We've become used to the idea that the theft and privatization of the commons was justified for physical real estate. The way the same thing happened again in such a short time in this new virtual (but just as scarce) resource just drives home how fucked up some aspects of private ownership are.
It's not that people don't want to develop for linux. It's that the GPL is viral. If you use a GPL library for part of your game engine, you have to GPL the whole enchilada. Game content can be closed-source, but with the engine you have to go one way or the other: all open, or all closed.
Come on now... this was solved decades ago with the LGPL license. Any changes you make to LGPL libraries are included in the viral behavior, but any proprietary binary that links against the LGPL libraries can be whatever license you want. It takes a little effort to understand the solution, maybe, but the solution is there.
And, for the most part, we do it becomes we love games, and want to be part of that process.
Yep, and that lasts a couple of years until you realize that making games isn't anything like playing them, and that working behind the scenes on a product you used to enjoy has killed your enjoyment of them (not that you have time to play games anymore anyway). Seriously, the whole "games are so much more challenging/fun" thing is nonsense made up by people who want to justify being taken advantage of. Data is data, and moving it around efficiently is an interesting puzzle to solve whether it's polygons or account information.
Obviously there are some situations where that doesn't apply. If you work in a small shop where you get a voice in the story and gameplay as well, then there's some truth to it. But the large studios have entire teams for that, while the coders get to do the same thing they'd be doing at any other job, only for less pay and with a couple more anime action figures on their desk while they do it.
Speaking as someone who interviews candidates at a technology company, I can tell you we don't give a damn how old someone is if they're good at the job. Make sure you take on large projects and/or internships during school so you have usable experience once you get out and you'll be fine.
Exactly. I'm always amazed by people who think that writing impenetrable code is "advanced". Any jackass can write something convoluted and obscure that nobody else can understand (or maintain) -- what takes actual talent is condensing complicated logic into code that's simple enough a ten year old would understand it. If you can write a complex system such that a teammate can open any random code file and think "what's so hard about that?", then you deserve some of the appreciation that "Josh" made a grab for.
People like Josh, on the other hand, should be fired on the spot. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent cleaning up the mess left by people who thought that sheer volume of output was the measure of a good programmer, and I'm betting I'm not alone in that.
Nice delusion, but totally false-to-fact. Maybe back in the day of the Altar or Apple II you could control the entire machine, but today you didn't write the OS, the BIOS, the device firmware, the drivers, the utilities, or the programs. You have no say in the matter.
That may be true, but it doesn't really address my original point. If the two platforms were equally concerned about not intentionally giving away control over my machine to the highest bidder, then we could have a discussion about which one is more trustworthy in reaching that goal. Until then, the one that doesn't openly gloat about it as an official policy is the one I'm going with.
I was fine with a lot of the features in Vista -- it ran fine on a dual core machine, UAC wasn't really that irritating, and Aero was pretty nice. I used it and actually enjoyed it on a work machine. But there was no way in hell I would ever pay money to put it on my home machine, because it contains so many "features" that exist to take control away from you and hands them over to other people.
Microsoft is convinced that they can turn the PC into a glorified console, where it only runs what they allow to run. That's not right; it's my machine. It does what I say, not what somebody else says. And I don't think that's a completely geek stance, either. It's pretty easy to say to a layperson "a computer is meant to be a multi-purpose device, and Vista and Win7 lock down multiple functions and put them under someone else's control". I've tried it, and they do care. People will reject this nonsense if enough people raise a stink about the problem.
How's it intuitive or consistent that in some apps the green '+' button on a window goes full-screen both horizontally and vertically, and on some it only maximizes vertically but NOT horizontally. There are some major inconsistent areas in OSX. (I'm typing this in OSX, btw)
Eh, not really. Microsoft doesn't have a load balancer product. All the commercial ones out there are based on Linux or FreeBSD. Hell, MS uses some front-end caching proxies from commercial services that are really just Linux running Squid under the hood. They're buying very expensive special purpose machines from 3rd party companies, not running *nix "by choice", exactly.
Ok, you obviously have a personal beef with the school system. And that's fine, there's a lot of fucked up stuff there. But that doesn't mean the answer is to tear down the system entirely. I've been through the Home Schooling system, and I'm telling you the benefits start to break down by the time you hit high school. Sure, you got screwed on math courses, but you said you took a bunch of science. Presumably you had lab equipment that helped that experience, as well as teachers who were relatively specialized in their field. Could your parents honestly have replicated either of those things, especially with a reduced income due to having one or both of them trying to work their time around the home schooling process?
It may be good to have a parent at home, but the number of households that have the option is in rapid decline.
I do consider raising kids a real job, just not a very well-paying one, and again, the number of houses that don't have a choice... Anyway, I'd go absolutely insane if I had to stay home with kids all day instead of working with a group of peers, and if I feel that way I couldn't in good conscience ask my wife to give up the chance at a career outside the home. Especially after seeing how it turned out for my own parents.
My hometown had a great support group for home schooling families, with tons of group activities. It still doesn't replace long-term interaction and dedicated facilities once you hit 12-14 years old. As under-funded as they are, there's still a number of things that high school provides that you just can't replicate in the home unless you're obscenely wealthy. Even with a group of parents chipping in.
More likely is that it never ran on Linux in the first place. It's pretty common for industrial VIP systems to use Linux under the hood while the back-end systems run something completely different. For example, check Netcraft's entries for Live Search. It claims that's running Linux to this day, which I know for a fact is not true.
there shouldn't even be public schools - home school your kids or choose a private school; your kids will be better off ANYHOW
Up to a certain age maybe. Once you hit about high school level, though, the material becomes specialized enough and the benefits of costly equipment to the process become strong enough that it's really not feasible for it to work anymore.
And even that much assumes that you have at least one parent home all the time, and free to pay attention to the kids at least 4 or 5 hours a day which rules out any real job, even remote ones.
I was home schooled until middle school, by the way. And aside from those problems, there really is a socialization benefit to spending those years (12-18) around other kids. The people I knew who home schooled through high school as well turned out apathetic and under-socialized.
There's plenty of efficiency to be gained, sure. But the OP was suggesting that we remove all taxes of any kind, effectively ending the government except as a system to generate rules that they would have no facility to enforce.
These discussions always seem to come down to the same thing. Someone starts off with "the government should keep their hands off my money", completely ignoring the fact that a lot of the reason they're in a position to earn that money and have the lifestyle they have is based on the infrastructure maintained by the government. Other people point this out, it goes back and forth for a while, and in the end it turns out that not only does the libertarian in the conversation consider himself entirely self-made and beholden to nobody, but he really has no concept of the fact that government and society are one and the same. So what this kind of "government is useless" thing really means is "I don't want to cooperate because I'm convinced that I'm self-sufficient and better than everyone".
Wouldn't it be better if the government didn't to take half of people's money in the first place? Your average homeowner gets about a third of his income lopped off in withholding, then another chunk in sales taxes and property taxes take the rest. How great would it be if everyone's earnings were suddenly doubled?
Pretty great for a while. Less great when the roads start falling apart, criminals realize the police can't afford bullets, the jails have to release all the inmates at once, the number of under-educated people around you starts increasing because the schools have shut down, and half your family dies from tainted food because the agencies that impose quality controls have disappeared.
It's not like bailouts are the only thing we fund with taxes, you know. There are actually a hell of a lot of services that benefit you directly on a daily basis. Eliminate taxes and you'll end up either losing those services entirely, or else paying for them out of pocket anyway.
I tend to think their target market will be split yet again. For those who bought Vista and liked it, there's no need for an upgrade to Win 7. It doesn't change enough that they have a reason to buy it. However, for those who weren't convinced that Vista changed enough to be worth buying in the first place, they're hoping that the difference between XP and Win 7 will be enough to convince them.
What about those who graduate without college loans? You've just left out people who get merit-based scholarships, which is a group we should love to have get into teaching.
Um... the citation is the age of life on this planet, since by definition it has to have existed in an uninterrupted sequence of dividing cells. There are people working on some theories right now (of how to apply the same process to other body cells, as well as explaining it at all). But if you're approaching this from the standpoint of using an argument from incredulity to invalidate the concept so you can support Creationism, well... I'm afraid you're going to have a hard time believing a lot of the facts that go into the broader explanation.
Slashdot Mirror
We've become used to the idea that the theft and privatization of the commons was justified for physical real estate. The way the same thing happened again in such a short time in this new virtual (but just as scarce) resource just drives home how fucked up some aspects of private ownership are.
Come on now... this was solved decades ago with the LGPL license. Any changes you make to LGPL libraries are included in the viral behavior, but any proprietary binary that links against the LGPL libraries can be whatever license you want. It takes a little effort to understand the solution, maybe, but the solution is there.
Yep, and that lasts a couple of years until you realize that making games isn't anything like playing them, and that working behind the scenes on a product you used to enjoy has killed your enjoyment of them (not that you have time to play games anymore anyway). Seriously, the whole "games are so much more challenging/fun" thing is nonsense made up by people who want to justify being taken advantage of. Data is data, and moving it around efficiently is an interesting puzzle to solve whether it's polygons or account information.
Obviously there are some situations where that doesn't apply. If you work in a small shop where you get a voice in the story and gameplay as well, then there's some truth to it. But the large studios have entire teams for that, while the coders get to do the same thing they'd be doing at any other job, only for less pay and with a couple more anime action figures on their desk while they do it.
Speaking as someone who interviews candidates at a technology company, I can tell you we don't give a damn how old someone is if they're good at the job. Make sure you take on large projects and/or internships during school so you have usable experience once you get out and you'll be fine.
Exactly. I'm always amazed by people who think that writing impenetrable code is "advanced". Any jackass can write something convoluted and obscure that nobody else can understand (or maintain) -- what takes actual talent is condensing complicated logic into code that's simple enough a ten year old would understand it. If you can write a complex system such that a teammate can open any random code file and think "what's so hard about that?", then you deserve some of the appreciation that "Josh" made a grab for.
People like Josh, on the other hand, should be fired on the spot. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent cleaning up the mess left by people who thought that sheer volume of output was the measure of a good programmer, and I'm betting I'm not alone in that.
That may be true, but it doesn't really address my original point. If the two platforms were equally concerned about not intentionally giving away control over my machine to the highest bidder, then we could have a discussion about which one is more trustworthy in reaching that goal. Until then, the one that doesn't openly gloat about it as an official policy is the one I'm going with.
I was fine with a lot of the features in Vista -- it ran fine on a dual core machine, UAC wasn't really that irritating, and Aero was pretty nice. I used it and actually enjoyed it on a work machine. But there was no way in hell I would ever pay money to put it on my home machine, because it contains so many "features" that exist to take control away from you and hands them over to other people.
Microsoft is convinced that they can turn the PC into a glorified console, where it only runs what they allow to run. That's not right; it's my machine. It does what I say, not what somebody else says. And I don't think that's a completely geek stance, either. It's pretty easy to say to a layperson "a computer is meant to be a multi-purpose device, and Vista and Win7 lock down multiple functions and put them under someone else's control". I've tried it, and they do care. People will reject this nonsense if enough people raise a stink about the problem.
It worked for Vista, anyway.
Sure they can. They have more lawyers than you do.
How's it intuitive or consistent that in some apps the green '+' button on a window goes full-screen both horizontally and vertically, and on some it only maximizes vertically but NOT horizontally. There are some major inconsistent areas in OSX. (I'm typing this in OSX, btw)
Ok, Microsoft doesn't have an enterprise-level load balancer product. :-P
So if I actually have those things, does that mean I really am a super-duper programmer like my mom tells me?
Eh, not really. Microsoft doesn't have a load balancer product. All the commercial ones out there are based on Linux or FreeBSD. Hell, MS uses some front-end caching proxies from commercial services that are really just Linux running Squid under the hood. They're buying very expensive special purpose machines from 3rd party companies, not running *nix "by choice", exactly.
Ok, you obviously have a personal beef with the school system. And that's fine, there's a lot of fucked up stuff there. But that doesn't mean the answer is to tear down the system entirely. I've been through the Home Schooling system, and I'm telling you the benefits start to break down by the time you hit high school. Sure, you got screwed on math courses, but you said you took a bunch of science. Presumably you had lab equipment that helped that experience, as well as teachers who were relatively specialized in their field. Could your parents honestly have replicated either of those things, especially with a reduced income due to having one or both of them trying to work their time around the home schooling process?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/22/iraq-georgebush
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/2008121618330140949.html
He's been imprisoned and tortured, possibly including having his hand broken. Then forced to write a "confession" in which he reveals that a well-known unnamed terrorist talked him into it (yeah right). Hooray for the new republic!
It may be good to have a parent at home, but the number of households that have the option is in rapid decline.
I do consider raising kids a real job, just not a very well-paying one, and again, the number of houses that don't have a choice... Anyway, I'd go absolutely insane if I had to stay home with kids all day instead of working with a group of peers, and if I feel that way I couldn't in good conscience ask my wife to give up the chance at a career outside the home. Especially after seeing how it turned out for my own parents.
My hometown had a great support group for home schooling families, with tons of group activities. It still doesn't replace long-term interaction and dedicated facilities once you hit 12-14 years old. As under-funded as they are, there's still a number of things that high school provides that you just can't replicate in the home unless you're obscenely wealthy. Even with a group of parents chipping in.
More likely is that it never ran on Linux in the first place. It's pretty common for industrial VIP systems to use Linux under the hood while the back-end systems run something completely different. For example, check Netcraft's entries for Live Search. It claims that's running Linux to this day, which I know for a fact is not true.
Do you have, like, ANY numbers to back that up?
Up to a certain age maybe. Once you hit about high school level, though, the material becomes specialized enough and the benefits of costly equipment to the process become strong enough that it's really not feasible for it to work anymore.
And even that much assumes that you have at least one parent home all the time, and free to pay attention to the kids at least 4 or 5 hours a day which rules out any real job, even remote ones.
I was home schooled until middle school, by the way. And aside from those problems, there really is a socialization benefit to spending those years (12-18) around other kids. The people I knew who home schooled through high school as well turned out apathetic and under-socialized.
There's plenty of efficiency to be gained, sure. But the OP was suggesting that we remove all taxes of any kind, effectively ending the government except as a system to generate rules that they would have no facility to enforce.
These discussions always seem to come down to the same thing. Someone starts off with "the government should keep their hands off my money", completely ignoring the fact that a lot of the reason they're in a position to earn that money and have the lifestyle they have is based on the infrastructure maintained by the government. Other people point this out, it goes back and forth for a while, and in the end it turns out that not only does the libertarian in the conversation consider himself entirely self-made and beholden to nobody, but he really has no concept of the fact that government and society are one and the same. So what this kind of "government is useless" thing really means is "I don't want to cooperate because I'm convinced that I'm self-sufficient and better than everyone".
Pretty great for a while. Less great when the roads start falling apart, criminals realize the police can't afford bullets, the jails have to release all the inmates at once, the number of under-educated people around you starts increasing because the schools have shut down, and half your family dies from tainted food because the agencies that impose quality controls have disappeared.
It's not like bailouts are the only thing we fund with taxes, you know. There are actually a hell of a lot of services that benefit you directly on a daily basis. Eliminate taxes and you'll end up either losing those services entirely, or else paying for them out of pocket anyway.
I tend to think their target market will be split yet again. For those who bought Vista and liked it, there's no need for an upgrade to Win 7. It doesn't change enough that they have a reason to buy it. However, for those who weren't convinced that Vista changed enough to be worth buying in the first place, they're hoping that the difference between XP and Win 7 will be enough to convince them.
Whether it's true or not, I'm not sure.
What about those who graduate without college loans? You've just left out people who get merit-based scholarships, which is a group we should love to have get into teaching.
The best one is not the hottest one.
Um... the citation is the age of life on this planet, since by definition it has to have existed in an uninterrupted sequence of dividing cells. There are people working on some theories right now (of how to apply the same process to other body cells, as well as explaining it at all). But if you're approaching this from the standpoint of using an argument from incredulity to invalidate the concept so you can support Creationism, well... I'm afraid you're going to have a hard time believing a lot of the facts that go into the broader explanation.
Already done:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html
http://www.physicsdiet.com/