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Comment The more things change... (Score 2) 258

All these bitcoin articles remind me of the Second Life articles they used to run here. If you had read /. back then, you'd think we all had avatars and all made millions selling virtual real estate, setting up a virtual B&M company presence, and converting our Linden dollars to real dollars(sound familiar?). My guess is all those folks are now making bitcoins...

Comment Re:Installed base (Score 1) 425

I'd say there numbers were a stretch at best. Market Share means what exactly? From what I can tell they are basing their figures on licenses sold. Well at my workplace 10K+ desktops/laptops we're still on good old XP, and not moving anytime soon. I also was at the Doctor's office today, and they're still on XP. I work in R&D, but when I worked in IT at a different shop, we had to buy the newer version of windows licenses(Win2k I believe), but we still installed NT4 for a long time. So I'd say plenty of folks are still using and installing XP. Eventually some new HW will come out and won't be supported and they'll move crawling and screaming.

Comment Record Conversations? (Score 1) 90

Sadly I've been stuck in telecom the last 10 years. I have to admit I scanned the article, but I missed the part where they connect their 'tower' to the phone company's network. So for argument's sake, let's pretend the mobile registers with the simulated BTS. What magic will connect them to another phone to record a conversation? I suppose they could fake the traffic to get the call connected, oh wait that would require another simulation of an SGSN and multiple protocol message, that I'm having real doubts about, but lets say they have done it somehow. We have an AT&T microcell here because of shotty coverage and that's a piece of junk.
What are you going to talk to? a prerecorded message that you've never heard before? then again some granny may tell them her shopping list...

Comment Re:Offshoring. (Score 2) 527

I tend to agree. It's all about economics. Last year I went to Romania and India for work. From what I can see, the only difference between them and the USA coders are costs. They have good, bad, and lazy coders just like we do. I saw an Indian girl playing bejeweled all afternoon, and a Bucharest girl instant messaging constantly(no it wasn't part of the job). So I tell my kids don't be try computers, it's too difficult to try and compete against a business case of money. Offshoring is alive and well, it has slowed due to economics, but the sheer number of big corporation buildings going up in India is incredible.

Comment Well I'm in india this week and the next.... (Score 1) 763

And here is what I see in my humble travels. Offshoring is alive in well at Kolkata. India is full of people and can fill any need quickly. There are ads for training everywhere. Companies have ads posted on walls wanting interviews and say they give spot offers. The people here seem capable of doing software development, some more then others, just like the US.

The newspapers here seem to be harping on how many jobs the US is getting from the Boeing jet purchase. This is debatable depending on A) Boeing backlog - lots of orders come and get canceled before fulfillment, fact of life in Seattle area. b) are they Boeing 787? These parts are manufactured all over the world now, like the fuselage is made in Italy. Anyhow I don't think the few jobs there will make up for the drain from all the companies here. All the big companies here have a presence here and are still hiring. I was in Romania this summer and while US companies were there also, hiring had ground to a halt.

Why am I here? I'm offshoring some work! We have some protocols we haven't touched in a few years and a customer wants them upgraded to a newer spec. I'm training Indians that work for our company to do it. Could we hire some guys in the US to do it? Sure. Even guys straight out of school could do this in about the same amount of time. The bottom line is it is so much cheaper in India. Until companies and consumers in general are willing to pay more, it's just the way it is unfortunately. Quality may be less and I'm sure that's debatable on both sides, but it is what it is.
I told my kids not to go for computer jobs when they get older, I suggest you do the same. Godspeed and good luck to us all.

Comment Article missing the GSM factor. (Score 1) 353

Yawn. Unless someone has T-mobile, I don't see what the fuss is. Iphone is a GSM phone. Verizion is not going GSM till LTE, which would be doubtful to see this year. Spring is not GSM. Apple went with AT&T because no one's GSM network was big enough in the USA. I'm not saying it's not going to happen, but unless you're carrier is GSM, you won't be using an iphone any time soon.

I'm cheap and have had Bellsouth/AT&T for years and never had any major problems with AT&T and people I know with it don't seem to have any problems, my take is I guess it's where you live. Our company sells equip to multiple vendors and the story we're getting is AT&T has the bandwidth, it's the backhaul from the base station to the RNC that's the problem. A lot of steps from your handset to the network, it's a moving target.

Comment Re:HAHAHA yeah right (Score 5, Insightful) 177

Having played both, you are a fanboy. Fun != Story. I had a heck of a time figuring out what the heck was going on in Halo. Halo 2 was even worse. The only thing i figured out was everyone was a wuss but Master Chief, and he had to backtrack so many times I almost fell asleep. My challenge to any halo player is to explain the flood, halo, and all that religious gibberish to anyone that's never played and ask them if it makes sense afterwards.

HL2 story wasn't the best either, definitely overrated, but at least I could kinda understand what was going on.

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