You ever notice how nobody really talks about features the way you're describing? It's because that's basically nerd porn. Everyone else would just go "jesus, that's boring" and tune out.
This is something most of the Linux community doesn't get: People don't give a fuck about computers. It's like a car: the only time they care is when it isn't doing what they want it to.
And, right now, it's a lot easier to get a Linux machine to the isn't-doing-what-they-want-it-to point than a Windows machine. (If you have to mention WINE, you pretty much already failed. WINE is an admirable effort that requires a level of technical proficiency or at least willingness to Google to get a lot of stuff running well--neither of which are things end users will do.)
Depends on the environment. I've got a machine where I just don't want to give root out to folks, but I don't care if they're running updated versions of PHP, Mono, etc. for testing purposes. So it's not noexec.
I bought my 555's (used) when I thought that rahhh, gotta have the BEST! Then I realized not that much later that music still sounds just fine with cheaper phones. You will never get good fidelity out of headphones (even just the compression of the foam will radically change the sound quality). You need speakers for that. Burning tons of money on headphones is retarded.
And if you're that obsessed that "sound fidelity" (code word for "nerd with penis envy") matters, you need to get laid.
Busywork exists in college if you have already advanced past the curriculum. As an example...would you consider a 100-level course about Java to be trivial when you have been programming in the language for 4-5 years? Sure, that B+/A- grade will be fairly easy to get, but that's a 3.66 GPA. If you're aiming higher, you're going to have to spend a considerable amount of time on assignments that border on the inane (important for development of new programmers, yes--but not so for an experienced programmer). Then take into account that you could turn the three hours you spent on ekeing out that last.33 of GPA and use it to learn something new, potentially more valuable. Or spend that time networking, meeting new people, and having fun.
As I said, I'm not in the top 5% of my class academically. I "only" have a 3.62 GPA. And I've spent that time far more productively than the guys rote-memorizing for their precious 4.0.
(I mean, seriously, it sounds like you live in Mississippi or Arkansas.
Worse. Maine.
How much interesting work is there?)
Very little that I don't make myself. Hence why I'm launching a company this summer. It's an interesting task that I don't at all consider monotonous because it's my work, it's work that I have crafted. It's important to me, where, say, a set of calculus problems isn't (and even then I still do well enough). Buy-in is everything, and controlling boredom more of it. For me, anyway.
That, and I plan to transition to management/new development and begin hiring maintenance staff as soon as financially feasible.;-)
Agile is (partly) about stakeholder buy-in and continual evaluation of your targets and goals, so yeah, I guess you could call it that.
Me, I just call it good business sense, both for a contractor and a client. If your customer wants something done his way, then it behooves him to be paying attention and checking out what you show him when you ask him if that's what he wants.
These days, even Sennheiser's low end is "good enough" for the non-snob audiophile. I picked up a pair of HD202s and I'm thoroughly happy for now. (I don't bring my 555's to school.)
Uh...yeah, you're missing something. The Constituion Party is where the people who aren't satisfied by the Republicans' pandering to the Jesus freaks go. Shit, it's right on their main page:
Join the Constitution Party in its work to restore our government to its Constitutional limits and our law to its Biblical foundations
Or the preamble of their platform:
The Constitution Party gratefully acknowledges the blessing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as Creator, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States. We hereby appeal to Him for mercy, aid, comfort, guidance and the protection of His Providence as we work to restore and preserve these United States.
This great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians (Christians in name only, most of 'em--FishWithAHammer); not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been and are afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.
I looked hard at the third party candidates, too. Barr is not worthy of a vote, which sucked because the Libertarian Party, as nuts as they are, they're the closest to my own views (government out of social issues, don't pick my pocket--although I have no innate quarrel with the government expanding to take care of services it does well). I disagree violently with the Constitution Party as well as the Green Party, and I don't remember any others on the ballot here.
That's what I've found when dealing with employers already. It kind of kills my desire to keep burning the midnight oil on classes, but I want to graduate cum laude just to say I did.:)
You sound like a world class jerkoff to me, frankly. World class skills, but can't be bothered to get good grades because you don't like boring work? Well, the next time I have a job that has no boring work attached, I'll call you.
I have a 3.62 GPA. When I said I wasn't in the top five percent because I don't like busywork, I meant exactly that. I don't have the patience to do an extra 50% of work for 4 points on my final grade when I can be working on projects to pad my resume and portfolio and make some money.
And, despite your amazing programming skillz, you're also a party dude, and scoring with the ladies, etc, etc.
Identify the problem. Find a solution. Implement the solution. It's all the same. What's so unrealistic about that?
Then you didn't read the article too well, because I'm pretty sure I clearly stated that I don't expect it to be handed to me, I've worked my tail off to attain the skills I exhibit, and I have cultivated in myself (with the help of others, especially my father) the drive necessary to be in a place to launch my own company before graduating. I'm not expecting the world to knock at my door--I'm knocking at theirs'.
Assuming everything in your story is true, you don't sound like "nothing special" to me. I would argue that the average person is actually NOT smart enough write Visual Basic apps at 7 and start their own software company at the age of 22 (or whatever) and make it profitable in a month. I believe that modesty is a virtue, and I respect that you think of yourself as "average", you are clearly above average.
21.;-) And making a company profitable right off the bat isn't as impressive when you are running a service essentially off someone else's infrastructure. No inventory, just pay for what's being used. (Not Amazon Web Services, but similar, a little more concrete - VPSes.) Any expenses are assigned right to a client, who all pay up front. It's just a matter of networking, networking, networking, get your name out there and get people liking you.
I agree that a lot of people our age have a feeling of entitlement and that our culture generally gives young people the idea that you can succeed without hard work. However, I would give some thought to the possibility that some people are not as successful as you because they are NOT AS SMART, not because they are lazy.
I guess I didn't explain it as well as I intended, as I've made this reply a few times in this thread. I've met two kinds of people who weren't performing at the same level as I am. There are the ones who are saying "man, I wish I could do that" and the ones who say nothing. The ones who aren't as smart, but are driven? They're not the ones saying "I wish I could do that." They're the ones trying to do that. There's often an unsaid second part of "I wish I could do that," and that involves "without doing any extra work." The ones who don't moan about it are almost to a person the ones who jump when I ask if they'd like to sit down for a study session to go over some stuff that I know they're struggling with, because it will get them ahead and they know that in order to get good they have to put in the time.
This is a really insightful post, and thank you for making it. You make a lot of good points. (Although even today I don't think I'd call my dad particularly supportive....Kind of an asshole, really. Which explains where I get a lot of it. Most of my relatives call me a nicer, more creatively-oriented version of my father.) Starting that early really probably did give me some special wiring in between my ears--I can usually look at a problem and intuitively see a solution.
Regarding computing resources--dunno about where you're from, but, as I said, I started by finding QBasic on the DOS 5.x machines at my primary school. I was confused, because it looked like EDIT.COM but had this "Immediate" thing on the bottom of the window. (The first day I found it, I clearly remember the computer teacher being alarmed and telling me not to play with that...I did anyway.) Everybody else had that. I didn't really know what it was right away, but I knew, from library class, that I could go ask the reference librarian what this "Q BASIC" thing was, and she showed me where to find a book on it. I never considered my school system to be all that good, but I guess it was good where it counted. But the resources...heck, you can find 25-year-old BASIC books even today at libraries. While my circumstances were definitely more special than I guess I realized, I still think that any kid in a reasonably decent environment with enough curiosity could find out what I did, at the time.
(And you're very right about the Internet...I guess I was part of the September that never ended. AOL had Usenet access. I had no idea what I was doing then, but I'd bet there was some osmosis.)
So there, you're not normal and you're lucky. You are hot stuff, the average CS student isn't, and our society doesn't do nearly as much as it claims to do toward giving all kids such amazing opportunities. Thank you for your rant. I will try to do as well for my (yet to be born) kids as your parents did for you.
Yeah, I guess so. Guess there's something to think about there. (And--parent. My mom bailed when I was young. That probably had something to do with it, too.)
Nevertheless--and this may sound assholish--while the work ethic needed to bust ass and give 100% in a field that you choose to be part of must be taught, there's no reason it can't be learned. There are some classmates of mine who have a work ethic, even if their skills are lacking. They're the ones who've jumped at offers to help 'em out, sit down and explain to them things they don't understand and need help on. They're also not the ones saying "I wish I could do that." They're the ones who just shut up and try to do it. Like I said upthread, it's not that people "wish [they] could do that" in a disgustingly large number of cases, it's that they "wish [they] could do that without doing any extra work."
I've spent a hell of a lot of nights up till 2AM doing exactly that. Sometimes it helps--and I treasure those occasions, because I like teaching, I like helping people get it. At the same time, sometimes they're people who just can't do it, and shouldn't be CS majors. (I said that in a very no-bullshit way to two good friends of mine after most of a semester trying to help them catch up in my school's equivalent of Intro to Java, and both are a lot happier as philosophy and physics majors, respectively.)
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And you wonder why people tune out the Linux crowd.
You ever notice how nobody really talks about features the way you're describing? It's because that's basically nerd porn. Everyone else would just go "jesus, that's boring" and tune out.
This is something most of the Linux community doesn't get: People don't give a fuck about computers. It's like a car: the only time they care is when it isn't doing what they want it to.
And, right now, it's a lot easier to get a Linux machine to the isn't-doing-what-they-want-it-to point than a Windows machine. (If you have to mention WINE, you pretty much already failed. WINE is an admirable effort that requires a level of technical proficiency or at least willingness to Google to get a lot of stuff running well--neither of which are things end users will do.)
p.s. Debian 1.0 would have been released a year earlier, but they were still arguing whether the DFSG was in violation of the DFSG.
They still haven't figured it out.
Depends on the environment. I've got a machine where I just don't want to give root out to folks, but I don't care if they're running updated versions of PHP, Mono, etc. for testing purposes. So it's not noexec.
Stop spamming that stupid fucking site, moron.
Unlike Chrome - which installs itself in "C:\Documents and Settings\\...." - argh - duh.
This is correct behavior. %ProgramFiles% is not the only legal place to put programs.
You do realize you can run programs out of $HOME on Linux too, right?
IE isn't bloated; IE8 feels considerably faster than Firefox (and IE7 feels about the same!).
Firefox is the turd in the punchbowl these days. I still use it because I like AdBlock, but if ABP ever comes out for Chrome, I'm gone.
Why would Enbik ever do that?
I bought my 555's (used) when I thought that rahhh, gotta have the BEST! Then I realized not that much later that music still sounds just fine with cheaper phones. You will never get good fidelity out of headphones (even just the compression of the foam will radically change the sound quality). You need speakers for that. Burning tons of money on headphones is retarded.
And if you're that obsessed that "sound fidelity" (code word for "nerd with penis envy") matters, you need to get laid.
Sennheiser's Street series of earbuds is actually surprisingly good.
Of course, they will also cost three limbs and your first-born.
Busywork exists in college if you have already advanced past the curriculum. As an example...would you consider a 100-level course about Java to be trivial when you have been programming in the language for 4-5 years? Sure, that B+/A- grade will be fairly easy to get, but that's a 3.66 GPA. If you're aiming higher, you're going to have to spend a considerable amount of time on assignments that border on the inane (important for development of new programmers, yes--but not so for an experienced programmer). Then take into account that you could turn the three hours you spent on ekeing out that last .33 of GPA and use it to learn something new, potentially more valuable. Or spend that time networking, meeting new people, and having fun.
As I said, I'm not in the top 5% of my class academically. I "only" have a 3.62 GPA. And I've spent that time far more productively than the guys rote-memorizing for their precious 4.0.
(I mean, seriously, it sounds like you live in Mississippi or Arkansas.
Worse. Maine.
How much interesting work is there?)
Very little that I don't make myself. Hence why I'm launching a company this summer. It's an interesting task that I don't at all consider monotonous because it's my work, it's work that I have crafted. It's important to me, where, say, a set of calculus problems isn't (and even then I still do well enough). Buy-in is everything, and controlling boredom more of it. For me, anyway.
That, and I plan to transition to management/new development and begin hiring maintenance staff as soon as financially feasible. ;-)
Agile is (partly) about stakeholder buy-in and continual evaluation of your targets and goals, so yeah, I guess you could call it that.
Me, I just call it good business sense, both for a contractor and a client. If your customer wants something done his way, then it behooves him to be paying attention and checking out what you show him when you ask him if that's what he wants.
These days, even Sennheiser's low end is "good enough" for the non-snob audiophile. I picked up a pair of HD202s and I'm thoroughly happy for now. (I don't bring my 555's to school.)
Uh...yeah, you're missing something. The Constituion Party is where the people who aren't satisfied by the Republicans' pandering to the Jesus freaks go. Shit, it's right on their main page:
Join the Constitution Party in its work to restore our government to its Constitutional limits and our law to its Biblical foundations
Or the preamble of their platform:
The Constitution Party gratefully acknowledges the blessing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as Creator, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States. We hereby appeal to Him for mercy, aid, comfort, guidance and the protection of His Providence as we work to restore and preserve these United States.
This great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians (Christians in name only, most of 'em--FishWithAHammer); not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been and are afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.
I looked hard at the third party candidates, too. Barr is not worthy of a vote, which sucked because the Libertarian Party, as nuts as they are, they're the closest to my own views (government out of social issues, don't pick my pocket--although I have no innate quarrel with the government expanding to take care of services it does well). I disagree violently with the Constitution Party as well as the Green Party, and I don't remember any others on the ballot here.
That's what I've found when dealing with employers already. It kind of kills my desire to keep burning the midnight oil on classes, but I want to graduate cum laude just to say I did. :)
You sound like a world class jerkoff to me, frankly. World class skills, but can't be bothered to get good grades because you don't like boring work? Well, the next time I have a job that has no boring work attached, I'll call you.
I have a 3.62 GPA. When I said I wasn't in the top five percent because I don't like busywork, I meant exactly that. I don't have the patience to do an extra 50% of work for 4 points on my final grade when I can be working on projects to pad my resume and portfolio and make some money.
And, despite your amazing programming skillz, you're also a party dude, and scoring with the ladies, etc, etc.
Identify the problem. Find a solution. Implement the solution. It's all the same. What's so unrealistic about that?
Then you didn't read the article too well, because I'm pretty sure I clearly stated that I don't expect it to be handed to me, I've worked my tail off to attain the skills I exhibit, and I have cultivated in myself (with the help of others, especially my father) the drive necessary to be in a place to launch my own company before graduating. I'm not expecting the world to knock at my door--I'm knocking at theirs'.
Your employer interviews based on grades when there's already a proven track record of success in the workplace?
Hunh. Well, to each his own. :)
Should I have said it in bold letters? ;-)
Assuming everything in your story is true, you don't sound like "nothing special" to me. I would argue that the average person is actually NOT smart enough write Visual Basic apps at 7 and start their own software company at the age of 22 (or whatever) and make it profitable in a month. I believe that modesty is a virtue, and I respect that you think of yourself as "average", you are clearly above average.
21. ;-) And making a company profitable right off the bat isn't as impressive when you are running a service essentially off someone else's infrastructure. No inventory, just pay for what's being used. (Not Amazon Web Services, but similar, a little more concrete - VPSes.) Any expenses are assigned right to a client, who all pay up front. It's just a matter of networking, networking, networking, get your name out there and get people liking you.
I agree that a lot of people our age have a feeling of entitlement and that our culture generally gives young people the idea that you can succeed without hard work. However, I would give some thought to the possibility that some people are not as successful as you because they are NOT AS SMART, not because they are lazy.
I guess I didn't explain it as well as I intended, as I've made this reply a few times in this thread. I've met two kinds of people who weren't performing at the same level as I am. There are the ones who are saying "man, I wish I could do that" and the ones who say nothing. The ones who aren't as smart, but are driven? They're not the ones saying "I wish I could do that." They're the ones trying to do that. There's often an unsaid second part of "I wish I could do that," and that involves "without doing any extra work." The ones who don't moan about it are almost to a person the ones who jump when I ask if they'd like to sit down for a study session to go over some stuff that I know they're struggling with, because it will get them ahead and they know that in order to get good they have to put in the time.
This is a really insightful post, and thank you for making it. You make a lot of good points. (Although even today I don't think I'd call my dad particularly supportive. ...Kind of an asshole, really. Which explains where I get a lot of it. Most of my relatives call me a nicer, more creatively-oriented version of my father.) Starting that early really probably did give me some special wiring in between my ears--I can usually look at a problem and intuitively see a solution.
Regarding computing resources--dunno about where you're from, but, as I said, I started by finding QBasic on the DOS 5.x machines at my primary school. I was confused, because it looked like EDIT.COM but had this "Immediate" thing on the bottom of the window. (The first day I found it, I clearly remember the computer teacher being alarmed and telling me not to play with that...I did anyway.) Everybody else had that. I didn't really know what it was right away, but I knew, from library class, that I could go ask the reference librarian what this "Q BASIC" thing was, and she showed me where to find a book on it. I never considered my school system to be all that good, but I guess it was good where it counted. But the resources...heck, you can find 25-year-old BASIC books even today at libraries. While my circumstances were definitely more special than I guess I realized, I still think that any kid in a reasonably decent environment with enough curiosity could find out what I did, at the time.
(And you're very right about the Internet...I guess I was part of the September that never ended. AOL had Usenet access. I had no idea what I was doing then, but I'd bet there was some osmosis.)
So there, you're not normal and you're lucky. You are hot stuff, the average CS student isn't, and our society doesn't do nearly as much as it claims to do toward giving all kids such amazing opportunities. Thank you for your rant. I will try to do as well for my (yet to be born) kids as your parents did for you.
Yeah, I guess so. Guess there's something to think about there. (And--parent. My mom bailed when I was young. That probably had something to do with it, too.)
Nevertheless--and this may sound assholish--while the work ethic needed to bust ass and give 100% in a field that you choose to be part of must be taught, there's no reason it can't be learned. There are some classmates of mine who have a work ethic, even if their skills are lacking. They're the ones who've jumped at offers to help 'em out, sit down and explain to them things they don't understand and need help on. They're also not the ones saying "I wish I could do that." They're the ones who just shut up and try to do it. Like I said upthread, it's not that people "wish [they] could do that" in a disgustingly large number of cases, it's that they "wish [they] could do that without doing any extra work."
Why are you spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on undergraduate education?
I've spent a hell of a lot of nights up till 2AM doing exactly that. Sometimes it helps--and I treasure those occasions, because I like teaching, I like helping people get it. At the same time, sometimes they're people who just can't do it, and shouldn't be CS majors. (I said that in a very no-bullshit way to two good friends of mine after most of a semester trying to help them catch up in my school's equivalent of Intro to Java, and both are a lot happier as philosophy and physics majors, respectively.)