So are you trying to say that people shouldn't drink, have sex, or do anything else that others would consider inappropriate so as to ensure such actions could never be photographed and posted online?
Umm... yes? If you are stupid enough to have sex in public and get photographed doing it, then you absolutely deserve any and all negative consequences you get. Behave well, and you have nothing to fear... behave like an idiot, then you will get treated like one. It's called personal responsibility, and it is a good thing.
Or when you say "your own actions" you mean the actions of the person that's taking the picture and then posting it?
No, that's not what he means. If you are going to be a drunken fool, then the consequences are your responsibility. It's not the fault of the person taking the picture. Nor is it the responsibility of others to help lie for you and try to whitewash your life so that you can look good to college administrators; if you are in fact a drunken fool, then it is absolutely correct that you are portrayed that way in pictures. If you don't like those pictures, then don't be a drunken fool. Again, it's called taking personal responsibility for your life and not blaming your moral failings on the guy who photographed them.
The trouble is, however, that other (such as these colleges) view such behavior as 'inappropriate'.
No, the real trouble is that you don't like to be told that anything is wrong; you would prefer a world where anything goes and no one has to take responsibility for anything, including breaking the law. However, most of the rest of us who can read know that the legal age to drink is 21. All these applicants are breaking the law, and most people, including college admissions, rightly realize that breaking the law is wrong. And running around having unmarried sex with a bunch of people is irresponsible as well, condom or not. That's a great way to get an STD, cause a pregnancy, have your emotions ripped to shreds by some callous jerk who only wanted you for your body, etc. And while that by itself is irresponsible enough for 18 year olds to be doing, doing it in a situation where it can be PHOTOGRAPHED clearly marks someone as a fool, utterly lacking in any wisdom.
I don't blame colleges for not wanting their campuses filled with people who either think the law doesn't apply to them or who are out and out fools. When I was in college, my university (Iowa State) was filled with violence, rioting and destruction of property during its annual spring celebration, rioting caused by the fact that some fools were mad the bars were closing. More than 1000 drunken students rioted and fought police for hours, and I can't blame universities for wanting to screen out such morons.
Universities aspire to produce the great leaders of the next generation, and great leaders are those that have not just knowledge (read: SAT scores), but wisdom as well. And taking personal responsibility and leading a disciplined life are among the surest signs that someone has wisdom. Getting drunk all the time, breaking the law and running around having premarital sex are good signs that someone has none.
It was supposed to be funny...
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It was supposed to be funny guys. Hence the ridiculous title "LHC Cannon". Geez, lighten up.
I know someone's going to tag me a fanboy, but believe me, I've only been this way about a week, ever since my Zune arrived and it blew my expectations, which have been kept artificially low by the feature light iPods and iTunes software.
Seriously people, get a Zune. iPods have the edge in marketing and "coolness", but Zunes destroy iPods based on features (FM radio, wireless sharing with friends, etc), ease of use, and the Zune software! iTunes 7 would drag my machine to a crawl, even scrolling up and down in the library was painful. I couldn't believe how snappy the Zune software was. And it was easier to use with better features.
And the best part about the Zune is the way Microsoft treats their mp3 player customers. I know it sounds crazy that someone would say Microsoft treats them well, but seriously, think about it! Apple's iPod batteries were dying right after the warranty was up. Apple's answer? For a long time it was "go buy a new iPod". The iPod shuffle randomly irreperably corrupts itself... for THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of owners, including myself (just google orange and green blinking light issue). Apparently it was caused, at least in some cases, by the iTunes software itself. Apple's answer? Buy a new one. Unlock an iPhone you purchased? Apple bricks it, go buy a new one.
Contrast that with the Zune. I bought it last week, and this week Microsoft announces a new Zune and lots of new features, such as the incredible "buy from radio" feature. If you listen to a song on the Zune's radio and like it, you can just tell the Zune you want to buy it (even if you have no idea what it is or who it is you are listening to), and it will figure out what song it was, and as soon as you get within range of a WiFi hotspot, it will download it and buy it for you. My heart fell when I heard I had bought a Zune a week before the announcement, until Microsoft did the exact opposite of Apple. Their answer was not "buy a new Zune to get this feature". Their answer was, "Everyone gets these features, just download the new firmware when we release it." So yeah, I'm sticking with a Zune, and I will NEVER go back to Apple.
In other words, "Truthers" are full of shit. They've been debunked countless times and they keep coming back. Accept it, you are wrong. There is no government conspiracy. There was no demolition. Terrorists hijacked planes and flew them into buildings where the heat from the fires caused them to collapse. That is FACT!
Add to that that normally when proving someone committed a crime, you have to supply a motive. Easy with the terrorists, but I have yet to hear a plausible explanation of why the government would want to blow up a huge piece of New York city plus their own building (the Pentagon). The attacks caused a recession, the collapse of the airline industry (which the government had to bail out), huge fees for the government to the survivors and I believe New York in emergency relief, endless hearings in Washington and that associated expense, etc. I have yet to hear a "Truther" explain why the government would want to cause itself all the misery for zero gain. It doesn't add up.
And no, it wasn't so the military could invade someone either... if that was the reason they wouldn't have blown up the Pentagon. That hurts the military and doesn't galvanize the public for war as well as blowing up something like the Whitehouse or capital building, or one of the many monuments in Washington. So yeah, "Truthers" don't have much of an argument here.
...it will be only the third time that fire has melted steel.
Why do you conspiracy theorists have such a hard time believing that a super massive jetliner slamming into a building at hundreds of miles an hour, and then exploding in a massive, burning fireball in a contained area could bring down a building? You talk about demolition explosives... what do you think this was, anyway? This was no different than if our military had used guided missiles on the building, and I don't think anyone would have a hard time believing that missles of equivalent mass and explosive payload would take that building down.
And I love the guy just sitting on the far edge of the bottom of the tank. In my company you get fired for such unsafe behavior:D! I also note he isn't wearing his seatbelt!
What is so often forgotten in this matter is we grant the monopoly called "copyright".
True, but it would be foolish to want it any other way. If you let someone copy your work, and even take credit for it, there is no incentive to produce the work at all.
Let's take a look at how software is developed. Probably at least 96% of code written is proprietary. In other words, the authors expect to get money and want to earn a living by making it. The rest is open source. But in open source, the vast majority of the leaders (and aspiring leaders) all have huge egos. They may or may not be paid, and may or may not want money, but the vast majority are motivated by something: the desire for recognition. If you remove copyright, anyone can take something and put their name on it and sell it, effectively depriving BOTH groups of the reason they create software.
As the point was "to encourage the useful arts and sciences", we do have the right to say, "you've made enough". Particularly because we are giving them something. Something we are under no obligation to give them.
That argument doesn't really work. When someone like Rowling writes a book for society, there is a trade. We say, "We'll give you money and we won't let anyone else copy and sell your book", and she says, "Ok, in exchange I'll write a cool book for you." You say we are under no obligation to give her the copyright, which is true, but it is also true that she is under no obligation to write a book for you. That's the way any trade or negotiation works. Both sides come to agreeable terms and agree to act on them. If we try to take away one or both of those terms from her, would she still be willing to write the book? Maybe, maybe not... but most likely not, because she had kids she had to feed and clothe, and if you can't make money on books because everyone copies them, then it isn't worth it to try to write one. The time would be better spent getting a second job that actually pays.
ow the heck is checking multiple social networking sites, blogs and RSS feeds going to be any less distracting or addictive than having one place to check all your messages?
Great point, but perhaps an even bigger one is this: How is having twitter (and IM programs, for that matter) constantly popping up status alerts going to be less intrusive? Not only do you now have multiple programs popping up alerts, instead of just your email client, you also have moved from email to programs that are by their nature much more likely to cause interruptions. Twitter is named after bird twittering, in other words, it's supposed to work like birds, who are CONSTANTLY chirping and sending short messages. How could that possibly be less distracting? Instead of a summary email message you will probably get 50 random small updates from twitter. This guy sounds insane.
It was a triumph, I'm making a note here, huge success!
Perhaps it's a triumph in more ways than one. This test could hold the secret to light speed travel!
Think about it... we don't know how to accelerate a ship to the speed of light, or even close. But we DO know how to do it with individual atoms or subatomic particles. What if, instead of one stream emitter, we had billions of them all right next to each other. And what if we emitted atoms at the speed of light, and turned the emitters off and on at precise times, so that the exiting atoms were spaced appropriately to make the shape and structure of a probe? A probe, incidentally, traveling at the speed of light, since all it's internal atoms were emitted individually at that speed...
It's pretty far-fetched since we can't really map large objects to the atomic level yet (if we could we might make some progress on transporters), but on the other hand it's about as likely as any other light-speed travel ideas I've heard yet. And comp sci majors should appreciate it, because it would be an application of the old divide and conquer axiom: if you can't accelerate the ship as a whole, break it down into smaller problems and accelerate each atom!
Doomsayers could still be right...
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My only question is, when the smoke clears and we're all fine, will the doomsayers ever learn for the next time?
They could still be proven to be right. This "test" was simply to see if they could get a proton stream to travel in a circle around the facility. In a week or two, they are going to test it going the other direction. It will still be a month or two before they actually test having the two streams collide, and it is only at that point that you run the risk of micro black holes. And actual large scale scientific experiments aren't going to start until early next year. So the doomsayers could still be right, and this test in itself doesn't disprove their claims. We will have to wait on that.
You honestly thought that by buying a Zune you would avoid cheap products and poor QA/QC? Just seven stories below this one on the main page is one about how the MS decided to ship a bunch of defective Xboxes just so they could get their console out before Sony's. Your post was informative and interesting, and then you go and spoil it all at the end by claiming that you've avoided this whole mess by buying a Zune.
Yes, that's true, and appalling. But I didn't buy an XBox 360, and part of the reason was because I heard about all those heat issues online shortly after they came out.
On the other hand, look at Apple. Their iPod classics have all these battery problems and other issues, and Apple doesn't support them. Their iPod shuffles tend to work fine one moment and then inexplicably corrupt themselves irreperably, bricking themselves forever. Apple offers no fix or way to reset the firmware to factory default settings. Then I see that their boards in their computers come from FoxConn. They've got problems across their entire product line, and to top it all off almost all their products command a good 200-300 dollar price premium just because the Apple logo is on them, and they are therefore "cool".
So yes, Microsoft was terrible on the 360s, but I haven't had problems across their entire product lines. Their keyboards, mice, joysticks, controllers and other hardware have worked for me for years. I haven't heard about Zunes having the tons of problems like iPods. And I don't have to pay such a price premium for Microsoft's stuff.
So yeah, I see the issue with the 360s, but I don't think I spoiled my post by mentioning a Zune. My main point was that Apple products are being poorly made, that I have found out about it, and that they have lost business because of it. Should my Zune be terrible Microsoft will lose my business too.
The problem, I think, is that the field of computing is as or more volatile than ever, but on razor thin margins.
But that's just the thing. These are different industries, and PC industry should actually be easier to find efficiencies in than the food industry, at least in Dell's part of it. They don't actually make any of their own parts... they just put them together. You ought to be able to easilly find efficiencies in that, vs the food industry where there can be tens of thousands of food products, some of which frequently change dramatically. And on top of that, the plant has to figure out how to make the entire item onsite.
And also, talking about margins, let's take a look at another food company that is doing well (this isn't the one I work for): General Mills. General Mills has also been in the news lately for exceeding expectations through managing costs and efficiencies (among other things they've done well at). They make all varieties of food, but one of their brands is Totino's pizza. You talk about Dell having to deal with commodity manufacturing and razor thing margins, but there IS no brand that has to deal with that more than Totino's. The price point of a Totino's pizza was frozen in time from the 1970's to the middle of this year at 99 cents. They did that by continually adapting and finding efficiencies for THIRTY years.
Now seriously, think about that acheivement. Not raising your price for thirty years? When all of your inputs, such as fuel, flour, etc, have gone up by several dollars through inflation and other factors? Dell keeps its price the same or lowers it, but that's because the costs of its inputs, like CPUs and the like, always went down as technology advanced. Totino's on the other hand found a way to keep that price stuck where it was, and now make something like 1.25 million pizzas a day. It says on the back of their box they sell more than 300 million a year. That's true commodity manufacturing, and at their price point their margins are probably slimmer than Dells.
So don't tell me that this is a different industry and Dell's margins are to small or that it's a commidity business. Dell is being mismanaged, Dell is being shortsighted, and I agree with another poster that Dell will probably go out of business eventually, because now the only thing they have left is marketing and sales. And you can't tell me someone in China isn't going to figure out how to that last marketing peice and sell over here. The Japanese firms sure figured that out. Quite frankly, I'm scared for America because all these shortsighted firms are selling us out. Much of our technological progress has been driven by the challenges and synergies that come from learning how to do difficult, high tech manufacturing, and as those industries leave, key learnings and discoveries will go with them. As an example of why this is true, just think of all the scientific advances Intel has made as it has tried to figure out how to shrink the size of transistors. With so much manufacturing leaving, those types of discoveries are going too. And it won't be long until the companies that employ us start going under, because they will be nothing but marketing and sales skeletons. At the very least, we will have a huge brain drain here because the only jobs companies will need filled are sales and marketing. There will no longer be a demand for engineering and science, and a lot of us may start having to go to China for educations.
Good luck with taking that stuff down. Posting something on the Internet is like spilling grape juice on a white cloth. If it wasn't made obvious by the age controversy over China's gymnasts, then I'll say it again: once something is on the Internet it stays there, no matter how much scrubbing you do. People need to think first and to not put something up if there is ever a chance it will be an issue.
Evolution is to biology is what molecules are to chemistry. You really can't teach biology in any meaningful way without evolution.
I have heard this myth spread by uncountable numbers of people, but just because something is said a lot doesn't make it true. It might make more people THINK it is true, but it doesn't make it true.
In order to prove a statement, you need to present a solid proof starting with first principles, followed by provable deductions and ending with a logically following conclusion. Disproving something, however, is quite simple: one merely needs to find a counterexample. In your case, disproving your statement is child's play.
I have a sister studying at the second highest ranked vet school in this nation. There, she is pursuing a dual vetiranary degree and Ph.D. She does not believe in evolution, but believes in creationism. Yet she has had no trouble dealing with a VAST amount of different biological lifeforms, and understands them deeply enough to even treat their conditions, as most vets do. She has already contributed to research in both animal and human diseases as part of her Ph.D. reasearch. Before attending vet school, she recieved triple undergraduate degrees in biology, biochemistry and political science (for balance:D). Not all of the teachers she has had believe in evolution either. Yet it has not stopped them from making contributions to their field, nor has it stopped them from teaching biology in a meaningful way to others, as you claimed it would. If someone is capable of advancing knowledge of both human and animal diseases, I believe that others would agree that she must have been taught something meaningful, wouldn't you?
The statement that evolution must be believed in order to understand biology is patently false. Molecules must be understood to understand chemistry, but that is because they actually DO play an integral role in the day to day science, and are testable. Origins of biology do not play a day to day role in the field, and it's a good thing too, because even if evolution is true, it's quite clear that no one has really has much of a clue about it yet. Consider for a moment how often the books get rewritten on evolution... today they say man descended from this prior species of hominid, the next day they say we came from a different species, and then a few weeks later it's neither one, and the new claim is all three species are actually descendents of some other new in-between species. So think for a moment... if evolution truly had the bearing on biology that molecules have on chemistry, would we not be having to rewrite all biology, biochem, medical, and vetirinary textbooks just about every month? Instead, all these stories about a new evolutionary theory are usually greeted with a mild curiosity and then largely forgotten, as people go back to the work they've been doing for years, which hasn't changed one iota because of the new discovery in the "fundamental science" of evolution.
People probably won't like my suggestion, which would be to regulate air travel again. Cut the routes, limit take off and landing slots, increase the seat and isle widths and let airlines raise prices to the market level of support. Add a gas tax to keep the cost of gasoline above $3.50/gallon and take the money pay for building a high speed train system across the US. To me that would be worth going into debt for, short term anyway. It would create jobs here and give people an alternative to our broken air transportation system.
That's ridiculous, and a sign of complete stagnation on your part. How about we either fix the system, or design a better one? The answer is not to stagnate, but instead to build again!
Telling people to return to trains is ridiculous, and who has time for that anyway? If the air system isn't safe, fix it. If it can't be fixed, then build a better one. There is nothing that people in the 80's could do that we shouldn't be able to equal, if not vastly exceed. They weren't magicians, and their technology was far less advanced than what we have been able to create in the intervening two decades.
The trains could handle the commodity traffic and airlines could compete for luxury traffic, just like the old days. We have to do something. We have 3% of the world population and use 25% of the gasoline. Without alternatives we're never going to get people out of their cars. If I could go anywhere in the continental US in 24 hours, I'd never fly again.
Where do I even start with this? Here are just a few of the many things wrong with this statement:
We aren't talking about getting people out of their cars. We are talking about a broken air transportation system in need of fixing.
Other people don't share your views about the 24 hour thing. I can go from my house here in Ohio to my parent's house in Des Moines, IA, in 12 hours in the car, probably 6 hours by plane (factoring in wait times at airports), or 24 hours by bus OR a train, and the train will require an additional hour of driving at the end because it doesn't even have a route to a city as big as Des Moines! Let me clue you in: I'm not going to take that 24 hour train, and I don't think anyone else will either.
Even if we were willing to take a 24 hour train, you aren't getting one anyway, no matter how fast the engine is. The reason the train between Ohio and Iowa takes 24 hours is because of all the stops at stations, including a big one in Chicago. I don't care if your train goes 300 mph, those stops are still going to happen, and you aren't going to get across the country in 24 hours unless there is an express.
If there was an express, it still doesn't do most people any good. You talk about reducing airline routes, but did you stop to think why there are so many? It's because the people in this nation are spread out in small cities and towns all over the country, and airlines have to service those smaller population centers. Having some fast 300 mph train express routes between LA and NY isn't going to fix anything, because you still have to connect all the other towns and cities for most people to be able to start taking the train. And you can't have an express route between every pair of towns in the system, so you have to start setting up lines and making stops. And if you start making stops all over, your trip gets a lot slower.
And finally, what makes you think this train of your is going to be so vastly more efficient anyway? You start hitting 300 mph and your train will start dealing with the same huge air resistance forces that planes have to overcome. And how are you going to power and propel this thing? Maglevs and wires by the rail? Well, again to clue you in, the energy has to come from somewhere, and it's either coming from gasoline or it's coming from wires connected to power plants that probably burn coal or something. So all your idea really does is wastes billions of taxpayer dolla
Congratulations, you have parts made from the bottom-of-the-barrel of the shittiest components maker, Foxconn. Nobody would touch that with a 10-foot poll when they have Gigabyte.
Absolutely right. No one who has built computers for any length of time feels comfortable putting a Foxconn board in over the alternatives. Not saying a Gigabyte board or an Asus board will never go bad (I've had them go out on me before), but just hop over to newegg, search for motherboards, filter to those manufactured by foxconn, and just take a look at the number of stars (or eggs) they get. Then go in and look at the comments, and take a look at how many have died within a few months, or were just DOA.
I bet Apple daily ships boards back to Foxconn by the truckload as they show up dead on arrival and fail QA, but you've got to know that a lot of those 1-3 months of life boards are getting through. Have fun with Apple products!
And as a side note, if Apple products are so awesome, explain the whole iPod battery fiasco a few years back where iPod batteries were all dying shortly after the warranty, and Apple was just telling everyone to go buy a new iPod. Or go look at all the forums full of people complaining about how their iPod shuffle just randomly bricked itself one day (orange and green flashing light issue), sometimes due to the new version of iTunes, and sometimes just because. And how Apple's solution again was to tell everyone to go buy a new Shuffle. I had one of those, and I basically said, "Screw the crappy, short lived Apple products with no support, I'm buying a Zune." As All State might say, "I was NOT in good hands", and I was not about to be taken by Apple again.
"Contract manufacturers can generally produce computers more cheaply because their entire operations are narrowly focused on finding efficiencies in manufacturing, as opposed to large firms like Dell, which must also balance marketing and other considerations." - So Are Marketing and Other (Design, Reliability, QC? ) considerations no longer important?
This is simply incompetence, or idiocy, I'm not sure which...
I work for a very large food company that has about 40-50 manufacturing facilities worldwide. These facilities make almost all of our products. We make millions upon millions of items every day... in the facility I work in, we make something like 1.5 million items a day, just by ourselves. In an average grocery store, we manufacture around 500 distinct products, to say nothing of the variety of goods we provide to food service establishments such as hospitals, restaurants, hotels, military bases, etc.
In the current bad economic climate, our stock price is rising rapidly. Why? Analysts attribute it to our ability to find efficiencies in manufacturing and operations. We don't look at finding efficiencies as an impossible burden to be outsourced to others; we instead look at it as an opportunity to increase profits without having to raise costs on consumers (which is especially important in this economic climate). And we've gotten quite good at it over the years, despite the fact that, perhaps even more than Dell, we do spend a lot of time and energy on marketing, sales, finance, coupons, and everything else. I can guarantee you that you see a lot more of our commercials each year than Dell's.
So I think Dell is really being incompetent here. Instead of looking for savings and learning to make its operations efficient, it is going for the quick fix of contracting out. But my guess is that it will contract out to a number of different facilities throughout the nation or world, and while each of those facilities will be good at focusing on itself, they will not have the advantage of seeing learnings from ALL the facilities across the organization, and they will miss things. I know our plants keep tabs on each other and call each other all the time to see how some project or other went. Typically one plant will take the plunge on some experimental idea, and the rest will be watching to see if it works out, which is a lot better than siloed contract plants potentially trying the same failed idea at each facility due to lack of communication. Had Dell kept manufacturing, it would have had the advantage of seeing the whole organization, and they could potentially have saved more in the long run by manufacturing everything themselves, but instead they are taking the incompetent way out. Frankly, I'm glad I work for a company with better leadership than them.
I understand that and I'm sure the OP understands that - most folks know about the local monopolies. I don't have cable because I don't like the way ANY of the local providers operate. The only reason I have a cell phone is because someone else has purchased it - I refuse to get any cell phone under my own name because I think ALL the cell providers offer shitty terms in their horribly one sided contracts.
That's an understandable attitude, and I partially agree with it. I too refuse to buy a cell phone plan because they are all bad, and I've been repeatedly cheated in about every way possible (hidden fees, secret contract extensions, you name it). I did buy the cheapest prepaid cell phone I could buy, which I keep in the car for emergencies only, but I will never buy a cell phone plan again because of how they behave.
However, I still don't think it's right that these telcos, or anyone else for that matter, gets a monopoly in any area, whether we can live without the service or not. Competition is good for society, innovation, technology, you name it. Monopolies stifle it, they crush economies and people, and that's why we have antitrust laws in this nation. If Microsoft, which wasn't even close to being a monopoly (because several viable competitors such as Linux an Mac did exist and there are no barriers to entry in software to prevent other competitors from joining the fray) was slapped with anti-trust charges, then why aren't these telcos and cable providers? I cannot pick any other provider. I payed to have my house wired for phone and cable, but I cannot pick who I use. No other competitors can rise, because you can only have one set of lines. That is as true a monopoly as power and water, and like most monopolies they overcharge and fight innovation (Verizon trying to sue the pants off Vonage, anyone? Or placing caps on bandwidth instead of investing in infrastructure and better technology?) and should therefore be regulated. Cell phones you can maybe argue about (and I partly agree with you, because there are four or five providers and two network types in most areas), but cable and telephone are always controlled by one, and only one, company in a town. That's a monopoly, and it needs to go.
I'm so sick of this argument. There is no valid alternative where a lot of people live. Where I live we are too far away for DSL. Satellite is *not* an option and FIOS isn't even a gleam in someone's eye. As for TV I don't watch TV anymore so that doesn't affect me.
I agree with you. Hello grandparent post, some of us don't live in the city (though even most city dwellers don't have options). I live in a small town of 6,000 people. They will be lucky if they have fiber 20 years from now. Satellite, due to such poor latency, is actually worse than dialup for many applications (which I'm surprised more people in this thread haven't pointed out). For file transfers yes, it is faster, but for any protocol with even a remote amount of chattiness (gaming for one), it is unusable.
So that leaves me with two options: cable and DSL (which is actually more than many small towns have, but I'm lucky to be in the county seat). The cable is provided by Time Warner, who is considering a cap. So I looked up who the phone/DSL provider was so that I could vote with my wallet, even though DSL is slower. Well, the phone company is Verizon. And I'm already "voting against" them with my wallet because of how badly they cheated me when I was their cell phone customer (hidden fees, secret automatic contract extensions, all that stuff). So now what do I do? All these telcos hold monopolies in various areas. Time Warner is the cable provider. No one can compete in the cable arena, so it owns land delivered TV. It therefore treats customers like dirt. Verizon owns the phone lines. No one can compete in the phone area, so it owns phone calls. It therefore treats customers like dirt. They screw customers in their individual areas, and then screw them again on Internet, especially since there is no real risk of competition. Even if you appear to have two options, this isn't a free market in any way, and EACH choice will screw you, because they know they own the lines into your house and know that no competitors can rise up. And they also know that they are relatively immune to competing with each other too, again because they each monopolize a certain core area (phones and phone lines, or TV and the cable lines). So you actually have no choices at all, and should an innovative competitor even attempt to rise up, such as Vonage who tried to move phone off the POTS and onto any wire that could carry IP traffic, they will use the money they obtained with their monopoly to try to sue said competitor into bankruptcy (again, look at Verizon v Vonage).
So you are stuck. Every choice is a monopoly, each will try to screw you, and you really have no options whatsoever.
Potentially yes... if individual contracts
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Well, gee, lets see. Setting aside the economic issues, the inertia and sloppy work that comes with systems where "seniority" is more important than "ability"
Now, let me first say I totally understand your argument here. I am the lone programmer for a unionized manufacturing plant, and though I'm personally salaried, I can tell you from observation that all of the abuses you describe above are true. People get jobs and advancement through seniority, not qualification, and that's the sort of thing that should never be allowed to happen anywhere, period. That simply leads to stagnation.
But while that stagnation of regular unions represents an abuse of the company by employees, the fact is that at non-unionized facilities you can have heavy abuse of employees by management instead. And that abuse of employees by management is the situation we in IT are currently in.
How many of us were told we were going to get 40 hour workweeks, and that overtime is occassional, but once we joined found that our hours were closer to 50-60 a week because we were salaried and that's free labor for the company? How many of us were lead to believe that the pager would rotate among a lot more people than it actually does, and that late night downtime is rare? How many of us have recommended to management that parts of IT not be outsourced to other countries, because while their wages our lower, they tend to produce inferior work? And how many of us have found that even though the company technically had "more" employees after outsourcing, that we actually had to stay even longer because someone had to clean up the messes in the code? Or how we have to show up at awful times in the early morning for meetings on the other side of the world, and work at night when something goes down, and are expected to then show up during regular hours during the day and work the full 8 hour day?
All of that is abuse, and there has to be a middle ground system that prevents abuse by both employees (unions) and management (salaries). Take a look at the recent case we discussed where IBMs employees finally sued IBM for scads of unpaid overtime, only to have IBM cut their salary 12% in retaliation? That's abuse, and if IT had been unionized in that case it would have been very helpful, because a big fat strike might have forced IBM to quit being such jerks (one can only hope that at least the negative publicity hurts their hiring efforts).
Anyway, I'm not totally sure what the middle ground is, but I think maybe it's having most of IT become contractors. Collective contracts (unions) lead to employee abuse but keep management in check, so perhaps individual contracts keep the management in check, but still leave out the stupid seniority rules that lead to so much laziness. Additionally, companies that then try to outsource to other countries for cheap costs will find that they often end up with poor systems, and they will actually have to pay the domestic programmers for all the hours spent straightening things out. And if they need it in a rush and want overtime, that's fine, but they'll have to pay for it like everywhere else.
Just a couple last observations about this contractor thing. Most of the contractors I've met have better hours and fairer pay, and feel better about their jobs because they can't be forced to work unpaid overtime (and they get more sleep, too). All this leads to better morale, and even better productivity. And for those who think programming would become to expensive if everyone was a contractor, if all IT was contracting then it would be sort of a commodity thing, and prices would stabilize to a fair, normal level, but still be based on qualification rather than seniority, with better contractors costing more. Lastly, companies could even still have their own pseudo IT staff of employees, and if they treat them well most of the employees would probably stay and keep renewing contracts, leading
I do want to add one thing as my post above may have sounded too harsh towards IT people... I was referring to them as hacks only in instances where they start writing huge applications or designing big databases without learning how to write code or do database design first. IT people often know much more than I do about keeping a desktop running or a network up, and for that I'm grateful.
And there's nothing wrong with community college either, or even no degree, if you've made the effort to learn your skill well. But I have relatives in IT who don't, and insult my brother in law who actually did take the time to go to school and really learn our trade. So hearing about arrogant IT guys who write horrible code really struck a nerve. I hate coming in and cleaning up their mess, and then actually being told to my face that "my degree is meaningless and just a piece of paper".
But by all means people, if you want to code and are willing to take the time to learn to do it right, have at it. I would be thrilled to see more of you, degree or not.
I find it funny how the people who have never been formally trained with writing in a language (Mathematics, and just science in general) write the best codes while the majority of the IT people I see write the most appalling code I've ever seen.
Actually, most IT people don't have any formal training at all. Most of them are hacks who got into their jobs on the basis of family connections, a year at community college, time in a help desk (especially military helpdesks), or reading a couple of books. Most IT people DO write horrible code as you point out, but I just haven't observed them doing formal training, at least not what I'd call formal training. A day long ASP.Net "training" (if they even do that much) is not the same as getting degrees in computer engineering and computer science. As someone with degrees in both those fields, I get embarrassed when people say "he's in IT" or "he's the new IT guy". Call me a programmer please. IT == hack;
the science people don't pretend to know everything and are much more willing to learn something new while the IT people already know everything.
They lie to you. Oh man do they lie. They probably do it so that you will join them in their misery, misery loves company and all that.
Actually it's not a lie. Like everything, there are of course exceptions, so I'm sure some people do lie, but I get all of the above. And my wife is wonderful. I love being married. So yeah, if you wanna delude yourself out of the fun, go ahead... but consider the fact that you haven't tried being married, so how would you know the truth? Married men are inherently credible when talking about this issue, and unmarried men are without credibility, for the following reason: all us married men have been both single and married, and I personally can say that after trying both, marriage is far superior.
Anyhow, now that there's a gene for it and I obviously don't have it, I have a scientific excuse.;)
Sorry, but as a creature of reason and logic (which your appeal to science shows that you are), you are still without excuse. Anyone who claims reason has the tools necessary to rise above base animal instincts and live differently. Whether this alleged gene actually is proven to be true or not, the "serial non-commiters" still have no excuse to use the women around them.
As humans, we have to rise above this non-commitment, because regardless of a specific gene, societies in which commitments are made and upheld are inherently more stable and peaceful than those in which no one can trust anyone's word. As humans, our goal should be to form stable societies that are best for us, not to follow our genetic dispositions.
What you said there was true, but I disagree that the rest of your points are the main causes.
The issue isn't that pensions aren't enough, it's that people aren't SAVING enough. Yes, SAVING! Until the new deal and great society programs came along, people used to actually take personal responsibility for their actions, and they used to save money. Now they just spend, go way into debt, and expect the government to bail them out in the long run through social security or some other mechanism. Of course, the government is doing the same thing as the people, and it's too far in debt to even help itself.
Over the last few years the personal savings rate in this country has actually been negative. I think as recently as the 1980s it was still 10% of income, though even that was lower than it should be. Ever since the 1990's though, we've been in a grip of a soccer-mom, suburban, keep up with the Jones and please supersize my TV, SUV, and my house trend in which saving money is way out of fashion. Living off the plastic is the new "in", and now people are feeling the pinch.
And that's why no one has any money for retirement anymore (and is incidentally the reason people are having trouble in this economic downturn, and every economic downturn: they weren't prepared). I had a coworker who was a 50 year old contract programmer (a very good one), and he made well over 100000 a year and was a fairly typical wealthy baby-boomer. Only problem is, he spends well over 100000 a year too. He ALWAYS had the latest gaming systems, the nicest new MP3 player and Bose headphones, multiple BMWs and Audis, and a brand new computer system with four monitors, etc, to say nothing of his laptops. He purchased most of that in the year I knew him, which gives you an idea of how much spending he was doing. We got to talking one day after we found out the company stock had gone up yet again, and he floored me by saying, "You know, I ought to get around to learning a little about investing and maybe buying some stock one of these days."
Ummm, DUH!!! You should have been investing for the last 30 years! Now it's too late for him, even if he does actually get around to it, because there aren't enough years left to capture most of the benefits of compound interest. I'm only 24 and even I have stocks and mutual funds, because I'm counting on myself, not the government, to maintain my standard of living during retirement. And that's going to be a big shock to him when he gets there, because there's no way now he can save enough to maintain his standard of living during retirement. He's addicted to his toys, addicted to not telling himself no, and that's the problem with him and the rest of America. Not working at age 65 is not an inalienable right... it's rather a gift that you buy for yourself. And if you don't start saving now you will find, like the rest of these people, that you can't afford to buy it when the time comes.
I prefer, to set up a domain you must have verifiable and then completely VERIFIED personal information on it.
I wish that could happen, as that was the original plan all along. However, there are a couple of problems with.
Today people can sign up a domain from some domain registering company (like 1&1, GoDaddy, etc), and have those companies use their own information to set up the domain. That same service will continue and be impossible to stop... people will keep setting up front companies that do domain registrations on behalf of people and give out their own/other information rather than a client's information.
Privacy is an issue. It might curtail some of the free speech on the Internet if you had to give out your address. You might put up a controversial website and have protesters outside your door 24x7, they might rough you up, smash your car windows or slash your tires, etc (much like the so called "peace" protesters did in Minneapolis during the Republican National Convention). It seems like it's best for all if people can talk without having to be afraid aggressive protesters will come to their house.
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Umm... yes? If you are stupid enough to have sex in public and get photographed doing it, then you absolutely deserve any and all negative consequences you get. Behave well, and you have nothing to fear... behave like an idiot, then you will get treated like one. It's called personal responsibility, and it is a good thing.
No, that's not what he means. If you are going to be a drunken fool, then the consequences are your responsibility. It's not the fault of the person taking the picture. Nor is it the responsibility of others to help lie for you and try to whitewash your life so that you can look good to college administrators; if you are in fact a drunken fool, then it is absolutely correct that you are portrayed that way in pictures. If you don't like those pictures, then don't be a drunken fool. Again, it's called taking personal responsibility for your life and not blaming your moral failings on the guy who photographed them.
No, the real trouble is that you don't like to be told that anything is wrong; you would prefer a world where anything goes and no one has to take responsibility for anything, including breaking the law. However, most of the rest of us who can read know that the legal age to drink is 21. All these applicants are breaking the law, and most people, including college admissions, rightly realize that breaking the law is wrong. And running around having unmarried sex with a bunch of people is irresponsible as well, condom or not. That's a great way to get an STD, cause a pregnancy, have your emotions ripped to shreds by some callous jerk who only wanted you for your body, etc. And while that by itself is irresponsible enough for 18 year olds to be doing, doing it in a situation where it can be PHOTOGRAPHED clearly marks someone as a fool, utterly lacking in any wisdom.
I don't blame colleges for not wanting their campuses filled with people who either think the law doesn't apply to them or who are out and out fools. When I was in college, my university (Iowa State) was filled with violence, rioting and destruction of property during its annual spring celebration, rioting caused by the fact that some fools were mad the bars were closing. More than 1000 drunken students rioted and fought police for hours, and I can't blame universities for wanting to screen out such morons.
Universities aspire to produce the great leaders of the next generation, and great leaders are those that have not just knowledge (read: SAT scores), but wisdom as well. And taking personal responsibility and leading a disciplined life are among the surest signs that someone has wisdom. Getting drunk all the time, breaking the law and running around having premarital sex are good signs that someone has none.
It was supposed to be funny guys. Hence the ridiculous title "LHC Cannon". Geez, lighten up.
I know someone's going to tag me a fanboy, but believe me, I've only been this way about a week, ever since my Zune arrived and it blew my expectations, which have been kept artificially low by the feature light iPods and iTunes software.
Seriously people, get a Zune. iPods have the edge in marketing and "coolness", but Zunes destroy iPods based on features (FM radio, wireless sharing with friends, etc), ease of use, and the Zune software! iTunes 7 would drag my machine to a crawl, even scrolling up and down in the library was painful. I couldn't believe how snappy the Zune software was. And it was easier to use with better features.
And the best part about the Zune is the way Microsoft treats their mp3 player customers. I know it sounds crazy that someone would say Microsoft treats them well, but seriously, think about it! Apple's iPod batteries were dying right after the warranty was up. Apple's answer? For a long time it was "go buy a new iPod". The iPod shuffle randomly irreperably corrupts itself... for THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of owners, including myself (just google orange and green blinking light issue). Apparently it was caused, at least in some cases, by the iTunes software itself. Apple's answer? Buy a new one. Unlock an iPhone you purchased? Apple bricks it, go buy a new one.
Contrast that with the Zune. I bought it last week, and this week Microsoft announces a new Zune and lots of new features, such as the incredible "buy from radio" feature. If you listen to a song on the Zune's radio and like it, you can just tell the Zune you want to buy it (even if you have no idea what it is or who it is you are listening to), and it will figure out what song it was, and as soon as you get within range of a WiFi hotspot, it will download it and buy it for you. My heart fell when I heard I had bought a Zune a week before the announcement, until Microsoft did the exact opposite of Apple. Their answer was not "buy a new Zune to get this feature". Their answer was, "Everyone gets these features, just download the new firmware when we release it." So yeah, I'm sticking with a Zune, and I will NEVER go back to Apple.
Add to that that normally when proving someone committed a crime, you have to supply a motive. Easy with the terrorists, but I have yet to hear a plausible explanation of why the government would want to blow up a huge piece of New York city plus their own building (the Pentagon). The attacks caused a recession, the collapse of the airline industry (which the government had to bail out), huge fees for the government to the survivors and I believe New York in emergency relief, endless hearings in Washington and that associated expense, etc. I have yet to hear a "Truther" explain why the government would want to cause itself all the misery for zero gain. It doesn't add up.
And no, it wasn't so the military could invade someone either... if that was the reason they wouldn't have blown up the Pentagon. That hurts the military and doesn't galvanize the public for war as well as blowing up something like the Whitehouse or capital building, or one of the many monuments in Washington. So yeah, "Truthers" don't have much of an argument here.
Why do you conspiracy theorists have such a hard time believing that a super massive jetliner slamming into a building at hundreds of miles an hour, and then exploding in a massive, burning fireball in a contained area could bring down a building? You talk about demolition explosives... what do you think this was, anyway? This was no different than if our military had used guided missiles on the building, and I don't think anyone would have a hard time believing that missles of equivalent mass and explosive payload would take that building down.
And I love the guy just sitting on the far edge of the bottom of the tank. In my company you get fired for such unsafe behavior :D! I also note he isn't wearing his seatbelt!
True, but it would be foolish to want it any other way. If you let someone copy your work, and even take credit for it, there is no incentive to produce the work at all.
Let's take a look at how software is developed. Probably at least 96% of code written is proprietary. In other words, the authors expect to get money and want to earn a living by making it. The rest is open source. But in open source, the vast majority of the leaders (and aspiring leaders) all have huge egos. They may or may not be paid, and may or may not want money, but the vast majority are motivated by something: the desire for recognition. If you remove copyright, anyone can take something and put their name on it and sell it, effectively depriving BOTH groups of the reason they create software.
That argument doesn't really work. When someone like Rowling writes a book for society, there is a trade. We say, "We'll give you money and we won't let anyone else copy and sell your book", and she says, "Ok, in exchange I'll write a cool book for you." You say we are under no obligation to give her the copyright, which is true, but it is also true that she is under no obligation to write a book for you. That's the way any trade or negotiation works. Both sides come to agreeable terms and agree to act on them. If we try to take away one or both of those terms from her, would she still be willing to write the book? Maybe, maybe not... but most likely not, because she had kids she had to feed and clothe, and if you can't make money on books because everyone copies them, then it isn't worth it to try to write one. The time would be better spent getting a second job that actually pays.
Great point, but perhaps an even bigger one is this: How is having twitter (and IM programs, for that matter) constantly popping up status alerts going to be less intrusive? Not only do you now have multiple programs popping up alerts, instead of just your email client, you also have moved from email to programs that are by their nature much more likely to cause interruptions. Twitter is named after bird twittering, in other words, it's supposed to work like birds, who are CONSTANTLY chirping and sending short messages. How could that possibly be less distracting? Instead of a summary email message you will probably get 50 random small updates from twitter. This guy sounds insane.
Perhaps it's a triumph in more ways than one. This test could hold the secret to light speed travel!
Think about it... we don't know how to accelerate a ship to the speed of light, or even close. But we DO know how to do it with individual atoms or subatomic particles. What if, instead of one stream emitter, we had billions of them all right next to each other. And what if we emitted atoms at the speed of light, and turned the emitters off and on at precise times, so that the exiting atoms were spaced appropriately to make the shape and structure of a probe? A probe, incidentally, traveling at the speed of light, since all it's internal atoms were emitted individually at that speed...
It's pretty far-fetched since we can't really map large objects to the atomic level yet (if we could we might make some progress on transporters), but on the other hand it's about as likely as any other light-speed travel ideas I've heard yet. And comp sci majors should appreciate it, because it would be an application of the old divide and conquer axiom: if you can't accelerate the ship as a whole, break it down into smaller problems and accelerate each atom!
They could still be proven to be right. This "test" was simply to see if they could get a proton stream to travel in a circle around the facility. In a week or two, they are going to test it going the other direction. It will still be a month or two before they actually test having the two streams collide, and it is only at that point that you run the risk of micro black holes. And actual large scale scientific experiments aren't going to start until early next year. So the doomsayers could still be right, and this test in itself doesn't disprove their claims. We will have to wait on that.
Yes, that's true, and appalling. But I didn't buy an XBox 360, and part of the reason was because I heard about all those heat issues online shortly after they came out.
On the other hand, look at Apple. Their iPod classics have all these battery problems and other issues, and Apple doesn't support them. Their iPod shuffles tend to work fine one moment and then inexplicably corrupt themselves irreperably, bricking themselves forever. Apple offers no fix or way to reset the firmware to factory default settings. Then I see that their boards in their computers come from FoxConn. They've got problems across their entire product line, and to top it all off almost all their products command a good 200-300 dollar price premium just because the Apple logo is on them, and they are therefore "cool".
So yes, Microsoft was terrible on the 360s, but I haven't had problems across their entire product lines. Their keyboards, mice, joysticks, controllers and other hardware have worked for me for years. I haven't heard about Zunes having the tons of problems like iPods. And I don't have to pay such a price premium for Microsoft's stuff.
So yeah, I see the issue with the 360s, but I don't think I spoiled my post by mentioning a Zune. My main point was that Apple products are being poorly made, that I have found out about it, and that they have lost business because of it. Should my Zune be terrible Microsoft will lose my business too.
But that's just the thing. These are different industries, and PC industry should actually be easier to find efficiencies in than the food industry, at least in Dell's part of it. They don't actually make any of their own parts... they just put them together. You ought to be able to easilly find efficiencies in that, vs the food industry where there can be tens of thousands of food products, some of which frequently change dramatically. And on top of that, the plant has to figure out how to make the entire item onsite.
And also, talking about margins, let's take a look at another food company that is doing well (this isn't the one I work for): General Mills. General Mills has also been in the news lately for exceeding expectations through managing costs and efficiencies (among other things they've done well at). They make all varieties of food, but one of their brands is Totino's pizza. You talk about Dell having to deal with commodity manufacturing and razor thing margins, but there IS no brand that has to deal with that more than Totino's. The price point of a Totino's pizza was frozen in time from the 1970's to the middle of this year at 99 cents. They did that by continually adapting and finding efficiencies for THIRTY years.
Now seriously, think about that acheivement. Not raising your price for thirty years? When all of your inputs, such as fuel, flour, etc, have gone up by several dollars through inflation and other factors? Dell keeps its price the same or lowers it, but that's because the costs of its inputs, like CPUs and the like, always went down as technology advanced. Totino's on the other hand found a way to keep that price stuck where it was, and now make something like 1.25 million pizzas a day. It says on the back of their box they sell more than 300 million a year. That's true commodity manufacturing, and at their price point their margins are probably slimmer than Dells.
So don't tell me that this is a different industry and Dell's margins are to small or that it's a commidity business. Dell is being mismanaged, Dell is being shortsighted, and I agree with another poster that Dell will probably go out of business eventually, because now the only thing they have left is marketing and sales. And you can't tell me someone in China isn't going to figure out how to that last marketing peice and sell over here. The Japanese firms sure figured that out. Quite frankly, I'm scared for America because all these shortsighted firms are selling us out. Much of our technological progress has been driven by the challenges and synergies that come from learning how to do difficult, high tech manufacturing, and as those industries leave, key learnings and discoveries will go with them. As an example of why this is true, just think of all the scientific advances Intel has made as it has tried to figure out how to shrink the size of transistors. With so much manufacturing leaving, those types of discoveries are going too. And it won't be long until the companies that employ us start going under, because they will be nothing but marketing and sales skeletons. At the very least, we will have a huge brain drain here because the only jobs companies will need filled are sales and marketing. There will no longer be a demand for engineering and science, and a lot of us may start having to go to China for educations.
Good luck with taking that stuff down. Posting something on the Internet is like spilling grape juice on a white cloth. If it wasn't made obvious by the age controversy over China's gymnasts, then I'll say it again: once something is on the Internet it stays there, no matter how much scrubbing you do. People need to think first and to not put something up if there is ever a chance it will be an issue.
I have heard this myth spread by uncountable numbers of people, but just because something is said a lot doesn't make it true. It might make more people THINK it is true, but it doesn't make it true.
In order to prove a statement, you need to present a solid proof starting with first principles, followed by provable deductions and ending with a logically following conclusion. Disproving something, however, is quite simple: one merely needs to find a counterexample. In your case, disproving your statement is child's play.
I have a sister studying at the second highest ranked vet school in this nation. There, she is pursuing a dual vetiranary degree and Ph.D. She does not believe in evolution, but believes in creationism. Yet she has had no trouble dealing with a VAST amount of different biological lifeforms, and understands them deeply enough to even treat their conditions, as most vets do. She has already contributed to research in both animal and human diseases as part of her Ph.D. reasearch. Before attending vet school, she recieved triple undergraduate degrees in biology, biochemistry and political science (for balance :D). Not all of the teachers she has had believe in evolution either. Yet it has not stopped them from making contributions to their field, nor has it stopped them from teaching biology in a meaningful way to others, as you claimed it would. If someone is capable of advancing knowledge of both human and animal diseases, I believe that others would agree that she must have been taught something meaningful, wouldn't you?
The statement that evolution must be believed in order to understand biology is patently false. Molecules must be understood to understand chemistry, but that is because they actually DO play an integral role in the day to day science, and are testable. Origins of biology do not play a day to day role in the field, and it's a good thing too, because even if evolution is true, it's quite clear that no one has really has much of a clue about it yet. Consider for a moment how often the books get rewritten on evolution... today they say man descended from this prior species of hominid, the next day they say we came from a different species, and then a few weeks later it's neither one, and the new claim is all three species are actually descendents of some other new in-between species. So think for a moment... if evolution truly had the bearing on biology that molecules have on chemistry, would we not be having to rewrite all biology, biochem, medical, and vetirinary textbooks just about every month? Instead, all these stories about a new evolutionary theory are usually greeted with a mild curiosity and then largely forgotten, as people go back to the work they've been doing for years, which hasn't changed one iota because of the new discovery in the "fundamental science" of evolution.
That's ridiculous, and a sign of complete stagnation on your part. How about we either fix the system, or design a better one? The answer is not to stagnate, but instead to build again!
Telling people to return to trains is ridiculous, and who has time for that anyway? If the air system isn't safe, fix it. If it can't be fixed, then build a better one. There is nothing that people in the 80's could do that we shouldn't be able to equal, if not vastly exceed. They weren't magicians, and their technology was far less advanced than what we have been able to create in the intervening two decades.
Where do I even start with this? Here are just a few of the many things wrong with this statement:
Absolutely right. No one who has built computers for any length of time feels comfortable putting a Foxconn board in over the alternatives. Not saying a Gigabyte board or an Asus board will never go bad (I've had them go out on me before), but just hop over to newegg, search for motherboards, filter to those manufactured by foxconn, and just take a look at the number of stars (or eggs) they get. Then go in and look at the comments, and take a look at how many have died within a few months, or were just DOA.
I bet Apple daily ships boards back to Foxconn by the truckload as they show up dead on arrival and fail QA, but you've got to know that a lot of those 1-3 months of life boards are getting through. Have fun with Apple products!
And as a side note, if Apple products are so awesome, explain the whole iPod battery fiasco a few years back where iPod batteries were all dying shortly after the warranty, and Apple was just telling everyone to go buy a new iPod. Or go look at all the forums full of people complaining about how their iPod shuffle just randomly bricked itself one day (orange and green flashing light issue), sometimes due to the new version of iTunes, and sometimes just because. And how Apple's solution again was to tell everyone to go buy a new Shuffle. I had one of those, and I basically said, "Screw the crappy, short lived Apple products with no support, I'm buying a Zune." As All State might say, "I was NOT in good hands", and I was not about to be taken by Apple again.
This is simply incompetence, or idiocy, I'm not sure which...
I work for a very large food company that has about 40-50 manufacturing facilities worldwide. These facilities make almost all of our products. We make millions upon millions of items every day... in the facility I work in, we make something like 1.5 million items a day, just by ourselves. In an average grocery store, we manufacture around 500 distinct products, to say nothing of the variety of goods we provide to food service establishments such as hospitals, restaurants, hotels, military bases, etc.
In the current bad economic climate, our stock price is rising rapidly. Why? Analysts attribute it to our ability to find efficiencies in manufacturing and operations. We don't look at finding efficiencies as an impossible burden to be outsourced to others; we instead look at it as an opportunity to increase profits without having to raise costs on consumers (which is especially important in this economic climate). And we've gotten quite good at it over the years, despite the fact that, perhaps even more than Dell, we do spend a lot of time and energy on marketing, sales, finance, coupons, and everything else. I can guarantee you that you see a lot more of our commercials each year than Dell's.
So I think Dell is really being incompetent here. Instead of looking for savings and learning to make its operations efficient, it is going for the quick fix of contracting out. But my guess is that it will contract out to a number of different facilities throughout the nation or world, and while each of those facilities will be good at focusing on itself, they will not have the advantage of seeing learnings from ALL the facilities across the organization, and they will miss things. I know our plants keep tabs on each other and call each other all the time to see how some project or other went. Typically one plant will take the plunge on some experimental idea, and the rest will be watching to see if it works out, which is a lot better than siloed contract plants potentially trying the same failed idea at each facility due to lack of communication. Had Dell kept manufacturing, it would have had the advantage of seeing the whole organization, and they could potentially have saved more in the long run by manufacturing everything themselves, but instead they are taking the incompetent way out. Frankly, I'm glad I work for a company with better leadership than them.
That's an understandable attitude, and I partially agree with it. I too refuse to buy a cell phone plan because they are all bad, and I've been repeatedly cheated in about every way possible (hidden fees, secret contract extensions, you name it). I did buy the cheapest prepaid cell phone I could buy, which I keep in the car for emergencies only, but I will never buy a cell phone plan again because of how they behave.
However, I still don't think it's right that these telcos, or anyone else for that matter, gets a monopoly in any area, whether we can live without the service or not. Competition is good for society, innovation, technology, you name it. Monopolies stifle it, they crush economies and people, and that's why we have antitrust laws in this nation. If Microsoft, which wasn't even close to being a monopoly (because several viable competitors such as Linux an Mac did exist and there are no barriers to entry in software to prevent other competitors from joining the fray) was slapped with anti-trust charges, then why aren't these telcos and cable providers? I cannot pick any other provider. I payed to have my house wired for phone and cable, but I cannot pick who I use. No other competitors can rise, because you can only have one set of lines. That is as true a monopoly as power and water, and like most monopolies they overcharge and fight innovation (Verizon trying to sue the pants off Vonage, anyone? Or placing caps on bandwidth instead of investing in infrastructure and better technology?) and should therefore be regulated. Cell phones you can maybe argue about (and I partly agree with you, because there are four or five providers and two network types in most areas), but cable and telephone are always controlled by one, and only one, company in a town. That's a monopoly, and it needs to go.
I agree with you. Hello grandparent post, some of us don't live in the city (though even most city dwellers don't have options). I live in a small town of 6,000 people. They will be lucky if they have fiber 20 years from now. Satellite, due to such poor latency, is actually worse than dialup for many applications (which I'm surprised more people in this thread haven't pointed out). For file transfers yes, it is faster, but for any protocol with even a remote amount of chattiness (gaming for one), it is unusable.
So that leaves me with two options: cable and DSL (which is actually more than many small towns have, but I'm lucky to be in the county seat). The cable is provided by Time Warner, who is considering a cap. So I looked up who the phone/DSL provider was so that I could vote with my wallet, even though DSL is slower. Well, the phone company is Verizon. And I'm already "voting against" them with my wallet because of how badly they cheated me when I was their cell phone customer (hidden fees, secret automatic contract extensions, all that stuff). So now what do I do? All these telcos hold monopolies in various areas. Time Warner is the cable provider. No one can compete in the cable arena, so it owns land delivered TV. It therefore treats customers like dirt. Verizon owns the phone lines. No one can compete in the phone area, so it owns phone calls. It therefore treats customers like dirt. They screw customers in their individual areas, and then screw them again on Internet, especially since there is no real risk of competition. Even if you appear to have two options, this isn't a free market in any way, and EACH choice will screw you, because they know they own the lines into your house and know that no competitors can rise up. And they also know that they are relatively immune to competing with each other too, again because they each monopolize a certain core area (phones and phone lines, or TV and the cable lines). So you actually have no choices at all, and should an innovative competitor even attempt to rise up, such as Vonage who tried to move phone off the POTS and onto any wire that could carry IP traffic, they will use the money they obtained with their monopoly to try to sue said competitor into bankruptcy (again, look at Verizon v Vonage).
So you are stuck. Every choice is a monopoly, each will try to screw you, and you really have no options whatsoever.
Now, let me first say I totally understand your argument here. I am the lone programmer for a unionized manufacturing plant, and though I'm personally salaried, I can tell you from observation that all of the abuses you describe above are true. People get jobs and advancement through seniority, not qualification, and that's the sort of thing that should never be allowed to happen anywhere, period. That simply leads to stagnation.
But while that stagnation of regular unions represents an abuse of the company by employees, the fact is that at non-unionized facilities you can have heavy abuse of employees by management instead. And that abuse of employees by management is the situation we in IT are currently in.
How many of us were told we were going to get 40 hour workweeks, and that overtime is occassional, but once we joined found that our hours were closer to 50-60 a week because we were salaried and that's free labor for the company? How many of us were lead to believe that the pager would rotate among a lot more people than it actually does, and that late night downtime is rare? How many of us have recommended to management that parts of IT not be outsourced to other countries, because while their wages our lower, they tend to produce inferior work? And how many of us have found that even though the company technically had "more" employees after outsourcing, that we actually had to stay even longer because someone had to clean up the messes in the code? Or how we have to show up at awful times in the early morning for meetings on the other side of the world, and work at night when something goes down, and are expected to then show up during regular hours during the day and work the full 8 hour day?
All of that is abuse, and there has to be a middle ground system that prevents abuse by both employees (unions) and management (salaries). Take a look at the recent case we discussed where IBMs employees finally sued IBM for scads of unpaid overtime, only to have IBM cut their salary 12% in retaliation? That's abuse, and if IT had been unionized in that case it would have been very helpful, because a big fat strike might have forced IBM to quit being such jerks (one can only hope that at least the negative publicity hurts their hiring efforts).
Anyway, I'm not totally sure what the middle ground is, but I think maybe it's having most of IT become contractors. Collective contracts (unions) lead to employee abuse but keep management in check, so perhaps individual contracts keep the management in check, but still leave out the stupid seniority rules that lead to so much laziness. Additionally, companies that then try to outsource to other countries for cheap costs will find that they often end up with poor systems, and they will actually have to pay the domestic programmers for all the hours spent straightening things out. And if they need it in a rush and want overtime, that's fine, but they'll have to pay for it like everywhere else.
Just a couple last observations about this contractor thing. Most of the contractors I've met have better hours and fairer pay, and feel better about their jobs because they can't be forced to work unpaid overtime (and they get more sleep, too). All this leads to better morale, and even better productivity. And for those who think programming would become to expensive if everyone was a contractor, if all IT was contracting then it would be sort of a commodity thing, and prices would stabilize to a fair, normal level, but still be based on qualification rather than seniority, with better contractors costing more. Lastly, companies could even still have their own pseudo IT staff of employees, and if they treat them well most of the employees would probably stay and keep renewing contracts, leading
I do want to add one thing as my post above may have sounded too harsh towards IT people... I was referring to them as hacks only in instances where they start writing huge applications or designing big databases without learning how to write code or do database design first. IT people often know much more than I do about keeping a desktop running or a network up, and for that I'm grateful.
And there's nothing wrong with community college either, or even no degree, if you've made the effort to learn your skill well. But I have relatives in IT who don't, and insult my brother in law who actually did take the time to go to school and really learn our trade. So hearing about arrogant IT guys who write horrible code really struck a nerve. I hate coming in and cleaning up their mess, and then actually being told to my face that "my degree is meaningless and just a piece of paper".
But by all means people, if you want to code and are willing to take the time to learn to do it right, have at it. I would be thrilled to see more of you, degree or not.
Actually, most IT people don't have any formal training at all. Most of them are hacks who got into their jobs on the basis of family connections, a year at community college, time in a help desk (especially military helpdesks), or reading a couple of books. Most IT people DO write horrible code as you point out, but I just haven't observed them doing formal training, at least not what I'd call formal training. A day long ASP .Net "training" (if they even do that much) is not the same as getting degrees in computer engineering and computer science. As someone with degrees in both those fields, I get embarrassed when people say "he's in IT" or "he's the new IT guy". Call me a programmer please. IT == hack;
This part is true.
Actually it's not a lie. Like everything, there are of course exceptions, so I'm sure some people do lie, but I get all of the above. And my wife is wonderful. I love being married. So yeah, if you wanna delude yourself out of the fun, go ahead... but consider the fact that you haven't tried being married, so how would you know the truth? Married men are inherently credible when talking about this issue, and unmarried men are without credibility, for the following reason: all us married men have been both single and married, and I personally can say that after trying both, marriage is far superior.
Sorry, but as a creature of reason and logic (which your appeal to science shows that you are), you are still without excuse. Anyone who claims reason has the tools necessary to rise above base animal instincts and live differently. Whether this alleged gene actually is proven to be true or not, the "serial non-commiters" still have no excuse to use the women around them.
As humans, we have to rise above this non-commitment, because regardless of a specific gene, societies in which commitments are made and upheld are inherently more stable and peaceful than those in which no one can trust anyone's word. As humans, our goal should be to form stable societies that are best for us, not to follow our genetic dispositions.
What you said there was true, but I disagree that the rest of your points are the main causes.
The issue isn't that pensions aren't enough, it's that people aren't SAVING enough. Yes, SAVING! Until the new deal and great society programs came along, people used to actually take personal responsibility for their actions, and they used to save money. Now they just spend, go way into debt, and expect the government to bail them out in the long run through social security or some other mechanism. Of course, the government is doing the same thing as the people, and it's too far in debt to even help itself.
Over the last few years the personal savings rate in this country has actually been negative. I think as recently as the 1980s it was still 10% of income, though even that was lower than it should be. Ever since the 1990's though, we've been in a grip of a soccer-mom, suburban, keep up with the Jones and please supersize my TV, SUV, and my house trend in which saving money is way out of fashion. Living off the plastic is the new "in", and now people are feeling the pinch.
And that's why no one has any money for retirement anymore (and is incidentally the reason people are having trouble in this economic downturn, and every economic downturn: they weren't prepared). I had a coworker who was a 50 year old contract programmer (a very good one), and he made well over 100000 a year and was a fairly typical wealthy baby-boomer. Only problem is, he spends well over 100000 a year too. He ALWAYS had the latest gaming systems, the nicest new MP3 player and Bose headphones, multiple BMWs and Audis, and a brand new computer system with four monitors, etc, to say nothing of his laptops. He purchased most of that in the year I knew him, which gives you an idea of how much spending he was doing. We got to talking one day after we found out the company stock had gone up yet again, and he floored me by saying, "You know, I ought to get around to learning a little about investing and maybe buying some stock one of these days."
Ummm, DUH!!! You should have been investing for the last 30 years! Now it's too late for him, even if he does actually get around to it, because there aren't enough years left to capture most of the benefits of compound interest. I'm only 24 and even I have stocks and mutual funds, because I'm counting on myself, not the government, to maintain my standard of living during retirement. And that's going to be a big shock to him when he gets there, because there's no way now he can save enough to maintain his standard of living during retirement. He's addicted to his toys, addicted to not telling himself no, and that's the problem with him and the rest of America. Not working at age 65 is not an inalienable right... it's rather a gift that you buy for yourself. And if you don't start saving now you will find, like the rest of these people, that you can't afford to buy it when the time comes.
I wish that could happen, as that was the original plan all along. However, there are a couple of problems with.