So instead of being kept awake with all the beeps and tweets and flashing lights from your phone or tablet as your friends check in, now your room will never be dark as all these lamps fire up.
Seriously, I know its great to be social, but we don't have to be so connected as to know when friends and family walk in the door. There is something to be said about having a little privacy these days. Maybe I might start a Kickstarter project for a button that can be pressed that just ejects you out of the social network completely and lets you enjoy a few moments of peace from all your stalkers.
Since the amount of storage on SSD these days seems to be arbitrary and nothing to do with exponents of 2, how about creating nice rounded values, like 1000 GB.
Anyways, maybe this year will be the year of SSD, just like the last 30 years.
Do you want to work for a company that values hiring its employees on whether they can write code under pressure? No properly managed tech company should ever have a culture of stressful, high pressure, time based code development.
I know a lot of people feel that in an interview they are the ones under scrutiny, but realize that there is a shortage of quality developers (but an abundance of wannabees) out there and you really should also be scrutinizing the company you are applying for. Making the mistake of only trying to be an attractive candidate without also attempting to "interview" the interviewer is the biggest rookie mistake any person makes when looking for employment.
I have been to several interviews where I basically realized within 5 minutes that the company had their heads up their asses when it comes to finding talent. If a company is unable to adequately interview for talent then you can only imagine how poor the state of the quality of their management and leadership is in the company. I know a lot of people blame HR, but poor HR only results when managers and directors are unable to adequately convey the talent and skill requirements they are looking for, so HR staff have to make up the job description and interview process.
Also, with over 12 years experience, I get really frustrated when being interviewed for a senior level position only to have to answer a bunch of junior level questions about coding. I know how to code, and it should be assumed I know how to code from my work history, how about asking me high level architecture questions, how to apply software patterns, or how to create efficient software process. I've moved away from being a code monkey and have been responsible for designing, architecting and overseeing development of entire applications, don't ask me what passing a value by reference means or how to write a recursive method, that just means you don't deserve my experience..
Unfortunately the phrase "Those who can't...teach" is true. Teachers generally shun technology in their classrooms because of an unwillingness to learn or adapt. This is the problem with "classic" education is that teachers and school boards are unwilling to prepare students for the future because they use the tools of the past.
I also disagree with the statement that a teacher does not have enough time to get information onto computers. While I agree there have not been many great tools out there, once you are in an electronic environment this should reduce the overhead of marking and lesson planning greatly.
Also shunning technology completely leaves you without access to content already widely available to enhance the classroom experience.
Having worked for a "smart" board maker a few years ago, we did a study that dealt with a problem where most teachers used their fancy new expensive interactive smart board as nothing more then a second monitor and glorified projector, if even at all. Our software tracks board touches and saw that there was very little user interaction. In the same study we saw a huge proliferation in the use of tablets in schools which are highly interactive and touchable.
The reality is that the education systems are slowly changing away from the 100's year old paradigm of people lecturing to a new concept of students "exploring" education at their own pace. Not all students learn at the same pace, some students learn math and logic faster then language, others the opposite. Forcing all students to study the same subject matter at the same time is why schools are good at creating failures rather then successes. A child that doesn't do math by grade 3 should not be considered remedial, for instance, and thus shunted to a system of lower expectations, their math skills may have clicked in later in development and could be as or even more proficient then anyone else that learned math earlier.
So, the concept of a fixed focal point for a classroom is slowly eroding to more student-centric learning. The idea of self-guided learning is an emerging concept in many schools where the curriculum is a serious of self-guided lessons where the "teacher" is there to help students understand the lessons when they struggle.
The problem with the company I worked for (and why I left) was that in spite of having this study and seeing their product tucked away in a corner being unused, they still insist on creating single focal point solutions for the classroom and only loosely investing into tablet based solutions. Sure the concepts of collaboration and interactivity between students is important, but not necessarily the only way to proceed with education. Smart boards are still expensive and often underutilized and in spite of some initial interest level from students, quickly become bored with the technology, unlike tablets.
Better integration between smart boards and tablets would be the only way to save this company, but alas, is being greatly overlooked.
Sure, the idea of a paper based electronic displays is cool, but this product isn't. Looks like a screen stuck in some cheap lamination.
I don't really see a need for this product in general. A rigid tablet is more usable under many more circumstances and I am sure over the coming years rigid tablets will become slimmer and lighter. Even a tablet that is more like cardboard is more practical then floppy plastic. How about sitting at the beach trying to read a book and having this thing flapping in the wind? How are you doing to do touch with a floppy product unless you lay it down on a rigid surface. You know the first accessory for this product will be a "case" which will simply turn it into a rigid tablet which is what everybody wants.
I think it is ridiculous seeing a movie where someone reads a multi-page newspaper with dynamic content, folds it up and tucks it under their arm before getting off the train or something. I'd rather not live in some 40's rendition of what the future will look like.
Just because technology allows you to do something doesn't mean it has to be made. CES 2013 is turning out to be about how companies are failing to use common sense by creating products nobody actually wants, only to say "Gee, look at how cool this useless product is".
CNN opinion: Let's invest billions in creating an arsenal of super smart weapons using technology not even invented yet to make it impossible for someone to shoot a child.
OR
How about investing billions into education to create well educated and upstanding citizens that don't feel the need to buy a gun to resolve their issues.
Just saying in a country staggering under massive debt and many school districts are unable to buy text books, perhaps investing into children's futures is better then investing into weaponry.
Sending droids to Mars is pretty much as lazy as you can get, NASA just needs to buy some La-Z-boys, bar fridge, and some game controllers and pretty much it could like your working out of your parent's basement.
This is not a story about whether the flu shot works, so stop debating it, its about medical practitioners refusing to get flu shots on religious grounds.
First, these people should NOT have been in a medial profession if they were so religiously convicted to not allow getting medial services received themselves. Either they are being a religious hypocrite, or a medical hypocrite.
Second, I don't care what YOUR beliefs are about the flu shot, if you are in the medial field then the medical field WIDELY believes that the flu shot minimizes the risk of transferring flu to patients. Your sole goal as a medial practitioner is to NOT harm your patients.
At what point does religious beliefs cause harm to your patients, that is why they were fired. You can be damn sure that if some patient got sick and dies, and it was found one of these nurses was sick when treating the patient, the hospital would be sued for millions. A hospital is a private institution which can freely decide to hire and fire based solely on protecting their bottom line. Medical costs are already excessively high, a hospital being sued frequently because all their religious nurses are sick would certainly pass on the costs to their patients.
There are no human rights issues here, only irresponsible people entering a medical profession but refusing to do what is necessary to protect their patients. As a human I have a right to be protected from the ignorance of religious zealots.
Having JUST gone through this the only rule about deleting code is to NOT delete code someone is actively working on just because you don't understand or like it. I had about 3 weeks of work blown away by a "senior" developer who didn't understand or like what I was doing, deemed it unnecessary, and nuked it in a single check-in even though I am actively working on it without even consulting me.
Rule #1: Ask yourself, "Am I being an asshole if I remove this code?" If the answer is yes then don't do it.
So a special interest group is pushing for the US to adopt the metric system, and now the kilogram is heavier. This means that American's weighing themselves in metric won't seem as heavy because the number will be lower therefore there will no longer be an obesity crisis in the US.
To explain it to those still on the imperial system:
It would be like currently saying you weigh 300 pounds (which is morbidly obese regardless of what the View or Oprah says), but then the standard weight of a pound increases, so now you weight only 220 pounds, which is only mildly obese so go eat a cheesesteak without guilt.
Of course moving to metric alone will make Americans seem less heavy because 300 lbs is only about 136 kg which is a positively svelte number.
It might be based on $1000 hardware, but unless they release a game console under $400, then it will be stillborn.
Actually, Steam better sell this thing at a significant loss considering that it is a front end to their walled garden. The Steam Box should be sold like a printer, taking a hit on the hardware and recuperating profit through the sale of content on the platform.
If Valve tries to profit on the sale of hardware to front their Steam service they will be seen as being the same as all the greedy f--ks Gabe has been speaking out against for the last 8 years.
nVidia should be embarrassed to have released this "game console".
It has to be about the shittiest design for any game controller/portable game platform ever. Tacking on a folding screen to a game controller hasn't been seen since the 1990's, and this device is the functional equivalent of the Atari joystick you could plug into your TV and play 1 of 50 games they used to sell in mall kiosks a few years back. Has nVidia even seen the PS Vita. Sleek, well integrated screen built into a controller, not a screen tacked on haphazardly to some cheap Taiwan controller.
Also this idea of just using the Android gaming market on a game console is silly. A game designed for a touch screen does not necessarily translate into one that can be played with a controller, or even played on a TV, yet Ouya and nVidia are making the mistake of creating a game console that just plays Android games. What is the Google Play store supposed to do, fragment gaming across numerous platforms and have games that cannot be played on various devices with different configurations? Having a list of requirements to buy and play an Android game will ruin Google Play store completely.
nVidia has no industrial design experience at all. Lets face it, everything they have made to date gets put into a box and hidden away from view, so obviously using the same designers that design heatsinks and fans for video cards are not going to cut it for creating consumer electronic devices.
This is a fail, period. While nVidia might make the chips that play games well, nVidia is obviously not capable of creating the devices that play games well. nVidia should pull out of the game consoles now and save face and fire every person involved in this fiasco.
Look, if the Chinese people are not going to fight for human rights and removal of censorship then why should some American company do so?
I think everyone outside of China believe they need to fight for Chinese rights but obviously the Chinese living in China are largely accepting of the state of their rights, those that don't go to another country.
I can't believe that in a country with over 1 billion people the government would be able to suppress a revolution if the population demanded better human rights. Ergo obviously the population in China are largely content with the rights they have.
People outside of China need to start minding their own business. Also business outside of China need to start realizing they are never going to win in that market, so just stop trying.
I seriously think the world's love affair with Apple is coming nigh. This downward trend in love for Apple is starting to reflect in the way judges are ruling cases. No judge wanted to be seen as that asshole that told Apple NO when they were the most highly valued company in the world. Now their stock is slumping and Apple has shown significant signs of weakness it has become perfectly acceptable for judges to slap Apple back a few pegs and tell them their stupid trivial patents and whiny legal complaints are no longer going to be tolerated. And its about time too.
Apple is going to be around for a long time yet but I seriously hope that a year or two of constant setbacks might help to change them from some overly competitive, highly litigious, massive asshole of a company into something a little more sane and human in the near future. A company that actually respects its customers rather then rolling out trivial product updates and whipping up their customers into a frenzy of purge and purchase of essentially the same old shit every 6 months.
So, I have seen the light and realize that Sony is a company that will do more harm to itself then good and therefore deserves to be losing the billions it does.
Sony's gaming division is the only thing Sony has left. They lost in the consumer electronics race for TV's, home audio, mobile audio, eBook readers. I mean the last 20 years of Sony's history has been about failure more then success. However I don't think Sony will create a decent product in the PS4 if this is the direction they are taking by creating consoles that will reject used games and require some kind of network registration to play a new game for the first time.
Sony should do one of two things, either sell off the hardware to Samsung, or sell off their entertainment divisions to Hollywood. By trying to be both a hardware manufacturer and content provider, Sony has always been at odds between trying to protect their content and creating innovative devices, they are failing to do both now.
Sony stopped trying to make the best products and instead are only succeeding in becoming the world's best asshole company, which is amazing given that Apple exists,
Capitalism is easy. You don't even have to make a product to get rich.
Lets face it, a large number of start-ups offer a good idea and nothing more. The owners get millions from capital investors to simply "try" and develop an idea. When that idea fails they shrug their shoulders and blame everyone else. Then they ensure their "parachute" fund of a few million is secured nicely in some offshore bank account and move to Belize and retire, maybe even kill a few neighbors or something.
Hey, Shawn Fanning got rich creating companies that do nothing so why shouldn't anyone else.
Capitalism is easy, you just have to have no morals or respect for other people to work it properly.
This is what Slashdot is. if you don't like it, go elsewhere. I'm tired of people going on about why something is on Slashdot, obviously the 100's of comments suggest this is the kind of content people want to read and write about on Slashdot.
Also don't be that guy that defends a bad developer by using your own poor coding habits as an example.
Take code he wrote 6 months ago and ask him to explain what it does. If he can't do so in under 10 minutes it should be obvious his code is poorly written and not maintainable. Or, just list all the bugs associated with his code base he has had to fix over the last 6 months.
It seems its a recurring theme that every software firm has a smart ass that assumes he knows everything but writes code that even a junior code monkey fresh out of diapers wouldn't write.
Let me guess, this same guy is advocating coding style that matches his style rather then adopting more widely utilized coding standards.
The folly in this plan is that the cost to remove pennies from circulation will cost roughly 1 billion dollars in logistics handling, metal recovery, and of course to exchange the value of the pennies returned to the bank for real currency.
Oh Canada, I love living here. Spend $1 billion to save a few million.
Everybody wants to go to digital distribution, but I refuse to accept compromise for the experience. I want uncompressed sound and stunning visual clarity in my movies, not some overly compressed barely HD content with stereo sound split to 5.1 false channels.
Everybody wants to move to the cloud but I live in a G8 country where my bandwidth is throttled and still stuck at 20th century download speeds and upload speeds that are barely better then dial-up.
So yes, the next big challenge for big data is to deliver on the promise of offering high quality, high bandwidth cloud solutions that don't actually suck.
Slashdot Mirror
So instead of being kept awake with all the beeps and tweets and flashing lights from your phone or tablet as your friends check in, now your room will never be dark as all these lamps fire up.
Seriously, I know its great to be social, but we don't have to be so connected as to know when friends and family walk in the door. There is something to be said about having a little privacy these days. Maybe I might start a Kickstarter project for a button that can be pressed that just ejects you out of the social network completely and lets you enjoy a few moments of peace from all your stalkers.
Since the amount of storage on SSD these days seems to be arbitrary and nothing to do with exponents of 2, how about creating nice rounded values, like 1000 GB.
Anyways, maybe this year will be the year of SSD, just like the last 30 years.
Do you want to work for a company that values hiring its employees on whether they can write code under pressure? No properly managed tech company should ever have a culture of stressful, high pressure, time based code development.
I know a lot of people feel that in an interview they are the ones under scrutiny, but realize that there is a shortage of quality developers (but an abundance of wannabees) out there and you really should also be scrutinizing the company you are applying for. Making the mistake of only trying to be an attractive candidate without also attempting to "interview" the interviewer is the biggest rookie mistake any person makes when looking for employment.
I have been to several interviews where I basically realized within 5 minutes that the company had their heads up their asses when it comes to finding talent. If a company is unable to adequately interview for talent then you can only imagine how poor the state of the quality of their management and leadership is in the company. I know a lot of people blame HR, but poor HR only results when managers and directors are unable to adequately convey the talent and skill requirements they are looking for, so HR staff have to make up the job description and interview process.
Also, with over 12 years experience, I get really frustrated when being interviewed for a senior level position only to have to answer a bunch of junior level questions about coding. I know how to code, and it should be assumed I know how to code from my work history, how about asking me high level architecture questions, how to apply software patterns, or how to create efficient software process. I've moved away from being a code monkey and have been responsible for designing, architecting and overseeing development of entire applications, don't ask me what passing a value by reference means or how to write a recursive method, that just means you don't deserve my experience..
Unfortunately the phrase "Those who can't...teach" is true. Teachers generally shun technology in their classrooms because of an unwillingness to learn or adapt. This is the problem with "classic" education is that teachers and school boards are unwilling to prepare students for the future because they use the tools of the past.
I also disagree with the statement that a teacher does not have enough time to get information onto computers. While I agree there have not been many great tools out there, once you are in an electronic environment this should reduce the overhead of marking and lesson planning greatly.
Also shunning technology completely leaves you without access to content already widely available to enhance the classroom experience.
Having worked for a "smart" board maker a few years ago, we did a study that dealt with a problem where most teachers used their fancy new expensive interactive smart board as nothing more then a second monitor and glorified projector, if even at all. Our software tracks board touches and saw that there was very little user interaction. In the same study we saw a huge proliferation in the use of tablets in schools which are highly interactive and touchable.
The reality is that the education systems are slowly changing away from the 100's year old paradigm of people lecturing to a new concept of students "exploring" education at their own pace. Not all students learn at the same pace, some students learn math and logic faster then language, others the opposite. Forcing all students to study the same subject matter at the same time is why schools are good at creating failures rather then successes. A child that doesn't do math by grade 3 should not be considered remedial, for instance, and thus shunted to a system of lower expectations, their math skills may have clicked in later in development and could be as or even more proficient then anyone else that learned math earlier.
So, the concept of a fixed focal point for a classroom is slowly eroding to more student-centric learning. The idea of self-guided learning is an emerging concept in many schools where the curriculum is a serious of self-guided lessons where the "teacher" is there to help students understand the lessons when they struggle.
The problem with the company I worked for (and why I left) was that in spite of having this study and seeing their product tucked away in a corner being unused, they still insist on creating single focal point solutions for the classroom and only loosely investing into tablet based solutions. Sure the concepts of collaboration and interactivity between students is important, but not necessarily the only way to proceed with education. Smart boards are still expensive and often underutilized and in spite of some initial interest level from students, quickly become bored with the technology, unlike tablets.
Better integration between smart boards and tablets would be the only way to save this company, but alas, is being greatly overlooked.
Sure, the idea of a paper based electronic displays is cool, but this product isn't. Looks like a screen stuck in some cheap lamination.
I don't really see a need for this product in general. A rigid tablet is more usable under many more circumstances and I am sure over the coming years rigid tablets will become slimmer and lighter. Even a tablet that is more like cardboard is more practical then floppy plastic. How about sitting at the beach trying to read a book and having this thing flapping in the wind? How are you doing to do touch with a floppy product unless you lay it down on a rigid surface. You know the first accessory for this product will be a "case" which will simply turn it into a rigid tablet which is what everybody wants.
I think it is ridiculous seeing a movie where someone reads a multi-page newspaper with dynamic content, folds it up and tucks it under their arm before getting off the train or something. I'd rather not live in some 40's rendition of what the future will look like.
Just because technology allows you to do something doesn't mean it has to be made. CES 2013 is turning out to be about how companies are failing to use common sense by creating products nobody actually wants, only to say "Gee, look at how cool this useless product is".
CNN opinion: Let's invest billions in creating an arsenal of super smart weapons using technology not even invented yet to make it impossible for someone to shoot a child.
OR
How about investing billions into education to create well educated and upstanding citizens that don't feel the need to buy a gun to resolve their issues.
Just saying in a country staggering under massive debt and many school districts are unable to buy text books, perhaps investing into children's futures is better then investing into weaponry.
Sending droids to Mars is pretty much as lazy as you can get, NASA just needs to buy some La-Z-boys, bar fridge, and some game controllers and pretty much it could like your working out of your parent's basement.
Then billions and billions of pi's would be sold.
This is not a story about whether the flu shot works, so stop debating it, its about medical practitioners refusing to get flu shots on religious grounds.
First, these people should NOT have been in a medial profession if they were so religiously convicted to not allow getting medial services received themselves. Either they are being a religious hypocrite, or a medical hypocrite.
Second, I don't care what YOUR beliefs are about the flu shot, if you are in the medial field then the medical field WIDELY believes that the flu shot minimizes the risk of transferring flu to patients. Your sole goal as a medial practitioner is to NOT harm your patients.
At what point does religious beliefs cause harm to your patients, that is why they were fired. You can be damn sure that if some patient got sick and dies, and it was found one of these nurses was sick when treating the patient, the hospital would be sued for millions. A hospital is a private institution which can freely decide to hire and fire based solely on protecting their bottom line. Medical costs are already excessively high, a hospital being sued frequently because all their religious nurses are sick would certainly pass on the costs to their patients.
There are no human rights issues here, only irresponsible people entering a medical profession but refusing to do what is necessary to protect their patients. As a human I have a right to be protected from the ignorance of religious zealots.
Again another poor design for a game platform.
Whacking on some controllers to a screen is not a game platform. This neither functions well as a tablet, nor a game device.
Having JUST gone through this the only rule about deleting code is to NOT delete code someone is actively working on just because you don't understand or like it. I had about 3 weeks of work blown away by a "senior" developer who didn't understand or like what I was doing, deemed it unnecessary, and nuked it in a single check-in even though I am actively working on it without even consulting me.
Rule #1: Ask yourself, "Am I being an asshole if I remove this code?" If the answer is yes then don't do it.
So a special interest group is pushing for the US to adopt the metric system, and now the kilogram is heavier. This means that American's weighing themselves in metric won't seem as heavy because the number will be lower therefore there will no longer be an obesity crisis in the US.
To explain it to those still on the imperial system:
It would be like currently saying you weigh 300 pounds (which is morbidly obese regardless of what the View or Oprah says), but then the standard weight of a pound increases, so now you weight only 220 pounds, which is only mildly obese so go eat a cheesesteak without guilt.
Of course moving to metric alone will make Americans seem less heavy because 300 lbs is only about 136 kg which is a positively svelte number.
It might be based on $1000 hardware, but unless they release a game console under $400, then it will be stillborn.
Actually, Steam better sell this thing at a significant loss considering that it is a front end to their walled garden. The Steam Box should be sold like a printer, taking a hit on the hardware and recuperating profit through the sale of content on the platform.
If Valve tries to profit on the sale of hardware to front their Steam service they will be seen as being the same as all the greedy f--ks Gabe has been speaking out against for the last 8 years.
You know they spent years and millions redesigning a tool that is found in every Home Depot.
nVidia should be embarrassed to have released this "game console".
It has to be about the shittiest design for any game controller/portable game platform ever. Tacking on a folding screen to a game controller hasn't been seen since the 1990's, and this device is the functional equivalent of the Atari joystick you could plug into your TV and play 1 of 50 games they used to sell in mall kiosks a few years back. Has nVidia even seen the PS Vita. Sleek, well integrated screen built into a controller, not a screen tacked on haphazardly to some cheap Taiwan controller.
Also this idea of just using the Android gaming market on a game console is silly. A game designed for a touch screen does not necessarily translate into one that can be played with a controller, or even played on a TV, yet Ouya and nVidia are making the mistake of creating a game console that just plays Android games. What is the Google Play store supposed to do, fragment gaming across numerous platforms and have games that cannot be played on various devices with different configurations? Having a list of requirements to buy and play an Android game will ruin Google Play store completely.
nVidia has no industrial design experience at all. Lets face it, everything they have made to date gets put into a box and hidden away from view, so obviously using the same designers that design heatsinks and fans for video cards are not going to cut it for creating consumer electronic devices.
This is a fail, period. While nVidia might make the chips that play games well, nVidia is obviously not capable of creating the devices that play games well. nVidia should pull out of the game consoles now and save face and fire every person involved in this fiasco.
Made is son the best in the game as he is killing off all the assassins.
Look, if the Chinese people are not going to fight for human rights and removal of censorship then why should some American company do so?
I think everyone outside of China believe they need to fight for Chinese rights but obviously the Chinese living in China are largely accepting of the state of their rights, those that don't go to another country.
I can't believe that in a country with over 1 billion people the government would be able to suppress a revolution if the population demanded better human rights. Ergo obviously the population in China are largely content with the rights they have.
People outside of China need to start minding their own business. Also business outside of China need to start realizing they are never going to win in that market, so just stop trying.
I seriously think the world's love affair with Apple is coming nigh. This downward trend in love for Apple is starting to reflect in the way judges are ruling cases. No judge wanted to be seen as that asshole that told Apple NO when they were the most highly valued company in the world. Now their stock is slumping and Apple has shown significant signs of weakness it has become perfectly acceptable for judges to slap Apple back a few pegs and tell them their stupid trivial patents and whiny legal complaints are no longer going to be tolerated. And its about time too.
Apple is going to be around for a long time yet but I seriously hope that a year or two of constant setbacks might help to change them from some overly competitive, highly litigious, massive asshole of a company into something a little more sane and human in the near future. A company that actually respects its customers rather then rolling out trivial product updates and whipping up their customers into a frenzy of purge and purchase of essentially the same old shit every 6 months.
So, I have seen the light and realize that Sony is a company that will do more harm to itself then good and therefore deserves to be losing the billions it does.
Sony's gaming division is the only thing Sony has left. They lost in the consumer electronics race for TV's, home audio, mobile audio, eBook readers. I mean the last 20 years of Sony's history has been about failure more then success. However I don't think Sony will create a decent product in the PS4 if this is the direction they are taking by creating consoles that will reject used games and require some kind of network registration to play a new game for the first time.
Sony should do one of two things, either sell off the hardware to Samsung, or sell off their entertainment divisions to Hollywood. By trying to be both a hardware manufacturer and content provider, Sony has always been at odds between trying to protect their content and creating innovative devices, they are failing to do both now.
Sony stopped trying to make the best products and instead are only succeeding in becoming the world's best asshole company, which is amazing given that Apple exists,
Capitalism is easy. You don't even have to make a product to get rich.
Lets face it, a large number of start-ups offer a good idea and nothing more. The owners get millions from capital investors to simply "try" and develop an idea. When that idea fails they shrug their shoulders and blame everyone else. Then they ensure their "parachute" fund of a few million is secured nicely in some offshore bank account and move to Belize and retire, maybe even kill a few neighbors or something.
Hey, Shawn Fanning got rich creating companies that do nothing so why shouldn't anyone else.
Capitalism is easy, you just have to have no morals or respect for other people to work it properly.
This is what Slashdot is. if you don't like it, go elsewhere. I'm tired of people going on about why something is on Slashdot, obviously the 100's of comments suggest this is the kind of content people want to read and write about on Slashdot.
Also don't be that guy that defends a bad developer by using your own poor coding habits as an example.
Take code he wrote 6 months ago and ask him to explain what it does. If he can't do so in under 10 minutes it should be obvious his code is poorly written and not maintainable. Or, just list all the bugs associated with his code base he has had to fix over the last 6 months.
It seems its a recurring theme that every software firm has a smart ass that assumes he knows everything but writes code that even a junior code monkey fresh out of diapers wouldn't write.
Let me guess, this same guy is advocating coding style that matches his style rather then adopting more widely utilized coding standards.
The folly in this plan is that the cost to remove pennies from circulation will cost roughly 1 billion dollars in logistics handling, metal recovery, and of course to exchange the value of the pennies returned to the bank for real currency.
Oh Canada, I love living here. Spend $1 billion to save a few million.
Everybody wants to go to digital distribution, but I refuse to accept compromise for the experience. I want uncompressed sound and stunning visual clarity in my movies, not some overly compressed barely HD content with stereo sound split to 5.1 false channels.
Everybody wants to move to the cloud but I live in a G8 country where my bandwidth is throttled and still stuck at 20th century download speeds and upload speeds that are barely better then dial-up.
So yes, the next big challenge for big data is to deliver on the promise of offering high quality, high bandwidth cloud solutions that don't actually suck.