An entire generation of creative software people who had great ideas and deaf employers grew sick of their cubicles and started the open-source software revolution. They wanted to learn stuff and do stuff, just like you do.
Grab the code, read it, mess with it. Invest in yourself and assume no one else will.
My experience has been that you MUST teach yourself... especially if you work for the big cubicle farms. Teach yourself so you become better, so you keep your skills current, so you energize your imagination, and so you can go elsewhere when your employer enters the BRED ("Beancounters Rule Every Decision") Stage Of Atrophy.
BRED means that your employer is unlikely to pay for you to learn anything useful, especially not during the sunny hours when their BMWs and Porsches are in the parking lot. BRED means that good ideas die unless you happen to drink whisky with the CEO once a week.
Cowardly employees and consitutionally cheerful employees are easier to flog and much less frightening and expensive than people who want their employer to invest in them. People who have the latest skills aren't chained heavily enough. And when the expenses grow and the balance-sheets and Powerpoint slides don't show the Beancounters at the top any benefit ("any chance of getting more stock options"), you can bet that your Red Swingline Stapler is going to Bangalore.
There's no satisfaction to be had working for a loser. Any company that would keep him around is destined to fail. Congratulations on getting away from that guy.
Unless we define "smart", this is just a silly thread. Being smart is much more than a set of metrics, as you suggest. Many programmers themselves are not even good at programming.
Google is not Mensa. Mensa is not even Mensa. If Google really was stocked with geniuses, it would suggest that they a) know how to find geniuses, b) know how to lure geniuses, and c) know how to make geniuses work together for corporate success. Frankly, I do not believe that ANYONE can do it. It would take... genius.:o)
Software engineering reminds me of Herman Hesse's Glass Bead Game: an abstract obsession detached real human values. Many people in the field think they are brilliant because they think what they are doing is brilliant. It is not.
The plot of the film has just been revealed on a popular fan-boy site.
Google is secretly dissolving smart people in a vat to create an Omniscient Liquid Brain. Ballboy Chairkovsky and the rest of The Incredmondibles don their crime-fighting costumes to battle the threat.
"This totally kicks Harry Knowles' fat ass across the firmament of geekdom," said one commenter.
The ~real~ Greatest Task of Web 2.x is to establish one good browser as the standard so CSS and ECMA can become highly productive instead of being such a horrific waste of development time.
This is the war that desktop-bound Redmond cannot afford to lose. One browser to rule them all, the men of Middle Cubicle, the Dvorves of Dvorak, the Geeks of Ajax, the Elvish and the rhinestone-laden Elvish Impersonators. Starring....NET as the Orcs. Mono as King Theoden. Ballboy Chairkovsky as Saruman. Darl McNovell as Gollum. Darl McNovell's lawyers as more Orcs.
The rest of this roman à clef I leave to you, my fellow Slash Hobbits.
I myself think of OS X as Turks and Kaikos. Life is easy, I avoid paying as much "tax" as the majority do, and down on the beach... Swedish chicks are playing volleyball.
Of course, the problem with GODOS is that you can't know if it's perfect until the computer is scrapped. In the Bitchy Beadle release of GODOS, the Schrödinger kernel is expected to improve the tracelogs.
There have been reports of computer users who claim to have briefly seen the perfection of GODOOS when their power supplies have developed an intermittent fault. Unfortunately for the proponents of GODOS, no one whose motherboard has been completely fried has ever been able to compute with it again.
Confusing the question further is the fact that computer users are known to declare that SATANOS is running on their computers whenever anything goes wrong.
But that doesn't mean Christians are obliged to obey Mosaic Law. The NT clearly points out that for Christians, we are under a different (and new) covenant (agreement).
Christians signed a contract for Salvationix 2.0 (built on the Jesus kernel) but God Inc is obligated to continue providing technical support to the Jews as long as they are using Salvationix 1.0 (Jaweh kernel) and trying to get the damned thing to run on Israel-generation hardware, which they are crazily overclocking. The Muslims have a contract with God Inc for Salvationix 3.0 (Mohammed kernel) but as long as they are running it on Kalashnikov-generation processors their networking is limited to LAN and sneaker-net.
SCO (Saintly Cross Organization) claims that Salvationix infringes their spiritual property and is suing International Bogomil Machines for allegedly slipping SCO code into Salvationix while handling some B2B projects for God Inc.
People who really care about the practical needs of people will make the best leaders of people.
A great leader is more than a logician, scientist, or religious leader. And, I suspect, much more than a software engineer. (Escpecially a software engineer who appoints a joker like "Squirts" Ballmer.)
Adams has had his joke and will feel some pride that his blog caused a tempest in the Slashdot tea-cup.
Ballmer: Great, I'll send you some Windows licences. Misa or VasterCard?
IT Shop: No, we need a well-architected, secure OS that's designed for networking.
Ballmer: Great! I'll send you some Vista licences. You should see Aero. Wow!
IT Shop: No, in the last 10 years, Windows has cost billions of dollars in lost time because of security flaws in Microsoft software.
Ballmer: Um... well... er... heh...
IT Shop: We're going with Linux.
Ballmer: Did you know? All the good parts of Linux were designed by us. Novell even admits it. We release so much great code every day that we let the hippies have some for free. So, in fact, when you buy Vista, you get all the good parts of Linux. Plus... you get Aero! Wow! Will that be Misa or VasterCard?
his job is to continue to leverage his single stroke of phenomenal luck - being at the right place at the right time a few decades ago - to sustain the ongoing illusion to the unwashed masses that he is some kind of unparalleled genius, and by extension, that microsoft is the beginning and end of computing.
When a guy's flat-lining, the most hilarious thing you can do to him is to use the defibulator and the detibulator to remove his leg from the knee down, then attach his feet directly to his femurs. When he revives, he starts walking around like a duck and looking confused. We crazy paramedics just about split a gut laughing every time!
Ballmer: "Our primary aim is to have a generally more helpful participation in world economy. You can do three things... you can stay in and do nothing, stay in and have a point of view or stay out."
The entire Indian economy is run in a balanced Statist-Anarchist way. If you buy anything large (car, house, land, business) you pay a small portion of "white" money (that is heavily taxed) and a big portion of "black" money (that is under the table, and often comes in the form of bullion). That's awesome -- people realize what a burden the State is, and they work around it.
And how are they working around the extreme poverty? And social services?
THAT'S NOTHING, you pansy. In my family, the six of us are locked in the trunk of the '73 Lincoln Continental (on blocks) and our only computer is a TRS-80 that our father beats us over the head with before we are allowed to swim across the alligator pond to use the computer and the 300 baud modem to post our mindless rubbish to Slashdot. We have to power the computer by pedalling a bicycle with a dynamo and if any of us makes a spelling mistake, Dad, a fervent Slashdot Grammar Nazi, beats us all over the head with the Lisa (he likes the heft) and the external diskette drive and then we are all denied our allowance of brackish water for a week.
Slashdot Mirror
Congratulations on earning your degree.
An entire generation of creative software people who had great ideas and deaf employers grew sick of their cubicles and started the open-source software revolution. They wanted to learn stuff and do stuff, just like you do.
Grab the code, read it, mess with it. Invest in yourself and assume no one else will.
My experience has been that you MUST teach yourself... especially if you work for the big cubicle farms. Teach yourself so you become better, so you keep your skills current, so you energize your imagination, and so you can go elsewhere when your employer enters the BRED ("Beancounters Rule Every Decision") Stage Of Atrophy.
BRED means that your employer is unlikely to pay for you to learn anything useful, especially not during the sunny hours when their BMWs and Porsches are in the parking lot. BRED means that good ideas die unless you happen to drink whisky with the CEO once a week.
Cowardly employees and consitutionally cheerful employees are easier to flog and much less frightening and expensive than people who want their employer to invest in them. People who have the latest skills aren't chained heavily enough. And when the expenses grow and the balance-sheets and Powerpoint slides don't show the Beancounters at the top any benefit ("any chance of getting more stock options"), you can bet that your Red Swingline Stapler is going to Bangalore.
Daffy Duck: Don't worry, I've got jutht the tholution! Acme Practical Joke Kit #98052, 'The Root-Kit Rooting Root Kit'. Guaranteed to work!
There's no satisfaction to be had working for a loser. Any company that would keep him around is destined to fail. Congratulations on getting away from that guy.
When life hands you poison, make poison-ade!
Or something like that...
Shall we issue an all-points bulletin for your Sense Of Humour, Sir? Or do you think it will find its way home?
Unless we define "smart", this is just a silly thread. Being smart is much more than a set of metrics, as you suggest. Many programmers themselves are not even good at programming.
:o)
Google is not Mensa. Mensa is not even Mensa. If Google really was stocked with geniuses, it would suggest that they a) know how to find geniuses, b) know how to lure geniuses, and c) know how to make geniuses work together for corporate success. Frankly, I do not believe that ANYONE can do it. It would take... genius.
Software engineering reminds me of Herman Hesse's Glass Bead Game: an abstract obsession detached real human values. Many people in the field think they are brilliant because they think what they are doing is brilliant. It is not.
The plot of the film has just been revealed on a popular fan-boy site.
Google is secretly dissolving smart people in a vat to create an Omniscient Liquid Brain. Ballboy Chairkovsky and the rest of The Incredmondibles don their crime-fighting costumes to battle the threat.
"This totally kicks Harry Knowles' fat ass across the firmament of geekdom," said one commenter.
And I'm not talking about some Redmond VP's income.
The ~real~ Greatest Task of Web 2.x is to establish one good browser as the standard so CSS and ECMA can become highly productive instead of being such a horrific waste of development time.
.NET as the Orcs. Mono as King Theoden. Ballboy Chairkovsky as Saruman. Darl McNovell as Gollum. Darl McNovell's lawyers as more Orcs.
This is the war that desktop-bound Redmond cannot afford to lose. One browser to rule them all, the men of Middle Cubicle, the Dvorves of Dvorak, the Geeks of Ajax, the Elvish and the rhinestone-laden Elvish Impersonators. Starring...
The rest of this roman à clef I leave to you, my fellow Slash Hobbits.
Of course, the problem with GODOS is that you can't know if it's perfect until the computer is scrapped. In the Bitchy Beadle release of GODOS, the Schrödinger kernel is expected to improve the tracelogs.
There have been reports of computer users who claim to have briefly seen the perfection of GODOOS when their power supplies have developed an intermittent fault. Unfortunately for the proponents of GODOS, no one whose motherboard has been completely fried has ever been able to compute with it again.
Confusing the question further is the fact that computer users are known to declare that SATANOS is running on their computers whenever anything goes wrong.
This could be a definition for political extremism too. It's sad to see the extremes with which a formerly free people ~can~ be comfortable.
Ladies and gentlemen, here to entertain you and take your rights away, let's welcome... the Patriot Act.
So that when such people attempt to discuss the subject intelligently, they succeed.
I once lived next door to a Muslim for years before I found out he was a Muslim. He had seemed like such a nice, normal guy, too.
Maybe they should have to wear some kind of badge so we can identify them more easily.
Christians signed a contract for Salvationix 2.0 (built on the Jesus kernel) but God Inc is obligated to continue providing technical support to the Jews as long as they are using Salvationix 1.0 (Jaweh kernel) and trying to get the damned thing to run on Israel-generation hardware, which they are crazily overclocking. The Muslims have a contract with God Inc for Salvationix 3.0 (Mohammed kernel) but as long as they are running it on Kalashnikov-generation processors their networking is limited to LAN and sneaker-net.
SCO (Saintly Cross Organization) claims that Salvationix infringes their spiritual property and is suing International Bogomil Machines for allegedly slipping SCO code into Salvationix while handling some B2B projects for God Inc.
It's very complicated but I hope this helps.
People who really care about the practical needs of people will make the best leaders of people.
A great leader is more than a logician, scientist, or religious leader. And, I suspect, much more than a software engineer. (Escpecially a software engineer who appoints a joker like "Squirts" Ballmer.)
Adams has had his joke and will feel some pride that his blog caused a tempest in the Slashdot tea-cup.
Do you wish to erase "Mission Accomplished" banner? Yes/No >_
As a fervent anti-sensitivitist, I object, you sensitive clod!
I'm curious to know what you like so much about the Sandisk. Does it support any non-DRM audio formats?
Really, he is a genius. Think about it.
IT Shop: We need some robust 24/7 uptime servers.
Ballmer: Great, I'll send you some Windows licences. Misa or VasterCard?
IT Shop: No, we need a well-architected, secure OS that's designed for networking.
Ballmer: Great! I'll send you some Vista licences. You should see Aero. Wow!
IT Shop: No, in the last 10 years, Windows has cost billions of dollars in lost time because of security flaws in Microsoft software.
Ballmer: Um... well... er... heh...
IT Shop: We're going with Linux.
Ballmer: Did you know? All the good parts of Linux were designed by us. Novell even admits it. We release so much great code every day that we let the hippies have some for free. So, in fact, when you buy Vista, you get all the good parts of Linux. Plus... you get Aero! Wow! Will that be Misa or VasterCard?
http://www.alibris.com/images/subjects/features/b
When a guy's flat-lining, the most hilarious thing you can do to him is to use the defibulator and the detibulator to remove his leg from the knee down, then attach his feet directly to his femurs. When he revives, he starts walking around like a duck and looking confused. We crazy paramedics just about split a gut laughing every time!
Ballmer: "Our primary aim is to have a generally more helpful participation in world economy. You can do three things ... you can stay in and do nothing, stay in and have a point of view or stay out."
Now THAT is conviction!
An IHP-120 running Rockbox (open-source) so it plays FLAC (open-source, lossless) recordings.
And how are they working around the extreme poverty? And social services?
Yes, I thought so.
THAT'S NOTHING, you pansy. In my family, the six of us are locked in the trunk of the '73 Lincoln Continental (on blocks) and our only computer is a TRS-80 that our father beats us over the head with before we are allowed to swim across the alligator pond to use the computer and the 300 baud modem to post our mindless rubbish to Slashdot. We have to power the computer by pedalling a bicycle with a dynamo and if any of us makes a spelling mistake, Dad, a fervent Slashdot Grammar Nazi, beats us all over the head with the Lisa (he likes the heft) and the external diskette drive and then we are all denied our allowance of brackish water for a week.