Just because a label or promoter is not interested in their work does not mean it is not worth being published in a box set. There are lots of small bands who's CD's I own who I would gladly buy a box set from if one was available.
Networking is more important than education
on
Exporting Myself?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I have a High School degree with only a couple additional formal education classes. I am currently a Senior Software Engineer with a software consulting company that has me in a long term placement at a large multi-national technology firm.
Most every job I have I got through networking. I am president of a local software development group (PC users group for developers) that I attended for years previously. I always try to work with other people to help them so they know I am a resource. I look for opportunities to present at conferences or other groups. I look for writing opportunities and other avenues to promote my skills and abilities.
Sometimes I have worked for far less then I should have for what I was doing, but the result is I have acquired enough experience that my lack of degree is less important. Be willing to start at the bottom and work your way up. The opportunities are there, if you are willing to look.
As an example, I was laid off about a year ago. I had a new job in 2 days, and 3 or 4 other offers within a week. All the offers were from networking. Most the jobs I get interviews through Monster or other listings they say I am over qualified for. Imagine that.
I would eventually like to go to school and get a C.S. degree. But I imagine that I will get my employeer to pay for most of it while they are paying me to work and apply what I learn. Education is a good thing, but it is not what will get you a job.
Did anyone else get the big Victoria's Secret ad on the side of the article when they read it? You know the one with the model wearing next to nothing. The kind of thing that was classified as pornography not that long a go.
Interesting that they would be so concerned when individuals choose to expose themselves to a game, but they would force everyone's (well, the few people that actually read their pages) exposure to risque pictures of scantly clad models without warning. Glad to know someone else is busy trying to decide what is good for us.
I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have an article bashing Victoria's Secret ads a few years back, but now that they are paying the advertising budget they need to find a new target. Maybe Take-Two should just put an ad on the NY Post site. Isn't this sort of thing extortion (buy an ad from us or we will give you a bad review?)
I quit listening to other people's opinions a long time ago.
. ..but unless I need this DRM'ed crap to get on the internet. ..
It is only a matter of time before there are two Internet's co-existing. One that is only accessible to those with DRM, and one that is only accessible to everyone. Eventually with time (unless the tides are turned) all the commercial content will migrate to the DRM network, and DRM enabled PC's will no longer be able to access the non DRM one because it is too "Dangerous".
If lobbiests get their way then it will soon be illegal to provide content (web page, music, software, etc.) not controlled by DRM. Anyone who wants true freedom will need two PC's in their home, one with DRM, one without. And they will be even more incompatible then PC and MAC or Windows and Linux.
One thing to realize is that eventually mainstream software (TurboTax, etc.) will only run on systems that support DRM to some degree or another. If the lobbiests get their way it will actually be illegal to create content (media, software, etc.) that exists outside of DRM.
I welcome the ability for people to skip commercials or advertisements for the simple reason that they fail to deliver on their goal. They only seem to annoy people and motivate them to switch channels.
If a commercial / ad actually imparts information or entertainment value, then I enjoy and look forward to it, the first couple times. Too many commercials/ads are repeated over and over again. If I wasn't interested the first time, then I doubt I will be the 100th time. This is the same way with SPAM. I get 3 offers a day for the same useless products. One thing I really hate about Discovery channel (and others) is that they only have about a dozen commercials that they play over and over and over again.
It is unfortunate that advertisers believe (and possibly rightfully so) that consumers are more likely to purchase a product if they are repeatedly exposed to an ad that does not actually provide information about the product, but instead annoys the heck out of them due to content or frequency of occurrence.
Much like elections, it usually comes down to name recognition.
I noticed that the first PC to use EFI was a Gateway "Media Center" desktop. For those who do not know, Media Center is Microsoft's first attempt at highly integration of DRM (Digital Rights Management) into the core functionality of the OS. Knowing the agenda for Palladiam and so called "Trusted Computing" (Who do you trust today?) I would really think twice before letting the likes of Microsoft and Intel (remember the P4 CPU ID?) rewrite my PC at the BIOS level.
The "competition" between Pheonix BIOS and EFI could be the beginning of the split between closed platform "Trusted" PC's and open platform PC's. I would not be surprised if EFI has provisions (at some future point) to require the OS is signed. That rules out Linux, BSD, etc.
Naturally they are doing all this for our best interests.
When I see Microsoft and Intel working together I think of the platform lock-in of WinTel. This makes me wonder if they plan to have secret hooks offering advantages to their products. It will of course only be a matter of time for the likes of AMD and Linux to get up to speed, but sometimes a little time is all it takes to improve a market advantage through unfair practices.
A word about laptops. Most of them have two modes they operate in. While running off internal power, they run in a low power mode. This many times slows the CPU down and dims the display. Also while in battery mode the fan will run on various speeds on demand.
When they are plugged in they speed the CPU back up and brighten the display - consuming more power since it is available. I think I would probably recommend a laptop, and a few spare batteries. Then you can charge on someone else's power and bring it back home with you.
Since your laptop will use less power when running off battery you should always use your laptop on battery power. Then when you shut it off you should charge the batteries. Make sure you get a laptop with two bays.
If you go with a PC get a variable speed CPU fan with a sensor. Then it can slow down when it is not needed, saving you some juice. Since I am assuming you would be building your own system then evaluate the watt consumption of each component, and add it up getting a good quality (expensive) power supply that meets your needs without exceeding them astronomically. When possible use one component instead of two (Optical drives, hard drives, memory modules, etc.) Two will consume more juice then one (obviously) when you can get a single hard drive that is big enough to do the job.
Display brightness has a huge impact on battery life. Whatever you go with make sure your display is as dim as possible. Put your computer in a dark room.
Also, don't run SETI@Home, GIMPS or one of those other background processing systems. Those really increase your machines power consumption, as do games!
Another must have would be a good UPS with a power conditioner. Brown outs are very damaging to your computer hardware. Not that I doubt your ability to build your own power grid, but wouldn't you hate to loose your PC because of a brown out?
A word about laptops. Most of them have two modes they operate in. While running off internal power, they run in a low power mode. This many times slows the CPU down and dims the display. Also while in battery mode the fan will run on various speeds on demand.
When they are plugged in they speed the CPU back up and brighten the display - consuming more power since it is available. I think I would probably recommend a laptop, and a few spare batteries. Then you can charge on someone else's power and bring it back home with you.
Since your laptop will use less power when running off battery you should always use your laptop on battery power. Then when you shut it off you should charge the batteries. Make sure you get a laptop with two bays.
If you go with a PC get a variable speed CPU fan with a sensor. Then it can slow down when it is not needed, saving you some juice. Since I am assuming you would be building your own system then evaluate the watt consumption of each component, and add it up getting a good quality (expensive) power supply that meets your needs without exceeding them astronomically. When possible use one component instead of two (Optical drives, hard drives, memory modules, etc.) Two will consume more juice then one (obviously) when you can get a single hard drive that is big enough to do the job.
Display brightness has a huge impact on battery life. Whatever you go with make sure your display is as dim as possible. Put your computer in a dark room.
Also, don't run SETI@Home, GIMPS or one of those other background processing systems. Those really increase your machines power consumption, as do games!
Another must have would be a good UPS with a power conditioner. Brown outs are very damaging to your computer hardware. Not that I doubt your ability to build your own power grid, but wouldn't you hate to loose your PC because of a brown out?
We had an office party and played Red Faction. I took great pleasure in attaching det packs to my boss and then blowing him up after a few seconds. Unfortunately when lay offs came I was the first to go. It was still fun though.
If you want to play FPS at an office party then I recommend Serious Sam, Diablo or some other game with a co-op mode so no one has to kill the boss.
Don't get me wrong, taking your boss out (especially creatively) is a lot of fun during a game, just not good for your career. Sometimes the stress relief is worth it. You may think you boss has a good since of humor (I did) but you need to decide if it is worth the risk.
So does playing Vice City cause the boys to be in a fight?
- or -
Does being the type of boy who gets in fights cause you to like games like Vice City?
And it just says they have been in a fight. It doesn't say they started it. All 70% could have been assaulted by the 30% that doesn't play Vice City, and that 30% just lied about being in the fight.
So basically that 70% statistic is meaning less to anyone who thinks critically. It might as well have just been made up. It is only used to persuade the mindless masses into action.
Actually stating that 70% of teen age boys played Vice City really takes a lot of the weight out of argument that it causes the violence that we always hear blamed on the game. You hear about the kids who shot at cars and Vice City was blamed for their actions. If playing Vice City causes kids to be violent and shoot at cars then why aren't 70% of the teen age boys out there performing random acts of violence like this? The size of the gap between boys who play violent games and those who act violently is so huge that no logical causal relationship can be made between the two actions.
The obvious answer is that the two actions are unrelated in the way they would try to have us believe.
Now is the time for all game players to rise up against our non-game playing aggressors!
I believe I said "not written for the US market", yeah, that sounds right. Maybe I should have said "not written for or released specifically in the US" but I thought you could figure that out.
I am talking about games that originated in Japan only for Japan, not intended for the US. Final Fantasy, Tekken, Soul Calibur, or the names "Sega" or "Nintendo" are all from Japan, but they are releases for Americans.
When you say "Nintendo" you are referring to Nintendo of America from Redmond Washington. Same for "Sega". And if you actually play those games you list you will notice a lot of English in them for a game from Japan.
Next time think about your post and read what you are replying to. It may help keeping you from looking so bad.
Looking at the BSOD again I was wondering if that is Win9x or an NT platform. It looks like Win9x to me, but I could be wrong. It would seem a very poor business idea to run a system like that on Win9x. NT is bad enough, but Win9x is worse.
There was that computerized car a while back that was going to run Windows 98 (or was it ME?). I thought that was a very bad idea too. Unfortunately I don't remember any of the details on that one.
Recently I was staying in a fairly nice hotel and was contemplating watching one of those video on demand movies in my room. I selected one, and when it should have gone to play it a BSOD appeared for a split second and then the system rebooted. I decided to go to bed instead feeling plenty entertained for the evening. Luckily they didn't charge me for the entertainment.
I think it was running NT or 2K. For some reason I don't remember. It was a late night after a long day at a conference. The reboot seemed different then normal, so it was customized and not out of the box.
C++BuilderX is a totally different creature then the prior C++Builders. It uses an IDE similar to the JBuilder IDE (written in Java). I have not used it, but just read about it. I get the impression it is designed for C/C++ developers who like to get down to the metal, and are not so worried about Rapid Application Development, hence no VCL (AFAIK). You can download a Personal Edition (free) or the Enterprise Edition trial (time limited).
If you don't typically use the VCL, and want the flexibility of multiple platforms and compilers it sounds like something you should look into. What struck me as interesting is it does not run on Mac. I recall one of the prior editions of JBuilder ran on Mac, but doesn't anymore. Not sure why that support was discontinued.
Unfortunately advertising is not Borland's strong point. They just make good development tools.
Seems like every time they come out with a new 0-cal sweetener, that is safer then the last, it turns out to have some unforseen side effect that makes it worse then the last.
Slashdot Mirror
Just because a label or promoter is not interested in their work does not mean it is not worth being published in a box set. There are lots of small bands who's CD's I own who I would gladly buy a box set from if one was available.
I have a High School degree with only a couple additional formal education classes. I am currently a Senior Software Engineer with a software consulting company that has me in a long term placement at a large multi-national technology firm.
Most every job I have I got through networking. I am president of a local software development group (PC users group for developers) that I attended for years previously. I always try to work with other people to help them so they know I am a resource. I look for opportunities to present at conferences or other groups. I look for writing opportunities and other avenues to promote my skills and abilities.
Sometimes I have worked for far less then I should have for what I was doing, but the result is I have acquired enough experience that my lack of degree is less important. Be willing to start at the bottom and work your way up. The opportunities are there, if you are willing to look.
As an example, I was laid off about a year ago. I had a new job in 2 days, and 3 or 4 other offers within a week. All the offers were from networking. Most the jobs I get interviews through Monster or other listings they say I am over qualified for. Imagine that.
I would eventually like to go to school and get a C.S. degree. But I imagine that I will get my employeer to pay for most of it while they are paying me to work and apply what I learn. Education is a good thing, but it is not what will get you a job.
Did anyone else get the big Victoria's Secret ad on the side of the article when they read it? You know the one with the model wearing next to nothing. The kind of thing that was classified as pornography not that long a go.
Interesting that they would be so concerned when individuals choose to expose themselves to a game, but they would force everyone's (well, the few people that actually read their pages) exposure to risque pictures of scantly clad models without warning. Glad to know someone else is busy trying to decide what is good for us.
I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have an article bashing Victoria's Secret ads a few years back, but now that they are paying the advertising budget they need to find a new target. Maybe Take-Two should just put an ad on the NY Post site. Isn't this sort of thing extortion (buy an ad from us or we will give you a bad review?)
I quit listening to other people's opinions a long time ago.
You are correct sir. Seems like I also saw something that AMD was in on the CPUID thing now as well.
Why is it that they promote these things as providing more security, be we only see them as taking away our privacy and security?
. . .but unless I need this DRM'ed crap to get on the internet. . .
It is only a matter of time before there are two Internet's co-existing. One that is only accessible to those with DRM, and one that is only accessible to everyone. Eventually with time (unless the tides are turned) all the commercial content will migrate to the DRM network, and DRM enabled PC's will no longer be able to access the non DRM one because it is too "Dangerous".
If lobbiests get their way then it will soon be illegal to provide content (web page, music, software, etc.) not controlled by DRM. Anyone who wants true freedom will need two PC's in their home, one with DRM, one without. And they will be even more incompatible then PC and MAC or Windows and Linux.
One thing to realize is that eventually mainstream software (TurboTax, etc.) will only run on systems that support DRM to some degree or another. If the lobbiests get their way it will actually be illegal to create content (media, software, etc.) that exists outside of DRM.
I welcome the ability for people to skip commercials or advertisements for the simple reason that they fail to deliver on their goal. They only seem to annoy people and motivate them to switch channels.
/ads are repeated over and over again. If I wasn't interested the first time, then I doubt I will be the 100th time. This is the same way with SPAM. I get 3 offers a day for the same useless products. One thing I really hate about Discovery channel (and others) is that they only have about a dozen commercials that they play over and over and over again.
If a commercial / ad actually imparts information or entertainment value, then I enjoy and look forward to it, the first couple times. Too many commercials
It is unfortunate that advertisers believe (and possibly rightfully so) that consumers are more likely to purchase a product if they are repeatedly exposed to an ad that does not actually provide information about the product, but instead annoys the heck out of them due to content or frequency of occurrence.
Much like elections, it usually comes down to name recognition.
I noticed that the first PC to use EFI was a Gateway "Media Center" desktop. For those who do not know, Media Center is Microsoft's first attempt at highly integration of DRM (Digital Rights Management) into the core functionality of the OS. Knowing the agenda for Palladiam and so called "Trusted Computing" (Who do you trust today?) I would really think twice before letting the likes of Microsoft and Intel (remember the P4 CPU ID?) rewrite my PC at the BIOS level.
The "competition" between Pheonix BIOS and EFI could be the beginning of the split between closed platform "Trusted" PC's and open platform PC's. I would not be surprised if EFI has provisions (at some future point) to require the OS is signed. That rules out Linux, BSD, etc.
Naturally they are doing all this for our best interests.
When I see Microsoft and Intel working together I think of the platform lock-in of WinTel. This makes me wonder if they plan to have secret hooks offering advantages to their products. It will of course only be a matter of time for the likes of AMD and Linux to get up to speed, but sometimes a little time is all it takes to improve a market advantage through unfair practices.
Yes, but some of the power settings (like CPU performance, Fan speed, etc.) are not as configurable as others.
A word about laptops. Most of them have two modes they operate in. While running off internal power, they run in a low power mode. This many times slows the CPU down and dims the display. Also while in battery mode the fan will run on various speeds on demand.
When they are plugged in they speed the CPU back up and brighten the display - consuming more power since it is available. I think I would probably recommend a laptop, and a few spare batteries. Then you can charge on someone else's power and bring it back home with you.
Since your laptop will use less power when running off battery you should always use your laptop on battery power. Then when you shut it off you should charge the batteries. Make sure you get a laptop with two bays.
If you go with a PC get a variable speed CPU fan with a sensor. Then it can slow down when it is not needed, saving you some juice. Since I am assuming you would be building your own system then evaluate the watt consumption of each component, and add it up getting a good quality (expensive) power supply that meets your needs without exceeding them astronomically. When possible use one component instead of two (Optical drives, hard drives, memory modules, etc.) Two will consume more juice then one (obviously) when you can get a single hard drive that is big enough to do the job.
Display brightness has a huge impact on battery life. Whatever you go with make sure your display is as dim as possible. Put your computer in a dark room.
Also, don't run SETI@Home, GIMPS or one of those other background processing systems. Those really increase your machines power consumption, as do games!
Another must have would be a good UPS with a power conditioner. Brown outs are very damaging to your computer hardware. Not that I doubt your ability to build your own power grid, but wouldn't you hate to loose your PC because of a brown out?
A word about laptops. Most of them have two modes they operate in. While running off internal power, they run in a low power mode. This many times slows the CPU down and dims the display. Also while in battery mode the fan will run on various speeds on demand.
When they are plugged in they speed the CPU back up and brighten the display - consuming more power since it is available. I think I would probably recommend a laptop, and a few spare batteries. Then you can charge on someone else's power and bring it back home with you.
Since your laptop will use less power when running off battery you should always use your laptop on battery power. Then when you shut it off you should charge the batteries. Make sure you get a laptop with two bays.
If you go with a PC get a variable speed CPU fan with a sensor. Then it can slow down when it is not needed, saving you some juice. Since I am assuming you would be building your own system then evaluate the watt consumption of each component, and add it up getting a good quality (expensive) power supply that meets your needs without exceeding them astronomically. When possible use one component instead of two (Optical drives, hard drives, memory modules, etc.) Two will consume more juice then one (obviously) when you can get a single hard drive that is big enough to do the job.
Display brightness has a huge impact on battery life. Whatever you go with make sure your display is as dim as possible. Put your computer in a dark room.
Also, don't run SETI@Home, GIMPS or one of those other background processing systems. Those really increase your machines power consumption, as do games!
Another must have would be a good UPS with a power conditioner. Brown outs are very damaging to your computer hardware. Not that I doubt your ability to build your own power grid, but wouldn't you hate to loose your PC because of a brown out?
We had an office party and played Red Faction. I took great pleasure in attaching det packs to my boss and then blowing him up after a few seconds. Unfortunately when lay offs came I was the first to go. It was still fun though.
If you want to play FPS at an office party then I recommend Serious Sam, Diablo or some other game with a co-op mode so no one has to kill the boss.
Don't get me wrong, taking your boss out (especially creatively) is a lot of fun during a game, just not good for your career. Sometimes the stress relief is worth it. You may think you boss has a good since of humor (I did) but you need to decide if it is worth the risk.
So does playing Vice City cause the boys to be in a fight?
- or -
Does being the type of boy who gets in fights cause you to like games like Vice City?
And it just says they have been in a fight. It doesn't say they started it. All 70% could have been assaulted by the 30% that doesn't play Vice City, and that 30% just lied about being in the fight.
So basically that 70% statistic is meaning less to anyone who thinks critically. It might as well have just been made up. It is only used to persuade the mindless masses into action.
Actually stating that 70% of teen age boys played Vice City really takes a lot of the weight out of argument that it causes the violence that we always hear blamed on the game. You hear about the kids who shot at cars and Vice City was blamed for their actions. If playing Vice City causes kids to be violent and shoot at cars then why aren't 70% of the teen age boys out there performing random acts of violence like this? The size of the gap between boys who play violent games and those who act violently is so huge that no logical causal relationship can be made between the two actions.
The obvious answer is that the two actions are unrelated in the way they would try to have us believe.
Now is the time for all game players to rise up against our non-game playing aggressors!
I believe I said "not written for the US market", yeah, that sounds right. Maybe I should have said "not written for or released specifically in the US" but I thought you could figure that out.
I am talking about games that originated in Japan only for Japan, not intended for the US. Final Fantasy, Tekken, Soul Calibur, or the names "Sega" or "Nintendo" are all from Japan, but they are releases for Americans.
When you say "Nintendo" you are referring to Nintendo of America from Redmond Washington. Same for "Sega". And if you actually play those games you list you will notice a lot of English in them for a game from Japan.
Next time think about your post and read what you are replying to. It may help keeping you from looking so bad.
I can't say that I am familiar with many titles from Japan that are not written for the US market. Is this common or am I unique?
Looking at the BSOD again I was wondering if that is Win9x or an NT platform. It looks like Win9x to me, but I could be wrong. It would seem a very poor business idea to run a system like that on Win9x. NT is bad enough, but Win9x is worse.
There was that computerized car a while back that was going to run Windows 98 (or was it ME?). I thought that was a very bad idea too. Unfortunately I don't remember any of the details on that one.
Recently I was staying in a fairly nice hotel and was contemplating watching one of those video on demand movies in my room. I selected one, and when it should have gone to play it a BSOD appeared for a split second and then the system rebooted. I decided to go to bed instead feeling plenty entertained for the evening. Luckily they didn't charge me for the entertainment.
I think it was running NT or 2K. For some reason I don't remember. It was a late night after a long day at a conference. The reboot seemed different then normal, so it was customized and not out of the box.
C++BuilderX is a totally different creature then the prior C++Builders. It uses an IDE similar to the JBuilder IDE (written in Java). I have not used it, but just read about it. I get the impression it is designed for C/C++ developers who like to get down to the metal, and are not so worried about Rapid Application Development, hence no VCL (AFAIK). You can download a Personal Edition (free) or the Enterprise Edition trial (time limited).
If you don't typically use the VCL, and want the flexibility of multiple platforms and compilers it sounds like something you should look into. What struck me as interesting is it does not run on Mac. I recall one of the prior editions of JBuilder ran on Mac, but doesn't anymore. Not sure why that support was discontinued.
Unfortunately advertising is not Borland's strong point. They just make good development tools.
Seems like every time they come out with a new 0-cal sweetener, that is safer then the last, it turns out to have some unforseen side effect that makes it worse then the last.