One of the voluteers was able to track down his wife's stolen laptop using the IP address that SETI@home client reports back to the server.
It's a trap! The Emporer allowed the IP address to be found. We're flying into a fully armed and operational battlestation! Those defense shields are up! Call off the attack!
by sumdumass (711423) Alter Relationship on Saturday February 17, @01:11AM (#18049274)
(Last Journal: Thursday November 09, @02:02PM)
This attitude has been in the workings for quite a while now. I'm not talking about linus specificly but the entire linus-gnome tidbit dates back to at least 2005 or earlier. And it has more to do with others not being able to get stuff done or having their projects borked. Here is a discusion line that goes from a printing issue with some configurations on the ppd stuff [gnome.org].
And why should we listen to the opinion of sumdumass?:)
Maybe the guy was on his way out anyway (unwillingly or willingly) and this provides the perfect cover/excuse to do so. Assuming he was an otherwise successful CEO, it seems strange to have to resign over something like this. Or perhaps the insanity that's infected Boston has now seeped in Cartoon Network.
Note: I disagree that the iPod is defective by design, because it does not require DRM. It still works with the open formats of MP3, AAC and AIFF.
Parent responds:
What a red herring. There's no physical or logical lockouts on music on an iPod.
I think the Parent misinterprets what the GP was getting at. He was talking about the restrictions on music downloaded from iTunes (which require Apple devices like iPod, iTunes, etc), NOT on any restriction on the iPod itself.
Re:Being fat versus getting jacked at gunpoint...
on
Does Sprawl Make Us Fat?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"Given the choice of a suburban area with decent police patrols, areas in cul de sacs where children can play with a low risk of getting run over by a drunk or drugged driver, and good schools versus crime-ridden slums in the center of most cities where the only education kids get is how to avoid (or join) gangs, and exposure to pot, meth, heroin, and other nice substances."
This hoary old tale is quickly being put to rest in most major cities I've personally been to (Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, San Fransisco, Denver, Chicago). Cities are going out of their way to make their downtowns more habitable and people are moving *back into* the cities - why? Because many people are bored to death of the 'burbs and are willing to pay top dollar to live someplace close to somewhere interesting (as well as not have to live in the car between the 'burbs and work).
Even downtown LA (synonymous with Bad City in many people's minds) is basically unaffordable to most *working* adults (unless you live in a place where most working adults can afford $1200+ rents or $300K condos). Heck even the Oakland waterfront is getting expensive and posh.
"The kids are fat because their parents are fat and the whole household eats chicken fried steak and gravy on a bed of iceberg lettuce covered with Kraft Singles and ranch dressing."
Are you trying to help or make things worse? Now I'm freakin' starved!:)
"Spawl != Less walking opportunities. That's your social conditioning talking. You think Spawl -> pedestrian unfriendliness and pedestrian unfriendliness == people afraid to walk."
You're right. Spraw in fact means MORE walking opportunities. Instead of walking to the store in 10-15 mins, it'd take half an hour or more by car...walking means you have a round trip of at least an hour! People are just looking at this the wrong way!:)
"Here's a question worth asking: Seems to me that the greater Los Angeles area has as much "sprawl" as anyplace in America. Are Angelenos fatter than the rest of the country?
LA County is BIG (geographically speaking). The average "fatness" of individuals is inversely proportional to distance from the Pacific. Out on the West Side, it's not unusual to walk past 20 women who would run laps around the "hottest" woman in the typical city of a flyover state(I'm FROM one of those states and proud of it, so it's OK for me to say this:) ). However, the further east you go, let's just say there is more of these women to love. And once you get out to San Bernadino....well, let's just say Carl's Junior is doing just fine out there.;)
Whilst it might slow down your progress if your goal (at that point) is progressing, it might actually be the intended target.
I think the very notion of "career progression" is changing these days. It used to be that an employer was expected to coddle you for 40 years as you "waited your turn" and slowly advanced up the ranks. Telecommuting of course would kill your "advancement" in this environment.
Nowadays, employers routinely slash&burn and rehire as needed. Assuming you don't actually need to be at the office and are motivated enough to work on your own, I don't see how telecommuting can necessarily hurt here. If you're depending on your boss for face-time (i.e. suck-up time:) ) for advancement though, forget about telecommuting.
I personally hate the notion of having to suck up to someone for advancement, but I begrudge those who don't (or at least, not as much as I used to:) ).
My question to that organization is, why in the year 2006 do you have employees who do not possess the skills to use basic, standard tools to process basic business information, and to extend their own skills by themselves moderate amounts (not to learn a new ERP system by themselves, for example, but to figure out the fairly minor differences between AP module 5.5.7 and the new 5.6.1 version now in pre-production testing)?
You are there to do whatever your employer needs you to do, not what's in your "job description". This attitude is really bad in big companies.
Look at it this way - these lazy (or perhaps overworked) employees *increase* your demand. Think about it for a second and perhaps your attitude might change a bit.
I just want to know if Apple should now be delisted from the list of "Officially Slashdot Sanctioned Companies". It hasn't been a good year for these companies, what with Google rolling over for China, Reiser murdering his wife, and now Apple playing financial dirty tricks.:)
I can tell you that statement is actually quite often crap. Working extra hours and dropping all sense of personal life for your employer is like putting a giant sign on your forehead that says DOORMAT. Why should they promote you and pay you more when they can pay you exactly what your getting now for the same price?. Aside from that it shows you have no backbone and therefore no leadership abilities. If you can't stand up for yourself now how will you stand up to people under you?
This is a lesson I learned the hard way. I used to spend all my free time at work and put in whatever hours the boss asked for. Now I find I get taken much more seriously now that I have learned to stand up for myself.
Actually, the "hard" lesson you learned is EXACTLY the point the OP was trying to prove. You didn't storm into the bosses's office day one and tell him you would only be working from 9-5, no questions asked and oh yeah, give me a promotion too. You only get the respect (bonuses, promotions, etc) AFTER you put in the crazy hours, NOT before. And perhaps deservedly so. If you bust your hump doing outstanding work and the company is doing well, then you should get compensated for it. (There are some hump-busters who do bad work, but that's another post:) ).
Google is different from all other software companies and show that you CAN do business without resorting to "questionable" tactics. There's an obvious explanation here if you people would only care to look. The difference here is that...well you see......hey is that Britney Spears over there?!
It takes 10 years to gain 10 years of experience. No short cuts.
You need to write a mountain of code before you reach the level where you can debate the finer points for or against C# / Java / Python / LISP... You will learn the most from your mistakes, so go forth and screw it up. Do it often. And then fix it. Each iteration will make you better, and remember it takes time.
I'm not too crazy about this attitude. You can certainly begin the debate before then. Sure you may be smacked down, but at least you'll be learning.
Also, there's plenty of counter examples of people who've done cool things with far less than 10 years of experience. And there's also the people with one year of experience repeated 10 times.
No wonder Bill Gates is trying to get Congress to loosen up restrictions on importing labor.:)
Are we sure it comes from work? For many, yes...
on
Understanding Burnout
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
A lot of people work at jobs where too much is expected in too little time, NOT necessarily from hours worked. Now for some people, long hours are symptomatic of these absurd expectations, but it's definitely possible to work 80 hours and still be happy. It's all about control - are you working like that because the boss is forcing you to (i.e., gun-to-your-head) or because you want to (i.e., time-flies-when-you're-having-fun).
Pressure creates stress.
By reducing your financial obligations, you've done a good job of reducing these pressures. If a client gives you too much shit, you fire 'em. Employees should have the same attitude. If your boss is unbearable, fire his/her ass and get a new one. Live in a place without many jobs? Find contracts where you can telecommute, move, or find a new line of work.
Don't buy top-of-the-line everything. Learn to enjoy Doom 3 at 800x600 with a 32 MB of video card. You don't have to get rid of everyhing, but you have to get rid of some things and scale back on others. The bottom line is that people need to take active steps in setting up their lives so that they have as much leverage as possible over their own lives and so that "stress" like this won't be a problem.
People are forgetting the secret to Google's success.
Luck.
They developed the right product at the right time. Microsoft did the same. They happened to be home when IBM called and got the DOS contract.
heir graduates can come up with quality product but will they be able to provide somethign the market really needs?
Well, it's unfair to attribute it all to luck. Someone did have to invent a better way to search the web after all.
However, as was the case with Microsoft, there were a lot of factors outside of their control that really pushed them into the stratosphere. The most important of those factors was having stupid competition.
With MS, that stupid competition came in the form of IBM, DEC, and other companies and people, many of whom are revered by slashdotters (so I won't name them and get modded to Troll:) ).
With Google, all the big search engine companies gave up on search. So a couple of smart Stanford grads decided to write a thesis on search, came up with a better way(really, just a new way that temporarily got around the spam techniques of the day), and since VC's are always sniffing around Palo Alto firehosing money looking for the Next Big Thing, they were only too happy to throw in the millions of dollars necessary to get them to a competitive level with the big guys from that era (Yahoo, Lycos, Excite, etc). These VCs probably had money in a dozen other things. Google just happened to be the one that took off.
So not all luck and not all skill. It's a bit of both. Gates, Sergey, Brin, et. al would still be financially successful men even without the luck component (i.e., dumb competition + emerging tech). However once a lucky break or two came their way, they just got shot into the stratosphere.
Maybe it's because the average programmer is enslaved in company business. They don't have the
time to create masterpieces or art in programming. Instead of that they are forced to create
something adequate in a given time. Happens almost everytime, when science becomes business.
I don't like that, you don't like that, no one likes that, but that's the way commercial industries
are working (at the moment).
Agreed, but the problem is complicated. Sometimes code is bad because the programmer is not very good (vast majority of cases). Other times it's bad because a good programmer wasn't given enough time to do that job. I once inhereted something where a customer wasn't happy with a product and I pulled open the hood expecting a mess. Instead what I got was extremely well documented code explaining the layout, sanely named variables, and some fairly complicated things happening in an understandable manner. The guy who I got this from was a very good programmer (heh, how often does THAT happen?!). Then it occured to me that the customer simply wanted the impossible done.
Anyway, the typical unsophsticated (software development-wise) customer can't tell the difference between the two. This is made worse when many managers who were supposedly professional programmers themselves can't tell the difference. As far as I can tell, the only way for a programmer to deal with this is to simply BE great and be ready to move on if the customer can't see that greatness. Eventually they'll get somewhere that will appreciate it.
BS: In theory, the answer is simple: educate our software developers better, use more-appropriate design methods, and design for flexibility and for the long haul. Reward correct, solid, and safe systems. Punish sloppiness.
In reality, that's impossible. People reward developers who deliver software that is cheap, buggy, and first. That's because people want fancy new gadgets now. They don't want inconvenience, don't want to learn new ways of interacting with their computers, don't want delays in delivery, and don't want to pay extra for quality (unless it's obvious up front--and often not even then). And without real changes in user behavior, software suppliers are unlikely to change.
There ya go! Time pressures and price are fundamentally incompatable with code quality, even amongst the best programmers. Ergo, great programming is incompatible with most business models (i.e., most businesses don't have the money to make the software they want at the quality they want). It's sort of like wanting a Ferrari, but only having enough money to buy Gremlin. Sadly, many (most?) programming projects are nothing more than an arms race between getting something out the door that hangs together reasonably well and the bottom of the client's bank accounts.
The good thing about working in software-centric companies (besides understanding the programmer psyche) is that they often don't balk as much at being told something can't be done in a timeframe. Blizzard doesn't blink an eye when it has to delay a game by a year (probably more like 2 or 3 years when compared to internal, non-public set dates). Microsoft finally decided to nuke WinFS once they finally conceded that you're not going to get it within this decade, no matter how much they throw chairs. Google apparently has almost no schedules.
And I hate to reply to myself here, but I can't help but wonder if Apple is making the same mistake they made before - creating a closed-technology stack for short term profits. I can't really argue against Jobs for doing this (he's a billionaire after all), but as was proven in the old days of the Apple, eventually the competition catches up and cuts you off at the knees. There's something to be said for playing nicely with everyone.
Slashdot Mirror
This frog is undoubtedly very talented and has a great voice.
Maybe the guy was on his way out anyway (unwillingly or willingly) and this provides the perfect cover/excuse to do so. Assuming he was an otherwise successful CEO, it seems strange to have to resign over something like this. Or perhaps the insanity that's infected Boston has now seeped in Cartoon Network.
I can't confirm it, but it certainly rings true.
Even downtown LA (synonymous with Bad City in many people's minds) is basically unaffordable to most *working* adults (unless you live in a place where most working adults can afford $1200+ rents or $300K condos). Heck even the Oakland waterfront is getting expensive and posh.
It's like the Michael Myers of Operating Systems. :)
Nowadays, employers routinely slash&burn and rehire as needed. Assuming you don't actually need to be at the office and are motivated enough to work on your own, I don't see how telecommuting can necessarily hurt here. If you're depending on your boss for face-time (i.e. suck-up time :) ) for advancement though, forget about telecommuting.
I personally hate the notion of having to suck up to someone for advancement, but I begrudge those who don't (or at least, not as much as I used to :) ).
Look at it this way - these lazy (or perhaps overworked) employees *increase* your demand. Think about it for a second and perhaps your attitude might change a bit.
Wyoming High School students unite to fend off Russian invasion. Fortunately, Hollywood has taught us exactly how to deal with such things.
I just want to know if Apple should now be delisted from the list of "Officially Slashdot Sanctioned Companies". It hasn't been a good year for these companies, what with Google rolling over for China, Reiser murdering his wife, and now Apple playing financial dirty tricks. :)
*runs for the hills*
Also, there's plenty of counter examples of people who've done cool things with far less than 10 years of experience. And there's also the people with one year of experience repeated 10 times.
Relax people, they're (bad) jokes!
No wonder Bill Gates is trying to get Congress to loosen up restrictions on importing labor. :)
Pressure creates stress.
By reducing your financial obligations, you've done a good job of reducing these pressures. If a client gives you too much shit, you fire 'em. Employees should have the same attitude. If your boss is unbearable, fire his/her ass and get a new one. Live in a place without many jobs? Find contracts where you can telecommute, move, or find a new line of work.
Don't buy top-of-the-line everything. Learn to enjoy Doom 3 at 800x600 with a 32 MB of video card. You don't have to get rid of everyhing, but you have to get rid of some things and scale back on others. The bottom line is that people need to take active steps in setting up their lives so that they have as much leverage as possible over their own lives and so that "stress" like this won't be a problem.
However, as was the case with Microsoft, there were a lot of factors outside of their control that really pushed them into the stratosphere. The most important of those factors was having stupid competition.
With MS, that stupid competition came in the form of IBM, DEC, and other companies and people, many of whom are revered by slashdotters (so I won't name them and get modded to Troll :) ).
With Google, all the big search engine companies gave up on search. So a couple of smart Stanford grads decided to write a thesis on search, came up with a better way(really, just a new way that temporarily got around the spam techniques of the day), and since VC's are always sniffing around Palo Alto firehosing money looking for the Next Big Thing, they were only too happy to throw in the millions of dollars necessary to get them to a competitive level with the big guys from that era (Yahoo, Lycos, Excite, etc). These VCs probably had money in a dozen other things. Google just happened to be the one that took off.
So not all luck and not all skill. It's a bit of both. Gates, Sergey, Brin, et. al would still be financially successful men even without the luck component (i.e., dumb competition + emerging tech). However once a lucky break or two came their way, they just got shot into the stratosphere.
Anyway, the typical unsophsticated (software development-wise) customer can't tell the difference between the two. This is made worse when many managers who were supposedly professional programmers themselves can't tell the difference. As far as I can tell, the only way for a programmer to deal with this is to simply BE great and be ready to move on if the customer can't see that greatness. Eventually they'll get somewhere that will appreciate it.
I also cover some of this in another reply.
The good thing about working in software-centric companies (besides understanding the programmer psyche) is that they often don't balk as much at being told something can't be done in a timeframe. Blizzard doesn't blink an eye when it has to delay a game by a year (probably more like 2 or 3 years when compared to internal, non-public set dates). Microsoft finally decided to nuke WinFS once they finally conceded that you're not going to get it within this decade, no matter how much they throw chairs. Google apparently has almost no schedules.
And I hate to reply to myself here, but I can't help but wonder if Apple is making the same mistake they made before - creating a closed-technology stack for short term profits. I can't really argue against Jobs for doing this (he's a billionaire after all), but as was proven in the old days of the Apple, eventually the competition catches up and cuts you off at the knees. There's something to be said for playing nicely with everyone.