After all, most coders come in everyday and re-copy the source tree, libraries and all to a new folder, in case they make a mistake and need to go back to a previous version.
No? Really? They told me that this was industry standard practice.
Yeah, I was a little skeptical of the line "at $5 a gigabyte" line.
Ignoring any cost savings in the future, if 1T=$100 (which is pretty close in USD) then they are planning on replicating their data 50 times, which is redundantly redundant.
(Not to mention that most of that 10Gb feature will be sending the same powerpoint presentation back and forth 100 times and will compress fantastically. Users aren't actually typing 2 billion words every year in emails.)
Another thing to point out, is that the MacBU already has Mac developers. PhotoSynth has very few devs, maybe one of whom knows flash, and likely none of whom have ever coded on a Mac.
Hiring a new dev is expensive, and a hard sell to upper management (basically, any new hire should make a new $million in sales/year, give or take).
Also remember that this is just some fun stuff coming out of Microsoft Research with no real potential for profit (MS profits, where if you aren't doing a billion dollars a year, no-one returns your emails) and it's no surprise that they didn't spend developer time back-porting it to older versions of Windows (*or* making it multilingual which affects far more people).
I'm just happy that they aren't the kind of team-players who make things require Vista:)
(Disclaimer: Former MS Employee, and I met a few of the PMs on this project for about 5 minutes)
At least http://valleywag.com/photogallery/Microsoftheadquarters/1001409785 is actually on campus (Building 33 if memory serves, which I bet it doesn't) and more than a few people do work on laptops out in the open like that (since main campus is pretty crowded and you're lucky to get a solo office without 3 or so years of seniority).
My old school had CS classes with 120 students in them (all the progamming was done at home on your own machines), and had philosophy discussion classes with 12 chairs in the room (I never got to take the class, so I don't know how many students).
There is no way the CS profs were costing 10 times as much.
Also, labs are generally taught by a lab instructor, or a grad student, both of which are cheaper.
The costs are more complicated than just Engineering is always more expensive.
Having been involved in teaching overseas, I can assure you that some third world degrees are essentially fake (they're bought, I've taught at Chinese schools where I couldn't fail anyone for any reason).
The problem is which ones? And if we (Canada) find out that a school is selling degrees we can't shut it down.
That said, I'd love to see more comprehensive testing of immigrants to transfer their degrees.
I'd prefer if there was a one-time non-refundable fee.
Any project that you're going to take time developing has to be worth $50 or so.
But it wouldn't be for 90% of squatters and 100% of the people who just abuse the system (something like 90% of domains aren't even paid for: http://newyork.craigslist.org/fct/sof/335716276.ht ml )
That's why I can never understand why more universities don't have co-op. At my university, anyone who was serious about being employed someday alternated school and work every four months. Work was anything from make-work projects like rebuilding our school's webpage twice a year to serious positions at MS, Google, and Amazon.
It means that our graduates are in demand despite it being a pretty lousy educational venue (it also meant that I can grok algorithms despite being a math major -- try finding high paying work in pure mathematics:)
It's weird, I've worked in IT in North America, Europe and China.
In Asia they are so much more careful about believing what you tell them.
In Canada, I've had job interviews start with "Well, we read your resume and here's what you'll be doing" (no interview)
In China I had one start with the premise that I was lying about everything and they tried to tear it apart: "So, you claim to have worked with team on a JBoss/Servlets application 2 years ago... write out a valid security XML file for that setup that will do the following..."
(they took the fact that I never wrote the security file, and even though I had altered it, I couldn't remember anything 2 years later as proof that I was lying)
>I'm already in China, and I've seen many pizzas here - I'm not sure what you mean. They don't tend to put anything particularly special on them that I've noticed.
You've seriously never had a pizza with strawberry jam on it? (because they were trying to make it look like the pictures of food we have -- which are usually plastic)
Are you maybe in the cosmopolitan land of Hong Kong or Shanghai?
I guess maybe weird food assembled to look like our pictures is a fading art relegated to rural China as more people experience more real western food.
I read a whole bunch of posts and not one person has actually tried to exchange the regular Chinese Yuan.
It's not convertible either, you need to prove that you bought it legally (with real currency, like USDs, GBPs or EURs) or if you earned it, you can only convert a fraction provided you have every piece of paper related to getting paid in China (you don't -- no-one does).
In reality you just convert it illegally at the liquor store or the fake-watches market (huge multi-thousand USD transactions happen in the open in a market, it's so weird, the guards carry lead pipes). You get great rates (less than 1% -- which is awesome considering it's an illegal transaction).
But the point is the gov't doesn't want an exchange of Yuan either.
Cambodian money is even funnier -- I tried to exchange it in Vietnam and the guy was surprised to find out that there was Cambodian currency.
Beijing has winters. They didn't last near as long, but I wore the same coat in Beijing as I did in Toronto.
Of course the Chinese tuk-tuk (tricycle taxis) drivers will wear mitts and a coat, and the things aren't insulated or heated right now anyway
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Nope that sounds pretty typical :)
After all, most coders come in everyday and re-copy the source tree, libraries and all to a new folder, in case they make a mistake and need to go back to a previous version.
No? Really? They told me that this was industry standard practice.
Yeah, I was a little skeptical of the line "at $5 a gigabyte" line.
Ignoring any cost savings in the future, if 1T=$100 (which is pretty close in USD) then they are planning on replicating their data 50 times, which is redundantly redundant.
(Not to mention that most of that 10Gb feature will be sending the same powerpoint presentation back and forth 100 times and will compress fantastically. Users aren't actually typing 2 billion words every year in emails.)
Another thing to point out, is that the MacBU already has Mac developers. PhotoSynth has very few devs, maybe one of whom knows flash, and likely none of whom have ever coded on a Mac.
Hiring a new dev is expensive, and a hard sell to upper management (basically, any new hire should make a new $million in sales/year, give or take).
(Disclaimer: Former MS employee).
Also remember that this is just some fun stuff coming out of Microsoft Research with no real potential for profit (MS profits, where if you aren't doing a billion dollars a year, no-one returns your emails) and it's no surprise that they didn't spend developer time back-porting it to older versions of Windows (*or* making it multilingual which affects far more people).
I'm just happy that they aren't the kind of team-players who make things require Vista :)
(Disclaimer: Former MS Employee, and I met a few of the PMs on this project for about 5 minutes)
Haha, Scratch is awesome!
I wish I was still 8 so this would be impressive instead of an appalling waste of my time: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/eurica/193902
That is the most concise statement of why this is dumb:
Airports pass all luggage by a group of criminals (or a group known to contain criminals) before putting it on the plane.
And yet *this* is what they want to "fix".
Somewhat more accurate video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZrr7AZ9nCY :)
Also, http://valleywag.com/photogallery/Microsoftheadquarters/1001409798 is the Washington State Convention Center, in Seattle not Redmond.
At least http://valleywag.com/photogallery/Microsoftheadquarters/1001409785 is actually on campus (Building 33 if memory serves, which I bet it doesn't) and more than a few people do work on laptops out in the open like that (since main campus is pretty crowded and you're lucky to get a solo office without 3 or so years of seniority).
This is the most accurate look at the offices (buildings 16, 17 and 18) albeit not the lifestyle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N24TWrtlJEU
Since the video is "Coming Soon", does anyone know if this is a carpet of small spheres then?
That also works, and would explain why the hard part was keeping track of which way you were walking.
My old school had CS classes with 120 students in them (all the progamming was done at home on your own machines), and had philosophy discussion classes with 12 chairs in the room (I never got to take the class, so I don't know how many students).
There is no way the CS profs were costing 10 times as much.
Also, labs are generally taught by a lab instructor, or a grad student, both of which are cheaper.
The costs are more complicated than just Engineering is always more expensive.
True, Didn't Richard Feynman have an art show?
Having been involved in teaching overseas, I can assure you that some third world degrees are essentially fake (they're bought, I've taught at Chinese schools where I couldn't fail anyone for any reason).
The problem is which ones? And if we (Canada) find out that a school is selling degrees we can't shut it down.
That said, I'd love to see more comprehensive testing of immigrants to transfer their degrees.
I'd prefer if there was a one-time non-refundable fee. Any project that you're going to take time developing has to be worth $50 or so. But it wouldn't be for 90% of squatters and 100% of the people who just abuse the system (something like 90% of domains aren't even paid for: http://newyork.craigslist.org/fct/sof/335716276.ht ml )
Did you ever get this one: "Canada doesn't use american money? Do you have pesos or euros?"
Whatever that book is about, it sounds awesome.
If you ever scan it and post it online, please email me! (dave at euri dot ca)
My interview went quite the other way, possibly due to my ace interviewing skills. (note, mostly sarcasm)
It means that our graduates are in demand despite it being a pretty lousy educational venue (it also meant that I can grok algorithms despite being a math major -- try finding high paying work in pure mathematics :)
Bones is on FOX?
FOX really puts out a show where the protagonist routinely calls Christianity names like spooky magic goobledygook?
(That raises my opinion of FOX, I thought it was a one-opinion monolith)
It's weird, I've worked in IT in North America, Europe and China.
In Asia they are so much more careful about believing what you tell them.
In Canada, I've had job interviews start with "Well, we read your resume and here's what you'll be doing" (no interview)
In China I had one start with the premise that I was lying about everything and they tried to tear it apart: "So, you claim to have worked with team on a JBoss/Servlets application 2 years ago... write out a valid security XML file for that setup that will do the following..."
(they took the fact that I never wrote the security file, and even though I had altered it, I couldn't remember anything 2 years later as proof that I was lying)
>I'm already in China, and I've seen many pizzas here - I'm not sure what you mean. They don't tend to put anything particularly special on them that I've noticed.
You've seriously never had a pizza with strawberry jam on it? (because they were trying to make it look like the pictures of food we have -- which are usually plastic)
Are you maybe in the cosmopolitan land of Hong Kong or Shanghai?
I guess maybe weird food assembled to look like our pictures is a fading art relegated to rural China as more people experience more real western food.
You're telling me!
However, I have some tips on how to get an interview there:
http://euri.ca/blog/2007/04/16/secret-tips-to-get- the-job-at-google-you-all-want
There's a second party now? Since when?
/non-american
//I kid you in fun
Can't we get past arguing semite antics? Do process is a perfectly cromulent legal term.
I read a whole bunch of posts and not one person has actually tried to exchange the regular Chinese Yuan.
It's not convertible either, you need to prove that you bought it legally (with real currency, like USDs, GBPs or EURs) or if you earned it, you can only convert a fraction provided you have every piece of paper related to getting paid in China (you don't -- no-one does).
In reality you just convert it illegally at the liquor store or the fake-watches market (huge multi-thousand USD transactions happen in the open in a market, it's so weird, the guards carry lead pipes). You get great rates (less than 1% -- which is awesome considering it's an illegal transaction).
But the point is the gov't doesn't want an exchange of Yuan either.
Cambodian money is even funnier -- I tried to exchange it in Vietnam and the guy was surprised to find out that there was Cambodian currency.
Beijing has winters. They didn't last near as long, but I wore the same coat in Beijing as I did in Toronto. Of course the Chinese tuk-tuk (tricycle taxis) drivers will wear mitts and a coat, and the things aren't insulated or heated right now anyway