Do you know what they do to an engineer when they reach 40?
They take him out and shoot him.
- (joke from Primer)
I was in the computer business (hardware and software) for 30 years until I was 50ish and then came the.com bust. Since then I've: been a waiter, been a cook, moved to the Nevada desert for a warehouse job, moved back to CA because Nevada and the warehouse sucked, couch surfed for a couple years and now I count kibble at a pet supply warehouse.
The effect is real.
When I was laid off in 2001 my manager and the HR people were soooo distraught. The HR drone that did my exit interview cried... (shades of glenn beck)... until we got to signing the "No I won't sue you for age discrimination" form and I happened to mention that it would take more than 2 guys with white hair (the CEO and VP of Marketing) to save them if somebody really wanted to sue. No more tears.
Think pro sports & the effect is the same. Only the stars (who may or may not be worth the money) remain until they fall apart and can't play anymore.
---
Msot plopee hvae the abilit abiitly to raed ttaol gragabe. The mian sratem mdiea pvreos tihs dlaiy.
Two of the tenets of that book were (a) all volunteer armed forces; (b) everyone who volunteered for combat service, and served, got to vote. No exceptions.
Which translates as: "Go to Grenada. Go to Vietnam. Go to whatever godforsaken foreign land we the elected want to send you to, meet new interesting people and kill them and we'll give you franchise. So you can elect us again."
Heinlein wrote as a survivor of WWII. But it is arguable that the conflicts we (as in USA) have inserted ourselves in since then have been to our (national) benefit and not uncommonly as an imperialist/colonialist. This is where the moral philosophy of his fails. Nothing the US military has done since WWII is in any way commensurate with an alien invasion that could destroy all humanity. Hell, not even an illegal alien invasion.
Regardless of how racially equal he portrays his characters he still discriminates against those who stayed home and didn't participate in the "Big War". For whatever reason. Those who stay at home also serve.
And anyway, franchising only the military is at least as bad as (and probably worse than) only franchising 'real property' owners.
--- Hypertext isn't what it's marked up to be.
Well, to some of us the hype of the cloud was that my app would be running somewhere regardless of of any piece of hardware being compromised. (but you gotta like the cloud/lightening synchronicity thing)
So I guess you're saying that EC2 isn't a cloud. --- HTML isn't what it's marked up to be.
Not talking 'more than'. I'm talking full blown adult. Not talking nudity or titillation. Talking "Waltz With Bashir", "Persepolis" or a heartwarming story like "World's Fastest Indian". Something about humans, not anthropomorphic rodents.
---
Free the Mouse
Personally I kept hoping the Pixar-Disney marriage would sour. I really wanted Pixar to take on some adult themes. Their current work is Good, even Great sometimes, but there is so much more possible in animation than the Disney Playbook.
---
Free The Mouse
Von Neumannized toasters and cute robot kittehs,
C-legs and JPEGs and theme park like cities.
Vaccines and soma made right from our genes,
These are a few of my favorite things.
--
Hypertext isn't what it's marked up to be.
What? The streets are allot cleaner now than they were 100 years ago.
But most of that was biodegradible and fed other living things (starlings love horseshit).
We still suffer from congestion, but the streets have a hell of allot better throughput.
And to pay for that 'throughput' we kill over 40,000 people a year and injure another 2,500,000 people. http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
I can eat almost any food all year round by walking down the street and buying it from the same supermarket that I buy a mortgage from.
Mixing apples and oranges. The supermarket or the the company that owns the building the supermarket is in rents space to a bank or mortgage company. You really didn't get your mortgage or free checking from Bank of the Safeway. But beyond that there is an economic and political cost for those countries in the opposite hemisphere that grow summer fruit for your winter table.
I have instant access to almost all publicly available knowledge and a reasonable chance of living over a century, and after I post this it's likely to be seem almost immediately by many people from all over the world.
While it is true that a great deal of current and ongoing knowledge and facts are going online most historical data from before the advent of the net is not available for instant access. I can't find anything in the instantaneously available knowledge that asserts a 'reasonable' chance (what ever that is) of living to 100. On the other hand (she had warts) there are 40 other countries in the world with better infant mortality rates than the USofA. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html
And why am I not impressed that many people can read your drivel.
When I'm bored I can go anywhere in the world by flying there, and when I'm sick my doctor can build an extremely accurate 3d model of my insides and probably help me.
The privileged have always had access to the tastest modes of travel and health care, even when that care was 'bleeding'.
Culturally religious magical thinking is becoming a niche in much of the developed world.
Huh? Do you mean the 'magical thinking' that just because I can afford to fly to the Falkland Islands fueled by boredom that most people could or that a 3d model of your body could illuminate a cure for your ennui? Sir or Madam, I find your Comment to be riddled with unwarranted assertions.
Dodging bikes and skateboards and those few segways is already a pain. 35 mph wheelchairs? You can have mine.
---
Hypertext isn't what it's marked up to be.
I just finished rereading Lucifer's Hammer(1977) and one of the bits concerned how women pee in 0G. Niven doesn't tell. How do the facilities for women differ from men?
"You know what they do to an engineer who's over 40? They take him out and shoot him." (an engineer whose been downgraded to lab tech in the movie "Primer")
I'm well over 40 now and I don't suspect that I'll ever see another high tech job.
Any programmer/engineer goes thru several 'paragigm shifts'. Structured Programming. Object Oriented. Extreeeeme.
The industry (that is, your bosses) sees younger folk as lower cost and lower maintenance, and just as good as you are (no matter how many years or projects you've completed successfully) but in reality that's only in the short run. I'm really tired of coming across the same old problems and design flaws proposed and implemented by bright young stars because they've been taught that NOTHING that has come before can match what they are doing now. Whatever they learned last year in college is State of The Art, innit? Feh.
Bidnezz took this route and bidnezz can eat it.
Yeah, I'm good. Good not great, but nobody had to come after and fix what I did. But that is never enough for business. Once the suits decided it was all about accounting and how many lines of code you could get out of a programmer per hour your 'technical qualifications' became line noise. When you talk to people who only see a limited accounting, expertise is nothing, marketing is everything.
So my advice is to market yourselves well and don't worry if you're good or bad or great. As soon as you reach 40 or so and your next raise takes you out of mid-range for your salary, kiss your current desk goodbye.
You seem to be asking for a solution short of deleting this 'bully' from your discussion board. The answer is that your board is either open to all or you moderate. No matter how you moderate some will call it censorship. But the fact is that J. Random Person can kill any public conversation if they're persistent.
Trolls are real but it's the true believer or someone with a grudge you have to worry about. Bullies tire of opposition.
My suggestion is to moderate and moderate openly. Generate a policy that says spurious attacks will be deleted. Publish it and then act on it if necessary.
And one more thing, grow a backbone will ya.
--
Hypertext isn't what it's marked up to be.
The Parallax View
on
Mars In 3D
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I'd guess the reason they don't use anything more expensive than 1920's technology is that you don't really get anything for it except the cool factor. Note also that the term 'cool' is one of those nebulous characterizations that's been around almost as long.
I keep a pair of red/blue 'glasses' (my current pair is from celebrateexpress.com) and a pair of polarized ones for snitz and giggles but I would like someone to tell me what kind of real, useful information you can get from these parlor tricks. I'd think that if fine-grained 3d images were useful then you'd be seeing holography equipment aboard instead of bi-chromatic stereoscopes.
Well if you want to take the brightest light from all this I guess you could look at the fact that now, to get the corporations off scot-free the administration has to produce letters verifying that Bush authorized it and that the administration, at least thinks it's legal.
What could lawyers do with such a document? Could it be that the congresscritters are waiting for something just like this (proof that Bush broke the law)?
Slashdot Mirror
They take him out and shoot him.
- (joke from Primer)
I was in the computer business (hardware and software) for 30 years until I was 50ish and then came the .com bust. Since then I've: been a waiter, been a cook, moved to the Nevada desert for a warehouse job, moved back to CA because Nevada and the warehouse sucked, couch surfed for a couple years and now I count kibble at a pet supply warehouse.
The effect is real.
When I was laid off in 2001 my manager and the HR people were soooo distraught. The HR drone that did my exit interview cried... (shades of glenn beck) ... until we got to signing the "No I won't sue you for age discrimination" form and I happened to mention that it would take more than 2 guys with white hair (the CEO and VP of Marketing) to save them if somebody really wanted to sue. No more tears.
Think pro sports & the effect is the same. Only the stars (who may or may not be worth the money) remain until they fall apart and can't play anymore.
---
Msot plopee hvae the abilit abiitly to raed ttaol gragabe. The mian sratem mdiea pvreos tihs dlaiy.
Which translates as: "Go to Grenada. Go to Vietnam. Go to whatever godforsaken foreign land we the elected want to send you to, meet new interesting people and kill them and we'll give you franchise. So you can elect us again."
Heinlein wrote as a survivor of WWII. But it is arguable that the conflicts we (as in USA) have inserted ourselves in since then have been to our (national) benefit and not uncommonly as an imperialist/colonialist. This is where the moral philosophy of his fails. Nothing the US military has done since WWII is in any way commensurate with an alien invasion that could destroy all humanity. Hell, not even an illegal alien invasion.
Regardless of how racially equal he portrays his characters he still discriminates against those who stayed home and didn't participate in the "Big War". For whatever reason. Those who stay at home also serve.
And anyway, franchising only the military is at least as bad as (and probably worse than) only franchising 'real property' owners.
---
Hypertext isn't what it's marked up to be.
...have an iProd1,1? Maybe next year.
---
Carrion on, carrion on.
2 words. Blue Box.
'nuff said.
---
Free the Mouse
Willy Loman solved this problem years ago.
---
Free The Mouse
They'll keep on making the parts far away until it becomes cheaper to build them on site.
Soon, I hope.
---
Hypertext isn't what it's marked up to be.
Well, to some of us the hype of the cloud was that my app would be running somewhere regardless of of any piece of hardware being compromised. (but you gotta like the cloud/lightening synchronicity thing)
So I guess you're saying that EC2 isn't a cloud.
---
HTML isn't what it's marked up to be.
Else the Language is forfeit.
'Nuff Said
---
Free The Mouse
Download my FREE passionsharkfollyfirehatredsnare Bittorrent client here!
---
Free The Mouse
Not talking 'more than'. I'm talking full blown adult. Not talking nudity or titillation. Talking "Waltz With Bashir", "Persepolis" or a heartwarming story like "World's Fastest Indian". Something about humans, not anthropomorphic rodents.
---
Free the Mouse
Personally I kept hoping the Pixar-Disney marriage would sour. I really wanted Pixar to take on some adult themes. Their current work is Good, even Great sometimes, but there is so much more possible in animation than the Disney Playbook.
---
Free The Mouse
Dead on! Buy this dragon a beer.
Von Neumannized toasters and cute robot kittehs,
C-legs and JPEGs and theme park like cities.
Vaccines and soma made right from our genes,
These are a few of my favorite things.
--
Hypertext isn't what it's marked up to be.
What? The streets are allot cleaner now than they were 100 years ago.
But most of that was biodegradible and fed other living things (starlings love horseshit).
We still suffer from congestion, but the streets have a hell of allot better throughput.
And to pay for that 'throughput' we kill over 40,000 people a year and injure another 2,500,000 people.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
I can eat almost any food all year round by walking down the street and buying it from the same supermarket that I buy a mortgage from.
Mixing apples and oranges. The supermarket or the the company that owns the building the supermarket is in rents space to a bank or mortgage company. You really didn't get your mortgage or free checking from Bank of the Safeway. But beyond that there is an economic and political cost for those countries in the opposite hemisphere that grow summer fruit for your winter table.
I have instant access to almost all publicly available knowledge and a reasonable chance of living over a century, and after I post this it's likely to be seem almost immediately by many people from all over the world.
While it is true that a great deal of current and ongoing knowledge and facts are going online most historical data from before the advent of the net is not available for instant access. I can't find anything in the instantaneously available knowledge that asserts a 'reasonable' chance (what ever that is) of living to 100. On the other hand (she had warts) there are 40 other countries in the world with better infant mortality rates than the USofA.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html
And why am I not impressed that many people can read your drivel.
When I'm bored I can go anywhere in the world by flying there, and when I'm sick my doctor can build an extremely accurate 3d model of my insides and probably help me.
The privileged have always had access to the tastest modes of travel and health care, even when that care was 'bleeding'.
Culturally religious magical thinking is becoming a niche in much of the developed world.
Huh? Do you mean the 'magical thinking' that just because I can afford to fly to the Falkland Islands fueled by boredom that most people could or that a 3d model of your body could illuminate a cure for your ennui? Sir or Madam, I find your Comment to be riddled with unwarranted assertions.
Dodging bikes and skateboards and those few segways is already a pain. 35 mph wheelchairs? You can have mine.
---
Hypertext isn't what it's marked up to be.
Niven mentions men using a tube at the end of a hose, ala milking machines. That certianly wouldn't work for women. And, as he states, catheters hurt.
I just finished rereading Lucifer's Hammer(1977) and one of the bits concerned how women pee in 0G. Niven doesn't tell. How do the facilities for women differ from men?
--
Hypertext is not what it's marked up to be.
I'm well over 40 now and I don't suspect that I'll ever see another high tech job.
Any programmer/engineer goes thru several 'paragigm shifts'. Structured Programming. Object Oriented. Extreeeeme.
The industry (that is, your bosses) sees younger folk as lower cost and lower maintenance, and just as good as you are (no matter how many years or projects you've completed successfully) but in reality that's only in the short run. I'm really tired of coming across the same old problems and design flaws proposed and implemented by bright young stars because they've been taught that NOTHING that has come before can match what they are doing now. Whatever they learned last year in college is State of The Art, innit? Feh.
Bidnezz took this route and bidnezz can eat it.
Yeah, I'm good. Good not great, but nobody had to come after and fix what I did. But that is never enough for business. Once the suits decided it was all about accounting and how many lines of code you could get out of a programmer per hour your 'technical qualifications' became line noise. When you talk to people who only see a limited accounting, expertise is nothing, marketing is everything.
So my advice is to market yourselves well and don't worry if you're good or bad or great. As soon as you reach 40 or so and your next raise takes you out of mid-range for your salary, kiss your current desk goodbye.
And BTW, do you want fries with that?
-- Hypertext isn't what it's marked up to be.
You seem to be asking for a solution short of deleting this 'bully' from your discussion board. The answer is that your board is either open to all or you moderate. No matter how you moderate some will call it censorship. But the fact is that J. Random Person can kill any public conversation if they're persistent.
Trolls are real but it's the true believer or someone with a grudge you have to worry about. Bullies tire of opposition.
My suggestion is to moderate and moderate openly. Generate a policy that says spurious attacks will be deleted. Publish it and then act on it if necessary.
And one more thing, grow a backbone will ya.
--
Hypertext isn't what it's marked up to be.
I'd guess the reason they don't use anything more expensive than 1920's technology is that you don't really get anything for it except the cool factor. Note also that the term 'cool' is one of those nebulous characterizations that's been around almost as long.
I keep a pair of red/blue 'glasses' (my current pair is from celebrateexpress.com) and a pair of polarized ones for snitz and giggles but I would like someone to tell me what kind of real, useful information you can get from these parlor tricks. I'd think that if fine-grained 3d images were useful then you'd be seeing holography equipment aboard instead of bi-chromatic stereoscopes.
Please prove me wrong.
-- Hypertext isn't what it's marked up to be.
Glad you clarified that for us.
Now you can say tatas on TV.
Only early adopters (read 'I like pain') and lusers use x.0 of anything.
Make mine Web(dows) 3.11
Well if you want to take the brightest light from all this I guess you could look at the fact that now, to get the corporations off scot-free the administration has to produce letters verifying that Bush authorized it and that the administration, at least thinks it's legal. What could lawyers do with such a document? Could it be that the congresscritters are waiting for something just like this (proof that Bush broke the law)?