is there anywhere I can register a company and employ myself to avoid it? E.g. If I create a company based in the Netherlands Antilles (sic?) will my company still be affected by this legislation?
Silly question probably but I recently had a good idea that my current employer does not wish to pay for me to develop - so Ive been negotiated rights to develop it as my own property...NOW I also have to worry about what patents I may be violating?
Somehow it doesnt seem worth pursuing anymore...and THAT is why software patents are so damn bad!
Re:Free Jeff Minter VLM with every XBox 360 sold
on
The Xbox 360 Unveiled
·
· Score: 1
I did some research into this last year and Silicon Oil looked about the best bet as an *afordable* submersion medium. Industrial grade oils can be bought with a low viscosity and a high enough flash point so as not to be a potential fire hazard.
Sadly Ive not had enough free cash to pursue it beyond the paper research phase (bored of seeing these experiments with a PII - how far can a decent processor/graphics card be overclocked using this cooling solution was what I was looking to answer).
What concerns me about this bill is the potential consequences on sharing of TV shows (I pay a @70USD subsction to Sky TV and their SKY+ service so I just view the ability to download torrents from the US as a show airs to be an extension to my subscription) - are people who share TV programs going to be liable for prosecution? Is this just going to result in the practice becoming more...circumspect and heading underground?
In addition - what about releases of NON-US IP? For example fan-subbed Anime, which while technically a violation of IP rights has quite possibly DRIVEN the creation of the Anime market in the West!
All in all IMO a poorly thought out, knee-jerk bill that may actually end up hurting the business interests of the same market it was supposed to protect.
Nope I didnt pirate anything. VS2005 Beta 2 (I *think* - it may be the CTP version but cant check atm sorry) and SQL 2000 from my OWN (legal) copy of VS.Net architect 2002. So There!
2005 WILL install without SP2, it just insists on SP2 for the documentation - givent the huge gaps in the docs its possible to live without.
I thought I had patched SQL server - its on a dev box behind a firewall and is only up while Im working on DB related apps so its hardly THAT insecure. The 2 hours I had to spend working out what the issue was and patching it (to 3A from 2) was a PITA though.
Anyways thanks for the pointers to the lvllord (?) patch - I know of it but if I didnt it would have been very useful. Im somewhat loathe to apply it though given the issue will go away once the spiders go onto W2k machines and (eventually) Linux/mono - in the interim I can just reduce the number of threads;)
I recently obtained a copy of Visual Studio 2005 which I wanted to play around with. Install went fine (on XP) UNTIL I tried to install the DOCUMENTATION...which insisted that XP SP2 had to be installed!!
So I installed it. It broke SQL Server 2000 because I hadnt patched it (but wrote information to the event log about how to fix it) but apart from that things went well...
Until I tried to run the spidering app Ive been working on at which point I discovered that XP Pro + SP2 = Castrated System! SP2 limits the number of connections pending opening to 10 (down from 50) and provides no way to change this limit!!!! Unimpressed....
Anyways, given that many pieces of software will only run on systems patched to a certain SP level Id expect that it wont take long before its a required upgrade...having to install it for documentation to work though....that rubbed me the wrong way I must say..
Im being given a mac myself (for web testing) and I was under the same impression until I saw the selection. WoW on a mac-mini? Going to have that thing plugged into my TV:)
Still IS on the front page of google...well 1 click away. And the search is still perfectly usable...what IS Dvorak on about?
While I will agree with him that DejaNews should NEVER have ended up in the hands of a corporate entity when the oportunity came for it to enter public hands; google havnt done a bad job of maintaining it. Its just a pitty no-one has come up with a service to compete with Google on that level since it COULD be a lot better.
Im a software developer and REALLY hate the movement towards dual-cores. While dual-cores will be great for some things (I tend to write everything using threads where its easy to leverage performance) there are many apps (many of which I have no control over, no source access or the cost of re-writing (legacy apps) to be multi-threaded is too high) which need pure-raw processing power and this means its going to take far longer for that power to be available.
Its a bad move IMO on AMDs and Intels part - personally rather than head to dual cores I'll be looking more and more towards how to get the maximum (i.e. overclock) out of the higher rated single core processors - and this is from someone who normally upgrades every 12-18 months.
That said if the dual-cores overclock well my stance may change....
I cancelled my subscription to CoH a month out of beta because they launched with too many balance issues and the nerfs started flying...
My 7 year old still plays it on occasion though...however he also play toontown *grin*.
But yes one of the better releases of the year - may well get squished by Marvel or DCs online games though.
So, yes, if you just want a game you can "win" and that will level you with minimal effort to make you feel good about yourself, by all means, play WoW. Otherwise, go EQ2.
I think I'll play games that make me feel good about myself rather than every getting involved in another life sucking, relationship destroying camp fest like EQ/2 thank you.
EQ2 is prity, I loved the audio - but as far as RPGs go its about as dumbed down and carebeary as can be.
Funnily enough though it actually isnt very successful since its failed to appeal to both the hardcore EQ players AND the mmorpg newbies!! Hence SoE introducing the hidden subscription increase via "adventure packs".
Fingers crossed WoWs mass market appeal will ensure that the day of the EQ clone is long gone and that MMORPGs dont HAVE to require you to lose your job/home/wife/child in order to be financially viable.
2 VB6 "programmers" and 9 months work and they handed off the project to my current employer, "90% complete".......problem being that the 10% that wasnt completed was the design, documentation and testing!
Because one of the goals of the project is to make the XHTML truly accessable (WAI Level 3) and there are about 100 tables (of financial data) that were all created by using tabs and spaces to align the columns; its been an absolute nightmare requiring a massive amount of hand editing. Worse conversion project Evah!!
The point of XML isnt that its human readable. Its that its machine PARSIBLE and that one can use a rather large number of tools in order to process the CONTENT without having to deal with all the proprietary ***** that is normally in there.
Being able to apply XSL alone on a document means it incredibly simplifys the process of converting from one format to another WITHOUT having to learn YA proprietary format/tools.
And to give you an idea of the value of this - Ive just spent 3 weeks converting a LARGE word document to XHTML (properly, i.e. its accessible, well formed etc etc). If this document had been written in OO (or if it had been possible to import it into OO without OO having convulsions on many of the tables), Id easily have shaved a week off that work.
*I* dont.....maybe thats why I lost $10 this week though:(
Re:Supporting Delphi programs are expensive
on
Delphi Renaissance
·
· Score: 1
Heh thats so funny. Totally agree.
Back when I left Uni I had 2 years (academic) development experience with Delphi and was HUGELY fanatical about it as a development environment. Could I get a job using it? NO!!
A couple of years later I got a position as "lead developer" at a small start-up (1 other developer heh). I jumped at using C++ Builder for development since it was so close to Delphi in so many ways. Spent 2 years developing with it (and it was great apart from all those little bugs that Borland would take ages to fix). Then the other developer left and could we get ANYONE with more than casual experience with C++ Builder/Delphi? NO!!! And we were offering WAY over market rates.
THEN the company folded and with 2 years C++ builder experience under my belt I found myself TOTALLY out of the job market because 99% of the C++ jobs out there were for VC++ or Unix and the fact that I didnt know (and to be honest didnt WANT to know) MFC meant I hardly ever made it past the HR/Agency desks.
Today, I find myself in a lead position for a start-up again and I would LOVE to return to using Borland tools for so many reasons....but I have a wife and kids to feed, and while technically I know Borland STILL produce a superior RAD tool; my job doesnt pay me enough to risk spending a year+ retraining again after it finishes.
I can justify.Net and/or OS/Lamp solutions career wise and technically...Borland is just too much of a personal risk and a potential liability to the company in the cost of hiring/training additional developers. Such a pity that it was once THE tool of choice for many small development houses:(
Actually Delphi is still quite a popular in the UK (http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/JS/JobResults.asp?ref erre r=none&SiteID=2&MarketID=14&IndustryID=1&Mode=&Sea rch=Ind&PageNum=1&Industry=IT+%26+Internet&RankByT itle=1&JobType1=&PostedDays=7&Keywords=delphi&Sort =1&Locations=)
It was SO FAR ahead of the field when it first came out, I actually did my first non-unix based programming on it and was very impressed. Sadly like most Borland products, while being technically superior to their rival offerings they have just never got the market share they deserved.
The new series of BSG is an incredible piece of sci-fi, best thing since farscape...and look how farscape faired!!
Whenever I watch BSG I keep thinking of Space: Above and Beyond, another EXCELLENT sci-fi series with well above average effects, characterisation, plot etc. etc....it got cancelled in its first series.
It seems to me if sci-fi is too heavy in the drama department we geeks just cant "get-it" - hardly surprising given just how bad the majority of us are at social comprehension(!!).
Anyways at least SG-1 isnt bad *yet* but ill be happier hearing of BSG or Farscape getting a new series run.
Wish I still had my mod points to mod this up to "insightfull".
I recently had to invite tenders to outsource a particular discrete piece of work. We spread the net wide and got quotes from several reputable firms in Russia, the US, UK and India (were UK based). The Russians were the cheapest, followed by in order the US, India and then the UK. Quotes were in the region of 5000 - 200000 Pounds Sterling.
The Russian teams quote was half that of the US co's quote BUT THE US QUOTE WAS CHEAPER THAN THAT OF THREE INDIAN BASED FIRMS!!
With the current exchange rates it isnt going to be long before its cheaper to outsource to the US rather than the usual suspects...congratulation on becoming a developing country!!!
And while EQ1 may have been they game that ruled them all (for a while) EQ2 is hopefully going to be a major failure for SoE.
Why? Well in game play terms its a massive step backwards...locked encounters, limited number of classes (basically 4 with a bit of flavouring to make it look like more),poor options for solo play, no pvp etc. etc.
I couldnt help but feel that the game was designed by SoEs accounts and customer service departments with the sole purpose of minimising the main reasons for CS calls....Oh but it IS visually STUNNING and almost up there with morrowwind in the audio department, but even so I couldnt help but feel it was the most shallow gameplay experience I had in many years.
is this a story?
Im not a serious watercooling geek myself but even I knew this was common practice stateside. WTF is SD going to make of the peeps with their watercoolers wired into their crappers? *sheesh*
"Eventually, all the "senior" programmers in the US will either have moved to a different field or be maintaining some single system for some single company until they die (or the new CIO gets a quote from an Indian company that will migrate that system for 1/10th what that programmer is being paid)."
GOOD LORD THAT HIT HOME.
15 years ish xp as a developer/sys admin/support/coder and during the dotcon bust the best I could do was to tide me over was freelancing for several firms. Luckily one of those freelance positions became full time...and Ive been doing it ever since; Looking at the (now improved) job market and seeing NOTHING that equals my current salary/terms gives me ZERO options for moving on...
And the worse thing about that...is my salary is LOW, so low in fact that when my current CO actually LOOKED at offshoring what I do (and asked me do to it....B**£&TS) I came in CHEAPER than the Indian companies. I got lucky this time around....
Sorry no point to this post and Ive just finished 1/2 a bottle of wine but I read that and thought "****** thats where I am". ****!
Ive tried to use Linux for my desktop OS since about '94...everytime Ive switched back to Windows because no matter how many times someone has said "its ready", Ive found the experience to be just too annoying to continue with.
My latest attempt, with SuSE 9.0, was better than most...all the hardware worked (and to be honest hardware detection actually was better than Windows) however getting my dual screen setup was a nightmare...one which I had to go through with every new driver or X release/patch. While everything worked in general, the number of small irritating bugs, the number of Windows only applications that I actually NEEDED to use (and that wouldnt work under Wine), and the amount of time I had to spend trying to get things to work that SHOULD have worked...well, it all just made it a dreadful environment to use for everyday tasks.
In the end...I went and bit the bullet and bought a copy of Windows XP...sad day...however no doubt Ill be back at it in another year or so.
Slashdot Mirror
is there anywhere I can register a company and employ myself to avoid it? E.g. If I create a company based in the Netherlands Antilles (sic?) will my company still be affected by this legislation? Silly question probably but I recently had a good idea that my current employer does not wish to pay for me to develop - so Ive been negotiated rights to develop it as my own property...NOW I also have to worry about what patents I may be violating? Somehow it doesnt seem worth pursuing anymore...and THAT is why software patents are so damn bad!
Yes but wheres the damned CAMELS??!!
I did some research into this last year and Silicon Oil looked about the best bet as an *afordable* submersion medium. Industrial grade oils can be bought with a low viscosity and a high enough flash point so as not to be a potential fire hazard.
Sadly Ive not had enough free cash to pursue it beyond the paper research phase (bored of seeing these experiments with a PII - how far can a decent processor/graphics card be overclocked using this cooling solution was what I was looking to answer).
What concerns me about this bill is the potential consequences on sharing of TV shows (I pay a @70USD subsction to Sky TV and their SKY+ service so I just view the ability to download torrents from the US as a show airs to be an extension to my subscription) - are people who share TV programs going to be liable for prosecution? Is this just going to result in the practice becoming more...circumspect and heading underground?
In addition - what about releases of NON-US IP? For example fan-subbed Anime, which while technically a violation of IP rights has quite possibly DRIVEN the creation of the Anime market in the West!
All in all IMO a poorly thought out, knee-jerk bill that may actually end up hurting the business interests of the same market it was supposed to protect.
Nope I didnt pirate anything. VS2005 Beta 2 (I *think* - it may be the CTP version but cant check atm sorry) and SQL 2000 from my OWN (legal) copy of VS.Net architect 2002. So There!
;)
2005 WILL install without SP2, it just insists on SP2 for the documentation - givent the huge gaps in the docs its possible to live without.
I thought I had patched SQL server - its on a dev box behind a firewall and is only up while Im working on DB related apps so its hardly THAT insecure. The 2 hours I had to spend working out what the issue was and patching it (to 3A from 2) was a PITA though.
Anyways thanks for the pointers to the lvllord (?) patch - I know of it but if I didnt it would have been very useful. Im somewhat loathe to apply it though given the issue will go away once the spiders go onto W2k machines and (eventually) Linux/mono - in the interim I can just reduce the number of threads
I recently obtained a copy of Visual Studio 2005 which I wanted to play around with. Install went fine (on XP) UNTIL I tried to install the DOCUMENTATION...which insisted that XP SP2 had to be installed!!
So I installed it. It broke SQL Server 2000 because I hadnt patched it (but wrote information to the event log about how to fix it) but apart from that things went well...
Until I tried to run the spidering app Ive been working on at which point I discovered that XP Pro + SP2 = Castrated System! SP2 limits the number of connections pending opening to 10 (down from 50) and provides no way to change this limit!!!! Unimpressed....
Anyways, given that many pieces of software will only run on systems patched to a certain SP level Id expect that it wont take long before its a required upgrade...having to install it for documentation to work though....that rubbed me the wrong way I must say..
http://www.simplygames.com/mac.asp
:)
Im being given a mac myself (for web testing) and I was under the same impression until I saw the selection. WoW on a mac-mini? Going to have that thing plugged into my TV
Still IS on the front page of google...well 1 click away. And the search is still perfectly usable...what IS Dvorak on about?
While I will agree with him that DejaNews should NEVER have ended up in the hands of a corporate entity when the oportunity came for it to enter public hands; google havnt done a bad job of maintaining it. Its just a pitty no-one has come up with a service to compete with Google on that level since it COULD be a lot better.
Im a software developer and REALLY hate the movement towards dual-cores. While dual-cores will be great for some things (I tend to write everything using threads where its easy to leverage performance) there are many apps (many of which I have no control over, no source access or the cost of re-writing (legacy apps) to be multi-threaded is too high) which need pure-raw processing power and this means its going to take far longer for that power to be available.
Its a bad move IMO on AMDs and Intels part - personally rather than head to dual cores I'll be looking more and more towards how to get the maximum (i.e. overclock) out of the higher rated single core processors - and this is from someone who normally upgrades every 12-18 months.
That said if the dual-cores overclock well my stance may change....
I cancelled my subscription to CoH a month out of beta because they launched with too many balance issues and the nerfs started flying... My 7 year old still plays it on occasion though...however he also play toontown *grin*. But yes one of the better releases of the year - may well get squished by Marvel or DCs online games though.
Ive been looking for subscriber numbers for WoW/EQ2 - can you point me to the details you allude to?
So, yes, if you just want a game you can "win" and that will level you with minimal effort to make you feel good about yourself, by all means, play WoW. Otherwise, go EQ2.
I think I'll play games that make me feel good about myself rather than every getting involved in another life sucking, relationship destroying camp fest like EQ/2 thank you.
EQ2 is prity, I loved the audio - but as far as RPGs go its about as dumbed down and carebeary as can be.
Funnily enough though it actually isnt very successful since its failed to appeal to both the hardcore EQ players AND the mmorpg newbies!! Hence SoE introducing the hidden subscription increase via "adventure packs".
Fingers crossed WoWs mass market appeal will ensure that the day of the EQ clone is long gone and that MMORPGs dont HAVE to require you to lose your job/home/wife/child in order to be financially viable.
Thats similar to my most recent project.
...problem being that the 10% that wasnt completed was the design, documentation and testing!
2 VB6 "programmers" and 9 months work and they handed off the project to my current employer, "90% complete"....
I tell you, I wept!!
Because one of the goals of the project is to make the XHTML truly accessable (WAI Level 3) and there are about 100 tables (of financial data) that were all created by using tabs and spaces to align the columns; its been an absolute nightmare requiring a massive amount of hand editing. Worse conversion project Evah!!
OMG the parent was modified up as insightful!!!
The point of XML isnt that its human readable. Its that its machine PARSIBLE and that one can use a rather large number of tools in order to process the CONTENT without having to deal with all the proprietary ***** that is normally in there.
Being able to apply XSL alone on a document means it incredibly simplifys the process of converting from one format to another WITHOUT having to learn YA proprietary format/tools.
And to give you an idea of the value of this - Ive just spent 3 weeks converting a LARGE word document to XHTML (properly, i.e. its accessible, well formed etc etc). If this document had been written in OO (or if it had been possible to import it into OO without OO having convulsions on many of the tables), Id easily have shaved a week off that work.
*I* dont.....maybe thats why I lost $10 this week though :(
Heh thats so funny. Totally agree.
.Net and/or OS/Lamp solutions career wise and technically...Borland is just too much of a personal risk and a potential liability to the company in the cost of hiring/training additional developers. Such a pity that it was once THE tool of choice for many small development houses :(
Back when I left Uni I had 2 years (academic) development experience with Delphi and was HUGELY fanatical about it as a development environment. Could I get a job using it? NO!!
A couple of years later I got a position as "lead developer" at a small start-up (1 other developer heh). I jumped at using C++ Builder for development since it was so close to Delphi in so many ways. Spent 2 years developing with it (and it was great apart from all those little bugs that Borland would take ages to fix). Then the other developer left and could we get ANYONE with more than casual experience with C++ Builder/Delphi? NO!!! And we were offering WAY over market rates.
THEN the company folded and with 2 years C++ builder experience under my belt I found myself TOTALLY out of the job market because 99% of the C++ jobs out there were for VC++ or Unix and the fact that I didnt know (and to be honest didnt WANT to know) MFC meant I hardly ever made it past the HR/Agency desks.
Today, I find myself in a lead position for a start-up again and I would LOVE to return to using Borland tools for so many reasons....but I have a wife and kids to feed, and while technically I know Borland STILL produce a superior RAD tool; my job doesnt pay me enough to risk spending a year+ retraining again after it finishes.
I can justify
Actually Delphi is still quite a popular in the UKf erre r=none&SiteID=2&MarketID=14&IndustryID=1&Mode=&Sea rch=Ind&PageNum=1&Industry=IT+%26+Internet&RankByT itle=1&JobType1=&PostedDays=7&Keywords=delphi&Sort =1&Locations=)
(http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/JS/JobResults.asp?re
It was SO FAR ahead of the field when it first came out, I actually did my first non-unix based programming on it and was very impressed. Sadly like most Borland products, while being technically superior to their rival offerings they have just never got the market share they deserved.
DRM
The new series of BSG is an incredible piece of sci-fi, best thing since farscape...and look how farscape faired!!
Whenever I watch BSG I keep thinking of Space: Above and Beyond, another EXCELLENT sci-fi series with well above average effects, characterisation, plot etc. etc....it got cancelled in its first series.
It seems to me if sci-fi is too heavy in the drama department we geeks just cant "get-it" - hardly surprising given just how bad the majority of us are at social comprehension(!!).
Anyways at least SG-1 isnt bad *yet* but ill be happier hearing of BSG or Farscape getting a new series run.
Wish I still had my mod points to mod this up to "insightfull".
I recently had to invite tenders to outsource a particular discrete piece of work. We spread the net wide and got quotes from several reputable firms in Russia, the US, UK and India (were UK based). The Russians were the cheapest, followed by in order the US, India and then the UK. Quotes were in the region of 5000 - 200000 Pounds Sterling.
The Russian teams quote was half that of the US co's quote BUT THE US QUOTE WAS CHEAPER THAN THAT OF THREE INDIAN BASED FIRMS!!
With the current exchange rates it isnt going to be long before its cheaper to outsource to the US rather than the usual suspects...congratulation on becoming a developing country!!!
And while EQ1 may have been they game that ruled them all (for a while) EQ2 is hopefully going to be a major failure for SoE.
Why? Well in game play terms its a massive step backwards...locked encounters, limited number of classes (basically 4 with a bit of flavouring to make it look like more),poor options for solo play, no pvp etc. etc.
I couldnt help but feel that the game was designed by SoEs accounts and customer service departments with the sole purpose of minimising the main reasons for CS calls....Oh but it IS visually STUNNING and almost up there with morrowwind in the audio department, but even so I couldnt help but feel it was the most shallow gameplay experience I had in many years.
is this a story? Im not a serious watercooling geek myself but even I knew this was common practice stateside. WTF is SD going to make of the peeps with their watercoolers wired into their crappers? *sheesh*
"Eventually, all the "senior" programmers in the US will either have moved to a different field or be maintaining some single system for some single company until they die (or the new CIO gets a quote from an Indian company that will migrate that system for 1/10th what that programmer is being paid)."
GOOD LORD THAT HIT HOME.
15 years ish xp as a developer/sys admin/support/coder and during the dotcon bust the best I could do was to tide me over was freelancing for several firms. Luckily one of those freelance positions became full time...and Ive been doing it ever since; Looking at the (now improved) job market and seeing NOTHING that equals my current salary/terms gives me ZERO options for moving on...
And the worse thing about that...is my salary is LOW, so low in fact that when my current CO actually LOOKED at offshoring what I do (and asked me do to it....B**£&TS) I came in CHEAPER than the Indian companies. I got lucky this time around....
Sorry no point to this post and Ive just finished 1/2 a bottle of wine but I read that and thought "****** thats where I am". ****!
Ive tried to use Linux for my desktop OS since about '94...everytime Ive switched back to Windows because no matter how many times someone has said "its ready", Ive found the experience to be just too annoying to continue with.
My latest attempt, with SuSE 9.0, was better than most...all the hardware worked (and to be honest hardware detection actually was better than Windows) however getting my dual screen setup was a nightmare...one which I had to go through with every new driver or X release/patch. While everything worked in general, the number of small irritating bugs, the number of Windows only applications that I actually NEEDED to use (and that wouldnt work under Wine), and the amount of time I had to spend trying to get things to work that SHOULD have worked...well, it all just made it a dreadful environment to use for everyday tasks.
In the end...I went and bit the bullet and bought a copy of Windows XP...sad day...however no doubt Ill be back at it in another year or so.