are not talking about a simple 'my home page with a small database' type, but an tool that was orth more than half a million. Perhaps, I should rephrase my quote; what I meant to say was that it was cheaper to develop an application that targes one platform at the beginning and then go for the rest. That is exactly what we did in the long run. Generally, it doesn't matter what platform one chooses for the initial design and development, but in this particular case the Government had to select Windows because of the assumption that this OS has the biggest share of the market. Sorry for any confusion.
I know that I am going to get some static from /. crowd for being 'pro' Microsoft, but here is my two cents on the issue. Anybody who has designed a complicated web-based application will tell you that trying to support a variety of browsers and platforms can turn into a nightmare. I worked as a qa engineer for two companies that specialized in very complicated large scale web application and both of the companies had to restrict their software to Windows and Internet Explorer. Why? Simply because it was easier to design, develop and test the applications that had less variables involved in a short run. Additionally, these application targeted businesses and individuals who used Windows as their desktop platform. The companies that I worked for did start developing their applications for different platforms, but it was only after the Windows based programs proved to be a great success. Same goes for the United States government. Want it or not, Windows still have the largest share of the desktop market and it does makes sense to deploy an application for this platform and then worry about the rest of the players.
/. readers and voters who use OSes other than Windows represent a small fraction of the United States' citizens.
I don't think that a Window based voting system is an ultimate solution in terms of covering hundred percent voters and being absolutely secure, but the fact is that money talks and if it is cheaper to develop an application that targets only Windows at the beginning, well.. more power to Uncle Sam. Afterall,
We will see the following:
Microsoft being sued for using ".net" Sun Microsystems being sued by Nasa for using "Sun" Eminem is sued by M&M
The do-not-call list is a nice idea, but it is going to be worthless due to some exceptions. For example, any company that can affiliate itself with a political or a charity organization is automatically allowed to contact you. That brings me to a question: why does the law allow for political and charity organizations to do telemarketing on the first place? If I want to donate money to a charity, I will do so without them telling me. If I want to support a politician and/or a party, I will do so upon my free will. Also, telemarketing companies will not give up their business easily; I suspect that we are going to face more spam in our inboxes and flyers in our mail. Moreover, by registering our numbers with the government we provide it with a list of valid phone numbers: expect more political soliciting. Unless there is a way to stop all unwated phone calls related to telemarketing/charity/politics people will not win.
I have purchased only 6 CDs in my entire life. All of them were classical music performed by the very best of this world. Why did I buy it instead of downloading it? Well, I liked having an original that I keep and listen to for many years. Let's face it, Mozart, Chaikovsky and Rahmaninov will remain popular for many years to come and it is worth buying that music. As for the rest of the pop world, give me a fucking break, when was the last time we got something worthwhile from singers like Shakira, Mandy Moore, Brooks & Dunn, etc.?
Brooks & Dunn, multi-Platinum country music artists said, "We want the next Brooks & Dunn to have a chance. Piracy hurts that chance. There are a lot of really talented hardworking people making music. For them it's a job... If music gets stolen, it's hard for them to continue. So help us ensure the future of good music."
The Dixie Chicks, Grammy award winning and two-time Diamond award recipients said, "It may seem innocent enough, but every time you illegally download music a songwriter doesn't get paid. And, every time you swap that music with your friends a new artist doesn't get a chance. Respect the artists you love by not stealing their music. You're in control. Support music, don't steal it."
Ya rednecks, how about many artists that became popular, like Darude & his "Sandstorm", because they shared their music?
Mary J. Blige, multi-Platinum award winning artist: âoeIf you create something and then someone takes it without your permission, that is stealing. It may sound harsh, but it is true.â
My grandmother has a collection of Pushkin's works. I did not pay for any of those books and Pushkin is not alive: I can't ask for his permission. How the fuck am I going to read "Evgenii Onegin"?
John W. Styll, President of the Gospel Music Association (GMA) said, âoeFrom ancient times onward, it has been understood by all people that taking someoneâ(TM)s property without their permission is wrong. The GMA supports the RIAAâ(TM)s efforts to use the court system to enforce the intellectual property rights of the creative community, but also calls upon people of faith to consider that this is not just a legal issue, but also a matter of morality.â
Jesus fucking Christ, there are people who pay to listen to Gospel? Isn't religion about sharing and crap? Didn't Jesus mass produce fish and wine in order to feed the poor? I bet local traders were pissed about him flooding the market.
Frances Preston, President and CEO of BMI: âoeIllegal downloading of music is theft, pure and simple. It robs songwriters, artists and the industry that supports them of their property and their livelihood. Ironically, those who steal music are stealing the future creativity they so passionately crave. We must end this destructive cycle now.â
Creativity? You call people like Eminem, Britney, Justin & Co., and other pop *stars* creative? If so, then every special education kid in this country is a member of MENSA.
Finally I do recommend everybody to read the article published on RIAAs web site. Please do it carefully and note the people who are mentioned there. Most of them are untalented fucks that strive to rip general publi off by producing half-baked hits. If people truly appreciated their work they would buy it, would not they?
Chinese government issued a law that limits on IP address per family.
Thank you! You described your feelings as well as mine and I totally agree with you. Apple is one of the few companies that got usability engineering right and that is very important because that's what users want. Most of the books on human-computer interaction use Apple's examples and standards because those guys did their homework and succeeded. Everything from the design of the actual computer to the GUI layout of Mac OS X is user oriented: a box is easy to open without any screws, hardware is easy to reach, the operating system appeals to a broad range of people. Updates and development are a breeze as well as overall system maintenance. Thank you.
Apple has been lagging behind the PCs for years in the performance field. This made Apple's user base frustrated, angry and/or anxious.
Could you please elaborate on this lag because the statement that you gave is very vague. First of all, what is performance? If you think that performance is defined solely by the number of MHz that a chip can crunch out then you better read up on computer architecture. Apple succeed in adopting a new architecture (PowerPC) while Intel and AMD still try to patch x86 fix it inherent flaws from scratch. Also, what about vector processing, low power consumption, vector permute functions that allow rearranging data in the registers? Right from the beginning PowerPC chips outperformed x86 family in terms of floating-point computation and video (d)encoding. What about the Velocity Engine on G4 that allowed data processing in 128-bit chunks? These (and many other) examples show that Apple is not quite *behind* PCs in terms of performance. Thank you.
I have been a Mac and a Linux/FreeBSD fan for quite some time now. Originally, I started using RedHat but it turned out to be a nightmare compared to FreeBSD. Still, I think that Linux has a great potential if its developers achieve the following: 1. Whoever does GUI interfaces for Open Source must be top notch. Afterall, Apple Inc. managed to gather the best of the best in terms of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) professionals. Almost every course HCI course that is taught in this country refers to Apple and their neat ideas: simple things that make life easier and more appealing. 2. OS Management! Whoever thinks that I like being in front of the computer for eight hours a day and then come home and maintain more computers got it wrong. The reason why I switched my desktop to OS X from Linux was the amount of time I had to spend when I wanted to update the system. If Linux distros want to be better, they have to learn from FreeBSD and its 'ports.' Easy system updates and builds via cvs are breeze and should be used by linux in the future. 3. People who develop apps for Linux must have some sort of enforced standard. One of the few reasons that make me want use os X is its consistency. Apple has published a set of guidelines that are to be followed during the development and it makes all applications look and feel the same. Things like having "OK" and "Cancel" buttons in the same places across all programs make it easier to navigate. I know that some standards exist in KDE and GNOME communities, but what about the rest of applications? 4. Better Java support. Yes, it is lame, but many people use Java now and I would love to write Java code on Linux, except that it does not work as good as it does on Mac OS X (as of today). 5. Better laptop support. 6. More business software. Sorry, Linux does not have a good pack of usable business software yet. I used KOffice for most of my work; it was good, but still sucked compared to Microsoft Office (I can myself being moderated down) in terms of portability and some weird bugs that occured quite often. Mac OS does not have a hudge business software base, but at least there are more stable products. Also, more multi-media products could help (again, something that is stable, not pre-alpha). That's what I have on my list. Some people may have more or less, based on their preferences. Additionally, I think that there should be more companies that sell Linux ready desktops with adequate (read professional) support that knows what's it is doing. When I started using Linux, I was frustrated with techs who could not help me due to their lack of knowledge. When I called Apple tech support because of some problems they helped me without wasting my time and I was glad that I was a Mac owner.
Well what is a *personal computer*? I used Sun's Blade on a daily basis to do my everyday tasks.... doesn't it make it a personal computer?
Correct me if I am wrong, hasn't Sun been selling its own 64-bit desktop solution, Blade 1000, for several years?
Dear nerds, the only things that should be GPLed are your own asses, because nobody's going to pay for them anyway. As for free software... it sounds like fun, until software developers have to pay the bills. If nobody pays for your software how the hell are you going to make a profit? I know many open source developers who contribute on a constant basis, but all of them have full time jobs. Without a steady paycheck writing software that sells sounds like a good idea...
Don't bitch about farmers with your mouth full. Do you realize that these people have to live with shit and less than semi-decent paychecks while feeding our asses at the same time. I spent several years in Vermont and witnessed how farmers, especially dairy, have to struggle for survival, not because they can't produce, but due to the underpriced farm products. I am surprised that our government hasn't banned most of imported agricultural products that compete with U.S. markets. I doubt that you will understand my point unless have to dig shit every day in order to feed your family of five, send kids to college and cope with a revenue of $40,000 per year while being in constant debt.
Come on, people, not everything has to be negative about all this copy-protection stuff. In fact, I favor it! Why? Because I want this "land of the free and home of the brave" to realize that in fact this is a "land of the unprivileged and home of the slaves." May be this dick move will show our fat-assed fellow Americans that its time to start voting, thinking, and disregarding horse shit Hollywood calls entertainment industry. Do you hear this, you MTV and E! fans? Hollywood, Sony, Disney, Fox... they own you.
I remember watching The Running Man and wondering why would anybody want to have an underground TV/Radio stations that oppose to mass media. Now I know why.
There are many reasons why somebody would want this bill to be legalized. For example, the senator who proposes it is a composer that earned 18,000 USD last year in royalties and it is clear that his proposal will benefit him. Why would any other sane person like this idea? I would love to see it happen because it will finally show what happens if young people (the goddamn future of our country) don't vote or choose dumb fucks to govern our country. Also, I would really love to see the implementation of this protocol: I like to see how things work so I can break them.
It is not a surprise that IT workers are the ones who experience the most horrors in this economy. Why? The answer is simple: the IT industry carries the most responsibility for screwing itself over because it pushed for a flood of underqualified professionals.
During the mid nineties everybody, mostly immigrants, on my block were 'developers.' People who were fresh off the boat, including my mom, went to community colleges and technical schools because anybody who could put a couple of catch phrases had a potential to be hired. There were many people who did not consider going to college or do anything meaningful with their lives. Why bother if you could earn money by doing something that not everybody is born to do: coding. I remember some people bragging about how little they learnt and how much money they were getting for almost having almost no skills. Companies were eager to hire newly created 'developers' because they hoped to use them in the future. When the ideas fell through, these companies began to lay people off. These layoffs created a class of unemployed IT professionals; the irony is that some of those people don't even belong in IT.
I have known many of people that got into IT in the middle of the nineties only because of money. They did not like what they did at work, the did not show any interest in technology or what was the driving force behind it. They thought that taking a bunch of course at a local community college will provide them with enough experience for the rest of their lives. Right? Wrong!! Yet, for some magical reason, companies hired them! I have talked to some of these developers: not only they lacked the basics, but they were not interested in improving things, learning, and benefitting their own companies! Eventhough some of these people sucked, they managed to get several years of experience and now they compete with both real IT professionals and students who graduate with technical degrees. The consequences are horrible: IT unemployment is on the rise and managers think that there is a whole lot of professionals looking for jobs. Yeah, I know a lot of professionals, people with 10+ years of experience who have to work at a local retail store in order to support their families. At the same time I know several 'software engineers' who asked me what 'threads' were. Moreover, everytime I turn on my TV I see yet another commercial that advertises a 1 year technical college with programs that will bring deep knowledge of a certain IT field and economic prosperity. It seems that companies have learnt that IT demands knowledge, experience and interest just like any other industry.
People should not blame computers for carpal tunnel and tendonesis because users are the ones who are responsible for an ergonomically correct setup of their desks. I have suffered from a very difficult cases of tendonesis during the past year. Basically, its a result of inflamed tendents that jam your radial nerve; the latter can lead to carpal tunnel. The cause was simple: my desk was not designed for computer use and my keyboard was too high. The solution to the problem was relatively simple: I had to get a new desk. As soon as I got a proper desk, the one with a keyboard tray, the symptoms went away. I have been pain free for almost two months!The other thing that can cause a lot of trouble is the mouse setting. Many people have very high acceleration on their mouse because that way you do not have to move it all around the pad. Turns out that when you use limited writst motions, you tend to do more harm then good. My doctor suggested me to have slower acceleration on my mouse, because when I moved the whole hand, as opposed to just the wrist, it put less stress on the tendents. I changed the setting on my mouse and the results were amazing: my right wrist was feeling much better. I did have to get a larger mouse pad, but that was a low price compared to the price that I paid for my splints. Finally, if you're really concerned about your setup and don't know how to imporove it, I would suggest a visit to an occupantional therapist or a professional organizer. It may cost you some money, but save you from pain.
Why? Becuase charing $8.25 for watching a poor designed computer game with MTV-like action style is way too fucking much. U.S. government and BBB constantly go after businesses which have false advertising, poor service, and lack customer satisfaction; its about the time Hollywood became one of the targets becuase of the crap it tries to shove our throats on a regular basis.
I can't belive that somebody managed to stretch Matrix Reloaded into 138 minute long horror show that lacked plot and included completely useless scenes of sex, dancing, and nonsense. I don't know about you guys, but that flick was a total insult to Matrix fans world wide... I just wish my sys. admin were a hot girl who would trade me root passwords (or something like that) for kisses.