There is such a large collection of music out there that isn't mired in mediocrity. Sadly, most indies have that problem, but groups like the Indigo Girls and Outkast have shown what kind of artistic talent can be fostered when companies with some big bucks take a chance every now and then.
The Beastie Boys may have been pioneers back when rap was a blacks-only section of the record store, but these days their style is about as fresh as my underwear on Wednesday. About two days late and missing a crotch and waistband.
The real question is "who cares" about the beastie boys latest album? Who cares about 99% of the crap that comes out of the record labels. Who cares about 99.9% of the crap that comes out of the indie labels.
If you want some good music, go look for it on Kazaa where there isn't a problem with DRM. Then go out and support those bands you like.
You wanna send a message? Tell them what you like and don't support the crap you don't like.
When confronted with the concept of alternative gaming, I doubt that American gamers would have any idea beyond Tetris and Minesweeper as to what kinds of games would be big hits. For them, FPS shoot-em-ups are about all that exist. Throw in a couple Starcrafts and Simcities, and you've defined the American gaming world.
However, outside that, there is a whole world that waits to be explored. From games where you drive a train, to games where you undress cute girls, all sorts of games exist outside the small gaming world of the American gaming bubble.
I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with war games (the article is about another war-based scenario game), but that there is only so far you can stretch the concept until you run out of ideas.
Realistically, any real-life activity which involves a benefit/punishment reward system can be modeled into a game. I just wish that American gamers would get their head out of their collective asses and look around at the possibilities.
I would normally say that it was the game companies' problem, but it is clear that the game companies are just pandering to the lazy audience. It would be impossible to see a game house come out with something revolutionary and untried.
I encourage gamers who think that FPS is the only gaming that is worthwhile to broaden their horizons a little and see what is out there. There is a whole world of games out there untapped by American players. Even if Americans don't like the games that are available, the study of foreign games is invaluable when thinking about what kind of games ought to come next.
Think about it. The whole idea of history is that the victors will tell it. The losers will be written out of it or at the very worst written into it as very bad characters.
McBride is about as bland as you get. He is the CEO of a company that produces nothing. He is fighting a movement arguably composed of nothing. He is the Don Quixote of the software world except he doesn't have half the attractiveness.
Leave him to his money, he's got plenty of it. Linux will survive this idiotic onslaught, and whatever other challenges there are to come.
Let's focus on making Linux better for all of us, rather than fighting windmills.
We met at SD99 back a few years ago. Good times back then.
But I don't think it's necessary to be a god at programming (though you are, don't get me wrong). Rather, I think it's a problem of developing the analytical skills necessary to figure out the right way to design a program. Foreign, cheap engineers exist for the rest of us highly skilled engineer/architects to implement our hare-brained ideas (who knows where C++ would be now if it weren't for USENET fanatics??).
The recommendation to take other classes is well-taken, however wouldn't you think that a business background would be more appropriate than something like civil (dirt) engineering? Business is the core concept of (ahem) business. Understanding that makes an employee much more valuable. In addition, learning about the manner in which to go about seeking additional funding and justifying a business plan in front of investors seems to be more useful than learning about how precise pi needs to be before massive failure of physical systems.
God knows I love driving my Ford Fiesta around cloverleafs, but when it all boils down to it, the real money is made in architecting the next generation software.
When I went to some "back of the kitchen" job fair, I met a Fedex recruiter there. Obviously, they were looking for someone who would be happy spending the next twenty years delivering potential terrorist packages, but I was there looking for a job programming.
Turns out that Fedex only hires within its ranks. So there is essentially no way to get into the Fedex programming core without spending a year delivering packages. After that year, you would be free to transfer to a group that more naturally fit your skills.
Now back to your problem. What exactly, have you looked at? Software Developer postions? Well, no shit, it's fucking hard, asshole. There are a million of us, and a billion of you-unlearned, untrained, unskilled, greenthumbs who think they know what's what but couldn't tell their ass from a hole in the ground. Frankly, it's no wonder you didn't get a job. There's simply too many skilled engineers who are unemployed to waste any spare minutes on someone straight out of school.
My advice is to join ANY company and see where it takes you. Hell, even McD's needs engineers. Who do you think writes the software to calculate "hamburger+softdrink=happymeal"?
There are a million positions wide open and just because you closed your eyes to them doesn't mean they don't exist. Go out and get them, you budding programmer.
1) If you were as good as you say you are, wouldn't you be able to find problems with the spec at the outset rather than at the implementation level?
Most serious specifications (which apparently you seem to be working on) get their spec bugs worked out right at the beginning, finding places where the spec simply contradicts itself or leaves gaping holes.
Implementation-level bugs, with a proper specification, are usually the coder's fault and not a problem with the spec.
Surely you aren't trying to 'dive into the code' before the specification is complete? But hell, I've known programmers just like that...
2) Do you think you can do a better job writing "for (int i=0; iMAX_LEN; i++)" better than anyone else? Do you really think that coding is the most important part of program design?
God help us if we base our economy on such shortsightedness. Frankly, it baffles me that we continue to think that brown people can't code as well or better than us here in the U.S. Fact is, coding is nothing special. Coding is what you get when you feed a set of commands through an interpreter. Sure the interpreter is trained, but it doesn't mean that the message is any better.
Concetrate on making the message (program) better, and then pass it along to cheap coders. You will do your company a huge favor in cost savings, and you will see your product finished with the least amount of hassles (because the complaints are being made 1,000 miles away).
Let's see him try to send that spec through email. hehehe.
But seriously. System adminstrators seem to be about the only job you can't send overseas. The real programming jobs are all done in India these days, with planning and scheduling handled to a lesser extent in the U.S. since the collapse of the dot.com boom.
I don't begrudge the engineers in India, I actually think they are doing a very huge favor for most of us left in the U.S. They are relieving us of the cost of developing simple UIs and basic programmatic functionality while allowing us here at home the ability to spend time designing instead of coding. We can then send our designs overseas to the programmers in Inida for implementation.
But system administration still can't be outsourced. Programming can be, but sysadmin'ing and program designing (what's the right word??) can't be done by foreigners. It's got to be done right here at home by people whom we trust implicitly.
Investigations are an important part of the justice system. Though the tenet is "innocent until proven guilty", it's only possible to prove someone guilty by means of an investigation.
By encrypting your data, you are bringing unnecessary suspicion upon yourself. I wouldn't be surprised if the FBI's powers are enhanced to include surveillance of you and your data.
While I think that Voyager is quite below par for the entire Star Trek series, the skin tight spandex outfits that Kate Mulgrew wears draws me back.
But anyway, the crew had just found out about a so-called "Omega particle". The particle contained as much energy in one molecule of it as a neutron star had in its entirety.
Eventually they found a race of aliens who had been able to replicate the particle as well as contain it somewhat. Somewhat, because by the time Voyager got there the particle had escaped and blown up the laboratory.
Since this particle could be used for ultimate evil by anyone who had the predilection to use it in such a way, Starfleet HQ had deemed it illegal and set up regulations that required the immediate destruction of the particle if encountered.
The problem is that the energy from even a single molecule of the stuff could provide enough energy to sustain the life of a planet for hundreds of thousands of years.
So I look at this debate over the efficacy of the Hafnium bomb and wonder to myself why it is that humans have this innate need to develop weapons that possess this much power. Why do we see the drawbacks to new technology faster than the benefits? If the Hafnium technology could provide us with such a cheap power source that lasted generations, it makes sense to pursue a course of action that allowed us to take advantage of it.
Shame on the warmongers who would use it to kill other humans.
It was always a boggle as to why the Post Office didn't just go right up to 20 cents a stamp instead of the weird 19 cents. It would have increased revenues and forestalled, at a very small price to the consumer, the next price hike to 22 cents (22???).
Same thing here. Instead of going up to a nice round number like 1.50, they choose a number right smack dab in the middle. While the price may be temporarily lower now, we can expect that the next price increase will happen faster than if they just brought the cost up to a nice round number.
Something tells me that the marketing department is at work here. Nothing else could be so evil.
Who gives a damn? If you had your wits about you, you'd be voting via absentee ballot and not worry yourself with whatever fucked up machine Diebold's put in place.
But when it comes down to it in the end, it's really a game of very large numbers. Your one vote makes little difference in the final outcome of the election. Whether you vote or not, enough idiots are out there voting to negate any positive effect your vote could have. Just consider all the dolts who blew Gore's chance in 2000 by voting with their heart for Nader.
The thing that really surprised me was how badly OpenOffice supported (or rather, didn't support) Excel's functionality.
You may say that those features are part of the 80% of features that aren't used, but someone's using them. If those someones aren't able to use those features, OpenOffice is useless for them.
The company is 4 guys who cobbled together a distro out of existing parts.
They can't even keep their webserver up. What would make anyone think that this support for this new splinter distro will be sustained for any period of time?
I ride the train to and from work all the time here in Tokyo. The other day an obviously mentally ill woman walked down the isle and asked everyone to turn off their cellphones. The signals made her heart murmur, she said. So at first I turned off my cellphone and just cursed her under my breath.
Later, after it was clear that she had satisfied her mental illness and sat down in her seat, I fired up my cellphone again for a short game of tetris. Please note that I am about half a train length away from her. When she decided it was time to bother people again, I put my foot down and refused to turn off the phone.
First of all, the phone is not emitting any signals of significant strength, especially not enough to cause heart palpitations in someone 10 yards away. Second, I was not talking on the phone, which could definitely be considered rude. Finally, I had simply had enough with her mumbo jumbo and needed to express my frustration.
Now I read this story and begin to wonder if I've caught her mental illness. I am not saying that I get physical side effects from electronic devices. God knows that I'd be dead from exposure by now if that were the case. But I wonder how much technology is enough. If there is any point to trying to maintain a technology free area.
The crazy woman was trying to create a small radio-free zone around her. I thought she was insane, but now I'm not so sure.
Slashdot Mirror
The 10,000,000th post, and all I got was the lousy cracker who has control of my account. Maybe I should change my password?
I don't get it.
If this country were to start acting in its own interests again, and not just the interests of its upper class, it would stop.
I'm not sure it is a country's best interest to keep producing the best, damned buggy whips in the world.
To simply be rid of bad music.
There is such a large collection of music out there that isn't mired in mediocrity. Sadly, most indies have that problem, but groups like the Indigo Girls and Outkast have shown what kind of artistic talent can be fostered when companies with some big bucks take a chance every now and then.
The Beastie Boys may have been pioneers back when rap was a blacks-only section of the record store, but these days their style is about as fresh as my underwear on Wednesday. About two days late and missing a crotch and waistband.
The real question is "who cares" about the beastie boys latest album? Who cares about 99% of the crap that comes out of the record labels. Who cares about 99.9% of the crap that comes out of the indie labels.
If you want some good music, go look for it on Kazaa where there isn't a problem with DRM. Then go out and support those bands you like.
You wanna send a message? Tell them what you like and don't support the crap you don't like.
When confronted with the concept of alternative gaming, I doubt that American gamers would have any idea beyond Tetris and Minesweeper as to what kinds of games would be big hits. For them, FPS shoot-em-ups are about all that exist. Throw in a couple Starcrafts and Simcities, and you've defined the American gaming world.
However, outside that, there is a whole world that waits to be explored. From games where you drive a train, to games where you undress cute girls, all sorts of games exist outside the small gaming world of the American gaming bubble.
I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with war games (the article is about another war-based scenario game), but that there is only so far you can stretch the concept until you run out of ideas.
Realistically, any real-life activity which involves a benefit/punishment reward system can be modeled into a game. I just wish that American gamers would get their head out of their collective asses and look around at the possibilities.
I would normally say that it was the game companies' problem, but it is clear that the game companies are just pandering to the lazy audience. It would be impossible to see a game house come out with something revolutionary and untried.
I encourage gamers who think that FPS is the only gaming that is worthwhile to broaden their horizons a little and see what is out there. There is a whole world of games out there untapped by American players. Even if Americans don't like the games that are available, the study of foreign games is invaluable when thinking about what kind of games ought to come next.
Think about it. The whole idea of history is that the victors will tell it. The losers will be written out of it or at the very worst written into it as very bad characters.
McBride is about as bland as you get. He is the CEO of a company that produces nothing. He is fighting a movement arguably composed of nothing. He is the Don Quixote of the software world except he doesn't have half the attractiveness.
Leave him to his money, he's got plenty of it. Linux will survive this idiotic onslaught, and whatever other challenges there are to come.
Let's focus on making Linux better for all of us, rather than fighting windmills.
Good idea, eh muchacho?
We met at SD99 back a few years ago. Good times back then.
But I don't think it's necessary to be a god at programming (though you are, don't get me wrong). Rather, I think it's a problem of developing the analytical skills necessary to figure out the right way to design a program. Foreign, cheap engineers exist for the rest of us highly skilled engineer/architects to implement our hare-brained ideas (who knows where C++ would be now if it weren't for USENET fanatics??).
The recommendation to take other classes is well-taken, however wouldn't you think that a business background would be more appropriate than something like civil (dirt) engineering? Business is the core concept of (ahem) business. Understanding that makes an employee much more valuable. In addition, learning about the manner in which to go about seeking additional funding and justifying a business plan in front of investors seems to be more useful than learning about how precise pi needs to be before massive failure of physical systems.
God knows I love driving my Ford Fiesta around cloverleafs, but when it all boils down to it, the real money is made in architecting the next generation software.
When I went to some "back of the kitchen" job fair, I met a Fedex recruiter there. Obviously, they were looking for someone who would be happy spending the next twenty years delivering potential terrorist packages, but I was there looking for a job programming.
Turns out that Fedex only hires within its ranks. So there is essentially no way to get into the Fedex programming core without spending a year delivering packages. After that year, you would be free to transfer to a group that more naturally fit your skills.
Now back to your problem. What exactly, have you looked at? Software Developer postions? Well, no shit, it's fucking hard, asshole. There are a million of us, and a billion of you-unlearned, untrained, unskilled, greenthumbs who think they know what's what but couldn't tell their ass from a hole in the ground. Frankly, it's no wonder you didn't get a job. There's simply too many skilled engineers who are unemployed to waste any spare minutes on someone straight out of school.
My advice is to join ANY company and see where it takes you. Hell, even McD's needs engineers. Who do you think writes the software to calculate "hamburger+softdrink=happymeal"?
There are a million positions wide open and just because you closed your eyes to them doesn't mean they don't exist. Go out and get them, you budding programmer.
A couple of things.
1) If you were as good as you say you are, wouldn't you be able to find problems with the spec at the outset rather than at the implementation level?
Most serious specifications (which apparently you seem to be working on) get their spec bugs worked out right at the beginning, finding places where the spec simply contradicts itself or leaves gaping holes.
Implementation-level bugs, with a proper specification, are usually the coder's fault and not a problem with the spec.
Surely you aren't trying to 'dive into the code' before the specification is complete? But hell, I've known programmers just like that...
2) Do you think you can do a better job writing "for (int i=0; iMAX_LEN; i++)" better than anyone else? Do you really think that coding is the most important part of program design?
God help us if we base our economy on such shortsightedness. Frankly, it baffles me that we continue to think that brown people can't code as well or better than us here in the U.S. Fact is, coding is nothing special. Coding is what you get when you feed a set of commands through an interpreter. Sure the interpreter is trained, but it doesn't mean that the message is any better.
Concetrate on making the message (program) better, and then pass it along to cheap coders. You will do your company a huge favor in cost savings, and you will see your product finished with the least amount of hassles (because the complaints are being made 1,000 miles away).
Let's see him try to send that spec through email. hehehe.
But seriously. System adminstrators seem to be about the only job you can't send overseas. The real programming jobs are all done in India these days, with planning and scheduling handled to a lesser extent in the U.S. since the collapse of the dot.com boom.
I don't begrudge the engineers in India, I actually think they are doing a very huge favor for most of us left in the U.S. They are relieving us of the cost of developing simple UIs and basic programmatic functionality while allowing us here at home the ability to spend time designing instead of coding. We can then send our designs overseas to the programmers in Inida for implementation.
But system administration still can't be outsourced. Programming can be, but sysadmin'ing and program designing (what's the right word??) can't be done by foreigners. It's got to be done right here at home by people whom we trust implicitly.
Halfway through I was expecting the interviewer to ask them what their favorite colors and favorite musicians were.
Maybe he did ask. Did anyone make it through the second half?
Investigations are an important part of the justice system. Though the tenet is "innocent until proven guilty", it's only possible to prove someone guilty by means of an investigation.
By encrypting your data, you are bringing unnecessary suspicion upon yourself. I wouldn't be surprised if the FBI's powers are enhanced to include surveillance of you and your data.
But I guess it?s like us Americans to take to court those who we can?t beat in the marketplace?
?This is my first post from a Linux box? I?m 1337 now??
While I think that Voyager is quite below par for the entire Star Trek series, the skin tight spandex outfits that Kate Mulgrew wears draws me back.
But anyway, the crew had just found out about a so-called "Omega particle". The particle contained as much energy in one molecule of it as a neutron star had in its entirety.
Eventually they found a race of aliens who had been able to replicate the particle as well as contain it somewhat. Somewhat, because by the time Voyager got there the particle had escaped and blown up the laboratory.
Since this particle could be used for ultimate evil by anyone who had the predilection to use it in such a way, Starfleet HQ had deemed it illegal and set up regulations that required the immediate destruction of the particle if encountered.
The problem is that the energy from even a single molecule of the stuff could provide enough energy to sustain the life of a planet for hundreds of thousands of years.
So I look at this debate over the efficacy of the Hafnium bomb and wonder to myself why it is that humans have this innate need to develop weapons that possess this much power. Why do we see the drawbacks to new technology faster than the benefits? If the Hafnium technology could provide us with such a cheap power source that lasted generations, it makes sense to pursue a course of action that allowed us to take advantage of it.
Shame on the warmongers who would use it to kill other humans.
Not sure they have those in Germany, but a few years put away in whatever the Kraut equivalent to it would be appropriate.
Send a message.
Powering those little cable boxes and HDD recorders is where the money lies in the near to mid-term.
The desktop is for all intents and purposes a locked up market. Get a deal with Intel to fry your chip onto the mobos and you're home free.
But the embedded world is still the Wild West of technology.
It was always a boggle as to why the Post Office didn't just go right up to 20 cents a stamp instead of the weird 19 cents. It would have increased revenues and forestalled, at a very small price to the consumer, the next price hike to 22 cents (22???).
Same thing here. Instead of going up to a nice round number like 1.50, they choose a number right smack dab in the middle. While the price may be temporarily lower now, we can expect that the next price increase will happen faster than if they just brought the cost up to a nice round number.
Something tells me that the marketing department is at work here. Nothing else could be so evil.
Who gives a damn? If you had your wits about you, you'd be voting via absentee ballot and not worry yourself with whatever fucked up machine Diebold's put in place.
But when it comes down to it in the end, it's really a game of very large numbers. Your one vote makes little difference in the final outcome of the election. Whether you vote or not, enough idiots are out there voting to negate any positive effect your vote could have. Just consider all the dolts who blew Gore's chance in 2000 by voting with their heart for Nader.
The thing that really surprised me was how badly OpenOffice supported (or rather, didn't support) Excel's functionality.
You may say that those features are part of the 80% of features that aren't used, but someone's using them. If those someones aren't able to use those features, OpenOffice is useless for them.
The company is 4 guys who cobbled together a distro out of existing parts.
They can't even keep their webserver up. What would make anyone think that this support for this new splinter distro will be sustained for any period of time?
Sounds just like every other Linux distro out there.
Which brings up an interesting question. Is emulating Windows on Linux better than emulating Unix on Windows? WINE vs. Cygwin? Sex with Mare?
While it might suck having to pay a nickel for music off of iTunes, at least I know that my data can be backed up in a manner of my own choosing.
Why didn't they have Sulu at the helm?
I ride the train to and from work all the time here in Tokyo. The other day an obviously mentally ill woman walked down the isle and asked everyone to turn off their cellphones. The signals made her heart murmur, she said. So at first I turned off my cellphone and just cursed her under my breath.
Later, after it was clear that she had satisfied her mental illness and sat down in her seat, I fired up my cellphone again for a short game of tetris. Please note that I am about half a train length away from her. When she decided it was time to bother people again, I put my foot down and refused to turn off the phone.
First of all, the phone is not emitting any signals of significant strength, especially not enough to cause heart palpitations in someone 10 yards away. Second, I was not talking on the phone, which could definitely be considered rude. Finally, I had simply had enough with her mumbo jumbo and needed to express my frustration.
Now I read this story and begin to wonder if I've caught her mental illness. I am not saying that I get physical side effects from electronic devices. God knows that I'd be dead from exposure by now if that were the case. But I wonder how much technology is enough. If there is any point to trying to maintain a technology free area.
The crazy woman was trying to create a small radio-free zone around her. I thought she was insane, but now I'm not so sure.
If you're running forward!
No one's going to buy a shoe you can't walk backwards in.