(I graduated from a top 5 US engineering college before going to UK law school and an overseas EMBA. I run a boutique media firm in Asia.)
What you are describing is burnout. You should be glad that this is happening now, and not later when in the workplace.
There is no harm in discovering you no longer wish to pursue a career in a particular industry. It is better you discover this sooner rather than later.
Competitive programs in competitive schools are going to be, well, competitive. If you're afraid of competition, pick an easy program at an easy school ("Liberal Arts"). Having technical knowledge drilled into your head against your will isn't a bad thing either -- it is going to be much more difficult and unpleasant if you try and do it later in life.
A technical degree from a technical institution is going to be worth more than a technical degree from a liberal arts college. You are going to be taught by and work with some brilliant minds. Late night 5am coding sessions are part of the deal -- and you are going to build great camaraderie with your peers in the process. This is all part of the experience.
Perhaps I'm showing my age here, but I don't buy into the notion that one should use time at college to "explore" and "discover oneself". One should be doing exactly this before, during, and much after college. Similarly, your education does not stop once you leave university. You will be able to take all those extra arts classes you wanted to later in life too. It will be much more difficult to get a specific technical education later.
There are perennial jokes about liberal arts degrees and they exist for a reason. As an employer, I would prefer a student that was able to thrive in a difficult and competitive environment over one that was mostly self taught if it better suited the position. Having said that, I cannot discourage you enough from choosing a school for CV purposes. Good networking, confidence, and social skills are going to get you much further in the workplace than your choice of university.
A CS degree doesn't necessitate that you work in a CS field. It will create a solid foundation for you to further your education or begin your career.
Late night coding sessions are all part of the experience. Don't choose the path of least resistance. Select the liberal arts college if there are other things about it that really appeal to you, but don't be afraid of the competition.
I don't attach any weight to the previous poster's comments about psychological issues. If these problems exist, they will be exposed in a competitive workplace later on. A competitive college will do far more good for you than it will harm.
You will never again in your lifetime be in such close proximity to so many people your own age. The same is true of everyone else, and they will be looking to maximise use of their time and their own experience. Any experience is a good experience -- at either university -- and the only thing you should avoid is wasting your time. Lab time at 5am is not time wasted, nor is time looking at the sky with hippies -- but playstation in your room is. You will get as much out of college as you want to.
I'm not going to harp on about curing cancer, but this is just a waste of time. I'm all for technology behind the bar, cooling mechanisms, dispensers, etc--Brilliant, do it. Not in front of it. That's exactly the reason we go to the pub--if you're too good to ask the bartender for another beer, I don't want you at my pub.
Get up, walk around, get to the bar. Have a chat with the bartender, with the other patrons at the bar, with the cute girl "on the way to the bathroom", thats why you're there. If you're at a table with friends, call a waitress over. Give her a smile and tip enough that makes sure she looks after you for the evening with a smile.
If you want to improve the visitors experience at places like this, you must improve the atmosphere, and encouraging anti-social behaviour is the exact opposite way to do this. Spend time on the decor. Hire bar staff that are conducive to conversation and genuinely enjoy what they do. Mix things up on occasion, keep things fresh. Hire good DJs or bands, or carefully select the records in the jukebox. Invest in good sound and lighting. Hire a good architect to make best use of available space. Serve good liquor and don't overcharge. Comfy seating. Long bar. Don't hassle patrons to buy drinks if they don't want to--their friends will.
The success of establishments like this is dependent solely on how much fun people are having. Sure you need patrons to be spending, but they're much more likely to do so if they're comfortable and having fun.
This is not surprising at all. Terrorists aren't interested in world peace. You can observe the same thing in Palestine. As soon as there is even a remote hope for peace, a bomb goes off somewhere. As soon as everybody is happy, peaceful and content, the terrorist lose both their legitimacy and their recruitment environment.
Excuse me? Excuse me? Terrorists aren't interested in peace? You make the mistake of equating terrorists with serial killers. Many are extremely educated, family men, and are fighting for a cause. This isn't about causing mass terror and disruption to the Western world out of spite or pleasure. They are fighting for a cause, and believe that this is the best way to achieve their goals, given they have put a fairly low premium on the life of a Western civilian.
This is about 2 different cultures that have been unable to co-exist because of imperialism on the part of the Americans. There are problems in the Middle East, and these need to be resolved by those involved--which, I'm sorry, is NOT the United States, despite oil interests. They want their holy lands to be left untainted by Western militia (or militia of any kind), cultures respected, and then for their people (and by extension people elsewhere) to live in peace. This isn't about racism, religious cleansing, or insanity. Their cultures are different to Western cultures--women may not have the same role in society, their religion may be of greater importance in their lives, whatever, I don't know enough about it to comment, but the point is it's nobody's business but their own. Respect that, and leave them the hell alone. They don't go over to the US insisting American women cover themselves up, nor complain about divorce.
I believe there exist moral absolutes, for example, that an innocent man should not be murdered. If crimes against humanity are being committed, the correct body to step in is the UN. Problems in Israel/Palestine arise because both parties believe land belongs to them, similarly in Kashmir. Allow the UN to help facilitate talks, but ultimately it has to be them making the decisions.
If the US puts as much value into American life as they claim, this is what they should do. First, spend money researching and developing alternate fuel sources so as not to rely on Middle Eastern oil anymore. Second, try and have your forces clean up as much as they can Out There and then get the hell out of there. Do not continue to disrespect their cultures by populating their cities and holy lands with your uniformed military. Third, leave the buggers alone. Fourth, fix the fucking United Nations. The UN is in need of a vast reform--it's just not working. Remove the corruption, lessen the bureaucracy, and only get involved when necessary, which is NOT when the US runs out of oil. Fifth, teach your children about world cultures, tolerance, and how to respect cultures you do not understand.
If you can't figure out the alternate fuel source thing, call up Canada--I hear they have heaps.
Finally, let me say I do not in any way condone the actions of terrorists and believe nothing is worth killing for. But this is not about retaliation, revenge, or retribution. This is about peace.
Next, you add the regularly poor quality of a cell phone call, with its drop outs in sound, etc. to the equally (if not moreso) poor quality of a VoIP call, and you end up with a lot of "huh? what? can you hear me now?" in your conversations.
Out in Asia, this becomes less of a problem with newer wireless technologies, such as 3G which provides much greater bandwidth.
Of course though if that sort of infrastructure is in place, wireless companies are also wise enough to jump on the VoIP bandwagon for international calls before the rest of us are, or at least enough to prevent us getting excited at running out to purchase these tacky cables. GSM wireless plans start at US$9/mo for 500mins up to US$38/mo for 5000 mins, and beyond, before an optional $5/month plan for unlimited international calling to 23 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australasia.
Commercial VoIP exists beyond Skype, using greater bandwidth than our home DSL lines, and for these GSM is Good Enough as you're not going to get a whole lot more bandwidth on the receiving end anyway. It's only countries lacking in competition in the wireless carrier industry that you're missing out on this.
Just another example of us consumers losing out in more socialist economies where the government wants to pitch in to subsidise, of all possible stupid things, infrastructure.
On the one hand you trumpet against DVD region codes and such, on the other hand this.
How price discrimination works is when the same product is marketed in two different and exclusive markets. For example, adult and child clothing can be priced differently as adults cannot wear childrens clothing, and vice versa.
What the MPAA has tried to do with DVD encryption and region codes is to artificially create 2 exclusive markets. They can then price differently and appropriately to maximise profits in both markets. As this has been cracked, they cannot do this. They must fix one price worldwide, as there is nothing seperating the markets--there's nothing to stop me having a DVD shipped over from Malaysia.
While I agree that the region coding system was the wrong way to go, as abolishing it opens up the market to a wider variety of DVDs, it has prevented a local equilibrium being set in countries like Malaysia and instead been forced to set a worldwide equilibrium. A local equilibrium, theoretically, would have been better for poorer countries, but counterarguments suggest it wouldn't have made a huge difference as the market will never reach true equilibrium anyway when the firms are in a position to fix the price, and that their DVD choice would be limited arbitrarily to what was most profitable for the firm holding the monopoly. And it definately would have meant higher prices for DVDs in wealthy countries.
What they have done though, perhaps cleverly, is capitalised on the VCD format. These are still being sold in Asia, and for considerably less money than the DVDs despite being more expensive to produce. These are of much lower quality and are not market in wealthier countries--legit Hollywood movies on VCD go for US$4-5 in Asia.
The DVD Jon cracking had far greater implications for the MPAA than just pirates.
Or how about something as simple and eloquent as per-session passwords. When you log off, you are displayed an x-digit code which you record neatly on the password card supplied by the bank, and cross off the previous code.
When you next login, in addition to your password you require the session code. Rinse and repeat.
Sorry for replying to my own post, found an English link. The same 20mbits overseas bandwidth cap is imposed on the currently available 100mbit service too.
Read the fine print. Overseas bandwidth is capped at 20mbits. (sorry for chinese language) It's only local traffic that will run at 1Gps, and that costs them nothing as they own all the fibre.
Note that this survey only includes OECD member countries, of which there are 31. Notice the suspicious absense of China, India, Russia, none of which are OECD members. There are 271 recognised administrative divisions in the world, not 31. Think about this intuitively.
By extension, I've noticed a lot of suggestions for RTS and old-school low-tech video games, but I needn't see the reason to restrict yourself to video games.
Granted I know that is specifically what you're asking, why not look at online games that require little tech but you can enjoy for years to come. Online poker? Chess? Go? These games have many aspects to them and are far more difficult to play than CounterStrike or Starcraft, and you are not limited by your disability. You'll probably enjoy them more than you will playing Wolf3D or Yahoo Pool with your headmouse.
You're missing the idea behind cost of production and supply/demand. Hollywood filmmakers will NEVER be able to sell as cheap as pirates for the simple reason the pirates do not pay anything for the material. Making movies is a costly venture, advertising or no advertising, lawyers or no lawyers.
While I do agree Hollywood is approaching this the wrong way, your idea is fundamentally flawed. Besides, this has nothing to do with cost of production--this is simply supply/demand economics. The market will set the price, and right now it has done so very efficiently for DVDs. Hollywood needs to embrace the Internet, not implement artificial methods of stopping Internet piracy--remove the demand for pirated movies, not the supply.
Also the fact that its free should be more prominently displayed, and obvious advantages to MSIE should be showcasted somehow, rather than meaningless testimonials.
The graphic design work on the other hand was sensational.
change chanting "2 times 2 equals 4" into interesting problems with interesting solutions.
Whilst I agree with your ideas, call me old fashioned, but I still believe chanting and memorising the times table is important. Kids should be able to recite 6 times 7 without thinking.
Sure, they can figure it out without having it memorised, given enough time, but its an efficiency thing. Its simply more efficient in the long run, given the number of times it'll be needed, to memorise it from the start.
Much like the alphabet... how can you learn the alphabet without chanting and memorising it? I'm all for a times table song, if you are able to keep 2nd graders interested long enough.
Hong Kong is still a beautiful showcase of unregulated capitalism. Hong Kong still has the most free market in the world. Not only are there no signs of this changing, but we're legally prohibited from doing so in the next 42 years.
Being Beijing's little brother isn't exactly the worst thing to be. We serve as a port to Greater China, and don't have to worry about silly things like defense budgets.
Credentials first: I work at Cyberport in Hong Kong.
The idea behind this complex isn't purely the technological benefits, such as bandwidth, etc, but the fact that all of our tech companies are housed in one complex.
Hong Kong is a fairly large city, and when you throw into the mix the fact that many firms are now moving their offices further north to Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Shanghai, Cyberport offers a definte advantage in terms of helping consolidate the various tech and tech-related firms. Using the cited example, creators of digital content are given an incentive to house their operations at Cyberport as they can have all required outside work done by firms within 3 minutes walk of their offices--whilst I'm not familiar with digital content creation, I'd imagine they have things like packaging done out of house.
This is essentially taking the Silicon Valley concept one step further in that all firms are literally in the same building. The hotels help accomodate to multinational companies that have foreign executives come in for meetings and to house guests for seminars.
This is good advice. Forget your programmer self--that is, forget the technological aspects.
Ignore the tools in your software suite. Use as few of them as possible.
Also, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of planning. Invest in a good drawing board, and sketch sketch sketch. You needn't be good with a pencil, but you draw by hand faster than you draw on screen. Set up a clean workspace with a drawing board next to your computer workstation, good lighting, and draw until you discover something you like and want to develop further.
Work in stages and save at each point--you will later discover that something you've spent the last few hours or even days working on simply doesn't work and want to go back to an earlier stage.
But above all else, be sure that the time you're going to need to spend on your artwork is worth the money you're going to save hiring a professional. They have clocked years of practice and simply know what works better than you do. You can produce great art with little technical knowledge and little creativity, but lots of time.
This can also be one of the most irritating "features" ever.
BulkRegister had let one of my domains expire without warning me (my fault, of course, but they didn't help any) and then refused to let me transfer it out to another registrar unless I first renewed the domain for another year.
I am STILL waiting for BulkRegister staff to get back to me, and the domain has been inactive for almost 2 months now. Daily calls have had no influence--they won't release my domain without me paying, and I wont succumb to their shady business practices.
My setup isn't quite the same as yours (I have a central server pumping music around the house), and I control it from whichever workstation I please.
However, the solution is perhaps a less fancy one, with Shoutcast running on the server being controlled by Winamp+shoutcast plugin workstations, mpg123 playing stream off localhost. I do this as the music is stored at various locations around the house, and numerous soundcards in the server allow me to stream unique music to different locations around the house, should I so please. And Winamp is just oh so easy and powerful.
I see this as the most restricting characteristic. Linux users have to keep a copy of Windows nearby to play games... this would have been a plausible alternative to paying the full cost of Windows. Except Microsoft were of course right on the ball and prevented this.
On a side note, I think it would be interesting to see how Microsoft restricts the number of programs running from a technical point of view, especially as many programs fork child processes.
Slashdot Mirror
(I graduated from a top 5 US engineering college before going to UK law school and an overseas EMBA. I run a boutique media firm in Asia.)
What you are describing is burnout. You should be glad that this is happening now, and not later when in the workplace.
There is no harm in discovering you no longer wish to pursue a career in a particular industry. It is better you discover this sooner rather than later.
Competitive programs in competitive schools are going to be, well, competitive. If you're afraid of competition, pick an easy program at an easy school ("Liberal Arts"). Having technical knowledge drilled into your head against your will isn't a bad thing either -- it is going to be much more difficult and unpleasant if you try and do it later in life.
A technical degree from a technical institution is going to be worth more than a technical degree from a liberal arts college. You are going to be taught by and work with some brilliant minds. Late night 5am coding sessions are part of the deal -- and you are going to build great camaraderie with your peers in the process. This is all part of the experience.
Perhaps I'm showing my age here, but I don't buy into the notion that one should use time at college to "explore" and "discover oneself". One should be doing exactly this before, during, and much after college. Similarly, your education does not stop once you leave university. You will be able to take all those extra arts classes you wanted to later in life too. It will be much more difficult to get a specific technical education later.
There are perennial jokes about liberal arts degrees and they exist for a reason. As an employer, I would prefer a student that was able to thrive in a difficult and competitive environment over one that was mostly self taught if it better suited the position. Having said that, I cannot discourage you enough from choosing a school for CV purposes. Good networking, confidence, and social skills are going to get you much further in the workplace than your choice of university.
A CS degree doesn't necessitate that you work in a CS field. It will create a solid foundation for you to further your education or begin your career.
Late night coding sessions are all part of the experience. Don't choose the path of least resistance. Select the liberal arts college if there are other things about it that really appeal to you, but don't be afraid of the competition.
I don't attach any weight to the previous poster's comments about psychological issues. If these problems exist, they will be exposed in a competitive workplace later on. A competitive college will do far more good for you than it will harm.
You will never again in your lifetime be in such close proximity to so many people your own age. The same is true of everyone else, and they will be looking to maximise use of their time and their own experience. Any experience is a good experience -- at either university -- and the only thing you should avoid is wasting your time. Lab time at 5am is not time wasted, nor is time looking at the sky with hippies -- but playstation in your room is. You will get as much out of college as you want to.
Best of luck to you!
Sorry, I was referring to the original article, not the parent post. Had a few beers in me and hit reply at the wrong spot!
(I own a pub)
I'm not going to harp on about curing cancer, but this is just a waste of time. I'm all for technology behind the bar, cooling mechanisms, dispensers, etc--Brilliant, do it. Not in front of it. That's exactly the reason we go to the pub--if you're too good to ask the bartender for another beer, I don't want you at my pub.
Get up, walk around, get to the bar. Have a chat with the bartender, with the other patrons at the bar, with the cute girl "on the way to the bathroom", thats why you're there. If you're at a table with friends, call a waitress over. Give her a smile and tip enough that makes sure she looks after you for the evening with a smile.
If you want to improve the visitors experience at places like this, you must improve the atmosphere, and encouraging anti-social behaviour is the exact opposite way to do this. Spend time on the decor. Hire bar staff that are conducive to conversation and genuinely enjoy what they do. Mix things up on occasion, keep things fresh. Hire good DJs or bands, or carefully select the records in the jukebox. Invest in good sound and lighting. Hire a good architect to make best use of available space. Serve good liquor and don't overcharge. Comfy seating. Long bar. Don't hassle patrons to buy drinks if they don't want to--their friends will.
The success of establishments like this is dependent solely on how much fun people are having. Sure you need patrons to be spending, but they're much more likely to do so if they're comfortable and having fun.
This is not surprising at all. Terrorists aren't interested in world peace. You can observe the same thing in Palestine. As soon as there is even a remote hope for peace, a bomb goes off somewhere. As soon as everybody is happy, peaceful and content, the terrorist lose both their legitimacy and their recruitment environment.
Excuse me? Excuse me? Terrorists aren't interested in peace? You make the mistake of equating terrorists with serial killers. Many are extremely educated, family men, and are fighting for a cause. This isn't about causing mass terror and disruption to the Western world out of spite or pleasure. They are fighting for a cause, and believe that this is the best way to achieve their goals, given they have put a fairly low premium on the life of a Western civilian.
This is about 2 different cultures that have been unable to co-exist because of imperialism on the part of the Americans. There are problems in the Middle East, and these need to be resolved by those involved--which, I'm sorry, is NOT the United States, despite oil interests. They want their holy lands to be left untainted by Western militia (or militia of any kind), cultures respected, and then for their people (and by extension people elsewhere) to live in peace. This isn't about racism, religious cleansing, or insanity. Their cultures are different to Western cultures--women may not have the same role in society, their religion may be of greater importance in their lives, whatever, I don't know enough about it to comment, but the point is it's nobody's business but their own. Respect that, and leave them the hell alone. They don't go over to the US insisting American women cover themselves up, nor complain about divorce.
I believe there exist moral absolutes, for example, that an innocent man should not be murdered. If crimes against humanity are being committed, the correct body to step in is the UN. Problems in Israel/Palestine arise because both parties believe land belongs to them, similarly in Kashmir. Allow the UN to help facilitate talks, but ultimately it has to be them making the decisions.
If the US puts as much value into American life as they claim, this is what they should do. First, spend money researching and developing alternate fuel sources so as not to rely on Middle Eastern oil anymore. Second, try and have your forces clean up as much as they can Out There and then get the hell out of there. Do not continue to disrespect their cultures by populating their cities and holy lands with your uniformed military. Third, leave the buggers alone. Fourth, fix the fucking United Nations. The UN is in need of a vast reform--it's just not working. Remove the corruption, lessen the bureaucracy, and only get involved when necessary, which is NOT when the US runs out of oil. Fifth, teach your children about world cultures, tolerance, and how to respect cultures you do not understand.
If you can't figure out the alternate fuel source thing, call up Canada--I hear they have heaps.
Finally, let me say I do not in any way condone the actions of terrorists and believe nothing is worth killing for. But this is not about retaliation, revenge, or retribution. This is about peace.
Of course though if that sort of infrastructure is in place, wireless companies are also wise enough to jump on the VoIP bandwagon for international calls before the rest of us are, or at least enough to prevent us getting excited at running out to purchase these tacky cables. GSM wireless plans start at US$9/mo for 500mins up to US$38/mo for 5000 mins, and beyond, before an optional $5/month plan for unlimited international calling to 23 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australasia.
Commercial VoIP exists beyond Skype, using greater bandwidth than our home DSL lines, and for these GSM is Good Enough as you're not going to get a whole lot more bandwidth on the receiving end anyway. It's only countries lacking in competition in the wireless carrier industry that you're missing out on this.
Just another example of us consumers losing out in more socialist economies where the government wants to pitch in to subsidise, of all possible stupid things, infrastructure.
This is a tricky can of beans you're opening.
On the one hand you trumpet against DVD region codes and such, on the other hand this.
How price discrimination works is when the same product is marketed in two different and exclusive markets. For example, adult and child clothing can be priced differently as adults cannot wear childrens clothing, and vice versa.
What the MPAA has tried to do with DVD encryption and region codes is to artificially create 2 exclusive markets. They can then price differently and appropriately to maximise profits in both markets. As this has been cracked, they cannot do this. They must fix one price worldwide, as there is nothing seperating the markets--there's nothing to stop me having a DVD shipped over from Malaysia.
While I agree that the region coding system was the wrong way to go, as abolishing it opens up the market to a wider variety of DVDs, it has prevented a local equilibrium being set in countries like Malaysia and instead been forced to set a worldwide equilibrium. A local equilibrium, theoretically, would have been better for poorer countries, but counterarguments suggest it wouldn't have made a huge difference as the market will never reach true equilibrium anyway when the firms are in a position to fix the price, and that their DVD choice would be limited arbitrarily to what was most profitable for the firm holding the monopoly. And it definately would have meant higher prices for DVDs in wealthy countries.
What they have done though, perhaps cleverly, is capitalised on the VCD format. These are still being sold in Asia, and for considerably less money than the DVDs despite being more expensive to produce. These are of much lower quality and are not market in wealthier countries--legit Hollywood movies on VCD go for US$4-5 in Asia. The DVD Jon cracking had far greater implications for the MPAA than just pirates.
Or how about something as simple and eloquent as per-session passwords. When you log off, you are displayed an x-digit code which you record neatly on the password card supplied by the bank, and cross off the previous code. When you next login, in addition to your password you require the session code. Rinse and repeat.
Sorry for replying to my own post, found an English link. The same 20mbits overseas bandwidth cap is imposed on the currently available 100mbit service too.
Not so.
Read the fine print. Overseas bandwidth is capped at 20mbits. (sorry for chinese language) It's only local traffic that will run at 1Gps, and that costs them nothing as they own all the fibre.
Note that this survey only includes OECD member countries, of which there are 31. Notice the suspicious absense of China, India, Russia, none of which are OECD members. There are 271 recognised administrative divisions in the world, not 31. Think about this intuitively.
By extension, I've noticed a lot of suggestions for RTS and old-school low-tech video games, but I needn't see the reason to restrict yourself to video games.
Granted I know that is specifically what you're asking, why not look at online games that require little tech but you can enjoy for years to come. Online poker? Chess? Go? These games have many aspects to them and are far more difficult to play than CounterStrike or Starcraft, and you are not limited by your disability. You'll probably enjoy them more than you will playing Wolf3D or Yahoo Pool with your headmouse.
This is simple economics.
You're missing the idea behind cost of production and supply/demand. Hollywood filmmakers will NEVER be able to sell as cheap as pirates for the simple reason the pirates do not pay anything for the material. Making movies is a costly venture, advertising or no advertising, lawyers or no lawyers.
While I do agree Hollywood is approaching this the wrong way, your idea is fundamentally flawed. Besides, this has nothing to do with cost of production--this is simply supply/demand economics. The market will set the price, and right now it has done so very efficiently for DVDs. Hollywood needs to embrace the Internet, not implement artificial methods of stopping Internet piracy--remove the demand for pirated movies, not the supply.
Agreed.
Also the fact that its free should be more prominently displayed, and obvious advantages to MSIE should be showcasted somehow, rather than meaningless testimonials.
The graphic design work on the other hand was sensational.
change chanting "2 times 2 equals 4" into interesting problems with interesting solutions.
Whilst I agree with your ideas, call me old fashioned, but I still believe chanting and memorising the times table is important. Kids should be able to recite 6 times 7 without thinking.
Sure, they can figure it out without having it memorised, given enough time, but its an efficiency thing. Its simply more efficient in the long run, given the number of times it'll be needed, to memorise it from the start.
Much like the alphabet... how can you learn the alphabet without chanting and memorising it? I'm all for a times table song, if you are able to keep 2nd graders interested long enough.
Have you ever been to Hong Kong?
Hong Kong is still a beautiful showcase of unregulated capitalism. Hong Kong still has the most free market in the world. Not only are there no signs of this changing, but we're legally prohibited from doing so in the next 42 years.
Being Beijing's little brother isn't exactly the worst thing to be. We serve as a port to Greater China, and don't have to worry about silly things like defense budgets.
Credentials first: I work at Cyberport in Hong Kong.
The idea behind this complex isn't purely the technological benefits, such as bandwidth, etc, but the fact that all of our tech companies are housed in one complex.
Hong Kong is a fairly large city, and when you throw into the mix the fact that many firms are now moving their offices further north to Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Shanghai, Cyberport offers a definte advantage in terms of helping consolidate the various tech and tech-related firms. Using the cited example, creators of digital content are given an incentive to house their operations at Cyberport as they can have all required outside work done by firms within 3 minutes walk of their offices--whilst I'm not familiar with digital content creation, I'd imagine they have things like packaging done out of house.
This is essentially taking the Silicon Valley concept one step further in that all firms are literally in the same building. The hotels help accomodate to multinational companies that have foreign executives come in for meetings and to house guests for seminars.
This is good advice. Forget your programmer self--that is, forget the technological aspects.
Ignore the tools in your software suite. Use as few of them as possible.
Also, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of planning. Invest in a good drawing board, and sketch sketch sketch. You needn't be good with a pencil, but you draw by hand faster than you draw on screen. Set up a clean workspace with a drawing board next to your computer workstation, good lighting, and draw until you discover something you like and want to develop further.
Work in stages and save at each point--you will later discover that something you've spent the last few hours or even days working on simply doesn't work and want to go back to an earlier stage.
But above all else, be sure that the time you're going to need to spend on your artwork is worth the money you're going to save hiring a professional. They have clocked years of practice and simply know what works better than you do. You can produce great art with little technical knowledge and little creativity, but lots of time.
This can also be one of the most irritating "features" ever.
BulkRegister had let one of my domains expire without warning me (my fault, of course, but they didn't help any) and then refused to let me transfer it out to another registrar unless I first renewed the domain for another year.
I am STILL waiting for BulkRegister staff to get back to me, and the domain has been inactive for almost 2 months now. Daily calls have had no influence--they won't release my domain without me paying, and I wont succumb to their shady business practices.
My setup isn't quite the same as yours (I have a central server pumping music around the house), and I control it from whichever workstation I please.
However, the solution is perhaps a less fancy one, with Shoutcast running on the server being controlled by Winamp+shoutcast plugin workstations, mpg123 playing stream off localhost. I do this as the music is stored at various locations around the house, and numerous soundcards in the server allow me to stream unique music to different locations around the house, should I so please. And Winamp is just oh so easy and powerful.
HPV and Genital Warts are the same thing. Genital Warts is the common name for HPV.
#4: resolution restricted to 800x600 ...
I see this as the most restricting characteristic. Linux users have to keep a copy of Windows nearby to play games... this would have been a plausible alternative to paying the full cost of Windows. Except Microsoft were of course right on the ball and prevented this.
On a side note, I think it would be interesting to see how Microsoft restricts the number of programs running from a technical point of view, especially as many programs fork child processes.
I find it ironic that people on Slashdot are bashing this. Maybe it isn't geeky enough.
Geek factor notwithstanding, sunglasses aren't needed if you aren't out in the sun, making this product useless to all of us at slashdot.
I may have jumped the gun with the 25% figure. In the UK, a working monopoly is defined as a firm that holds greater than 25% of the market share.
Theoretically, a firm that holds a monopoly on a market holds all of the market share.
Legally, a firm that has 25% or greater market share is said to be a monopoly. This is called a working monopoly.
So yes, legally, 2 or even 3 firms can have a monopoly in the same market.
Firms in oligopoly cannot compete on price.
If MSN undercuts iTunes, iTunes will simply lower their price. End result? Less profit for both.
Therefore, firms in oligopoly must compete on quality of services.
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It's not even funny how much the wheels on my 88 Camry resemble the wheels on your 2004 SLK! They're both round!
Sometimes its best to acknowledge a good invention, and build on it from there.