Comment Ready for what? (Score 1) 558
"Ready". Of course it is. The question is: "Ready for what?"
According to Valve's Gabe Newell and others, it's ready for a catastrophe.
Games Workshop Goes After Fan Site 174
mark.leaman writes "BoingBoing has a recent post regarding Games Workshop's aggressive posturing against fan sites featuring derivative work of their game products. 'Game publisher and miniature manufacturer Games Workshop just sent a cease and desist letter to boardgamegeek.com, telling them to remove all fan-made players' aids. This includes scenarios, rules summaries, inventory manifests, scans to help replace worn pieces — many of these created for long out of print, well-loved games...' As a lifelong hobby gamer of table, board, card and miniature games, I view this as pure heresy. It made me reject the idea of buying any Games Workshop (read Warhammer) products for my son this Christmas. Their fate was sealed, in terms of my wallet, after I Googled their shenanigans. In 2007 they forbid Warhammer fan films, this year they shut down Vassal Modules, and a while back they went after retailers as well. What ever happened to fair use?"
How The Matrix Online Went Wrong 144
As the July 31st deadline for The Matrix Online's closure looms, Gamer Limit is running a story discussing the game's shortcomings, as well as some of the decisions that led to its failure. Quoting:
"I honestly thought the writers must have absolutely hated the remaining cast of The Matrix Trilogy or something, because they constantly seemed to go out of their way to phase out existing characters in favor of newer ones. The cast overall basically made me, as a player, feel distant from the main storyline and made the entire game feel like a Matrix side story instead of the continuation it was meant to be. ... When MxO first launched there was an entire team dedicated to playing the game as Agents and other key characters as a means to further in-game events and directly interact with players, giving players the feeling that they truly were making a difference. After the SOE buyout of the game the LESIG team was reduced to playing minor characters before eventually being phased out and replaced with a Live Event Team (LET) comprised purely of volunteers."
Comment See Collins-Sussman's and Fitzpatrick's Tech Talk (Score 1) 195
If you haven't seen it already, you'll want to watch this great Google Tech Talk on how to
survive and thrive on Open Source project teams.
Beyond what the title claims you'll learn from the talk, you'll also also come away with a ton of excellent insight into how to recognize healthy project teams.
Beyond what the title claims you'll learn from the talk, you'll also also come away with a ton of excellent insight into how to recognize healthy project teams.
Submission + - Should I learn Java or stay with mainframes? 1
JCOTTON writes: "CIOs of major corporations are agreed . They trust their mainframe systems more than they trust their distributed systems. But a "perfect storm" may be brewing. Many of the the mainframe Baby Boomer generation programmers will retire in the next decade. Deborah Perelman writes that CIOs should plan for this "problem".
I am a long time mainframe programmer, and I am now learning Java, JavaBeans, JDBC, and Swing, in order to switch to a more modern technology. My mainframe shop CIO says that we are moving to Java, but that our mainframe system will still be around in 10 years. Do Slashdot readers agree with my choice to learn Java? Or should I remain forever a mainframer? Do I trust my CIO?"
I am a long time mainframe programmer, and I am now learning Java, JavaBeans, JDBC, and Swing, in order to switch to a more modern technology. My mainframe shop CIO says that we are moving to Java, but that our mainframe system will still be around in 10 years. Do Slashdot readers agree with my choice to learn Java? Or should I remain forever a mainframer? Do I trust my CIO?"
Submission + - Working in a very remote area
leeet writes: My family and I are faced with a big dilemma. I'm from a small town where the only thing IT-related is the local mom and pop computer shop and I'm barely being sarcastic. There is no innovation and most medium to large companies fulfill their IT needs from head office (i.e. if something breaks, they basically sent consultants for 1 or 2 days). Since I work in a semi-specialized field (IT Security), I had to move to a large city in order to make a "nice" living. Turns out that we're not sure if we're living a "nice living" after all: long commute time, away from our family, expensive housing and so on. I think everyone knows what I'm talking about.
So I'm faced with two choices:
1. Work in a large city, pay a high mortgage, commute forever and have no life whatsoever with my family. Not the best for my family.
2. Move to a nice remote area, work in some factory and struggle to make a decent living while never knowing when the factory will close (I'm also being barely sarcastic here). Not really better for my family.
So the best is of course a mixture of both options. I have some ideas in mind but they are very limited (like starting my own physical/Internet business, telecommuting for an IT company or simply re-orienting my career although this would be hard — like opening a restaurant, owning a bed & breakfast inn or something entirely different of what I do)
As far as telecommuting, I'm curious to know about real-life examples. What do you telecommuter people do? Sure some people telecommute, but is this "real"? Do some people really telecommute 365 days a year? Every single company that I worked for had a telecommute policy and we couldn't do it year round. We had perhaps 1 or 2 days per week at the maximum. My current company actually completely forbids telecommuting. So are there fields that are more open to telecommuters (perhaps fields where decentralization is well accepted — like insurance)?
Anyone willing to tell their own success story? How are you making enough money to support your family in a remote area? And perhaps more important, what are you doing exactly? I'm not looking for obvious ideas (i.e. do freelance programming — I already know about this) but rather for "think out of the box" ideas. Is anyone working from Hoot Owl, Oklahoma and is happy about it?
So I'm faced with two choices:
1. Work in a large city, pay a high mortgage, commute forever and have no life whatsoever with my family. Not the best for my family.
2. Move to a nice remote area, work in some factory and struggle to make a decent living while never knowing when the factory will close (I'm also being barely sarcastic here). Not really better for my family.
So the best is of course a mixture of both options. I have some ideas in mind but they are very limited (like starting my own physical/Internet business, telecommuting for an IT company or simply re-orienting my career although this would be hard — like opening a restaurant, owning a bed & breakfast inn or something entirely different of what I do)
As far as telecommuting, I'm curious to know about real-life examples. What do you telecommuter people do? Sure some people telecommute, but is this "real"? Do some people really telecommute 365 days a year? Every single company that I worked for had a telecommute policy and we couldn't do it year round. We had perhaps 1 or 2 days per week at the maximum. My current company actually completely forbids telecommuting. So are there fields that are more open to telecommuters (perhaps fields where decentralization is well accepted — like insurance)?
Anyone willing to tell their own success story? How are you making enough money to support your family in a remote area? And perhaps more important, what are you doing exactly? I'm not looking for obvious ideas (i.e. do freelance programming — I already know about this) but rather for "think out of the box" ideas. Is anyone working from Hoot Owl, Oklahoma and is happy about it?
Submission + - Self-Centered Cultures Narrow Your Viewpoint (eurekalert.org)
InvisblePinkUnicorn writes: "NewScientist reports on research indicating that people from Western cultures such as the US are particularly challenged in their ability to understand someone else's point of view because they are part of a culture that encourages individualism. In the experiment, Chinese students outperformed their US counterparts when ask to infer another person's perspective. Volunteers had to follow the instructions of a director and move named objects from one compartment to another. But sometimes the researchers placed two objects of the same kind (eg, "wooden block") in the grid. 95% of Chinese students would immediately understand which object to move — the one visible to both them and the director. Their US counterparts, however, did not always catch on — only 35% understood what to do."
Submission + - WIndows losing development, Linux gaining
Seeker451 writes: "CNET NEWS July 3, 2007 A study by by Evans Data reports a 10 percent drop in the number of developers writing software applications for Windows, also forecasts another 2 percent decline this year. The big winner — this hardly comes as a surprise — is Linux.
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9739643-7.html"
Submission + - Banks Make More on Overdraft Fees than Loans (jeremyduffy.com)
JeremyDuffy writes: "Research shows that banks are making far more on fees than actual loans. Worse yet, they specifically engineered their systems and policies to maximize the fees charged. For example, holding deposits long enough for your account to go negative so they can charge overdraft fees. New laws are in the works and if they pass, this kind of predation could end.
In the meantime, you can use their nasty policies against them to get free loans for the cost of a single fee (see the article for details)"
