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Comment Re:For the Love of Cock! (Score 5, Insightful) 89

It's getting boring here on Slashdot, this shift from Microsoft bashing to Apple bashing.
The article's making it to front page are becoming very one sided, pro-Google/Android and anti-Apple.

Only several out of a million+ Apps?
So a few wild animals jump over into the walled garden, easy enough to chase them out and plug that hole.

Comment Corporations not Computers are the singularity (Score 4, Interesting) 181

If a soulless, inhumane, machine which with no conscious is the singularity you fear then what else is a modern corporation?
The mantra of "in the interests of our shareholders", is too often quoted when a large money making entity is caught doing something morally questionable.
Human's (non-sociopathic ones) have empathy to tone down their ambitions and value systems.
Corporations are entities and could be compared to organisms like a bee hive or ant colony.
A Corp has ambitions and value systems driven by making money with the empathy left to individuals within the "hive" but with the added problem of individualistic ambition which the insects don't suffer from.

So no, the machines getting smart doesn't frighten me but the greed of corporations does especially now they are wielding more control over governments than ever before.

Comment What I wish I knew before choosing this career... (Score 1) 376

In all other "professional" disciplines (law, medicine, financial, engineering etc) your worth increases with age - except software engineering.
In software engineering you are viewed as "expensive and outdated" once you reach middle age.
You wouldn't get a graduate lawyer to handle your divorce, a graduate med to operate on you, or a graduate to advise or complete your tax returns.
Yet graduates are just fine, cheap and dandy for writing that great App idea someone has which is going to make them rich and keep you in subways for a couple of weeks.
I'll be pointing this out to my kids if they try to follow me into the profession I thought was a good bet.

The consumers view of software is that it's "valueless", free and their birth right to obtain it without cost.
Which is why they get pissed if they are asked for even a tiny amount of cash to use it.
I get regular hate emails from people who download my Apps, which give them enough to try out the product before they purchase, telling me how much I suck.
My standard response to them is "beggars and buskers make more and give you less. You'd think nothing of tossing 99c in the hat of a stranger on the street yet you can take the time to email me telling me that my months of labor aren't worth the same?"

The cost of software is largely hidden in services, advertising (Google) or hardware (Apple).
So the perceived value of an software engineer is hidden.

That public perception isn't helped when one of our legion makes it big, like Mark Zuckerberg.
It gives me great satisfaction to see someone like Zuckerberg take an idea, execute it well, and reap the rewards.
The Winklevoss are an excellent example of all that's wrong with society's attitude towards engineers.

So my advice is, do what I did, do an MBA.
Once you have that title and a bit of experience in business you aren't just the "geek in the corner" you are the guy in the room who understands the whole picture better than anyone else there.
You'll find your own "stock price" on the rise once more.

Comment Deportation next? (Score 2) 166

I thought that the recent revelation that his original NZ residency application failed to disclose a dangerous driving conviction left it open for him to be deported?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11350895

So the whole "illegal" raid, dodgy handling of his arrest and application for his extradition could be a moot point now.
He's seriously pissed off the NZ power's that be after the Internet-Mana, mud slinging, campaign in the recent election.
That and putting John Key's mate, and ex-Mayor of Auckland, Banks in jail for failing to disclose Dotcom's donations fully.

A man with few friends, no money and a lot of powerful enemy's.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How can App Publishers earn more than Beggars & Buskers? (mattgemmell.com)

seoras writes: As an App publisher I'm getting more and more fed up with 1 or 2 star "reviews" from blackmailers offering "5 stars if you make it free".
I could make the App paid only, but that's breaking a perfectly good system for those who aren't so pathetically twisted and mean.
Also an in-app purchase makes it much harder to pirate the app and piracy of Apps isn't getting any better.
This inability to get a pirated copy easily may well be a factor in causing the blackmailer reviews.
This is a minority, not a majority, that seem to think its OK to demand other people's labours for free.
Some use the "contact me" button within my App to send me hate mail demanding I make my App free.
My standard reply has become "If I was busking on the street or begging would you still grudge me $0.99?"
With iTunes you can request that reviews be removed. I use this once or twice a year at most.
Lately though Apple's support people just ignore requests with a blank "your request has been reviewed and denied".
So the middle guy isn't helping either. This will be a problem across all mobile app platforms and not limited to Apple.
Tomorrow I'm raising my in-app prices after reading this blog post which makes an excellent point.
Why have we all dropped our prices to the lowest denominator? It's making no difference to consumer behaviour and we can't make a living.
http://mattgemmell.com/closed-...
"...Shame on you for pricing at $0.99 to chase the kind of customers who, well, think a dollar is anything but a trivial, throwaway amount of money that won’t even remotely get you a reasonable cup of coffee. Get some self-respect. Quit encouraging bad behaviour, and ruining the party for everyone else.
A price-tag of one dollar is passive smoking. You’re killing people around you, for your own short-term benefit. But again, that wasn’t the case here. It wasn’t piracy due to a high price. Instead, this was the endemic casual piracy of convenience...."
What else can be done other than trying to ignore the blackmailing reviewers and make the most out of those who are willing to pay?
Is there some way App Publishers can empower themselves collectively because as individuals we seem to be the most powerless in this 3 way relationship?

Comment Political nonsense (Score 2) 395

The reason 80% of percent of French motorists drive diesel-powered cars is because they are the most economical option.
Not just French but in most of Europe you'll find the diesel car is the popular option as it's the most economical choice.

The introduction of the "AdBlue" legislation on goods vehicles, and now private vehicles, has reduced the pollution deficit in comparison to petrol to a point which is even better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid

Take a typical French family car and compare same sized engines of petrol and diesel (this car has AdBlue).
http://www.nextgreencar.com/view-car/49548/citroen-c4-grand-picasso-1.6i-vti-vtr+-120hp-petrol-manual-5-speed
http://www.nextgreencar.com/view-car/49561/citroen-c4-grand-picasso-1.6-e-hdi-vtr+-115hp-diesel-manual-6-speed

Which one pollutes the most? Why the hell would you want to start "phasing out" the cleaner car?
Why not just offer everyone driving a fossil fuel car the same incentive to move to electric?
Why pick on diesel when it's now cleaner?

I'm all for electric and the end of burning fuel to drive around but you have to ask the question of WHERE that electricity is coming from to charge up your car?
Is the problem just being shifted?

At least when you burn the fuel yourself you have the choice of which fuel you burn and how well you burn it.
When you are consuming electrons off a grid you've given up a lot of your freedom of choice.

Comment Bigger picture (Score 0) 103

This is just another symptom of all that's going badly wrong for software engineers as a profession.

In all other "professional" disciplines (law, medicine, financial, engineering etc) your worth increases with age - except software engineering.
In software engineering you are viewed as "expensive and outdated" once you reach middle age.
You wouldn't get a graduate lawyer to handle your divorce, a graduate med to operate on you, or a graduate to return your business accounts.
Yet graduates are just fine, cheap and dandy for writing that great App idea you have which is going to make you rich and pay for their subways for a couple of weeks.
I'll be pointing this out to my kids if they try to follow me into the profession I thought was a good bet.

The consumers view of software is that it's "valueless", free and their birth right to obtain it without cost.
Which is why they get pissed if they are asked for even a tiny amount of cash to use it.
I get regular hate emails from people who download my Apps, which give them enough to try out the product before they purchase, telling me how much I suck.
My standard response to them is "beggars and buskers make more and give you less. You'd think nothing of tossing 99c in the hat of a stranger on the street yet you can take the time to email me telling me that my months of labor aren't worth the same?"
One person even replied with "I'm sorry for my attitude".

So now it's gotten to the political level and Apple has side stepped the issue with a single word change.
What a cop out.

Those who say Apple gear is expensive fail to realise that the company is including in the cost the huge investment in their software development.
You buy your Mac/Pad/Phone and each year, for about 4 or 5 years, you get free annual software updates and bug fixes.
Microsoft never did that, they charged you and worse...
Giving it away for free, Google, is worse as it just strengthens this consumer perception that software is valueless.
What the consumer doesn't realise is that with Google they are the product which is being sold to pay for their development.

So the cost of software is hidden by the big guys, either in the shelf price of the hardware or the services sold through it.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in re-inventing the wheel and we would never have gotten here without free software.
Kudos to those upon who's shoulders we stand.

As an App developer you have 3 choices.
1) Paid Upfront App - too much risk consumers think, it might be crap. Resulting in low install numbers
2) In-App purchase - great except for the winning free loaders who spoil it for everyone else.
3) Advertising - Unless you can get serious volume of installs and session length it's not going to pay.
There is a 4th one, which is services, but not all Apps can sell services.

On a final note I've seen my daily App installs plummet since the introduction of "GET".
I don't blame Apple, I blame the perception of those consumers who think they have the right to someone else's work for free.

Comment Sensationalist bullshit (Score 1) 327

Apple didn't disable TRIM. They just tightened up security around Kernel modifications.
I did 3 things to my desktop in October.
1.Updated it to OSX10.10
2.Bought and installed my first SSD.
3.Installed a 3rd party TRIM driver and in doing so switched off OSX10.10's kernel security so it would be unhindered.
Then I read today "Apple Disables Trim Support On 3rd Party SSDs In OS X".
Talk about BS...

Slashdot.org should be renamed "linuxandroidgeek.religion"
It's pathetic, it's bad enough with main stream media having political bias without technology media getting all one sided.

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