Where do *you* live? I remember last year I pulled out my new iPhone. There were five of us in the meeting talking about it. Three of us had them. Guy number for says, "I'm still hangin' on! Its me and Phil! We're not selling out!". At which point Phil grins and pulls out his new iPhone too. Now all five of us have them. My wife has one. My friends wife has a iPod touch. I'm at the gym this morning. Lady next to me on eliptical: iPhone. Guy across from me: iPhone. Guy half asleep in park yesterday, iphone lying on his face...
Or this one from August 2008, under the awesome headline: RIM Nearly Triples Q2 U.S. Market Share RIM captured 11% of the U.S. market -- selling some 4.6 million million phones
If your mum buys a 30" apple monitor it will plug right in. That's the point. OTOH your mum will be SOL when she finds out her shiny Samsung is hmdi only, and her laptop is VGA.
I find it ironic that you use the "I just want it to work today" statement as a justification for windows! You've obviously never run windows and osx side by side. I always thought pretty Windows was pretty stable and that linux/mac guys just griped. Since switching to linux about two years ago, and now osx for six months, I'm amazed just how awful windows is. Simple example: last time I opened my asus laptop with its original OS and drivers, and it failed to come on? Every day. Last time I lifted the lid on my macbook pro and it failed to come on? Er, never. "Does it turn on?", is about the most basic aspect of "I just want it to work today" I can think of.
Rubbish. My sister-in-law has a samsung blu-ray player with netflix on it. Its great. People don't care where it comes from, as long as it works. The opinions on here appear to be those of the technical "elite", which is basically 0.0001% of the population. Everyone else will use one of these systems, and probably both. There's no reason for both sides not to give out the player software for free - in fact, they already do.
Its not antitechnology. Its not anti "might makes right", since the might of the Pandora sentience wins. Its not anti anything. Its a movie. Any negative associations are in the mind of YOU the viewer.
Personally, I think that if the management of the corporation in the movie had any skill at all, they would have recognized that the Na'vi would fuck them over militarily in a standard engagement and nuked them from orbit. Or they could have drilled under the tree from a mile away Or countless other possibilities. But that's because I tend to believe that management in large corporations is defective - so that's what this movie is about for me.
Perhaps someone from a culture where such things happen, and who personally doesn't like it, would have thought that this movie was anti-arranged-marriage.
"post-colonial" as in "still going on"? The US Govt spends more on "private security contractors" in Iraq and Afghanistan than it does on regular military.
Er, no. The sentient "gaia" entity described as a giant planet-wide neural net aided them. This is the "tech" that the PP is referring to. When the Na'vi refer to their "Mother Nature", they really do mean a sentient entity that they can interact with.
I'm pretty disappointed that so many slashdot readers missed this great bit of sci-fi. In sci-fi literature, an idea, such as a "gaia net", starts as the theme of a short story. It then becomes the major backdrop for a novel or two. Eventually it is simply background facilitation for a larger story. It was nice to see the "gaia net" theme in a mainstream movie as part of the technology assumptions, in the same way that hypersleep and rotating-sections-for-gravity were.
No, indeed, this is a fairy tale. Like any such movie it requires us to suspend disbelief. However, they made enough of an effort for me to do so. Specifically, the discovery by Weavers character that they entire planet is a neural net, like your brain, and the suggestion that every living thing is tied into this "gaia net". It would seem entirely possible, to me, that within this fiction, the "miracle tree", is merely a communication organ of this sentient being. Further, it clearly has some impressive diagnostic abilities - diagnosing and fixing genetic abnormalities would be entirely within the possible capabilities of this organism.
"I've got a younger brother who I'd like to teach to program"
Why? Unless he comes to you, don't do it. You'll put him off for life. The best you could do would be to find out what he's interested in, and then do some of that on your own, and let him see what you are up to. See if he bites.
Otherwise you might as well "like to teach him physics", or math, or shakespear.
So, does he play shooters? Teach him how to script bots / gameplay in Unreal Script. Is he on youtube a lot? Teach him video editing tools. Ok, not programming, but technical. Interested in 3D? Get blender. Teach the math for raytracing. Facebook everyday? Teach him the API to write a cool app. So many possibilities.
Really? Media center can record unencrypted TV that you can watch on other platforms? And it can do it to a windows home server? Last time I used MCE (Vista) it recorded to ms-dvr files that were encrypted. Couldn't even watch them on a different windows box. Have you actually done this or just reading marketing?
So, the Registry API allows for non-null terminated strings. Explorer uses the registry. Explorer doesn't check for non-null terminated strings and causes black-screen of death. Seems to be a problem with Explorer to me. And the registry.
I ran Windows MCE for several years, first 2005, then Vista. Unfortunately, it would die, or need to be rebooted, whenever the wifes favorite TV show was on. So I looked for something that could do client/server: dedicated box for recording and storing, separate box for viewing. My requirements were:
1) Client / server 2) DVD playback on client 3) Full screen TV-like interface on client 4) Working TV guide
The only one that fit the bill was Sage. I've been running it ever since. I'm about to try switching the server from Windows to Linux, so wish me luck:-) They also have an OSX version, so I can watch recorded TV on my macbook.
I'm done with any language that requires that one file references another by a *path*. So when I have to do something low level enough for C, I'll probably stick with that, since at least my editors can deal with that shit for me.
"But, it raises the question: is it time for Apple to sell a license for non-Apple hardware — priced accordingly of course — for those people who want OS X on platform types Apple has not yet adopted, like the netbook?"
Er, no.
A. You haven't got a clue what it takes to get software (let alone an OS) running on a vast variety of computers do you? B. You haven't got a clue about their business model either, which is that hardware pays for the software.
OS X 10.5 to 10.6: $29 Windows Pro 6.0 to 6.1: $100
Buying a retail disc of OSX and thinking its legal, is like buying an Upgrade edition of Windows and thinking its legal. It isn't. They are only legal if you already own a fully licensed copy of the original OS, which you don't.
And I don't think they are crying about it, they are just stopping it from working. That's "taking action". For "crying" refer to the 902 pages above.
Simple really. Apple sells hardware that funds software development. If I go into an apple store and buy Leopard, I get it at that price because I have *already* paid for the Mac Computer and the *original* OS. So all OS X software prices are upgrade prices.
If you install it on a non-mac, then you have not paid the entire cost. It would be like purchasing an Upgrade to windows 7 when you don't have XP or Vista. Installing it is a breach of copyright, plain and simple.
Now, I am sure that you are one of those people who owns a genuine Mac, from which you have removed OSX and installed Linux on it, and now have a "spare" and fully paid for license of OSX, so in a fair world, you should be able to install it on whatever you want. Unfortunately, you are vastly outnumbered by pirating thieves who just want a $299 Mac. So I its understandable that Apple took action that would prevent these thieves from prospering, even though it affects a small number of technically legitimate users. Sorry about that. But a 13" Mac Book Pro and stop whinging, or install Ubuntu and suck it.
This is not a sane world. This is a world in which young women get their genitals cut off because of religious beliefs. Not being able to install OSX on a netbook really doesn't get on the radar.
You just have to do it under OSX. So with OSX, you can run windows, linux. solaris and OSX in VMWare. Basically whatever you can do on linux or windows, you can do that + OSX under OSX.
It kinds sucks, until you realize that unlike Windows it has a proper OS underneath it, and unlike linux, it has a usable gui.
If employees want to use their own machines, great! But make them sign something. If not, the minute they transfer any corporate documents to those personal machines, they are in breach of copyright. The thing they sign includes confirming that they have licenses for any software they need to do their job.
Antivirus sucks ass if you are a coder. Your job is to defend your network. Their job is to get their shit done. The two are not incompatible. Get decent switches that allow you to configure ports such that each windows box can talk only to the servers, or to just one server if you can get away with the load. Put the relevant anti virus on each server. Run snort. Anyone still running an intranet like you can trust individual machines isn't living with the reality of windows. Port scan machines and then help people sort out their firewall. They want to run a Mac, great! Help them with parallels, and set up windows to use NAT, not bridged: instant BSD firewall for windows.
You can't stop them downloading shit from home, but you can stop them from doing it work, and you can stop them from spreading them at work.
And that backup problem you had: a little script that doesn't just check that a backup happened, but checks that files actually changed. Well done documenting how you got outwitted by an idiot.
"jdbc:mysql" - You don't put that in your code. You use a JNDI reference to a JDBC resource. If the customer wants to specify that the resource is a MySQL driver, then that's up to them. They then cause the file to be linked at runtime, and so even if a lawyer wanted to argue that the GPL applied to my non-GPL code here, it would only apply if they tried to distribute the whole - which of course the can't, because they don't have the right to distribute my non-GPL code.
The GPL is clear, however. Just because some people choose to release their JDBC drivers as GPL, doesnt mean that using them creates a derived work:
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
collective works based on the Program.
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
the scope of this License.
Re:federal law change, not unions, that's needed
on
Should IT Unionize?
·
· Score: 1
If your work is not of a creative nature, then in California at least, you are covered. Google for the whole EA Spouse thing and its consequences.
One consequence is that those who want overtime etc can have it, but they got a lower salary, and they lost stock-options and bonuses.
You may think you would have earned $35,000 extra for that year, or maybe they would just have adjusted your salary so that you made the same. You are supposed to be smart. Start thinking things through or we're fucked.
Lets see, what is the biggest problem facing GM and Ford? Unionized workforce, benefits they cant afford to pay and remain profitable - demanded by a unionized workforce. Detroit is hosed. GM just posted, what, $15BN losses. Ford used to be #1, now its behind Toyota and falling.
Unions only work if everyone on the planet is in the same union. Unionization just drives the cost of business up, which either kills the business, or the business moves elsewhere.
No the problem for workers in this country is Outsourcing and theres only *one* way to stop outsourcing: give those foreign workers visas.
If you think competing with someone for a job is bad, consider how bad it is when you are competing against someone paid at Indian wage levels. The only solution is to give that Indian a US Visa, so that now he's competing under US laws and US cost of living. Sure he'll still drive the price down, but at least not to Indian cost-of-living wages. And that money is going into the US economy. When they leave and start their own company, its another US company - not a home grown Indian company.
Right now, US companies are training Indian workers how to start Indian businesses to compete with them.
I hear from US IT people complaining of sweat shops in the US where Indian workers come over temporarily to learn the needs of US customers and then go back and work for a pittance. Do you think they go back because they want to, or because the US government makes them? Let them stay, and demand a proper wage.
And bottom line, if IT really is that easy, then you really shouldn't complain that its pay sucks. You don't hear the fry cook demanding six figures. Welcome to capitalism. If you don't like it, go to France.
To those who still support unionization, I ask you: what make of car do you drive, where was your TV made, your computer? There are still US made cars, TVs and computers. But they cost more and aren't as good. If you really believe in protectionism: put your money where your mouth is.
If you think they leave because "they are inherently a seat-of-the-pants type personality who see personal pleasure and freedom as the highest attainable goals" then you are failing to understand the nature of their strengths, and the nature of their motivations.
Another key to success is to understand people. May I ask what you do?
Slashdot Mirror
Where do *you* live? I remember last year I pulled out my new iPhone. There were five of us in the meeting talking about it. Three of us had them. Guy number for says, "I'm still hangin' on! Its me and Phil! We're not selling out!". At which point Phil grins and pulls out his new iPhone too. Now all five of us have them. My wife has one. My friends wife has a iPod touch. I'm at the gym this morning. Lady next to me on eliptical: iPhone. Guy across from me: iPhone. Guy half asleep in park yesterday, iphone lying on his face...
I like fact checking, so I typed "RIM Market Share" into google.
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/10/28/rim-and-apple-top-u-s-smartphone-market-share/
RIM: 40%
Apple: 30%
Or this one, for Wi-Fi enabled handsets, 2Q 2009:
Nokia 9300
Apple 5200
RIM 4125
Or this one from August 2008, under the awesome headline: RIM Nearly Triples Q2 U.S. Market Share
RIM captured 11% of the U.S. market -- selling some 4.6 million million phones
If your mum buys a 30" apple monitor it will plug right in. That's the point. OTOH your mum will be SOL when she finds out her shiny Samsung is hmdi only, and her laptop is VGA.
I find it ironic that you use the "I just want it to work today" statement as a justification for windows! You've obviously never run windows and osx side by side. I always thought pretty Windows was pretty stable and that linux/mac guys just griped. Since switching to linux about two years ago, and now osx for six months, I'm amazed just how awful windows is. Simple example: last time I opened my asus laptop with its original OS and drivers, and it failed to come on? Every day. Last time I lifted the lid on my macbook pro and it failed to come on? Er, never. "Does it turn on?", is about the most basic aspect of "I just want it to work today" I can think of.
Jamie
Rubbish. My sister-in-law has a samsung blu-ray player with netflix on it. Its great. People don't care where it comes from, as long as it works. The opinions on here appear to be those of the technical "elite", which is basically 0.0001% of the population. Everyone else will use one of these systems, and probably both. There's no reason for both sides not to give out the player software for free - in fact, they already do.
Its not antitechnology. Its not anti "might makes right", since the might of the Pandora sentience wins. Its not anti anything. Its a movie. Any negative associations are in the mind of YOU the viewer.
Personally, I think that if the management of the corporation in the movie had any skill at all, they would have recognized that the Na'vi would fuck them over militarily in a standard engagement and nuked them from orbit. Or they could have drilled under the tree from a mile away Or countless other possibilities. But that's because I tend to believe that management in large corporations is defective - so that's what this movie is about for me.
Perhaps someone from a culture where such things happen, and who personally doesn't like it, would have thought that this movie was anti-arranged-marriage.
"post-colonial" as in "still going on"? The US Govt spends more on "private security contractors" in Iraq and Afghanistan than it does on regular military.
Er, no. The sentient "gaia" entity described as a giant planet-wide neural net aided them. This is the "tech" that the PP is referring to. When the Na'vi refer to their "Mother Nature", they really do mean a sentient entity that they can interact with.
I'm pretty disappointed that so many slashdot readers missed this great bit of sci-fi. In sci-fi literature, an idea, such as a "gaia net", starts as the theme of a short story. It then becomes the major backdrop for a novel or two. Eventually it is simply background facilitation for a larger story. It was nice to see the "gaia net" theme in a mainstream movie as part of the technology assumptions, in the same way that hypersleep and rotating-sections-for-gravity were.
No, indeed, this is a fairy tale. Like any such movie it requires us to suspend disbelief. However, they made enough of an effort for me to do so. Specifically, the discovery by Weavers character that they entire planet is a neural net, like your brain, and the suggestion that every living thing is tied into this "gaia net". It would seem entirely possible, to me, that within this fiction, the "miracle tree", is merely a communication organ of this sentient being. Further, it clearly has some impressive diagnostic abilities - diagnosing and fixing genetic abnormalities would be entirely within the possible capabilities of this organism.
"I've got a younger brother who I'd like to teach to program"
Why? Unless he comes to you, don't do it. You'll put him off for life. The best you could do would be to find out what he's interested in, and then do some of that on your own, and let him see what you are up to. See if he bites.
Otherwise you might as well "like to teach him physics", or math, or shakespear.
So, does he play shooters? Teach him how to script bots / gameplay in Unreal Script. Is he on youtube a lot? Teach him video editing tools. Ok, not programming, but technical. Interested in 3D? Get blender. Teach the math for raytracing. Facebook everyday? Teach him the API to write a cool app. So many possibilities.
Really? Media center can record unencrypted TV that you can watch on other platforms? And it can do it to a windows home server? Last time I used MCE (Vista) it recorded to ms-dvr files that were encrypted. Couldn't even watch them on a different windows box. Have you actually done this or just reading marketing?
Why would you need playon if you have winxp virtual?
So, the Registry API allows for non-null terminated strings. Explorer uses the registry. Explorer doesn't check for non-null terminated strings and causes black-screen of death. Seems to be a problem with Explorer to me. And the registry.
I ran Windows MCE for several years, first 2005, then Vista. Unfortunately, it would die, or need to be rebooted, whenever the wifes favorite TV show was on. So I looked for something that could do client/server: dedicated box for recording and storing, separate box for viewing. My requirements were:
1) Client / server
2) DVD playback on client
3) Full screen TV-like interface on client
4) Working TV guide
The only one that fit the bill was Sage. I've been running it ever since. I'm about to try switching the server from Windows to Linux, so wish me luck :-) They also have an OSX version, so I can watch recorded TV on my macbook.
Jamie
I'm done with any language that requires that one file references another by a *path*. So when I have to do something low level enough for C, I'll probably stick with that, since at least my editors can deal with that shit for me.
Yeah, because they've done much more damage than wall street.
"But, it raises the question: is it time for Apple to sell a license for non-Apple hardware — priced accordingly of course — for those people who want OS X on platform types Apple has not yet adopted, like the netbook?"
Er, no.
A. You haven't got a clue what it takes to get software (let alone an OS) running on a vast variety of computers do you?
B. You haven't got a clue about their business model either, which is that hardware pays for the software.
OS X 10.5 to 10.6: $29
Windows Pro 6.0 to 6.1: $100
Buying a retail disc of OSX and thinking its legal, is like buying an Upgrade edition of Windows and thinking its legal. It isn't. They are only legal if you already own a fully licensed copy of the original OS, which you don't.
And I don't think they are crying about it, they are just stopping it from working. That's "taking action". For "crying" refer to the 902 pages above.
Simple really. Apple sells hardware that funds software development. If I go into an apple store and buy Leopard, I get it at that price because I have *already* paid for the Mac Computer and the *original* OS. So all OS X software prices are upgrade prices.
If you install it on a non-mac, then you have not paid the entire cost. It would be like purchasing an Upgrade to windows 7 when you don't have XP or Vista. Installing it is a breach of copyright, plain and simple.
Now, I am sure that you are one of those people who owns a genuine Mac, from which you have removed OSX and installed Linux on it, and now have a "spare" and fully paid for license of OSX, so in a fair world, you should be able to install it on whatever you want. Unfortunately, you are vastly outnumbered by pirating thieves who just want a $299 Mac. So I its understandable that Apple took action that would prevent these thieves from prospering, even though it affects a small number of technically legitimate users. Sorry about that. But a 13" Mac Book Pro and stop whinging, or install Ubuntu and suck it.
This is not a sane world. This is a world in which young women get their genitals cut off because of religious beliefs. Not being able to install OSX on a netbook really doesn't get on the radar.
You just have to do it under OSX. So with OSX, you can run windows, linux. solaris and OSX in VMWare. Basically whatever you can do on linux or windows, you can do that + OSX under OSX.
It kinds sucks, until you realize that unlike Windows it has a proper OS underneath it, and unlike linux, it has a usable gui.
If employees want to use their own machines, great! But make them sign something. If not, the minute they transfer any corporate documents to those personal machines, they are in breach of copyright. The thing they sign includes confirming that they have licenses for any software they need to do their job.
Antivirus sucks ass if you are a coder. Your job is to defend your network. Their job is to get their shit done. The two are not incompatible. Get decent switches that allow you to configure ports such that each windows box can talk only to the servers, or to just one server if you can get away with the load. Put the relevant anti virus on each server. Run snort. Anyone still running an intranet like you can trust individual machines isn't living with the reality of windows. Port scan machines and then help people sort out their firewall. They want to run a Mac, great! Help them with parallels, and set up windows to use NAT, not bridged: instant BSD firewall for windows.
You can't stop them downloading shit from home, but you can stop them from doing it work, and you can stop them from spreading them at work.
And that backup problem you had: a little script that doesn't just check that a backup happened, but checks that files actually changed. Well done documenting how you got outwitted by an idiot.
"jdbc:mysql" - You don't put that in your code. You use a JNDI reference to a JDBC resource. If the customer wants to specify that the resource is a MySQL driver, then that's up to them. They then cause the file to be linked at runtime, and so even if a lawyer wanted to argue that the GPL applied to my non-GPL code here, it would only apply if they tried to distribute the whole - which of course the can't, because they don't have the right to distribute my non-GPL code.
The GPL is clear, however. Just because some people choose to release their JDBC drivers as GPL, doesnt mean that using them creates a derived work:
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
collective works based on the Program.
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
the scope of this License.
If your work is not of a creative nature, then in California at least, you are covered. Google for the whole EA Spouse thing and its consequences.
One consequence is that those who want overtime etc can have it, but they got a lower salary, and they lost stock-options and bonuses.
You may think you would have earned $35,000 extra for that year, or maybe they would just have adjusted your salary so that you made the same. You are supposed to be smart. Start thinking things through or we're fucked.
Unions only work if everyone on the planet is in the same union. Unionization just drives the cost of business up, which either kills the business, or the business moves elsewhere.
No the problem for workers in this country is Outsourcing and theres only *one* way to stop outsourcing: give those foreign workers visas.
If you think competing with someone for a job is bad, consider how bad it is when you are competing against someone paid at Indian wage levels. The only solution is to give that Indian a US Visa, so that now he's competing under US laws and US cost of living. Sure he'll still drive the price down, but at least not to Indian cost-of-living wages. And that money is going into the US economy. When they leave and start their own company, its another US company - not a home grown Indian company.
Right now, US companies are training Indian workers how to start Indian businesses to compete with them.
I hear from US IT people complaining of sweat shops in the US where Indian workers come over temporarily to learn the needs of US customers and then go back and work for a pittance. Do you think they go back because they want to, or because the US government makes them? Let them stay, and demand a proper wage.
And bottom line, if IT really is that easy, then you really shouldn't complain that its pay sucks. You don't hear the fry cook demanding six figures. Welcome to capitalism. If you don't like it, go to France.
To those who still support unionization, I ask you: what make of car do you drive, where was your TV made, your computer? There are still US made cars, TVs and computers. But they cost more and aren't as good. If you really believe in protectionism: put your money where your mouth is.
Much less, because you can write everything off.
If you think they leave because "they are inherently a seat-of-the-pants type personality who see personal pleasure and freedom as the highest attainable goals" then you are failing to understand the nature of their strengths, and the nature of their motivations.
Another key to success is to understand people. May I ask what you do?