Actually, this would be a good thing in the long run. All of this happens right now (see other responses below about DLL hell), but it's all controlled by Microsoft. If things were opened up, they would of course start out in near anarchy, but would eventually settle into standard configurations decided by the industry, not Microsoft.
I work in the scientific community, with people from every imaginable field of study. The thing that bothers me the most is when somebody assumes that because there's little or no evidence in support of something, it should be discounted as a possibility. It's amazing how commonplace this attitude is among researchers. I thought we were supposed to be the open-minded people, the ones who were accepting of new concepts.
The same goes for disproven theories. Just because something didn't work in the past, doesn't mean it won't in the future under different circumstances. Even things that are supposedly "laws" of science or nature. How many times have you heard someone say, "That's impossible," and then watch somebody do it?
Now, I'm sure there are people out there who will argue that we require some sort of standards. I agree that without them, it would be quite difficult to get our work done, but that's not my argument. It's as simple as this. When all else fails, one must be willing to consider the possibility that everything they've based their assumptions on is false. After all, we know that happens when one makes an assumption.....
Speaking of assumptions (and going off topic), if you really stop and think about it, the vast majority of software bugs are due to somebody somewhere making an assumption about something. For instance:
NULL pointer - Assumed pointer would never be NULL
Buffer overflow - Assumed data would never exceed buffer size
Unhandled exception - Assumed an error would never occur
I once called their developer support hotline for assistance:
... MS: What options did you choose in the AppWizard? Myself: I don't use the AppWizard. I code everything by hand. MS: (long pause) You can do that?!! ...
My only problem with this is that the decision of what to make opt-in and opt-out is truely subjective. One person might consider their purchase history to be sensitive data, while another might think their medical history is not.
I know it's not a cut and dried issue, but I still feel that complete opt-in is the best way.
Last I knew, propane was heavier than air. In the scene where they pump propane into the panic room to try and flush them out, when Jodie Foster ignites it, the fire stays at the top of the room. WRONG!!! Not only that, but did you notice that both of the fires related to the propane (i.e. the ceiling and the guy's arm) were blue? Not likely. There wasn't a sufficient enough air pressure.
Both of these issues look like the standard big business marketing technique of suspending reality in order to give customers what they expect. For most of us, our only experience with propane is BBQs and RVs where we generally see it used to generate blue flames for cooking and heating. Think about it. How many people do you know that when shown a yellow propane fire would ask, "Doesn't propane burn blue?"
According to a U.S. Department of Education survey, about one in three Americans is a fucking idiot. Hollywood and other big business seem to like to exploit and reinforce that.
Our approach (which is more of a loose convention than a requirement) is to create a cute, fun name based on the machine's platform type or purpose. For example, our first full-time Linux workstation was dubbed Linny, our old, POS Hewlett Packard is called Hippi, and our mobile computing prototype is called Mobi.
I took the liberty to do a little bit of research on good 'ol Bernie. Here's what I found:
The address listed on his domain registration is over four miles from city hall (source: MapQuest.com). Granted I know nothing about Chicago's layout, but I would assume this is not in the high-rise district.
There are no less than nine schools and nine supermarkets within the immediate vicinity of his location (source: MapQuest.com).
In his block alone there are 164 housing units of which nearly 50% are single occupant dwellings. In addition, nearly half of the housing in that same block are rentals. (source for both: US Census for 2000)
Again, his block alone is only about 1/4 of a mile long (source: US Census for 2000).
Now, the "suite" number listed on his domain registration is in the 400's, implying it's on the fourth floor. The fact that there even exists a unit number in the address proves it's a multi-occupant building. Taking into consideration all of the above information along with the type of work he claims to do, it's my opinion (possibly incorrect) the address listed in his domain records is most likely a single-family apartment.
I seriously doubt his claims of the greatness of his career. He's probably just some wannabe compulsive liar who screwed up and refuses to bow out gracefully.
BTW, I'm not infallible (wait a minute, yes I am) so I would appreciate others checking my figures.:)
Still, are there any NT/2000 boxes out there that fail less than a total of 5.26 minutes per year? I'd like to see the fine print in these so-called uptime guarantees.
In the world of professional photography, cameras and lenses are two different items, typically sold separately. Except for the shutter, there is very little inside a camera that affects the final outcome of the picture. Different lenses attached to the same camera can however give you quite different imagery.
I've had to teach many old-school corporate engineers how to use CVS, and the complaints discussed here I know all too well. The main one however seems to be the non-exclusive checkouts. To gain true appreciation for CVS and understand why the creators chose to be different, you need to step back and look at the issue of development conflicts.
The general process for using a source control system consists of three steps:
Obtain a file from the repository.
Modify that file on a workstation.
Return the new version to the repository.
During which of these steps do development conflicts arise? The "traditional" source control systems say step two. Two or more people editing the same file at the same time will inevitably step on each other's toes. But therein lies the rub. Just because two people are working on the same file doesn't necessarily mean their respective changes will conflict. And notice I said WILL conflict. Future tense.
This is where many source control systems have it wrong. Conflicts don't occur in step two. Multiple people never edit the same file. They each have their own COPY that they work with. The only way conflicts would happen there is if they were trying to use the same workstation. No, conflicts really happen in step three. If the file in the repository has changed since you've been working on your copy, then you might have a problem, and manually checking the files is the only reliable way to solve it.
We're used to seeing lens flares in movies and TV. Intentionally adding them to games and other CGI makes the experience more cinematic, giving it a little edge of fantasy.
Actually, the camera has almost nothing to do with it. It's internal reflections within the lens, hence the name. Essentially, it all boils down to the fact that glass isn't a perfect conductor of light.
As light enters a lens, most of it is refracted towards the optical center. Some however is specularly reflected back towards the source just like it bounced off a mirror. When this happens on the outer lens element, the light just goes back into the scene. But when it happens on an inner element, it has to go back through other pieces of glass, each of which has the potential to re-reflect it back towards the film.
Most light in a scene isn't strong or coherent enough to cause any noticable effect. If however you have a strong, concentrated stream of light (e.g. the sun) then you will see a series of reflections arranged in a line intersecting the light source and the optical center of the lens. That's why in moving images lens flares always seem to pivot around the center of the frame.
Not all lens flares look the same either. The construction of the lens and the aperture settings can affect how it looks. Some flares consist of multi-faceted shapes such as octogons. This is caused by the aperture of the lens (made of many straight pieces) being less than fully-open.
One of the more popular flares is oval shaped with bright, blue horizonal lines. The oval shape is a result of using an anamorphic image format. In this kind of system, the lens compresses the image horizontally to fit more information into a small frame area, and then a complementary lens is used on the projector to stretch it back out for presentation. If a flare happens inside the camera lens after the compression stage, it's recorded on film as a circular image. But when that circle is projected, it's streched out with the rest of the frame and becomes an oval.
The blue lines effect seems to be an artifact that's unique to Panavision lenses. Although due to it's popularity I have heard of other lens makers trying to copy it.
Even strong lights outside the frame can cause problems. This stems from the fact that lenses and frames are different shapes. The round lens draws in more light than what is actually recorded in the rectangular frame. This extra light can still bounce around the lens and get reflected into the shot. This is why higher-end photographers (especially those in the motion picture industry) use matte boxes. These rectangular housings fit around the front of the lens and hold black, opaque masks called mattes between the lens and the scene. These mattes have a rectangular hole in them just big enough to be oustide the frame line. The point is to keep all light out of the lens except what is necessary to fill the frame.
...is that phone companies like to play dumb when you ask for it (regardless of what you call it). I tried for a long time to get PacBell to sell me a single dry run. They kept trying to sell me a leased line instead.
They also claimed to not know what dark fiber was (the same as dry-copper but in fiber-optic cable).
How's a union supposed to help?
on
Dial U for Union
·
· Score: 1
If an employer runs out of work, they can't afford to keep people. They have to choice but to lay people off or go out of business. How is a union going to help me in that situation?
My experience both in being hired and hiring others has shown me that the attitude of many companies is changing. For one thing, they're learning (often the hard way) that having a piece of paper from a school doesn't say anything about one's ability to do a job. All it says is that they can pass some tests.
I once turned down someone with a PhD in computer science and 20 years experience working for a major aerospace company because they didn't know jack about the job they were applying for. We ended up hiring the self-taught kid and never once regretted it.
The reason why many companies prefer degreed individuals is because a degree is a form of certification. Hiring managers feel that if someone else has certified an individual, they've already screened them. In other words, the hiring manager doesn't have to do as much work.
The problem with this approach is that certification is worthless if it doesn't apply to the job at hand. Hell, I'm certified on Harris 20/20 telephone switches, but that does me absolutely no good if I'm interviewing to become a bank teller. Many hiring managers see degrees as a form of all-encompassing certification. If someone has a degree, then they're automatically better than everyone who doesn't. That attitude is a good way to get burned.
For a fraction of that price, this dude could have built a separate building with its own feed from the power company and installed a full cinema audio system. It seems to me he's the kind of person who gets off on having tons of expensive gear that's completely unnecessary to achieve the goal he's after.
In reality, without the incentive of making money, most of the software innovations that exist today would have never been born.
If by "software innovations" you mean today's software products, then you are correct. But true software innovations, as in discoveries of new and different techniques, happened 30-40 years ago at universities -- places where people go to learn and work, not because they're getting paid, but because they want to.
Given a choice of implementations, would you choose the one written by somebody who has a passion for the subject and gladly did it for free, or the one made by the individual sitting in an uncomfortable cubicle with poor lighting and whose only motivation was that they were getting paid? Me personally, I choose the former.
History has shown, and others here have pointed out, that people who work simply because they want to typically make better products, because they put more effort and spirit into it.
According to the Martian Consulate, my family owns several square miles on Mars. They'd better keep those plants off our land. Now if NASA wants to lease our property for their experiments...:)
- Milo Hyson
Re:Well, I see the usual anti-union bushwah
on
IT Unions?
·
· Score: 1
You seem to have missed my whole point. I know quite well that in the world you come from, the DP rarely does any actual camera work (they have people who do that for them). I also know that a new person would never be hired onto a Lucas project (George doesn't think that way).
The point I was trying to make is that given a different set of circumstances, a person with less years and experience can do just as good of a job if not better.
Somebody using QuickBooks Pro can close out a company's fiscal year in 10 minutes, having no knowledge of accounting. 50 years ago, it would have taken a highly-trained and experienced accountant two or three days to do the same job with the same level of accuracy. Granted, the first person may not have any idea what they actually did, but they got the job done properly. In business, that's what matters.
- Milo Hyson
Re:A story from the front lines
on
IT Unions?
·
· Score: 1
He still wasn't guaranteed to get the job. Nor is he guaranteed to keep it. If it pisses off the American people too much, he'll get booted out.
- Milo Hyson
Re:Well, I see the usual anti-union bushwah
on
IT Unions?
·
· Score: 1
No, I don't think anybody should starve.
When we're young, our needs are less, and they grow throughout our lives.
This is not a given. It's typical of our society, but is in no way an absolute fact of life. For most people, when they receive any raise in pay, they tend to increase their expenses also. Example:
"Guess what honey. I just got a raise at work. Now we can afford to buy a house."
The underlying idea behing rewarding seniority is that someone who has worked longer has more experience and therefore is more knowledgeable and a more valuable worker. However, there are a number of assumptions made in that concept and we all know what happens when one makes assumptions.
First, just because somebody has worked longer doesn't necessarily mean they're more experienced. Maybe they've been sleeping in the truck for 20 years.
Second, just because somebody has more experience with something doesn't necessarily mean they've learned anything from it. Maybe they've spent their entire career doing things the exact same way they learned it on their first day 20 years ago.
Third, just because somebody has learned new techniques over the course of their career doesn't necessarily mean they apply them to their current work.
If a person works in a job for a long time, learns from their experiences and applies that knowledge, then they may very well be better than a newbie. However, if that's the case, then my previous argument stands -- It's all about what you can do, not how long you've been doing it.
An example drawn from your industry...
Person A is a cinematographer who has been working in the motion picture industry for 20 years. They're very good at their job -- They can load an Arri 535B blindfolded with one arm tied behind their back.
Person B is a relatively new videographer who has just been hired on to film Star Wars Episode II. They know nothing of film grain structures or characteristic curves. They've never even touched a light meter. Yet they can record images with the same quality as Person A, maybe even better. Why?
Different tools and techniques. Person A has to rely on their experience with film stock, exposure latitudes and development processes. Person B (using a Sony HDCAM) can see what they're shooting live on the set. They can see the signal levels in the waveform monitor and vectorscope. Luxuries the film-based Person A doesn't have.
Person B has many more tools to help them achieve good images. Person A has more years behind them. In the end, it's their work which determines who is better. Nothing else.
- Milo Hyson
Re:Questions for Union Supporters
on
IT Unions?
·
· Score: 1
The same reason people from college or people with more experience...
You never actually stated what the reason was. I know that paper credentials go a long way in this world when they shouldn't. I'm asking why that is.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, this would be a good thing in the long run. All of this happens right now (see other responses below about DLL hell), but it's all controlled by Microsoft. If things were opened up, they would of course start out in near anarchy, but would eventually settle into standard configurations decided by the industry, not Microsoft.
The same goes for disproven theories. Just because something didn't work in the past, doesn't mean it won't in the future under different circumstances. Even things that are supposedly "laws" of science or nature. How many times have you heard someone say, "That's impossible," and then watch somebody do it?
Now, I'm sure there are people out there who will argue that we require some sort of standards. I agree that without them, it would be quite difficult to get our work done, but that's not my argument. It's as simple as this. When all else fails, one must be willing to consider the possibility that everything they've based their assumptions on is false. After all, we know that happens when one makes an assumption.....
Speaking of assumptions (and going off topic), if you really stop and think about it, the vast majority of software bugs are due to somebody somewhere making an assumption about something. For instance:
I once called their developer support hotline for assistance:
MS: What options did you choose in the AppWizard?
Myself: I don't use the AppWizard. I code everything by hand.
MS: (long pause) You can do that?!!
I know it's not a cut and dried issue, but I still feel that complete opt-in is the best way.
Both of these issues look like the standard big business marketing technique of suspending reality in order to give customers what they expect. For most of us, our only experience with propane is BBQs and RVs where we generally see it used to generate blue flames for cooking and heating. Think about it. How many people do you know that when shown a yellow propane fire would ask, "Doesn't propane burn blue?"
According to a U.S. Department of Education survey, about one in three Americans is a fucking idiot. Hollywood and other big business seem to like to exploit and reinforce that.
Some of the other names we use are as follows:
So it's not only an apartment but a crappy one at that. :)
- The address listed on his domain registration is over four miles from city hall (source: MapQuest.com). Granted I know nothing about Chicago's layout, but I would assume this is not in the high-rise district.
- There are no less than nine schools and nine supermarkets within the immediate vicinity of his location (source: MapQuest.com).
- In his block alone there are 164 housing units of which nearly 50% are single occupant dwellings. In addition, nearly half of the housing in that same block are rentals. (source for both: US Census for 2000)
- Again, his block alone is only about 1/4 of a mile long (source: US Census for 2000).
Now, the "suite" number listed on his domain registration is in the 400's, implying it's on the fourth floor. The fact that there even exists a unit number in the address proves it's a multi-occupant building. Taking into consideration all of the above information along with the type of work he claims to do, it's my opinion (possibly incorrect) the address listed in his domain records is most likely a single-family apartment.I seriously doubt his claims of the greatness of his career. He's probably just some wannabe compulsive liar who screwed up and refuses to bow out gracefully.
BTW, I'm not infallible (wait a minute, yes I am) so I would appreciate others checking my figures. :)
Still, are there any NT/2000 boxes out there that fail less than a total of 5.26 minutes per year? I'd like to see the fine print in these so-called uptime guarantees.
Remember, 99.999% uptime is 1.44 minutes of downtime per day. Just enough time to reboot a well-tuned system.
In the world of professional photography, cameras and lenses are two different items, typically sold separately. Except for the shutter, there is very little inside a camera that affects the final outcome of the picture. Different lenses attached to the same camera can however give you quite different imagery.
The general process for using a source control system consists of three steps:
- Obtain a file from the repository.
- Modify that file on a workstation.
- Return the new version to the repository.
During which of these steps do development conflicts arise? The "traditional" source control systems say step two. Two or more people editing the same file at the same time will inevitably step on each other's toes. But therein lies the rub. Just because two people are working on the same file doesn't necessarily mean their respective changes will conflict. And notice I said WILL conflict. Future tense.This is where many source control systems have it wrong. Conflicts don't occur in step two. Multiple people never edit the same file. They each have their own COPY that they work with. The only way conflicts would happen there is if they were trying to use the same workstation. No, conflicts really happen in step three. If the file in the repository has changed since you've been working on your copy, then you might have a problem, and manually checking the files is the only reliable way to solve it.
So yes, CVS is different ... and for good reason.
We're used to seeing lens flares in movies and TV. Intentionally adding them to games and other CGI makes the experience more cinematic, giving it a little edge of fantasy.
As light enters a lens, most of it is refracted towards the optical center. Some however is specularly reflected back towards the source just like it bounced off a mirror. When this happens on the outer lens element, the light just goes back into the scene. But when it happens on an inner element, it has to go back through other pieces of glass, each of which has the potential to re-reflect it back towards the film.
Most light in a scene isn't strong or coherent enough to cause any noticable effect. If however you have a strong, concentrated stream of light (e.g. the sun) then you will see a series of reflections arranged in a line intersecting the light source and the optical center of the lens. That's why in moving images lens flares always seem to pivot around the center of the frame.
Not all lens flares look the same either. The construction of the lens and the aperture settings can affect how it looks. Some flares consist of multi-faceted shapes such as octogons. This is caused by the aperture of the lens (made of many straight pieces) being less than fully-open.
One of the more popular flares is oval shaped with bright, blue horizonal lines. The oval shape is a result of using an anamorphic image format. In this kind of system, the lens compresses the image horizontally to fit more information into a small frame area, and then a complementary lens is used on the projector to stretch it back out for presentation. If a flare happens inside the camera lens after the compression stage, it's recorded on film as a circular image. But when that circle is projected, it's streched out with the rest of the frame and becomes an oval.
The blue lines effect seems to be an artifact that's unique to Panavision lenses. Although due to it's popularity I have heard of other lens makers trying to copy it.
Even strong lights outside the frame can cause problems. This stems from the fact that lenses and frames are different shapes. The round lens draws in more light than what is actually recorded in the rectangular frame. This extra light can still bounce around the lens and get reflected into the shot. This is why higher-end photographers (especially those in the motion picture industry) use matte boxes. These rectangular housings fit around the front of the lens and hold black, opaque masks called mattes between the lens and the scene. These mattes have a rectangular hole in them just big enough to be oustide the frame line. The point is to keep all light out of the lens except what is necessary to fill the frame.
- Milo Hyson
CyberLife Labs/CyberLife Pictures
They also claimed to not know what dark fiber was (the same as dry-copper but in fiber-optic cable).
If an employer runs out of work, they can't afford to keep people. They have to choice but to lay people off or go out of business. How is a union going to help me in that situation?
- Milo Hyson
I once turned down someone with a PhD in computer science and 20 years experience working for a major aerospace company because they didn't know jack about the job they were applying for. We ended up hiring the self-taught kid and never once regretted it.
The reason why many companies prefer degreed individuals is because a degree is a form of certification. Hiring managers feel that if someone else has certified an individual, they've already screened them. In other words, the hiring manager doesn't have to do as much work.
The problem with this approach is that certification is worthless if it doesn't apply to the job at hand. Hell, I'm certified on Harris 20/20 telephone switches, but that does me absolutely no good if I'm interviewing to become a bank teller. Many hiring managers see degrees as a form of all-encompassing certification. If someone has a degree, then they're automatically better than everyone who doesn't. That attitude is a good way to get burned.
- Milo Hyson
For a fraction of that price, this dude could have built a separate building with its own feed from the power company and installed a full cinema audio system. It seems to me he's the kind of person who gets off on having tons of expensive gear that's completely unnecessary to achieve the goal he's after.
- Milo Hyson
...considering today's CRTs only have around 100 dpi (25.4 mm/i divided by the average CRT dot-pitch of .26 mm equals 97.69 dpi).
- Milo Hyson
If by "software innovations" you mean today's software products, then you are correct. But true software innovations, as in discoveries of new and different techniques, happened 30-40 years ago at universities -- places where people go to learn and work, not because they're getting paid, but because they want to.
Given a choice of implementations, would you choose the one written by somebody who has a passion for the subject and gladly did it for free, or the one made by the individual sitting in an uncomfortable cubicle with poor lighting and whose only motivation was that they were getting paid? Me personally, I choose the former.
History has shown, and others here have pointed out, that people who work simply because they want to typically make better products, because they put more effort and spirit into it.
- Milo Hyson
According to the Martian Consulate, my family owns several square miles on Mars. They'd better keep those plants off our land. Now if NASA wants to lease our property for their experiments... :)
- Milo Hyson
The point I was trying to make is that given a different set of circumstances, a person with less years and experience can do just as good of a job if not better.
Somebody using QuickBooks Pro can close out a company's fiscal year in 10 minutes, having no knowledge of accounting. 50 years ago, it would have taken a highly-trained and experienced accountant two or three days to do the same job with the same level of accuracy. Granted, the first person may not have any idea what they actually did, but they got the job done properly. In business, that's what matters.
- Milo Hyson
He still wasn't guaranteed to get the job. Nor is he guaranteed to keep it. If it pisses off the American people too much, he'll get booted out.
- Milo Hyson
When we're young, our needs are less, and they grow throughout our lives.
This is not a given. It's typical of our society, but is in no way an absolute fact of life. For most people, when they receive any raise in pay, they tend to increase their expenses also. Example:
"Guess what honey. I just got a raise at work. Now we can afford to buy a house."
The underlying idea behing rewarding seniority is that someone who has worked longer has more experience and therefore is more knowledgeable and a more valuable worker. However, there are a number of assumptions made in that concept and we all know what happens when one makes assumptions.
First, just because somebody has worked longer doesn't necessarily mean they're more experienced. Maybe they've been sleeping in the truck for 20 years.
Second, just because somebody has more experience with something doesn't necessarily mean they've learned anything from it. Maybe they've spent their entire career doing things the exact same way they learned it on their first day 20 years ago.
Third, just because somebody has learned new techniques over the course of their career doesn't necessarily mean they apply them to their current work.
If a person works in a job for a long time, learns from their experiences and applies that knowledge, then they may very well be better than a newbie. However, if that's the case, then my previous argument stands -- It's all about what you can do, not how long you've been doing it.
An example drawn from your industry...
Person A is a cinematographer who has been working in the motion picture industry for 20 years. They're very good at their job -- They can load an Arri 535B blindfolded with one arm tied behind their back.
Person B is a relatively new videographer who has just been hired on to film Star Wars Episode II. They know nothing of film grain structures or characteristic curves. They've never even touched a light meter. Yet they can record images with the same quality as Person A, maybe even better. Why?
Different tools and techniques. Person A has to rely on their experience with film stock, exposure latitudes and development processes. Person B (using a Sony HDCAM) can see what they're shooting live on the set. They can see the signal levels in the waveform monitor and vectorscope. Luxuries the film-based Person A doesn't have.
Person B has many more tools to help them achieve good images. Person A has more years behind them. In the end, it's their work which determines who is better. Nothing else.
- Milo Hyson
You never actually stated what the reason was. I know that paper credentials go a long way in this world when they shouldn't. I'm asking why that is.
- Milo Hyson