... but everyone's so ingrained into ARM that they'll never really make inroads into the market.
"Never Say Never Again"
Or... look up "You can't be fired for buying IBM"
Or... "DEC Forever" or (one that a was told to me personally in 1989) "PCs will never have the power of Workstations!"
Remember party lines? We got one once, by accident. Very entertaining (!). (1960's)
Phone calls to my grandparents, even in the 60's: Call their neighbors, who had an actual phone, ask them to go get grandma, call back in 1/2 an hour (This was KY, neighbors weren't that close, physically). The neighbors and my grandparents were friendly, all right - 3 pairs of their kids married each other (one of them being my mother)
Hate to break it to you, but most phone call trunking is VoIP already.
Yes, but not precisely. The trunks are not the same VOIP that you get when you use your MagicJack or Skype (Skype works pretty well for me actually). You essentially have a digital SVC (Switched Virtual Circuit) that is indeed digitized and compressed, sliced, diced etc. but the more-or-less dedicated bandwidth is 64k. Your cell phone connection is 3k-8k at best. And latency is indeed lower because AT&T set that stuff up back in the days when they actually cared.
Disclaimer: I used to work for carriers on the backend systems, so I had to take classes on all this, but it's been 10+ years since then and this wasn't my area of expertise. So I could have details wrong but the gist of it is correct.
The trend away from analog for the last mile is astonishingly stupid, but I suppose inevitable. Why do I say that? What happens when your power goes out and you have Charter-crap or Comcast-shite or UVerse-dung ? You're screwed. Got POTS? You've still got a landline as long as you have at least 1 PODF (Plain Old Dumb Phone)
I've had POTS service for going on 60 years with precisely 0 failures, ever. I also have and have had a variety of cell, wimax, voip & voip-like services, and even used to demo voip and billing thereof for the carriers. Terms such as "Reliable" and "Quality of Service" don't apply. (Well, 99.9% is great until there is an actual emergency)
</rant>
And for you young smart/dumb-asses who think I'm a cranky old fart (which I am) I also still make my living writing a variety of relatively smart software - networking, complex computation algorithms, 3D graphics, etc. So I ain't your grandma (though I might have curled her toes back in the day)
Nothing kills progress than having to create documentation that will never be read or updated.
True, but...
FDA
FAA
ISO
etc.
In other words, certain organizations are subject to regulation, and those regulator folks like nothing more than documentation. And every t has to be crossed, i dotted, and every single reference to t has to be linked, defined, version, cross-referenced, index, you have to define how you define everything, etc. Really just every single last thing in your world has to be defined, and it's rather difficult to get it right.
Guess who's in the middle of an FDA audit?
As mentioned elsewhere, this is to weed out the pretenders. If someone is so arrogant as to refuse to answer even basic questions, I don't want to work with them.
I've been interviewing a fair number of candidates. I usually start with "write a command line program to sum the command line arguments and print it out". If they don't remember how to call main() - not that uncommon - I change it to "write a function" where the arguments look like what main() would take.
Think of it as a tree - I ask a question, the answer defines which branch I'll follow next. I do NOT have an array of 20 trivial questions - if you can answer 1 or 2 of them, I'll move on to the next level so as not to waste my time, or the interviewee's. I would say that if you've proven yourself to be competent at a certain level,move on to the next level. If not, I'll ask a few more questions at the same level to see if I've just hit an odd hole in your knowledge, hoping to not discard an otherwise good candidate.
One guy I asked to answer the aforementioned question said "give me a day or two to research it and I'll be able to do it". This guy had a masters degree in EE and CS. THAT is why you get these silly questions.
I had an interview with Cricket Wireless a few years ago, and they asked me questions about the differences between SQL Server 2005 and 2008. I had said on my resume that I had experience with 2000 and 2005 but not 2008. I reiterated to them in the interview that I didn't know squat about 2008. The STILL kept asking me 2005-2008 difference and feature questions. I decided I didn't want to work with such boneheaded, narrow minded people. I think the feeling was mutual. I know a guy who had done some consulting work for them, he said that my boneheaded, narrow-minded view was pretty much on the mark.
We just hired a lady who hadn't programmed in years, couldn't correctly write much immediate code - but she was able to accurately describe what to do and how to do it, and demonstrated a strong understanding of the fundamentals, algorithms, data structures etc. We felt that we could afford to help knock off the rust. So far she's working out great.
We also hired an adjunct college prof. She is so arrogant that we get constant constant complaints about working with her. She knows her stuff technically, but no one can stand her. Interestingly, she interviewed great. You just never know.
The highway code explicitly says it's OK to ride bicycles two-abreast.
That's funny, the laws in virtually every jurisdiction I've ridden in - WI, IN, IL,GA,MO,CO,OH - pretty much all say ride single file. It could well be that according to state law it's OK to ride side-by-side in absence of traffic, but local regulations add additional restrictions. However if you're on a single lane road, a car is approaching from behind, and you're riding two-abreast, you're just an asshole.
Like any group, cyclists have great people, total assholes, and everything in between.
My wife and I have shown our marriage certificate exactly ONCE in the 31 years since we got married, and that was to change her name. In effect, we're married because we SAY we're married.
I agree with AC who said it is possible to write beautiful, maintainable perl. I have done so, and worked on a team of 6 writing nothing but perl for 2 years, and our code was as clean or cleaner than most of the C & C++ I've been involved with over the past few decades
I will also agree that it is also possible to write perl that is practically indistinguishable from line noise. It just takes discipline.
Sadly, not always true.
I am substantially overweight.
I eat 1200 calories a day, or less. I exercise intensely ~90 minutes a day (bicycle to work and back with 500+ ft elevation change each way(rolling hills)). At that level I maintain weight.
To lose weight I have to go to below 1000 calories and increase the exercise.
BTW my diet does not include processed foods such as bread or pasta or donuts, nor does it include relatively high carb content foods like potatoes. (Try getting fast food. HA!)
My diet is principally fresh vegetables and fruit, some protein source (small amounts of meat or eggs). Nothing out of a can or a package
Agreed, though, that calories alone do not tell the tale.
A 3rd of Telecommuters can't even dress themselves in the morning as it's too strenuous.
When I worked from home full time, I'd torn a tendon in my knee and had on a leg brace and was on crutches, so I just had on my robe, and since it was a little cold, over the robe I had on this Mexican poncho sort of thing - very colorful. So FedEx shows up with a package for me (a laptop) and I open the door... the poor guy was so shocked by my appearance that he dropped the laptop upon seeing me. (He kinda caught it with his foot, it wasn't damaged).
After that I swore that I'd always be fully and properly dressed, no matter what.
Where I work now, you could show up in the office in swim fins, trunks, mask and a snorkel and maybe it'd get a comment... but probably not.
Have you talked to them lately? I had been pretty happy for a long time, then the other day I tried to change my phone number.
It took 3 calls, 2 wrong changes (on their part) and the most rude, belligerent customer service I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with. I am always polite, so I didn't start it.
Then why are lions, bears, tigers, and other agressive species going extinct rather than squirrels, rabbits, and cows?
Perhaps because lions, bears, and tigers occasionally kill and/or eat people, and squirrels, rabbits, and cows rarely do?
Certainly that isn't the only factor, but it has played into it over the years.
To be fair, "recoilless rifles" weren't precisely "recoilless". Instead, they absorbed the recoil, and/or dispersed the recoil so that the gun wasn't moved from it's position on the ground. In space, that recoil will still have an effect on your trajectory.
But, the first part of your post is on target. A good gunner will hit his target. An exceptional gunner and bridge crew will use that recoil to best advantage.
Actually, there are 'recoilless' rifles (and guns), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recoilless_rifle . I have personally fired them, having served in the US Army. They make one hell of a boom, as it's basically a tube open at both ends - projectile out one end, lots of hot gas out of the other. (I've known a few people like that too) /F
If common internet usage is any indicator, you eventually will be out of work because so few seem to care about spelling and grammar... so then they'll just let the engineers write the documentation. (Sorry for expressing such a horrid thought so close to a Major Holiday;) )
Actually I don't really believe that this will happen, but it is a scary thought. /F
Spelling checkers don't help with grammatical context. I see that few people don't know when to use "fewer than" vs "less than", or the difference between "insure" and "ensure". They are indeed different.
If Joe SixPack (or for UK, "Joe Pint" (or equivalent slang)) doesn't know the difference, well, so what. When I see professional authors not knowing the difference, I am... disappointed, I guess.
And crap, I'm an engineer, I'm not even supposed to know how to spell.
When I see or hear something like "different to" I instantly think "non-native speaker.". That does not imply anything about intelligence (to me at least).
"what's to say that they don't have a homegrown version of software that does the exact same thing"
Based on their website, if they did I would feel secure that it didn't work properly.
Based on having worked for Verizon in software development, I can assure you that it's a miracle when almost anything works properly.
The really sleazy types were the marketing and management types. The stories I could tell... I feel unclean just thinking about it.
What could "mostly invisible" mean?... (especially considering the sky)
It means I can't see it, as in the apparent intensity as I see it is roughly about 1/4 to 1/3 what others see. Hard to measure things like that.
It also means that I wear a narrow palette of colors to stay out of trouble.
Slashdot Mirror
I can only assume there were a bunch of quite cool ones I missed
Not this year! :(
It blows my mind that people get excited about them.
Not this year! :(
... but everyone's so ingrained into ARM that they'll never really make inroads into the market.
"Never Say Never Again"
Or... look up "You can't be fired for buying IBM"
Or... "DEC Forever" or (one that a was told to me personally in 1989) "PCs will never have the power of Workstations!"
Remember party lines? We got one once, by accident. Very entertaining (!). (1960's)
Phone calls to my grandparents, even in the 60's: Call their neighbors, who had an actual phone, ask them to go get grandma, call back in 1/2 an hour (This was KY, neighbors weren't that close, physically). The neighbors and my grandparents were friendly, all right - 3 pairs of their kids married each other (one of them being my mother)
Hate to break it to you, but most phone call trunking is VoIP already.
Yes, but not precisely. The trunks are not the same VOIP that you get when you use your MagicJack or Skype (Skype works pretty well for me actually). You essentially have a digital SVC (Switched Virtual Circuit) that is indeed digitized and compressed, sliced, diced etc. but the more-or-less dedicated bandwidth is 64k. Your cell phone connection is 3k-8k at best. And latency is indeed lower because AT&T set that stuff up back in the days when they actually cared.
Disclaimer: I used to work for carriers on the backend systems, so I had to take classes on all this, but it's been 10+ years since then and this wasn't my area of expertise. So I could have details wrong but the gist of it is correct.
The trend away from analog for the last mile is astonishingly stupid, but I suppose inevitable. Why do I say that? What happens when your power goes out and you have Charter-crap or Comcast-shite or UVerse-dung ? You're screwed. Got POTS? You've still got a landline as long as you have at least 1 PODF (Plain Old Dumb Phone)
I've had POTS service for going on 60 years with precisely 0 failures, ever. I also have and have had a variety of cell, wimax, voip & voip-like services, and even used to demo voip and billing thereof for the carriers. Terms such as "Reliable" and "Quality of Service" don't apply. (Well, 99.9% is great until there is an actual emergency)
</rant>
And for you young smart/dumb-asses who think I'm a cranky old fart (which I am) I also still make my living writing a variety of relatively smart software - networking, complex computation algorithms, 3D graphics, etc. So I ain't your grandma (though I might have curled her toes back in the day)
Nothing kills progress than having to create documentation that will never be read or updated.
True, but...
etc.
In other words, certain organizations are subject to regulation, and those regulator folks like nothing more than documentation. And every t has to be crossed, i dotted, and every single reference to t has to be linked, defined, version, cross-referenced, index, you have to define how you define everything, etc.
Really just every single last thing in your world has to be defined, and it's rather difficult to get it right. Guess who's in the middle of an FDA audit?
As mentioned elsewhere, this is to weed out the pretenders. If someone is so arrogant as to refuse to answer even basic questions, I don't want to work with them.
I've been interviewing a fair number of candidates. I usually start with "write a command line program to sum the command line arguments and print it out". If they don't remember how to call main() - not that uncommon - I change it to "write a function" where the arguments look like what main() would take.
Think of it as a tree - I ask a question, the answer defines which branch I'll follow next. I do NOT have an array of 20 trivial questions - if you can answer 1 or 2 of them, I'll move on to the next level so as not to waste my time, or the interviewee's. I would say that if you've proven yourself to be competent at a certain level,move on to the next level. If not, I'll ask a few more questions at the same level to see if I've just hit an odd hole in your knowledge, hoping to not discard an otherwise good candidate.
One guy I asked to answer the aforementioned question said "give me a day or two to research it and I'll be able to do it". This guy had a masters degree in EE and CS. THAT is why you get these silly questions.
I had an interview with Cricket Wireless a few years ago, and they asked me questions about the differences between SQL Server 2005 and 2008. I had said on my resume that I had experience with 2000 and 2005 but not 2008. I reiterated to them in the interview that I didn't know squat about 2008. The STILL kept asking me 2005-2008 difference and feature questions. I decided I didn't want to work with such boneheaded, narrow minded people. I think the feeling was mutual. I know a guy who had done some consulting work for them, he said that my boneheaded, narrow-minded view was pretty much on the mark.
We just hired a lady who hadn't programmed in years, couldn't correctly write much immediate code - but she was able to accurately describe what to do and how to do it, and demonstrated a strong understanding of the fundamentals, algorithms, data structures etc. We felt that we could afford to help knock off the rust. So far she's working out great.
We also hired an adjunct college prof. She is so arrogant that we get constant constant complaints about working with her. She knows her stuff technically, but no one can stand her. Interestingly, she interviewed great. You just never know.
The highway code explicitly says it's OK to ride bicycles two-abreast.
That's funny, the laws in virtually every jurisdiction I've ridden in - WI, IN, IL,GA,MO,CO,OH - pretty much all say ride single file. It could well be that according to state law it's OK to ride side-by-side in absence of traffic, but local regulations add additional restrictions. However if you're on a single lane road, a car is approaching from behind, and you're riding two-abreast, you're just an asshole.
Like any group, cyclists have great people, total assholes, and everything in between.
My wife and I have shown our marriage certificate exactly ONCE in the 31 years since we got married, and that was to change her name. In effect, we're married because we SAY we're married.
Interesting legal position, I presume.
I will also agree that it is also possible to write perl that is practically indistinguishable from line noise. It just takes discipline.
I am substantially overweight.
I eat 1200 calories a day, or less. I exercise intensely ~90 minutes a day (bicycle to work and back with 500+ ft elevation change each way(rolling hills)). At that level I maintain weight.
To lose weight I have to go to below 1000 calories and increase the exercise.
BTW my diet does not include processed foods such as bread or pasta or donuts, nor does it include relatively high carb content foods like potatoes. (Try getting fast food. HA!)
My diet is principally fresh vegetables and fruit, some protein source (small amounts of meat or eggs). Nothing out of a can or a package
Agreed, though, that calories alone do not tell the tale.
Not that it would make maintenance any cheaper...
A 3rd of Telecommuters can't even dress themselves in the morning as it's too strenuous.
When I worked from home full time, I'd torn a tendon in my knee and had on a leg brace and was on crutches, so I just had on my robe, and since it was a little cold, over the robe I had on this Mexican poncho sort of thing - very colorful. So FedEx shows up with a package for me (a laptop) and I open the door... the poor guy was so shocked by my appearance that he dropped the laptop upon seeing me. (He kinda caught it with his foot, it wasn't damaged).
After that I swore that I'd always be fully and properly dressed, no matter what.
Where I work now, you could show up in the office in swim fins, trunks, mask and a snorkel and maybe it'd get a comment... but probably not.
Umm - oil requires fossils... Fossils come from dead animals. Just sayin' ...
Actually, oil comes from dead plants.
It took 3 calls, 2 wrong changes (on their part) and the most rude, belligerent customer service I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with. I am always polite, so I didn't start it.
I will however end it shortly.
Constructed properly that would work, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recoilless_rifle
Then why are lions, bears, tigers, and other agressive species going extinct rather than squirrels, rabbits, and cows?
Perhaps because lions, bears, and tigers occasionally kill and/or eat people, and squirrels, rabbits, and cows rarely do?
Certainly that isn't the only factor, but it has played into it over the years.
To be fair, "recoilless rifles" weren't precisely "recoilless". Instead, they absorbed the recoil, and/or dispersed the recoil so that the gun wasn't moved from it's position on the ground. In space, that recoil will still have an effect on your trajectory.
But, the first part of your post is on target. A good gunner will hit his target. An exceptional gunner and bridge crew will use that recoil to best advantage.
Actually, there are 'recoilless' rifles (and guns), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recoilless_rifle . I have personally fired them, having served in the US Army. They make one hell of a boom, as it's basically a tube open at both ends - projectile out one end, lots of hot gas out of the other. (I've known a few people like that too)
/F
THAT was funny !
Clearly you who have mod points don't have a sense of humor as well.
At the moment I DO have mod points... but I, like many others, tend not to moderate AC posts (up, at least).
Yes, it was funny...
If common internet usage is any indicator, you eventually will be out of work because so few seem to care about spelling and grammar... so then they'll just let the engineers write the documentation. (Sorry for expressing such a horrid thought so close to a Major Holiday ;) )
/F
Actually I don't really believe that this will happen, but it is a scary thought.
If Joe SixPack (or for UK, "Joe Pint" (or equivalent slang)) doesn't know the difference, well, so what. When I see professional authors not knowing the difference, I am... disappointed, I guess.
And crap, I'm an engineer, I'm not even supposed to know how to spell.
When I see or hear something like "different to" I instantly think "non-native speaker.". That does not imply anything about intelligence (to me at least).
"what's to say that they don't have a homegrown version of software that does the exact same thing" Based on their website, if they did I would feel secure that it didn't work properly.
Based on having worked for Verizon in software development, I can assure you that it's a miracle when almost anything works properly.
The really sleazy types were the marketing and management types. The stories I could tell... I feel unclean just thinking about it.
What could "mostly invisible" mean?... (especially considering the sky)
It means I can't see it, as in the apparent intensity as I see it is roughly about 1/4 to 1/3 what others see. Hard to measure things like that.
It also means that I wear a narrow palette of colors to stay out of trouble.