After 30 years of worrying about printer drivers I am still worrying about them? We collectively have made almost no progress in the area of printing. The devices are still fairly unreliable and the software supporting them is a mess. If you've ever had to add printing capability to software you'll understand exactly what I mean. Unfortunately, Postscript was a needlessly complicated standard - one of Apple's mistakes IMHO - and didn't help the situation. Why has nothing been standardized?
And for those who say, why do we need printers, the answer is sometimes your boss, your kid, or your wife needs a printout to physically hand to someone and no electronic format is considered acceptable. Paper is not going away.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists isn't exactly a reputable source for unbiased science stories (unless you like nutbar conspiracies from failed academics). While the story is sorta true it is misleading because (1) this isn't anything new and (2) this isn't unique to nuclear power.
There is no difference between a nuclear station and a coal station with respect to limits on outlet temperature: generally about 30C is the upper limit. Coal units squeeze out a little more thermal efficiency because they can operate at higher temperatures, but more or less the issue is the same.
Companies often have over-restrictive policies made by lawyers and HR people who have very little involvement with the realities of company operations. They tend to be external hired guns or corporate climbers. They are more about looking good then actually suing you. Aside from your personal work, this might prohibit:
1) exchange of technology or knowledge with peers in your industry: thereby putting your company at a disadvantage
2) honoring open-source license terms
3) working with local universities or other institutions that require exchange of knowledge
These can be a problem in many businesses. For example, it is very common for best practices to be shared among businesses in different jurisdictions. Because the authors of these IP policies aren't really the star performers in your company they really don't care how much paperwork this causes you. They don't do much work themselves, so they don't care.
However, because these folks also tend to be too lazy and disconnected from real work to pursue you in a lawsuit so long as you keep a low profile. It is just too much effort.
I won't hire based on Certifications and never will. Certification courses are typically filled with the unemployed and unemployable, paid for by Unemployment Insurance. A university degree with some demonstration of engineering aptitude is the only thing that is going to get you hired with me.
Engineer is a professional designation in most jurisdictions - it requires a degree in engineering or equivalent qualifying exams as well as membership in the professional regulatory body. It would be illegal to represent yourself as such and you can face fines for even using that term in your commercial representation.
Now, I know this isn't exactly the meaning of your question. But engineering involves a broader exposure to technology in a number of fields to produce a holistic design. Computer science is a more specialized area of knowledge dealing with just one technology: coding of software. In my experience, this contrast sums up the shortcomings of computer science majors I have hired in the past. And I think that is the answer to your question, if you think about it.
Electronics Boutique / Ganespot has created the problem. They are ripping off the consumer and they are ripping off the game manufacturers. Their business practice of removing product from packaging is open to abuse. My own customer experience has been very poor.
Game manufacturers have responded by product codes and in-game content that is souring the gaming experience. I can't blame them.
More open and honest dealing with the end customer is what is required. If Microsoft puts Gamespot out of business by preventing used sales it would be ok by me.
It is absolutely an issue. I was shocked to realize that my step-son had no idea what those 'codes' I was typing on the command line were. He had no idea how to run a command or copy a file without using a GUI. He had no idea how the computer worked or how the data was stored.
However, we might consider computer literacy for our engineering students first. They seem pretty weak these days. Too frequently the programming experience on their resume does not stand up to scrutiny.
And while were at it, we might consider that IT professionals might be fully computer literate. Way too many "Relationship Managers" (refer to: IT Crowd) have crept into the profession.
I am actually a manager. And a programmer for 30 years too so I am pretty good at judging how much time any project will take. And I *have* gotten people let go because of poor documentation.
Written (separate) documentation largely depends on the situation. In my observation is is not that useful and even when produced it does not get read. However, code commenting is essential. A competent programmer should by writing it along with the code.
I've seen a number of programmers leave out documentation because they perceived it as job security. I've even seen programmers DELETE comments that were already existing in other's work.
Bottom line is if you don't comment on my watch, I will fire your ass.
The notion of my boss coding, much less a senior manager coding, is ridiculous. It would be like asking a walrus to ride a bicycle. In fact, I've never known any manager of our department in history to ever even read a piece of code. What planet are you working on?
If I had to choose one, there would be no way it would be a laptop. Built like crap and they don't last.
I've generally found the combination of tablet + desktop PC fills all requirements. It is hard to do serious work other than basic writing on a laptop. The desktop is considerably cheaper for the same processing power and they last at least twice as long while giving reasonable performance.
As many here have correctly pointed out, the C64 was a very accessible computer which could be a little challenging to program (all those chip bitwise register operations were dreadful) at least you could do cool things with it. And you could probably get instructions from a magazine on how to do it. And your school probably had several of them if your parents couldn't afford one. It continued the tradition of the Commodore PET - a fun little computer which was a great teaching tool.
Apple at this time was pursuing the business market - something they could no hope to compete in - and was nowhere. Almost no one I knew had one and they were vastly overpriced. The great myth of Apple is that they somehow pioneered the computer. They were trivial at the time.
Commodore had a great dealer network in every small town. It was the 1-on-1 customer service at this time that was important in making the difference. With the purchase of a machine you also got somewhere to ask questions, buy accessories and magazines, and most importantly somewhere to network with other users.
Last I checked it was #1 Android (at 53%!) , #2 Symbian, and #3 IOS... so do we just make these numbers up or what?? In fact IOS was somewhere in the teens with Blackberry.
There have been way too many of these studies that didn't indicate the measurement technique or what market they referred to. I get the feeling that marketing reports are scams.
The average Android phone owner has no idea what phone he has or what version of Android is running on it. This is the problem with the Android - no product identity. This also factors in when Samsung (or any other company) loads their crapware layers on top of Android.
I really wish all the manufacturers would simplify their product line up. Too many models to keep track of.
My 12 year old powered went through the Arduino introduction kit + book sold by http://www.creatroninc.com/. It was a two or three nights and he had worked through all the experiments and got a nice introduction to C programming as well.
My boys also had a summer camp using Lego Mindstorms, however, the NXT system seems more like a toy. In a week at camp they really weren't encouraged to use sensors or programming involving decisions.
COPPA is an American bullshit law and they've been applying it in Canada. What happens to my kid's Android phone if his Google account is deactivated? Unfortunately due to our crappy school system, I count on that thing for him to get home from school.
Non-hands-free devices have been banned in Ontario, and several other provinces, for a while now. This ban has been almost entirely ignored and you can easily spot people on the phone (especially in heavy traffic). The police occasionally go on enforcement blitzes, but this is a jurisdiction where the speed limit and basic rules of the road are often considered merely guidelines. It is hard to take the laws of the road very seriously.
Bluetooth devices are so incredibly difficult to use it is hard to see how they should be legal. It takes more time and driver concentration to connect a bluetooth and reconnection appears to be extremely unreliable even with the latest equipment.
And what about GPS devices? If you really need a GPS to navigate in your own city should you really be driving at all?. A dash-mounted GPS is a huge driver distraction and leads to people ignoring clearly marked signs. While we are at it, ban that as well.
So it is a slippery slope. I wouldn't mind going back to a day when all I had in the car was a radio. But we've made a lot of other assumptions in our society that assume that we are in constant contact (e.g. my kids have to travel around 6km to school, no bus). So, banning anything isn't going to work. It all has to be legal. And organizations like the NTSB are curious anachronisms like the people that say you shouldn't us a cell phone around a gas pump.
This does suggest that the plant's security was inadequate and you can do some serious damage to equipment outside of containment. However, with jackass stunts like this, Greenpeace discredits the whole environmental movement as the ignorant nutbars they tend to be. If they cared about the planet, they should be promoting nuclear power, not fighting it.
Operating system incompatibility is the root cause of the problem. For a long time now you you buy a Windows-based product and you can't really be sure that it will work on your computer. The same thing happened to a lesser extent in the Apple universe but there was less effort at compatibility there and the market share was always minuscule. For the customer, an app store gives the illusion of this compatibility being guaranteed.
Curiously, if you want compatibility, Linux is the one platform that seems to do it best these days.
Of the 7 or so working computers in my house right now, sitting right behind my new six-core workstation, is my Commodore PET 4032. It has not one but two 4040 double floppy disk drives. Sadly, the neither of the 4040 disks seem to work - the last one seems to have just died this year. I think there is a matching Commodore line printer around here too. Fortunately, the vast majority of my cassettes still work after lovingly been stored in a metal box for the last 20 years. I expect the cassettes (Canadian Tire brand worked best) will still be good for decades.
Now, If I can just convince my girlfriend we really should drive out to Mississauga on Saturday. Back in the 1980s she was selling CP/M machines so it is not an impossibility.
From what I can see, the contempt for IT comes from two sources:
1. The quality of professionals in IT has degraded significantly. Too many community-college graduates (heck, university graduates) who have never programmed and don't have a clue how a computer really works beyond reading a vendor's marketing information. These staff cost every project at an obscene rate resulting in no progress ever being made. The major vendors are all staffed by these type of people, so I'll lump them into this pot.
2. Management, often transient MBA types, viewing IT as an overhead rather than an integral part of the business succeeding or failing. Short sighted and destructive, these senior managers hack IT budgets at it results in no consequences during their tenure before they move onto the next stepping stone.
The user's are caught in the middle and no one is really concerned about their complaints. Can you blame them?
It is a simple proposition. Once upon a time, Information Technology, or more properly *Computer Science*, was supposed to save the world. We failed for whatever reason. User's generally hate us. Get used to it.
Last I checked, pirating music was way easier than buying it legitimately and no one cares which country you are in. Could the music industry, just perhaps, stop being a joke?
A cheapo Arduino board ($35) has 6 10-bit analog inputs and is fairly easy to program. You could send the data back to the computer through the USB port (or network or even bluetooth with the right add-on cards). Nice pots would be about $8 each perhaps. The wiring is very simple.
You could use a multiplexing selector arrangement to increase the number of analog inputs at a cost of some complexity. Just be aware that AIs tend to require a settling time.... so like I said - it depends on the throughput.
It would certainly make your project very distinguished. It would take some time to sort this solution out, so allow extra time.
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After 30 years of worrying about printer drivers I am still worrying about them? We collectively have made almost no progress in the area of printing. The devices are still fairly unreliable and the software supporting them is a mess. If you've ever had to add printing capability to software you'll understand exactly what I mean. Unfortunately, Postscript was a needlessly complicated standard - one of Apple's mistakes IMHO - and didn't help the situation. Why has nothing been standardized?
And for those who say, why do we need printers, the answer is sometimes your boss, your kid, or your wife needs a printout to physically hand to someone and no electronic format is considered acceptable. Paper is not going away.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists isn't exactly a reputable source for unbiased science stories (unless you like nutbar conspiracies from failed academics). While the story is sorta true it is misleading because (1) this isn't anything new and (2) this isn't unique to nuclear power.
There is no difference between a nuclear station and a coal station with respect to limits on outlet temperature: generally about 30C is the upper limit. Coal units squeeze out a little more thermal efficiency because they can operate at higher temperatures, but more or less the issue is the same.
Companies often have over-restrictive policies made by lawyers and HR people who have very little involvement with the realities of company operations. They tend to be external hired guns or corporate climbers. They are more about looking good then actually suing you. Aside from your personal work, this might prohibit:
1) exchange of technology or knowledge with peers in your industry: thereby putting your company at a disadvantage
2) honoring open-source license terms
3) working with local universities or other institutions that require exchange of knowledge
These can be a problem in many businesses. For example, it is very common for best practices to be shared among businesses in different jurisdictions. Because the authors of these IP policies aren't really the star performers in your company they really don't care how much paperwork this causes you. They don't do much work themselves, so they don't care.
However, because these folks also tend to be too lazy and disconnected from real work to pursue you in a lawsuit so long as you keep a low profile. It is just too much effort.
I won't hire based on Certifications and never will. Certification courses are typically filled with the unemployed and unemployable, paid for by Unemployment Insurance. A university degree with some demonstration of engineering aptitude is the only thing that is going to get you hired with me.
Engineer is a professional designation in most jurisdictions - it requires a degree in engineering or equivalent qualifying exams as well as membership in the professional regulatory body. It would be illegal to represent yourself as such and you can face fines for even using that term in your commercial representation.
Now, I know this isn't exactly the meaning of your question. But engineering involves a broader exposure to technology in a number of fields to produce a holistic design. Computer science is a more specialized area of knowledge dealing with just one technology: coding of software. In my experience, this contrast sums up the shortcomings of computer science majors I have hired in the past. And I think that is the answer to your question, if you think about it.
Electronics Boutique / Ganespot has created the problem. They are ripping off the consumer and they are ripping off the game manufacturers. Their business practice of removing product from packaging is open to abuse. My own customer experience has been very poor.
Game manufacturers have responded by product codes and in-game content that is souring the gaming experience. I can't blame them.
More open and honest dealing with the end customer is what is required. If Microsoft puts Gamespot out of business by preventing used sales it would be ok by me.
However, we might consider computer literacy for our engineering students first. They seem pretty weak these days. Too frequently the programming experience on their resume does not stand up to scrutiny.
And while were at it, we might consider that IT professionals might be fully computer literate. Way too many "Relationship Managers" (refer to: IT Crowd) have crept into the profession.
Written (separate) documentation largely depends on the situation. In my observation is is not that useful and even when produced it does not get read. However, code commenting is essential. A competent programmer should by writing it along with the code.
I've seen a number of programmers leave out documentation because they perceived it as job security. I've even seen programmers DELETE comments that were already existing in other's work.
Bottom line is if you don't comment on my watch, I will fire your ass.
No comments. No paycheck. It is pretty simple.
The notion of my boss coding, much less a senior manager coding, is ridiculous. It would be like asking a walrus to ride a bicycle. In fact, I've never known any manager of our department in history to ever even read a piece of code. What planet are you working on?
I've generally found the combination of tablet + desktop PC fills all requirements. It is hard to do serious work other than basic writing on a laptop. The desktop is considerably cheaper for the same processing power and they last at least twice as long while giving reasonable performance.
Apple at this time was pursuing the business market - something they could no hope to compete in - and was nowhere. Almost no one I knew had one and they were vastly overpriced. The great myth of Apple is that they somehow pioneered the computer. They were trivial at the time.
Commodore had a great dealer network in every small town. It was the 1-on-1 customer service at this time that was important in making the difference. With the purchase of a machine you also got somewhere to ask questions, buy accessories and magazines, and most importantly somewhere to network with other users.
There have been way too many of these studies that didn't indicate the measurement technique or what market they referred to. I get the feeling that marketing reports are scams.
I really wish all the manufacturers would simplify their product line up. Too many models to keep track of.
My boys also had a summer camp using Lego Mindstorms, however, the NXT system seems more like a toy. In a week at camp they really weren't encouraged to use sensors or programming involving decisions.
COPPA is an American bullshit law and they've been applying it in Canada. What happens to my kid's Android phone if his Google account is deactivated? Unfortunately due to our crappy school system, I count on that thing for him to get home from school.
Non-hands-free devices have been banned in Ontario, and several other provinces, for a while now. This ban has been almost entirely ignored and you can easily spot people on the phone (especially in heavy traffic). The police occasionally go on enforcement blitzes, but this is a jurisdiction where the speed limit and basic rules of the road are often considered merely guidelines. It is hard to take the laws of the road very seriously.
Bluetooth devices are so incredibly difficult to use it is hard to see how they should be legal. It takes more time and driver concentration to connect a bluetooth and reconnection appears to be extremely unreliable even with the latest equipment.
And what about GPS devices? If you really need a GPS to navigate in your own city should you really be driving at all?. A dash-mounted GPS is a huge driver distraction and leads to people ignoring clearly marked signs. While we are at it, ban that as well.
So it is a slippery slope. I wouldn't mind going back to a day when all I had in the car was a radio. But we've made a lot of other assumptions in our society that assume that we are in constant contact (e.g. my kids have to travel around 6km to school, no bus). So, banning anything isn't going to work. It all has to be legal. And organizations like the NTSB are curious anachronisms like the people that say you shouldn't us a cell phone around a gas pump.
This does suggest that the plant's security was inadequate and you can do some serious damage to equipment outside of containment.
However, with jackass stunts like this, Greenpeace discredits the whole environmental movement as the ignorant nutbars they tend to be. If they cared about the planet, they should be promoting nuclear power, not fighting it.
Operating system incompatibility is the root cause of the problem. For a long time now you you buy a Windows-based product and you can't really be sure that it will work on your computer. The same thing happened to a lesser extent in the Apple universe but there was less effort at compatibility there and the market share was always minuscule. For the customer, an app store gives the illusion of this compatibility being guaranteed.
Curiously, if you want compatibility, Linux is the one platform that seems to do it best these days.
Of the 7 or so working computers in my house right now, sitting right behind my new six-core workstation, is my Commodore PET 4032. It has not one but two 4040 double floppy disk drives. Sadly, the neither of the 4040 disks seem to work - the last one seems to have just died this year. I think there is a matching Commodore line printer around here too. Fortunately, the vast majority of my cassettes still work after lovingly been stored in a metal box for the last 20 years. I expect the cassettes (Canadian Tire brand worked best) will still be good for decades.
Now, If I can just convince my girlfriend we really should drive out to Mississauga on Saturday. Back in the 1980s she was selling CP/M machines so it is not an impossibility.
1. The quality of professionals in IT has degraded significantly. Too many community-college graduates (heck, university graduates) who have never programmed and don't have a clue how a computer really works beyond reading a vendor's marketing information. These staff cost every project at an obscene rate resulting in no progress ever being made. The major vendors are all staffed by these type of people, so I'll lump them into this pot.
2. Management, often transient MBA types, viewing IT as an overhead rather than an integral part of the business succeeding or failing. Short sighted and destructive, these senior managers hack IT budgets at it results in no consequences during their tenure before they move onto the next stepping stone.
The user's are caught in the middle and no one is really concerned about their complaints. Can you blame them?
It is a simple proposition. Once upon a time, Information Technology, or more properly *Computer Science*, was supposed to save the world. We failed for whatever reason. User's generally hate us. Get used to it.
Last I checked, pirating music was way easier than buying it legitimately and no one cares which country you are in. Could the music industry, just perhaps, stop being a joke?
That's great and all, but could I please have the actual item on my Googlerola Xoom tab? I'm still waiting for Android 3.2 to be released on the Xoom.
A cheapo Arduino board ($35) has 6 10-bit analog inputs and is fairly easy to program. You could send the data back to the computer through the USB port (or network or even bluetooth with the right add-on cards). Nice pots would be about $8 each perhaps. The wiring is very simple.
You could use a multiplexing selector arrangement to increase the number of analog inputs at a cost of some complexity. Just be aware that AIs tend to require a settling time.... so like I said - it depends on the throughput.
It would certainly make your project very distinguished. It would take some time to sort this solution out, so allow extra time.