Comment Re:Minecraft (Score 1) 114
Minecraft is a great example. Written at a time where all major games had teams in the hundreds, and multi million dollar budgets. Everyone had declared the solo programmer dead.
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Comment Fear the self driving car (Score 1) 275
Think urban sprawl is bad now? Just wait until you can sleep or work while driving. 8 hour commutes would not be uncommon.
Comment No (Score 1) 648
No, Kirk. The game's not over. To the last I will grapple with thee.
Comment Re:Not just useless, but actually toxic. (Score 1) 452
- Matching buy and sell orders in an in memory book. Normally each symbol will have its own book.
- the database is written to after the transaction, multiple machines track the transaction, and log files are written too.
Comment Re:That it's required for most employment these da (Score 1) 828
Agreed, In my view very few jobs should require University.
They way it is these days Post secondary education has established itself as the gateway to a better life.
Comment Re:Digital Driver (Score 1) 151
If or when we get a Digital Driver it will change commutes forever, and for the worse. I can see people in camper like vans so they can sleep on the 10 hour commute, or not even go home during the week, just let the car drive all night and drop you off at work in the morning. The concept of home will be totally gone.
Comment Re:The real question... (Score 1) 234
and see
Need a Friend? Rent One Online 134
crimeandpunishment writes "Housewives, college students, and others are working for a website that charges users an hourly rate for their companionship. No, it's not an escort service — at least it's not one 'with benefits.' It's a site called rentafriend.com, that's trying to carve out a niche in the 'everything's available online' business world. The seven-month-old site, patterned after hugely successful sites in Asia, has nearly 2,000 members who pay either a monthly or yearly fee to check out the pictures and profiles of more than 160,000 potential pals." I thought Craigslist had already cornered the market on renting a friend for an hour or two.
Comment Re:Not just Google (Score 1) 543
but he's grateful to have some sort of technical job at 70
I would say that having any job at 70 is an accomplishment. From my perspective I have not see age discrimination, I have worked side by side with developers that where 50+. In fact I'm still one of the young guys on my team and I'm in my late thirties.
What I have seen is experience discrimination. Guys who started on one platform in the 80's are out of luck these days. Also folks that stayed with a single company for too long. (IE 10+ years is way to long). Protip: Always work in one of the top 3 programming languages. Today that is C, Java, and Dot Net.
Comment Move on is the only way (Score 1) 495
Forgive me if I sound biter. I was once like you. Here is my story and I hope it helps.
I have always been a fast learner, and have always been able to take on greater and greater responsibilities at companies. My employers have always loved me. But raises where always very hard to get (if ever) and I was always paid below what I knew I was worth.
The only way I was able to get what I wanted was to move to other companies, and eventually to contract development.
Valve Delays Portal 2, Squashes Duke Nukem Rumors 135
SKYMTL writes "In a tongue-in-cheek commentary, Valve has announced the delay of Portal 2 and thrown water on the rumor fires regarding its E3 'surprise.' This surprise was rumored to be either Half-Life 3 or the revival of Duke Nukem, and it looks like neither will happen anytime soon."
Study Claims $41.5 Billion In Portable Game Piracy Losses Over Five Years 316
Gamasutra reports that Japan's Computer Entertainment Suppliers Association conducted a study to estimate the total amount of money lost to piracy on portable game consoles. The figure they arrived at? $41.5 billion from 2004 to 2009. Quoting:
"CESA checked the download counts for the top 20 Japanese games at what it considers the top 114 piracy sites, recording those figures from 2004 to 2009. After calculating the total for handheld piracy in Japan with that method, the groups multiplied that number by four to reach the worldwide amount, presuming that Japan makes up 25 percent of the world's software market. CESA and Baba Lab did not take into account other popular distribution methods for pirated games like peer-to-peer sharing, so the groups admit that the actual figures for DS and PSP software piracy could be much higher than the ¥3.816 trillion amount the study found."
Snails On Methamphetamine 93
sciencehabit writes "Science answers the question: What happens when you put a snail on speed? From the article: 'The results suggest that meth improves memory, something that has been previously observed in creatures with large, complex brains like rats and humans. But since the snails store their memories in a simple, three-neuron network, the team hopes that studying the meth effect in these gastropods will help pinpoint how the drug's memory magnification powers work.'"
Study Shows Standing Up To Bullies Is Good For You 458
It will come as no surprise to anyone who's ever talked to my grandpa, but a recent study has shown that standing up to a bully is good for you. Although being bullied can be stressful and lead to depression, children who returned hostility were found more likely to develop healthy social and emotional skills. From the article: "In a study of American children aged 11 and 12, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, compared those who stood up to aggressors with those who did not. Children who returned hostility with hostility appeared to be the most mature, the researchers found. Boys who stood up to bullies and schoolyard enemies were judged more socially competent by their teachers. Girls who did the same were more popular and more admired by teachers and peers, the researchers found."
Comment Babylon 5 (Score 1) 955
Ever since I watched Babylon 5 and have seen an entire series setup and resolve expectations over a number of seasons I thought that other shows would follow. I thought that Lost, and Battlestar would follow B5's example as they led me to believe. In the end I'm just left felling mad. I NEVER want to watch an episode of Lost or BSG again. It just feels like a lie.
Note to writers. You don't have to do the big mystery thing, you don't have to setup expectations of how its all going to end. Just do a simple episode by episode series (Like ST:TNG, DS9, and Voyager) it works fine, and I'm not left feeling mad.
