Don't be so upset. The Mac platform is attractive to developers and users because it has a high level of openness (say, compared to the iOS), combined with elegant interfaces in the APIs and UI (compared to Windows). Apple will start losing customers if they make their platform less open. And if that happens, it will bring opportunities for competitors who can deliver openness on top of a platform that, for the user, sucks less than Windows.
On the other hand, if developers don't really care about the presence of open platforms, and are happy to work within the confines of Apple's new totalitarian empire, then the laissez-faire world of PC development will disappear. But does anyone really think that that will happen?
Look for somewhere that will allow you to be a jack-of-all-trades. My second job was as a casual tech support person at a university. While I was there I was able to branch out into a few different fields that interested me, one of which was programming. I was able to display an aptitude for it and a willingness to pick up new skills so that when I returned to them after a year of travelling they re-hired me as a full time programmer.
Universities are generally unable to offer the best salaries so they have to make themselves appealing to potential employees in other ways. In my case, they were less stringent about their requirements for qualifications and allowed me to develop my skills on the job. I've spent the last couple of years bluffing my way through at a software company so the experience was definitely worthwhile.
I don't think it's naive to expect other opportunities to appear but you just need to look for an employer who is going to offer them. And be willing to accept a lower salary in exchange for some good experience.
It's possible to understand co-variance without knowing the term used to describe it. Do you mean that your interview subjects had no understanding of underlying concept, or just didn't know what the term related to?
This option was considered, but dismissed by both the government and the opposition after a parliamentary inquiry in 2003.
It would be interesting to know why the current plan is more efficient, if not for more cynical reason of raking in a few billion to bribe voters in marginal electorates with when all of the infrastructure is sold off...
Yes, this article is actually quite an interesting about-face for him. Just two and a half years ago, when Microsoft announced that it was jumping on the trusted computing bandwagon, he wrote this article, singing the praises of hardware-based restrictions, and governmental regulation of the internet.
It seems that he's only just recently come to the conclusion that maybe this whole trusted computing thing is there to serve the purposes of the hardware and software makers, rather than their users.
There are tons of them in Rome. Must be a godsend given the way the Italians park their cars.
I've heard that in Germany the government offers subsidies for Smart owners because of their environmental friendliness. I wonder if the Bush administration would be willing to consider something along the same lines...
Okay, I was being a bit glib, but what I was getting at is my impression that there are a lot of people (yourself perhaps not being one of them) who are full-time admins and would be either unwilling or unable to sit down for an hour or so and hack out a script. You can apply programming knowledge to a problem without being a full-time programmer, but there are a lot of admins out there that just can't do this.
I expect a good admin to be able to write decent software
That's a nice sentiment, and I wish this were the case but in my experience a lot of admins in the industry will explain why they are an admin by saying that the like working with computers but hate writing code. These people would much rather point and click than take the time to learn a programming language. You might respond by saying that employers shouldn't be hiring them in the first place but, at least in the Microsoft world, there aren't enough candidates for admin postions with programming experience.
Another thing is that, due to the proliferation of server software which provides a point and click interface to just about everything, a lot of IT managers will shun software that requires anything more than a small amount of scripting.
I think that this probably has a lot to do with the massive expansion of the IT industry a few years ago. Maybe now that jobs are scarcer there will be less people coming into the industry who are only in it for the money and more people who don't mind getting their hands dirty writing some code, so to speak.
Also, Congress needs to hold hearings on this... just maybe, someone will get a clue.
Ha ha! Don't hold your breath! Not if the Subcommittee On Courts, The Internet, And Intellectual Property has anything to do with it. They, along with the help of Jack Valenti, et. al., came up with the novel idea of linking copyright violaters with terrorists!
The issue is really one of transparency in a system that is fraught with cronyism. Disney has every right to distribute whichever films they like, but the reason that they gave for not allowing Miramax to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11 was that it was inappropriate for them to be distributing such a political film given their aim to cater for families of all political stripes. This is nonsense--they syndicate Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and don't seem to be in a hurry to take them off the air for fear of alienating their left-leaning customers.
If Disney had told everyone that they wouldn't be distributing Mike Moore's film because they were afraid of offending Jeb Bush and other powerful Republicans, at least they would have been telling the truth and we would all know exactly where they stand.
It would need a lot more sci-fi and anime to be worthy of Slashdot. And instead of holding it on the French Riviera they would probably want to move it to a convention centre in the mid-west. And invite a few actors from Star Trek or Babylon 5.
A news organisation can be completely factual in its reporting and still be biased. You need to work out which facts or stories get emphasised and which ones get downplayed or left out completely. You also need to have a look at what sort of language is being used to characterise the subjects of a story. For instance, the term "controversial" seems to get repeated like a mantra by some journalists when they write about Michael Moore, in such a way that it's like they're saying "we don't like this person and don't think you should either".
And if you really think that CNN is biased towards the left, you really need to broaden your selection of publications a bit. I recommend The Guardian. Read that for a while and you won't think that CNN is left-wing anymore.
Many if not
most of the software we use is probably obsolete according to the
latest design criteria. Most users could probably care less if the
internals of the operating system they use is obsolete. They are
rightly more interested in its performance and capabilities at the
user level.
I would generally agree that microkernels are probably the wave of
the future. However, it is in my opinion easier to implement a
monolithic kernel. It is also easier for it to turn into a mess in
a hurry as it is modified.
but Linux rose to the challenge, Minix pretty much didn't.
To be fair though, he primarily wrote Minix for educational purposes, with the idea that a computer science student could read and understand the entire system within the duration of a one-semester course. He refused to add a lot of features which would have made Minix harder to understand, even though they would have made it more useful.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't be so upset. The Mac platform is attractive to developers and users because it has a high level of openness (say, compared to the iOS), combined with elegant interfaces in the APIs and UI (compared to Windows). Apple will start losing customers if they make their platform less open. And if that happens, it will bring opportunities for competitors who can deliver openness on top of a platform that, for the user, sucks less than Windows.
On the other hand, if developers don't really care about the presence of open platforms, and are happy to work within the confines of Apple's new totalitarian empire, then the laissez-faire world of PC development will disappear. But does anyone really think that that will happen?
Maybe they're just xenophobic.
Look for somewhere that will allow you to be a jack-of-all-trades. My second job was as a casual tech support person at a university. While I was there I was able to branch out into a few different fields that interested me, one of which was programming. I was able to display an aptitude for it and a willingness to pick up new skills so that when I returned to them after a year of travelling they re-hired me as a full time programmer.
Universities are generally unable to offer the best salaries so they have to make themselves appealing to potential employees in other ways. In my case, they were less stringent about their requirements for qualifications and allowed me to develop my skills on the job. I've spent the last couple of years bluffing my way through at a software company so the experience was definitely worthwhile.
I don't think it's naive to expect other opportunities to appear but you just need to look for an employer who is going to offer them. And be willing to accept a lower salary in exchange for some good experience.
He also mistakenly referred to Australians as "Austrians" in the same speech.
Poor George. He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.
--Ann Richards
And it's also a handy expression to use when your unsupported Linux distro falls in a heap... R HEL!
*ducks*
30 years is a bit long though... Didn't Windows version 1 arrive in 1985?
It's possible to understand co-variance without knowing the term used to describe it. Do you mean that your interview subjects had no understanding of underlying concept, or just didn't know what the term related to?
This option was considered, but dismissed by both the government and the opposition after a parliamentary inquiry in 2003.
It would be interesting to know why the current plan is more efficient, if not for more cynical reason of raking in a few billion to bribe voters in marginal electorates with when all of the infrastructure is sold off...
By that logic, it's within their rights to demolish his house as well, just in case he had hard copies hidden away somewhere.
32 Short Films About Glenn Gould
Yes, this article is actually quite an interesting about-face for him. Just two and a half years ago, when Microsoft announced that it was jumping on the trusted computing bandwagon, he wrote this article, singing the praises of hardware-based restrictions, and governmental regulation of the internet.
It seems that he's only just recently come to the conclusion that maybe this whole trusted computing thing is there to serve the purposes of the hardware and software makers, rather than their users.
This was posted back in May last year.
Rupert? Is that you??
There are tons of them in Rome. Must be a godsend given the way the Italians park their cars. I've heard that in Germany the government offers subsidies for Smart owners because of their environmental friendliness. I wonder if the Bush administration would be willing to consider something along the same lines...
Okay, I was being a bit glib, but what I was getting at is my impression that there are a lot of people (yourself perhaps not being one of them) who are full-time admins and would be either unwilling or unable to sit down for an hour or so and hack out a script. You can apply programming knowledge to a problem without being a full-time programmer, but there are a lot of admins out there that just can't do this.
That's a nice sentiment, and I wish this were the case but in my experience a lot of admins in the industry will explain why they are an admin by saying that the like working with computers but hate writing code. These people would much rather point and click than take the time to learn a programming language. You might respond by saying that employers shouldn't be hiring them in the first place but, at least in the Microsoft world, there aren't enough candidates for admin postions with programming experience.
Another thing is that, due to the proliferation of server software which provides a point and click interface to just about everything, a lot of IT managers will shun software that requires anything more than a small amount of scripting.
I think that this probably has a lot to do with the massive expansion of the IT industry a few years ago. Maybe now that jobs are scarcer there will be less people coming into the industry who are only in it for the money and more people who don't mind getting their hands dirty writing some code, so to speak.
Ha ha! Don't hold your breath! Not if the Subcommittee On Courts, The Internet, And Intellectual Property has anything to do with it. They, along with the help of Jack Valenti, et. al., came up with the novel idea of linking copyright violaters with terrorists!
The issue is really one of transparency in a system that is fraught with cronyism. Disney has every right to distribute whichever films they like, but the reason that they gave for not allowing Miramax to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11 was that it was inappropriate for them to be distributing such a political film given their aim to cater for families of all political stripes. This is nonsense--they syndicate Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and don't seem to be in a hurry to take them off the air for fear of alienating their left-leaning customers.
If Disney had told everyone that they wouldn't be distributing Mike Moore's film because they were afraid of offending Jeb Bush and other powerful Republicans, at least they would have been telling the truth and we would all know exactly where they stand.
It would need a lot more sci-fi and anime to be worthy of Slashdot. And instead of holding it on the French Riviera they would probably want to move it to a convention centre in the mid-west. And invite a few actors from Star Trek or Babylon 5.
A news organisation can be completely factual in its reporting and still be biased. You need to work out which facts or stories get emphasised and which ones get downplayed or left out completely. You also need to have a look at what sort of language is being used to characterise the subjects of a story. For instance, the term "controversial" seems to get repeated like a mantra by some journalists when they write about Michael Moore, in such a way that it's like they're saying "we don't like this person and don't think you should either".
And if you really think that CNN is biased towards the left, you really need to broaden your selection of publications a bit. I recommend The Guardian. Read that for a while and you won't think that CNN is left-wing anymore.
Or the MULTICS/Unix effort! Admittedly, Unix wasn't nearly as ambitious a design as MULTICS, but look at which one people ended up using.
To be fair though, he primarily wrote Minix for educational purposes, with the idea that a computer science student could read and understand the entire system within the duration of a one-semester course. He refused to add a lot of features which would have made Minix harder to understand, even though they would have made it more useful.