I believe that directly cooling components via liquid is way more effective than pushing some air around.
Think air cooled (loud and ineffective) vehicles compared to modern liquid cooled vehicles, that circulate liquid inside the engine (not the combustion chamber of course)...
I agree with the extra cost for the technology, however you could still use the same components if you e.g. submerge things in oil, that does not harm components and does not conduct electricity.
According to wikipedia "The term video (from Latin: "I see") commonly refers to several storage formats for moving pictures"
This - in my head (brain if I have any left) means people who can see, and not significantly visually impaired.
Sorry (and call me troll) is like someone suing Apple for the ipod to be not deaf friendly, even after several mails to make is usable for the hearing impaired.
WTF is wrong withe people..... I would kill myself if I went blind, but suing Sony for the video console not being blind friendly? That person's problem is not called "visually impaired" it is called FUCKING STUPID!
I am not trolling, but you might want to add "Virtual" civilians to your sentences. Yes, even though I am vegan I cannot resist shooting the bunny in Arma 2 when it is hopping around on the battlefield.......
And many people cannot tell the difference between 720p 1080p or 480i for that matter. They also cannot tell the difference between a crappy and a good paintjob on a car/bike or distinguish a Harley from a chinese chopper with a 250 engine.
Depends on the music too. Most people use the standard crap iphone (and alike) head phones for crap encoded mp3.....
Then there are people who do not care because they are too old, busy, deaf or ignorant.
For me: I sometimes resent that I need good sound quality, 1080p where ever possible, and my bikes cost twice as much as my car costs. I also can make a difference between a bad and good paint job, but never wash my car (only my bikes) and my old trusted BMW's clear coat is literally peeling left and right...... because I really really do not give a doo-doo.
I think most people do not give a doo-doo about the quality of anything anymore. Mass crap rules, so yeah, encode it in 48kbit so you can stuff more on a cheap drive....
I work in the gaming industry for the last 8 years currently as a programmer, just like you at a place where gambling operations are legal. Before working as a programmer I worked as a sysadmin and for a year as a manager (with technical duties too). I have a formal college degree and I pay taxes and report my income. So does the company where I have a full time consultant (oxymoron??) deal.
What I see this far is that there are good and bad guys in the industry. While I consider casinos a total scam (even the honest ones) sports betting operations are usually a lot better. Also credit vs post-up operations differ a lot from each other post up ones being more problematic (charge backs, books does not want to pay, legal problems with US gamblers, etc).
About the US concern: our company does not accept US bettors' money, is completely legal here and so writing programs (or maintaining them) is not illegal by any standards. I see more contacts and work in the industry than at any other workplace this far. Everyone knows everyone and if you are willing to do and can take a little stress here and there you will have people wanting to hire you left and right. Mostly from the gaming industry though.
There is a movie with a quote "Where there is gambling there are criminals", and take this as an advice. There are people in the industry I do not want to talk to, do not want to be seen with, do not want to know and feel extremely uncomfortable around. Not necessarily criminals, but people whose behavior is not compatible with my standards, but then again I saw upper management at the largest computer manufacturer's IT/Middleware division who did not behave much better than that.
So... my bet (pun intended) is that you have to look at the environment and the people you will have to work with/for and make a decision. Also find out about what sites/services they run and google the hell out of it. If you see that there are payout complaints and similar issues; RUN. I once worked at a place where it became evident that they were ripping people off, I quit after the next paycheck.
Oh, consider that at gaming operations you might have to deal with extreme paranoia if you are anywhere near their data (financial or player info). You do not want to steal and email out their player list or do something similarly stupid. Be clear about not wanting to see any data or make sure you follow protocol near data. If you are tempted to "prove that their security sucks" either make sure they know your are about to demonstrate something or do not do it. Trust me on that one.....
Soooo.. this is my 5c of advice, just use common sense and if you see something wrong just pack your stuff and go somewhere else. Cheers
So we are back in those times where the computer was the keyboard, or the keyboard was the computer? And we can look at it on the TV. I miss my 12'' Junosty brand russian B&W set I used with my ZX Spectrum and Commodore later on.
There was a break-in a few years ago in a Hungarian computer lab, and the geniuses thought they were in that era by the way. So they stole all the computers... well, that is what they thought while taking all the keyboards instead..
While I am a programmer and try to buy all the software I use I find it difficult with some products to keep up with the upgrades.
BLOAT: For example Word & Excel (Office) - to keep bashing M$ - is a bloat. There is not really a version which is minimal enough for my needs. I really-really do not need all the crap that ships with MS Office. I do not use their mail, I do not use anything other than Excel and Word. I would be happy with a minimal version, or a second hand version of Office 2003 (the one I use on my Mac). Still, document formats are forced on people and most people just HAVE TO get it, and then do not want to pay because they feel they are buying the same product over and over. Oh, did I mention SPACE? Yeah, to read a document I really need to have gigabites of crap installed on my systems? I know I can select packages, but they still install a crap load of libraries and all that what would not be needed by just e.g. Word and Excel.
PRICE: I use almost only free software to develop. Jedit, vi, whatever, but form time to time I need something that costs money. Most of the time I am faced with a price tag of $50-100 for an app I would use once (e.g. to decode a stored procedure or to save in a special format, or to repair an installation)....
Version & function Here is Zend studio for example: I simply hate the new version, I cannot make peace with that eclipse bloated horror. I love the old version and the functions in it are more than satisfactory for my PHP needs. But can I buy it? No. I cannot/do not want to use the new version and I cannot buy the old version, so my option is: pirate it - since it is against my standards I am trying to use something else, but this old yet unavailable version is something I go back to from time to time.
I think companies should have more options and combinations of their products, for the utility kind of things there should be a 10-day license too so people would more likely to buy the version they need instead of pirating it.
Since I work on Mac, play on Windows and have some devices like a dvd/divx player and a ps3 for play/video, I am restricted mostly to Fat32 for R/W on OSX and Windows. I ended up carrying a 160G drive 80/80 gigs for Mac OS Journaled and Fat32......
In fact I had a dilemma with Firewire and USB, so I got aMacally enclosure that has both. Oh yes, like that I sometimes end up copying stuff from partition to partition.
At least the PS3 can stream videos from my Mac share, so I am covered with that one, and unless it is something huge I just shove it over my gigabit hub (Time Capsule)
I feel so lucky, that even though 99.9 percent of our IT is based on MS Windows, I can peacefully develop in non-MS languages (php,perl mainly) with mostly free development tools. Even though I use 2 Macs at the office and 2 others at home, I have no problems or interoperability problems whatsoever. No one forces me to use Word, Exchange (pop/imap is just lovely) or anything that would be a problem on a Mac. In months the first problem I faced was an invitation (calendar event) my Thunderbird did not quite understand - needless to say it came from an MS oriented development firm.
I hate comparisons like this. The people who use Macs in an environment they can use Macs in. If I had to use all the MS tools, protocols or develop in MS Visual Whatever I would use a Windows machine logically. They fit many things, and they do not fit many things. When 30% of your work is in shell mode on Unix servers then OSX is a beautiful alternative and MS is horror. So what do people compare... now I should run and get a Windows laptop?
When I interview people, my manager usually tells how family friendly the company is, but unfortunately it is a 24/7 business so they expect them to work 6 days a week, no vacations during the season (Sept-February), and absolutely no holidays off (double pay is the law in the country, which is of course honored).
And then there is no decision left to make: the ones who are good look for something else, the rest stay, but then I give them the most simple test I can possibly live with, hoping that they can cope with creating html forms and simple reports with time...
Here is this stored procedure, it gives a simple report, call it from a program and put it in a table on a web page (html). It is sorted on e.g. Agent, Customer. Usually I ask them to send values from a form, and then generate the call from the values for the SP.
When you find a new agent (prevAgent != currAgent), please print a "total" line with totals from the values, when there are no more records print the last agent totals followed by a grand total.....
They are allowed to use anything, but are restricted to a non-visual environment, such as PHP , ASP (Jscript), Perl, or whatever they want and does not generate code from clicking and dragging&dropping...
Even though I set the limits this low for the last interviews (we just needed some help with simple web reports), the results are usually devastating...
Most candidates go as far as putting up the tables fine, but when it comes to the simple task of putting totals or implementing a "hold value" for the Agents, it is catastrophic. Totals at row 0, no totals after the last, totals before the last agent group.......
I do not know what you are recruiting for, but my tip is this: sit them down, pay for the day and see what they do with 4-6 hours of time.
I do not have a problem with a developer entering "php date yesterday" into google. I have a problem with people who copy paste crap they do not understand or those who stick to a visual environment without the basic knowledge to walk through arrays or are stuck at problems without trying to even resource them....
While the 2nd type will pass your test, the 1st type will even refuse it. You might be throwing people out who can program in 3-5 languages, but are scared of being asked language specific questions you would normally use the reference for.
Please post some of the questions, I am really curious...
Hmm... well... I have an X52 with CH pedals.... and I do not have ACE combat....
You see, the PS3 graphics are amazing (I have a 40" LCD 3 feet away on 1080p), but one huge missing thing for any driving game or simulator for me is a TRACKIR...
I first built a freetrack from a wii controller and some infrared LEDs, then got a trackir. Like 2 months ago. Since then I do not play any game that does not support it (Americasarmy is an exception). In fact when buying games it is a deal breaker for me.
so your name would be xbl.marcansoft psn.marcansoft pc.marcansoft wii.marcansoft.... that is just about the nick namespace...
I strongly believe that there could be a game that worked in PS3, 360 and PC, but knowing the consoles' memory limitations I know that there would be a serious limitation on what game you can port.
I only pay FPS (mostly tactical). Ghost recon: totally different (pc vs console) COD: small differences : e.g. you can lean on pc, not on console.....
And then the controls: I like game pads, but I love my Saitek flight system control (does not work on consoles), my G25 Logi wheel (works on PS3) and my TrackIR (only works on pc)....
So in an a game like ARMA II or Battlefield, where you can drive, fly and FPS match up the PC guy who can literally look around with Trackir and set up macros with a keyboard (or use command pads, mouse and WHATEVER, even a wiimote to play) , with a flight system with throttle, pedals an all, and a complete driving system (pedals with clutch and 6 position shifter) with the guy on the 360 who has a choice : MS gamepad, and maybe a (pretty crappy) steering wheel..
See how fast those guys will 1. never play the game again because they get killed in an instant, 2. buy a PC and forget about the consoles....
Do not get me wrong, I had a 360 (red ring, dead), a PS3 (I only use it as a video player now).... and guess where I went back : getting a pc so I can drive a car with a wheel, fly a plane with a flight system and play an FPS with a mouse.....
Did I forget: get the FULL version of an FPS, not the dumbed down version that has half the maps and half the functions, and then I have to pay for a few crappy extra maps...... hell they do not evern release map packs that much on PSN...just an other $60 game, which is almost the same, but has 5 different maps.....
100% agreed...... a colleague of mine keeps telling me how we should get one, and I just keep repeating that I would better get a 3rd enduro bike or another car 100 times more than shell out a bunch of money for s Segway that is absolutely no use to me.
On top of that I live in Costa Rica so the only option here is the rugged/offroad(ish) version as there is no sidewalk, if there is sidewalk there is no wheelchair/skate/bike ramp, there is no bike lane and roads have holes and people who cannot drive at all....
In Central America (I live now in Costa Rica) there is no daylight savings.
Why? When they tried to introduce it, it simply did not work with the farmers.
It is daylight from 5:30-18:00 here, and when you try to tell to people that now they have to go and feed the animals in the dark, or try to get animals to the fields in the dark.... well.... you will have angry farmers who will refuse the change. And then there are people who are used to be up from 5:00 till like 9-10pm.... Tell them to start the day in total darkness instead of dusk....
1.you get superior reception (my new Garmin gpsmap 60cx can get a reception on forest trails, under trees, and even inside my house at certain places) 2. you get 12+ hours operation on 2 AA batteries 3. you can get rugged models (water proof, shock proof - my iphone would get trashed withing 1 hour of offroading) 4. you do not share the device with phone calls, music etc), and that also means that you still have a phone if you trash your gps and you still have a gps if you trash your phone on the trail... both which can be used to locate you at least... 5. you get maps... I know nokias have garmin maps (which is the only map you can get for Costa Rica with full routing).... but my iphone has no maps for example, and my last Nokia (business edition expensive trash) is so unreliable and crashing that I would not trust that at all with telling me my location
6. accessories: you get mounts for bikes, cars, boats, you can connect antennas, 7. You can link it to a pc, pocketpc, on any OS that can read serial data (use it just as an external module) 8. Cell phones suck battery like crazy when they are out of service are and are trying to reconnect - where I need a GPS there is usually no reception.. so...
Well... for me the GPS is for my dive bag and my offroad bike, and take it to explore new trails with my wife and my dogs...... so I need a rugged standalone unit....
If I lived in a big city I might just use my cellphone , but out here this is not a good idea
Regardless of what it is about, it is the worst short film/clip/propaganda I have seen in a long time. That includes local (Costa Rican) commercials and Latin American soap operas.....
I do not know if it is actually AWESOME, but a strong one for sure...... kind of like a German / Eastern European one.... strange, even after 8 years of speaking English almost exclusively at home and at work, with some Spanish now on the side......
Actually people tell me that I am influencing my wife's accent in English which is really scary as she is a native Spanish/English speaker.
Where I live (Costa Rica) it is a tidbit better than where I used to live before (Hungary), but generally at both places the sad truth comes down to this:
1. no one cares/respects bikes 2. when you are on the sidewalk you are a damn bicycle 3. when you are on the road you are not a vehicle enough - people would actually pull out in front of you thinking that you are just a bike and will definitely stop easily.... I ended up on the windshield like that once and believe me I have total control over my brakes and the bike as I was racing for years (now doing enduro which is a more high speed activity) 4. when you are on the bike lane (which is shared/divided by a line from the walking lane) you get people walking on the bike lane and I actually got into a fight over people blocking the way and then making nasty comments when you politely remind them that the pedestrian part of the was is over the line... (it sucks to tell a dad in front of his family to please not get beaten up by you in front of the whole family and to politely stand down before bad things happen when he runs at you in a fist-fight position).... 5. If there is no physical protection on the lane it is used to : a: overtake other cars b: park cars
Well at least in Hungary there is a bicycle lane in the capital (dunno what is up with other cities) and mostly it is a lane divided from the sidewalk, but in Costa Rica there is not even a sidewalk for pedestrians... which sucks as I love to walk to places. Never rode a bicycle here, but have several heated conversation while riding my motorbike and idiots do not respect your way at all.......
Most bikers generally agree that if something happens here, just gently kick the door/blinkers of the car if an apology does not follow - motocross boots can do some damage with one single kick...... I personally prefer to confront people and explain to them to respect bikers because one day someone will beat the crap out of them if you push the wrong biker too much. Hitting on the roof and screaming at the driver usually provides them with enough of a shock to look out before turning the next time....
Back to the topic: maybe in 50 years when we decide to build side walks bigger than 1meter and when these people learn how to keep their own lane.... maybe then.. just maybe we can have projected lanes.... yeah right
"leave out the whole screaming-in-horrendous-agony part of war"
This is not to bad mount the army or hurt anyone's feeling, but you have to know (as you know) that the game is a recruiting too.
They went the extra step and made sure that you get hurt when you get shot, and that is great for people who like to play tactical, and for the idiots who think war is like doom where you respawn 100 times.
But how would that recruiting factor be if people splashed to the walls and screamed with missing legs after a grenade explosion and then your "real heroes" cut-scene would show football size fields with caskets.
In video games there is usually some detail that needs to be sacrificed for the fun factor to remain or to reach other goals (performance, or this time the recruiting factor).
Then again I had relatives in different wars (how about 2 uncles, 1 fighting the German side, the other in the French legion, both dead) and I leaned that for me the only reason to enlist would be an invasion of my country, and even that it would be an army other than the US army for the reason that I am not living in the US.
So for me what important is the tactical gaming aspect in the game and the fun factor.
But: I am with you. I would put the screaming and flying body parts into the game and this is not because I am a sick person who loves to see suffering, but because those kids who play the game then enlist (maybe the game was just the extra 5% in the decision) would actually realize that there is a lot of suffering, bad treatment and terrible/fatal consequences of participating in any kind of warfare.
Just my 2c.... and I do not shoot with anything at anyone/anything living in real life, OK the monthly paintball game might be an exception.
Actually there was an other patch which fixed some things yesterday. However it seems it broke some other things.
I was actually able to play more than an hour on release day and not even from the US, and lag wasn't bad at all.
Yesterday however I had more problems than before and was barely able to join anything, then finally the server list function died completely.
Well, I guess most of the people wanted to have a nice Friday nigh AA release play night and just pawned the servers to death again.
I honestly do not think you need to wait a few weeks, the game looks really great and to me all it looks like is that they do not have enough servers. I did not take the extra step and see how many different IPs you actually try to connect to (I doubt that it is one IP, rather than a round robin's DNS setup where xxx.americasarmy.com would resolve to a load of ips)..... but I assume they made the game scalable so it is mostly a matter of throwing more hardware at it. I might be completely wrong, maybe it is underpowered load balancers or actual broken code on the client side.
Either way if you try enough you can join a room and actually have a really nice game play. I love the genre of tactical shooters (sims) and also just preordered ARMA II from steam (cannot wait). That is not to say that I do not enjoy a little BF2 or COD4 pawnage, but AA and ARMA II is just something I am willing to play even with bugs.
I think you are referring to "which can convert regular 2D movies to 3D ".... I also kept wondering about that feature! Must be like one of the virtual surround sound devices that can take mono and turn it into a nice effect which makes you feel like sitting in a coke can...
Excuse me, but I am not putting my family in that.... my 12 year old BMW is 300x safer than that paperbox.... and uses 7-8l / 100 kms... go calculate how much that in in MPG...
On the other hand : that efficiency is not going to happen... so I just keep restoring my 2-stroke dirtbike till they ban them eveywhere... ohh... I am really a tree hugger and a vegan....
Interestingly in Costa Rica people tend to call it CPU, and I have even seen it in advertisements in newspapers/online/TV.
Frankly CPU actually makes some sense, since "the box" is the Central Processing Unit to which you attach your peripherals (from the users' standpoint at least).
What drives me nuts when they call the tire "wheel" on a car or bike, Here you have a lot of flats (bad roads) and you never know what happened and if you are going to shell out $$ for a tyre (tire?) or a lot more $$$$$ for new wheels when your wife tells you she has to change her "wheels"....
Slashdot Mirror
I believe that directly cooling components via liquid is way more effective than pushing some air around.
Think air cooled (loud and ineffective) vehicles compared to modern liquid cooled vehicles, that circulate liquid inside the engine (not the combustion chamber of course)...
I agree with the extra cost for the technology, however you could still use the same components if you e.g. submerge things in oil, that does not harm components and does not conduct electricity.
According to wikipedia "The term video (from Latin: "I see") commonly refers to several storage formats for moving pictures"
This - in my head (brain if I have any left) means people who can see, and not significantly visually impaired.
Sorry (and call me troll) is like someone suing Apple for the ipod to be not deaf friendly, even after several mails to make is usable for the hearing impaired.
WTF is wrong withe people..... I would kill myself if I went blind, but suing Sony for the video console not being blind friendly? That person's problem is not called "visually impaired" it is called FUCKING STUPID!
I am not trolling, but you might want to add "Virtual" civilians to your sentences. Yes, even though I am vegan I cannot resist shooting the bunny in Arma 2 when it is hopping around on the battlefield.......
Shooting virtual things is not the same.....
And many people cannot tell the difference between 720p 1080p or 480i for that matter. They also cannot tell the difference between a crappy and a good paintjob on a car/bike or distinguish a Harley from a chinese chopper with a 250 engine.
Depends on the music too. Most people use the standard crap iphone (and alike) head phones for crap encoded mp3.....
Then there are people who do not care because they are too old, busy, deaf or ignorant.
For me: I sometimes resent that I need good sound quality, 1080p where ever possible, and my bikes cost twice as much as my car costs. I also can make a difference between a bad and good paint job, but never wash my car (only my bikes) and my old trusted BMW's clear coat is literally peeling left and right ...... because I really really do not give a doo-doo.
I think most people do not give a doo-doo about the quality of anything anymore. Mass crap rules, so yeah, encode it in 48kbit so you can stuff more on a cheap drive....
I work in the gaming industry for the last 8 years currently as a programmer, just like you at a place where gambling operations are legal. Before working as a programmer I worked as a sysadmin and for a year as a manager (with technical duties too). I have a formal college degree and I pay taxes and report my income. So does the company where I have a full time consultant (oxymoron??) deal.
What I see this far is that there are good and bad guys in the industry. While I consider casinos a total scam (even the honest ones) sports betting operations are usually a lot better. Also credit vs post-up operations differ a lot from each other post up ones being more problematic (charge backs, books does not want to pay, legal problems with US gamblers, etc).
About the US concern: our company does not accept US bettors' money, is completely legal here and so writing programs (or maintaining them) is not illegal by any standards. I see more contacts and work in the industry than at any other workplace this far. Everyone knows everyone and if you are willing to do and can take a little stress here and there you will have people wanting to hire you left and right. Mostly from the gaming industry though.
There is a movie with a quote "Where there is gambling there are criminals", and take this as an advice. There are people in the industry I do not want to talk to, do not want to be seen with, do not want to know and feel extremely uncomfortable around. Not necessarily criminals, but people whose behavior is not compatible with my standards, but then again I saw upper management at the largest computer manufacturer's IT/Middleware division who did not behave much better than that.
So... my bet (pun intended) is that you have to look at the environment and the people you will have to work with/for and make a decision. Also find out about what sites/services they run and google the hell out of it. If you see that there are payout complaints and similar issues; RUN.
I once worked at a place where it became evident that they were ripping people off, I quit after the next paycheck.
Oh, consider that at gaming operations you might have to deal with extreme paranoia if you are anywhere near their data (financial or player info). You do not want to steal and email out their player list or do something similarly stupid. Be clear about not wanting to see any data or make sure you follow protocol near data. If you are tempted to "prove that their security sucks" either make sure they know your are about to demonstrate something or do not do it. Trust me on that one.....
Soooo.. this is my 5c of advice, just use common sense and if you see something wrong just pack your stuff and go somewhere else.
Cheers
So we are back in those times where the computer was the keyboard, or the keyboard was the computer? And we can look at it on the TV. I miss my 12'' Junosty brand russian B&W set I used with my ZX Spectrum and Commodore later on.
There was a break-in a few years ago in a Hungarian computer lab, and the geniuses thought they were in that era by the way. So they stole all the computers ... well, that is what they thought while taking all the keyboards instead..
While I am a programmer and try to buy all the software I use I find it difficult with some products to keep up with the upgrades.
BLOAT:
For example Word & Excel (Office) - to keep bashing M$ - is a bloat. There is not really a version which is minimal enough for my needs. I really-really do not need all the crap that ships with MS Office. I do not use their mail, I do not use anything other than Excel and Word. I would be happy with a minimal version, or a second hand version of Office 2003 (the one I use on my Mac). Still, document formats are forced on people and most people just HAVE TO get it, and then do not want to pay because they feel they are buying the same product over and over. Oh, did I mention SPACE? Yeah, to read a document I really need to have gigabites of crap installed on my systems? I know I can select packages, but they still install a crap load of libraries and all that what would not be needed by just e.g. Word and Excel.
PRICE:
I use almost only free software to develop. Jedit, vi, whatever, but form time to time I need something that costs money. Most of the time I am faced with a price tag of $50-100 for an app I would use once (e.g. to decode a stored procedure or to save in a special format, or to repair an installation)....
Version & function
Here is Zend studio for example: I simply hate the new version, I cannot make peace with that eclipse bloated horror. I love the old version and the functions in it are more than satisfactory for my PHP needs. But can I buy it? No. I cannot/do not want to use the new version and I cannot buy the old version, so my option is: pirate it - since it is against my standards I am trying to use something else, but this old yet unavailable version is something I go back to from time to time.
I think companies should have more options and combinations of their products, for the utility kind of things there should be a 10-day license too so people would more likely to buy the version they need instead of pirating it.
On top of this you could actually send AJAX requests while editing to see if someone is requesting the data. Carefully, considering performance.
An other option is to check-out, check-in with a session. In this case of course you need to make sure if a checked-out file's session is still alive.
Since I work on Mac, play on Windows and have some devices like a dvd/divx player and a ps3 for play/video, I am restricted mostly to Fat32 for R/W on OSX and Windows.
I ended up carrying a 160G drive 80/80 gigs for Mac OS Journaled and Fat32......
In fact I had a dilemma with Firewire and USB, so I got aMacally enclosure that has both.
Oh yes, like that I sometimes end up copying stuff from partition to partition.
At least the PS3 can stream videos from my Mac share, so I am covered with that one, and unless it is something huge I just shove it over my gigabit hub (Time Capsule)
I feel so lucky, that even though 99.9 percent of our IT is based on MS Windows, I can peacefully develop in non-MS languages (php,perl mainly) with mostly free development tools. Even though I use 2 Macs at the office and 2 others at home, I have no problems or interoperability problems whatsoever. No one forces me to use Word, Exchange (pop/imap is just lovely) or anything that would be a problem on a Mac. In months the first problem I faced was an invitation (calendar event) my Thunderbird did not quite understand - needless to say it came from an MS oriented development firm.
I hate comparisons like this. The people who use Macs in an environment they can use Macs in. If I had to use all the MS tools, protocols or develop in MS Visual Whatever I would use a Windows machine logically. They fit many things, and they do not fit many things.
When 30% of your work is in shell mode on Unix servers then OSX is a beautiful alternative and MS is horror. So what do people compare... now I should run and get a Windows laptop?
This is not going to be too much help...
When I interview people, my manager usually tells how family friendly the company is, but unfortunately it is a 24/7 business so they expect them to work 6 days a week, no vacations during the season (Sept-February), and absolutely no holidays off (double pay is the law in the country, which is of course honored).
And then there is no decision left to make: the ones who are good look for something else, the rest stay, but then I give them the most simple test I can possibly live with, hoping that they can cope with creating html forms and simple reports with time...
Here is this stored procedure, it gives a simple report, call it from a program and put it in a table on a web page (html). It is sorted on e.g. Agent, Customer. Usually I ask them to send values from a form, and then generate the call from the values for the SP.
When you find a new agent (prevAgent != currAgent), please print a "total" line with totals from the values, when there are no more records print the last agent totals followed by a grand total.....
They are allowed to use anything, but are restricted to a non-visual environment, such as PHP , ASP (Jscript), Perl, or whatever they want and does not generate code from clicking and dragging&dropping...
Even though I set the limits this low for the last interviews (we just needed some help with simple web reports), the results are usually devastating...
Most candidates go as far as putting up the tables fine, but when it comes to the simple task of putting totals or implementing a "hold value" for the Agents, it is catastrophic. Totals at row 0, no totals after the last, totals before the last agent group.......
I do not know what you are recruiting for, but my tip is this: sit them down, pay for the day and see what they do with 4-6 hours of time.
I do not have a problem with a developer entering "php date yesterday" into google. I have a problem with people who copy paste crap they do not understand or those who stick to a visual environment without the basic knowledge to walk through arrays or are stuck at problems without trying to even resource them....
While the 2nd type will pass your test, the 1st type will even refuse it. You might be throwing people out who can program in 3-5 languages, but are scared of being asked language specific questions you would normally use the reference for.
Please post some of the questions, I am really curious...
Hmm... well ... I have an X52 with CH pedals.... and I do not have ACE combat....
You see, the PS3 graphics are amazing (I have a 40" LCD 3 feet away on 1080p), but one huge missing thing for any driving game or simulator for me is a TRACKIR...
I first built a freetrack from a wii controller and some infrared LEDs, then got a trackir. Like 2 months ago. Since then I do not play any game that does not support it (Americasarmy is an exception). In fact when buying games it is a deal breaker for me.
so your name would be .... that is just about the nick namespace...
xbl.marcansoft
psn.marcansoft
pc.marcansoft
wii.marcansoft
I strongly believe that there could be a game that worked in PS3, 360 and PC, but knowing the consoles' memory limitations I know that there would be a serious limitation on what game you can port.
I only pay FPS (mostly tactical). Ghost recon: totally different (pc vs console) COD: small differences : e.g. you can lean on pc, not on console.....
And then the controls: I like game pads, but I love my Saitek flight system control (does not work on consoles), my G25 Logi wheel (works on PS3) and my TrackIR (only works on pc)....
So in an a game like ARMA II or Battlefield, where you can drive, fly and FPS match up the PC guy who can literally look around with Trackir and set up macros with a keyboard (or use command pads, mouse and WHATEVER, even a wiimote to play) , with a flight system with throttle, pedals an all, and a complete driving system (pedals with clutch and 6 position shifter) with the guy on the 360 who has a choice : MS gamepad, and maybe a (pretty crappy) steering wheel..
See how fast those guys will 1. never play the game again because they get killed in an instant, 2. buy a PC and forget about the consoles....
Do not get me wrong, I had a 360 (red ring, dead), a PS3 (I only use it as a video player now) .... and guess where I went back : getting a pc so I can drive a car with a wheel, fly a plane with a flight system and play an FPS with a mouse .....
Did I forget: get the FULL version of an FPS, not the dumbed down version that has half the maps and half the functions, and then I have to pay for a few crappy extra maps...... hell they do not evern release map packs that much on PSN .. .just an other $60 game, which is almost the same, but has 5 different maps.....
100% agreed ...... a colleague of mine keeps telling me how we should get one, and I just keep repeating that I would better get a 3rd enduro bike or another car 100 times more than shell out a bunch of money for s Segway that is absolutely no use to me.
On top of that I live in Costa Rica so the only option here is the rugged/offroad(ish) version as there is no sidewalk, if there is sidewalk there is no wheelchair/skate/bike ramp, there is no bike lane and roads have holes and people who cannot drive at all....
In Central America (I live now in Costa Rica) there is no daylight savings.
Why? When they tried to introduce it, it simply did not work with the farmers.
It is daylight from 5:30-18:00 here, and when you try to tell to people that now they have to go and feed the animals in the dark, or try to get animals to the fields in the dark .... well .... you will have angry farmers who will refuse the change. And then there are people who are used to be up from 5:00 till like 9-10pm.... Tell them to start the day in total darkness instead of dusk....
I for one use a standalone unit because:
1.you get superior reception (my new Garmin gpsmap 60cx can get a reception on forest trails, under trees, and even inside my house at certain places) ... both which can be used to locate you at least... ... I know nokias have garmin maps (which is the only map you can get for Costa Rica with full routing).... but my iphone has no maps for example, and my last Nokia (business edition expensive trash) is so unreliable and crashing that I would not trust that at all with telling me my location
2. you get 12+ hours operation on 2 AA batteries
3. you can get rugged models (water proof, shock proof - my iphone would get trashed withing 1 hour of offroading)
4. you do not share the device with phone calls, music etc), and that also means that you still have a phone if you trash your gps and you still have a gps if you trash your phone on the trail
5. you get maps
6. accessories: you get mounts for bikes, cars, boats, you can connect antennas, .. so ...
7. You can link it to a pc, pocketpc, on any OS that can read serial data (use it just as an external module)
8. Cell phones suck battery like crazy when they are out of service are and are trying to reconnect - where I need a GPS there is usually no reception
Well... for me the GPS is for my dive bag and my offroad bike, and take it to explore new trails with my wife and my dogs ...... so I need a rugged standalone unit....
If I lived in a big city I might just use my cellphone , but out here this is not a good idea
Regardless of what it is about, it is the worst short film/clip/propaganda I have seen in a long time. That includes local (Costa Rican) commercials and Latin American soap operas .....
OMG .... shame on you for making me watch this
I do not know if it is actually AWESOME, but a strong one for sure ...... kind of like a German / Eastern European one.... strange, even after 8 years of speaking English almost exclusively at home and at work, with some Spanish now on the side......
Actually people tell me that I am influencing my wife's accent in English which is really scary as she is a native Spanish/English speaker.
Where I live (Costa Rica) it is a tidbit better than where I used to live before (Hungary), but generally at both places the sad truth comes down to this:
1. no one cares/respects bikes ... (it sucks to tell a dad in front of his family to please not get beaten up by you in front of the whole family and to politely stand down before bad things happen when he runs at you in a fist-fight position)....
2. when you are on the sidewalk you are a damn bicycle
3. when you are on the road you are not a vehicle enough - people would actually pull out in front of you thinking that you are just a bike and will definitely stop easily.... I ended up on the windshield like that once and believe me I have total control over my brakes and the bike as I was racing for years (now doing enduro which is a more high speed activity)
4. when you are on the bike lane (which is shared/divided by a line from the walking lane) you get people walking on the bike lane and I actually got into a fight over people blocking the way and then making nasty comments when you politely remind them that the pedestrian part of the was is over the line
5. If there is no physical protection on the lane it is used to : a: overtake other cars b: park cars
Well at least in Hungary there is a bicycle lane in the capital (dunno what is up with other cities) and mostly it is a lane divided from the sidewalk, but in Costa Rica there is not even a sidewalk for pedestrians... which sucks as I love to walk to places. Never rode a bicycle here, but have several heated conversation while riding my motorbike and idiots do not respect your way at all.......
Most bikers generally agree that if something happens here, just gently kick the door/blinkers of the car if an apology does not follow - motocross boots can do some damage with one single kick ...... I personally prefer to confront people and explain to them to respect bikers because one day someone will beat the crap out of them if you push the wrong biker too much. Hitting on the roof and screaming at the driver usually provides them with enough of a shock to look out before turning the next time....
Back to the topic: maybe in 50 years when we decide to build side walks bigger than 1meter and when these people learn how to keep their own lane.... maybe then.. just maybe we can have projected lanes .... yeah right
"leave out the whole screaming-in-horrendous-agony part of war"
This is not to bad mount the army or hurt anyone's feeling, but you have to know (as you know) that the game is a recruiting too.
They went the extra step and made sure that you get hurt when you get shot, and that is great for people who like to play tactical, and for the idiots who think war is like doom where you respawn 100 times.
But how would that recruiting factor be if people splashed to the walls and screamed with missing legs after a grenade explosion and then your "real heroes" cut-scene would show football size fields with caskets.
In video games there is usually some detail that needs to be sacrificed for the fun factor to remain or to reach other goals (performance, or this time the recruiting factor).
Then again I had relatives in different wars (how about 2 uncles, 1 fighting the German side, the other in the French legion, both dead) and I leaned that for me the only reason to enlist would be an invasion of my country, and even that it would be an army other than the US army for the reason that I am not living in the US.
So for me what important is the tactical gaming aspect in the game and the fun factor.
But: I am with you. I would put the screaming and flying body parts into the game and this is not because I am a sick person who loves to see suffering, but because those kids who play the game then enlist (maybe the game was just the extra 5% in the decision) would actually realize that there is a lot of suffering, bad treatment and terrible/fatal consequences of participating in any kind of warfare.
Just my 2c.... and I do not shoot with anything at anyone/anything living in real life, OK the monthly paintball game might be an exception.
If you are talking about the granade throwing that asks you if you wanted to restart, then whatever you do you are thrown out:
i completed it 3 times..... and failed ... then the next day the training was approved. Interesting.... quite interesting.
I think the data is actually updated on the server, but then somehow it is not coming back to you.
Actually there was an other patch which fixed some things yesterday. However it seems it broke some other things.
I was actually able to play more than an hour on release day and not even from the US, and lag wasn't bad at all.
Yesterday however I had more problems than before and was barely able to join anything, then finally the server list function died completely.
Well, I guess most of the people wanted to have a nice Friday nigh AA release play night and just pawned the servers to death again.
I honestly do not think you need to wait a few weeks, the game looks really great and to me all it looks like is that they do not have enough servers. I did not take the extra step and see how many different IPs you actually try to connect to (I doubt that it is one IP, rather than a round robin's DNS setup where xxx.americasarmy.com would resolve to a load of ips)..... but I assume they made the game scalable so it is mostly a matter of throwing more hardware at it. I might be completely wrong, maybe it is underpowered load balancers or actual broken code on the client side.
Either way if you try enough you can join a room and actually have a really nice game play. I love the genre of tactical shooters (sims) and also just preordered ARMA II from steam (cannot wait). That is not to say that I do not enjoy a little BF2 or COD4 pawnage, but AA and ARMA II is just something I am willing to play even with bugs.
I think you are referring to "which can convert regular 2D movies to 3D " .... I also kept wondering about that feature! Must be like one of the virtual surround sound devices that can take mono and turn it into a nice effect which makes you feel like sitting in a coke can...
Excuse me, but I am not putting my family in that.... my 12 year old BMW is 300x safer than that paperbox .... and uses 7-8l / 100 kms ... go calculate how much that in in MPG ...
On the other hand : that efficiency is not going to happen ... so I just keep restoring my 2-stroke dirtbike till they ban them eveywhere ... ohh ... I am really a tree hugger and a vegan ....
Interestingly in Costa Rica people tend to call it CPU, and I have even seen it in advertisements in newspapers/online/TV.
Frankly CPU actually makes some sense, since "the box" is the Central Processing Unit to which you attach your peripherals (from the users' standpoint at least).
What drives me nuts when they call the tire "wheel" on a car or bike, Here you have a lot of flats (bad roads) and you never know what happened and if you are going to shell out $$ for a tyre (tire?) or a lot more $$$$$ for new wheels when your wife tells you she has to change her "wheels"....