Well, it's the same way "Support the Troops" is actually code for "Support the War" and in a sense, "Support Bush".
Because first, the NeoCons tell everyone that they have to "Support the Troops" and everyone in the media starts parroting it, right? And that's the setup. Before too long, everyone's buying ribbons to stick on their cars, T-shirts, etc... And "Support the Troops" becomes kind of a national mantra.
Once it's taken hold, every time someone questions the war in Iraq (or whatever other wars Bush drags us into) some sheep within earshot will turn on that person like a rabid pit bull with a big speech about how he should "Support the Troops" and quit complaining.
After a while, "Supporting the Troops" becomes an "I'm virtuous, not like those dirty hippies over there" kind of thing. People use it to align themselves with what they see as the proper point of view. Someone complains about the war, and someone else will say "Oh, I'm not like that; I support the troops".
People think I'm a big dick because I won't buy a stupid ribbon for my car, and always look at me like I'm the fucking GRINCH or something. But the way I see it, why should I participate in my own brainwashing? Fuck 'em.
An A/C said: "While that's all nice and dandy, is that a model for a way to make a living?"
The thing is, you're not going to make a living ANYWAY. Give it up. The following factors are working against you even if you discount open-source:
1. All proprietary software is pirated almost instantly, which puts even more pressure on your company than open-source competition. People using pirated copies are using YOUR ACTUAL APP! At least open source apps are competition, you have a chance at winning based on features and quality. How can you compete against YOUR OWN APP?
2. Almost all proprietary software companies are rushing to cut the throats of their developers by outsourcing to India. What they don't outsource, they bring IN via H1-B and L-1 visas. Who cares if they win the market? They aren't giving YOU any of that money...
3. For a long time now, the only "safe" jobs left have been in writing bespoke software for a company's internal use. That went to India too. Civil Service and Federal service are still relatively safe places for American programmers, but they're outsourcing willy-nilly too.
So, if you want to be a developer, SURE you'll do open-source. At least you're still in the game, eh? Whatever your day job is...
I'm a programmer myself, and I've thought about this quite a bit.
First of all, you should think of open source as a competing product, not a spoiler. If a proprietary tool is actually better, people WILL pay for it. So if a piece of proprietary software isn't doing well, that means that it's either not much better than an open-source alternative or it's too expensive, and people don't think the value-added is worth the money. And don't forget the fact that if your EULA is too annoying, people will use an alternative even if it's WORSE than your product, just so they don't have to pay attention to you. Really, it's all about value: if open source provides a better value than an equivalent piece of proprietary software, it'll win the market. This is a Good Thing.
By the way, the REAL thing that makes it hard to sell proprietary software is PIRACY. If you come out with a useful piece of software, almost immediately people will start to share it all over the place. If you try to copy-protect it, people will crack it and THEN distribute it. You can't prevent this from happening; you might as well try to stop the rain. This is why Shareware died; open source had nothing to do with it. It's a basic human trait: people are cheap, inconsiderate and selfish.
Open source lets a developer say "Ok, I know end users are basically assholes, and they'll pirate my stuff all over the place whether I like it or not, and getting them to actually PAY for something is like pulling teeth. But I still like to develop software, and I want to create this tool I've been wanting for a while, so FUCK IT, I'll release it open-source and share it with everybody, and who knows, maybe something cool will happen when everyone and his mother starts actually helping me code the damn thing. Plus, other developers will notice my stuff and maybe I'll make some friends."
Additionally, open source frees developers from dependency on overly greedy proprietary companies that would like to have way too much control over what you do. And it grants you the same freedoms you're granting YOUR users. And it contributes to a collaborative, friendly worldwide subculture that encourages cooperation and sharing.
The upside of open-source is so much more significant than any possible downside. And it makes piracy moot, which is amusing, isn't it?
First, get your hands on a hot-air popcorn popper. Maybe several of them.
Then, modify the popcorn popper so the kernel bin gets refilled via a chute. You can drill a hole in the side of the popper and glue a sheet metal stovepipe in, for example. Then, hook the chute up to a BIG bin of popcorn kernels.
Now, mount an exit chute to the part of the popper where the popcorn collects. Set up the popper so that as popcorn is made, it naturally falls out the exit chute. You might want to create a wheeled mount for the popper, so that it's higher than the place where it's putting the popcorn. Alternately, you could mount an electrical impeller (like a mix of propeller and submarine screw) to manually push the popcorn out. You might want to rig the thing flamethrower-style, so you're holding the exit chute and throwing a stream of popcorn wherever you point it.
Open up the window into which you're going to be inserting the popcorn. Arrange the popcorn delivery device so that the exit chute points in the window, and get ready to shoot the prepared popcorn into the interior. Ensure there's a large supply of unpopped popcorn in the ammo bin.
And plug in the extension cord.
Hopefully, hilarity ensues. Remember to collect your gear and close the window!
Yeah... Me either. Who needs it? I'll buy Doom 3 when it comes out for the XBox, and I won't even have to buy the PC-on-steroids HL2 requires. I'll even be able to enjoy online multiplayer via XBox Live, and maybe some kind of cooperative mode (they've been putting all kinds of buttery goodness into the XBox Doom 3, I can't wait to see what they come up with).
At a similar store (mentioning no names, I'm a coward), I had to deal with "Would you like to sign up for AOL? Huh? Wouldja? Wouldja? You know, you really need AOL... It's great, so Wouldja? Wouldja?"
You literally have to chew them out to get them to leave you alone. I recommend the following:
"Leave me alone! You work for the government, don't you! I told you people, I'm done with all that! The blood! The blood! It washes off the hands! Come here..." (At this point you should walk towards them with your eyes wide and bugged out while hunching your shoulders and rubbing your hands furiously as if you were trying to wash them).
At that point, they usually excuse themselves... Whenever they look like they're going to approach again, mutter "The horror! The horror!"
The stuff I'm working on is GPLed, so I can't use Cloudscape -- it's got a restrictive IBM license. I don't care if I can read the source, I care about having a liberal license.
Did I mention that when I'm not using my laptop, it's locked securely in a place that would take a wrecking bar to enter without the key? With a very nice deadbolt that would be VERY hard to pick (I asked the locksmith which lock was the biggest pain in the ass to pick, and he said "Schlage").
Physical security is very comforting. My laptop is also equipped with a key lock that disconnects the motherboard from power, and if this model is taken apart, it suicides (this model is marketed to police and military services, which is why I love it so).
You can't TELL it's suicided, it just never turns on again unless you use the key. Isn't that cool?
I haven't gotten around to ordering a key set yet, so I can't lock it, but I'll fix that sooner or later. Procrastination... Sigh...
When I think of "hardware firewall" I think of a device which stores its software and rules in static ROM which (hopefully) can't be flashed from the LAN side. This is more secure because A) it's not a machine you're actually working on, and B) there's nothing really THERE except for the operating software, and that would be kind of tricky to hack, C) it can be set up so that nobody can really initiate anything from the LAN port anyway.
What I do at my apartment is this:
I have a hardware firewall the size of a paperback book, a D-Link that's fully patched, with rules that won't allow any incoming traffic and which logs everything I didn't initiate and periodically emails me the logs when they fill up;
My computer is a mil-spec Panasonic CF-28 laptop, water resistant and shockproof, with an armored LCD and a silicone-mounted hard drive in a stainless steel caddy;
My operating system is Slackware Linux which I've hardened. It isn't running any services anyone can try to connect to, and it's running a paranoid iptables firewall which drops all packets I didn't specifically ask for, logging everything sneaky. It's fully patched, and I have different accounts I use for accessing the internet and doing other work (if I'm going to program or write, I disconnect the ethernet cable and log in with my other userid).
I use an up to date Mozilla or Firefox exclusively, and I have software installation disabled (I only enable it when I'm going to get something from the Mozilla site).
For mail, I use kmail, set up so it doesn't automatically display HTML -- I have to choose to view HTML if I know the sender.
I *think* I've thought about just about everything, but who knows? Of course, if something weird happens, I've got good backups so I can rebuild my system in an evening.
COTS Salesman: "So, I'm here to show you how you can save money by firing all your developers and buying commercial off the shelf software". In House Developer: "Fire who? What?" CS: "If you'll look at this first powerpoint slide..." IHD: "Woah, stop, hang on there. What was that about firing all the developers?" CS: "Let's not get bogged down in specifics. As you can see by this diagram, by buying COTS instead of developing your own software, you can save bundles of money which you can then spend on executive compensation packages." IHD: "Ah. I see what this is about." CS: "Good! Glad you're on the same page. Now, I don't know what YOUR compensation package is like, but if you're like the manager at the last place I demoed this at, you'll really love this stuff. Are you ready to make some cuts?" IHD: "You have no idea." CS: "Excellent! So, ok, you can lease this set of packages here for a low, low price of... Ah, you have a question?" IHD: "If I buy those packages, I own them, right? With source code? Open source?" CS: "Uhmmm... No. They're proprietary. And really, you don't buy them, you lease them. It's all in the EULA." IHD: "Lease them? Like with a car?" CS: "Exactly! Like with a car!" IHD: "Meaning that I have to send in car payments forever, but I never get to own the car, they can take it back whenever they want by claiming I broke an agreement, and if I drive too much they charge me extra and hit me with fees?" CS: "Well, maybe not exactly like with a car..." IHD: "How is it different?" CS: "We don't hit you with fees if you drive too much!" IHD: "So you admit you can take the software back whenever you want by pretending we violated the terms of an agreement." CS: "That's not what I meant! We wouldn't do that." IHD: "So you'll put that in writing?" CS: "What was that?" IHD: "You'll put it in writing that you'll never revoke our rights to the software, even if we break an agreement in your opinion?" CS: "We can't do that!" IHD: "Like I said, it's like a car lease." CS: "Nevermind, let's move along." IHD: "Not TOO far, I don't want to get hit with fees." CS: "Very funny. Ok, in this slide, you can see how much... What now???" IHD: "What if something goes wrong with the software?" CS: "You call tech support." IHD: "You mean wait on hold for six hours, and end up talking to some Indian guy who doesn't even speak English, only to have him read off a script he barely understands and end up not helping me at all?" CS: "Yes! NO! Dammit, what's your problem?" IHD: "I don't have the problem. Maybe you have a problem. Your pitch really sucks." CS: "You won't let me GET to the pitch! You keep asking me these dumb questions!" IHD: "Oh, so I'm DUMB now? You get a meeting with an exec and you call him dumb?" CS: "I didn't mean..." IHD: "I'm calling security. If you're not out of the building within two minutes, I'm going to have the big boiler room guy from Alabama tell you what purty lips you have." CS: "Ok, Ok, I'm leaving..."
A minute later, out in the hall...
The Executive, Late for the Meeting: "OH, hey, Nelson... What the hell are you grinning about? Shouldn't you be debugging or something?" IHD: "Oh... Nothing, I just had a very productive meeting, sir. I'm on my way back to my cube." TELFTM: "Well, get a move on. Say, did you see a vendor around here somewhere?" IHD: "The guy in the grey suit?" TELFTM: "Yeah, that's him." IHD: "He called up and said he couldn't make it. He says we're not worth his business, too small a fish. I asked him what he meant, and he said some disparaging things about you, sir. I took the message if you want to see it..." (hands over a post-it note). TELFTM: "I see... Oh, well, his competitor is coming tomorrow around Noon. Always another fish in the sea! Wait - how did you know he had a grey suit?" IHD: "Uhhhhh... He SAID so. Well, have a good day!" TELFTM: (grumbles something unintelligible).
(LATER)
IHD: "Yes, I'm calling for Mr. Thompson, about his meeting tomorrow at 12? It's been bumped up to 11:30. Yes. No problem, I'll meet him at the door myself. Thanks, miss. Goodbye."
This is really about the ages-old war between the suits and the geeks. This war is actually a class war between the rich and the middle class, but in the current discussion the relevant part of the war is the tension between geeks and suits, which I'll touch upon.
Let me start with the geeks, to put things in perspective.
Geeks are generally middle class children of blue-collar and low-to-mid-level white collar workers. They've had to work for everything, and they studied in college, so they're pretty sharp. They're also hungry -- MUCH more hungry than the pampered ivy-league kids of the suits.
Middle class kids study practical things like computer science, engineering, electronics, the sciences, technical trades... They earn a good salary because they can do the work the suits cannot, something the suits absolutely hate them for. And they're capable of working with traditional software engineering tools without handholding because THEY STUDIED.
On the other side, you've got the suits.
The suits think it's a terrible shame that there's an entire class of people they have to pay a living wage to. Although they can't see the irony in this, they actually consider middle class people "greedy". Their main goal is to STOP paying a "living wage" and get out of obeying worker protection laws.
In the past, they've had successes against the middle class. They killed off the domestic steel industry, putting thousands of people out on the street, and then they repeated the exercise using the same techniques to kill most of the automotive manufacturing industry and every other manufacturing industry they could.
Up until the turn of the century, however, they couldn't kill off the white collar and tech workers because they needed them to maintain their systems. There were no huge trans-Pacific cables and satellite systems back then, so outsourcing to other countries wasn't practical. And there was no practical way of bringing foreign staff here.
So, first, under the guise of Y2K preparedness, they brought over thousands of H1-B workers, flooding the market with cheap programmers. Then, they built up the network capacity between the U.S, Asia (particularly India), and Eastern Europe. Satellite communications were improved. Gradually, there were no more barriers to their plans to move all the REST of the middle class's work overseas.
Of course this is happening right now. But think about the next step.
See, moving all the work overseas to destroy the American middle classes (or at least cut them down to a size rich people are more comfortable with) CREATES a middle class over THERE. Well, sooner or later, they're going to want a decent salary too!
So, the next obvious step is to make programming easier, and easier, until it's almost so easy you can train monkeys (or A.I.) to do it. Or a secretary. Or whichever third-world people are still willing to work for slave wages. As each third-world country improves to the point of independence, the rich will move to another one because that is the way of things. To facilitate this, programming must be simplified.
The first step in this path was Visual Basic. Each version of Visual Basic has gotten easier, at least until.Net (which became so Java-like it was suitable for Real Programmers again). Brief dalliances with 4GLs didn't work out. The suits want to know, "what is the next step? What is the next Great Thing we can stab in the backs of the programmers who bedevil us?" And they've got a lot of money to spend, so they've got plenty of programmers working like busy little bees to produce the tools they crave.
And, all of this XML silliness is designed with that exact goal in mind: to dumb down computer science to the point where IT becomes cheap for the suits.
It's all about money, same as it ever was.
Why all my fellow programmers don't just go ballistic and lynch the programmers who are writing this stuff is beyond me.
"How about the needs of the people actually using the page? If you don't care about the viewers, why bother putting it on the web?"
Anything more complex than flat HTML is actually going to require the developer to retain some control over how the user views the pages. For example, take a page that allows you to submit an application online. The only appropriate place for a user to start is the start page of the application. NATURALLY I'm going to bounce you back to the beginning.
Anytime you try to do ANYTHING complicated, you're going to have to take control of the user's experience. This is as much for his benefit as yours, and it's a fact of life for web developers.
"That sounds just like the kind of site I get pissed off at, when being redirected to the main page after finding the page I really want via Google. Forcing visitors to jump through hoops has never been popular."
Tough nuts. The customer is not always right.
As for the rest, it's all possible with what we already have. Nothing you've described is aided or solved by the "Semantic Web".
Remember my comment about "gaming the system"? What prevents a porn site from creating a semantic web setup which says it's a bicycle site? In no time at all, you're wading through the same dreck you had with regular search engines.
The solution is NOT to create a "semantic web" but to improve YOUR SEARCH SKILLS. It's not my duty as a developer to hold your little hand and absolve you of the need to develop your skills. It's my duty to create web pages that do what they're supposed to do, every time, never breaking, never crashing, with consistent, repeatable, predictable results.
If someone like you gets bent out of shape because I'm enforcing the proper working of my page, well, tough. I don't need guys like you on my site anyway, you spend too much time trying to tinker around with it and thus, are a royal pain in the ass.
I think the "Semantic Web" sounds great on paper, and is the next big thing in university research departments and etc, etc, BUT I don't think it's going to end up seeing wide use. Here are my reasons, basically a list of things that I as a web developer would hesitate on.
1. The Semantic web seems to require a lot of extra complexity without much "bang for my buck". If I build a page normally, all my needs are already met. I can submit the main web page to search engines, prevent the rest from being indexed, figure out how to advertise my 'page's existence... I'm pretty much set. The extra stuff doesn't buy me anything. In fact, I definitely would NOT want people being able to find information on my site without going through my standard user interface. I WANT them to come in through the front door and ask for it.
2. Let's say people start using this tech, which I imagine would involve all sorts of extra tagging in pages, extra metadata, etc. Now you have to trust people to A) actually know what they're doing and set things up properly, which is a long shot at best, and B) not try to game the system somehow. On top of that, you have to trust the tool vendors to write bug-free code, which isn't going to happen. What I'm saying is that all these extra layers of complexity are places for bugs, screw-ups, and booby traps to hide.
3. And, the real beneficiary of these sorts of systems seems to be the tool vendors themselves. Because what this REALLY seems to be about is software vendors figuring out a new thing they can charge money for. Don't write those web pages using HTML, XML, and such! No, code them up with our special sauce, and use our special toolset to bake them into buttery goodness! Suddenly, you're not just writing HTML, you're going through a whole development process for the simplest of web pages.
Maybe I'm getting crusty in my old age, but it seems that every single year, some guy comes up with some new layer of complexity that we all "must have". It's never enough for a technology to simply work with no muss and no fuss. Nothing must ever be left alone! We must change everything every year or two! Because otherwise, what would college kids do with their excess energy, eh?
Sigh... Anyway, no matter what you try and do to prevent the Semantic Web from turning out just like meta tags, the inevitable will happen. You watch.
First of all, I always use high-quality paper, like for example parchment made from dried human skin. I find that if you dry it with some violets, it has a nice fragrance, which H.R. droids really seem to appreciate.
Next up, when writing your resume, do NOT let the blood coagulate. One time, I only got halfway through the experience section when I found my pen gumming up! So, it's a good idea to wet your pen by jamming it in your NEXT victim while he's still alive. This also tends to lighten the mood a little; resumes are pretty stressful to write.
Once you're writing, it helps to throw in some playful alternative spellings like "CompUUTre" and "Jaaahhhva". It'll throw the recruiting H.R. person off balance slightly, and make them wonder about your state of mind. Excellent motivator! Remember, you want to put your best foot forward. Sometimes I put in a chart with a jagged line rising up and to the right; the y axis is marked "My foot" and the x axis is marked "your ass", after a charming video on the Red Vs. Blue site. That Sarge is such a card! I think he would agree that this is a good motivator for H.R.
Finally, make sure to include as much mayhem in your experience section as possible. If you've got entries involving going postal in a large organization, include them! High body counts are a plus, particularly if you started in the H.R. office.
Ah, I remember when I was young, and interviewing... I visited five companies, two of which still existed afterwards! Sigh. Oh, to be young again...
TRUE STORY, happened in Michigan (my electromagnetism professor told me this one).
My professor, who actually was a researcher for Dow and taught on the side, was giving some kind of talk at a local high school. He had some time to kill, and was waiting in the hallway, when he saw some obviously nerdy kids wheeling a huge cart covered with subwoofers and electronics into the hall. They looked around, he ducked into a doorway so they wouldn't see him, and they felt comfortable. So they pointed the subwoofers down the hall at the office, a couple dozen yards away.
They started fiddling with the knobs on their devices, and although my prof couldn't actually HEAR anything, the huge panes of glass in the office started to softly vibrate and shake. "Yeah, that's it! Yeah!" one of the kids said, and they turned up the power a little. The glass started to noticably wobble around. Just then, one of the kids noticed my prof, who was dying of curiosity at this point. They hustled down the hall and disappeared, and he went to give his talk.
He regretted not asking the kids what was going on, still curious, and maybe because he was thinking about it, he noticed an article in the newspaper a few days later.
Every window in the high school had been busted out, with the only clue to what happened being a white van had been driving around the neighborhood for a few hours around the same time the windows broke.
My prof said, the only thing he can figure is they were using very low frequency sound. It's one of the coolest stories anyone has ever told me.
I've thought Physics was awesome and cool ever since. So if you want to show people how cool Physics can be, why not show them how much fun you can have with it? I mean, really.
An A/C asked, "What if I ask the Gorilla to play Go??"
That's a good one; Hmm... If the Gorilla's ACTUALLY an intellectual, he'll be intrigued; if it turns out he's a poseur, he'll be angry that you found him out and throw you around like a suitcase in a Samsonite commercial.
Gorilla (about midnight): "Look, old chum, I've already told you at least a dozen times that I don't happen to HAVE a Magic: The Gathering deck. I prefer chess. Now, bugger off like a good chap and let me read my Milton."
Ok, show of hands. How many of you running Linux or FreeBSD does NOT have htdig and locate (or FreeBSD variants) already installed? Hmm... Nobody.
Ok, Mac guys. How many, show of hands, don't be shy... How many of you don't use Finder to find things? Nobody. Ok...
Windows guys! Ok, I KNOW you'll be interested. Show of hands, who here doesn't use or know about "find files"? Nobody? Come on, SOMEONE in here must need a new search tool. Anybody? Come on, you're killing me here.
Ok, tough audience. I can roll with that.
Alright, let's pretend for a minute that you DIDN'T have a directory/file search tool installed on your computer. That's DID NOT. OK? Now, show of hands. Who here is willing to install my new tool FindYourCrap, for the low low low price of 29.95, with the understanding that I'll have a few ads running from time to time and you have no expectation of privacy, etc, etc, it's all in the EULA.
What? Nobody? Come ON people! I gave you bagels. Doesn't ANYBODY want some of this?
Fine. FINE! You people are pains in the... Ok, look, I'll tell you what, I've got a line on these condos in Florida...
I love IBM for their support of open-source. I hope they enjoy enormous, profound success in their endeavours, that their hardware business becomes even more profitable, that they are not just glad, but delighted they supported FOSS... Because the better things turn out for them, the better they'll turn out for US as well.
Remember, this is just the beginning. IBM is just warming up. What are they going to do next? Exciting, isn't it?
I guess that's not a bad idea, but there's another problem. Most of the people in my area who would be into this would also be in college. I'm about fifteen years older than they are, and it would be kind of uncomfortable.
I think online gaming is the solution for guys like me. And think of how far they could take a console version. Do it as a third-person RPG game. Or incorporate stealth and/or shooter gameplay based on the character classes involved, the mission, etc. You could really go nuts with something like this, really take it all the way. Gamers would go BERSERK over it; it'd be totally popular.
XBox Live would be a great way to serve it up; their matchmaking feature is very, very cool.
Well, all I can say is, if someone manages to create a console-gaming version of this (whether it be XBox, Playstation, or Gamecube) I'll be first in line to buy some. Hell, if I don't have the console it runs on, I'll buy THAT too.
I sure hope this happens... Imagine how cool a game this would be in full 3D, say, as a third-person RPG-type game, KOTOR style!
I mean, I'm usually a shooter gamer myself, but I'd go for this in a heartbeat.
They require a set of friends, physically in the same place as you, all of whom enjoy cyberpunk AND RPG's AND have time to spend with you.
1. I have no real friends.
2. Everyone where I work is not only not a hacker or interested in hacking or sci fi, but in fact is completely, hopelessly square. As in "they only work in IT because the pay is good, they're actually just the business-major crowd from college" square.
3. Even if anyone from work wasn't square, they're all old and married, and around HERE that means they constantly cry poverty and claim they have no time for anything that isn't sports related.
I'm in HELL. Cyberpunk hell, at least.
So, for the love of God, would SOMEBODY write up an XBox version of this, I mean REALLY. Jesus fucking CHRIST this thing would make my life a heaven on Earth, and XBox Live would hook me up with umpteen million like minds around the web.
Or a Linux version! That'd be great too. ANYTHING. But make it digital already. It's been DECADES. How long do I have to wait for a respite from my horrifyingly boring surroundings?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, it's the same way "Support the Troops" is actually code for "Support the War" and in a sense, "Support Bush".
Because first, the NeoCons tell everyone that they have to "Support the Troops" and everyone in the media starts parroting it, right? And that's the setup. Before too long, everyone's buying ribbons to stick on their cars, T-shirts, etc... And "Support the Troops" becomes kind of a national mantra.
Once it's taken hold, every time someone questions the war in Iraq (or whatever other wars Bush drags us into) some sheep within earshot will turn on that person like a rabid pit bull with a big speech about how he should "Support the Troops" and quit complaining.
After a while, "Supporting the Troops" becomes an "I'm virtuous, not like those dirty hippies over there" kind of thing. People use it to align themselves with what they see as the proper point of view. Someone complains about the war, and someone else will say "Oh, I'm not like that; I support the troops".
People think I'm a big dick because I won't buy a stupid ribbon for my car, and always look at me like I'm the fucking GRINCH or something. But the way I see it, why should I participate in my own brainwashing? Fuck 'em.
An A/C said: "While that's all nice and dandy, is that a model for a way to make a living?"
The thing is, you're not going to make a living ANYWAY. Give it up. The following factors are working against you even if you discount open-source:
1. All proprietary software is pirated almost instantly, which puts even more pressure on your company than open-source competition. People using pirated copies are using YOUR ACTUAL APP! At least open source apps are competition, you have a chance at winning based on features and quality. How can you compete against YOUR OWN APP?
2. Almost all proprietary software companies are rushing to cut the throats of their developers by outsourcing to India. What they don't outsource, they bring IN via H1-B and L-1 visas. Who cares if they win the market? They aren't giving YOU any of that money...
3. For a long time now, the only "safe" jobs left have been in writing bespoke software for a company's internal use. That went to India too. Civil Service and Federal service are still relatively safe places for American programmers, but they're outsourcing willy-nilly too.
So, if you want to be a developer, SURE you'll do open-source. At least you're still in the game, eh? Whatever your day job is...
I'm a programmer myself, and I've thought about this quite a bit.
First of all, you should think of open source as a competing product, not a spoiler. If a proprietary tool is actually better, people WILL pay for it. So if a piece of proprietary software isn't doing well, that means that it's either not much better than an open-source alternative or it's too expensive, and people don't think the value-added is worth the money. And don't forget the fact that if your EULA is too annoying, people will use an alternative even if it's WORSE than your product, just so they don't have to pay attention to you. Really, it's all about value: if open source provides a better value than an equivalent piece of proprietary software, it'll win the market. This is a Good Thing.
By the way, the REAL thing that makes it hard to sell proprietary software is PIRACY. If you come out with a useful piece of software, almost immediately people will start to share it all over the place. If you try to copy-protect it, people will crack it and THEN distribute it. You can't prevent this from happening; you might as well try to stop the rain. This is why Shareware died; open source had nothing to do with it. It's a basic human trait: people are cheap, inconsiderate and selfish.
Open source lets a developer say "Ok, I know end users are basically assholes, and they'll pirate my stuff all over the place whether I like it or not, and getting them to actually PAY for something is like pulling teeth. But I still like to develop software, and I want to create this tool I've been wanting for a while, so FUCK IT, I'll release it open-source and share it with everybody, and who knows, maybe something cool will happen when everyone and his mother starts actually helping me code the damn thing. Plus, other developers will notice my stuff and maybe I'll make some friends."
Additionally, open source frees developers from dependency on overly greedy proprietary companies that would like to have way too much control over what you do. And it grants you the same freedoms you're granting YOUR users. And it contributes to a collaborative, friendly worldwide subculture that encourages cooperation and sharing.
The upside of open-source is so much more significant than any possible downside. And it makes piracy moot, which is amusing, isn't it?
First, get your hands on a hot-air popcorn popper. Maybe several of them.
Then, modify the popcorn popper so the kernel bin gets refilled via a chute. You can drill a hole in the side of the popper and glue a sheet metal stovepipe in, for example. Then, hook the chute up to a BIG bin of popcorn kernels.
Now, mount an exit chute to the part of the popper where the popcorn collects. Set up the popper so that as popcorn is made, it naturally falls out the exit chute. You might want to create a wheeled mount for the popper, so that it's higher than the place where it's putting the popcorn. Alternately, you could mount an electrical impeller (like a mix of propeller and submarine screw) to manually push the popcorn out. You might want to rig the thing flamethrower-style, so you're holding the exit chute and throwing a stream of popcorn wherever you point it.
Open up the window into which you're going to be inserting the popcorn. Arrange the popcorn delivery device so that the exit chute points in the window, and get ready to shoot the prepared popcorn into the interior. Ensure there's a large supply of unpopped popcorn in the ammo bin.
And plug in the extension cord.
Hopefully, hilarity ensues. Remember to collect your gear and close the window!
Yeah... Me either. Who needs it? I'll buy Doom 3 when it comes out for the XBox, and I won't even have to buy the PC-on-steroids HL2 requires. I'll even be able to enjoy online multiplayer via XBox Live, and maybe some kind of cooperative mode (they've been putting all kinds of buttery goodness into the XBox Doom 3, I can't wait to see what they come up with).
Fuck Valve. Long live ID Software!
At a similar store (mentioning no names, I'm a coward), I had to deal with "Would you like to sign up for AOL? Huh? Wouldja? Wouldja? You know, you really need AOL... It's great, so Wouldja? Wouldja?"
You literally have to chew them out to get them to leave you alone. I recommend the following:
"Leave me alone! You work for the government, don't you! I told you people, I'm done with all that!
The blood! The blood! It washes off the hands! Come here..." (At this point you should walk towards them with your eyes wide and bugged out while hunching your shoulders and rubbing your hands furiously as if you were trying to wash them).
At that point, they usually excuse themselves... Whenever they look like they're going to approach again, mutter "The horror! The horror!"
Very nice! Thanks for the info, I'll check it out.
The stuff I'm working on is GPLed, so I can't use Cloudscape -- it's got a restrictive IBM license. I don't care if I can read the source, I care about having a liberal license.
So I'm going with McKoi.
Did I mention that when I'm not using my laptop, it's locked securely in a place that would take a wrecking bar to enter without the key? With a very nice deadbolt that would be VERY hard to pick (I asked the locksmith which lock was the biggest pain in the ass to pick, and he said "Schlage").
Physical security is very comforting. My laptop is also equipped with a key lock that disconnects the motherboard from power, and if this model is taken apart, it suicides (this model is marketed to police and military services, which is why I love it so).
You can't TELL it's suicided, it just never turns on again unless you use the key. Isn't that cool?
I haven't gotten around to ordering a key set yet, so I can't lock it, but I'll fix that sooner or later. Procrastination... Sigh...
When I think of "hardware firewall" I think of a device which stores its software and rules in static ROM which (hopefully) can't be flashed from the LAN side. This is more secure because A) it's not a machine you're actually working on, and B) there's nothing really THERE except for the operating software, and that would be kind of tricky to hack, C) it can be set up so that nobody can really initiate anything from the LAN port anyway.
What I do at my apartment is this:
I have a hardware firewall the size of a paperback book, a D-Link that's fully patched, with rules that won't allow any incoming traffic and which logs everything I didn't initiate and periodically emails me the logs when they fill up;
My computer is a mil-spec Panasonic CF-28 laptop, water resistant and shockproof, with an armored LCD and a silicone-mounted hard drive in a stainless steel caddy;
My operating system is Slackware Linux which I've hardened. It isn't running any services anyone can try to connect to, and it's running a paranoid iptables firewall which drops all packets I didn't specifically ask for, logging everything sneaky. It's fully patched, and I have different accounts I use for accessing the internet and doing other work (if I'm going to program or write, I disconnect the ethernet cable and log in with my other userid).
I use an up to date Mozilla or Firefox exclusively, and I have software installation disabled (I only enable it when I'm going to get something from the Mozilla site).
For mail, I use kmail, set up so it doesn't automatically display HTML -- I have to choose to view HTML if I know the sender.
I *think* I've thought about just about everything, but who knows? Of course, if something weird happens, I've got good backups so I can rebuild my system in an evening.
COTS Salesman: "So, I'm here to show you how you can save money by firing all your developers and buying commercial off the shelf software".
In House Developer: "Fire who? What?"
CS: "If you'll look at this first powerpoint slide..."
IHD: "Woah, stop, hang on there. What was that about firing all the developers?"
CS: "Let's not get bogged down in specifics. As you can see by this diagram, by buying COTS instead of developing your own software, you can save bundles of money which you can then spend on executive compensation packages."
IHD: "Ah. I see what this is about."
CS: "Good! Glad you're on the same page. Now, I don't know what YOUR compensation package is like, but if you're like the manager at the last place I demoed this at, you'll really love this stuff. Are you ready to make some cuts?"
IHD: "You have no idea."
CS: "Excellent! So, ok, you can lease this set of packages here for a low, low price of... Ah, you have a question?"
IHD: "If I buy those packages, I own them, right? With source code? Open source?"
CS: "Uhmmm... No. They're proprietary. And really, you don't buy them, you lease them. It's all in the EULA."
IHD: "Lease them? Like with a car?"
CS: "Exactly! Like with a car!"
IHD: "Meaning that I have to send in car payments forever, but I never get to own the car, they can take it back whenever they want by claiming I broke an agreement, and if I drive too much they charge me extra and hit me with fees?"
CS: "Well, maybe not exactly like with a car..."
IHD: "How is it different?"
CS: "We don't hit you with fees if you drive too much!"
IHD: "So you admit you can take the software back whenever you want by pretending we violated the terms of an agreement."
CS: "That's not what I meant! We wouldn't do that."
IHD: "So you'll put that in writing?"
CS: "What was that?"
IHD: "You'll put it in writing that you'll never revoke our rights to the software, even if we break an agreement in your opinion?"
CS: "We can't do that!"
IHD: "Like I said, it's like a car lease."
CS: "Nevermind, let's move along."
IHD: "Not TOO far, I don't want to get hit with fees."
CS: "Very funny. Ok, in this slide, you can see how much... What now???"
IHD: "What if something goes wrong with the software?"
CS: "You call tech support."
IHD: "You mean wait on hold for six hours, and end up talking to some Indian guy who doesn't even speak English, only to have him read off a script he barely understands and end up not helping me at all?"
CS: "Yes! NO! Dammit, what's your problem?"
IHD: "I don't have the problem. Maybe you have a problem. Your pitch really sucks."
CS: "You won't let me GET to the pitch! You keep asking me these dumb questions!"
IHD: "Oh, so I'm DUMB now? You get a meeting with an exec and you call him dumb?"
CS: "I didn't mean..."
IHD: "I'm calling security. If you're not out of the building within two minutes, I'm going to have the big boiler room guy from Alabama tell you what purty lips you have."
CS: "Ok, Ok, I'm leaving..."
A minute later, out in the hall...
The Executive, Late for the Meeting: "OH, hey, Nelson... What the hell are you grinning about? Shouldn't you be debugging or something?"
IHD: "Oh... Nothing, I just had a very productive meeting, sir. I'm on my way back to my cube."
TELFTM: "Well, get a move on. Say, did you see a vendor around here somewhere?"
IHD: "The guy in the grey suit?"
TELFTM: "Yeah, that's him."
IHD: "He called up and said he couldn't make it. He says we're not worth his business, too small a fish. I asked him what he meant, and he said some disparaging things about you, sir. I took the message if you want to see it..." (hands over a post-it note).
TELFTM: "I see... Oh, well, his competitor is coming tomorrow around Noon. Always another fish in the sea! Wait - how did you know he had a grey suit?"
IHD: "Uhhhhh... He SAID so. Well, have a good day!"
TELFTM: (grumbles something unintelligible).
(LATER)
IHD: "Yes, I'm calling for Mr. Thompson, about his meeting tomorrow at 12? It's been bumped up to 11:30. Yes. No problem, I'll meet him at the door myself. Thanks, miss. Goodbye."
A developer's work is never done!
This is really about the ages-old war between the suits and the geeks. This war is actually a class war between the rich and the middle class, but in the current discussion the relevant part of the war is the tension between geeks and suits, which I'll touch upon.
.Net (which became so Java-like it was suitable for Real Programmers again). Brief dalliances with 4GLs didn't work out. The suits want to know, "what is the next step? What is the next Great Thing we can stab in the backs of the programmers who bedevil us?" And they've got a lot of money to spend, so they've got plenty of programmers working like busy little bees to produce the tools they crave.
Let me start with the geeks, to put things in perspective.
Geeks are generally middle class children of blue-collar and low-to-mid-level white collar workers. They've had to work for everything, and they studied in college, so they're pretty sharp. They're also hungry -- MUCH more hungry than the pampered ivy-league kids of the suits.
Middle class kids study practical things like computer science, engineering, electronics, the sciences, technical trades... They earn a good salary because they can do the work the suits cannot, something the suits absolutely hate them for. And they're capable of working with traditional software engineering tools without handholding because THEY STUDIED.
On the other side, you've got the suits.
The suits think it's a terrible shame that there's an entire class of people they have to pay a living wage to. Although they can't see the irony in this, they actually consider middle class people "greedy". Their main goal is to STOP paying a "living wage" and get out of obeying worker protection laws.
In the past, they've had successes against the middle class. They killed off the domestic steel industry, putting thousands of people out on the street, and then they repeated the exercise using the same techniques to kill most of the automotive manufacturing industry and every other manufacturing industry they could.
Up until the turn of the century, however, they couldn't kill off the white collar and tech workers because they needed them to maintain their systems. There were no huge trans-Pacific cables and satellite systems back then, so outsourcing to other countries wasn't practical. And there was no practical way of bringing foreign staff here.
So, first, under the guise of Y2K preparedness, they brought over thousands of H1-B workers, flooding the market with cheap programmers. Then, they built up the network capacity between the U.S, Asia (particularly India), and Eastern Europe. Satellite communications were improved. Gradually, there were no more barriers to their plans to move all the REST of the middle class's work overseas.
Of course this is happening right now. But think about the next step.
See, moving all the work overseas to destroy the American middle classes (or at least cut them down to a size rich people are more comfortable with) CREATES a middle class over THERE. Well, sooner or later, they're going to want a decent salary too!
So, the next obvious step is to make programming easier, and easier, until it's almost so easy you can train monkeys (or A.I.) to do it. Or a secretary. Or whichever third-world people are still willing to work for slave wages. As each third-world country improves to the point of independence, the rich will move to another one because that is the way of things. To facilitate this, programming must be simplified.
The first step in this path was Visual Basic. Each version of Visual Basic has gotten easier, at least until
And, all of this XML silliness is designed with that exact goal in mind: to dumb down computer science to the point where IT becomes cheap for the suits.
It's all about money, same as it ever was.
Why all my fellow programmers don't just go ballistic and lynch the programmers who are writing this stuff is beyond me.
"How about the needs of the people actually using the page? If you don't care about the viewers, why bother putting it on the web?"
Anything more complex than flat HTML is actually going to require the developer to retain some control over how the user views the pages. For example, take a page that allows you to submit an application online. The only appropriate place for a user to start is the start page of the application. NATURALLY I'm going to bounce you back to the beginning.
Anytime you try to do ANYTHING complicated, you're going to have to take control of the user's experience. This is as much for his benefit as yours, and it's a fact of life for web developers.
"That sounds just like the kind of site I get pissed off at, when being redirected to the main page after finding the page I really want via Google. Forcing visitors to jump through hoops has never been popular."
Tough nuts. The customer is not always right.
As for the rest, it's all possible with what we already have. Nothing you've described is aided or solved by the "Semantic Web".
Remember my comment about "gaming the system"? What prevents a porn site from creating a semantic web setup which says it's a bicycle site? In no time at all, you're wading through the same dreck you had with regular search engines.
The solution is NOT to create a "semantic web" but to improve YOUR SEARCH SKILLS. It's not my duty as a developer to hold your little hand and absolve you of the need to develop your skills. It's my duty to create web pages that do what they're supposed to do, every time, never breaking, never crashing, with consistent, repeatable, predictable results.
If someone like you gets bent out of shape because I'm enforcing the proper working of my page, well, tough. I don't need guys like you on my site anyway, you spend too much time trying to tinker around with it and thus, are a royal pain in the ass.
I think the "Semantic Web" sounds great on paper, and is the next big thing in university research departments and etc, etc, BUT I don't think it's going to end up seeing wide use. Here are my reasons, basically a list of things that I as a web developer would hesitate on.
1. The Semantic web seems to require a lot of extra complexity without much "bang for my buck". If I build a page normally, all my needs are already met. I can submit the main web page to search engines, prevent the rest from being indexed, figure out how to advertise my 'page's existence... I'm pretty much set. The extra stuff doesn't buy me anything. In fact, I definitely would NOT want people being able to find information on my site without going through my standard user interface. I WANT them to come in through the front door and ask for it.
2. Let's say people start using this tech, which I imagine would involve all sorts of extra tagging in pages, extra metadata, etc. Now you have to trust people to A) actually know what they're doing and set things up properly, which is a long shot at best, and B) not try to game the system somehow. On top of that, you have to trust the tool vendors to write bug-free code, which isn't going to happen. What I'm saying is that all these extra layers of complexity are places for bugs, screw-ups, and booby traps to hide.
3. And, the real beneficiary of these sorts of systems seems to be the tool vendors themselves. Because what this REALLY seems to be about is software vendors figuring out a new thing they can charge money for. Don't write those web pages using HTML, XML, and such! No, code them up with our special sauce, and use our special toolset to bake them into buttery goodness! Suddenly, you're not just writing HTML, you're going through a whole development process for the simplest of web pages.
Maybe I'm getting crusty in my old age, but it seems that every single year, some guy comes up with some new layer of complexity that we all "must have". It's never enough for a technology to simply work with no muss and no fuss. Nothing must ever be left alone! We must change everything every year or two! Because otherwise, what would college kids do with their excess energy, eh?
Sigh... Anyway, no matter what you try and do to prevent the Semantic Web from turning out just like meta tags, the inevitable will happen. You watch.
First of all, I always use high-quality paper, like for example parchment made from dried human skin. I find that if you dry it with some violets, it has a nice fragrance, which H.R. droids really seem to appreciate.
Next up, when writing your resume, do NOT let the blood coagulate. One time, I only got halfway through the experience section when I found my pen gumming up! So, it's a good idea to wet your pen by jamming it in your NEXT victim while he's still alive. This also tends to lighten the mood a little; resumes are pretty stressful to write.
Once you're writing, it helps to throw in some playful alternative spellings like "CompUUTre" and "Jaaahhhva". It'll throw the recruiting H.R. person off balance slightly, and make them wonder about your state of mind. Excellent motivator! Remember, you want to put your best foot forward. Sometimes I put in a chart with a jagged line rising up and to the right; the y axis is marked "My foot" and the x axis is marked "your ass", after a charming video on the Red Vs. Blue site. That Sarge is such a card! I think he would agree that this is a good motivator for H.R.
Finally, make sure to include as much mayhem in your experience section as possible. If you've got entries involving going postal in a large organization, include them! High body counts are a plus, particularly if you started in the H.R. office.
Ah, I remember when I was young, and interviewing... I visited five companies, two of which still existed afterwards! Sigh. Oh, to be young again...
TRUE STORY, happened in Michigan (my electromagnetism professor told me this one).
My professor, who actually was a researcher for Dow and taught on the side, was giving some kind of talk at a local high school. He had some time to kill, and was waiting in the hallway, when he saw some obviously nerdy kids wheeling a huge cart covered with subwoofers and electronics into the hall. They looked around, he ducked into a doorway so they wouldn't see him, and they felt comfortable. So they pointed the subwoofers down the hall at the office, a couple dozen yards away.
They started fiddling with the knobs on their devices, and although my prof couldn't actually HEAR anything, the huge panes of glass in the office started to softly vibrate and shake. "Yeah, that's it! Yeah!" one of the kids said, and they turned up the power a little. The glass started to noticably wobble around. Just then, one of the kids noticed my prof, who was dying of curiosity at this point. They hustled down the hall and disappeared, and he went to give his talk.
He regretted not asking the kids what was going on, still curious, and maybe because he was thinking about it, he noticed an article in the newspaper a few days later.
Every window in the high school had been busted out, with the only clue to what happened being a white van had been driving around the neighborhood for a few hours around the same time the windows broke.
My prof said, the only thing he can figure is they were using very low frequency sound. It's one of the coolest stories anyone has ever told me.
I've thought Physics was awesome and cool ever since. So if you want to show people how cool Physics can be, why not show them how much fun you can have with it? I mean, really.
An A/C asked, "What if I ask the Gorilla to play Go??"
That's a good one; Hmm... If the Gorilla's ACTUALLY an intellectual, he'll be intrigued; if it turns out he's a poseur, he'll be angry that you found him out and throw you around like a suitcase in a Samsonite commercial.
Either way, you won't be bored!
Cruel? I'll say.
Gorilla (about midnight): "Look, old chum, I've already told you at least a dozen times that I don't happen to HAVE a Magic: The Gathering deck. I prefer chess. Now, bugger off like a good chap and let me read my Milton."
Ok, show of hands. How many of you running Linux or FreeBSD does NOT have htdig and locate (or FreeBSD variants) already installed? Hmm... Nobody.
Ok, Mac guys. How many, show of hands, don't be shy... How many of you don't use Finder to find things? Nobody. Ok...
Windows guys! Ok, I KNOW you'll be interested. Show of hands, who here doesn't use or know about "find files"? Nobody? Come on, SOMEONE in here must need a new search tool. Anybody? Come on, you're killing me here.
Ok, tough audience. I can roll with that.
Alright, let's pretend for a minute that you DIDN'T have a directory/file search tool installed on your computer. That's DID NOT. OK? Now, show of hands. Who here is willing to install my new tool FindYourCrap, for the low low low price of 29.95, with the understanding that I'll have a few ads running from time to time and you have no expectation of privacy, etc, etc, it's all in the EULA.
What? Nobody? Come ON people! I gave you bagels. Doesn't ANYBODY want some of this?
Fine. FINE! You people are pains in the... Ok, look, I'll tell you what, I've got a line on these condos in Florida...
You COULD be... But you're NOT! ;)
I love IBM for their support of open-source. I hope they enjoy enormous, profound success in their endeavours, that their hardware business becomes even more profitable, that they are not just glad, but delighted they supported FOSS... Because the better things turn out for them, the better they'll turn out for US as well.
Remember, this is just the beginning. IBM is just warming up. What are they going to do next? Exciting, isn't it?
I guess that's not a bad idea, but there's another problem. Most of the people in my area who would be into this would also be in college. I'm about fifteen years older than they are, and it would be kind of uncomfortable.
I think online gaming is the solution for guys like me. And think of how far they could take a console version. Do it as a third-person RPG game. Or incorporate stealth and/or shooter gameplay based on the character classes involved, the mission, etc. You could really go nuts with something like this, really take it all the way. Gamers would go BERSERK over it; it'd be totally popular.
XBox Live would be a great way to serve it up; their matchmaking feature is very, very cool.
IRC, huh? Hmm...
Well, all I can say is, if someone manages to create a console-gaming version of this (whether it be XBox, Playstation, or Gamecube) I'll be first in line to buy some. Hell, if I don't have the console it runs on, I'll buy THAT too.
I sure hope this happens... Imagine how cool a game this would be in full 3D, say, as a third-person RPG-type game, KOTOR style!
I mean, I'm usually a shooter gamer myself, but I'd go for this in a heartbeat.
They require a set of friends, physically in the same place as you, all of whom enjoy cyberpunk AND RPG's AND have time to spend with you.
1. I have no real friends.
2. Everyone where I work is not only not a hacker or interested in hacking or sci fi, but in fact is completely, hopelessly square. As in "they only work in IT because the pay is good, they're actually just the business-major crowd from college" square.
3. Even if anyone from work wasn't square, they're all old and married, and around HERE that means they constantly cry poverty and claim they have no time for anything that isn't sports related.
I'm in HELL. Cyberpunk hell, at least.
So, for the love of God, would SOMEBODY write up an XBox version of this, I mean REALLY. Jesus fucking CHRIST this thing would make my life a heaven on Earth, and XBox Live would hook me up with umpteen million like minds around the web.
Or a Linux version! That'd be great too. ANYTHING. But make it digital already. It's been DECADES. How long do I have to wait for a respite from my horrifyingly boring surroundings?
Have mercy...
I sure hope this gets patched soon. I'll be downloading that baby the instant it gets made available.
I'm lucky on two counts, though:
1. I usually use Linux as a workstation, and don't have any users or services to worry about; but even if I did,
2. I use Slackware, so I can probably just download and install a new bare.i (I'm using one of the stock kernels).
God BLESS Slackware! I love that system, I surely do...