With the close of my AI BSc in sight, I've started making plans for what's going to happen afterward. I'm not having a ceremonial graduation because I'm a cheapskate, and likely to have been bored to death by it.
Exams are on 24th, 27th and 30th of this month, and I'm actually fairly ready for them.
I've been looking through job offers and telephoning around, have had a couple of phone interviews and been talking with agents. The most promising position so far, is for a python/javascript/django developer in London.
After I started searching for jobs, I anticipated a move would be necessary, but it's a fair way away from Aberdeen.
Onward and upward...
On the 27th, I've got a phone interview with another company who may want me for a Java role, accompanied by a coding test over a collaborative text editor. For that, I'm pretty damned nervous in all honesty.
I've had an interview for the first company already, which went pretty damned well. They've now invited me down for a face-to-face interview on the 31st - a day after my last exam. It's probably going to end up being on a plane or an overnight train.
I didn't manage to make the ARM position, not sure why.
Ah, well...
Not much time lately for messing about - I've been studying my arse off for the coming exams, specifically my 'Computer Games AI' course, a lot of the material is shared with my Higher exam, back in secondary school.
There was also a period when it felt likely that I'd get a position in France, so I decided to crash-study French. It was easier than I thought, and I found myself to be potentially very good at languages. Sadly, I've forgotten most of what I learned that day. I'll get back to it at some point.
Lee.
Saturday 21 May 2011
A rant about iPads
I've got a friend who's Macbook pro recently died without warning.
Apple were willing to replace the dead motherboard for about £419. A fair bit, for a 4/5 year-old machine.
Also recently, the same friend acquired an iPad 2 for the price of £500.
He says he's looking for a new Apple laptop to replace his old one, 'To do university work on'.
So, I thought: he just forked out for an iPad 2 - Isn't there an app for that, or something?
I'm serious - you buy a computer, but it can't do quite everything that a normal machine can do, so you have to buy one of those, to make up for the deficits of the first one.
If he can't write and compile code and write reports on his iPad 2, what the hell is the point of the unit?
Steve Jobs cites the iPad as a 'missing link'-device, 'bridging the gap between netbooks and smartphones.'
Some iPad proponents accept these deficits, and attempt to justify them with claims fitting the form of: 'But it's not a computer, it's an appliance - it's not meant for serious computer users, it's meant for people who want to do light tasks'.
(For such a discussion, read: http://www.geeksix.com/2010/01/the-really-big-point-that-ipad-haters-are-missing/)
I'm going to summarise the point made by that page in my own language:
"The iPad can't do things, not because it's a 'weaker'-type of computer, but because it's not a computer at all, and as such, it's not supposed to do these things. Also, anyone who still doesn't understand is a stupid-face who is unable to grasp subtlety and good design!".
What Apple have in fact done, is take a successful product(The tablet pc, a dubious device for a normal user anyway), remove features that most people don't use, and market it as a separate 'kind' of device.
But the iPad isn't even that good. It omits features that normal people(even novices) DO want, such as an SD card slot, a keyboard and a USB port. I know that these things are available as addons, but the dongles look bad, and when attached, remove some of the device's actual selling points(Nice shape, pretty finish, and self-contained appearance).
It also seems to actually require the presence of a 'full' computer, running Apple's iTunes application to update iOS.
The argument that the iPad is 'not a computer in the normal sense', presented in the article on http://www.geeksix.com doesn't hold water, because:
The iPad is not another class of device. It's mostly a normal computer. It's a hardware/software combination which can carry out tasks.
The iPad is designed to create a synthetic market segment, it's OS is simply another platform, separated and incompatible with others already in place such as OS X and Windows.
Many-an-ignorant-user has presented me with the same argument in fact, for Apple's desktops/laptops - that they aren't meant for 'power users', they're 'just for normal people who don't want to know how computers work'. This is more obviously flawed than the similar iPad argument, I believe, due to the larger, more open ecosystem of applications available for OS X, when contrasted with that of iOS.
In fact, I'll bet that if the device survives, we'll start seeing IDEs and other similar tools which aren't for 'normal people', running on some incarnation of iOS, before long.
I think I've been quite good here, in that I've avoided poking the normal holes in apple products, like 'delicate' or 'overpriced'.
This has been more of an attack on the philosophy/ideals held by Apple and some of it's users.
If you disagree, show me your worst in the comments, I look forward to reading them.
'Til next time :)
ADDENDUM:
If you do feel like swapping £500 for something with a touch screen, may I recommend the Dell Inspiron Duo
Apple were willing to replace the dead motherboard for about £419. A fair bit, for a 4/5 year-old machine.
Also recently, the same friend acquired an iPad 2 for the price of £500.
He says he's looking for a new Apple laptop to replace his old one, 'To do university work on'.
So, I thought: he just forked out for an iPad 2 - Isn't there an app for that, or something?
I'm serious - you buy a computer, but it can't do quite everything that a normal machine can do, so you have to buy one of those, to make up for the deficits of the first one.
If he can't write and compile code and write reports on his iPad 2, what the hell is the point of the unit?
Steve Jobs cites the iPad as a 'missing link'-device, 'bridging the gap between netbooks and smartphones.'
Some iPad proponents accept these deficits, and attempt to justify them with claims fitting the form of: 'But it's not a computer, it's an appliance - it's not meant for serious computer users, it's meant for people who want to do light tasks'.
(For such a discussion, read: http://www.geeksix.com/2010/01/the-really-big-point-that-ipad-haters-are-missing/)
I'm going to summarise the point made by that page in my own language:
"The iPad can't do things, not because it's a 'weaker'-type of computer, but because it's not a computer at all, and as such, it's not supposed to do these things. Also, anyone who still doesn't understand is a stupid-face who is unable to grasp subtlety and good design!".
What Apple have in fact done, is take a successful product(The tablet pc, a dubious device for a normal user anyway), remove features that most people don't use, and market it as a separate 'kind' of device.
But the iPad isn't even that good. It omits features that normal people(even novices) DO want, such as an SD card slot, a keyboard and a USB port. I know that these things are available as addons, but the dongles look bad, and when attached, remove some of the device's actual selling points(Nice shape, pretty finish, and self-contained appearance).
It also seems to actually require the presence of a 'full' computer, running Apple's iTunes application to update iOS.
The argument that the iPad is 'not a computer in the normal sense', presented in the article on http://www.geeksix.com doesn't hold water, because:
- The purported use of the iPad is exactly the same as the use of a normal desktop/laptop computer most of the time, for many users. We know this is true anyway, or there would be a real lack of user-base.
- Addons exist which allow the iPad to duplicate much of the functionality of modern PCs, such as an SD card adaptor, USB adaptor, and addon keyboard.
- There is an online repository of free and paid applications available for the iPad. In it's stock state, the iPad is perfectly capable of 'normal-person-tasks', such as playing music, social networking, web surfing, email checking. In fact, i'm surprised apple even have an app store, considering how much it detracts from being different from laptops/desktops/netbooks/smartphones.
The iPad is not another class of device. It's mostly a normal computer. It's a hardware/software combination which can carry out tasks.
The iPad is designed to create a synthetic market segment, it's OS is simply another platform, separated and incompatible with others already in place such as OS X and Windows.
Many-an-ignorant-user has presented me with the same argument in fact, for Apple's desktops/laptops - that they aren't meant for 'power users', they're 'just for normal people who don't want to know how computers work'. This is more obviously flawed than the similar iPad argument, I believe, due to the larger, more open ecosystem of applications available for OS X, when contrasted with that of iOS.
In fact, I'll bet that if the device survives, we'll start seeing IDEs and other similar tools which aren't for 'normal people', running on some incarnation of iOS, before long.
I think I've been quite good here, in that I've avoided poking the normal holes in apple products, like 'delicate' or 'overpriced'.
This has been more of an attack on the philosophy/ideals held by Apple and some of it's users.
If you disagree, show me your worst in the comments, I look forward to reading them.
'Til next time :)
ADDENDUM:
If you do feel like swapping £500 for something with a touch screen, may I recommend the Dell Inspiron Duo
Wednesday 4 May 2011
A driver
I've always been fascinated by the Linux kernel, mainly how so many drivers and bits get written into it with so little 'real' documentation. Some of it's there, scattered across the web. I've yet to find anything as comforting as a Linux kernel doxygen manual.
The closest thing that's currently up and running is LXR (http://lxr.linux.no) - a sourcecode viewer/search site.
I've been holding off from actual kernel hacking for a long time (this is mainly down to intimidation), but yesterday I finally bit the bullet and started reading source code properly and trying to understand it. And turns out, it's not so bad after all. To prove it, I wrote a simple proc file driver: http://fluffy.bizarrefish.org.uk/sync/fun/lee.c
Toodleoo. I'll have something big to write about soon, I imagine.
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