Jeez, just telling the dude what you are going to do should wilt most guys... "Well Mr. Smith, we are going to restore blood flow by installing a couple of drains via these big ass needles... ah, I see it's no longer needed..."
If news like that gives you a boner then I think you have more serious issues.
There are lots of vendor specific certs (MS, Novell, Oracle, IBM) but to me, that's more akin testing accountants for having skill in using QuickBooks.
Great analogy! Couldn't have put it better myself.
On that note I would like to say that certifications certainly do have their place, but sadly they are misused. They are supposed to be used to measure rough competency in a very specific use of a specific tool / toolset (assuming of course the bearer of the cert hasn't done the (far too disturbingly popular these days) download-the-answers type memorisation of the tests) but instead they seem to now be used solely by HR departments to do the exact spec vs. CV type match-ups mentioned before in this discussion, which is incredibly sad both for potential candidates and for the hiring companies.
Certifications are worth something, but they shouldn't have names, especially not acronyms, and certificates should never be issued for them. Treat them as what the majority of them are: extended tutorials.
This is a bit of a silly comment. Obviously "engineer-types" are generally good at strategic planning, problem solving etc. which would be good in any number of professions. If terrorism requires those traits then obviously engineer-type people would be good at it.
It just seems like a silly point to make. In fact, what is the point?
People want nice graphics, AI, etc and a STORYLINE...
Do they? I beg to differ. Oh and who ever cared about the storyline in a game? If I want a good storyline I'll watch a DVD or read a book. I want to MAKE the story. I want to BE the story. Screw good graphics, as long as they get the message across to your eyes then they've done their job.
All anyone wants in a game is to be entertained. If pretty graphics are all that entertain you then it would be far easier and cheaper to go to an art gallery.
However, as I understand it, graphics drivers are very hard to reverse engineer.
I fully appreciate that graphics card drivers are difficult to reverse engineer, and I also understand that Linux started as, and always will be for many hackers, just a hobby / enthusiast system to play around on. Surely big companies / indie hackers wanting Linux uptake to increase drastically should focus / coordinate their efforts a bit more to what is really needed? Here you have IBM guys fiddling around with something that most people will probably never even use.
In the year 2006 I would have expected problems like fiddling around with graphics drivers (at least for common ATI / NVidia chipsets) to have become a thing of the past. This is something I have been having problems with since my old TNT2 with Red Hat 7 five years ago.
... I still can't install Linux and just have my accelerated, common ATI graphics card and Broadcom wireless working out of the box. Am I the only one that can see the problem here? You can knock commands into your laptop! They've made custom kernel drivers! But you still can't have your accelerated graphics drivers working out of the box on any distro.
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Jeez, just telling the dude what you are going to do should wilt most guys... "Well Mr. Smith, we are going to restore blood flow by installing a couple of drains via these big ass needles... ah, I see it's no longer needed..."
If news like that gives you a boner then I think you have more serious issues.
Maybe someday I'll be able to take up skydiving after all!
As we all know, nobody tests their own work.
Speak for yourself.
There are lots of vendor specific certs (MS, Novell, Oracle, IBM) but to me, that's more akin testing accountants for having skill in using QuickBooks.
Great analogy! Couldn't have put it better myself.
On that note I would like to say that certifications certainly do have their place, but sadly they are misused. They are supposed to be used to measure rough competency in a very specific use of a specific tool / toolset (assuming of course the bearer of the cert hasn't done the (far too disturbingly popular these days) download-the-answers type memorisation of the tests) but instead they seem to now be used solely by HR departments to do the exact spec vs. CV type match-ups mentioned before in this discussion, which is incredibly sad both for potential candidates and for the hiring companies.
Certifications are worth something, but they shouldn't have names, especially not acronyms, and certificates should never be issued for them. Treat them as what the majority of them are: extended tutorials.
Expect more crashes.
This is a bit of a silly comment. Obviously "engineer-types" are generally good at strategic planning, problem solving etc. which would be good in any number of professions. If terrorism requires those traits then obviously engineer-type people would be good at it.
It just seems like a silly point to make. In fact, what is the point?
How to find great programmers? Ask Slashdot.
All your base are belong to them.
Yep.
Do they? I beg to differ. Oh and who ever cared about the storyline in a game? If I want a good storyline I'll watch a DVD or read a book. I want to MAKE the story. I want to BE the story. Screw good graphics, as long as they get the message across to your eyes then they've done their job.
All anyone wants in a game is to be entertained. If pretty graphics are all that entertain you then it would be far easier and cheaper to go to an art gallery.
I fully appreciate that graphics card drivers are difficult to reverse engineer, and I also understand that Linux started as, and always will be for many hackers, just a hobby / enthusiast system to play around on. Surely big companies / indie hackers wanting Linux uptake to increase drastically should focus / coordinate their efforts a bit more to what is really needed? Here you have IBM guys fiddling around with something that most people will probably never even use.
In the year 2006 I would have expected problems like fiddling around with graphics drivers (at least for common ATI / NVidia chipsets) to have become a thing of the past. This is something I have been having problems with since my old TNT2 with Red Hat 7 five years ago.
... I still can't install Linux and just have my accelerated, common ATI graphics card and Broadcom wireless working out of the box. Am I the only one that can see the problem here? You can knock commands into your laptop! They've made custom kernel drivers! But you still can't have your accelerated graphics drivers working out of the box on any distro.