It's bad enough with European companies slowly moving towards the American model of unpaid lunch breaks that aren't even 30 minutes long, without also copying the 24/7 worker ethic.
Last I checked, I live in a European country, and I can tell you, none of my former employers or my current employer pays you during lunch. Most employers however are flexible; they don't mind if I have no lunch break, or take a 2 hour lunch break, as long as I put in the 8 hours a day.
The reason Python isn't that much in demand is because it doesn't scale very well for large projects (strong typing and extensive compile time checking are almost essential for a large team of programmers).
I think Perl mainly suffers from a too complex syntax, which makes it too hard for new people to learn or to instruct people in the language. I often had to instruct people completely new to Java on how to use the language. A good development environment and clear (class) documentation help a lot. A clear, maybe slightly verbose, syntax also helps a lot.
This may not seem very relevant, but production company's find it very important having a language that is easy to learn, easy to teach to others, detects many mistakes at compile time and will clean up your mess at run-time. This way they can just teach people that are smart enough in-house how to program in the language. This is often cheaper than hiring established programmers. Of course, you still will want good supervision from some senior developers:)
There's no need for a totally new concept. I'd be happy with an existing concept done properly. Offline RPG games for example, I haven't seen anything remotely peeking my interest for at least 5 years (I like first person dungeon crawlers -- stuff like Morrowind, Might & Magic, Dungeon Siege and all the AD&D crap which they "tried" to adapt for computers usually don't hold my interest for long).
Or what about RTS games... after Total Annihilation, nothing even got close. Most of the current RTS breed focus way too much on micro management (with "special" units, unit upgrades, or even creating your own units from scratch). I prefer massive carnage in my RTS games. Perhaps Supreme Commander will again revolutionize this old concept.
Well, I bet the "last" "major news site" however will be quite happy to be listed exclusively on Google News, when all the others have told Google to unlist them...
Actually, instead of making the heads independent like you suggest, it would be far easier and far cheaper to have 2 heads mounted a fixed distance apart (about half the platter radius apart).
This would slash average seek time in half, which is usually a large part of the average access time. Independent heads would be even better, but would also be far more expensive.
Although storing everything lossless will definitely fuel the need for greater capacity storage for decades to come, I think that at some point people will be very happy with their lossy MP3's, AVI's and so on.
It all depends on how good the quality is of the lossy storage:
1) Lossless
2) Lossy, but in such a way that you can only distinguish it from the original by looking directly at a waveform / video-still and being able to tell "yes, they're different", but without knowledge of which is the original you wouldn't be able to pick which one of the two is the original.
3) Lossy, but in such a way you would be in doubt whether you are listening to the original or not (no direct comparison allowed, just tell me if this song I'm playing is lossless or lossy).
4) Lossy, but with artifacts that could be distinguished by experts if they knew what to look for.
For most people, this last level is more than good enough. At some point, you're just trying to figure out new ways of wasting storage -- I think that space could be put to better use in the form of redundancy:)
Even a small and insignificant period like a few millenia of global warming will cause major problems. Just because it is insignificant on Earth's timescale, doesn't make it insignificant for us.
There's no need to completely avoid primary roles for your classes. A lot of problems can be resolved with selective buffs. For example, a buff that enchants chain armor so it becomes plate armor would benefit chain armor classes (like a rogue, but not a monk), but be of no use to classes already wearing plate armor. A buff that enhances hand to hand combat, making it more effective, would benefit monks to do damage on par with a backstabbing rogue. It would be useless for the rogue, unless they're willing to switch to hand to hand combat, which will never be as good as a monk.
For example, a warrior could be the best tank and could fulfill the tanking role. However, a rogue and a class that has a buff that could change armor into plate armor temporarily would also be feasible. The rogue would be able to tank, just as well as the warrior as long as (s)he is wearing the enchanted plate armor. The warrior would not benefit from the same enchantment. The buffing class might be a wizard type that specializes in damage and enchantments, so would also be useful to the party. The rogue could still retain the lock picking abilities.
Basically, you could then look for a rogue or warrior (if you already had the wizard), or a warrior or wizard (if you already have the rogue).
Unfortunately, in most RPG's, what works well for a secondary class, works even better for a primary class. The system I proposed above doesn't help the primary class, but can upgrade a secondary class to fulfill the role of primary (albeit with support). For example, HP and AC buffs would work well to make your rogue a better tank, but it would work even better on a warrior... with a bit of careful design however one could make combinations of 2 classes fulfil a primary role, or combinations of 3 classes fulfill 2 primary roles. Since you often can also use the other abilities of such combinations it would work just as well.
Open ended systems where you might be able to learn all skills need not be bad. You could let equipment play a major factor.
To cast spells, you must have one hand free.
To cast more interesting spells, you must have both hands free.
To cast the best spells, you must have both hands free, and wear a robe for easy access to spell components.
To be able to backstab, you must wear light armor, or you'll either be too slow, or the monster will notice you. Also, you must use a dagger.
To be able to take lots of damage, you must wear plate; wearing plate means you can't sneak or hide easily.
Etcetera... that's just a few restrictions I could come up with in a few seconds. Others like prohibiting helmets for bards / casters or certain weapon types for priest types also come to mind.
To prevent it from being exploited easily, make changing equipment slower or simply let it take 1 minute before the equipment change takes full effect.
And the same goes for Azureus. By default, the Java VM these days will allow for up to 128 MB of memory to be used (the additional memory above that are Windows resources, like graphics handles and file handles). If you don't want that, then limit Azureus to something lower. I'm pretty sure it can run comfortably with a 32 MB limit, but of course you'll have to reduce the size of the disk buffer then.
There's an additional problem, Windows tends to report memory usage wrong. For example, I never close firefox, and can have tons of windows open, but sometimes, windows just decides to reset the firefox memory counter to some ridiculously low value (and it starts increasing again from there). It definitely is wrong, cause when I kill the app, far more memory is released then was reported in use.
I consider lawyers, judges and basically the entirely legal system as "overhead" to society; that is to say, it must exist, but since it does practically nothing for your economy except waste cash, it should be as small and as streamlined as possible. Laws should be clear so the legal system can do its job swiftly.
How any government can advocate systems that would require company's to hire significantly more legal staff, disputing issues that are very vague to begin with and allows people to introduce hundreds of thousands of "mini-laws" (patents) that all must be upheld is just completely beyond me.
It's a legal nightmare, which produces nothing. Sure it is bad when some other company "steals" an idea from some other company, but in the end, 1 of the 2 company's will be making a profit and bolstering your economy -- quite a difference when compared to a system where company 1 patents their idea, sits on it (or simply doesn't see 50 other cool ways their patent could be applied), and then extorts cash from a second company that actually tries to do something useful with the patent.
Patents might be good when research costs are high and there's no innovation in the current market, however, neither applies to the software industry by a HUGE margin.
Research costs are generally low (programmers invent new stuff every day in the normal course of work) and I doubt there's any industry more innovate than the software industry at this time (or ever).
[blockquote]Alternatively, let's allow software patents, but for a much shorter time period, say five to eight years from when you release your product/standard. I don't think it's fair that something like LZW expired only like a few years ago in the US.[/blockquote]
No, not 5 years, that's like a century in the software industry. Award them based on how complex the idea is in some way. Trivial patents should not even be awarded a year...
I should go work for SAP, and check every 3 lines of code I write against the patent database. Then when they fire me, sue them for doing my job too well.
If patents have to be, then the time they are valid must be proportional to how hard it is to figure out on your own, or how long it took to "research". No bullshit like having a 20 year patent on 1-click "technology" -- that should not be patentable for more than 2 days.
How about sueing the media for completely ruining your live and career? -- without such accurate reporting (which I repeat doesn't add ANYTHING of value to the story) that wouldn't have happened. It's not uncommon for suspects in murder/rape/child porn type cases to lose their jobs, wife and friends, innocent or otherwise.
I shudder to think what would happen if my name was on the news as a murder suspect or similar...
I think it is a good practice, something the global news market perhaps should take note of instead of just slandering the names of (potential) suspects for money. Keeping the suspects anonymous in no way affects the story as it is highly unlikely that any significant percentage of readers even directly know the suspect in question.
After all we are talking about *suspects* here, that is people that MIGHT be the actual offender, but of which you cannot be sure. That's how I always try to see such people when they are on the news, as suspects, not as convicted criminals -- but that's sometimes hard given the spin the media tends to put on such stories.
In any case, by posting pictures, full names and every other imaginable detail, the suspect is already ruined and might as well have been found guilty. Sueing the media afterwards might be a good option, as they are by far and large responsible for ruining the lives of suspects later found innocent.
Yup, I second that... I saw the first 2 episodes, then stopped viewing. A year later I saw Serenity, and a few months after that I decided to see the other episodes. Now I'm wondering what nutcase cancelled this show...
Which is my biggest problem with patents:) It doesn't matter if I thought something up on my island isolated from the rest of civilization, for some reason that guy that registered MY idea as a patent owns it. Kinda like owning my thoughts.
My other gripe with patents of course is that its just impossible to check if someone had your idea already or not for everything you do each day. It's just a system that simply can NEVER work perfectly -- nobody could ever get any work done. It's kinda like being expected to know every obscure detail of the law of your country, even though it changes almost every day...
I'm afraid there's no way to tell in advance whether a link will redirect, as that can be decided server side. In fact, the server could decide that www.amazon.com is actually a code for sending you to some other site. Several other schemes for encoding the actual URL to send you to are trivial to come up with as well.
I haven't seen this extension, but I'm 100% sure that it can easily be fooled. It probably just detects the more common ways of doing a redirect.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason Python isn't that much in demand is because it doesn't scale very well for large projects (strong typing and extensive compile time checking are almost essential for a large team of programmers).
I think Perl mainly suffers from a too complex syntax, which makes it too hard for new people to learn or to instruct people in the language. I often had to instruct people completely new to Java on how to use the language. A good development environment and clear (class) documentation help a lot. A clear, maybe slightly verbose, syntax also helps a lot.
This may not seem very relevant, but production company's find it very important having a language that is easy to learn, easy to teach to others, detects many mistakes at compile time and will clean up your mess at run-time. This way they can just teach people that are smart enough in-house how to program in the language. This is often cheaper than hiring established programmers. Of course, you still will want good supervision from some senior developers :)
Or what about RTS games... after Total Annihilation, nothing even got close. Most of the current RTS breed focus way too much on micro management (with "special" units, unit upgrades, or even creating your own units from scratch). I prefer massive carnage in my RTS games. Perhaps Supreme Commander will again revolutionize this old concept.
Well, I bet the "last" "major news site" however will be quite happy to be listed exclusively on Google News, when all the others have told Google to unlist them...
This would slash average seek time in half, which is usually a large part of the average access time. Independent heads would be even better, but would also be far more expensive.
It all depends on how good the quality is of the lossy storage:
1) Lossless
2) Lossy, but in such a way that you can only distinguish it from the original by looking directly at a waveform / video-still and being able to tell "yes, they're different", but without knowledge of which is the original you wouldn't be able to pick which one of the two is the original.
3) Lossy, but in such a way you would be in doubt whether you are listening to the original or not (no direct comparison allowed, just tell me if this song I'm playing is lossless or lossy).
4) Lossy, but with artifacts that could be distinguished by experts if they knew what to look for.
For most people, this last level is more than good enough. At some point, you're just trying to figure out new ways of wasting storage -- I think that space could be put to better use in the form of redundancy :)
Even a small and insignificant period like a few millenia of global warming will cause major problems. Just because it is insignificant on Earth's timescale, doesn't make it insignificant for us.
For example, a warrior could be the best tank and could fulfill the tanking role. However, a rogue and a class that has a buff that could change armor into plate armor temporarily would also be feasible. The rogue would be able to tank, just as well as the warrior as long as (s)he is wearing the enchanted plate armor. The warrior would not benefit from the same enchantment. The buffing class might be a wizard type that specializes in damage and enchantments, so would also be useful to the party. The rogue could still retain the lock picking abilities.
Basically, you could then look for a rogue or warrior (if you already had the wizard), or a warrior or wizard (if you already have the rogue).
Unfortunately, in most RPG's, what works well for a secondary class, works even better for a primary class. The system I proposed above doesn't help the primary class, but can upgrade a secondary class to fulfill the role of primary (albeit with support). For example, HP and AC buffs would work well to make your rogue a better tank, but it would work even better on a warrior... with a bit of careful design however one could make combinations of 2 classes fulfil a primary role, or combinations of 3 classes fulfill 2 primary roles. Since you often can also use the other abilities of such combinations it would work just as well.
To cast spells, you must have one hand free.
To cast more interesting spells, you must have both hands free.
To cast the best spells, you must have both hands free, and wear a robe for easy access to spell components.
To be able to backstab, you must wear light armor, or you'll either be too slow, or the monster will notice you. Also, you must use a dagger.
To be able to take lots of damage, you must wear plate; wearing plate means you can't sneak or hide easily.
Etcetera... that's just a few restrictions I could come up with in a few seconds. Others like prohibiting helmets for bards / casters or certain weapon types for priest types also come to mind.
To prevent it from being exploited easily, make changing equipment slower or simply let it take 1 minute before the equipment change takes full effect.
And the same goes for Azureus. By default, the Java VM these days will allow for up to 128 MB of memory to be used (the additional memory above that are Windows resources, like graphics handles and file handles). If you don't want that, then limit Azureus to something lower. I'm pretty sure it can run comfortably with a 32 MB limit, but of course you'll have to reduce the size of the disk buffer then.
There's an additional problem, Windows tends to report memory usage wrong. For example, I never close firefox, and can have tons of windows open, but sometimes, windows just decides to reset the firefox memory counter to some ridiculously low value (and it starts increasing again from there). It definitely is wrong, cause when I kill the app, far more memory is released then was reported in use.
RIAA is actually part of the US government.
1) Set up a new business
2) Sell half your patents to it for 5 cents
3) Use new business to sue every patent infringer for $1000000000 / license
4) ...
5) Profit!!
How any government can advocate systems that would require company's to hire significantly more legal staff, disputing issues that are very vague to begin with and allows people to introduce hundreds of thousands of "mini-laws" (patents) that all must be upheld is just completely beyond me.
It's a legal nightmare, which produces nothing. Sure it is bad when some other company "steals" an idea from some other company, but in the end, 1 of the 2 company's will be making a profit and bolstering your economy -- quite a difference when compared to a system where company 1 patents their idea, sits on it (or simply doesn't see 50 other cool ways their patent could be applied), and then extorts cash from a second company that actually tries to do something useful with the patent.
Patents might be good when research costs are high and there's no innovation in the current market, however, neither applies to the software industry by a HUGE margin.
Research costs are generally low (programmers invent new stuff every day in the normal course of work) and I doubt there's any industry more innovate than the software industry at this time (or ever).
[blockquote]Alternatively, let's allow software patents, but for a much shorter time period, say five to eight years from when you release your product/standard. I don't think it's fair that something like LZW expired only like a few years ago in the US.[/blockquote] No, not 5 years, that's like a century in the software industry. Award them based on how complex the idea is in some way. Trivial patents should not even be awarded a year...
I should go work for SAP, and check every 3 lines of code I write against the patent database. Then when they fire me, sue them for doing my job too well.
If patents have to be, then the time they are valid must be proportional to how hard it is to figure out on your own, or how long it took to "research". No bullshit like having a 20 year patent on 1-click "technology" -- that should not be patentable for more than 2 days.
I think people learned from the tabacco industry not to believe everything the corporate world says.
I shudder to think what would happen if my name was on the news as a murder suspect or similar...
After all we are talking about *suspects* here, that is people that MIGHT be the actual offender, but of which you cannot be sure. That's how I always try to see such people when they are on the news, as suspects, not as convicted criminals -- but that's sometimes hard given the spin the media tends to put on such stories.
In any case, by posting pictures, full names and every other imaginable detail, the suspect is already ruined and might as well have been found guilty. Sueing the media afterwards might be a good option, as they are by far and large responsible for ruining the lives of suspects later found innocent.
Yup, I second that... I saw the first 2 episodes, then stopped viewing. A year later I saw Serenity, and a few months after that I decided to see the other episodes. Now I'm wondering what nutcase cancelled this show...
My other gripe with patents of course is that its just impossible to check if someone had your idea already or not for everything you do each day. It's just a system that simply can NEVER work perfectly -- nobody could ever get any work done. It's kinda like being expected to know every obscure detail of the law of your country, even though it changes almost every day...
I haven't seen this extension, but I'm 100% sure that it can easily be fooled. It probably just detects the more common ways of doing a redirect.