IBM gives pay cuts and raises all the time. Different divisions have different restrictions and options. A statement like "IBM has been giving pay cuts" doesn't say anything, since about 300,000 people work for IBM.
Your second sentence is true, but it applies to any company and almost all professions. People can get minor raises from year to year, but you typically get a bigger raise switching to another job. That's because the new company typically needs to entice you to leave your old company. Of course, that only works if you have the skills that other companies want. Not every software developer is like that.
I own my own code, and we have an understanding that it doesn't get sold to anyone
I don't think you really own your code.
If I *own* something, then I can do whatever I want with it. It sounds to me like the company owns your code, and has given you a license for personal use.
Menezes never vaulted over a turnstyle. He didn't do anything that hundreds of other people nearby were also doing. There was absolutely nothing suspicious about his behavior that day.
Register your domain with a reputable registrar, one that either auto-renews or reliably tells you when it's about to expire, and you won't have any problems.
I tried reading the rules, but they're hard to understand just by reading the web page (and yes, I'm a programmer). From what I gather, there are no real decisions that the player makes. That is, you roll the dice and your move is based solely on that dice roll and whatever square you happen to be on.
What would be cooler is if while playing the game, you had to build a "program" of sorts, and you can't win the game until your program produces a specific output. You could then compete against other players for resources needed to finish your program. This would allow you multiple ways to win based mostly on your ability to understand programming concepts.
I see this game as a cool idea, but it's really just a first step.
Better yet, let only the retailers do any marketing. Then music consumers would go to the retailers to learn about new music. This would then allow the retailers to provide a service and a product, which strengthens their economic foundation. Retailers could differentiate themselves by the quality of music recommendations they give. This would encourage them to hire more knowledgeable employees, and it would also result in more retailers. It's a win-win situation all around.
My point is that step 5 will now have to read:
5) The developers make a significant change to the code to completely remove the blood, because the ESRB says they have to. Management, understanding the difference between "delete" and "disable", uses the code review process to ensure that this is done correctly.
You don't need to tell me that it's not that easy to simply delete code when there's a tight schedule - I've been programming for 25 years. My point is that the new ESRB requirement will send a message to managers: make sure you do it right, otherwise we're going make it cost you. Having developers suffer as a result of bad managerial planning is nothing unique to the gaming industry.
What if some artist routinely put porn into the unused texture space of some assets (you laugh, that happens, just not with porn)? What if they decided to cull some features to lower the rating but didn't completely delete the stuff?
The answer is very simple: all contributions to the product are audited and/or reviewed when they are submitted. This is how professional software development teams work. At my job, before I'm allowed to "check in" any changes, another developer must review thatm. Our version control software (BitKeeper) allows other developers to quickly and easily review all source file changes.
And of course, all changes can be tracked back to their author at any time. In addition, we store the list of reviewers for each change. That way, we can identify the author and reviewer of any change within minutes.
They must mean just brick-and-mortar stores, because used games are definitely a lot cheaper on eBay or Amazon.com, even if you include shipping. Frankly, I don't know why anyone would buy a used game from these stores. After all, you have to have a computer or console to play the games, so chances are you have Internet access, too.
I'd love to see a procmail filter that uses countries.nerd.dk to determine the origin of the email. My ISP controls my mail and DNS servers, so my own option for configuration is hacking up my.procmailrc
Your mistake was proposing it to the game companies. Any configuration option that is supposed to be common among multiple applications from different vendors should be handled by the OS. You really can't expect the game companies to spend all that effort on a common API and handle all the issue involved with maintaining it.
One thing to keep in mind is that even though the official price for Xbox Live today is $50/year, you can buy a 12-month subscription on eBay for under $35, which is a 30% discount. I expect that to still be true when the Xbox 360 is released.
Another example: ever buy produce at a grocery store? You put your fruits in a bag, weigh the bag on a scale, punch in the numeric code for the fruit, and a bar code is printed out. You stick the bar code on the bag, and that's what the clerk scans to determine the price.
This is the sort of application where RFIDs fail miserably. How much does a printed sticker cost? 1/100th of a cent? There's no way an RFID chip is going to cost that little. Not only that, but imagine the environmental cost of millions of RFID chips thrown away.
I used to work for a major OEM in the motherboard engineering department. ASUS may have told their suppliers what they're doing, but there's no reason to expect that it's with the suppliers' "permission" or anything like that. After all, ASUS is responsible for all problems. ASUS would never tell a customer to call Intel because of some PCI card that doesn't work, even if the motherboard weren't overclocked.
So if I killed some hookers in GTA, and then sold my saved game on eBay, have I committed a crime? The dead hookers are fake items that have an actual value.
I've never seen a DVD for a television show that had an ad in them. What I usually do is stick the DVD in the player and then come back after a couple minutes and turn the TV on.
Why don't you just rent DVDs? If you can wait 1-2 years, pretty much every TV show that's on now will be available on DVD. Sign up for Netflix, and for much less than $250/year, you can watch all the TV you want, ad-free.
I heard about some meeting somewhere where a TV executive said that if people wanted ad-free TV, it would cost another $250/year. Then someone asked the audience who would pay another $250/year for ad-free TV, and at least half of them raised their hands.
Slashdot Mirror
Your second sentence is true, but it applies to any company and almost all professions. People can get minor raises from year to year, but you typically get a bigger raise switching to another job. That's because the new company typically needs to entice you to leave your old company. Of course, that only works if you have the skills that other companies want. Not every software developer is like that.
I don't think you really own your code.
If I *own* something, then I can do whatever I want with it. It sounds to me like the company owns your code, and has given you a license for personal use.
Menezes never vaulted over a turnstyle. He didn't do anything that hundreds of other people nearby were also doing. There was absolutely nothing suspicious about his behavior that day.
Thanks - I just bought a copy.
Register your domain with a reputable registrar, one that either auto-renews or reliably tells you when it's about to expire, and you won't have any problems.
What would be cooler is if while playing the game, you had to build a "program" of sorts, and you can't win the game until your program produces a specific output. You could then compete against other players for resources needed to finish your program. This would allow you multiple ways to win based mostly on your ability to understand programming concepts.
I see this game as a cool idea, but it's really just a first step.
Better yet, let only the retailers do any marketing. Then music consumers would go to the retailers to learn about new music. This would then allow the retailers to provide a service and a product, which strengthens their economic foundation. Retailers could differentiate themselves by the quality of music recommendations they give. This would encourage them to hire more knowledgeable employees, and it would also result in more retailers. It's a win-win situation all around.
What do you think NASA engineers do after they come home from work?
One of the other comments in this thread included a link.
As for building DVRs without a fee, there are companies that sell pre-built MythTV boxes. They cost more than TiVo plus lifetime, though.
My point is that step 5 will now have to read: 5) The developers make a significant change to the code to completely remove the blood, because the ESRB says they have to. Management, understanding the difference between "delete" and "disable", uses the code review process to ensure that this is done correctly. You don't need to tell me that it's not that easy to simply delete code when there's a tight schedule - I've been programming for 25 years. My point is that the new ESRB requirement will send a message to managers: make sure you do it right, otherwise we're going make it cost you. Having developers suffer as a result of bad managerial planning is nothing unique to the gaming industry.
The answer is very simple: all contributions to the product are audited and/or reviewed when they are submitted. This is how professional software development teams work. At my job, before I'm allowed to "check in" any changes, another developer must review thatm. Our version control software (BitKeeper) allows other developers to quickly and easily review all source file changes.
And of course, all changes can be tracked back to their author at any time. In addition, we store the list of reviewers for each change. That way, we can identify the author and reviewer of any change within minutes.
They must mean just brick-and-mortar stores, because used games are definitely a lot cheaper on eBay or Amazon.com, even if you include shipping. Frankly, I don't know why anyone would buy a used game from these stores. After all, you have to have a computer or console to play the games, so chances are you have Internet access, too.
It's in your pants.
I'd love to see a procmail filter that uses countries.nerd.dk to determine the origin of the email. My ISP controls my mail and DNS servers, so my own option for configuration is hacking up my .procmailrc
Your mistake was proposing it to the game companies. Any configuration option that is supposed to be common among multiple applications from different vendors should be handled by the OS. You really can't expect the game companies to spend all that effort on a common API and handle all the issue involved with maintaining it.
One thing to keep in mind is that even though the official price for Xbox Live today is $50/year, you can buy a 12-month subscription on eBay for under $35, which is a 30% discount. I expect that to still be true when the Xbox 360 is released.
This is the sort of application where RFIDs fail miserably. How much does a printed sticker cost? 1/100th of a cent? There's no way an RFID chip is going to cost that little. Not only that, but imagine the environmental cost of millions of RFID chips thrown away.
He was talking about searching for "RAM", not "DODGE RAM".
I used to work for a major OEM in the motherboard engineering department. ASUS may have told their suppliers what they're doing, but there's no reason to expect that it's with the suppliers' "permission" or anything like that. After all, ASUS is responsible for all problems. ASUS would never tell a customer to call Intel because of some PCI card that doesn't work, even if the motherboard weren't overclocked.
So if I killed some hookers in GTA, and then sold my saved game on eBay, have I committed a crime? The dead hookers are fake items that have an actual value.
I've never seen a DVD for a television show that had an ad in them. What I usually do is stick the DVD in the player and then come back after a couple minutes and turn the TV on.
Why don't you just rent DVDs? If you can wait 1-2 years, pretty much every TV show that's on now will be available on DVD. Sign up for Netflix, and for much less than $250/year, you can watch all the TV you want, ad-free.
Of course, the TV executives didn't get the hint.
Stand-alone HD TiVos will be out next year.