Actually, we all KNEW who was probably stealing the stuff but there was just no hard evidence, so I couldn't say "Maybe you should look into what that guy over there is doing" or it might look like I was trying to shift blame to get away.
Eventually this guy stole about $80,000 worth of hard drives (back when 4GB drives cost about $2,000 each) and I DID say "Check the badge records on who entered the server room where the drives were stored last weekend, dammit!" during my interrogation because apparently the cops were too stupid to think of this detective tactic. When they finally did check the records and called in everyone who accessed the server room for questioning a week later, this guy suddenly "found" another job and quit immediately. The state cops never followed up because they would have had to do real paperwork and follow real legal procedures to interrogate someone who was not a state employee.
Back when I worked IT for a state office I had to report all missing property (usually computer equipment/parts) to the cops. Why? I wondered about it until the first couple times I did it, then I knew why: The cops ALWAYS assume whoever reports the crime was the one who committed the crime.
Every time I reported something missing I would get pulled into an empty room and literally given the third degree, light in the face and everything. I would be quizzed about my debts, my expenses, my family problems, my drinking/gambling habits, etc. I wold be left in the room alone for 30-40 minutes at a time while I was watched from outside. Sometimes several cops (possibly "detectives") would question me rapid-fire at the same time. It was like they learned to be cops from a TV show.
So why was I picked to report? Because I was the whitest, most innocent-looking person in the IT department. My boss was black, most of my co-workers were also black, asian or hispanic, some were of middle-eastern or persian descent. I'm sure the cops (all middle-aged white guys) went far easier on me than they would have on my co-workers. But they still tried like hell to pin every crime I reported on me.
So even as a super-clean, upstanding-citizen-type white guy I learned: DO NOT TALK TO COPS.
Set a minimum x hours before a stock can be resold.
You don't even need x hours, you could just make a rule that stocks need to be held for a few seconds, or put a random 1 to 5 second delay on each trade.
A lot of it has to do with the costs of setting up a factory, implementing processes and training employees.
We had a factory already, factory control systems are HIGHLY customized for a particular factory and process flow, and the employees here were all pretty much trained. Plus, the investors in Taiwan are also human and want to make as big a return as possible on their investment, so they need a higher profit margin on their investment in a new factory since it will take a while to depreciate everything.
If you ever work in manufacturing you will quickly learn that making quality products for a decent cost involves a lot more than just putting machines in a building and having people run them. This is also why you see all the stories of amazing new technologies developed in a lab that are only "5 years away" from consumer applications but never seems to get to the consumer. Translating lab work into volume production is usually an extremely difficult and costly task.
Back in 2007 the company I work for (manufacturing) was going to outsource my entire department to a company in Taiwan. The logic was that there was no way we overpaid ($100K+ per engineer), lazy (40-50 hrs/week) Americans could do what the industrious (60-70 hrs/week) and inexpensive ($24K/yr) Taiwanese could do. It was an obvious win-win for the company bean-counters.
However, when I was hired a few years before this, I began implementing a whole lot of automation into our stone-age processes. They were still keeping all production records in Excel spreadsheets and paper notebooks for fucks sake. Bar codes? RFID? What were those? I modernized the place, and after a few years of attrition we had fewer low-paid manufactuing drones working in the department, but we no longer needed them.
SO the bean counters did their cost audit and were shocked beyond belief that the American factory was producing goods WAY cheaper than they could get them produced in Taiwan. Taiwan came back with a cheaper offer, but it was STILL higher than our costs. The bean counters did another audit, because they knew there was NO WAY we could produce goods cheaper than Taiwan. Results: We sure can.
So, as a result of some (admittedly crude) automation, I and those who helped me with the automation, saved hundreds of jobs in the US from being offshored. And now my department is mosty highly trained (and well paid) engineers and technicians rather than mostly low paid people who move stuff from machine to machine. We still have the people who move stuff around, but they are fewer, more efficient and paid more than they were before. And the equipment is better maintained and more productive than ever.
So whenever some jackwit like this says automation is killing jobs, I get to trot out my personal example of automation SAVING jobs and creating new ones.
Self-driving cars will kill some jobs, but it will create plenty of new ones, many we haven't even thought of yet.
Obama's the one who has, unilaterally and probably unconstitutionally, removed employer requirements from the bill and waived hundreds of companies
Ummm...Did you read what I was saying? WHY should health insurance be tied to employment? If I could get affordable health insurance NOT tied to my employer (and I have great health insurance through my employer) then I COULD RETIRE IN ABOUT THREE YEARS. And one of you young whippersnappers could have my job.
As it is I cannot get affordable health insurance without being employed, so I end up screwing some young person out of a job for an additional 15 years or so until Medicare kicks in. Now multiply this over the millions of others in my situation and...enjoy your un-or-underemployment, I guess.
I've heard it too, and I'm making it a reality, for myself at least. I'm not a true "boomer", since I was born in the mid-60's, but I'm not really whatever they call what came next, either.
But I see what's happening with the lack of jobs. So I'm saving my money, paying off all my debts, building up some alternate income sources and I plan to retire in about 5 or 6 years in my early 50's so someone younger can have my high-paying programmer/dba/analyst job. I don't need a huge house (kids are gone) or an expensive car, expensive 5 star vacations, etc. All I need is health insurance, my little place, my pets, my garden, a good car, lots of inexpensive vacations to fun places and some side work to keep me busy and I'm a happy SOB.
Turns out that none of that costs much except health insurance. And the republicans in my state want to keep me from getting affordable health care. So I can't retire until I can get that. And neither can my older co-workers. So we have to work, causing young people to be shut out of the good jobs, causing an economic crisis.
All because a bunch of petulant little whiners in government don't want people to have affordable health insurance because it may make the black man in the White House look good..
And...any of us here who work for any company can pretty much tell a similar story.
"You say that project will take a minimum of 2 years and 4 people? You have 6 months and we might let some other people help you now and then. Oh, and you need to continue supporting all of our other software and hardware issues in the mean time. I'm putting these goals on your annual review, if you don't meet it you get no raise this year."
Yep, 20-30 years is a good estimate, especially since you also need to factor in the cost of the factory that will build something.
Regular silicon fabs using current feature sizes (and new toolsets) cost billions. Whereas older fabs with larger feature sizes (and older toolsets) that will still do the job for 90% of the applications needed can be picked up or built relatively cheaply in the hundreds of millions or even tens of millions.
Just because it can be done doesn't mean it will be done.
FWIW: I know many musicians (I live near Austin) who play and record professionally, and most of them DO have other jobs. Many are quite good, too. I've seen some of the most amazing and talented musicians playing around a campfire on my ranch. But they make maybe a couple hundred playing in clubs a couple nights a week, with the occasional big gig (usually weddings or other events) where they'll maybe clear a grand.
It's just 1% of musicians that actually make enough to live on, and 1% of that 1% that make really stupid money doing it.
Like anything, it's a combination of talent, luck, current trends, business acumen and charm that enables the various levels of success. Most do it because that is what they love doing - playing music. Invite them over and give them beer and you'll hear some real music.
I regularly carve pictures and patterns into various rocks around my property. I often wonder what future scientists will think of them. And now I wonder if someone will try to construct something meaningful in the crap I leave around my ranch...
I can verify this. A pipeline company ran into a decent-sized cavern on my property (many years before I bought it) and they just filled it in with dirt from elsewhere on the property so they wouldn't have to deal with environmental or archeological laws.
Which sucks now because I wish I had a cavern on my property.
Plus, the security guard who responds to the alarm will probably get the DNA all over themselves as well. And security people are always on the first list of suspects, so every job will appear to be an inside job, OR the security people will be free to steal whatever they want, since they have an alibi for having the DNA on them.
Until the security guards learn to just not respond to alarms. Which means the cops are free to steal as much as they want, since THEY will be the ones to have the DNA all over them, and have a good alibi now.
I don't know. I've always hated the "Happy Birthday Song" and I have used copyright as an excuse to replace it whenever possible with the one Peabody and Sherman used in one of their episodes. I think it was the one with Sitting Bull. To distract the Natives, the settlers sang (in a sort of native war-chant mode):
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, we all KNEW who was probably stealing the stuff but there was just no hard evidence, so I couldn't say "Maybe you should look into what that guy over there is doing" or it might look like I was trying to shift blame to get away.
Eventually this guy stole about $80,000 worth of hard drives (back when 4GB drives cost about $2,000 each) and I DID say "Check the badge records on who entered the server room where the drives were stored last weekend, dammit!" during my interrogation because apparently the cops were too stupid to think of this detective tactic. When they finally did check the records and called in everyone who accessed the server room for questioning a week later, this guy suddenly "found" another job and quit immediately. The state cops never followed up because they would have had to do real paperwork and follow real legal procedures to interrogate someone who was not a state employee.
Yeah, before that job I still had the white, suburban-kid impression that all cops are your friends and should be trusted. My eyes were opened.
Back when I worked IT for a state office I had to report all missing property (usually computer equipment/parts) to the cops. Why? I wondered about it until the first couple times I did it, then I knew why: The cops ALWAYS assume whoever reports the crime was the one who committed the crime.
Every time I reported something missing I would get pulled into an empty room and literally given the third degree, light in the face and everything. I would be quizzed about my debts, my expenses, my family problems, my drinking/gambling habits, etc. I wold be left in the room alone for 30-40 minutes at a time while I was watched from outside. Sometimes several cops (possibly "detectives") would question me rapid-fire at the same time. It was like they learned to be cops from a TV show.
So why was I picked to report? Because I was the whitest, most innocent-looking person in the IT department. My boss was black, most of my co-workers were also black, asian or hispanic, some were of middle-eastern or persian descent. I'm sure the cops (all middle-aged white guys) went far easier on me than they would have on my co-workers. But they still tried like hell to pin every crime I reported on me.
So even as a super-clean, upstanding-citizen-type white guy I learned: DO NOT TALK TO COPS.
Set a minimum x hours before a stock can be resold.
You don't even need x hours, you could just make a rule that stocks need to be held for a few seconds, or put a random 1 to 5 second delay on each trade.
Especially since Samsung has some big fabs right in the middle of Texas...
I will apparently have access to one soon, I just got the results from a program I was thinking of writing.
So...anyone between the ages of 13 and 30.
A lot of it has to do with the costs of setting up a factory, implementing processes and training employees.
We had a factory already, factory control systems are HIGHLY customized for a particular factory and process flow, and the employees here were all pretty much trained. Plus, the investors in Taiwan are also human and want to make as big a return as possible on their investment, so they need a higher profit margin on their investment in a new factory since it will take a while to depreciate everything.
If you ever work in manufacturing you will quickly learn that making quality products for a decent cost involves a lot more than just putting machines in a building and having people run them. This is also why you see all the stories of amazing new technologies developed in a lab that are only "5 years away" from consumer applications but never seems to get to the consumer. Translating lab work into volume production is usually an extremely difficult and costly task.
Back in 2007 the company I work for (manufacturing) was going to outsource my entire department to a company in Taiwan. The logic was that there was no way we overpaid ($100K+ per engineer), lazy (40-50 hrs/week) Americans could do what the industrious (60-70 hrs/week) and inexpensive ($24K/yr) Taiwanese could do. It was an obvious win-win for the company bean-counters.
However, when I was hired a few years before this, I began implementing a whole lot of automation into our stone-age processes. They were still keeping all production records in Excel spreadsheets and paper notebooks for fucks sake. Bar codes? RFID? What were those? I modernized the place, and after a few years of attrition we had fewer low-paid manufactuing drones working in the department, but we no longer needed them.
SO the bean counters did their cost audit and were shocked beyond belief that the American factory was producing goods WAY cheaper than they could get them produced in Taiwan. Taiwan came back with a cheaper offer, but it was STILL higher than our costs. The bean counters did another audit, because they knew there was NO WAY we could produce goods cheaper than Taiwan. Results: We sure can.
So, as a result of some (admittedly crude) automation, I and those who helped me with the automation, saved hundreds of jobs in the US from being offshored. And now my department is mosty highly trained (and well paid) engineers and technicians rather than mostly low paid people who move stuff from machine to machine. We still have the people who move stuff around, but they are fewer, more efficient and paid more than they were before. And the equipment is better maintained and more productive than ever.
So whenever some jackwit like this says automation is killing jobs, I get to trot out my personal example of automation SAVING jobs and creating new ones.
Self-driving cars will kill some jobs, but it will create plenty of new ones, many we haven't even thought of yet.
Walk down a respectable street and stop respectable looking people and try to make them take a $20 bill from you. Most will run the other way.
Now, if ou did that in a poor neighborhood or a college campus area...results might be different.
Obama's the one who has, unilaterally and probably unconstitutionally, removed employer requirements from the bill and waived hundreds of companies
Ummm...Did you read what I was saying? WHY should health insurance be tied to employment? If I could get affordable health insurance NOT tied to my employer (and I have great health insurance through my employer) then I COULD RETIRE IN ABOUT THREE YEARS. And one of you young whippersnappers could have my job.
As it is I cannot get affordable health insurance without being employed, so I end up screwing some young person out of a job for an additional 15 years or so until Medicare kicks in. Now multiply this over the millions of others in my situation and...enjoy your un-or-underemployment, I guess.
I've heard it too, and I'm making it a reality, for myself at least. I'm not a true "boomer", since I was born in the mid-60's, but I'm not really whatever they call what came next, either.
But I see what's happening with the lack of jobs. So I'm saving my money, paying off all my debts, building up some alternate income sources and I plan to retire in about 5 or 6 years in my early 50's so someone younger can have my high-paying programmer/dba/analyst job. I don't need a huge house (kids are gone) or an expensive car, expensive 5 star vacations, etc. All I need is health insurance, my little place, my pets, my garden, a good car, lots of inexpensive vacations to fun places and some side work to keep me busy and I'm a happy SOB.
Turns out that none of that costs much except health insurance. And the republicans in my state want to keep me from getting affordable health care. So I can't retire until I can get that. And neither can my older co-workers. So we have to work, causing young people to be shut out of the good jobs, causing an economic crisis.
All because a bunch of petulant little whiners in government don't want people to have affordable health insurance because it may make the black man in the White House look good..
And...any of us here who work for any company can pretty much tell a similar story.
"You say that project will take a minimum of 2 years and 4 people? You have 6 months and we might let some other people help you now and then. Oh, and you need to continue supporting all of our other software and hardware issues in the mean time. I'm putting these goals on your annual review, if you don't meet it you get no raise this year."
And people wonder why engineers burn out.
Yep, 20-30 years is a good estimate, especially since you also need to factor in the cost of the factory that will build something.
Regular silicon fabs using current feature sizes (and new toolsets) cost billions. Whereas older fabs with larger feature sizes (and older toolsets) that will still do the job for 90% of the applications needed can be picked up or built relatively cheaply in the hundreds of millions or even tens of millions.
Just because it can be done doesn't mean it will be done.
FWIW: I know many musicians (I live near Austin) who play and record professionally, and most of them DO have other jobs. Many are quite good, too. I've seen some of the most amazing and talented musicians playing around a campfire on my ranch. But they make maybe a couple hundred playing in clubs a couple nights a week, with the occasional big gig (usually weddings or other events) where they'll maybe clear a grand.
It's just 1% of musicians that actually make enough to live on, and 1% of that 1% that make really stupid money doing it.
Like anything, it's a combination of talent, luck, current trends, business acumen and charm that enables the various levels of success. Most do it because that is what they love doing - playing music. Invite them over and give them beer and you'll hear some real music.
I just got back last month.
I regularly carve pictures and patterns into various rocks around my property. I often wonder what future scientists will think of them. And now I wonder if someone will try to construct something meaningful in the crap I leave around my ranch...
what impact has this on lithography and semiconductors industry?
None, until it is scalable to do millions of lines at once.
I think men are raised to take more risks, so this leads to a lot more wild successes as well as wild failures.
Not nearly as many women use the phrase: "Hold my beer and watch this."
I can verify this. A pipeline company ran into a decent-sized cavern on my property (many years before I bought it) and they just filled it in with dirt from elsewhere on the property so they wouldn't have to deal with environmental or archeological laws.
Which sucks now because I wish I had a cavern on my property.
Plus, the security guard who responds to the alarm will probably get the DNA all over themselves as well. And security people are always on the first list of suspects, so every job will appear to be an inside job, OR the security people will be free to steal whatever they want, since they have an alibi for having the DNA on them.
Until the security guards learn to just not respond to alarms. Which means the cops are free to steal as much as they want, since THEY will be the ones to have the DNA all over them, and have a good alibi now.
I don't know. I've always hated the "Happy Birthday Song" and I have used copyright as an excuse to replace it whenever possible with the one Peabody and Sherman used in one of their episodes. I think it was the one with Sitting Bull. To distract the Natives, the settlers sang (in a sort of native war-chant mode):
Happy Happy Birthday!
Happy Happy Birthday!
Happy Happy Birthday!
UGH!
Jay Ward and his heirs haven't tried to sue me yet.
I think the point was "humans are special to other humans, but not to anyone or anything else" The universe doesn't need us, we need the universe.
So this could just be attributed to lots of weed and caffeine?
Yeah...I print things out at um...Kinkos. I totally don't use the fancy printers at work for this at all.