Here's an idea -- donate some time and $50K that you really don't need every year to the best charity you can find. Donate some of your time or money to try and counter everything that's wrong in the political arena.
I think you'll get more *real* satisfaction out of doing something useful than you will in the country store.
(I say "you" because it's convenient, not because I believe the writer above was talking about himself/herself).
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. -Albert Einstein
I think this is the answer, for the best and the brightest (who can switch to something completely new and succeed at it... because face it, if you fail to make a living in your chosen field, you won't be happy).
Oh, and if you even *know* what you love... believe it or not, that's pretty damned hard for most people. I started coding because I needed some money, not because I'd enjoyed my coding experiences so far. Now that I know what I'm doing, I get a lot of respect, I successfully solve most of the problems I tackle, and I get to work on problems that I feel keep my brain sharp. THAT'S what I'm happy with.
I have plenty of friends who are in grad school in various subjects, who are seriously worried that they won't be happy in their chosen fields, since they aren't fulfilled in their studies. Hey, why would they be? They're still just learning, which can feel kind of hollow after a while because you aren't accomplishing anything that affects the "real world".
Besides, where do "dreams" come from? It's what we *think* will make us happy. Most people don't really have a clue what will make them happy, and they don't realize that until they've fought for 30 years to achieve the dream, only to find out that the TV (or that uncle who seemed so cool, or the idealistic teacher at school) was wrong....
I say, figure out what you need (some money for food, etc.), then try something. Anything that will achieve at least the minimum. Then try to change the things you don't like. If you can't, try something else.
If you're going to try something that will take a long time (i.e., you need to go to school for 6 years first), get in the environment first and see if you like it. Knowledge! Experience! Etc....
I liked this review -- though (interestingly) I went from considering buying the book after hearing the interview on NPR, to now thinking I probably won't.
I get the feeling there's important stuff in there for all of us.. and that the reviewer pretty much summed up the important stuff. Personally, I think he *should* try to shift over into another career. I actually started out in music (performance and studio engineering work), and switched to software dev, and I'm glad I switched... wait, let me clarify: I'm glad I started in music, *and* I'm glad I'm writing software now.
I'm not going to get into my own personal theories of happiness right now, but I do think everyone should do more than one thing in life. I also think they should live in more than one place during their lives - this ties in nicely with that comment about understanding the differences in cultures, and the effect they can have on the satisfaction you get out of what you do.
Whether you get the book or not, this is definitely a subject worth thinking about deeply, at least a few times a year!
Don't worry, you won't feel a thing after "utilizing an electron beam and suitably coating and doping the rectifying areas" (from the patent description).
Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few grad students who've been toiling away on this project but can't get any funding. Or... maybe the idea just doesn't work out in practice.
We also can't overlook the fact that lots of important stuff is, well, overlooked. Any comments from anyone in the field?
It's not exactly "guilty until proven innocent", because software companies can't charge you with any crime, etc.. It's more along the line of how you can't take out a huge loan until you've built a good credit history: you aren't "guilty" of anything, but the banks don't want to take a chance on you until you've proved yourself to a degree.
Does anyone have any improvements to my idea? So far, I've just seen a whole lot of approaches that will definitely fail in the end.
I think we need to understand the corporate POV as well (which is partly valid), and try to think of a solution that's sensible for all parties involved....
I agree entirely that a hardware purchase (e.g., xbox) should be yours to do whatever you want with. Treat it like a car -- you can make whatever mods you want (as long as you don't break any of the *safety*-related laws, e.g., state car inspections).
But you can't evenly compare *software* to physical merchandise, because the cost model is completely different. If I came up with a machine that would somehow create an exact clone of my car out of thin air, YES, I think auto-makers would have a right to be concerned, and I shouldn't be allowed to copy and sell pre-existing, patented cars. Once the product is purely digital, companies can't depend on the laws of conservation of matter to force people to play fair (and no, no matter what they're charging, software piracy is not a valid answer).
So we come to licensing software instead of outright purchase. Since it's still purely digital, we start running into horrible privacy issues when companies try to prevent piracy by tracking what you do with the software.
Here's the best answer I can think of (and I, um, don't see this happening any time soon)....
Companies producing software would standardize their license formats, so that other, 3rd party companies (or even an open source application?) can perform a "personal software license audit" -- the "auditor" program would gather licenses from all software found on your home network, and query each company's license service to verify that each license is registered properly to you.
The fact that you've recently performed a home audit would be publically available info, and if you don't ever run audits it could affect your credit rating, etc.
Say, if you have Alzheimer's, THEN is it bad to sleep with a loaded gun under your pillow? Better hope I recognize you when you come to wake me up in the morning, honey.
That's correct -- I've done some research on this. The 1-pixel image in HTML email is pretty standard, since that will get shown in almost all email clients (since the average user is on Hotmail or Outlook Express or something like that). Outlook Express, by default I think, warns the user when a confirmation email is about to be sent, and the user can veto it.
Besides, it's far more efficient to track HTTP requests than to parse out the email responses of the confirmation messages.
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Here's an idea -- donate some time and $50K that you really don't need every year to the best charity you can find. Donate some of your time or money to try and counter everything that's wrong in the political arena.
I think you'll get more *real* satisfaction out of doing something useful than you will in the country store.
(I say "you" because it's convenient, not because I believe the writer above was talking about himself/herself).
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. -Albert Einstein
I think this is the answer, for the best and the brightest (who can switch to something completely new and succeed at it... because face it, if you fail to make a living in your chosen field, you won't be happy).
Oh, and if you even *know* what you love... believe it or not, that's pretty damned hard for most people. I started coding because I needed some money, not because I'd enjoyed my coding experiences so far. Now that I know what I'm doing, I get a lot of respect, I successfully solve most of the problems I tackle, and I get to work on problems that I feel keep my brain sharp. THAT'S what I'm happy with.
I have plenty of friends who are in grad school in various subjects, who are seriously worried that they won't be happy in their chosen fields, since they aren't fulfilled in their studies. Hey, why would they be? They're still just learning, which can feel kind of hollow after a while because you aren't accomplishing anything that affects the "real world".
Besides, where do "dreams" come from? It's what we *think* will make us happy. Most people don't really have a clue what will make them happy, and they don't realize that until they've fought for 30 years to achieve the dream, only to find out that the TV (or that uncle who seemed so cool, or the idealistic teacher at school) was wrong....
I say, figure out what you need (some money for food, etc.), then try something. Anything that will achieve at least the minimum. Then try to change the things you don't like. If you can't, try something else.
If you're going to try something that will take a long time (i.e., you need to go to school for 6 years first), get in the environment first and see if you like it. Knowledge! Experience! Etc....
I liked this review -- though (interestingly) I went from considering buying the book after hearing the interview on NPR, to now thinking I probably won't.
I get the feeling there's important stuff in there for all of us.. and that the reviewer pretty much summed up the important stuff. Personally, I think he *should* try to shift over into another career. I actually started out in music (performance and studio engineering work), and switched to software dev, and I'm glad I switched... wait, let me clarify: I'm glad I started in music, *and* I'm glad I'm writing software now.
I'm not going to get into my own personal theories of happiness right now, but I do think everyone should do more than one thing in life. I also think they should live in more than one place during their lives - this ties in nicely with that comment about understanding the differences in cultures, and the effect they can have on the satisfaction you get out of what you do.
Whether you get the book or not, this is definitely a subject worth thinking about deeply, at least a few times a year!
Hm. Your analogy only works if you're using that Stephen King book to prop up that wobbly table leg.
Think about the function of a book vs. the function of a BIOS.
Don't worry, you won't feel a thing after "utilizing an electron beam and suitably coating and doping the rectifying areas" (from the patent description).
Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few grad students who've been toiling away on this project but can't get any funding. Or... maybe the idea just doesn't work out in practice.
We also can't overlook the fact that lots of important stuff is, well, overlooked. Any comments from anyone in the field?
It's not exactly "guilty until proven innocent", because software companies can't charge you with any crime, etc.. It's more along the line of how you can't take out a huge loan until you've built a good credit history: you aren't "guilty" of anything, but the banks don't want to take a chance on you until you've proved yourself to a degree.
Does anyone have any improvements to my idea? So far, I've just seen a whole lot of approaches that will definitely fail in the end.
I think we need to understand the corporate POV as well (which is partly valid), and try to think of a solution that's sensible for all parties involved....
I agree entirely that a hardware purchase (e.g., xbox) should be yours to do whatever you want with. Treat it like a car -- you can make whatever mods you want (as long as you don't break any of the *safety*-related laws, e.g., state car inspections).
But you can't evenly compare *software* to physical merchandise, because the cost model is completely different. If I came up with a machine that would somehow create an exact clone of my car out of thin air, YES, I think auto-makers would have a right to be concerned, and I shouldn't be allowed to copy and sell pre-existing, patented cars. Once the product is purely digital, companies can't depend on the laws of conservation of matter to force people to play fair (and no, no matter what they're charging, software piracy is not a valid answer).
So we come to licensing software instead of outright purchase. Since it's still purely digital, we start running into horrible privacy issues when companies try to prevent piracy by tracking what you do with the software.
Here's the best answer I can think of (and I, um, don't see this happening any time soon)....
Companies producing software would standardize their license formats, so that other, 3rd party companies (or even an open source application?) can perform a "personal software license audit" -- the "auditor" program would gather licenses from all software found on your home network, and query each company's license service to verify that each license is registered properly to you.
The fact that you've recently performed a home audit would be publically available info, and if you don't ever run audits it could affect your credit rating, etc.
Thoughts?
Say, if you have Alzheimer's, THEN is it bad to sleep with a loaded gun under your pillow?
Better hope I recognize you when you come to wake me up in the morning, honey.
That's correct -- I've done some research on this. The 1-pixel image in HTML email is pretty standard, since that will get shown in almost all email clients (since the average user is on Hotmail or Outlook Express or something like that). Outlook Express, by default I think, warns the user when a confirmation email is about to be sent, and the user can veto it. Besides, it's far more efficient to track HTTP requests than to parse out the email responses of the confirmation messages.