Re:640 bits should be enough for anybody
on
Intro to Encryption
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· Score: 4, Funny
"...and my porn passwords are Romeo and Juliet!"
Well my porn passwords are Juliet and Juliet. It's a lesser known work, to be sure, but it's certainly steamier.
Re:this guy is just holding up a sign
on
The Music Man
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· Score: 1
As the guy says in the interview, he even looks for better versions of the music he already has. So if he finds a higher bitrate, he'll download it and replace the other one. So 3MB each is a very conservative estimate.
What I've discovered is that not all the songs I download are usable... you might download a handful before finding a good copy of the song. So this guy must skim through the song, beginning to end, before adding it to his database. That, or he has sources that he really trusts.
I listened to a pirated copy of the Jet album before I bought it, and half the songs were altered from the album version. So much so that I didn't recognize some of them once I heard the real deal.
Storage for that would be...
on
The Music Man
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· Score: 3, Interesting
From my estimation (and relatively limited library, it seems): 2400 songs = 10 GB
So 900,000 songs would come out to be approximately 3,750 GB... or 3.75 TB of music.
Gun violence isn't the fault of the guns, it's the fault of the idiot users. That doesn't mean we shouldn't reform the system that allows idiots to get guns. Background checks, mandatory waiting, etc. are all in place because you'll never fix "the person." We can't get rid of patents altogether, just as we can't rid the world of guns. But we can certainly improve the process through which they are obtained.
I would like to see the courts smack some of the these ridiculous patents around, hopefully setting precedents that make this kind of patent monopoly business model less attractive.
You're so right it's scary. I'm reading this thinking, if I were given a million dollars a year maybe I wouldn't hate spam so much.
People go to jail for much less money... and since there are loopholes to be found and exploited, spamming is an attractive business.
Corporations contract out for spyware programs. Political groups contract out for viruses. If the money is there, it will be a temptation. You can't end if forever, but you can make it harder to do and much riskier.
Does your Japanese "American-style" toilet have a bidet, massage jets, warm-air blow-dryer, and remote control?
When I studied in Japan, both of my host families had this kind of toilet. I always wished I had one back home, so I could steal the remote and use the cold-water bidet while my brother was in the bathroom. That would have been fun. *sigh*
That's exactly the situation I'm in. I'm in northern Indiana with broadband and close enough to drive to Chicago, Detroit, or Indianapolis within a few hours. I can get to a meeting in any of those areas on a day's notice. Since there's usually no need for me to be on-site for my business, I could technically work from anywhere. It's a pretty nice situation.
My area has a very low cost of living. I bought my first house last year for about $115k. It's just a 3 bedroom ranch with an unfinished basement (oh, the things I will do with that!). In Chicago-land, it would have run about $200k. In Arizona (a fast-growing area), it would push $250k. I can't imagine what it would go for in California.
Cost of living is a huge factor. Last year, Indiana outsourced a programming project to India - and then opted out of it so they could offer it to in-state contractors first.
I've sold my company's services simply by pointing out that my rates (in Indiana) are much cheaper than similar firms in New York, California, or even nearby Chicago.
You want to pay $150+ an hour for a Chicago guy to do the same thing that we'll do for $75 an hour?
This can bite you when they find another firm offering $50/hour. At some point, it's just not cost effective to run a business that cheap... not to mention that you'll have a harder time finding qualified employees to work for so little.
If I could make the salary of a comparable California worker, but live in Indiana, I'd be doing very well.
Most of the Apple/Mac developers I know have other jobs. They do it in their spare time, with no hope of making a living out of it. I'm sure that comes from the smaller market share -> less potential for revenue -> less demand for developers.
It's kind of sad... I'm not a huge Mac fan, but I watched my non-programmer co-worker write an Applescript to do some stuff that's not nearly as easy in Windows.
Man, I always loved Lincoln Logs but I never had any of my own. I remember going to a friend's house for the night and turning down video games in favor of Lincoln Logs. His mom kept saying, "Why can't you be more like lukewarmfusion?"*
* No, that's not my real name. My parents weren't that cruel.
Re:This stuff is cool but...
on
Wi-Fi Toys
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· Score: 1
If my Dell Axim had 40GB storage, that's be a great solution... as it is, I can stream video down to my PDA from my wireless connection. Not a bad solution if you've got the infrastructure. If you're trying to watch a video on the subway, you're kind of SOL.
Actually, I'm doing quite a bit of checking on that field, but it will never solve the problem. When a user puts in "myname" or "noneofyourbusiness" how can I programmatically determine if that's a valid name? How do you know that it isn't really their name? Or that "Paul" isn't really named "John" and he's lying?
Of all the clients I've worked with, this is the most frustrating one. The project deadline was April 19th. Now, almost seven months later, there's no end in sight.
I'm done bitching about it. I just nod and pretend that they're right. Then I go home and work on my own company every night.
That's exactly what I meant in saying that it's hard to get in. As a seasoned developer, you're hard pressed to get a job with no game industry experience. As another poster said, you can get that kind of experience by playing the role of "walk-on" (to use the not-so-common-at-Slashdot sports analogy). Developing levels or mods gets you familiarity with the game, gets your name in the gaming world, and can be sufficient experience for a hire. There are a few real world examples of level designers getting picked up or mods becoming popular and ending up as part of the game (Counter-strike and Day of Defeat are the big ones).
So I guess you have two choices - be willing to give everything up and start as a grunt, or come in with enough self-taught experience that you can work your way in with a weaker resume.
And I agree about EA; a quick look at their website's employment listings reveals a lot of opportunity to get into the industry.
I also recorded this way (my then-current radio didn't have a tape deck in it). Before file sharing became popular, there weren't a lot of options for finding music. For instance, I downloaded one song because I saw the band perform it on Leno. I hadn't heard the song before, and I couldn't find anywhere to download it. As it turned out, the version I downloaded was the exact same performance I had seen. Someone recorded it and put it on his website. This was about a year before Napster... and certainly before CD ripping was integrated into major media players.
And what sucks is that you're too experienced to take a low-paying crap job and not experienced enough to get a high-paying game industry job.
That's not entirely true - you can't give up on a game career yet, but it's an uphill battle.
I remember looking at game design/development jobs once and thinking, how can you get the experience they require if you don't already have it? That goes for a lot of other positions, but in gaming it seems just about as difficult to break through as movies or music.
That's exactly what I was going to say. It's not much different from recording a song off the radio onto your cassette tape. I've actually downloaded music that was obviously recorded in this way. It's simply terrible.
They have done a lot of work to prevent abuse by screeners. As for movie theatre employees, there are a lot of the same issue with quality.
I appreciate your comments... there have been a good number of not-so-friendly responses, and it's nice to see someone offer real advice.
I am starting my own company... Much of my recent depression stems from my situation and the knowledge that I brought it upon myself. But this knowledge also allows me to see that opportunity to leave, to improve my own place in life, and to feel satisfied with my job.
I hate when someone says that "work isn't supposed to be fun - otherwise it wouldn't be work." I love what I do...why shouldn't I be able to enjoy my job?
I was a big fan of X-Wing and Tie Fighter, but I thought Dark Forces left a lot to be desired. I really like JK2 and from what I've heard, I'll enjoy Jedi Academy and KOTOR as well. I'm looking forward to starting those eventually.
Re:If you are so smart...
on
Cube Farm
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· Score: 1
It was a terrific school. The biggest problem was that I ended up in the wrong track because I made up my mind too late. I was a Japanese major. That meant I couldn't be a computer science or engineering major. But studying abroad in Japan gave me the opportunity to finish my major in two years. I spent the next two years doing "computer stuff." The department I was in was not aimed at programmers or someone with my areas of interest... my advisor admitted this to me far too late for me to change my mind. I've thought about going back to school for a more solid background in some of my interests...
I would love to be artificial intelligence, for example. MIT would be a great place to study this... my school doesn't have anything decent for it. As I mentioned in another post, my AI class (the only one I could find that they offered) consisted of meaningless crap.
I look back at college as a chance to learn whatever I want without worrying about paying bills and working 8-5 for a couple of jackasses. I'm at fault for not taking better advantage of this time in my life. Now I'm fighting the uphill battle of trying to make ends meet (my wife's grad student stipend isn't enough) while figuring out how to make my life better.
I agree that what a school costs doesn't mean that much. But it's hard to pass up a free ride at a top 25 school. As an 18 year old considering theatre, film, computer science, Japanese, engineering, and physics as potential majors, the school I went to offered me the most flexibility.
Slashdot Mirror
"...and my porn passwords are Romeo and Juliet!"
Well my porn passwords are Juliet and Juliet. It's a lesser known work, to be sure, but it's certainly steamier.
As the guy says in the interview, he even looks for better versions of the music he already has. So if he finds a higher bitrate, he'll download it and replace the other one. So 3MB each is a very conservative estimate.
What I've discovered is that not all the songs I download are usable... you might download a handful before finding a good copy of the song. So this guy must skim through the song, beginning to end, before adding it to his database. That, or he has sources that he really trusts.
I listened to a pirated copy of the Jet album before I bought it, and half the songs were altered from the album version. So much so that I didn't recognize some of them once I heard the real deal.
From my estimation (and relatively limited library, it seems): 2400 songs = 10 GB
So 900,000 songs would come out to be approximately 3,750 GB... or 3.75 TB of music.
We're not worthy...we're not worthy...
Gun violence isn't the fault of the guns, it's the fault of the idiot users. That doesn't mean we shouldn't reform the system that allows idiots to get guns. Background checks, mandatory waiting, etc. are all in place because you'll never fix "the person." We can't get rid of patents altogether, just as we can't rid the world of guns. But we can certainly improve the process through which they are obtained.
I would like to see the courts smack some of the these ridiculous patents around, hopefully setting precedents that make this kind of patent monopoly business model less attractive.
Hey, all it takes is a long night as a college freshman to swear off Boone's for good.
PS - Don't throw up into a mesh trashcan.
Ughh.... Boone's Farm is not wine!
For a decent cheap wine, I usually go for Inglenook "Classic Burgundy" for about $3.50-$4.00.
You're so right it's scary. I'm reading this thinking, if I were given a million dollars a year maybe I wouldn't hate spam so much.
People go to jail for much less money... and since there are loopholes to be found and exploited, spamming is an attractive business.
Corporations contract out for spyware programs. Political groups contract out for viruses. If the money is there, it will be a temptation. You can't end if forever, but you can make it harder to do and much riskier.
Does your Japanese "American-style" toilet have a bidet, massage jets, warm-air blow-dryer, and remote control?
When I studied in Japan, both of my host families had this kind of toilet. I always wished I had one back home, so I could steal the remote and use the cold-water bidet while my brother was in the bathroom. That would have been fun. *sigh*
That's exactly the situation I'm in. I'm in northern Indiana with broadband and close enough to drive to Chicago, Detroit, or Indianapolis within a few hours. I can get to a meeting in any of those areas on a day's notice. Since there's usually no need for me to be on-site for my business, I could technically work from anywhere. It's a pretty nice situation.
My area has a very low cost of living. I bought my first house last year for about $115k. It's just a 3 bedroom ranch with an unfinished basement (oh, the things I will do with that!). In Chicago-land, it would have run about $200k. In Arizona (a fast-growing area), it would push $250k. I can't imagine what it would go for in California.
Cost of living is a huge factor. Last year, Indiana outsourced a programming project to India - and then opted out of it so they could offer it to in-state contractors first.
I've sold my company's services simply by pointing out that my rates (in Indiana) are much cheaper than similar firms in New York, California, or even nearby Chicago.
You want to pay $150+ an hour for a Chicago guy to do the same thing that we'll do for $75 an hour?
This can bite you when they find another firm offering $50/hour. At some point, it's just not cost effective to run a business that cheap... not to mention that you'll have a harder time finding qualified employees to work for so little.
If I could make the salary of a comparable California worker, but live in Indiana, I'd be doing very well.
Most of the Apple/Mac developers I know have other jobs. They do it in their spare time, with no hope of making a living out of it. I'm sure that comes from the smaller market share -> less potential for revenue -> less demand for developers.
It's kind of sad... I'm not a huge Mac fan, but I watched my non-programmer co-worker write an Applescript to do some stuff that's not nearly as easy in Windows.
Man, I always loved Lincoln Logs but I never had any of my own. I remember going to a friend's house for the night and turning down video games in favor of Lincoln Logs. His mom kept saying, "Why can't you be more like lukewarmfusion?"*
* No, that's not my real name. My parents weren't that cruel.
coughcoughlightningcoughcough
I got my number from the first thing I could find in Pricewatch (which has a terrible new design).
I'll have to look around for a nice cheap storage card (at $60, that's not bad).
My Axim has a CF slot (which I'm using for wireless right now) and a SD.
1 GB of either of these formats will run you about $100. Compared to a 40GB drive at the iPod price, that's terrible.
Of course, 1 GB of video is probably plenty when the screen is 320 x 240. The one I got came with something like 32 MB.
If my Dell Axim had 40GB storage, that's be a great solution... as it is, I can stream video down to my PDA from my wireless connection. Not a bad solution if you've got the infrastructure. If you're trying to watch a video on the subway, you're kind of SOL.
Actually, I'm doing quite a bit of checking on that field, but it will never solve the problem. When a user puts in "myname" or "noneofyourbusiness" how can I programmatically determine if that's a valid name? How do you know that it isn't really their name? Or that "Paul" isn't really named "John" and he's lying?
Of all the clients I've worked with, this is the most frustrating one. The project deadline was April 19th. Now, almost seven months later, there's no end in sight.
I'm done bitching about it. I just nod and pretend that they're right. Then I go home and work on my own company every night.
That's exactly what I meant in saying that it's hard to get in. As a seasoned developer, you're hard pressed to get a job with no game industry experience. As another poster said, you can get that kind of experience by playing the role of "walk-on" (to use the not-so-common-at-Slashdot sports analogy). Developing levels or mods gets you familiarity with the game, gets your name in the gaming world, and can be sufficient experience for a hire. There are a few real world examples of level designers getting picked up or mods becoming popular and ending up as part of the game (Counter-strike and Day of Defeat are the big ones).
So I guess you have two choices - be willing to give everything up and start as a grunt, or come in with enough self-taught experience that you can work your way in with a weaker resume.
And I agree about EA; a quick look at their website's employment listings reveals a lot of opportunity to get into the industry.
Another notch in your geek belt. :)
I also recorded this way (my then-current radio didn't have a tape deck in it). Before file sharing became popular, there weren't a lot of options for finding music. For instance, I downloaded one song because I saw the band perform it on Leno. I hadn't heard the song before, and I couldn't find anywhere to download it. As it turned out, the version I downloaded was the exact same performance I had seen. Someone recorded it and put it on his website. This was about a year before Napster... and certainly before CD ripping was integrated into major media players.
And what sucks is that you're too experienced to take a low-paying crap job and not experienced enough to get a high-paying game industry job.
That's not entirely true - you can't give up on a game career yet, but it's an uphill battle.
I remember looking at game design/development jobs once and thinking, how can you get the experience they require if you don't already have it? That goes for a lot of other positions, but in gaming it seems just about as difficult to break through as movies or music.
That's exactly what I was going to say. It's not much different from recording a song off the radio onto your cassette tape. I've actually downloaded music that was obviously recorded in this way. It's simply terrible.
They have done a lot of work to prevent abuse by screeners. As for movie theatre employees, there are a lot of the same issue with quality.
Everyone I know on Windows or Mac uses iTunes. Not that it's necessarily the best, but it's certainly becoming the next ubiquitous audio player.
I really hope we don't see a Windows Media Player era.
I appreciate your comments... there have been a good number of not-so-friendly responses, and it's nice to see someone offer real advice.
I am starting my own company... Much of my recent depression stems from my situation and the knowledge that I brought it upon myself. But this knowledge also allows me to see that opportunity to leave, to improve my own place in life, and to feel satisfied with my job.
I hate when someone says that "work isn't supposed to be fun - otherwise it wouldn't be work." I love what I do...why shouldn't I be able to enjoy my job?
I was a big fan of X-Wing and Tie Fighter, but I thought Dark Forces left a lot to be desired. I really like JK2 and from what I've heard, I'll enjoy Jedi Academy and KOTOR as well. I'm looking forward to starting those eventually.
It was a terrific school. The biggest problem was that I ended up in the wrong track because I made up my mind too late. I was a Japanese major. That meant I couldn't be a computer science or engineering major. But studying abroad in Japan gave me the opportunity to finish my major in two years. I spent the next two years doing "computer stuff." The department I was in was not aimed at programmers or someone with my areas of interest... my advisor admitted this to me far too late for me to change my mind. I've thought about going back to school for a more solid background in some of my interests...
I would love to be artificial intelligence, for example. MIT would be a great place to study this... my school doesn't have anything decent for it. As I mentioned in another post, my AI class (the only one I could find that they offered) consisted of meaningless crap.
I look back at college as a chance to learn whatever I want without worrying about paying bills and working 8-5 for a couple of jackasses. I'm at fault for not taking better advantage of this time in my life. Now I'm fighting the uphill battle of trying to make ends meet (my wife's grad student stipend isn't enough) while figuring out how to make my life better.
I agree that what a school costs doesn't mean that much. But it's hard to pass up a free ride at a top 25 school. As an 18 year old considering theatre, film, computer science, Japanese, engineering, and physics as potential majors, the school I went to offered me the most flexibility.