A friend of mine applied for a job he was more than qualified for. He lacked a piece of paper that said he had done an education. If I would have applied, I'd get the job (I think), without being nearly as experienced.
In my experience, businesses are more interested in diplomas then in experience. Having completed an education doesn't prove you're an expert in a given area, but that have mastered a basic skill in working as a professional. And that is probably of much more value than in this case technical knowledge. (Most of which you'll learn on the job anyway...)
I'm really curious as to what will come out of these court cases. We've all heard the stories about insane cases with insane rulings, so I'm not so sure of the outcome.
As far as I know the law here in Holland, when a case like this takes place, the IP-holder must prove to the court that his IP is being used without his permission. Once that is proved, there are 2 possible outcomes. 1 - The IP-holder and the person/instance using the IP strike a deal. 2 - The person/instance using the IP is restricted from using it any further.
The IP-holder does NOT have the right to extort money from the user of the IP, of anybody the IP-user has sold his product to. The only way to make money of it is through a settlement.
But my guess is that things work differently in the States.
I have to disagree with you on a few things. First of all, I don't believe English is the hardest second language to learn, but that's not really important.
It would be interesting to see an OS/software written from the ground up in a completely different language, esp. one that used pictograms.
If you have any experience in programming, you probably know that the trick usually is to translate functionality and ideas into abstract steps (algorithms). The translation to a programming language is then but a small step, and it doesn't really matter what language you use for it. Sure, some languages tackle some aspects more efficiently, but that's another discussion.
I don't speak Mandarin, but I think it wouldn't make a difference if you would write your code in a language derived of either English or Mandarin, if you were only describing abstract, cause-and-effect steps. The difference in efficiency would be found in the ability of either language to express abstract ideas.
The HOWTO's are all in English (yeah I know there are foreign language versions but let's be real, it isn't as complete or as up-to-date as the ones in English.)
The fact that most CS-literature/lecture is in English, is that 'till now, almost all innovation in CS has come from the States and western Europe, both of which have English as there mother tongue, or otherwise speak it well enough. If China starts developing it's own software, programming languages etc, etc, Chinese books will be written about it. We (in the west) have been doing this for years, no wonder we have written down much more information than they have.
Excuse me for being software-minded, but wouldn't it be possible to use some of the control-functions and build a MIDI-controller to use with softsynths, or even modular software such as Reaktor? I think it would offer some interesting possibilities.
I've actually seen this device in action and I was amazed. I think the way it interacts with the user/musician is something a lot of people are looking for. Let's hope some manufacturers of musical devices take note of this project and incorporate some of it's ideas in products that can be made available for a broader range of people.
I use free email accounts to keep spam away from my regular email addresses. I also like to keep spam away from my physical address. So when I sign up for a free email address, I use a fake physical address. I don't trust these guys with my real email address, why should I hand them my physical address and (cell)phone number to boot?
Likewise, if you have a criminal intent and use a free address to stay anonymous, you won't give your real physical address unless you're really stupid. But then they won't need that info to track you down, as you probably allready posed for a security camera, and left your wallet on the scene of the crime....
Portability is indeed an issue, but I guess it's just a matter of time until everyobdy will be able to play MP3's in the living room from a CD, an USB drive, or anything else that will emerge and gain enough popularity
I personally never pay over E. 20,- for a CD. I think any price over E. 20,- for a single CD is grossly overrated, and the excess money only ends up in Hilary Rosens pocket.
Go for the independent record store, or look through the 'special offers'-section. You'll find a lot of good stuff there, for a decent price. (Unless you want the new Britney Spears album NOW!, then I guess you're just screwed, but then I won't give a rats ass about it:) )
I have to agree here. I have quite a large CD collection, and I take pride in that. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but it's a sentiment that you will find among a lot of other people.
Plus, there is the case of the 'limited edition'-CD of course, which will become extinct once distribution is fully digitized.
Buying MP3's off the Net is an option for me if I want an individual track, but not the entire CD. But if I want the full album, I'd prefer a physical disk, with a nice booklet etc...
I think people are slowly beginning to realise that 'spam is evil'. Governments never have been the first ones to embrace 'new' ideas.
Once the majority of the people realizes that the Internet is turning into one huge advertisment brothel, where you will be flooded with advertisments, autodialers, etc. etc. unless you follow a 2 week course on how to protect yourself, things will turn ugly for spammers.
The/. crowd is ahead of this, and it is often hard to believe that people are/not/ seeing spam and popups and spyware as the threat we conceive it to be. Talk about it with your mother or your less 'educated' friends to see what they think of it and be surprised. We need to create awareness before we can create laws...
I think mozilla is too big and sluggish to actually take the cake. Their firebird-browser-only-application might do it, but since it still is a version 0.6 and lacks a decent installer, I think it will at least take a year until it's "man enough" to take on the likes of IE.
Galeon is Linux Only, and therefore will/not/ make it in the PC/Windows market, which happens to have by far the biggest slice of 'em all, unless it is ported. Same goes for konqueror. Porting a product to a different OS will take time. Probably as much time as it will take for Firebird to become fully mature.
Opera is, but this is just an intuitive guess, destined to stay a niche player, even tough they have at the moment the most versatile and mature product in the race.
So if I have to put money on any of these browsers, I would have to doubt between Firebird on the one hand, and Galeon or Konqueror on the other, depending on which of the two is the first one to be ported to Windows. In that case, I guess I'd go for the Galeon/Konqueror side, for I believe their codebase is both newer and lighter than Firebird's.
Feel free to disagree...
Re:Note on Outlook compatability
on
Opengroupware
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Why you would use a security-hole ridden, payware product to access your mail and calendar, when you're allready on the open source bandwagon is beyond me.
The staying power of Outlook is mostly due to the fact that a lot of companies are hooked on Microsoft products anyway. And I guess it will continue to be that way as long as Exchange keeps outrunning open source groupware alternatives. (Which it probably will for another couple of years, since this is a 1.0 version or something like that.)
As long as OpenGroupWare has a web interface, accessing your calendar, mailbox etc. shouldn't be too much of a problem I guess. It's just that somebody must adjust the html-code so it can be displayed properly on a low-res screen.
In analogue studios, default settings on fx-units are also the way to go. Nobody who likes to spend his time in a productive way is going to try to tweak these babies into anything better than the manufacturer allready has achieved.
Besides of that, if you hear the same effect come back over and over again, it strikes me as a creativity problem of the producer, and not as a problem that ProTools itself has. (Except, but that doesn't seem likely to me, if the "vox flanger" has only 1 setting, and is the only effect applicable...)
Even if the burglar in question is a cracked-out junkie with a violence problem, this guy didn't just woke up some morning, and decided that he would have the best career opportunities smoking crack and pointing guns at people.
Some people are just psychologically unable to hold a job. This is in no way their fault. But since they can't hold a job, they have no money, and are eventually forced to live on the street. You might not think you are in any way responsible for this situation, but you are. This might sound like some hippie crap, but this person can't live up to the standards the society demands from him. Since you are part of this society, he will hold you responsible for his situation, even if you donate money to whatever charity you can think of.
There is no way this justifies this person breaking into your home and pointing a gun at your head. This person should however not be cast out from society, but be treated, for he has done nothing to cause his state of poverty and misery. A life of crime is a result of that, and not the cause of it.
The terrorist thinks along the same lines. Because he sees the US meddle in the affairs of his people, the entire US is to blame for anything he disagrees with. I disgust the methods terrorist apply, I don't think it's in any way effective, I think it works against them. But you can't beat the enemy unless you know how to think like the enemy, and the US is not displaying very much talent in that area right now.
Besides the doubtless legality of all this, you might wonder if it is the correct approach towards the problem.
Pattern recognition can maybe point out an individual collecting materials to build a bomb of some sorts, but I doubt if it will be very effective against a group of potential terrorists plotting for a major strike, who are while making preparations, carefully avoid any member sticking out in any way.
I don't think that it's possible for the American Government to stop every terrorist attack directed at American targets. If a terrorsts wants to strike, he is able to, regardless of what is done to prevent him from it.
Maybe thought should be given to the question why a terrorist wants to strike...
'Till now, if you wanted to record on a PC (and some of this also applies to 8-tracks and tape systems), you'd either need a really good stack, a proffesional pre-amp, or one of those new-fangled V-Amps. But none of those come dirt cheap, so lots of people have to download software amp sims from Kazaa, and stick with that. Not great.
I have a little experience in home recording, and I have to disagree. Since it's little use to plug a guitar straight into a soundcard, you'll need some pre-amping. I use a zoom gfx-8 to get the right signal strength. This baby cost me the equivalent of $500. It can do some compression (which it shouldn't) and a hell of a distortion (even though it's digital, it beats a lot of analog equipment I've used, including my current choice of amplifier),and some other fx, if you'd like to. (Every el-cheapo amp with a line-out will also do fine, in my esteem.) When you've pushed you signal through this thing, any decent sequencer software can finish the job, provided it is equipped with a compressor and a parametric equalizer. These are available for under $200. You can use the fx-processor for bass too, but I personally perfer the line-out of my old 25-watt bass amp, because it's got all it's need, and anything I need to alter, I can do with some EQ.
The moral of this story: Gibson MAGIC will NOT make home recording cheap, because these babies will be/very/ expensive to start out with, besides, you will not find any Gibson guitar for under $1000, and you will need an evenly expensive amp to boot...
First of all: Wireless isn't getting nowhere near the transmission speeds you achieve with a cable. If you want fast and realtime communication, you also get 2 extra conversion steps while using wireless transmission. Extra conversion is extra delay.
And reliability is a factor too. Wireless transceivers for analog audio signals have a bad reputation for reliability and audio qualitiy, and you should avoid them until you have the means to invest the monetary value of, say a medium sized car, into it.
No guitarist is going to ever touch that equipment if it fails him/her onstage, ever...
I won't go about watching any video-material on a few square cm. display with poor color depth and/or lighting. Besides, it will probably consume a/lot/ of batteries...
The only way to experience video anyway near pleasantly would be through a head-mounted projection display. This will, however, seriously reduce your movement and reaction capablities, but still...
Still, I think I'll pass and stick to good 'ole audio instead...
There's also a thing called efficiëncy. At my job we make use of a lot of Alpha's ranging from 500 to 700 MHz. Those speeds look outdated if you're used to intel, but the workload these babies pull is impressive...
No. I am not female. But actually, somebody tried to rob me using a gun. But he failed because he himself was scared as well, so I got away without damage and/or loss. I consider myself one lucky bastard for that.
I disagree with you that the world is 'about violence'. My neighborhood isn't swarmed with gangs and violent burglars. Maybe I'd think otherwise about this subject if I lived where you live. Since I don't, I'll stay in my little bubble and go to sleep without fear tonight.
Excuse my naivity, but where I live people don't go about shooting everyone in sight. If some burglar decides to break into my house, I will try to get him out, but if he draws a gun on me, he can take everything he likes, and I'll let my insurance company sort it out.
You can mod me down for making a hippie-like statement, but a stereo, a TV and a PC can be replaced, even something like a guitar which has emotional value to me. My life, and that of my GF who lives with me is indefenitly more valuable.
First of all, if the protection is delivered in the form of a ring, it's no big deal, because you can trade your gun with anyone who has at least 1 finger about the same size as you...
Second: Why do people think it is necessary to have a gun in their home for defensive purposes? Do you intend to actually fire that gun at a potential burglar? You'll probably be sued for it, especially in the USA.
Education definitley is important. If you're involved with guns in any way, it's important to be very well aware of every implication. But how does that stop your average frustraded office-clerk or teased-over-the-edge schoolkid from grabbing one in a fit of rage/anger/frustration? What good is education when you've allready lost your wits?
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A friend of mine applied for a job he was more than qualified for. He lacked a piece of paper that said he had done an education. If I would have applied, I'd get the job (I think), without being nearly as experienced.
In my experience, businesses are more interested in diplomas then in experience. Having completed an education doesn't prove you're an expert in a given area, but that have mastered a basic skill in working as a professional. And that is probably of much more value than in this case technical knowledge. (Most of which you'll learn on the job anyway...)
I'm really curious as to what will come out of these court cases. We've all heard the stories about insane cases with insane rulings, so I'm not so sure of the outcome.
As far as I know the law here in Holland, when a case like this takes place, the IP-holder must prove to the court that his IP is being used without his permission. Once that is proved, there are 2 possible outcomes.
1 - The IP-holder and the person/instance using the IP strike a deal.
2 - The person/instance using the IP is restricted from using it any further.
The IP-holder does NOT have the right to extort money from the user of the IP, of anybody the IP-user has sold his product to. The only way to make money of it is through a settlement.
But my guess is that things work differently in the States.
I have to disagree with you on a few things. First of all, I don't believe English is the hardest second language to learn, but that's not really important.
It would be interesting to see an OS/software written from the ground up in a completely different language, esp. one that used pictograms.
If you have any experience in programming, you probably know that the trick usually is to translate functionality and ideas into abstract steps (algorithms). The translation to a programming language is then but a small step, and it doesn't really matter what language you use for it. Sure, some languages tackle some aspects more efficiently, but that's another discussion.
I don't speak Mandarin, but I think it wouldn't make a difference if you would write your code in a language derived of either English or Mandarin, if you were only describing abstract, cause-and-effect steps. The difference in efficiency would be found in the ability of either language to express abstract ideas.
The HOWTO's are all in English (yeah I know there are foreign language versions but let's be real, it isn't as complete or as up-to-date as the ones in English.)
The fact that most CS-literature/lecture is in English, is that 'till now, almost all innovation in CS has come from the States and western Europe, both of which have English as there mother tongue, or otherwise speak it well enough. If China starts developing it's own software, programming languages etc, etc, Chinese books will be written about it. We (in the west) have been doing this for years, no wonder we have written down much more information than they have.
Excuse me for being software-minded, but wouldn't it be possible to use some of the control-functions and build a MIDI-controller to use with softsynths, or even modular software such as Reaktor?
I think it would offer some interesting possibilities.
I've actually seen this device in action and I was amazed. I think the way it interacts with the user/musician is something a lot of people are looking for. Let's hope some manufacturers of musical devices take note of this project and incorporate some of it's ideas in products that can be made available for a broader range of people.
I use free email accounts to keep spam away from my regular email addresses. I also like to keep spam away from my physical address. So when I sign up for a free email address, I use a fake physical address. I don't trust these guys with my real email address, why should I hand them my physical address and (cell)phone number to boot?
Likewise, if you have a criminal intent and use a free address to stay anonymous, you won't give your real physical address unless you're really stupid. But then they won't need that info to track you down, as you probably allready posed for a security camera, and left your wallet on the scene of the crime....
Portability is indeed an issue, but I guess it's just a matter of time until everyobdy will be able to play MP3's in the living room from a CD, an USB drive, or anything else that will emerge and gain enough popularity
I personally never pay over E. 20,- for a CD. I think any price over E. 20,- for a single CD is grossly overrated, and the excess money only ends up in Hilary Rosens pocket.
:) )
Go for the independent record store, or look through the 'special offers'-section. You'll find a lot of good stuff there, for a decent price.
(Unless you want the new Britney Spears album NOW!, then I guess you're just screwed, but then I won't give a rats ass about it
I have to agree here. I have quite a large CD collection, and I take pride in that. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but it's a sentiment that you will find among a lot of other people.
Plus, there is the case of the 'limited edition'-CD of course, which will become extinct once distribution is fully digitized.
Buying MP3's off the Net is an option for me if I want an individual track, but not the entire CD. But if I want the full album, I'd prefer a physical disk, with a nice booklet etc...
I think people are slowly beginning to realise that 'spam is evil'. Governments never have been the first ones to embrace 'new' ideas.
/. crowd is ahead of this, and it is often hard to believe that people are /not/ seeing spam and popups and spyware as the threat we conceive it to be. Talk about it with your mother or your less 'educated' friends to see what they think of it and be surprised. We need to create awareness before we can create laws...
Once the majority of the people realizes that the Internet is turning into one huge advertisment brothel, where you will be flooded with advertisments, autodialers, etc. etc. unless you follow a 2 week course on how to protect yourself, things will turn ugly for spammers.
The
I think mozilla is too big and sluggish to actually take the cake. Their firebird-browser-only-application might do it, but since it still is a version 0.6 and lacks a decent installer, I think it will at least take a year until it's "man enough" to take on the likes of IE.
/not/ make it in the PC/Windows market, which happens to have by far the biggest slice of 'em all, unless it is ported. Same goes for konqueror. Porting a product to a different OS will take time. Probably as much time as it will take for Firebird to become fully mature.
Galeon is Linux Only, and therefore will
Opera is, but this is just an intuitive guess, destined to stay a niche player, even tough they have at the moment the most versatile and mature product in the race.
So if I have to put money on any of these browsers, I would have to doubt between Firebird on the one hand, and Galeon or Konqueror on the other, depending on which of the two is the first one to be ported to Windows. In that case, I guess I'd go for the Galeon/Konqueror side, for I believe their codebase is both newer and lighter than Firebird's.
Feel free to disagree...
Why you would use a security-hole ridden, payware product to access your mail and calendar, when you're allready on the open source bandwagon is beyond me.
The staying power of Outlook is mostly due to the fact that a lot of companies are hooked on Microsoft products anyway. And I guess it will continue to be that way as long as Exchange keeps outrunning open source groupware alternatives. (Which it probably will for another couple of years, since this is a 1.0 version or something like that.)
As long as OpenGroupWare has a web interface, accessing your calendar, mailbox etc. shouldn't be too much of a problem I guess. It's just that somebody must adjust the html-code so it can be displayed properly on a low-res screen.
In analogue studios, default settings on fx-units are also the way to go. Nobody who likes to spend his time in a productive way is going to try to tweak these babies into anything better than the manufacturer allready has achieved.
Besides of that, if you hear the same effect come back over and over again, it strikes me as a creativity problem of the producer, and not as a problem that ProTools itself has. (Except, but that doesn't seem likely to me, if the "vox flanger" has only 1 setting, and is the only effect applicable...)
Even if the burglar in question is a cracked-out junkie with a violence problem, this guy didn't just woke up some morning, and decided that he would have the best career opportunities smoking crack and pointing guns at people.
Some people are just psychologically unable to hold a job. This is in no way their fault. But since they can't hold a job, they have no money, and are eventually forced to live on the street.
You might not think you are in any way responsible for this situation, but you are. This might sound like some hippie crap, but this person can't live up to the standards the society demands from him. Since you are part of this society, he will hold you responsible for his situation, even if you donate money to whatever charity you can think of.
There is no way this justifies this person breaking into your home and pointing a gun at your head. This person should however not be cast out from society, but be treated, for he has done nothing to cause his state of poverty and misery. A life of crime is a result of that, and not the cause of it.
The terrorist thinks along the same lines. Because he sees the US meddle in the affairs of his people, the entire US is to blame for anything he disagrees with. I disgust the methods terrorist apply, I don't think it's in any way effective, I think it works against them. But you can't beat the enemy unless you know how to think like the enemy, and the US is not displaying very much talent in that area right now.
Besides the doubtless legality of all this, you might wonder if it is the correct approach towards the problem.
Pattern recognition can maybe point out an individual collecting materials to build a bomb of some sorts, but I doubt if it will be very effective against a group of potential terrorists plotting for a major strike, who are while making preparations, carefully avoid any member sticking out in any way.
I don't think that it's possible for the American Government to stop every terrorist attack directed at American targets. If a terrorsts wants to strike, he is able to, regardless of what is done to prevent him from it.
Maybe thought should be given to the question why a terrorist wants to strike...
I have a little experience in home recording, and I have to disagree.
Since it's little use to plug a guitar straight into a soundcard, you'll need some pre-amping. I use a zoom gfx-8 to get the right signal strength. This baby cost me the equivalent of $500. It can do some compression (which it shouldn't) and a hell of a distortion (even though it's digital, it beats a lot of analog equipment I've used, including my current choice of amplifier),and some other fx, if you'd like to. (Every el-cheapo amp with a line-out will also do fine, in my esteem.)
When you've pushed you signal through this thing, any decent sequencer software can finish the job, provided it is equipped with a compressor and a parametric equalizer. These are available for under $200. You can use the fx-processor for bass too, but I personally perfer the line-out of my old 25-watt bass amp, because it's got all it's need, and anything I need to alter, I can do with some EQ.
The moral of this story:
Gibson MAGIC will NOT make home recording cheap, because these babies will be
First of all: Wireless isn't getting nowhere near the transmission speeds you achieve with a cable.
If you want fast and realtime communication, you also get 2 extra conversion steps while using wireless transmission. Extra conversion is extra delay.
And reliability is a factor too. Wireless transceivers for analog audio signals have a bad reputation for reliability and audio qualitiy, and you should avoid them until you have the means to invest the monetary value of, say a medium sized car, into it.
No guitarist is going to ever touch that equipment if it fails him/her onstage, ever...
I won't go about watching any video-material on a few square cm. display with poor color depth and/or lighting. Besides, it will probably consume a /lot/ of batteries...
The only way to experience video anyway near pleasantly would be through a head-mounted projection display. This will, however, seriously reduce your movement and reaction capablities, but still...
Still, I think I'll pass and stick to good 'ole audio instead...
4. The Origin of Life - Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much....
Or, according to Al Bundy: A sixpack of beer and 2 horny teenagers...
There's also a thing called efficiëncy. At my job we make use of a lot of Alpha's ranging from 500 to 700 MHz. Those speeds look outdated if you're used to intel, but the workload these babies pull is impressive...
No. I am not female.
But actually, somebody tried to rob me using a gun. But he failed because he himself was scared as well, so I got away without damage and/or loss. I consider myself one lucky bastard for that.
I disagree with you that the world is 'about violence'. My neighborhood isn't swarmed with gangs and violent burglars. Maybe I'd think otherwise about this subject if I lived where you live. Since I don't, I'll stay in my little bubble and go to sleep without fear tonight.
Maybe your life will be more in danger when you threaten an armed man?
Excuse my naivity, but where I live people don't go about shooting everyone in sight. If some burglar decides to break into my house, I will try to get him out, but if he draws a gun on me, he can take everything he likes, and I'll let my insurance company sort it out.
You can mod me down for making a hippie-like statement, but a stereo, a TV and a PC can be replaced, even something like a guitar which has emotional value to me. My life, and that of my GF who lives with me is indefenitly more valuable.
First of all, if the protection is delivered in the form of a ring, it's no big deal, because you can trade your gun with anyone who has at least 1 finger about the same size as you...
Second: Why do people think it is necessary to have a gun in their home for defensive purposes? Do you intend to actually fire that gun at a potential burglar? You'll probably be sued for it, especially in the USA.
Education definitley is important. If you're involved with guns in any way, it's important to be very well aware of every implication. But how does that stop your average frustraded office-clerk or teased-over-the-edge schoolkid from grabbing one in a fit of rage/anger/frustration? What good is education when you've allready lost your wits?