Re:no no no
on
Hacking Vodka
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Na' Vodka's kids stuff.
If you are really serious about drinking yourself blind, get yourself a nice bottle of ARAK, and drink it in one sitting. A good bottle will be up to and around 70-80% alcohol. It's big in the middle east. They drink it on the weekends, the rest of the time... it's Window cleaner.
I think the general situation is looking up. From my point of view, or rather the view of the Microdeveloper, I'm finding more independent work. After about a month of down time, I found two decent sized projects this week. But the reason these companies are having trouble filling these computer jobs is because the h1bdiots will work for six dollars an hour. So what these people are actually saying is that there is a shortage of qualified personnel willing to work for near minimum wage. There are plenty of unemployed programmers, and many are willing to work very cheaply. Problem is that slave labor is supposedly illegal in this country. You'll have to pay your staff a fairly. Ie: at least a living wage.
I've heard that a lot lately. Honestly don't know how true it is.
You don't need a big niche. If you could make half a million dollars a year and monopolize a market that is stand alone, and that no one else is interested in... wouldn't you do it? Microsoft and the other big companies won't even touch a market unless it can make them at least 20 million a year, and they'd still be in the red with that kind of intake. But there are literally thousands of un-served and under-served markets world wide, where companies will pay outrageous sums of money just to have something that does exactly what they want it to do.
Industries are generally pretty uniform, but these developers usually make their applications customizable to some extent. There's huge growth potential finding these industries and existing products because the vast majority of these applications are poorly supported, and not very well produced. Thing is, they do the job. Industries that come to mind are, medical specialty fields, architecture, home contracting, government, contract management, certain very specific types of document management, factory management, and others. I'm not telling you anything new. You sound like you've at least looked.
The beauty of being a super tiny niche developer is that your clientele has no idea that open source even exists. Some of them have trouble turning their computers on. This means that you can write in your language or choice, using your database of choice, no matter how exotic your tastes are. In these niche fields, you see things like Sybase, and Pervasive databases all the time. Another perk to doing things this way is that it's harder for the client to know what they have, and bring someone other than you in to fix it. Personally, I prefer to use embedded databases, but that's another topic of conversation.
The other place to go is government. State and federal governments are always outsourcing development of an endless stream of web and software applications to independent software houses. It's an incredible market. And under new bidding regulations put in place on state and federal level over the last few years, it's become a lot easier for the lone developer to get consideration. For what they pay though, it's probably better to rent an office and hire some help. You'll need it.
The only time you're ever going to get ripped off by open source projects is when you're developing something extremely generic. As a niche developer, you've invested some serious time and effort into finding a market that nobody else wants. You've developed something that will ensure that you will be needed. And, you've put a lot of effort into making your application as relevant as possible to that one industry, or group of industries you wish to service. You speak their industry specific language. You have invested time in learning the basics of how things get done, to the extent that you can improve on the existing processes on your own, at least enough to justify your product's existence. If at this point, you're still developing something generic that can be reverse engineered with little or no effort, for free, by a non expert, you're probably not going to be successful as a niche software house.
Right,
but that was before the era of the Internet. I don't know if that would be possible today because of the visibility the Internet provides to these matters. Seriously, imagine who would have cared back in the 80's when GEM was putting out press releases. These days, there would be backup. Pro-bono lawyers looking to make a name for themselves, the open source community, bloggers, hordes of angry techies, hate and disdain on Slashdot, and ten funds to help pay for their legal defense.
Right.
But that's a whole other issue, don't you think? Thing is, if that were big, you would see more of it. Microsoft may want to kill Linux, and they have good reason to. It becomes a greater threat to their core business model every year. But in cases like that, there are PR consequences. Microsoft being first and foremost a PR and Marketing company understands this... I think.
SCO isn't suing IBM on patent violations. They're suing for copyright infringement. Problem is, they don't really know if they own the copyright. Seems to me that it's like the executive assistant in an office forgetting the assistant part of her title and going haywire.
Yeah, but they're not really after money. They're trying to make a point. They also have another motive. They need to make it look like they're losing money over file sharing. What better way to do that then by hiring a hoard of IP lawyers full time to sue their customers?
That was true until recently.
But the Devine case proved that when small companies band together and get organized against idiots with incredibly broad patents, these cases will get dropped. There were a lot of people in the patent hording industry paying close attention to that case. Had it been successful, we would have seen a lot more of it. Thank god it wasn't.
Wouldn't you if you could? American IP laws have been getting gradually worse for the better part of a decade.
But seriously, With a couple of exceptions I can think of. Namely the e-commerce shopping cart patent, there hasn't been much of a threat to smaller development houses. I'm not saying it's not there, but I don't know if it's as bad as people think it is.
Small software houses pose problems for IP lawyers. First, they don't have any money. They barely make any money. They might make enough for the initial developer to get by, but when you're talking about the kind of money these companies are looking for, that's nothing. They'll spit at it.
Secondly, Smaller firms are a lot more likely to find pro bono defense. There are a couple of non profit organizations like the EFF that are set up to do just that. Then there's the problem of groups of smaller companies banding together to cover legal costs. Any way you cut it, the smaller the firm you go after, the more likely you are to end up in court. Might sound good if you have genuine innovation at risk. But if you hold several hundred questionable patents on business processes, it's bad news.
If I were a patent hording firm, I would be going after the Sonys and IBMs of the world. That's a sure bet.
There is of course another way to get around just about any patent that no one ever seems to talk about. Set up shop in Sealand. For those not in the know Sealand is an abandonned British military platform about the size of a football field in the middle of the ocean. And it just so happens that it is located in international waters. Established in 1967 by some British guy with a boat, it provides the ideal setting for those not interested in complying with IP laws. This is because they don't have any. None, natha, zero. They don't honor anyone else's either. Which is handy. If I am not mistaken, Havenco is located there as well.
Thank you for that apocalyptic sentiment. Fact of the matter is that the US can't just go away. I don't think anyone's being enslaved. Granted, the system is problematic.
It's very obviously broken... at the moment. It's been broken before.
But throwing America away and saying to hell with it is not a solution to the problem, or even sensible.
Things have been harder since the republicans have been in control. Things have gone to hell, and they're only going to get worse over the next four or so years.
But they will get better. Americans are optimists, problem solvers. You may think that there's nothing we can do to change the system, but you're wrong because it's a fundamentally good system. As such, it was designed for change.
The American dream is alive and well. And as long as it exists, there will be people fighting for it.
Don't blame bush for enacting it. Blame Clinton for allowing it. But you can only blame Clinton for so much, contrary to what the right wing will have you believe. If something Clinton signed hasn't worked out in the long run, you would think someone would have noticed by now. And with republicans having majorities in both houses and the executive branch, they shouldn't have any problem passing laws to fix any of this stuff, right? Blame Bush for letting this, and every other domestic issue like the gaping trade deficit we have in this country get out of control. He wanted to be the man running the show, and now he has more power than any president in recent memory. Yet he still can't get anything done if it doesn't involve killing something. God help us all.
I disagree.
There are good guys and bad guys. And each party has their man represented. When it comes down to deciding who's who, it really depends on what you believe is right.
I think this one keeps popping up because a) our democracy is meaningless, and the fate of the republic is actually governed by a broad reaching conspiracy that decides things based on the outcome of football games, or b) people are inherently superstitious, and they look for patterns where there aren't any. They look for a reason for the way things are, when no reasons actually exist.
Take religion for example. If anyone seriously believes that there is a big man in the sky who is taking notes on everything they do, and will reward everyone based on their performance in life, and strikes down evil people to enforce some twisted sense of divine retribution. Although, crazy as it sounds, it gives people a reason to keep going.
I think it's the same thing here. Democrats, progressives, moderates, and everyone in IT has had a hellacious time since Bush has been in office. First, he repeals overtime for computer programmers specifically. Then he repeals a woman's right to make the same wage as a man days before it was supposed to take effect. Further more, health insurance has sky rocketed under bush.
I make more than most programmers as a freelancer, and the fact of the matter is that even the most minimal health insurance would force me into living in a cardboard box. I could see it now "daddy, why don't we have an apartment anymore?" my daughter would say. "Well dear, it's because you have the best minimal health insurance money can buy."
So is there a giant conspiracy that undermines our democracy that flippantly hinges the results on a football game every four years? I doubt it. When people talk about conspiracies, they're usually uneducated, and have no idea how disorganized our government is at all levels. I've worked on several government projects. In every case, they have an almost militant aversion to productivity on any level.
So I think the conspiracy theory is out. Although, to play devil's advocate... the 68 year accuracy of this particular scheme is interesting. And if broken, will probably lead to accusations and reasons that George Bush cheated. Wouldn't be the first time. I don't think the man has ever won an election honestly.
But I'm inclined to believe the latter theory. Those of us that really hate Bush are looking for something. Anything, that will give us hope that things will get better for us. Hope that we won't be subjugated to live in the anti-modernist, morally ambiguous, corporate lobbyist pandering Christian theocracy that George Bush has been attempting to put in place with varying degrees of success.
No lobbyist left behind indeed...
We're looking for a anything. Some reason not to give up. Something to have just a little bit of faith in. And if that means paying a little more attention to a stupid football game that we wouldn't have even noticed otherwise... is that really so bad?
It also depends on who is viewed as the incumbant. Since Bush stole the last election, the red skins might be representing Gore, the democrats, and Kerry. In that case, Bush wins. But, last time the game pointed to a Bush victory, which would indicate that it isn't the case. My bet, assuming this has any credence (and if it does, I have bigger worries), Kerry wins. Thank god. I don't care if he wins fairly. We need to get this country out of the Bushes while we still have a progressive democracy.
Looks like computer programmers aren't the only ones becoming obsolete. Now it appears comic book artists are as well. Thank you inkulator 9000... I wonder if it's any good.
And what pre tell are terrorists going to do with this information? Not pick at&t over sprint, install covad over sbc? It probably makes sense. If september eleventh teaches us nothing, it's that if a terrorist makes an informed purchase... he's already won.
Slashdot Mirror
Na' Vodka's kids stuff. If you are really serious about drinking yourself blind, get yourself a nice bottle of ARAK, and drink it in one sitting. A good bottle will be up to and around 70-80% alcohol. It's big in the middle east. They drink it on the weekends, the rest of the time... it's Window cleaner.
I think the general situation is looking up. From my point of view, or rather the view of the Microdeveloper, I'm finding more independent work. After about a month of down time, I found two decent sized projects this week. But the reason these companies are having trouble filling these computer jobs is because the h1bdiots will work for six dollars an hour. So what these people are actually saying is that there is a shortage of qualified personnel willing to work for near minimum wage. There are plenty of unemployed programmers, and many are willing to work very cheaply. Problem is that slave labor is supposedly illegal in this country. You'll have to pay your staff a fairly. Ie: at least a living wage.
I've heard that a lot lately.
Honestly don't know how true it is.
You don't need a big niche. If you could make half a million dollars a year and monopolize a market that is stand alone, and that no one else is interested in... wouldn't you do it? Microsoft and the other big companies won't even touch a market unless it can make them at least 20 million a year, and they'd still be in the red with that kind of intake. But there are literally thousands of un-served and under-served markets world wide, where companies will pay outrageous sums of money just to have something that does exactly what they want it to do.
Industries are generally pretty uniform, but these developers usually make their applications customizable to some extent. There's huge growth potential finding these industries and existing products because the vast majority of these applications are poorly supported, and not very well produced. Thing is, they do the job. Industries that come to mind are, medical specialty fields, architecture, home contracting, government, contract management, certain very specific types of document management, factory management, and others. I'm not telling you anything new. You sound like you've at least looked.
The beauty of being a super tiny niche developer is that your clientele has no idea that open source even exists. Some of them have trouble turning their computers on. This means that you can write in your language or choice, using your database of choice, no matter how exotic your tastes are. In these niche fields, you see things like Sybase, and Pervasive databases all the time. Another perk to doing things this way is that it's harder for the client to know what they have, and bring someone other than you in to fix it. Personally, I prefer to use embedded databases, but that's another topic of conversation.
The other place to go is government. State and federal governments are always outsourcing development of an endless stream of web and software applications to independent software houses. It's an incredible market. And under new bidding regulations put in place on state and federal level over the last few years, it's become a lot easier for the lone developer to get consideration. For what they pay though, it's probably better to rent an office and hire some help. You'll need it.
The only time you're ever going to get ripped off by open source projects is when you're developing something extremely generic. As a niche developer, you've invested some serious time and effort into finding a market that nobody else wants. You've developed something that will ensure that you will be needed. And, you've put a lot of effort into making your application as relevant as possible to that one industry, or group of industries you wish to service. You speak their industry specific language. You have invested time in learning the basics of how things get done, to the extent that you can improve on the existing processes on your own, at least enough to justify your product's existence. If at this point, you're still developing something generic that can be reverse engineered with little or no effort, for free, by a non expert, you're probably not going to be successful as a niche software house.
Right, but that was before the era of the Internet. I don't know if that would be possible today because of the visibility the Internet provides to these matters. Seriously, imagine who would have cared back in the 80's when GEM was putting out press releases. These days, there would be backup. Pro-bono lawyers looking to make a name for themselves, the open source community, bloggers, hordes of angry techies, hate and disdain on Slashdot, and ten funds to help pay for their legal defense.
Right. But that's a whole other issue, don't you think? Thing is, if that were big, you would see more of it. Microsoft may want to kill Linux, and they have good reason to. It becomes a greater threat to their core business model every year. But in cases like that, there are PR consequences. Microsoft being first and foremost a PR and Marketing company understands this... I think.
SCO isn't suing IBM on patent violations. They're suing for copyright infringement. Problem is, they don't really know if they own the copyright. Seems to me that it's like the executive assistant in an office forgetting the assistant part of her title and going haywire.
Yeah, but they're not really after money. They're trying to make a point. They also have another motive. They need to make it look like they're losing money over file sharing. What better way to do that then by hiring a hoard of IP lawyers full time to sue their customers?
That was true until recently. But the Devine case proved that when small companies band together and get organized against idiots with incredibly broad patents, these cases will get dropped. There were a lot of people in the patent hording industry paying close attention to that case. Had it been successful, we would have seen a lot more of it. Thank god it wasn't.
Wouldn't you if you could?
American IP laws have been getting gradually worse for the better part of a decade.
But seriously,
With a couple of exceptions I can think of. Namely the e-commerce shopping cart patent, there hasn't been much of a threat to smaller development houses. I'm not saying it's not there, but I don't know if it's as bad as people think it is.
Small software houses pose problems for IP lawyers. First, they don't have any money. They barely make any money. They might make enough for the initial developer to get by, but when you're talking about the kind of money these companies are looking for, that's nothing. They'll spit at it.
Secondly,
Smaller firms are a lot more likely to find pro bono defense. There are a couple of non profit organizations like the EFF that are set up to do just that. Then there's the problem of groups of smaller companies banding together to cover legal costs. Any way you cut it, the smaller the firm you go after, the more likely you are to end up in court. Might sound good if you have genuine innovation at risk. But if you hold several hundred questionable patents on business processes, it's bad news.
If I were a patent hording firm, I would be going after the Sonys and IBMs of the world. That's a sure bet.
There is of course another way to get around just about any patent that no one ever seems to talk about. Set up shop in Sealand. For those not in the know Sealand is an abandonned British military platform about the size of a football field in the middle of the ocean. And it just so happens that it is located in international waters. Established in 1967 by some British guy with a boat, it provides the ideal setting for those not interested in complying with IP laws. This is because they don't have any. None, natha, zero. They don't honor anyone else's either. Which is handy. If I am not mistaken, Havenco is located there as well.
Thank you for that apocalyptic sentiment. Fact of the matter is that the US can't just go away. I don't think anyone's being enslaved. Granted, the system is problematic.
It's very obviously broken... at the moment. It's been broken before.
But throwing America away and saying to hell with it is not a solution to the problem, or even sensible.
Things have been harder since the republicans have been in control. Things have gone to hell, and they're only going to get worse over the next four or so years.
But they will get better. Americans are optimists, problem solvers. You may think that there's nothing we can do to change the system, but you're wrong because it's a fundamentally good system. As such, it was designed for change.
The American dream is alive and well. And as long as it exists, there will be people fighting for it.
So shut the fuck up!
Don't blame bush for enacting it. Blame Clinton for allowing it. But you can only blame Clinton for so much, contrary to what the right wing will have you believe. If something Clinton signed hasn't worked out in the long run, you would think someone would have noticed by now. And with republicans having majorities in both houses and the executive branch, they shouldn't have any problem passing laws to fix any of this stuff, right? Blame Bush for letting this, and every other domestic issue like the gaping trade deficit we have in this country get out of control. He wanted to be the man running the show, and now he has more power than any president in recent memory. Yet he still can't get anything done if it doesn't involve killing something. God help us all.
I may be horribly wrong, but doesn't Corel own Wordperfect these days? Why aren't they a party to this?
It's a sad day for America.
Canada looks more appealing every day...
Man wouldn't it be cool if it was flexible? Probably wishful thinking.
I disagree. There are good guys and bad guys. And each party has their man represented. When it comes down to deciding who's who, it really depends on what you believe is right.
It would be nice. It's even likely. Problem is, what do you replace it with, without disinfrachising half the country?
I think this one keeps popping up because a) our democracy is meaningless, and the fate of the republic is actually governed by a broad reaching conspiracy that decides things based on the outcome of football games, or b) people are inherently superstitious, and they look for patterns where there aren't any. They look for a reason for the way things are, when no reasons actually exist.
Take religion for example. If anyone seriously believes that there is a big man in the sky who is taking notes on everything they do, and will reward everyone based on their performance in life, and strikes down evil people to enforce some twisted sense of divine retribution. Although, crazy as it sounds, it gives people a reason to keep going.
I think it's the same thing here. Democrats, progressives, moderates, and everyone in IT has had a hellacious time since Bush has been in office. First, he repeals overtime for computer programmers specifically. Then he repeals a woman's right to make the same wage as a man days before it was supposed to take effect. Further more, health insurance has sky rocketed under bush.
I make more than most programmers as a freelancer, and the fact of the matter is that even the most minimal health insurance would force me into living in a cardboard box. I could see it now "daddy, why don't we have an apartment anymore?" my daughter would say. "Well dear, it's because you have the best minimal health insurance money can buy."
So is there a giant conspiracy that undermines our democracy that flippantly hinges the results on a football game every four years? I doubt it. When people talk about conspiracies, they're usually uneducated, and have no idea how disorganized our government is at all levels. I've worked on several government projects. In every case, they have an almost militant aversion to productivity on any level.
So I think the conspiracy theory is out. Although, to play devil's advocate... the 68 year accuracy of this particular scheme is interesting. And if broken, will probably lead to accusations and reasons that George Bush cheated. Wouldn't be the first time. I don't think the man has ever won an election honestly.
But I'm inclined to believe the latter theory. Those of us that really hate Bush are looking for something. Anything, that will give us hope that things will get better for us. Hope that we won't be subjugated to live in the anti-modernist, morally ambiguous, corporate lobbyist pandering Christian theocracy that George Bush has been attempting to put in place with varying degrees of success.
No lobbyist left behind indeed...
We're looking for a anything. Some reason not to give up. Something to have just a little bit of faith in. And if that means paying a little more attention to a stupid football game that we wouldn't have even noticed otherwise... is that really so bad?
It also depends on who is viewed as the incumbant. Since Bush stole the last election, the red skins might be representing Gore, the democrats, and Kerry. In that case, Bush wins. But, last time the game pointed to a Bush victory, which would indicate that it isn't the case. My bet, assuming this has any credence (and if it does, I have bigger worries), Kerry wins. Thank god. I don't care if he wins fairly. We need to get this country out of the Bushes while we still have a progressive democracy.
They were a little small for my tastes. I thnk it would be safe to take them up a few sizes.
I still say we should stick with tradition and let Kiyanu do it.
Looks like computer programmers aren't the only ones becoming obsolete. Now it appears comic book artists are as well. Thank you inkulator 9000... I wonder if it's any good.
Doesn't that mean that it will just make you sick? I don't drink, so I wouldn't know. But after college, the whole thing sounds a little iffy to me.
And what pre tell are terrorists going to do with this information? Not pick at&t over sprint, install covad over sbc? It probably makes sense. If september eleventh teaches us nothing, it's that if a terrorist makes an informed purchase... he's already won.
who has a light in their freezer?