I graduated with a CS major almost 20 years ago, and have been making my living since then as a programmer. I never learned anything about source control in collij. I learned it during collij, because I worked summers at a professional organization. I was lucky.
Most of my jobs have been in professional software development groups, where source control is as implicit as breathing. But for a few years I worked at a prestigious National Lab, and that was an eye opener. Much of the code I saw was written by scientists with no real-world experience. Nobody I worked with had ever heard of the concept of source control; they just sort of did occasional "cp foo.c foo-with-xyz.c" things. I set up CVS, explained the rationale, helped them learn it, and forced them to use it. Most appreciated it, because they could see how much it helped. They simply hadn't known. But... some resented it. "That's not the way we do things". (My wife still works at that Lab, also as a programmer, and says she sees the same thing). For the most part, the people who say that are stupid. Not 100%, since many have PhDs, but truly stupid nonetheless. And they know it, which scares them: they think if they use source control, others can touch their code and make it better, and they won't be needed any more. Job security through obscurity, perhaps.
Think about it: if you're competent, you use source control as much as possible: you know you'll screw up sometimes, you want a strong history of what changed when, and you want others to improve and maintain your code. But if you're not competent (or uncertain), you want others to have as little visibility as possible into your code and process.
I live in New Mexico (Los Alamos). The ignition interlock bill is indeed moronic; it's a poorly conceived feel-good shock tactic by ignoramus politicians.
But NM does really have a high incidence of DWI. Partly because distances are enormous and there are no alternatives to driving: no bus service, no taxis, pretty much no public transportation of any kind. Partly because population density is fairly low: this results in a low probability of any given drunk-driving session resulting in a crash, so stupid people think "hey, I've driven drunk before and had no problems, I'll just keep doing it". A large part of the problem is that penalties are nearly nonexistent. A mild slap on the wrist.
The current legislature has just passed a measure increasing penalties: you might get 2-3 years for your seventh conviction. Whoa, that will sure get the drunks off the road! Oh, incidentally, the rules aren't always too wellenforced.
Sorry, I have no experience with these headphones. But: about 10 years ago, I volunteered as a test subject for some experiments done at NASA Ames (Mountain View, CA, USA). One of them was for a device called the Convolvotron. It's a thingy (sorry for the technical term) which takes multiple sound sources and "localizes" each one so it sounds like it's coming from a different place. It worked incredibly well with only two speakers. The big problem was distinguishing between straight-in-front and straight-behind. With headphones and human ears, I suspect that's just a darn difficult problem. But side-front, side, and side-rear were very easy to differentiate.
Although the tests took place in a sound chamber, they were kind enough to give me a demo tape -- and this tape is amazing. They demo about 5 different voices (simultaneous ATC conversations), both flat and spatialized. Flat, it's impossible to differentiate them. With the convolvotron, it was possible and easy to track each conversation separately. Each one sounded like it came from a different place.
This was early 90s. Processing power has certainly increased since then. It should be possible, and relatively cheap, for someone to use Convolvotron-like technology to convert a 5.1-channel signal to spatialized L-and-R ones for use with regular headphones. There shouldn't be a need for special headphones.
I have two problems with the DVD format: compression artifacts and low-level pixel dithering [...]
Actually, you have three problems. If you're new to DVD, you may not know about the 'region' nonsense. Simply put: if you buy a disc in Europe, forget about playing it in the US, and vice-versa.
There is no technical reason for this. It's pure marketing BS. However, there are DVD players on the market which make it possible to circumvent the region encoding. You may want to consider one of these...
Since the inception of Windows Update millions of computers have been infected with Trojan's that are today allowing individuals to conduct en-masse DDoS attacks.
True... but there's more to it than meets the eye. According to a Double Secret memo which was leaked from Microsoft, what they're really trying to do is have new security problems every day. These will be posted on Slashdot, and will result in instant DDoS -- against the security sites. If the alert sites aren't up to report the problems, then the problems don't exist, and Microsoft is in the clear...
I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. That's a
tiny little island in the Caribbean, 100 miles
by 35.
I grew up knowing nothing about guns, because they simply "don't exist" in PR. Gun control is tremendously strict, and mere mortals aren't allowed to own them.
So why do all the houses have bars on the windows? Why is the murder rate higher than Detroit's? Why have friends of mine been mugged -- some killed in the process? Why did the PR legislature pass a law explicitly allowing you to run red lights after midnight to try to protect yourself against carjackings?
It wasn't until I came to the US that I understood, and even then it took me a while. Criminals will get guns, regardless of the law.
If they can get guns in PR (100x35 miles of border to patrol), and nowadays in the UK, how can we pretend that the criminals will ever be
disarmed in the US?
I now live in the most heavily armed county in New Mexico, Los Alamos. Guess what? The biggest crime spree in the last year was just stopped -- some kids were stealing CDs from cars, which most people leave unlocked. This made front-page news in our paper.
There are precious few home invasions here -- criminals are cowards, and strongly prefer doing their crimes where people don't shoot at them. I've never heard of a mugging here. They sometimes happen in Santa Fe or Albuquerque, but not infrequently the criminal ends up dead.
No, it's not the Wild West. It's remarkable how civilized we are when we know that everyone is armed. Heinlein said it well: "An armed society is a polite society". And it's not fear that keeps us polite -- it's responsibility.
I hope never to use my weapons against another person... but if anyone ever presents a threat against me or my loved ones, I will not hesitate. And I will never give up my freedom to defend myself.
Who really thinks we're still going to be driving
fossil-fuel-powered vehicles in ten years? In
twenty?
Petroleum is a finite resource. It will run out
sooner or later, and there is strong evidence
indicating that production will peak in the next few years. We should, of course,
do as much as possible to curb pollution. But
perhaps it makes sense to invest now in cleaner
forms of renewable energy?
Waitaminnit, this is the US... what am I thinking?
I decided to buy a PDA last month, and after
careful evaluation, settled on the Agenda.
That was _before_ I knew Agenda US was dead.
But even though I had been willing to shell
out $250 for it, I got one for less on ebay.
I've had it for a week, and I love it! Consider:
Easy to program. I can develop
for it an run code natively on my Linux box,
without emulators or other stuff.
GPL, and documented file formats.
I can write my own code (and have done so)
to sync
data reliably, i.e., correct conflict
resolution when records are changed both
on the PDA and the desktop.
No need for Wintendo. Although
there is Linux support for most PDAs,
if you have to upgrade the OS, it seems
like vendors only provide.EXE
files. That doesn't help those of us
who do not use the garbage from Redmond.
The Right Philosophy. Full CVS
access to the sources, Open mentality.
Come on! We all
bitch and moan about Sony, but how many
of you have gone out and bought their
PDAs "because they're nifty", despite
the evils commited by the company?
Great price. Not everyone has
$500 to spend on an ipaq
or Zaurus or the latest nifty toy.
It has its flaws... lots of them. But for
the price, it's easily the best thing out there.
I did the "government thing" for a few years,
working at LANL. It was a wonderful experience,
and I had the privilege of working with many,
many wonderful and brilliant people.
The benefits are outstanding: interesting
work, job for life,
cushy retirement, two months vacation a year
(18 days, plus every other Friday off if you
work a 9x80 schedule, which it's stupid not
to do).
Exactly one year ago, I quit and went back
to private industry, where I had spent most
of my working life. Am I nuts? Well, yes,
but apart from that, here are some of my
reasons:
Work Preventers. This is a class of
person unfortunately too prevalent in
government. They are unable to do anything
useful, but are threatened by your ability.
Hence they spend their time preventing you
from getting anything useful accomplished
(paperwork, audits, meetings, their tactics
are numerous). After a while, I just got
tired of these twits.
Rewarding the incompetent. I never
understood the "funding game", but it's
all a nasty personality cult where you
get rewarded for sucking up to the people
who control the money. Some projects
are assigned in this manner, and it just
makes extra effort to work around the
less-than-optimal decisions that then
get made.
Walkin' retirees. A number of
people are just hanging out, doing the
least they can possibly do until they
are able to retire. Fortunately, there
aren't many of these, and they aren't
as harmful as the work preventers. But
still frustrating.
No incentive to excel. Performance
appraisals are on a "curve", so everyone's
graded pretty much as mediocre. Raises
are unrelated to performance: right before
I left, my group got a flat across-the-board
(tiny) raise. I enjoy
working, but I expect some sort of benefit
after doing good work.
Can I get a real job?. I worked
in the Bay Area for a number of years,
and remember interviewing people who had
worked "too long" at government contractors.
After enough of those, I started chucking
resumes simply based on length of employment
at certain places. After working too long
at LANL, I started being afraid that I'd
become unhireable in the Real World, and
slowly descend into the spiral of the
Walking Retirees.
So it's now a year later. My job is no longer
guaranteed (but I've survived two layoffs so
far). I don't get Fridays off. My stock
options are worthless.
Any regrets? Nope! I'm still ecstatic,
enjoying the work, the people, and the sense
that if I'm still employed, it's because I am
still somewhat competent. It's a wonderful
feeling.
Salaries for computer people here are a joke.
My wife and I (both programmers, mid-to-late
thirties; both "retired"
from the Bay Area since '94)
routinely get calls from headhunters offering
2-3 times what we make now. Not including
stock, of course.
Then there's the bureaucracy. We struggle to
get work done despite the cretins who
try their utmost to grind you down.
No money. Almost daily hassles from the Work
Preventers.
Why do we stay? The area, for one. Los Alamos
is our ideal retirement community. But a
close second, surprisingly, is the work. Many
people here are brilliant, highly competent,
and fun to work with. My job -- analyzing
data from various & sundry Earth satellites
and Deep Space exploration missions -- is
exciting and challenging. Finally, I don't
have to work 60-80 hours just to keep pace.
A regular work week lets me excel (I'm not the
type who's satisfied with mediocrity) and
still have a life.
I'll get fired one of these days, most likely.
The rules I have to break in order to get work
done are often firing-level offenses (stuff
like neglecting to fill out paperwork or ask
for permission before doing some things).
Or maybe I'll just get fed up. I'm pretty
close right now anyway, after a 4% raise.
After LANL, you can be sure it's back to
the Real World (industry) for me.
Oh, and those "33%" raises? Hah. My wife is
in a Computer group, so she'll get one --
but the word from up high is for noone to
expect more than 10%. I'm one of two lone
programmers in a Space Physics group, and
we both expect to fall through the cracks.
My wife and I moved from the Bay Area to New Mexico in 1994. She kept her firmware development job with Apple for two years after that, telecommuting from a home office via a 56Kb leased line.
The short of it is, it can work. The critical issues, as I remember, were:
Communication: Your group must have a strong e-mail culture. You will often miss the "hallway decisions" and other impromptu communications, and there will always be one or two marketroids who use phone instead of e-mail, but on the whole, if you're doing software, telecommuting cannot work unless e-mail is used. Note also that the telephone will become more important than you're currently used to.
Resentment: Some (not many) coworkers will resent you for what they see as goofing off. Most of these people are of the useless class, but be prepared.
Set your hours: It is too easy to work too much if you telecommute! The office is so close, and it's tempting to get "that last little bit" done. Be assertive about setting your hours and sticking to them. Exceptions will always crop up, but let them be exceptions.
Be prepared: Apple laid off all their telecommuters in one swell foop, during one of their occasional "entrenchings". No problem for us, since we always plan for the worst case... but be sure to have backup plans and enough funds to bum around for a year while another job crops up. The job market outside the Valley is not what you're used to!
Kids: We aren't breeders, but a lot of/.ers have posted on the issues with kids. Sounds like a big factor be consider.
Good sign, indeed! That's almost identical to the form letter I received over a month ago (3 November). The "diff" output is interesting:
-As you know, Amazon.com has filed suit against barnesandnoble.com, -saying it has illegally copied Amazon.com's patented 1-Click -technology. +As you know, Amazon.com has brought suit against barnesandnoble.com +for infringement of Amazon.com's patented 1-Click invention.
and
further as we are currently in litigation. Thank you for taking the -time to share your views with us. +time to share your views with us. We will be very sad to lose you if +you decide that's what you need to do. We are always here to help you +with any questions you may have.
If, as I suspect, my form letter is dated after Waldo's, this means they reinforced the wording of the suit text ("for infringement", removing the "saying that"). They also added a "sorry to lose ya, bub".
In other words, it's not just one or two isolated incidents. It may not be a landslide, but at what point do they begin to care?
I dumped $500 on Amazon in September... my total for the year is unmentionable. I mentioned that in my note to them. Maybe they won't miss me, but it adds up.
Slashdot Mirror
Most of my jobs have been in professional software development groups, where source control is as implicit as breathing. But for a few years I worked at a prestigious National Lab, and that was an eye opener. Much of the code I saw was written by scientists with no real-world experience. Nobody I worked with had ever heard of the concept of source control; they just sort of did occasional "cp foo.c foo-with-xyz.c" things. I set up CVS, explained the rationale, helped them learn it, and forced them to use it. Most appreciated it, because they could see how much it helped. They simply hadn't known. But... some resented it. "That's not the way we do things". (My wife still works at that Lab, also as a programmer, and says she sees the same thing). For the most part, the people who say that are stupid. Not 100%, since many have PhDs, but truly stupid nonetheless. And they know it, which scares them: they think if they use source control, others can touch their code and make it better, and they won't be needed any more. Job security through obscurity, perhaps.
Think about it: if you're competent, you use source control as much as possible: you know you'll screw up sometimes, you want a strong history of what changed when, and you want others to improve and maintain your code. But if you're not competent (or uncertain), you want others to have as little visibility as possible into your code and process.
But NM does really have a high incidence of DWI. Partly because distances are enormous and there are no alternatives to driving: no bus service, no taxis, pretty much no public transportation of any kind. Partly because population density is fairly low: this results in a low probability of any given drunk-driving session resulting in a crash, so stupid people think "hey, I've driven drunk before and had no problems, I'll just keep doing it". A large part of the problem is that penalties are nearly nonexistent. A mild slap on the wrist.
The current legislature has just passed a measure increasing penalties: you might get 2-3 years for your seventh conviction. Whoa, that will sure get the drunks off the road! Oh, incidentally, the rules aren't always too well enforced.
Although the tests took place in a sound chamber, they were kind enough to give me a demo tape -- and this tape is amazing. They demo about 5 different voices (simultaneous ATC conversations), both flat and spatialized. Flat, it's impossible to differentiate them. With the convolvotron, it was possible and easy to track each conversation separately. Each one sounded like it came from a different place.
This was early 90s. Processing power has certainly increased since then. It should be possible, and relatively cheap, for someone to use Convolvotron-like technology to convert a 5.1-channel signal to spatialized L-and-R ones for use with regular headphones. There shouldn't be a need for special headphones.
Lots of Google hits for "Convolvotron". Enjoy.
Actually, you have three problems. If you're new to DVD, you may not know about the 'region' nonsense. Simply put: if you buy a disc in Europe, forget about playing it in the US, and vice-versa.
There is no technical reason for this. It's pure marketing BS. However, there are DVD players on the market which make it possible to circumvent the region encoding. You may want to consider one of these...
I grew up knowing nothing about guns, because they simply "don't exist" in PR. Gun control is tremendously strict, and mere mortals aren't allowed to own them.
So why do all the houses have bars on the windows? Why is the murder rate higher than Detroit's? Why have friends of mine been mugged -- some killed in the process? Why did the PR legislature pass a law explicitly allowing you to run red lights after midnight to try to protect yourself against carjackings?
It wasn't until I came to the US that I understood, and even then it took me a while. Criminals will get guns, regardless of the law. If they can get guns in PR (100x35 miles of border to patrol), and nowadays in the UK, how can we pretend that the criminals will ever be disarmed in the US?
I now live in the most heavily armed county in New Mexico, Los Alamos. Guess what? The biggest crime spree in the last year was just stopped -- some kids were stealing CDs from cars, which most people leave unlocked. This made front-page news in our paper.
There are precious few home invasions here -- criminals are cowards, and strongly prefer doing their crimes where people don't shoot at them. I've never heard of a mugging here. They sometimes happen in Santa Fe or Albuquerque, but not infrequently the criminal ends up dead.
No, it's not the Wild West. It's remarkable how civilized we are when we know that everyone is armed. Heinlein said it well: "An armed society is a polite society". And it's not fear that keeps us polite -- it's responsibility.
I hope never to use my weapons against another person... but if anyone ever presents a threat against me or my loved ones, I will not hesitate. And I will never give up my freedom to defend myself.
Petroleum is a finite resource. It will run out sooner or later, and there is strong evidence indicating that production will peak in the next few years. We should, of course, do as much as possible to curb pollution. But perhaps it makes sense to invest now in cleaner forms of renewable energy?
Waitaminnit, this is the US... what am I thinking?
But even though I had been willing to shell out $250 for it, I got one for less on ebay. I've had it for a week, and I love it! Consider:
- Easy to program. I can develop
for it an run code natively on my Linux box,
without emulators or other stuff.
- GPL, and documented file formats.
I can write my own code (and have done so)
to sync
data reliably, i.e., correct conflict
resolution when records are changed both
on the PDA and the desktop.
- No need for Wintendo. Although
there is Linux support for most PDAs,
if you have to upgrade the OS, it seems
like vendors only provide
.EXE
files. That doesn't help those of us
who do not use the garbage from Redmond.
- The Right Philosophy. Full CVS
access to the sources, Open mentality.
Come on! We all
bitch and moan about Sony, but how many
of you have gone out and bought their
PDAs "because they're nifty", despite
the evils commited by the company?
- Great price. Not everyone has
$500 to spend on an ipaq
or Zaurus or the latest nifty toy.
It has its flaws... lots of them. But for the price, it's easily the best thing out there.The benefits are outstanding: interesting work, job for life, cushy retirement, two months vacation a year (18 days, plus every other Friday off if you work a 9x80 schedule, which it's stupid not to do).
Exactly one year ago, I quit and went back to private industry, where I had spent most of my working life. Am I nuts? Well, yes, but apart from that, here are some of my reasons:
So it's now a year later. My job is no longer guaranteed (but I've survived two layoffs so far). I don't get Fridays off. My stock options are worthless.
Any regrets? Nope! I'm still ecstatic, enjoying the work, the people, and the sense that if I'm still employed, it's because I am still somewhat competent. It's a wonderful feeling.
Salaries for computer people here are a joke. My wife and I (both programmers, mid-to-late thirties; both "retired" from the Bay Area since '94) routinely get calls from headhunters offering 2-3 times what we make now. Not including stock, of course.
Then there's the bureaucracy. We struggle to get work done despite the cretins who try their utmost to grind you down.
No money. Almost daily hassles from the Work Preventers. Why do we stay? The area, for one. Los Alamos is our ideal retirement community. But a close second, surprisingly, is the work. Many people here are brilliant, highly competent, and fun to work with. My job -- analyzing data from various & sundry Earth satellites and Deep Space exploration missions -- is exciting and challenging. Finally, I don't have to work 60-80 hours just to keep pace. A regular work week lets me excel (I'm not the type who's satisfied with mediocrity) and still have a life.
I'll get fired one of these days, most likely. The rules I have to break in order to get work done are often firing-level offenses (stuff like neglecting to fill out paperwork or ask for permission before doing some things). Or maybe I'll just get fed up. I'm pretty close right now anyway, after a 4% raise. After LANL, you can be sure it's back to the Real World (industry) for me.
Oh, and those "33%" raises? Hah. My wife is in a Computer group, so she'll get one -- but the word from up high is for noone to expect more than 10%. I'm one of two lone programmers in a Space Physics group, and we both expect to fall through the cracks.
The short of it is, it can work. The critical issues, as I remember, were:
-As you know, Amazon.com has filed suit against barnesandnoble.com,
-saying it has illegally copied Amazon.com's patented 1-Click
-technology.
+As you know, Amazon.com has brought suit against barnesandnoble.com
+for infringement of Amazon.com's patented 1-Click invention.
and
further as we are currently in litigation. Thank you for taking the
-time to share your views with us.
+time to share your views with us. We will be very sad to lose you if
+you decide that's what you need to do. We are always here to help you
+with any questions you may have.
If, as I suspect, my form letter is dated after Waldo's, this means they reinforced the wording of the suit text ("for infringement", removing the "saying that"). They also added a "sorry to lose ya, bub".
In other words, it's not just one or two isolated incidents. It may not be a landslide, but at what point do they begin to care?
I dumped $500 on Amazon in September... my total for the year is unmentionable. I mentioned that in my note to them. Maybe they won't miss me, but it adds up.