If I was going to recommend any Rand book it would be The Fountainhead, because it gets the basic message across without all the interminable editorializing.
I was seconds away from making the same comment. As a fan of Rand's fiction, the only time I'd ever recommend Atlas Shrugged would be if someone told me they'd read a bit of her work and was looking for something else she had written.
When you do read Atlas unless you're a compulsive completest, skip Galt's speech entirely. If you've understood what you've read up to that point (not necessarily agreed with, but understood) the speech is entirely redundant. If you haven't understood the book up to that point, the speech isn't going to help.
Over time, I have found that nearly every Adobe (or formerly Macromedia) product I used to use has now been superseded by something that doesn't cost money, and often does the job much better.
Not true. Or does your time have no cost? And hardware? And support?
I'll admit I'm not the most experienced developer in these parts, but I've never seen a project (large or small) where the cost of software was large enough to be the deciding factor in whether or not to go forward.
As somebody pointed out, they're both really lousy at PCs and sell predominantly to corporate clients. They both use Chinese/Taiwanese components cobbled together in Chinese Factories and then ship them over here. One owns the rights to the old IBM brand and the other owns the rights to the old Compaq and DEC brands, so what's the difference?
Completely anecdotal, but I think there's quite a difference. Between my wife and I, we've gone through 8 ThinkPads over the years--IBM and Lenovo. My father-in-law has probably used/owned at least a dozen as an employee and self-employed consultant. Other in-laws, too many to count.
Why so many? First, we're spoiled Americans and like to upgrade every 2 or 3 years. Second, we've found them to have decent resale value. And third, we keep going back to IBM/Lenovo because we rarely have issues with them. To borrow a phrase, they just work.
Meanwhile, the one small company I worked at that bought HPs for everyone, about a third died within a month. And my family--who for some reason asks me for advice every time they buy a new computer, but never takes that advice--has gone through countless HPs, Toshibas, Dells, Acers, etc. and has had issues with every singe one of them.
Maybe it's different for desktop PCs, but for laptops, notebooks, netbooks, etc, I'd pay cash out of pocket for a ThinkPad before I'd use a free HP. The time and aggravation dealing with issues isn't worth the money I'd save.
(42 degrees, you remind yourself — the transition to metric still isn't second nature, after almost two full years.)
I stopped right there.
If everything is so computerized and automated in the future, why would there be a transition to metric? All the internal calculations could be Celsius, Meters, and Grams, but I could set my devices to display Fahrenheit, Yards, and Ounces.
That doesn't even make any sense. I mean, none./p>
Yeah, it's complicated. I'll try to explain.
Unless you mean the manager isn't part of the team, in which case I'm not surprised you're throwing darts at a calendar for delivery estimates.
Oh, so you do understand. I'm a developer whose entire management structure is full of people with no technical background. On paper we're all part of the same team, in reality they have no idea what I do, and I frankly have very little idea of what they do (other than produce and present powerpoint presentations).
That does depend on having a manager sufficiently on the ball to have constant contact with sales and marketing though, and able to tell them that scope creep will cost more and slow things down.
Really I'm amazed that results based metrics aren't standard everywhere, I've worked with companies where management doesn't care when people show up as long as they meet their milestones. A company that puts "time at your desk" before "results" will be eaten by one that has the two in the correct order.
Oh wait..you're serious?
You're making some HUGE (and wildly optimistic) assumption. One is that management knows what they want. Two is that they'll know when they see it.
Measuring time put in is like measuring lines of code. Yes, it has very little (if any) correlation to the quality of the work being done, but my experience is managers are only interested in what they can easily measure. They can quickly run a report against the time tracking system. There is no quick way for a manager to measure quality when they are agents of scope creep, not protectors against it, and don't understand what their direct reports do on a daily basis.
Keep in mind, from an executive prospective, a project is a hot potato. The good manager is moving up the career ladder--the good manager doesn't care about quality because he/she will be gone before anything goes live. Simple metrics are all they have.
The manager who gets stuck with the folks who have been putting in tons of hours but not doing good work? That's the bad manager. A good manager would have moved on before the shiat hit the fan.
If you need to ask yourself this question, maybe you are just tired of being a developer in general.
I don't think asking the question is an issue, but how you answer it is key.
To the OP I say, go out an interview for jobs that sound like what you want to do. Go on a fact finding missing. Treat this as a project--first thing you gotta go is meet the customer where they live and gather requirements.
I'm in a similar situation. 41-yrs old, spent the last 5 years doing configuration and project management at a company that mostly uses OTS SW, and now I want to get back to coding. I've been through a handful of phone screens and a few of those 'room full of devs watching me whiteboard code.'
So what have I found? My troubleshooting and testing skills are razor sharp. When presented a problem, I know what I'll need that's been left out and what questions to ask. As I develop the algorithm I know what edge cases to watch out for and what special input needs to be handled differently.
On top of that, I've identified my weaknesses. I know I'm not as quick as I'd like to be. Whether it's age or lack of practice, code I'd like to be able to turn out in 20 or 30 minutes is taking 45 or 60. Also my OOP vocabulary is rusty. I know the difference between abstraction and inheritance, but I wasn't prepared with a professional-sounding answer the first time that question came up in an interview.
OP didn't changing employers or positions, but get out and talk to people. Is what you did back in the day so different from what the market needs now for.Net devs? Best way to find out is to ask the market.
I expect a lot of folks will tell you to dump.Net entirely. I'll say this, put effort in to learning C#. One, there's a bigger market for C# devs than for VB.Net. Two, they're really very close. More 2 dialects than 2 different languages. So going from one to the other is a good little project to get back on the techie horse and build your confidence.
While the "Star Trek like" science-driven societies pace themselves in a sensible manner, the religious nutjobs would throw every single resource their entire civilization could at getting into space to please their space deity or whatever. If there's an advanced space-faring race out there you probably want to steer clear of them.
What makes you think "Star Trek like" societies are science-driven? Remember the Enterprise, in all its incarnations, is a military vessel.
One of the revolutionary aspects of TOS is the purely scientific nature of their mission--they're not looking for a new home, they're not on the run from the law or some other force, they're out there just to see what's out there. But they (the crew from TOS and most every recurring character from all the other series) are members of the military.
The amount of time some people can spend on trivial stuff like that is mindblowing people people like us. The reason we can't see the importance here is probably because we've already optimized these simple processes without even thinking about it. The weather is the most important variable factor in my clothing routine. I avoid eating the same thing two days in a row, but it follows a simple sandwich/salad + fruit/snack formula.
On the other hand, I did some field maintenance in a modelling agency (not as glamourous as you might think - an office of 15 women all with sync'd up periods, BAAAD place to be one week of the month) and it took me about as long to purchase, eat and digest my lunch as it did for a small group of these people to decide what they all wanted. It wasn't like they were trying to decide to go somewhere as a group, they all went off individually to get food from different places. I eavesdropped on their conversation while progress bars were doing their thing, they seemed to consider lunch to be some kind of personal expression that had to be absolutely perfect or face ridicule from everyone in the street for the rest of their lives. I could feel my inner feminine side trying to scream "It's just lunch! Get over it!" at them. I can't imagine what the damage to their productivity was. Maybe if they spent more time concentrating on work and less time mulling over the minutae of office life they wouldn't have had to work late every night.
And then you use all the time and effort saved to post on/.
The cargo cult of achievement in this thread is astonishing. "High achievers like Obama and Steve Jobs stream-line mundane processes such as eating breakfast or getting dressed to save their energy for the weighty matters that occupy their days. I wear the same jeans and t-shirt every day, so I must be a high achiever as well!"
No, you're just a slob who doesn't care about what you eat.
The amount of time some people can spend on trivial stuff like that is mindblowing people people like us.
What do you mean "people like us"? You don't waste time on trivial stuff?
(Before I get modded down in to oblivion (hello oblivion newton-john!) my point is not that I don't waste time, it's that being boring doesn't make you a genius. For example, I have the same breakfast (nothing) and lunch (same items from the salad bar) almost every day. I spend minimum time getting dressed in the morning (all work pants blue, black, or gray; all work shirts blue or white; all combinations equally inoffensive). But I'm not about to compare myself to Obama or Einstein.
What do I with all the time and energy saved? I'm here, at work, wasting time on/. If someone else wants to spend their time-wasting time on their clothes or deciding what to do for lunch, who are we to look down on them?)
Completely off topic, but I think Apple has another issue with their retina display--the retina is used for seeing images, not displaying them. "Retina display" makes as much sense as a tympanic speaker, jumbo shrimp, or Microsoft quality control (zing!).
You're confusing branding with technical specs.
No, I'm confusing marketing with the English language. I'm aware of the difference. The issue is my brain spends most of it's time working in English. In English, "retina display" only makes sense if it's a display of an image of a retina, a piece of hardware that both detects and displays images--acts as both a retina and a display, or some cybernetic technology that interfaces directly with the retina.
As far as I am aware, Apple's devices do none of these things. A screen with a high quality picture or small pixels does not match the English definition of "retina display."
Apple is certainly free to use "Retina Display" in their marketing-speak. I'm sure they've accepted that the few of us who still operate in "English mode" more than "marketing-speak mode" are going to be annoyed every time we hear it. Obviously many people have no problem this abuse of the language. I'm sure zombie Steve Jobs is not losing his appetite for brains just because I'm not running out to buy the latest iShiny.
Meanwhile, Apple has similar issues with their retina display:
Completely off topic, but I think Apple has another issue with their retina display--the retina is used for seeing images, not displaying them. "Retina display" makes as much sense as a tympanic speaker, jumbo shrimp, or Microsoft quality control (zing!).
But seriously, a new camera with a retina detector would make sense, like a tympanic microphone.
At one time Apple was about producing innovative products, but now it's just about shiny boxes and fancy names. All packaging, no substance./ob/. meme: In Soviet Apple, display watches you!
The level of mercury in those bulbs is really minimal. Not a hazard to users, even if the occasional bulb does break. You'd need to break an unrealistic number of bulbs to reach a dangerous level of exposure. I'm not sure about the impact in landfill, but then, I don't imagine people will throw many away.
Ha!
Each bulb lasts many years.
Oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh harder.
In the real world, CFLs don't last much longer than old fashioned bulbs.
Lets buy five 2000 hour 100 watt old fashioned filament bulbs for $5 100 watts / 1000 watts per KW * 0.10 dollars per KWh * 10000 hours total use = energy cost of $100 of highly govt subsidized electricity (real cost probably higher)
Lets buy the equivalent number of lumens in a 10000 hour LED I donno 8 watts or something for $50. 8 watts / 1000 * 0.10 * 10000 = $8 of highly subsidized electricity
Old fashioned total cost is $105. LED total cost is $58.
The problem selling us on LEDs is you're fighting the propaganda spread by the CFL folks. In practice for me, CFLs haven't lasted any longer than old tyme bulbs. And because they take so long to warm up and give off so little light, I end up turning on more lights and leaving them on all the time rather than just when I'm in the room. So I'm skeptical on the energy savings.
So to spend more up front on a bulb that lasts longer and uses less energy, I'm in. But to spend more on a bulb that doesn't last any longer and doesn't give off sufficient light, not so much.
Since the bulb is used about 20 minutes a day, the most sensible thing to do here is to keep buying incandescent bulbs, until the boy gets older. But Congress thinks it can form a committee that knows better than hundreds of millions of people making billions of decisions every day.
I wouldn't think this would be such an edge case, but someone how such usage gets missed (or purposefully ignored) when the case is made for CFLs.
I'm using the w.c. or bathroom--unless I'm taking a shower, I'm leaving the room just about as CFLs are warmed up. I'm changing clothes after work in my bedroom--I'm leaving the room just about as CFLs are warmed up. I'm running down to the basement or sticking my head in a closet to grab something--I'm leaving the room before a CFL can shed any useful light at all.
When I'm working at my desk for hours--then I want an efficient bulb even if it takes minutes to warm up. The light at the foot of the stairs that's on 24x7 so no one ever has to navigate a dark stairwell--then I want an efficient bulb even if it takes minutes to warm up. But for many uses, efficiency is far down the list of requirements.
I could mod you up, but instead I'll just say, every time I bitch about warm up time in one of these threads, someone replies that I should buy a bulb made this century or by a good manufacturer. Yet no one ever has an example of which ones are the "good manufacturers."
I had a service come in to do an energy audit on my home. I expected to hear a lot about insulation and drafty windows. Instead the guy just went through and changed all the bulbs he could to CFLs. I've also purchased CFLs in the past. These are GE and Sylvania bulbs.
1. These bulbs do not last as long as advertised. I've been in my house for 8 years and there are fixtures that have had bulbs burn out at least twice (ie, fixtures on their 3rd CFL bulb in 8 years).
2. Dimmable? If you consider going from off to warming up to on dimmable, then yes. If you mean on demand dimmable with a dimmer switch, then no not dimmable.
3. Warm up time. True story: a couple days after I had my "energy audit" I'm a the foot of my stairs and flip the switch for the lights at the top of the stairs.
Nothing happens. It's a 3-way with the other switch at the top, so I flip it back, wondering if the lights were on and I had just turned them off. But still nothing. I give another few flips, still nothing. I'm very puzzled, because light switches are usually very reliable. I don't remember ever having to replace a regular light switch that stopped working.
Then I look up. The switch is working. The lights are coming on. It's just they are so dim, unless I am looking directly at the bulbs, I can't tell if they are on or off.
My daily routine used to be to come home from work, go to my bedroom, turn on the over head light, change out of my work gear in to evening wear, and then go about my night. Now, I come home, go to the bedroom, turn on the over head light, turn on the night stand light, make sure I leave the door open with the hall light on, so I can see while I'm changing. By the time I'm done, all the bulbs have warmed up and I'm squinting from the brightness, but by then I'm leaving the room and turning all those lights off.
So if someone has a line on CFLs that don't need minutes to warm up, please share! Until then, I'm going through what CFLs I have and as they burn out, replacing them with real light bulbs that work.
I realize technologies take time to mature and I understand the concept of a public beta test, but CFLs are being pitched as a final product when they aren't nearly as good as the thing they are supposed to replace.
And some jobs simply are not for some people. No matter how much you work out or how many pushups a day you do, you will never be an NFL quarterback. No matter how many books on quantum mechanics you read, you will never come up with a brilliant paradigm changing theory. And to a lesser degree, most of humanity no matter how hard they try would never be able to write a working and useable computer program.
NFL quarterback--even going to the 3rd string clip board holder, we're talking about 90 elite athletes. Even extending that number to folks with the right combination of speed, agility, strength, and decision making skills who might go on to succeed in other sports, we're talking about maybe 400 people. And let's not forget the ladies. There are certainly some women who could be NFL quarterbacks if not for discrimination based on gender. So that's 800 people who could be an NFL quarterback. Out of 7 billion.
And how many "paradigm changing" physicists do we have at any one time? Not competent scientists racking up publications. Not leaders in their field. But the folks who really change the course of history. Let's say that number is about 800. (Although it's almost certainly fewer.)
You're comparing the ability to "write a working and useable [sic] computer program" to what those folks do? Not be the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Not the next Woz or Linus. Not come up with the next Facebook or Google. But just write a working and usable program.
I'm on the side of being a programmer is not as easy as most people think (including most programmers). But I'm thinking of things like getting good requirements from users and maintaining documentation, which are harder than what the code monkeys do.
But you are nuts.
If anyone could do it the market would be full of skilled programmers making Taco Bell wages. But it isn't.
So I guess you've never heard of outsourcing. Yes, outsourcing often turns out to cost more than having your folks code in-house, but that's due to management not knowing how to work with remote people. You'll have the same issues when a large number of people are telecommuting. And yes, the global market is creating a middle class is many countries so wages are coming up. But don't fool yourself (even if you have fooled your employer) there are skilled programmers making Taco Bell wages.
I read the OP as saying, "I love *NIX and that's all I really know in depth as an Admin. I have no clue how to find someone similar for Windows. How would I go about that?". I didn't read it as condescending, but clearly many here did.
How is that not condescending? Apparently *NIX is NOT all the OP needs to know, or there wouldn't be a need for a Windows "fan." It's condescending to think a UNIX "fan" could not, and should not, touch anything Windows. We need a seperate guy for that.
The attitude should be, the people that pay my salary and pay for the hardware and software have certain needs, and as a professional admin, I need to address those needs. If those needs are best servered by Windows, then I should put the business needs ahead of my fandom.
I'm not against hiring when there's a need for skills outside of the current staff, but it doesn't sounds like there's really a need for a full time Windows-only admin.
Can you explain to me, in some non-condescending way, why none of the current UNIX admins in house could learn Windows, or why the OP couldn't hire someone who knows both? Why must the UNIX guys be UNIX only and the Windows guys by Windows only?
I like how some nobody blogger who no one has ever heard of can get a post on the front page of/. (submitted by some "A/C" most likely the blogger him or herself) with just a name and no introduction.
But Bill Gates, oh better explain that one! No one's ever heard of him.
Slashdot Mirror
If I was going to recommend any Rand book it would be The Fountainhead, because it gets the basic message across without all the interminable editorializing.
I was seconds away from making the same comment. As a fan of Rand's fiction, the only time I'd ever recommend Atlas Shrugged would be if someone told me they'd read a bit of her work and was looking for something else she had written.
When you do read Atlas unless you're a compulsive completest, skip Galt's speech entirely. If you've understood what you've read up to that point (not necessarily agreed with, but understood) the speech is entirely redundant. If you haven't understood the book up to that point, the speech isn't going to help.
Over time, I have found that nearly every Adobe (or formerly Macromedia) product I used to use has now been superseded by something that doesn't cost money, and often does the job much better.
Not true. Or does your time have no cost? And hardware? And support?
I'll admit I'm not the most experienced developer in these parts, but I've never seen a project (large or small) where the cost of software was large enough to be the deciding factor in whether or not to go forward.
As somebody pointed out, they're both really lousy at PCs and sell predominantly to corporate clients. They both use Chinese/Taiwanese components cobbled together in Chinese Factories and then ship them over here. One owns the rights to the old IBM brand and the other owns the rights to the old Compaq and DEC brands, so what's the difference?
Completely anecdotal, but I think there's quite a difference. Between my wife and I, we've gone through 8 ThinkPads over the years--IBM and Lenovo. My father-in-law has probably used/owned at least a dozen as an employee and self-employed consultant. Other in-laws, too many to count.
Why so many? First, we're spoiled Americans and like to upgrade every 2 or 3 years. Second, we've found them to have decent resale value. And third, we keep going back to IBM/Lenovo because we rarely have issues with them. To borrow a phrase, they just work.
Meanwhile, the one small company I worked at that bought HPs for everyone, about a third died within a month. And my family--who for some reason asks me for advice every time they buy a new computer, but never takes that advice--has gone through countless HPs, Toshibas, Dells, Acers, etc. and has had issues with every singe one of them.
Maybe it's different for desktop PCs, but for laptops, notebooks, netbooks, etc, I'd pay cash out of pocket for a ThinkPad before I'd use a free HP. The time and aggravation dealing with issues isn't worth the money I'd save.
Vote with your feet people.
Feet? What are you doing with that honey?
(42 degrees, you remind yourself — the transition to metric still isn't second nature, after almost two full years.)
I stopped right there.
If everything is so computerized and automated in the future, why would there be a transition to metric? All the internal calculations could be Celsius, Meters, and Grams, but I could set my devices to display Fahrenheit, Yards, and Ounces.
If some tells you to bite it, don't.
That doesn't even make any sense. I mean, none. /p>
Yeah, it's complicated. I'll try to explain.
Unless you mean the manager isn't part of the team, in which case I'm not surprised you're throwing darts at a calendar for delivery estimates.
Oh, so you do understand. I'm a developer whose entire management structure is full of people with no technical background. On paper we're all part of the same team, in reality they have no idea what I do, and I frankly have very little idea of what they do (other than produce and present powerpoint presentations).
Its not really. Specifications -> result.
That's a good one. Let me mod this guy 'Funny'
That does depend on having a manager sufficiently on the ball to have constant contact with sales and marketing though, and able to tell them that scope creep will cost more and slow things down.
Really I'm amazed that results based metrics aren't standard everywhere, I've worked with companies where management doesn't care when people show up as long as they meet their milestones. A company that puts "time at your desk" before "results" will be eaten by one that has the two in the correct order.
Oh wait..you're serious?
You're making some HUGE (and wildly optimistic) assumption. One is that management knows what they want. Two is that they'll know when they see it.
Measuring time put in is like measuring lines of code. Yes, it has very little (if any) correlation to the quality of the work being done, but my experience is managers are only interested in what they can easily measure. They can quickly run a report against the time tracking system. There is no quick way for a manager to measure quality when they are agents of scope creep, not protectors against it, and don't understand what their direct reports do on a daily basis.
Keep in mind, from an executive prospective, a project is a hot potato. The good manager is moving up the career ladder--the good manager doesn't care about quality because he/she will be gone before anything goes live. Simple metrics are all they have.
The manager who gets stuck with the folks who have been putting in tons of hours but not doing good work? That's the bad manager. A good manager would have moved on before the shiat hit the fan.
If you need to ask yourself this question, maybe you are just tired of being a developer in general.
I don't think asking the question is an issue, but how you answer it is key.
To the OP I say, go out an interview for jobs that sound like what you want to do. Go on a fact finding missing. Treat this as a project--first thing you gotta go is meet the customer where they live and gather requirements.
I'm in a similar situation. 41-yrs old, spent the last 5 years doing configuration and project management at a company that mostly uses OTS SW, and now I want to get back to coding. I've been through a handful of phone screens and a few of those 'room full of devs watching me whiteboard code.'
So what have I found? My troubleshooting and testing skills are razor sharp. When presented a problem, I know what I'll need that's been left out and what questions to ask. As I develop the algorithm I know what edge cases to watch out for and what special input needs to be handled differently.
On top of that, I've identified my weaknesses. I know I'm not as quick as I'd like to be. Whether it's age or lack of practice, code I'd like to be able to turn out in 20 or 30 minutes is taking 45 or 60. Also my OOP vocabulary is rusty. I know the difference between abstraction and inheritance, but I wasn't prepared with a professional-sounding answer the first time that question came up in an interview.
OP didn't changing employers or positions, but get out and talk to people. Is what you did back in the day so different from what the market needs now for .Net devs? Best way to find out is to ask the market.
I expect a lot of folks will tell you to dump .Net entirely. I'll say this, put effort in to learning C#. One, there's a bigger market for C# devs than for VB.Net. Two, they're really very close. More 2 dialects than 2 different languages. So going from one to the other is a good little project to get back on the techie horse and build your confidence.
Tops on the list has to be the hot chicks room.
And that's actually a pretty good answer for the following question, "What Would You Include In a New Building?"
Tops on the list has to be the hot chicks room.
And that's actually a pretty good answer for the preceding question, "Best Incentives For IT Workers?"
While the "Star Trek like" science-driven societies pace themselves in a sensible manner, the religious nutjobs would throw every single resource their entire civilization could at getting into space to please their space deity or whatever. If there's an advanced space-faring race out there you probably want to steer clear of them.
What makes you think "Star Trek like" societies are science-driven? Remember the Enterprise, in all its incarnations, is a military vessel.
One of the revolutionary aspects of TOS is the purely scientific nature of their mission--they're not looking for a new home, they're not on the run from the law or some other force, they're out there just to see what's out there. But they (the crew from TOS and most every recurring character from all the other series) are members of the military.
The amount of time some people can spend on trivial stuff like that is mindblowing people people like us. The reason we can't see the importance here is probably because we've already optimized these simple processes without even thinking about it. The weather is the most important variable factor in my clothing routine. I avoid eating the same thing two days in a row, but it follows a simple sandwich/salad + fruit/snack formula.
On the other hand, I did some field maintenance in a modelling agency (not as glamourous as you might think - an office of 15 women all with sync'd up periods, BAAAD place to be one week of the month) and it took me about as long to purchase, eat and digest my lunch as it did for a small group of these people to decide what they all wanted. It wasn't like they were trying to decide to go somewhere as a group, they all went off individually to get food from different places. I eavesdropped on their conversation while progress bars were doing their thing, they seemed to consider lunch to be some kind of personal expression that had to be absolutely perfect or face ridicule from everyone in the street for the rest of their lives. I could feel my inner feminine side trying to scream "It's just lunch! Get over it!" at them. I can't imagine what the damage to their productivity was. Maybe if they spent more time concentrating on work and less time mulling over the minutae of office life they wouldn't have had to work late every night.
And then you use all the time and effort saved to post on /.
The cargo cult of achievement in this thread is astonishing. "High achievers like Obama and Steve Jobs stream-line mundane processes such as eating breakfast or getting dressed to save their energy for the weighty matters that occupy their days. I wear the same jeans and t-shirt every day, so I must be a high achiever as well!"
No, you're just a slob who doesn't care about what you eat.
The amount of time some people can spend on trivial stuff like that is mindblowing people people like us.
What do you mean "people like us"? You don't waste time on trivial stuff?
(Before I get modded down in to oblivion (hello oblivion newton-john!) my point is not that I don't waste time, it's that being boring doesn't make you a genius. For example, I have the same breakfast (nothing) and lunch (same items from the salad bar) almost every day. I spend minimum time getting dressed in the morning (all work pants blue, black, or gray; all work shirts blue or white; all combinations equally inoffensive). But I'm not about to compare myself to Obama or Einstein.
What do I with all the time and energy saved? I'm here, at work, wasting time on /. If someone else wants to spend their time-wasting time on their clothes or deciding what to do for lunch, who are we to look down on them?)
Completely off topic, but I think Apple has another issue with their retina display--the retina is used for seeing images, not displaying them. "Retina display" makes as much sense as a tympanic speaker, jumbo shrimp, or Microsoft quality control (zing!).
You're confusing branding with technical specs.
No, I'm confusing marketing with the English language. I'm aware of the difference. The issue is my brain spends most of it's time working in English. In English, "retina display" only makes sense if it's a display of an image of a retina, a piece of hardware that both detects and displays images--acts as both a retina and a display, or some cybernetic technology that interfaces directly with the retina.
As far as I am aware, Apple's devices do none of these things. A screen with a high quality picture or small pixels does not match the English definition of "retina display."
Apple is certainly free to use "Retina Display" in their marketing-speak. I'm sure they've accepted that the few of us who still operate in "English mode" more than "marketing-speak mode" are going to be annoyed every time we hear it. Obviously many people have no problem this abuse of the language. I'm sure zombie Steve Jobs is not losing his appetite for brains just because I'm not running out to buy the latest iShiny.
Meanwhile, Apple has similar issues with their retina display:
Completely off topic, but I think Apple has another issue with their retina display--the retina is used for seeing images, not displaying them. "Retina display" makes as much sense as a tympanic speaker, jumbo shrimp, or Microsoft quality control (zing!).
But seriously, a new camera with a retina detector would make sense, like a tympanic microphone.
At one time Apple was about producing innovative products, but now it's just about shiny boxes and fancy names. All packaging, no substance. /ob /. meme: In Soviet Apple, display watches you!
The level of mercury in those bulbs is really minimal. Not a hazard to users, even if the occasional bulb does break. You'd need to break an unrealistic number of bulbs to reach a dangerous level of exposure. I'm not sure about the impact in landfill, but then, I don't imagine people will throw many away.
Ha!
Each bulb lasts many years.
Oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh harder.
In the real world, CFLs don't last much longer than old fashioned bulbs.
Lets buy five 2000 hour 100 watt old fashioned filament bulbs for $5
100 watts / 1000 watts per KW * 0.10 dollars per KWh * 10000 hours total use = energy cost of $100 of highly govt subsidized electricity (real cost probably higher)
Lets buy the equivalent number of lumens in a 10000 hour LED I donno 8 watts or something for $50.
8 watts / 1000 * 0.10 * 10000 = $8 of highly subsidized electricity
Old fashioned total cost is $105. LED total cost is $58.
The problem selling us on LEDs is you're fighting the propaganda spread by the CFL folks. In practice for me, CFLs haven't lasted any longer than old tyme bulbs. And because they take so long to warm up and give off so little light, I end up turning on more lights and leaving them on all the time rather than just when I'm in the room. So I'm skeptical on the energy savings.
So to spend more up front on a bulb that lasts longer and uses less energy, I'm in. But to spend more on a bulb that doesn't last any longer and doesn't give off sufficient light, not so much.
Since the bulb is used about 20 minutes a day, the most sensible thing to do here is to keep buying incandescent bulbs, until the boy gets older. But Congress thinks it can form a committee that knows better than hundreds of millions of people making billions of decisions every day.
I wouldn't think this would be such an edge case, but someone how such usage gets missed (or purposefully ignored) when the case is made for CFLs.
I'm using the w.c. or bathroom--unless I'm taking a shower, I'm leaving the room just about as CFLs are warmed up. I'm changing clothes after work in my bedroom--I'm leaving the room just about as CFLs are warmed up. I'm running down to the basement or sticking my head in a closet to grab something--I'm leaving the room before a CFL can shed any useful light at all.
When I'm working at my desk for hours--then I want an efficient bulb even if it takes minutes to warm up. The light at the foot of the stairs that's on 24x7 so no one ever has to navigate a dark stairwell--then I want an efficient bulb even if it takes minutes to warm up. But for many uses, efficiency is far down the list of requirements.
Came here to say the same.
I could mod you up, but instead I'll just say, every time I bitch about warm up time in one of these threads, someone replies that I should buy a bulb made this century or by a good manufacturer. Yet no one ever has an example of which ones are the "good manufacturers."
I had a service come in to do an energy audit on my home. I expected to hear a lot about insulation and drafty windows. Instead the guy just went through and changed all the bulbs he could to CFLs. I've also purchased CFLs in the past. These are GE and Sylvania bulbs.
1. These bulbs do not last as long as advertised. I've been in my house for 8 years and there are fixtures that have had bulbs burn out at least twice (ie, fixtures on their 3rd CFL bulb in 8 years).
2. Dimmable? If you consider going from off to warming up to on dimmable, then yes. If you mean on demand dimmable with a dimmer switch, then no not dimmable.
3. Warm up time. True story: a couple days after I had my "energy audit" I'm a the foot of my stairs and flip the switch for the lights at the top of the stairs.
Nothing happens. It's a 3-way with the other switch at the top, so I flip it back, wondering if the lights were on and I had just turned them off. But still nothing. I give another few flips, still nothing. I'm very puzzled, because light switches are usually very reliable. I don't remember ever having to replace a regular light switch that stopped working.
Then I look up. The switch is working. The lights are coming on. It's just they are so dim, unless I am looking directly at the bulbs, I can't tell if they are on or off.
My daily routine used to be to come home from work, go to my bedroom, turn on the over head light, change out of my work gear in to evening wear, and then go about my night. Now, I come home, go to the bedroom, turn on the over head light, turn on the night stand light, make sure I leave the door open with the hall light on, so I can see while I'm changing. By the time I'm done, all the bulbs have warmed up and I'm squinting from the brightness, but by then I'm leaving the room and turning all those lights off.
So if someone has a line on CFLs that don't need minutes to warm up, please share! Until then, I'm going through what CFLs I have and as they burn out, replacing them with real light bulbs that work.
I realize technologies take time to mature and I understand the concept of a public beta test, but CFLs are being pitched as a final product when they aren't nearly as good as the thing they are supposed to replace.
And some jobs simply are not for some people. No matter how much you work out or how many pushups a day you do, you will never be an NFL quarterback. No matter how many books on quantum mechanics you read, you will never come up with a brilliant paradigm changing theory. And to a lesser degree, most of humanity no matter how hard they try would never be able to write a working and useable computer program.
NFL quarterback--even going to the 3rd string clip board holder, we're talking about 90 elite athletes. Even extending that number to folks with the right combination of speed, agility, strength, and decision making skills who might go on to succeed in other sports, we're talking about maybe 400 people. And let's not forget the ladies. There are certainly some women who could be NFL quarterbacks if not for discrimination based on gender. So that's 800 people who could be an NFL quarterback. Out of 7 billion.
And how many "paradigm changing" physicists do we have at any one time? Not competent scientists racking up publications. Not leaders in their field. But the folks who really change the course of history. Let's say that number is about 800. (Although it's almost certainly fewer.)
You're comparing the ability to "write a working and useable [sic] computer program" to what those folks do? Not be the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Not the next Woz or Linus. Not come up with the next Facebook or Google. But just write a working and usable program.
I'm on the side of being a programmer is not as easy as most people think (including most programmers). But I'm thinking of things like getting good requirements from users and maintaining documentation, which are harder than what the code monkeys do.
But you are nuts.
If anyone could do it the market would be full of skilled programmers making Taco Bell wages. But it isn't.
So I guess you've never heard of outsourcing. Yes, outsourcing often turns out to cost more than having your folks code in-house, but that's due to management not knowing how to work with remote people. You'll have the same issues when a large number of people are telecommuting. And yes, the global market is creating a middle class is many countries so wages are coming up. But don't fool yourself (even if you have fooled your employer) there are skilled programmers making Taco Bell wages.
Computers are in limited supply. Electricity is in limited supply.
So what if typewriters are in limited supply? What unlimited resource do you suggest as the solution?
Manual non-electric typewriters are the answer to the original question.
What about an old fashioned typewriter?
The summary says: " I considered using typewriters but they are in limited supply on the market."
So...exactly how did that get modded 'insightful'?
Because of this from the OP:
I realize that to teach typing, I do not need a computer. I could achieve the same using a keyboard connected to a display.
Typewriters are in limited supply, but this mythical "keyboard connected to a display" that's not a computer is an option?
How about this: If you're in the land of limited electricity, no computers, and no typewriters, why are wasting time teaching people to type?
The answer to the original question is manual, non-electric typewriters.
If you disagree, what is your alternative that is not in limited supply?
I couldn't have told who invented the Galileo Thermometer, but I could have told you it wasn't Galileo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler's_law_of_eponymy
I read the OP as saying, "I love *NIX and that's all I really know in depth as an Admin. I have no clue how to find someone similar for Windows. How would I go about that?". I didn't read it as condescending, but clearly many here did.
How is that not condescending? Apparently *NIX is NOT all the OP needs to know, or there wouldn't be a need for a Windows "fan." It's condescending to think a UNIX "fan" could not, and should not, touch anything Windows. We need a seperate guy for that.
The attitude should be, the people that pay my salary and pay for the hardware and software have certain needs, and as a professional admin, I need to address those needs. If those needs are best servered by Windows, then I should put the business needs ahead of my fandom.
I'm not against hiring when there's a need for skills outside of the current staff, but it doesn't sounds like there's really a need for a full time Windows-only admin.
Can you explain to me, in some non-condescending way, why none of the current UNIX admins in house could learn Windows, or why the OP couldn't hire someone who knows both? Why must the UNIX guys be UNIX only and the Windows guys by Windows only?
I like how some nobody blogger who no one has ever heard of can get a post on the front page of /. (submitted by some "A/C" most likely the blogger him or herself) with just a name and no introduction.
But Bill Gates, oh better explain that one! No one's ever heard of him.