First, you'd better love what you will be working on because it will take you a lot of time and effort to succeed, no matter how lucky you are, and especially in the current economic conditions. Persistence is key, as said earlier. Keep your eyes on the prize!
Second, spend as little money as you can, and spend it wisely. If a large LCD screen helps you see more code and reduce the strain on your eyes, then by all means buy it. But do you really need that fancy sofa? Do you really need that pool table? Remember how Hewlett and Packard, or Jobs and Wozniak started (replace with the founders of your favorite company). They're doing OK now.
Third, come up with an idea that is original, not some rehash of some existing software, puhleez (unless you are targeting a platform on which it is unlikely to be ported easily). And have one or more use cases to work for, not just a technical vision. No customer, no money.
Fourth, protect your invention early on. Not because you want to litigate anyone (leave that to the professional assholes), but because you will be swimming with sharks (the aforementioned assholes). Whenever there is money to be made, people will do many things to you: suing you and screwing you are two of the nicest.
Fifth, unless you are lucky enough to be both technically and business savvy, partner with someone trustworthy who will take care of the other half. And do not underestimate the business aspect. Both are essential.
Sixth, try to remember this advice regularly, and more good advice that others who've been there (whether they succeeded or not) can give you. And never listen to the doomsayers, they don't have a clue (or worse, some fear that you might succeed).
Seventh, good luck my friend, you will need it. Indeed, luck is an important part of succeeding. If you are not naturally lucky, surround yourself with people who are. And open yourself to the idea that you can become lucky. It might well happen as a result.
... I would claim that I just had some idea about a new kind of porn site, then I would contact the media to let them know that Alcatel was considering entering the porn business any day...
Sure, Hollywood could collapse because of that. I mean Bruce Willis or Schwarzenegger or Brad Pitt could be easily replaced by virtual actors and the average Joe wouldn't know. But real cinema (i.e. that of the non-Hollywood kind) will not collapse. My favorite directors have names such as Carl Dreyer, Andrei Tarkovski, Ingmar Bergman, Satyajit Ray, Kon Ichikawa, and so forth. Those that follow in their footsteps will never use virtual actors because their films are about the human condition, not the computer condition. And they use talented actors.
Just try to send email to some company-wide address for the fun of it. You could try:
- all@forgent.com
- everyone@forget.com
- team@forgent.com
- eng@forgent.com
- sales@forgent.com
- etc.
ARCADE GAMES ARE THE ***REAL*** THING
on
High Score
·
· Score: 1
Despite advances in home gaming technology, nothing will ever replace the experience of having been a teenager sweating over a good game of Defender, Tempest, or Q*bert (name your favorites), along with tens of other similarly sweating teenagers, in a dark arcade room full of machines having a life of their own in attract mode.
Real men play arcade games. Quiche eaters play console games. Real men have their 3-letter nickname flashing permanently in the high score list of arcade games around the world. Quiche eaters have their nickname stored in their personal high score list, with no other name, on PlayStation, GameCube or XBox memory cards.
1) Because users (i.e. all of us, including UI designers) have way too many things to do nowadays, too many tasks and events to deal with. Thus, they should not have to spend any time learning how to operate a widget, unless this widget is one of their professional tools (doctors surely do not complain too much about the complexity of certain medical equipment, pilots do not complain too much about the complexity of plane instruments, and last but not least, programmers surely complain when programming environments are too easy to use).
2) Because it is good for you, the UI designer. If people complain, you will push the envelope, you will devise better ways, you will simplify to the extreme, and ultimately that will be a good thing (except maybe for professional tools, once again, where features are often more important than ease of use).
What I would agree with, however, is that users do not necessarily know what they want, or how to solve UI problems, thus the goal of UI should be to listen and to solve problems.
In the case of a box like TiVO (I have not used it so I am just suggesting here... maybe what they have is much better), a way to simplify could be to have a big HELP button on the remote. Click it and a FAQ appears on the screen, with the most common procedures. Pick the one you want to do (e.g. "I want to record a show"), and the box guides you on-screen, step by step, while you are performing the procedure live (like a Wizard).
More exactly, the current way and measure of time is the *CURRENT* basis of the metric system. Obviously, when the metric system was invented, the definition was different. The meter was actually based on the length of a metal rod that is still preserved in Paris, at the Bureau des Longitudes, if I remember correctly...
What about "A First Course In Calculus" by celebrated mathematician Serge Lang (humbling title for a 700-page book, by the way), just as a start? Then, you can go through other introductory book in the same yellow collection (UTM, Springer-Verlag). Later, you can decide to look at harder stuff.
Of course, this requires a lot of discipline, so that is why you have to make it fun by applying your new knowledge immediately. If you know Java, for instance, why not try to design a fun little application (or even a full-featured library) for every chapter that you successfully complete? This is also why the Lang book is a good first choice. It contains important foundations, and you can write cool graphical programs that use them (visual applications will be more rewarding, as you can share them with your family and friends).
I find bugs in the Java "compiler" once in a while. The last one is that the following line won't compile:
package com.import;
As a result, the good people from import.com are not allowed to name their packages correctly. That may be why they are still under construction, as per their Web site www.import.com.
Another one I found a week ago is that if you have two methods with two different signatures but the exact same name, and if one is in a Java file's main class and the other is in some inner class of that main class, then you cannot invoke the first one from the inner class, because the compiler will erroneously report that the parameters' types are wrong. This one has a solution, though... just prefix the method call with MyClassName.this. and it will compile fine.
Aaaah, the mechanistic view of our Universe, that big, fat computer...
Reminds me of those fools who were claiming, ten years ago, that we were twenty years away from becoming immortal (download of our brain into silicon and all that). Now they say, what, fifty years away. All right, guys, see you in 2052!
Mine too. In fact, my iPod's name is SpongePod. Same form factor, after all... Hey, maybe I should have a SpongeBob outfit designed for it? Maybe they should produce SpongeBob iPod covers? Can I make more suggestions? No? What about now? No? And now? No? Now? No? OK, maybe now then??? Ahahahahaha (:::chopping own throat repeatedly:::)
I mean, have you ever heard dialogs that bad? You can't quote a single line from this movie without sounding like a fool. Even the cool graphics cannot save this movie. This isn't a movie for kids; kids are smarter than that. But the worst part is the acting... it's terrible! Lucas has achieved the almost impossible: making some excellent actors be their worst. Way to go, Lucas. Now, time for retirement (may I suggest Tatooine?)... I bet the next time I'll see a Star Wars sequel (actually prequel) will be on MST3K.
People should learn to do only one thing at a time and do it well. Here are some examples of things to do: watching a movie, using a PocketPC, eating at a restaurant, talking on a cell phone, fucking your girlfriend, reading the Kama-sutra, etc.
Get it, PokePCmon?
And what about letting Joe Blow edit other works of art too, like the Mona Lisa maybe? Really, who wants to edit a film except a film student, for experimental purposes?
Yet another great idea doomed to failure. Someone, once again, should be fired...
no need to boycott her, since I assume that no Slashdot reader actually buys her CDs...
Hey, what about computational geometry?
on
Deep Algorithms?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I would vote for Fortune's algorithm to compute the Voronoi diagram. It is a beautiful algorithm, which almost gave me an orgasm when I looked into its guts.
I am shocked that no computational geometry algorithm was included in the top 10 list. Not only have they proved already to be extremely useful, but they are alos going to be more and more important in the future (especially in my case, working on next generation user interfaces).
Where is the bandwidth being used right now? Not on the intraeuropean 10 Gbps links, noooooo! It's being used on the weakest links, the ones connected to US1 and US2. Looks like the porn is much better on this side of the Atlantic. At least, that's what the eurostudents think...
Slashdot Mirror
First, you'd better love what you will be working on because it will take you a lot of time and effort to succeed, no matter how lucky you are, and especially in the current economic conditions. Persistence is key, as said earlier. Keep your eyes on the prize! Second, spend as little money as you can, and spend it wisely. If a large LCD screen helps you see more code and reduce the strain on your eyes, then by all means buy it. But do you really need that fancy sofa? Do you really need that pool table? Remember how Hewlett and Packard, or Jobs and Wozniak started (replace with the founders of your favorite company). They're doing OK now. Third, come up with an idea that is original, not some rehash of some existing software, puhleez (unless you are targeting a platform on which it is unlikely to be ported easily). And have one or more use cases to work for, not just a technical vision. No customer, no money. Fourth, protect your invention early on. Not because you want to litigate anyone (leave that to the professional assholes), but because you will be swimming with sharks (the aforementioned assholes). Whenever there is money to be made, people will do many things to you: suing you and screwing you are two of the nicest. Fifth, unless you are lucky enough to be both technically and business savvy, partner with someone trustworthy who will take care of the other half. And do not underestimate the business aspect. Both are essential. Sixth, try to remember this advice regularly, and more good advice that others who've been there (whether they succeeded or not) can give you. And never listen to the doomsayers, they don't have a clue (or worse, some fear that you might succeed). Seventh, good luck my friend, you will need it. Indeed, luck is an important part of succeeding. If you are not naturally lucky, surround yourself with people who are. And open yourself to the idea that you can become lucky. It might well happen as a result.
... I would claim that I just had some idea about a new kind of porn site, then I would contact the media to let them know that Alcatel was considering entering the porn business any day...
Sure, Hollywood could collapse because of that. I mean Bruce Willis or Schwarzenegger or Brad Pitt could be easily replaced by virtual actors and the average Joe wouldn't know. But real cinema (i.e. that of the non-Hollywood kind) will not collapse. My favorite directors have names such as Carl Dreyer, Andrei Tarkovski, Ingmar Bergman, Satyajit Ray, Kon Ichikawa, and so forth. Those that follow in their footsteps will never use virtual actors because their films are about the human condition, not the computer condition. And they use talented actors.
Just try to send email to some company-wide address for the fun of it. You could try: - all@forgent.com - everyone@forget.com - team@forgent.com - eng@forgent.com - sales@forgent.com - etc.
Despite advances in home gaming technology, nothing will ever replace the experience of having been a teenager sweating over a good game of Defender, Tempest, or Q*bert (name your favorites), along with tens of other similarly sweating teenagers, in a dark arcade room full of machines having a life of their own in attract mode. Real men play arcade games. Quiche eaters play console games. Real men have their 3-letter nickname flashing permanently in the high score list of arcade games around the world. Quiche eaters have their nickname stored in their personal high score list, with no other name, on PlayStation, GameCube or XBox memory cards.
1) Because users (i.e. all of us, including UI designers) have way too many things to do nowadays, too many tasks and events to deal with. Thus, they should not have to spend any time learning how to operate a widget, unless this widget is one of their professional tools (doctors surely do not complain too much about the complexity of certain medical equipment, pilots do not complain too much about the complexity of plane instruments, and last but not least, programmers surely complain when programming environments are too easy to use). 2) Because it is good for you, the UI designer. If people complain, you will push the envelope, you will devise better ways, you will simplify to the extreme, and ultimately that will be a good thing (except maybe for professional tools, once again, where features are often more important than ease of use). What I would agree with, however, is that users do not necessarily know what they want, or how to solve UI problems, thus the goal of UI should be to listen and to solve problems. In the case of a box like TiVO (I have not used it so I am just suggesting here... maybe what they have is much better), a way to simplify could be to have a big HELP button on the remote. Click it and a FAQ appears on the screen, with the most common procedures. Pick the one you want to do (e.g. "I want to record a show"), and the box guides you on-screen, step by step, while you are performing the procedure live (like a Wizard).
... let that happen. What about the creationnist view with its six days of work and one day of rest?
More exactly, the current way and measure of time is the *CURRENT* basis of the metric system. Obviously, when the metric system was invented, the definition was different. The meter was actually based on the length of a metal rod that is still preserved in Paris, at the Bureau des Longitudes, if I remember correctly...
What about "A First Course In Calculus" by celebrated mathematician Serge Lang (humbling title for a 700-page book, by the way), just as a start? Then, you can go through other introductory book in the same yellow collection (UTM, Springer-Verlag). Later, you can decide to look at harder stuff. Of course, this requires a lot of discipline, so that is why you have to make it fun by applying your new knowledge immediately. If you know Java, for instance, why not try to design a fun little application (or even a full-featured library) for every chapter that you successfully complete? This is also why the Lang book is a good first choice. It contains important foundations, and you can write cool graphical programs that use them (visual applications will be more rewarding, as you can share them with your family and friends).
1/2 = 0 looks perfectly normal to me, as opposed to 1.0/2 = 0.0 or 1/2.0 = 0.0 or 1.0/2.0 = 0.0 or...
I find bugs in the Java "compiler" once in a while. The last one is that the following line won't compile: package com.import; As a result, the good people from import.com are not allowed to name their packages correctly. That may be why they are still under construction, as per their Web site www.import.com. Another one I found a week ago is that if you have two methods with two different signatures but the exact same name, and if one is in a Java file's main class and the other is in some inner class of that main class, then you cannot invoke the first one from the inner class, because the compiler will erroneously report that the parameters' types are wrong. This one has a solution, though... just prefix the method call with MyClassName.this. and it will compile fine.
Aaaah, the mechanistic view of our Universe, that big, fat computer... Reminds me of those fools who were claiming, ten years ago, that we were twenty years away from becoming immortal (download of our brain into silicon and all that). Now they say, what, fifty years away. All right, guys, see you in 2052!
Mine too. In fact, my iPod's name is SpongePod. Same form factor, after all... Hey, maybe I should have a SpongeBob outfit designed for it? Maybe they should produce SpongeBob iPod covers? Can I make more suggestions? No? What about now? No? And now? No? Now? No? OK, maybe now then??? Ahahahahaha (:::chopping own throat repeatedly:::)
I mean, have you ever heard dialogs that bad? You can't quote a single line from this movie without sounding like a fool. Even the cool graphics cannot save this movie. This isn't a movie for kids; kids are smarter than that. But the worst part is the acting... it's terrible! Lucas has achieved the almost impossible: making some excellent actors be their worst. Way to go, Lucas. Now, time for retirement (may I suggest Tatooine?)... I bet the next time I'll see a Star Wars sequel (actually prequel) will be on MST3K.
People should learn to do only one thing at a time and do it well. Here are some examples of things to do: watching a movie, using a PocketPC, eating at a restaurant, talking on a cell phone, fucking your girlfriend, reading the Kama-sutra, etc. Get it, PokePCmon?
Plus it runs on a variety of platforms. Can't wait to make it run on OQO's ultra-PC (www.oqo.com).
And what about letting Joe Blow edit other works of art too, like the Mona Lisa maybe? Really, who wants to edit a film except a film student, for experimental purposes? Yet another great idea doomed to failure. Someone, once again, should be fired...
no need to boycott her, since I assume that no Slashdot reader actually buys her CDs...
I would vote for Fortune's algorithm to compute the Voronoi diagram. It is a beautiful algorithm, which almost gave me an orgasm when I looked into its guts. I am shocked that no computational geometry algorithm was included in the top 10 list. Not only have they proved already to be extremely useful, but they are alos going to be more and more important in the future (especially in my case, working on next generation user interfaces).
Where is the bandwidth being used right now? Not on the intraeuropean 10 Gbps links, noooooo! It's being used on the weakest links, the ones connected to US1 and US2. Looks like the porn is much better on this side of the Atlantic. At least, that's what the eurostudents think...