It could just be a simple case of burnout. Its totally understandable. Remember, you've been doing this now for four straight years. It's bound to take its toll. The same thing happened to me after 6 years of undergraduate and graduate Mathematics. I didn't want to prove one more god damn theorm after that!
The good news though is that you'll probably get over it. Once you've graduated and wound down a bit you may find that the love of all things programming may come back. My advice: take some time off after graduation to just unwind. Don't worry about computers and such and go do some of the other things you love. You'll probably find that you'll rediscover the excitment you had before you went to college.
Trackball and mice have moving parts and a touchpad or a pencil eraser-like thingies don't.
Except if you have a trackball that works off of light instead of moving wheels (a'la Logitech Trackman). That *should* be as reliable as a trackpad (since the only thing that moves is the ball itself). Of course no one in the world makes one that's intergrated into a laptop (which is a shame.. I agree with the poster. I'd take the small trackball of my old Mac Duo over a trackpad anyday)
It's a blow to MS's revenue growth. Remember, NT was to be a Unix killer. It was cheaper than any Unix at the time and it wouldn't be a forked mess (which was MS's take on the Unix world at the time) and companies would be able to leverage their Win32 knowledge to counter the problems of porting from Unix to NT. And MS were making pretty good inroads at the very low end (admittedly it was mostly Novell they were creaming, not Unix). The IT press had all but organized a wake for Unix in the mid 90's. NT was the heir apparent and was going to eventually march its way up to mainframe type status.
Linux has killed that DEAD. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Microsoft's licensing structure is more like the Unix vendors of old -- i.e. the customers hate it -- and Linux has become the "works just as well for much less money" alternative to MS's server products where MS is strongest: file and print serving.
This is why Microsoft is pushing services. They've found that their old plan for growth, high end servers, isn't going to be the homerun they thought it would be. Look at their datacenter product. It doesn't have the advantages that they used with the desktop / low end server market. You can't just bung it on any hardware, and you can't afford ANYTHING that brings your system down (the OS has to be rock solid). And that cost's $$$. So thier datacenter OS is limited to only approved hardware and from what I understand ain't exactly cheaper than any comparible Unix offering. If you can't beat 'em on features and/or price you're not going to dominate the market.
If services don't take hold the way MS wants them too they could be in a world of hurt. They've got nowhere to grow. The desktop is saturated, and Linux is going to keep them in check on the low end of the server market.
That actually sounds very cool. That's pretty much what I'm looking to build, with the addition of ethernet (maybe wireless) so I can still access the music from other machines / stream audio.
Looking forward to seeing your stuff if/when you get it up on sourceforge.
I don't see the problem in making the determination.
I think the problem is due to the fact that you can't simply "rent" the content (i.e. the film) without also "renting" out everything else on the physical DVD. You have to look at it as one single unit.
So, in terms of one single unit what does the average "movie" DVD most resemble? Software or a movie. Common sense would think movie, but legally that may not be correct (for good or bad reasons)
You don't have money? You ain't got no right. That's libertarianism.
No, that a gross misrepresentation. (but who would expect anything less)
Libertarianism isn't "he who has the most power (in this case money) wins." That's a form of anarchism. The little guy has just as many rights under libertariansim as the big guy. In fact, I'd argue that a big gov't gives more power to those with big $$$ since their $$$ influence those who make the laws. Why (if you live in the states) do you pay more for sugar than what it costs on the global market? Because the sugar industry (esp the Fanjuls) pays a LOT of money to both parties to keep the tariffs high. A bigger gov't is a gov't that can be bought.
It always amazes me how folks think that people who work for a corp work only in their self interest, yet people who work in the gov't only work for the greater good. Sorry, it just doesn't happen. People are people and they fall somewhere in between those extremes. Businesses spend a lot of money on PACs because THEY WORK. And there in lies your problem. A smaller gov't with tightly defined roles and responsibilities is less influenced than one with broad, arbitrary powers.
it means an economic system based on exchange of labor rather than ownership of capital.
The problem with that, of course, is how do you put a value on labor? If I'm a barber and I cut an architect's hair should I expect the plans for a new house as payment?
One of two things has to happen. Either some body with legal authority sets the "exchange rates" or the market decides. If the latter then exchange of labor = ownership of capital (commonly known as sweat equity), and you're back to capitalism. For all practical matters Socialism (on a macro scale) requires a highly regulated market.
True, but you can also put together something that looks nice (in a small form factor case: BookPC for example) that also has quality stereo/video/tv output for a lot less money.
The only kicker would be the user interface. I've seen a couple of things on Freshmeat that put a nice front end (that's TV resolution friendly) for a "media" computer. I guess it comes down to a) how much you're willing to spend and b) how much sweat you want to invest.
At close to a grand its for me its worth building my own. Once it comes down to within $50 or so of building something comparable I'd be willing to plunk my money down.
I can see the arguement over copyright infringement over the possibility of sharing the shows, but what friggin leagal ground do they have over the commercial skip function? Just because that's one way the networks makes money doesn't mean I have to go along with it. What, can they sue me for taking a piss during commercial breaks (thus not seeing products being shilled)?
If a court upholds that skipping commercials is illegal then I know the legal system is totally clusterfucked.
The subject asks it all. They (apparently) don't do much development (above and beyond sourceforge) and they don't sell hardware. As far as I can tell they sell services for Sourceforge and ads for OSDN sites.
You might as well go the MiniDisc route. Cheaper/Available media, etc. Yeah yeah yeah, I know its a closed format and such, but the damn thing works, and it works well. They're (finally) making a bit of a dent here thanks to some Mp3->ATRAC software.
Too bad it didn't take off. was *exactly* what my point was. It didn't take off.
I wasn't bashing the technology. I was stating that its very hard to close something that has been open. The industry didn't shun MCA because it was bad technology, it shunned MCA because it *wasn't* open. They didn't want to ceed control (and $$$) to IBM. And the same will hold for Microsoft. A MS version of TCP/IP could be the greatest thing since sliced bread (technically speaking), but it would have one hell of an uphill battle to become the defacto standard.
In ten years no address will start with www. It will be msw. for Microsoft Web. Of course, it will be running on MSP/IP. And the official history of MS will tout how it invented the web.
{taking off MS bashing clothes}
Of course, I don't think it'll come about. M$'s days of total dominance are coming to an end. They'll continue to be one of the big boys, but they're in the last, desperate throws of trying to de-commodify something and that never really works(think IBM's MCA bus). Once their management come to terms with the fact they they can no longer grow at a 20% a year clip -- which is what is driving all of this 'my way or the highway' crap -- and that they, like it or not, are going to at best have the economics of a mature, stable, boring company they'll stop all of this nonsense.
The Bastard's prediction: M$ cannot live on hype alone. And.net is going to be nothing but hype for at least the next two years (my MS own recogning). The X-box is going to put a drag on earnings, and XP will do ok, not gangbusters but just ok.
They're going to have to worry more about appeasing the investment community. They're used to double digit growth, and it ain't going to be there. I expect them to sell their stake in MSNBC along with some of thier telecom/cable investments (because it never bought them access, which is why they threw money at it in the first place).
M$ banks on the ever forward march of the stock price. From employee compensation to extra money they make off of hedging their own stock to large investors. I'm afraid those days are over, and they're going to have to change with the times. Fundamental change is coming M$'s way. It won't happen overnight, but its gonna happen.
Perhaps it would make more sense to use an industry standard OS such as WinCE
Thank you, thank you, thank you. After beating a shitty VB app around for three days for nought I needed a good laugh!
Re:Even if it is a success, it will...
on
"Lindows" Coming Soon?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I think they're going for the business market. I.e. they'll certifiy certain business apps to work with it and license it to companies at a rate less than M$ would charge. IF (and its a mighty big if) they can pull a distro off that runs a pretty good chunck of mainstream biz apps then they may be on to something. I wouldn't expect a mad rush over to them, but they might be able to carve a nice, niche biz out of it.
I actually didn't know that MSX really didn't stand for MicroSoft. I was in England during its more popluar time (mid-late 80s) and even then was under the impression it was Microsoft (and so did most of the computing press as well). Didn't mean to besmearch the good name of MSX:)
I would think for hardware no. Because you're not licensing the X-box. It isn't software. You bought it and its yours. Thus its covered by consumer protection laws (maybe you could make the arguement that the firmware is SW); a EULA can't cover things like hard drives going bad.
You're assuming that the systems are going to be as crappy as all that, though.
Actually, more of a "if its really this bad"
I'm actually going to give them the benifit of the doubt and say its no worse than any other system. Chances are most of the reported problems are because of heat and really bad abuse.
I still do think that having a HD and a big honkin heat monster of a PIII chip in there is going to (eventually) cause problems. Maybe by that point they'll be on to the next machine so it won't matter. Still, its going to be interesting how it plays out. From the reports I've read (taken with the usual grain of salt) it looks like the PS2 will take the lion's share of the X-mas business. I think the fight is going to be for second.
"Fuck the customer" works well with 85%+ market share (and in console land Atari had somewhat the same attitude during the 2600 days as well). But when you've got 2 entrenched competitors to worry about, you're suck. They'll have to eat the $$$ and fix 'em.
Write crappy software that doesn't sell and you're out development and marketing costs (and some point of sale distribution costs as well). Make crappy hardware that you're selling at a loss (with the hope of making it all back up in SW) and you're screwed.. big time. When soccer mom goes to Walmart and has 3 game systems in front of her, and one has a reputation of possibly being DOA, she's going to pick on of the other two.
With all of the comp. MS has to fase in the console world, a system with a bad reputation for stability is gonna Kill 'em. You can update designs and make the next revision of the hardware stable, but the reputation is a lot harder to repair.
Downloading via the built in modem, maybe, but that'll be considered a HUGE inconvience for a game console. Rememember, this isn't a computer (so say MS) but a game console. Plus, this doesn't sound like totally a software issue (since you could have an updated version of the OS on every game you release). This sounds like more of a hardware/heat issue. And a fix for that you can't download.
Not only that, but it will also be banged around. I see failed HD's being a thorn in MS's side. Either they fix 'em as they go bad (and with piss poor ventalation and kiddies manhandling 'em they're going to go bad quicker than normal) and eat a lot of $$$, or they don't fix 'em and piss off a lot of customers.
I have a feeling (due to the economy, et al) that MS may be looking at MSX part deux, except this time they're on the hook for the hardware as well. Even if the X-box is successful its gonna hit MS's bottom line for a year or so (to the tune of a billion or so). Add "reliability" problems to it and you can kiss it goodbye.
I wonder if after the christmas season it is not living up to expectation how long until MS kill it. It ain't cheap (subsidising each machine.. ask Sega), and the stench of death over a console machine is damn near impossible to overcome (even if you iron out bugs in the next batch of machines). Its not like its software and you can issue patches owners can download.
*IF* (and its a big if) this is a sign of things to come for the X-box (and I'll give MS the benifit of the doubt and say it isn't) could cost a LOT of money.
> Why on Earth would I want to run Linux on my PS2?
I was thinking about building myself a small entertaiment PC (basically a BookPC or something similar with a large ass HD for all my MP3s [10k+ all legal Ms. Rosen]). Now, if it can be wired to an ethernet port I may just go with the PS2. Gaming when I want to play games, big ass networked MP3 player when I want to listen to tunes.
Very cool (although it takes the fun out of building yet another system:( )
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It could just be a simple case of burnout. Its totally understandable. Remember, you've been doing this now for four straight years. It's bound to take its toll. The same thing happened to me after 6 years of undergraduate and graduate Mathematics. I didn't want to prove one more god damn theorm after that!
The good news though is that you'll probably get over it. Once you've graduated and wound down a bit you may find that the love of all things programming may come back. My advice: take some time off after graduation to just unwind. Don't worry about computers and such and go do some of the other things you love. You'll probably find that you'll rediscover the excitment you had before you went to college.
Trackball and mice have moving parts and a touchpad or a pencil eraser-like thingies don't.
Except if you have a trackball that works off of light instead of moving wheels (a'la Logitech Trackman). That *should* be as reliable as a trackpad (since the only thing that moves is the ball itself). Of course no one in the world makes one that's intergrated into a laptop (which is a shame.. I agree with the poster. I'd take the small trackball of my old Mac Duo over a trackpad anyday)
General Protection Fault
Your MS Pants Have Failed
PLEASE REMOVE AND REBOOT!
It's a blow to MS's revenue growth. Remember, NT was to be a Unix killer. It was cheaper than any Unix at the time and it wouldn't be a forked mess (which was MS's take on the Unix world at the time) and companies would be able to leverage their Win32 knowledge to counter the problems of porting from Unix to NT. And MS were making pretty good inroads at the very low end (admittedly it was mostly Novell they were creaming, not Unix). The IT press had all but organized a wake for Unix in the mid 90's. NT was the heir apparent and was going to eventually march its way up to mainframe type status.
Linux has killed that DEAD. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Microsoft's licensing structure is more like the Unix vendors of old -- i.e. the customers hate it -- and Linux has become the "works just as well for much less money" alternative to MS's server products where MS is strongest: file and print serving.
This is why Microsoft is pushing services. They've found that their old plan for growth, high end servers, isn't going to be the homerun they thought it would be. Look at their datacenter product. It doesn't have the advantages that they used with the desktop / low end server market. You can't just bung it on any hardware, and you can't afford ANYTHING that brings your system down (the OS has to be rock solid). And that cost's $$$. So thier datacenter OS is limited to only approved hardware and from what I understand ain't exactly cheaper than any comparible Unix offering. If you can't beat 'em on features and/or price you're not going to dominate the market.
If services don't take hold the way MS wants them too they could be in a world of hurt. They've got nowhere to grow. The desktop is saturated, and Linux is going to keep them in check on the low end of the server market.
That actually sounds very cool. That's pretty much what I'm looking to build, with the addition of ethernet (maybe wireless) so I can still access the music from other machines / stream audio.
Looking forward to seeing your stuff if/when you get it up on sourceforge.
I don't see the problem in making the determination.
I think the problem is due to the fact that you can't simply "rent" the content (i.e. the film) without also "renting" out everything else on the physical DVD. You have to look at it as one single unit.
So, in terms of one single unit what does the average "movie" DVD most resemble? Software or a movie. Common sense would think movie, but legally that may not be correct (for good or bad reasons)
You don't have money? You ain't got no right. That's libertarianism.
No, that a gross misrepresentation. (but who would expect anything less)
Libertarianism isn't "he who has the most power (in this case money) wins." That's a form of anarchism. The little guy has just as many rights under libertariansim as the big guy. In fact, I'd argue that a big gov't gives more power to those with big $$$ since their $$$ influence those who make the laws. Why (if you live in the states) do you pay more for sugar than what it costs on the global market? Because the sugar industry (esp the Fanjuls) pays a LOT of money to both parties to keep the tariffs high. A bigger gov't is a gov't that can be bought.
It always amazes me how folks think that people who work for a corp work only in their self interest, yet people who work in the gov't only work for the greater good. Sorry, it just doesn't happen. People are people and they fall somewhere in between those extremes. Businesses spend a lot of money on PACs because THEY WORK. And there in lies your problem. A smaller gov't with tightly defined roles and responsibilities is less influenced than one with broad, arbitrary powers.
it means an economic system based on exchange of labor rather than ownership of capital.
The problem with that, of course, is how do you put a value on labor? If I'm a barber and I cut an architect's hair should I expect the plans for a new house as payment?
One of two things has to happen. Either some body with legal authority sets the "exchange rates" or the market decides. If the latter then exchange of labor = ownership of capital (commonly known as sweat equity), and you're back to capitalism. For all practical matters Socialism (on a macro scale) requires a highly regulated market.
Which is why I said it all depends on a) how much you want to spend and b) how much sweat you want to invest.
Geesh... read the whole post before replying.
True, but you can also put together something that looks nice (in a small form factor case: BookPC for example) that also has quality stereo/video/tv output for a lot less money.
The only kicker would be the user interface. I've seen a couple of things on Freshmeat that put a nice front end (that's TV resolution friendly) for a "media" computer. I guess it comes down to a) how much you're willing to spend and b) how much sweat you want to invest.
At close to a grand its for me its worth building my own. Once it comes down to within $50 or so of building something comparable I'd be willing to plunk my money down.
I can see the arguement over copyright infringement over the possibility of sharing the shows, but what friggin leagal ground do they have over the commercial skip function? Just because that's one way the networks makes money doesn't mean I have to go along with it. What, can they sue me for taking a piss during commercial breaks (thus not seeing products being shilled)?
If a court upholds that skipping commercials is illegal then I know the legal system is totally clusterfucked.
The subject asks it all. They (apparently) don't do much development (above and beyond sourceforge) and they don't sell hardware. As far as I can tell they sell services for Sourceforge and ads for OSDN sites.
Exactly what business is VA in now?
You might as well go the MiniDisc route. Cheaper/Available media, etc. Yeah yeah yeah, I know its a closed format and such, but the damn thing works, and it works well. They're (finally) making a bit of a dent here thanks to some Mp3->ATRAC software.
I love the MD!
Thus I really don't think your analogy holds.
but
Too bad it didn't take off. was *exactly* what my point was. It didn't take off.
I wasn't bashing the technology. I was stating that its very hard to close something that has been open. The industry didn't shun MCA because it was bad technology, it shunned MCA because it *wasn't* open. They didn't want to ceed control (and $$$) to IBM. And the same will hold for Microsoft. A MS version of TCP/IP could be the greatest thing since sliced bread (technically speaking), but it would have one hell of an uphill battle to become the defacto standard.
{donning MS bashing clothes}
.net is going to be nothing but hype for at least the next two years (my MS own recogning). The X-box is going to put a drag on earnings, and XP will do ok, not gangbusters but just ok.
In ten years no address will start with www. It will be msw. for Microsoft Web. Of course, it will be running on MSP/IP. And the official history of MS will tout how it invented the web.
{taking off MS bashing clothes}
Of course, I don't think it'll come about. M$'s days of total dominance are coming to an end. They'll continue to be one of the big boys, but they're in the last, desperate throws of trying to de-commodify something and that never really works(think IBM's MCA bus). Once their management come to terms with the fact they they can no longer grow at a 20% a year clip -- which is what is driving all of this 'my way or the highway' crap -- and that they, like it or not, are going to at best have the economics of a mature, stable, boring company they'll stop all of this nonsense.
The Bastard's prediction: M$ cannot live on hype alone. And
They're going to have to worry more about appeasing the investment community. They're used to double digit growth, and it ain't going to be there. I expect them to sell their stake in MSNBC along with some of thier telecom/cable investments (because it never bought them access, which is why they threw money at it in the first place).
M$ banks on the ever forward march of the stock price. From employee compensation to extra money they make off of hedging their own stock to large investors. I'm afraid those days are over, and they're going to have to change with the times. Fundamental change is coming M$'s way. It won't happen overnight, but its gonna happen.
Perhaps it would make more sense to use an industry standard OS such as WinCE
Thank you, thank you, thank you. After beating a shitty VB app around for three days for nought I needed a good laugh!
I think they're going for the business market. I.e. they'll certifiy certain business apps to work with it and license it to companies at a rate less than M$ would charge. IF (and its a mighty big if) they can pull a distro off that runs a pretty good chunck of mainstream biz apps then they may be on to something. I wouldn't expect a mad rush over to them, but they might be able to carve a nice, niche biz out of it.
Hey, don't badmouth MSX
:)
:)
Replace MSX with Atari and you've got me
I actually didn't know that MSX really didn't stand for MicroSoft. I was in England during its more popluar time (mid-late 80s) and even then was under the impression it was Microsoft (and so did most of the computing press as well). Didn't mean to besmearch the good name of MSX
I would think for hardware no. Because you're not licensing the X-box. It isn't software. You bought it and its yours. Thus its covered by consumer protection laws (maybe you could make the arguement that the firmware is SW); a EULA can't cover things like hard drives going bad.
You're assuming that the systems are going to be as crappy as all that, though.
Actually, more of a "if its really this bad"
I'm actually going to give them the benifit of the doubt and say its no worse than any other system. Chances are most of the reported problems are because of heat and really bad abuse.
I still do think that having a HD and a big honkin heat monster of a PIII chip in there is going to (eventually) cause problems. Maybe by that point they'll be on to the next machine so it won't matter. Still, its going to be interesting how it plays out. From the reports I've read (taken with the usual grain of salt) it looks like the PS2 will take the lion's share of the X-mas business. I think the fight is going to be for second.
Very good point.. and that's the rub.
"Fuck the customer" works well with 85%+ market share (and in console land Atari had somewhat the same attitude during the 2600 days as well). But when you've got 2 entrenched competitors to worry about, you're suck. They'll have to eat the $$$ and fix 'em.
Write crappy software that doesn't sell and you're out development and marketing costs (and some point of sale distribution costs as well). Make crappy hardware that you're selling at a loss (with the hope of making it all back up in SW) and you're screwed.. big time. When soccer mom goes to Walmart and has 3 game systems in front of her, and one has a reputation of possibly being DOA, she's going to pick on of the other two.
With all of the comp. MS has to fase in the console world, a system with a bad reputation for stability is gonna Kill 'em. You can update designs and make the next revision of the hardware stable, but the reputation is a lot harder to repair.
Downloading via the built in modem, maybe, but that'll be considered a HUGE inconvience for a game console. Rememember, this isn't a computer (so say MS) but a game console. Plus, this doesn't sound like totally a software issue (since you could have an updated version of the OS on every game you release). This sounds like more of a hardware/heat issue. And a fix for that you can't download.
Not only that, but it will also be banged around. I see failed HD's being a thorn in MS's side. Either they fix 'em as they go bad (and with piss poor ventalation and kiddies manhandling 'em they're going to go bad quicker than normal) and eat a lot of $$$, or they don't fix 'em and piss off a lot of customers.
Maybe the X in X box really stands for MSX.
I have a feeling (due to the economy, et al) that MS may be looking at MSX part deux, except this time they're on the hook for the hardware as well. Even if the X-box is successful its gonna hit MS's bottom line for a year or so (to the tune of a billion or so). Add "reliability" problems to it and you can kiss it goodbye.
I wonder if after the christmas season it is not living up to expectation how long until MS kill it. It ain't cheap (subsidising each machine.. ask Sega), and the stench of death over a console machine is damn near impossible to overcome (even if you iron out bugs in the next batch of machines). Its not like its software and you can issue patches owners can download.
*IF* (and its a big if) this is a sign of things to come for the X-box (and I'll give MS the benifit of the doubt and say it isn't) could cost a LOT of money.
> Why on Earth would I want to run Linux on my PS2?
:( )
I was thinking about building myself a small entertaiment PC (basically a BookPC or something similar with a large ass HD for all my MP3s [10k+ all legal Ms. Rosen]). Now, if it can be wired to an ethernet port I may just go with the PS2. Gaming when I want to play games, big ass networked MP3 player when I want to listen to tunes.
Very cool (although it takes the fun out of building yet another system