Um, I believe the poster started with a given that nearly everyone agrees with (Corr != Cause) and expounded upon it to build an argument - you started with a given, mocked it by calling it a cliche, and ignored the substance of the argument.
The friend of this poster may have worked in a very highly regulated industry, such as financial services, healthcare, etc. If that is the case, in many instances that will lead to more IT folks relative to the overall core business.
I happen to work for a very large bank. We've got tons of IT folks and we have a very structured (and IMO a very organized) method of change control. Many times, this is the business's choice, but some of it relates to government regulation. This obviously makes sense... purely software firms can have wiggle room and room for software defects when they go live; however, banks do not have that wiggle room. There are heavy handed tactics government agencies can use to put the smack down on a bank for massive screwups (and this has happened), but there's the PR cost as well. If a bank makes the news for losing depositors' money, that literally could drive the bank out of business if the screwups were bad enough. I suspect the same is true for every regulated industry and (to a lessor extent) every gigantic company.
I am a tiny cog in a massive wheel and and freggin' love it.
I've tagged this story with ehnotbadiguess. Do more stories like these and maybe I won't totally hate idle. Though I think this is probably placed better in YRO or tech
You mean the 120 years young old lady working at the polling station can't help circumvent a software glitch with a viable workaround?/sarcasm
I love software, but for voting it sucks. Software has bugs; bugs require identification and workaround. The voting system in the USA (as opposed to a place like Canada) is not built for workarounds or second trys.
Plus the whole partisan from Diebold's CEO issue is spooky anyway. Down with E-voting!
There's one thing that is conspicuously missing from do not call lists, and that is the ability to opt out of ANY kind of call you receive.
Currently, you're not able to opt out of receiving political or charitable calls. There are companies out there masquerading as charities and calling folks. I'm on their list and have been told several times that I cannot and will not be removed from their lists, because they don't have to.
Yeah, I think a lot of people didn't understand my comment (didn't stop them from criticizing it though!); kinda funny how everyone just assumes hardware independence nowadays, and that it must've always been like this.
If you're serious, I'd say go for it. The aesthetics market is really just getting started and groundbreaking (at least I think it's groundbreaking) research like that could lead to pretty good marketability to aesthetics companies. The amount of money projected to go into aesthetics as baby boomers age is mind-boggling.
Or, on a non-monetary side you'd make a great contribution to humanity and make great connections with doctors that always want their opinions to be heard (and probably mentioned in PhD dissertations).
Near the end of the vid, they have about two seconds of "real Emily".
After seeing this part, I'm really under impressed. They basically took a really hot chick and put some kind of software wireframe mask over her face and made her look exactly the same - only creepy.
When you can take a fat, ugly chick and make her look like real Emily - blog it.
I always appreciate people pushing the envelope, but this is just an alpha test.
Agreed. At first glance, she looks attractive, but then you notice something off. I can't figure it out either. Maybe the skin is just too perfect - or too much makeup?
Remember when MSFT was the one promoting openness, as compared to the evil Apple and IBM empires?
I wouldn't be surprised to see a repeat, but with Google in the role of the open system, ala Android. It'll be interesting to watch the clean, sleak and confined iPhone go against the more likely open and flexible Android.
If history is any indication, I think Google wins.
He didn't specify what a good amount of symmetry was, but intuitively, I'd guess it's closer to perfectly symmetrical than not. But what do I know - this guy is supposed to be among the best in the world.
He said they'd look "weird" with perfectly symmetrical faces. My friend is not an engineer, so I think she was satisfied with that and didn't ask 100 follow up questions as I would have!
It kind of makes sense, I guess. It's really not natural to have a "perfect" face. Maybe a nearly perfect face with just the right kind of "healthy" asymmetry would be optimum?
Holy crap, I just wrote a ton on this stuff, oh well, hopefully you at least glance at it
=============
It is possible that we will meet somewhere in the middle, but that will mean we will fall back as India moves forward. Still, don't hold out your hopes for India. The middle class isn't exactly booming there
I agree that there will be some backwards movement in certain areas - manufacturing being the most prominent. But this is going to happen because "unskilled" manufacturing does not lend as much productivity to an economy. If it does not lend as much productivity, it cannot be as high paying as a more productive job can be. In that manner, those that cannot educate themselves into a skilled manufacturing job, or a high paying service job, will unfortunately lose. To help those people that have been replaced, I'm an advocate of training, education, and perhaps government assistance. This will allow people to retrain for the higher paying, skilled jobs we want to keep in the USA.
I will also say the middle class is booming in India and plenty of people are joining the ranks every day, but there are certainly many more living in abject poverty. Given a number of decades and Indian political and economic reform, I think we will reach a roughly equivalent living standard.
anti-globalization policies (aka protectionist policies) cut off profit-making opportunities for large companies and their wealthy owners. It is massive corporations and wealthy people who want to have access to global markets; it it NOT poor mill-workers in Iowa who want to have to compete with mill workers in India and China
That kind of sounds like "well, the little guy is getting screwed, so let's screw the big corporations". But even if that is not your intention, consider the effects that would have on an economy... so you reduce the ability for American companies to produce products as cheaply as foreign corporations do. The result of that would probably be: they are forced to hire American workers (I admit that), they cannot produce things as efficiently as their competitors, as a result of being less efficient, they have to either 1) price the items they sell higher or 2) accept less profit, or run losses.
I could write a whole paper on this (I'll spare you that)... but boiled down:
hiring more workers with unemployment at 5-6% would result in wage inflation. With wages going up, prices would have to go up to keep profits intact, leading to a higher cost of living, leading to demands for higher wages... wash, rinse, repeat. Inflation is a bitch - see late 70's early 80's for evidence.
Because the companies could not produce things as efficiently, there's no way they could compete with products made from other countries. So our companies will go out of business because no one wants to buy goods that are twice as expensive. Yes, you could say "no imports" but I'm not even going to get into how disastrous that would be.
Lastly, if companies ran losses, they obviously couldn't stay in business. But if they just didn't make as much money, consider that a company's value and ability to obtain loans is based on the amount of profitability. If profitability goes down, the stock market goes down, everyone's retirement nest egg goes down, and the value of the general USA economy goes down.
These things are economic theories like Newton's laws are a theory. This is the doctrine around which much of modern economic thought is based. And given the astounding growth we've seen in the past 50-100 years, I think it's working pretty well. Obviously, it could use improvement, but having open and flexible markets does work.
The best course of action is to encourage productivity, innovation and education, not to build walls which will only serve to keep us confined, over the long term. The economy of the USA has only grown along with us opening up to trade, and that is no coincidence.
Caste does not play the role in India that we in the West think it does (at least from all I've heard and read). Perhaps it has a little bearing in the rural areas, but in the area under discussion - the urban areas - lower castes have actually benefited most.
This is because of government affirmative action programs, and a backlash is beginning now because of the disproportionate treatment the "lowest class" is getting, in terms of employment gov't, etc. Very similar to the backlash that occurred in the USA with our affirmative action programs.
Actually no, at least not 100% symmetrical. I happen to be good friends with someone that works in the dermatological field. Although symmetry is desirable, 100% symmetry is not.
She works with the doctors who conduct trials for aesthetics (botox, restylane, etc) and in their conversations, a doctor had mentioned that while a MORE symmetrical face is desirable, a completely symmetrical face would not look attractive.
Maybe this would account for why some of these faces look a little off (esp the men) - just a little too symmetrical?
Do you know any history? Seriously. Have you read about what ACTUALLY happens when you institute policies you're advocating?
In case you're not aware, you end up taking any incentive away from production while AT THE SAME TIME encouraging the dishonest elite to create a regime that taxes everyone with those rules except for them.
You create a tyrannical aristocracy while crushing those you were naively trying to help. If you really think this system works, I'd suggest you move to Venezuela.
I can't believe we still have people in this world that think socialism has a chance to work.
Your comments are very pessimistic, and I disagree with them.
Yes, maybe we will have a standard of living like India, but not because we've gone down in our standard of living... it's because they will have come up. India has grown very well in the last 15 years, and so have we. I believe this illustrates that a rising tide can raise all ships. A prosperous India is in everyone's best interest, esp as a counter-balance to China.
Also, you are incorrect, protectionism does NOT hit rich people the hardest, it hits poor people the hardest. Those rich folk that own companies no longer have to compete with the likes of the foreigners for providing products or services, thereby lowering quality and wages and raising prices. One need only look at the current situation in Venezuela, the economic history of Latin America, or even the Great Depression era to find this is the case.
I read your title, and I've got to admit, I thought it was just an asinine kiddie post at first. But I think you've got a point. I don't know if free would necessarily cover it, but deeply discounted with a bare minimum amount of tracks, and being geared toward selling the tracks online.
That way, you get the "aw, what the hell" drunken purchases at 2A. It's a continuous income stream, as opposed to a one shot purchase, which is the Holy Grail for software manufacturers
I just feel the need to share. I was looking up the tech specs in wikipedia on raytracing and came across this. I suppose this is what is possible and what raytracing will look like in the future.
Wouldn't that be crazy? Really think about it. Making the (admittedly very large) assumption that this murderous %$@$#% accounted for ~85% of the spam this poster got, how many spammers can there be?
Are two or three master asshats ruining the Internet for everybody?
Slashdot Mirror
Um, I believe the poster started with a given that nearly everyone agrees with (Corr != Cause) and expounded upon it to build an argument - you started with a given, mocked it by calling it a cliche, and ignored the substance of the argument.
The friend of this poster may have worked in a very highly regulated industry, such as financial services, healthcare, etc. If that is the case, in many instances that will lead to more IT folks relative to the overall core business.
I happen to work for a very large bank. We've got tons of IT folks and we have a very structured (and IMO a very organized) method of change control. Many times, this is the business's choice, but some of it relates to government regulation. This obviously makes sense... purely software firms can have wiggle room and room for software defects when they go live; however, banks do not have that wiggle room. There are heavy handed tactics government agencies can use to put the smack down on a bank for massive screwups (and this has happened), but there's the PR cost as well. If a bank makes the news for losing depositors' money, that literally could drive the bank out of business if the screwups were bad enough. I suspect the same is true for every regulated industry and (to a lessor extent) every gigantic company.
I am a tiny cog in a massive wheel and and freggin' love it.
I've tagged this story with ehnotbadiguess. Do more stories like these and maybe I won't totally hate idle. Though I think this is probably placed better in YRO or tech
I call number 666!!
WOOHOO, I got it! Now bow to me, the temporary leader of the world!
You mean the 120 years young old lady working at the polling station can't help circumvent a software glitch with a viable workaround? /sarcasm
I love software, but for voting it sucks. Software has bugs; bugs require identification and workaround. The voting system in the USA (as opposed to a place like Canada) is not built for workarounds or second trys.
Plus the whole partisan from Diebold's CEO issue is spooky anyway. Down with E-voting!
That's what the pouch is for, it's like a built in handle.
Sheesh, you gotta tell some people EVERYTHING
Odd, just a little probe from the NSA?
Whenever attacks target specific countries, I wonder.... Yeah, I guess I'm feeling a little paranoid tonight.
Whatever it would look like, I'm guessing it would have GINORMOUS tits
There's one thing that is conspicuously missing from do not call lists, and that is the ability to opt out of ANY kind of call you receive.
Currently, you're not able to opt out of receiving political or charitable calls. There are companies out there masquerading as charities and calling folks. I'm on their list and have been told several times that I cannot and will not be removed from their lists, because they don't have to.
Once the FTC fixes this, then I'll be impressed.
Yeah, I think a lot of people didn't understand my comment (didn't stop them from criticizing it though!); kinda funny how everyone just assumes hardware independence nowadays, and that it must've always been like this.
If you're serious, I'd say go for it. The aesthetics market is really just getting started and groundbreaking (at least I think it's groundbreaking) research like that could lead to pretty good marketability to aesthetics companies. The amount of money projected to go into aesthetics as baby boomers age is mind-boggling.
Or, on a non-monetary side you'd make a great contribution to humanity and make great connections with doctors that always want their opinions to be heard (and probably mentioned in PhD dissertations).
Near the end of the vid, they have about two seconds of "real Emily".
After seeing this part, I'm really under impressed. They basically took a really hot chick and put some kind of software wireframe mask over her face and made her look exactly the same - only creepy.
When you can take a fat, ugly chick and make her look like real Emily - blog it.
I always appreciate people pushing the envelope, but this is just an alpha test.
Agreed. At first glance, she looks attractive, but then you notice something off. I can't figure it out either. Maybe the skin is just too perfect - or too much makeup?
Remember when MSFT was the one promoting openness, as compared to the evil Apple and IBM empires?
I wouldn't be surprised to see a repeat, but with Google in the role of the open system, ala Android. It'll be interesting to watch the clean, sleak and confined iPhone go against the more likely open and flexible Android.
If history is any indication, I think Google wins.
I don't know, I was wondering that too.
He didn't specify what a good amount of symmetry was, but intuitively, I'd guess it's closer to perfectly symmetrical than not. But what do I know - this guy is supposed to be among the best in the world.
He said they'd look "weird" with perfectly symmetrical faces. My friend is not an engineer, so I think she was satisfied with that and didn't ask 100 follow up questions as I would have!
It kind of makes sense, I guess. It's really not natural to have a "perfect" face. Maybe a nearly perfect face with just the right kind of "healthy" asymmetry would be optimum?
=============
It is possible that we will meet somewhere in the middle, but that will mean we will fall back as India moves forward. Still, don't hold out your hopes for India. The middle class isn't exactly booming there
I agree that there will be some backwards movement in certain areas - manufacturing being the most prominent. But this is going to happen because "unskilled" manufacturing does not lend as much productivity to an economy. If it does not lend as much productivity, it cannot be as high paying as a more productive job can be. In that manner, those that cannot educate themselves into a skilled manufacturing job, or a high paying service job, will unfortunately lose. To help those people that have been replaced, I'm an advocate of training, education, and perhaps government assistance. This will allow people to retrain for the higher paying, skilled jobs we want to keep in the USA.
I will also say the middle class is booming in India and plenty of people are joining the ranks every day, but there are certainly many more living in abject poverty. Given a number of decades and Indian political and economic reform, I think we will reach a roughly equivalent living standard.
anti-globalization policies (aka protectionist policies) cut off profit-making opportunities for large companies and their wealthy owners. It is massive corporations and wealthy people who want to have access to global markets; it it NOT poor mill-workers in Iowa who want to have to compete with mill workers in India and China
That kind of sounds like "well, the little guy is getting screwed, so let's screw the big corporations". But even if that is not your intention, consider the effects that would have on an economy... so you reduce the ability for American companies to produce products as cheaply as foreign corporations do. The result of that would probably be: they are forced to hire American workers (I admit that), they cannot produce things as efficiently as their competitors, as a result of being less efficient, they have to either 1) price the items they sell higher or 2) accept less profit, or run losses.
I could write a whole paper on this (I'll spare you that)... but boiled down:
hiring more workers with unemployment at 5-6% would result in wage inflation. With wages going up, prices would have to go up to keep profits intact, leading to a higher cost of living, leading to demands for higher wages... wash, rinse, repeat. Inflation is a bitch - see late 70's early 80's for evidence.
Because the companies could not produce things as efficiently, there's no way they could compete with products made from other countries. So our companies will go out of business because no one wants to buy goods that are twice as expensive. Yes, you could say "no imports" but I'm not even going to get into how disastrous that would be.
Lastly, if companies ran losses, they obviously couldn't stay in business. But if they just didn't make as much money, consider that a company's value and ability to obtain loans is based on the amount of profitability. If profitability goes down, the stock market goes down, everyone's retirement nest egg goes down, and the value of the general USA economy goes down.
These things are economic theories like Newton's laws are a theory. This is the doctrine around which much of modern economic thought is based. And given the astounding growth we've seen in the past 50-100 years, I think it's working pretty well. Obviously, it could use improvement, but having open and flexible markets does work.
The best course of action is to encourage productivity, innovation and education, not to build walls which will only serve to keep us confined, over the long term. The economy of the USA has only grown along with us opening up to trade, and that is no coincidence.
Caste does not play the role in India that we in the West think it does (at least from all I've heard and read). Perhaps it has a little bearing in the rural areas, but in the area under discussion - the urban areas - lower castes have actually benefited most.
This is because of government affirmative action programs, and a backlash is beginning now because of the disproportionate treatment the "lowest class" is getting, in terms of employment gov't, etc. Very similar to the backlash that occurred in the USA with our affirmative action programs.
Actually no, at least not 100% symmetrical. I happen to be good friends with someone that works in the dermatological field. Although symmetry is desirable, 100% symmetry is not.
She works with the doctors who conduct trials for aesthetics (botox, restylane, etc) and in their conversations, a doctor had mentioned that while a MORE symmetrical face is desirable, a completely symmetrical face would not look attractive.
Maybe this would account for why some of these faces look a little off (esp the men) - just a little too symmetrical?
Do you know any history? Seriously. Have you read about what ACTUALLY happens when you institute policies you're advocating?
In case you're not aware, you end up taking any incentive away from production while AT THE SAME TIME encouraging the dishonest elite to create a regime that taxes everyone with those rules except for them.
You create a tyrannical aristocracy while crushing those you were naively trying to help. If you really think this system works, I'd suggest you move to Venezuela.
I can't believe we still have people in this world that think socialism has a chance to work.
Your comments are very pessimistic, and I disagree with them.
Yes, maybe we will have a standard of living like India, but not because we've gone down in our standard of living... it's because they will have come up. India has grown very well in the last 15 years, and so have we. I believe this illustrates that a rising tide can raise all ships. A prosperous India is in everyone's best interest, esp as a counter-balance to China.
Also, you are incorrect, protectionism does NOT hit rich people the hardest, it hits poor people the hardest. Those rich folk that own companies no longer have to compete with the likes of the foreigners for providing products or services, thereby lowering quality and wages and raising prices. One need only look at the current situation in Venezuela, the economic history of Latin America, or even the Great Depression era to find this is the case.
I read your title, and I've got to admit, I thought it was just an asinine kiddie post at first. But I think you've got a point. I don't know if free would necessarily cover it, but deeply discounted with a bare minimum amount of tracks, and being geared toward selling the tracks online.
That way, you get the "aw, what the hell" drunken purchases at 2A. It's a continuous income stream, as opposed to a one shot purchase, which is the Holy Grail for software manufacturers
Brilliant.
Maybe after I figure out what actual purpose my Altair 8800 can serve, I'll try to figure this one out
I just feel the need to share. I was looking up the tech specs in wikipedia on raytracing and came across this. I suppose this is what is possible and what raytracing will look like in the future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Glasses_800_edit.png
Amazing
Wouldn't that be crazy? Really think about it. Making the (admittedly very large) assumption that this murderous %$@$#% accounted for ~85% of the spam this poster got, how many spammers can there be?
Are two or three master asshats ruining the Internet for everybody?
Sorry, I don't believe you, your English was way too good.