They are also part of a large class of wealthy people who can, if they wish, employ legions of estate planners and lawyers to ensure that their heirs aren't affected all that much by estate taxes anyway.
Also, many privately owned companies spend a bunch of money on huge life insurance policies to cover the estate taxes when their owner(s) die. Warren Buffett owns insurance companies.
The group that has the most to lose, though, is the (sizable) estate planning industry, which would become much less in demand unnecessary if there was no estate tax.
I have heard (anecdotally, I Am Not A Lawyer) that in some jurisdictions, judges don't fall for the $1 sillyness. The consideration requirement can be "vaguely reasonable (by some wild stretch of the imagination) consideration".
That was a great post. However, I have heard some ideas on that contradict some of your comments, from people who specialize in (and are very successful at) getting developers hired. The alternative ideas I put in below are targetted towards getting senior developers, technical leads, etc. hired.
[1 - didn't care about education.]
Some hiring managers have resistance to hiring someone without a certain level of higher education for high level positions - so make sure to list it accurately and where they will find it.
[2 - don't list everything. DO NOT make that mistake. Customize your resume for the job you're applying for.]
Customize and focus, but try to leave other stuff in there. You never know where it might end up and whether they might have been asking for X but get really excited when they see you also know why.
[4 - do not list every single trivial API and technology you know.]
"Buzzword bingo helps" get the job, especially if there is a human resources professional involved who doesn't specialize in the technology but can see that applicant X has 15 buzzwords that apllicant Y does not.
[7 - do not list every technology you have a passing knowledge of.]
Same as above. They might have said Java, but they have some VB apps around, and your VB knowledge might give you an advantage over the next equally good Java developer who knows only Java.
[8 - do indeed shorten it and format it nicely.]
[No more than 2 pages.]
Format it nicely, get everything vital on the first pages, but don't be afraid to have a 3 page resume if you have 3 pages of information that can get you hired.
[Lots of energy and enthusiasm wins, even if that candidate has a little less knowledge/experience than another person. A willingness to learn and grow is also a big plus. I also ask about other technologies not on the resume]
This will work for lower level positions, but to get in at a high level you need the right attitude, lots of knowledge and experience, proven value in the specific technologies the company needs, and breadth of knowledge of related areas.
Again, I am no expert in this, these are just ideas I have picked up from people who appear to know.
I don't know about the lifestyle stuff in general, but whenever I return to my midwest home from a trip to a smoke-free-restaurant location, I notice again that it's impossible to go to a restaurant here without one's clothing smelling quite badly of smoke afterwards.
Most workplaces are smoke-free nowadays even in the midwest, by the way.
SpeakEasy is great, I have been very happy with their (Covad) service.
Of course that won't do me much good if my CO gets the ax. There are other DSL providers in my CO, but none of them offer IDSL which is all I can get 24000 feet away.
A particularly annoying part of this scenario is that it is common for the person presenting the "standard" document to act as though *you* are being belligerent, mean-spirited, uncooperative, etc. when you don't want to sign as-is. In actuality, I think it is the person who wants you to sign a ridiculous document who is behaving impolitely.
I think most managers would have no idea how to respond to an employee helpfully pointing out that "I have some code that solves this problems, I will let you use it for no charge, but it will still be my code.". Answering that would no doubt involve a legal dept. and various meetings of higher-ups in the company. In other words, it would be a pain.
Many teachers give abudant "partial credit" for incorrect answers in math/science/etc. subjects... thus extending the opportunity to be arbitrary well beyond writing assignments.
The VentureStar appeared to be an attempt to design a launch vehicle with a superficial resemblance to the DC-X concept, but with cost characteristics more like those of the Space Shuttle.
Indeed. It's not fuel or metal that are expensive, it's *complexity* and the massive support infrastructure needed to support hideously complex machines.
It has been said that the Space Shuttle is the most complex machine ever built. It does not need to be.
If your requirement is that every interesting technology be built in to the language, including ones that came along years after the language, then the only way to achieve that is to change the language spec for each new feature.
Does anyone seriously Java (as a language) to have XML features, instead of keeping the language small and clean, and adding XML to the standard libraries?
Ah, but not all crypto is so obvious. Take your message. Compress. Encypt with arbitrarily strong crypto. Spread it across the low order bits of a picture. GIF compress. Send.
Somewhere I read of web site about various means to hide the transfer of data.
Regarding terrorists, it would seem more important to stop them from *doing* bad things, rather than to listen to them talk about it. For that matter, if they are going to do something very bad, why talk about it over the internet at all?
You only have so much life to live. How much of it do you want to spend getting from point A to B, versus being there?
People tend to forget that the fundamental purpose of transportation is to get somewhere, the primary resource being consumed is time, thus speed (distance/time) is the measure of how efficiently the transportation is working.
On the other hand, some of the XP practices (pervasive automated unit testing) are extremely helpful for a group working is disjoint, disconnected manner. Rather than argue and ponder whether code works, it is much more effective to have a battery of tests.
There might be some room for wiggling around Pair Programming and the iteration planning process, but if they weren't doing Unit Tests and Refactoring (keeping the tests working), they weren't doing XP. I'm not saying they weren't doing it properly; they were not doing it *at all*.
If they had been doing unit testing, there would not be a situation where they just couldn't get the software to work. THey would have got one piece working, then anohter, then another.
Slashdot Mirror
They are also part of a large class of wealthy people who can, if they wish, employ legions of estate planners and lawyers to ensure that their heirs aren't affected all that much by estate taxes anyway.
Also, many privately owned companies spend a bunch of money on huge life insurance policies to cover the estate taxes when their owner(s) die. Warren Buffett owns insurance companies.
The group that has the most to lose, though, is the (sizable) estate planning industry, which would become much less in demand unnecessary if there was no estate tax.
I have heard (anecdotally, I Am Not A Lawyer) that in some jurisdictions, judges don't fall for the $1 sillyness. The consideration requirement can be "vaguely reasonable (by some wild stretch of the imagination) consideration".
That was a great post. However, I have heard some ideas on that contradict some of your comments, from people who specialize in (and are very successful at) getting developers hired. The alternative ideas I put in below are targetted towards getting senior developers, technical leads, etc. hired.
[1 - didn't care about education.]
Some hiring managers have resistance to hiring someone without a certain level of higher education for high level positions - so make sure to list it accurately and where they will find it.
[2 - don't list everything. DO NOT make that mistake. Customize your resume for the job you're applying for.]
Customize and focus, but try to leave other stuff in there. You never know where it might end up and whether they might have been asking for X but get really excited when they see you also know why.
[4 - do not list every single trivial API and technology you know.]
"Buzzword bingo helps" get the job, especially if there is a human resources professional involved who doesn't specialize in the technology but can see that applicant X has 15 buzzwords that apllicant Y does not.
[7 - do not list every technology you have a passing knowledge of.]
Same as above. They might have said Java, but they have some VB apps around, and your VB knowledge might give you an advantage over the next equally good Java developer who knows only Java.
[8 - do indeed shorten it and format it nicely.]
[No more than 2 pages.]
Format it nicely, get everything vital on the first pages, but don't be afraid to have a 3 page resume if you have 3 pages of information that can get you hired.
[Lots of energy and enthusiasm wins, even if that candidate has a little less knowledge/experience than another person. A willingness to learn and grow is also a big plus. I also ask about other technologies not on the resume]
This will work for lower level positions, but to get in at a high level you need the right attitude, lots of knowledge and experience, proven value in the specific technologies the company needs, and breadth of knowledge of related areas.
Again, I am no expert in this, these are just ideas I have picked up from people who appear to know.
I don't know about the lifestyle stuff in general, but whenever I return to my midwest home from a trip to a smoke-free-restaurant location, I notice again that it's impossible to go to a restaurant here without one's clothing smelling quite badly of smoke afterwards.
Most workplaces are smoke-free nowadays even in the midwest, by the way.
... and if you expect even elementary science, you would probably be disappointed by most elemantary science fair entries anyway.
SpeakEasy is great, I have been very happy with their (Covad) service.
Of course that won't do me much good if my CO gets the ax. There are other DSL providers in my CO, but none of them offer IDSL which is all I can get 24000 feet away.
Dead pixels are not all that frequent, at least for me. My Dell 1024x768 display has one bad pixel, and I notice it only rarely.
A particularly annoying part of this scenario is that it is common for the person presenting the "standard" document to act as though *you* are being belligerent, mean-spirited, uncooperative, etc. when you don't want to sign as-is. In actuality, I think it is the person who wants you to sign a ridiculous document who is behaving impolitely.
I think most managers would have no idea how to respond to an employee helpfully pointing out that "I have some code that solves this problems, I will let you use it for no charge, but it will still be my code.". Answering that would no doubt involve a legal dept. and various meetings of higher-ups in the company. In other words, it would be a pain.
Many teachers give abudant "partial credit" for incorrect answers in math/science/etc. subjects... thus extending the opportunity to be arbitrary well beyond writing assignments.
It would be pretty challenging to get As yet get a 12 on the ACT. Her ability to retain information over a long term must have been unusually weak.
If the SAT isn't measuring enough, fix it. Make it include all of whatever you are talking about above.
Make it really long and hard. Make it hit every area you think a grauating senior should know something about.
The danger with this is that essay tests are much harder to judge objectively.
With a multiple choice test, you could argue that the questions might be biased, but at least every test can be evaluated unambiguously.
That could be economical and simple, which means it must be ruled out immediately :-)
That does seem like a much easier way to make this thing work, though. That second plane could be a modified (but already existing) tanker. Cheap.
The VentureStar appeared to be an attempt to design a launch vehicle with a superficial resemblance to the DC-X concept, but with cost characteristics more like those of the Space Shuttle.
Indeed. It's not fuel or metal that are expensive, it's *complexity* and the massive support infrastructure needed to support hideously complex machines.
It has been said that the Space Shuttle is the most complex machine ever built. It does not need to be.
If your requirement is that every interesting technology be built in to the language, including ones that came along years after the language, then the only way to achieve that is to change the language spec for each new feature.
Does anyone seriously Java (as a language) to have XML features, instead of keeping the language small and clean, and adding XML to the standard libraries?
I certainly don't.
Ah, but not all crypto is so obvious. Take your message. Compress. Encypt with arbitrarily strong crypto. Spread it across the low order bits of a picture. GIF compress. Send.
Somewhere I read of web site about various means to hide the transfer of data.
Regarding terrorists, it would seem more important to stop them from *doing* bad things, rather than to listen to them talk about it. For that matter, if they are going to do something very bad, why talk about it over the internet at all?
You only have so much life to live. How much of it do you want to spend getting from point A to B, versus being there?
People tend to forget that the fundamental purpose of transportation is to get somewhere, the primary resource being consumed is time, thus speed (distance/time) is the measure of how efficiently the transportation is working.
There is no need to insult the officers who are enforcing the law. Instead, insult those who wrote the laws. ;-)
To me, that makes doing a lot of automated testing even *more* important.
I think there are some requirements for XP to work:
* the team has to buy in to it. If they don't they are going to be annoyed when people refactor "their" code or write a test their code does not pass.
* The team has to be comprised of people who deeply *want* to build good software.
There are probably more.
Easy. Write a few tests, but don't actually run them as part of an automated process.
If tests depend on someone deciding to test, it is *way* too easy to "fall off the wagon" so to speak.
On the other hand, some of the XP practices (pervasive automated unit testing) are extremely helpful for a group working is disjoint, disconnected manner. Rather than argue and ponder whether code works, it is much more effective to have a battery of tests.
There might be some room for wiggling around Pair Programming and the iteration planning process, but if they weren't doing Unit Tests and Refactoring (keeping the tests working), they weren't doing XP. I'm not saying they weren't doing it properly; they were not doing it *at all*.
If they had been doing unit testing, there would not be a situation where they just couldn't get the software to work. THey would have got one piece working, then anohter, then another.