Not only does credit devalue through the same inflation ($1000 credit devalues at the same rate as $1000 cash) it also costs you interest, so $1000 borrowed is $1000+interest to be repaid.
My credit accounts are other peoples money
The problem with spending other peoples money is that other people are going to want their money back... with interest. Would you lend your money for free ?
A question that no credit addled fool has been able to answer is "why would a bank, a profit oriented business, offer you a service they dont make money on". And no, your not an outlier who's outsmarted the bank.
The fact is you force merchants to pay a percentage of your transaction in a "merchant service fee" or bank interchange fee in some countries. This comes straight back to you in the form of higher prices.
My money increases slowly but surely. Your cash is a pile of paper with no future.
Wrong again.
My money increases at the same rate as yours, the difference is I have no debt to pay off that reduces it.
Actually do the numbers, over 4 years you will at best have earned $500 more interest than me and if you miss one payment you will have wiped that off completely and some. Remember that at that time you will owe money and I will not so I will end up with more money after you've paid your debts.
Seriously, do the numbers. If I earn $2,000 p/m and have expenses of $1,500 p/m. If my initial payment is $500 @ 5% PM I have $26,512 after 48 months ($2, 512 in interest). If I deposited the entire $2000 for that first month I would have $28,334 after 48 months ($2844 in interest) but I'd still have to pay off $1,500 so that brings my total down to $26,834 giving you a grand total of $500 extra at the very best.
However when we consider that you pay between 0.5-3% per transaction on your credit card, you've pissed away $720 (at just 1% of $1,500 p/m) in merchant fees in the same period you've gained in $500 interest.
Once again, we go back to the question "why would a bank lose money on you". The simple answer is they don't, they love people like you because you make them money without even realising it.
Also don't give me any bollocks about not missing a payment, say you're fired, in hospital or your payments are screwed up in any other fashion.
I wont even bother telling you about the amount I've saved in the last four years by paying with my own money. Even just in avoiding CC surcharges I've made $500. Credit cards have their place, just not for everyday transactions. For that I use cash or debit.
What exactly is this 'chip and pin' system in UK apparently. Sounds British (like fish and chips?)...hahaha. Guessing it has something to do with a credit card type thing?
Chip and Pin is the brand name for bank card security in the UK. It refers to a PIN (Number) and a chip embedded in the card. Chipped cards are a bit harder to replicate than regular mag stripe cards.
Does cash not work over there anymore?
Yes, cash still works in merry old England,
but much like a lot of fools in the US and Australia they have been brainwashed by their bank overlords to shun cash and pay for everything using credit. This is because the bank overlords get to charge the merchant for accepting credit but not for accepting cash (which is in turn passed onto the unsuspecting fool of a customer in the form of higher prices).
So what should you get for your first server. I.e., you're a small company. You've got a couple of laptops. You're outgrowing mutual Samba.
You maybe want a fileserver. Maybe it'll have a few NICs and a virtual machine on it (Xen?) will do double duty as a external webserver.
Erm, if you're a small sub 10 man outfit (say engineering for example) and need storage in this day and age you just buy a $3-400 QNAP NAS and 4 $100 2 TB disks. You've got to be pretty out of it to deploy a file server over a NAS box.
This can be expanded by a cheap server and run SBS or Linus. business this small have been using non brand name Intel Xeon white boxen for over a decade, this is nothing new. Because a QNAP supports iSCSI and LDAP you dont need excessive storage in a server to have Windows/AD file services.
BTW, no attachment to QNAP, feel free to swap with Thecus, Synology or brand of your choice. All but the cheapest NAS's support iSCSI and AD.
You start to buy Dell, HP and IBM servers when you get bigger, say above 50 employees. When you've got over 1000 users, only the likes of HP and IBM can get you the volume of servers you need and HW support. But seeing as we're all virtualising, we're buying 20 servers where we used to buy 100.
To put your own code onto an iPod Touch, what you need is a Mac, $99 for a developer account
Let me get this straight,
In order to put my own code onto my own device I need to buy a A$2,000 machine as well as $99 per year (yep, you forgot it was a yearly fee) just to put it on a device I already own.
Say I buy that for a second, what if I wanted to put the same code onto my sister's Iphone or my boss's Ipad? Lets assume we can guarantee the code will not pass Apple's censors (duplication of functionality... but adds a bit more functionality Apple never bothered to include). How do I do that?
That is where he got it from. The fact you think it's OK to have to pay A$2,099 just to run my own code on my own device (but not on anyone elses).
Also there's a chance Apple may revoke my Dev license at their whim if they dont like what I'm doing.
SUVs are as cheap as expensive hatchbacks (considering the cheap ones are hatchback engines in overweight bodies)
Same with sports cars. You can get one for the price of a hot hatch.
Apple devices don't convey an air of money because people get them on cheap contracts. A lot of lower income earners have iphones. They are less like exclusive brands like Ferrari and more like common but overpriced brands suck as Louis Vutton which are the same made in china crap as other bags but have a higher price tag due to the logo.
When was the last time you took a look at the price difference between, say a basic VW golf and the GTI version? Hot hatchbacks cost so much more they are in fact a status symbol, as in: "I can afford to pay twice as much as you for the same car to get a some exta horsepowers". In my neck of the woods a GTI costs almost twice as much as a regular Golf.
Nowehere near twice as much here in Oz where European cars are hideously overpriced. And we aren't talking about a few extra HP here, there's a huge difference between a 1.4L manual and a 2.0L dual clutch auto. A world of difference there sunshine, 118 Kw to 155 Kw.
But nice try with picking only one model. A few other hot hatches, your Hyundai Veloster starts from A$24,000 which is not expensive considering your Yaris goes up to A$21,000. Your top 10 hot hatches for under A$30,000. Even a used Civic Type-R (one of the best hot hatches) goes just 8,000 GBP (A$12,000) for an 07 with 60,000 miles on it.
To keep this in perspective, people drop A$90,000+ for a BMW X5 in Australia. He'll, I'm looking at A$18-20,000 for a used Honda Integra that's less than 10 years old, BTW, the Integra is a sports car, not a hot hatch and I'm looking for an Integra not as a status symbol but because they are such fantastic drives (seriously, if you have a manual license go drive one). Compared to this, your hot hatches are cheap as are entry level sports cars.
Just looking around, you can get a sim only contract with data for GBP 10.00 per month on a 12 month basis. I think there are cheaper ones on some of the smaller operators. iPhone contracts are around 30 per month on a 24 month basis.
I dont think you understand the meaning of cheap.
30 GBP is around A$50 and that's cheap. If you have trouble affording 4 hours at minimum wage per month you have problems. In the US you hardly get SIM only plans and there aren't any savings, same with Australia. SIM only plans end up costing almost as much as getting a phone on a plan.
In Australia, we have people on welfare who have iphones because the old ones went onto the A$25 caps when the new ones come out.
the iPhone is clearly a high end phone and as such there are much cheaper smartphones readily available.
Whilst I don't call the Iphone low end, nor do I disagree that there are cheaper smartphones (I cannot consider the Iphone a "high end" phone simply because it lacks so many basic features) this beside the point.
The OP was saying that the Iphone was a status symbol and had a high price tag when in fact, the Iphone is common as muck and not any more expensive than any other high end phone. For example, how much does the HTC One X or Samsung Galaxy S cost? More, less or about the same as an Iphone 4S?
That's really the crux of the argument, is the Iphone rarer and significantly more expensive than it's contemporaries? If not what I said remains true.
Apple has never been a fan of cheap. Their products carry the undercurrent message "I can afford this", much like sports cars, suvs, rolexes and the like. They don't want everybody to provide cheap accessories to their products, because it diminishes the brand value.
Youre joking right?
SUVs are as cheap as expensive hatchbacks (considering the cheap ones are hatchback engines in overweight bodies)
Same with sports cars. You can get one for the price of a hot hatch.
Apple devices don't convey an air of money because people get them on cheap contracts. A lot of lower income earners have iphones. They are less like exclusive brands like Ferrari and more like common but overpriced brands suck as Louis Vutton which are the same made in china crap as other bags but have a higher price tag due to the logo.
Bullshit. The definition of a "Rock Star" developer is that they have a history of producing hits. It's not relative.
I have a history of producing software that gets the job done; sells pretty well; people like using; is very stable without too many bugs; and so forth.
I however would definitely NOT consider myself a "Rock Star" developer by any stretch of the imagination. I'm self taught and have glaring holes in my knowledge in quite a few areas. I often look at code from others and go "ah, that's a better way than I would've used" (and then try to use similar things in my own code in the future). For example, after a good 5 years of coding all day every day as my day job, I finally figured out the "right" time to use interfaces vs other methods. My code before that should've used interfaces worked (and worked well) but would be much more maintainable had I really known about their correct usage before. And vice-versa, I came across some REALLY old code of mine that uses interfaces when it makes absolutely no sense to do so (I assume it was when I first heard what about they are)
What makes me not a CRAP developer is that I know I have these holes in my knowledge and am willing to learn from others. That hardly makes a rock-star though, regardless of how much good stuff I've produced to date.
This,
Add to this the ability to pass on useful knowledge to more junior team members and we're onto a winner.
When I look for a good developer, I look for someone who can not only code well but code well with others. Relying on one person to do everything is foolhardy (I mean, what if he wins lotto), I don't treat devs like cogs, quite the contrary a good team member is made to feel very comfortable but I have zero patience for egos.
The whole article could be summarized like this: "We have no fucking clue how to manage rockstar developers".
If management or MBAs don't click with devs, the project is ripe for crashing.
As much as I dislike management, 9 times out of 10 it's "rockstar" developers not co-operating with managers (or the rest of the team for that matter, lets not even consider how they treat "peons" like accounting and infrastructure staff).
I've seen some very good managers absolutely lose it with "rockstar" devs, to the point where they've made that dev quit (easier than trying to get them fired here in Oz), oddly enough the teams performance improved once that individual left. OTOH I've seen some shocking managers completely suck up to "rockstar" devs where it's ended in catastrophe and the project manager and developer are both looking for someone else to blame.
A good developer, a really good developer leads a team, leads by example, makes sure the work is done right and helps the junior developers improve their skills. Someone like this would never describe themselves as a "rockstar". Rockstars don't do this, they're too concerned with their own ego and entitlements to let little people get in the way. This is why I hate working with a "rockstar" anything, they are more interested in themselves than their work where as I like working with people who take pride in their work and aren't arrogant about it (Dunning-Kruger applies here I think).
Never pander to a "rockstar's" ego. It'll only bite you in the arse every time.
BTW, people who think managers need to butt out and let the "rockstar" do their thing are deluding themselves. Left to their own devices, a "rockstar" will do what they feel like, not what the client actually needs (a lot of devs have this problem, which is why we have Project Managers to bridge that gap, the difference between a good dev and a "rockstar" dev is the good devs aren't in denial about it).
Do you realize how fast you hop from tower to tower at 600 mph? I've heard that's one of the reasons cell phones in particular are a problem, millions of phones doing potentially dozens of tower hand offs per minute is enough to cause real problems with the cell phone infrastructure.
You know that distorted clicking sound your TV used to make when you received a phone call. That happens to the pilots headphones and it is very loud.
I don't know about you but I'd really rather that not happen to the people flying the plane.
Is ILS used at all at major airports anymore? I thought it was all GPS+WAAS now, since you could do Class III instrument landings with the proper GPS/WAAS fix.
Yes, it's a backup for the GPS.
It scares me that people place so much trust in just one technology to guide them safely to the ground. I'm glad aircraft engineers and FAA think differently.
Drive at 30-50% over the speed limit, and it's not boring any more.
If you find driving boring unless your speeding, hand in your license.
Seriously, distracted drivers cause accidents, but these are more often little more than love taps in the car park or traffic light. Speeders cause fatalities.
I don't necessarily advocate this in town, as the density of traffic makes it "interesting" enough to hold your attention by itself, but I wouldn't be surprised if the low speed limits we have on rural roads and highways in North America cause as many accidents through boredom as they prevent from the lower speed.
Wrong.
Accidents on rural roads aren't from boredom, it's from fatigue and speeding wont fix this. In fact you need to go the opposite direction and take regular stops on long drives. Speeding will just increase your risk of having an accident _and_ decrease your chance of surviving it. Speeding will not reduce your level of fatigue one iota.
If your ADHD prevents you from focusing on the road, hand in that license. This is not a kids game where you can whinge about being bored. Driving is a very adult thing to do and you need to take it seriously or not do it at all.
People like you would be killed on the roads where I live, Australia is a place where you can easily get stuck 200 KM from the nearest phone tower, settlement or petrol station if you have an accident, not only that we have 40 degree C summers, little or no fresh water sources in the majority of the country and 10 of the worlds top 10 deadly creatures (and quite a few very poisonous snakes and spiders that didn't quite make that list), so everything here is trying to kill you, dont try to kill yourself... Australia will make short work of you on it's own.
You're so very wrong - at least in regards to alcohol. It is true that people can become accustomed to alcohol but they only appear sober. Their reaction times will be just as bad as someone who rarely drinks. This is why drinking and driving is so dangerous - those who do it really believe it does not impact their driving. And they are right, so long as nothing out of the ordinary happens. The problem is it severely limits what one perceives and how one reacts in an emergency situation.
Try having a few beer and then playing your favourite fps. Think of it as a science experiment - and a good excuse to have a few beer. Now compare your scores with and without alcohol and report your findings...
Bad experiment mate.
My FPS skills improve after a few drinks. This is because I'll take more risks that I ordinarily wouldn't if I were playing sober (I guess I care less about having to replay bits of the game).
Well up until I hit the peak and my reaction time does become a hinderance. Normally around 7-9 full strength beers (that's 5% ABV for those in the US who don't know the wonder of full strength beer).
Not that I disagree with your point, it's a very valid point but playing an FPS is a bad experiment. You need something with a lot more hand/eye co-ordination and is quite boring for a better demonstration try online hazard perception tests... also requesting that the person taking the measurements and conducting the experiment should be inebriated at the time is well... unscientific to say the least.
finds that people who talk on their phones while driving may already be unsafe drivers
I took it as safe drivers don't talk on their cell phone and unsafe drivers do. In other words, the kind of person that doesn't think driving deserves their full attention will be an unsafe driver and it doesn't matter whether that attention is diverted by cell phones, the radio, eating, bill boards etc.
I believe you have the gist of it.
The interesting thing is that the bans have not resulted in fewer accidents, which suggests these people are also scofflaws, or they are just as accident prone while NOT on the phone.
So we shouldn't simply be fining them $300 and 3 demerit points (penalty for being on the phone whilst driving in Australia) we should be taking their licenses off them, then crushing their car into a cube. The number of times I've nearly been in an accident because of some tosspot is paying more attention to their phone than the road in the last year is astounding. If I had of had a momentary lapse of concentration, most of them would have been an accident.
If you do a DNS filter right (DPI + intercept all outgoing DNS packets), it is not easy to to override DNS settings (it has no effect). The cheap consumer-brand router at my house can do this, I would be surprised if enterprise packet filters lacked this capability.
So basically you're saying I'm right, get the firewall (DPI) to do it. In which case, why even bother with DNS and just set the firewall to drop all packets to/from *.blockedsite.com. If you can bypass the FW (I.E with a VPN) it'll get passed local DNS and GP too.
Umm, would you use the hosts file if setting up a Windows box for firewall purposes? I think not.
Setting up a windows box as a firewall? Who in their right mind world do that when you could buy a SME class router/firewall like a Fortigate or Sonicwall for less than what it would cost to build your own dual NIC box (let alone the cost of a Windows Server license and ISA server license) which will do a hell of a lot more than being a firewall. I even think Cisco is now offering an ASA or Pix in the $6-800 range.
Enterprise customers will block it at using DNS or using Group Policy, not the hosts file.
Actually we'll block it at the firewall as you can override group policy or DNS easily enough (the hosts file was the perfect way to get around a lot of DNS blocks).
It took 5 years for the first malicious app to slip past Apple, and even then, the nature of how it all works meant Apple could remove it from everyone's iPhone with a single update.
"Back in the day" you didn't have voice acting, 1080p graphics, online play, etc. etc. etc.
You can't expect production values and features to go up and up and up while prices stay the same..
Has your voice broken yet?
I was playing games that were capable of 1080p in the 90's, so few monitors actually supported that resolution that most support was 4:3, I still played a crapload of games at 1600x1200 on my 19" CRT (same on a 21" CRT nicknamed the "back breaker").
I can go back to Empire Earth, released in 2000 and fucking 1 and that has support for my 1920x1200 monitor.
you didn't have voice acting
Voice acting, Go back to play System Shock 1 (1994), that had voice acting. The quality of voice acting in System Shock 2 is amongst the best of any game and that's 15 years old now. Now we're going way back to 1992 and Star Control 2, that had voice acting and brilliant writing to boot. In fact if we take into account the quality of script writing, we've gone backwards since the 90's.
online play
Online play?
Ha, I remember when it was harder to network your PC to another in the same room than it was to play a network game. I remember when the multi-player mod for Doom came out, we still did TCP/IP networks over coax. I remember LANs from the 90's with Counter-Strike and the first Unreal Tornament. I remember playing starcraft over fucking dial-up. With C&C or Red Alert literally I'd ring my friend using my modem to play as trying to use their online service in Oz was a fucking nightmare.
Online play is not new. Not by a long shot.
You can't expect production values and features to go up and up and up while prices stay the same..
I cant expect that, but all I'm seeing is quality going down and more companies trying to nickel and dime me to death with DLC.
There was once a time where game developers gave out extra content they couldn't finish in time for free... You're probably too young to have experienced that.
Now get off my 16 colour lawn. I spent all fucking day trying to get that to work on my CGA card.
I'm a game developper and I know people like to rag on DLC and how it's bad and mean (But 20$ expansion packs were totally cool back in the day, go figure)
Because DLC is not an expansion pack.
Often DLC is nothing but a new gun, shirt or hat that they charge you $5 USD for (some how using the 1:1.03 USD/AUD exchange rate it works out at A$10). Expansion packs were developed months after release rather than being planned from day 1. They had to have significantly more content in them, often expansion packs had significant gameplay changes. Take Starcraft and Brood War for example, A world of difference between the two and over six months between release (this was with Starcraft practically guaranteed to make money).
but it's extra content.
You may be too young to remember this, but there was a time before DLC where developers gave you extra content for free. Yep, bits often get cut from a game due to time constraints, a lot of Devs from the 90's and early 2000's liked to give their customers that content for free if it was finished a few months down the track. Hell, Valve still does that.
Day 1 DLC is generally worked on in the months between going gold and certification. Would it be better for them to add an arbitrary delay so that the DLC, which is completed in time for day 1, is instead delivered on day 30 or 60?
So in other words, they deliberately plan to leave some content out so it can be purchased for an aditional fee on the day of release.
Why don't they put all the content in before going gold and spend this time actually testing their product instead so you can get a patch out on day 1 to fix all the bugs.
Slashdot Mirror
Cash can be lost, stolen
And credit cant.
Awaken from your dreamy state
devalues through inflation.
Not only does credit devalue through the same inflation ($1000 credit devalues at the same rate as $1000 cash) it also costs you interest, so $1000 borrowed is $1000+interest to be repaid.
My credit accounts are other peoples money
The problem with spending other peoples money is that other people are going to want their money back... with interest. Would you lend your money for free ?
A question that no credit addled fool has been able to answer is "why would a bank, a profit oriented business, offer you a service they dont make money on". And no, your not an outlier who's outsmarted the bank.
The fact is you force merchants to pay a percentage of your transaction in a "merchant service fee" or bank interchange fee in some countries. This comes straight back to you in the form of higher prices.
Wrong again.
My money increases at the same rate as yours, the difference is I have no debt to pay off that reduces it.
Actually do the numbers, over 4 years you will at best have earned $500 more interest than me and if you miss one payment you will have wiped that off completely and some. Remember that at that time you will owe money and I will not so I will end up with more money after you've paid your debts.
Seriously, do the numbers. If I earn $2,000 p/m and have expenses of $1,500 p/m. If my initial payment is $500 @ 5% PM I have $26,512 after 48 months ($2, 512 in interest). If I deposited the entire $2000 for that first month I would have $28,334 after 48 months ($2844 in interest) but I'd still have to pay off $1,500 so that brings my total down to $26,834 giving you a grand total of $500 extra at the very best.
However when we consider that you pay between 0.5-3% per transaction on your credit card, you've pissed away $720 (at just 1% of $1,500 p/m) in merchant fees in the same period you've gained in $500 interest.
Once again, we go back to the question "why would a bank lose money on you". The simple answer is they don't, they love people like you because you make them money without even realising it.
Also don't give me any bollocks about not missing a payment, say you're fired, in hospital or your payments are screwed up in any other fashion.
I wont even bother telling you about the amount I've saved in the last four years by paying with my own money. Even just in avoiding CC surcharges I've made $500. Credit cards have their place, just not for everyday transactions. For that I use cash or debit.
What exactly is this 'chip and pin' system in UK apparently. Sounds British (like fish and chips?)...hahaha.
Guessing it has something to do with a credit card type thing?
Chip and Pin is the brand name for bank card security in the UK. It refers to a PIN (Number) and a chip embedded in the card. Chipped cards are a bit harder to replicate than regular mag stripe cards.
Does cash not work over there anymore?
Yes, cash still works in merry old England,
but much like a lot of fools in the US and Australia they have been brainwashed by their bank overlords to shun cash and pay for everything using credit. This is because the bank overlords get to charge the merchant for accepting credit but not for accepting cash (which is in turn passed onto the unsuspecting fool of a customer in the form of higher prices).
So what should you get for your first server. I.e., you're a small company. You've got a couple of laptops. You're outgrowing mutual Samba.
You maybe want a fileserver. Maybe it'll have a few NICs and a virtual machine on it (Xen?) will do double duty as a external webserver.
Erm, if you're a small sub 10 man outfit (say engineering for example) and need storage in this day and age you just buy a $3-400 QNAP NAS and 4 $100 2 TB disks. You've got to be pretty out of it to deploy a file server over a NAS box.
This can be expanded by a cheap server and run SBS or Linus. business this small have been using non brand name Intel Xeon white boxen for over a decade, this is nothing new. Because a QNAP supports iSCSI and LDAP you dont need excessive storage in a server to have Windows/AD file services.
BTW, no attachment to QNAP, feel free to swap with Thecus, Synology or brand of your choice. All but the cheapest NAS's support iSCSI and AD.
You start to buy Dell, HP and IBM servers when you get bigger, say above 50 employees. When you've got over 1000 users, only the likes of HP and IBM can get you the volume of servers you need and HW support. But seeing as we're all virtualising, we're buying 20 servers where we used to buy 100.
To put your own code onto an iPod Touch, what you need is a Mac, $99 for a developer account
Let me get this straight,
In order to put my own code onto my own device I need to buy a A$2,000 machine as well as $99 per year (yep, you forgot it was a yearly fee) just to put it on a device I already own.
Say I buy that for a second, what if I wanted to put the same code onto my sister's Iphone or my boss's Ipad? Lets assume we can guarantee the code will not pass Apple's censors (duplication of functionality... but adds a bit more functionality Apple never bothered to include). How do I do that?
That is where he got it from. The fact you think it's OK to have to pay A$2,099 just to run my own code on my own device (but not on anyone elses).
Also there's a chance Apple may revoke my Dev license at their whim if they dont like what I'm doing.
Youre joking right?
SUVs are as cheap as expensive hatchbacks (considering the cheap ones are hatchback engines in overweight bodies)
Same with sports cars. You can get one for the price of a hot hatch.
Apple devices don't convey an air of money because people get them on cheap contracts. A lot of lower income earners have iphones. They are less like exclusive brands like Ferrari and more like common but overpriced brands suck as Louis Vutton which are the same made in china crap as other bags but have a higher price tag due to the logo.
When was the last time you took a look at the price difference between, say a basic VW golf and the GTI version? Hot hatchbacks cost so much more they are in fact a status symbol, as in: "I can afford to pay twice as much as you for the same car to get a some exta horsepowers". In my neck of the woods a GTI costs almost twice as much as a regular Golf.
2012 VW Golf VI A$29,500 ish
2012 Golf GTI VI A$43,000 ish
Nowehere near twice as much here in Oz where European cars are hideously overpriced. And we aren't talking about a few extra HP here, there's a huge difference between a 1.4L manual and a 2.0L dual clutch auto. A world of difference there sunshine, 118 Kw to 155 Kw.
But nice try with picking only one model. A few other hot hatches, your Hyundai Veloster starts from A$24,000 which is not expensive considering your Yaris goes up to A$21,000. Your top 10 hot hatches for under A$30,000. Even a used Civic Type-R (one of the best hot hatches) goes just 8,000 GBP (A$12,000) for an 07 with 60,000 miles on it.
To keep this in perspective, people drop A$90,000+ for a BMW X5 in Australia. He'll, I'm looking at A$18-20,000 for a used Honda Integra that's less than 10 years old, BTW, the Integra is a sports car, not a hot hatch and I'm looking for an Integra not as a status symbol but because they are such fantastic drives (seriously, if you have a manual license go drive one). Compared to this, your hot hatches are cheap as are entry level sports cars.
I dont think you understand the meaning of cheap.
30 GBP is around A$50 and that's cheap. If you have trouble affording 4 hours at minimum wage per month you have problems. In the US you hardly get SIM only plans and there aren't any savings, same with Australia. SIM only plans end up costing almost as much as getting a phone on a plan.
In Australia, we have people on welfare who have iphones because the old ones went onto the A$25 caps when the new ones come out.
the iPhone is clearly a high end phone and as such there are much cheaper smartphones readily available.
Whilst I don't call the Iphone low end, nor do I disagree that there are cheaper smartphones (I cannot consider the Iphone a "high end" phone simply because it lacks so many basic features) this beside the point.
The OP was saying that the Iphone was a status symbol and had a high price tag when in fact, the Iphone is common as muck and not any more expensive than any other high end phone. For example, how much does the HTC One X or Samsung Galaxy S cost? More, less or about the same as an Iphone 4S?
That's really the crux of the argument, is the Iphone rarer and significantly more expensive than it's contemporaries? If not what I said remains true.
Apple has never been a fan of cheap. Their products carry the undercurrent message "I can afford this", much like sports cars, suvs, rolexes and the like. They don't want everybody to provide cheap accessories to their products, because it diminishes the brand value.
Youre joking right?
SUVs are as cheap as expensive hatchbacks (considering the cheap ones are hatchback engines in overweight bodies)
Same with sports cars. You can get one for the price of a hot hatch.
Apple devices don't convey an air of money because people get them on cheap contracts. A lot of lower income earners have iphones. They are less like exclusive brands like Ferrari and more like common but overpriced brands suck as Louis Vutton which are the same made in china crap as other bags but have a higher price tag due to the logo.
Bullshit. The definition of a "Rock Star" developer is that they have a history of producing hits. It's not relative.
I have a history of producing software that gets the job done; sells pretty well; people like using; is very stable without too many bugs; and so forth.
I however would definitely NOT consider myself a "Rock Star" developer by any stretch of the imagination. I'm self taught and have glaring holes in my knowledge in quite a few areas. I often look at code from others and go "ah, that's a better way than I would've used" (and then try to use similar things in my own code in the future). For example, after a good 5 years of coding all day every day as my day job, I finally figured out the "right" time to use interfaces vs other methods. My code before that should've used interfaces worked (and worked well) but would be much more maintainable had I really known about their correct usage before. And vice-versa, I came across some REALLY old code of mine that uses interfaces when it makes absolutely no sense to do so (I assume it was when I first heard what about they are)
What makes me not a CRAP developer is that I know I have these holes in my knowledge and am willing to learn from others. That hardly makes a rock-star though, regardless of how much good stuff I've produced to date.
This,
Add to this the ability to pass on useful knowledge to more junior team members and we're onto a winner.
When I look for a good developer, I look for someone who can not only code well but code well with others. Relying on one person to do everything is foolhardy (I mean, what if he wins lotto), I don't treat devs like cogs, quite the contrary a good team member is made to feel very comfortable but I have zero patience for egos.
The whole article could be summarized like this: "We have no fucking clue how to manage rockstar developers".
If management or MBAs don't click with devs, the project is ripe for crashing.
As much as I dislike management, 9 times out of 10 it's "rockstar" developers not co-operating with managers (or the rest of the team for that matter, lets not even consider how they treat "peons" like accounting and infrastructure staff).
I've seen some very good managers absolutely lose it with "rockstar" devs, to the point where they've made that dev quit (easier than trying to get them fired here in Oz), oddly enough the teams performance improved once that individual left. OTOH I've seen some shocking managers completely suck up to "rockstar" devs where it's ended in catastrophe and the project manager and developer are both looking for someone else to blame.
A good developer, a really good developer leads a team, leads by example, makes sure the work is done right and helps the junior developers improve their skills. Someone like this would never describe themselves as a "rockstar". Rockstars don't do this, they're too concerned with their own ego and entitlements to let little people get in the way. This is why I hate working with a "rockstar" anything, they are more interested in themselves than their work where as I like working with people who take pride in their work and aren't arrogant about it (Dunning-Kruger applies here I think).
Never pander to a "rockstar's" ego. It'll only bite you in the arse every time.
BTW, people who think managers need to butt out and let the "rockstar" do their thing are deluding themselves. Left to their own devices, a "rockstar" will do what they feel like, not what the client actually needs (a lot of devs have this problem, which is why we have Project Managers to bridge that gap, the difference between a good dev and a "rockstar" dev is the good devs aren't in denial about it).
Rock Star Developers, seriously? None of them are that good.
Agreed. Rock Stars suck as developers. And most of them suck at rock, as well.
And despite being mainly composed of hot gas, they suck at being stars too.
Do you realize how fast you hop from tower to tower at 600 mph? I've heard that's one of the reasons cell phones in particular are a problem, millions of phones doing potentially dozens of tower hand offs per minute is enough to cause real problems with the cell phone infrastructure.
You know that distorted clicking sound your TV used to make when you received a phone call. That happens to the pilots headphones and it is very loud.
I don't know about you but I'd really rather that not happen to the people flying the plane.
Is ILS used at all at major airports anymore? I thought it was all GPS+WAAS now, since you could do Class III instrument landings with the proper GPS/WAAS fix.
Yes, it's a backup for the GPS.
It scares me that people place so much trust in just one technology to guide them safely to the ground. I'm glad aircraft engineers and FAA think differently.
Memo to Staff:
Cut back on the Pron.
Addendum to memo,
Burka bitches 17 can be found on J drive.
Drive at 30-50% over the speed limit, and it's not boring any more.
If you find driving boring unless your speeding, hand in your license.
Seriously, distracted drivers cause accidents, but these are more often little more than love taps in the car park or traffic light. Speeders cause fatalities.
I don't necessarily advocate this in town, as the density of traffic makes it "interesting" enough to hold your attention by itself, but I wouldn't be surprised if the low speed limits we have on rural roads and highways in North America cause as many accidents through boredom as they prevent from the lower speed.
Wrong. Accidents on rural roads aren't from boredom, it's from fatigue and speeding wont fix this. In fact you need to go the opposite direction and take regular stops on long drives. Speeding will just increase your risk of having an accident _and_ decrease your chance of surviving it. Speeding will not reduce your level of fatigue one iota.
If your ADHD prevents you from focusing on the road, hand in that license. This is not a kids game where you can whinge about being bored. Driving is a very adult thing to do and you need to take it seriously or not do it at all.
People like you would be killed on the roads where I live, Australia is a place where you can easily get stuck 200 KM from the nearest phone tower, settlement or petrol station if you have an accident, not only that we have 40 degree C summers, little or no fresh water sources in the majority of the country and 10 of the worlds top 10 deadly creatures (and quite a few very poisonous snakes and spiders that didn't quite make that list), so everything here is trying to kill you, dont try to kill yourself... Australia will make short work of you on it's own.
how accustomed to the drug are they
You're so very wrong - at least in regards to alcohol. It is true that people can become accustomed to alcohol but they only appear sober. Their reaction times will be just as bad as someone who rarely drinks. This is why drinking and driving is so dangerous - those who do it really believe it does not impact their driving. And they are right, so long as nothing out of the ordinary happens. The problem is it severely limits what one perceives and how one reacts in an emergency situation.
Try having a few beer and then playing your favourite fps. Think of it as a science experiment - and a good excuse to have a few beer. Now compare your scores with and without alcohol and report your findings...
Bad experiment mate.
My FPS skills improve after a few drinks. This is because I'll take more risks that I ordinarily wouldn't if I were playing sober (I guess I care less about having to replay bits of the game).
Well up until I hit the peak and my reaction time does become a hinderance. Normally around 7-9 full strength beers (that's 5% ABV for those in the US who don't know the wonder of full strength beer).
Not that I disagree with your point, it's a very valid point but playing an FPS is a bad experiment. You need something with a lot more hand/eye co-ordination and is quite boring for a better demonstration try online hazard perception tests... also requesting that the person taking the measurements and conducting the experiment should be inebriated at the time is well... unscientific to say the least.
If 4 ft will "shove your front end up someones bumper" then you're following too close.
Yes, yes a lot of people do that.
The 2 second gap is considered optional by many drivers, especially where trucks are concerned.
When I read this in the summary ...
finds that people who talk on their phones while driving may already be unsafe drivers
I took it as safe drivers don't talk on their cell phone and unsafe drivers do. In other words, the kind of person that doesn't think driving deserves their full attention will be an unsafe driver and it doesn't matter whether that attention is diverted by cell phones, the radio, eating, bill boards etc.
I believe you have the gist of it.
The interesting thing is that the bans have not resulted in fewer accidents, which suggests these people are also scofflaws, or they are just as accident prone while NOT on the phone.
So we shouldn't simply be fining them $300 and 3 demerit points (penalty for being on the phone whilst driving in Australia) we should be taking their licenses off them, then crushing their car into a cube. The number of times I've nearly been in an accident because of some tosspot is paying more attention to their phone than the road in the last year is astounding. If I had of had a momentary lapse of concentration, most of them would have been an accident.
If you do a DNS filter right (DPI + intercept all outgoing DNS packets), it is not easy to to override DNS settings (it has no effect). The cheap consumer-brand router at my house can do this, I would be surprised if enterprise packet filters lacked this capability.
So basically you're saying I'm right, get the firewall (DPI) to do it. In which case, why even bother with DNS and just set the firewall to drop all packets to/from *.blockedsite.com. If you can bypass the FW (I.E with a VPN) it'll get passed local DNS and GP too.
Umm, would you use the hosts file if setting up a Windows box for firewall purposes? I think not.
Setting up a windows box as a firewall? Who in their right mind world do that when you could buy a SME class router/firewall like a Fortigate or Sonicwall for less than what it would cost to build your own dual NIC box (let alone the cost of a Windows Server license and ISA server license) which will do a hell of a lot more than being a firewall. I even think Cisco is now offering an ASA or Pix in the $6-800 range.
Enterprise customers will block it at using DNS or using Group Policy, not the hosts file.
Actually we'll block it at the firewall as you can override group policy or DNS easily enough (the hosts file was the perfect way to get around a lot of DNS blocks).
There was supposed to be an EARTH-SHATTERING BOOM!!!
It's meant to be an "earth-shattering ka-boom".
Your failure to make this small, yet important distinction makes me very angry.
It took 5 years for the first malicious app to slip past Apple, and even then, the nature of how it all works meant Apple could remove it from everyone's iPhone with a single update.
Erm, wrong.
They've been able to sneak things passed the GateKeeper for at least 2 years now.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/apple-approves-pulls-flashlight-app-with-hidden-tethering-mode/
This is just the one we know of.
"Back in the day" you didn't have voice acting, 1080p graphics, online play, etc. etc. etc.
You can't expect production values and features to go up and up and up while prices stay the same..
Has your voice broken yet?
I was playing games that were capable of 1080p in the 90's, so few monitors actually supported that resolution that most support was 4:3, I still played a crapload of games at 1600x1200 on my 19" CRT (same on a 21" CRT nicknamed the "back breaker"). I can go back to Empire Earth, released in 2000 and fucking 1 and that has support for my 1920x1200 monitor.
you didn't have voice acting
Voice acting, Go back to play System Shock 1 (1994), that had voice acting. The quality of voice acting in System Shock 2 is amongst the best of any game and that's 15 years old now. Now we're going way back to 1992 and Star Control 2, that had voice acting and brilliant writing to boot. In fact if we take into account the quality of script writing, we've gone backwards since the 90's.
online play
Online play?
Ha, I remember when it was harder to network your PC to another in the same room than it was to play a network game. I remember when the multi-player mod for Doom came out, we still did TCP/IP networks over coax. I remember LANs from the 90's with Counter-Strike and the first Unreal Tornament. I remember playing starcraft over fucking dial-up. With C&C or Red Alert literally I'd ring my friend using my modem to play as trying to use their online service in Oz was a fucking nightmare.
Online play is not new. Not by a long shot.
You can't expect production values and features to go up and up and up while prices stay the same..
I cant expect that, but all I'm seeing is quality going down and more companies trying to nickel and dime me to death with DLC.
There was once a time where game developers gave out extra content they couldn't finish in time for free... You're probably too young to have experienced that.
Now get off my 16 colour lawn. I spent all fucking day trying to get that to work on my CGA card.
Because DLC is not an expansion pack.
Often DLC is nothing but a new gun, shirt or hat that they charge you $5 USD for (some how using the 1:1.03 USD/AUD exchange rate it works out at A$10). Expansion packs were developed months after release rather than being planned from day 1. They had to have significantly more content in them, often expansion packs had significant gameplay changes. Take Starcraft and Brood War for example, A world of difference between the two and over six months between release (this was with Starcraft practically guaranteed to make money).
You may be too young to remember this, but there was a time before DLC where developers gave you extra content for free. Yep, bits often get cut from a game due to time constraints, a lot of Devs from the 90's and early 2000's liked to give their customers that content for free if it was finished a few months down the track. Hell, Valve still does that.
Day 1 DLC is generally worked on in the months between going gold and certification. Would it be better for them to add an arbitrary delay so that the DLC, which is completed in time for day 1, is instead delivered on day 30 or 60?
So in other words, they deliberately plan to leave some content out so it can be purchased for an aditional fee on the day of release.
Why don't they put all the content in before going gold and spend this time actually testing their product instead so you can get a patch out on day 1 to fix all the bugs.
Oh wait, they cant charge us for that...