They're gathering dust because they're terrible, terrible books that shouldn't be read by retarded 5th graders, let alone adults. At least I hope that's why.
Because they
1) Provide money and pay the big costs while artists are producing their album
2) Provide marketing
3) Find the promising artists and writers
4) Have the distribution channels
Those are rapidly being replaced. Costs are associated with rare equipment, but recording and mastering software is now widespread. You can do amazing stuff in your home, with a couple thousand dollars, that you could only do in a million dollar studio a couple decades back. Marketing is becoming much easier as well, since you can now do marketing in small increments through any number of services. Distribution channels, too, are much easier for small publishers to get their work inserted into. And as for finding the authors in the first place... I think it's pretty obvious that the RIAA and Publishing industries don't add a damn thing to that process.
You may not become a breakout sensation overnight without the old media marketing tactics behind you, but if you create something worthwhile it's quite easy to get an audience. Then it's just a question of word of mouth, which is how most really good stuff spreads anyway.
While it's true that labels are not always definitions, I'd love to see you try to define the tense of "be" in the original example using the grammatical rules of Standard English.
And no, you're not allowed to fall back on AAVE. The original statement was that "I be working" is understandable but incorrect grammar. That's not the case in AAVE, so it seems reasonable to imply that they were talking about Standard English.
For the record, the original post also called the example "bad grammar" while claiming that it was still understandable. Since they referenced AAVE as an example of a case where it IS correct grammar, it seems reasonable to assume that they meant it's bad grammar _in 'standard' English_, in which case the claim that it doesn't have a well defined meaning still holds.
And it seems just a bit circular to claim that bad grammar in one dialect is understandable just because you point at a frequently used example which is correct grammar in another. I stand by my claim. Spillover from other dialects notwithstanding, improper grammar makes language less clear.
I'd argue that grammar is essentially less blatantly obvious syntax. Look at your example, "I be working." You claim that's still perfectly understandable, and it might be in this case because a lot of people tend to misuse it the same way. But if you try to deconstruct that sentence, it really has no definite meaning. You're using the infinitive form of the verb, which means you really haven't defined a definite time for the statement. Hell, you haven't even stated clearly that there is no definite time.
It's understandable because it's a simple phrase, and we can substitute a reasonable conjugation of the verb when we hear it. It doesn't necessarily follow that similar bad grammar will be easily corrected by the listener in more complex constructions, nor does it mean that every form is just as correct. You can't just discard the entire concept of verb conjugation without losing some fidelity in the message you're delivering.
As for snobby and elitist, you don't walk into a music academy, sit down at the piano and play Chopsticks, and expect to be taken seriously. The same goes for communicating with people who have spent time learning the nuance of the language. The distinction between various words and verb forms arose because it let people communicate more precisely. You can't just walk in and claim, "I never bothered to learn these so I'm going to assume they don't matter, and by the way, you guys are snobs," because you don't like the fact that language has precision.
Since I've found that pure "computer scientists" are remarkably poor at building anything useful, I'll take it. Although I prefer "software developer : computer scientist:: carpenter : botanist" Just because you've studied the structure of the pieces in minute detail doesn't mean you know what to do with them when they're literally in front of you.
Which is probably why no other company does it this way. I've only ever heard of one other company requiring pagers, and they had a massive ops team that took the first crack at pages and all operations work.
Google has pagers, and Amazon has a first-tier support team who you can send all your stuff to if that's how you want to structure it. Varies from group to group, as with all things, but on average I think it's a lot less intense than you've been told.
I'd rather work somewhere that I can get learn and try new things without having to fight 6 levels of entrenched management trying to scratch and claw a place for themselves. But then, I'm one of those devs who enjoys the process of building software, and the overall goal isn't as much of a driver.
Actually a lot of groups have spun up first-tier support teams in the past couple years, which include support staff in India. So if you can write up some simple rules to follow in the event of a page, routine stuff doesn't even come to the devs, only the unexpected stuff does. From what I understand, this is almost exactly the way Google does it too.
It's the same way at some teams inside Microsoft, only less formalized so you don't get everyone sharing the pain, only a 'select few' who get volunteered by management.
Engineers and scientists will invent things anyway regardless of whether there has been bad fiction written about the concept beforehand.
Right, but the point of the article is that the rest of us laymen will be more likely to burn them as witches when they do if we stop reading sci-fi. Or something.
Microsoft made the list, but Amazon didn't? I and a bunch of other Microsofties who've jumped ship in the past couple years would all strongly disagree.
At least some of it would have ended up at ground level anyway, as opposed to the 0% of heat that would have existed without us intervening with, say, a nuclear reactor, which works on the exact same principle (turbines convert heat to electricity). A surprisingly large number of human power sources work by extracting energy from a heat differential.
What? But the 'Droid is so AWESOME! It's got all those shiny red lights and mechanical arms and giant bulky keyboard, and it insults the fuck out of other phones! How could you not want to be a part of that???
I haven't tried the Droid, but from what I understand it's also a custom UI on top of Android. I don't know which is better between Droid and Hero, but I'm quite sure that either is better than the stock Android UI.
Reading between the lines on the article (such as it is): it runs Android 2.1, which no other phone currently has. It is built by HTC, but is "entirely Google", and is Google branded. Maybe this is a sign that Google finally realized HTC's Sense UI kicked their asses, and they're working with them to merge it into the core experience?
At least that's what I'm hoping, because on the few occasions I've tried Android without Sense it's been nearly unusable. HTC did an absolutely brilliant job with the Hero given how poor the stock experience is.
Windows XP mode is either missing entirely, or less complete (their literature is vague on which) and so less likely to support an old app that you need
Maximum of 16 GB ram allowed (8GB on home Basic)
Can't use drive-level encryption
Built-in backup system works with local physical media only, no backups to a network location
Not everyone will miss all those features, but I'm guessing most people will miss one or two. And it's particularly insulting to have them charge more for things that are completely artificial limits, for example the maximum RAM. It seems likely that it was probably MORE work to impose the limit than to just uncap everyone to 192GB like the Pro/Ultimate version supports.
From glancing through the article, it appears they're contending that DaVinci had some peculiar letter substitution habits of his own (substituting 'on' with 'cc', 'ove' with 'x', etc). I don't know the source of this claim, but if it's true, it seems reasonable that medieval Italian plus a single individual's personal shorthand might be enough to throw broad language-based frequency analysis off track.
Come on, you really think someone won't find a way around it? If the rates become more than people think is reasonable, they'll pirate it. They already do. And technology in 3 years isn't suddenly going to become impregnable. At the VERY worst, it'll take one guy with a machine fast enough to virtualize Windows, fullscreen a paid Hulu account, and record the screen output to a video file, and you've got an unencumbered video you can share with friends.
No system yet has proven foolproof. If you can watch it, you can record it. And if the default experience becomes irritating enough, someone's going to work their way around it just to spite the media companies if nothing else.
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They're gathering dust because they're terrible, terrible books that shouldn't be read by retarded 5th graders, let alone adults. At least I hope that's why.
Those are rapidly being replaced. Costs are associated with rare equipment, but recording and mastering software is now widespread. You can do amazing stuff in your home, with a couple thousand dollars, that you could only do in a million dollar studio a couple decades back. Marketing is becoming much easier as well, since you can now do marketing in small increments through any number of services. Distribution channels, too, are much easier for small publishers to get their work inserted into. And as for finding the authors in the first place... I think it's pretty obvious that the RIAA and Publishing industries don't add a damn thing to that process.
You may not become a breakout sensation overnight without the old media marketing tactics behind you, but if you create something worthwhile it's quite easy to get an audience. Then it's just a question of word of mouth, which is how most really good stuff spreads anyway.
While it's true that labels are not always definitions, I'd love to see you try to define the tense of "be" in the original example using the grammatical rules of Standard English.
And no, you're not allowed to fall back on AAVE. The original statement was that "I be working" is understandable but incorrect grammar. That's not the case in AAVE, so it seems reasonable to imply that they were talking about Standard English.
Don't you mean "it's entirely arbitrary"? :-) LOL!1
For the record, the original post also called the example "bad grammar" while claiming that it was still understandable. Since they referenced AAVE as an example of a case where it IS correct grammar, it seems reasonable to assume that they meant it's bad grammar _in 'standard' English_, in which case the claim that it doesn't have a well defined meaning still holds.
And it seems just a bit circular to claim that bad grammar in one dialect is understandable just because you point at a frequently used example which is correct grammar in another. I stand by my claim. Spillover from other dialects notwithstanding, improper grammar makes language less clear.
I'd argue that grammar is essentially less blatantly obvious syntax. Look at your example, "I be working." You claim that's still perfectly understandable, and it might be in this case because a lot of people tend to misuse it the same way. But if you try to deconstruct that sentence, it really has no definite meaning. You're using the infinitive form of the verb, which means you really haven't defined a definite time for the statement. Hell, you haven't even stated clearly that there is no definite time.
It's understandable because it's a simple phrase, and we can substitute a reasonable conjugation of the verb when we hear it. It doesn't necessarily follow that similar bad grammar will be easily corrected by the listener in more complex constructions, nor does it mean that every form is just as correct. You can't just discard the entire concept of verb conjugation without losing some fidelity in the message you're delivering.
As for snobby and elitist, you don't walk into a music academy, sit down at the piano and play Chopsticks, and expect to be taken seriously. The same goes for communicating with people who have spent time learning the nuance of the language. The distinction between various words and verb forms arose because it let people communicate more precisely. You can't just walk in and claim, "I never bothered to learn these so I'm going to assume they don't matter, and by the way, you guys are snobs," because you don't like the fact that language has precision.
Fixed that for you.
Seriously though, there's nothing like alcohol for helping people get to know each other better, in a less formal setting.
Since I've found that pure "computer scientists" are remarkably poor at building anything useful, I'll take it. Although I prefer "software developer : computer scientist :: carpenter : botanist" Just because you've studied the structure of the pieces in minute detail doesn't mean you know what to do with them when they're literally in front of you.
Good thing the company can change pretty quickly, then, since I joined late in 2008.
Google has pagers, and Amazon has a first-tier support team who you can send all your stuff to if that's how you want to structure it. Varies from group to group, as with all things, but on average I think it's a lot less intense than you've been told.
I'd rather work somewhere that I can get learn and try new things without having to fight 6 levels of entrenched management trying to scratch and claw a place for themselves. But then, I'm one of those devs who enjoys the process of building software, and the overall goal isn't as much of a driver.
Not saying they deserve to be on the list, just that Microsoft deserves it less.
That makes sense.
Actually a lot of groups have spun up first-tier support teams in the past couple years, which include support staff in India. So if you can write up some simple rules to follow in the event of a page, routine stuff doesn't even come to the devs, only the unexpected stuff does. From what I understand, this is almost exactly the way Google does it too.
It's the same way at some teams inside Microsoft, only less formalized so you don't get everyone sharing the pain, only a 'select few' who get volunteered by management.
I found they pay quite a bit better than Microsoft, if that means anything to you...
Right, but the point of the article is that the rest of us laymen will be more likely to burn them as witches when they do if we stop reading sci-fi. Or something.
Microsoft made the list, but Amazon didn't? I and a bunch of other Microsofties who've jumped ship in the past couple years would all strongly disagree.
At least some of it would have ended up at ground level anyway, as opposed to the 0% of heat that would have existed without us intervening with, say, a nuclear reactor, which works on the exact same principle (turbines convert heat to electricity). A surprisingly large number of human power sources work by extracting energy from a heat differential.
I'm contending that even since the Droid, you don't choose Verizon for their phones.
What? But the 'Droid is so AWESOME! It's got all those shiny red lights and mechanical arms and giant bulky keyboard, and it insults the fuck out of other phones! How could you not want to be a part of that???
I haven't tried the Droid, but from what I understand it's also a custom UI on top of Android. I don't know which is better between Droid and Hero, but I'm quite sure that either is better than the stock Android UI.
Reading between the lines on the article (such as it is): it runs Android 2.1, which no other phone currently has. It is built by HTC, but is "entirely Google", and is Google branded. Maybe this is a sign that Google finally realized HTC's Sense UI kicked their asses, and they're working with them to merge it into the core experience?
At least that's what I'm hoping, because on the few occasions I've tried Android without Sense it's been nearly unusable. HTC did an absolutely brilliant job with the Hero given how poor the stock experience is.
Not everyone will miss all those features, but I'm guessing most people will miss one or two. And it's particularly insulting to have them charge more for things that are completely artificial limits, for example the maximum RAM. It seems likely that it was probably MORE work to impose the limit than to just uncap everyone to 192GB like the Pro/Ultimate version supports.
From glancing through the article, it appears they're contending that DaVinci had some peculiar letter substitution habits of his own (substituting 'on' with 'cc', 'ove' with 'x', etc). I don't know the source of this claim, but if it's true, it seems reasonable that medieval Italian plus a single individual's personal shorthand might be enough to throw broad language-based frequency analysis off track.
Come on, you really think someone won't find a way around it? If the rates become more than people think is reasonable, they'll pirate it. They already do. And technology in 3 years isn't suddenly going to become impregnable. At the VERY worst, it'll take one guy with a machine fast enough to virtualize Windows, fullscreen a paid Hulu account, and record the screen output to a video file, and you've got an unencumbered video you can share with friends.
No system yet has proven foolproof. If you can watch it, you can record it. And if the default experience becomes irritating enough, someone's going to work their way around it just to spite the media companies if nothing else.