Like others have said, Reader was a true loss. But equally high on my list was "iGoogle" (ie. a Google-powered home page). It had widgets for everything I wanted, it was easily configurable... basically it was the perfect home page.
www.ighome.com has tried to recreate it, but the quality of engineering is seriously lacking. Many of the widgets don't work, and if you leave it open in a tab for too long the memory leaks in it start chewing up all your RAM (Google's version never did that).
That's like saying for all intents and purposes the iPhone is gone because the iPhone S is coming out. Glass isn't gone, it's just being retooled for a v2.
One that does NOT ONE DAMN THING to detract from the "actual" Power Rangers.
I'm incredibly anti-copyright law, but even to me that's obviously not true. Every time a certain fictional character is used, people's perception of that character changes. By showing the Power Rangers this way the video's creator is changing our perceptions of the Power Rangers.
All it takes is just a single person:
1) seeing the video 2) associating (subconsciously) the brand with darkness 3) deciding to buy a gift of Legos instead of a Power Rangers toy as a result
and then clearly the video has detracted from the "actual" Power Rangers (in the sense that their IP's owner will sell one less toy because of the video).
Don't believe me? Imagine if everyone was legally allowed to use Mickey Mouse. There would Mickey Mouse snuff films, Mickey Mouse versions of 50 Shades, Mickey Mouse promoting drug use, etc. If enough of that stuff exists kids would see it and would never look at Mickey Mouse the same way again. That absolutely detracts from Disney's ability to keep Mickey a wholesome character that they can make tons of money off.
Now, should Mickey be in the public domain by now? Absolutely (screw you Disney). But let's not pretend that if anyone can make any version of any famous character they want that it won't have any effect on how people see that character (and thus detract from the original author's vision of them).
That's like saying there's a huge glut of books, because there are tons of 17th century atlases I can read!
People don't just want songs they want songs they like, and since people's tastes are hugely influenced by their peers that means *new* music. And there is not a glut of "deep house" or "90's throwback" or "shit that sounds like Nickelback" or whatever it is people are in to these days so there is more than enough demand to exceed supply.
Google Glass ***in its current, pre-product form*** has stopped ***being offered at an insane price to beta testers***. That is FAR from saying glass is done being sold; it just means it isn't being sold *yet*.
Google did not spend all that money, and throw the head of Nest on the project only to stop competing in that space.
Strangely it's not actually that issue, as plenty of other countries do their taxes that way.
The problem here (like just about all of our problems) comes from the intersection of business and government. The IRS actually looked in to free tax filing, but Intuit and their fellow companies lobbied hard to get it killed. It turns out Intuit would make a lot less money if the government did our taxes for us, so it's in their best interest to spend lots of money to prevent it from happening.
I've used Avira (free-av.com) for years (since Windows XP at least), both on my computers and my friends' and family's, and I've never gotten a virus despite visiting Bit Torrent and other questionable sites.
It's 100% free and it doesn't install malware (though it might optionally install some crapware, I forget). The only downside is that they pop an alert maybe once a day or so with different messages (the point of which is clearly to prod you to purchase the paid version). I strongly recommend getting the paid version to make those alerts go away... but I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't actually done as much myself (sorry Avira!).
Damn you socialist bureaucratic hellspawn and your vastly superior tax system!
Seriously though, how many nuclear weapons and/or wildly over-priced military aircraft can your silly little country pay for with that easy to use tax system?
On Slashdot, but Slashdot users are what, 0.001% of their customers? Then there's the fraction of people who decide their tax preparation software purchases based on Amazon.com reviews. That leaves PLENTY of other customers who might have balked at a price increase, but who will now happily go pay $40... and then realize they need an upgrade and pay $40 more. They won't be happy about it, but they're probably not going to switch tax preparation software in the middle of the process. And then they'll use the TurboTax again next year, because it already has their info...
This whole Amazon low ratings thing is great, but from a cold calculating corporate standpoint TurboTax will still (sadly) make more money going this route than being honest and raising prices.
"It will enable us to cryogenically freeze and store various cellular materials, which can then reproduce."
But they don't actually have the technology to do that, right? So isn't this the same thing as humans cryogenicaly freezing themselves now, blindly assuming that future scientists will be able to remove anti-freeze from their veins?
In other words, isn't this giant expensive project entirely predicated on the the development of future technology that can actually use these samples, without any guarantee whatsoever that that technology will materialize?
It's not just "Tech's Gender Gap" that started at Stanford; Silicon Valley itself started at Stanford (see Francis Terman, William Shockley, Fairchild Eight, etc.). So while it's technically accurate to say the gender gap started at Stanford, it's just as accurate to say CD-ROMs or Pets.com or anything else Silicon Valley-related started there. Silicon Valley is the genesis of digital technology, and Stanford is the genesis of Silicon Valley.
I know that people who worked hard for their Engineering degrees will naturally be suspicious of anyone who seems to have done less work than them, but even so I was rather amazed at the amount of ignorance and hatred in the responses here. As a Literature major who now makes six figures programming, please do ignore them.
My advice would be to enroll at Hack Reactor or a similar coding boot camp. We've hired two programmers from them: one was a Biology PhD, the other just had a Chinese Literature undergraduate degree. In both cases we didn't really care what their degree was, we cared about their abilities. Based on what I've seen, the best of the graduates of Hack Reactor are WAY better hires than an average CS graduate (and they're a lot easier to hire; the Googles of the world snatch up the top CS graduates before smaller companies like ours even have a chance).
Of course, I personally didn't take the boot camp approach. I graduated, spent a year unemployed, then managed to get a position as a web designer for a small company. It was a terrible company: they wouldn't even pay for water for employees! But as annoying as their cheapness was, it was that very cheapness that got me hired. Because I was willing to work for $15/hour and could do the work (I'd taught myself web development) I was able to get that crucial first job. You may have to hold your nose in a similar way to get your first job, if you don't take the boot camp approach.
Once I got my foot in the door by working their a year I moved on to a junior programming job, worked my way up to being a team lead, and then moved on to my current company (a start-up). I'd imagine you could do something similar, but going through a boot camp will give you that "foot in the door", which is really the hardest part for someone in your position. After the boot camp gets you your first job, that job will get you all your future jobs.
So, ignore the negativity here. Silicon Valley really is, at least to a large extent, a meritocracy: what matters is being good at your craft, not where you came from.
I don't think Yahoo actually wants to be a search engine. I think they just want people to look at their ads.
Yup, which is why they've licensed someone else's tech to power the searches for most of the company's history.
By partnering with a browser: they can run searches through Google's servers but strip the Google Adword adds and replace them with Yahoo Ads.
Wait, what? You think Yahoo is going to use Google to power their search engine, without paying them? And you think Google's lawyers (let alone their technical team) would really let that fly?
... because learning skills at a bootcamp makes you incapable of learning skills on your own in the real world? Or because computer science degrees somehow teach you to read blogs and subscribe to RSS feeds?
... and what do any of the things you just mentioned have to do with typical JavaScript programming? Just because someone wouldn't be good at doing your particular job doesn't mean they're bad at other programming jobs: you could just as easily dismiss any Java programmer, no matter what their skill level, for not knowing how to manage memory.
I'd say at least 80% (maybe 90+%) of the stuff you listed has no applicability for a front-end JavaScript programmer. Which isn't to say JavaScript programming is easy: there's a whole lot of art and craft to being a good JavaScript programmer, and a boot camp won't teach it all. But as for all the traditional CS bits you listed, almost none of them contribute to being a good JavaScript programmer.
What a good front-end programmer needs is understanding of the JavaScript language, of how the DOM works, of how browsers render pages, etc. And for serious JavaScript programming you need to know object-oriented programming and all that good stuff too... but you don't need "database theory", "microprocessor systems", or "artificial intelligence".
Self-taught programmers are motivated by curiosity; webmonkeys are motivated by "oh shiny" - which is why they concentrate so much on "oh shiny". And when they get stYuck because they're way out of their depth, who do you think they call... (hint - not another web monkey).
I'm sure that's based on lots of empirical evidence from your experience working with bootcamp graduates, and not just you spouting your own prejudices, right? Because I would think that someone who's worked with a boot camp graduate for 6+ months and is about to hire another one *might* just know more than someone who's never even met a bootcamp graduate...
Of course, we never recognize paradigm shifts until they're almost over.
People are moving away from browsers without even noticing it
So, what are they going to do? Take another boot camp to learn XCode? Java? C/C++ (yes, back-end services use c and c++).
You're completely right: the web is just a fad, JavaScript is going away soon and there will be no more jobs for JavaScript programmers in a few years.
You're assuming such boot camps only produce "monkeys", which is false. These people work twelve hour days, seven days a week, for three months: compare that to your typical CS graduate who's maybe had a month total of relevant programming experience.
In fact, we hired a boot camp graduate about half a year ago, and she's been awesome. WAY more knowledgeable about programming than other candidates we considered, including CS graduates.
Actually, we're a serious thick-client shop with a single-page all-Javascript application powered by Backbone, and we've had great success hiring a Boot Camp graduate. She definitely does *not* just copy/paste code snippets without understanding how things work. To the contrary, she knows far more about the language and basic theory than most other applicants we've seen (including ones with CS degrees), and we've in fact had so much success with her that we're planning to hire another boot camp graduate shortly.
This, except the part about giving it a try. Firebug revolutionized everything when it first came out, but it's failed to improve in the way Chrome Developer Tools... and Firefox's own developer tools have remained far behind both the entire time.
After ignoring the web development community for so long, I have a hard time seeing myself ever going back to Firefox unless they get some *seriously* rave reviews.
Slashdot Mirror
Like others have said, Reader was a true loss. But equally high on my list was "iGoogle" (ie. a Google-powered home page). It had widgets for everything I wanted, it was easily configurable ... basically it was the perfect home page.
www.ighome.com has tried to recreate it, but the quality of engineering is seriously lacking. Many of the widgets don't work, and if you leave it open in a tab for too long the memory leaks in it start chewing up all your RAM (Google's version never did that).
That's like saying for all intents and purposes the iPhone is gone because the iPhone S is coming out. Glass isn't gone, it's just being retooled for a v2.
One that does NOT ONE DAMN THING to detract from the "actual" Power Rangers.
I'm incredibly anti-copyright law, but even to me that's obviously not true. Every time a certain fictional character is used, people's perception of that character changes. By showing the Power Rangers this way the video's creator is changing our perceptions of the Power Rangers.
All it takes is just a single person:
1) seeing the video
2) associating (subconsciously) the brand with darkness
3) deciding to buy a gift of Legos instead of a Power Rangers toy as a result
and then clearly the video has detracted from the "actual" Power Rangers (in the sense that their IP's owner will sell one less toy because of the video).
Don't believe me? Imagine if everyone was legally allowed to use Mickey Mouse. There would Mickey Mouse snuff films, Mickey Mouse versions of 50 Shades, Mickey Mouse promoting drug use, etc. If enough of that stuff exists kids would see it and would never look at Mickey Mouse the same way again. That absolutely detracts from Disney's ability to keep Mickey a wholesome character that they can make tons of money off.
Now, should Mickey be in the public domain by now? Absolutely (screw you Disney). But let's not pretend that if anyone can make any version of any famous character they want that it won't have any effect on how people see that character (and thus detract from the original author's vision of them).
Ok AC, let's hear the tinfoil hat conspiracy: how is a new technology that fights fraud going to "double bankruptcies and suicides"?
That's like saying there's a huge glut of books, because there are tons of 17th century atlases I can read!
People don't just want songs they want songs they like, and since people's tastes are hugely influenced by their peers that means *new* music. And there is not a glut of "deep house" or "90's throwback" or "shit that sounds like Nickelback" or whatever it is people are in to these days so there is more than enough demand to exceed supply.
Google Glass ***in its current, pre-product form*** has stopped ***being offered at an insane price to beta testers***. That is FAR from saying glass is done being sold; it just means it isn't being sold *yet*.
Google did not spend all that money, and throw the head of Nest on the project only to stop competing in that space.
Strangely it's not actually that issue, as plenty of other countries do their taxes that way.
The problem here (like just about all of our problems) comes from the intersection of business and government. The IRS actually looked in to free tax filing, but Intuit and their fellow companies lobbied hard to get it killed. It turns out Intuit would make a lot less money if the government did our taxes for us, so it's in their best interest to spend lots of money to prevent it from happening.
And every registered developer is making a living from building apps? There's not a single developer who just does it as a hobby?
Crap, typo in my subject line: should be "Avira".
I've used Avira (free-av.com) for years (since Windows XP at least), both on my computers and my friends' and family's, and I've never gotten a virus despite visiting Bit Torrent and other questionable sites.
It's 100% free and it doesn't install malware (though it might optionally install some crapware, I forget). The only downside is that they pop an alert maybe once a day or so with different messages (the point of which is clearly to prod you to purchase the paid version). I strongly recommend getting the paid version to make those alerts go away ... but I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't actually done as much myself (sorry Avira!).
Damn you socialist bureaucratic hellspawn and your vastly superior tax system!
Seriously though, how many nuclear weapons and/or wildly over-priced military aircraft can your silly little country pay for with that easy to use tax system?
That's what I thought!
"The dishonesty of this is what's killing them."
On Slashdot, but Slashdot users are what, 0.001% of their customers? Then there's the fraction of people who decide their tax preparation software purchases based on Amazon.com reviews. That leaves PLENTY of other customers who might have balked at a price increase, but who will now happily go pay $40 ... and then realize they need an upgrade and pay $40 more. They won't be happy about it, but they're probably not going to switch tax preparation software in the middle of the process. And then they'll use the TurboTax again next year, because it already has their info ...
This whole Amazon low ratings thing is great, but from a cold calculating corporate standpoint TurboTax will still (sadly) make more money going this route than being honest and raising prices.
From the blurb:
"the company continues to make the same mistake over and over. Google's mistake, ..."
"But rest assured – Google knows this. They're not looking for short term profits"
So, it's a mistake ... but they know exactly what they're doing and they're not trying to make short term profits, which means it's not a mistake?
"It will enable us to cryogenically freeze and store various cellular materials, which can then reproduce."
But they don't actually have the technology to do that, right? So isn't this the same thing as humans cryogenicaly freezing themselves now, blindly assuming that future scientists will be able to remove anti-freeze from their veins?
In other words, isn't this giant expensive project entirely predicated on the the development of future technology that can actually use these samples, without any guarantee whatsoever that that technology will materialize?
It's not just "Tech's Gender Gap" that started at Stanford; Silicon Valley itself started at Stanford (see Francis Terman, William Shockley, Fairchild Eight, etc.). So while it's technically accurate to say the gender gap started at Stanford, it's just as accurate to say CD-ROMs or Pets.com or anything else Silicon Valley-related started there. Silicon Valley is the genesis of digital technology, and Stanford is the genesis of Silicon Valley.
I know that people who worked hard for their Engineering degrees will naturally be suspicious of anyone who seems to have done less work than them, but even so I was rather amazed at the amount of ignorance and hatred in the responses here. As a Literature major who now makes six figures programming, please do ignore them.
My advice would be to enroll at Hack Reactor or a similar coding boot camp. We've hired two programmers from them: one was a Biology PhD, the other just had a Chinese Literature undergraduate degree. In both cases we didn't really care what their degree was, we cared about their abilities. Based on what I've seen, the best of the graduates of Hack Reactor are WAY better hires than an average CS graduate (and they're a lot easier to hire; the Googles of the world snatch up the top CS graduates before smaller companies like ours even have a chance).
Of course, I personally didn't take the boot camp approach. I graduated, spent a year unemployed, then managed to get a position as a web designer for a small company. It was a terrible company: they wouldn't even pay for water for employees! But as annoying as their cheapness was, it was that very cheapness that got me hired. Because I was willing to work for $15/hour and could do the work (I'd taught myself web development) I was able to get that crucial first job. You may have to hold your nose in a similar way to get your first job, if you don't take the boot camp approach.
Once I got my foot in the door by working their a year I moved on to a junior programming job, worked my way up to being a team lead, and then moved on to my current company (a start-up). I'd imagine you could do something similar, but going through a boot camp will give you that "foot in the door", which is really the hardest part for someone in your position. After the boot camp gets you your first job, that job will get you all your future jobs.
So, ignore the negativity here. Silicon Valley really is, at least to a large extent, a meritocracy: what matters is being good at your craft, not where you came from.
I don't think Yahoo actually wants to be a search engine. I think they just want people to look at their ads.
Yup, which is why they've licensed someone else's tech to power the searches for most of the company's history.
By partnering with a browser: they can run searches through Google's servers but strip the Google Adword adds and replace them with Yahoo Ads.
Wait, what? You think Yahoo is going to use Google to power their search engine, without paying them? And you think Google's lawyers (let alone their technical team) would really let that fly?
... because learning skills at a bootcamp makes you incapable of learning skills on your own in the real world? Or because computer science degrees somehow teach you to read blogs and subscribe to RSS feeds?
... and what do any of the things you just mentioned have to do with typical JavaScript programming? Just because someone wouldn't be good at doing your particular job doesn't mean they're bad at other programming jobs: you could just as easily dismiss any Java programmer, no matter what their skill level, for not knowing how to manage memory.
Actually, I have nothing to do with that side of the business; I don't even know what she makes.
I'd say at least 80% (maybe 90+%) of the stuff you listed has no applicability for a front-end JavaScript programmer. Which isn't to say JavaScript programming is easy: there's a whole lot of art and craft to being a good JavaScript programmer, and a boot camp won't teach it all. But as for all the traditional CS bits you listed, almost none of them contribute to being a good JavaScript programmer.
What a good front-end programmer needs is understanding of the JavaScript language, of how the DOM works, of how browsers render pages, etc. And for serious JavaScript programming you need to know object-oriented programming and all that good stuff too ... but you don't need "database theory", "microprocessor systems", or "artificial intelligence".
Self-taught programmers are motivated by curiosity; webmonkeys are motivated by "oh shiny" - which is why they concentrate so much on "oh shiny". And when they get stYuck because they're way out of their depth, who do you think they call ... (hint - not another web monkey).
I'm sure that's based on lots of empirical evidence from your experience working with bootcamp graduates, and not just you spouting your own prejudices, right? Because I would think that someone who's worked with a boot camp graduate for 6+ months and is about to hire another one *might* just know more than someone who's never even met a bootcamp graduate ...
Of course, we never recognize paradigm shifts until they're almost over.
People are moving away from browsers without even noticing it
So, what are they going to do? Take another boot camp to learn XCode? Java? C/C++ (yes, back-end services use c and c++).
You're completely right: the web is just a fad, JavaScript is going away soon and there will be no more jobs for JavaScript programmers in a few years.
You're assuming such boot camps only produce "monkeys", which is false. These people work twelve hour days, seven days a week, for three months: compare that to your typical CS graduate who's maybe had a month total of relevant programming experience.
In fact, we hired a boot camp graduate about half a year ago, and she's been awesome. WAY more knowledgeable about programming than other candidates we considered, including CS graduates.
Actually, we're a serious thick-client shop with a single-page all-Javascript application powered by Backbone, and we've had great success hiring a Boot Camp graduate. She definitely does *not* just copy/paste code snippets without understanding how things work. To the contrary, she knows far more about the language and basic theory than most other applicants we've seen (including ones with CS degrees), and we've in fact had so much success with her that we're planning to hire another boot camp graduate shortly.
This, except the part about giving it a try. Firebug revolutionized everything when it first came out, but it's failed to improve in the way Chrome Developer Tools ... and Firefox's own developer tools have remained far behind both the entire time.
After ignoring the web development community for so long, I have a hard time seeing myself ever going back to Firefox unless they get some *seriously* rave reviews.