I've worked with a couple of refugees from the game industry, and the stories that they tell are similar to what you are saying. Based on my small sample size, game programmers are among the most talented programmers that I have worked with. However, they seem to "burn out" after a few projects and go into a less demanding area.
I wonder if game industry is shooting themselves in the foot by letting all these talented folks get away with their draconian practices. I suppose there are enough young, ambitious, talented people in the pipeline to take their place, but the one thing the companies can't replace is experience. Game companies have a big recruiting advantage in that it is "cooler" to work on a game than on some accounting system. However, they flush that advantage down the toilet with some of their practices.
I don't know if you've read the book _Soul of a New Machine_ which follows a group of engineers at Data General in their quest to build a state of the art computer. The engineers on that project work insane amounts of hours on the project, sacrificing their outside lives for the good of the project. It tends to glorify the manic single-mindedness of the team, but gives short shrift to the personal toll the project took on its participants. I think I remember reading elsewhere that many if not most of the people on the project left the company afterwards. That might explain why Data General is no longer around today!
First, maybe I am just not superhuman enough to work in the game industry, but I find that if I work insane hours for more than a couple of days, the quality of my work suffers dramatically. I have noticed it isn't just me either. I've code reviewed programs that were written under extreme schedule pressure, and most of the time, the code was terrible.
I wonder if the 80+ hour week mentality is self-propogating in the sense that long hours leads to more bugs, which leads to more long hours to fix them, etc.
Second, most places I have worked have rarely required putting in more than 40 hours a week. Ocassionally I've had times where I've put more for various reasons, but that has been the exception rather than the rule. This has held true at both small startups and large Fortune 500 companies, so I do have a good sample of companies to go by.
One common thread in these companies has been good project management. They realize that excessive schedule pressure is more likely to kill the whle project, rather than help it. If you are constantly in crisis mode, quality suffers.
I know that game companies like EA stress being able to ship by a particular date, but, as a consumer, I would rather wait for a solid product, rather than get something that is half baked. Take Neverwinter Nights, for instance. That game was constantly being pushed back for one reason or another, and the delays certainly haven't hurt overall sales. Actually, delays of an anticipated product seem to feed the hype and the excitement, with the added bonus of allowing developers to put out a solid product.
Finally, you can't really compare the number of hours a business owner puts in relative to an employee. A business owner is the one taking the risks and the one getting the rewards, so they have a vested interest in putting in insane hours. For some of the other occupations you mention, there are rules (at least in the US) about how many hours truckers and pilots can work. And "common laborers" usually get overtime for their efforts, so many of them actually WANT to work more hours. Code jockeys don't have any limits (other than physical ones) and they usually dont get any overtime for their efforts (although that may change pending legal challenges).
Personally, my feeling is that I have no problem pitching in with extra hours from time to time. However, if the extra hours becomes the rule rather than the exception, then there is a serious problem with project management and scheduling that needs to be addressed by the company. If the company's management is so bad that it cannot properly plan its projects, then it is probably a company I would not work for. That last point may explain why I gravitate away from such companies.
My wife and I are having a hard time trying to decide on what kind of insurance to get. This is because of the $1,400.00 she is bringing home, almost $400.00 of that is presently going towards insurance.
After looking up insurance, sure you can get $200.00 med insurance, but then it has a $10,000.00 deductible on it! Since we pay out maybe $2,000.00 a year max for medical costs this doesn't make sense.
Actually, taking the large deductible insurance plan makes more sense than you think.
Based upon the number that you give, you are presently paying $4800/yr in health insurance, which I assume has some nominal deductible or copayment. This means that you probably are paying, say, about around $5000/yr for health care (insurance plus out-of-pocket).
If you took the high deductible health insurance, you would end up paying $2400/yr for the insurance plus around $2000 out of pocket for medical costs. In total, you would be paying only $4400/yr for health care.
Of course, you would be taking somewhat of a gamble that you and your wife aren't going to need something major, but you can hedge against this by putting the $600/yr difference in the bank each year to cover yourself for a rainy day.
The whole point of insurance is to handle catastrophic losses. However, it seems as if our current health insurance system isn't really insurance in the traditional sense. Heath insurance covers every little thing with minimal out of pocket expense.
Most doctor's visits cost in the hundreds of dollars, which may sound like a lot, but if you factor in the cost of health insurance, I would almost rather just pay the expense myself and save the insurance for the things that I wouldnt be able to pay, like open heart surgery. With the way insurance premiums are, it seems like I would come out ahead that way.
Plus, I would be able to see whatever doctor I wanted instead of being limited to "the network". Since I am paying my own way, I would have more flexibility to be a good consumer, rather than relying on the insurance company to be a good consumer for me.
My fix to the health care system would be to offer catastrophic health insurance coverage (~$3000 deductible) for lower premiums, and then allow people to put money into a Medical Spending Account on a tax deductible basis to cover medical expenses. For the working poor, I would offer some tax credits to defer the cost of the insurance and to help fund their MSA's. Then people would have maximum choice while still having the insurance coverage in case they are hit by a car or something.
What Best Buy has done is change their practices to cut down on the amount of outright abuse. Personally, mail in rebates tick me off, so I am not about to spend my money at Best Buy, but I can understand why they would change their policy. I would also bet that most people won't even notice the difference. The only people that care are the Devil Customers that were abusing Best Buys' policies.
Instead of instituting things like "restocking fees" and draconian return policies which effect ALL customers, both angels and devils, why doesn't Best Buy actually institute policies to address the core problem.
If people are buying items, collecting rebates, and returning them, why doesn't Best Buy just deduct the amount of the rebate from the credit? Simply match up an ID number on the return receipt with an ID number from the submitted rebate receipt. If the rebate has been submitted but not processed, simply flag the rebate in the system as denied, so the person doesn't receive the rebate after the fact.
Those are just two ideas off the top of my head that will solve the problem without alienating your "good" customers.
I few years back I went to the local CompUSA because they had a great deal of memory, and my custom built PC was in need of a little upgrade. I went up to the "hardware" counter with my sales circular in hand and showed the salesperson exactly what I wanted. The salesperson asked me for the brand and model number of my PC. I told her that the PC was a custom built, "white box" PC, so it didn't have any brand or model number. She responded by telling me that she couldn't sell me the memory without the brand or model number of the PC because she wanted to make sure it worked in my computer. I laughed and told her that this was the first time a store didn't want to take my money when it was offered. I don't think that she was amused because she wouldn't relent.
Finally, I told her not to worry, I PROMISE that the memory will work in my PC. Finally, she let me buy the memory, despite what she said was "her better judgment".
To make a long story even longer, the memory worked!
You are wrong about the iRiver only having "Free Mode" as you call it. This comes right from the iRiver website:
Q. Why can't I upload my MP3 / WMA files from my iFP player?
A. Due to copyright protection laws that apply towards our technology, media files (MP3 / WMA files) cannot be uploaded from an iFP player to a PC. All other non-media files (documents, images, etc.) can be uploaded to a PC from the iFP player.
This seems more like your "Big Brother" mode to me.
Not thanks to the FCC, but thanks to the people who've spent good money to build radio studios and broadcast towers, and to the commercial sponsors who pay for the operation of that equipment. All the FCC does is get in the way and create opportunities for nepotism, e.g. Michael "I would never have become Chairman if my daddy wasn't SecState" Powell.
While I am not a big fan of the FCC, they do provide a useful service in that they regulate who is allowed to use what frequencies. If anybody could broadcast on whatever frequency that they wanted to, it would be impossible to pick up any signal without some other signal interfering with it. The ensuing chaos would render the airwaves useless.
Now you can argue that the manner in which they provide the regulation is poor; however, somebody needs to provide this regulatory service in order maintain the usefulness of the airwaves.
I am willing to cut Jackson some slack, mainly because we, the consumers, knew ahead of time that there was going to be both a theatrical version AND an extended version. Therefore, we were able to decide which version we wanted to buy. It's not like he release the theatrical version, and then after everyone had scarfed up that, decided to spring the extended version on us. He told us up front that there was going to be an extended version and that if we wanted to, we could wait until that one came out.
Plus, if I remember correctly, there was a rebate for those who bought both versions. So if you really couldn't wait the extra 6 months for the extended version, you could buy the regular version and get a little bit of a break on the extended version.
If Jackson's goal was really to maximize profits, he would have released the theatrical versions, waited a few years for everyone to buy that, and then announce the extended version after profits from the theatrical version had tapered off. Plus, he would make people who bought both pay full price, rather than offer a little bit of a rebate.
Personally I find his attitude a lot more palatable than George Lucas who is obviously out to milk the Star Wars franchise for all its worth.
This story may be too late to get any notice in this thread, but I'll tell it anyway, just in case!
When I was a young boy during the late 70's, my dad worked for CSC as a software engineer. Every so often, he would bring home a portable computer terminal so that he could check on his jobs from home. The thing connected to the mainframe over the phone lines using an acoustic coupler modem. It had a full size keyboard for input and a thermal printer for output. As a seven year old, I had seen typewriters so I was familiar with them, but this device was completely and totally different and amazing! A mean, here was something that typed back to you automatically!
I spent hours in the evenings watching my dad and marvelling over this neat invention. I asked my dad over and over again how the thing worked. He tried to explain to me about how his machine was talking to a big machine across the country somewhere, and about how there were these programs on a big record player somewhere that were "running", but it was hard for me to wrap my head around the concepts that he was throwing out.
Ocassionaly, after much bugging, he would let me "help" by typing in commands. I was enthralled with how the thermal printer came to life after I hit the Return key. After awhile, I become bored with just typing in what my dad told me. I wanted to learn how the thing worked. Why did it respond to the commands that I typed in the way that it did?
I guess my dad got the message because one day he came home with a book entitled _Game Playing With BASIC_. He told me that this book would teach me how to "program" the computer and tell it what to do. The book taught the BASIC programming language using simple games like Tic-Tac-Toe, Blackjack, and the like as examples. It took me a little while to get through the book, but by the end, I was able to understand BASIC and even write some simple programs of my own! The biggest thrill came when my dad let me type in and run some of my little programs on his mainframe terminal. I was hooked!
Fast forward 25 years: today I have a BS in EE and an MS in CS and I am still working with computers.
Post Script: While it is natural to try and steer your child towards your own interests, I think it healthier to expose them to a little bit of everything and see what they gravitate towards. If they show an interest and ability in a certain area, that's great. If they don't, then don't force the issue. I hate seeing kids who are pushed into doing things by their parents when they obviously have no desire. It seems to especially happen in the realm of sports, but I can see it happening in other areas as well. If your son or daughter would rather pick up a bat and ball than a computer manual, there's nothing wrong with that. Forcing the issue too much will only cause resentment down the road.
I don't think he understands that financial and economic markets are linked to world events. Therefore, in order to accurately predict the movement of financial markets, you will need to be able to predict the future! Do you think that a computer could have predicted 9/11 or the Iraq war or elections of world leaders or the Microsoft settlement or a myriad of other news events which effect the direction of the markets? If anyone actually believes that we will be able to design a computer to do this, feel free to reply to me because I have a bridge to sell you!
(Before all you chart-heads jump on me, I do not think technical analysis or charting has any validity, so please do not waste any time trying to convince me otherwise, because it won't work!)
All five of the players listed as from USA have blatantly obvious Russian (and one Japanese) names. Looks like no native players in this one (again). Alas, purely intellectual pursuits are frowned upon in these here parts.
No offense but this is one of the STUPIDEST comments I've ever read on slashdot. Actually, I take that back... I do mean to offend you.
Who's to say that the American players aren't fifth generation Americans? Just because they have an "ethnic" surname doesn't mean a thing? Surely you don't expect people to change their names to "Smith" or "Jones" upon obtaining American citizenship, do you? I mean, really!
Obvious "intellectual pursuits" like logic and rational thought are frowned upon in whatever parts you hail from, as well! If you are an American then maybe you have just proven your own argument, in which case I apologize.
You, sir, are full of sh*t, and whoever modded this post up is also full of sh*t!
Your story about the Stanley Cup is a complete fabrication. The Stanley Cup doesn't get shipped UPS. It has a personal team of escorts who travel with it 24/7. The chances of it getting "lost" in some UPS hub for 3 days is less than nil. Here's a link that backs up what I am saying:
http://www2.nhl.com/hockeyu/history/cup/travels/ cu pkeeper070203.html
I don't know why you feel the need to badmouth UPS. Granted I'm sure they aren't 100% perfect, but everything I've ever shipped with them, or received from them has been free of damage, so I imagine that damaged packages is the exception and not the rule. The one time a package didn't arrive on the day it was guaranteed, I got my money back, which is more than I can say for a lot of businesses out there.
What if there was peace, love and understanding on the Earth, so we wouldn't feel the pressure to leave?
Then in a few hundred/thousand/million years some alien race more practiced in the art of war will come to Earth and easily destroy the docile human race, and we will be nothing more than a footnote in the galactic history books!
Regardless of how you define it, the farthest planet from the sun has not changed in the last 21 years.
Putting aside the debate over the 10th planet, the farthest planet does in fact change over time. There are times when Neptune is the farthest planet from the Sun, and there are other times when Pluto is the farthest planet from the Sun. So in fact the farthest planet from the Sun HAS CHANGED in the last 21 years.
Why this is the case is left as an excercise for the reader...
I think it's a good idea, but I do wonder how many situations you'll be in where you already have an exisiting program that does everything you want to test against.
Guardsoft probably also sells an add-on tool to verify that your reference implemenation is correct, and to debug it if it isn't correct.
While I am always open to new ideas, based upon that single web page, it doesn't look like this product is going to revolutionize debugging. I can see it being useful in a small problem space where you are developing a program that has a small range of outputs where you can specify them explicitly. For the more typical, complex system, this system doesn't really help much.
It reminds me of the academics who say the can use advanced math and logic to "prove" the correctness of a program. However, for a program of any complexity, the time it takes to prove the correctness of the program is astronomical: possible in theory but difficult in practice.
... look for a company that has a good development process. This may sound silly compared to the usual stuff like salary and benefits; however, in my experience, the development process is a good indicator of the overall health of a company.
The worst company I was at had a development process that consisted of the following steps: "code like hell", "put code into production immediately", "when code didn't work and everything blew up, stay late until things were working again". Needless to say, we didn't have things like bug tracking, source control, sane schedules. I only stayed there 8 months until I found a better job, but those 8 months seemed like an eternity. It was the most miserable experience I've ever had at work.
You may ask why I didn't try to stay and make the process better. That, of course, is easier said than done. Anyone who dared question the prevailing wisdom (or lack thereof) was branded as a "loose cannon" or "not a team player". The environment was totally dysfunctional and not receptive to change. This was a smaller company where the decision making power was in the hands a small few, and unless they bought into what you were trying to do, you had no hope of succeeding.
Once I got another job offer, I took it and ran far away. I didn't care where I was going because I figured that any place had to be better. I even took a $10,000/year pay cut to do it. Of course, I wouldn't recommend doing that unless you are really desparate. Luckily the company I ended up with was a lot more sane, so it worked out for the best. Plus within a year I had proved myself enough so that I was able to get back to my original salary level.
I should add that the company from hell is no longer in business (shocking, huh?).
My wife and I said our vows in a traditional setting, but our reception was at Oriole Park at Camdem Yards in the right field warehouse. It was certainly more memorable than a typical hotel wedding reception.
Cricket is pretty minor, too, considering that its popularity is limited to former Commonwealth countries. At least baseball has a fairly diverse appeal (North America, Latin America, Far East).
Once a year I drive four hours to Pennsylvania to buy clothes where there is no sales tax on clothing. I pay a couple hundred in cash so there is no auditing trace.
If you are closer to the NJ border, why not come to NJ where there is also no sales tax on clothing.
Let's say that your company want to assign a number to each person based upon the height: the tallest people get "5"'s and the shortest people get "1"'s. Now let's also say that we add the requiremnt that each department must have a bell curve distribution of ratings, regardless of the heights of the individuals.
If you have a deparment with a lot of tall people, some of those tall people would get lower ratings simply because you need to fill your quota. Likewise, a department of shorter people would have to give some of the short people "5"'s because of this quota.
Under this system, there is no way to gauge a person's height by their rating. A "5" is meaningless because it only means that the person is among the tallest in their department. If you compare this "5" with a "5" from another department, you have no way of knowing the relative heights of the people.
I have the same problem with curves in academia. An A should be an A, no matter when you take the test. However, if you take a class in a semester where there are a lot of idiots, your A only means that you were the best of the idiots. If you had taken the class with geniuses, you might have only gotten a B (or worse). I much preferred it when teachers weren't "afraid" to give everyone A's when they deserved it and everyone C's when they deserved it.
Some standardized tests grade on a curve, but they adjust the scores so that if the overall level of score is higher, then the mean score is set higher. Therefore you can compare scores from year to year.
If you want a rating system that has meaning, you need to have an OBJECTIVE way to set the scores. Otherwise, you cannot compare ratings in a valid manner.
If you are going to criticize the PIRATE act, first do your homework and learn about it.
The PIRATE Act bill, the one sponsored by Sens Hatch and Leahy, gives the DOJ the power to pursue civil cases against file sharers. According to the article and Sen Hatch's remarks, it does not have the provisions about "up to 10 years in prison" or any of that stuff. According to the article, those provisions are part of a draft bill that hasn't been introduced. The description in the slashdot posting imply that these provisions are part of the PIRATE Act, which they are not.
It may seem like splitting hairs, but if you start writing to your Congresspeople about the PIRATE Act, you will have more credibility if you actually know what you are talking about. If you start talking about provisions that aren't even in the bill, your letter will probably receive very little, if any, consideration.
This is some serious copyright infringement, man. Ripping an article verbatim and posting it on another site.
I have a question, and I honestly don't know the answer to it. Maybe you or someone can explain this to me. If it is copyright infringement to rip an article verbatim and post it on another site, then why hasn't someone sued Google for its "cache" feature? It would seem as if that would fall into the same category...
Slashdot Mirror
I've worked with a couple of refugees from the game industry, and the stories that they tell are similar to what you are saying. Based on my small sample size, game programmers are among the most talented programmers that I have worked with. However, they seem to "burn out" after a few projects and go into a less demanding area.
I wonder if game industry is shooting themselves in the foot by letting all these talented folks get away with their draconian practices. I suppose there are enough young, ambitious, talented people in the pipeline to take their place, but the one thing the companies can't replace is experience. Game companies have a big recruiting advantage in that it is "cooler" to work on a game than on some accounting system. However, they flush that advantage down the toilet with some of their practices.
I don't know if you've read the book _Soul of a New Machine_ which follows a group of engineers at Data General in their quest to build a state of the art computer. The engineers on that project work insane amounts of hours on the project, sacrificing their outside lives for the good of the project. It tends to glorify the manic single-mindedness of the team, but gives short shrift to the personal toll the project took on its participants. I think I remember reading elsewhere that many if not most of the people on the project left the company afterwards. That might explain why Data General is no longer around today!
A couple thoughts...
First, maybe I am just not superhuman enough to work in the game industry, but I find that if I work insane hours for more than a couple of days, the quality of my work suffers dramatically. I have noticed it isn't just me either. I've code reviewed programs that were written under extreme schedule pressure, and most of the time, the code was terrible.
I wonder if the 80+ hour week mentality is self-propogating in the sense that long hours leads to more bugs, which leads to more long hours to fix them, etc.
Second, most places I have worked have rarely required putting in more than 40 hours a week. Ocassionally I've had times where I've put more for various reasons, but that has been the exception rather than the rule. This has held true at both small startups and large Fortune 500 companies, so I do have a good sample of companies to go by.
One common thread in these companies has been good project management. They realize that excessive schedule pressure is more likely to kill the whle project, rather than help it. If you are constantly in crisis mode, quality suffers.
I know that game companies like EA stress being able to ship by a particular date, but, as a consumer, I would rather wait for a solid product, rather than get something that is half baked. Take Neverwinter Nights, for instance. That game was constantly being pushed back for one reason or another, and the delays certainly haven't hurt overall sales. Actually, delays of an anticipated product seem to feed the hype and the excitement, with the added bonus of allowing developers to put out a solid product.
Finally, you can't really compare the number of hours a business owner puts in relative to an employee. A business owner is the one taking the risks and the one getting the rewards, so they have a vested interest in putting in insane hours. For some of the other occupations you mention, there are rules (at least in the US) about how many hours truckers and pilots can work. And "common laborers" usually get overtime for their efforts, so many of them actually WANT to work more hours. Code jockeys don't have any limits (other than physical ones) and they usually dont get any overtime for their efforts (although that may change pending legal challenges).
Personally, my feeling is that I have no problem pitching in with extra hours from time to time. However, if the extra hours becomes the rule rather than the exception, then there is a serious problem with project management and scheduling that needs to be addressed by the company. If the company's management is so bad that it cannot properly plan its projects, then it is probably a company I would not work for. That last point may explain why I gravitate away from such companies.
My wife and I are having a hard time trying to decide on what kind of insurance to get. This is because of the $1,400.00 she is bringing home, almost $400.00 of that is presently going towards insurance.
After looking up insurance, sure you can get $200.00 med insurance, but then it has a $10,000.00 deductible on it! Since we pay out maybe $2,000.00 a year max for medical costs this doesn't make sense.
Actually, taking the large deductible insurance plan makes more sense than you think.
Based upon the number that you give, you are presently paying $4800/yr in health insurance, which I assume has some nominal deductible or copayment. This means that you probably are paying, say, about around $5000/yr for health care (insurance plus out-of-pocket).
If you took the high deductible health insurance, you would end up paying $2400/yr for the insurance plus around $2000 out of pocket for medical costs. In total, you would be paying only $4400/yr for health care.
Of course, you would be taking somewhat of a gamble that you and your wife aren't going to need something major, but you can hedge against this by putting the $600/yr difference in the bank each year to cover yourself for a rainy day.
The whole point of insurance is to handle catastrophic losses. However, it seems as if our current health insurance system isn't really insurance in the traditional sense. Heath insurance covers every little thing with minimal out of pocket expense.
Most doctor's visits cost in the hundreds of dollars, which may sound like a lot, but if you factor in the cost of health insurance, I would almost rather just pay the expense myself and save the insurance for the things that I wouldnt be able to pay, like open heart surgery. With the way insurance premiums are, it seems like I would come out ahead that way.
Plus, I would be able to see whatever doctor I wanted instead of being limited to "the network". Since I am paying my own way, I would have more flexibility to be a good consumer, rather than relying on the insurance company to be a good consumer for me.
My fix to the health care system would be to offer catastrophic health insurance coverage (~$3000 deductible) for lower premiums, and then allow people to put money into a Medical Spending Account on a tax deductible basis to cover medical expenses. For the working poor, I would offer some tax credits to defer the cost of the insurance and to help fund their MSA's. Then people would have maximum choice while still having the insurance coverage in case they are hit by a car or something.
Usually I hate it when people flame other people's spelling, but the irony of your post makes it just... so... tempting....
But I will be a good net-citizen and resist...
I guess you didn't get your "employee scholar" degree in English.
Oh I am so sorry. The temptation with just too great for me to bear! Please accept my most humble apologies...
What Best Buy has done is change their practices to cut down on the amount of outright abuse. Personally, mail in rebates tick me off, so I am not about to spend my money at Best Buy, but I can understand why they would change their policy. I would also bet that most people won't even notice the difference. The only people that care are the Devil Customers that were abusing Best Buys' policies.
Instead of instituting things like "restocking fees" and draconian return policies which effect ALL customers, both angels and devils, why doesn't Best Buy actually institute policies to address the core problem.
If people are buying items, collecting rebates, and returning them, why doesn't Best Buy just deduct the amount of the rebate from the credit? Simply match up an ID number on the return receipt with an ID number from the submitted rebate receipt. If the rebate has been submitted but not processed, simply flag the rebate in the system as denied, so the person doesn't receive the rebate after the fact.
Those are just two ideas off the top of my head that will solve the problem without alienating your "good" customers.
Speaking of adventures in buying memory...
I few years back I went to the local CompUSA because they had a great deal of memory, and my custom built PC was in need of a little upgrade. I went up to the "hardware" counter with my sales circular in hand and showed the salesperson exactly what I wanted. The salesperson asked me for the brand and model number of my PC. I told her that the PC was a custom built, "white box" PC, so it didn't have any brand or model number. She responded by telling me that she couldn't sell me the memory without the brand or model number of the PC because she wanted to make sure it worked in my computer. I laughed and told her that this was the first time a store didn't want to take my money when it was offered. I don't think that she was amused because she wouldn't relent.
Finally, I told her not to worry, I PROMISE that the memory will work in my PC. Finally, she let me buy the memory, despite what she said was "her better judgment".
To make a long story even longer, the memory worked!
You are wrong about the iRiver only having "Free Mode" as you call it. This comes right from the iRiver website:
Q. Why can't I upload my MP3 / WMA files from my iFP player?
A. Due to copyright protection laws that apply towards our technology, media files (MP3 / WMA files) cannot be uploaded from an iFP player to a PC. All other non-media files (documents, images, etc.) can be uploaded to a PC from the iFP player.
This seems more like your "Big Brother" mode to me.
Not thanks to the FCC, but thanks to the people who've spent good money to build radio studios and broadcast towers, and to the commercial sponsors who pay for the operation of that equipment. All the FCC does is get in the way and create opportunities for nepotism, e.g. Michael "I would never have become Chairman if my daddy wasn't SecState" Powell.
While I am not a big fan of the FCC, they do provide a useful service in that they regulate who is allowed to use what frequencies. If anybody could broadcast on whatever frequency that they wanted to, it would be impossible to pick up any signal without some other signal interfering with it. The ensuing chaos would render the airwaves useless.
Now you can argue that the manner in which they provide the regulation is poor; however, somebody needs to provide this regulatory service in order maintain the usefulness of the airwaves.
I am willing to cut Jackson some slack, mainly because we, the consumers, knew ahead of time that there was going to be both a theatrical version AND an extended version. Therefore, we were able to decide which version we wanted to buy. It's not like he release the theatrical version, and then after everyone had scarfed up that, decided to spring the extended version on us. He told us up front that there was going to be an extended version and that if we wanted to, we could wait until that one came out.
Plus, if I remember correctly, there was a rebate for those who bought both versions. So if you really couldn't wait the extra 6 months for the extended version, you could buy the regular version and get a little bit of a break on the extended version.
If Jackson's goal was really to maximize profits, he would have released the theatrical versions, waited a few years for everyone to buy that, and then announce the extended version after profits from the theatrical version had tapered off. Plus, he would make people who bought both pay full price, rather than offer a little bit of a rebate.
Personally I find his attitude a lot more palatable than George Lucas who is obviously out to milk the Star Wars franchise for all its worth.
This story may be too late to get any notice in this thread, but I'll tell it anyway, just in case!
When I was a young boy during the late 70's, my dad worked for CSC as a software engineer. Every so often, he would bring home a portable computer terminal so that he could check on his jobs from home. The thing connected to the mainframe over the phone lines using an acoustic coupler modem. It had a full size keyboard for input and a thermal printer for output. As a seven year old, I had seen typewriters so I was familiar with them, but this device was completely and totally different and amazing! A mean, here was something that typed back to you automatically!
I spent hours in the evenings watching my dad and marvelling over this neat invention. I asked my dad over and over again how the thing worked. He tried to explain to me about how his machine was talking to a big machine across the country somewhere, and about how there were these programs on a big record player somewhere that were "running", but it was hard for me to wrap my head around the concepts that he was throwing out.
Ocassionaly, after much bugging, he would let me "help" by typing in commands. I was enthralled with how the thermal printer came to life after I hit the Return key. After awhile, I become bored with just typing in what my dad told me. I wanted to learn how the thing worked. Why did it respond to the commands that I typed in the way that it did?
I guess my dad got the message because one day he came home with a book entitled _Game Playing With BASIC_. He told me that this book would teach me how to "program" the computer and tell it what to do. The book taught the BASIC programming language using simple games like Tic-Tac-Toe, Blackjack, and the like as examples. It took me a little while to get through the book, but by the end, I was able to understand BASIC and even write some simple programs of my own! The biggest thrill came when my dad let me type in and run some of my little programs on his mainframe terminal. I was hooked!
Fast forward 25 years: today I have a BS in EE and an MS in CS and I am still working with computers.
Post Script: While it is natural to try and steer your child towards your own interests, I think it healthier to expose them to a little bit of everything and see what they gravitate towards. If they show an interest and ability in a certain area, that's great. If they don't, then don't force the issue. I hate seeing kids who are pushed into doing things by their parents when they obviously have no desire. It seems to especially happen in the realm of sports, but I can see it happening in other areas as well. If your son or daughter would rather pick up a bat and ball than a computer manual, there's nothing wrong with that. Forcing the issue too much will only cause resentment down the road.
I don't think he understands that financial and economic markets are linked to world events. Therefore, in order to accurately predict the movement of financial markets, you will need to be able to predict the future! Do you think that a computer could have predicted 9/11 or the Iraq war or elections of world leaders or the Microsoft settlement or a myriad of other news events which effect the direction of the markets? If anyone actually believes that we will be able to design a computer to do this, feel free to reply to me because I have a bridge to sell you!
(Before all you chart-heads jump on me, I do not think technical analysis or charting has any validity, so please do not waste any time trying to convince me otherwise, because it won't work!)
I am posting this comment from the back of a volkswagon
That's great, but is the volkswagon running on biodiesel?
All five of the players listed as from USA have blatantly obvious Russian (and one Japanese) names. Looks like no native players in this one (again). Alas, purely intellectual pursuits are frowned upon in these here parts.
No offense but this is one of the STUPIDEST comments I've ever read on slashdot. Actually, I take that back... I do mean to offend you.
Who's to say that the American players aren't fifth generation Americans? Just because they have an "ethnic" surname doesn't mean a thing? Surely you don't expect people to change their names to "Smith" or "Jones" upon obtaining American citizenship, do you? I mean, really!
Obvious "intellectual pursuits" like logic and rational thought are frowned upon in whatever parts you hail from, as well! If you are an American then maybe you have just proven your own argument, in which case I apologize.
You, sir, are full of sh*t, and whoever modded this post up is also full of sh*t!
/ cu pkeeper070203.html
Your story about the Stanley Cup is a complete fabrication. The Stanley Cup doesn't get shipped UPS. It has a personal team of escorts who travel with it 24/7. The chances of it getting "lost" in some UPS hub for 3 days is less than nil. Here's a link that backs up what I am saying:
http://www2.nhl.com/hockeyu/history/cup/travels
I don't know why you feel the need to badmouth UPS. Granted I'm sure they aren't 100% perfect, but everything I've ever shipped with them, or received from them has been free of damage, so I imagine that damaged packages is the exception and not the rule. The one time a package didn't arrive on the day it was guaranteed, I got my money back, which is more than I can say for a lot of businesses out there.
What if there was peace, love and understanding on the Earth, so we wouldn't feel the pressure to leave?
Then in a few hundred/thousand/million years some alien race more practiced in the art of war will come to Earth and easily destroy the docile human race, and we will be nothing more than a footnote in the galactic history books!
Regardless of how you define it, the farthest planet from the sun has not changed in the last 21 years.
Putting aside the debate over the 10th planet, the farthest planet does in fact change over time. There are times when Neptune is the farthest planet from the Sun, and there are other times when Pluto is the farthest planet from the Sun. So in fact the farthest planet from the Sun HAS CHANGED in the last 21 years.
Why this is the case is left as an excercise for the reader...
I guess the police officer should have started out by saying "IANAL, but..."
I think it's a good idea, but I do wonder how many situations you'll be in where you already have an exisiting program that does everything you want to test against.
Guardsoft probably also sells an add-on tool to verify that your reference implemenation is correct, and to debug it if it isn't correct.
While I am always open to new ideas, based upon that single web page, it doesn't look like this product is going to revolutionize debugging. I can see it being useful in a small problem space where you are developing a program that has a small range of outputs where you can specify them explicitly. For the more typical, complex system, this system doesn't really help much.
It reminds me of the academics who say the can use advanced math and logic to "prove" the correctness of a program. However, for a program of any complexity, the time it takes to prove the correctness of the program is astronomical: possible in theory but difficult in practice.
... look for a company that has a good development process. This may sound silly compared to the usual stuff like salary and benefits; however, in my experience, the development process is a good indicator of the overall health of a company.
The worst company I was at had a development process that consisted of the following steps: "code like hell", "put code into production immediately", "when code didn't work and everything blew up, stay late until things were working again". Needless to say, we didn't have things like bug tracking, source control, sane schedules. I only stayed there 8 months until I found a better job, but those 8 months seemed like an eternity. It was the most miserable experience I've ever had at work.
You may ask why I didn't try to stay and make the process better. That, of course, is easier said than done. Anyone who dared question the prevailing wisdom (or lack thereof) was branded as a "loose cannon" or "not a team player". The environment was totally dysfunctional and not receptive to change. This was a smaller company where the decision making power was in the hands a small few, and unless they bought into what you were trying to do, you had no hope of succeeding.
Once I got another job offer, I took it and ran far away. I didn't care where I was going because I figured that any place had to be better. I even took a $10,000/year pay cut to do it. Of course, I wouldn't recommend doing that unless you are really desparate. Luckily the company I ended up with was a lot more sane, so it worked out for the best. Plus within a year I had proved myself enough so that I was able to get back to my original salary level.
I should add that the company from hell is no longer in business (shocking, huh?).
My wife and I said our vows in a traditional setting, but our reception was at Oriole Park at Camdem Yards in the right field warehouse. It was certainly more memorable than a typical hotel wedding reception.
Cricket is pretty minor, too, considering that its popularity is limited to former Commonwealth countries. At least baseball has a fairly diverse appeal (North America, Latin America, Far East).
Once a year I drive four hours to Pennsylvania to buy clothes where there is no sales tax on clothing. I pay a couple hundred in cash so there is no auditing trace.
If you are closer to the NJ border, why not come to NJ where there is also no sales tax on clothing.
Let's say that your company want to assign a number to each person based upon the height: the tallest people get "5"'s and the shortest people get "1"'s. Now let's also say that we add the requiremnt that each department must have a bell curve distribution of ratings, regardless of the heights of the individuals.
If you have a deparment with a lot of tall people, some of those tall people would get lower ratings simply because you need to fill your quota. Likewise, a department of shorter people would have to give some of the short people "5"'s because of this quota.
Under this system, there is no way to gauge a person's height by their rating. A "5" is meaningless because it only means that the person is among the tallest in their department. If you compare this "5" with a "5" from another department, you have no way of knowing the relative heights of the people.
I have the same problem with curves in academia. An A should be an A, no matter when you take the test. However, if you take a class in a semester where there are a lot of idiots, your A only means that you were the best of the idiots. If you had taken the class with geniuses, you might have only gotten a B (or worse). I much preferred it when teachers weren't "afraid" to give everyone A's when they deserved it and everyone C's when they deserved it.
Some standardized tests grade on a curve, but they adjust the scores so that if the overall level of score is higher, then the mean score is set higher. Therefore you can compare scores from year to year.
If you want a rating system that has meaning, you need to have an OBJECTIVE way to set the scores. Otherwise, you cannot compare ratings in a valid manner.
If you are going to criticize the PIRATE act, first do your homework and learn about it.
The PIRATE Act bill, the one sponsored by Sens Hatch and Leahy, gives the DOJ the power to pursue civil cases against file sharers. According to the article and Sen Hatch's remarks, it does not have the provisions about "up to 10 years in prison" or any of that stuff. According to the article, those provisions are part of a draft bill that hasn't been introduced. The description in the slashdot posting imply that these provisions are part of the PIRATE Act, which they are not.
It may seem like splitting hairs, but if you start writing to your Congresspeople about the PIRATE Act, you will have more credibility if you actually know what you are talking about. If you start talking about provisions that aren't even in the bill, your letter will probably receive very little, if any, consideration.
This is some serious copyright infringement, man. Ripping an article verbatim and posting it on another site.
I have a question, and I honestly don't know the answer to it. Maybe you or someone can explain this to me. If it is copyright infringement to rip an article verbatim and post it on another site, then why hasn't someone sued Google for its "cache" feature? It would seem as if that would fall into the same category...