Finding and applying for a job isn't tough to do at night, even if you are working 12 - 14 hours per day (as I was at one time). Finding time to interview is. Taking just one day off is not going to work - if you are working overtime, getting a day off is tough, and it is likely you'll need more than one interview. I was in a similar situation at one point and ended up having to give up a shot at a job I felt I could have landed and would have enjoyed much more, simply because I couldn't go through their interview process that invovled 5 interviews.
My advice? It will be hard finding a good job while working such crazy hours. Save up some cash and gain as many skills as you can in the next few months. Then quit your job and devote yourself to looking for a new one. Do some contract work if you can to make your savings stretch a little further. Having a few weeks off to recuperate is kinda nice too:) I did it this way the second time I ran into a less-than-attractive work situation and things worked out much better for me - I interviewed for jobs that I thought would be a good fit, not ones that simply were easier to interview for, and was able to pick a much better job.
What makes this problem worse is that mySQL is usually paired with a loosely typed language such as PHP. When you convert something like this over to Oracle, you nearly die of a heart attack when you realize how unreliable your data is.
I personally hate Oracle, but switching to it often greatly improves the integrity and reliability of your data simply because it enforces things like character length, proper date usage, etc...
Perhaps my experience is unique, but I've worked in a situation that required extensive outside communication - we received business plans from companies looking for investments. Virtually everything sent over to us was in Word & Excel, and we had few problems using Open Office to work with those files. I also used Linux on my laptop during that time, and ran into almost no problems collaborating with my co-workers and people at other companies.
Granted, that is just one area, and I certianly agree that Microsoft should be more open with their file formats. However, I don't really think everyone is as locked-in as they think - I think a lot of it has to do with decisions made by uninformed higher-ups in the company.
I say I get pissed off when people are off farming points (and not contributing in any way).
AC says: "Farming points? You mean helping your team win? I am glad you got kicked."
I reply, "Yeah, I get pissed off when people score lots of points by killing the enemy and doing things to help us win. Pull your head out of your ass.
Farming points as in doing things that don't help the team, as far away from the action as possible. It is quite possible to get 100 points in a game without doing a damn thing to help your team win."
AC says, "Each kill takes a point from the other team. How is this not helping win the game?"
I clearly said that farming points involved NOT KILLING the other team or doing anything constructive, so I reply, "When they aren't killing the enemy."
Do I need to put this in picture form for you? Is it really that difficult to follow?
I'm glad I don't command a real military force too, but for different reasons. I disagree with you, because:
1. This isn't a realistic military simulation, it is a fast-paced arcade game.
2. In most vehicles, there isn't an easy way to check behind you. What am I supposed to do, hop out and run around my vehicle to make sure nobody is laying down behind it? Maybe I send a message saying 'Anyone behind me?', as a tank blasts away at me? The fast-paced nature of the game exacerbates this problem.
My point is not that you should recklessly drive around and not be punished, but I do think it is far too easy to TK by accident in this game, and people are too quick to punish.
Yeah, I get pissed off when people score lots of points by killing the enemy and doing things to help us win. Pull your head out of your ass.
Farming points as in doing things that don't help the team, as far away from the action as possible. It is quite possible to get 100 points in a game without doing a damn thing to help your team win.
1. It is easy to run people over if they crowd around your tank. If you spend all your time looking out for teammates, you might as well paint a giant bullseye on your tank and call it a day.
2. I rarely punish, unless they were exceptionally stupid or they did it on purpose. I get punished close to 80% of the time, even though I am quite cautious. Just last night, a guy was sniping and a MEC dude snuck up on him. I tried to save his ass by shooting the guy, but then the sniper jumped up and I hit him instead. He punished me for trying to save him.
Shit like that happens all the time and it makes the punish system worse than useless.
Also, the vote system sucks ass. Some guys on our team were farming points and I started a kick vote. They then retaliated by starting one against me. More people voted to kick me than them.
The point system is fun, but too many people play for points only and it ruins a lot of games.
I'm just surprised someone thought I would really smash a $50,000 car to pieces because of a video game:) Unless, of course, I'm playing Project Gotham incorrectly, and the average player doesn't hit curbs, guardrails, other cars, and construction cones.
FWIW, there are lots of people who shouldn't have driver's licenses, regardless of videogame-playing status.
I don't think competition itself is bad, but when it goes unchecked and gets out of hand, it can be. I would argue that competition in America has gotten out of hand.
Cool, I'll check it out. What kind of Audi do you drive?
I've been tempted to chip my S4, but I've held off because 99.9% of the time I wouldn't need or even notice the extra ~60 HP. Contrary to my original post, I don't really drive like an asshole:)
Uhh, I'm pretty sure it was pretty much a 'kill everything that moves, and even if it doesn't move, kill it anyway just to be sure' kind of game. It was innovative in the ways you could kill people though. Very creative.
Not that there is anything wrong with that.....
The real danger is with racing games. Try racing an Audi S4 around in Project Gotham all day, then hopping into a real S4 to go to the grocery store. Dangerous stuff.
Apple has said that they will not allow OS X to run on anything but their own hardware. If that changes in the future, then there are implications for Xandros and others, but I don't think that is likely in the near future.
Maybe I'm just really stupid, but I still don't get why 'Mactel' is a threat to Linux in any way. Why is it even a threat to Linspire or Xandros? Why does your average desktop user care if they are using the x86 platform, or even know that they are using it? I think it is silly to say that two operating systems are 'competing' on a certain platform, because your average user doesn't care. What they do care about is how fast it is, what it can do, and how much it costs.
Switching to the Intel platform only seems to do one thing: Lower the price somewhat. It won't make it so you can run OS X on commodity hardware, it won't make it so your Windows apps magically run on OS X, and it won't do anything else. So, if we are just talking price, there is no way Apple will lower the price to compete with Linspire systems. IMHO, the Mac Mini did more damage to desktop Linux than the move to x86 will, because it is cheap and simple.
It would be interesting to see a real estimate of the 'costs' of piracy, compared to the benefits companies reap from their products being pirated. It would be extremely difficult to accurately measure, but I bet the results would be that piracy just doesn't cost that much.
Presumably because this sort of information (updated, too) can be easily found online. Sticking it in a book only serves to make the book look thicker and perhaps justify a higher price.
I don't really care though, if the contents of the book alone are good, no need to knock it for including reference information.
The threat is that people will dual-boot Windows and OS X?
Yeah, who needs Linux when you can instead run 2 expensive, closed-source Operating Systems?
(Well, ok, OS X is more open than Windows)
Sure, I'll grant that a lot of porn is pretty easy to judge. There is quite a bit of material, however, that will offend plenty of people but isn't porn. How do we decide where that line is? How do we decide what is art and what is porn?
And what if a politician appealing to his base costs you money? Under the current law, the burden of blocking the sites falls on the ISP and there are penalties for not doing so.
You may think differently about a politician's chest thumping when it costs you money and increases your liability.
It would be easier if all porn was on an.xxx domain. However - How does one define 'porn' or adult content? Who decides what goes on a.xxx domain and what is fine on a.com?
What if I don't want my kids seeing religious crap and getting wrapped up in fake religions? Can I propose a.god domain? What about people who are offended by Profanity, Marxism, or clowns?
Pretty soon, your average ISP costs $65,000 per month and is slower than hell because of all the filtering to make sure you don't accidently see something that might offend you or your children.
What kind of fairy tale land is this? Hell, the most I've ever had is 12 days of combined vacation & sick days - of course, anyone who uses more than half is usually fired. And half hour lunches? Only sales guys get those!
ASP and its relatives may have their problems, but this 'imperical' data of yours makes no sense. The account management portion of the site wasn't working properly, so it must be ASPs fault? It is called shitty code. I could cause the exact same thing to happen using Java or PHP, probably several different ways.
Shitty code in any language is going to get you shitty results. If we are looking for anecdotal reports of various types of scripts not working, I'm sure I could find more examples of weird things happening in PHP scripts than you could in ASP scripts.
Slashdot Mirror
Finding and applying for a job isn't tough to do at night, even if you are working 12 - 14 hours per day (as I was at one time). Finding time to interview is. Taking just one day off is not going to work - if you are working overtime, getting a day off is tough, and it is likely you'll need more than one interview. I was in a similar situation at one point and ended up having to give up a shot at a job I felt I could have landed and would have enjoyed much more, simply because I couldn't go through their interview process that invovled 5 interviews.
:) I did it this way the second time I ran into a less-than-attractive work situation and things worked out much better for me - I interviewed for jobs that I thought would be a good fit, not ones that simply were easier to interview for, and was able to pick a much better job.
My advice? It will be hard finding a good job while working such crazy hours. Save up some cash and gain as many skills as you can in the next few months. Then quit your job and devote yourself to looking for a new one. Do some contract work if you can to make your savings stretch a little further. Having a few weeks off to recuperate is kinda nice too
What makes this problem worse is that mySQL is usually paired with a loosely typed language such as PHP. When you convert something like this over to Oracle, you nearly die of a heart attack when you realize how unreliable your data is. I personally hate Oracle, but switching to it often greatly improves the integrity and reliability of your data simply because it enforces things like character length, proper date usage, etc...
Perhaps my experience is unique, but I've worked in a situation that required extensive outside communication - we received business plans from companies looking for investments. Virtually everything sent over to us was in Word & Excel, and we had few problems using Open Office to work with those files. I also used Linux on my laptop during that time, and ran into almost no problems collaborating with my co-workers and people at other companies.
Granted, that is just one area, and I certianly agree that Microsoft should be more open with their file formats. However, I don't really think everyone is as locked-in as they think - I think a lot of it has to do with decisions made by uninformed higher-ups in the company.
Umm.. You actually *can* switch away from Microsoft's products. Ever heard of any of the following?
Browsers:
- Firefox
- Netscape
- Opera
Operating Systems:
- Linux
- OS X
Office Suites:
- Open Office
Media Players:
- iTunes
- WinAmp
- QuickTime
- RealPlayer
Dev Environments:
- Eclipse
I'll go ahead and get you another copy of that memo, mmm'kay?
Well, lets see...
I say I get pissed off when people are off farming points (and not contributing in any way).
AC says: "Farming points? You mean helping your team win? I am glad you got kicked."
I reply, "Yeah, I get pissed off when people score lots of points by killing the enemy and doing things to help us win. Pull your head out of your ass.
Farming points as in doing things that don't help the team, as far away from the action as possible. It is quite possible to get 100 points in a game without doing a damn thing to help your team win."
AC says, "Each kill takes a point from the other team. How is this not helping win the game?"
I clearly said that farming points involved NOT KILLING the other team or doing anything constructive, so I reply, "When they aren't killing the enemy."
Do I need to put this in picture form for you? Is it really that difficult to follow?
When they aren't killing the enemy.
I'm glad I don't command a real military force too, but for different reasons. I disagree with you, because:
1. This isn't a realistic military simulation, it is a fast-paced arcade game.
2. In most vehicles, there isn't an easy way to check behind you. What am I supposed to do, hop out and run around my vehicle to make sure nobody is laying down behind it? Maybe I send a message saying 'Anyone behind me?', as a tank blasts away at me? The fast-paced nature of the game exacerbates this problem.
My point is not that you should recklessly drive around and not be punished, but I do think it is far too easy to TK by accident in this game, and people are too quick to punish.
Yeah, I get pissed off when people score lots of points by killing the enemy and doing things to help us win. Pull your head out of your ass.
Farming points as in doing things that don't help the team, as far away from the action as possible. It is quite possible to get 100 points in a game without doing a damn thing to help your team win.
1. It is easy to run people over if they crowd around your tank. If you spend all your time looking out for teammates, you might as well paint a giant bullseye on your tank and call it a day. 2. I rarely punish, unless they were exceptionally stupid or they did it on purpose. I get punished close to 80% of the time, even though I am quite cautious. Just last night, a guy was sniping and a MEC dude snuck up on him. I tried to save his ass by shooting the guy, but then the sniper jumped up and I hit him instead. He punished me for trying to save him. Shit like that happens all the time and it makes the punish system worse than useless. Also, the vote system sucks ass. Some guys on our team were farming points and I started a kick vote. They then retaliated by starting one against me. More people voted to kick me than them. The point system is fun, but too many people play for points only and it ruins a lot of games.
I'm just surprised someone thought I would really smash a $50,000 car to pieces because of a video game :) Unless, of course, I'm playing Project Gotham incorrectly, and the average player doesn't hit curbs, guardrails, other cars, and construction cones.
FWIW, there are lots of people who shouldn't have driver's licenses, regardless of videogame-playing status.
Maybe you should have your rich dad buy you a sense of humor. Then again, my post was modded 60% insightful, so maybe I wasn't obvious enough.
I don't think competition itself is bad, but when it goes unchecked and gets out of hand, it can be. I would argue that competition in America has gotten out of hand.
Cool, I'll check it out. What kind of Audi do you drive?
:)
I've been tempted to chip my S4, but I've held off because 99.9% of the time I wouldn't need or even notice the extra ~60 HP. Contrary to my original post, I don't really drive like an asshole
Uhh, I'm pretty sure it was pretty much a 'kill everything that moves, and even if it doesn't move, kill it anyway just to be sure' kind of game. It was innovative in the ways you could kill people though. Very creative.
Not that there is anything wrong with that.....
The real danger is with racing games. Try racing an Audi S4 around in Project Gotham all day, then hopping into a real S4 to go to the grocery store. Dangerous stuff.
No, you won't. You'll still have to buy Apple hardware to run OS X.
Apple has said that they will not allow OS X to run on anything but their own hardware. If that changes in the future, then there are implications for Xandros and others, but I don't think that is likely in the near future.
Maybe I'm just really stupid, but I still don't get why 'Mactel' is a threat to Linux in any way. Why is it even a threat to Linspire or Xandros? Why does your average desktop user care if they are using the x86 platform, or even know that they are using it? I think it is silly to say that two operating systems are 'competing' on a certain platform, because your average user doesn't care. What they do care about is how fast it is, what it can do, and how much it costs.
Switching to the Intel platform only seems to do one thing: Lower the price somewhat. It won't make it so you can run OS X on commodity hardware, it won't make it so your Windows apps magically run on OS X, and it won't do anything else. So, if we are just talking price, there is no way Apple will lower the price to compete with Linspire systems. IMHO, the Mac Mini did more damage to desktop Linux than the move to x86 will, because it is cheap and simple.
What is it that I am missing?
It would be interesting to see a real estimate of the 'costs' of piracy, compared to the benefits companies reap from their products being pirated. It would be extremely difficult to accurately measure, but I bet the results would be that piracy just doesn't cost that much.
:)
Not that I in any way condone piracy
Presumably because this sort of information (updated, too) can be easily found online. Sticking it in a book only serves to make the book look thicker and perhaps justify a higher price.
I don't really care though, if the contents of the book alone are good, no need to knock it for including reference information.
The threat is that people will dual-boot Windows and OS X? Yeah, who needs Linux when you can instead run 2 expensive, closed-source Operating Systems? (Well, ok, OS X is more open than Windows)
Sure, I'll grant that a lot of porn is pretty easy to judge. There is quite a bit of material, however, that will offend plenty of people but isn't porn. How do we decide where that line is? How do we decide what is art and what is porn?
And what if a politician appealing to his base costs you money? Under the current law, the burden of blocking the sites falls on the ISP and there are penalties for not doing so.
You may think differently about a politician's chest thumping when it costs you money and increases your liability.
It would be easier if all porn was on an .xxx domain. However - How does one define 'porn' or adult content? Who decides what goes on a .xxx domain and what is fine on a .com?
.god domain? What about people who are offended by Profanity, Marxism, or clowns?
What if I don't want my kids seeing religious crap and getting wrapped up in fake religions? Can I propose a
Pretty soon, your average ISP costs $65,000 per month and is slower than hell because of all the filtering to make sure you don't accidently see something that might offend you or your children.
Only 3 - 4 weeks of vacation per year?
What kind of fairy tale land is this? Hell, the most I've ever had is 12 days of combined vacation & sick days - of course, anyone who uses more than half is usually fired. And half hour lunches? Only sales guys get those!
Huh?
ASP and its relatives may have their problems, but this 'imperical' data of yours makes no sense. The account management portion of the site wasn't working properly, so it must be ASPs fault? It is called shitty code. I could cause the exact same thing to happen using Java or PHP, probably several different ways.
Shitty code in any language is going to get you shitty results. If we are looking for anecdotal reports of various types of scripts not working, I'm sure I could find more examples of weird things happening in PHP scripts than you could in ASP scripts.