I know who my "real" friends are on Facebook, and they're the only ones I pay close attention to (e.g. visit their pages.)
Then there are the couple hundred who share a cause. They post some interesting stuff and news articles for my feed.
And then there are another few hundred who were collected just to play that stupid "Mafia Wars" game. If I could know the difference between those who share a cause and those who were approved for the game, I'd get rid of the game "friends."
Unless you've got major self-esteem issues, I can't imagine collecting "friends" just to have a high friend count. And given the kind of drek most people post to their status, I just don't see how those virtual "friends" could possibly be satisfying.
Personally I like to sample an episode or two before I buy a box set, but the quality of anime viewing on YouTube just sucks. Video is far too low bandwidth to be clean. But it's good enough for a preview to decide if you like the writing and voice acting.
Firefox is my default browser, but I go to one website that has some sort of video banner ad that throws Firefox into fits. I use Chrome to view that one website, because it correctly renders the video instead of freaking out. So kudos to Google for a technically superior implementation of video handling..
When I was younger, I wrote more code and faster than I do now. It wasn't as good, and I'm a much better programmer than I was.
I used to produce huge volumes of code when I was younger as well. But that's because I hadn't learned how to effectively use macros, classes, inheritance, etc. I was doing a lot of copy-paste-edit code. The code I write now is much tighter and cleaner, easier to maintain, and more readable.
It's been a long time since I worked anywhere that lines per day was still used as a productivity metric. The focus now is on function points completed, which measures how much your code can actually do rather than rewarding bulk.
Two young fellows I work with get paid more than me. One is the sharpest tech support person I've ever worked with (5 years experience), and the other is a great junior manager (EE degree, working on his masters.) I'm not offended that they get paid more than me -- I'm happy for them.
I make enough to live comfortably, and that's all I really care about nowadays. I stopped chasing the ever-increasing salary when it finally became clear that increasing salaries came with increasing stress, longer hours, and ever more unrealistic expectations. I'm much more concerned about having the flexible hours needed to deal with my migraines. I'm lucky to have a job at all with that problem hitting me a couple days per week.
If you're actually any good at your job, the boss will keep piling more and more projects on your plate until you can barely move. There is never time to learn on your own.
I was even ordered to not work on my pet project because it "takes time from the business." No one else was ordered to stop watching TV, visiting friends, or enjoy their hobbies, but I was ordered not to enjoy my own hobby.
An order which I ignored, of course. I have a right to amuse myself as I see fit on my own time.
Just admit it -- someone really spent a lot of time on this idea, and it's cool that it works at any speed at all. I've only got an old P4, and it still ticked along quite nicely. Much faster and you wouldn't see anything but flicker-flashing anyhow.
The claims indicate they've never actually worked with a MicroSoft server environment used to push software installs to the desktop. I've even seen sites that instead of a mere weekly reboot, do a full weekly re-image of the desktops.
As interesting as a Kinect-style device for my PC sounds, it just ain't gonna work. You need a room about 4 times the size of my living room to use the things.
I want something that'll scan gestures from a chair position, not an across-the-room position.
If Mono were more mature and available on non-x86 hardware, I think.Net would be giving J2EE a serious run for the money over the next few months or a couple years.
Having coded for both, I can attest that.Net is a much cleaner library design, and far quicker to learn. Most importantly, it doesn't introduce drastic architectural changes with each dot update.
Just a warning for anyone thinking of picking up Erlang programming. The Mnesia database is unstable under 10.04 -- so unstable that it loses the entire database every few restarts of an application.
Pointer typedefs were very useful in the age of the "_FAR" attribute with MSVC. If you wanted your code to be portable, it was easiest to hide the extra "_FAR" attribute in the typedef rather than counting on the programmers remembering to include a "MY_FAR_MACRO" on every pointer utilization.
I agree, as I have to maintain the production packages of our in-house applications. Dependency checking isn't all it's cracked up to be, at least not yet.
What's needed is a way to register an application for automatic rebuild when one of it's dependencies change.
What I like about rolling releases is you get to deal with application incompatabilities one at a time as they come up, rather than having to spend a week or few all at once when upgrading a distro.
I think it's also probably better for security, as you get the latest patches for the software. (I know the security patches get applied to downlevel releases as well by distributors, but that seems so cumbersome compared to following the application's software releases.)
Both releases seem a little lean on features compared to Sun's release schedule. On the other hand, they're starting to run out of reasonable features to add to the language without turning it into a kitchen sink.
Now that there are little kids around at Christmas time, pretty much all of the gift giving has changed to focus on them. We adults usually give token or even gag gifts now and get much more enjoyment out of watching the kids and enjoying time together as a family than anything else.
Yep, you can sure tell the people who aren't youngun's -- they've moved beyond "me" to "we".
What is "cool" about the idea of having a database of even more of your personal information in the hands of a vendor? Now they can start "matching" your "bad gift" ideas with advertising specially selected just for you -- BigBrandX has this sweater in your size in stock right now -- just a click away.
Gift lists are nothing new. Letting people know you're not interested in something is not new. This is not innovative, it is not creative, and most of all -- it shouldn't be wanted.
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This isn't a case of "delicate balance." It's a sickening abuse.
He's a corrections officer, not some top-level CIA gumshoe!
I know who my "real" friends are on Facebook, and they're the only ones I pay close attention to (e.g. visit their pages.)
Then there are the couple hundred who share a cause. They post some interesting stuff and news articles for my feed.
And then there are another few hundred who were collected just to play that stupid "Mafia Wars" game. If I could know the difference between those who share a cause and those who were approved for the game, I'd get rid of the game "friends."
Unless you've got major self-esteem issues, I can't imagine collecting "friends" just to have a high friend count. And given the kind of drek most people post to their status, I just don't see how those virtual "friends" could possibly be satisfying.
Personally I like to sample an episode or two before I buy a box set, but the quality of anime viewing on YouTube just sucks. Video is far too low bandwidth to be clean. But it's good enough for a preview to decide if you like the writing and voice acting.
Firefox is my default browser, but I go to one website that has some sort of video banner ad that throws Firefox into fits. I use Chrome to view that one website, because it correctly renders the video instead of freaking out. So kudos to Google for a technically superior implementation of video handling..
I used to produce huge volumes of code when I was younger as well. But that's because I hadn't learned how to effectively use macros, classes, inheritance, etc. I was doing a lot of copy-paste-edit code. The code I write now is much tighter and cleaner, easier to maintain, and more readable.
It's been a long time since I worked anywhere that lines per day was still used as a productivity metric. The focus now is on function points completed, which measures how much your code can actually do rather than rewarding bulk.
Two young fellows I work with get paid more than me. One is the sharpest tech support person I've ever worked with (5 years experience), and the other is a great junior manager (EE degree, working on his masters.) I'm not offended that they get paid more than me -- I'm happy for them.
I make enough to live comfortably, and that's all I really care about nowadays. I stopped chasing the ever-increasing salary when it finally became clear that increasing salaries came with increasing stress, longer hours, and ever more unrealistic expectations. I'm much more concerned about having the flexible hours needed to deal with my migraines. I'm lucky to have a job at all with that problem hitting me a couple days per week.
If you're actually any good at your job, the boss will keep piling more and more projects on your plate until you can barely move. There is never time to learn on your own.
I was even ordered to not work on my pet project because it "takes time from the business." No one else was ordered to stop watching TV, visiting friends, or enjoy their hobbies, but I was ordered not to enjoy my own hobby.
An order which I ignored, of course. I have a right to amuse myself as I see fit on my own time.
Just admit it -- someone really spent a lot of time on this idea, and it's cool that it works at any speed at all. I've only got an old P4, and it still ticked along quite nicely. Much faster and you wouldn't see anything but flicker-flashing anyhow.
Microsoft hardware driver updates have repeatedly bricked my systems over the years. I no longer allow them to install hardware updates.
I bitched and whined about the reinstall, but I never even thought about suing anyone for it.
Maybe if I was 'merican...
The claims indicate they've never actually worked with a MicroSoft server environment used to push software installs to the desktop. I've even seen sites that instead of a mere weekly reboot, do a full weekly re-image of the desktops.
As interesting as a Kinect-style device for my PC sounds, it just ain't gonna work. You need a room about 4 times the size of my living room to use the things.
I want something that'll scan gestures from a chair position, not an across-the-room position.
Google did not deliver a JVM. They pilfered the Java syntax to compile for a different machine. No sympathy.
If Mono were more mature and available on non-x86 hardware, I think .Net would be giving J2EE a serious run for the money over the next few months or a couple years.
Having coded for both, I can attest that .Net is a much cleaner library design, and far quicker to learn. Most importantly, it doesn't introduce drastic architectural changes with each dot update.
Just a warning for anyone thinking of picking up Erlang programming. The Mnesia database is unstable under 10.04 -- so unstable that it loses the entire database every few restarts of an application.
Pointer typedefs were very useful in the age of the "_FAR" attribute with MSVC. If you wanted your code to be portable, it was easiest to hide the extra "_FAR" attribute in the typedef rather than counting on the programmers remembering to include a "MY_FAR_MACRO" on every pointer utilization.
I agree, as I have to maintain the production packages of our in-house applications. Dependency checking isn't all it's cracked up to be, at least not yet.
What's needed is a way to register an application for automatic rebuild when one of it's dependencies change.
What I like about rolling releases is you get to deal with application incompatabilities one at a time as they come up, rather than having to spend a week or few all at once when upgrading a distro.
I think it's also probably better for security, as you get the latest patches for the software. (I know the security patches get applied to downlevel releases as well by distributors, but that seems so cumbersome compared to following the application's software releases.)
Of course you have a choice: download/pirate or watch on a PVR. Anyone watching a raw TV feed nowadays is not keeping up with the technology.
Both releases seem a little lean on features compared to Sun's release schedule. On the other hand, they're starting to run out of reasonable features to add to the language without turning it into a kitchen sink.
Performance per watt is what matters in the server room, and that's one area where ARM handily trumps x86.
Now that there are little kids around at Christmas time, pretty much all of the gift giving has changed to focus on them. We adults usually give token or even gag gifts now and get much more enjoyment out of watching the kids and enjoying time together as a family than anything else.
Yep, you can sure tell the people who aren't youngun's -- they've moved beyond "me" to "we".
What is "cool" about the idea of having a database of even more of your personal information in the hands of a vendor? Now they can start "matching" your "bad gift" ideas with advertising specially selected just for you -- BigBrandX has this sweater in your size in stock right now -- just a click away.
Gift lists are nothing new. Letting people know you're not interested in something is not new. This is not innovative, it is not creative, and most of all -- it shouldn't be wanted.
I read that the target price for the Volt in Canada is 35,000.
I'd been lead to believe that it was a real hybrid with all-electric drive and a gasoline engine as a backup power source/generator.
Without that the Volt is just not worth the money. Another GM failure on the way.
I lived in Altamonte Springs for three years, working as a contractor in the area. Nice place, if a little on the warm side in August. :)
They should cut off everything but OS updates and anti-virus sites. Otherwise how are you supposed to clean the infection or reinstall the machine?
Or better yet, he could have done the other three movies that were originally planned in 3D.
3D gives me a headache. I'm certainly not going to plunk down cash to see the same old movie in 3D.