Now I don't know where the line for 4320p would be since the article is old, but if you look at the line for 1080p at a viewing distance of 5 feet you need a TV around 38 inches. For 1440p at the same distance you need a TV around 51 inches, a difference of 13 inches.
1080p is 2,073,600 pixels 1440p is 3,571,200 pixels 4320p is 33,177,600 pixels
1440 is 1.33... times bigger than 1080 3,571,200 is 1.72... times bigger than 2,073,600 4320 is 3 times bigger than 1440 33,177,600 is 9.29 times bigger than 3,571,200
Using simple linear approximation: If you take just a 3 times bigger standard 1440p -> 4320p you need 29 more inches, or a TV that is 67 inches, or 3,571,200 -> 33,177,600 you need 70 more inches, or a TV that is 109 inches wide at 5 feet to get the full benefit of 4320p.
I don't know about you but sitting 5 feet away from 109 inches wouldn't work for me. 67 inches is doable, but that's still a huge TV to be only 5 feet away. I don't think you can follow all the action across the entire screen from that distance.
Its a different process. I also work in the gaming industry, and on consoles.
The base game is usually a 10 week lead time from 'gold' (or final) till its on the shelves. Most of that time is certification with 1st party. There's one first party that wants 12 weeks of cert time. I've also worked on a game with an accelerated release schedule. Final, cert and ship in 3-4 weeks
Patches are usually 2 weeks, though maybe 4 weeks sometimes. Though I've had patch go through in two days before, of course that was the second submission of the patch, and the change was as stupid icon change (We put it on the left, where it fit better with the art, they demanded it on the right).
If the DLC doesn't have compiled code in it, then the DLC usually breezes through, maybe taking a week, though one 1st party likes to take 6 weeks with them.
Anyone in the industry that's had to deal with certification can tell you what a pain it is. There's no consistency to the process. One game might submit following one process and a game released three weeks later might follow a different process, it all depends on how much the 1st party wants your game on their console. Or how much they want to screw around with you.
10 years is probably too short, but you're right that copyright laws are broken. I do like 10 years as a good number to work from.
I think copyright should be broken into personal and corporate copyright. Personal copyright is owned by the author. Corporate by a corporation.
Personal copyright should have a maximum 10 year exclusive license limit, after ten years the license should be renegotiated, and perhaps transfered to another publisher. He time limit for personal copyright should be Death or twenty years whichever is longer.
Corporate copyright should be free for 10 years. And then renewed in each country that the corporation wants to enforce it in for $10,000 for then next 10 years, then $100,000 for ten more years and so on. So:
0-10 years free 11-20 years $10,000 per country 21-30 years $100,000 per country 31-40 years $1,000,000 per country...
If a company wants to bankrupt itself to keep a copyright that's fine but it'll quickly become too expensive for companies not to let copyrit lapse.
Breaking digital locks should not be illegal. You blame the lock if it gts broken, safes and locks are rated by how long it takes to break into them. Also you could look at it as a National Security question, if you my cryptography illegal, only crimals will be cryptologists. And then how are you going to secure your communications? Digital locks are a good way to train the next generation of cryptologists, and keep them practiced.
Being that small won't pose a hazard. I can't find a good link to the development of anti-aircraft radar before world war II. But the development team got a message during the first field test from the field engineers: 'It tracked seagulls' or something like that, and it took them a while, trying to figure out what the field engineer meant, it being a top secret project and they thought the FE was being cryptic. No he was being completely open. The nearest link I could find to that story is: http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Oral-History:Lee_Davenport
On another note, I'm not sure why the US would bother shooting a sea to air missile at the drone. Five inch flak shells are cheaper. I think that's one of the standard gun armaments the Navy carries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5%22/54_caliber_Mark_45_gun
All the Navy would have to claim is they were test firing the gun, and the drone just got in the way. Radar tracked shells are fairly accurate after the first one has been fired, and they would probably only need two of them, most likely they'd only need one. Much cheaper than expending a missile, and it would probably just hit the budget as: Ordinance expended during training. Just like a 5.56mm round fired out of a rifle.
I had to reread the sentence in the summary, probably because I was just reading up on the Enterprise recently. But the first time I read the entry I thought it meant the longest of any warship, as in the length of the hull. According to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world's_longest_ships and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercarrier (look at the first picture's caption) the USS Enterprise is still the longest warship in US history (and anyone else's).
So who knows maybe that's what they meant by the longest of any warship after putting in the —
If they could Apple should buy a majority share in Microsoft. Then close down the operating system division, killing support for it. Keep the good products, like Office and Visual Studio. Merge the Xbox division into the AppleTV division, and then spin off or close the rest of Microsoft.
While immediately it looks like a bad move because they're sacking the company. Killing the operating system division would leave Apple's competitors in the PC market like Dell and HP out to dry. We've seen from the past that not many people want Linux, which is a shame. And this effectively leaves OSX as the only viable OS in the market. Apple would just have to make sure they have enough parts on hand to build up their production capacity to meet the demand of the PC manufacturers that no-longer have an operating system. With Apple being the only large computer manufacturer around at this time their stock would rise again after the hit of sacking Microsoft.
This would also kill most of the beige box component manufacturing as well, since most custom PCs run windows. And those customers would have to go looking for a PC eventually and the only real game in town would be the small time manufacturers using Linux, or Apple.
If they also make Office and Visual Studio OSX only products that will start moving corporate customers to their Macs, and iPads. BSD is already a server class operating system, and OSX is pretty darn close to it so they could move back into servers at this time, hell they'll have a monopoly on PCs, and Windows Server 20XX wouldn't be on the market, and the current server products wouldn't be supported.
But this move would probably be seen as a monopolistic move and hopefully killed by the SEC. And Microsoft Market Cap is 264 billion and there's no way for Apple to get a majority share in it. But that's a move I wouldn't put past Apple. Actually I wouldn't put it past any board of directors if they could pull it off. They'd dump their Microsoft stock first of course, its only insider trading if you get caught. A few bribes... campaign contributions, will get them past the SEC.
The price on a console game is usually set by the console manufacturers. So the launch of all games is usually the ~$60 (depending on country). As the game gets older it'll start to drop in price. Microsoft and Sony set the launch price to be the same, and they also set the licensing costs to be about the same. I don't know the normal price of licensing for the console but I think its something like $10 per disc sold, because they sell the consoles at a loss and make up their profit on this licensing. And when you use the rule of thumb that the price of a product doubles every time it changes hands then this $10 is a fair amount of the cost of a game, since it has to change hands at least once. The publishers probably sell the game to Walmart and Gamestop at $30 and they sell at $60, and with the publishers giving a third to Microsoft and Sony they aren't taking as much in as you think. The third also matches pretty closely to what Microsoft and Sony take for digital revenue on their consoles, so the $10 is probably pretty close.
Nintendo makes a profit on the hardware so their licensing isn't so extreme and the games for the Wii are usually cheaper. You'll sometimes see games for higher prices then the $60 launch price, but these are usually games with extras: special edition, controller in the box, etc.
An easier way for Sony to do it, is that they use their patching pipeline. A PS3 patch includes a complete copy of the executables (selfs). If people play the old games (unpatched) then they can't play online. If they want to play online then they have to use the new keys. If the PS3 firmware sees that the old key is being used it doesn't allow people to play online or acquire trophies.
This way people can play the old games (unpatched), the online community is 'safe' (for an unspecified value of safe) from cheaters. Sony has already had to sign the selfs from the publishes. They should be able to just resign them and issue a new patch.
I've had the same problem with ADSL in Vancouver. My ISP is Teksavvy (Who're Great) but they resell Telus (Who suck). For three years now I've been unhappy with my 3/1 line. It started out I was able to get 2.5 / 384. But the SN ratio sucked. I complained, Telus tweeked the profile. I kept having my ADSL drop, I complained, Telus blamed my modem. I got a new modem. I kept getting dropped, I complained, Telus blamed that my wiring was wrong. I replaced the wiring from the demark, replaced it with Cat-4 cable, put the filter right at the DMark, filtered the entire house, no improvement. I complained Telus said their was DC on my line. I switched modems back to the original, no improvement. I got myself a new outdoor filter, no improvement. I complained, they said it'd cost $200 an hour for them to send a tech to look at it. My ADSL got worse, went down to 1.5/256 (Which was not good true, all the speed tests I could find were saying 900 down and maybe 105 up). Started the process of switching to Cable, got that in and started to switch my services across, (But it has no static IP address, want it for at least DNS). ADSL completely died, I complained, Telus said their was no problem on their end, must be my end, closed the ticket. Called back on a Monday, hit the roof, told Teksavvy to yell at Telus, they did. Found that the connection on the outside of the remote box was corroded, and fell apart and was in several pieces on the ground. ADSL is now at 3/1, very good SN. But it took three years of Telus saying everything was good on their end, it must be my end, and for the ADSL to completely fail before they would even look at their end and fix the problem. I'm keeping both cable and adsl active, since occasionally one or the other will go down (At least once a week right now, mostly is the cable, but its 5x faster then the ADSL)
With my experience with Canada ADSL I'll have to say if this study is correct then the rest of the world must be terrible, no better then a 300 baud modem to AOL. But I just don't see the complaints coming out of Europe and Asia. Also I use to work for a telecom that produced IPDSLAMS (Not where I worked but another division) and they were telling everyone how they were happy to be rolling out 58 mbps ADSL to Japan, that was 6-7 years ago. I have 3 mbps ADSL now and 15 mbps cable (When everyone is asleep and hopefully my house is the only place with power). There's no way that North America is better then the rest of the world.
Same sort of problem happens where I live and has government run health care. The problem we're having is that the nurses' (and doctors') union is also in charge of accreditation. So they deny anyone coming in with credentials from outside of the nation (And some places inside the nation). This means there's a shortage of medical people and the ones we have work overtime to get time and a half to double time to meet what is needed. There was one case when one of the top brain surgeons in the world immigrated from South Africa, couldn't get accreditation and moved out to the UK to practice.
In my (not so) humble opinion accreditation should be handled by a separate agency that has no conflict of interest with how much you're getting paid. Accreditation should be handled on the credentials that you have. The apprentice / journeymen / master program should also be brought back. So that those who come in from out of country and have the experience, but may not be 100% up to what is desired should be allowed in as apprentices or journeymen under the supervision of a person who is 100% qualified in the field, to get them the refresh to their skills and training and fill in any gaps that they may have.
I know I get shouted down a lot when I suggest that we should have four 8 hour shifts (with overlap) a day instead of the 10 hour & 14 hour shifts we have now. And only having 5 shifts a week instead of more. I want a person who is treating me to be fresh and awake, and happy about their job, not dragging along with the needles after 13 hours of doing nothing.
I'd like to add a few things since I live in work in Metro Vancouver.
7a. The transit service (including skytrain) is great if you live or work in the downtown core. The transit service is OK if you live and work in the same suburb of the city. The transit service is complete and utter garbage if you live and work in different suburbs of the city. It takes me 25 minutes to drive to work, and 90 minutes (estimated) to take the bus. The buses are often filled so you have to wait for the next bus and hope that its empty.
7b. There's two seasons in Vancouver. Winter, and construction season. Vancouver drivers are special. As soon as it stops raining and it becomes sunny they forget how to drive in the sun, and then take about a day or so to purge the rainy driving skills from their memory and load in the sunny driving skills. Then when it rains the same thing happens. Really messes up the roads when we get one day of sun because it seems there is no way of stopping the process. Sometimes we get snow, and forget trying to get to work ontime in snow. Vancouver is a hilly city, and people forget where their gas pedals are when there's snow, they often can't make it up the hills because they're go to slow on the flat.
7c. If you know where you're going to work, do your best to find a place to live near it. My first job out of University was great for that. I just had to walk across the street to the sky train, and walk across the street again after getting off of it. Vacancies in Vancouver for renting is relativly high right now because we've had a big building boom the last few years. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is you can find a place to live easily enough. The bad thing is that owners are expecting to pay off their mortgages and don't pay attention to market realities and have higher prices going towards the downtown. Most newer construction is terrible since there's a shortage of skilled workers and the condos are just thrown up, the workers don't car because they can easily move to another job. Downtown you can expect to pay over 2-3 dollars a square foot per month for rent. The farther out you can expect to pay around a dollar a square foot. My numbers are about 5 years out of date, so they might be low. But the father out you go the more you'll have to pay for transit or gas.
7d. Owning and maintaining a car is getting very expensive in Vancouver. Insurrance for 'good' drivers (those who haven't been caught in an accident) is around $1,400 a year. Gas pricing is about $1.38 a litre right now, a family sedan can cost around $45 a week if you have to drive it 30 minutes each way to get to work. Its those hills again, they really suck up the gas, getting a hybrid will help because of the regenative breaking, but again you're going to pay more for the hybrid. Our lovely provincial government is adding a carbon tax on at the begining of July, and gas prices are going up. I've heard anywhere between $1.50 and $2.00 by the end of summer. The nice thing is that the US border is close, and their gas is around $4.00 a gallon the last I checked. Works out to around $1.00 a litre so its starting to get worth it to go to the states to pick up gas, if you have a NEXUS card.
In other words, plan where you're going to live, and plan where you're going to work, it'll save you time, money and stress. Someone once told me that Vancouver's infrastructure was planned in the 60s for the city it was expected to be in the 70s, but the plan was underestimated at that time, and all the changes since then have been stop gap measures. The bridges are usually jammed during the rush. We have 9 major bridges connecting the out lying areas to Vancouver, and some more bridges connecting Downtown. They are building 1 major bridge right now, effectively increasing capacity by 1/9th, which isn't much when you see how jammed the bridges are currently. There's rumors of twinning one of the major bridges but it probably won't go anywhere. Hwy 10 which is the
I've seen some employers do some really bone headed things. Like lay a guy off, give him his severance, and then tell him he has to work during the time the severance is covered for, telling him they didn't have work for him at his wage, and then hiring 3 cheaper immigrants to cover for the stuff he did. And then when he used his cellphone to talk to a lawyer outside they came up to him, told him to get off the phone and told him to get his stuff and get out, humiliating him in front of his friends and co-workers that he's knows from previous jobs.
The fact that they laid him off because there was no work for him (which was a lie, and got them out of the wrongful dismissal implications, stupid legal loopholes) and then tried to get more work out of him, and then kicked him out trying to keep money shows that employers may know the law but do their best to get out of it. Here the law states that you have to give either two weeks notice, or two week pay in lieu of notice AND 2 weeks severance for the first two years of service, and 1 week for every year after. Everyone in the high tech industry knows this because of all the collapsing companies. But this company was trying to make the guy work the two weeks (which is legal) AND the additional 3 weeks that covered his severance (which isn't legal), and then effectively harassed and bullied him when he talked to a lawyer (which any lawyer would love that to happen just because of the potential payout).
But the guy didn't want to sue them, so they got away with it. He still hasn't found a job, because the economy isn't so good for that type of work here (Seems like all the embedded work is going to China or India). It just goes to show that companies will try to get away with anything they can. And some managers take sadistic pleasure from humiliating their employees, and hide behind 'corporate policy'
I'm also a Teksavvy customer, a new one but out in BC, and using Telus as a back bone. I have some serious issues with my line, I moved from an old provider who was giving me 1.5 mbits/down and 640 kbits up, to Teksavvy's 3 down 1 up service (for $40 LESS a month) and the phone lines are giving me problems. Sure speedtest.net is reporting 1.8 down and 288 up but sustained its more like 640 down and 100 up. When I talked to Teksavvy customer support they've always treated me as intelligent and are hounding Telus for me to get the line sorted out. I should get at least what I was getting on my old ADSL provider but I'm not, they've walked me through all sorts of diagnostics to check the lines in my house, but never treated me like and idiot. They actually called me back when they said they would after they had to hound Telus some more. When they were getting me to go through each of the steps to check the internal wiring, they made sure to not treat me like an idiot, which probably got on my good side and had me work with them better.
Despite the problems I have with my ADSL connection I'm extremely happy with Teksavvy's level of customer support. They seem truly interested in resolving problems and giving the customer the best service possible. I even asked them about their network, because I use to build infrastructure for cellphones and run the test lab, and while the customer support people didn't know everything, they knew much more then my previous provider's tech support.
Business models are fairly easy to come up with, the problem is that people are lazy, and don't want to give up the power you want. I had thought of a nice business model they could use, but I can see why it wouldn't be, because to some it might look to be like communism.
To start off with, there are several parties involved:
- Show Producers: Come up with the show concept, and manage production - The Studio: Manages initial funding, internet connection, distribution, and collecting money - Production Staff: Actors, directors, camera men, mixers, etc... - Audience - Investors: Lay down money to continue the funding for the show
A show producer would sell his show to the studio who would fund it for the first season. They would act as the investors for the first season. Each episode would be downloaded as some sort of compressed video for $1-$2 per episode over Bit Torrent. They could have some sort of DRM or Key on the video to watch it. After a while the investors can vote to remove the DRM requirements from the episode to allow general viewing (acts as good advertising for future seasons).
For future seasons the producers need to call in investors from the audience. They would put up a profit sheet for the previous year and a forecast for the next season, showing how much money they carried forward from the previous year, and how much money they need from investors to produce the next year. The investors get access to that years episodes (they don't have to pay the $1-$2 per episode), and they get a share in the profits for that season. The studio makes money by skimming off the top of each transaction, and charging each show for bandwidth used. So its beneficial for both the studio and the shows to use file sharing.
The only thing that would keep the episodes DRM from getting cracked is the honesty of the audience (yeah I know), by clearly pointing out and linking directly that if they let the key out, the show will not be profitable, and if its not profitable then they can't continue to make more episodes. Hopefully enough tickets will be sold for the episodes to cover production before the DRM is cracked, and the producers and studio will have to accept that when the DRM is cracked that the episode is out there and should be considered advertising for future episodes/seasons.
If the show is good, you are probably going to see a drop off in the $1-$2 tickets as people hack the DRM, but a rise in investment money from those who want the show to continue. This way the audience is supporting the show. If the show is crap it gets canceled because there's not enough money from tickets and investments to continue production.
Using bit torrent as the distribution model makes it a global show. I don't know the connectivity world wide, but if you get the types of ratings that TV shows get then at $1-$2 per show should give you a nice profit. There are other products that you can offer too. Like DVD iso downloads of past seasons. After all the initial show quality probably isn't as good as DVD, and this will help fund everything.
But I don't see this business model going anywhere. It doesn't have anything for advertising (commercials) since the funding comes directly from the audience. It will probably also take power away from the unions, and various executives, because the investors will have to see the balance sheets, and might look at the various line items and BS and call BS on them.
Anyway that's just my 2 cent business model that I think the television industry can go with, but doubt they would. And of course there's a lot left out to make it reasonable, like paying the production staff, who determines bonuses for good work, how much of the profits from one season go to the production of the next season, how much money the studio gets, how much of the profits do the investors get, etc.
That probably won't work for cells. Providers spend a good long time tweaking a network when they set it up, so that each cell doesn't interfere with other cells, cells cover the right areas. Network optimization is a long, grueling process, and many companies out there sell very expensive equipment to help with the process.
Now just imagine trying to optimize a network with something running in and out of the coverage of some cell areas. You would have to plan your frequency range (for GSM and TDMA) or PNs so that they never interfere with the cells in the stations. Also you can't just put one set for the stations, and one set for the trains because there would be no way the cell network would be able to handle handoffs from one cell to another, because the phones report the frequency or PN is sees and can hand off to, not whether it sees Station A, or Train B. If you have 5 cells sharing the same frequency or PN allocation the network won't know which one you are wandering into. On a stationary network you just look up which cell the system is in and then check the neighbour list on that cell and move the call the the matching neighbour. And then you have to make major modifications to the network software, changing overhead messages as trains move around the system, and most networks don't have plug ins for tracking cells as they move around, so that's massive new features.
If they wanted to set up cells down the tunnels you would use PicoCells, small cells that transmit only a few hundred milliwatts, hooks to the BTS through distrubuted antenna systems. They're not that expensive (compared to MacroCells), but when you're talking about miles and miles of track it starts to add up.
I have to agree to Eclipse. I had some co-workers who had to learn Java for various courses they wanted to take, mainly for continuing education. They both came back with the same comment, Eclipse made programming fun again. Just because of that I would promote Java over C#. Most IDEs get in the way of programming, Eclipse actually helps, especially for new Java programmers. My experience with Visual Studio is limited to 5 and 6, and I never could get my head around it properly and always found myself frustrated with it, always going back to emacs.
The biggest problem with leaning Java is the class libraries. Eclipse makes it easy to learn them, especially with the ctrl-space completion.
I have to agree. By the time I graduated university I had already been laid off once. Laid off for the last month of a 4 month co-op term. And I was told that about 2 weeks into the term. Of course the company shut down completely not long after.
My first job out of university lasted 6 weeks. That was a nice piss off. I had just finished the manufacturing test system (which I was actually working on contract during my last year at university), and got the product into the factory. That was the last pin it seems holding the branch office open. Three days later everyone at the office was let go. The product was still produced, but the engineers weren't around to make the next product.
Another job lasted 4 years, before I was laid off from that one. And that company effectively closed its doors 4 months later.
Getting laid off happens. No-one is unreplaceable. And if you're good enough you can get a new job fairly quickly. I just hang around myself at these down jobs for the severance, which where I work is legislated to at least one week per year worked (not sure the numbers). I got laid off in july on the last one, and had two months of summer. Felt like summer vacation from school all over again. My favourite thing is when people tell me when I get laid off 'Welcome to the new world', and I usually respond, 'Yup I've been here before, more times then you'. From what I remember the average Tech Job lasts 3 years. Get use to being laid off, its part of life as a tech worker.
But the cool thing is, if you get known as someone who can design large systems, and do project management for the systems that you can do personal growth partially on company time. On the new job I had to do some cross platform development, and I wanted to get Java onto my resume in a better fashion so the new system I designed was written in Java. Of course its a system for testing, so its not an actual product, but I now have 'professional' esperience with Java. And a new project we're looking at is basically in UML. Something else I've been struggling with, read several books on the subject, I'm just waiting for the chance to get professional examples of it to see how it really works. And if I'm lucky I can get enough experience in it go put it on the resume too. You just have to know the best way to introduce 'new' technologies that you wish to learn into the product stream.
You can look at being laid off as a negative. Or you can look at it as an opertunity. But you have to plan ahead. My first lay off out of school was fast. But when I went looking for appartments after university I made sure to get one that I didn't need a car. And it was cheep. With just six weeks of pay and money saved from my contracting I had enough to last me for about 3 months if I tightened my belt a bit. It wasn't needed but the financial analysts always say to have six months living expenses. Those people who panic after a lay off I don't think do this and this may be why they look at it negatively.
As for cubicals. Get use to it. I've always worked in a cube. I probably always will work in a cube. The director of my department refuses to work in an office, because it isolates him from the workers. I like working in a cube because I can hear some of what's going on. If someone has a problem that I have the solution for I can put it in, saving them the hassel. And I often get some of the problems I'm working on solved the same way. You're part of a team, and part of being a team is teamwork. Offices put up barriers that you get issolated from the team. And working in a cube is NOT the sign of a company going down the tubes.
Compensation? In this market. I've not had a pay increase since 2001, and even taken a pay cut moving between jobs. The job market sucks for tech workers. There just aren't as many jobs for high tech workers in North America as there use to be. I don't really have trouble finding a job. Finding a job in what I like is another problem. 5 years ago
Unfortunately, and not to raise a flame war, but the US treats almost all coastal Canadian waters as International waters.
The small straight between Vancouver Island, and the mainland coast of Canada is under dispute as well. The US likes to use it as a torpedo proving ground. Which of course upsets all the whale watchers. Since the torpedos use sonar, which the enviromentalists claim distracts the whales. Of course the US Navy claims it doesn't, its a royal mess.
The Northwest Passage is also one of the reasons the US got real upset when the Canadian Navy started to look at acquiring a nuclear submarine. Which is why we're stuck with second hand diseal boats, that catch on fire when they leave port. Not that Canada's military can afford a nuclear boat now. But it is what is needed to patrol the waters of the north.
I'm not sure which set of conventions the US follows when it comes to waters. I think they claim the 200 mile limit, and reconigze 3 mile limits. Except where Canadian waters are concerned, since I don't know of any waters that Canada claims, that the US recongizes. Of course this is one of the many frustrations Canada has with the US governement.
If they can get a large format for the paper it would be useful for design verification meetings. Where you can put a nice big piece of paper on the table and have people go through it, and update it as you like.
A screen isn't as useful for that. Because really only one or two people can go up to it and point things out, whereas large digital paper can get 8+ people around it. A screen, a projector, or an electronic white board, aren't as portable and if they aren't in the facility where you are meeting then you're out of luck.
Also digital paper will probably have a much, much higher resolution then a projection screen. We're talking DPI here of at least 75 (hopefully 600x600 at least in the future), where as a projection screen capable of 1024 pixels over 10 feet wide you have 10. So you can get much more detail to where more people can get close to it.
But what I would really like it for is for my gaming table. If it takes 2 seconds to update the entire page that covers the table (E sized would be perfect), that would make my just as a DM much better. When I set up a fight I have to get out there with the spray bottle to clean off the battle map, then spend a few minutes to draw the map. Compare it to what you have before, find that you screwed up something specifically needed that the entire scenario is about and redraw that section, find you have over spray on the water bottle, and redraw that section. It often takes about 10 minutes of game time.
Heck if it takes a minute to update a page that size I still wouldn't mind. It saves me a great deal of time, all I have to do is scan the maps into the laptop, and then have it display things. It especially gets rid of the smart ass player syndrom who gets handed the pen to draw the parts of the map that you can't reach easily.
Not only GSM but all cellphones I know will work on the emergency numbers. Both the phones and the infrastructure are set up to throw out all rules when the user keys in 911 (or 119 depending on where you are).
For instance a phone that shows no service because, the provider in the area rejects the phone for whatever reason, will throw away its perferred roaming list and latch onto the first compatible signal it finds and makes the call.
By law (in most places) the provider must route the call through even though they might not get the customer to pay for it.
Usually when a call is made the network sends requests to the billing center to make sure the call is allowed, during an emergency call this process is bypassed. And often if the base station doesn't have the capacity for the new call, and can't kick it off to another channel, will drop a current call to allow the emergency call through. Of course in an emergency like the bombing, ALL calls are probably emergency calls, and you'll have capacity problems.
When the police shut down the networks in the UK, they probably just got the providers to move the network into an emergency calls only state. That's not really a problem because if cell phones were used to trigger off the bombs they wouldn't be able to receive a call in this mode.
If you need a GUI to set up a network interface, maybe you need to go back to Windows, because you aren't going to be doing it over a serial link! Solaris was built with Enterprise computing in mind, not "making it easy" for people who don't want to type.
I wouldn't agree with that. A person who can admin a linux box over a serial link, might not be able to admin a sun box. On linux I perfer to use the console to edit the config files. But I was recently handed 5 solaris 8 boxes and was completely lost. And all I had to do was change the hostname, IP address, netmask and default gateway.
I had to call on my old AIX(and pains) days to change the interface with ifconfig. But I don't remember anything from AIX about a plumb and having to tell it, that its up. Once I got the thing onto the network, the first thing I did was install webmin. That was so that I could set things up permanently.
With Redhat/mandrake its all in a couple of files. Slackware is also fairly easy to change. Solaris caught me, putting the hostname for the ethernet port in one file, something like hostname.ce0. The IP address for that host name in the hosts file. The netmask for the IP address in netmasks, and the default gateway in defaultrouter. Took me alot of greps, and guesses. route -n doesn't work on solaris 8, so I had no idea what the default gateway on the box was to start with.
I guess Linux has spoiled me to traditional UNIX administration. But there's just something I like about going into/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/, editing one file, and then telling the network to restart to get the new IP address, netmask, etc. I just find dealing with Solaris as archaic. I don't know about the latest Solaris 10. But the main IT people who have to deal with them, much perfer admining Linux for that reason.
You're missing one thing. What's to keep new players from containing the older cracked keys. Backwards compatibility causes these types of nightmares all the time.
And once a key is cracked all hardware manufacturers can pick it up off the internet to add into their players.
New disks wouldn't contain these old keys, so old players will be disabled. But new players should still be able to handle old disks.
Of course this can get messy on the player side. Backwards compatibility always is. Which is why some people (rightly or wrongly) say that a PIV is just a 4004 trying to get out.
But you're probably right on that the media producers will demand the newer players being unable to play old disks. That way they can sell new copies of old movies. Disney comes to mind with its 'classics' collection they put on the market for a little while and then pull, to generate artifical demand. Think of them doing this everytime a new key comes out.
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There's a good link I usually pass out when people start to talk about noticing the difference between 720p and 1080p.
http://hd.engadget.com/2006/12/09/1080p-charted-viewing-distance-to-screen-size/
Now I don't know where the line for 4320p would be since the article is old, but if you look at the line for 1080p at a viewing distance of 5 feet you need a TV around 38 inches. For 1440p at the same distance you need a TV around 51 inches, a difference of 13 inches.
1080p is 2,073,600 pixels
1440p is 3,571,200 pixels
4320p is 33,177,600 pixels
1440 is 1.33... times bigger than 1080
3,571,200 is 1.72... times bigger than 2,073,600
4320 is 3 times bigger than 1440
33,177,600 is 9.29 times bigger than 3,571,200
Using simple linear approximation:
If you take just a 3 times bigger standard 1440p -> 4320p you need 29 more inches, or a TV that is 67 inches, or 3,571,200 -> 33,177,600 you need 70 more inches, or a TV that is 109 inches wide at 5 feet to get the full benefit of 4320p.
I don't know about you but sitting 5 feet away from 109 inches wouldn't work for me. 67 inches is doable, but that's still a huge TV to be only 5 feet away. I don't think you can follow all the action across the entire screen from that distance.
Its a different process. I also work in the gaming industry, and on consoles.
The base game is usually a 10 week lead time from 'gold' (or final) till its on the shelves. Most of that time is certification with 1st party. There's one first party that wants 12 weeks of cert time. I've also worked on a game with an accelerated release schedule. Final, cert and ship in 3-4 weeks
Patches are usually 2 weeks, though maybe 4 weeks sometimes. Though I've had patch go through in two days before, of course that was the second submission of the patch, and the change was as stupid icon change (We put it on the left, where it fit better with the art, they demanded it on the right).
If the DLC doesn't have compiled code in it, then the DLC usually breezes through, maybe taking a week, though one 1st party likes to take 6 weeks with them.
Anyone in the industry that's had to deal with certification can tell you what a pain it is. There's no consistency to the process. One game might submit following one process and a game released three weeks later might follow a different process, it all depends on how much the 1st party wants your game on their console. Or how much they want to screw around with you.
10 years is probably too short, but you're right that copyright laws are broken. I do like 10 years as a good number to work from.
I think copyright should be broken into personal and corporate copyright. Personal copyright is owned by the author. Corporate by a corporation.
Personal copyright should have a maximum 10 year exclusive license limit, after ten years the license should be renegotiated, and perhaps transfered to another publisher. He time limit for personal copyright should be Death or twenty years whichever is longer.
Corporate copyright should be free for 10 years. And then renewed in each country that the corporation wants to enforce it in for $10,000 for then next 10 years, then $100,000 for ten more years and so on. So:
0-10 years free ...
11-20 years $10,000 per country
21-30 years $100,000 per country
31-40 years $1,000,000 per country
If a company wants to bankrupt itself to keep a copyright that's fine but it'll quickly become too expensive for companies not to let copyrit lapse.
Breaking digital locks should not be illegal. You blame the lock if it gts broken, safes and locks are rated by how long it takes to break into them. Also you could look at it as a National Security question, if you my cryptography illegal, only crimals will be cryptologists. And then how are you going to secure your communications? Digital locks are a good way to train the next generation of cryptologists, and keep them practiced.
Being that small won't pose a hazard. I can't find a good link to the development of anti-aircraft radar before world war II. But the development team got a message during the first field test from the field engineers: 'It tracked seagulls' or something like that, and it took them a while, trying to figure out what the field engineer meant, it being a top secret project and they thought the FE was being cryptic. No he was being completely open. The nearest link I could find to that story is: http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Oral-History:Lee_Davenport
On another note, I'm not sure why the US would bother shooting a sea to air missile at the drone. Five inch flak shells are cheaper. I think that's one of the standard gun armaments the Navy carries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5%22/54_caliber_Mark_45_gun
All the Navy would have to claim is they were test firing the gun, and the drone just got in the way. Radar tracked shells are fairly accurate after the first one has been fired, and they would probably only need two of them, most likely they'd only need one. Much cheaper than expending a missile, and it would probably just hit the budget as: Ordinance expended during training. Just like a 5.56mm round fired out of a rifle.
I had to reread the sentence in the summary, probably because I was just reading up on the Enterprise recently. But the first time I read the entry I thought it meant the longest of any warship, as in the length of the hull. According to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world's_longest_ships and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercarrier (look at the first picture's caption) the USS Enterprise is still the longest warship in US history (and anyone else's).
So who knows maybe that's what they meant by the longest of any warship after putting in the —
If they could Apple should buy a majority share in Microsoft. Then close down the operating system division, killing support for it. Keep the good products, like Office and Visual Studio. Merge the Xbox division into the AppleTV division, and then spin off or close the rest of Microsoft.
While immediately it looks like a bad move because they're sacking the company. Killing the operating system division would leave Apple's competitors in the PC market like Dell and HP out to dry. We've seen from the past that not many people want Linux, which is a shame. And this effectively leaves OSX as the only viable OS in the market. Apple would just have to make sure they have enough parts on hand to build up their production capacity to meet the demand of the PC manufacturers that no-longer have an operating system. With Apple being the only large computer manufacturer around at this time their stock would rise again after the hit of sacking Microsoft.
This would also kill most of the beige box component manufacturing as well, since most custom PCs run windows. And those customers would have to go looking for a PC eventually and the only real game in town would be the small time manufacturers using Linux, or Apple.
If they also make Office and Visual Studio OSX only products that will start moving corporate customers to their Macs, and iPads. BSD is already a server class operating system, and OSX is pretty darn close to it so they could move back into servers at this time, hell they'll have a monopoly on PCs, and Windows Server 20XX wouldn't be on the market, and the current server products wouldn't be supported.
But this move would probably be seen as a monopolistic move and hopefully killed by the SEC. And Microsoft Market Cap is 264 billion and there's no way for Apple to get a majority share in it. But that's a move I wouldn't put past Apple. Actually I wouldn't put it past any board of directors if they could pull it off. They'd dump their Microsoft stock first of course, its only insider trading if you get caught. A few bribes... campaign contributions, will get them past the SEC.
The price on a console game is usually set by the console manufacturers. So the launch of all games is usually the ~$60 (depending on country). As the game gets older it'll start to drop in price. Microsoft and Sony set the launch price to be the same, and they also set the licensing costs to be about the same. I don't know the normal price of licensing for the console but I think its something like $10 per disc sold, because they sell the consoles at a loss and make up their profit on this licensing. And when you use the rule of thumb that the price of a product doubles every time it changes hands then this $10 is a fair amount of the cost of a game, since it has to change hands at least once. The publishers probably sell the game to Walmart and Gamestop at $30 and they sell at $60, and with the publishers giving a third to Microsoft and Sony they aren't taking as much in as you think. The third also matches pretty closely to what Microsoft and Sony take for digital revenue on their consoles, so the $10 is probably pretty close.
Nintendo makes a profit on the hardware so their licensing isn't so extreme and the games for the Wii are usually cheaper. You'll sometimes see games for higher prices then the $60 launch price, but these are usually games with extras: special edition, controller in the box, etc.
An easier way for Sony to do it, is that they use their patching pipeline. A PS3 patch includes a complete copy of the executables (selfs). If people play the old games (unpatched) then they can't play online. If they want to play online then they have to use the new keys. If the PS3 firmware sees that the old key is being used it doesn't allow people to play online or acquire trophies.
This way people can play the old games (unpatched), the online community is 'safe' (for an unspecified value of safe) from cheaters. Sony has already had to sign the selfs from the publishes. They should be able to just resign them and issue a new patch.
I've had the same problem with ADSL in Vancouver. My ISP is Teksavvy (Who're Great) but they resell Telus (Who suck). For three years now I've been unhappy with my 3/1 line. It started out I was able to get 2.5 / 384. But the SN ratio sucked. I complained, Telus tweeked the profile. I kept having my ADSL drop, I complained, Telus blamed my modem. I got a new modem. I kept getting dropped, I complained, Telus blamed that my wiring was wrong. I replaced the wiring from the demark, replaced it with Cat-4 cable, put the filter right at the DMark, filtered the entire house, no improvement. I complained Telus said their was DC on my line. I switched modems back to the original, no improvement. I got myself a new outdoor filter, no improvement. I complained, they said it'd cost $200 an hour for them to send a tech to look at it. My ADSL got worse, went down to 1.5/256 (Which was not good true, all the speed tests I could find were saying 900 down and maybe 105 up). Started the process of switching to Cable, got that in and started to switch my services across, (But it has no static IP address, want it for at least DNS). ADSL completely died, I complained, Telus said their was no problem on their end, must be my end, closed the ticket. Called back on a Monday, hit the roof, told Teksavvy to yell at Telus, they did. Found that the connection on the outside of the remote box was corroded, and fell apart and was in several pieces on the ground. ADSL is now at 3/1, very good SN. But it took three years of Telus saying everything was good on their end, it must be my end, and for the ADSL to completely fail before they would even look at their end and fix the problem. I'm keeping both cable and adsl active, since occasionally one or the other will go down (At least once a week right now, mostly is the cable, but its 5x faster then the ADSL)
With my experience with Canada ADSL I'll have to say if this study is correct then the rest of the world must be terrible, no better then a 300 baud modem to AOL. But I just don't see the complaints coming out of Europe and Asia. Also I use to work for a telecom that produced IPDSLAMS (Not where I worked but another division) and they were telling everyone how they were happy to be rolling out 58 mbps ADSL to Japan, that was 6-7 years ago. I have 3 mbps ADSL now and 15 mbps cable (When everyone is asleep and hopefully my house is the only place with power). There's no way that North America is better then the rest of the world.
Same sort of problem happens where I live and has government run health care. The problem we're having is that the nurses' (and doctors') union is also in charge of accreditation. So they deny anyone coming in with credentials from outside of the nation (And some places inside the nation). This means there's a shortage of medical people and the ones we have work overtime to get time and a half to double time to meet what is needed. There was one case when one of the top brain surgeons in the world immigrated from South Africa, couldn't get accreditation and moved out to the UK to practice.
In my (not so) humble opinion accreditation should be handled by a separate agency that has no conflict of interest with how much you're getting paid. Accreditation should be handled on the credentials that you have. The apprentice / journeymen / master program should also be brought back. So that those who come in from out of country and have the experience, but may not be 100% up to what is desired should be allowed in as apprentices or journeymen under the supervision of a person who is 100% qualified in the field, to get them the refresh to their skills and training and fill in any gaps that they may have.
I know I get shouted down a lot when I suggest that we should have four 8 hour shifts (with overlap) a day instead of the 10 hour & 14 hour shifts we have now. And only having 5 shifts a week instead of more. I want a person who is treating me to be fresh and awake, and happy about their job, not dragging along with the needles after 13 hours of doing nothing.
I'd like to add a few things since I live in work in Metro Vancouver.
7a. The transit service (including skytrain) is great if you live or work in the downtown core. The transit service is OK if you live and work in the same suburb of the city. The transit service is complete and utter garbage if you live and work in different suburbs of the city. It takes me 25 minutes to drive to work, and 90 minutes (estimated) to take the bus. The buses are often filled so you have to wait for the next bus and hope that its empty.
7b. There's two seasons in Vancouver. Winter, and construction season. Vancouver drivers are special. As soon as it stops raining and it becomes sunny they forget how to drive in the sun, and then take about a day or so to purge the rainy driving skills from their memory and load in the sunny driving skills. Then when it rains the same thing happens. Really messes up the roads when we get one day of sun because it seems there is no way of stopping the process. Sometimes we get snow, and forget trying to get to work ontime in snow. Vancouver is a hilly city, and people forget where their gas pedals are when there's snow, they often can't make it up the hills because they're go to slow on the flat.
7c. If you know where you're going to work, do your best to find a place to live near it. My first job out of University was great for that. I just had to walk across the street to the sky train, and walk across the street again after getting off of it. Vacancies in Vancouver for renting is relativly high right now because we've had a big building boom the last few years. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is you can find a place to live easily enough. The bad thing is that owners are expecting to pay off their mortgages and don't pay attention to market realities and have higher prices going towards the downtown. Most newer construction is terrible since there's a shortage of skilled workers and the condos are just thrown up, the workers don't car because they can easily move to another job. Downtown you can expect to pay over 2-3 dollars a square foot per month for rent. The farther out you can expect to pay around a dollar a square foot. My numbers are about 5 years out of date, so they might be low. But the father out you go the more you'll have to pay for transit or gas.
7d. Owning and maintaining a car is getting very expensive in Vancouver. Insurrance for 'good' drivers (those who haven't been caught in an accident) is around $1,400 a year. Gas pricing is about $1.38 a litre right now, a family sedan can cost around $45 a week if you have to drive it 30 minutes each way to get to work. Its those hills again, they really suck up the gas, getting a hybrid will help because of the regenative breaking, but again you're going to pay more for the hybrid. Our lovely provincial government is adding a carbon tax on at the begining of July, and gas prices are going up. I've heard anywhere between $1.50 and $2.00 by the end of summer. The nice thing is that the US border is close, and their gas is around $4.00 a gallon the last I checked. Works out to around $1.00 a litre so its starting to get worth it to go to the states to pick up gas, if you have a NEXUS card.
In other words, plan where you're going to live, and plan where you're going to work, it'll save you time, money and stress. Someone once told me that Vancouver's infrastructure was planned in the 60s for the city it was expected to be in the 70s, but the plan was underestimated at that time, and all the changes since then have been stop gap measures. The bridges are usually jammed during the rush. We have 9 major bridges connecting the out lying areas to Vancouver, and some more bridges connecting Downtown. They are building 1 major bridge right now, effectively increasing capacity by 1/9th, which isn't much when you see how jammed the bridges are currently. There's rumors of twinning one of the major bridges but it probably won't go anywhere. Hwy 10 which is the
I've seen some employers do some really bone headed things. Like lay a guy off, give him his severance, and then tell him he has to work during the time the severance is covered for, telling him they didn't have work for him at his wage, and then hiring 3 cheaper immigrants to cover for the stuff he did. And then when he used his cellphone to talk to a lawyer outside they came up to him, told him to get off the phone and told him to get his stuff and get out, humiliating him in front of his friends and co-workers that he's knows from previous jobs.
The fact that they laid him off because there was no work for him (which was a lie, and got them out of the wrongful dismissal implications, stupid legal loopholes) and then tried to get more work out of him, and then kicked him out trying to keep money shows that employers may know the law but do their best to get out of it. Here the law states that you have to give either two weeks notice, or two week pay in lieu of notice AND 2 weeks severance for the first two years of service, and 1 week for every year after. Everyone in the high tech industry knows this because of all the collapsing companies. But this company was trying to make the guy work the two weeks (which is legal) AND the additional 3 weeks that covered his severance (which isn't legal), and then effectively harassed and bullied him when he talked to a lawyer (which any lawyer would love that to happen just because of the potential payout).
But the guy didn't want to sue them, so they got away with it. He still hasn't found a job, because the economy isn't so good for that type of work here (Seems like all the embedded work is going to China or India). It just goes to show that companies will try to get away with anything they can. And some managers take sadistic pleasure from humiliating their employees, and hide behind 'corporate policy'
I'm also a Teksavvy customer, a new one but out in BC, and using Telus as a back bone. I have some serious issues with my line, I moved from an old provider who was giving me 1.5 mbits/down and 640 kbits up, to Teksavvy's 3 down 1 up service (for $40 LESS a month) and the phone lines are giving me problems. Sure speedtest.net is reporting 1.8 down and 288 up but sustained its more like 640 down and 100 up. When I talked to Teksavvy customer support they've always treated me as intelligent and are hounding Telus for me to get the line sorted out. I should get at least what I was getting on my old ADSL provider but I'm not, they've walked me through all sorts of diagnostics to check the lines in my house, but never treated me like and idiot. They actually called me back when they said they would after they had to hound Telus some more. When they were getting me to go through each of the steps to check the internal wiring, they made sure to not treat me like an idiot, which probably got on my good side and had me work with them better.
Despite the problems I have with my ADSL connection I'm extremely happy with Teksavvy's level of customer support. They seem truly interested in resolving problems and giving the customer the best service possible. I even asked them about their network, because I use to build infrastructure for cellphones and run the test lab, and while the customer support people didn't know everything, they knew much more then my previous provider's tech support.
10 One to change the lightbulb and one to make a bad binary joke.
Business models are fairly easy to come up with, the problem is that people are lazy, and don't want to give up the power you want. I had thought of a nice business model they could use, but I can see why it wouldn't be, because to some it might look to be like communism.
To start off with, there are several parties involved:
- Show Producers: Come up with the show concept, and manage production
- The Studio: Manages initial funding, internet connection, distribution, and collecting money
- Production Staff: Actors, directors, camera men, mixers, etc...
- Audience
- Investors: Lay down money to continue the funding for the show
A show producer would sell his show to the studio who would fund it for the first season. They would act as the investors for the first season. Each episode would be downloaded as some sort of compressed video for $1-$2 per episode over Bit Torrent. They could have some sort of DRM or Key on the video to watch it. After a while the investors can vote to remove the DRM requirements from the episode to allow general viewing (acts as good advertising for future seasons).
For future seasons the producers need to call in investors from the audience. They would put up a profit sheet for the previous year and a forecast for the next season, showing how much money they carried forward from the previous year, and how much money they need from investors to produce the next year. The investors get access to that years episodes (they don't have to pay the $1-$2 per episode), and they get a share in the profits for that season. The studio makes money by skimming off the top of each transaction, and charging each show for bandwidth used. So its beneficial for both the studio and the shows to use file sharing.
The only thing that would keep the episodes DRM from getting cracked is the honesty of the audience (yeah I know), by clearly pointing out and linking directly that if they let the key out, the show will not be profitable, and if its not profitable then they can't continue to make more episodes. Hopefully enough tickets will be sold for the episodes to cover production before the DRM is cracked, and the producers and studio will have to accept that when the DRM is cracked that the episode is out there and should be considered advertising for future episodes/seasons.
If the show is good, you are probably going to see a drop off in the $1-$2 tickets as people hack the DRM, but a rise in investment money from those who want the show to continue. This way the audience is supporting the show. If the show is crap it gets canceled because there's not enough money from tickets and investments to continue production.
Using bit torrent as the distribution model makes it a global show. I don't know the connectivity world wide, but if you get the types of ratings that TV shows get then at $1-$2 per show should give you a nice profit. There are other products that you can offer too. Like DVD iso downloads of past seasons. After all the initial show quality probably isn't as good as DVD, and this will help fund everything.
But I don't see this business model going anywhere. It doesn't have anything for advertising (commercials) since the funding comes directly from the audience. It will probably also take power away from the unions, and various executives, because the investors will have to see the balance sheets, and might look at the various line items and BS and call BS on them.
Anyway that's just my 2 cent business model that I think the television industry can go with, but doubt they would. And of course there's a lot left out to make it reasonable, like paying the production staff, who determines bonuses for good work, how much of the profits from one season go to the production of the next season, how much money the studio gets, how much of the profits do the investors get, etc.
iCell is already trademarked by UTStarcom for their MovingMedia 2000 IP based CDMA cellular base stations.
That probably won't work for cells. Providers spend a good long time tweaking a network when they set it up, so that each cell doesn't interfere with other cells, cells cover the right areas. Network optimization is a long, grueling process, and many companies out there sell very expensive equipment to help with the process.
Now just imagine trying to optimize a network with something running in and out of the coverage of some cell areas. You would have to plan your frequency range (for GSM and TDMA) or PNs so that they never interfere with the cells in the stations. Also you can't just put one set for the stations, and one set for the trains because there would be no way the cell network would be able to handle handoffs from one cell to another, because the phones report the frequency or PN is sees and can hand off to, not whether it sees Station A, or Train B. If you have 5 cells sharing the same frequency or PN allocation the network won't know which one you are wandering into. On a stationary network you just look up which cell the system is in and then check the neighbour list on that cell and move the call the the matching neighbour. And then you have to make major modifications to the network software, changing overhead messages as trains move around the system, and most networks don't have plug ins for tracking cells as they move around, so that's massive new features.
If they wanted to set up cells down the tunnels you would use PicoCells, small cells that transmit only a few hundred milliwatts, hooks to the BTS through distrubuted antenna systems. They're not that expensive (compared to MacroCells), but when you're talking about miles and miles of track it starts to add up.
I have to agree to Eclipse. I had some co-workers who had to learn Java for various courses they wanted to take, mainly for continuing education. They both came back with the same comment, Eclipse made programming fun again. Just because of that I would promote Java over C#. Most IDEs get in the way of programming, Eclipse actually helps, especially for new Java programmers. My experience with Visual Studio is limited to 5 and 6, and I never could get my head around it properly and always found myself frustrated with it, always going back to emacs.
The biggest problem with leaning Java is the class libraries. Eclipse makes it easy to learn them, especially with the ctrl-space completion.
I have to agree. By the time I graduated university I had already been laid off once. Laid off for the last month of a 4 month co-op term. And I was told that about 2 weeks into the term. Of course the company shut down completely not long after.
My first job out of university lasted 6 weeks. That was a nice piss off. I had just finished the manufacturing test system (which I was actually working on contract during my last year at university), and got the product into the factory. That was the last pin it seems holding the branch office open. Three days later everyone at the office was let go. The product was still produced, but the engineers weren't around to make the next product.
Another job lasted 4 years, before I was laid off from that one. And that company effectively closed its doors 4 months later.
Getting laid off happens. No-one is unreplaceable. And if you're good enough you can get a new job fairly quickly. I just hang around myself at these down jobs for the severance, which where I work is legislated to at least one week per year worked (not sure the numbers). I got laid off in july on the last one, and had two months of summer. Felt like summer vacation from school all over again. My favourite thing is when people tell me when I get laid off 'Welcome to the new world', and I usually respond, 'Yup I've been here before, more times then you'. From what I remember the average Tech Job lasts 3 years. Get use to being laid off, its part of life as a tech worker.
But the cool thing is, if you get known as someone who can design large systems, and do project management for the systems that you can do personal growth partially on company time. On the new job I had to do some cross platform development, and I wanted to get Java onto my resume in a better fashion so the new system I designed was written in Java. Of course its a system for testing, so its not an actual product, but I now have 'professional' esperience with Java. And a new project we're looking at is basically in UML. Something else I've been struggling with, read several books on the subject, I'm just waiting for the chance to get professional examples of it to see how it really works. And if I'm lucky I can get enough experience in it go put it on the resume too. You just have to know the best way to introduce 'new' technologies that you wish to learn into the product stream.
You can look at being laid off as a negative. Or you can look at it as an opertunity. But you have to plan ahead. My first lay off out of school was fast. But when I went looking for appartments after university I made sure to get one that I didn't need a car. And it was cheep. With just six weeks of pay and money saved from my contracting I had enough to last me for about 3 months if I tightened my belt a bit. It wasn't needed but the financial analysts always say to have six months living expenses. Those people who panic after a lay off I don't think do this and this may be why they look at it negatively.
As for cubicals. Get use to it. I've always worked in a cube. I probably always will work in a cube. The director of my department refuses to work in an office, because it isolates him from the workers. I like working in a cube because I can hear some of what's going on. If someone has a problem that I have the solution for I can put it in, saving them the hassel. And I often get some of the problems I'm working on solved the same way. You're part of a team, and part of being a team is teamwork. Offices put up barriers that you get issolated from the team. And working in a cube is NOT the sign of a company going down the tubes.
Compensation? In this market. I've not had a pay increase since 2001, and even taken a pay cut moving between jobs. The job market sucks for tech workers. There just aren't as many jobs for high tech workers in North America as there use to be. I don't really have trouble finding a job. Finding a job in what I like is another problem. 5 years ago
Unfortunately, and not to raise a flame war, but the US treats almost all coastal Canadian waters as International waters.
The small straight between Vancouver Island, and the mainland coast of Canada is under dispute as well. The US likes to use it as a torpedo proving ground. Which of course upsets all the whale watchers. Since the torpedos use sonar, which the enviromentalists claim distracts the whales. Of course the US Navy claims it doesn't, its a royal mess.
The Northwest Passage is also one of the reasons the US got real upset when the Canadian Navy started to look at acquiring a nuclear submarine. Which is why we're stuck with second hand diseal boats, that catch on fire when they leave port. Not that Canada's military can afford a nuclear boat now. But it is what is needed to patrol the waters of the north.
I'm not sure which set of conventions the US follows when it comes to waters. I think they claim the 200 mile limit, and reconigze 3 mile limits. Except where Canadian waters are concerned, since I don't know of any waters that Canada claims, that the US recongizes. Of course this is one of the many frustrations Canada has with the US governement.
If they can get a large format for the paper it would be useful for design verification meetings. Where you can put a nice big piece of paper on the table and have people go through it, and update it as you like.
A screen isn't as useful for that. Because really only one or two people can go up to it and point things out, whereas large digital paper can get 8+ people around it. A screen, a projector, or an electronic white board, aren't as portable and if they aren't in the facility where you are meeting then you're out of luck.
Also digital paper will probably have a much, much higher resolution then a projection screen. We're talking DPI here of at least 75 (hopefully 600x600 at least in the future), where as a projection screen capable of 1024 pixels over 10 feet wide you have 10. So you can get much more detail to where more people can get close to it.
But what I would really like it for is for my gaming table. If it takes 2 seconds to update the entire page that covers the table (E sized would be perfect), that would make my just as a DM much better. When I set up a fight I have to get out there with the spray bottle to clean off the battle map, then spend a few minutes to draw the map. Compare it to what you have before, find that you screwed up something specifically needed that the entire scenario is about and redraw that section, find you have over spray on the water bottle, and redraw that section. It often takes about 10 minutes of game time.
Heck if it takes a minute to update a page that size I still wouldn't mind. It saves me a great deal of time, all I have to do is scan the maps into the laptop, and then have it display things. It especially gets rid of the smart ass player syndrom who gets handed the pen to draw the parts of the map that you can't reach easily.
Not only GSM but all cellphones I know will work on the emergency numbers. Both the phones and the infrastructure are set up to throw out all rules when the user keys in 911 (or 119 depending on where you are).
For instance a phone that shows no service because, the provider in the area rejects the phone for whatever reason, will throw away its perferred roaming list and latch onto the first compatible signal it finds and makes the call.
By law (in most places) the provider must route the call through even though they might not get the customer to pay for it.
Usually when a call is made the network sends requests to the billing center to make sure the call is allowed, during an emergency call this process is bypassed. And often if the base station doesn't have the capacity for the new call, and can't kick it off to another channel, will drop a current call to allow the emergency call through. Of course in an emergency like the bombing, ALL calls are probably emergency calls, and you'll have capacity problems.
When the police shut down the networks in the UK, they probably just got the providers to move the network into an emergency calls only state. That's not really a problem because if cell phones were used to trigger off the bombs they wouldn't be able to receive a call in this mode.
I always thought that The Force was an awful lot like The Tao, and probably that's where Lucas got the idea. Try this on for size:
Sorry it has to be said. And I'll probably shoot myself later:
Old fortune quote: The force is like duct tape. It has a light side, and a dark side and holds the universe together.
If you need a GUI to set up a network interface, maybe you need to go back to Windows, because you aren't going to be doing it over a serial link! Solaris was built with Enterprise computing in mind, not "making it easy" for people who don't want to type.
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/, editing one file, and then telling the network to restart to get the new IP address, netmask, etc. I just find dealing with Solaris as archaic. I don't know about the latest Solaris 10. But the main IT people who have to deal with them, much perfer admining Linux for that reason.
I wouldn't agree with that. A person who can admin a linux box over a serial link, might not be able to admin a sun box. On linux I perfer to use the console to edit the config files. But I was recently handed 5 solaris 8 boxes and was completely lost. And all I had to do was change the hostname, IP address, netmask and default gateway.
I had to call on my old AIX(and pains) days to change the interface with ifconfig. But I don't remember anything from AIX about a plumb and having to tell it, that its up. Once I got the thing onto the network, the first thing I did was install webmin. That was so that I could set things up permanently.
With Redhat/mandrake its all in a couple of files. Slackware is also fairly easy to change. Solaris caught me, putting the hostname for the ethernet port in one file, something like hostname.ce0. The IP address for that host name in the hosts file. The netmask for the IP address in netmasks, and the default gateway in defaultrouter. Took me alot of greps, and guesses. route -n doesn't work on solaris 8, so I had no idea what the default gateway on the box was to start with.
I guess Linux has spoiled me to traditional UNIX administration. But there's just something I like about going into
You're missing one thing. What's to keep new players from containing the older cracked keys. Backwards compatibility causes these types of nightmares all the time.
And once a key is cracked all hardware manufacturers can pick it up off the internet to add into their players.
New disks wouldn't contain these old keys, so old players will be disabled. But new players should still be able to handle old disks.
Of course this can get messy on the player side. Backwards compatibility always is. Which is why some people (rightly or wrongly) say that a PIV is just a 4004 trying to get out.
But you're probably right on that the media producers will demand the newer players being unable to play old disks. That way they can sell new copies of old movies. Disney comes to mind with its 'classics' collection they put on the market for a little while and then pull, to generate artifical demand. Think of them doing this everytime a new key comes out.