It's my personal opinion (and direct experience) that if you have to exercise to stay thin, there's crap in your diet that's making you gain weight. I used to be 230 pounds, now I'm 185 (which is about right for my height). The only exercise I get is 11 minutes of weight lifting (arms & legs only) twice a week. This I do for vanity only. But diet? That's where the magic is. Remove all man-made food from your diet, return to raw fruits & veggies & nuts & berries, cook 'em sometimes if you have to, cook your own meat, and avoid, to the greatest possible extent, anything that went through a manufacturing plant (you can tell because this stuff comes in boxes and cans). And keep this in mind: Almost anything you eat in a typical restaurant these days went through a manufacturing plant and arrived on a freezer truck.
With this incredibly restrictive diet (which consists of the stuff humanoids have been eating for hundreds of thousands of years, rather than the chemicals and such invented in the last 100 years), your body will return to the weight it naturally prefers. http://darwinshealth.blogspot.com/
I think the gist of this thread is the notion of comparing Cobol jobs to more modern.net and java jobs. We're not really comparing Cobol job to hunting for grubs in the desert.
I couldn't agree more. Saw this happen at the Associated Press. Senior management is devoid of anyone with a clue. If you have one, get out now. Outsourcing is next. Process reorganization is imminent. Town hall meetings with lots of Powerpoints are coming. Team building exercises, interpersonal skills development, and IT management consultants are on your doorstep. The gas-heads minding your store will be an easy sell for them.
Fast forward 4 years...
The 'good' programmers are mostly gone. The gas-heads have replaced mid-management twice. Your company has a few projects outsourced to India. IT management consultants have come and gone by the droves The huge plumb project to merge all your databases into a warehouse was handed off to consultants, who used a platform different from the 'official' one. They screwed it up and now there's a million dollars of hardware gathering dust. (that was your raise/bonus money, eh?) You haven't had a raise or bonus in three years Moral is.... what moral? You wished you had left four years ago
Ok, one more. It occurred to me in 2004 that the AP should offer up a public API to deliver our content, and license editorial tool vendors to use it, so they could essentially bake access to AP content right into the content composition tools. Like you, I saw value in getting our content 'out there' into as many orifices as possible. So I booked a meeting with our Strategic guy - Jim Kennedy (yes, the same one) - and gave him the 20-minute white-board presentation. He asked a few questions, made a few comments, thanked me, and I left. that's the last I ever heard on it. Or from him. Yup, he 'gets' it. Tubes, right?
Ok, one horror story (I've got more)... I was hired by a software engineer at the AP who was doubling as manager. It was a typically nerdy group of folks in the 25-40 yr old range. There were some real brainiacs in the group, and many very nice people. Oh, and one narcissist (Gary). The president at the time, Boccardi, didn't give our senior VP, Reid, much rope, because Reid was an ex-editorial type who gained AP stardom with a few PC scripts in the mid '90s, and really didn't know the first thing about software development or maintenance. And because of this, he made a very bad choice in selecting a new manager (Ron) for our group. Ron in turn made another bad choice - Chuck. Chuck put the narcissist in charge of some people and by 2002 the exit door was spinning faster and faster. So Reid fired some, reassigned others, and brought in a crew from Telcordia, who really "knew" development methodologies, to run the show. This crew did everything 'big', and while they were organizing their big big show, six months went by and not much got done. Fast forward another 6 months, and Reid fired the lot of them (save one or two 'keepers). Everyone held their breath, hoping, nay, praying, for a decent management team. But during all this, Boccardi had retired and a guy from USA Today took over the presidency. A few months after the Big Show folks got sacked, he finally 'parachuted' Reid out of the building (I believe the color of the chute was gold-ish). The new president brought in his own top IT guy (a woman, actually), who loved to outsource everything to California (the AP is located in NYC). I was so impressed with all this I eventually gave the exit door a spin myself and moved on.
I worked for the AP from 2001 thru 2004 as a software engineer. I met Jim Kennedy at that time, who recently said this:
"It is more consistent with the spirit of the Internet to link to content so people can read the whole thing in context."
Believe me, this guy doesn't know the tubey thing from a hole in the ground. To see him preach on the 'spirit of the Internet' is preposterous. He doesn't get it, his colleagues don't get it, and really, there are few left there to get it (trust me, most of the 'good' software engineers have long since fled the AP).
It's sad to say, but what used to be the world's voice of freedom has devolved into back-biting, politicking disaster with a hemorrhaging business model.
I've worked/lived in Toronto, and New York City. My advice is this: Get a job in the target country first. Play your cards right, and your new employer will pay for your move and help you jump through the customs/immigration hurdles.
Been to California (4 weeks), New York (7 years), and Chicago (2 weeks). The pizza in California sux. NYC is better, but I think Chicago gets the nod. Good move Slashdot!
It would take someone as (fictitiously) bright as Colonel Carter or Dr. Rodney McKay to pull this one off. Or maybe Jack "that's TWO e'LL's!" O'Neill could see a 'simple' way through this. They'd just dial all the computers in the world at once and send out their uber-virus.
The last time I got involved with something like this, I asked my employer at the time (Alcan Aluminum) if they would donate their out-going used computers to the local high school. I got a firm "no" - from the lawyers! Liability trumped charitability. Hopefully your mileage will vary!
I met Ben Stein once - riding up an elevator in Manhattan. Had I known he was going to produce a movie like this, I would have kicked him in the shins right then and there. As it was, we chatted and there was no kicking.
Had a soundblaster, soundblaster live, awe64 gold, and after all those years of driver hell, swore I'd never give Creative another penny. 15 years later, not one more penny for any product any time.
If you believe in karma, it's great to see these rip-off bastards get pinched on a driver issue, and take a well-earned walloping. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving company. I'm lovin it Creative. Here's some more bullets... pick a foot.
I've been writing software for 30 years, I can assure you there's no way to make totally secure software. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we'll move on to a real solution. It's almost like the media companies thinking DRM couldn't be hacked.
We need to get over uninformed thinking, and move to a VERIFIABLE system. Whether it's paper or plastic or silicon, all votes must be made public (with individual privacy protected by code numbers or some similar mechanism). With the voting results in full view (perhaps on a website?), everyone and anyone can confirm their vote got counted right, and that the sum total of all votes is correct. With a little extra effort, we could even ensure each vote on the list was cast by a real person.
I know this will remove a lot of power from some very powerful corporations, and all corrupt election-stealing politicians will cry foul, but at the end of the day, public verification is the only true solution. Anyone who disagrees is probably selling 'their' system, in which they, no doubt, have a vested interest.
I worked next door to NBC Headquarters (in Rockefeller Plaza) for five years, hung out with some of their staffers, and even attended their annual Christmas party in 2003. Through all this, I got a bit of a feel for the staff and management at the place. There's probably other/.'ers that can give a more accurate impression, but my feeling was that the rank and file were younger, high-energy folks who couldn't wait to stick their fingers into cool new things and ride the bear.
But the moves management made, and the way senior management was characterized, made them sound like a bunch of old-school power-hungry self-interested sharks who understood little of technology or the way the web was due to undermine their locked-down networks. I won't be sorry to see these dinosaurs eventually get their due. They clearly "don't get it", and likely never will. Hulu is a classic example.
1) Get 3 vendors to bid on replacing it on your platform of choice, without any functionality changes. Triple the price of the lowest bidder, double the price of the highest, and toss the middle guy out. Then ask: Would you rather pay those prices, or live with what you've got?
2) Answer these questions: Is it a mission critical app? Do you have support for all the hardware and software components - or are some so old that you're on your own?
3) Is the existing code really really a mess, or just the usual well-commented mess most programmers like me leave around?
4) What features do you need to add to it in the next year or two? Can they be added reasonably to the existing code base? Will the hardware, OS, etc support the new functionality, or cave under the weight?
5) Do you hate the guy who wrote the original?
Ok, maybe you should weight that last question a little lightly. But at least there's some things to think about before pulling your own plug, or someone else's chain.
Never mind Moore, how about Microsoft's law: "The size of our operating system goes up 50% every five years"
Since Moore is obstensively moving faster than Microsoft, MS's 'footprint' on a given machine, as a total percentage of available disk and memory resources, will decrease with each successive OS release. Their price should decrease accordingly, although (at least today), it's being held artificially high by, well, shareholders demanding profit.
The balloon has gotta pop, and Linux is the likely pin.
Slashdot Mirror
Glad to know I'm not the only one having that problem with paintings.
"thin two-dimensional objects" - hmmm. My oxymoron detector is going off!
It's my personal opinion (and direct experience) that if you have to exercise to stay thin, there's crap in your diet that's making you gain weight. I used to be 230 pounds, now I'm 185 (which is about right for my height). The only exercise I get is 11 minutes of weight lifting (arms & legs only) twice a week. This I do for vanity only. But diet? That's where the magic is. Remove all man-made food from your diet, return to raw fruits & veggies & nuts & berries, cook 'em sometimes if you have to, cook your own meat, and avoid, to the greatest possible extent, anything that went through a manufacturing plant (you can tell because this stuff comes in boxes and cans). And keep this in mind: Almost anything you eat in a typical restaurant these days went through a manufacturing plant and arrived on a freezer truck.
With this incredibly restrictive diet (which consists of the stuff humanoids have been eating for hundreds of thousands of years, rather than the chemicals and such invented in the last 100 years), your body will return to the weight it naturally prefers. http://darwinshealth.blogspot.com/
I think the gist of this thread is the notion of comparing Cobol jobs to more modern .net and java jobs. We're not really comparing Cobol job to hunting for grubs in the desert.
I couldn't agree more. Saw this happen at the Associated Press. Senior management is devoid of anyone with a clue. If you have one, get out now. Outsourcing is next. Process reorganization is imminent. Town hall meetings with lots of Powerpoints are coming. Team building exercises, interpersonal skills development, and IT management consultants are on your doorstep. The gas-heads minding your store will be an easy sell for them.
Fast forward 4 years...
The 'good' programmers are mostly gone.
The gas-heads have replaced mid-management twice.
Your company has a few projects outsourced to India.
IT management consultants have come and gone by the droves
The huge plumb project to merge all your databases into a warehouse was handed off to consultants, who used a platform different from the 'official' one.
They screwed it up and now there's a million dollars of hardware gathering dust. (that was your raise/bonus money, eh?)
You haven't had a raise or bonus in three years
Moral is.... what moral?
You wished you had left four years ago
Run don't walk. Good luck.
Bullocks! Haven't seen a decent Cobol job offer in decades. Unless $35/hr means 'aren't hurting'.
That's an interesting idea Doc - I think I'll give it a spin this evening. Thanks!
Ok, one more. It occurred to me in 2004 that the AP should offer up a public API to deliver our content, and license editorial tool vendors to use it, so they could essentially bake access to AP content right into the content composition tools. Like you, I saw value in getting our content 'out there' into as many orifices as possible. So I booked a meeting with our Strategic guy - Jim Kennedy (yes, the same one) - and gave him the 20-minute white-board presentation. He asked a few questions, made a few comments, thanked me, and I left. that's the last I ever heard on it. Or from him. Yup, he 'gets' it. Tubes, right?
Ok, one horror story (I've got more)... I was hired by a software engineer at the AP who was doubling as manager. It was a typically nerdy group of folks in the 25-40 yr old range. There were some real brainiacs in the group, and many very nice people. Oh, and one narcissist (Gary). The president at the time, Boccardi, didn't give our senior VP, Reid, much rope, because Reid was an ex-editorial type who gained AP stardom with a few PC scripts in the mid '90s, and really didn't know the first thing about software development or maintenance. And because of this, he made a very bad choice in selecting a new manager (Ron) for our group. Ron in turn made another bad choice - Chuck. Chuck put the narcissist in charge of some people and by 2002 the exit door was spinning faster and faster. So Reid fired some, reassigned others, and brought in a crew from Telcordia, who really "knew" development methodologies, to run the show. This crew did everything 'big', and while they were organizing their big big show, six months went by and not much got done. Fast forward another 6 months, and Reid fired the lot of them (save one or two 'keepers). Everyone held their breath, hoping, nay, praying, for a decent management team. But during all this, Boccardi had retired and a guy from USA Today took over the presidency. A few months after the Big Show folks got sacked, he finally 'parachuted' Reid out of the building (I believe the color of the chute was gold-ish). The new president brought in his own top IT guy (a woman, actually), who loved to outsource everything to California (the AP is located in NYC). I was so impressed with all this I eventually gave the exit door a spin myself and moved on.
I worked for the AP from 2001 thru 2004 as a software engineer. I met Jim Kennedy at that time, who recently said this:
"It is more consistent with the spirit of the Internet to link to content so people can read the whole thing in context."
Believe me, this guy doesn't know the tubey thing from a hole in the ground. To see him preach on the 'spirit of the Internet' is preposterous. He doesn't get it, his colleagues don't get it, and really, there are few left there to get it (trust me, most of the 'good' software engineers have long since fled the AP).
It's sad to say, but what used to be the world's voice of freedom has devolved into back-biting, politicking disaster with a hemorrhaging business model.
I've worked/lived in Toronto, and New York City. My advice is this: Get a job in the target country first. Play your cards right, and your new employer will pay for your move and help you jump through the customs/immigration hurdles.
Poor bastard - SCO? Get any on ya?
I think it's the 'stranger toppings' that bugs me about California pizza. Avocado, tofu & organic sea salt? Puhleeze!
Been to California (4 weeks), New York (7 years), and Chicago (2 weeks). The pizza in California sux. NYC is better, but I think Chicago gets the nod. Good move Slashdot!
It would take someone as (fictitiously) bright as Colonel Carter or Dr. Rodney McKay to pull this one off. Or maybe Jack "that's TWO e'LL's!" O'Neill could see a 'simple' way through this. They'd just dial all the computers in the world at once and send out their uber-virus.
The last time I got involved with something like this, I asked my employer at the time (Alcan Aluminum) if they would donate their out-going used computers to the local high school. I got a firm "no" - from the lawyers! Liability trumped charitability. Hopefully your mileage will vary!
Wonder where you get your numbers?
MS quotes Vista licenses as 'sold' once they're in the channel, not when they actually get installed on a real user's machine.
"2nd most used OS in the world for desktop PCs and laptops" - show us your source!
I met Ben Stein once - riding up an elevator in Manhattan. Had I known he was going to produce a movie like this, I would have kicked him in the shins right then and there. As it was, we chatted and there was no kicking.
Had a soundblaster, soundblaster live, awe64 gold, and after all those years of driver hell, swore I'd never give Creative another penny. 15 years later, not one more penny for any product any time.
If you believe in karma, it's great to see these rip-off bastards get pinched on a driver issue, and take a well-earned walloping. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving company. I'm lovin it Creative. Here's some more bullets... pick a foot.
I've been writing software for 30 years, I can assure you there's no way to make totally secure software. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we'll move on to a real solution. It's almost like the media companies thinking DRM couldn't be hacked.
We need to get over uninformed thinking, and move to a VERIFIABLE system. Whether it's paper or plastic or silicon, all votes must be made public (with individual privacy protected by code numbers or some similar mechanism). With the voting results in full view (perhaps on a website?), everyone and anyone can confirm their vote got counted right, and that the sum total of all votes is correct. With a little extra effort, we could even ensure each vote on the list was cast by a real person.
I know this will remove a lot of power from some very powerful corporations, and all corrupt election-stealing politicians will cry foul, but at the end of the day, public verification is the only true solution. Anyone who disagrees is probably selling 'their' system, in which they, no doubt, have a vested interest.
I worked next door to NBC Headquarters (in Rockefeller Plaza) for five years, hung out with some of their staffers, and even attended their annual Christmas party in 2003. Through all this, I got a bit of a feel for the staff and management at the place. There's probably other /.'ers that can give a more accurate impression, but my feeling was that the rank and file were younger, high-energy folks who couldn't wait to stick their fingers into cool new things and ride the bear.
But the moves management made, and the way senior management was characterized, made them sound like a bunch of old-school power-hungry self-interested sharks who understood little of technology or the way the web was due to undermine their locked-down networks. I won't be sorry to see these dinosaurs eventually get their due. They clearly "don't get it", and likely never will. Hulu is a classic example.
Here's what I'd recommend:
1) Get 3 vendors to bid on replacing it on your platform of choice, without any functionality changes. Triple the price of the lowest bidder, double the price of the highest, and toss the middle guy out. Then ask: Would you rather pay those prices, or live with what you've got?
2) Answer these questions: Is it a mission critical app? Do you have support for all the hardware and software components - or are some so old that you're on your own?
3) Is the existing code really really a mess, or just the usual well-commented mess most programmers like me leave around?
4) What features do you need to add to it in the next year or two? Can they be added reasonably to the existing code base? Will the hardware, OS, etc support the new functionality, or cave under the weight?
5) Do you hate the guy who wrote the original?
Ok, maybe you should weight that last question a little lightly. But at least there's some things to think about before pulling your own plug, or someone else's chain.
Never mind Moore, how about Microsoft's law: "The size of our operating system goes up 50% every five years"
Since Moore is obstensively moving faster than Microsoft, MS's 'footprint' on a given machine, as a total percentage of available disk and memory resources, will decrease with each successive OS release. Their price should decrease accordingly, although (at least today), it's being held artificially high by, well, shareholders demanding profit.
The balloon has gotta pop, and Linux is the likely pin.
...open source development principles?
What are those, exactly? I'll bet he couldn't name them. I'll bet no one can. It's a bazaar, not a cathedral!
You read the whole thing? You are sooooooooo doomed. While you were doing all that reading, Sony installed a rootkit on your machine.