This is really the kind of argument that was made with respect to the whole women's movement.
The story not so long ago was that women are kinder, gentler, less risk taking. If only women were in charge, they'd be no wars...
Which was all probably true as long as your sample of women was housewives.
As soon as women gained power and freedom... gosh... they start acting just like men. We have female gang members, ruthless female CEOs...
So it probably is with this rich/poor morality issue. The poor only appear more moral because they don't have the power or have not had to make such a choice.
Well if given a pure voucher program with anti-discriminatory placement (maybe even random selection of students)... that would solve such issues.
On another point, I don't see the great problem with having kids from broken/criminal families all in one school. Sure inclusion is good... but since children start off on different levels, perhaps they do need different kinds of schooling.
Maybe the kids from broken homes might need more structure, discipline... They not get the fancy art teacher, but they'll get a good education to get them a decent future. The the next generation can go to a 'nicer' school.
Pretending we all need the same kind of school is a little ideological when it comes to something as practical as education.
So if all the broken families end up in one school... maybe if that one school was allowed the freedom to design its curriculum and policies for their own community, they could effectively deal with those problems.
The parent is absolutely right in saying... if you're not onto something productive in terms of research... and thus publishing... then you should be teaching.
I'm sorry, the waiter and warehouse worker doesn't work 10 hour days for minimum wage to pay taxes, so that some academic can sit around and think.
I certainly don't grind away at my engineering job dealing with deadlines, customers... so that some academic can sit around and think.
Hey, I'd like to sit around and think and ponder as well. I'm just not that greedy and immoral to think the rest of society should pay for me to do it.
We need more old school researchers who don't think they should be entitled to free money. People like Thomas Edison who worked the night shift at a regular job and then pursued their research and interests during their spare time.
Most people who claim to 'care' tend to be from a very colonial mentality. It's the same mentality Europeans used to have in relation to their colonies.
Never is this more exemplified than in food production. I live in Ontario, Canada. Land of big labor unions. Do you know which group of workers are actually legally prohibited from unionization?
You betcha, the most vulnerable, at risk, exploited workers... farm workers.
Why do you suppose this is? Because it is in reality a very colonial attitude that farm workers should not be 'western' workers. That is for lesser beings.
Even in the 'glory' days of big union. Why is it that you think an auto-worker was earning 80K/year while farm workers struggled in the hot sun for hours on end providing the very food we eat?
Most societies have never been willing to pay the true cost of labor for its workers. At best, it makes laws that drive the hard jobs overseas or into migrant labor.
Even in the days of big union, they only focused on a few fields. The auto worker only felt well off because there was a poor non-unionized waitress ready to serve them. Or they could take a vacation and travel to a third world country and take advantage of their cheap labor. How many civilized good labor law Europeans travel to Asia or North Africa to take advantage of the cheap labor... (and cheap women).
This doesn't even get into the odd realm realm that going for the cheapest labor provides the most needy with the jobs they actually need. There were several studies that showed that when they banned child labor... for example in Bangladesh... it's not like this actually the kids... it just forced them into more poverty and increasingly prostitution. And cheap goods means other poor people can actually get those good cheaply as well.
Considering money at the end of the day is just us exchanging our own labor, it's typically very hard to really come up with the idea of a 'living wage'. Pay farm workers a living wage and the price of food jumps... and then you want a bigger living wage. Most of what we *need* is just buying labor for each other... typically from the poorest in society. Even things like housing... it's more about competing with your neighbor for the hot location.
I can't remember where I read it, but there was an article about how you can't make software too easy to use and install. That would not leave much work for the consultants and IT folks, and they would thus not push the product to their clients.
You need that right balance between having a good product and leaving enough work for the IT workers to really get that into the market.
Now, that changes a bit with 'the cloud' to some extent as now the goal the software creator can deliver and charge for the service directly. They don't need the IT consultants as much to 'push' their product.
This is one the bigger reasons for MS dominating the general PC environment including the office. They leave their products with boatloads of customizability and scripting and push the IT folks and consultants with training to build out that ecosystem all tied to their platform of course.
Open source environment typically lack this push. To emphasize again... this is not an engineer or technical push. There are generally equivalent open source projects... but a business and marketing and ecosystem push.
Even something as simple as how to develop for 'Windows'... it is easy for anyone to start... get Visual Studio is the answer.
This is why you typically find far fewer custom FOSS shops. Most companies I've seen want to use FOSS as a replacement. They don't want to/think to do the kind of customization you can often do with Windows for desktop apps.
So where are the open source jobs? Generally you can find Linux development jobs in embedded systems. But if you have worked for a 'Microsoft Shop', I'm guessing this is not your niche.
You could also go with Java, and many corporations and banks use Java.
Many 'cloud' based solution typically have FOSS backends... as again... no need to have consultants push the solution.
But in the end, they are just different models. I've never had the kind of anti MS passion many people have.
This is an idea that might have worked 20 years ago.
But most of the US companies are global companies now. They don't need to import workers. They can simply hire them in the other country.
The other major point is that free trade and globalization push the cost of labor to equalize globally. What is the 'fair wage' of an engineer? Same as a manufacturing workers... its the globally competitive wage.
Now put an end to free trade if you want. That's another debate. But I'd rather have globally competitive wages then price ourselves out of the market.
H1Bs are not the problem. They're a reaction to the real issues of free trade, lack of real professional status among engineers/IT workers...
What does a bad understanding of Islam have to do with 'real' Islam?
The fact that a certain kind of science is being done poorly and being given extra emphasis in areas it really doesn't provide clear answers to, doesn't change the reality that various groups claim the name of science to push their point of view or reach decisions.
These folks are using science very much like a religion. We can argue what is 'true science', just like we can argue what is 'true Islam'. It doesn't change the fact that there are terrorists doing what they do in the name of Islam. And there are companies, governments, economists, social engineers... who use the name of science.
There's science as a process that is a very useful tool to understand the world in which we live in. For people that understand this science, there is no failure of science.
Then there's 'science'/scientism/progressivism that makes a uses science as a way of life.
Is 'science' failing us as a way of life? Possibly... if due to complex systems, it becomes very difficult to find the root cause of things in time to act on them.
This affects much more than just the medical field. Let's take something like economics. We still have the prevailing attitude of the simple cause-effect numerical analysis. Economy is down ---> cut interest rates.
Does this take into account consumer debt, asset bubbles, lack of credit demand, other nations policies, trade...?
Nope, but followers of scientism/progressivism believe that 'science' (again not the scientific method as we understand it) as a way of life is the best way to reach goals. This leads to the desire for simplification and leads to basing decisions on the easy to measure.
For example, to tell how the economy is doing, they like GDP. For health, they like life expectancy. Hard to measure things like quality of life, happiness... which are just as important but complex to measure are generally ignored.
It's like in engineering/software... there's a certain class of manager who is unable to comprehend making a decision without numbers. Whereas, what makes a good engineer/doctor/teacher is often complex and hard to quantify.
But life has to go on and decisions needs to be made.
From what I read, a municipality can still operate its own broadband. It just can't use tax money.
If a community wants to, it can raise funds in a non-profit manner and build out their own broadband. Too many people think only government or corporations can run anything.
In reality, non-profits, mutuals, small business, guilds... all have long histories.
I am against governments using tax money for broadband. It is just too easy for them to just use tax money for whatever. If they want to, they should get people on board, having the community invest in the non-profit entity...
I always chuckle in jaded cynicism at the thought of protecting culture in telecommunications.
I'm an engineer who works in telecommunications.
Somehow it is completely and utterly unthinkable for Canada to protect its engineers and scientists in industry. Lord forbid we have some Canadian R&D content restrictions. Maybe 25% of all router content must be Canadian:P
Yet somehow many people seem to think it perfectly find to support Canadian culture through government.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. What to protect Canadian content? Protect it for industry as well and then we can talk.
Or let people choose whatever they may. That can also work:P
It is government and a deviation from a government based on the rule of law instead of the rule of men.
Here's a practical example. The US federal minimum wage. How did it come about? Well individual states started implementing their own minimum wage. Of course this led to concerns that if say New York implemented a minimum wage and Alabama didn't, that all the jobs would flow to Alabama. This became an interstate-commerce issue and the federal government said, we'll make a federal minimum wage for any goods that cross state boundaries. Theoretically, at the time, if you lived in a state with no minimum wage and just ran a local pizza store, you could pay under the federal minimum wage. Now various interpretations over time and extension of what constitutes a business transaction affecting interstate commerce have essentially made the federal minimum wage the actual minimum wage, but the original rulings made a lot of sense.
Now one wonders what the US government was thinking as it expanded trade with other countries. How can the US justify signing free-trade deals with countries with significantly different wage and labor laws?
There are two ways to look at it. There are people who say its exploiting 3rd world labor. I generally dismiss this point because well it is an improvement in their life generally speaking. That's why they take those jobs. Life in rural china is worse than working in a factory.
But more importantly, what it does is make American workers legally unable to compete for a job. The government is actually preventing them from competing for job. If they could earn less the minimum wage and have a low cost living in say a place like Alabama, many would take it. But they are legally prevented from competing against their Asian counterparts.
Where did the great rational rulings around the US federal minimum wage go when they started doing international free trade deals?
I don't care if you're a libertarian or a socialist, in both cases the current situation is unpalatable. As a libertarian, one is outraged the government is treating different people under an economic system with vastly different rules. Essentially forcing one out of work.
About the only justification is from those who view government in the progressive sense (both on the left and right)... that is to say... not as a government of rules, but one of men. So we optimize America better by leveraging the high dollar, getting cheap goods, living off debt, relying on monetary policy to eventually even out the world...
If you look at it from a government based on rules, the current system in absolutely ridiculous.
And in such a messed up system, both consumer and producers are going to make their rational choices on mass which lead to the current situation. Offshoring labor, wanting cheap goods...
Indeed. I've made this point several times. Generally people who think of the 'innovation' economy are largely ignorant colonial thinkers. They lurk in academia or places like Silicon Valley and by in large live in a bubble.
They tend to think like 'I'm working on high-tech and it's a great living' so if everyone was as educated as me, everyone could have a good educated job! Of course it eventually hits home that there's no demand for so many educated people.
It's great to be educated... but that doesn't mean people are going to pay you lots of money for it.
The progressives especially have pushed the idea that education leads to jobs. Which is true... so long as there aren't that many educated people.
But as more and more of the world becomes educated, in reality you run into the same problem that manufacturing hit. Its a commodity. Just like how being the only literate person in a village hundreds of years ago probably entitled you to a reasonable living. But today, in a Western country where pretty much everyone is literate... it means nothing.
And yes a portion of that means that with free trade and globalization, R&D work will get pushed to the country with a lower standard of living. This is not just in terms of pay, but also in terms of quality of people. For example, given the pay scale in North America, a decent software engineer might make 100k. That's not going to attract the best and brightest. They've learned and now go into finance, law, medicine... Compare imagine what quality engineer you could buy in India/China for 100K? You're talking the best and brightest... and they're motivated.
And people who now worry about high-tech moving offshore face a huge moral dilemma. They've spent the past 50 years with the following mentality. - farm work? let migrant workers do it.. our people will find other jobs - textiles? we can do it cheaper overseas. who cares about the western textile worker's job. - manufacturing? we can do it cheaper overseas. who cares about the western manufacturing worker.
Now suddenly, their 'educated labor' is a commodity and can be done overseas... now suddenly you see people worrying.
Why should the manufacturing worker or service sector worker should have to pay higher prices for western made R&D or pay taxes to support Western R&D?
Yes, I'm educated and work in high tech, but I do get pretty annoyed at educated people be they coworkers or those in the public sector who seem to think education entitles them to a high standard of living. It's going to hit home pretty fast.
Only one thing worse than actual subsidies...
on
Is E85 Dead Now?
·
· Score: 1
And that is when governments jump through all kinds of hoops to give a special interest group subsidies while trying to work within a 'market'.
Look, food is essential to life. If the governments want to provide some kind of subsidy to farmers, just be up front with it and do it. People somehow want the government to provide free education and free healthcare... a little bit to help out farmers doesn't seem out of whack to me.
It's better than artificially driving up the cost of food.
In Canada, it seems every few years the government actually pays farmers to cull their herds of pork. The meat can't be given to people believe it or not because that is considered a 'subsidy'.
Just let that sink in for a second.
If they're going to support farmers anyways, why not just admit you're subsidizing them, and then people can have cheaper food. Wouldn't that be more productive?
We can argue about the free market and other systems all we like, but at the end of the day we don't live in one. And it seems we jump through hoops to pretend some markets should operate completely within a market, while others linger with significant or even complete government protection.
I'm in odd developer in that I love documenting. I'm known for my extensive user guides, wikis...
However, I've never spent much time documenting code itself. Most code should be readable on its own. Good variable names, well named functions, well separated classes...
About the only useful in code documentation is if for a API that you plan to have proper javadoc or something.
But again, far more important than in code comments is documenting the big picture of how the application works. I'm big on diagrams and block diagrams... and I'm not going to do that in ascii:P So they normally end up on a wiki.
Finally there's the issue of time. There's a lot of things we *should* do, but we don't have the staff or the time. Documenting code itself is pretty far down that list of things I would prioritize.
It is perhaps amusing to point that out... but part of the same problem. I've had to build websites as a developer... and they're not the most aesthetically pleasing, but it's not like we have designers on staff.
The times when I have consulted a designer, they're so far divorced from the practicalities of software design, i can really only use their input for fonts, colors...
But ultimately, this is nothing new in the field. Businesses like low costs. Developers haven't organized into any kind of professional association en mass to address such things. You'll find for example very specific paths for lawyers, doctors... in terms of training, residency...
And it's not specific to design work. Even something like SQL, IT administration... requires very specific knowledge to do it right... but it's just lumped in there with general programming.
"I suspect the folks who wanted those homes would still have found a way to take out a loan"
some would... but then what is the purpose of Fanny/Freddie, CMHC in Canada. Banks would simply not be willing to loan on mass taking on such risks. That would severely limit the upside. Of course cities would still more expensive.
ah yeah... Toronto is a major city:P The cost of home is not in the actual cost a home, but mainly in the location, interest rates, planning limits, various development fees...
My point was that the emphasis on the housing market and the corresponding things to make it easier to get a home haven't done anything to actually make homes more affordable or make people's lives better.
Quite frankly, any government programs to help home buyers should ideally only cover the actual physical cost of a home which if I take your numbers would be a bout 1-2x annual income.
Beyond that, it's just people outbidding each other and the public good is not served by make shelter so costly.
Again, housing is mainly so costly NOT due to the free market, but due to government programs and manipulation (low interest rates, mortgage guarantees, in the us tax deductible interest, restrictive urban planning...)
"Why does it take 25 years to pay a house that can be built in 6 weeks?"
Because we've created a financial and political system dependent on infinite economic growth. Something has to keep going up in price... and people have to keep borrowing for it to function. Housing is pretty easy as you can just have zoning laws, boost immigration... Funny enough, I was reading an article that in Toronto about an old man who was selling his home he bought in the early 1900s. It cost about 1x the annual income.
The 'housing market' is perhaps the greatest scam ever perpetuated on the people. We just outbid each other and take out larger and large loans so that bankers can get rich and government gets more money in property taxes... all the while... they can claim you're getting 'richer'. Make it easier to get a loan? That just makes it easier for everyone to get a loan and you're still in the same spot unable to afford it.
"Why are we still working 40 hour weeks? " Primarily because people hate egalitarianism. People talk a lot about it. But they hate it. What does it mean to be 'middle class'. It means you're better than the 'lower class'. You the 'middle class' person gets to use the labor of the poor 'lower class' who works in the service industry. So we invent a lot of useless unproductive, yet time consuming jobs for people to do. Most of finance, legal... falls in this category. We also refuse to workshare as people need to feel 'privileged'. The public sector unions and 'educated' people will always say they're entitled to be paid more than other people. It doesn't matter if the other people are just as qualified... it just matter who 'gets in'. The rest must enter the service industry.
"What are we producing, why, and for who?" We tend to produce most of what we need pretty well (Food, water, clothing...). However the powers that be in the banking system, progressive goals, entitled 'educated' people... require that money always end up in their hands which means we must always keep working harder.
It will probably take a complete economic collapse for us to actually reap the productivity benefits in terms of a higher quality of life. Bankers, investors, public sector workers, progressives... all feel too entitled to let it occur otherwise.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of software developers are idealists in the sense. A kind of martyr for efficiency and 'freedom'.
I've had discussions as well as the arguments they put forth in support of open source are always about innovation or efficiency...
Which as I say is just unique in industries. A discussion on working models for any other trade/profession always rests on how can 'we in the industry' keep money in our industry.
In Ontario, it's been a battle just to get doctors to sop fighting nurses being able to give vaccinations. Every industry protects its people to make sure it is a viable career choice and that money stays in the industry and costs don't go to zero.
Efficiency and innovation are great goals too. Let's not discount them by any means. However it would be nice if things like -making a living -making our profession a good career choice -training the next generation -quality of the product -quality of life...
began entering the equation. It does for every other profession/trade.
Whatever works is great. No where do I say the premade stuff should just be lectures. It also includes activities and games and experiments...
But what technology allows is for any new lecture, experiment, activity to be quickly used by almost anyone on the planet.
Suffice to say I don't subscribe to the idea that children are capable of making their own decisions. The older they get, the more choice they should have of course.
I do think most things are taught... some will use the term 'indoctrinated'... I call it culture and I use that in a very broad way.
Learning is a great trait built into us... but so are many traits. The trait to be lazy, sexual, dominant, abusive, exploitative, enjoy life...
It's great that there are many kids who take their built in desire to learn and run with it. Many unfortunately partake of the other things. Both as a matter of genetics and/or their upbringing.
Many kids need to be taught things for their own good.
But what we can do is dramatically change the providers and costs of education.
With technology, there is almost no reason teachers should be doing their own lesson plans... I've been a teacher. Do people really think every grade 9 Math class is custom tailored? Trust me... it's not. There's a lot of bullcrap to make it seem like they're doing that work. But in the classroom, it's not like that.
The material/tests/activities... are pretty generic. As a result, you really don't need very 'skilled' people in general public education. What you really need are teachers with reasonable/good class control. A different kind of skill yes... but not one that is often talked about.
In my experience, some of the best teachers in terms of class control and encouragement were some of the least educated. Many others came from other background other than teaching. Probably the two best teachers I saw had came from outside teaching. One was an ex autoworker and the other an ex finance person.
As a result of that, you can dramatically lower the cost of education and improve the quality. I agree that small groups are very important. What does that really mean.
Rather than pay 1 teacher 90k, you can pay 2 teachers 45K and split the class in two. Given that they really don't need advanced degrees to build lesson plans as they're premade... this makes sense. And for some children, the ones who care about them the most (parents) could provide the structure needed.
I'm always really perplexed by people's perception that something has to be either a corporation or run by the government. That certainly wasn't the historical case when things like education or healthcare where more privately run. They typically operated as non-profits by the community.
Japan enforces this somewhat by mandating that all hospitals be run by doctors.
Even in the United States, there is this perception that healthcare is run by corporation who only seek profit. It's simply not the case. Many of the big healthcare groups are non-profits. As are many insurance companies. Though people quickly find out that non-profit or mutual insurance companies aren't really that much cheaper... and profit is not the problem even in insurance.
The barrier to entry in most things is not really that high... most of the time the barriers are created by government. If we liberated education, do people really think corporations would dominate it when anyone with a room could start a school?
Corporation are by in large a result of government action... both in their origin and their success.
You'd see a lot more non-profits, guilds, community own infrastructure... if we had more liberty.
Slashdot Mirror
This is really the kind of argument that was made with respect to the whole women's movement.
The story not so long ago was that women are kinder, gentler, less risk taking. If only women were in charge, they'd be no wars...
Which was all probably true as long as your sample of women was housewives.
As soon as women gained power and freedom... gosh... they start acting just like men. We have female gang members, ruthless female CEOs...
So it probably is with this rich/poor morality issue. The poor only appear more moral because they don't have the power or have not had to make such a choice.
Well if given a pure voucher program with anti-discriminatory placement (maybe even random selection of students)... that would solve such issues.
On another point, I don't see the great problem with having kids from broken/criminal families all in one school. Sure inclusion is good... but since children start off on different levels, perhaps they do need different kinds of schooling.
Maybe the kids from broken homes might need more structure, discipline... They not get the fancy art teacher, but they'll get a good education to get them a decent future. The the next generation can go to a 'nicer' school.
Pretending we all need the same kind of school is a little ideological when it comes to something as practical as education.
So if all the broken families end up in one school... maybe if that one school was allowed the freedom to design its curriculum and policies for their own community, they could effectively deal with those problems.
It might in the end be a good thing.
Well you can research on your own dime.
The parent is absolutely right in saying... if you're not onto something productive in terms of research... and thus publishing... then you should be teaching.
I'm sorry, the waiter and warehouse worker doesn't work 10 hour days for minimum wage to pay taxes, so that some academic can sit around and think.
I certainly don't grind away at my engineering job dealing with deadlines, customers... so that some academic can sit around and think.
Hey, I'd like to sit around and think and ponder as well. I'm just not that greedy and immoral to think the rest of society should pay for me to do it.
We need more old school researchers who don't think they should be entitled to free money. People like Thomas Edison who worked the night shift at a regular job and then pursued their research and interests during their spare time.
No one has ever really given it a second thought.
Most people who claim to 'care' tend to be from a very colonial mentality. It's the same mentality Europeans used to have in relation to their colonies.
Never is this more exemplified than in food production. I live in Ontario, Canada. Land of big labor unions. Do you know which group of workers are actually legally prohibited from unionization?
You betcha, the most vulnerable, at risk, exploited workers... farm workers.
Why do you suppose this is? Because it is in reality a very colonial attitude that farm workers should not be 'western' workers. That is for lesser beings.
Even in the 'glory' days of big union. Why is it that you think an auto-worker was earning 80K/year while farm workers struggled in the hot sun for hours on end providing the very food we eat?
Most societies have never been willing to pay the true cost of labor for its workers. At best, it makes laws that drive the hard jobs overseas or into migrant labor.
Even in the days of big union, they only focused on a few fields. The auto worker only felt well off because there was a poor non-unionized waitress ready to serve them. Or they could take a vacation and travel to a third world country and take advantage of their cheap labor. How many civilized good labor law Europeans travel to Asia or North Africa to take advantage of the cheap labor... (and cheap women).
This doesn't even get into the odd realm realm that going for the cheapest labor provides the most needy with the jobs they actually need. There were several studies that showed that when they banned child labor... for example in Bangladesh... it's not like this actually the kids... it just forced them into more poverty and increasingly prostitution. And cheap goods means other poor people can actually get those good cheaply as well.
Considering money at the end of the day is just us exchanging our own labor, it's typically very hard to really come up with the idea of a 'living wage'. Pay farm workers a living wage and the price of food jumps... and then you want a bigger living wage. Most of what we *need* is just buying labor for each other... typically from the poorest in society. Even things like housing... it's more about competing with your neighbor for the hot location.
There's a reason MS stuff is out there.
I can't remember where I read it, but there was an article about how you can't make software too easy to use and install. That would not leave much work for the consultants and IT folks, and they would thus not push the product to their clients.
You need that right balance between having a good product and leaving enough work for the IT workers to really get that into the market.
Now, that changes a bit with 'the cloud' to some extent as now the goal the software creator can deliver and charge for the service directly. They don't need the IT consultants as much to 'push' their product.
This is one the bigger reasons for MS dominating the general PC environment including the office. They leave their products with boatloads of customizability and scripting and push the IT folks and consultants with training to build out that ecosystem all tied to their platform of course.
Open source environment typically lack this push. To emphasize again... this is not an engineer or technical push. There are generally equivalent open source projects... but a business and marketing and ecosystem push.
Even something as simple as how to develop for 'Windows'... it is easy for anyone to start... get Visual Studio is the answer.
This is why you typically find far fewer custom FOSS shops. Most companies I've seen want to use FOSS as a replacement. They don't want to/think to do the kind of customization you can often do with Windows for desktop apps.
So where are the open source jobs?
Generally you can find Linux development jobs in embedded systems. But if you have worked for a 'Microsoft Shop', I'm guessing this is not your niche.
You could also go with Java, and many corporations and banks use Java.
Many 'cloud' based solution typically have FOSS backends... as again... no need to have consultants push the solution.
But in the end, they are just different models. I've never had the kind of anti MS passion many people have.
This is an idea that might have worked 20 years ago.
But most of the US companies are global companies now. They don't need to import workers. They can simply hire them in the other country.
The other major point is that free trade and globalization push the cost of labor to equalize globally. What is the 'fair wage' of an engineer? Same as a manufacturing workers... its the globally competitive wage.
Now put an end to free trade if you want. That's another debate. But I'd rather have globally competitive wages then price ourselves out of the market.
H1Bs are not the problem. They're a reaction to the real issues of free trade, lack of real professional status among engineers/IT workers...
What does a bad understanding of Islam have to do with 'real' Islam?
The fact that a certain kind of science is being done poorly and being given extra emphasis in areas it really doesn't provide clear answers to, doesn't change the reality that various groups claim the name of science to push their point of view or reach decisions.
These folks are using science very much like a religion. We can argue what is 'true science', just like we can argue what is 'true Islam'. It doesn't change the fact that there are terrorists doing what they do in the name of Islam. And there are companies, governments, economists, social engineers... who use the name of science.
That's the only point really.
There's science as a process that is a very useful tool to understand the world in which we live in. For people that understand this science, there is no failure of science.
Then there's 'science'/scientism/progressivism that makes a uses science as a way of life.
Is 'science' failing us as a way of life? Possibly... if due to complex systems, it becomes very difficult to find the root cause of things in time to act on them.
This affects much more than just the medical field. Let's take something like economics. We still have the prevailing attitude of the simple cause-effect numerical analysis. Economy is down ---> cut interest rates.
Does this take into account consumer debt, asset bubbles, lack of credit demand, other nations policies, trade...?
Nope, but followers of scientism/progressivism believe that 'science' (again not the scientific method as we understand it) as a way of life is the best way to reach goals. This leads to the desire for simplification and leads to basing decisions on the easy to measure.
For example, to tell how the economy is doing, they like GDP. For health, they like life expectancy. Hard to measure things like quality of life, happiness... which are just as important but complex to measure are generally ignored.
It's like in engineering/software... there's a certain class of manager who is unable to comprehend making a decision without numbers. Whereas, what makes a good engineer/doctor/teacher is often complex and hard to quantify.
But life has to go on and decisions needs to be made.
Which begs the question of this is an Android problem or a wireless issue. I really don't know where one begins and the other ends.
To what extent can network operators control the wireless devices?
Like is there a 3G/LTE command that DocoMo can send a device to tell it to limit its traffic to X kpbs, or pause sending for y seconds...
From what I read, a municipality can still operate its own broadband. It just can't use tax money.
If a community wants to, it can raise funds in a non-profit manner and build out their own broadband. Too many people think only government or corporations can run anything.
In reality, non-profits, mutuals, small business, guilds... all have long histories.
I am against governments using tax money for broadband. It is just too easy for them to just use tax money for whatever. If they want to, they should get people on board, having the community invest in the non-profit entity...
I always chuckle in jaded cynicism at the thought of protecting culture in telecommunications.
I'm an engineer who works in telecommunications.
Somehow it is completely and utterly unthinkable for Canada to protect its engineers and scientists in industry. Lord forbid we have some Canadian R&D content restrictions. Maybe 25% of all router content must be Canadian :P
Yet somehow many people seem to think it perfectly find to support Canadian culture through government.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. What to protect Canadian content? Protect it for industry as well and then we can talk.
Or let people choose whatever they may. That can also work :P
It's really not consumers or corporations.
It is government and a deviation from a government based on the rule of law instead of the rule of men.
Here's a practical example. The US federal minimum wage. How did it come about?
Well individual states started implementing their own minimum wage. Of course this led to concerns that if say New York implemented a minimum wage and Alabama didn't, that all the jobs would flow to Alabama. This became an interstate-commerce issue and the federal government said, we'll make a federal minimum wage for any goods that cross state boundaries. Theoretically, at the time, if you lived in a state with no minimum wage and just ran a local pizza store, you could pay under the federal minimum wage. Now various interpretations over time and extension of what constitutes a business transaction affecting interstate commerce have essentially made the federal minimum wage the actual minimum wage, but the original rulings made a lot of sense.
Now one wonders what the US government was thinking as it expanded trade with other countries. How can the US justify signing free-trade deals with countries with significantly different wage and labor laws?
There are two ways to look at it.
There are people who say its exploiting 3rd world labor. I generally dismiss this point because well it is an improvement in their life generally speaking. That's why they take those jobs. Life in rural china is worse than working in a factory.
But more importantly, what it does is make American workers legally unable to compete for a job. The government is actually preventing them from competing for job. If they could earn less the minimum wage and have a low cost living in say a place like Alabama, many would take it. But they are legally prevented from competing against their Asian counterparts.
Where did the great rational rulings around the US federal minimum wage go when they started doing international free trade deals?
I don't care if you're a libertarian or a socialist, in both cases the current situation is unpalatable. As a libertarian, one is outraged the government is treating different people under an economic system with vastly different rules. Essentially forcing one out of work.
About the only justification is from those who view government in the progressive sense (both on the left and right) ... that is to say... not as a government of rules, but one of men. So we optimize America better by leveraging the high dollar, getting cheap goods, living off debt, relying on monetary policy to eventually even out the world...
If you look at it from a government based on rules, the current system in absolutely ridiculous.
And in such a messed up system, both consumer and producers are going to make their rational choices on mass which lead to the current situation. Offshoring labor, wanting cheap goods...
Indeed. I've made this point several times.
Generally people who think of the 'innovation' economy are largely ignorant colonial thinkers. They lurk in academia or places like Silicon Valley and by in large live in a bubble.
They tend to think like 'I'm working on high-tech and it's a great living' so if everyone was as educated as me, everyone could have a good educated job! Of course it eventually hits home that there's no demand for so many educated people.
It's great to be educated... but that doesn't mean people are going to pay you lots of money for it.
The progressives especially have pushed the idea that education leads to jobs. Which is true... so long as there aren't that many educated people.
But as more and more of the world becomes educated, in reality you run into the same problem that manufacturing hit. Its a commodity. Just like how being the only literate person in a village hundreds of years ago probably entitled you to a reasonable living. But today, in a Western country where pretty much everyone is literate... it means nothing.
And yes a portion of that means that with free trade and globalization, R&D work will get pushed to the country with a lower standard of living. This is not just in terms of pay, but also in terms of quality of people. For example, given the pay scale in North America, a decent software engineer might make 100k. That's not going to attract the best and brightest. They've learned and now go into finance, law, medicine...
Compare imagine what quality engineer you could buy in India/China for 100K? You're talking the best and brightest... and they're motivated.
And people who now worry about high-tech moving offshore face a huge moral dilemma. They've spent the past 50 years with the following mentality.
- farm work? let migrant workers do it.. our people will find other jobs
- textiles? we can do it cheaper overseas. who cares about the western textile worker's job.
- manufacturing? we can do it cheaper overseas. who cares about the western manufacturing worker.
Now suddenly, their 'educated labor' is a commodity and can be done overseas... now suddenly you see people worrying.
Why should the manufacturing worker or service sector worker should have to pay higher prices for western made R&D or pay taxes to support Western R&D?
Yes, I'm educated and work in high tech, but I do get pretty annoyed at educated people be they coworkers or those in the public sector who seem to think education entitles them to a high standard of living. It's going to hit home pretty fast.
And that is when governments jump through all kinds of hoops to give a special interest group subsidies while trying to work within a 'market'.
Look, food is essential to life. If the governments want to provide some kind of subsidy to farmers, just be up front with it and do it. People somehow want the government to provide free education and free healthcare... a little bit to help out farmers doesn't seem out of whack to me.
It's better than artificially driving up the cost of food.
In Canada, it seems every few years the government actually pays farmers to cull their herds of pork. The meat can't be given to people believe it or not because that is considered a 'subsidy'.
Just let that sink in for a second.
If they're going to support farmers anyways, why not just admit you're subsidizing them, and then people can have cheaper food. Wouldn't that be more productive?
We can argue about the free market and other systems all we like, but at the end of the day we don't live in one. And it seems we jump through hoops to pretend some markets should operate completely within a market, while others linger with significant or even complete government protection.
//calculate arrival time
should be its own function :P
I'm in odd developer in that I love documenting. I'm known for my extensive user guides, wikis...
However, I've never spent much time documenting code itself. Most code should be readable on its own. Good variable names, well named functions, well separated classes...
About the only useful in code documentation is if for a API that you plan to have proper javadoc or something.
But again, far more important than in code comments is documenting the big picture of how the application works. I'm big on diagrams and block diagrams... and I'm not going to do that in ascii :P So they normally end up on a wiki.
Finally there's the issue of time. There's a lot of things we *should* do, but we don't have the staff or the time.
Documenting code itself is pretty far down that list of things I would prioritize.
It is perhaps amusing to point that out... but part of the same problem. I've had to build websites as a developer... and they're not the most aesthetically pleasing, but it's not like we have designers on staff.
The times when I have consulted a designer, they're so far divorced from the practicalities of software design, i can really only use their input for fonts, colors...
But ultimately, this is nothing new in the field. Businesses like low costs.
Developers haven't organized into any kind of professional association en mass to address such things. You'll find for example very specific paths for lawyers, doctors... in terms of training, residency...
And it's not specific to design work. Even something like SQL, IT administration... requires very specific knowledge to do it right... but it's just lumped in there with general programming.
"I suspect the folks who wanted those homes would still have found a way to take out a loan"
some would... but then what is the purpose of Fanny/Freddie, CMHC in Canada. Banks would simply not be willing to loan on mass taking on such risks. That would severely limit the upside. Of course cities would still more expensive.
Good stuff!
Now MIcrosoft makes that into a nice button so the rest of us don't need to know those details you just mentioned.
ah yeah... Toronto is a major city :P
The cost of home is not in the actual cost a home, but mainly in the location, interest rates, planning limits, various development fees...
My point was that the emphasis on the housing market and the corresponding things to make it easier to get a home haven't done anything to actually make homes more affordable or make people's lives better.
Quite frankly, any government programs to help home buyers should ideally only cover the actual physical cost of a home which if I take your numbers would be a bout 1-2x annual income.
Beyond that, it's just people outbidding each other and the public good is not served by make shelter so costly.
Again, housing is mainly so costly NOT due to the free market, but due to government programs and manipulation (low interest rates, mortgage guarantees, in the us tax deductible interest, restrictive urban planning...)
"Why does it take 25 years to pay a house that can be built in 6 weeks?"
Because we've created a financial and political system dependent on infinite economic growth. Something has to keep going up in price... and people have to keep borrowing for it to function. Housing is pretty easy as you can just have zoning laws, boost immigration...
Funny enough, I was reading an article that in Toronto about an old man who was selling his home he bought in the early 1900s. It cost about 1x the annual income.
The 'housing market' is perhaps the greatest scam ever perpetuated on the people. We just outbid each other and take out larger and large loans so that bankers can get rich and government gets more money in property taxes... all the while... they can claim you're getting 'richer'. Make it easier to get a loan? That just makes it easier for everyone to get a loan and you're still in the same spot unable to afford it.
"Why are we still working 40 hour weeks? "
Primarily because people hate egalitarianism. People talk a lot about it. But they hate it. What does it mean to be 'middle class'. It means you're better than the 'lower class'. You the 'middle class' person gets to use the labor of the poor 'lower class' who works in the service industry. So we invent a lot of useless unproductive, yet time consuming jobs for people to do. Most of finance, legal... falls in this category. We also refuse to workshare as people need to feel 'privileged'. The public sector unions and 'educated' people will always say they're entitled to be paid more than other people. It doesn't matter if the other people are just as qualified... it just matter who 'gets in'. The rest must enter the service industry.
"What are we producing, why, and for who?"
We tend to produce most of what we need pretty well (Food, water, clothing...). However the powers that be in the banking system, progressive goals, entitled 'educated' people... require that money always end up in their hands which means we must always keep working harder.
It will probably take a complete economic collapse for us to actually reap the productivity benefits in terms of a higher quality of life. Bankers, investors, public sector workers, progressives... all feel too entitled to let it occur otherwise.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of software developers are idealists in the sense. A kind of martyr for efficiency and 'freedom'.
I've had discussions as well as the arguments they put forth in support of open source are always about innovation or efficiency...
Which as I say is just unique in industries. A discussion on working models for any other trade/profession always rests on how can 'we in the industry' keep money in our industry.
In Ontario, it's been a battle just to get doctors to sop fighting nurses being able to give vaccinations.
Every industry protects its people to make sure it is a viable career choice and that money stays in the industry and costs don't go to zero.
Efficiency and innovation are great goals too. Let's not discount them by any means. However it would be nice if things like ...
-making a living
-making our profession a good career choice
-training the next generation
-quality of the product
-quality of life
began entering the equation. It does for every other profession/trade.
Whatever works is great. No where do I say the premade stuff should just be lectures. It also includes activities and games and experiments...
But what technology allows is for any new lecture, experiment, activity to be quickly used by almost anyone on the planet.
Suffice to say I don't subscribe to the idea that children are capable of making their own decisions. The older they get, the more choice they should have of course.
I do think most things are taught... some will use the term 'indoctrinated'... I call it culture and I use that in a very broad way.
Learning is a great trait built into us... but so are many traits. The trait to be lazy, sexual, dominant, abusive, exploitative, enjoy life...
It's great that there are many kids who take their built in desire to learn and run with it. Many unfortunately partake of the other things. Both as a matter of genetics and/or their upbringing.
Many kids need to be taught things for their own good.
But what we can do is dramatically change the providers and costs of education.
With technology, there is almost no reason teachers should be doing their own lesson plans... I've been a teacher. Do people really think every grade 9 Math class is custom tailored? Trust me... it's not. There's a lot of bullcrap to make it seem like they're doing that work. But in the classroom, it's not like that.
The material/tests/activities... are pretty generic.
As a result, you really don't need very 'skilled' people in general public education. What you really need are teachers with reasonable/good class control. A different kind of skill yes... but not one that is often talked about.
In my experience, some of the best teachers in terms of class control and encouragement were some of the least educated. Many others came from other background other than teaching. Probably the two best teachers I saw had came from outside teaching. One was an ex autoworker and the other an ex finance person.
As a result of that, you can dramatically lower the cost of education and improve the quality. I agree that small groups are very important. What does that really mean.
Rather than pay 1 teacher 90k, you can pay 2 teachers 45K and split the class in two. Given that they really don't need advanced degrees to build lesson plans as they're premade... this makes sense. And for some children, the ones who care about them the most (parents) could provide the structure needed.
I'm always really perplexed by people's perception that something has to be either a corporation or run by the government. That certainly wasn't the historical case when things like education or healthcare where more privately run. They typically operated as non-profits by the community.
Japan enforces this somewhat by mandating that all hospitals be run by doctors.
Even in the United States, there is this perception that healthcare is run by corporation who only seek profit. It's simply not the case. Many of the big healthcare groups are non-profits. As are many insurance companies. Though people quickly find out that non-profit or mutual insurance companies aren't really that much cheaper... and profit is not the problem even in insurance.
The barrier to entry in most things is not really that high... most of the time the barriers are created by government. If we liberated education, do people really think corporations would dominate it when anyone with a room could start a school?
Corporation are by in large a result of government action... both in their origin and their success.
You'd see a lot more non-profits, guilds, community own infrastructure... if we had more liberty.