I worked as a software engineer for 4 years at a fairly large software company after graduating university. The depressing reality is it's much easier to advance your career by switching jobs than it is by being loyal. I got a glowing review my first two years but did not result in a promotion. Meanwhile there were people who would leave the company, and come back a year later at +1 seniority level.
Now I would understand the need for ownership requirements if the Canadian telcos treated its customers well and were just afraid of bigger meaner foreign companies running them out of business. That imaginary scenario couldn't be further from the truth. Only good things can come from competition in the Canadian wireless market and international companies are the best place to get that competition./soapbox
I went to a networking event recently and, judging by the amount of business cards I took home, they aren't going anywhere in the near future. Maybe the people on the bleeding edge are doing away with the business card, but it's still a staple of businessmen (and women) everywhere.
The solution to this problem lies with management, not technology. Replace Facebook with "Playing cards" and the solution is the same. If you have somebody who wastes time at work it should be up to that person's boss to stop that behavior and get the person back to work.
"Did company add feature to product to make more money?" Google is a corporation with a duty to its shareholders to try and increase profits. If they release a function to their search engine that both increases its utility to users and lets Google generate more revenue: what's the problem and why is it newsworthy?
For the record I really like the instant search. Generally I don't get my search terms right the first time. The quick feedback to search terms is really nice.
As it is, by the time companies get a software patent, there's little value to them because, after six years, the industry has already moved on.
As messed up as it is, the current system creates more value for patent trolls. If it takes six years to get my patent approved, that's six years "infringing" technology getting baked into competing products.
DRM reduces the value of your product; getting rid of intrusive DRM adds value.
Really? Go to one of your non-technical relatives and ask them what DRM stands for and what it does. It may add value to people who are knowledgeable, but to most consumers it does not.
While I agree with your point that every pirated copy is not one lost sale, surely some of them are lost sales. Also most DRM doesn't cause the system-exploding nightmares that the internet makes DRM out to be. I have a copy of dragon age on my PC and it hasn't burst into flames, given me the plague, nor sent my SSN to EA yet. I'm also an avid wow gamer and I'm well aware that blizzard's background monitoring tool is pretty invasive. I'm part of the majority on this one, I don't care so long as the software works. Software developers should be allowed to try and protect their software. People who really want to pirate the software will do so, but DRM raises the bar for piracy such that your average customer is more likely to pay money for it.
I've dabbled in 3D programming, I haven't done anything amazing, let alone made my own game, but I will say that D3D is much easier to write working code than OpenGL. With OpenGL I got about as far as a spinning triangle on the screen. With D3D I was able to get to the point where I was rendering a model on the screen and manipulating it with pixel and vertex shaders.
Somebody earlier hit the the nail on the head when they said that because it's easier it's what people will start and subsequently stick with. Not only that, but as a business if it takes your programmers 10 months to write a graphics engine in D3D and 12 months to write one in OpenGL, which one are you going to go for? There aren't many instances where I will go to bat for MS, but DirectX has a better graphics API compared to OpenGL.
You're using hardware that is close to twenty years old. I don't think it's fair to say that because linux has kept up with current technologies (CD-ROMs and USB drives) that it has become bloated. Some other people have pointed out, correctly, that you should be looking for distros from the era if you expect it to install easily on your hardware.
The decision said that it wasn't sufficient to prove that Rambus lied or harmed competitors; the FTC had to prove that it harmed consumers in order to fall under anti-trust law.
Isn't harming competitors harming customers? I mean less competition means more monopolies/duopolies, and that's never good for prices. I mean it's ok to screw over your competitor by offering a superior services/products and equal/better prices, but it's totally different to deceive a standards body so you can sue its members for patent infringement.
When apple redesigned OS X not only did they break binary compatibility, but they took a look at what was wrong with the API for OS 9 and did their best to change it. They also lost source compatiblity.. which is why those legacy APIs exist.
Since microsoft is breaking binary compatiblity, why not break source compatiblity as well? The core C windows API has been around since Windows 3.0 (possibly earlier). Why not redo the Win32 API? Programming windows is painful, and no amount of MFC/.NET whore makeup is going to rectify that situation. Surely in the past seventeen years Microsoft has come up with some ways to write better software.
I have a very poor financial outlook for the near future, why can't somebody give me $100 million? Hell, I'll use that to make legal claims about somebody else's IP! I can probably even develop an operating system nobody in their right mind would use.
I'm in pretty much the exact same position as you are, and it stinks. I'm looking at moving back to Canada within a year because of it.
The most ridiculous thing about the U.S. immigration system is that even once you get your green card (5+ years at this point) you can apply for a green card for your spouse. The only problem being is that takes another 5+ years to process and while it's processing your spouse cannot be in the United States.
My humble opinion is that the U.S. needs to shape up big time or lose its position of dominance in the technology world. Oh wait, that already happened.
I get approximately 30-45 minutes (unscientifically tested) more battery life from OS X.
What boggles my mind the most of all is that Vista has no provision for automatically disabling the Aero interface based on the power source. I'm sure the power disparity would go away if Aero would disable itself as soon as I switched over to battery power. As example: I can hear a fan (presumably GPU) kick into high gear just sitting on the desktop doing nothing. To me that is completely ridiculous and Microsoft should be investigating a way to fix it.
I noticed by BT bandwidth drop to about 2kB/sec on rogers until I downloaded uTorrent and turned on packet encryption. Then it promptly went back into the 2-300kB/sec range.
detachable rare diamond that acts like a power button and a security key
There a detachable diamond acting as the security key for a $1 000 000 laptop. Who thinks up this stuff? I can't think of a scenario where having a precious stone as the security key for the laptop is a good idea. If the key gets stolen you're SOL, if you lose the key you're SOL, and to replace the key will probably cost hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars.
Symantec says that Windows is the most secure operating system. Why, then, would a windows user buy Symantec's products if that user is running the most secure commercial OS?
"The report found that Microsoft Windows had the fewest number of patches and the shortest average patch development time of the five operating systems it monitored in the last six months of 2006."
How is the number of patches that Microsoft chooses to fix a good metric? I doubt this is the case, but what if the engineers were sitting around saying "holy crap, these problems are all hard! who wants to get some coffee?" and never got around to releasing patches?
I agree with you completely except in the case of GTA. Rockstar obviously puts a lot of time and effort into making sure that their advertisements are funny and/or advertise a product that exists in the game.
Now please don't take this out of context, advertising doesn't work in all genres. If I were playing WoW and I saw a billboard for snacky smores I'd be downright pissed.
I have absolutely no problem with ads so long as they fit the environment. Are there billboards on roads in real life? Yes! So put them in games, it makes them seem more realistic. Are there advertisements in stadiums? Yes! Then by all means put ads in the sports games. As far as I can see, the games on that list all take place in environments where one could reasonably be expected to see ads.
Where I draw the line is putting corporate logos on loading screens or putting them anywhere where I can't look away. Like if I were playing GTA and all the cars had pepsi logos on the roofs I'd be mad.
And every time I hear somebody complaining about graduating with a CS (or equivalent) degree and complaining about not being able to find a job I want to punch him in the face. Accredited does not equal skilled! Some of the people in my graduating class are complete morons but they still have a piece of paper that says they are just as skilled as I am.
It's illegal to pay an H1-B employee less than an American citizen doing the same job. I'm sure there are ways around it but there are laws in place to make sure that companies don't use H1-B as a farm for cheap labour.
Slashdot Mirror
I worked as a software engineer for 4 years at a fairly large software company after graduating university. The depressing reality is it's much easier to advance your career by switching jobs than it is by being loyal. I got a glowing review my first two years but did not result in a promotion. Meanwhile there were people who would leave the company, and come back a year later at +1 seniority level.
Now I would understand the need for ownership requirements if the Canadian telcos treated its customers well and were just afraid of bigger meaner foreign companies running them out of business. That imaginary scenario couldn't be further from the truth. Only good things can come from competition in the Canadian wireless market and international companies are the best place to get that competition. /soapbox
I went to a networking event recently and, judging by the amount of business cards I took home, they aren't going anywhere in the near future. Maybe the people on the bleeding edge are doing away with the business card, but it's still a staple of businessmen (and women) everywhere.
The solution to this problem lies with management, not technology. Replace Facebook with "Playing cards" and the solution is the same. If you have somebody who wastes time at work it should be up to that person's boss to stop that behavior and get the person back to work.
"Did company add feature to product to make more money?" Google is a corporation with a duty to its shareholders to try and increase profits. If they release a function to their search engine that both increases its utility to users and lets Google generate more revenue: what's the problem and why is it newsworthy?
For the record I really like the instant search. Generally I don't get my search terms right the first time. The quick feedback to search terms is really nice.
As messed up as it is, the current system creates more value for patent trolls. If it takes six years to get my patent approved, that's six years "infringing" technology getting baked into competing products.
Really? Go to one of your non-technical relatives and ask them what DRM stands for and what it does. It may add value to people who are knowledgeable, but to most consumers it does not.
While I agree with your point that every pirated copy is not one lost sale, surely some of them are lost sales. Also most DRM doesn't cause the system-exploding nightmares that the internet makes DRM out to be. I have a copy of dragon age on my PC and it hasn't burst into flames, given me the plague, nor sent my SSN to EA yet. I'm also an avid wow gamer and I'm well aware that blizzard's background monitoring tool is pretty invasive. I'm part of the majority on this one, I don't care so long as the software works. Software developers should be allowed to try and protect their software. People who really want to pirate the software will do so, but DRM raises the bar for piracy such that your average customer is more likely to pay money for it.
I've dabbled in 3D programming, I haven't done anything amazing, let alone made my own game, but I will say that D3D is much easier to write working code than OpenGL. With OpenGL I got about as far as a spinning triangle on the screen. With D3D I was able to get to the point where I was rendering a model on the screen and manipulating it with pixel and vertex shaders.
Somebody earlier hit the the nail on the head when they said that because it's easier it's what people will start and subsequently stick with. Not only that, but as a business if it takes your programmers 10 months to write a graphics engine in D3D and 12 months to write one in OpenGL, which one are you going to go for? There aren't many instances where I will go to bat for MS, but DirectX has a better graphics API compared to OpenGL.
You're using hardware that is close to twenty years old. I don't think it's fair to say that because linux has kept up with current technologies (CD-ROMs and USB drives) that it has become bloated. Some other people have pointed out, correctly, that you should be looking for distros from the era if you expect it to install easily on your hardware.
When apple redesigned OS X not only did they break binary compatibility, but they took a look at what was wrong with the API for OS 9 and did their best to change it. They also lost source compatiblity.. which is why those legacy APIs exist.
Since microsoft is breaking binary compatiblity, why not break source compatiblity as well? The core C windows API has been around since Windows 3.0 (possibly earlier). Why not redo the Win32 API? Programming windows is painful, and no amount of MFC/.NET whore makeup is going to rectify that situation. Surely in the past seventeen years Microsoft has come up with some ways to write better software.
Step 1. Pile money onto a sinking ship
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profit!
I have a very poor financial outlook for the near future, why can't somebody give me $100 million? Hell, I'll use that to make legal claims about somebody else's IP! I can probably even develop an operating system nobody in their right mind would use.
Funny, "eh? take off ya DMCA hoser" is apparently working a whole lot better than whatever Americans are doing.
I'm in pretty much the exact same position as you are, and it stinks. I'm looking at moving back to Canada within a year because of it.
The most ridiculous thing about the U.S. immigration system is that even once you get your green card (5+ years at this point) you can apply for a green card for your spouse. The only problem being is that takes another 5+ years to process and while it's processing your spouse cannot be in the United States.
My humble opinion is that the U.S. needs to shape up big time or lose its position of dominance in the technology world. Oh wait, that already happened.
it's surprise sex!
It's not electrocution, it's voltage surprise!
See, doesn't everything become magical and pleasant with just a little word adjustment? I hope a meteor falls into that HBO exec's house.
I get approximately 30-45 minutes (unscientifically tested) more battery life from OS X.
What boggles my mind the most of all is that Vista has no provision for automatically disabling the Aero interface based on the power source. I'm sure the power disparity would go away if Aero would disable itself as soon as I switched over to battery power. As example: I can hear a fan (presumably GPU) kick into high gear just sitting on the desktop doing nothing. To me that is completely ridiculous and Microsoft should be investigating a way to fix it.
I noticed by BT bandwidth drop to about 2kB/sec on rogers until I downloaded uTorrent and turned on packet encryption. Then it promptly went back into the 2-300kB/sec range.
There a detachable diamond acting as the security key for a $1 000 000 laptop. Who thinks up this stuff? I can't think of a scenario where having a precious stone as the security key for the laptop is a good idea. If the key gets stolen you're SOL, if you lose the key you're SOL, and to replace the key will probably cost hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars.
Symantec says that Windows is the most secure operating system. Why, then, would a windows user buy Symantec's products if that user is running the most secure commercial OS?
How is the number of patches that Microsoft chooses to fix a good metric? I doubt this is the case, but what if the engineers were sitting around saying "holy crap, these problems are all hard! who wants to get some coffee?" and never got around to releasing patches?
I agree with you completely except in the case of GTA. Rockstar obviously puts a lot of time and effort into making sure that their advertisements are funny and/or advertise a product that exists in the game.
Now please don't take this out of context, advertising doesn't work in all genres. If I were playing WoW and I saw a billboard for snacky smores I'd be downright pissed.
I have absolutely no problem with ads so long as they fit the environment. Are there billboards on roads in real life? Yes! So put them in games, it makes them seem more realistic. Are there advertisements in stadiums? Yes! Then by all means put ads in the sports games. As far as I can see, the games on that list all take place in environments where one could reasonably be expected to see ads.
Where I draw the line is putting corporate logos on loading screens or putting them anywhere where I can't look away. Like if I were playing GTA and all the cars had pepsi logos on the roofs I'd be mad.
There's so much more to being a skilled software developer than knowing your way around algorithms.
And every time I hear somebody complaining about graduating with a CS (or equivalent) degree and complaining about not being able to find a job I want to punch him in the face. Accredited does not equal skilled! Some of the people in my graduating class are complete morons but they still have a piece of paper that says they are just as skilled as I am.
It's illegal to pay an H1-B employee less than an American citizen doing the same job. I'm sure there are ways around it but there are laws in place to make sure that companies don't use H1-B as a farm for cheap labour.