This field is nothing like what I entered 15 years ago. Not in the usual technology progress way either, but in a steady downward spiral. Fortune 500 companies are beginning to drop CIOs altogether and putting IT in the hands of business depts., VMs are used as a band-aid for everything and as a result requests and demands and the number of servers to be maintained has exploded... all this while staff is cut to the bone. There used to be "Computer Science" and real professionalism and respect, now none exists. We are mostly to blame for it ourselves. For such intelligent people, we aren't smart. Ego and personality traits have been exploited to force us into 24x7 drones that are lowly, subservient, and basically whipping boys.
I have had some great experiences and I have also witnessed the decline first-hand, when I move on from my current position I will not be re-entering the IT workforce. I hate to throw away a lifetime's work and passion, but there is no real upside I can foresee... I only see it continuing to be minimized. People respect and understand tangible skills and products or revenue generating depts., which have always been tough selling points of IT. Knowledge and unseen aspects are hard to convey to non-technical folks, now that things have been abstracted one more layer with VMs and even virtual switching/routing, forget it.
I still happily use my Samsung flip phone and will simply replace the battery when it begins to get weak (still going strong 4 years now). I'm an IT guy and would love to have a great smartphone, but I refuse to pay the insane costs to do so. We are talking *thousands* of dollars over the course of just two years! I make a very good living and I refuse to spend my money that way, it blows my mind that every tween and minimum wage-earning person has one. I was able to take an amazing vacation to Grand Cayman Island last year for *less* than a smartphone plan would have cost me. People just don't think about the actual costs and blindly pay. Being able to update my Facebook status 24x7 is not better than 2 weeks on a beautiful beach snorkeling with cool fish and stingrays.
When they get it down to $40/month for voice and data (and not some paltry amount), I'll own one.
I can say that our infrastructure cannot support this. There is potential for very specific areas to be overhauled and for something like this but it will be a wasted venture. The other thing is that every high-speed rail car maker is foreign so we will be pouring our money into some other country, be it Japan, Europe, or Spain... which could be the real reason for this.
I once referenced this amongst a number of IT folks... and one woman actually responded: "so, the whole Internet is in one computer somewhere?" dead serious.
Also, elsewhere in TFA they talk (without much detail) about how these devices scale from just two in small usage cases or can be stacked somehow to have the same number of connections as a full cell tower.
...and these stacks of cubes only need to be between 150 and 300 feet high for this;)
Bill Gates has done more for humanity than all of the Popes put together. I dislike a lot of what Bill Gates does but I won't say he has not done a lot for everyone. We wouldn't be sitting here discussing technology as it is if it weren't for him. They may have never had a keen eye for design or innovation, but they were and are the suits and they have shaped our world. The Pope is a figurehead that produces nothing and benefits no one. I admire my dog more than the Pope. Similarly I admire thousands of people more than Bill Gates.
Actually, not so much 1984 as Brave New World (Aldous Huxley). If you haven't read it, I'd highly suggest it as it is pretty much a 100% spot-on prophecy and in-depth look at our current reality.
I ran into a close friend of mine at the mall the other day and she was excited about her new Windows phone. (we are both artsy/designer types). I was taken aback since she was an AT&T customer, she then hit me with a point I hadn't thought of: The Windows phone is cleaner and more artistic in design. Instead of a jumble of unchangable icons on the iPhone the tiles are either all one color or can be customized with photos, etc. to create a really beautiful look. In about an hour from her getting her new phone it was actually a beautiful thing... I looked down at my iphone and realized it was horribly ugly in comparison.
I still like the function and overall design of the iPhone but I also won't begrudge MS when they get something right.
Only if you are an M looking to penetrate or be penetrated by another M. Otherwise, I would question how superior it really is. (Not that there's anything wrong with that)
No, and I didn't mean for this to sound so "I told you so" but honestly I have spent years speaking out about this exact thing and it is just complete vindication to see this happen. I couldn't care less about if I was right or not, I'm far more interested in this happening sooner than later and that it doesn't lose steam. It is seriously one of the most important battles of our lives.
Here and on Reddit, every single time a story about Wikileaks comes up I always state that as cool as Wikileaks seems it is terribly flawed overall and far too important to leave as it is... every single time I get downvoted/modded troll/whatever and everyone busts out the hate... after this last debacle people have finally opened their damn eyes and I couldn't be happier. The media is broken which is why Wikileaks is even relevant, and we all need to stand up and win the most important war of our lifetime: The War on Information. The other great thing that will come of this is that the media will see all of the potential and thirst for actual news and information and hopefully shift back to what thy should have been doing all along.
Seriously fuck that. We all cry foul when China blocks sites and info and if American's don't stand up and actually make their voices heard I have ZERO interest in remaining in this country.
I was so awaiting your schooling in technical semantics, huge letdown. But you actually know what you're talking about so you're probably too busy. I understand.
I really don't want to advertise for them because I believe they have ties to the RIAA and I'm not that down with their cause... but if you searched for some sort of audible magic you may find it.;)
I've worked in fortune 500 and universities in the U.S. in IT (networking) and I can tell you that you have the same short-sighted view as most students. Most of the time it is not just bandwidth that is constrained but flows. P2P opens hundreds of flows *per user* which is actually more taxing on the networking gear and everything else between you and the Internet. Imagine if you will, say 1,000 students on a campus (just for easy numbers, it is far more usually) then another 1,000 staff, wifi, lab computers. That is 2,000 connections. Say the university has a 200MB pipe to the Internet (which is quite expensive), that is about 100k per user, or ~1/7th of the speed of even a most basic DSL speed... and that is in a perfect world at theoretical maximums. Real-world things aren't so clean cut and there is give and take and those numbers shift at different times, etc. Now, imagine the load when everyone feels it is their right to use P2P to download movies and music 24/7... it doesn't matter how much bandwidth you'd throw at it, the "lobotomized" staff could never win.
The university network is for education and for completion of schoolwork, that is what you pay for and that is how it is sold. Nothing stops the individual from buying their own connection or air card and doing whatever they want at whatever speed they can get for everything else they want to do, and you get the benefit of bypassing the unqualified staff you so despise.
I used to work for a university's network dept. at a fairly high level and it fell on my shoulders to handle the RIAA complaints, I pretty much refused because it was ridiculous. When I would be forced to turn info over, I would just give them IP's which were basically useless but they would never get back to me for more info. When the pressure really got strong, I decided the only way I would comply would be to install a device that did actual audio fingerprinting. This way it wasn't just a witch hunt or false positives based on someone simply using P2P or a filename but verified inspection and reporting. Even then, it had it's own way of handling it internally, after each offense it encountered it would email the user with the info and a warning, after 3 infractions it basically cut the port speed to 56k for that user so they could still do school work but little else, any additional infractions resulted in reporting.
It put the onus on the student and was as reasonable as could be for the screwed up system in place. In the end the RIAA should never have as much power as it does and the fines should be at most $5-20 per song which is between a 500% and 2000% penalty which is quite enough without being so insane as the current system is. No matter how you slice it, it is B.S.
Couldn't agree more... but be careful, logic and reason matter not in rabid Apple hatred.
I don't also count the hardware costs, but think of all the lost time and effort over all of those issues. When I was in college, OK, but now that my time is valuable and scarce I place far more of a premium on that than whether or not my mp3 encoding takes 45 vs. 42 seconds with the latest and greatest CPU that I can't get in a Mac.
TCO is something that comes with maturity and age. I still happily build my PCs and even then a 27" iMac is looking nicer and nicer... good luck finding even a 27" IPS monitor for around the price of the whole computer. Like I said from the beginning sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn't, it's just about the right tool for the job.
If you honestly believe windows is more secure then, I don't know what to tell you.
I do a ton of photo work and iPhoto has a ton of features that no other program I have used has or has as elegantly or usable. Sorry. (and I play guitar and enjoy the simplicity of Garageband since I'm not a pro, I don't own a Mac but that is something I would dig.)
HP Envy is essentially the same price as a MBP and very close in hardware at those prices.
Most of the tech you mentioned is for benchmarks or gaming on a home PC. Not average userland. The MBP and iMacs play modern games just fine and have perfectly normal GPUs. I'm not a hardcore gamer and a NV 9600GT is in my PC.
Windows 7 is a massive improvement and I love it. It is still terribly flawed in usability. OSX shines there. Sure, you have to do it their way but that is the tradeoff. I'd love to see Meego or Ubuntu Unity really take off.
Like I said initially, you are arguing with the wrong person. I'm not a fanboy. I use what is best for the job at hand. I have no problem admitting some things Apple does drive me damn insane, they also get some things really right. None are perfect, use what you like. However, your assessment of Macs and Apple are horribly tainted and in some cases wrong. But that's fine, you are entitled to your opinion.
Apple has a *nix core, it has none of the Windows viruses and malware. Is it impenetrable? No. is it 90% better than Windows? Yes.
iLife is a suite that works and has great features that most average users want, maybe not you or I, but it is everything most everyone wants in one nice package. iPhoto is excellent and no Picasa does not "beat" it. I use both for totally different reasons.
Find me one durable PC that is found at $500. Won't happen. Panasonic Toughbooks, etc. exist and they are tough, they are also at a premium, sometimes more than Apple.
Yes. Because I don't give a flying fuck about synthetic benchmarks and I can game on a console. Most mainstream games play just fine on any system. I'm long past days of caring about OC'ing,liquid cooling, or any of that. No home computer "needs" most of that stuff, and the average user surely doesn't.
My PC's work too. But if you are trying to say it has been nothing but roses and lollipops since 95, you're a fucking idiot.
I'm no fanboy, I own nothing Apple but my iPod Touch, but while the PC may be cheaper, you also have viruses/malware, antivirus software, nothing close to iLife, and it sure as hell is not as nicely made or durable. When you factor in those things the premium is worth it IMO. I've been a system builder for over 15 years so believe me it's hard for me to say it, but it's true. The tipping point is if/when your income and time become more valuable than a bunch of variety that never quite work seamlessly.
That is the revenue they missed out on, that is what they should get. I understand this isn't a deterrent, but even $5-20 per song is a 500%-2000% penalty. Quite enough in my book.
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This field is nothing like what I entered 15 years ago. Not in the usual technology progress way either, but in a steady downward spiral. Fortune 500 companies are beginning to drop CIOs altogether and putting IT in the hands of business depts., VMs are used as a band-aid for everything and as a result requests and demands and the number of servers to be maintained has exploded... all this while staff is cut to the bone. There used to be "Computer Science" and real professionalism and respect, now none exists. We are mostly to blame for it ourselves. For such intelligent people, we aren't smart. Ego and personality traits have been exploited to force us into 24x7 drones that are lowly, subservient, and basically whipping boys.
I have had some great experiences and I have also witnessed the decline first-hand, when I move on from my current position I will not be re-entering the IT workforce. I hate to throw away a lifetime's work and passion, but there is no real upside I can foresee... I only see it continuing to be minimized. People respect and understand tangible skills and products or revenue generating depts., which have always been tough selling points of IT. Knowledge and unseen aspects are hard to convey to non-technical folks, now that things have been abstracted one more layer with VMs and even virtual switching/routing, forget it.
I still happily use my Samsung flip phone and will simply replace the battery when it begins to get weak (still going strong 4 years now). I'm an IT guy and would love to have a great smartphone, but I refuse to pay the insane costs to do so. We are talking *thousands* of dollars over the course of just two years! I make a very good living and I refuse to spend my money that way, it blows my mind that every tween and minimum wage-earning person has one. I was able to take an amazing vacation to Grand Cayman Island last year for *less* than a smartphone plan would have cost me. People just don't think about the actual costs and blindly pay. Being able to update my Facebook status 24x7 is not better than 2 weeks on a beautiful beach snorkeling with cool fish and stingrays.
When they get it down to $40/month for voice and data (and not some paltry amount), I'll own one.
I can say that our infrastructure cannot support this. There is potential for very specific areas to be overhauled and for something like this but it will be a wasted venture. The other thing is that every high-speed rail car maker is foreign so we will be pouring our money into some other country, be it Japan, Europe, or Spain... which could be the real reason for this.
I once referenced this amongst a number of IT folks... and one woman actually responded: "so, the whole Internet is in one computer somewhere?" dead serious.
Also, elsewhere in TFA they talk (without much detail) about how these devices scale from just two in small usage cases or can be stacked somehow to have the same number of connections as a full cell tower.
...and these stacks of cubes only need to be between 150 and 300 feet high for this ;)
Bill Gates has done more for humanity than all of the Popes put together. I dislike a lot of what Bill Gates does but I won't say he has not done a lot for everyone. We wouldn't be sitting here discussing technology as it is if it weren't for him. They may have never had a keen eye for design or innovation, but they were and are the suits and they have shaped our world. The Pope is a figurehead that produces nothing and benefits no one. I admire my dog more than the Pope. Similarly I admire thousands of people more than Bill Gates.
Yes. http://fatpita.net/?i=1952
Actually, not so much 1984 as Brave New World (Aldous Huxley). If you haven't read it, I'd highly suggest it as it is pretty much a 100% spot-on prophecy and in-depth look at our current reality.
I ran into a close friend of mine at the mall the other day and she was excited about her new Windows phone. (we are both artsy/designer types). I was taken aback since she was an AT&T customer, she then hit me with a point I hadn't thought of: The Windows phone is cleaner and more artistic in design. Instead of a jumble of unchangable icons on the iPhone the tiles are either all one color or can be customized with photos, etc. to create a really beautiful look. In about an hour from her getting her new phone it was actually a beautiful thing... I looked down at my iphone and realized it was horribly ugly in comparison.
I still like the function and overall design of the iPhone but I also won't begrudge MS when they get something right.
Only if you are an M looking to penetrate or be penetrated by another M. Otherwise, I would question how superior it really is. (Not that there's anything wrong with that)
No, and I didn't mean for this to sound so "I told you so" but honestly I have spent years speaking out about this exact thing and it is just complete vindication to see this happen. I couldn't care less about if I was right or not, I'm far more interested in this happening sooner than later and that it doesn't lose steam. It is seriously one of the most important battles of our lives.
Here and on Reddit, every single time a story about Wikileaks comes up I always state that as cool as Wikileaks seems it is terribly flawed overall and far too important to leave as it is... every single time I get downvoted/modded troll/whatever and everyone busts out the hate... after this last debacle people have finally opened their damn eyes and I couldn't be happier. The media is broken which is why Wikileaks is even relevant, and we all need to stand up and win the most important war of our lifetime: The War on Information. The other great thing that will come of this is that the media will see all of the potential and thirst for actual news and information and hopefully shift back to what thy should have been doing all along.
Seriously fuck that. We all cry foul when China blocks sites and info and if American's don't stand up and actually make their voices heard I have ZERO interest in remaining in this country.
I was so awaiting your schooling in technical semantics, huge letdown. But you actually know what you're talking about so you're probably too busy. I understand.
I really don't want to advertise for them because I believe they have ties to the RIAA and I'm not that down with their cause... but if you searched for some sort of audible magic you may find it. ;)
haha, OK... well I've run networks for some very large companies as well as universities... do regale me with your brilliance.
I've worked in fortune 500 and universities in the U.S. in IT (networking) and I can tell you that you have the same short-sighted view as most students. Most of the time it is not just bandwidth that is constrained but flows. P2P opens hundreds of flows *per user* which is actually more taxing on the networking gear and everything else between you and the Internet. Imagine if you will, say 1,000 students on a campus (just for easy numbers, it is far more usually) then another 1,000 staff, wifi, lab computers. That is 2,000 connections. Say the university has a 200MB pipe to the Internet (which is quite expensive), that is about 100k per user, or ~1/7th of the speed of even a most basic DSL speed... and that is in a perfect world at theoretical maximums. Real-world things aren't so clean cut and there is give and take and those numbers shift at different times, etc. Now, imagine the load when everyone feels it is their right to use P2P to download movies and music 24/7... it doesn't matter how much bandwidth you'd throw at it, the "lobotomized" staff could never win.
The university network is for education and for completion of schoolwork, that is what you pay for and that is how it is sold. Nothing stops the individual from buying their own connection or air card and doing whatever they want at whatever speed they can get for everything else they want to do, and you get the benefit of bypassing the unqualified staff you so despise.
I used to work for a university's network dept. at a fairly high level and it fell on my shoulders to handle the RIAA complaints, I pretty much refused because it was ridiculous. When I would be forced to turn info over, I would just give them IP's which were basically useless but they would never get back to me for more info. When the pressure really got strong, I decided the only way I would comply would be to install a device that did actual audio fingerprinting. This way it wasn't just a witch hunt or false positives based on someone simply using P2P or a filename but verified inspection and reporting. Even then, it had it's own way of handling it internally, after each offense it encountered it would email the user with the info and a warning, after 3 infractions it basically cut the port speed to 56k for that user so they could still do school work but little else, any additional infractions resulted in reporting.
It put the onus on the student and was as reasonable as could be for the screwed up system in place. In the end the RIAA should never have as much power as it does and the fines should be at most $5-20 per song which is between a 500% and 2000% penalty which is quite enough without being so insane as the current system is. No matter how you slice it, it is B.S.
Couldn't agree more... but be careful, logic and reason matter not in rabid Apple hatred.
I don't also count the hardware costs, but think of all the lost time and effort over all of those issues. When I was in college, OK, but now that my time is valuable and scarce I place far more of a premium on that than whether or not my mp3 encoding takes 45 vs. 42 seconds with the latest and greatest CPU that I can't get in a Mac.
TCO is something that comes with maturity and age. I still happily build my PCs and even then a 27" iMac is looking nicer and nicer... good luck finding even a 27" IPS monitor for around the price of the whole computer. Like I said from the beginning sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn't, it's just about the right tool for the job.
...or maybe stop buying so much consumer electronic goods and you wouldn't be a burglar's target :)
If you honestly believe windows is more secure then, I don't know what to tell you.
I do a ton of photo work and iPhoto has a ton of features that no other program I have used has or has as elegantly or usable. Sorry. (and I play guitar and enjoy the simplicity of Garageband since I'm not a pro, I don't own a Mac but that is something I would dig.)
HP Envy is essentially the same price as a MBP and very close in hardware at those prices.
Most of the tech you mentioned is for benchmarks or gaming on a home PC. Not average userland. The MBP and iMacs play modern games just fine and have perfectly normal GPUs. I'm not a hardcore gamer and a NV 9600GT is in my PC.
Windows 7 is a massive improvement and I love it. It is still terribly flawed in usability. OSX shines there. Sure, you have to do it their way but that is the tradeoff. I'd love to see Meego or Ubuntu Unity really take off.
Like I said initially, you are arguing with the wrong person. I'm not a fanboy. I use what is best for the job at hand. I have no problem admitting some things Apple does drive me damn insane, they also get some things really right. None are perfect, use what you like. However, your assessment of Macs and Apple are horribly tainted and in some cases wrong. But that's fine, you are entitled to your opinion.
Apple has a *nix core, it has none of the Windows viruses and malware. Is it impenetrable? No. is it 90% better than Windows? Yes.
iLife is a suite that works and has great features that most average users want, maybe not you or I, but it is everything most everyone wants in one nice package. iPhoto is excellent and no Picasa does not "beat" it. I use both for totally different reasons.
Find me one durable PC that is found at $500. Won't happen. Panasonic Toughbooks, etc. exist and they are tough, they are also at a premium, sometimes more than Apple.
Yes. Because I don't give a flying fuck about synthetic benchmarks and I can game on a console. Most mainstream games play just fine on any system. I'm long past days of caring about OC'ing,liquid cooling, or any of that. No home computer "needs" most of that stuff, and the average user surely doesn't.
My PC's work too. But if you are trying to say it has been nothing but roses and lollipops since 95, you're a fucking idiot.
I'm no fanboy, I own nothing Apple but my iPod Touch, but while the PC may be cheaper, you also have viruses/malware, antivirus software, nothing close to iLife, and it sure as hell is not as nicely made or durable. When you factor in those things the premium is worth it IMO. I've been a system builder for over 15 years so believe me it's hard for me to say it, but it's true. The tipping point is if/when your income and time become more valuable than a bunch of variety that never quite work seamlessly.
That is the revenue they missed out on, that is what they should get. I understand this isn't a deterrent, but even $5-20 per song is a 500%-2000% penalty. Quite enough in my book.
Jehova! Jehova! Jehova!