The US has it's downsides. Certain powers are getting out of hand. But realize that we also have a lot of checks to these powers.
For instance, a few months ago, the judicial dept. made a small grunt and sort of woke up out of the post 9/11 slumber to call the guvment's handling of suspected terrorists unconstitutional. IIRC, three district judges denounced the administration's actions and called for change.
In short, we have a design of checks and balances in this country to help ensure that no groups gets too powerful.
The only thing we're missing today is an informed populace. Most folks make decent dicisions, given the proper information, but the trouble is, almost no Americans have it. Our lives are care-free, and we like it that way. As long as we can eat our Big Macs and idly bitch about other dumb people, we'll roll over to anyone.
Bush or someone will take it too far, and the pendulum will swing back, eventually. This country is too well founded and the people too (thankfully) brainwashed into holding freedom dear to turn into a Nazi-like state.
Thanks for the reply. =) Sorry for being a troll, bad day, poor me, etc.
Without getting into it, I've heard some good things about.NET, but I've also heard some good arguments against it. However, I'm not well informed about either side.
If you have the time, I'd like to hear your qualified perspective. =)
Let me clarify that in conjunction with your "long live.NET" statement, I read your comment about VB as praise.
If it was, my comment stands.
If it wasn't, I'm a troll and deserve any flames I get.
From all the program's I've used and delt with, the vast majority are in C or C++, but I can't speak for the majority of the market. Regarding small programs, I will say VB likely has a good chunk of the mindshare -- I've written some VB apps myself.
And regarding.NET, I'm of the opinion that it's not all it's cracked up to be. But that's another thread... =)
But past that, speaking as a hardcore gamer and music nut (classical and hard rock), and as someone who's owned four sets of Altec Lansing speakers, I personally like Altec Lansing.
I've owned:
ACS21W - crappy $17 speakers. Mid-range is blaring and blurry. Some serious EQ tweaking is needed to get these to sound OK. However, they were $17 when I bought them (online).
Unknown - I had one set of speakers, I forget which model, that had a good sub and two towers. Each tower had a speaker facing forward and one facing toward the center at a 90 degree angle. Good quality, lasted over two years with more than enough of use -- my dad uses them now.
ADA305W - I had these speakers for about a year and a half. One sub, two towers. Each tower had one speaker forward and one speaker angled to reflect off the side walls and behind you for a 3-d effect. It worked to some degree of success. They got very loud, had good quality, stayed crystal clear up until half-past-blaring. Good speakers.
251 - Right now I'm listening to a set of 251's, a 6 piece 5.1 set. They don't have the digital decoder that the ADA305W had, but my sound card (x-gamer 5.1) can do that. I love 'em. They have a rich, full sound, the sub is awesome, and it's true 5.1. I've found that if you turn up your PC volume while the input is on the 2-4 channel setting, the speakers pop quite a bit, but turning the PC volume down solves the problem. When discovering this, I was convinced I had a bad set (bad, cynical day), so I tried different sources and turned the volume up slightly past the point where it became painful. After turning the PC volume down, they didn't pop once.
Again, I'm no sound expert. But FWIW, I'm a happy guy.
Well, instead of the three insidious minor-bullies that play dirty jokes on you, the US is more of that overgrown 8 year old who bullys everyone else around. Look how they treat their own citizens... federal interest always outweighs personal rights when convenient.
I am an American. I love this country's foundations, but our leaders and our people are, for the most part, complete retards.
I seriously want to thank you for a really good idea. Some members of my family support the regime in this nation today, and those same people are going to recieve a good novel for Christmas.
Obviously what is needed is large public outcry. But as eh... some guy... said, the best way to get the people to go with the government is to convince them that they're being attacked, and that anyone who doesn't support action is not a patriot.
So much for the US education system teaching folks these things, hmm?
[OT] The argument for more government observation is that they can't catch these terrorists fast enough.
I ask you folks, when was the last terrorist strike in the US besides 911? The WTC bombing in 93?
When was the last time you heard about a suicide bomber here? Where are all the terrorists?
Of course, that's right, the government is protecting us. They must really be good, you know, patrolling the entire Canadian border. I don't need to tell you how easy it is to walk across the border, as long as you're not on a highway. The INS can't do that along the Mexican border, but the rest of the Feds sure can.
Regardless, my point is that things were fine. If there are "daily" plots against us, and they only let one through in some odd 8 years, I think they're doing pretty well.
It's like sunscreen. The curve of cost/protection is exponential. To get them all, we need to become a police state.
Aye, I'm aware of how it works, I just wanted to bring up that there is a way to do res change through a simple gui. I'm surprised... shocked, really, that this is a "new feature".
I still think Linux is far ahead of the game, however.
I'm all up for being discontent with Microsoft's actions, they often earn it, but I doubt that Billy has a guy working for him named "Vinny" who specializes in "knee-cap work", or that he's known to buy yatchs for people.
Great deals is one thing. Unrelated merchandise is another.
Actually, wait.... custom hardware? Did you write your own drivers for Windows or is this truely not custom hardware?
I think most folks would be surprised at the support for hardware that *nix has. Obviously it takes a small handful of months to write drivers for new hardware, when in comparison the hardware company writes them for Winderz before releasing the hardware, but I've found most everything is supported.
I really wish I could argue with you, but I can't. =P Sometimes Windows is the answer.
Custom hardware? Understood.
Spending money on a *nix expert and retraining? Understood. Change comes at cost.
I'm curious what applications would have to be rebuilt. Are you talking about custom applications on Windows or commercial apps that you don't think exist on *nix? I have yet to find something on Windows that I can't do on *nix natively besides games. And although it's off-topic, emulators handle those fine.
As far as admining a small business, I can see how since most folks know windows, it's easy to perform admin tasks. The "if shit hits the fan, your cheap MCSE won't know how to fix it but your expensive *nix admin will fix it fast" argument doesn't work if you're doing nothing but simple networking and collaboration.
One point to consider, though: the basis for the argument that Microsoft is just trying to tickle India back into their arms is in dependance on Microsoft. Once you open a Microsoft shop, it becomes increasingly difficult to change providers. Depending on who you are, how smart you are, and what you do, you can also get hit with upgrade costs as well. Have you honestly considered and *truely* researched *nix solutions? Have you really considered how much money they might save you in the long run?
I use *really* because AFAIK, RH 8.0 has a screen config that allows you to change resolutions. I also remember reading that on-the-fly resolution changing was just introduced into X. I also remember something about Ximian's Control Center (or whatever it's called) has a resolution setting, but I could be wrong. In any case, it seems you're slightly out of date.
One thing to honestly consider is that the *nix world evolves fast. Look at where Linux was three years ago, and then where it was one year after that, and one year after that, and then now. I've been surprised, personally.
Feel free to waste your mod points and call me redundant folks, but I've read a few top-10 posts on this thread so far and I have yet to see one person whining about the Linux folks complaining about Microsoft's "gift".
I stand corrected. Agreed on all points. I'm still curious about how everything you buy on sale reduces your overall expenses; even women have needless expenses.
"not only do you have to retrain your employees on how to use their new computer altogether, but you have to TRAIN (not RE-train) them on a whole new stack of software."
Assuming that: train = teach new concept retrain = relearn old concept,
What concepts are so different in Linux that normal users must be trained? It's the same point and click interface.
--- " No new licensing required, unless, of course, you want support. If you need redhat (et al) support, it'll cost you."
True, but I think you'll find that a Red Hat license costs are cheaper than what is required to run the same shop Microsoft. AFAIK, support costs follow the same trend.
--- " First of all, if you don't allow your employees to d/l and install garbage software from the net, and don't give them access to tweak and mess with drivers, you usually don't have trouble with 'tech support headaches'.
One word: viruses. Keep the systems patched you say? What about those pesky patches that it takes MS a month to release? AFAIK, viruses have exploited this delay before.
Another word: crackers. Keep the systems updated you say? Read above. Windows Help Desk, IE, etc. etc.
Another thing to mention, admining individual windwos boxes is generally a bit more difficult because of the lack of automated config/update tools that deal with multiple systems.
--- "Second, *nix admins cost more the Windows admins, so get ready to dish out money."
This is an honest question: have you worked with cheap Windows admins before? Most that I know are the types that don't understand good security and leave their systems open to not only crackers and viruses, but user mistakes as well.
And when something breaks, I think in most cases you'll find that *NIX admins can fix things faster and better than cheap Windows admins.
1) *NIX has been a server environment for 30 years. It's standardized and well known.
2) *NIX admins tend to have a higher knowledge of how things work, as opposed to admins who only know how to point and click and are only knowledgable about what a dialog tells them.
--- "For the record, I use Linux, I just think you're being a bit naive."
What version of what distro are you using? Seems that you haven't seen the latest and greatest in user-friendly Linux. I'll admit that Grandma isnt' going to figure out how to build Xine, but once an ISO is configured and copied to all the boxen in the haus, it's cake.
1) Spend more money this year than usual 2) Save money for the next N years.
How you can possibly rationalize this as "hard to justify", I don't understand. All entities must look for ways to spend money, and most changes of this type will take investment. Your 'on sale' analogy isn't perfect since buying these things only provides you a one-time savings (not to mention the question of whether the items were needed or not), whereas switching to OSS saves more money the longer you use it.
"CS skills and good programming habits are not the same thing."
Agreed. I didn't differentiate between the two.
--- "Not many people are going to bother learning about exotic data structures or algorithm analysis on their own. Knowing this material, however, will help people write much better programs."
But I did leave out something. You are right, that is very, very true! Sometimes I amaze even myself. =P
I will have to say, though, if your company does this, you'll learn it when you join. I won't speculate on whether it's better to learn structures and algos in college or on the job... I've learned some from each.
I should add -- so far I've spent about a year and a half doing development and I've been working since May as an Analyst; effectively, a maintenance programmer. I track down and squash bugs, whether they be in the code or in setup. Both generally require hunting through heaps of Bad Code.
Imagine Fortran with no whitespace and sparse comments. *shudder* I hate legacy stuff.
Our newer stuff is straight C, but since it was the prototype for a proper implementation, it's all one big hack. =P
Debugging bad code is perhaps the best way to learn good spacing, commenting, modularity and OOP skills.
IMO, for the *most part*, CS skills are best learned outside of the classroom. Good programming habits come from debugging bad code. Good programming skills come from being forced to implement very complex, real-world systems. Good programming habits/skills come from doing this while under deadline pressure.
These can and are taught in school, but when most classes cover theory and small, 'neat', unrealistic examples, and little debugging or re-use of old code is done, I think folks miss a lot.
Most programmers I talk to agree: once you hit the real world, everything changes. You don't have time to do things all pretty, and you don't have a prof leaning over your shoulder reminding you to comment your code.
Bottom line: I think college is for becoming an all-around, mature person who can communicate and work well with others. Technical skills usually come from experience, regardless of the field. I think that's often a truth of life.
Slashdot Mirror
The US has it's downsides. Certain powers are getting out of hand. But realize that we also have a lot of checks to these powers.
For instance, a few months ago, the judicial dept. made a small grunt and sort of woke up out of the post 9/11 slumber to call the guvment's handling of suspected terrorists unconstitutional. IIRC, three district judges denounced the administration's actions and called for change.
In short, we have a design of checks and balances in this country to help ensure that no groups gets too powerful.
The only thing we're missing today is an informed populace. Most folks make decent dicisions, given the proper information, but the trouble is, almost no Americans have it. Our lives are care-free, and we like it that way. As long as we can eat our Big Macs and idly bitch about other dumb people, we'll roll over to anyone.
Bush or someone will take it too far, and the pendulum will swing back, eventually. This country is too well founded and the people too (thankfully) brainwashed into holding freedom dear to turn into a Nazi-like state.
Just don't be a minority and you're ok.
Thanks for the reply. =) Sorry for being a troll, bad day, poor me, etc.
.NET, but I've also heard some good arguments against it. However, I'm not well informed about either side.
Without getting into it, I've heard some good things about
If you have the time, I'd like to hear your qualified perspective. =)
Let me clarify that in conjunction with your "long live .NET" statement, I read your comment about VB as praise.
.NET, I'm of the opinion that it's not all it's cracked up to be. But that's another thread... =)
If it was, my comment stands.
If it wasn't, I'm a troll and deserve any flames I get.
From all the program's I've used and delt with, the vast majority are in C or C++, but I can't speak for the majority of the market. Regarding small programs, I will say VB likely has a good chunk of the mindshare -- I've written some VB apps myself.
And regarding
"And Visual Basic rules on the client Win32 side"
=) Thanks for my best laugh tonight.
I'll play troll and ignore the rest of your post.
Cheers
Are the CDs labeled with a DRM sticker? If not, AFAIK, they're not following the standards of an audio CD. Hence, they're defective.
They don't play in your CD player. Regardless of what they say to the above, I think you can make a very good case.
While you have a very valid point, the visual animation of the attacks does look quite similar on the surface to that in hackers.
See here.
Well....
First off, I'm no sound expert...
But past that, speaking as a hardcore gamer and music nut (classical and hard rock), and as someone who's owned four sets of Altec Lansing speakers, I personally like Altec Lansing.
I've owned:
ACS21W - crappy $17 speakers. Mid-range is blaring and blurry. Some serious EQ tweaking is needed to get these to sound OK. However, they were $17 when I bought them (online).
Unknown - I had one set of speakers, I forget which model, that had a good sub and two towers. Each tower had a speaker facing forward and one facing toward the center at a 90 degree angle. Good quality, lasted over two years with more than enough of use -- my dad uses them now.
ADA305W - I had these speakers for about a year and a half. One sub, two towers. Each tower had one speaker forward and one speaker angled to reflect off the side walls and behind you for a 3-d effect. It worked to some degree of success. They got very loud, had good quality, stayed crystal clear up until half-past-blaring. Good speakers.
251 - Right now I'm listening to a set of 251's, a 6 piece 5.1 set. They don't have the digital decoder that the ADA305W had, but my sound card (x-gamer 5.1) can do that. I love 'em. They have a rich, full sound, the sub is awesome, and it's true 5.1. I've found that if you turn up your PC volume while the input is on the 2-4 channel setting, the speakers pop quite a bit, but turning the PC volume down solves the problem. When discovering this, I was convinced I had a bad set (bad, cynical day), so I tried different sources and turned the volume up slightly past the point where it became painful. After turning the PC volume down, they didn't pop once.
Again, I'm no sound expert. But FWIW, I'm a happy guy.
The US guvment IS a terrorist organization. :-p
Well, instead of the three insidious minor-bullies that play dirty jokes on you, the US is more of that overgrown 8 year old who bullys everyone else around. Look how they treat their own citizens... federal interest always outweighs personal rights when convenient.
I am an American. I love this country's foundations, but our leaders and our people are, for the most part, complete retards.
*sprays router with flame retardant*
I seriously want to thank you for a really good idea. Some members of my family support the regime in this nation today, and those same people are going to recieve a good novel for Christmas.
Obviously what is needed is large public outcry. But as eh... some guy... said, the best way to get the people to go with the government is to convince them that they're being attacked, and that anyone who doesn't support action is not a patriot.
So much for the US education system teaching folks these things, hmm?
[OT]
The argument for more government observation is that they can't catch these terrorists fast enough.
I ask you folks, when was the last terrorist strike in the US besides 911? The WTC bombing in 93?
When was the last time you heard about a suicide bomber here? Where are all the terrorists?
Of course, that's right, the government is protecting us. They must really be good, you know, patrolling the entire Canadian border. I don't need to tell you how easy it is to walk across the border, as long as you're not on a highway. The INS can't do that along the Mexican border, but the rest of the Feds sure can.
Regardless, my point is that things were fine. If there are "daily" plots against us, and they only let one through in some odd 8 years, I think they're doing pretty well.
It's like sunscreen. The curve of cost/protection is exponential. To get them all, we need to become a police state.
This has gone far enough, IMO.
[/OT]
Sorry, had to vent.
Aye, I'm aware of how it works, I just wanted to bring up that there is a way to do res change through a simple gui. I'm surprised... shocked, really, that this is a "new feature".
I still think Linux is far ahead of the game, however.
I'm all up for being discontent with Microsoft's actions, they often earn it, but I doubt that Billy has a guy working for him named "Vinny" who specializes in "knee-cap work", or that he's known to buy yatchs for people.
Great deals is one thing. Unrelated merchandise is another.
Can you provide links?
Actually, wait.... custom hardware? Did you write your own drivers for Windows or is this truely not custom hardware?
I think most folks would be surprised at the support for hardware that *nix has. Obviously it takes a small handful of months to write drivers for new hardware, when in comparison the hardware company writes them for Winderz before releasing the hardware, but I've found most everything is supported.
Just a thought I wanted to add.
I really wish I could argue with you, but I can't. =P Sometimes Windows is the answer.
Custom hardware? Understood.
Spending money on a *nix expert and retraining? Understood. Change comes at cost.
I'm curious what applications would have to be rebuilt. Are you talking about custom applications on Windows or commercial apps that you don't think exist on *nix? I have yet to find something on Windows that I can't do on *nix natively besides games. And although it's off-topic, emulators handle those fine.
As far as admining a small business, I can see how since most folks know windows, it's easy to perform admin tasks. The "if shit hits the fan, your cheap MCSE won't know how to fix it but your expensive *nix admin will fix it fast" argument doesn't work if you're doing nothing but simple networking and collaboration.
One point to consider, though: the basis for the argument that Microsoft is just trying to tickle India back into their arms is in dependance on Microsoft. Once you open a Microsoft shop, it becomes increasingly difficult to change providers. Depending on who you are, how smart you are, and what you do, you can also get hit with upgrade costs as well. Have you honestly considered and *truely* researched *nix solutions? Have you really considered how much money they might save you in the long run?
I use *really* because AFAIK, RH 8.0 has a screen config that allows you to change resolutions. I also remember reading that on-the-fly resolution changing was just introduced into X. I also remember something about Ximian's Control Center (or whatever it's called) has a resolution setting, but I could be wrong. In any case, it seems you're slightly out of date.
One thing to honestly consider is that the *nix world evolves fast. Look at where Linux was three years ago, and then where it was one year after that, and one year after that, and then now. I've been surprised, personally.
Not that it means anything to you, but welcome to my friends list and my quotes file.
Beautiful and insightful, a wonderful summary of current events that many folks can't grasp and some folks (on both sides) aren't willing to accept.
Feel free to waste your mod points and call me redundant folks, but I've read a few top-10 posts on this thread so far and I have yet to see one person whining about the Linux folks complaining about Microsoft's "gift".
I am honestly shocked. This is troll bait.
Well put, LINM.
"hand-polished projectors" should read "hand-ground glass lenses"
He said TV. There were projection TVs back then.
We've got a large screen projection TV in our house, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50". It's a Mitsubishi as well.
This TV is made out of wood, has three hand-polished projectors that bounce onto a fold-out mirror and onto the screen.
This TV was made 22 years ago and the picture is still as perfect as the day it was purchased.
Score another for Mitsubishi.
I stand corrected. Agreed on all points. I'm still curious about how everything you buy on sale reduces your overall expenses; even women have needless expenses.
Ok, I'm leaving... hey, quit pushing...
"not only do you have to retrain your employees on how to use their new computer altogether, but you have to TRAIN (not RE-train) them on a whole new stack of software."
Assuming that:
train = teach new concept
retrain = relearn old concept,
What concepts are so different in Linux that normal users must be trained? It's the same point and click interface.
---
"
No new licensing required, unless, of course, you want support. If you need redhat (et al) support, it'll cost you."
True, but I think you'll find that a Red Hat license costs are cheaper than what is required to run the same shop Microsoft. AFAIK, support costs follow the same trend.
---
" First of all, if you don't allow your employees to d/l and install garbage software from the net, and don't give them access to tweak and mess with drivers, you usually don't have trouble with 'tech support headaches'.
One word: viruses.
Keep the systems patched you say? What about those pesky patches that it takes MS a month to release? AFAIK, viruses have exploited this delay before.
Another word: crackers.
Keep the systems updated you say? Read above. Windows Help Desk, IE, etc. etc.
Another thing to mention, admining individual windwos boxes is generally a bit more difficult because of the lack of automated config/update tools that deal with multiple systems.
---
"Second, *nix admins cost more the Windows admins, so get ready to dish out money."
This is an honest question: have you worked with cheap Windows admins before? Most that I know are the types that don't understand good security and leave their systems open to not only crackers and viruses, but user mistakes as well.
And when something breaks, I think in most cases you'll find that *NIX admins can fix things faster and better than cheap Windows admins.
1) *NIX has been a server environment for 30 years. It's standardized and well known.
2) *NIX admins tend to have a higher knowledge of how things work, as opposed to admins who only know how to point and click and are only knowledgable about what a dialog tells them.
---
"For the record, I use Linux, I just think you're being a bit naive."
What version of what distro are you using? Seems that you haven't seen the latest and greatest in user-friendly Linux. I'll admit that Grandma isnt' going to figure out how to build Xine, but once an ISO is configured and copied to all the boxen in the haus, it's cake.
1) Spend more money this year than usual
2) Save money for the next N years.
How you can possibly rationalize this as "hard to justify", I don't understand. All entities must look for ways to spend money, and most changes of this type will take investment. Your 'on sale' analogy isn't perfect since buying these things only provides you a one-time savings (not to mention the question of whether the items were needed or not), whereas switching to OSS saves more money the longer you use it.
"Agreed. I didn't differentiate between the two."
Er... it's obvious that I need some sleep.
That should read I didn't say that they were in fact the same thing.
"CS skills and good programming habits are not the same thing."
Agreed. I didn't differentiate between the two.
---
"Not many people are going to bother learning about exotic data structures or algorithm analysis on their own. Knowing this material, however, will help people write much better programs."
But I did leave out something. You are right, that is very, very true! Sometimes I amaze even myself. =P
I will have to say, though, if your company does this, you'll learn it when you join. I won't speculate on whether it's better to learn structures and algos in college or on the job... I've learned some from each.
I should add -- so far I've spent about a year and a half doing development and I've been working since May as an Analyst; effectively, a maintenance programmer. I track down and squash bugs, whether they be in the code or in setup. Both generally require hunting through heaps of Bad Code.
Imagine Fortran with no whitespace and sparse comments. *shudder* I hate legacy stuff.
Our newer stuff is straight C, but since it was the prototype for a proper implementation, it's all one big hack. =P
Debugging bad code is perhaps the best way to learn good spacing, commenting, modularity and OOP skills.
IMO, for the *most part*, CS skills are best learned outside of the classroom. Good programming habits come from debugging bad code. Good programming skills come from being forced to implement very complex, real-world systems. Good programming habits/skills come from doing this while under deadline pressure.
These can and are taught in school, but when most classes cover theory and small, 'neat', unrealistic examples, and little debugging or re-use of old code is done, I think folks miss a lot.
Most programmers I talk to agree: once you hit the real world, everything changes. You don't have time to do things all pretty, and you don't have a prof leaning over your shoulder reminding you to comment your code.
Bottom line: I think college is for becoming an all-around, mature person who can communicate and work well with others. Technical skills usually come from experience, regardless of the field. I think that's often a truth of life.