What armed forces? They're all overseas, struggling with inadequate equipment and too few men.
Although I did find it ironic that police officers hate road pricing because of the automated car tracking invading their privacy (and ability to speed) but like ID cards. Uncertain which way they'll jump too, when it gets ugly..
Agreed. I spec out my own desktop tower machines, choosing the components, ensuring everything meets my needs. Then I find someone to build it for me.
Cost of components if bought from different suppliers is maybe £50 different than buying from the same provider. Cost of having them build the machine is £40-80. Is it really worth £130 tops on a £2200 machine to go through the hassle of testing (and replacing) all the components, building the thing, having a shorter warranty, tidying the cables, etc? Not to me.
I suspect most people aren't too fussed which dialect or accent the people answering the phone have.
They just want someone that can understand the dialect and accent they are using, and they want to be able to understand them too.
However empathetic you are with the Indians, if you can't understand 80% of the words they're saying, and they struggle to understand you, it's a pretty fucking worthless service.
iPhone : A fucking telephone. Forgive me for having a phone with more features in my pocket right now.
It's got shitty resolution for its size, touch-screens on phones are prone to accidental button presses (so you will hang up by accident), it lacks any sort of keyboard (good luck sending text messages at any speed, let alone using it as a PDA - ok, many PDAs also lack keyboards; I hate those too) and it's fucking expensive.
If it succeeds then it's a triumph of marketing and hype. Frankly I don't care - just another idiot tax.
700 feet is 233 yards. My car in normal conditions can come to a complete standstill from 100mph in 233 yards.
I'm not taking into account reaction time, but if I'm doing 100mph then it's the sort of road where if you move out to pass 200 yards in front of me then you're probably doing 50-80mph anyway. Shit, I don't even need to brake to avoid hitting you.
100mph is not that fast, especially for modern cars. Would I do it in contraflow traffic? No. Do I do it elsewhere? I decline to answer in case any British police are reading;)
The people that pull out doing 60 with 20 yards notice are the dangerous ones. 100 to 60 in (20 yards + distance travelled) can get a bit hairy.
To me, that goes beyond reasonable force and strays into the territory of 'torture'. And I hope to hell I have the guts to intervene if it ever happens in front of me.
I get frustrated by the lack of homosexual roleplay options in games such as NWN. I'm playing the cute girl, but I'm a lesbian damnit, give me plot options that involve seducing the other cute girl, not the big strong man with his rippling muscles and.. well, anyway.
I don't find I identify with my in-game character. As the GameLife article noted, it's easiest to identify with a character that's minimally fleshed out. When the character representing me does things that I wouldn't do, or says things I disagree with, I lose suspension of belief.
That doesn't mean that they have to be like I am in real life. I had tremendous fun in KOTOR2 playing a dark jedi, enjoying the liberating ability to just be downright nasty to everyone. I was surprised how difficult that was at times, but at least the game enabled my character to act consistently. In the original KOTOR I was so pure I had to delicately avoid the in-game romance, it would've sullied me! Give me games that let me shape the character, or make it clear that I'm not actually controlling them. GTA was fun, but only for the driving/shooting/exploration. The storyline was trite, the characterisation (in any of the GTA series) hackneyed.
But the race of the character? Hell, it's a game. I play black girls with orange hair, sultry brunette white women, small chinese men, and a large variety of orcs, elves and demons without really worrying about it. Sometimes I even play a character with my own racial and sexual characteristics, although it's tricky finding one with a similarly large belly.
For a couple of million (far less than Indonesia will be charging) I can find you people able and willing to do exactly that.
Acquiring the biohazard in the first place is the tricky part - the Indonesian government have the reporting infrastructure to receive all the variants as they occur, a private company lacks that level of information and access to the source. Multiple attack vectors available there though too.
More "Do you sell crack" than "Can I buy some crack from you".
Lawyers may disagree with me, but I'd interpret one as a factual question and the other as an attempt to trade, and give them different legal interpretations as a result.
Sign up? Way I read it, any name you use in a chatroom. So set up an IRC server on your own machine, connect, and use an IRC script to - sequentially generate all legitimate IRC names, starting with a, then b, then eventually zzzzzzzzzz - use/nick to set that as your irc name - send an email to the police informing them of your new online identity
Then start on the email addresses you have under the domain you own. a@example.com b@example.com By the time you reach 999999999999999990000000zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.aaa@exam ple.com I suspect their email server will have crashed.
Now start printing the email addresses in 4 point font on double-sided A4. Rent a transit van to drop off the first load at the local police station. Demand individual acknowledgement of each email address so that you know it's safe to use.
As soon as anybody tells you to stop, apply for a court order to make them follow the law, or give you immunity to prosecution.
(I suspect a court would slap an ASBO on you preventing you from using more than one email address, or some such silliness. I guess at that point firebombing the court building is about the best bet, because quite frankly, if you're getting fucked senseless by the law then you may as well fuck 'em back)
Oh, and don't forget to register jreid@parliament.gov.uk - you never know when you might use that to register with facebook...
If you ever find a small device attached to the bottom of your car and you didn't place it there, dial the emergency services, report a suspected IED, and hope they don't attempt a controlled detonation.
If it's a bomb you've saved your life (and I've parked in the same carparks as people that didn't check, and died) and if it's a GPS tracking device you've just cost the local police a lot of time, money and embarrassment.
Depends which line of business you enter. Goto http://jobserve.com/ (the biggest UK IT job board) and search for C++, then search for Java. I'm making it nearly a third more jobs in Java.
Now do a search for 'C++ and SOA', then for 'Java and SOA'. 20 C++ jobs, 106 Java ones. Heard of SOA? Understand it inside out? That's where the money is now.
Nothing to do with games programming of course, of no interest to people writing desktop applications, wont help kernel hackers or (most) smartphone developers. 100k Indian CS graduates a year aren't in those fields though; draw your own conclusions.
Quite simply, you give the impression of being arrogant, and of not trying to learn new things. That frustrates me, I hate to see anybody artificially limit their horizons, especially through ignorance. There is a world out there beyond your limited skillset. Refusing to embrace it is fine if you can be comfortable in your own small sphere. Refusing to acknowledge it is entirely foolishly.
20 years after graduation? shelf-life in the UK expires when you hit 30, 35 for the slow learners. Very hard to find a development job if you're older than that.
Most 30+ developers I know are contractors. Market conditions and pay differentials are a massive factor in that, but if you want to stay permanent, you need to be in management or a technical route such as architecture. Fewer roles, greater stress.
Has it occurred to you that learning calculus, databases, etc is only a small part of what you're there for?
You have the opportunity to learn new ways of thinking, new ways of learning, to demonstrate independent thought and intelligence, and to expand your knowledge.
Maybe you're a good C/C++ programmer. Maybe your C++ code is written purely using the OO capabilities of that language and that's why you found Java trivial. Maybe you'll find a C/C++ job and never have to touch anything else. Maybe your lack of well-rounded skills and experience wont inhibit your career.
If in 5-10 years he's still programming then he's broken the trend for most UK IT workers. Or he's gone contracting, in which case he'll have learned the language du jour and still be in high demand.
What makes the big difference is getting that first job, and I'd say he's got a good plan there.
the underlying theorems that glue all of IT together you can only get from a classical Computer Science or engineering education. Its alot easier for a CS, Physics or Math major to switch between a networking job and a programming job, b/c he knows all of the background stuff that makes it all work. An IT-certified pro may struggle a bit, only b/c he's not going to know the basics.
Thing is, I wont employ someone to do a networking job _and_ a programming job. I'll employ a network engineer to do my networking and a software engineer to do my programming.
You can teach any computer science student how to program. All the theorems, graphs and formulas on the planet wont teach them how to deliver a software project on time, to budget, under crippling resource constraints, with a constantly changing requirements set. That's what most programmers face, and that's why software engineers don't need computer science.
Take a degree in something that interests you. Take a job in something you're good at and can enjoy. Don't worry about whether the two match.
So to avoid having the site track his IP address, he goes via a search engine which - will track his IP address - will now track that he went to that site - will redirect him to that site, meaning that the site will now know he uses that search engine, and - the site will track his IP address anyway
Slashdot Mirror
What armed forces? They're all overseas, struggling with inadequate equipment and too few men.
Although I did find it ironic that police officers hate road pricing because of the automated car tracking invading their privacy (and ability to speed) but like ID cards. Uncertain which way they'll jump too, when it gets ugly..
Agreed. I spec out my own desktop tower machines, choosing the components, ensuring everything meets my needs. Then I find someone to build it for me.
Cost of components if bought from different suppliers is maybe £50 different than buying from the same provider. Cost of having them build the machine is £40-80. Is it really worth £130 tops on a £2200 machine to go through the hassle of testing (and replacing) all the components, building the thing, having a shorter warranty, tidying the cables, etc? Not to me.
I suspect most people aren't too fussed which dialect or accent the people answering the phone have.
They just want someone that can understand the dialect and accent they are using, and they want to be able to understand them too.
However empathetic you are with the Indians, if you can't understand 80% of the words they're saying, and they struggle to understand you, it's a pretty fucking worthless service.
iPhone : A fucking telephone. Forgive me for having a phone with more features in my pocket right now.
It's got shitty resolution for its size, touch-screens on phones are prone to accidental button presses (so you will hang up by accident), it lacks any sort of keyboard (good luck sending text messages at any speed, let alone using it as a PDA - ok, many PDAs also lack keyboards; I hate those too) and it's fucking expensive.
If it succeeds then it's a triumph of marketing and hype. Frankly I don't care - just another idiot tax.
700 feet is 233 yards. My car in normal conditions can come to a complete standstill from 100mph in 233 yards.
I'm not taking into account reaction time, but if I'm doing 100mph then it's the sort of road where if you move out to pass 200 yards in front of me then you're probably doing 50-80mph anyway. Shit, I don't even need to brake to avoid hitting you.
100mph is not that fast, especially for modern cars. Would I do it in contraflow traffic? No. Do I do it elsewhere? I decline to answer in case any British police are reading
The people that pull out doing 60 with 20 yards notice are the dangerous ones. 100 to 60 in (20 yards + distance travelled) can get a bit hairy.
Several times? While not physically resisting?
To me, that goes beyond reasonable force and strays into the territory of 'torture'. And I hope to hell I have the guts to intervene if it ever happens in front of me.
Anyone ranking the US as second worst has apparently never been to Asia, Africa or SA.
I don't know whether to point out that he said the US is the second worst in the Western world, or point out the irony of your response.
And road-usage charging, because the government isn't going to want to lose that fuel tax revenue, and doesn't have any other solutions to congestion.
To better everybody?
Not everybody is egocentric. Just Americans.
The BBC (one of the larger online news sites) definitely do.
I get frustrated by the lack of homosexual roleplay options in games such as NWN. I'm playing the cute girl, but I'm a lesbian damnit, give me plot options that involve seducing the other cute girl, not the big strong man with his rippling muscles and
I don't find I identify with my in-game character. As the GameLife article noted, it's easiest to identify with a character that's minimally fleshed out. When the character representing me does things that I wouldn't do, or says things I disagree with, I lose suspension of belief.
That doesn't mean that they have to be like I am in real life. I had tremendous fun in KOTOR2 playing a dark jedi, enjoying the liberating ability to just be downright nasty to everyone. I was surprised how difficult that was at times, but at least the game enabled my character to act consistently. In the original KOTOR I was so pure I had to delicately avoid the in-game romance, it would've sullied me! Give me games that let me shape the character, or make it clear that I'm not actually controlling them. GTA was fun, but only for the driving/shooting/exploration. The storyline was trite, the characterisation (in any of the GTA series) hackneyed.
But the race of the character? Hell, it's a game. I play black girls with orange hair, sultry brunette white women, small chinese men, and a large variety of orcs, elves and demons without really worrying about it. Sometimes I even play a character with my own racial and sexual characteristics, although it's tricky finding one with a similarly large belly.
From many people, you'd maybe be right. However, this is Branson.
If you find a way to remove a billion tons a year then it's worth $25m to him to be associated with you.
The guy has a penchant for self-publicity second only to his business acumen.
You test properly to start with, and you pay any compensation from the massive profits Merck get from their other drugs.
Who the fuck needs $1m compensation when someone dies anyway? Sounds excessive to me.
For a couple of million (far less than Indonesia will be charging) I can find you people able and willing to do exactly that.
Acquiring the biohazard in the first place is the tricky part - the Indonesian government have the reporting infrastructure to receive all the variants as they occur, a private company lacks that level of information and access to the source. Multiple attack vectors available there though too.
More "Do you sell crack" than "Can I buy some crack from you".
Lawyers may disagree with me, but I'd interpret one as a factual question and the other as an attempt to trade, and give them different legal interpretations as a result.
Sign up? Way I read it, any name you use in a chatroom. So set up an IRC server on your own machine, connect, and use an IRC script to
- sequentially generate all legitimate IRC names, starting with a, then b, then eventually zzzzzzzzzz
- use
- send an email to the police informing them of your new online identity
Then start on the email addresses you have under the domain you own.
a@example.com
b@example.com
By the time you reach 999999999999999990000000zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.aaa@exa
Now start printing the email addresses in 4 point font on double-sided A4. Rent a transit van to drop off the first load at the local police station. Demand individual acknowledgement of each email address so that you know it's safe to use.
As soon as anybody tells you to stop, apply for a court order to make them follow the law, or give you immunity to prosecution.
(I suspect a court would slap an ASBO on you preventing you from using more than one email address, or some such silliness. I guess at that point firebombing the court building is about the best bet, because quite frankly, if you're getting fucked senseless by the law then you may as well fuck 'em back)
Oh, and don't forget to register jreid@parliament.gov.uk - you never know when you might use that to register with facebook...
If you ever find a small device attached to the bottom of your car and you didn't place it there, dial the emergency services, report a suspected IED, and hope they don't attempt a controlled detonation.
If it's a bomb you've saved your life (and I've parked in the same carparks as people that didn't check, and died) and if it's a GPS tracking device you've just cost the local police a lot of time, money and embarrassment.
It's a win either way.
Sorry, he's spoofing police GPS tracking systems and you think he cares about you?
You don't think that if there is a god, it wont go medieval on someone that decided to believe it existed to avoid the ramifications of not believing?
Pretty much all religious texts are very keen on the downsides of not believing and/or lying about believing.
Incidentally, why do you refer to your god in the singular? There are dozens of equal validity, and you've already pissed off all the female ones...
Java doesn't seem to be all that popular
Depends which line of business you enter. Goto http://jobserve.com/ (the biggest UK IT job board) and search for C++, then search for Java. I'm making it nearly a third more jobs in Java.
Now do a search for 'C++ and SOA', then for 'Java and SOA'. 20 C++ jobs, 106 Java ones. Heard of SOA? Understand it inside out? That's where the money is now.
Nothing to do with games programming of course, of no interest to people writing desktop applications, wont help kernel hackers or (most) smartphone developers. 100k Indian CS graduates a year aren't in those fields though; draw your own conclusions.
Quite simply, you give the impression of being arrogant, and of not trying to learn new things. That frustrates me, I hate to see anybody artificially limit their horizons, especially through ignorance. There is a world out there beyond your limited skillset. Refusing to embrace it is fine if you can be comfortable in your own small sphere. Refusing to acknowledge it is entirely foolishly.
20 years after graduation? shelf-life in the UK expires when you hit 30, 35 for the slow learners. Very hard to find a development job if you're older than that.
Most 30+ developers I know are contractors. Market conditions and pay differentials are a massive factor in that, but if you want to stay permanent, you need to be in management or a technical route such as architecture. Fewer roles, greater stress.
Has it occurred to you that learning calculus, databases, etc is only a small part of what you're there for?
You have the opportunity to learn new ways of thinking, new ways of learning, to demonstrate independent thought and intelligence, and to expand your knowledge.
Maybe you're a good C/C++ programmer. Maybe your C++ code is written purely using the OO capabilities of that language and that's why you found Java trivial. Maybe you'll find a C/C++ job and never have to touch anything else. Maybe your lack of well-rounded skills and experience wont inhibit your career.
Good luck.
If in 5-10 years he's still programming then he's broken the trend for most UK IT workers. Or he's gone contracting, in which case he'll have learned the language du jour and still be in high demand.
What makes the big difference is getting that first job, and I'd say he's got a good plan there.
the underlying theorems that glue all of IT together you can only get from a classical Computer Science or engineering education. Its alot easier for a CS, Physics or Math major to switch between a networking job and a programming job, b/c he knows all of the background stuff that makes it all work. An IT-certified pro may struggle a bit, only b/c he's not going to know the basics.
Thing is, I wont employ someone to do a networking job _and_ a programming job. I'll employ a network engineer to do my networking and a software engineer to do my programming.
You can teach any computer science student how to program. All the theorems, graphs and formulas on the planet wont teach them how to deliver a software project on time, to budget, under crippling resource constraints, with a constantly changing requirements set. That's what most programmers face, and that's why software engineers don't need computer science.
Take a degree in something that interests you. Take a job in something you're good at and can enjoy. Don't worry about whether the two match.
So to avoid having the site track his IP address, he goes via a search engine which
- will track his IP address
- will now track that he went to that site
- will redirect him to that site, meaning that the site will now know he uses that search engine, and
- the site will track his IP address anyway
oops.