As someone who works at a huge megacorp now, and has worked at small startups in the past, I have to disagree completely. At the big megacorp, those of us that used to be a startup are incredibly unmotivated, it is true, but it has nothing to do with the things you saw. Instead, it is because in a startup you can just make good software while at a huge company, you spend all your time bashing your head against the wall. Working at a big corporation is being forced to use poor quality crap tools because some snake-oil salesman is buddy-buddy with a senior VP 10,000 miles away. Working at a big corporation is working a year on a project only to have it killed just before it enters the testing phase because the original management proponant is on the outs. Working at a big corporation is having 58 different managers all trying to put their "mark" on a product.
I personally am extremely motivated to create quality software. And at a startup, that's what I did. Here...I can't. It isn't my motivation that prevents me. It's the wildly changing requirements, stupid management decisions, inability to make decisions and design by committee.
The root problem is that in a small startup, you generally have one boss, and if that boss isn't already technically knowledgable, you can usually explain things to him. In a huge megacorp, the people making the decisions are usually pretty technically ignorant and are so high up that you have no opportunity to raise issues and so they end up making really stupid decisions.
One thing that I can't emphasise enough: a good developer cannot create good software without good management support. That kind of support is easy to get at startups and very hard to get at huge companies. This is because at a startup, everyone's in the same room and knows each other face to face, whereas at a huge megacorp, management is generally too far removed to have a clue.
Another thing that makes software from huge companies suck: When a company gets truly huge, many people in the chain of command get so caught up in internal power struggles that they lose sight of the customers. Here at the large company I work for, I've seen many good products killed, and other projects set up to fail merely because one upper-management type was trying to get the upper-hand over another. In a small company, everyone's in it together. In a large company, you will always find people who want the other guy to fail in order to better their own position.
Other than not taking a job at a paranoid company, probably not much. While this sort of behavior makes sense for someone who was fired, it is idiotic for someone who resigned. Obviously if you'd wanted to be nasty, you could have done it before you gave notice.
So the short answer is: don't take it personally. The problem is theirs. Take it as a sign that quitting was a good idea and enjoy the extra two weeks off.
You have to take into account the fact that the marketting nimrods spend millions to promote the "popular" stuff and don't spend a dime on obscure indie albums. Which leads to an interesting chicken and egg question.
Their entire marketting model is based on taking a few acts and spending millions to convince teenagers to buy their albums. They tend to pick the young and inexperienced to promote because they can get better contracts and thus earn more profit.
There are some factors that you are ignoring. First, many consumers won't bother trying to get the problems fixed. Second, companies often believe they will have more sales if they release early (like before Christmas or before the competition.) Third, one of the costs of doing it right the first time is rigorous testing, which you don't have to do if you let your customers test for you. All likely apply in the XBox case.
Sorry but....maybe you need to learn that if you aren't sop id driven that you have to have everything NOW NOW NOW!!!! you can actually do things like wait until the price drops, the bugs are patched and there isn't a fucking six hour line to purchase.
Teach your kid to wait. He'll be happier. You'll be happier. You won't be raising a spoiled brat.
If the company is only responsible for fixing the problem, then there is little incentive to get it right the first time. If it's not much more expensive to release a broken product and fix it later, then it may well be in a company's best interest to release early (like before Christmas) and then fix things after the fact. (Especially since many customers won't get around to getting some of the problems fix.)
This is exactly what we see in software. Company's have little incentive to get it right the first time because they can just "release a patch". The result is that it becomes the norm for things to not work right when released.
If you want companies to make sure things work when released, you need to make it significantly more expensive to release something broken so that the free market rewards companies that take the time to make it work before releasing.
The latest harddrive player released in Europe and Japan also plays WMA natively. (It'll hit the US in the spring.)
Software is required because of some stupid song database shit the players require. SonicStage makes it pretty clear when it is transcoding and when it is just copying. (If for no other reason than that the transcoding takes fucking forever.)
Where are you looking? I've got three different players from three different product lines that all play MP3s.
Pretty much every player after the HD-1 has supported MP3 as internally many in Sony blamed its failure on lack of MP3 support.
All new Sony players support MP3s on the device. Everything from the HD-3 on for the hard drive players, IIRC, as well as a number of the flash players. The software still sucks utter shit and you are better off buying an iRiver or something, but Sony management give up on their attempt to force ATRAC about nine months or so ago.
The particulars really don't matter. When you are using a share, you are relying on softare on the share giving you correct information. There are many places it could be attacked, at low levels and high. If you can't infect the filesystem itself, you can infect the network sharing software.
A EULA isn't a "get out of jail free" card. Just because it asserts that Sony gains certain rights doesn't mean it has any legal force! For instance, they could bury in the EULA "Clicking 'yes' gives Sony the right to conduct snap physical inspections of the user's PC". They'd still be in a shitload of trouble for trespassing if they actually did!
"True Names". A short story rather than a novel, but way, way ahead of its time. Seems banal now only because Vinge was so damn in tune where the geek community was going.
In the past, Google has handled this problem by simply ignoring failed hardware and designing their software to be able to handle hardware dropping out at random points. This way, you can ignore the whole issue until some significant percentage of your hardware has failed. You don't have to change hardware every day, week or even month even if boxes are dying every day.
I suspect that the security companies don't fear lawsuits from spammers. On the other hand, one can easily imagine a company like Sony threatening lawsuits for having their DRM labelled a "virus" even if it damn-well is.
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Yeah. He was from the era when software worked.
I dunno. Did you recently discover that your company had rooted millions of customer PCs?
As someone who works at a huge megacorp now, and has worked at small startups in the past, I have to disagree completely. At the big megacorp, those of us that used to be a startup are incredibly unmotivated, it is true, but it has nothing to do with the things you saw. Instead, it is because in a startup you can just make good software while at a huge company, you spend all your time bashing your head against the wall. Working at a big corporation is being forced to use poor quality crap tools because some snake-oil salesman is buddy-buddy with a senior VP 10,000 miles away. Working at a big corporation is working a year on a project only to have it killed just before it enters the testing phase because the original management proponant is on the outs. Working at a big corporation is having 58 different managers all trying to put their "mark" on a product.
I personally am extremely motivated to create quality software. And at a startup, that's what I did. Here...I can't. It isn't my motivation that prevents me. It's the wildly changing requirements, stupid management decisions, inability to make decisions and design by committee.
The root problem is that in a small startup, you generally have one boss, and if that boss isn't already technically knowledgable, you can usually explain things to him. In a huge megacorp, the people making the decisions are usually pretty technically ignorant and are so high up that you have no opportunity to raise issues and so they end up making really stupid decisions.
One thing that I can't emphasise enough: a good developer cannot create good software without good management support. That kind of support is easy to get at startups and very hard to get at huge companies. This is because at a startup, everyone's in the same room and knows each other face to face, whereas at a huge megacorp, management is generally too far removed to have a clue.
Another thing that makes software from huge companies suck: When a company gets truly huge, many people in the chain of command get so caught up in internal power struggles that they lose sight of the customers. Here at the large company I work for, I've seen many good products killed, and other projects set up to fail merely because one upper-management type was trying to get the upper-hand over another. In a small company, everyone's in it together. In a large company, you will always find people who want the other guy to fail in order to better their own position.
Honestly, it could be worse. There are shitheads that would have cut off his access and demanded that he come in for two weeks anyway.
Other than not taking a job at a paranoid company, probably not much. While this sort of behavior makes sense for someone who was fired, it is idiotic for someone who resigned. Obviously if you'd wanted to be nasty, you could have done it before you gave notice.
So the short answer is: don't take it personally. The problem is theirs. Take it as a sign that quitting was a good idea and enjoy the extra two weeks off.
You have to take into account the fact that the marketting nimrods spend millions to promote the "popular" stuff and don't spend a dime on obscure indie albums. Which leads to an interesting chicken and egg question.
Their entire marketting model is based on taking a few acts and spending millions to convince teenagers to buy their albums. They tend to pick the young and inexperienced to promote because they can get better contracts and thus earn more profit.
There are some factors that you are ignoring. First, many consumers won't bother trying to get the problems fixed. Second, companies often believe they will have more sales if they release early (like before Christmas or before the competition.) Third, one of the costs of doing it right the first time is rigorous testing, which you don't have to do if you let your customers test for you. All likely apply in the XBox case.
Sorry but....maybe you need to learn that if you aren't sop id driven that you have to have everything NOW NOW NOW!!!! you can actually do things like wait until the price drops, the bugs are patched and there isn't a fucking six hour line to purchase.
Teach your kid to wait. He'll be happier. You'll be happier. You won't be raising a spoiled brat.
This is exactly what we see in software. Company's have little incentive to get it right the first time because they can just "release a patch". The result is that it becomes the norm for things to not work right when released.
If you want companies to make sure things work when released, you need to make it significantly more expensive to release something broken so that the free market rewards companies that take the time to make it work before releasing.
Because it's their best shot at getting laid.
You lose the plausible deniability if you admit that you intentionally did something for plausible deniability. Next time, post AC.
The NW-E507 definitely plays MP3s. At least, the NW-E505 does (it's what I have) and the NW-E507 is the same player with twice the memory.
For each player on that site, click on "Technical Specifications" and then search for "Direct MP3 playback".
And yes, Sony marketting sucks. Not much more I want to say as a non-AC.
I have a flash based walkman that plays MP3 natively.
The latest harddrive player released in Europe and Japan also plays WMA natively. (It'll hit the US in the spring.)
Software is required because of some stupid song database shit the players require. SonicStage makes it pretty clear when it is transcoding and when it is just copying. (If for no other reason than that the transcoding takes fucking forever.)
Where are you looking? I've got three different players from three different product lines that all play MP3s.
Pretty much every player after the HD-1 has supported MP3 as internally many in Sony blamed its failure on lack of MP3 support.
All new Sony players support MP3s on the device. Everything from the HD-3 on for the hard drive players, IIRC, as well as a number of the flash players. The software still sucks utter shit and you are better off buying an iRiver or something, but Sony management give up on their attempt to force ATRAC about nine months or so ago.
It was hard to write because you didn't comment.
The particulars really don't matter. When you are using a share, you are relying on softare on the share giving you correct information. There are many places it could be attacked, at low levels and high. If you can't infect the filesystem itself, you can infect the network sharing software.
A EULA isn't a "get out of jail free" card. Just because it asserts that Sony gains certain rights doesn't mean it has any legal force! For instance, they could bury in the EULA "Clicking 'yes' gives Sony the right to conduct snap physical inspections of the user's PC". They'd still be in a shitload of trouble for trespassing if they actually did!
"True Names". A short story rather than a novel, but way, way ahead of its time. Seems banal now only because Vinge was so damn in tune where the geek community was going.
My suspicion is that these containers are for shipping only. Probably at the other end, they will be put in a traditional server room.
In the past, Google has handled this problem by simply ignoring failed hardware and designing their software to be able to handle hardware dropping out at random points. This way, you can ignore the whole issue until some significant percentage of your hardware has failed. You don't have to change hardware every day, week or even month even if boxes are dying every day.
It was a great show, but the cancellation was hardly inexplicable as it had like three viewers.
Uh...excuse me...er...but low-rise jeans and bending over don't mix.
I'm here to program, not get a date.
I suspect that the security companies don't fear lawsuits from spammers. On the other hand, one can easily imagine a company like Sony threatening lawsuits for having their DRM labelled a "virus" even if it damn-well is.