Outsourcing isn't the issue. Poor management of the outsourced workers is. What happened is when they outsourced the go on with little oversight. While Full Time employees are watched like a hawk. Even the most professional groups with the best skills when left alone without much oversight will interpret specs differently, have different values on what can be modified and what cant. The problem is not the model but not having a strong unifying management group to insure all the parts are created properly. Unlike the old model where the Managers can just walk cross departments and nip the problem in the butt. There is a lot of black box work going on. Which shouldn't be the case.
You may be going Evil Verizon corporation. But remember most of the current infrastructure is from good old Ma'Bell days (A phone monopoly who had massive government funding). Infrastructure is one of those things we all know we need but no one want to flip the bill for. Do you want to pay $2000 for a line to you home so your neighbors will only need to pay $50 because you paid for the infrastructure to you neighbors or the reverse a neighbor paid $2000 for the line and wants you to pay part of the bill even if you don't want the service. So you are verizon do you want to pay the full bill for an infrastructure that most likely you competitors will use anyways in time to areas that don't have much potential for sales.
Government money comes with strings. Sometimes it is just better to say no and deal with having less money.
The government says gives you a million dollars to to put broadband in rural areas. To fully do what the government wants costs you 2 million dollars. Even if you are planning to expand in that area it is not a good situation to be in and it better to pay the 2 million out of your own pocket then take the government, who will in turn watch you like a hawk and make sure it goes where they want it not where you want it. Needless to say even with the best intentions with government involvement priorities wont go where it is most needed but to where it makes the most political sense. Lets skip middle class areas, and put it in the poor areas where people cannot afford computers so it looks real good for photo opps showing how you are helping the poor. Or put it to the rich who are you big fundraisers and they have a new new faster internet connection to remember you by. The Working Lower Middle Class will probably be skipped as they are not a political problem to busy to speak up and not enough money to have any force. Now if you used your own money sure the Poorest areas will not get internet connection first. Yes the rich will probably still win, but the middle class who will have the most to gain will probably be next on the list.
Just because you made a big hit in the past it doesn't mean you can do it again. Normally when you have a new big hit product it is because of a few factors...
1. Timing, Netscape came along at the right time. Most PC's had SVGA display allowing 256 colors and 640x480+ graphics. Allowing for photographic pictures to be sent, as well the GUI has become standard part of computing not just a novelty geewiz feature. Standard non-geek people were using online services (or glorified BBS's) like Prodigy, America Online, CompuServe, and realizing there is actually a wider internet outside such services. Modem speed such as 14.4k which allowed 1 Megabyte of data in less then 10 minutes. So it came along when people wanted to use the internet and hard hardware to do so. Without such timing netscape would have been just an other Mosaic just used by education, and techies.
2. Eager Investors. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, a bunch of then Young people who have proven themselves making new investors looking for the next big thing to invest into, so they can make money off of the Next Bill Gates. In essence Early Bubble irrationality. All this extra investment got the name out.
3. Found a gap. There was a big feature gap that Netscape at the time filled.
4. Lack of competition. With no real competitors you can really get in.
Now compare it with today.
1. Timeing Browsers are old news. Even the Dominate Microsoft Internet Explorer is getting weaker in it pull. People are use and comfortable with whatever they chosen for their web browser. Better or not it is theres. The PC is no longer new and Hip, Cell Phones are becoming the new PC. And even in the cell phone market we now how full feature web browsers in those.
2. Investors are not so interested in technology as much any more. Content is more important then technology now.
3. Sure you can make it better but there isn't much of a Gap to be filled. Lets do X faster but that gap can also be filled with a faster computer.
4. Competing with Microsoft, Mozilla (your old creation), Google, Apple, Opera. You have a real battle to wage.
So if you were successful in the past doesn't mean you will be again.
However outsourced is easier to "fire" at least get a replacement. You can get a new Outsorced guy if you just feel that he is untrustworthy, for the employee you really need some evidence to back this up, meaning you will probably only fire him after the damage has been done not before.
Having an on-site or W2 employed could do just as much damage if not more then an outsourced one. In-Sourced Out-Sourced they are still all people. Some are good and some are bad. I have seen employees who were administrators do horrible things who are now in deep shit of legal troubles. There are Out-Sourced Administrators who take their job seriously and treat each of their customers like gold and treat their data with the upmost respect. It really depends on the person not who directly pays their paycheck.
Yeah some businesses could make more money just by opening up, like, for instance, drivers. I know some cases. I just had to add that. Well it really depends. For Drivers Open Source Drivers will mostly be for Linux. Which has 1% market share. So Lets assume there are 3 billion computer users that means about 30 Million Linux Users. Now about 1/3 of them will have computer powerful enough for the hardware that will need the driver. So that is 10 million users. Now about 1/5 of them will actually want such a device, so that is 2 million. Now 1/3 of them will buy it if they could. So 666 Thousand. Now about 2/3 of them will still buy the product and use it with windows. Leaving 222 thousand. Now about 2/3 of these people will happily use a closed source driver for Linux. So 74,000 users are left in Lost sales of units. Now If they did Open Source their drivers there is a chance that some 3rd party company will take the driver and make their hardware work with the same driver. So now you have competing 3rd party product made much cheaper because you as a company paid the for the R&D and they just copied your idea. So From the pool of 3 billion users you may have lost millions of potential sales.
Dear God, if you are a software company and do not write programs yourself, and instead you take other peoples code, you do not get to be 100% in charge of the copyright? That doesn't make any sence... Seriously if you are a software company and you do everything from scratch then you are not very efficient and you will most likely be replaced by an other company who can get code out faster/cheaper and more stable. Lets use a premade Database Engine vs making one yourself or lets just purchase a pre-made library that handles writing to different file formats. Sure you can make them yourself if you have the time. If you go with GPL code you don't have 100% control of the copyright either. At least if you purchase it you have it on file and they are not normally going to sue a customer for using their code as intended.
A lot of people like GPL not because of the GPL but because it is free as in Beer without the fear it can be a trick. I usually search for GPL products not because I am a fan of GPL but because I know I am not going to get a crippled Demo, or some shareware that will expire on me. I am a trained professional programmer but really I don't care much for the fact the source code is open. Yes I guess I could change the code to fix the problem, however for most cases if it doesn't do what I want I delete the program and look for another one, as it is quicker to do so then to go threw the source and figure out how it was written and change the code (especially as source code is open but the specifications are not).
Why business like proprietary it isn't always about making money but it gives them freedom that the GPL takes away from them. (the LGPL is better at this) But if you want to incorporate GPL code into you program you are forced to make it GPL. Which makes Mixing GPL Code with Propriety code and libraries nearly impossible. Avoiding GPL allows the company to make a product that uses code that does the job it wants to do without the GPL baggage, It isn't always about oh man I need to open source my Code but more to the fact I cannot use this well made library with my code thus forcing me to choose Either don't use the GPL code then I have freedom to license my code any way I want or completely remake a bunch of closed source libraries just for the sake that the GPL doesn't want you to use it with their code.
Also the significance of the GPL is magnified by the environment that you are in. Linux Market share is around 1% and Linux is the GPL big Daddy Poster Boy of GPL Done right. Posting in the tech rags and sites like slashdot you think roughly 60% of all the population uses Linux. But it is really less popular then you think. Microsoft Bombed on Vista what happened... Most People switched to Macs, not Linux.
The GPL is targeted to people who are in the following sectors Education, Government, and Not For Profit. Why (I am generalizing here, Yes there will be exceptions, I don't want to hear them!) Labor is underutilized, meaning their time isn't worth much they can spend days weeks months working on something without getting noticed. Budgets have a huge bureaucracy behind them, Trying to get approved for software purchase is way to much effort and will take longer then it will take to tweak open source to work for you. Have an Open Culture these organizations have little in terms of organization secretes, if an other organization uses your code is is not your loss. In contradiction For Profit businesses are different (and still I am generalizing here and they are exceptions). Labor it optimized, Meaning your time should be focused on getting the core value of your work done without tangents. Approval for funds are a bit easier, you say ether buy this $1000 application or it will take me an extra Month (costing $3000) to do it the other way. Closed culture. If you competitors get ahold of your work early they may have a better staff to beat you to your market and your development time is wasted and loss.
I think there is odd concept that Evolution produces the most efficient methods should be reduced. Evolution creates good enough, not perfect creatures. As well during the process better designs have failed for lesser designs as temporary conditions create such a situation. Sure good designs hold a better chance but like probability you can still get whipped out.
Tech people tend to make the mistake of working in private. Thus they loose visibility to the management. When you are not seen you are forgotten or expected to not be working, If you are going to do something a Midnight just because it is easier then during the day sure that is more efficient however you lost visibility time. If you have to fix it. Keep a log of it, make such log visible to people who matter.
To explain visibility I will use a real life example.
Last Year I got Laid off from my job. I got a new job within 2 week after getting Laid off because the CEO of the company who Laid Me off recommend me to the CEO of my current employer. Now about 1/2 of the company was Laid off including many people in my position. However the CEO only recommended me to the other CEO. Why Because I took it on myself to be visible. I attended and contributed to the Interdepartmental meetings, I talked to the boss and gave honest feedback. When I came to work early people know I was there early. I was seen and recognized in the company. Sure it didn't keep me from getting Laid off but it did help get me noticed well enough to get an other job quickly.
Document your time. Most of the time people who give you pressure about it is because they don't know you worked the late hours. Document your time, If it comes to evaluation period show the records. Advertise your time. I come in early every day a Work, I let everyone know that so when I leave early I don't get hassled from it, because they know I got there an hour before they did. And they are going to be leaving an hour after I left.
There is a lot of value in playing Devils Advocate. I personally wish more people would do such an exercise. It has many advantages.
1. It allows you to respect your opponents option. You may think or know he is wrong but you should respect that opinion as their own. Forcing you to think in that manor will help you respect where they are coming from and treat them like a human being.
2. It allows you to explore faults in your logic. You may be right but for the wrong reasons. 2+2 = 4 is the correct answer but if you solved it by Multiplying 2 and 2 then you are in fact wrong even if you get the correct answer as you are not following processing the information correctly. People stand on their view points often for wrong reasons for example just because their favorite political party like it then the will like it.
3. You learn to argue without emotional attachment. We think conflict as something that needs to be won. If you can get that feeling out of the way then you learn to listen to others ideas and become enlightened.
4. Find common ground. Often when you make the counter argument you realize there is common ground that comes up. Eg. Intelligent Design (not to be confused with Creationism) and Evolution are actually quite similar ideas (I didn't say theories), with the only real difference in the term Random meaning. Where Random is either the Hand of God making an extremely complex decision of the direction of the Universe, or just random as it is unpredictable without any Hand of a being. However you will see there are similarities and you learn to that the similarities gives you allies if you are debating say straight creationism.
5. Teaches you not to always go with the flow. Humans naturally have Gang Behavior such exercises helps assert individuality.
I was OK with the Floppy disks, all you need to do is format them and you have a nice black floppy. When they switched to CD's that is when it got bad. As you couldn't rewrite them.
I have always felt that site owners should be responsible for their adds that they show. Be it Internet, TV, Radio, Newspapers, etc... I am OK with adds however I want to be able to trust these adds. Just take a look at the Adds on CNN. A lot of them seem really shady, Content Owners should be responsible for damages that these products may produce from these adds as their advertisements are endorsing the product.
But say windows tells the driver when it is initialize to turn on default vs. Turn off by default. Or windows pulls to get its status every second vs. every 2 seconds.
A computer is more then just the CPU. The case of how does Windows 7 handle the hardware or the Drivers handle the hardware or a combination of both. Can really effect a system. Apple Hardware isn't more expensive then normal PC's because Apple is making so much more per copy. It is more expensive because there is a lot of little things built in that add up. Go to Dell or Lenovo and try to build yourself a Laptop that matches all of Apples features. When I say All I mean ALL, no excuses like I don't need that anyways. You will find that the prices are about the same... +/- $100.00 or so. But all those little features OS X knows about and uses properly. Boot Camp Drivers Cover most of them, Windows handles other ones. I know for an instance Windows Vista with boot camp keeps the lights on the keyboard while OS X is a bit smarter then that.
Now comes to the question. Is the Mac made Drivers for Vista keeping those lights on. Or Vista is telling the driver to keep it on. I am betting it is both.
OR... The simple fact LAN Parties of Out of date. Sorry. Why don't you bitch about the lack of Null Modem features that has been around for years. Back in dem days, Of StarCraft I most people had dial up, so Lan Parties were a good idea.... Now it is not. It is not evil, It is just removing a features that only a small portion of people will use.
You do realize that the 10.x the x is a major upgrade to the product. The difference between OS 10.3 and 10.4 and 10.5 is like the difference between Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. (well 10.5 isn't as crappy as vista is but you get the point) . The Current Version of OS X is 10.5.7 the.7 being the minor version which is free and most software works well being a few minor versions behind.
The differences between the OS 8, 9, 10 is like for Microsoft the difference between DOS, Windows(3.1-ME), and NT(2000-7)
In short, it is impossible for universities to provide vocational training for professions. There are too many jobs, too many ways of doing them, and too many changes in practices in every single profession for any one institution to have a ghost of chance of keeping up with all of them.
So you saying it is impossible to be 100% so lets not try to improve colleges so kids get some real work experience?
Don't get me wrong I am a big fan of teaching theory and the more academic areas of a particular study and there is a HUGE value in that. However many colleges do tend to lack on "Real World" skills, as well appropriate career counseling to give these students direction. Many of these skills can be more general classes not connected to your major. Things like personal finance, business communication skills, How to publish, copyright and patent your works (Yes this is unpopular on Slashdot, I know the arguments). They should even prepare you for what to expect when you get out of college. There are a lot of students who get nice degrees from well named college who fill like they are getting ripped off as they start out in beginner positions. Sure you May have a CS Degree from a Well Known Computer Science School... However you will still start out as entry level and you will take your orders from the Sr. Developer who got his degree from a Community College... And Guess what you actually may learn something from him, and many of those skills that you learned in college will not work for all cases.
The problem is Colleges Advertise themselves as the ultimate key for a successful career, once you get in then they tell you Oh we are just education we don't cover the ability to get a job outside acedemidia.
It is a tool in the bucket. That what it is. There will be a huge growth spurt, then they realize that it won't solve everything. Then they will cut back and still use it until they find something better.
The store decides what to sell not you. So it is not your concern. It is like Best Buy selling Ubuntu but not Debian. It doesn't make them less open source. Even if the iPhone store is closed. You could in theory put the developer app in.
Yes I am upset by this. If more then just a small handful of people start doing this then they will raise the price for parking for the people who do it legally. They may have to go and fix the system causing us to pay for it in taxes, as well future systems will need to be more expensive as they need to deal with hackers breaking the system all the time. The reason for meters besides revenue collection is to control the availability of parking spots. Metered parking helps keeps store front spots open for customers. As well keeps abandoned or broken cars sitting indefinitely in good parking spots.
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Outsourcing isn't the issue. Poor management of the outsourced workers is. What happened is when they outsourced the go on with little oversight. While Full Time employees are watched like a hawk. Even the most professional groups with the best skills when left alone without much oversight will interpret specs differently, have different values on what can be modified and what cant. The problem is not the model but not having a strong unifying management group to insure all the parts are created properly. Unlike the old model where the Managers can just walk cross departments and nip the problem in the butt. There is a lot of black box work going on. Which shouldn't be the case.
You may be going Evil Verizon corporation. But remember most of the current infrastructure is from good old Ma'Bell days (A phone monopoly who had massive government funding). Infrastructure is one of those things we all know we need but no one want to flip the bill for. Do you want to pay $2000 for a line to you home so your neighbors will only need to pay $50 because you paid for the infrastructure to you neighbors or the reverse a neighbor paid $2000 for the line and wants you to pay part of the bill even if you don't want the service.
So you are verizon do you want to pay the full bill for an infrastructure that most likely you competitors will use anyways in time to areas that don't have much potential for sales.
Government money comes with strings. Sometimes it is just better to say no and deal with having less money.
The government says gives you a million dollars to to put broadband in rural areas. To fully do what the government wants costs you 2 million dollars. Even if you are planning to expand in that area it is not a good situation to be in and it better to pay the 2 million out of your own pocket then take the government, who will in turn watch you like a hawk and make sure it goes where they want it not where you want it. Needless to say even with the best intentions with government involvement priorities wont go where it is most needed but to where it makes the most political sense.
Lets skip middle class areas, and put it in the poor areas where people cannot afford computers so it looks real good for photo opps showing how you are helping the poor. Or put it to the rich who are you big fundraisers and they have a new new faster internet connection to remember you by. The Working Lower Middle Class will probably be skipped as they are not a political problem to busy to speak up and not enough money to have any force.
Now if you used your own money sure the Poorest areas will not get internet connection first. Yes the rich will probably still win, but the middle class who will have the most to gain will probably be next on the list.
Just because you made a big hit in the past it doesn't mean you can do it again. Normally when you have a new big hit product it is because of a few factors...
1. Timing, Netscape came along at the right time. Most PC's had SVGA display allowing 256 colors and 640x480+ graphics. Allowing for photographic pictures to be sent, as well the GUI has become standard part of computing not just a novelty geewiz feature. Standard non-geek people were using online services (or glorified BBS's) like Prodigy, America Online, CompuServe, and realizing there is actually a wider internet outside such services. Modem speed such as 14.4k which allowed 1 Megabyte of data in less then 10 minutes. So it came along when people wanted to use the internet and hard hardware to do so. Without such timing netscape would have been just an other Mosaic just used by education, and techies.
2. Eager Investors. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, a bunch of then Young people who have proven themselves making new investors looking for the next big thing to invest into, so they can make money off of the Next Bill Gates. In essence Early Bubble irrationality. All this extra investment got the name out.
3. Found a gap. There was a big feature gap that Netscape at the time filled.
4. Lack of competition. With no real competitors you can really get in.
Now compare it with today.
1. Timeing Browsers are old news. Even the Dominate Microsoft Internet Explorer is getting weaker in it pull. People are use and comfortable with whatever they chosen for their web browser. Better or not it is theres. The PC is no longer new and Hip, Cell Phones are becoming the new PC. And even in the cell phone market we now how full feature web browsers in those.
2. Investors are not so interested in technology as much any more. Content is more important then technology now.
3. Sure you can make it better but there isn't much of a Gap to be filled. Lets do X faster but that gap can also be filled with a faster computer.
4. Competing with Microsoft, Mozilla (your old creation), Google, Apple, Opera. You have a real battle to wage.
So if you were successful in the past doesn't mean you will be again.
However outsourced is easier to "fire" at least get a replacement. You can get a new Outsorced guy if you just feel that he is untrustworthy, for the employee you really need some evidence to back this up, meaning you will probably only fire him after the damage has been done not before.
No Don't Mod Parent Up.
Having an on-site or W2 employed could do just as much damage if not more then an outsourced one. In-Sourced Out-Sourced they are still all people. Some are good and some are bad. I have seen employees who were administrators do horrible things who are now in deep shit of legal troubles. There are Out-Sourced Administrators who take their job seriously and treat each of their customers like gold and treat their data with the upmost respect. It really depends on the person not who directly pays their paycheck.
Yeah some businesses could make more money just by opening up, like, for instance, drivers. I know some cases. I just had to add that.
Well it really depends. For Drivers Open Source Drivers will mostly be for Linux. Which has 1% market share.
So Lets assume there are 3 billion computer users that means about 30 Million Linux Users. Now about 1/3 of them will have computer powerful enough for the hardware that will need the driver. So that is 10 million users. Now about 1/5 of them will actually want such a device, so that is 2 million. Now 1/3 of them will buy it if they could. So 666 Thousand. Now about 2/3 of them will still buy the product and use it with windows. Leaving 222 thousand. Now about 2/3 of these people will happily use a closed source driver for Linux. So 74,000 users are left in Lost sales of units.
Now If they did Open Source their drivers there is a chance that some 3rd party company will take the driver and make their hardware work with the same driver. So now you have competing 3rd party product made much cheaper because you as a company paid the for the R&D and they just copied your idea. So From the pool of 3 billion users you may have lost millions of potential sales.
Dear God, if you are a software company and do not write programs yourself, and instead you take other peoples code, you do not get to be 100% in charge of the copyright? That doesn't make any sence...
Seriously if you are a software company and you do everything from scratch then you are not very efficient and you will most likely be replaced by an other company who can get code out faster/cheaper and more stable. Lets use a premade Database Engine vs making one yourself or lets just purchase a pre-made library that handles writing to different file formats. Sure you can make them yourself if you have the time. If you go with GPL code you don't have 100% control of the copyright either. At least if you purchase it you have it on file and they are not normally going to sue a customer for using their code as intended.
No the Indians are to highly trained for such work. We need Americans who are afraid of Math but still think they are doing tech work to do the job.
A lot of people like GPL not because of the GPL but because it is free as in Beer without the fear it can be a trick. I usually search for GPL products not because I am a fan of GPL but because I know I am not going to get a crippled Demo, or some shareware that will expire on me. I am a trained professional programmer but really I don't care much for the fact the source code is open. Yes I guess I could change the code to fix the problem, however for most cases if it doesn't do what I want I delete the program and look for another one, as it is quicker to do so then to go threw the source and figure out how it was written and change the code (especially as source code is open but the specifications are not).
Why business like proprietary it isn't always about making money but it gives them freedom that the GPL takes away from them. (the LGPL is better at this) But if you want to incorporate GPL code into you program you are forced to make it GPL. Which makes Mixing GPL Code with Propriety code and libraries nearly impossible. Avoiding GPL allows the company to make a product that uses code that does the job it wants to do without the GPL baggage, It isn't always about oh man I need to open source my Code but more to the fact I cannot use this well made library with my code thus forcing me to choose Either don't use the GPL code then I have freedom to license my code any way I want or completely remake a bunch of closed source libraries just for the sake that the GPL doesn't want you to use it with their code.
Also the significance of the GPL is magnified by the environment that you are in. Linux Market share is around 1% and Linux is the GPL big Daddy Poster Boy of GPL Done right. Posting in the tech rags and sites like slashdot you think roughly 60% of all the population uses Linux. But it is really less popular then you think. Microsoft Bombed on Vista what happened... Most People switched to Macs, not Linux.
The GPL is targeted to people who are in the following sectors Education, Government, and Not For Profit. Why (I am generalizing here, Yes there will be exceptions, I don't want to hear them!) Labor is underutilized, meaning their time isn't worth much they can spend days weeks months working on something without getting noticed. Budgets have a huge bureaucracy behind them, Trying to get approved for software purchase is way to much effort and will take longer then it will take to tweak open source to work for you. Have an Open Culture these organizations have little in terms of organization secretes, if an other organization uses your code is is not your loss.
In contradiction For Profit businesses are different (and still I am generalizing here and they are exceptions). Labor it optimized, Meaning your time should be focused on getting the core value of your work done without tangents. Approval for funds are a bit easier, you say ether buy this $1000 application or it will take me an extra Month (costing $3000) to do it the other way. Closed culture. If you competitors get ahold of your work early they may have a better staff to beat you to your market and your development time is wasted and loss.
I think there is odd concept that Evolution produces the most efficient methods should be reduced. Evolution creates good enough, not perfect creatures. As well during the process better designs have failed for lesser designs as temporary conditions create such a situation. Sure good designs hold a better chance but like probability you can still get whipped out.
Tech people tend to make the mistake of working in private. Thus they loose visibility to the management. When you are not seen you are forgotten or expected to not be working, If you are going to do something a Midnight just because it is easier then during the day sure that is more efficient however you lost visibility time. If you have to fix it. Keep a log of it, make such log visible to people who matter.
To explain visibility I will use a real life example.
Last Year I got Laid off from my job. I got a new job within 2 week after getting Laid off because the CEO of the company who Laid Me off recommend me to the CEO of my current employer. Now about 1/2 of the company was Laid off including many people in my position. However the CEO only recommended me to the other CEO. Why Because I took it on myself to be visible. I attended and contributed to the Interdepartmental meetings, I talked to the boss and gave honest feedback. When I came to work early people know I was there early. I was seen and recognized in the company. Sure it didn't keep me from getting Laid off but it did help get me noticed well enough to get an other job quickly.
Document your time. Most of the time people who give you pressure about it is because they don't know you worked the late hours. Document your time, If it comes to evaluation period show the records. Advertise your time. I come in early every day a Work, I let everyone know that so when I leave early I don't get hassled from it, because they know I got there an hour before they did. And they are going to be leaving an hour after I left.
There is a lot of value in playing Devils Advocate. I personally wish more people would do such an exercise. It has many advantages.
1. It allows you to respect your opponents option. You may think or know he is wrong but you should respect that opinion as their own. Forcing you to think in that manor will help you respect where they are coming from and treat them like a human being.
2. It allows you to explore faults in your logic. You may be right but for the wrong reasons. 2+2 = 4 is the correct answer but if you solved it by Multiplying 2 and 2 then you are in fact wrong even if you get the correct answer as you are not following processing the information correctly. People stand on their view points often for wrong reasons for example just because their favorite political party like it then the will like it.
3. You learn to argue without emotional attachment. We think conflict as something that needs to be won. If you can get that feeling out of the way then you learn to listen to others ideas and become enlightened.
4. Find common ground. Often when you make the counter argument you realize there is common ground that comes up. Eg. Intelligent Design (not to be confused with Creationism) and Evolution are actually quite similar ideas (I didn't say theories), with the only real difference in the term Random meaning. Where Random is either the Hand of God making an extremely complex decision of the direction of the Universe, or just random as it is unpredictable without any Hand of a being. However you will see there are similarities and you learn to that the similarities gives you allies if you are debating say straight creationism.
5. Teaches you not to always go with the flow. Humans naturally have Gang Behavior such exercises helps assert individuality.
I was OK with the Floppy disks, all you need to do is format them and you have a nice black floppy. When they switched to CD's that is when it got bad. As you couldn't rewrite them.
I have always felt that site owners should be responsible for their adds that they show. Be it Internet, TV, Radio, Newspapers, etc... I am OK with adds however I want to be able to trust these adds. Just take a look at the Adds on CNN. A lot of them seem really shady, Content Owners should be responsible for damages that these products may produce from these adds as their advertisements are endorsing the product.
But say windows tells the driver when it is initialize to turn on default vs. Turn off by default. Or windows pulls to get its status every second vs. every 2 seconds.
A computer is more then just the CPU. The case of how does Windows 7 handle the hardware or the Drivers handle the hardware or a combination of both. Can really effect a system. Apple Hardware isn't more expensive then normal PC's because Apple is making so much more per copy. It is more expensive because there is a lot of little things built in that add up. Go to Dell or Lenovo and try to build yourself a Laptop that matches all of Apples features. When I say All I mean ALL, no excuses like I don't need that anyways. You will find that the prices are about the same... +/- $100.00 or so. But all those little features OS X knows about and uses properly. Boot Camp Drivers Cover most of them, Windows handles other ones. I know for an instance Windows Vista with boot camp keeps the lights on the keyboard while OS X is a bit smarter then that.
Now comes to the question. Is the Mac made Drivers for Vista keeping those lights on. Or Vista is telling the driver to keep it on. I am betting it is both.
OR... The simple fact LAN Parties of Out of date. Sorry. Why don't you bitch about the lack of Null Modem features that has been around for years.
Back in dem days, Of StarCraft I most people had dial up, so Lan Parties were a good idea.... Now it is not. It is not evil, It is just removing a features that only a small portion of people will use.
Apple made it popular to have white wires hanging out of your ears. It just takes marketing
You do realize that the 10.x the x is a major upgrade to the product. The difference between OS 10.3 and 10.4 and 10.5 is like the difference between Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. (well 10.5 isn't as crappy as vista is but you get the point) . The Current Version of OS X is 10.5.7 the .7 being the minor version which is free and most software works well being a few minor versions behind.
The differences between the OS 8, 9, 10 is like for Microsoft the difference between DOS, Windows(3.1-ME), and NT(2000-7)
Driving while drugged is a criminal problem.
In short, it is impossible for universities to provide vocational training for professions. There are too many jobs, too many ways of doing them, and too many changes in practices in every single profession for any one institution to have a ghost of chance of keeping up with all of them.
So you saying it is impossible to be 100% so lets not try to improve colleges so kids get some real work experience?
Don't get me wrong I am a big fan of teaching theory and the more academic areas of a particular study and there is a HUGE value in that. However many colleges do tend to lack on "Real World" skills, as well appropriate career counseling to give these students direction. Many of these skills can be more general classes not connected to your major. Things like personal finance, business communication skills, How to publish, copyright and patent your works (Yes this is unpopular on Slashdot, I know the arguments). They should even prepare you for what to expect when you get out of college.
There are a lot of students who get nice degrees from well named college who fill like they are getting ripped off as they start out in beginner positions. Sure you May have a CS Degree from a Well Known Computer Science School... However you will still start out as entry level and you will take your orders from the Sr. Developer who got his degree from a Community College... And Guess what you actually may learn something from him, and many of those skills that you learned in college will not work for all cases.
The problem is Colleges Advertise themselves as the ultimate key for a successful career, once you get in then they tell you Oh we are just education we don't cover the ability to get a job outside acedemidia.
It is a tool in the bucket. That what it is. There will be a huge growth spurt, then they realize that it won't solve everything. Then they will cut back and still use it until they find something better.
The store decides what to sell not you. So it is not your concern. It is like Best Buy selling Ubuntu but not Debian. It doesn't make them less open source. Even if the iPhone store is closed. You could in theory put the developer app in.
Yes I am upset by this.
If more then just a small handful of people start doing this then they will raise the price for parking for the people who do it legally.
They may have to go and fix the system causing us to pay for it in taxes, as well future systems will need to be more expensive as they need to deal with hackers breaking the system all the time.
The reason for meters besides revenue collection is to control the availability of parking spots. Metered parking helps keeps store front spots open for customers. As well keeps abandoned or broken cars sitting indefinitely in good parking spots.