There were some interesting and insightful items in the article. There were also some strange statments and assumptions (like his thing about how OpenOffice doesn't have an email client built in... sigh).
People need to stop thinking that there is one blueprint for how all computers should function.
With the use of the DMCA as a big, painful club, smashed onto the heads of consumers, and the desires of media companies to make more and more money by selling you less and reselling you things you've alread paid for, albeit in a different format, it's now become necessary for the media companies to try to combat methods of copying their products by interfering with other things in your life.
If they just tried to offer you something worth the money, rather than trying to treat what they have as a hostile monopoly treats it's assets, they wouldn't have any of these problems.
Wouldn't you rather have a legit CD of music you want? With a nice cover, liner, etc? How about a DVD? or maybe if your CD breaks or is scratched you could mail it back with an SASE and get a new one? You know, treat consumers like you like them, not like you hate them!.
I think there's a sweet spot of cost and convenience meeting (mitigated by morality of copying, attitude of media companies, etc). DVDs seem to be reasonably priced compared with the difficulty/inconvenience of obtaining them in other fashions. Music companies need to wake up now and change.
I don't figure they have low power. I've heard a lot of people say they think diesel passenger cars are low power, and have difficulty getting up to speed or up hills.
People just depend too much on their cars, and there's too much of a tradition of allowing people to have their cars fixed as they'd like them to be, to allow car manufacturers the right to restrict access. It's something people feel strongly about.
The days of the common man being able to modify and repair their own car seem to be coming to a close. Cars are made of too many different metals that are not as easily worked with as steel, and there are too many electronics and computers. But even so, manufacturers trying to put a strangle hold on repair shops to make them be registered and have the proper codes is just wrong.
Why shouldn't you be allowed to use your XBOX how you'd like, and Congres is trying to protect your right to use your car how you choose? Well, I'm not so sure you should be so restricted, maybe Congress should have said something earlier, but if you like the idea of being able to use whatever you buy, this is something to get behind.
Very good point. Here's an example to help people understand this - because of NAFTA, some Mexican farmers may starve. Read this for details. Now if the people who grow the food can starve it really doesn't make the non-nutritive use of food seem like such a waste.
How about looking at it, instead, as allowing subsistance farmers to be able to produce their own fuel to power a pick up truck they can use to power farm implements and transport their produce?
Biodisel is a bad solution to the oil problems in america. Why? Because if 50% of cars on the road today had biodeisel, then the price would skyrocket.
Does this seem vaguely possible?
You're suggesting that everyone in America would throw away their cars, buy diesel powered vehicles, and make their own fuel by filtering waste vegetable oil and adding chemicals.
If someone made an additive that made any normal car run on cesspool contents I promise you your oil company stock wouldn't go down a tick.
We don't all have to use the same fuel. And there are lots of uses for gasoline, aside from powering cars - factories, making plastics and vaseleine and what not.
If clever people figure out 50 different ways to make energy and fuel from junk and garbage, dead turkeys, diapers, waste oil and such, then we'll have less garbage, less dependence on oil and coal and nuclear, and we'll have tons of power for our ACs, SUVs, big screen TVs and other necessities.:)
Waste vegetable oil costs money to dispose of. A lot of vegetable oil is used and disposed of, so there's a supply. (diners, chinese restaurants, take out places, etc)
Crude oil has to be removed from the Earth. It's often under deep water, miles below frozen, rocky Earth, or below people who want a lot of money for it.
It's doubtful demand will increase substantially. Car manufacturers are not quick to change, and they seem to be pretty comfortable making gas guzzlers. Diesels have a rep for low power, too. People often assume an alternate energy option has to or will be used by everyone in the world, which it really doesn't have to be.
Refining crude oil is amazingly complex compared with filtering cooking oil and adding a little kerosene and lye.
Understandable reaction, and might even be an accurate description of what happened. But there's a lesson in there, too - if you need money in exchange for what you do, your first jobs should be sales and accounts receivables, followed possibly by legal and marketing, then development or whatever else it is you do.
Clients will wait to the last possible moment to give you any money, 'forgetting' they were supposed to. How much worse will donations be?
It's unfortunate, but true, and not at all a poor reflection on developers like this one. When people are willing to copy software, music and movies illegally, just think how little insentive they have for giving money when they don't have to to something they can freely use.
Good point. Wonder how widely it's used internally, too. I don't mean to run print/file/web/database servers, either. Of course you'd run them on Linux or some other FOSS - that's really a no brainer. But what about desktop usage? That shows commitment that clients can be comforted by.
Of course making a commitment can mean betting the company, the way Boeing did with the 747 and a couple of other major models - either you win big, or the games over.
Mexico seems like a popular place to do industrial type things that companies want done that are unsafe in the US, but they want done closer than India or elsewhere. Maybe they'd like to throw up some plants and pipe the electricity accross the border.
Certainly, when you suggest to American's that something should be done that will prevent them from working, as well as protect some jobs, people will think twice. And some people suggest protection aversely affects the job market, though most of these defenses tend to breeze over details and suggest that all jobs are the same, and that corporate profits flow to residents of the corporations home country.
But on the other side, shouldn't a country feel free to try to make global change by insisting that when things interact with them, and they can control that relationship, that everyone needs to play by their rules?
People assume that the quality of life will improve where jobs are outsourced to. That arugement is frequently overly simplistic. Wouldn't it be nice to insure that it does? Wouldn't that take a bit of the sting away from offshore outsourcing?
I like cheap stuff as much as the next guy, and I'm not deligent enough myself to monitor what I buy and where it was manufactured, and the conditions there. I think I'm probably the same as a lot of people - and I'd be a lot happier if I knew people making products or providing services for our country were not in horrible conditions.
For instance, is anyone OK that child laborers are so widely used in really dangerous jobs around the world? Take a look at this page to see non soldier/prositution/slavery child labor.
Unfortunately, I think the company you work for is a rarity.
Just look at it this way - if all these employees are expected to do is read pages aloud from a 3 ring binder depending on what the caller says ("Digital camera not working? Page 13....") do you think these employees are expected to be intelligent, experienced, and be able to diagnose a problem? I think they are expected to be able to read and speak.
Moving up the food chain slightly greater levels of intelligence might be expected, but as long as the procedures are very specific I don't think the people at the top think they need top notch employees. They want flesh covered robots, preferably in large quantity, at a very low price.
I could probably deal with accents a lot better if two things would happen:
1. Slow down. The performance metric that says that the faster you handle a call is done without consideration for the customer
2. Stop that infernal beeping. I don't know what that is - something telling me they're recording the conversation or something, but when a conversation has every fourth word bleeped out it's hard to understand, especially if they're asking important questions I may have to pay for.
I understand your point, and would like to see the lives of the poor around the world improve. But I think one reason people who do care about global proverty might be pro American worker, is they have a voice, and a vote in the working standards of those workers.
Will offshored jobs help the global poor? Or will a select few profit from desperately poor people, and will this destroy a sensitive, local economy?
'Progress' often moves more slowly than we'd like.
Re:is this just an excuse to write sloppy code
on
Hardened PHP
·
· Score: 1
The greatest weakness in many PHP programs is not inherent in the language itself, but merely an issue of code not being written with security in mind. For this reason, you should always take the time to consider the implications of a given piece of code, to ascertain the possible damage if an unexpected variable is submitted to it."
Most hosting environments I've seen with PHP running, it's a CGI, not the mod version.
PHP is really easy to write poorly. The only reason this doesn't do horrible things more often is servers are powerful enough to handle the amount of traffic that hits them when they're funning poorly written PHP code.
You can certainly find poorly written Perl, or whatever other language you like, but I think it's more common to find people who really care about granular details, security, coding style, etc. in other languages. Too many people have backed into PHP, just wanting something that works, not really caring about all the particulars.
Instead of the recording industry being greedy and deciding what they'd "like" to earn, they should see what price point will get customers to participate, will keep their expenses down, and make piracy disinteresting. At $17 to download an album borrowing a CD from the library, a friend, etc. and ripping it sounds like sheer genius. The CD offers nothing that a copy doesn't. They either need to drop the price or offer more.
File sharing is not going away. Additionally, CD burners, fast processors, hard drive space and blank CDs and DVDs and bandwidth are relatively cheap. The technology to rip and burn keeps getting better - stream ripping sounds pretty awesome, for instance.
The RIAA and all the others who are up there with SCO and Microsoft as the most hated companies in America should wake up and try to work with customers, not against them. Stop trying to get everyone to pay full price for the same content every few years when you push a new medium. Stop trying to rip people off. Offer something more.
This just records whatever you're hearing on your computer. That's ok, and has it's place, but it's not like it's recording distinct songs and labeling them.
If you're completely inept you probably won't get a job, but don't think you'll get a job or won't get one exclusively based on your programming skills. Our field is not a meritocracy. Network, work on your presentation/communication skills, be bold and persistent, etc.
Don't forget to take away medical insurance, as many companies only insure the employee and you have to pay for the rest of the family. br So I'd drop that 18k down to 8k. And if you don't have a lot of money, have been out of work and what not, you almost certainly have lots of debt. Makes life quite stressful.
How do you think unionizing would affect offshoring? Would it be more appealing for companies to ship jobs offshore if they thought they would have more trouble in country b/c of unions?
An MBA is a degree received for going to school. It does not certify that you know anything about business or anything else. Most people I know who have gotten an MBA have found the paper valuable, but did not get a lot out of the experience (and this is top schools).
Having lots of experience often actually hurts you. People want to hire inexpensive, malleable geniuses. If you have 7 or more years of experience, unless you're being hired into a managment position, you are likely to be perceived as someone who
would only stay until something better would come along
you wouldn't be willing to work until 3am when they want you to
you won't take direction from someone above you who might have less experience or is younger
you won't be a modern programmer. you're going to try to do things old school, green screen, COBOL and what not.
Slashdot Mirror
There were some interesting and insightful items in the article. There were also some strange statments and assumptions (like his thing about how OpenOffice doesn't have an email client built in... sigh).
People need to stop thinking that there is one blueprint for how all computers should function.
With the use of the DMCA as a big, painful club, smashed onto the heads of consumers, and the desires of media companies to make more and more money by selling you less and reselling you things you've alread paid for, albeit in a different format, it's now become necessary for the media companies to try to combat methods of copying their products by interfering with other things in your life.
If they just tried to offer you something worth the money, rather than trying to treat what they have as a hostile monopoly treats it's assets, they wouldn't have any of these problems.
Wouldn't you rather have a legit CD of music you want? With a nice cover, liner, etc? How about a DVD? or maybe if your CD breaks or is scratched you could mail it back with an SASE and get a new one? You know, treat consumers like you like them, not like you hate them!.
I think there's a sweet spot of cost and convenience meeting (mitigated by morality of copying, attitude of media companies, etc). DVDs seem to be reasonably priced compared with the difficulty/inconvenience of obtaining them in other fashions. Music companies need to wake up now and change.
Rep implies others. Not my assessment.
I don't figure they have low power. I've heard a lot of people say they think diesel passenger cars are low power, and have difficulty getting up to speed or up hills.
People just depend too much on their cars, and there's too much of a tradition of allowing people to have their cars fixed as they'd like them to be, to allow car manufacturers the right to restrict access. It's something people feel strongly about.
The days of the common man being able to modify and repair their own car seem to be coming to a close. Cars are made of too many different metals that are not as easily worked with as steel, and there are too many electronics and computers. But even so, manufacturers trying to put a strangle hold on repair shops to make them be registered and have the proper codes is just wrong.
Why shouldn't you be allowed to use your XBOX how you'd like, and Congres is trying to protect your right to use your car how you choose? Well, I'm not so sure you should be so restricted, maybe Congress should have said something earlier, but if you like the idea of being able to use whatever you buy, this is something to get behind.
Very good point. Here's an example to help people understand this - because of NAFTA, some Mexican farmers may starve. Read this for details. Now if the people who grow the food can starve it really doesn't make the non-nutritive use of food seem like such a waste.
How about looking at it, instead, as allowing subsistance farmers to be able to produce their own fuel to power a pick up truck they can use to power farm implements and transport their produce?
Biodisel is a bad solution to the oil problems in america. Why? Because if 50% of cars on the road today had biodeisel, then the price would skyrocket.
:)
Does this seem vaguely possible?
You're suggesting that everyone in America would throw away their cars, buy diesel powered vehicles, and make their own fuel by filtering waste vegetable oil and adding chemicals.
If someone made an additive that made any normal car run on cesspool contents I promise you your oil company stock wouldn't go down a tick.
We don't all have to use the same fuel. And there are lots of uses for gasoline, aside from powering cars - factories, making plastics and vaseleine and what not.
If clever people figure out 50 different ways to make energy and fuel from junk and garbage, dead turkeys, diapers, waste oil and such, then we'll have less garbage, less dependence on oil and coal and nuclear, and we'll have tons of power for our ACs, SUVs, big screen TVs and other necessities.
Understandable reaction, and might even be an accurate description of what happened. But there's a lesson in there, too - if you need money in exchange for what you do, your first jobs should be sales and accounts receivables, followed possibly by legal and marketing, then development or whatever else it is you do.
Clients will wait to the last possible moment to give you any money, 'forgetting' they were supposed to. How much worse will donations be?
It's unfortunate, but true, and not at all a poor reflection on developers like this one. When people are willing to copy software, music and movies illegally, just think how little insentive they have for giving money when they don't have to to something they can freely use.
Good point. Wonder how widely it's used internally, too. I don't mean to run print/file/web/database servers, either. Of course you'd run them on Linux or some other FOSS - that's really a no brainer. But what about desktop usage? That shows commitment that clients can be comforted by.
Of course making a commitment can mean betting the company, the way Boeing did with the 747 and a couple of other major models - either you win big, or the games over.
Mexico seems like a popular place to do industrial type things that companies want done that are unsafe in the US, but they want done closer than India or elsewhere. Maybe they'd like to throw up some plants and pipe the electricity accross the border.
Certainly, when you suggest to American's that something should be done that will prevent them from working, as well as protect some jobs, people will think twice. And some people suggest protection aversely affects the job market, though most of these defenses tend to breeze over details and suggest that all jobs are the same, and that corporate profits flow to residents of the corporations home country.
But on the other side, shouldn't a country feel free to try to make global change by insisting that when things interact with them, and they can control that relationship, that everyone needs to play by their rules?
People assume that the quality of life will improve where jobs are outsourced to. That arugement is frequently overly simplistic. Wouldn't it be nice to insure that it does? Wouldn't that take a bit of the sting away from offshore outsourcing?
I like cheap stuff as much as the next guy, and I'm not deligent enough myself to monitor what I buy and where it was manufactured, and the conditions there. I think I'm probably the same as a lot of people - and I'd be a lot happier if I knew people making products or providing services for our country were not in horrible conditions.
For instance, is anyone OK that child laborers are so widely used in really dangerous jobs around the world? Take a look at this page to see non soldier/prositution/slavery child labor.
Unfortunately, I think the company you work for is a rarity.
Just look at it this way - if all these employees are expected to do is read pages aloud from a 3 ring binder depending on what the caller says ("Digital camera not working? Page 13....") do you think these employees are expected to be intelligent, experienced, and be able to diagnose a problem? I think they are expected to be able to read and speak.
Moving up the food chain slightly greater levels of intelligence might be expected, but as long as the procedures are very specific I don't think the people at the top think they need top notch employees. They want flesh covered robots, preferably in large quantity, at a very low price.
I could probably deal with accents a lot better if two things would happen:
1. Slow down. The performance metric that says that the faster you handle a call is done without consideration for the customer
2. Stop that infernal beeping. I don't know what that is - something telling me they're recording the conversation or something, but when a conversation has every fourth word bleeped out it's hard to understand, especially if they're asking important questions I may have to pay for.
Josh
and you could make the beer free, but charge for the glass, or seats or something... whoa
I understand your point, and would like to see the lives of the poor around the world improve. But I think one reason people who do care about global proverty might be pro American worker, is they have a voice, and a vote in the working standards of those workers.
Will offshored jobs help the global poor? Or will a select few profit from desperately poor people, and will this destroy a sensitive, local economy?
'Progress' often moves more slowly than we'd like.
http://us2.php.net/manual/en/security.variables.ph p
Here's the intro:
"User Submitted Data
The greatest weakness in many PHP programs is not inherent in the language itself, but merely an issue of code not being written with security in mind. For this reason, you should always take the time to consider the implications of a given piece of code, to ascertain the possible damage if an unexpected variable is submitted to it."
Most hosting environments I've seen with PHP running, it's a CGI, not the mod version.
PHP is really easy to write poorly. The only reason this doesn't do horrible things more often is servers are powerful enough to handle the amount of traffic that hits them when they're funning poorly written PHP code.
You can certainly find poorly written Perl, or whatever other language you like, but I think it's more common to find people who really care about granular details, security, coding style, etc. in other languages. Too many people have backed into PHP, just wanting something that works, not really caring about all the particulars.
Good point.
Instead of the recording industry being greedy and deciding what they'd "like" to earn, they should see what price point will get customers to participate, will keep their expenses down, and make piracy disinteresting. At $17 to download an album borrowing a CD from the library, a friend, etc. and ripping it sounds like sheer genius. The CD offers nothing that a copy doesn't. They either need to drop the price or offer more.
File sharing is not going away. Additionally, CD burners, fast processors, hard drive space and blank CDs and DVDs and bandwidth are relatively cheap. The technology to rip and burn keeps getting better - stream ripping sounds pretty awesome, for instance.
The RIAA and all the others who are up there with SCO and Microsoft as the most hated companies in America should wake up and try to work with customers, not against them. Stop trying to get everyone to pay full price for the same content every few years when you push a new medium. Stop trying to rip people off. Offer something more.
This just records whatever you're hearing on your computer. That's ok, and has it's place, but it's not like it's recording distinct songs and labeling them.
If you're completely inept you probably won't get a job, but don't think you'll get a job or won't get one exclusively based on your programming skills. Our field is not a meritocracy. Network, work on your presentation/communication skills, be bold and persistent, etc.
Don't forget to take away medical insurance, as many companies only insure the employee and you have to pay for the rest of the family.
br
So I'd drop that 18k down to 8k. And if you don't have a lot of money, have been out of work and what not, you almost certainly have lots of debt. Makes life quite stressful.
How do you think unionizing would affect offshoring? Would it be more appealing for companies to ship jobs offshore if they thought they would have more trouble in country b/c of unions?
An MBA is a degree received for going to school. It does not certify that you know anything about business or anything else. Most people I know who have gotten an MBA have found the paper valuable, but did not get a lot out of the experience (and this is top schools).