I second your opinion of Heroes. I have become sorely disappointed with the series. It seems that after the writers returned from their strike, they decided to create TV scripts that appeal to the most subdued intellect, not only for Heroes but for almost the entirety of American television.
The Aztecs had a long legacy of cannibalism as part of their religious ceremonies. It was considered (I assume by those not experiencing it) an honor to be killed and eaten as a token to their god(s).
After the Spanish came and forcefully converted the native American survivors to Roman Catholocism, the Aztecs adopted the stigma attached to cannibalism. However, they couldn't get enough of that porcine protein brought over from Europe. When asked about their focused consumption of pigs, the former people eaters replied with a simple answer: pigs taste like you and me.
To be a better than average programmer, a person must have the ability to analyze a problem, dream up a design for solving it, and then implement that solution. This applies to the smallest problem (How do I sum up the numbers 1 to 100?) to large problems (how do I design this Web application framework?).
To develop this highly sought skill, mere training in different languages will not help a person. Someone who has spent four years in an undergrad program worrying out proofs in group theory and fuzzy logic has more applicable skill for designing and implementing a software system than a person who has spent four years learning the syntactical differences between C++, Java, C#, and Assembly. A person who has had the pleasure of designing, building and testing a cement canoe knows more about the real trials that get faced in full lifecycle software development than some guy that took "Theory of Software Development."
I've heard it from more than one software manager. As a software manager myself, now, I've said it. "The best computer programmers that I've ever met aren't 'computer scientists.'" Of the greatest programmers that I know, they have degrees in
Philosophy
Electrical Engineering
Civil Engineering
Mathematics
German (I'm still amazed that you can get a degree in a language!)
My opinion, OP, is to go to college, study the crap out of what you want, and be the brightest at what you do. There's probably some predisposition in there, so use it! And, while you're learning to weave baskets underwater, make sure that you read and hack, read and hack, read and hack.
I just hate it when, after using EMACS for a while, I go to a Word document, want to move to the next line, and end up opening a new file! Egad! I want EMACS key bindings for Office!
My wife bought a Gateway SOLO about four years ago. About a year after that, a bed collapsed on it and cracked the LCD screen. (That is a story that can't appear on/.!)
We didn't send the laptop in for repair (it's a Gateway SOLO for goodness' sake!). It sat dormant in my computer closet for a couple of years.
Recently, some neighborhood kids have been messing around our yard. I dug out the laptop, did a fresh Win2K installation on it, hooked up a crappy Intel WebCam in its only USB port, and now have a "security camera" aimed at the yard. And, "it just works."
It has now run for about 11 months without any intervention. It just records movement in my yard and a "cron" job takes the AVIs and moves them to my fileserver for review. Works like a charm.
I also have a six-year old HP Pavilion n5190 running as an outgoing mail server. It, too, has no problems with maintaining its up time.
All that to say that I don't have any aged laptop problems.
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I second your opinion of Heroes. I have become sorely disappointed with the series. It seems that after the writers returned from their strike, they decided to create TV scripts that appeal to the most subdued intellect, not only for Heroes but for almost the entirety of American television.
The robot probably isn't far off...
The Aztecs had a long legacy of cannibalism as part of their religious ceremonies. It was considered (I assume by those not experiencing it) an honor to be killed and eaten as a token to their god(s).
After the Spanish came and forcefully converted the native American survivors to Roman Catholocism, the Aztecs adopted the stigma attached to cannibalism. However, they couldn't get enough of that porcine protein brought over from Europe. When asked about their focused consumption of pigs, the former people eaters replied with a simple answer: pigs taste like you and me.
To be a better than average programmer, a person must have the ability to analyze a problem, dream up a design for solving it, and then implement that solution. This applies to the smallest problem (How do I sum up the numbers 1 to 100?) to large problems (how do I design this Web application framework?).
To develop this highly sought skill, mere training in different languages will not help a person. Someone who has spent four years in an undergrad program worrying out proofs in group theory and fuzzy logic has more applicable skill for designing and implementing a software system than a person who has spent four years learning the syntactical differences between C++, Java, C#, and Assembly. A person who has had the pleasure of designing, building and testing a cement canoe knows more about the real trials that get faced in full lifecycle software development than some guy that took "Theory of Software Development."
I've heard it from more than one software manager. As a software manager myself, now, I've said it. "The best computer programmers that I've ever met aren't 'computer scientists.'" Of the greatest programmers that I know, they have degrees in
- Philosophy
- Electrical Engineering
- Civil Engineering
- Mathematics
- German (I'm still amazed that you can get a degree in a language!)
My opinion, OP, is to go to college, study the crap out of what you want, and be the brightest at what you do. There's probably some predisposition in there, so use it! And, while you're learning to weave baskets underwater, make sure that you read and hack, read and hack, read and hack.They still recommend that you keep your entire / partition within the first 2Gb. http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html#LargeDrive
I found that just too funny!
I just hate it when, after using EMACS for a while, I go to a Word document, want to move to the next line, and end up opening a new file! Egad! I want EMACS key bindings for Office!
Anecdotal evidence:
My wife bought a Gateway SOLO about four years ago. About a year after that, a bed collapsed on it and cracked the LCD screen. (That is a story that can't appear on /.!)
We didn't send the laptop in for repair (it's a Gateway SOLO for goodness' sake!). It sat dormant in my computer closet for a couple of years.
Recently, some neighborhood kids have been messing around our yard. I dug out the laptop, did a fresh Win2K installation on it, hooked up a crappy Intel WebCam in its only USB port, and now have a "security camera" aimed at the yard. And, "it just works."
It has now run for about 11 months without any intervention. It just records movement in my yard and a "cron" job takes the AVIs and moves them to my fileserver for review. Works like a charm.
I also have a six-year old HP Pavilion n5190 running as an outgoing mail server. It, too, has no problems with maintaining its up time.
All that to say that I don't have any aged laptop problems.