It's not the software, it's the marketing. Nintendo releases games that are miles behind anything else in terms of what they do (Wii tennis has ONE button, that's less sophisticated than pong, which arguably had two [left OR right!]), but shows people standing up and swinging their arms in the commercials. Suddenly everyone decides they want one, when you could get the same experience by swinging around an XBox controller.
"Nintendo has completely dominated a market we didn't even no existed by adding basically nothing more than instructions telling people to move while playing video-games. If we make something which not only does that, but which also actually captures motion, perhaps we can claim the market they found for ourselves!"
Haven't tried WiiMotion+ because, for fuck's sake, should I need to spend £80 to try out something which the system claimed to already come with? I've got no evidence that it's actually any better, and I haven't heard if using WiiMotion+ improves the recognition on older titles, but my instinct is "of course it doesn't"
As will real freedom fighters, or whatever you want to call it. Requiring an ID would do nothing to stop freenet, for example. Which is why IDs are stupid: The way the Internet works _promotes_ anonymity, and anonymity promotes freedom.
and just try reporting that as a bug- You'll get shouted down because it wouldn't make sense for normal users to be able to uninstall system-wide plugins- as if firefox didn't have user-specific settings at all (of course, every time firefox upgrades, it forgets my custom menu configuration, so maybe user-specific settings are being phased out?)
You've assumed two completely incorrect things. First, that the question will be asked as something along the lines of "do you program on the side?" as opposed to just "what do you do in your free time?" or no direct question at all (you know, conversation?)
Secondly, that it's being used primarily to judge how many new acronyms you will be able to list on your resume in six months. Keeping up with "current" technologies is a benefit of programming in your spare time, but certainly not what's being looked for.
No, not the one who uses programming for everything, the one who uses programming for things which call for programming. If you use computers regularly, and can't find anything in your life which could do with some automation, it seems unlikely that you will notice other problems.
The question isn't "do you program at home?" it's "what do you do at home?" and something along the lines of "have you ever used your skills outside of a workplace or classroom environment?"
I am suggesting that a bad programmer may see things the way they are and not see a problem unless specifically instructed that a specific problem exists and requires a programming-related solution. Your final lines are an example of exactly what I don't want: someone who always needs very specific problems assigned to them.
The "here are some hypothetical problems" thing is just another part of the interview. If you do well on it, you may be hired. But if you do well on it and also mention things that no one ever told you to do, you've got an edge.
technically, a key fob still uses "what you know", it's just "what you know that you are unlikely to know without what you have", which is good enough for now.
why is it that open source people seem to always be of the mindset "The whole thing is free for everyone, so the best way to update is to send the whole thing again!" Ever heard of a patch?
It doesn't matter if it was ten years ago. If you're willing to apply your skills when something becomes apparent, that's what I want to hear. If there's something you did at home ten years ago, and you cared about it enough that you can still explain it, that gives you an edge more than the answer "yes, I've been reading up on ajax lately."
And no, I'm not trying to "knock you out of contention", I'm trying to find out about you, what types of things you work on, how you think about problems. Any time you talk about having solved a particular problem with a passion, it doesn't matter where you did it. But in my experience, more people are likely to start talking about that sort of thing when you ask them about personal projects, rather than something they just did because they were paid for it.
"very few problems at home need programming to solve them" is exactly my point: given a choice between someone who/doesn't/ see programming as a solution to problems at home, and someone who/does/ see programming as a solution to problems at home, guess which one I'll tend to pick?
If you don't see programming as a solution to problems which come up at home, why should I expect you to see programming as a solution to problems which come up at work?
If you don't program in your spare time, you either:
- Don't touch computers in your spare time, meaning I will sometimes need to explain to you how to open the Internet. I don't want you to work in the same department as me.
- or - Don't use programming to solve problems on your computer at home. Why should I expect you to see programming as a solution to problems you spot at work? Sounds like someone who would either say "that's not part of my job description!" or who (more importantly) wouldn't think to mention it, since they'd never even think of applying their supposed skills to a problem.
- or - at the very least, have no experience programming outside of whatever niche you've been stuck in for the past five, ten, fifteen, etc, years. The job was for "C Programmer" not "The macros and function library of a specific twenty-year-old example of bit-rot Programmer"
It's also worth noting that everyone who says they don't program at home does horribly on the rest of the interview, without fail, while most people who say they do program at home wind up doing quite well.
Well, you are, but so is your bank for normally sending you unsigned email. And so is your email-client for not showing a Bank of America logo and randomart next to the e-mail address when it's signed. And so is everyone for there not being a standard way to verify authenticity of phone calls, etc, etc.
Okay, well you're wrong. Ads are a great way of learning about new products, and in case you can't tell: People like new products.
But there's a problem: who could possibly filter through all the ads in a day, and only pay attention to what they want? One might as well read all the news sources and filter through all the crap there to get at what they want!
Fortunately for everyone, targeted ads exist, so you can be sure to only be informed of things you are likely to want to buy. It's really win-win.
Potential problems:
- If targeted ads have poor aim. Solution: Companies will continue to improve their methods until they know they only need to send ads to people who will buy things.
- Being "left out" from ads you could be interested in, just because you've never bought that type of product before. This is the most serious one, because it's the same type of "living with blinders on" that leads to things like digg.
oh, sorry, you're right. We, the consumers, should be charged outrageous prices because the phone companies implemented their system very poorly, and use that as an excuse for charging so much.
Okay, you go design a standard which can achieve "basic functionality" without javascript, and then we'll talk. Oh right, that standard was "HTML Frames", and those were near-universally despised.
So your suggestion is, rather than spending $5 to own a game after a couple of months, I should spend $5 the moment a game is released to "see if I like it" (because knowing whether I like something the moment it comes out, whether or not I am able to act on that knowledge, is somehow important, AND one should expect to pay money for the privilege of such knowledge?) Then spend an additional $10-$30 for no reason?
I have purchased new games in the past, and the most I've ever paid was $40. I have purchased new games recently, and the most I've ever paid was $40. In the past, I purchased more games, mostly new and mostly in the $20-$30 range. If there were a few extreme examples in the past, that's irrelevant. I can go to the store now and find four $60 at the front. If I went to the store five years ago, I'd need to look to find anythi"You know, you may say that ng over $40.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not the software, it's the marketing. Nintendo releases games that are miles behind anything else in terms of what they do (Wii tennis has ONE button, that's less sophisticated than pong, which arguably had two [left OR right!]), but shows people standing up and swinging their arms in the commercials. Suddenly everyone decides they want one, when you could get the same experience by swinging around an XBox controller.
"Nintendo has completely dominated a market we didn't even no existed by adding basically nothing more than instructions telling people to move while playing video-games. If we make something which not only does that, but which also actually captures motion, perhaps we can claim the market they found for ourselves!"
Haven't tried WiiMotion+ because, for fuck's sake, should I need to spend £80 to try out something which the system claimed to already come with? I've got no evidence that it's actually any better, and I haven't heard if using WiiMotion+ improves the recognition on older titles, but my instinct is "of course it doesn't"
This was already attempted. It failed miserably.
As will real freedom fighters, or whatever you want to call it.
Requiring an ID would do nothing to stop freenet, for example. Which is why IDs are stupid: The way the Internet works _promotes_ anonymity, and anonymity promotes freedom.
and just try reporting that as a bug- You'll get shouted down because it wouldn't make sense for normal users to be able to uninstall system-wide plugins- as if firefox didn't have user-specific settings at all
(of course, every time firefox upgrades, it forgets my custom menu configuration, so maybe user-specific settings are being phased out?)
You've assumed two completely incorrect things. First, that the question will be asked as something along the lines of "do you program on the side?" as opposed to just "what do you do in your free time?" or no direct question at all (you know, conversation?)
Secondly, that it's being used primarily to judge how many new acronyms you will be able to list on your resume in six months. Keeping up with "current" technologies is a benefit of programming in your spare time, but certainly not what's being looked for.
look behind you.
No, not the one who uses programming for everything, the one who uses programming for things which call for programming. If you use computers regularly, and can't find anything in your life which could do with some automation, it seems unlikely that you will notice other problems.
The question isn't "do you program at home?" it's "what do you do at home?" and something along the lines of "have you ever used your skills outside of a workplace or classroom environment?"
I am suggesting that a bad programmer may see things the way they are and not see a problem unless specifically instructed that a specific problem exists and requires a programming-related solution. Your final lines are an example of exactly what I don't want: someone who always needs very specific problems assigned to them.
The "here are some hypothetical problems" thing is just another part of the interview. If you do well on it, you may be hired. But if you do well on it and also mention things that no one ever told you to do, you've got an edge.
technically, a key fob still uses "what you know", it's just "what you know that you are unlikely to know without what you have", which is good enough for now.
Five seconds later, an equation describing the universe as fractal and infinitely divisible surfaces, and Moore's law continues.
why is it that open source people seem to always be of the mindset "The whole thing is free for everyone, so the best way to update is to send the whole thing again!"
Ever heard of a patch?
They do. It's the thing you said.
It doesn't matter if it was ten years ago. If you're willing to apply your skills when something becomes apparent, that's what I want to hear. If there's something you did at home ten years ago, and you cared about it enough that you can still explain it, that gives you an edge more than the answer "yes, I've been reading up on ajax lately."
And no, I'm not trying to "knock you out of contention", I'm trying to find out about you, what types of things you work on, how you think about problems. Any time you talk about having solved a particular problem with a passion, it doesn't matter where you did it. But in my experience, more people are likely to start talking about that sort of thing when you ask them about personal projects, rather than something they just did because they were paid for it.
"very few problems at home need programming to solve them" is exactly my point: given a choice between someone who /doesn't/ see programming as a solution to problems at home, and someone who /does/ see programming as a solution to problems at home, guess which one I'll tend to pick?
If you don't see programming as a solution to problems which come up at home, why should I expect you to see programming as a solution to problems which come up at work?
If you don't program in your spare time, you either:
- Don't touch computers in your spare time, meaning I will sometimes need to explain to you how to open the Internet. I don't want you to work in the same department as me.
- or - Don't use programming to solve problems on your computer at home. Why should I expect you to see programming as a solution to problems you spot at work? Sounds like someone who would either say "that's not part of my job description!" or who (more importantly) wouldn't think to mention it, since they'd never even think of applying their supposed skills to a problem.
- or - at the very least, have no experience programming outside of whatever niche you've been stuck in for the past five, ten, fifteen, etc, years. The job was for "C Programmer" not "The macros and function library of a specific twenty-year-old example of bit-rot Programmer"
It's also worth noting that everyone who says they don't program at home does horribly on the rest of the interview, without fail, while most people who say they do program at home wind up doing quite well.
Well, you are, but so is your bank for normally sending you unsigned email. And so is your email-client for not showing a Bank of America logo and randomart next to the e-mail address when it's signed. And so is everyone for there not being a standard way to verify authenticity of phone calls, etc, etc.
I don't know how Active Directory Services falls into things. Maybe you mean ads
Okay, well you're wrong.
Ads are a great way of learning about new products, and in case you can't tell: People like new products.
But there's a problem: who could possibly filter through all the ads in a day, and only pay attention to what they want? One might as well read all the news sources and filter through all the crap there to get at what they want!
Fortunately for everyone, targeted ads exist, so you can be sure to only be informed of things you are likely to want to buy. It's really win-win.
Potential problems:
- If targeted ads have poor aim. Solution: Companies will continue to improve their methods until they know they only need to send ads to people who will buy things.
- Being "left out" from ads you could be interested in, just because you've never bought that type of product before. This is the most serious one, because it's the same type of "living with blinders on" that leads to things like digg.
What was "troll" about that? That's the honest truth of what happened.
oh, sorry, you're right. We, the consumers, should be charged outrageous prices because the phone companies implemented their system very poorly, and use that as an excuse for charging so much.
who "gets tired" of DDR? My problem is moving to an apartment that wasn't on the ground floor. No more DDR for me.
Okay, you go design a standard which can achieve "basic functionality" without javascript, and then we'll talk.
Oh right, that standard was "HTML Frames", and those were near-universally despised.
So your suggestion is, rather than spending $5 to own a game after a couple of months, I should spend $5 the moment a game is released to "see if I like it" (because knowing whether I like something the moment it comes out, whether or not I am able to act on that knowledge, is somehow important, AND one should expect to pay money for the privilege of such knowledge?) Then spend an additional $10-$30 for no reason?
Fire determined to be most important discovery of human history!
I have purchased new games in the past, and the most I've ever paid was $40. I have purchased new games recently, and the most I've ever paid was $40. In the past, I purchased more games, mostly new and mostly in the $20-$30 range. If there were a few extreme examples in the past, that's irrelevant. I can go to the store now and find four $60 at the front. If I went to the store five years ago, I'd need to look to find anythi"You know, you may say that ng over $40.