It's very possible to be a competent programmer using only a subset of your chosen language, say 80% of the language. Even if he knew all the language features inside out (since C does have a fairly small command set compared to some languages), that doesn't mean he will know all the standard libraries inside out, or will have ever needed to actually embed any inline assembly code into his C programs for example.
Basically, it sounds like this guy is one of those guys who knows enough to know that he doesn't know everything. It's the ones who think they know it all that you need to be wary of.
Me, I can program, but I've only ever done projects by myself. I'm kind of nervous about the idea of going and working for a "real" software company, because I suspect my knowledge of common documentation and testing procedures is pretty poor. I've started doing more reading recently after not being very into self-study though. I've also read a lot on here that makes me think a lot of software development houses are high stress and low pay environments, so if I did switch job it would probably be to start my own business (currently I'm a combination of IT support and in-house developer for a small engineering firm, it's pretty nice - have done some embedded system work, a bit of LabVIEW, some Windows apps, and some web-based CMSes).
Maybe should have said "old". I consider any UIDs below 1,000,000 to be old and their users to be somewhat respectable or genuine (as they've stuck around and contributed), especially now that we're over the 2,000,000 mark. From what I've seen, any users >1,500,000 or so tend to post incredibly stupid/obvious things, trolls, or are trying to sell you something.
Um. I like expandable storage too, but you can fit an awful lot of SD content onto a 64GB device. I suspect this guy actually bought the 16GB, and it would still be fine.
Saying stuff like "sorry man, you got hosed".. wtf? Does your tablet have the official Android store? Does it have Android 3.x? I have Android 1.x, 2.x and 3.x devices, and I do prefer 3 for the tablet. 2 is okay on my phone, though I also would prefer 3.x there.
I bought an iPhone so that I could read and send e-mail on the go, which gave me an edge keeping in contact with my boss and our clients.
Why did you need an iPhone for that? I was doing that with Windows Mobile ever since we installed Exchange 2003 (first Exchange to support push functionality). And many people before me were doing it with Blackberrys.
I could build spreadsheets (Numbers), write documents (Pages and PlainText), draw diagrams (iDraw), read and write e-mails (Mail), and connect to our production servers (Prompt, iSSH and ezDesktop, all over a Cisco VPN. which is supported natively by iOS)
Likewise I could do all of that back in 2005 or whenever it was, apart from perhaps the Cisco VPN (never had an opportunity to try it), but Windows PPTP VPN was certainly supported.
The idea that "open" is a winning strategy in the tablet market is belied by simple observation: the dominant platform in the tablet market, by a factor of at least 10 to 1, is NOT an open platform.
The iOS devices are certainly "open enough" for most people, and for the rest they just jailbreak them. Given that really competitive hardware for the iPad has only emerged recently (from the Xoom and some of its contemporaries), it will be more interesting to see where the market is in a year or two.
It's also funny to note that iOS is built on BSD, and Android on Linux. This shows that at least in some regards, and given a new playing field to start on, open source code is winning out over closed:) Even if the public doesn't recognise the value of open ecosystems, at least engineers do!
Oh, and if the Veyron isn't an example of a status symbol over a car that is actually nice to drive (the DB9 would thrash it around any track involving actual corners), I don't know what is. If I had one I'd sell it immediately and buy myself a Nissan GT-R or an Aston.. most probably the GT-R though. That thing is insane.
Agree about modern Macs though. I tried an MBP in 2007 it was the worst laptop I've ever had. I had good memories of my old hand-me-down PowerBook with Mac OS, but even OSX just doesn't cut it now that I'm used to Linux..
I've never driven a BMW myself, but Top Gear have always maintained that BMWs were great for driving (even if they have a reputation of being driven by twats), and their cars post very good times around the test track. The engineers care a lot about things like weight distribution. They produce M versions of all of their cars. They compete in motorsport. Honda make good cars, but so do BMW. They're one of the few makers who still do rear wheel drive as standard, something that is pretty much relegated to the American market and supercars these days.
All of this has made me at least consider a BMW for my last car, and I'll consider one for my next car, because I don't give a fuck what other people think, I try to judge cars/brands on their individual merits. My previous car was a Skoda. My current car is a '95 MR2 (cheapest RWD car I could find.. I used to think the style was a bit girly, but after test driving one I love it, and got used to the styling).
My uncle loves his cars (his last really nice car was an RS4 - he almost bought an R8 but decided he didn't like the handling for some reason. He currently has a Golf R. He refuses to get a BMW just because of the perception that they're driven by wanker businessmen (he is a business man himself, but he's one of the few I've met that aren't sleazy scum). He doesn't mind Mercs though for some reason, he has a large MPV style one all kitted out with DVD players in the back and everything..
Yeah, I didn't check the journals or the actual content of the previous posts. Maybe they all have obviously stupid mistakes, but some of the mods were too stupid to notice.
Since putting "troll, trooowllll" in my signature, I've had less irate posters lambasting me for having an opinion, it's nice.
I guess I do troll slightly sometimes myself (especially with the "Americaaaa, fuck yeah!" types), but mostly I'm being genuine. My sig is just a quote from my favourite Boxxee song, rather than an indicator than I'm trolling:p
What about artificially increasing gravity momentarily?
Reduce the circumference, and rotational velocity increases proportionally. If enertial[sic] mass is uneffected, the heavier elements would spin out to the sides, leave the artificial gravity well, and fly off?
I'd be careful with a technology that powerful, you might end up creating a black hole:p
Perhaps it would be easier to just transmute other elements into the ones we need?
Never met a member.. but I did come to a similar kind of conclusion when I saw the website, and the fact you have to pay to be a member.. nice little racket they have going on there.
Two stupid posts from a low UID that I've never seen before in two days.. combined with your username and sig, I assume you're an old troll that got really bored and came back.. or that Mensa has really low standards (hint, it's spelled "superior").
It's easy to say that in your cushy broadband filled world. If you lived in the countryside in the UK and couldn't even get 1Mbps internet it would be a crisis for you too. Anyone without high speed internet is definitely being left behind in the ongoing technical revolution. You can easily (and legally) save hundreds of pounds a year while retaining the same quality of life by having a good net connection, and for some people that in itself is a big deal.
Except this time, there's actually relatively mainstream content for it. 3D movies and a few 3D games. For Gran Turismo 5 alone this could be awesome. If the price is under £500 (should be £480 if they did a direct conversion from yen) I'd seriously consider it..
I don't know why you expect people who've already tried and dislike Apple products to keep up with the latest Apple news. It looks like iOS5 isn't even out yet, and I've never looked into iCloud. I looked briefly at Amazon and Google's cloud offerings, but ended up switching to Spotify instead, and am very happy with it.
From what you're saying, it does sound like the Apple "experience" is improving to the stage where things will feel less locked down, and I do try to be open minded about my prejudices. I hate MS less than I used to - I even bought an Xbox last year. I bought an MBP in 2007 for the sake of nostalgia as much as anything else, but unfortunately it was the worst laptop I've ever had.. really awful design in terms of cooling.
Ah, just noticed someone below say iCloud is US only. I live in the UK, so guess that's me out. Once LoveFilm starts doing HD streaming, my digital media needs will all have been met anyway! Now that they've been bought by Amazon, I'm expecting good things.
Measuring in bits is higher resolution than bytes, kilobytes, etc, but that's no reason to do it in general usage. Arguing about which arbitrary units of measurement are better is as bad as arguing which side of the road is the correct one, or thinking that some highly paid sports team full of non-locals has anything to do with the locals.
Didn't sell out? I've felt like they sold out ever since the iPod. I spent the 90s hoping Apple would go somewhere, but I didn't want that somewhere to be based on MP3 players, locked into an amazingly shitty media player. I'm still happy for Apple, and am glad they're helping to erode MS' monopoly on the desktop, but I don't much respect their products these days. OSX is okay, but not great.
Cloud hosting and virtualisation allow more efficient use of server resources, but the hardware market is still growing. Users still need to buy client devices to access the cloud resources. People are buying expensive laptops, tablets and phones by the metric fuckton. And as more places offer cloud services, even if they're all done through third parties like Amazon EC2 etc, the overall hardware will still have to be scaled up to meet demand. Not as quickly as if all these services had bought their own hardware, but you also have to take into account that a lot of these services wouldn't even have been created it weren't for hosted/cloud computing (either through lack of technical ability or laziness to set up the appropriate hardware, or a simple lack of funding).
Slashdot Mirror
We still have systems that run Cobol... but we're not doing anything new with them, and if fact planning on replacing them in a few years.
I suspect you guys have been saying that for a few years now? ;)
It's very possible to be a competent programmer using only a subset of your chosen language, say 80% of the language. Even if he knew all the language features inside out (since C does have a fairly small command set compared to some languages), that doesn't mean he will know all the standard libraries inside out, or will have ever needed to actually embed any inline assembly code into his C programs for example.
Basically, it sounds like this guy is one of those guys who knows enough to know that he doesn't know everything. It's the ones who think they know it all that you need to be wary of.
Me, I can program, but I've only ever done projects by myself. I'm kind of nervous about the idea of going and working for a "real" software company, because I suspect my knowledge of common documentation and testing procedures is pretty poor. I've started doing more reading recently after not being very into self-study though. I've also read a lot on here that makes me think a lot of software development houses are high stress and low pay environments, so if I did switch job it would probably be to start my own business (currently I'm a combination of IT support and in-house developer for a small engineering firm, it's pretty nice - have done some embedded system work, a bit of LabVIEW, some Windows apps, and some web-based CMSes).
Maybe should have said "old". I consider any UIDs below 1,000,000 to be old and their users to be somewhat respectable or genuine (as they've stuck around and contributed), especially now that we're over the 2,000,000 mark. From what I've seen, any users >1,500,000 or so tend to post incredibly stupid/obvious things, trolls, or are trying to sell you something.
Um. I like expandable storage too, but you can fit an awful lot of SD content onto a 64GB device. I suspect this guy actually bought the 16GB, and it would still be fine.
Saying stuff like "sorry man, you got hosed".. wtf? Does your tablet have the official Android store? Does it have Android 3.x? I have Android 1.x, 2.x and 3.x devices, and I do prefer 3 for the tablet. 2 is okay on my phone, though I also would prefer 3.x there.
I bought an iPhone so that I could read and send e-mail on the go, which gave me an edge keeping in contact with my boss and our clients.
Why did you need an iPhone for that? I was doing that with Windows Mobile ever since we installed Exchange 2003 (first Exchange to support push functionality). And many people before me were doing it with Blackberrys.
I could build spreadsheets (Numbers), write documents (Pages and PlainText), draw diagrams (iDraw), read and write e-mails (Mail), and connect to our production servers (Prompt, iSSH and ezDesktop, all over a Cisco VPN. which is supported natively by iOS)
Likewise I could do all of that back in 2005 or whenever it was, apart from perhaps the Cisco VPN (never had an opportunity to try it), but Windows PPTP VPN was certainly supported.
The idea that "open" is a winning strategy in the tablet market is belied by simple observation: the dominant platform in the tablet market, by a factor of at least 10 to 1, is NOT an open platform.
The iOS devices are certainly "open enough" for most people, and for the rest they just jailbreak them. Given that really competitive hardware for the iPad has only emerged recently (from the Xoom and some of its contemporaries), it will be more interesting to see where the market is in a year or two.
It's also funny to note that iOS is built on BSD, and Android on Linux. This shows that at least in some regards, and given a new playing field to start on, open source code is winning out over closed :) Even if the public doesn't recognise the value of open ecosystems, at least engineers do!
Oh, and if the Veyron isn't an example of a status symbol over a car that is actually nice to drive (the DB9 would thrash it around any track involving actual corners), I don't know what is. If I had one I'd sell it immediately and buy myself a Nissan GT-R or an Aston.. most probably the GT-R though. That thing is insane.
Agree about modern Macs though. I tried an MBP in 2007 it was the worst laptop I've ever had. I had good memories of my old hand-me-down PowerBook with Mac OS, but even OSX just doesn't cut it now that I'm used to Linux..
I've never driven a BMW myself, but Top Gear have always maintained that BMWs were great for driving (even if they have a reputation of being driven by twats), and their cars post very good times around the test track. The engineers care a lot about things like weight distribution. They produce M versions of all of their cars. They compete in motorsport. Honda make good cars, but so do BMW. They're one of the few makers who still do rear wheel drive as standard, something that is pretty much relegated to the American market and supercars these days.
All of this has made me at least consider a BMW for my last car, and I'll consider one for my next car, because I don't give a fuck what other people think, I try to judge cars/brands on their individual merits. My previous car was a Skoda. My current car is a '95 MR2 (cheapest RWD car I could find.. I used to think the style was a bit girly, but after test driving one I love it, and got used to the styling).
My uncle loves his cars (his last really nice car was an RS4 - he almost bought an R8 but decided he didn't like the handling for some reason. He currently has a Golf R. He refuses to get a BMW just because of the perception that they're driven by wanker businessmen (he is a business man himself, but he's one of the few I've met that aren't sleazy scum). He doesn't mind Mercs though for some reason, he has a large MPV style one all kitted out with DVD players in the back and everything..
Yeah, I didn't check the journals or the actual content of the previous posts. Maybe they all have obviously stupid mistakes, but some of the mods were too stupid to notice.
Since putting "troll, trooowllll" in my signature, I've had less irate posters lambasting me for having an opinion, it's nice.
I guess I do troll slightly sometimes myself (especially with the "Americaaaa, fuck yeah!" types), but mostly I'm being genuine. My sig is just a quote from my favourite Boxxee song, rather than an indicator than I'm trolling :p
What about artificially increasing gravity momentarily?
Reduce the circumference, and rotational velocity increases proportionally. If enertial[sic] mass is uneffected, the heavier elements would spin out to the sides, leave the artificial gravity well, and fly off?
I'd be careful with a technology that powerful, you might end up creating a black hole :p
Perhaps it would be easier to just transmute other elements into the ones we need?
Never met a member.. but I did come to a similar kind of conclusion when I saw the website, and the fact you have to pay to be a member.. nice little racket they have going on there.
Ah, your posting history shows that you're probably not trying to troll, and that you have been on a Slashdot hiatus since 2008. My apologies.
PS your bio should say "sexist", not "sexiest".
Two stupid posts from a low UID that I've never seen before in two days.. combined with your username and sig, I assume you're an old troll that got really bored and came back.. or that Mensa has really low standards (hint, it's spelled "superior").
It's easy to say that in your cushy broadband filled world. If you lived in the countryside in the UK and couldn't even get 1Mbps internet it would be a crisis for you too. Anyone without high speed internet is definitely being left behind in the ongoing technical revolution. You can easily (and legally) save hundreds of pounds a year while retaining the same quality of life by having a good net connection, and for some people that in itself is a big deal.
May be a lot? Try it yourself.. 2 times 2.
That's what she said.. hmm.
Except this time, there's actually relatively mainstream content for it. 3D movies and a few 3D games. For Gran Turismo 5 alone this could be awesome. If the price is under £500 (should be £480 if they did a direct conversion from yen) I'd seriously consider it..
This from the country that's forcibly pushing its own laws and political system on the rest of the world ;)
I don't know why you expect people who've already tried and dislike Apple products to keep up with the latest Apple news. It looks like iOS5 isn't even out yet, and I've never looked into iCloud. I looked briefly at Amazon and Google's cloud offerings, but ended up switching to Spotify instead, and am very happy with it.
From what you're saying, it does sound like the Apple "experience" is improving to the stage where things will feel less locked down, and I do try to be open minded about my prejudices. I hate MS less than I used to - I even bought an Xbox last year. I bought an MBP in 2007 for the sake of nostalgia as much as anything else, but unfortunately it was the worst laptop I've ever had.. really awful design in terms of cooling.
Ah, just noticed someone below say iCloud is US only. I live in the UK, so guess that's me out. Once LoveFilm starts doing HD streaming, my digital media needs will all have been met anyway! Now that they've been bought by Amazon, I'm expecting good things.
Actually I'm quite happy, thanks, but good failed attempt at pop-psychology there. Maybe try turning it around on yourself?
Try looking off the market then.
Measuring in bits is higher resolution than bytes, kilobytes, etc, but that's no reason to do it in general usage. Arguing about which arbitrary units of measurement are better is as bad as arguing which side of the road is the correct one, or thinking that some highly paid sports team full of non-locals has anything to do with the locals.
Didn't sell out? I've felt like they sold out ever since the iPod. I spent the 90s hoping Apple would go somewhere, but I didn't want that somewhere to be based on MP3 players, locked into an amazingly shitty media player. I'm still happy for Apple, and am glad they're helping to erode MS' monopoly on the desktop, but I don't much respect their products these days. OSX is okay, but not great.
I certainly thought so :)
That's only to check if they're talking to a sane person.
Cloud hosting and virtualisation allow more efficient use of server resources, but the hardware market is still growing. Users still need to buy client devices to access the cloud resources. People are buying expensive laptops, tablets and phones by the metric fuckton. And as more places offer cloud services, even if they're all done through third parties like Amazon EC2 etc, the overall hardware will still have to be scaled up to meet demand. Not as quickly as if all these services had bought their own hardware, but you also have to take into account that a lot of these services wouldn't even have been created it weren't for hosted/cloud computing (either through lack of technical ability or laziness to set up the appropriate hardware, or a simple lack of funding).