What's my solution? Give up trying to make money on the 'net, stupid. Another solution is to only offer stuff for free that will always be free, and then introduce new pay side of the site with additional features. I agree that moving a free service to a pay service is suicide. But if you only add new pay services, well that's different.
A good example of this approach is site. The originally offered a basic site with the show streamed over the net. (But only at the same time it was on the radio.) The expanded site that costs bucks gives you access to an archive of shows and a ton of special features. They didn't lose anyone when they launched the expanded site because they didn't remove a thing from the original.
Note to slashdot. If you need to start charging then only charge for some new cool features that people want. Just getting the site without ad's wont cut it. I wouldn't pay for it.
Yeah, perhaps there isn't sufficient proof that we're screwing up the climate. But the stakes are so high, even if there's only a 1 in 1000 chance that global warming is likely, then it's a risk that should not be taken
Your comment reminds me of the stuff I heard back when I was forced to go to a very militant born again christian church. The end argument given for devoting your life to this religion was, 'Sure no one can really prove that what we say is right. But do you want to risk it and spend an eternity in hell?'
This is nothing more then a shakedown. A scare tactic to gain power.
The end of the world has been a day away since the beginning of history.
I'm not going to shed a tear for the bands that have a hard time making a buck. They're already having too much fun. Fun you just can't buy.
You can't beat the rock star lifestyle. I mean how much does money matter when your getting laid by the hottest chicks on the planet. Your job IS to party. No other job is that much fun. Look at the other artsy professions, acting is hard to get a job and is a ton of work with just as low as pay but less women. If you're a painter or sculptor, well hope you like being alone all the time. Same goes for writing. When's the last time you saw some Steven King Groupies?
If you are in a band, not even a famous one, your having fun. You've got some hot girl friends. You party every night and sleep all day. (And are piss broke, but that wont bother you until your close to thirty or so.)
Why do bands get screwed when it comes to the contract? They simply don't care. Oh sure they bitch and whine, but at the end of the day its pretty hard to complain.
No! I didn't mean ugly ugly, I ment TV ugly.
- Simpsons
Re: only incompetents are out of work... nope
on
The Laid-off Techie
·
· Score: 1
Coding in C or C++ for the majority of your school CS projects over the course of 4 academic years doesn't quite "qualify" as 3 or 4 years of experience, either.
Of course all of that experience doesn't count.
School and work are fundamentally different.
In order to succeed in school:
Convince your instructor that you have learned the subject that is being taught.
In order to succeed in business:
Build products or offer services that customers will buy.
Some may say that the instructor of the class is a consumer, so that keeping the instructor happy is the same as keeping a customer happy. An instructor has nothing to lose, no financial risk. If what the students produce doesn't work or is not cost effective it will not have a negative effect on the instructor.
However consumers are extremely conscious of the cost. They are always looking for the best deal. Weather or not something is neat, or theoretically perfect, doesn't matter to the consumer. They only want to know if it will make or save them money. If it doesn't then they don't want it. A customer wont care if the code is 'perfect', or if it has 10,000 unit tests, or even what language its written in. They want a product that works and that is cost effective.
Unfortunately it is impossible to teach this in school. Only private sector work experience can provide this knowledge.
You must remember the original intent of these games. Which was to take you on an adventure. In this adventure you would fight battles, solve puzzles and be the hero.
This genre of game is far from dead. The reason we don't see the text interface for controlling characters any more is that there are better ways of doing it. Check out the Resident evil series, Final Fantasy series, this is the evolution.
People don't want to use the old style because it simply isn't real enough anymore. I hope the new space quest will be much more realistic and use modern technology. Can you imagine a space quest like resident evil? (Instead of being creepy, and scary it could be funny as hell and weird)
Have you ever wanted the cell phone from the Matrix. I bet you have. I bet you where disappointed when you found out you couldn't get one.
Product placement fails if its in your face. But if it truly is part of the movie you will want to own it.
Ever wanted a pair of Terminator glasses?
Video games aren't realistic enough for you to want to be like the characters (But they are getting close).
It wont be long until video game characters can wear clothes that look just like the real thing, and use things that also look real. When this happens you will see effective product placement in video games.
I think a lot of people hate java because it makes the feel obsolete. In C & C++ you have to do almost everything from scratch. (Manually check array lengths, clean up your memory, build your own utilities classes and functions.) And at the end of the day when the app is done you can say that it is 100% yours. Every machine instruction being executed it yours. This instills a lot of pride in the person who wrote it.
Also C and C++ is cryptic. It's made to be hard to read. It's made to save keystrokes. Again this makes the programmer feel good. Only great programmers can read hit code. Ha!
Java on the other hand has a ton of stuff done for you already. All sorts of goodies built in to every version. And they are available wherever you go! This lets me build more complex applications faster.
Why is Java hyped? Bias, the developers of Java knew that the Hacker culture would reject it because it takes away their security. (Code is easy to read, Time isn't spent building low level classes, easy for someone to pickup where someone else left off. Easy to refractor.) They need to yell louder then the grumbling in the C, C++ community.
Why does business like it? Because they are sick and tired of dealing with cocky programmers who can hold them hostage. Everyone knows a good C, C++ programmer is hard to find. Java takes away a lot of this power, because it's easy to read and learn.
So the last refuge of the C, C++ programmer is speed. They can say there app is slightly faster then Java apps. With computers getting faster every day, this becomes less and less of an argument.
In EQ you can sell almost anything to a vendor. A vendor being a NPC the server runs. Now the amount is usually very small. But the starting point for the economy in EQ is selling items to vendors (get a couple of sliver for that wolf pelt) and looting corpses.
I imagine that in this game you will not receive any credits from looting. Only items, and that vendors will only take in a certain type of loot and then only a certain amount. (So if you found an exploit that let you get a ton of High Quality Wolf pelts you wouldn't be able to sell them all, if any.)
If you can make money from looting, and can sell anything to vendors it wont work.
I did a little math just before new years. I watched about 4 - 5 hours a day (That's 3 - 4 on a weeknight and about 6-7 on Saturday and Sunday).
I've been doing this since I was about 10. (My parents never stopped me) And now I'm 28.
So that's 4.5 Hours x 7 days x 52 weeks x 18 years.
That's 29484 Hours or 3.36 Years of my life. An entire 12% of my entire life!
So I decided that I would cut it out till June. And give it a rest. Man it's hard. The first thing I realized was the reflex that I had developed. Come home sit and watch. Wake up sit and watch.
But the biggest thing was the amount of time I had. I always wondered how people find the time to keep there place sparkling clean, stay in shape, pack a lunch for work, and become good at sports.
Another thing that I think TV does, when TV is you primary source of entertainment and social interaction it warps the mind. TV lets you hand out with hot chicks, go on a thrilling adventure, and fall in love. You begin to believe (subconsciously) that you really do have a relationship to these people. It tricks the mind into believing that you are a smart, good looking, intelligent person with a ton of interesting friends and stories.
As soon as I pulled the plug I was clear that I was an awkward, quite, unkempt person, with no girlfriend and few friends. But now I can take the new time I have and focus on becoming the person I want to be.
Well I'd like to end on a positive not, but I would be lying if all you had to do was pull the plug to fix your life. No all pulling the plug does is show you how much work lies ahead of you. Its going to be a long time before I can change my life so that I don't miss TV.
I had enough of this argument. Its simply crap, and is always written by non programmers, or by programmers who are not responsible for delivering the real product.
Lets look at how a house is built, is all of the time spent in spec and design. Do they write a document outlining how the tub will be installed in the top floor bedroom?
No, they provided a picture of what they want. (Detailed mind you, but still is just a picture.) From that the construction company builds it. The builders never get a step by step checklist.
But when it comes down to documentation (At my company at least) They want everything, what classes are there, what methods, how the code will be written, yada, yada, yada.
While this information might be interesting, it is not useful! It means nothing to the end product, or to even maintenance of the code. If you have done any type of maintenance to code you know the only way to do it is to read the code!
As long as you have a clear picture of what to build you can create the product, and then SELL it! Excessive documentation only slows the development process and adds to a company's bureaucracy.
for people who liked the book. I just got back from a showing of it and I must admit I was more confused by anything (Having never read the books).
Now put that flame thrower down fat boy, think about it. Could you show someone a star trek a movie who has never watched (let alone liked) star trek and expect them to like it the same way someone who has never missed an episode, speaks Klingon, and can recite the rules of acquisition?
Not at all, from a purely technical standpoint they would not have enough information to understand the characters.
All I have to say is if you haven't read the books don't bother with the movie. Its long, slow, pretty, but lacking direction. (The movie assumes you already know where its going.)
Only the air moving through must be at Mach 5.
So it would be possible to have some kind of air booster to start the process. Then as the craft approaches Mach 5 the booster wouldn't be needed.
I'm not saying that boosting the air flow to Mach 5 is easy. Just a thought.
Every time I ask why aren't we colonizing other planets I get the same response. "There is no economic incentive to go." But I say there is. What if a company existed that offered a package that gave you the ability to live on another planet. (I.E. Recycling Food supply, Water, Air and the tools to expand your living area.) And you would get all this for a mere $50,000,000 a person. Would you agree that there is a market for this? (Countries, Very Rich people, All Microsoft employees) The profits this company could generate would be extreme. And best of all it would pave the way for them to control interplanetary trade, Policing, etc. Sooner or later a Company will see this opportunity. And if the economy keeps going the way it is, this time will be soon. Capitalism will pave the way to the stars.
All I can say is that Notes is the Visual Basic of the internet world. Yes it's fast to get going, but what you gain in speed you lose in flexibility. And since the net is changing so fast, flexibility is everything.
Slashdot Mirror
What's my solution? Give up trying to make money on the 'net, stupid.
Another solution is to only offer stuff for free that will always be free, and then introduce new pay side of the site with additional features. I agree that moving a free service to a pay service is suicide. But if you only add new pay services, well that's different.
A good example of this approach is site. The originally offered a basic site with the show streamed over the net. (But only at the same time it was on the radio.) The expanded site that costs bucks gives you access to an archive of shows and a ton of special features. They didn't lose anyone when they launched the expanded site because they didn't remove a thing from the original.
Note to slashdot. If you need to start charging then only charge for some new cool features that people want. Just getting the site without ad's wont cut it. I wouldn't pay for it.
Ok Everyone who loves Java, Post to the left.
Everyone who loves C, C++, Post to the right.
Perl, Python Can post to the Right as well.
Yeah, perhaps there isn't sufficient proof that we're screwing up the climate. But the stakes are so high, even if there's only a 1 in 1000 chance that global warming is likely, then it's a risk that should not be taken
Your comment reminds me of the stuff I heard back when I was forced to go to a very militant born again christian church. The end argument given for devoting your life to this religion was, 'Sure no one can really prove that what we say is right. But do you want to risk it and spend an eternity in hell?'
This is nothing more then a shakedown. A scare tactic to gain power.
The end of the world has been a day away since the beginning of history.
I'm not going to shed a tear for the bands that have a hard time making a buck. They're already having too much fun. Fun you just can't buy.
You can't beat the rock star lifestyle. I mean how much does money matter when your getting laid by the hottest chicks on the planet. Your job IS to party. No other job is that much fun. Look at the other artsy professions, acting is hard to get a job and is a ton of work with just as low as pay but less women. If you're a painter or sculptor, well hope you like being alone all the time. Same goes for writing. When's the last time you saw some Steven King Groupies?
If you are in a band, not even a famous one, your having fun. You've got some hot girl friends. You party every night and sleep all day. (And are piss broke, but that wont bother you until your close to thirty or so.)
Why do bands get screwed when it comes to the contract? They simply don't care. Oh sure they bitch and whine, but at the end of the day its pretty hard to complain.
No! I didn't mean ugly ugly, I ment TV ugly.
- Simpsons
Coding in C or C++ for the majority of your school CS projects over the course of 4 academic years doesn't quite "qualify" as 3 or 4 years of experience, either.
Of course all of that experience doesn't count.
School and work are fundamentally different.
In order to succeed in school:
Convince your instructor that you have learned the subject that is being taught.
In order to succeed in business:
Build products or offer services that customers will buy.
Some may say that the instructor of the class is a consumer, so that keeping the instructor happy is the same as keeping a customer happy. An instructor has nothing to lose, no financial risk. If what the students produce doesn't work or is not cost effective it will not have a negative effect on the instructor.
However consumers are extremely conscious of the cost. They are always looking for the best deal. Weather or not something is neat, or theoretically perfect, doesn't matter to the consumer. They only want to know if it will make or save them money. If it doesn't then they don't want it. A customer wont care if the code is 'perfect', or if it has 10,000 unit tests, or even what language its written in. They want a product that works and that is cost effective.
Unfortunately it is impossible to teach this in school. Only private sector work experience can provide this knowledge.
You must remember the original intent of these games. Which was to take you on an adventure. In this adventure you would fight battles, solve puzzles and be the hero.
This genre of game is far from dead. The reason we don't see the text interface for controlling characters any more is that there are better ways of doing it. Check out the Resident evil series, Final Fantasy series, this is the evolution.
People don't want to use the old style because it simply isn't real enough anymore. I hope the new space quest will be much more realistic and use modern technology. Can you imagine a space quest like resident evil? (Instead of being creepy, and scary it could be funny as hell and weird)
Thats 10 days total online. So it might be 10Days (or 240 hours) playing over a month.
Have you ever wanted the cell phone from the Matrix. I bet you have. I bet you where disappointed when you found out you couldn't get one.
Product placement fails if its in your face. But if it truly is part of the movie you will want to own it.
Ever wanted a pair of Terminator glasses?
Video games aren't realistic enough for you to want to be like the characters (But they are getting close).
It wont be long until video game characters can wear clothes that look just like the real thing, and use things that also look real. When this happens you will see effective product placement in video games.
Want a Max Payne Leather Jacket?
I find that java is either loved or hated.
I think a lot of people hate java because it makes the feel obsolete. In C & C++ you have to do almost everything from scratch. (Manually check array lengths, clean up your memory, build your own utilities classes and functions.) And at the end of the day when the app is done you can say that it is 100% yours. Every machine instruction being executed it yours. This instills a lot of pride in the person who wrote it.
Also C and C++ is cryptic. It's made to be hard to read. It's made to save keystrokes. Again this makes the programmer feel good. Only great programmers can read hit code. Ha!
Java on the other hand has a ton of stuff done for you already. All sorts of goodies built in to every version. And they are available wherever you go! This lets me build more complex applications faster.
Why is Java hyped? Bias, the developers of Java knew that the Hacker culture would reject it because it takes away their security. (Code is easy to read, Time isn't spent building low level classes, easy for someone to pickup where someone else left off. Easy to refractor.) They need to yell louder then the grumbling in the C, C++ community.
Why does business like it? Because they are sick and tired of dealing with cocky programmers who can hold them hostage. Everyone knows a good C, C++ programmer is hard to find. Java takes away a lot of this power, because it's easy to read and learn.
So the last refuge of the C, C++ programmer is speed. They can say there app is slightly faster then Java apps. With computers getting faster every day, this becomes less and less of an argument.
In EQ you can sell almost anything to a vendor. A vendor being a NPC the server runs. Now the amount is usually very small. But the starting point for the economy in EQ is selling items to vendors (get a couple of sliver for that wolf pelt) and looting corpses.
I imagine that in this game you will not receive any credits from looting. Only items, and that vendors will only take in a certain type of loot and then only a certain amount. (So if you found an exploit that let you get a ton of High Quality Wolf pelts you wouldn't be able to sell them all, if any.)
If you can make money from looting, and can sell anything to vendors it wont work.
I did a little math just before new years. I watched about 4 - 5 hours a day (That's 3 - 4 on a weeknight and about 6-7 on Saturday and Sunday).
I've been doing this since I was about 10. (My parents never stopped me) And now I'm 28.
So that's 4.5 Hours x 7 days x 52 weeks x 18 years.
That's 29484 Hours or 3.36 Years of my life. An entire 12% of my entire life!
So I decided that I would cut it out till June. And give it a rest. Man it's hard. The first thing I realized was the reflex that I had developed. Come home sit and watch. Wake up sit and watch.
But the biggest thing was the amount of time I had. I always wondered how people find the time to keep there place sparkling clean, stay in shape, pack a lunch for work, and become good at sports.
Another thing that I think TV does, when TV is you primary source of entertainment and social interaction it warps the mind. TV lets you hand out with hot chicks, go on a thrilling adventure, and fall in love. You begin to believe (subconsciously) that you really do have a relationship to these people. It tricks the mind into believing that you are a smart, good looking, intelligent person with a ton of interesting friends and stories.
As soon as I pulled the plug I was clear that I was an awkward, quite, unkempt person, with no girlfriend and few friends. But now I can take the new time I have and focus on becoming the person I want to be.
Well I'd like to end on a positive not, but I would be lying if all you had to do was pull the plug to fix your life. No all pulling the plug does is show you how much work lies ahead of you. Its going to be a long time before I can change my life so that I don't miss TV.
I had enough of this argument. Its simply crap, and is always written by non programmers, or by programmers who are not responsible for delivering the real product.
Lets look at how a house is built, is all of the time spent in spec and design. Do they write a document outlining how the tub will be installed in the top floor bedroom?
No, they provided a picture of what they want. (Detailed mind you, but still is just a picture.) From that the construction company builds it. The builders never get a step by step checklist.
But when it comes down to documentation (At my company at least) They want everything, what classes are there, what methods, how the code will be written, yada, yada, yada.
While this information might be interesting, it is not useful! It means nothing to the end product, or to even maintenance of the code. If you have done any type of maintenance to code you know the only way to do it is to read the code!
As long as you have a clear picture of what to build you can create the product, and then SELL it! Excessive documentation only slows the development process and adds to a company's bureaucracy.
for people who liked the book. I just got back from a showing of it and I must admit I was more confused by anything (Having never read the books).
Now put that flame thrower down fat boy, think about it. Could you show someone a star trek a movie who has never watched (let alone liked) star trek and expect them to like it the same way someone who has never missed an episode, speaks Klingon, and can recite the rules of acquisition?
Not at all, from a purely technical standpoint they would not have enough information to understand the characters.
All I have to say is if you haven't read the books don't bother with the movie. Its long, slow, pretty, but lacking direction. (The movie assumes you already know where its going.)
You can get a really, really, nice bike for US$3000. And go faster then Segway, and be fitter for it.
Only the air moving through must be at Mach 5.
So it would be possible to have some kind of air booster to start the process. Then as the craft approaches Mach 5 the booster wouldn't be needed.
I'm not saying that boosting the air flow to Mach 5 is easy. Just a thought.
Don't you mean Red Green?
Just as most startups fail so does the dot com world. Its just a bit more dramatic this time.
Just smile. The pain is normal.
Every time I ask why aren't we colonizing other planets I get the same response. "There is no economic incentive to go." But I say there is. What if a company existed that offered a package that gave you the ability to live on another planet. (I.E. Recycling Food supply, Water, Air and the tools to expand your living area.) And you would get all this for a mere $50,000,000 a person. Would you agree that there is a market for this? (Countries, Very Rich people, All Microsoft employees) The profits this company could generate would be extreme. And best of all it would pave the way for them to control interplanetary trade, Policing, etc. Sooner or later a Company will see this opportunity. And if the economy keeps going the way it is, this time will be soon. Capitalism will pave the way to the stars.
All I can say is that Notes is the Visual Basic of the internet world. Yes it's fast to get going, but what you gain in speed you lose in flexibility. And since the net is changing so fast, flexibility is everything.