LOL at the car story - look under the lid of most modern cars and you just find more lids:) And some brightly coloured stoppers with "Put water in here", "put oil in here when car tells you to" type signs on them. My bimmer is 9 years old, and tells me what to do all the time (most of the time it's having a laugh though - and I've given up repsonding to its claims that the lights are out on the back of the car).
My other car's a 10 years old 3rd Gen RX7 - and whilst you can see eveyrthing - it looks like the "engine from another planet" and there's no way I'm gonna start messing with any of it! To quote Mr Scott on the bridge of the captured Kilingon Bird Of Prey in STIV "well theres the warp drive controls, but where's the damm antimatter inducer?"
This analogy works quite well I feel - Windows - it's all covered up - cos you don't need to know what's under here. Linux - "feck me look at all them parts!"
The only difference for me is that whilst I'm not an expert on the fuel/turbo controllers for my RX-7, I do know how to take Linux apart and fit it back together. I couldn't fix Windows at all - the screw heads are a wierd shape, and I can't get the covers off. I can't check the transmission fluid level in my BM either - there's no dipstick - I have to take it to the Dealer where their computer talks to the car's computer and it tells them how much fluid is in there... and then they tell me, in exchange for a small fee of course..
I feel that a lot of new "computer users" are (as someone else commented) just looking for an AOL terminal - but there is no such thing right now, but they know "you need a computer to access the internet right?" The fact that it *is* a computer is irrelavent to them - and contrary to popular opinion, I don't think most of these home users give two figs for Microsoft Office either. They are being bought as communication devices, and no one gives a monkey's about what's inside their telephone handset, so why should they care about the insides of their email/web terminal? Microsoft knows this - which is why their latest versions of Windows look like they had the interface designed by Fisher Price.
I use Windows (98) for playing games. Because thats one area where MS does have an alomost complete monopoly (Consoles are not quite deveoped enough to play the sort of things I like just yet - but they are tantalisingly close now that they have storage, connectivity etc).
One of the things they (the KDE and or Gnome folks) must fix in future releases is this business of there being almost no built in file associations - Konqueror(in KDE 2.x) recognises almost all file formats I use (and assigns a nice individual icon to each type) but if you double click one - it almost never knows an app to launch it in, and finding one, and configuring it is a very manual process at present.
As a TV watcher (well movie on my TV screen watcher ) I should probably get annoyed - but then any irritation comes from the fact that I know you are right - but then so much of the action we see on the screen is not attainable in RealLife(TM) - becuase its frankly not possible - no matter who you are - but I agree I for one should get out more (he says typing comments into a discussion on HDTV, like anyone cares about my opinion anyway..).
In fact - sod this for a game of soldiers - I'm off out for a burn in me tarmac shredder - it's the best driving game I ever bought - force feedback everything, 3D smellovision with ear busting sound, and even has the revolutionary ChanceOfDeath technology built in to make it more exciting hehe. Oh yeah - and zero pixelation on the graphics..
Erm - well I'm sure your new TV is better than your old when in general anyway - but if your watching lo-res (ie normal) TV broadcasts - they won't look any better on a HDTV - thats the point he is making.
Imagine John Logie Baird's frustration - he invents the TV, but there's nothing on for 36 years....
hehe it may well be a bit lame for an interview technique but then sacha Baron-Cohen's made some hilariously funny TV (Ali G) using the same "ask slightly stupid, and just a little off topic questions" approach. He cleverly persuades the subject that he is somehow a bit dumb, cos he's a "black yoof" and in dire need of some education - and the self important interviewees fall for it every time. The fact that he's got and MBA from Cambraidge or something, and that it;s obvious to anyone with half a brain that he's white just makes it even more hilarious.
someof this guy's questions remind me of Ali G - espcially the burning bush one - works better on TV though.
LOL - indeed - I mean if, like me you're a UK resident and went to school here - can you imagine any of the girls in your class actually *wanting* to dress up in slightly kinky outfits and wave bundles of shredded paper around? And somehow believe this is just as valid an activity as say - playing football?
It is a rather quaint notion. If we believe the hollywood representation of the American cheerleader - it's actually considered some sort of honour to be in the cheerleading "squad" , and not at all a sort of degrading, embarrassing "stand in the corner with this silly hat on your head" punishment for misdemeanours that demand more than a simple detention... hehe and they practice LOL:)
"Most of today's email spam, however, comes from a handful of culprits, described by Barry and others as "known criminals"."
Well I can't speak for anyone else, but the SPAM that lands in my email box every day is largely from large corporations, chain letters (you know the ones that want you to send money to people on a list), and the rest I have no clue about as I can't read Kanji.
I honestly don't mind a bit of SPAM, but what really gets my goat is when they either claim that I asked for it "here are the results of your feedback form" or such like, or they cite some law from some country I don't live in and claim that this gives them the right to send me mail about whatever rubbish they are peddling. And lets face it - if they're intentions are so honourable, why is the return address always a non-existent hotmail/yahoo account? Then there's the "removeal"options - yeah sure I'm gonna go to some web page and type in my email address - so the spammers can know it's a real email address. Some of them even have the cheek to ask for a receipt!
The 3rd most prevalent type of SPAM in my mailbox is the laughable fraud attempts - you know the ones typed in CAPITALS usually puporting to be from some dude (usually in Nigeria) in some country's government who has some scam going whereby he needs your bank details to dump several million dollars US into it. I love those ones - they've been around on paper for donkey's years.
The Herald's reporter must have been out in the sun too long - the world's spam sent by a handful of chavvies - my arse.
Is that some kind of lawnmower? The mind boggles at these transportation devices - too slow to travel on the roads, and a definite liability on the pavement.
Still - I forsee loads of people buying those (when they are offically availble) to use as Robotwars robot chassis:)
I agree - I mean whilst I would very probably want GNU/Linux on my new PC - I wouldn't want an old version of RedHat (espcially with that dodgy version of ping) - so the first thing I'd be doing (if I bought one Today) would be feeding it my RH 7.2 CDs, and even if it was up to date - there's a lot of choices to make (if you want) when you install a recent Linux based OS, so I prefer to roll my own so to speak (hell I've only just come to terms with RPMs as opposed to installing everything from source - freshly cooked software tastes so much better:-)
I got the distinct impression the reviewer (or previewer?) is not familair with the subject matter - I mean what was that bit about modems about? "[the game] will use modems" ?? what for exactly? Or did he mean that er.. players who use modems to connect to an ISP will be erm.. using them still when they play this game?
And the fact that you created your own character seemed a revelation to this guy - even though he claimed knowledge of Everquest and a whole bunch of other games. Ever heard of "role playing"?? hehe and then the final shock news - they'll be charging for it! Well er duh! do ya think?
Still - the game looks nice - hell if game models and rendering get much better, Lucasfilm will be able to shoot Episode III in the damm game:)
Well the very best of luck to you both - I know I wake up some days and think "hmm not at all relevant to life this IT stuff is it? " I go to meetings where people get het up about stuff which is all so abstract I often wonder if I should get a new career like say - counting trees.
I like Cornwall - next time I'm there maybe I'll buy some polished stones:)
Yeah but what if by some insane chance they win? That's what the boys over at BT are thinking - it's a bit like playing the lottery - you know the odds against winning are too massive to comprehend, but for some reason, millions of people still buy tickets - I guess BT feel they can't win if they don't enter the competition:)
OT: mind you - talking about lottery odds, everytime I see a documentary about asteroid impacts, some bloke in a brown zip up cardigan *always* states glibly that "yeah but remember, you are a 100 times more likely to get killed by an asteroid landing on you than you are of winning the lottery!" (followed by "knowing" grins and winks) Hmm well lets see - number of people who've won the lottery in say - just the UK over the last 5 years (talking big winners here) oo well I dunno but it's more than 10. Number of people killed by asteroid impacts - erm well that'd be ZERO then, so thats's what we call in the trade - "bollox" then, isn't it?
Indeed - the changes in the UK tax laws (IR35) was just the final nail in the coffin for me. I contracted from 1997 to 1999, and already things were on the slide - at one point I even took a 3 month support contract through computacenter for £18/hour, and wages were rarely above the £25/hour mark. So in 1999 I took a permie job at a place I'd been contracting at for 6 months on a big installation job (for less money, but a bigger job title:-/), with all the hassle that goes with it:P
In 2001 that company was bought and the entire site was closed (the buyers just wanted the portfolio - credit card co.). I did a deal to stick around with one of the guys who used to report to me just to maintain the existing systems until the business died away, and manage the dismantling of the premises. In the meantime I started looking for a new job in a big way - but 6 months later, came up with a big fat nothing in the way of similar roles, and have basically been sitting here going slightly mad with nowt to do but scribble comments on Slashdot:P I've got an entire 200 seat office, a 2mb internet line, a load of Cisco switches and Dell servers to amuse myself with, but the novelty soon wears off - I've downloaded eveything that Oracle makes, installed it, (well when their half baked installer works ) as well as every Open Source project of any size I could find on freshmeat, fixed countless peoples' Windows Pcs (which is funny - cos I know feck all about later versions of windows (2000, XP), but I still manage to sort them out )
I've just last week secured a job with the company that bought the outfit I was working for - forfeiting the payout I'd negotiated earlier - but right now in the current climate, I'd rather have a job even if it does mean I've go to move (again).
Lots of people commented that the jobs mentioned in the article wern't really tachy jobs - and its true 2marketing manager" is a made up job, but I work at the sharp end of IT infrastructure - and If I can't get something to perform, the company is threatened and I'm down the job centre.
Someone else said something like "companies will realise they do need techies when stuff starts going wrong" and that is such an insight it deserves a +6 (not that I would do that to a post just becuase I agree lol) A lot of companies have hired "instant techies" in recent years (you know - the young lads whose MCSE certs are still warm from the fuser) as this much easier than going through a proper recruitment process. The trouble is, whilst these guys can repeat faultlessly what they learnt at MS boot camp, they don't have the background knowledge to take on something that isn't Windows, and find out what makes it tick. I have found it almost impossible to impress upon recruiters the difference between say - me with years of exp. and minor miracles under my belt, and a guy waving a bit of paper saying he knows what all the icons in control panel in windows NT do..
Anonymous (off to Cornwall) is dead right - contracting as we knew it is dead in the UK, and will never come back. Hehe I guess that's where all those shops in Cornwall that sell dodgy looking items made of seashells and bits of slate come from:)
The next time I get laid off, I may be off down there too...
"Yes, this is a rant, and I'm sorry for any grammar/spelling errors. "
You make some good points but I feel as a friend of anyone who contributes to projects like MONO I should point out any potential sources of embarassment. You know how you can go around mis-pronouncing words for ages and no one tells you? Like some un-educated person pronouncing, say - Versace as "Versaise" or "Gucci" as "Gucky"? And then when you *do* find out - you think back to all those people in those meetings you said it in front of...
Well I can't let you go on! - it would be remiss of me not to tell you that the phrase is "let's not delude ourselves". To dilute something - usually means mixing it with a water or some other compound...:P
Thats not the point really - even stolen tech needs someone to manufacture/understand/fix etc. It's not a tech level issue - I mean who makes the spoons on Kronos? No self respecting warrior is going work in a spoon factory!
I agree - all the Klingons you see from the lowliest axe jockey to the Chancellor are basically fighters - so who solved all the techy problems and developed the science to build starships etc etc? All I can think of is that there is an underclass enslaved back on planet Klingon doing all this. Think of the problems we havn't solved in 21st century Earth - Eg: faster than light travel, matter transportation and so on - I we have geeks/serious dudes who work for dedicated outfits like NASA, CERN, MIT and so on. The Klingons have done all of this (presumably with a big hefty axe type thing) and even found time to invent some stuff the 23rd century humans/vulcans etc haven't - the cloaking device (hehe and why is it the humans are always suprised when they see one? er or don't see one:-/)
I agree with your analogies too - I think of them as the bad guys from Mad Max II - rudimentary fuedal, might is right type gang.
The same goes for the Gungans in TPM - they all act a bit retarded but manage to build great underwater cities, and huge shield generators...
LOL this guy's obviously never had to run anything serious on a MS server OS, and out up with the huge $$$ running costs, "windows knows" best attitiude ~"if you can't see it in the GUI config tools - you don't need to know" or just the sheer inflexibilty of it all.
Nobody's being overzealous in this thread - although it does happen - but then what are you if not an MS zealot with that outburst??
I don't hate MS - but as a system architect and network admin for many years, I know the value of LInux to me - theres so much maturity in the tools, and so much flexibility - it all works out of the box - you don't need to go buy anything else - it pretty much handles any server task as is (I'm using RedHat 7.2 right now), and it stays up!!
Next to Redhat, MS server OS's are the ones that look like they were designed by Fisher Price - for years 3-6:P Linux is even easy to configure these days - with Webmin, I can even get NT admins to do some:P
hehe it;s MS who's been beating the very lame looking NT/2000/XP horse for years now - they keep attaching extra legs and it seems to move, and even looks a bit like a horse, but underneath theres the carcass of something smelly from about 1992:)
All I can say to you - is "just try it" If you do have a server application to run - try it on Linux.
Right now I'm installing Oracle9i on RedHat 7.2 on a Dell 6450 - the OS installed in 15 minutes - try that with XP/2000! I have all the networking tools you could ever need, and I know it will be more reliable than the same thing on NT.
Yeah - I always thought it was a bit of an exageration that so many US citizens are so insular - 'til I saw George Bush on TV.
Mind you when you've got such things as - World Series Baseball (which contains only US teams) the last thing your country needs is people like you going about encouraging the stereotype. Especially at this particularly politically sensitive time.
The amount of junk mail I get from US companies is amazing - and they all have this little disclaimer at the bottom saying I was spammed in accordance with some US law. Well heads up guys - I don't *live* in your country ffs !
No - they all 5" plastic disks. It's what's *on* the disk, or tape or hard drive that counts. You can back up data oto a VHS tape - but it doesn't make it a movie now does it?
Yeah sure they may contain some software (although they don't have to - just put one item on the disc and it will play) And the menu software is on the player - only the data that says what is on the menu is on the disk. But anyway that's not the point - any software thats present is usually part of the delivery/playback mechanism - you telling me theres no software in a VCR? Course there is, but its a part of the playback mechanism. The exception to this is when they put game demos on the movie DVDs - which could make things awkward even though these often have little or no value (I certianly don't want them - and have never bought a movie DVD becasue it had some demo of the game-of-the-film).
So far from being total crap, its common sense - and in fact - why was it ever in doubt?
I guess you'll be burning all of your malicious DVDs then? I have no problem with region encoding - its the studios right to decide when they will release a product in each market. They've done it for years with tapes and cinema releases - why is everyone suddenly bitchin because they're still doing it with DVDs?
Sooner or later, just about everything will have some sort of processor and associated "software" embedded in it - but thats no reason to start re-classifying everything as "software", when we all know what the main "point" of an object is. I mean - there's more software in a new 7 series BMW than in 50 DVD players - but it's still a car.
You gotta seperate in you mind the product (the movie) from the physical delivery medium. A DVD is a disk. We're not talking about disks here really.
The data on that disk is a movie - it could be on a hard disk, or a DLT tape - it's data - any digital storage medium will do to hold it. And it's that data which is copyrighted by the studio - not a 5" plastic disk.
A movie is a movie is a movie - however it's stored. So the test you need to apply to your examples is "is it a movie?" So is Dragon's Lair a Movie? I sure wouldn't pay to see it in a cinema:) hehe but then I wouldn't pay to see Moulin Rouge either - I saw the trailer and a big red sign flipped up with a klaxon on it saying "Warning: Musical":) But it is a movie - I don't think you could persuade anyone Dragon's Lair is a movie. Mind you - I wouldn't pay money to play DL in an arcade either - not when there was Battlezone and StarWars around at the time lol:) So I guess that makes it a coaster - do Australians have coasters? Are they even legal in Oz?:P
Hmm I see your point, but I for one don't want any of those "extra fearures" - I just want the damm movie! No behind the scenes stuff, no swahili sound track, or kanji subtitles (and in fact being able to put all this on one disc surely *reduces* production costs as one disc fits all countries - if they want). Then there's the costs of physical manufacture: I don't know any facts here, so I may be wrong, but I've got a hunch it costs a lot less to press a DVD than to record, wind and assemble a VHS cassette.
That said, I don't mind paying a bit more for DVD, as the quality is so much better and it has real Dolby 5.1 sound. I also view VHS tapes as being pretty temporary affairs - they're generally screwed after 3 or 4 viewings. The premium is too much in my opinion though - a couple of quid more would be fine (~$3-4) (and cut out all that extra "bonus" nonsense that no one ever watches and it won't cost any more to produce).
Lucasfilm have started shooting on digital media, and it won't be long before they'll simply encode and write that onto a DVD direct (they didn't do it with TPM as they wanted to keep the "scanned from film prints" look in line with the other movies in the series). This will mean it will be even simpler (and hence cheaper) to produce DVDs versus VHS, and charging more for the movie on disc, which is closer to it's native format, will look inreasingly contrived.
Slashdot Mirror
LOL at the car story - look under the lid of most modern cars and you just find more lids :) And some brightly coloured stoppers with "Put water in here", "put oil in here when car tells you to" type signs on them. My bimmer is 9 years old, and tells me what to do all the time (most of the time it's having a laugh though - and I've given up repsonding to its claims that the lights are out on the back of the car).
My other car's a 10 years old 3rd Gen RX7 - and whilst you can see eveyrthing - it looks like the "engine from another planet" and there's no way I'm gonna start messing with any of it! To quote Mr Scott on the bridge of the captured Kilingon Bird Of Prey in STIV "well theres the warp drive controls, but where's the damm antimatter inducer?"
This analogy works quite well I feel - Windows - it's all covered up - cos you don't need to know what's under here. Linux - "feck me look at all them parts!"
The only difference for me is that whilst I'm not an expert on the fuel/turbo controllers for my RX-7, I do know how to take Linux apart and fit it back together. I couldn't fix Windows at all - the screw heads are a wierd shape, and I can't get the covers off. I can't check the transmission fluid level in my BM either - there's no dipstick - I have to take it to the Dealer where their computer talks to the car's computer and it tells them how much fluid is in there... and then they tell me, in exchange for a small fee of course..
I feel that a lot of new "computer users" are (as someone else commented) just looking for an AOL terminal - but there is no such thing right now, but they know "you need a computer to access the internet right?" The fact that it *is* a computer is irrelavent to them - and contrary to popular opinion, I don't think most of these home users give two figs for Microsoft Office either. They are being bought as communication devices, and no one gives a monkey's about what's inside their telephone handset, so why should they care about the insides of their email/web terminal? Microsoft knows this - which is why their latest versions of Windows look like they had the interface designed by Fisher Price.
I use Windows (98) for playing games. Because thats one area where MS does have an alomost complete monopoly (Consoles are not quite deveoped enough to play the sort of things I like just yet - but they are tantalisingly close now that they have storage, connectivity etc).
One of the things they (the KDE and or Gnome folks) must fix in future releases is this business of there being almost no built in file associations - Konqueror(in KDE 2.x) recognises almost all file formats I use (and assigns a nice individual icon to each type) but if you double click one - it almost never knows an app to launch it in, and finding one, and configuring it is a very manual process at present.
As a TV watcher (well movie on my TV screen watcher ) I should probably get annoyed - but then any irritation comes from the fact that I know you are right - but then so much of the action we see on the screen is not attainable in RealLife(TM) - becuase its frankly not possible - no matter who you are - but I agree I for one should get out more (he says typing comments into a discussion on HDTV, like anyone cares about my opinion anyway..).
In fact - sod this for a game of soldiers - I'm off out for a burn in me tarmac shredder - it's the best driving game I ever bought - force feedback everything, 3D smellovision with ear busting sound, and even has the revolutionary ChanceOfDeath technology built in to make it more exciting hehe. Oh yeah - and zero pixelation on the graphics..
Erm - well I'm sure your new TV is better than your old when in general anyway - but if your watching lo-res (ie normal) TV broadcasts - they won't look any better on a HDTV - thats the point he is making.
Imagine John Logie Baird's frustration - he invents the TV, but there's nothing on for 36 years....
hehe it may well be a bit lame for an interview technique but then sacha Baron-Cohen's made some hilariously funny TV (Ali G) using the same "ask slightly stupid, and just a little off topic questions" approach. He cleverly persuades the subject that he is somehow a bit dumb, cos he's a "black yoof" and in dire need of some education - and the self important interviewees fall for it every time. The fact that he's got and MBA from Cambraidge or something, and that it;s obvious to anyone with half a brain that he's white just makes it even more hilarious.
someof this guy's questions remind me of Ali G - espcially the burning bush one - works better on TV though.
LOL - indeed - I mean if, like me you're a UK resident and went to school here - can you imagine any of the girls in your class actually *wanting* to dress up in slightly kinky outfits and wave bundles of shredded paper around? And somehow believe this is just as valid an activity as say - playing football?
:)
It is a rather quaint notion. If we believe the hollywood representation of the American cheerleader - it's actually considered some sort of honour to be in the cheerleading "squad" , and not at all a sort of degrading, embarrassing "stand in the corner with this silly hat on your head" punishment for misdemeanours that demand more than a simple detention... hehe and they practice LOL
"Most of today's email spam, however, comes from a handful of culprits, described by Barry and others as "known criminals"."
Well I can't speak for anyone else, but the SPAM that lands in my email box every day is largely from large corporations, chain letters (you know the ones that want you to send money to people on a list), and the rest I have no clue about as I can't read Kanji.
I honestly don't mind a bit of SPAM, but what really gets my goat is when they either claim that I asked for it "here are the results of your feedback form" or such like, or they cite some law from some country I don't live in and claim that this gives them the right to send me mail about whatever rubbish they are peddling. And lets face it - if they're intentions are so honourable, why is the return address always a non-existent hotmail/yahoo account? Then there's the "removeal"options - yeah sure I'm gonna go to some web page and type in my email address - so the spammers can know it's a real email address. Some of them even have the cheek to ask for a receipt!
The 3rd most prevalent type of SPAM in my mailbox is the laughable fraud attempts - you know the ones typed in CAPITALS usually puporting to be from some dude (usually in Nigeria) in some country's government who has some scam going whereby he needs your bank details to dump several million dollars US into it. I love those ones - they've been around on paper for donkey's years.
The Herald's reporter must have been out in the sun too long - the world's spam sent by a handful of chavvies - my arse.
Is that some kind of lawnmower? The mind boggles at these transportation devices - too slow to travel on the roads, and a definite liability on the pavement.
:)
Still - I forsee loads of people buying those (when they are offically availble) to use as Robotwars robot chassis
I agree - I mean whilst I would very probably want GNU/Linux on my new PC - I wouldn't want an old version of RedHat (espcially with that dodgy version of ping) - so the first thing I'd be doing (if I bought one Today) would be feeding it my RH 7.2 CDs, and even if it was up to date - there's a lot of choices to make (if you want) when you install a recent Linux based OS, so I prefer to roll my own so to speak (hell I've only just come to terms with RPMs as opposed to installing everything from source - freshly cooked software tastes so much better :-)
I got the distinct impression the reviewer (or previewer?) is not familair with the subject matter - I mean what was that bit about modems about? "[the game] will use modems" ?? what for exactly? Or did he mean that er.. players who use modems to connect to an ISP will be erm.. using them still when they play this game?
:)
And the fact that you created your own character seemed a revelation to this guy - even though he claimed knowledge of Everquest and a whole bunch of other games. Ever heard of "role playing"?? hehe and then the final shock news - they'll be charging for it! Well er duh! do ya think?
Still - the game looks nice - hell if game models and rendering get much better, Lucasfilm will be able to shoot Episode III in the damm game
Well the very best of luck to you both - I know I wake up some days and think "hmm not at all relevant to life this IT stuff is it? " I go to meetings where people get het up about stuff which is all so abstract I often wonder if I should get a new career like say - counting trees.
:)
I like Cornwall - next time I'm there maybe I'll buy some polished stones
Yeah but what if by some insane chance they win? That's what the boys over at BT are thinking - it's a bit like playing the lottery - you know the odds against winning are too massive to comprehend, but for some reason, millions of people still buy tickets - I guess BT feel they can't win if they don't enter the competition :)
OT: mind you - talking about lottery odds, everytime I see a documentary about asteroid impacts, some bloke in a brown zip up cardigan *always* states glibly that "yeah but remember, you are a 100 times more likely to get killed by an asteroid landing on you than you are of winning the lottery!" (followed by "knowing" grins and winks) Hmm well lets see - number of people who've won the lottery in say - just the UK over the last 5 years (talking big winners here) oo well I dunno but it's more than 10. Number of people killed by asteroid impacts - erm well that'd be ZERO then, so thats's what we call in the trade - "bollox" then, isn't it?
Indeed - the changes in the UK tax laws (IR35) was just the final nail in the coffin for me. I contracted from 1997 to 1999, and already things were on the slide - at one point I even took a 3 month support contract through computacenter for £18/hour, and wages were rarely above the £25/hour mark. So in 1999 I took a permie job at a place I'd been contracting at for 6 months on a big installation job (for less money, but a bigger job title :-/), with all the hassle that goes with it :P
:P I've got an entire 200 seat office, a 2mb internet line, a load of Cisco switches and Dell servers to amuse myself with, but the novelty soon wears off - I've downloaded eveything that Oracle makes, installed it, (well when their half baked installer works ) as well as every Open Source project of any size I could find on freshmeat, fixed countless peoples' Windows Pcs (which is funny - cos I know feck all about later versions of windows (2000, XP), but I still manage to sort them out )
:)
In 2001 that company was bought and the entire site was closed (the buyers just wanted the portfolio - credit card co.). I did a deal to stick around with one of the guys who used to report to me just to maintain the existing systems until the business died away, and manage the dismantling of the premises. In the meantime I started looking for a new job in a big way - but 6 months later, came up with a big fat nothing in the way of similar roles, and have basically been sitting here going slightly mad with nowt to do but scribble comments on Slashdot
I've just last week secured a job with the company that bought the outfit I was working for - forfeiting the payout I'd negotiated earlier - but right now in the current climate, I'd rather have a job even if it does mean I've go to move (again).
Lots of people commented that the jobs mentioned in the article wern't really tachy jobs - and its true 2marketing manager" is a made up job, but I work at the sharp end of IT infrastructure - and If I can't get something to perform, the company is threatened and I'm down the job centre.
Someone else said something like "companies will realise they do need techies when stuff starts going wrong" and that is such an insight it deserves a +6 (not that I would do that to a post just becuase I agree lol) A lot of companies have hired "instant techies" in recent years (you know - the young lads whose MCSE certs are still warm from the fuser) as this much easier than going through a proper recruitment process. The trouble is, whilst these guys can repeat faultlessly what they learnt at MS boot camp, they don't have the background knowledge to take on something that isn't Windows, and find out what makes it tick. I have found it almost impossible to impress upon recruiters the difference between say - me with years of exp. and minor miracles under my belt, and a guy waving a bit of paper saying he knows what all the icons in control panel in windows NT do..
Anonymous (off to Cornwall) is dead right - contracting as we knew it is dead in the UK, and will never come back. Hehe I guess that's where all those shops in Cornwall that sell dodgy looking items made of seashells and bits of slate come from
The next time I get laid off, I may be off down there too...
"Yes, this is a rant, and I'm sorry for any grammar/spelling errors. "
:P
You make some good points but I feel as a friend of anyone who contributes to projects like MONO I should point out any potential sources of embarassment. You know how you can go around mis-pronouncing words for ages and no one tells you? Like some un-educated person pronouncing, say - Versace as "Versaise" or "Gucci" as "Gucky"? And then when you *do* find out - you think back to all those people in those meetings you said it in front of...
Well I can't let you go on! - it would be remiss of me not to tell you that the phrase is "let's not delude ourselves". To dilute something - usually means mixing it with a water or some other compound...
Thats a good point - but how'd they get off the planet in the first place?
Thats not the point really - even stolen tech needs someone to manufacture/understand/fix etc. It's not a tech level issue - I mean who makes the spoons on Kronos? No self respecting warrior is going work in a spoon factory!
I agree - all the Klingons you see from the lowliest axe jockey to the Chancellor are basically fighters - so who solved all the techy problems and developed the science to build starships etc etc? All I can think of is that there is an underclass enslaved back on planet Klingon doing all this. Think of the problems we havn't solved in 21st century Earth - Eg: faster than light travel, matter transportation and so on - I we have geeks/serious dudes who work for dedicated outfits like NASA, CERN, MIT and so on. The Klingons have done all of this (presumably with a big hefty axe type thing) and even found time to invent some stuff the 23rd century humans/vulcans etc haven't - the cloaking device (hehe and why is it the humans are always suprised when they see one? er or don't see one :-/)
I agree with your analogies too - I think of them as the bad guys from Mad Max II - rudimentary fuedal, might is right type gang.
The same goes for the Gungans in TPM - they all act a bit retarded but manage to build great underwater cities, and huge shield generators...
LOL this guy's obviously never had to run anything serious on a MS server OS, and out up with the huge $$$ running costs, "windows knows" best attitiude ~"if you can't see it in the GUI config tools - you don't need to know" or just the sheer inflexibilty of it all.
:P Linux is even easy to configure these days - with Webmin, I can even get NT admins to do some :P
:)
Nobody's being overzealous in this thread - although it does happen - but then what are you if not an MS zealot with that outburst??
I don't hate MS - but as a system architect and network admin for many years, I know the value of LInux to me - theres so much maturity in the tools, and so much flexibility - it all works out of the box - you don't need to go buy anything else - it pretty much handles any server task as is (I'm using RedHat 7.2 right now), and it stays up!!
Next to Redhat, MS server OS's are the ones that look like they were designed by Fisher Price - for years 3-6
hehe it;s MS who's been beating the very lame looking NT/2000/XP horse for years now - they keep attaching extra legs and it seems to move, and even looks a bit like a horse, but underneath theres the carcass of something smelly from about 1992
All I can say to you - is "just try it" If you do have a server application to run - try it on Linux.
Right now I'm installing Oracle9i on RedHat 7.2 on a Dell 6450 - the OS installed in 15 minutes - try that with XP/2000! I have all the networking tools you could ever need, and I know it will be more reliable than the same thing on NT.
"It would have much strength, yet it would fracture easily. "
:)
Hmm a bit like glass then
Yeah - I always thought it was a bit of an exageration that so many US citizens are so insular - 'til I saw George Bush on TV.
Mind you when you've got such things as - World Series Baseball (which contains only US teams) the last thing your country needs is people like you going about encouraging the stereotype. Especially at this particularly politically sensitive time.
The amount of junk mail I get from US companies is amazing - and they all have this little disclaimer at the bottom saying I was spammed in accordance with some US law. Well heads up guys - I don't *live* in your country ffs !
No - they all 5" plastic disks. It's what's *on* the disk, or tape or hard drive that counts. You can back up data oto a VHS tape - but it doesn't make it a movie now does it?
Yeah sure they may contain some software (although they don't have to - just put one item on the disc and it will play) And the menu software is on the player - only the data that says what is on the menu is on the disk. But anyway that's not the point - any software thats present is usually part of the delivery/playback mechanism - you telling me theres no software in a VCR? Course there is, but its a part of the playback mechanism. The exception to this is when they put game demos on the movie DVDs - which could make things awkward even though these often have little or no value (I certianly don't want them - and have never bought a movie DVD becasue it had some demo of the game-of-the-film).
So far from being total crap, its common sense - and in fact - why was it ever in doubt?
I guess you'll be burning all of your malicious DVDs then? I have no problem with region encoding - its the studios right to decide when they will release a product in each market. They've done it for years with tapes and cinema releases - why is everyone suddenly bitchin because they're still doing it with DVDs?
Sooner or later, just about everything will have some sort of processor and associated "software" embedded in it - but thats no reason to start re-classifying everything as "software", when we all know what the main "point" of an object is. I mean - there's more software in a new 7 series BMW than in 50 DVD players - but it's still a car.
You gotta seperate in you mind the product (the movie) from the physical delivery medium. A DVD is a disk. We're not talking about disks here really.
:) hehe but then I wouldn't pay to see Moulin Rouge either - I saw the trailer and a big red sign flipped up with a klaxon on it saying "Warning: Musical" :) But it is a movie - I don't think you could persuade anyone Dragon's Lair is a movie. Mind you - I wouldn't pay money to play DL in an arcade either - not when there was Battlezone and StarWars around at the time lol:) So I guess that makes it a coaster - do Australians have coasters? Are they even legal in Oz? :P
The data on that disk is a movie - it could be on a hard disk, or a DLT tape - it's data - any digital storage medium will do to hold it. And it's that data which is copyrighted by the studio - not a 5" plastic disk.
A movie is a movie is a movie - however it's stored. So the test you need to apply to your examples is "is it a movie?" So is Dragon's Lair a Movie? I sure wouldn't pay to see it in a cinema
Hmm I see your point, but I for one don't want any of those "extra fearures" - I just want the damm movie! No behind the scenes stuff, no swahili sound track, or kanji subtitles (and in fact being able to put all this on one disc surely *reduces* production costs as one disc fits all countries - if they want). Then there's the costs of physical manufacture: I don't know any facts here, so I may be wrong, but I've got a hunch it costs a lot less to press a DVD than to record, wind and assemble a VHS cassette.
That said, I don't mind paying a bit more for DVD, as the quality is so much better and it has real Dolby 5.1 sound. I also view VHS tapes as being pretty temporary affairs - they're generally screwed after 3 or 4 viewings. The premium is too much in my opinion though - a couple of quid more would be fine (~$3-4) (and cut out all that extra "bonus" nonsense that no one ever watches and it won't cost any more to produce).
Lucasfilm have started shooting on digital media, and it won't be long before they'll simply encode and write that onto a DVD direct (they didn't do it with TPM as they wanted to keep the "scanned from film prints" look in line with the other movies in the series). This will mean it will be even simpler (and hence cheaper) to produce DVDs versus VHS, and charging more for the movie on disc, which is closer to it's native format, will look inreasingly contrived.
er no dude. Thats part of the delivery mechanism - not the movie.