Remember this when you get an urge to say that America and Western society is oppressive, and when you decide that Islam is a peaceful religion.
I think you are confusing a political system with a religion.
Saudi Arabia is a country that leverages their religion to implement a very conservative and authoritarian society.
Islam is a religion.
Remember, Christianity has been used throughout history as an excuse to kill, maim, rape, and torture millions of people too. Pretending that Islam is unique in the barbarism that is executed in its name is fuzzy logic at best.
Rob,
I read your blog long before I ever signed up for an account (where I was promptly taught that I wasn't smart enough to post here). '97 was so long ago. Thanks for everything. I hope you find happiness in your next opportunity.
Which is exactly why I'm sticking with Netflix regardless of how pissed I am about a 60% price increase this year. With our bought/sold politicians, the only way we are going to get any semblance of net neutrality is if the competing companies that want to provide video/data services become strong enough to take on the ISPs in Washington.
Of course, the biggest problem my strategy has is that nothing prevents Netflix from working a deal with Time Warner to not have their streaming count against the cap.
Bingo, and furthermore some Blu Rays have kittens when you don't give them access to the internet.
I had to physically unplug my player from its switch because Tron: Legacy placed a large box in the center of my screen stating that Tron wanted access to the internet and refused to accept that I had a connection and didn't want to give it access. Stupid thing would actually play the movie with this box covering 1/3 of the screen.
BD Live seems to increase load times and allows "sneaky" movie studios to track my viewing habits without giving me any real value.
I have no problem with the FBI gathering evidence in an attempt to prove guilt. What I have a problem with is gps tracking, wiretapping phones, reading emails, etc, without showing probable cause and getting a warrant from a Judge.
Have you ever been to Circ de Soleil?
One of the most impressive elements about their performances is the live music. Sure they have clowns and trapize artist and stuff, but the music is always stunning and powerful. So much so that every time I think about Circ, I think of the music. The live music adds a certain element that a synthesizer never can.
I'm no fan of broadway, but I look at this artistic forms I appreciate.
I believe you are being disingenuous here. All you have to do is play with a windows mobile phone for 10 minutes to understand how much multi-tasking can affect the customer's experience. Several of my friends have them and are constantly complaining about how unresponsive and slow they are.
Part of the problem is obviously Windows Mobile, but you have to keep in mind that these are devices are using processors that are much weaker than what you find in today's computer/notebook. I don't doubt that Apple is working on multi-tasking for the iPhone/iPad, but until they implement it in such a way that it doesn't bog down the device and can provide an easy to use method for killing things running in the background - I don't want it.
I work in Telco, and have yet to see a modern device that provides both of those, so No thank you, I'll stick with my single tasking iPhone.
Exactly, and any MBA program worth its salt talks about the MBA being a "general management degree" and attempts to expose its students to a number of different disciplines so that they learn to adapt to them and pick up new ones.
Good MBA programs teach students an approach to learning and problem solving, not 2 semesters of accounting, 1 of finance, 2 of marketing, 1 of OB, etc.
As someone that has moved from software engineering out into management, I certainly understand your points and from the outside they make a lot of sense. However, I disagree.
As many in the thread have said, the majority of software engineering is contemplating a problem and coming up with workable solution. I remember years ago when tasked with replacing a complex CORBA interface with web services, I spent 8 weeks planning, pondering, and scratching on ether-paper, and 4 on coding and unit test. Because I had done all my planning and designing up front, the actual coding went quickly and I ran into almost no issues. I was done well ahead of schedule and as of several years later when I left the firm, there had been no problems. However, I bet that for those first eight weeks, I sure looked like I was doing jack.
The challenge for most non-software engineers is that what SE's do is so different and unique. We can understand what a mechanical engineer does because most of us have opened the hood of our car and looked at the complexities of the engine. We can grasp at what nuclear engineers do because we've seen large cities and huge ships powered by their works, not to mention read about the probes we've sent to other planets powered by them. We can comprehend what Industrial Engineers do because..uhh..well maybe nobody understands that (joking...joking...).
Software Engineering is so foreign to what other individuals do that it is a mystery. It is part logic and process modeling, part math, and often requires a firm understanding of science and physics. Some tasks require an understanding of human psychology. Coding is one of the steps int the software engineering process, not the only one. It is unfortunate that it is also the only step people seem to attribute to the engineer. Software Engineering is much closer to art than production line work sticking slot A into tab B. And like artists, many of software engineerings practitioners tend to be a bit egotistical, anti-social and well..pricks.
Having said that, if the OP's description is accurate, there is definitely something wrong in his new organization and I agree he should begin to look elsewhere. Either his fellows are indeed lazy or management is setting unrealistic expectations.
I'm pretty surprised by this as well. A decade ago (when I was in school) my internships were $16, $18 and then $20 an hour.
The "staffing company" may be part of your challenge - they are probably taking a cut and the major notebook manu doesn't realize it.
Have you looked for an internship through your school? That was where I found all of mine.
Having bought the DLC and run the quest - I tend to agree with you. The $5 quest that is pushed on you (Warden's Keep) results in getting your own personal castle that you can store stuff in and several vendors to sell you stuff. I'm ~12-ish hours into the game and haven't found an alternative place to store extra loot.
This content is so well integrated into the game, that had it not been for the PAX pair, I wouldn't have realized that it was an extra add on. The other available DLC is so obviously tacked on that it is nearly painful (you get a stone golem...for $15).
I had picked up the Warden's keep DLC while concentrating very hard on my last conference call on the day the game was released and staring intently at the Dragon Age start screen. *Cough*
More than that, their website also says "your software purchase" repeatedly.
If they are actually selling a license, they should be liable for misrepresentation because nowhere does it affirm that the user is only buying a license (well, up through the part where you have to enter a credit card number - i don't actually want their software).
I'm one of those small-gov't, pro-personal-liberties republicans and I can't describe to you how invisible I have felt the last decade.
I hope after this election the GOP dissolves and reforms as two different parties to separate people like me from the "new" Republicans. Realistically, I don't give it a high probability of happening, but a guy can hope and change, can't he?
Wait...that almost sounds like somebodies election theme...
"Also, Mexico is part of the continent of Central America. "
Not to be picky here, but there is no Central American continent. Central America is a region of North America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continents
I mean as long as we are correcting people for using the term USians...
As I understand things, the platforms are dramatically different to develop on and cross-platform development significantly increase development costs. There is not a standard "platform" with which to code too...the capabilities of the 360 and the PS3 are completely different.
Just look at it from a processor perspective - the PS3 has a main processor and ~6 mini-cores that can given finite tasks vs the 360 and its two-ish cores? To take advantage of both would be a very difficult task.
So, if I understand OP, he is looking for a more efficient and reliable way to find new content, and you are saying "suck it up whiner, the old way works fine"?
I agree whole-heartedly with OP. As an adult (it scares me to admit it), my free time has been cut to the point that I don't have time to waste unsuccessfully finding new content, and I too search for a more efficient way to get at it.
Going to B&N is time consuming and doesn't provide much insighte (look! shelves of books that I don't know how good they are! employees that don't care about books! and OMG, a Starbucks where I can buy overpriced coffee and look cool at!)
I also believe you misunderstood the authors point as to it being "expensive" to go to amazon. I believe he was referring to a high probability of wasting his money. If I spend an hour on Amazon selecting and buying a $10 book that sucks, I feel that it has been an expensive waste of my time.
Hands down, the best suggestion I've seen in this thread is the library. I haven't been to one for pleasure since high school. Maybe I'm suffering post traumatic stress syndrome from the time that I spent in them in college. I hope to find more good suggestions in this thread.
Not to mention take "profit" out of the equation.
I'm all about removing government from situations where competition ensures delivery of high quality goods and services, but the design of the current American health care system ensures neither.
It is in the insurance companies best interest to have you consume as little of their service as possible, ensuring them to biggest profit. Because of this they restrict your ability to use their service as much as possible and make it difficult when you do use it. It is in the hospital's best interest to make you consume as much of their product as possible because that is how they get the most money. And because the person who is consuming the product is not the one that pays for it (the insurance company does) then they are relatively immune to the true price (we have our co-pay) even though in the end we pay for it through our rates.
These two drives makes the system less efficient not more, and don't even get me started about the free market aspects of our health care system - they don't exist. Consumers cannot decide "this service sucks, i'll go elsewhere" because they are not the one that makes that decision (their employer does), and since the employer is not consuming the service, they care more about the cost. Without choice of provider and a clear association between purchaser and consumer of a good and service, free market economics just don't work.
Yeah but the problem with that is you get yourself in a cockpit relying on radar to see and freakin Lonestar throws a tub of jam (Raspberry of course) at ya, and all of the sudden you are flying blind. That happens once and all of the sudden, the North Koreans start packin catapults with the stuff. The Chinese will be calling tankers crossing the pacific and having them turn around to bring the new air defense weapon for their use. Smuckers shares go through the roof as supplies run short and all of the sudden you can't get any of the good stuff to put on your crumpets while you drink your morning tea.
EMI Group last week said it would offer free streaming music on Baidu.com, the leading Web site and search engine in China, where 90 percent of music is pirated. This quote jumped out at me in the article too.
Is that implying that the vast majority of the gazillion dollars that the music industry claims to lose per anum to piracy happens in a country where people's avg. weekly income is enough to buy four cds? That is just insane. Am I looking at that figure wrong?
If not, wow...that adds an entire new level to the misuse of numbers by the *IAA in my book.
Keep in mind that most TVs/Receivers currently available with HDMI connections have one solitary port.
Most users that want to use the PS3 through the HDMI will be unplugging their DVD player or HD DVR and plugging in the PS3, ie they already have the cable.
While I'm all about bashing sony over their 6 Million dollar machine, I really think this is a nit pick and a moot point.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the definition of theocracy has escaped you somehow. Perhaps I could direct you to wikipedia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia
Remember this when you get an urge to say that America and Western society is oppressive, and when you decide that Islam is a peaceful religion.
I think you are confusing a political system with a religion.
Saudi Arabia is a country that leverages their religion to implement a very conservative and authoritarian society.
Islam is a religion.
Remember, Christianity has been used throughout history as an excuse to kill, maim, rape, and torture millions of people too. Pretending that Islam is unique in the barbarism that is executed in its name is fuzzy logic at best.
That commercial was not intended to be treated as a factual statement of the phone's capabilities.
Rob, I read your blog long before I ever signed up for an account (where I was promptly taught that I wasn't smart enough to post here). '97 was so long ago. Thanks for everything. I hope you find happiness in your next opportunity.
Which is exactly why I'm sticking with Netflix regardless of how pissed I am about a 60% price increase this year. With our bought/sold politicians, the only way we are going to get any semblance of net neutrality is if the competing companies that want to provide video/data services become strong enough to take on the ISPs in Washington. Of course, the biggest problem my strategy has is that nothing prevents Netflix from working a deal with Time Warner to not have their streaming count against the cap.
Bingo, and furthermore some Blu Rays have kittens when you don't give them access to the internet. I had to physically unplug my player from its switch because Tron: Legacy placed a large box in the center of my screen stating that Tron wanted access to the internet and refused to accept that I had a connection and didn't want to give it access. Stupid thing would actually play the movie with this box covering 1/3 of the screen. BD Live seems to increase load times and allows "sneaky" movie studios to track my viewing habits without giving me any real value.
I have no problem with the FBI gathering evidence in an attempt to prove guilt. What I have a problem with is gps tracking, wiretapping phones, reading emails, etc, without showing probable cause and getting a warrant from a Judge.
Have you ever been to Circ de Soleil? One of the most impressive elements about their performances is the live music. Sure they have clowns and trapize artist and stuff, but the music is always stunning and powerful. So much so that every time I think about Circ, I think of the music. The live music adds a certain element that a synthesizer never can. I'm no fan of broadway, but I look at this artistic forms I appreciate.
I believe you are being disingenuous here. All you have to do is play with a windows mobile phone for 10 minutes to understand how much multi-tasking can affect the customer's experience. Several of my friends have them and are constantly complaining about how unresponsive and slow they are.
Part of the problem is obviously Windows Mobile, but you have to keep in mind that these are devices are using processors that are much weaker than what you find in today's computer/notebook. I don't doubt that Apple is working on multi-tasking for the iPhone/iPad, but until they implement it in such a way that it doesn't bog down the device and can provide an easy to use method for killing things running in the background - I don't want it.
I work in Telco, and have yet to see a modern device that provides both of those, so No thank you, I'll stick with my single tasking iPhone.
Exactly, and any MBA program worth its salt talks about the MBA being a "general management degree" and attempts to expose its students to a number of different disciplines so that they learn to adapt to them and pick up new ones. Good MBA programs teach students an approach to learning and problem solving, not 2 semesters of accounting, 1 of finance, 2 of marketing, 1 of OB, etc.
As someone that has moved from software engineering out into management, I certainly understand your points and from the outside they make a lot of sense. However, I disagree.
As many in the thread have said, the majority of software engineering is contemplating a problem and coming up with workable solution. I remember years ago when tasked with replacing a complex CORBA interface with web services, I spent 8 weeks planning, pondering, and scratching on ether-paper, and 4 on coding and unit test. Because I had done all my planning and designing up front, the actual coding went quickly and I ran into almost no issues. I was done well ahead of schedule and as of several years later when I left the firm, there had been no problems. However, I bet that for those first eight weeks, I sure looked like I was doing jack.
The challenge for most non-software engineers is that what SE's do is so different and unique. We can understand what a mechanical engineer does because most of us have opened the hood of our car and looked at the complexities of the engine. We can grasp at what nuclear engineers do because we've seen large cities and huge ships powered by their works, not to mention read about the probes we've sent to other planets powered by them. We can comprehend what Industrial Engineers do because..uhh..well maybe nobody understands that (joking...joking...).
Software Engineering is so foreign to what other individuals do that it is a mystery. It is part logic and process modeling, part math, and often requires a firm understanding of science and physics. Some tasks require an understanding of human psychology. Coding is one of the steps int the software engineering process, not the only one. It is unfortunate that it is also the only step people seem to attribute to the engineer. Software Engineering is much closer to art than production line work sticking slot A into tab B. And like artists, many of software engineerings practitioners tend to be a bit egotistical, anti-social and well..pricks.
Having said that, if the OP's description is accurate, there is definitely something wrong in his new organization and I agree he should begin to look elsewhere. Either his fellows are indeed lazy or management is setting unrealistic expectations.
I'm pretty surprised by this as well. A decade ago (when I was in school) my internships were $16, $18 and then $20 an hour. The "staffing company" may be part of your challenge - they are probably taking a cut and the major notebook manu doesn't realize it. Have you looked for an internship through your school? That was where I found all of mine.
Having bought the DLC and run the quest - I tend to agree with you. The $5 quest that is pushed on you (Warden's Keep) results in getting your own personal castle that you can store stuff in and several vendors to sell you stuff. I'm ~12-ish hours into the game and haven't found an alternative place to store extra loot. This content is so well integrated into the game, that had it not been for the PAX pair, I wouldn't have realized that it was an extra add on. The other available DLC is so obviously tacked on that it is nearly painful (you get a stone golem...for $15). I had picked up the Warden's keep DLC while concentrating very hard on my last conference call on the day the game was released and staring intently at the Dragon Age start screen. *Cough*
More than that, their website also says "your software purchase" repeatedly. If they are actually selling a license, they should be liable for misrepresentation because nowhere does it affirm that the user is only buying a license (well, up through the part where you have to enter a credit card number - i don't actually want their software).
I'm one of those small-gov't, pro-personal-liberties republicans and I can't describe to you how invisible I have felt the last decade. I hope after this election the GOP dissolves and reforms as two different parties to separate people like me from the "new" Republicans. Realistically, I don't give it a high probability of happening, but a guy can hope and change, can't he? Wait...that almost sounds like somebodies election theme...
"Also, Mexico is part of the continent of Central America. " Not to be picky here, but there is no Central American continent. Central America is a region of North America. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continents I mean as long as we are correcting people for using the term USians...
As I understand things, the platforms are dramatically different to develop on and cross-platform development significantly increase development costs. There is not a standard "platform" with which to code too...the capabilities of the 360 and the PS3 are completely different. Just look at it from a processor perspective - the PS3 has a main processor and ~6 mini-cores that can given finite tasks vs the 360 and its two-ish cores? To take advantage of both would be a very difficult task.
And in other news, President Bush says the War in Iraq is going "really, really well".
So, if I understand OP, he is looking for a more efficient and reliable way to find new content, and you are saying "suck it up whiner, the old way works fine"?
I agree whole-heartedly with OP. As an adult (it scares me to admit it), my free time has been cut to the point that I don't have time to waste unsuccessfully finding new content, and I too search for a more efficient way to get at it.
Going to B&N is time consuming and doesn't provide much insighte (look! shelves of books that I don't know how good they are! employees that don't care about books! and OMG, a Starbucks where I can buy overpriced coffee and look cool at!)
I also believe you misunderstood the authors point as to it being "expensive" to go to amazon. I believe he was referring to a high probability of wasting his money. If I spend an hour on Amazon selecting and buying a $10 book that sucks, I feel that it has been an expensive waste of my time.
Hands down, the best suggestion I've seen in this thread is the library. I haven't been to one for pleasure since high school. Maybe I'm suffering post traumatic stress syndrome from the time that I spent in them in college. I hope to find more good suggestions in this thread.
Not to mention take "profit" out of the equation. I'm all about removing government from situations where competition ensures delivery of high quality goods and services, but the design of the current American health care system ensures neither. It is in the insurance companies best interest to have you consume as little of their service as possible, ensuring them to biggest profit. Because of this they restrict your ability to use their service as much as possible and make it difficult when you do use it. It is in the hospital's best interest to make you consume as much of their product as possible because that is how they get the most money. And because the person who is consuming the product is not the one that pays for it (the insurance company does) then they are relatively immune to the true price (we have our co-pay) even though in the end we pay for it through our rates. These two drives makes the system less efficient not more, and don't even get me started about the free market aspects of our health care system - they don't exist. Consumers cannot decide "this service sucks, i'll go elsewhere" because they are not the one that makes that decision (their employer does), and since the employer is not consuming the service, they care more about the cost. Without choice of provider and a clear association between purchaser and consumer of a good and service, free market economics just don't work.
Yeah but the problem with that is you get yourself in a cockpit relying on radar to see and freakin Lonestar throws a tub of jam (Raspberry of course) at ya, and all of the sudden you are flying blind. That happens once and all of the sudden, the North Koreans start packin catapults with the stuff. The Chinese will be calling tankers crossing the pacific and having them turn around to bring the new air defense weapon for their use. Smuckers shares go through the roof as supplies run short and all of the sudden you can't get any of the good stuff to put on your crumpets while you drink your morning tea.
Dang Brits aren't think'n ahead ahead.
I'm not sure she has to have money.
/.'d to hell right now. I've tried about 10 times, I really have. Don't blame me.
With the way the tide looks to be turning in this case, I'm sure her lawyer is doing this for a percent of the take.
Btw, I haven't RTFA because it is
This is so easy to understand, a caveman could do it!
Is that implying that the vast majority of the gazillion dollars that the music industry claims to lose per anum to piracy happens in a country where people's avg. weekly income is enough to buy four cds? That is just insane. Am I looking at that figure wrong?
If not, wow...that adds an entire new level to the misuse of numbers by the *IAA in my book.
Keep in mind that most TVs/Receivers currently available with HDMI connections have one solitary port.
Most users that want to use the PS3 through the HDMI will be unplugging their DVD player or HD DVR and plugging in the PS3, ie they already have the cable.
While I'm all about bashing sony over their 6 Million dollar machine, I really think this is a nit pick and a moot point.