For the CISSP you sign an agreement that bars you from doing this, and can be used as grounds for revoking it. I'd imagine other certs do something similar.
Simply signing a form agreeing not to do something doesn't mean that the agreement is in any way valid. I'd gladly sign a form giving away my rights to free speech. What are they going to do if I then break the agreement? They can't sue - the constitution where I am guarantees freedom of speech no matter what.
You think it's part of a well-rounded education for a programmer to (apparently) know how to use tools like flex, while still lacking any competence whatsoever in manipulating the very basic, simple data types you learn in your 101-level courses? You know, integer... float.... char.... string... ?
No, I did not think that at all - I said I may need to experiment before doing so, but thats reasonable if I haven't used the thing in a while.
And further, you think that it's reasonable that the programmer in question that has (apparently) demonstrated "mastery" in using flex to build a SQL language parser, is still (somehow) not able to write even an approximation of a SQL database query?
Nope, I didn't say that that at all either - you asked a very stupid question,
(how do you get to lexical parsing without being able to manipulate strings?
without even considering the most obvious answer. I pointed out the obvious answer.
Is this the education you received, the one that poor, unqualified me is lacking? And based on this advanced education, you want me to hire you?
Actually, even though I was being facetious, I'd rather not work for you. I can't think of many talented or skilled people who would want to work for a manager who quickly constructs strawman defenses. While you need your developers to know how to manipulate strings (which I do, by the way), you also apparently feel that anything at a higher level of abstraction is "too qualified".
Just like in the SCO vs World case, we all know what the eventual outcome will be - it will just take time, thats all, before Apples worthless patents to be deemed as such in all courts. Patenting Black-Rectangular-with-rounded-Corners-computing-Device was never going to turn out well.
I changed my interview style after that. I ask a bunch of simple nitty-gritty tech question now, no matter how impressive the candidate sounds. You would be surprised how often someone whose resume looks stellar can't answer multiple simple questions - like what is a/24, a tcp reset packet, port used by http, etc.
This oh yes this! Interviewing for programmer positions, I've seen gorgeous resumes by people with Masters in CompSci at reputable colleges and universities, with "accomplishments" like writing SQL language lexical parsers, who could not write even an approximation of a SQL query or even write a simple string replace function. (how do you get to lexical parsing without being able to manipulate strings?)
You use flex.
Sure, if you asked me out of the blue for string manipulation routines with a view to writing a lexical parser/analyser I might have some difficulty producing such a thing without a few hours of experimentation first (mostly to determine the regex capabilities of the language being used to implement the new language), but that's 'cos I almost always use flex to turn input source-code into tokens. It's just that much easier.
Your post provides evidence of a very common pattern I've noticed - some of the people interviewing those M-grads (with the gorgeous CV's filled with accomplishments) are in no way competent to evaluate them. You just pointed out a case where the interviewee might just possibly have a better solution than yours for implementing a new language, and yet you also show that you never spotted that he had.
This may seem a bit provocative, but this is very consistently the case with graduates from India. Having interviewed so many such people, so often having such beautiful resumes, you'd think I could have at least found a single one with enough programming expertise that I could hire, but that's so far not yet been the case.
I really feel for these guys, because they've obviously spent lots of time/money doing something, and whatever it is that they're doing, it's not helping them much.
Hire me.
Disclaimer: I am Indian, although I've never been to India, and speak no Indian languages. I also don't have that many certs or degrees.
understanding MAC addressing, the difference between layer 2 and layer 3 problems, the difference between a switch and a hub, etc;
I learned all that in college when I took the TCP/IP class.
Which college?
All universities 'round here when I was an undergrad. One of the textbooks for the undergraduate course on TCP/IP actually was a Cisco book, IIRC. We learned about OSI model, designed protocols (and coded them in C) for the different layers, and wrote an 8 page essay (during an exam) comparing two competing protocols at a certain level.
No practical lab experience at all, but it was enough knowledge to know where to start when faced with actual equipment, regardless of who the vendor of that equipment happened to be.
I'll go even farther. In the real world of business, most advanced college degrees aren't worth much. I've came to consider an MS degree as one strike against a candidate for a programming position, and a Ph.D. as two strikes against!
That's odd. Where I am those certifications from MS/Oracle/Cisco/whatever are not actually recognised as degrees at all. When someone says "degree" here, we mean something from a state-recognised institution that is a minimum of 30 (or 40, can't remember now) courses that cannot be completed in under 3 years (4 years usually). A Microsoft/Cisco/whatever cert of duration one year (even less than that) is not the same as a Phd that took 9 years of full-time study to achieve.
It's like going into a hospital and comparing the receptionists' typist-training-certificate to the brain-surgeons advanced degrees. A certificate of vocational training for less than a year of study, no matter how intense the training, is not at all comparable to science-based training for 9 years. The fact that these things are falling in value is actually an indicator of their true worth. They were over-valued before, the market is simply correcting.
Have you seen the requirements for the VMware VCDX
and Cisco Certified Architect certifications that require prospectives to submit an application, have suitable experience shown, be accepted, build a design to certain requirements, and then defend their design choices in front of a panel?
Why on earth would anyone do this, other than if they actually like what they do? Finishing an MBA sounds easier than this AND gets you a larger salary and better promotion aspects. For someone with a college degree in IT and several years of technical experience in industry, the MBA is a better option. It offers more bang for buck, and having a business-level manager with technical experience in an organisation probably makes for a star-performer employee.
complied with this nonsensical court order and has since blocked thepiratebay.org.
It's a damn court order! There is no option but to do as the court orders - it is not in any way "optional"! Using the word "complied" makes it seem as if the ISP enforced a block on piratebay willingly. In truth, when doing as a court orders, it is under duress, under threat of force, under threat of incarceration, etc.
If they had simply caved when asked (without a court order), it would be correct to call the action "compliance".
They only need to win once for any stupid shit they wish to do. We need to win every single time to stop them doing stupid shit. Ergo, this war cannot be won:( All rights will eventually be lost.
Re:What does the hell does NP Hard mean?
on
Pac-Man Is NP-Hard
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You can't have an "infinite number" of anything. Infinity doesn't work that way. It simply means arbitrarily large, as in "given any finite value N, I have more than N CPU's in my computer". There's no concept of an infinite number.
Actually, you are wrong - inifinity does not mean "arbitrarily large" (nor "arbitrarily small"). There is the concept of an infinite number. We call them non-real numbers. Pi, for example, comes to mind as an actual number that is infinite.
Better example (from an assignment in COS101, circa 1995): Prove that infinity comes in different sizes. Bonus points: prove that it comes in an infinite number of sizes.
Pick any two numbers, X and Y such that X < Y. Then choose two fractional numbers less than one, A and B, of the form 1/A and 1/B. This results in
(X+A) < (Y+B)
no matter what the numbers are. Since A and B is a fraction of the form 1/A and 1/B, both A and B can increase or decrease to infinity, but no matter what value they are, the infinity represented by (X+A) will always be less than the infinity between (X+B). Since X and Y can also increase/decrease to infinity, it follows that infinity comes in different sizes.
Example: X=2, Y=3. This means that (X+A) will be of the form (2+1/2), or (2+1/3), or (2+1/4)... all the way to infinity. It also means that (Y+B) will be of the form (3+1/2), or (3+1/3) or (3+1/4)... all the way to infinity. This means that there is an infinite number of numbers between 2 and 3, all of which are smaller than the infinite number of numbers between 3 and 4. Thus there are two infinities, and the infinity in the one is smaller than the infinity in the other.
Its not a matter of competing with your ex-employer or not. And the 'do not hire' agreements reach far beyond the narrow field of your previous job.
I have to say that all the agreements I've seen (and signed) since I started working in the mid-nineties were not broad - all specified a restriction to working for a competitor or in the same domain. None of them specified that I could not work in software development, only that I could not develop software for a specific domain.
The point is: They don't want employees shopping around for jobs. Not just in their line of business, but in general. And once you've left, the point isn't to get you to come back. Its to serve you up as an example to other employees as what can happen to you if you too get the smart-ass idea to walk out.
True, but I've not seen any evidence that they are actually able to follow through on it - for example the agreements that you sign don't say that you can't work in general, which is what you appear to be claiming.
Yeah, I'm rich. I can take a couple of years off and write some code. Or spend it as a ski bum, or on my yacht. But even if your employer is willing to finance that lifestyle, not everyone would want to. Some people like to work and they like to work in a certain domain. So if the local employers have a policy of f*cking with anyone that walks away, that's enough pressure to discourage most people.
Paying you to do nothing for a few years is not exactly f*ucking with anyone that walks away, and I'm guessing that any company that actually gains a reputation for paying people for not working is going to have a hard time retaining the smart people who may already have something they want to start but can't afford to be without a paycheck for 12 months while their idea is developed and/or takes off.
Remember, the original argument of mine was that a restriction against working is not that bad if they are willing to foot the bill. You appear to be claiming that even if they foot the bill, it's still bad.
I figure that if they get a reputation for footing the bill for everyone who resigns, then the smartest of the people will go first. Only the ones who have no motivation to do their own thing will stay, and those are probably not the best people anyway. In other words, it's self-defeating for a company to specify bans on working, unless they also refuse to pay you during your enforced non-working period.
That's fine if you work in an industry where that's possible. If you want to work in the utility biz, for example, good luck starting your own power company.
I thought I was being clear, but apparently not. What I mean is, I would use those ten years to do something *other* than what I used to. I can write software for an entirely new domain, for example, or experiment with logic games for tablets, or perhaps write a full textbook or complete a few degrees.
The point would be to use the paid-for and enforced sabbatical to flex your skills in a different domain. Sure, if I was employed in the IT dept of a power company and they had restrictions on working for other power companies IT departments, then I'd go off and write stock-market software, or similar (and still get paid for not working in power companies!).
My point was not "If they pay me to sit around doing nothing, I'm going to compete with them when the time is up", and I'm not altogether too sure how you interpreted my post to say that.
To be perfectly honest, if I had to sit around for 10 years (properly funded, mind you, so I won't starve and can still function in the economy) I would have my own killer product and/or software at the end of that time in a totally unrelated field.
I certainly wouldn't mind someone paying me to stay at home for a year - right now I have a few feasible products that I could develop if I could just get the time...
Nope - He compared the best-selling USA car to the best-selling European car, which is a fair comparison. It's fair to compare the best-sellers. He chose the lowest of the one model and highest of another to hammer his point home - that the cylinder displacement of even the lowest of the US best-seller was almost twice as much as the displacement of the highest of the European best-seller.
To be *really* fair, he should have compared the top of the range ford to the top of the range golf. The 6.2l f-150 to the 2.0l golf. The engine of the golf is less than a third of the ford f-150.
While I haven't made jokes about this story, why do you want to prevent people making fun of the dead? The dead are... well... dead. They aren't going to mind if some random AC gets modded to -1 (and hence becomes invisible) for making a joke at their expense. Their families won't even know.
It's a slippery slope to start regarding certain things as too "sacred" to be mocked. You're probably very religious as well, aren't you?
somebody pays, always. In your case (and I'm guessing based on my experiences with 3rd world shitholes where I used to work on billing systems), the entire thing was subsidised by the military/ruling party/"government" so the bods in charge could have a telephone network for their personal use, that they kindly allow the little people to use too.
Actually, no, you're wrong on this one. While you're right that somebody is paying - it's the consumer, except that the money was used to expand the network in the past, which is now why we have better cell services and prices than the US. See this
the fact that it is not congested is usually due to the overspeccing going on in the initial contracts, usually paid for by foreign taxpayers in a vague attempt at "infrastructure" modernisation and/or relatively few users. Certainly, most 3rd world places don't have the same kind of bandwidth hogs that the west has. Wait until they do, and then see if you're still happy with the service.
(actually, you might be, 'cos they'll be arrested for having subversive or just suspicious activities)
Fair enough, we may not have the bandwidth hogs that you do, but until we do, it's kinda pointless for you to dismiss our superior services. We have it now, we have it cheap, and we have it without over-selling. Perhaps if everyone is doing 200G downloads each month then we may have a problem, but no one is complaining yet, and there are every indications that the money being made by the cell providers are being poured back into infrastructure. Hell, for normal POTS+broadband I can get it via fibre to my home. They've invested in infrastructure, and we are benefitting.
Build out some network bandwidth, then divide it by the number of subscribers you have, and charge them for their slice of the whole.
Make sense?
I doubt you'd agree when you get charged the hundreds of dollar per month that would cost you.
Yeah, right! I already pointed out in a previous slashdot post that I pay ~$18.5 for 3G on PAYG. Since it's not a contract, and it is PAYG, there is no "overselling" going on.
Besides, its a bit daft to think that every subscriber uses 100% of their bandwidth 24/7, so why not oversell it? After all, if I use 10% of my total bandwidth, there's no reason why you can't allocate that to 9 more subscribers, thus bringing the price down to 1/10th of what it was.
For contract/subscribers... sure, there is overselling and it makes sens to oversll, hence on contract it's cheaper than PAYG. OTOH, PAYG means that there is no overselling, and thus the "non-oversold" price is still ~$18.5. There is no getting past the fact that it is not overselling that is responsible for the high prices.
So obviously overselling is ok, but what level is reasonable for this? There's a tradeoff between the price of the network, shared out amongst all subscribers, and the bandwidth you get. Most people don't use much bandwidth - your average mom and pop will use it to surf a little, read emails, etc and use 1Gb per month max, so if you assume all your subscribers are like that, the service should be dirt cheap.
Until you get someone who comes along and basically abuses the system by keeping it on 24/7, streaming torrents or running a video webserver. These people skew (or should that be screw) the carefully planned subscriber/bandwidth ratio which basically means everyone else is subsidising their use of the network, to the detriment of everyone's use of the network.
So, use PAYG. Much cheaper, and if a 3rd world shithole (like where I am typing this) can do PAYG at the prices posted and it works in every single high-density area (and switches to EDGE in lower density areas), then you are simply getting screwed, you are not being oversold, you are being scammed - there's a big difference.
We have the same law, and have unlocked phones, and have number portability, and yet... surprise, surprise, the most popular plans and phones are those subsidised phones on contract plans. We also have cheaper plans and mobile internet that you can only dream of (on contract, I get 10G for about 25 USD. Off contract it's 3G for about 18 USD)
It really is sad when people buy into the propaganda and actively work against their own interests, such as when they oppose regulations that protect them from big corps. A moments thought on your part would have made you realise that most countries have regulations to prevent the cell providers from locking phones to networks, and they have a healthier cell ecosystem than the US.
Not quite. Or more accurately, not close. 90% of college educated marriages that end in divorce are initiated by women.
I didn't say that 90% of marriages that end in divorces are initiated by women, I said that 90% of divorces are filed by women - not every filing results in a divorce.
The overall rate of women initiating divorce is closer to 70%, which is a huge increase since no fault divorce came into play. Prior to that, it was a 60-40 split. On the other hand, the financial outcome is a 50-50 split only 30% of the time, which makes absolutely no sense when 70% are no fault.
I agree with this if you're quoting US numbers; the numbers I saw were for SA, where wives don't get a maintenance (only children do), and where the law has recently changed to regard both parties as equally capable for caring for the children (so mummy doesn't get automatic custody, she has to fight for it). As far as property splits go, there is no need to do so as pre-nups are the norm. I had a pre-nup, and while I spent 300k ZAR on legal fees to get alternate weekend access to kid, I spent absolutely nothing to keep my house, my car, my savings and all my other assets.
I think part of the problem is a lot of people don't consider marriage "permanent" anymore so divorce becomes a bit like breaking up.
That isn't correct. 90% of divorces are filed by women. A very high number of women get custody and maintenance. This leaves no negative incentive for a woman to file for divorce, hence the high divorce rate. If the children had a 50/50 chance of going to either parent and maintenance was something reasonable, you can be assured the divorce rate would drop.
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For the CISSP you sign an agreement that bars you from doing this, and can be used as grounds for revoking it. I'd imagine other certs do something similar.
Simply signing a form agreeing not to do something doesn't mean that the agreement is in any way valid. I'd gladly sign a form giving away my rights to free speech. What are they going to do if I then break the agreement? They can't sue - the constitution where I am guarantees freedom of speech no matter what.
You use flex.
So let me get this straight...
You think it's part of a well-rounded education for a programmer to (apparently) know how to use tools like flex, while still lacking any competence whatsoever in manipulating the very basic, simple data types you learn in your 101-level courses? You know, integer... float.... char.... string... ?
No, I did not think that at all - I said I may need to experiment before doing so, but thats reasonable if I haven't used the thing in a while.
And further, you think that it's reasonable that the programmer in question that has (apparently) demonstrated "mastery" in using flex to build a SQL language parser, is still (somehow) not able to write even an approximation of a SQL database query?
Nope, I didn't say that that at all either - you asked a very stupid question,
(how do you get to lexical parsing without being able to manipulate strings?
without even considering the most obvious answer. I pointed out the obvious answer.
Is this the education you received, the one that poor, unqualified me is lacking? And based on this advanced education, you want me to hire you?
Actually, even though I was being facetious, I'd rather not work for you. I can't think of many talented or skilled people who would want to work for a manager who quickly constructs strawman defenses. While you need your developers to know how to manipulate strings (which I do, by the way), you also apparently feel that anything at a higher level of abstraction is "too qualified".
Guess you weren't notified... ...
Oh wait
Just like in the SCO vs World case, we all know what the eventual outcome will be - it will just take time, thats all, before Apples worthless patents to be deemed as such in all courts. Patenting Black-Rectangular-with-rounded-Corners-computing-Device was never going to turn out well.
I changed my interview style after that. I ask a bunch of simple nitty-gritty tech question now, no matter how impressive the candidate sounds. You would be surprised how often someone whose resume looks stellar can't answer multiple simple questions - like what is a /24, a tcp reset packet, port used by http, etc.
This oh yes this! Interviewing for programmer positions, I've seen gorgeous resumes by people with Masters in CompSci at reputable colleges and universities, with "accomplishments" like writing SQL language lexical parsers, who could not write even an approximation of a SQL query or even write a simple string replace function. (how do you get to lexical parsing without being able to manipulate strings?)
You use flex.
Sure, if you asked me out of the blue for string manipulation routines with a view to writing a lexical parser/analyser I might have some difficulty producing such a thing without a few hours of experimentation first (mostly to determine the regex capabilities of the language being used to implement the new language), but that's 'cos I almost always use flex to turn input source-code into tokens. It's just that much easier.
Your post provides evidence of a very common pattern I've noticed - some of the people interviewing those M-grads (with the gorgeous CV's filled with accomplishments) are in no way competent to evaluate them. You just pointed out a case where the interviewee might just possibly have a better solution than yours for implementing a new language, and yet you also show that you never spotted that he had.
This may seem a bit provocative, but this is very consistently the case with graduates from India. Having interviewed so many such people, so often having such beautiful resumes, you'd think I could have at least found a single one with enough programming expertise that I could hire, but that's so far not yet been the case.
I really feel for these guys, because they've obviously spent lots of time/money doing something, and whatever it is that they're doing, it's not helping them much.
Hire me.
Disclaimer: I am Indian, although I've never been to India, and speak no Indian languages. I also don't have that many certs or degrees.
understanding MAC addressing, the difference between layer 2 and layer 3 problems, the difference between a switch and a hub, etc;
I learned all that in college when I took the TCP/IP class.
Which college?
All universities 'round here when I was an undergrad. One of the textbooks for the undergraduate course on TCP/IP actually was a Cisco book, IIRC. We learned about OSI model, designed protocols (and coded them in C) for the different layers, and wrote an 8 page essay (during an exam) comparing two competing protocols at a certain level. No practical lab experience at all, but it was enough knowledge to know where to start when faced with actual equipment, regardless of who the vendor of that equipment happened to be.
I'll go even farther. In the real world of business, most advanced college degrees aren't worth much. I've came to consider an MS degree as one strike against a candidate for a programming position, and a Ph.D. as two strikes against!
That's odd. Where I am those certifications from MS/Oracle/Cisco/whatever are not actually recognised as degrees at all. When someone says "degree" here, we mean something from a state-recognised institution that is a minimum of 30 (or 40, can't remember now) courses that cannot be completed in under 3 years (4 years usually). A Microsoft/Cisco/whatever cert of duration one year (even less than that) is not the same as a Phd that took 9 years of full-time study to achieve.
It's like going into a hospital and comparing the receptionists' typist-training-certificate to the brain-surgeons advanced degrees. A certificate of vocational training for less than a year of study, no matter how intense the training, is not at all comparable to science-based training for 9 years. The fact that these things are falling in value is actually an indicator of their true worth. They were over-valued before, the market is simply correcting.
Have you seen the requirements for the VMware VCDX and Cisco Certified Architect certifications that require prospectives to submit an application, have suitable experience shown, be accepted, build a design to certain requirements, and then defend their design choices in front of a panel?
Why on earth would anyone do this, other than if they actually like what they do? Finishing an MBA sounds easier than this AND gets you a larger salary and better promotion aspects. For someone with a college degree in IT and several years of technical experience in industry, the MBA is a better option. It offers more bang for buck, and having a business-level manager with technical experience in an organisation probably makes for a star-performer employee.
there is always an option. that's why we have a 2nd amendment.
Can you say that in Dutch?
complied with this nonsensical court order and has since blocked thepiratebay.org.
It's a damn court order! There is no option but to do as the court orders - it is not in any way "optional"! Using the word "complied" makes it seem as if the ISP enforced a block on piratebay willingly. In truth, when doing as a court orders, it is under duress, under threat of force, under threat of incarceration, etc.
If they had simply caved when asked (without a court order), it would be correct to call the action "compliance".
They only need to win once for any stupid shit they wish to do. We need to win every single time to stop them doing stupid shit. Ergo, this war cannot be won :( All rights will eventually be lost.
You can't have an "infinite number" of anything. Infinity doesn't work that way. It simply means arbitrarily large, as in "given any finite value N, I have more than N CPU's in my computer". There's no concept of an infinite number.
Actually, you are wrong - inifinity does not mean "arbitrarily large" (nor "arbitrarily small"). There is the concept of an infinite number. We call them non-real numbers. Pi, for example, comes to mind as an actual number that is infinite.
... all the way to infinity. It also means that (Y+B) will be of the form (3+1/2), or (3+1/3) or (3+1/4) ... all the way to infinity. This means that there is an infinite number of numbers between 2 and 3, all of which are smaller than the infinite number of numbers between 3 and 4. Thus there are two infinities, and the infinity in the one is smaller than the infinity in the other.
Better example (from an assignment in COS101, circa 1995): Prove that infinity comes in different sizes. Bonus points: prove that it comes in an infinite number of sizes.
Pick any two numbers, X and Y such that X < Y. Then choose two fractional numbers less than one, A and B, of the form 1/A and 1/B. This results in
(X+A) < (Y+B)
no matter what the numbers are. Since A and B is a fraction of the form 1/A and 1/B, both A and B can increase or decrease to infinity, but no matter what value they are, the infinity represented by (X+A) will always be less than the infinity between (X+B). Since X and Y can also increase/decrease to infinity, it follows that infinity comes in different sizes.
Example: X=2, Y=3. This means that (X+A) will be of the form (2+1/2), or (2+1/3), or (2+1/4)
HTH
It seems that there is something very supicious happening with Zynga.
Well? Spit it out then - your post gives very little indication of what it is you actually suspect.
Its not a matter of competing with your ex-employer or not. And the 'do not hire' agreements reach far beyond the narrow field of your previous job.
I have to say that all the agreements I've seen (and signed) since I started working in the mid-nineties were not broad - all specified a restriction to working for a competitor or in the same domain. None of them specified that I could not work in software development, only that I could not develop software for a specific domain.
The point is: They don't want employees shopping around for jobs. Not just in their line of business, but in general. And once you've left, the point isn't to get you to come back. Its to serve you up as an example to other employees as what can happen to you if you too get the smart-ass idea to walk out.
True, but I've not seen any evidence that they are actually able to follow through on it - for example the agreements that you sign don't say that you can't work in general, which is what you appear to be claiming.
Yeah, I'm rich. I can take a couple of years off and write some code. Or spend it as a ski bum, or on my yacht. But even if your employer is willing to finance that lifestyle, not everyone would want to. Some people like to work and they like to work in a certain domain. So if the local employers have a policy of f*cking with anyone that walks away, that's enough pressure to discourage most people.
Paying you to do nothing for a few years is not exactly f*ucking with anyone that walks away, and I'm guessing that any company that actually gains a reputation for paying people for not working is going to have a hard time retaining the smart people who may already have something they want to start but can't afford to be without a paycheck for 12 months while their idea is developed and/or takes off.
Remember, the original argument of mine was that a restriction against working is not that bad if they are willing to foot the bill. You appear to be claiming that even if they foot the bill, it's still bad.
I figure that if they get a reputation for footing the bill for everyone who resigns, then the smartest of the people will go first. Only the ones who have no motivation to do their own thing will stay, and those are probably not the best people anyway. In other words, it's self-defeating for a company to specify bans on working, unless they also refuse to pay you during your enforced non-working period.
That's fine if you work in an industry where that's possible. If you want to work in the utility biz, for example, good luck starting your own power company.
I thought I was being clear, but apparently not. What I mean is, I would use those ten years to do something *other* than what I used to. I can write software for an entirely new domain, for example, or experiment with logic games for tablets, or perhaps write a full textbook or complete a few degrees.
The point would be to use the paid-for and enforced sabbatical to flex your skills in a different domain. Sure, if I was employed in the IT dept of a power company and they had restrictions on working for other power companies IT departments, then I'd go off and write stock-market software, or similar (and still get paid for not working in power companies!).
My point was not "If they pay me to sit around doing nothing, I'm going to compete with them when the time is up", and I'm not altogether too sure how you interpreted my post to say that.
To be perfectly honest, if I had to sit around for 10 years (properly funded, mind you, so I won't starve and can still function in the economy) I would have my own killer product and/or software at the end of that time in a totally unrelated field.
I certainly wouldn't mind someone paying me to stay at home for a year - right now I have a few feasible products that I could develop if I could just get the time...
This is extremely common, and some studies have found that something like 15% of people do not have the biological father they thought they had.
Very similar behavior is seen in many animals. So basically, women aren't any better than animals.
The figure I saw was around a third, not 15%.
Nope - He compared the best-selling USA car to the best-selling European car, which is a fair comparison. It's fair to compare the best-sellers. He chose the lowest of the one model and highest of another to hammer his point home - that the cylinder displacement of even the lowest of the US best-seller was almost twice as much as the displacement of the highest of the European best-seller.
To be *really* fair, he should have compared the top of the range ford to the top of the range golf. The 6.2l f-150 to the 2.0l golf. The engine of the golf is less than a third of the ford f-150.
While I haven't made jokes about this story, why do you want to prevent people making fun of the dead? The dead are ... well ... dead. They aren't going to mind if some random AC gets modded to -1 (and hence becomes invisible) for making a joke at their expense. Their families won't even know.
It's a slippery slope to start regarding certain things as too "sacred" to be mocked. You're probably very religious as well, aren't you?
There was a reason why, in a piece of fiction I wrote, I made fun of the amount of work the HR officeers actually, but you're much funnier :)
somebody pays, always. In your case (and I'm guessing based on my experiences with 3rd world shitholes where I used to work on billing systems), the entire thing was subsidised by the military/ruling party/"government" so the bods in charge could have a telephone network for their personal use, that they kindly allow the little people to use too.
Actually, no, you're wrong on this one. While you're right that somebody is paying - it's the consumer, except that the money was used to expand the network in the past, which is now why we have better cell services and prices than the US. See this
the fact that it is not congested is usually due to the overspeccing going on in the initial contracts, usually paid for by foreign taxpayers in a vague attempt at "infrastructure" modernisation and/or relatively few users. Certainly, most 3rd world places don't have the same kind of bandwidth hogs that the west has. Wait until they do, and then see if you're still happy with the service.
(actually, you might be, 'cos they'll be arrested for having subversive or just suspicious activities)
Fair enough, we may not have the bandwidth hogs that you do, but until we do, it's kinda pointless for you to dismiss our superior services. We have it now, we have it cheap, and we have it without over-selling. Perhaps if everyone is doing 200G downloads each month then we may have a problem, but no one is complaining yet, and there are every indications that the money being made by the cell providers are being poured back into infrastructure. Hell, for normal POTS+broadband I can get it via fibre to my home. They've invested in infrastructure, and we are benefitting.
what's the alternative?
Build out some network bandwidth, then divide it by the number of subscribers you have, and charge them for their slice of the whole.
Make sense?
I doubt you'd agree when you get charged the hundreds of dollar per month that would cost you.
Yeah, right! I already pointed out in a previous slashdot post that I pay ~$18.5 for 3G on PAYG. Since it's not a contract, and it is PAYG, there is no "overselling" going on.
Besides, its a bit daft to think that every subscriber uses 100% of their bandwidth 24/7, so why not oversell it? After all, if I use 10% of my total bandwidth, there's no reason why you can't allocate that to 9 more subscribers, thus bringing the price down to 1/10th of what it was.
For contract/subscribers ... sure, there is overselling and it makes sens to oversll, hence on contract it's cheaper than PAYG. OTOH, PAYG means that there is no overselling, and thus the "non-oversold" price is still ~$18.5. There is no getting past the fact that it is not overselling that is responsible for the high prices.
So obviously overselling is ok, but what level is reasonable for this? There's a tradeoff between the price of the network, shared out amongst all subscribers, and the bandwidth you get. Most people don't use much bandwidth - your average mom and pop will use it to surf a little, read emails, etc and use 1Gb per month max, so if you assume all your subscribers are like that, the service should be dirt cheap.
Until you get someone who comes along and basically abuses the system by keeping it on 24/7, streaming torrents or running a video webserver. These people skew (or should that be screw) the carefully planned subscriber/bandwidth ratio which basically means everyone else is subsidising their use of the network, to the detriment of everyone's use of the network.
So, use PAYG. Much cheaper, and if a 3rd world shithole (like where I am typing this) can do PAYG at the prices posted and it works in every single high-density area (and switches to EDGE in lower density areas), then you are simply getting screwed, you are not being oversold, you are being scammed - there's a big difference.
We have the same law, and have unlocked phones, and have number portability, and yet ... surprise, surprise, the most popular plans and phones are those subsidised phones on contract plans. We also have cheaper plans and mobile internet that you can only dream of (on contract, I get 10G for about 25 USD. Off contract it's 3G for about 18 USD)
It really is sad when people buy into the propaganda and actively work against their own interests, such as when they oppose regulations that protect them from big corps. A moments thought on your part would have made you realise that most countries have regulations to prevent the cell providers from locking phones to networks, and they have a healthier cell ecosystem than the US.
Not quite. Or more accurately, not close. 90% of college educated marriages that end in divorce are initiated by women.
I didn't say that 90% of marriages that end in divorces are initiated by women, I said that 90% of divorces are filed by women - not every filing results in a divorce.
The overall rate of women initiating divorce is closer to 70%, which is a huge increase since no fault divorce came into play. Prior to that, it was a 60-40 split. On the other hand, the financial outcome is a 50-50 split only 30% of the time, which makes absolutely no sense when 70% are no fault.
I agree with this if you're quoting US numbers; the numbers I saw were for SA, where wives don't get a maintenance (only children do), and where the law has recently changed to regard both parties as equally capable for caring for the children (so mummy doesn't get automatic custody, she has to fight for it). As far as property splits go, there is no need to do so as pre-nups are the norm. I had a pre-nup, and while I spent 300k ZAR on legal fees to get alternate weekend access to kid, I spent absolutely nothing to keep my house, my car, my savings and all my other assets.
I think part of the problem is a lot of people don't consider marriage "permanent" anymore so divorce becomes a bit like breaking up.
That isn't correct. 90% of divorces are filed by women. A very high number of women get custody and maintenance. This leaves no negative incentive for a woman to file for divorce, hence the high divorce rate. If the children had a 50/50 chance of going to either parent and maintenance was something reasonable, you can be assured the divorce rate would drop.