I mean, what else do you think a rover would find down there? While potentially exciting for planetary geologists, for most of us -- including the vast majority of people who pay for these missions -- studying rocks, aside from the engineering gymnastics of getting into the cave, does not stir the human spirit of exploration. Lets explore the seas of Titan, the volcanoes of Io, or the water geysers of Enceladus, not another rock-hunting trip with taxpayer money. There's a decent chance of finding life in our solar system, and yet NASA keeps turning away from that goal in favor of literally dry material.
It's not about good or bad engineers. In the case of Honda, their consistent quality is an outgrowth of their old school Japanese company culture. Employees protect the honour of their company-family, and do so by having very high standards for the products they ship.
Unfortunately other Japanese companies have taken on American corporate culture and just about ruined themselves. Remember when Sony was king of electronics in the 80's? Sony's rep for high quality has been wasted away by a western, profit-driven culture.
Totally agree. It's the first tablet I was excited about, and the first really breakout, high-concept product from Microsoft I think...I've ever seen. But I guess it couldn't survive in a company culture that's built on enterprise profits. Bill had an Apple-esque product on his hand and he didn't get it. But that was the classic difference between Steve and him.
I don't believe most people in government are evil. Most people in government just want to do their job, and groupthink overtakes them such that their ethical compass points in whatever direction gets the job done. The same thing can be seen in corporations. Most people are too weak-willed to stand up for what they believe in, and become part of the machine. Is this evil? I don't think so, it is a failing of the human spirit. These people, when the shit hits the fan, may come to see the error of their ways. People who are truly evil chose that path of their own accord, and not much could ever sway them from that path.
Ah, apologies for misunderstanding. I don't buy the argument that a hacked PS3 would cause mass levels of piracy as happened on the PS2 and Dreamcast. I think most PS3 users want to take advantage of PSN -- playing online with their friends -- so the risk of being banned from the service would discourage most from using pirated games and hacked firmware. But it's a moot point as Sony was successful in abridging customer rights.
What's with their candidates? I mean, they have some good ideas, but every candidate they field seems to be a bit...off. This guy Gov. Gary Johnson, he acted like he had a pack of honey badgers in his pants and was looking around for the guy who put them there. The Justice Party candidate seems the most electable out of the bunch, but I must admit I don't know much of anything about their platform. The Green Party candidate didn't seem to know her stuff very well beyond the typical environmental platform of that party, but she certainly seemed reasonable. And Virgil Goode, well he definitely tells it like he sees it. He's probably someone who would've gotten elected in the 1800's, but not today. Partly because his social agenda seemed about that progressive.
Served its purpose? It's still a powerful machine. Would be a brilliant media center with better software. Homebrew, emulators. Sounds like a purpose is just starting to me.
The only disappointing part is this is coming about not through Sony coming to their senses or the courts forcing them to restore Linux functionality to the PS3, but through the tenacity of hacktivists. But such is the world we live in.
If you let the people talk about and share your information, they are more emotionally invested.
People were going to talk about these shows regardless, so I don't buy that rationale. There was nothing to lose and everything to gain by streaming Jobs' reality distortion field live, versus reading gadget liveblogs or news articles. But the hype still got through.
No, you're right. The submitter must be pretty young. Prior to the iPhone launch, Apple used to always livestream their talks via QuickTime. I'm not sure anyone knows why they stopped; I doubt bandwidth was an issue. Probably a Steve Jobs thing, though for someone who had to control everything, I always found it odd that he let products get announced via low-res audience pictures on gadget sites.
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So basically, not finding items of historical value is better than finding them and destroying a bit of historically valuable surroundings?
Yes. They will still be there for a proper archaeologist to discover at some future time. Given how many artifacts were damaged or ruined by bungling explorers in the 1800's and early 1900's, I'd say it is prudent to leave the task to experts.
The iPhone 4S and 5 can use GLONASS as well. But agreed, once the Galileo project gives the thumbs-up, we should see mobile device support shortly thereafter.
How about we build a FAKE moon instead, that we can move and rotate to wherever we want. We may have to bring in the DoD on this to get funding, and... they may want to test a giant laser on it. In fact this may become a DoD project completely due to funding shortages, but they have promised us we will get some time on their supercomputer, when they are not firing their laser at things.
The Firefox team is off the rails. In fact, the whole Mozilla Foundation has lost its way. First they basically abandon Thunderbird for no reason, and now they're bolting on entire social media interfaces. Commercial, closed-source ones at that. All because their egos make them want to stay with the big boys, instead of innovating, instead of just trying to be the best browser.
If there was a fast, secure, standards-compliant browser that was compatible with the Firefox plugin architecture, I'd jump in a second.
I've noticed Firefox having more and more problems rendering sites that Safari and Chrome have no trouble with. Version 16 has been especially bad.
Take a look at Panic's Coda site in Firefox 16. Those headers should not look like that; see Safari for proper rendering. If you look at the css for those headers: #pitch h3 {
font-family: "Chrono Regular", sans-serif;
font-size: 34px;
color: #436fa2;
text-align: center;
background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(#2c5b92 50%, #0a3978 100%);
background-image: linear-gradient(#2c5b92 50%, #0a3978 100%); }
So Firefox is not respecting the linear gradient as a background image for text. Can someone clarify whether this is part of the spec? That is obviously a more advanced example, but I'm seeing many sites with layouts that are broken (most often navbars) in Firefox 16.
The more work private companies to do on this problem -- that is, the putting people in space and on planets problem -- the better we get at it, the cheaper it becomes, the more sustainable the industry becomes, all of which enable more science to be done. There's also the whole deal of creating jobs for Americans (and other countries), which is a nice bonus. It's the same model as Tesla -- build an expensive sports car for the wealthy, use those profits to use a somewhat less expensive sedan, and on down the line.
Maybe it doesn't fit into your Platonic ideal of how this should go, but if you have a better idea then float it. Unless you were suggesting that spaceflight is a waste of time compared with the problems we need to solve on this planet, which I don't think has to be a binary answer.
The question you should be asking yourself is, why the hell AREN'T you retraining? Any developer's skills should constantly be in motion. You've gotten lazy. You're now realizing your skills are becoming crusty, and soon your employers will realize that too, and see the young whippersnapper over there who has great ideas and new buzzwords.
The one thing you have (hopefully) over those younger guys is experience. Experience, in terms of systems design and in terms of problem-solving (both code and people), is a huge plus, and those are portable across whatever language and system is hip. Take your base skillsets, look at where the eyeballs are at right now, and aim a little ahead of that.
If you aren't excited by that prospect, maybe it's time to take a step back and do some self-reflection. Think about the kinds of things that puts a smile on your face, and see how you can combine that with your current skills.
Good luck, and stay positive. Unless you've sent this question on a timer, you're probably not dead yet. This is a plus! Keep a life balance and the bile down and things will turn out alright.
Theoretically, all country codes, including 'co.uk', should be policed and only given out to residents. Hell, I remember in the mid-90's when I felt ethically conflicted because I was registering a.net domain and I wasn't running a network. ICANN hasn't properly administered the TLDs since day one.
But sure, why not? The USA has a '.us' domain (whose owner info, by the way, cannot be anonymized), so I don't see why the UK shouldn't have one.
Yes, you're right it's impossible to know because we will never see the alternate timeline where this guy wasn't fired and he continued to be a douchenozzle at FB. His continued presence there might have had no impact, or might have put their efforts to expand in disarray. In a position that was more crucial to the company -- say, the guy in charge of keeping the servers from being crushed as the user base increased -- the What If might be more severe.
The single best take-home message in the post is nothing new, but have you truly internalized it? You are replaceable, and firing you would hurt you much more than the company.
Generally, no. People are not replaceable. When you try to replace one person with another person who on paper seems to be equivalent, you will end up changing the company. At low-levels, the effect will generally be localized, although even at this level the Butterfly Effect can come into play. As you move up the pay scale, switching personnel can have more and more noticeable effects on the company. What role they are in tends to have different effects -- switching out people in a role of creating value for the company can change the company's value in an extreme way. Replacing middle managers tends more to have a multiplier effect on the value creators. And then there is the social dynamic one brings, which can cause huge problems within the company organism.
I think an equivalency to your statement would be: you have no job security. And from an employer perspective: you have no security in retaining the people who give your company value. When either of these parties take those statements for granted, one or both parties will hurt from the loss.
No, you'll sit motionless in one spot because according to the iOS 6 Maps app satellite photos your street has turned into a river of blood and the sidewalks are filled with shadows from a nuclear apocalypse.
But seriously, as much as the Apple's app store walled garden/prison is derided on slashdot, this is exactly the kind of thing it is supposed to prevent.
From your reply it is obvious that you think I am defending Flash on its security record. I am not. Nor am I talking about your beloved Linux; most software is not as well-hardened as it is. What I'm saying is not that Adobe/Flash is good at security, but that most software is equally as bad. Card Maker 1-2-3, SuperCloud!, Fashionable DB, Hipster Web Stack 3.0, Robot Bunny Attack, and their ilk are just as full of holes. So, the statement "Flash has the worst security record of any software" is misleading at best simply because all the other shit software out there doesn't get equally attacked and doesn't attract attention from the press.
I think you missed my point, which was: Flash may be historically easy to exploit, but then so is most of the software out there. However, most software is not subjected its constant proddings.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean, what else do you think a rover would find down there? While potentially exciting for planetary geologists, for most of us -- including the vast majority of people who pay for these missions -- studying rocks, aside from the engineering gymnastics of getting into the cave, does not stir the human spirit of exploration. Lets explore the seas of Titan, the volcanoes of Io, or the water geysers of Enceladus, not another rock-hunting trip with taxpayer money. There's a decent chance of finding life in our solar system, and yet NASA keeps turning away from that goal in favor of literally dry material.
You could say that about most of the Internet. Heck, you could say that about most of humanity.
It's not about good or bad engineers. In the case of Honda, their consistent quality is an outgrowth of their old school Japanese company culture. Employees protect the honour of their company-family, and do so by having very high standards for the products they ship.
Unfortunately other Japanese companies have taken on American corporate culture and just about ruined themselves. Remember when Sony was king of electronics in the 80's? Sony's rep for high quality has been wasted away by a western, profit-driven culture.
Totally agree. It's the first tablet I was excited about, and the first really breakout, high-concept product from Microsoft I think...I've ever seen. But I guess it couldn't survive in a company culture that's built on enterprise profits. Bill had an Apple-esque product on his hand and he didn't get it. But that was the classic difference between Steve and him.
Makes sense for stock trading, but blogs like Gawker not so much.
I don't believe most people in government are evil. Most people in government just want to do their job, and groupthink overtakes them such that their ethical compass points in whatever direction gets the job done. The same thing can be seen in corporations. Most people are too weak-willed to stand up for what they believe in, and become part of the machine. Is this evil? I don't think so, it is a failing of the human spirit. These people, when the shit hits the fan, may come to see the error of their ways. People who are truly evil chose that path of their own accord, and not much could ever sway them from that path.
Ah, apologies for misunderstanding. I don't buy the argument that a hacked PS3 would cause mass levels of piracy as happened on the PS2 and Dreamcast. I think most PS3 users want to take advantage of PSN -- playing online with their friends -- so the risk of being banned from the service would discourage most from using pirated games and hacked firmware. But it's a moot point as Sony was successful in abridging customer rights.
What's with their candidates? I mean, they have some good ideas, but every candidate they field seems to be a bit...off. This guy Gov. Gary Johnson, he acted like he had a pack of honey badgers in his pants and was looking around for the guy who put them there. The Justice Party candidate seems the most electable out of the bunch, but I must admit I don't know much of anything about their platform. The Green Party candidate didn't seem to know her stuff very well beyond the typical environmental platform of that party, but she certainly seemed reasonable. And Virgil Goode, well he definitely tells it like he sees it. He's probably someone who would've gotten elected in the 1800's, but not today. Partly because his social agenda seemed about that progressive.
Served its purpose? It's still a powerful machine. Would be a brilliant media center with better software. Homebrew, emulators. Sounds like a purpose is just starting to me.
The only disappointing part is this is coming about not through Sony coming to their senses or the courts forcing them to restore Linux functionality to the PS3, but through the tenacity of hacktivists. But such is the world we live in.
People were going to talk about these shows regardless, so I don't buy that rationale. There was nothing to lose and everything to gain by streaming Jobs' reality distortion field live, versus reading gadget liveblogs or news articles. But the hype still got through.
No, you're right. The submitter must be pretty young. Prior to the iPhone launch, Apple used to always livestream their talks via QuickTime. I'm not sure anyone knows why they stopped; I doubt bandwidth was an issue. Probably a Steve Jobs thing, though for someone who had to control everything, I always found it odd that he let products get announced via low-res audience pictures on gadget sites.
Caution: Magic Cloud may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
Do not taunt Magic Cloud.
Warning: Failure to believe in Magic Cloud may result in a targeted nuclear strike in your availability zone.
Magic Cloud should not be used if you are feeling angry.
Never ask Magic Cloud to play a game.
Magic Cloud: satisfaction guaranteed!*
(*) Except for satisfaction-free areas. Please consult your Service Level Agreement for more information.
Yes. They will still be there for a proper archaeologist to discover at some future time. Given how many artifacts were damaged or ruined by bungling explorers in the 1800's and early 1900's, I'd say it is prudent to leave the task to experts.
The iPhone 4S and 5 can use GLONASS as well. But agreed, once the Galileo project gives the thumbs-up, we should see mobile device support shortly thereafter.
How about we build a FAKE moon instead, that we can move and rotate to wherever we want. We may have to bring in the DoD on this to get funding, and... they may want to test a giant laser on it. In fact this may become a DoD project completely due to funding shortages, but they have promised us we will get some time on their supercomputer, when they are not firing their laser at things.
The Firefox team is off the rails. In fact, the whole Mozilla Foundation has lost its way. First they basically abandon Thunderbird for no reason, and now they're bolting on entire social media interfaces. Commercial, closed-source ones at that. All because their egos make them want to stay with the big boys, instead of innovating, instead of just trying to be the best browser.
If there was a fast, secure, standards-compliant browser that was compatible with the Firefox plugin architecture, I'd jump in a second.
I've noticed Firefox having more and more problems rendering sites that Safari and Chrome have no trouble with. Version 16 has been especially bad.
Take a look at Panic's Coda site in Firefox 16. Those headers should not look like that; see Safari for proper rendering. If you look at the css for those headers:
#pitch h3 {
font-family: "Chrono Regular", sans-serif;
font-size: 34px;
color: #436fa2;
text-align: center;
background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(#2c5b92 50%, #0a3978 100%);
background-image: linear-gradient(#2c5b92 50%, #0a3978 100%);
}
So Firefox is not respecting the linear gradient as a background image for text. Can someone clarify whether this is part of the spec?
That is obviously a more advanced example, but I'm seeing many sites with layouts that are broken (most often navbars) in Firefox 16.
The more work private companies to do on this problem -- that is, the putting people in space and on planets problem -- the better we get at it, the cheaper it becomes, the more sustainable the industry becomes, all of which enable more science to be done. There's also the whole deal of creating jobs for Americans (and other countries), which is a nice bonus. It's the same model as Tesla -- build an expensive sports car for the wealthy, use those profits to use a somewhat less expensive sedan, and on down the line.
Maybe it doesn't fit into your Platonic ideal of how this should go, but if you have a better idea then float it. Unless you were suggesting that spaceflight is a waste of time compared with the problems we need to solve on this planet, which I don't think has to be a binary answer.
The question you should be asking yourself is, why the hell AREN'T you retraining? Any developer's skills should constantly be in motion. You've gotten lazy. You're now realizing your skills are becoming crusty, and soon your employers will realize that too, and see the young whippersnapper over there who has great ideas and new buzzwords.
The one thing you have (hopefully) over those younger guys is experience. Experience, in terms of systems design and in terms of problem-solving (both code and people), is a huge plus, and those are portable across whatever language and system is hip. Take your base skillsets, look at where the eyeballs are at right now, and aim a little ahead of that.
If you aren't excited by that prospect, maybe it's time to take a step back and do some self-reflection. Think about the kinds of things that puts a smile on your face, and see how you can combine that with your current skills.
Good luck, and stay positive. Unless you've sent this question on a timer, you're probably not dead yet. This is a plus! Keep a life balance and the bile down and things will turn out alright.
Theoretically, all country codes, including 'co.uk', should be policed and only given out to residents. Hell, I remember in the mid-90's when I felt ethically conflicted because I was registering a .net domain and I wasn't running a network. ICANN hasn't properly administered the TLDs since day one.
But sure, why not? The USA has a '.us' domain (whose owner info, by the way, cannot be anonymized), so I don't see why the UK shouldn't have one.
Yes, you're right it's impossible to know because we will never see the alternate timeline where this guy wasn't fired and he continued to be a douchenozzle at FB. His continued presence there might have had no impact, or might have put their efforts to expand in disarray. In a position that was more crucial to the company -- say, the guy in charge of keeping the servers from being crushed as the user base increased -- the What If might be more severe.
Generally, no. People are not replaceable. When you try to replace one person with another person who on paper seems to be equivalent, you will end up changing the company. At low-levels, the effect will generally be localized, although even at this level the Butterfly Effect can come into play. As you move up the pay scale, switching personnel can have more and more noticeable effects on the company. What role they are in tends to have different effects -- switching out people in a role of creating value for the company can change the company's value in an extreme way. Replacing middle managers tends more to have a multiplier effect on the value creators. And then there is the social dynamic one brings, which can cause huge problems within the company organism.
I think an equivalency to your statement would be: you have no job security. And from an employer perspective: you have no security in retaining the people who give your company value. When either of these parties take those statements for granted, one or both parties will hurt from the loss.
No, you'll sit motionless in one spot because according to the iOS 6 Maps app satellite photos your street has turned into a river of blood and the sidewalks are filled with shadows from a nuclear apocalypse.
But seriously, as much as the Apple's app store walled garden/prison is derided on slashdot, this is exactly the kind of thing it is supposed to prevent.
From your reply it is obvious that you think I am defending Flash on its security record. I am not. Nor am I talking about your beloved Linux; most software is not as well-hardened as it is. What I'm saying is not that Adobe/Flash is good at security, but that most software is equally as bad. Card Maker 1-2-3, SuperCloud!, Fashionable DB, Hipster Web Stack 3.0, Robot Bunny Attack, and their ilk are just as full of holes. So, the statement "Flash has the worst security record of any software" is misleading at best simply because all the other shit software out there doesn't get equally attacked and doesn't attract attention from the press.
I think you missed my point, which was: Flash may be historically easy to exploit, but then so is most of the software out there. However, most software is not subjected its constant proddings.