Even if you do everything Joel Spolsky says, you're still going to have a demoralizing, uphill battle getting a good job. (Been there, done that, got the lovely parting gifts.) So if you don't follow his advice, and you don't already know the manager (preferably in the Biblical sense), you really don't stand a chance.
I would guess he uses several. I'm nowhere near the geek he is, and I use three different distros (all up and running within six feet of me as I type this (on an OS X system, and yes there's a Win box (off) nearby as well)). And that's just at home.
Let's see... 8MHz Motorola 68000, no FPU, a low-density floppy drive or two, half a Meg of RAM, serial I/O ports, external hard drive (if any)... is that the one? Sure, there'd be some serious porting issues, but these are programs coded in high-level languages, not assembly, so if you were really intent on it, I think it could be done. The hardware would be (barely) sufficient. That's all I'm saying.
Personally, I don't think I'd try it with anything "smaller" than an SE/30, which - as a Classic-style model - would have a lot of the same look-at-my-cute-li'l-server appeal, but with the benefit of technology that's roughly contemporary with the World Wide Web. (And if all else failed, you could load NetBSD on it.)
I know of a few micro-httpd projects out there which might theoretically port to a machine that constrained, at least in terms of their size. Some are closed-source. One catch is that they all take advantage of OS features like TCP/IP support, which I suspect System 4 didn't have natively. {grin}
thttpd *n*x open-source, 50KB executable, I'm running this on a floppy/486 firewall
I've been thinking about it, and it makes a bit more sense if you forget about the branding and platform identity. What he did was to take the case of the first "modern home PC" (which by his definition happens to be the original Apple Macintosh, and yeah he got the wrong model) and update into a current "modern home PC". It may not be a direct descent, but a WinXP system is one of the heirs of Macintosh.
His mistake was to emphasize the Apple logo in his updated version, which may honor the company that made the first, but misidentifies the theme of his current construction.
OK, let's skip all the "Why would he waste all his time converting his Mac into a Windows PC? He needs to get a life!" comments and go straight to the "Wow, that's a cool piece of work!" remarks. It is. Beats my gradual conversion of similar-vintage PCs Limited Turbo XT into a Pentium/150 Linux web server, hands down.
Still, I'd give him more points if A) he'd instead transplanted the guts of an iLamp, an iBook, or a MacCube into it, so it would still be a Mac, and/or B) found an LCD to mount in place of the window.
And to be honest, if I ever get the nerve to eviscerate my Mac SE, I think I'd rather turn it into an aquarium.
In what ways do Bill and/or Microsoft impede yours (or anyone's) ability to improve software?
First, understand that it was a silly request, on par with asking [insert political party here] to get out of government and let the [insert another party here] fix everything. I don't seriously expect it to happen, and yeah, there'd be bad side effects. But to answer your legitimate question:
One of the most obvious ways they impede us is by denying us access to the source code for their software. I can't (for example) fix the security holes in IE, because it's closed-source.
Another way is by requiring - by dint of their command of the marketplace - that software to be written for - and deployed on - their operating system. If I need (for example) a real-time, never-gonna-crash platform for my better mousetrap to work, and all that's out there in sufficient numbers is Windows, I'm stuck.
Another is by keeping competing products from reaching their intended market. I might develop a superlative word processor, but when MS Office is included "free" (i.e. bundled and included in the price) with so many PC purchases, I have little chance of successfully marketing it. Like happened to Netscape, or BeOS.
Sure, it's theoretically possible to get around all of these obstacles MS presents to innovation. And one could argue that some of them aren't necessarily MS's fault. But it would be so much easier for others to improve upon what we have now if Microsoft were to (as I kiddingly put it) "get out of the way". Release the code, shut the doors, and retire. If you really want revolutionary advances in software, that'd do it.
If Gates says that the software is holding us back, and it's mostly his software, doesn't that suggest that maybe he's part of the problem?
I'd suggest majoring in Nursing, but that's because I'm a bitter old sod who's tired of seeing a column of "Nursing Help Wanted" ads for every 1/4-inch "Computer Help Wanted" ad.
Personally, I'd hire a Philosophy or English major who's spent his weekends and summers in college hacking or doing entry-level tech work, over a Comp Sci major with just a handful of certs. One of the best fresh-out-of-school "techs" I've seen was (I think) a Psych major. But again, that's just me.
I could name off the top of my head at least 10 universities... I could also name at least 10 companies...
So name them.
I even heard the other day about...
And save the unattributed anecdotes for those social events.
You're absolutely right that an IKNOWU will trump a MSCDEFG, but that doesn't mean that there are "tons of jobs out there" just waiting for the well-connected techie to step into them. After all, most of us who found ourselves unemployed in the past year were pretty well-connected at the time that happened. If I can't get (read "keep") a job from a guy I'm already on a first-name basis with, who knows how brilliant I am, and I spend several hours a day with, that may say more about the overall job market than my social networking.
After 10 months unemployed, I managed to get hired for a job that required A+ certification (which I don't have, as I've never bothered getting certs) on the strength of my bachelors in CS, my 15+ years of experience, and my answers to several "how would you handle this?" questions. But I still had to promise during the interview that I would take the A+ test and pass it, within 6 months of hire. I stifled a sarcastic "Would you like to take the GED test, too?" and simply assured them it would not be a problem.
But I won't be putting this cert on my resume (I don't intend to stay here any longer than I have to), for the same reason I don't mention that I was vice president of the senior class in high school: it wouldn't impress the kinds of people I want to work for, and it would distract from my actual qualifications.
I did some modest (as in "profit", not "nudity") business in pron a few years ago, as a side business, selling AdultCheck passes. AC has changed their focus to sites run by full-time smut-mongers, and I just didn't have the time and motivation to put that much effort into it, so I've pretty much given up on it.
It's not just a money tree; you really need to work at it, because it really is a job. I was relying mostly on search engine traffic based on a particular niche for one site, and crossover traffic from a site with content that attracted people who weren't necessarily looking for smut but included "adults only" material that they'd need an AC pass to access. The money from that dwindled away when I didn't have time to maintain the site, and now AC has dropped the "age verification" angle for a "pay for porn" model, so I've just let it drop.
People keep talking about _____'s lack of multiple-tuner support as if it were a showstopper* but it doesn't have to be. If you're looking at buying/building a PVR, you presumably already have a VCR, right? And you're going to keep it hooked up for watching your old tapes and rentals, yes?
OK, so hook up the cable or rabbit ears to it, set the timer, put a tape in, and record that second show your PVR is missing the old fashioned way. Granted, this won't work in all cases (e.g. two programs on non-broadcast digital cable channels), but I've been watching every "conflicting" episode of Ed, Enterprise, The West Wing, and Jake 2.0 all year this way.
As an amateur intellectual property wonk, I'm impressed by the genius of this move. For years Microsoft has benefitted greatly from the trade secret of the.DOC format, and it seemed like a risky move to abandon that for XML. But here the other shoe hits the floor. They're exchanging a trade secret for the only form of intellectual property that gives them even stronger lock-in power: patents. Sure, patents expire, but by that time they'll have new ones to compel MS Office users to continue using MS software to access their data.
So now you know... the rest of the story. Good day.
I recorded "Superbowl XXX" to see the Steelers and the Cowboys go at it... and was rather disappointed that the X's were Roman numerals, and not an MPAA rating.
At least the adverts were entertaining.
If I make a copy of a 1,000,000 entry database, then change one of the entries, is it still infringing?
If you applied current copyright case law to the question, that would be considered a "derivative work", which is an infringement.
The easiest way for the "owner" of a database to prove that you "stole" it from him would be to borrow a trick from cartographers. They'll sometimes include a fictitious town or a deliberate irregularity in the shape of a lake or something of that sort, so that if that same "mistake" appears in your map, they have evidence that you copied it from them. Inserting a data record for a fictional person would provide just as telling proof of database copying.
ERPML ("editor's red pen mark-up language"). OK, they actually use a caret ^, but the concept is the same when you turn it upside down and it looks like a v : it's a wedge indicating where to insert something. It's visual.:)
As for the middle-click-to-paste business, that suffers from a hardware dependency which makes it difficult to implement on a cross-platform basis. Core functionality (and I think cut/copy/paste is a core GUI function) should be implemented using the controls that nearly all computers have: the common keys and primary mouse button. Adding less basic features to sometimes-present controls like the F keys, right or middle mouse buttons, scroll wheels, the Apple key, the Windows key, etc. lets those who have them take advantage of them, but doesn't seriously cripple those who don't.
...this letter is an well-crafted piece of propaganda.
It ties the "problem" to all the issues that either party is trying to make the focus of the presidential campaign.
It truthfully identifies open-source software as "controversial"... which is true, but only because they (and Microsoft and a few others) are making it so.
It describes the movement (OSS), identifies an I've-heard-of-that example to establish that it's real (Linux), and links them together as "Open Source Linux". (Like Communism and Russia became "Communist Russia".)
It then ties the entire thing to one of the fathers of the movement (Stallman) and equates the whole of it with his ideology, which - as is typically the case of founding ideologues - is a bit more radical than bulk of those who (vaugely) follow in his wake. Like connecting any Communist state or Socialist party to Marx, or to Lenin.)
Likewise, it disparages the GPL by referring to "copyleft", associating it with "leftists" and implying to those without a grasp of geek irony that it seeks to annihilate copyright rather than (in the minds of many advocates) balance it.
It uses words like "abetted" and "scheme" with their sinister, criminal overtones.
It even uses the "some believe" construct, which passes something that should be tagged "IMHO" as if it were a commonly-held viewpoint. "Some believe that the moon is made of cheese," is true... but so what?
And for good measure, it tosses in SCO's unproven allegations about theft of code as if they were admissable evidence.
Joe McCarthy would have been proud to read this from the Senate floor.*
I know if I had OS X experience, I might be able to get a job Here! [pixar.com]
I'm sure it would help, but looking over the specs for Pixar's software (available for outside licence) indicates that, not only does it run on Windows and other Unixes, but some of it is not available for OS X.
Slashdot Mirror
Even if you do everything Joel Spolsky says, you're still going to have a demoralizing, uphill battle getting a good job. (Been there, done that, got the lovely parting gifts.) So if you don't follow his advice, and you don't already know the manager (preferably in the Biblical sense), you really don't stand a chance.
I would guess he uses several. I'm nowhere near the geek he is, and I use three different distros (all up and running within six feet of me as I type this (on an OS X system, and yes there's a Win box (off) nearby as well)). And that's just at home.
Let's see... 8MHz Motorola 68000, no FPU, a low-density floppy drive or two, half a Meg of RAM, serial I/O ports, external hard drive (if any)... is that the one? Sure, there'd be some serious porting issues, but these are programs coded in high-level languages, not assembly, so if you were really intent on it, I think it could be done. The hardware would be (barely) sufficient. That's all I'm saying.
Personally, I don't think I'd try it with anything "smaller" than an SE/30, which - as a Classic-style model - would have a lot of the same look-at-my-cute-li'l-server appeal, but with the benefit of technology that's roughly contemporary with the World Wide Web. (And if all else failed, you could load NetBSD on it.)
I'm sure Microsoft's legal department will be. CoLinux is going to have to change that MS-Windows(R) icon to a more generic 4-color window icon.
The closest match I'm aware of is MacHTTP, which requires System 7.5.
I've been thinking about it, and it makes a bit more sense if you forget about the branding and platform identity. What he did was to take the case of the first "modern home PC" (which by his definition happens to be the original Apple Macintosh, and yeah he got the wrong model) and update into a current "modern home PC". It may not be a direct descent, but a WinXP system is one of the heirs of Macintosh.
His mistake was to emphasize the Apple logo in his updated version, which may honor the company that made the first, but misidentifies the theme of his current construction.
Here's a (home-hosted) mirror of one of the "finished" images, complete with internal lighting and an extended DVD tray.
Still, I'd give him more points if A) he'd instead transplanted the guts of an iLamp, an iBook, or a MacCube into it, so it would still be a Mac, and/or B) found an LCD to mount in place of the window.
And to be honest, if I ever get the nerve to eviscerate my Mac SE, I think I'd rather turn it into an aquarium.
RTFA. It wasn't just about spam. Gates' quote in particular was about the whole spectrum of computer technology.
First, understand that it was a silly request, on par with asking [insert political party here] to get out of government and let the [insert another party here] fix everything. I don't seriously expect it to happen, and yeah, there'd be bad side effects. But to answer your legitimate question:
One of the most obvious ways they impede us is by denying us access to the source code for their software. I can't (for example) fix the security holes in IE, because it's closed-source.
Another way is by requiring - by dint of their command of the marketplace - that software to be written for - and deployed on - their operating system. If I need (for example) a real-time, never-gonna-crash platform for my better mousetrap to work, and all that's out there in sufficient numbers is Windows, I'm stuck.
Another is by keeping competing products from reaching their intended market. I might develop a superlative word processor, but when MS Office is included "free" (i.e. bundled and included in the price) with so many PC purchases, I have little chance of successfully marketing it. Like happened to Netscape, or BeOS.
Sure, it's theoretically possible to get around all of these obstacles MS presents to innovation. And one could argue that some of them aren't necessarily MS's fault. But it would be so much easier for others to improve upon what we have now if Microsoft were to (as I kiddingly put it) "get out of the way". Release the code, shut the doors, and retire. If you really want revolutionary advances in software, that'd do it.
If Gates says that the software is holding us back, and it's mostly his software, doesn't that suggest that maybe he's part of the problem?
So kindly get out of the way, and let the rest of us fix it.
Personally, I'd hire a Philosophy or English major who's spent his weekends and summers in college hacking or doing entry-level tech work, over a Comp Sci major with just a handful of certs. One of the best fresh-out-of-school "techs" I've seen was (I think) a Psych major. But again, that's just me.
So name them.
I even heard the other day about...
And save the unattributed anecdotes for those social events.
You're absolutely right that an IKNOWU will trump a MSCDEFG, but that doesn't mean that there are "tons of jobs out there" just waiting for the well-connected techie to step into them. After all, most of us who found ourselves unemployed in the past year were pretty well-connected at the time that happened. If I can't get (read "keep") a job from a guy I'm already on a first-name basis with, who knows how brilliant I am, and I spend several hours a day with, that may say more about the overall job market than my social networking.
But I won't be putting this cert on my resume (I don't intend to stay here any longer than I have to), for the same reason I don't mention that I was vice president of the senior class in high school: it wouldn't impress the kinds of people I want to work for, and it would distract from my actual qualifications.
It's not just a money tree; you really need to work at it, because it really is a job. I was relying mostly on search engine traffic based on a particular niche for one site, and crossover traffic from a site with content that attracted people who weren't necessarily looking for smut but included "adults only" material that they'd need an AC pass to access. The money from that dwindled away when I didn't have time to maintain the site, and now AC has dropped the "age verification" angle for a "pay for porn" model, so I've just let it drop.
OK, so hook up the cable or rabbit ears to it, set the timer, put a tape in, and record that second show your PVR is missing the old fashioned way. Granted, this won't work in all cases (e.g. two programs on non-broadcast digital cable channels), but I've been watching every "conflicting" episode of Ed, Enterprise, The West Wing, and Jake 2.0 all year this way.
* no trademark intended
So now you know... the rest of the story. Good day.
I recorded "Superbowl XXX" to see the Steelers and the Cowboys go at it... and was rather disappointed that the X's were Roman numerals, and not an MPAA rating. At least the adverts were entertaining.
If you applied current copyright case law to the question, that would be considered a "derivative work", which is an infringement.
The easiest way for the "owner" of a database to prove that you "stole" it from him would be to borrow a trick from cartographers. They'll sometimes include a fictitious town or a deliberate irregularity in the shape of a lake or something of that sort, so that if that same "mistake" appears in your map, they have evidence that you copied it from them. Inserting a data record for a fictional person would provide just as telling proof of database copying.
If I actually had any friends, I wouldn't need a "social networking service".
ERPML ("editor's red pen mark-up language"). OK, they actually use a caret ^, but the concept is the same when you turn it upside down and it looks like a v : it's a wedge indicating where to insert something. It's visual. :)
As for the middle-click-to-paste business, that suffers from a hardware dependency which makes it difficult to implement on a cross-platform basis. Core functionality (and I think cut/copy/paste is a core GUI function) should be implemented using the controls that nearly all computers have: the common keys and primary mouse button. Adding less basic features to sometimes-present controls like the F keys, right or middle mouse buttons, scroll wheels, the Apple key, the Windows key, etc. lets those who have them take advantage of them, but doesn't seriously cripple those who don't.
No, but OS X is. In the context of a discussion of OS X, Linux and Irix are "other Unixes".
- It ties the "problem" to all the issues that either party is trying to make the focus of the presidential campaign.
- It truthfully identifies open-source software as "controversial"... which is true, but only because they (and Microsoft and a few others) are making it so.
- It describes the movement (OSS), identifies an I've-heard-of-that example to establish that it's real (Linux), and links them together as "Open Source Linux". (Like Communism and Russia became "Communist Russia".)
- It then ties the entire thing to one of the fathers of the movement (Stallman) and equates the whole of it with his ideology, which - as is typically the case of founding ideologues - is a bit more radical than bulk of those who (vaugely) follow in his wake. Like connecting any Communist state or Socialist party to Marx, or to Lenin.)
- Likewise, it disparages the GPL by referring to "copyleft", associating it with "leftists" and implying to those without a grasp of geek irony that it seeks to annihilate copyright rather than (in the minds of many advocates) balance it.
- It uses words like "abetted" and "scheme" with their sinister, criminal overtones.
- It even uses the "some believe" construct, which passes something that should be tagged "IMHO" as if it were a commonly-held viewpoint. "Some believe that the moon is made of cheese," is true... but so what?
- And for good measure, it tosses in SCO's unproven allegations about theft of code as if they were admissable evidence.
Joe McCarthy would have been proud to read this from the Senate floor.**That's my own bit of demagoguery.
I'm sure it would help, but looking over the specs for Pixar's software (available for outside licence) indicates that, not only does it run on Windows and other Unixes, but some of it is not available for OS X.