Yeah, and blogs are called "editing a website" and RSS is called "downloading a page" and aggregators are called "mail readers", and all of this blog nonsense has no added value whatsoever. 13 different versions of RSS, why would anyone spend time on that junk!?
In other words, because the files are automatically downloaded, before you listen, the technique can be used to watch full-screen video, or other high-bitrate media that users don't have the bandwidth to stream in real-time. Also, it can be used for disconnected devices that have no internet connection to stream at all.
Not to be pedantic, but that's what you call an idiom. Most people don't literally go around counting chicken eggs, or have a bucket anywhere near their deathbead, or allow their cats to go anywhere near their tongue. See the wikipedia page for "Dark Ages" for other ways the phrase can be used, if it worries you so much.
No, Moore's law won't help us. Machines have been able to software-decode full-screen DVD's for several years now. Hard drives in shipping DVR's are large enough now (they're not enormously spacious, but they're good enough for now).
Heck, even backbone dark-fiber was keeping up for a while. The problems are 1) last-mile bandwidth isn't keeping up, and 2) content-producers are afraid to put their content on the internet. (as detailed in my other post)
We SHOULD have VoIP and HD video on demand and TV-over-IP by now, and that would have kept the bandwidth growth up.
Our CPU/video/audio cards have been capable of it for a couple years, and hard drives are just recently capable of it.
The biggest issues I see are human... People don't yet completely grasp that VoIP will definitely be cheaper and more feature-full in the long run (especially once there's enough critical mass to ditch the POTS). And companies haven't yet stepped up to provide high-quality service (and/or government hasn't mandated 911 yet).
People don't realize that radio and TV are basically the same way. Partially, this is because we don't have the bandwidth yet to support it, because of last-mile monopolies and economics (and there are basic economics there, or there would be at least SOME places in the world that had TV-over-IP). But mostly, it's because corporations think that 1) the longer they can hold out with the old system, the more money they can make (hopefully they don't actually think they can keep us in the dark ages forever), and 2) even start-up competitors and originating-content-producers don't quite know how to deal with all the legal issues and DRM issues.
Hopefully Wimax will fix some of the last-mile problems. And hopefully eventually content producers and consumers will come to some amicable solution on DRM. And then this train can finally leave the station that it's been stuck at for so long.
We were expected to be savy in whatever the main programming environment was. When I came in, it was solaris/gcc, and lex/yacc in compiler class. On my way out, the freshmen were learning on java/visual studio. I don't know if they tried to keep the programming environment the same through a student's four years, but it seems reasonable to expect them to be able to crawl/walk with their basic programming tools.
It doesn't have to be hugely centralized. Multiplayer games that serve on the order of 8-20 players at a time are at times paid for by individuals (eg. Natural Selection servers, for one, were always player-funded).
I hear that there are some World of Warcraft personal servers that host some small number of players. Maybe it doesn't suck so much if you had your whole guild on a single server, or something like that.
If you are getting owned on your PC online, it's is more likely that you just suck, all the computing power in th eworld isn't going to help you if you don't have M4d Ski||z!!1.
Way to flip that one around. If you're in the top 5% of the skill level, then having the lowest lag (either slow network, or not enough memory, or otherwise), having the highest resolution possible to see the farthest, having the best 3d sound card (for a few games anyway), reducing the loading time for levels, etc can be a noticable differenc. When you're really good, sometimes the best way to get into the top 3% is to pony up cash for upgrades more frequently.
Whereas, on a console, other than network differences, everyone playing that game has the same amount of RAM, same speed drive, same video card. (there are ocassional upgrades like high-def and console generations, but that's not nearly as frequent as computer upgrades)
So how do you fix that? 360-degree reviews seems like they would either be too petty or too open to retribution.
I was holding out hope that there were some companies out there that could foster the right management culture, but after reading about the criticisms of NASA's management (whose responsibility in terms of life-and-death and budget are much greater than companies I've worked at, yet they still fail), I'm beggining to think there might not be any good companies to work at.
You and everyone who's modding you up is an idiot.
If you don't have any technical knowledge, how do you make sure you hire the right people? If you don't have any technical knowledge, how do you promote the right people, ones who push the organization towards more technical skill and greater efficiency? (not efficiency in terms of doing X task in fewer number of minutes, but choosing the right task to begin with) If you don't do either of these, your company flounders at recent-grad skill level, while your competition increases their collective skill level and experience over time, and cranks out well-designed MP3 players and saves shipping costs and reduces inventory.
Arguing that managers should have no technical skill whatsoever, just because what they do is so different from low-level workers, is absolutely moronic (but is unfortunately all-too-prevalent in the workplace).
In most geeks experience, that 8 - 9 years of preparation for an MBA degree is somehow completely wasted. Yeah, technical workers have an almost completely different skillset than managers do, but one of the biggest problems with managers is big lack of experience in the field they're managing.
The attitude that someone can hop out of MBA school, hop into a chemical engineering company, and be fine, is crazy. The idea that they can hop out of that company and over to a software engineering company and have basically the exactly same job is equally crazy.
There's all sorts of managerial-level decisions that have to be made about quality, risk, deadlines, effort estimates, what mitigation procedures are effective and which aren't, how to make sure the people at the bottom actually know what the heck they're doing and aren't just a bunch of unexperienced unmotivated people just out of college. And these quality/risk/staffing balances can vary greatly from field to field, and important decisions like this do sometimes require field-specific knowledge.
If you don't know anything about the field you're managing, how are you going to make sure you have people under you who know what they're doing? Yes, it might be remotely possible with a ton of work, but most managers that I'm familiar with have done a very poor job at this.
And steps 1 through 49 in the Google Product Cycle. You know, Google already sells hardware (Google rackmount stuff), so breaking into the LED Mice business or even the console business isn't out of the question at this point. And where are their 9nm CPUs??
Party games have less space on HDTV too (640x360 1/4 720i vs 480x640 NTSC). Still, party games are so much fun that even if you only have one other friend, it's still a very good thing. One of the reasons LAN parties last a whole day is because it takes forever to get everyone's machines connected and working... no reason to do this for consoles.
But that sweet gaming rig won't support 4-player wireless control and won't be nearly as portable or as quiet. A four-player portable gaming rig compared to $700 for the xbox 360 still makes it a good deal.
Constant-upgradability is a downside... it means that to properly compete in multiplayer games, you have to upgrade more often to keep up with the joneses.
That's a good point, there's a reason it's called "dinner and a movie". On the other hand, restaurants don't force-feed 30 minutes of advertisements on you, nor do they ever have sticky floors or uncomfortable seats. If theaters moved catered more to the dating or family excursion crowd, and made sure it was a nice outing, they could probably retain a sufficient number of customers, no matter how many HDTV sets people buy.
UMD's do have one benefit though: portability. If you commute to work on a train or subway, UMD's may be useful. On the other hand, decent portable DVD players are cheaper than the PSP itself (though definitely larger). Outside of that use-case though, UMD's seem silly.
Also, nobody is forcing you to get drinks/popcorn/etc.
Doesn't matter. It's still one more thing that encourages people to watch movies at home, because drinks/popcorn/etc are at least 50% cheaper at home, and you can buy any kind of food or popcorn you want.
Slashdot Mirror
crazyvas needs an automated humor detector
Yeah, and blogs are called "editing a website" and RSS is called "downloading a page" and aggregators are called "mail readers", and all of this blog nonsense has no added value whatsoever. 13 different versions of RSS, why would anyone spend time on that junk!?
In other words, because the files are automatically downloaded, before you listen, the technique can be used to watch full-screen video, or other high-bitrate media that users don't have the bandwidth to stream in real-time. Also, it can be used for disconnected devices that have no internet connection to stream at all.
So, no, it's not streaming.
And Alexa ranks MSN ahead of Google. Nuf said.
Not to be pedantic, but that's what you call an idiom. Most people don't literally go around counting chicken eggs, or have a bucket anywhere near their deathbead, or allow their cats to go anywhere near their tongue. See the wikipedia page for "Dark Ages" for other ways the phrase can be used, if it worries you so much.
Heck, even backbone dark-fiber was keeping up for a while. The problems are 1) last-mile bandwidth isn't keeping up, and 2) content-producers are afraid to put their content on the internet. (as detailed in my other post)
Our CPU/video/audio cards have been capable of it for a couple years, and hard drives are just recently capable of it.
The biggest issues I see are human... People don't yet completely grasp that VoIP will definitely be cheaper and more feature-full in the long run (especially once there's enough critical mass to ditch the POTS). And companies haven't yet stepped up to provide high-quality service (and/or government hasn't mandated 911 yet).
People don't realize that radio and TV are basically the same way. Partially, this is because we don't have the bandwidth yet to support it, because of last-mile monopolies and economics (and there are basic economics there, or there would be at least SOME places in the world that had TV-over-IP). But mostly, it's because corporations think that 1) the longer they can hold out with the old system, the more money they can make (hopefully they don't actually think they can keep us in the dark ages forever), and 2) even start-up competitors and originating-content-producers don't quite know how to deal with all the legal issues and DRM issues.
Hopefully Wimax will fix some of the last-mile problems. And hopefully eventually content producers and consumers will come to some amicable solution on DRM. And then this train can finally leave the station that it's been stuck at for so long.
We were expected to be savy in whatever the main programming environment was. When I came in, it was solaris/gcc, and lex/yacc in compiler class. On my way out, the freshmen were learning on java/visual studio. I don't know if they tried to keep the programming environment the same through a student's four years, but it seems reasonable to expect them to be able to crawl/walk with their basic programming tools.
I hear that there are some World of Warcraft personal servers that host some small number of players. Maybe it doesn't suck so much if you had your whole guild on a single server, or something like that.
But the FCC doesn't mandate anything regarding satellite TV, right? eg. the only way to go for people who want top-quality is the illegal route?
I didn't make the term up, that's what they call it. "360" is cooler, I guess (XBox 360...).
Whereas, on a console, other than network differences, everyone playing that game has the same amount of RAM, same speed drive, same video card. (there are ocassional upgrades like high-def and console generations, but that's not nearly as frequent as computer upgrades)
So how do you fix that? 360-degree reviews seems like they would either be too petty or too open to retribution.
I was holding out hope that there were some companies out there that could foster the right management culture, but after reading about the criticisms of NASA's management (whose responsibility in terms of life-and-death and budget are much greater than companies I've worked at, yet they still fail), I'm beggining to think there might not be any good companies to work at.
If you don't have any technical knowledge, how do you make sure you hire the right people? If you don't have any technical knowledge, how do you promote the right people, ones who push the organization towards more technical skill and greater efficiency? (not efficiency in terms of doing X task in fewer number of minutes, but choosing the right task to begin with) If you don't do either of these, your company flounders at recent-grad skill level, while your competition increases their collective skill level and experience over time, and cranks out well-designed MP3 players and saves shipping costs and reduces inventory.
Arguing that managers should have no technical skill whatsoever, just because what they do is so different from low-level workers, is absolutely moronic (but is unfortunately all-too-prevalent in the workplace).
The attitude that someone can hop out of MBA school, hop into a chemical engineering company, and be fine, is crazy. The idea that they can hop out of that company and over to a software engineering company and have basically the exactly same job is equally crazy.
There's all sorts of managerial-level decisions that have to be made about quality, risk, deadlines, effort estimates, what mitigation procedures are effective and which aren't, how to make sure the people at the bottom actually know what the heck they're doing and aren't just a bunch of unexperienced unmotivated people just out of college. And these quality/risk/staffing balances can vary greatly from field to field, and important decisions like this do sometimes require field-specific knowledge.
If you don't know anything about the field you're managing, how are you going to make sure you have people under you who know what they're doing? Yes, it might be remotely possible with a ton of work, but most managers that I'm familiar with have done a very poor job at this.
That's not true!
I bet you don't have the statistical data to prove it!
Still, Slashdot is an old reliable standby for normal people who don't need 100%-up-to-date info, and Slashdot still has more people to argue with.
And steps 1 through 49 in the Google Product Cycle. You know, Google already sells hardware (Google rackmount stuff), so breaking into the LED Mice business or even the console business isn't out of the question at this point. And where are their 9nm CPUs??
Party games have less space on HDTV too (640x360 1/4 720i vs 480x640 NTSC). Still, party games are so much fun that even if you only have one other friend, it's still a very good thing. One of the reasons LAN parties last a whole day is because it takes forever to get everyone's machines connected and working... no reason to do this for consoles.
Constant-upgradability is a downside... it means that to properly compete in multiplayer games, you have to upgrade more often to keep up with the joneses.
That's a good point, there's a reason it's called "dinner and a movie". On the other hand, restaurants don't force-feed 30 minutes of advertisements on you, nor do they ever have sticky floors or uncomfortable seats. If theaters moved catered more to the dating or family excursion crowd, and made sure it was a nice outing, they could probably retain a sufficient number of customers, no matter how many HDTV sets people buy.
That's true for the US market, but not for the Japanese market.
UMD's do have one benefit though: portability. If you commute to work on a train or subway, UMD's may be useful. On the other hand, decent portable DVD players are cheaper than the PSP itself (though definitely larger). Outside of that use-case though, UMD's seem silly.
Pulse jet? Isn't that nazi-era technology?