Shouldn't (1) include something like "and never found in abundance in organisms not suffering from the disease"
? I realize that (3) is attempting something like that but it isn't quite the same. Although it would be better if (3) said "always found to cause the disease" or something similar.
OTOH I've met engineers practising in computing who didn't know why a scsi cable should terminated. I couldn't believe it but it turned out to be true. When I tried to explain impedance mismatch and reflections to them they thought I was making it up. Another engineering grad had no idea what was in a stack frame and how to debug using the frames.
I agree. OTOH not liking it isn't always bad. I hated the place I was doing my masters. As a result, even though I was also working to support myself and then gf, I was in and out of there in 16 months as opposed to the more normal 36-48 months. I believe this was the fastest they had ever seen, even including guys whose companies were paying them full-time to do their degrees. Then I went somewhere I liked, had excellent scholarships and significant additional funding and as a result enjoyed a very very long Ph.D. program.
But why get a degree if you don't know what you want to do with it? If you really have no idea then find something you like in a totally different area - history, communications, psych, philosophy etc. Broaden your mind. Once upon a time it used to be the case that some large companies like IBM would hire people with arts degrees and then just teach them the tech stuff they wanted them to know - they had little interest in people with tech degrees. The exceptions were generally people they wanted for business skills (accounting, mba etc.) or hard science (physics, chem etc.)
I could address your comments because they are full of holes. But what's the point. like I aid you're unwilling to even acknowledge the existence of anything that contradicts your belief. You're the type that every time their position is defeated will just keep bringing up irrelevant shit that they think supports their case but will never acknowledge anything that might weaken it. You aren't interested in discussion you're interested in preserving your beliefs at any cost. Or in dick-sizing. Or both. Either way you're not interesting or informative. See ya. Have a nice life and all that.
Well the Conservatives have had a majority more than a couple of times over the last several decades without ever signing "us up to be Americans". You're waving your hands a lot about Stephen Harper and you studiously ignore the freedom limiting actions of the Liberals. I conclude there is little chance of an actual discussion with you.
It's possible that some people want to be able to make comment without being "broken" over and over again until they get used to it. That doesn't make them cowards. I could make a lot of comments here but it's pointless I think. Either you get why anonymous comment is both legitimate and necessary or you don't. That's fine - everybody gets to have an opinion.
And after all that, it probably wouldn't even get me a better-paying job, assuming that I could find anyone that wants to hire an engineer in their early 50s at all.
Good for you! I knew from the start that my degrees weren't going to make me more money - in fact it cost me a huge amount of money to go to school instead of continuing to work in my field. I went to school and, almost purely as a by-product, got the degrees because that was what I wanted to do. I estimate at least a million dollars in lost income for the time that took out of my earning years. And I find the "assuming that I could find anyone that wants to hire an engineer in their early 50s at all" to be a fair comment on hiring in most of the high tech world.
If you're still doing it after 15 to 20 years maybe you just like doing it and are good at it to boot. As for people wondering what went wrong - I agree that is a common reaction, and it's too bad. I remember one guy I knew as a grad student - he was about 55, had owned a car dealership or two and just quit to go back to school and get a university degree (he only had high school). This guy was taking almost a double course load and getting just about perfect in them all. As well as being on student council. And having a fair bit of time left over to drink in the student pub. Whoever got to hire this guy (if anyone) would be very very lucky. I knew a similar sort of guy in CS when I was an undergrad.
Both of these guys were doing what they wanted to do and if other people didn't understand why they were doing something usually reserved for the young that was too bad for them. More power to them I say.
Furthermore, 35 year olds usually have a life. 20 year olds don't. You really need to do something for 10,000 hours before you get fantastic at it. 20 year olds can accomplish that in three years. A 35 year old with a wife and a family won't accomplish that in a decade.
Yes, many 20 year-olds spend an average of 60 hours a week in their work/profession/study... most students do that in fact. Wife and kids or not most 35 year-olds are used to working a 40 hour week which means 10,000 hours in 5 years - hardly a case of "won't accomplish that in a decade." But maybe 35 year-olds have better math skills.;)
Is 35+ too old? No, I'm almost 37 and by far the best developer in my area (very large company). The people I see being squeezed out are the ones that are over 50 with no upward aspirations
I guess it depends on what you mean by upward... but if you mean rising in the position/department/company I disagree completely. Lots of people get to a point in their career where they are both very good at, and very happy with, their job. They don't aspire to move up because then they won't be doing what they most enjoy, and perhaps won't do it as well as they do their current job. That's one of the things people tend to figure out as they get closer to 50. Seeing that attitude as a bad thing is frequently a very subtle form of age discrimination.
It was an issue that was voted for at a policy convention. It doesn't become policy until that happens.
Which doesn't explain why your freedom loving Liberal Party didn't do it for the 30 years they had a majority.
It's easy to ignore something that just isn't there.
So you deny that the Liberals failed to include property rights in the Constitution? So you deny that the Liberal crafted Constitution puts group rights ahead of individual rights? So you deny that the Liberal crafted Constitution specifically uses weasel words allowing the government to limit the rights given by the Constitution? So you deny that the Liberal crafted Constitution contains the famous "notwithstanding" clause allowing the government to simply ignore any part of the constitutionally granted rights of individuals? If so then maybe you should be consuming a little less of that herb you're so worried about.
Right, they introduced it when they wouldn't have to bear any responsibility for it - if it passed the Conservatives had responsibility. If it failed then it was the Conservatives fault. How brave of the Liberals. Strange they couldn't manage to get this passed during the three decades of majority government they had. Three decades after their own commission told them to decriminalize it. Yes those brave freedom loving Liberals - LOL.
And how strange you keep ignoring all the anti-freedom constitutional measures of the Liberals to try and divert attention from the broader issue to the minor one of pot. Don't keep trying to avoid the real issues with this red herring.
Since you refuse to even look for the evidence you cannot make the claim that my comment was random. You just wish it was so because then you wouldn't have to deal with the uncomfortable truth. But go ahead, be my guest - have the last word because like most ideologues you keep making my point for me.
Yes, and what was the timing of this? What high priority did they put on it to make sure it passed before an election? None - because it would have cost them votes had they ever forced anything like this through during their three decades of majority. Please stop trying to paint the Liberals as freedom loving and the Conservatives as repressive - the facts speak the opposite and the (Liberal created) constitution is everlasting evidence of it - as I've already outlined here and which has studiously been ignored.
Oh puhleeaase! Moving towards it? For more than 30 years? They had the LeDain report for three decades and did nothing to decriminalize pot. Moving towards it, yeah right, only another 2 or 3 generations and they might have had another study. And mandatory minimum sentencing had very little if anything to do with arrests and conviction of pot users.
Really? I'm sorry I didn't see that/. rule, perhaps you could point it out?
I don't have time to educate every junior ideologue who demands proof of anything they don't want to believe yet is too lazy to research the issue themself. If you care so little for the breadth and depth of your knowledge why should I care enough to assist you? As for you in particular not believing me - I'll just have to live with all the sleepless nights that will engender.
Where were they? Pretty much the same place as the Liberal Party Of Canada. Did you see the Liberals decriminalize marijuana even though they had a large majority for most of a 30 year period?
The Liberals did on the other hand enshrine group rights over individual rights in the Constitution. And the Liberals did fail to put property rights into the constitution. And they did put lots of weasel words in the Constitution to allow government to circumscribe individual rights.
There's got to be some way to score that post higher than 5. Like maybe 50.
To add to c6gunner's list there is this: the Supreme Court of Canada stated that an accused is entitled to a defense, but not necessarily the best defence that could be mounted if the court allowed it. The reason given in that particular case was that it might discourage people similar to the purported victim from making complaints about other people similar to the accused (but not proven guilty) if the accused in this case were allowed the most effective defense available and he was therefore denied access to information that might have exonerated him.
In other words, "it's ok if we falsely convict you, and do it despite it being preventable, because it furthers the interests of a group whose members we like better than you."
If it is cowardly to use anonymous comment to avoid having a brick (or bricks) thrown through your window well then it seems a pretty reasonable sort of cowardliness.
There is also a huge range of penalties that can be brought to bear along the way from "people might not like you" to "the state is going to jail/kill you" and those penalties are non-trivial. Losing a job (and then the dominoes start to fall) for example. Being anonymously discriminated against for another. Having your rights simply ignored because you've said the wrong things.
State persecution aside, unless you've had the mob turn it's attention on you then you probably have no idea just how important anonymity can be to your safety and well-being.
There is also the idea of ad hominem attacks in discourse. These are decried for good reason and an ad hominem attack based solely on someone being anonymous is no better. It is foolish and wrong headed to devalue what someone is saying simply because they are saying it anonymously.
The following is the transcript of an actual radio
conversation in October 1995, between a US Navy ship
off the coast of Newfoundland, and some Canadians.
The transcript was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on 10/10/95.
CANADIANS: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South, to avoid a collision
AMERICANS: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the North, to avoid a collision
CANADIANS: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
AMERICANS: This is the Captain of US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
CANADIANS: Negative. I say again. You will have to divert your course.
AMERICANS: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN. THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC
FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS, AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT
YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH. THAT'S 15 DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN
TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
CANADIANS: We are a lighthouse. Your call.
People are in awe when they see what you can do in 64kB on a PC
64KB???? And a PC (meaning an 8088 or better)??? If that awes them then they should go see what you could do in 2K on a PDP-8 (8 whole opcodes!!!!) - it'll make their heads explode! LOL
Which term was first coined in Ted Nelson's book "Computer Lib and Dream Machines" I believe (published in the early to mid 70's). There might be a hyphen or three in there somewhere.
I won't disagree with the gist of your comment but it does make me wonder if there are companies, or other entities other than governments, that intrinsically have to be that big to do their job and yet can't be allowed to fail because of that size.
Otherwise yes it's like the Motherhood industry... we don't let mothers slide too far economically because they possess children that would then suffer - and as a society we don't seem prepared to say either of "tough luck for the kids" or "you can't afford to care for the children so we will give them to someone who can." The local SPCA started doing this with low income people who brought their pets in for help that they couldn't afford. The SPCA would do the required care but only on condition the owner surrendered the animal. On the one hand I thought it sucked for anyone on the receiving end of that but on the other hand there was a certain amount of sense to it.
Slashdot Mirror
Shouldn't (1) include something like "and never found in abundance in organisms not suffering from the disease" ? I realize that (3) is attempting something like that but it isn't quite the same. Although it would be better if (3) said "always found to cause the disease" or something similar.
OTOH I've met engineers practising in computing who didn't know why a scsi cable should terminated. I couldn't believe it but it turned out to be true. When I tried to explain impedance mismatch and reflections to them they thought I was making it up. Another engineering grad had no idea what was in a stack frame and how to debug using the frames.
I can't imagine you'd enjoy getting your masters
I agree. OTOH not liking it isn't always bad. I hated the place I was doing my masters. As a result, even though I was also working to support myself and then gf, I was in and out of there in 16 months as opposed to the more normal 36-48 months. I believe this was the fastest they had ever seen, even including guys whose companies were paying them full-time to do their degrees. Then I went somewhere I liked, had excellent scholarships and significant additional funding and as a result enjoyed a very very long Ph.D. program.
But why get a degree if you don't know what you want to do with it? If you really have no idea then find something you like in a totally different area - history, communications, psych, philosophy etc. Broaden your mind. Once upon a time it used to be the case that some large companies like IBM would hire people with arts degrees and then just teach them the tech stuff they wanted them to know - they had little interest in people with tech degrees. The exceptions were generally people they wanted for business skills (accounting, mba etc.) or hard science (physics, chem etc.)
I could address your comments because they are full of holes. But what's the point. like I aid you're unwilling to even acknowledge the existence of anything that contradicts your belief. You're the type that every time their position is defeated will just keep bringing up irrelevant shit that they think supports their case but will never acknowledge anything that might weaken it. You aren't interested in discussion you're interested in preserving your beliefs at any cost. Or in dick-sizing. Or both. Either way you're not interesting or informative. See ya. Have a nice life and all that.
Well the Conservatives have had a majority more than a couple of times over the last several decades without ever signing "us up to be Americans". You're waving your hands a lot about Stephen Harper and you studiously ignore the freedom limiting actions of the Liberals. I conclude there is little chance of an actual discussion with you.
It's possible that some people want to be able to make comment without being "broken" over and over again until they get used to it. That doesn't make them cowards. I could make a lot of comments here but it's pointless I think. Either you get why anonymous comment is both legitimate and necessary or you don't. That's fine - everybody gets to have an opinion.
And after all that, it probably wouldn't even get me a better-paying job, assuming that I could find anyone that wants to hire an engineer in their early 50s at all.
Good for you! I knew from the start that my degrees weren't going to make me more money - in fact it cost me a huge amount of money to go to school instead of continuing to work in my field. I went to school and, almost purely as a by-product, got the degrees because that was what I wanted to do. I estimate at least a million dollars in lost income for the time that took out of my earning years. And I find the "assuming that I could find anyone that wants to hire an engineer in their early 50s at all" to be a fair comment on hiring in most of the high tech world.
If you're still doing it after 15 to 20 years maybe you just like doing it and are good at it to boot. As for people wondering what went wrong - I agree that is a common reaction, and it's too bad. I remember one guy I knew as a grad student - he was about 55, had owned a car dealership or two and just quit to go back to school and get a university degree (he only had high school). This guy was taking almost a double course load and getting just about perfect in them all. As well as being on student council. And having a fair bit of time left over to drink in the student pub. Whoever got to hire this guy (if anyone) would be very very lucky. I knew a similar sort of guy in CS when I was an undergrad.
Both of these guys were doing what they wanted to do and if other people didn't understand why they were doing something usually reserved for the young that was too bad for them. More power to them I say.
Furthermore, 35 year olds usually have a life. 20 year olds don't. You really need to do something for 10,000 hours before you get fantastic at it. 20 year olds can accomplish that in three years. A 35 year old with a wife and a family won't accomplish that in a decade.
Yes, many 20 year-olds spend an average of 60 hours a week in their work/profession/study... most students do that in fact. Wife and kids or not most 35 year-olds are used to working a 40 hour week which means 10,000 hours in 5 years - hardly a case of "won't accomplish that in a decade." But maybe 35 year-olds have better math skills. ;)
Is 35+ too old? No, I'm almost 37 and by far the best developer in my area (very large company). The people I see being squeezed out are the ones that are over 50 with no upward aspirations
I guess it depends on what you mean by upward... but if you mean rising in the position/department/company I disagree completely. Lots of people get to a point in their career where they are both very good at, and very happy with, their job. They don't aspire to move up because then they won't be doing what they most enjoy, and perhaps won't do it as well as they do their current job. That's one of the things people tend to figure out as they get closer to 50. Seeing that attitude as a bad thing is frequently a very subtle form of age discrimination.
It was an issue that was voted for at a policy convention. It doesn't become policy until that happens.
Which doesn't explain why your freedom loving Liberal Party didn't do it for the 30 years they had a majority.
It's easy to ignore something that just isn't there.
So you deny that the Liberals failed to include property rights in the Constitution? So you deny that the Liberal crafted Constitution puts group rights ahead of individual rights? So you deny that the Liberal crafted Constitution specifically uses weasel words allowing the government to limit the rights given by the Constitution? So you deny that the Liberal crafted Constitution contains the famous "notwithstanding" clause allowing the government to simply ignore any part of the constitutionally granted rights of individuals? If so then maybe you should be consuming a little less of that herb you're so worried about.
Right, they introduced it when they wouldn't have to bear any responsibility for it - if it passed the Conservatives had responsibility. If it failed then it was the Conservatives fault. How brave of the Liberals. Strange they couldn't manage to get this passed during the three decades of majority government they had. Three decades after their own commission told them to decriminalize it. Yes those brave freedom loving Liberals - LOL.
And how strange you keep ignoring all the anti-freedom constitutional measures of the Liberals to try and divert attention from the broader issue to the minor one of pot. Don't keep trying to avoid the real issues with this red herring.
Since you refuse to even look for the evidence you cannot make the claim that my comment was random. You just wish it was so because then you wouldn't have to deal with the uncomfortable truth. But go ahead, be my guest - have the last word because like most ideologues you keep making my point for me.
Yes, and what was the timing of this? What high priority did they put on it to make sure it passed before an election? None - because it would have cost them votes had they ever forced anything like this through during their three decades of majority. Please stop trying to paint the Liberals as freedom loving and the Conservatives as repressive - the facts speak the opposite and the (Liberal created) constitution is everlasting evidence of it - as I've already outlined here and which has studiously been ignored.
They were moving towards it,
Oh puhleeaase! Moving towards it? For more than 30 years? They had the LeDain report for three decades and did nothing to decriminalize pot. Moving towards it, yeah right, only another 2 or 3 generations and they might have had another study. And mandatory minimum sentencing had very little if anything to do with arrests and conviction of pot users.
Really? I'm sorry I didn't see that /. rule, perhaps you could point it out?
I don't have time to educate every junior ideologue who demands proof of anything they don't want to believe yet is too lazy to research the issue themself. If you care so little for the breadth and depth of your knowledge why should I care enough to assist you? As for you in particular not believing me - I'll just have to live with all the sleepless nights that will engender.
Why, don't you know how to research something for yourself?
Where were they? Pretty much the same place as the Liberal Party Of Canada. Did you see the Liberals decriminalize marijuana even though they had a large majority for most of a 30 year period?
The Liberals did on the other hand enshrine group rights over individual rights in the Constitution. And the Liberals did fail to put property rights into the constitution. And they did put lots of weasel words in the Constitution to allow government to circumscribe individual rights.
There's got to be some way to score that post higher than 5. Like maybe 50.
To add to c6gunner's list there is this: the Supreme Court of Canada stated that an accused is entitled to a defense, but not necessarily the best defence that could be mounted if the court allowed it. The reason given in that particular case was that it might discourage people similar to the purported victim from making complaints about other people similar to the accused (but not proven guilty) if the accused in this case were allowed the most effective defense available and he was therefore denied access to information that might have exonerated him.
In other words, "it's ok if we falsely convict you, and do it despite it being preventable, because it furthers the interests of a group whose members we like better than you."
You be better off looking to the Liberal Party for infringing on individual freedoms in Canada.
If it is cowardly to use anonymous comment to avoid having a brick (or bricks) thrown through your window well then it seems a pretty reasonable sort of cowardliness.
There is also a huge range of penalties that can be brought to bear along the way from "people might not like you" to "the state is going to jail/kill you" and those penalties are non-trivial. Losing a job (and then the dominoes start to fall) for example. Being anonymously discriminated against for another. Having your rights simply ignored because you've said the wrong things.
State persecution aside, unless you've had the mob turn it's attention on you then you probably have no idea just how important anonymity can be to your safety and well-being.
There is also the idea of ad hominem attacks in discourse. These are decried for good reason and an ad hominem attack based solely on someone being anonymous is no better. It is foolish and wrong headed to devalue what someone is saying simply because they are saying it anonymously.
Made the rounds years back:
The following is the transcript of an actual radio conversation in October 1995, between a US Navy ship off the coast of Newfoundland, and some Canadians.
The transcript was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on 10/10/95.
CANADIANS: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South, to avoid a collision
AMERICANS: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the North, to avoid a collision
CANADIANS: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
AMERICANS: This is the Captain of US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
CANADIANS: Negative. I say again. You will have to divert your course.
AMERICANS: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN. THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS, AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH. THAT'S 15 DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
CANADIANS: We are a lighthouse. Your call.
People are in awe when they see what you can do in 64kB on a PC
64KB???? And a PC (meaning an 8088 or better)??? If that awes them then they should go see what you could do in 2K on a PDP-8 (8 whole opcodes!!!!) - it'll make their heads explode! LOL
Which term was first coined in Ted Nelson's book "Computer Lib and Dream Machines" I believe (published in the early to mid 70's). There might be a hyphen or three in there somewhere.
I won't disagree with the gist of your comment but it does make me wonder if there are companies, or other entities other than governments, that intrinsically have to be that big to do their job and yet can't be allowed to fail because of that size.
Otherwise yes it's like the Motherhood industry... we don't let mothers slide too far economically because they possess children that would then suffer - and as a society we don't seem prepared to say either of "tough luck for the kids" or "you can't afford to care for the children so we will give them to someone who can." The local SPCA started doing this with low income people who brought their pets in for help that they couldn't afford. The SPCA would do the required care but only on condition the owner surrendered the animal. On the one hand I thought it sucked for anyone on the receiving end of that but on the other hand there was a certain amount of sense to it.