Comment Re:It's ALIVE!!!!! (Score 0) 238
You're obviously kidding there.
You're obviously kidding there.
I'm glad that there is at least some competition out there to drive innovation, but perhaps the one thing that might just be dying here is software that is given away for free? There is a new generation of programmers and developers out there that are brought into this market with the idea of actually making money for their efforts. Think 10 or 15 years ago when you appreciated getting your name (or 'nym) out there as credit for free software and not much more. No offense, but the debt-riddled entitlement generation has to be able to pay the bills.
I'm not faulting anyone for that, but just don't sit back here and act all "shocky" when someone wants to actually charge money for their efforts. Capitalism done right isn't a bad thing. It got the market where it is today. Besides, as least it's the base layer that is open source with proprietary apps on top, and not the other way around.
And please, let's drop this whole mentality of the "phone" being the platform of the future. It's not a "phone" anymore, it's damn computer that happens to have a wireless network connection built in. Stop calling it a "phone" already. It stopped being a "phone" about 5 years, three browsers, two touch screens, 512MB,400mhz, and 75,000 apps ago.
Intel and Adobe both have completely dropped the ball, but right now it's Intel that's in trouble. The only "netbook" I know that can handle fullscreen flash is the LT3013u; At 12" and $350 it hits the price point okay but misses size. Still, it's at least got a 720p display, which means it has to do more than most of the competition to even break even — it does better than that.
Even slight error in observation will turn large in few years.
You don't get how small the errors can be in celestial observations. A few measurements over a few days do not yield accurate results. Measurements over years yield really accurate projections of the trajectory of the asteroid decades and sometimes centuries in advance.
Remember an asteroid that was going to hit Mars with around %1 probability?
No I don't. But keep in mind that such an asteroid would have a 99% chance of not hitting Mars. So doesn't support your case one way or the other.
And that's the problem with this story - it's all theoretical until someone posts some before/after comparison shots.
The Comcast ones are pretty devistating: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1008271
No kidding. For one there's the fact that people tend to post more when they are pissed than when they are happy. When someone is angry about their work conditions (or anything else) they want to bitch about it. Bitching is therapeutic to many people. You cry about it to a sympathetic ear, it helps you feel better. However not so many people feel the need to post like you did "Well really my job is pretty good, I don't have to work long hours, and in general I find it fulfilling." They are happy so they don't feel the need.
There is also the fact that Slashdot seems a bit whinier than many places when it comes to work. I think part of this is because you get a lot of younger people who are just getting in to the workplace, some of who have had their preconceived notions shattered. They expected to be handed a high paying job just because they are who they are and find out that's not the case. Plus you get a lot of the anti-social geek types who don't every want to have to interact with an end user. Well, many of the 9-5 jobs are 9-5 for the reason that you interact with others. So if you are the type that won't do that, well then you get jobs that have crappier hours.
Finally there's the thing that I see all too often of people deciding that more money is what they need to be happy. The primary measure they use of if they'll take a job or not is how much it pays. Ok well turns out that while there is some leeway, for the most part you have to bring more to the table to get more money. This can be more experience, however that takes time to get. Time is another thing you can bring. You work more, you get paid more. This isn't a direct kind of thing though, usually. Companies don't give you a price sheet of "You make $X for Y hours of work." It is more that of two similar jobs, the one with higher pay expects more work.
So if you are always chasing the bigger paycheck, well don't be surprised if your work isn't so fulfilling. Maybe they want you to put up with a lot of shit, maybe they want you to work a lot of hours. That's part of the reason it pays so much, they have to offer additional incentive for people to do the crap they don't want to. However you also find there are jobs that are not like that, you just usually have to accept less pay.
At my job I get 22 days a year in vacation, and some other fixed holidays. It is pretty much strictly 9-5, if something does go wrong and OT is needed, taking time off in trade is fine. They are flexible with schedules so if you need to leave to do something, that's ok and so on. However, I could probably fairly easily find another job here locally that'd pay 30%-50% more. My pay is not high over all. I have decided I'd rather have better quality of life than more money.
I program in C, C#, Java, Perl, Python, and depending on the day, possibly Ruby, although I'm trying to get away from those scripts.
Recently I'm doing mostly Java and C#.
If you think C# is 'better' than Java then you are a shitty programmer. Neither one of them has anything that really is impressive over the other, outside of the IDE itself. Stop blaming the language, its not the problem. Its possible for a language to make certain things a little easier, but once you reach a certain point the additions to a language are of trivial advantage to a good programmer. They may help out less experienced or talented developers who can't figure out how to do the same thing without a special language construct for it, but for the experienced they end up the same.
C# has been past that point since 2.0, Java has for at least the last few years, I didn't really use it before that.
I have noticed that Java developers, in general, suck more ass than VB programmers. For a long long time I thought Java was complete shit because every app I'd ever seen was slow and ugly. After dealing with it a little now I've come to realize that Java can perform fine as long as the guy writing the app is capable of walking around the environment without wearing a helmet.
The reason things break down this way is because of the fundamental dynamics of the game, not specifically because of class design. The classes exist this way because the games are designed around gameplay the necessitates it. Even if you broke classes out of this mold, you'd still have the same basic objectives: kill something, don't die. Since "don't die" breaks down into "stay alive, keep your friends alive" and kill something is "do damage," you've got three clearly defined tasks. Even if you made all classes capable of doing anything, you've got the same objectives to do, and it's much easier to coordinate if you've got a specific role to perform than if you're just playing it by ear. Hence, even with flexible classes, you'd still have the same basic three roles.
The key is to change the fundamental design of the games to not depend on DPS, HP, and armor. Maybe make it dependent on tactical positioning or being outnumbered or whatever. I don't know, there's plenty of other directions you can go. Observe the MMOFPS: Planetside had healing, heavy armor, and damage-dealing, but it was not critical to have designated healers and tanks and so on because you were not in an environment where you benefitted from that kind of thing (and you can't tank a player-controlled opponent). EverQuest, FFXI, CoH, WoW, whatever MMORPG you care to mention, they all have the same fundamental gameplay, just with comparatively minor variations. Not that they're all particularly similar, they just all have a similar core gameplay concept.
The same gameplay scheme rewards the same tactics, whether your game is set on Azeroth or Earth.
Sometimes it's even the other way round. In the case of Arma2 (an example I know of, there might be others), the demo has a number of problems that have been long since fixed in the final game. It does show what the game is like but certainly not how it handles.
They should update it but apparently haven't gotten around to doing it (small company and limited resources apparently).
First impressions can be damning.
I recently picked up S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on Steam when it was on sale for just $5. I'd been wanting to play that game for a while, but had been avoiding it because of how buggy it was.
This impression - that the game was terribly buggy - came from leaks and early reviews. I had been given the impression that the game was borderline-unplayable. And while I did run into a few issues, that is no longer the case. I had a great time playing through that game.
If I had known that the game was genuinely playable I probably would have paid more than $5 for it.
"Sad."
Not really.
If people want software freedom they should use Free and Open software, and every
attempt by Apple and Microsoft to micromanage their products is good news.
I'm fine with Apple blocking clone makers. It doesn't inconvenience me in the least since I don't
use Apple products or crave their operating system, however good they may be.
Why are you bashing U2? Because you probably weren't born when they WERE the club scene. Learn your music history dude. If you want to bash the "boy bands" and pop stars, thats fine, but not bands who worked their asses off to become the biggest act on the planet.
Or are you one of those cool kids who likes an act until it becomes popular, then you call them a sellout? If you like artists that are unknown, fine, thats your choice. But just because an artist sells a lot of records doesn't mean they aren't worthy of my listening.
I've seen the small club venues. I've seen the unknown acts. Sorry, but 90% of them suck. Can't play, can't sing. Every now and then, I see some real talent sneak through. I saw John Mayer in 2001 when he opened for Glen Phillips. I saw Dave Mathews when they were hitting the local bars in Virginia in 1993. I saw U2 when they played before 5,000 fans in 1983.
But suffice it to say, when the risk is "the planet" there is a very good reason to follow what TFA is calling "a precautionary approach" even when the likelihood of science being correct is quite low.
Firstly, "the planet" isn't at risk. The planet will spit us out first and then over a period of millienia will restore itself as the sun grows more trees that take the CO2 out of the atmosphere.
Secondly, we can't just determine things based on precaution. Raising carbon taxes or spending billions on windmills or solar factories has an econoimic impact. Computers, the internet and inventions like the container ship have taken something like a billion people out of abject poverty in countries like China and India. Raising carbon taxes has an impact on that growth.
So, what we need to do is get the balance right. We want, through our carbon policies to do the most good for mankind. We neither want to pollute to the point where we destroy things we want, nor do we want to stop things to the point where we also destroy things we want.
It came from the 1950s, when life was ideal, Reagan was a cowboy hero, and scientists were emotionless paragons in white lab coats. Conservatives today take the 1950s as their conception of how the world should work, and they get upset whenever anyone deviates from this model.
Yes, I'm being snarky, but I think it's a pretty accurate observation.
Remember to say hello to your bank teller.
