Not only do we taxpayers get to carry on subsidising the world's poor and keeping their leaders in designer shoes, now as customers of the drugs companies, we get to subsidise their medicines as well.
I give to charities, domestic and foreign, because I've decided they are deserving of my money. It is not the job of Government to do so on my behalf.
This was marked as a Troll!? *sigh* How is this any different than the higher-ranked posts above that all but drip with condemnation for the Eeeeviillllll Corporation even when the corporation is actually doing *something* to lower costs?
Seriously though, I am certain he is going to point to this as conditioned behavior caused by gaming, cause, you know, gamers will jump through an actual flaming door, despite the heat and all. A message for ya, Jack: Gamers may be conditioned by games, but only when actually playing games.
Cliffs and ponds are far more common than building fires and we don't see crumpled or floating bodies of gamers beside these natural hazards despite their low danger level in video games.
I doubt anyone but you will read this but I found this comment great. I am a self-taught developer and when I learned C, I was driven by a need I had to create a list of pointers that pointed to the next element in the list as well as an object on the heap. I could even "walk" the list for sequential processing! I felt very proud of myself for having come up with such a novel idea and truly believed had something that other developers might be able to use.
This was in 1989 or so.
*sigh*
Anyway, great comment; it really sent me for a trip down memory lane (no pun intended).
It seems that having Arther Anderson on your resume would be the disqualifying point.
This makes little sense. Using your logic, working for a failed software firm should disqualify one for further software employment. I would wager that a fair number of the rank and file had no idea what was going on at Enron, even if they were assigned to the case, and do not to deserve to be labeled negatively just because of bad decisions higher in the company.
As a developer, privacy of my users is of paramount importance. I have grown increasingly concerned with Google's apparently incessant need to pry into my searches and my browsing habits. Where once I was a major Google supporter, I have trimmed my use of their service back from email and toolbars to simple searches and now even won't use their service at all if I am searching for anything that may be misconstrued at some point by guys in dark suits with plastic ID badges.
The last thing I am going to do as a developer is force my users into a situation where they can feed the Google Logging Engine.
Now I am no fuel-efficient car hater but I really hate the way green businesses of all kinds show the consumer how rosy everything will be once the user buys their product. These cars are no example.
What isn't mentioned in the article and is far too often overlooked in these the-earth-is-saved solutions is the total impact to the environment on the solution. Sure, the car is efficient and uses less Evil Oil. Great. But how efficient is the battery making process? What is the impact on the environment, and in this case, on the overall efficiency of the entire energy conversion process from acquisition of all of the vehicle's raw materials to destruction and storage of the vehicle? What are we going to do with the batteries once they fail and how much energy will it cost to dispose/recycle them properly? What new (and possible damaging) wastes would be generated, how much will it cost us to dispose of these wasts and what will the environmental impact of this be?
All of these costs and considerations should be included as well, but they aren't. All we consumers are told is how the car is cheaper in the long run and will be "better for the environment". Will this still be true if they make 3-5 million of these battery packs a year? 20 million?
It is similar to the "energy efficient bulb" fiasco. Yes the bulbs last a long time and are energy efficient. And yes, they cost $10, far more than a regular incandescent bulb, but they pay for themselves with longevity and energy savings. But these "green bulbs" contain mercury. Break one, and you probably need HAZMAT to visit your house. And this doesn't even consider all of the new mercury we are finding, refining/recycling and utilizing, mercury that wouldn't be otherwise put into the environment in the absence of these bulbs.
I like to think I am as paranoid as the next/. poster, but this crap about betting on terrorism is, well, crap. RTFA people! The introductory paragraph states what kind of things the market focuses on:
"...by trading futures contracts that deal with underlying fundamentals of relevance to the Middle East. Initially, PAM will focus on the economic, civil, and military futures of Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey and the impact of U.S. involvement with each.
(emphasis mine)
Since when do terrorist acts represent an underlying fundemental of the countries in question? The idea is to garner data that can help guide the US policy in an extremely complicated and interrelated area of the world. The policy that would be affected would be *stratgeic* economic and military policy, not low-level tactical decision making, like deciding wether a particular Arab or Jew should be allowed to board a bus.
I went through the same thing a few years ago when meeting with the CEO of a private company. I was going for the Director of Development position, reporting to the COO. During the interview, the subject of work hours came up and how I would ensure that I could keep the hardware and software staff engaged and productive during the (expected) 60-plus hour weeks. Rather than answer the question, I mentioned how unproductive I felt extended overtime was to a development staff and how it led to burnout and turnover. It was something I had experienced first hand at the company I was working for at the time (where we eventually lost 10 out of 14 developers during a nine month stint of 70-90 hour weeks). His response was very close to: âYoung people donâ(TM)t have that problem. Get them fresh out of college, or before. They donâ(TM)t have families. They can work all night if needed. Older people arenâ(TM)t cut out for the software development environment anymore.â I was 32 at the time and, looking back on it, hadnâ(TM)t begun to peak on my output from a managerial or development standpoint.
The job was great. It was 3 miles from home, paid six figures and dealt with cool technology. My wife was pressuring me to take their first offer but they never called back. I heard indirectly that I wasnâ(TM)t aggressive enough for the job they had in mind. I drive passt that place every day on my way to my new job. I donâ(TM)t regret what happened in that interview whatsoever.
That did it! I thought I had checked all the settings but must have skipped that one in my haste. I know that this post will prolly never be seen by human eyes, but just in case someone has the same problem, it's here.
Thanks much for your advice.
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(1) finally being happy with wandering around my cube farm at work
or
(2) joining the other white lab mice on their team to program the Earth supercomputer
By 'a large number of defects' do you mean larger than expected? The "average developer" creates between 50 and 150 bugs per KLOC (thousand lines of code) of new code. Is your error rate higher than this? What other metrics do you have in place to indicate that the error rate is high? How many errors are they creating in this release versus the previous release? How many did you expect? The phrasing of your question implies that these basic metrics are not known and thus your statement about the number of errors is not meaningful. If you want to improve software quality, one place to start is to make some basic measurements and predictions so you can track your progress and detect anomalies as they occur.
Secondly, developers, not testing/QA, are solely responsible for code quality. You cannot test quality into the system; it must be designed and constructed into the system from its inception. If the developers are creating too many errors, examine the development process. It must include formal code reviews (80-90% of all bugs will be found in review) and adequate time to refine the requirements, develop a sensible design and build the software.
Pick up a copy of "Code Complete"; it'll help alot.
A couple of previous posts have pointed out that you need to have hardware experience in addition to a CS degree. I completely agree, and I also agree that getting the exact hardware experience required by a certain employer is a challenge because of the lack of publicly available eval boards. A great way to gain integrated hardware and software experience is industrial automation. Many custom machine builders are using C/C++ (and other languages) on a variety of chips and Real Time Operating Systems and are desperate for coders that are willing to roll up their sleeves and dive into the hardware to get the job done. While not highly glamorous, you can gain real hardware/software experience, solve thorny problems and learn to code for 24/7 uptime and high-safety situations. After a few years in this field, you will be able to approach nearly any chipset/board/RTOS situation, fire it up on the bench, and start banging code. Once you can show potential employers you understand and can deal with the challenges associated with embedded coding, making the move to "commercial" embedded development will be much easier.
Slashdot Mirror
For the ASCII--challenged, the message above is: Prince can bite my shiny metal ass!
Not only do we taxpayers get to carry on subsidising the world's poor and keeping their leaders in designer shoes, now as customers of the drugs companies, we get to subsidise their medicines as well.
I give to charities, domestic and foreign, because I've decided they are deserving of my money. It is not the job of Government to do so on my behalf.
This was marked as a Troll!? *sigh* How is this any different than the higher-ranked posts above that all but drip with condemnation for the Eeeeviillllll Corporation even when the corporation is actually doing *something* to lower costs?
Ahh Leftdot, you do not disappoint.
Jack Thompsonwhen you really need him!?
Seriously though, I am certain he is going to point to this as conditioned behavior caused by gaming, cause, you know, gamers will jump through an actual flaming door, despite the heat and all. A message for ya, Jack: Gamers may be conditioned by games, but only when actually playing games.
Cliffs and ponds are far more common than building fires and we don't see crumpled or floating bodies of gamers beside these natural hazards despite their low danger level in video games.
I doubt anyone but you will read this but I found this comment great. I am a self-taught developer and when I learned C, I was driven by a need I had to create a list of pointers that pointed to the next element in the list as well as an object on the heap. I could even "walk" the list for sequential processing! I felt very proud of myself for having come up with such a novel idea and truly believed had something that other developers might be able to use. This was in 1989 or so. *sigh* Anyway, great comment; it really sent me for a trip down memory lane (no pun intended).
Tell that to someone living on $500 a month.
If you really *are* living on $500 a month and TV is your biggest concern, then you have a priority problem.
So I guess we should be led to believe there really *is* scientific backing for the old "smell my finger", eh?
It seems that having Arther Anderson on your resume would be the disqualifying point.
This makes little sense. Using your logic, working for a failed software firm should disqualify one for further software employment. I would wager that a fair number of the rank and file had no idea what was going on at Enron, even if they were assigned to the case, and do not to deserve to be labeled negatively just because of bad decisions higher in the company.
so uh it is a Fedora-based computer-dating service designed to to use spare Fedora cycles to match *nix nerds with potential mates?
As a developer, privacy of my users is of paramount importance. I have grown increasingly concerned with Google's apparently incessant need to pry into my searches and my browsing habits. Where once I was a major Google supporter, I have trimmed my use of their service back from email and toolbars to simple searches and now even won't use their service at all if I am searching for anything that may be misconstrued at some point by guys in dark suits with plastic ID badges. The last thing I am going to do as a developer is force my users into a situation where they can feed the Google Logging Engine.
Now I am no fuel-efficient car hater but I really hate the way green businesses of all kinds show the consumer how rosy everything will be once the user buys their product. These cars are no example.
What isn't mentioned in the article and is far too often overlooked in these the-earth-is-saved solutions is the total impact to the environment on the solution. Sure, the car is efficient and uses less Evil Oil. Great. But how efficient is the battery making process? What is the impact on the environment, and in this case, on the overall efficiency of the entire energy conversion process from acquisition of all of the vehicle's raw materials to destruction and storage of the vehicle? What are we going to do with the batteries once they fail and how much energy will it cost to dispose/recycle them properly? What new (and possible damaging) wastes would be generated, how much will it cost us to dispose of these wasts and what will the environmental impact of this be?
All of these costs and considerations should be included as well, but they aren't. All we consumers are told is how the car is cheaper in the long run and will be "better for the environment". Will this still be true if they make 3-5 million of these battery packs a year? 20 million?
It is similar to the "energy efficient bulb" fiasco. Yes the bulbs last a long time and are energy efficient. And yes, they cost $10, far more than a regular incandescent bulb, but they pay for themselves with longevity and energy savings. But these "green bulbs" contain mercury. Break one, and you probably need HAZMAT to visit your house. And this doesn't even consider all of the new mercury we are finding, refining/recycling and utilizing, mercury that wouldn't be otherwise put into the environment in the absence of these bulbs.
I like to think I am as paranoid as the next /. poster, but this crap about betting on terrorism is, well, crap. RTFA people! The introductory paragraph states what kind of things the market focuses on:
"...by trading futures contracts that deal with underlying fundamentals of relevance to the Middle East. Initially, PAM will focus on the economic, civil, and military futures of Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey and the impact of U.S. involvement with each. (emphasis mine)
Since when do terrorist acts represent an underlying fundemental of the countries in question? The idea is to garner data that can help guide the US policy in an extremely complicated and interrelated area of the world. The policy that would be affected would be *stratgeic* economic and military policy, not low-level tactical decision making, like deciding wether a particular Arab or Jew should be allowed to board a bus.
It was once said that a capitalist is someone that would sell you the rope that you would hang him with. Hmmmm....
I went through the same thing a few years ago when meeting with the CEO of a private company. I was going for the Director of Development position, reporting to the COO. During the interview, the subject of work hours came up and how I would ensure that I could keep the hardware and software staff engaged and productive during the (expected) 60-plus hour weeks. Rather than answer the question, I mentioned how unproductive I felt extended overtime was to a development staff and how it led to burnout and turnover. It was something I had experienced first hand at the company I was working for at the time (where we eventually lost 10 out of 14 developers during a nine month stint of 70-90 hour weeks). His response was very close to: âYoung people donâ(TM)t have that problem. Get them fresh out of college, or before. They donâ(TM)t have families. They can work all night if needed. Older people arenâ(TM)t cut out for the software development environment anymore.â I was 32 at the time and, looking back on it, hadnâ(TM)t begun to peak on my output from a managerial or development standpoint.
The job was great. It was 3 miles from home, paid six figures and dealt with cool technology. My wife was pressuring me to take their first offer but they never called back. I heard indirectly that I wasnâ(TM)t aggressive enough for the job they had in mind. I drive passt that place every day on my way to my new job. I donâ(TM)t regret what happened in that interview whatsoever.
That did it! I thought I had checked all the settings but must have skipped that one in my haste. I know that this post will prolly never be seen by human eyes, but just in case someone has the same problem, it's here. Thanks much for your advice.
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I gott ask tho, at what point would it have made more sense just to buy a regular computer?
Since when did heavy case modding ever make sense? Isn't the point to do something frivolously cool?
I will either have the ultimate satisfaction of
(1) finally being happy with wandering around my cube farm at work
or
(2) joining the other white lab mice on their team to program the Earth supercomputer
By 'a large number of defects' do you mean larger than expected? The "average developer" creates between 50 and 150 bugs per KLOC (thousand lines of code) of new code. Is your error rate higher than this? What other metrics do you have in place to indicate that the error rate is high? How many errors are they creating in this release versus the previous release? How many did you expect? The phrasing of your question implies that these basic metrics are not known and thus your statement about the number of errors is not meaningful. If you want to improve software quality, one place to start is to make some basic measurements and predictions so you can track your progress and detect anomalies as they occur.
Secondly, developers, not testing/QA, are solely responsible for code quality. You cannot test quality into the system; it must be designed and constructed into the system from its inception. If the developers are creating too many errors, examine the development process. It must include formal code reviews (80-90% of all bugs will be found in review) and adequate time to refine the requirements, develop a sensible design and build the software. Pick up a copy of "Code Complete"; it'll help alot.
A couple of previous posts have pointed out that you need to have hardware experience in addition to a CS degree. I completely agree, and I also agree that getting the exact hardware experience required by a certain employer is a challenge because of the lack of publicly available eval boards. A great way to gain integrated hardware and software experience is industrial automation. Many custom machine builders are using C/C++ (and other languages) on a variety of chips and Real Time Operating Systems and are desperate for coders that are willing to roll up their sleeves and dive into the hardware to get the job done. While not highly glamorous, you can gain real hardware/software experience, solve thorny problems and learn to code for 24/7 uptime and high-safety situations. After a few years in this field, you will be able to approach nearly any chipset/board/RTOS situation, fire it up on the bench, and start banging code. Once you can show potential employers you understand and can deal with the challenges associated with embedded coding, making the move to "commercial" embedded development will be much easier.