I see no reason why you can't become a good programmer. I work in IT and I see many people over forty having to learn new skills, because they are familiar with the operational systems and have too little on their plate (that is what bosses always think..).

Then again, you are becoming a grunt. You are pushed down from your career path, doing things that twenty-somethings do when they are just hired.

My advice to you: become really good in something. Pick one programming language you like, and start to design large scale architectures, interactions between high level critical systems and make sure that if they get implemented, you'll be there doing it. You need to get your career going, and IMHO software architect is the way to go.

Let's - for the sake of argument - assume, that I will pirate Photoshop CC.

Now let's also assume that BSA will raid my house and put me in jail pending trial.

And then.. how much do I owe Adobe? How much damage have I caused using pirated software? Surely not $700 (price of Photoshop CS6)?

* Numbers may be subject to change once verified with actual the parts.

http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6936/Screen%20Shot%202013-05-06%20at%2011.16.42%20AM.png

So this is marketing pulling figures out of somewhere and posting them as the Ultimate Truth, without actually having the hardware to test them with?

Migration is for the poor :)

I have Windows, *BSD, Linux, Mac OS X, Android, iOS peacefully coexisting on my various computers/devices. I use what I like.

There is no one OS to rule them all - instead, enjoy your choices!

During xmas holidays in 2009 I wrote a small Linux script that would take a webcam picture once every 5 minutes. Then I set up a webcam in my living room, and I mostly have the whole year 2010 recorded from my living room. I spend too much time watching TV :-(

Sometime early 2010 I also wrote a ffmpeg script, that is run with cron every midnight, and it compiles all the daily pics into a time lapse video. They are the only way I can view the material - there is loads of it. Running "ls" on the directory with the pictures takes about 5mins, so I strongly recommend you put each day in a separate folder.

Who will watch this stuff? I don't know, I just do weird projects for fun.

Here, have a look at this Anandtech E-350 review:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4499/fusion-e350-review-asus-e35m1i-deluxe-ecs-hdci-and-zotac-fusion350ae/15

They pair very low-end AMD CPU with best GPU on the market at the time. Results: the CPU does affect the performance. No suprises there..

You need to be more specific with your hardware.

Also, take a look here:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/48

You really think Dell will let you use that as a Web Browser? Think again.

It is going to be a dumb terminal that connects to Dell Services. These services will likely have a monthly/usage based fee.

There is no business sense in giving you hardware with low profit margins for your personal use.

Hi!

The story is based on Facebook posts, which are in Finnish. Luckily, I am a Finnish person, and here is my take:

1) TTVK allegedly posts a Pirate Bay Torrent with latest cd from the Finnish artist Chisu (crappy music, that appeals to youth)
2) This guy claims his daughter downloaded it while "googling for test samples for album she didn't have money to buy at the time"
3) TTVK sends an angry letter, demanding 600 euros and demanding that you sign NDA about the agreement to pay
4) Police comes to raid the man's home, several months later, taking only the laptop of his daughter, and saying things like "just pay the bill, it is not that much" and "if you pay, we will go away and leave you alone"
5) Guy decides to fight it, does not sign the NDA and makes a Facebook post
6) Kukilainen from TTVK makes a note saying, "we only track IPs and we will take this to court"
7) Artist posts on her Facebook page "I don't want to sue my fans, but I think these TTVK guys are not so bad as you think"
8) Anti-piracy party in Finland blames the artists for not taking a stand, praises the guy for his heroism and demanding law reforms
9) Police makes a statement, that they are investing the father's part in this and it becomes clear, that the guy own's a bar and has live performances - so he should be aware of intellectual property rights.

The general atmosphere here in Finland is, that artists and contributors generally do want compensation, want this particular case to go away , and TTVK to resume business as usual and normal people are waking up to reality of our crappy copyright laws. One university law professor stated, that legistlation is a result from lobbying campaign from TTVK and should not ever have passed in its current form.

Links:
http://antipiracy.fi/inenglish/

Manufacturing jobs are low pay, lots of manual work. This gives a whole new meaning to words "code monkey".

Imagine truckloads of people doing basic programming tasks straight out of school. In worst case, they have one college graduated "software architect" and 50 people coding stuff he designed. And their career plan: if you do well, you can have your own team building software. That's it.

And I haven't even started on the quality of code..

Oh, I can see why Microsoft would offer a new license:

- Personal -> they tie that your Windows-account, so you can't never ever sell it
- Single System -> they tie that to your PC configuration, so you can't change your GPU without upgrading to full version

.. so they are just making another confusing license and hope to gain more users for their Anytime Upgrade. I mean, you do have to upgrade your PC if you are like selling your old PC with PULSB. This way Microsoft can charge for Windows 8 twice, yay!

I had Asus EEEPC 901 and I currencly have Intel DC 2700 DC Atom-motherboard.

I just love their Linux support! On 2700DC it doesn't exist. Hell, it took them 6 months to get XP drivers out.

On GMA 950 (EEEPC 901) they decided quietly to downgrade OpenGL back to 1.x -versions, because they couldn't be arsed with maintaining the driver base.

Let me guess - that SDK is Windows only?

I have Samsung Galaxy S.

Samsung has been neglegting this phone every since Galaxy S II came out. The latest firmware was buggy and sometimes my screen would not work and only removing the battery would fix it. Battery life was horrible, too: one day, when phone was on the table doing nothing.

Then I installed CyanogenMod9 (ICS), and battery life has tripled. There are a few bugs, like radio doesn't work or some camera modes, but everything else works perfectly. From what I am seeing, this hardware is more than enough to run ICS. But not according to Samsung.. There will be no official ICS update ever.

I am thinking about switching to HTC. Samsung had managed to cripple my old phone - probably trying to force me to upgrade.

I clicked the link and read TFA:

For that you'll get 8GB of storage, but a 16GB model will go for $249, 32GB for $299. We're told only the 16GB and 32GB models will be shipped to the US..

So... they'll have a 8GB $200 model, somewhere, probably always sold out, and the real price will be between $249 - $299.

I've stopped downloading illegal software after finding a decent place to work years ago (so I can afford the things I need now!).

This is a total exception. I would definately use some illegal "crack" to unleash the full power of the product I bought. It was crippled at the time of purchase and I am just "fixing it".

I don't see any moral problems with this. That is why I am not posting as AC.

I've done analysis on some of the lisences for my previous company. The thing it, you can actually have trade secrets in your code with for example BSD-style lisence, where you only need to provide the acknowledgement and changes to the original source code. Sometimes not even that much. We actually chose software based on the lisencing terms. Not all lisences are that restrictive (for commercial gain).

Then again, with GPL you need to publish the full source code, so this is a moot point.

If the lisence would have been LGPL, they could easily just keep their trade secrets..