You can blather on about proof and a shadow of a doubt all you want, but the fucking temperature has been rising for the last 20 years. The overwhelming consensus among academics in the field is that a) Global Warming is real and b) human activity is at least a contributing factor.
You're technically correct that they could be wrong, and we don't have definitive proof. But all indications are that we should do something about this problem. The consequences for being wrong in inaction are billions of lives and untold destruction of civilization as we know it. The consequences for being wrong in action are that we waste some time and money.
I hear this argument a lot but I don't buy it. The cars are better, but not 2 or 3 times better. They are more fuel effecient, but gas is more expensive. They break down less often, but they are more expensive to fix when they do. The reason cars (and houses) cost so much is largely the exponentially increasing availability of credit. It was never considered normal to take out a loan worth 8 times your gross annual salary before.
Hasn't the price of goods, services, taxes etc all outpaced the increase in income?
No. Some goods (health, education) cost more, but overall the average person can buy a lot more stuff with their income than they used to. Why doesn't it feel like that? Because of continually rising expectations.
BS. In the late 60's/early 70's a single blue collar worker could own a home in the suburbs, 1 or 2 cars, and support a family of 4. Now to achieve the same standard of living requires at least 2 blue-collar-equivalent salaries.
I think the fundamental tension here is that we don't want to equalize with India, China, or any other recently 3rd world country. I understand what you're saying. Americans have a disproportionately higher standard of living than most of the world, and we're just going to have to suck it up and come down. We aren't fundamentally more worthwhile human beings than the ones they have elsewhere. But this equalization process takes generations. And you are asking me to suck it up and just accept that I have to give up my standard of living because, in a century or two, everybody will be better off. I'm sorry, but I'd really rather not.:(
WTF?! How has your freedom of choice been infringed upon? If you don't like media player, DON'T USE IT. Install another player if you like. Would you like MS to take notepad out of the OS as well, so you have the choice of installing your own text editor?
For Sony, skipping backwards compat would be a disaster. Their installed base is their biggest advantage. However, Xbox can get away without backwards compat - the only problem with their current console is a LACK OF GAMES! But that very weakness means that they are not giving up a strength by not having back-compat. -Brian
No, it's just not better now. I should have elaborated. I wasn't claiming that it's worse now because the American occupation is specifically treating people worse than Hussein did. It's worse now because law and order have actually declined; we can't keep the peace. The infrastructure is in ruins. Quality of life is down for most people (i.e. people who were not directly enemies of Hussein). Obviously George Bush is not quite the tyrant that Hussein. But the fact is people are generally worse off now than they were before, and if a theocratic regime rises up (I admit this is unlikely) they will be worse off long-term.
There are much more fun things to read - there are few more important things to read. My point is that it's just lazy giving up to say that all political commentary is without merit. Lots of these books are written by crackpots, but if you do a little research before you buy you will find that many of them don't. You can ignore politics, but politics will not ignore you.
I guess you'd better go stick your head in the sand then. Careful not to read any more of these books, or one of them might accidentally surprise and inform you.
You're right that it's absurd to dislike Bush and Hussein equally. You're wrong that Iraqi's are better off than they were before the war. They (most of them, anyway) are most certainly worse off now than before the war. They may ultimately benefit from Hussein's removal "in the end," but that remains to be seen. To understand that it is not automatic that a happy modern democracy will arise you need only look to Afghanistan.
Is it not possible to be both a socialist and a populist? Isn't populism in fact at the root of socialism? You can certianly argue that socialism doesn't work for varioud reasons, but I don't think you can say that everybody supporting socialist policies is faking their populism.
-Brian
I rose through the ranks with technical skills, not business skills. I learned my business skills on the job.
So even as you demand that you need programmers who have "domain experience" you admit that anyone smart enough to solve the technical problems can learn the business domain on the job. If you hired full-time developers and re-used them project-to-project instead of hiring a new set of consultants for each job, you wouldn't have run into this problem. Go fuck yourself, you double-talking pompous asshole.
Maybe the products aren't really crappy and consistently insecure. At least, not any more than those of any other company. It just so happens that the products are orders of magnitude more comlex (read: bloated) than anything else on the market, and they are used by orders of magnitude more people.
it represents the Microsoft view of software in its documented form
Microsoft doesn't use XP (the programming method - they do use the operating system:).
After working in Redmond for 2 years, the first time I heard/read "dash-trash" was today, here. In reality, there is much more arrogance/rivalry between the disciplines (Dev, Test, PM, Admin) than Perm vs. Temp. -Brian
Slashdot Mirror
Your name is fitting.
You can blather on about proof and a shadow of a doubt all you want, but the fucking temperature has been rising for the last 20 years. The overwhelming consensus among academics in the field is that a) Global Warming is real and b) human activity is at least a contributing factor.
You're technically correct that they could be wrong, and we don't have definitive proof. But all indications are that we should do something about this problem. The consequences for being wrong in inaction are billions of lives and untold destruction of civilization as we know it. The consequences for being wrong in action are that we waste some time and money.
MS developers are forbidden by company policy to look at open source code, even on their own time, for that very reason.
I can't tell if you are wanking off here or if this is a joke...
I hear this argument a lot but I don't buy it. The cars are better, but not 2 or 3 times better. They are more fuel effecient, but gas is more expensive. They break down less often, but they are more expensive to fix when they do. The reason cars (and houses) cost so much is largely the exponentially increasing availability of credit. It was never considered normal to take out a loan worth 8 times your gross annual salary before.
Hasn't the price of goods, services, taxes etc all outpaced the increase in income? No. Some goods (health, education) cost more, but overall the average person can buy a lot more stuff with their income than they used to. Why doesn't it feel like that? Because of continually rising expectations.
BS. In the late 60's/early 70's a single blue collar worker could own a home in the suburbs, 1 or 2 cars, and support a family of 4. Now to achieve the same standard of living requires at least 2 blue-collar-equivalent salaries.
I think the fundamental tension here is that we don't want to equalize with India, China, or any other recently 3rd world country. I understand what you're saying. Americans have a disproportionately higher standard of living than most of the world, and we're just going to have to suck it up and come down. We aren't fundamentally more worthwhile human beings than the ones they have elsewhere. :(
But this equalization process takes generations. And you are asking me to suck it up and just accept that I have to give up my standard of living because, in a century or two, everybody will be better off. I'm sorry, but I'd really rather not.
Could you point me to an example of MS violating a stated policy?
WTF?! How has your freedom of choice been infringed upon? If you don't like media player, DON'T USE IT. Install another player if you like. Would you like MS to take notepad out of the OS as well, so you have the choice of installing your own text editor?
Wow, competition will lower my price for media players to below zero? Sweet!
For Sony, skipping backwards compat would be a disaster. Their installed base is their biggest advantage. However, Xbox can get away without backwards compat - the only problem with their current console is a LACK OF GAMES! But that very weakness means that they are not giving up a strength by not having back-compat.
-Brian
No, it's just not better now. I should have elaborated. I wasn't claiming that it's worse now because the American occupation is specifically treating people worse than Hussein did. It's worse now because law and order have actually declined; we can't keep the peace. The infrastructure is in ruins. Quality of life is down for most people (i.e. people who were not directly enemies of Hussein). Obviously George Bush is not quite the tyrant that Hussein. But the fact is people are generally worse off now than they were before, and if a theocratic regime rises up (I admit this is unlikely) they will be worse off long-term.
There are much more fun things to read - there are few more important things to read. My point is that it's just lazy giving up to say that all political commentary is without merit. Lots of these books are written by crackpots, but if you do a little research before you buy you will find that many of them don't. You can ignore politics, but politics will not ignore you.
I guess you'd better go stick your head in the sand then. Careful not to read any more of these books, or one of them might accidentally surprise and inform you.
For an explanation of Dude's intellectual vaccuity, go here: http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20031016.html
For a more accurate and reasonable condemnation of America's Right, try Joe Conason's "Big Lies"
Oh, wow! It's just "strawmen"! I'm convinced! Anne Coulter is the truth-bearer.
You're right that it's absurd to dislike Bush and Hussein equally. You're wrong that Iraqi's are better off than they were before the war. They (most of them, anyway) are most certainly worse off now than before the war. They may ultimately benefit from Hussein's removal "in the end," but that remains to be seen. To understand that it is not automatic that a happy modern democracy will arise you need only look to Afghanistan.
read: socialists in populists' clothing
Is it not possible to be both a socialist and a populist? Isn't populism in fact at the root of socialism? You can certianly argue that socialism doesn't work for varioud reasons, but I don't think you can say that everybody supporting socialist policies is faking their populism.
-Brian
I rose through the ranks with technical skills, not business skills. I learned my business skills on the job.
So even as you demand that you need programmers who have "domain experience" you admit that anyone smart enough to solve the technical problems can learn the business domain on the job. If you hired full-time developers and re-used them project-to-project instead of hiring a new set of consultants for each job, you wouldn't have run into this problem. Go fuck yourself, you double-talking pompous asshole.
That's the job description for a dev at Microsoft. Flame on.
-Brian
Maybe the products aren't really crappy and consistently insecure. At least, not any more than those of any other company. It just so happens that the products are orders of magnitude more comlex (read: bloated) than anything else on the market, and they are used by orders of magnitude more people.
This was pretty common when I worked at RealNetworks a few years ago as well.
it represents the Microsoft view of software in its documented form :).
Microsoft doesn't use XP (the programming method - they do use the operating system
That isn't what the indie-rock scene is like...?
You can't hide the P2P stuff from the user - you'd have to get them to voluntarily choose to share the file.
After working in Redmond for 2 years, the first time I heard/read "dash-trash" was today, here.
In reality, there is much more arrogance/rivalry between the disciplines (Dev, Test, PM, Admin) than Perm vs. Temp.
-Brian