The fact that any penalty involving jail time exists for such a "crime" is ludicrous. Furthermore, while the USA is supposed to be under "orange" alert, the fact that a local police department (the ones who always complain to the feds when the alerts go up because they don't have sufficient resources) has nothing better to do than follow up on this matter should trouble any taxpayer.
She faces a fine and up to 6 months in the big house? That would be far more than this cell phone yakking soccer mom got who killed 4 people a few miles from my house (she got a 400 dollar fine after the DA refused to prosecute, and her being a cop's wife had nothing to do with it, wink wink). More evidence this country is screwed up beyond help.
Why just sex offenders? I know they are most likely to re-offend, but as a homeowner, I sure would love to be able to search and check if anyone living on my block was convicted of burglarly, for example.
A department gets a budget to spend X number of dollars a year. Despite some half-hearted efforts to break this trend, this usually means the department tries its best to spend all of it, because if they don't, they will get less in subsequent years. If some bureaucrat finds a way to spend 0.75X in implementing a project by using open source software, odds are more than likely their management, who are skilled in playing the game (to the taxpayers' detriment) will find some way to spend the remaining 0.25X. And if that means using a proprietary solution, so be it.
Thats why you should check your report every few years.
What galls me is that I have to pay to see this report. This amounts to extortion on the part of the credit reporting agencies.
Good professionals will always find work
on
Giant Sucking Noise
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Not to suggest that everyone is employed all the time, but even though there are some talented people having trouble finding a job, overall, even with globalization, all developers aren't going to be out of work.
You can farm out your projects to India or China, but the reality is the time zone, cultural and geographical issues, coupled with the fact that few pieces of software are truly shrink wrapped means that there will always be ample work for some people locally. Keep your skills up to date and you'll be fine.
I was a teaching assistant at Cornhell while in graduate school. The only thing a degree from Cornell means is that you were a promising high school student. Even in the sciences, it is extremely rare to see a C or lower grade, despite the fact that many deserved it.
In my brief (yet all too lengthy) experience there, I witnessed the following horror stories:
1) Student was allowed to graduate despite a) threatening a TA and b) having absolutely no knowledge of the material. Why? Cynics involved with this particular individual suggested his status as a minority played a role.
2) A student cheats on an examination and nothing happens to him. Why? He whines to the professor that he was under a lot of stress to prepare for his medical school admission test. Do you want this guy operating on you?
3) A student once complained to me that a question I gave on an exam was unfair. I said it was fair because she and her classmates all got the same question and they were consistently graded. She whines to the professor, he ups her grade.
The system is flawed. You see the results of it in the workplace and in society in general. Until someone starts standing up and not obsessing over the little darlings' self esteem, we are in for a world of trouble.
A friend of mine who works as a carpenter came to my office once. He saw the fridge and pop inside. He asked how much one would cost, he really wanted a coke. When I told him it was free to employees, his jaw dropped.
He buys his own tools (although his boss will pay for reasonable maintenance). He has to be at work at 7 on a construction site. Weather doesn't stop the work. Maybe the clowns in road crews don't do any work, but I know my friend does. He makes, at most, about 1/2 of what I do.
I, on the other hand, sit in my office all day. I go for a run at lunch time to keep the blood flowing in my body. I have full medical coverage. I work in a safe part of town. I drive a nice car and live in a nice house. How exactly am I being exploited? Sure, my boss makes more than me, but he built the damned company after all.
Some of the entitlement mentality I'm seeing on this board makes me fear for the future of society. You wankers are gonna get a real hard dose of reality one day.
Their cell service in the Seattle area is excellent. Except of course my house which, although 1.2 km from a cell tower, happens to be about 10 m on the lee side of a hill from it. If 1/2 calls out of my house lasts more than a minute, it's a rare thing.
But, 100 metres down the road, the service is superb. Clear as a bell.
And their customer service has been good. They actually appear interested in the rapid drop in coverage near my house. Hopefully they'll send that twit from their commercial out here to fix it. Or at least add another tower on my side of the hill.
Are retinal scans safe? I'm not sure I want my eyeballs probed. Taking a fingerprint impression, while I have privacy issues with that, is much preferable.
The problem I've seen in the industry with the younger crowd is that a lot (not all) of them assume that their decent computer skills also mean they have elevated maturity and judgement. A 12 year old can kick ass at chess and programming, but that doesn't automatically make them valuable to a team of working people.
I sat in a meeting with two other developers in our mid 30s, and one guy who was 22. We old farts worked the problem, the young guy went on an on about how the things we were working around should also be fixed and how the other applications we had to talk to were poorly designed. These were things we all knew, but we had the judgement, and to some extent the professional respect, not to harp on.
My gut feeling is that the fellow asking the question has alienated more than just the director. But it's hard to fault him, since he was probably raised by parents too concerned with his "self-esteem" too convey any sense of humility to him, which is essential to surviving in the workplace.
I worked with a prima donna once, in fact, I had to report to the asshole. While no one doubted his technical skills (although he was a bit sloppy, but the design and logic was flawless), his presence was so destructive that it hurt overall team productivity more than it helped. Here are some examples of his behavior:
1) Bitched to the CEO for 1.5 hours one day because the file save dialog on his machine was showing files in reverse alphabetical order and the IS department wasn't making this their first priority.
2) Routinely abused and insulted project managers in team meetings. Other than the humanitarian aspect (and possible legal consequences from his occasional sexual innuendo) this meant that honest and open discussion was often stifled because of peoples' natural reaction to avoid being insulted.
3) He would routinely threaten to quit if his demands weren't met. Once it was over a mistake in his health insurance which resulted in him being charged the deductible twice. HR was in the process of getting it fixed, but he wanted the cash right away from the company.
Whenever this man had an issue, it would completely consume him. His productive hours were actually quite limited, and the aggravation he caused people was a major drain on company resources. Eventually, management smartened up and called his bluff on a threat to quit.
In the end, he wound up being the CTO of a failing software company that is hanging on by a thread, and one bad money transfer from some offshore account away from chapter 11. His expectation of making millions (as evidenced by his company funded meetings with tax advisors) have fallen through, and there is some satisfaction in that.
Yes, the man is a genius. There is no software problem that I have ever seen stump him. I have no hesitation in saying he's the most intelligent person I've met. The designs he's come up with are brilliant. But he sucks the life blood out of people. I don't advocate hiring mediocrity, but give me a team of competent, collegial developers who sometimes struggle through problems any day over this prima donna. And more to the point, there are some very intelligent people out there who are a pleasure to work with. Intelligence and being a team player aren't mutually exclusive.
Why does Mitnick's opinion on this issue, or any other, matter? He has no special insights in this area (other than stealing confidential information in the past). He's a criminal. Why does American society glamourize criminals and give them some sort of exalted status?
You see, this is the attitude that I don't understand. Why is it that hiring manager's think there is some arbitrary amount of money after which they'll pay no more?
Yawn. People don't like their jobs, technology is allowing work to encroach their personal time. Do we need any more books/essays with this subject?
It's really simple. If you don't like your job, get another one. Granted, the strong demand for tech people makes it easier, but even if you have trouble finding a new job, nothing is worth daily misery. Your health, relationships, and outlook on life will suffer irreprable harm.
My last job, I worked for a complete egomaniac who used the office (and consequently my coworkers and me) as a dumping ground for his psychological bilge. He's still there, but I had the pleasure of giving 5 minutes notice and leaving a few months ago. Now I'm at a position I love; great people, cool project, and all the toys we need/want. I sleep a lot better these days. You will too; stop reading about it, do something about it.
Or what about Mozart? Do you really think he was thinking, "hell, if I created a great piece of musical work I could up the price on the guests, and increase my profit by 20% and buy that fancy boat I saw down by the oceanside" when he was writing Missa?
Actually, Mozart did write almost all of his pieces on commission... Still, your point is well taken
I highly recommend the Canadian coverage. Yes, it's live, which is a big plus if there are some events you are really into, or if you're just a fanatic (like my wife).
The real difference is the substance of the coverage. On NBC, you get Oprah/ER type bleeding heart stories about the athletes; interviews with families, coaches, teachers, etc. That's all well and good if you want to sit and get all teary eyed, but if you are actually interested in the sporting events, NBC is awful.
CBC covers the events, and you get fairly decent analysis of them. The commentators (especially track) really know their stuff and explain the nuances of unfamiliar sports quite well. There is the occasional backgrounder on an athlete, but the event itself is the focus.
The other great thing is that they are fairly neutral, at least vis a vis NBC. They'll interview a non-Canadian who wins an event, they'll discuss non-Canadian favourites. NBC is only interested in the American, and only if they have a chance of winning.
Hoorah for CBC. I hope that the US cable providers near the border keep them on their lineup.
Thanks for bringing up the obvious solution. Design the application properly, and you can easily hook it into one gui library or another. Hell, use ncurses if your clients demand a text based version. A few conditional #defines and #includes, and you're on your way.
Far too often, some idiots always add business logic to the gui because it's easier. It's not in the long run.
These questions about cross platform coding (not just limited to gui toolkits) wouldn't be so urgent and confounding if people would just use object oriented programming.
>your employment is at will and can disappear anytime
This would be a good thing, if it were true. Unfortunately, most employers are too scared by lawsuits and bureaucracy to effectively deal with incompetent workers.
One company I worked at waited about 12 weeks to get rid of a support fellow who rarely showed up to the office. They delayed hiring a replacement until he was gone, and everyone else (already overworked) had to pick up the slack.
If you want permanent employment, become a professor. Then you can become completely incompetent and out of touch without worry.
Employers should be able to fire you at will, with the usual caveats against discrimination. Just as you are allowed to quit at a moment's notice. If not, you're going to be stuck with incompetents in your office whose messes you will have to clean up one way or the other.
Don't forget clause 32 of that same charter of rights, that allows parliament (federal or provincial, especially the fascists in Quebec) to override those freedoms.
Free speech in Canada is a joke. Free liberal speech that conforms to the intolerant views of the politically correct and self proclaimed victims is the only free speech.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that any penalty involving jail time exists for such a "crime" is ludicrous. Furthermore, while the USA is supposed to be under "orange" alert, the fact that a local police department (the ones who always complain to the feds when the alerts go up because they don't have sufficient resources) has nothing better to do than follow up on this matter should trouble any taxpayer.
Yes, that was the one.
She faces a fine and up to 6 months in the big house? That would be far more than this cell phone yakking soccer mom got who killed 4 people a few miles from my house (she got a 400 dollar fine after the DA refused to prosecute, and her being a cop's wife had nothing to do with it, wink wink). More evidence this country is screwed up beyond help.
Why just sex offenders? I know they are most likely to re-offend, but as a homeowner, I sure would love to be able to search and check if anyone living on my block was convicted of burglarly, for example.
Does this thing log nntp requests as well? Not all porn is on the web.
A department gets a budget to spend X number of dollars a year. Despite some half-hearted efforts to break this trend, this usually means the department tries its best to spend all of it, because if they don't, they will get less in subsequent years. If some bureaucrat finds a way to spend 0.75X in implementing a project by using open source software, odds are more than likely their management, who are skilled in playing the game (to the taxpayers' detriment) will find some way to spend the remaining 0.25X. And if that means using a proprietary solution, so be it.
What galls me is that I have to pay to see this report. This amounts to extortion on the part of the credit reporting agencies.
Not to suggest that everyone is employed all the time, but even though there are some talented people having trouble finding a job, overall, even with globalization, all developers aren't going to be out of work.
You can farm out your projects to India or China, but the reality is the time zone, cultural and geographical issues, coupled with the fact that few pieces of software are truly shrink wrapped means that there will always be ample work for some people locally. Keep your skills up to date and you'll be fine.
I was a teaching assistant at Cornhell while in graduate school. The only thing a degree from Cornell means is that you were a promising high school student. Even in the sciences, it is extremely rare to see a C or lower grade, despite the fact that many deserved it.
In my brief (yet all too lengthy) experience there, I witnessed the following horror stories:
1) Student was allowed to graduate despite a) threatening a TA and b) having absolutely no knowledge of the material. Why? Cynics involved with this particular individual suggested his status as a minority played a role.
2) A student cheats on an examination and nothing happens to him. Why? He whines to the professor that he was under a lot of stress to prepare for his medical school admission test. Do you want this guy operating on you?
3) A student once complained to me that a question I gave on an exam was unfair. I said it was fair because she and her classmates all got the same question and they were consistently graded. She whines to the professor, he ups her grade.
The system is flawed. You see the results of it in the workplace and in society in general. Until someone starts standing up and not obsessing over the little darlings' self esteem, we are in for a world of trouble.
A friend of mine who works as a carpenter came to my office once. He saw the fridge and pop inside. He asked how much one would cost, he really wanted a coke. When I told him it was free to employees, his jaw dropped.
He buys his own tools (although his boss will pay for reasonable maintenance). He has to be at work at 7 on a construction site. Weather doesn't stop the work. Maybe the clowns in road crews don't do any work, but I know my friend does. He makes, at most, about 1/2 of what I do.
I, on the other hand, sit in my office all day. I go for a run at lunch time to keep the blood flowing in my body. I have full medical coverage. I work in a safe part of town. I drive a nice car and live in a nice house. How exactly am I being exploited? Sure, my boss makes more than me, but he built the damned company after all.
Some of the entitlement mentality I'm seeing on this board makes me fear for the future of society. You wankers are gonna get a real hard dose of reality one day.
Is there any risk to the eyes?
Their cell service in the Seattle area is excellent. Except of course my house which, although 1.2 km from a cell tower, happens to be about 10 m on the lee side of a hill from it. If 1/2 calls out of my house lasts more than a minute, it's a rare thing.
But, 100 metres down the road, the service is superb. Clear as a bell.
And their customer service has been good. They actually appear interested in the rapid drop in coverage near my house. Hopefully they'll send that twit from their commercial out here to fix it. Or at least add another tower on my side of the hill.
Are retinal scans safe? I'm not sure I want my eyeballs probed. Taking a fingerprint impression, while I have privacy issues with that, is much preferable.
The problem I've seen in the industry with the younger crowd is that a lot (not all) of them assume that their decent computer skills also mean they have elevated maturity and judgement. A 12 year old can kick ass at chess and programming, but that doesn't automatically make them valuable to a team of working people.
I sat in a meeting with two other developers in our mid 30s, and one guy who was 22. We old farts worked the problem, the young guy went on an on about how the things we were working around should also be fixed and how the other applications we had to talk to were poorly designed. These were things we all knew, but we had the judgement, and to some extent the professional respect, not to harp on.
My gut feeling is that the fellow asking the question has alienated more than just the director. But it's hard to fault him, since he was probably raised by parents too concerned with his "self-esteem" too convey any sense of humility to him, which is essential to surviving in the workplace.
I worked with a prima donna once, in fact, I had to report to the asshole. While no one doubted his technical skills (although he was a bit sloppy, but the design and logic was flawless), his presence was so destructive that it hurt overall team productivity more than it helped. Here are some examples of his behavior:
1) Bitched to the CEO for 1.5 hours one day because the file save dialog on his machine was showing files in reverse alphabetical order and the IS department wasn't making this their first priority.
2) Routinely abused and insulted project managers in team meetings. Other than the humanitarian aspect (and possible legal consequences from his occasional sexual innuendo) this meant that honest and open discussion was often stifled because of peoples' natural reaction to avoid being insulted.
3) He would routinely threaten to quit if his demands weren't met. Once it was over a mistake in his health insurance which resulted in him being charged the deductible twice. HR was in the process of getting it fixed, but he wanted the cash right away from the company.
Whenever this man had an issue, it would completely consume him. His productive hours were actually quite limited, and the aggravation he caused people was a major drain on company resources. Eventually, management smartened up and called his bluff on a threat to quit.
In the end, he wound up being the CTO of a failing software company that is hanging on by a thread, and one bad money transfer from some offshore account away from chapter 11. His expectation of making millions (as evidenced by his company funded meetings with tax advisors) have fallen through, and there is some satisfaction in that.
Yes, the man is a genius. There is no software problem that I have ever seen stump him. I have no hesitation in saying he's the most intelligent person I've met. The designs he's come up with are brilliant. But he sucks the life blood out of people. I don't advocate hiring mediocrity, but give me a team of competent, collegial developers who sometimes struggle through problems any day over this prima donna. And more to the point, there are some very intelligent people out there who are a pleasure to work with. Intelligence and being a team player aren't mutually exclusive.
Edison? Stupid American. Try Alexander Graham Bell instead.
Why does Mitnick's opinion on this issue, or any other, matter? He has no special insights in this area (other than stealing confidential information in the past). He's a criminal. Why does American society glamourize criminals and give them some sort of exalted status?
That amount is usually their own salary.
Yawn. People don't like their jobs, technology is allowing work to encroach their personal time. Do we need any more books/essays with this subject?
It's really simple. If you don't like your job, get another one. Granted, the strong demand for tech people makes it easier, but even if you have trouble finding a new job, nothing is worth daily misery. Your health, relationships, and outlook on life will suffer irreprable harm.
My last job, I worked for a complete egomaniac who used the office (and consequently my coworkers and me) as a dumping ground for his psychological bilge. He's still there, but I had the pleasure of giving 5 minutes notice and leaving a few months ago. Now I'm at a position I love; great people, cool project, and all the toys we need/want. I sleep a lot better these days. You will too; stop reading about it, do something about it.
Actually, Mozart did write almost all of his pieces on commission... Still, your point is well taken
I highly recommend the Canadian coverage. Yes, it's live, which is a big plus if there are some events you are really into, or if you're just a fanatic (like my wife).
The real difference is the substance of the coverage. On NBC, you get Oprah/ER type bleeding heart stories about the athletes; interviews with families, coaches, teachers, etc. That's all well and good if you want to sit and get all teary eyed, but if you are actually interested in the sporting events, NBC is awful.
CBC covers the events, and you get fairly decent analysis of them. The commentators (especially track) really know their stuff and explain the nuances of unfamiliar sports quite well. There is the occasional backgrounder on an athlete, but the event itself is the focus.
The other great thing is that they are fairly neutral, at least vis a vis NBC. They'll interview a non-Canadian who wins an event, they'll discuss non-Canadian favourites. NBC is only interested in the American, and only if they have a chance of winning.
Hoorah for CBC. I hope that the US cable providers near the border keep them on their lineup.
And that is a good thing(tm)
Thanks for bringing up the obvious solution. Design the application properly, and you can easily hook it into one gui library or another. Hell, use ncurses if your clients demand a text based version. A few conditional #defines and #includes, and you're on your way.
Far too often, some idiots always add business logic to the gui because it's easier. It's not in the long run.
These questions about cross platform coding (not just limited to gui toolkits) wouldn't be so urgent and confounding if people would just use object oriented programming.
>your employment is at will and can disappear anytime
This would be a good thing, if it were true. Unfortunately, most employers are too scared by lawsuits and bureaucracy to effectively deal with incompetent workers.
One company I worked at waited about 12 weeks to get rid of a support fellow who rarely showed up to the office. They delayed hiring a replacement until he was gone, and everyone else (already overworked) had to pick up the slack.
If you want permanent employment, become a professor. Then you can become completely incompetent and out of touch without worry.
Employers should be able to fire you at will, with the usual caveats against discrimination. Just as you are allowed to quit at a moment's notice. If not, you're going to be stuck with incompetents in your office whose messes you will have to clean up one way or the other.
Don't forget clause 32 of that same charter of rights, that allows parliament (federal or provincial, especially the fascists in Quebec) to override those freedoms.
Free speech in Canada is a joke. Free liberal speech that conforms to the intolerant views of the politically correct and self proclaimed victims is the only free speech.