Yeah, but do you have a right to a 40 hour work week, or time and a half pay?
Management would have your 9-year old programming 16 hours a day if they could get away with it. They've managed to skirt every other labor law, and even in America, it's hard to be an independent contractor, so it's hard to get away from corporations.
We have good times now, but in bad times it will turn to slave labor. History proves that management will exploit every weakness, given the chance. So if you have to compete with people willing to work 16 hour days, tough shit.
But for now you can jump around, if you're good. I don't feel like I need a union right now either. And I don't think a traditional union is the right answer. Something like the writer's guild might work.
Anyway, I predict we'll find out soon enough. Our economy is about to collapse.
The traditional rights of workers were won with aggressive, sometimes physically dangerous collective bargaining. When you don't do that, management assumes you're a pussy. That's why it's traditional in the US to exempt programmers from every labor law.
But convincing programmers they need a union is like trying to convince cats to knit a sweater. Oh, and you have to use a ball of catnip-laced yarn. You'll get something, but it won't be a sweater! All in all, though, with the cats you'll end up with a better final product and less tooth marks.
Your post is littered with falsehoods. I barely know where to start. Whether you realize it or not, you're concern trolling from ignorance.
We still do not have enough evidence to prove that burning fossil fuels will produce global warming.
Eh? What?`
First off, basic physics predicts that more CO2 and methane (and other greenhouse gasses) in the air will cause the atmosphere, and hence, the ground, to heat up. In a glass jar, CO2 behaves precisely as expected.
The Earth is more complex than a glass jar, it's true, but to argue against global CO2-based warming, you need a plausible physical explanation for where the heat caused by the CO2 went. Unless some obscuring agent prevents sunlight from hitting the CO2, the heat from was undoubtedly generated in the atmosphere nearly exactly as predicted by physics. So where does it go?
In addition to a magic (heretofore invisible) heat-sink, you need a plausible alternative explanation for the geologic record, dating back 100s of thousands of years, showing that, indeed, CO2 and warming are in a feedback-loop, punctuated by various global disasters.
Now before I continue, let me just get this out of the way: there is a difference between someone who believes global warming *can't* be true in the religious sense, and someone who recognizes that climate is a difficult subject for which we just don't have the answers now.
This is a ridiculous cop-out, and is a lousy argument for destroying civilization as we know it.
The fact is, we've had a pretty nice equilibrium here for thousands of years. Throwing off that balance could mean a lot of different possible things, but it definitely means chaos and turmoil.
We don't know everything, but we know some things. We know that the gulf-stream is very important to heating up North America. We know that North America would turn in to a block of ice if it were to shut down. We may not know how to keep it running, but that's not a good reason to toss a bunch of carbon in the air to see what happens.
The best plan is probably to try to maintain the equilibrium somehow. It's worked for a while. I like the coasts where they are, and I don't want to experiment with their shape, thank you very much. If I were in a rowboat with you, I also wouldn't want you to experiment by standing up and rocking it back and forth.
I'll deal with two more of your arguments.
Global temperatures have been on the decline for the last decade, much as they did during the turn of the century 100 years ago.
Incorrect. 1999-2009 were the hottest decade in human history. 2009 was about as hot as the previously hottest year on record, 2005, and possibly hotter, depending on what source you use. This can hardly be described as a decline, and is a typical misconception sponsored by various media outlets.
2010 is trading on Intrade at 67% to be the warmest year on record. You could make a pretty nice sum by betting against it, getting back two times your money at that price level.
Only if you cherry pick 1998-2007 from the data can you claim a "decline", which really isn't a decline, it's a squiggle that bounces back and forth, ending up just below the top.
You may not be a denier, but you sure play one on/.
We can probably agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas; what we can't explain is why increased generation of CO2 hasn't resulted in a proportionate increase in the atmospheric CO2 levels.
Possibly because you made up that as a requirement. Your argument is irrelevant and spurious. Physics predicts a warming as CO2 rises. CO2 levels are rising dramatically, as we have observed. The temperature is rising dramatically, as we have observed, your weak protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.
Yes, the oceans absorb some. This isn't a question as you intimate, it has been measured. The question of whether increased CO2 in the atmosp
The companies listed in TFA subsist entirely on the sale of fraudulent products. Likely their biggest demographic is old ladies who don't know any better than to avoid the scam.
"I don't have any money" is not an excuse to rip people off, any more than it's an excuse to rob a bank. Unless you'd say the same thing about bank robbers and burglars, I'm gonna need your sneakers. 'Cause you need to step off.
First off, the worst of the telemarketers know that what they're doing is wrong. Usually it involves ripping off old ladies who don't know any better, because hardly anyone else takes the bait.
Secondly, if everyone would try to take up as much of their time as possible, they'd be forced to find a new job, rather than getting ripped off by their employer, as most of them do. Most of these jerkwads who run these schemes aren't content to just rip off the general public, they rip off their employees as well.
If I'm in a nice mood, I explain to the person why they need to find a new job. I'm pretty sure I've convinced one or two of them in my time. IMO, that's a public service, but so is, "go fuck yourself." The sooner those poor and desperate types find a new job, the better for everyone.
The only telemarketing calls I get are the totally illegal kind. They break every law in the book. Literally.
- Their product is fraudulent. - I'm on the do not call list, so any telemarketing call to me is already illegal. - They use a robot dialer - They hang up if you ask them who they are - They hang up if you ask them who else they call on behalf of - They do not remove you from their list, no matter how many times you tell them to
In fact, I got calls from all of the companies named in the article, I'm assuming, because I got auto-warranty, debt consolidation, and "free cruise" calls.
The anti-telemarketing laws are a joke. Sure, they prevent scrupulous companies from calling you, but the unscrupulous ones get away with it for years, because consumers can't figure out who to complain about or to sue.
Here's what I do. If more people would do this, their business model would be unsustainable. I try to get a human on the line. When I get one, I try to take up as much of their time as possible giving them bogus information. Then I find a creative way to insult their mother. I try to make it a different one every time. If everyone did this, they'd never be able to sell enough of their scam product to be viable. They'd spend all their money talking to jerks like me.
You should keep that in mind next time you post any porn pics online, as you're likely commiting a crime "across national border" of Afghanistan or some other similarly advanced country.
Umm, I am guessing most/. readers are consumers of porn, not so much producers. Chatroulette does NOT count. It's only porn if somebody, somewhere in the world wants to see it.
I misread you the first time. Completely agree, in fact. Unfortunately, now that everyone is required to have "insurance" (which may be worthless) this issue is now dead ( but man are we OT).:)
Check out this bug, which I posted over two weeks ago, with no response yet from anyone at Google.
Don't believe me? Try it. I posted a very, very simple php file which illustrates the problem.
Basically, when you post as text/plain, the browser is not supposed to URL-encode the input. Chrome just happily does it anyway. It seems like this would break about a million websites, so I'm kinda stumped as to what is going on, but other browsers do the correct thing.
This isn't the only bug I've found, but it's the biggest, most glaring one. I don't understand how it got out the door.
Rather than have a big national health care plan Obama should have just required that the uninsured could not be required to pay more than 25% over what the least expensive insurance company rate was.
Hate to break it to you, but it is already the law that hospitals charge the same amount to every patient, regardless of insurance status.
Health care providers get around this by offering "discounts" to insurers. The uninsured pay the "real" price. Furthermore, some even refuse to make exceptions for poor people, arguing that this would run afoul of the law requiring equal pricing.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It is entirely up to interpretation if allowing prayer in schools constitutes an "establishment of religion" or whether it is "prohibiting the free exercise thereof".
Only if you deliberately misread it as you have. Respecting = "giving respect to." If they meant that congress couldn't establish a state religion, that's what they would have written. However, such an act would be respecting an establishment of religion, so it's forbidden as well by the very broad ban in the first amendment.
Allowing prayer in school very clearly is respecting the Christian establishment of religion. It's not as though school boards are pushing for Muslim or Hindu prayers (which are very different from Christian ones, btw). They are trying to get Christian prayers and exclusively Christian prayers in schools.
The above should be completely self-evident to all of you. The next time you encounter this twaddle that Texas is going to corrupt the NEA blessed curricula of the nation, dock whomever is making that claim some credibility points; they're playing you for a hysterical fool.
Yes, because everyone knows that historical behavior has no predictive value on future behavior. Isn't that how the saying goes? Or is it, "those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it?"
Texas has passed inane educational "standards" many, many times before this, and other states have had to swallow their bullcrap many many times before this. Calling someone hysterical for suggesting it might happen again is pretty rich.
> This is NOT a reason to stop offshore drilling. Offshore drilling is an essential part of our current energy use. What this is, however, is a good reason to reinforce laws surrounding safety and preparedness standards...and make sure they are fucking followed.
Well, that sounds reasonable. But, then, as you pointed out:
> You want the government to take over...ok, what do you expect them to do? BP has the equipment, the government does not.
So.... ummm.... hmmm. I'm stumped. How exactly is regulator Joe going to make sure that there is a proper gasket on a blowout preventer, 1 mile beneath the ocean's surface? What's he gonna do, swim down there and take a look?
As for offshore drilling being "an essential part of our current energy use," do you have a cite for that? Let's say for the sake of argument that this article is correct. The total amount of oil below the gulf is perhaps 18 billion barrels. We use 8 billion barrels a year. Furthermore, BP is under no obligation to even sell us the oil that they collect! How does this translate to something that's extremely necessary for our energy needs?
BP didn't drill the well as a charity to the US, they did it for their own profit.
I've been kind of expecting/hoping for this for some time. Not me. I was hoping it would go on for another 20 years at least.
You're completely missing the comedy aspect. Just for example, think of all the things we could have accomplished in that time to add to the list of things done while DNF was in dev. There's already great stuff on it, like we built the International space station, and Britney Spear's entire career. We might have added a human trip to Mars, or cheap fusion power to the list if it could have gone on for a few more decades.
No, it's a sad day for nerd jokes. Now I have to move on to some other vaporware, and I've never heard of HURD, so I don't have a real stake in making fun of it.
Artificial intelligence is highly applicable to many areas, including finance, and it's very math-intensive. Plus you won't be tying yourself down to one career path.
I live in Austin, and I moved recently, and after the tech guy went up in my attic, I ended up with the cable modem being set up in a bedroom.
After he left, a lady purporting to be from TW called. She said it was very important that I not move my cable modem. She repeated herself 3 times but wouldn't tell me why.
I sort of didn't believe it, and so I moved it soon after to use with my XBox360, because that pig is wired.
Works fine. I was wondering if maybe they installed a usage meter on just one outlet or something. That seemed pretty tinfoil-ish, but now that I see this story, and it relates to Austin specifically, I wonder.
Masochistic programmer seeks sadistic administrator for dirty debugging sessions.
Me: hate PERL and shell scripting and really don't wanna mess around with the kernel
You: Linux admin/enterprise system architect (both a +)
Us: Debugging 40 year old bank software in Detroit. Changing linux to show us where things install to without having to search a goddamn database or hit google or whatever. Writing ATI display drivers for X11.
Slashdot Mirror
What did you have in your trunk by the way? Something you didn't want them to see, Or were you just being a pain in the ass for the sake of it?
Are you a card carrying fascist? Or are you just acting like one to make a pain in the ass of yourself?
Yeah, but specifically, which people? Judges, congress, whom? Can anyone sue and seek the death penalty for any corporation?
I think it's a good idea and it could work, but the process seems the most difficult part to determine
Preach on brotha'!
There's one wrinkle, though. Who gets to bell the cat?
Actually, we have atheists in Texas too. In fact, they're bigger and better than your atheists.
Yeah, but do you have a right to a 40 hour work week, or time and a half pay?
Management would have your 9-year old programming 16 hours a day if they could get away with it. They've managed to skirt every other labor law, and even in America, it's hard to be an independent contractor, so it's hard to get away from corporations.
We have good times now, but in bad times it will turn to slave labor. History proves that management will exploit every weakness, given the chance. So if you have to compete with people willing to work 16 hour days, tough shit.
But for now you can jump around, if you're good. I don't feel like I need a union right now either. And I don't think a traditional union is the right answer. Something like the writer's guild might work.
Anyway, I predict we'll find out soon enough. Our economy is about to collapse.
The traditional rights of workers were won with aggressive, sometimes physically dangerous collective bargaining. When you don't do that, management assumes you're a pussy. That's why it's traditional in the US to exempt programmers from every labor law.
But convincing programmers they need a union is like trying to convince cats to knit a sweater. Oh, and you have to use a ball of catnip-laced yarn. You'll get something, but it won't be a sweater! All in all, though, with the cats you'll end up with a better final product and less tooth marks.
Watch.
Your post is littered with falsehoods. I barely know where to start. Whether you realize it or not, you're concern trolling from ignorance.
We still do not have enough evidence to prove that burning fossil fuels will produce global warming.
Eh? What?`
First off, basic physics predicts that more CO2 and methane (and other greenhouse gasses) in the air will cause the atmosphere, and hence, the ground, to heat up. In a glass jar, CO2 behaves precisely as expected.
The Earth is more complex than a glass jar, it's true, but to argue against global CO2-based warming, you need a plausible physical explanation for where the heat caused by the CO2 went. Unless some obscuring agent prevents sunlight from hitting the CO2, the heat from was undoubtedly generated in the atmosphere nearly exactly as predicted by physics. So where does it go?
In addition to a magic (heretofore invisible) heat-sink, you need a plausible alternative explanation for the geologic record, dating back 100s of thousands of years, showing that, indeed, CO2 and warming are in a feedback-loop, punctuated by various global disasters.
Now before I continue, let me just get this out of the way: there is a difference between someone who believes global warming *can't* be true in the religious sense, and someone who recognizes that climate is a difficult subject for which we just don't have the answers now.
This is a ridiculous cop-out, and is a lousy argument for destroying civilization as we know it.
The fact is, we've had a pretty nice equilibrium here for thousands of years. Throwing off that balance could mean a lot of different possible things, but it definitely means chaos and turmoil.
We don't know everything, but we know some things. We know that the gulf-stream is very important to heating up North America. We know that North America would turn in to a block of ice if it were to shut down. We may not know how to keep it running, but that's not a good reason to toss a bunch of carbon in the air to see what happens.
The best plan is probably to try to maintain the equilibrium somehow. It's worked for a while. I like the coasts where they are, and I don't want to experiment with their shape, thank you very much. If I were in a rowboat with you, I also wouldn't want you to experiment by standing up and rocking it back and forth.
I'll deal with two more of your arguments.
Global temperatures have been on the decline for the last decade, much as they did during the turn of the century 100 years ago.
Incorrect. 1999-2009 were the hottest decade in human history. 2009 was about as hot as the previously hottest year on record, 2005, and possibly hotter, depending on what source you use. This can hardly be described as a decline, and is a typical misconception sponsored by various media outlets.
2010 is trading on Intrade at 67% to be the warmest year on record. You could make a pretty nice sum by betting against it, getting back two times your money at that price level.
Only if you cherry pick 1998-2007 from the data can you claim a "decline", which really isn't a decline, it's a squiggle that bounces back and forth, ending up just below the top.
You may not be a denier, but you sure play one on /.
We can probably agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas; what we can't explain is why increased generation of CO2 hasn't resulted in a proportionate increase in the atmospheric CO2 levels.
Possibly because you made up that as a requirement. Your argument is irrelevant and spurious. Physics predicts a warming as CO2 rises. CO2 levels are rising dramatically, as we have observed. The temperature is rising dramatically, as we have observed, your weak protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.
Yes, the oceans absorb some. This isn't a question as you intimate, it has been measured. The question of whether increased CO2 in the atmosp
This time the WHOOSH! you hear is not a joke flying over your head. It's a foot traveling swiftly toward your balls.
Is there a longer proof, written in the margins? What was that, proof by ass-duction?
And so help me pink unicorn, if even one of you asswipes says whoosh.....
The companies listed in TFA subsist entirely on the sale of fraudulent products. Likely their biggest demographic is old ladies who don't know any better than to avoid the scam.
"I don't have any money" is not an excuse to rip people off, any more than it's an excuse to rob a bank. Unless you'd say the same thing about bank robbers and burglars, I'm gonna need your sneakers. 'Cause you need to step off.
First off, the worst of the telemarketers know that what they're doing is wrong. Usually it involves ripping off old ladies who don't know any better, because hardly anyone else takes the bait.
Secondly, if everyone would try to take up as much of their time as possible, they'd be forced to find a new job, rather than getting ripped off by their employer, as most of them do. Most of these jerkwads who run these schemes aren't content to just rip off the general public, they rip off their employees as well.
If I'm in a nice mood, I explain to the person why they need to find a new job. I'm pretty sure I've convinced one or two of them in my time. IMO, that's a public service, but so is, "go fuck yourself." The sooner those poor and desperate types find a new job, the better for everyone.
The only telemarketing calls I get are the totally illegal kind. They break every law in the book. Literally.
- Their product is fraudulent.
- I'm on the do not call list, so any telemarketing call to me is already illegal.
- They use a robot dialer
- They hang up if you ask them who they are
- They hang up if you ask them who else they call on behalf of
- They do not remove you from their list, no matter how many times you tell them to
In fact, I got calls from all of the companies named in the article, I'm assuming, because I got auto-warranty, debt consolidation, and "free cruise" calls.
The anti-telemarketing laws are a joke. Sure, they prevent scrupulous companies from calling you, but the unscrupulous ones get away with it for years, because consumers can't figure out who to complain about or to sue.
Here's what I do. If more people would do this, their business model would be unsustainable. I try to get a human on the line. When I get one, I try to take up as much of their time as possible giving them bogus information. Then I find a creative way to insult their mother. I try to make it a different one every time. If everyone did this, they'd never be able to sell enough of their scam product to be viable. They'd spend all their money talking to jerks like me.
You should keep that in mind next time you post any porn pics online, as you're likely commiting a crime "across national border" of Afghanistan or some other similarly advanced country.
Umm, I am guessing most /. readers are consumers of porn, not so much producers. Chatroulette does NOT count. It's only porn if somebody, somewhere in the world wants to see it.
I misread you the first time. Completely agree, in fact. Unfortunately, now that everyone is required to have "insurance" (which may be worthless) this issue is now dead ( but man are we OT). :)
Check out this bug, which I posted over two weeks ago, with no response yet from anyone at Google.
Don't believe me? Try it. I posted a very, very simple php file which illustrates the problem.
Basically, when you post as text/plain, the browser is not supposed to URL-encode the input. Chrome just happily does it anyway. It seems like this would break about a million websites, so I'm kinda stumped as to what is going on, but other browsers do the correct thing.
This isn't the only bug I've found, but it's the biggest, most glaring one. I don't understand how it got out the door.
Rather than have a big national health care plan Obama should have just required that the uninsured could not be required to pay more than 25% over what the least expensive insurance company rate was.
Hate to break it to you, but it is already the law that hospitals charge the same amount to every patient, regardless of insurance status.
Health care providers get around this by offering "discounts" to insurers. The uninsured pay the "real" price. Furthermore, some even refuse to make exceptions for poor people, arguing that this would run afoul of the law requiring equal pricing.
Look at the constitution.
I suggest you do the same.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It is entirely up to interpretation if allowing prayer in schools constitutes an "establishment of religion" or whether it is "prohibiting the free exercise thereof".
Only if you deliberately misread it as you have. Respecting = "giving respect to." If they meant that congress couldn't establish a state religion, that's what they would have written. However, such an act would be respecting an establishment of religion, so it's forbidden as well by the very broad ban in the first amendment.
Allowing prayer in school very clearly is respecting the Christian establishment of religion. It's not as though school boards are pushing for Muslim or Hindu prayers (which are very different from Christian ones, btw). They are trying to get Christian prayers and exclusively Christian prayers in schools.
Yes, because everyone knows that historical behavior has no predictive value on future behavior. Isn't that how the saying goes? Or is it, "those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it?"
Texas has passed inane educational "standards" many, many times before this, and other states have had to swallow their bullcrap many many times before this. Calling someone hysterical for suggesting it might happen again is pretty rich.
If slavery is a 30 hour work week, a month of vacation time, and guaranteed medical care, fucking sign me up!
> This is NOT a reason to stop offshore drilling. Offshore drilling is an essential part of our current energy use. What this is, however, is a good reason to reinforce laws surrounding safety and preparedness standards...and make sure they are fucking followed.
Well, that sounds reasonable. But, then, as you pointed out:
> You want the government to take over...ok, what do you expect them to do? BP has the equipment, the government does not.
So.... ummm.... hmmm. I'm stumped. How exactly is regulator Joe going to make sure that there is a proper gasket on a blowout preventer, 1 mile beneath the ocean's surface? What's he gonna do, swim down there and take a look?
As for offshore drilling being "an essential part of our current energy use," do you have a cite for that? Let's say for the sake of argument that this article is correct. The total amount of oil below the gulf is perhaps 18 billion barrels. We use 8 billion barrels a year. Furthermore, BP is under no obligation to even sell us the oil that they collect! How does this translate to something that's extremely necessary for our energy needs?
BP didn't drill the well as a charity to the US, they did it for their own profit.
I've been kind of expecting/hoping for this for some time. Not me. I was hoping it would go on for another 20 years at least.
You're completely missing the comedy aspect. Just for example, think of all the things we could have accomplished in that time to add to the list of things done while DNF was in dev. There's already great stuff on it, like we built the International space station, and Britney Spear's entire career. We might have added a human trip to Mars, or cheap fusion power to the list if it could have gone on for a few more decades.
No, it's a sad day for nerd jokes. Now I have to move on to some other vaporware, and I've never heard of HURD, so I don't have a real stake in making fun of it.
2 Girls 1 Grail!
Wow, wish I had mod points right now. Nicely done.
Artificial intelligence is highly applicable to many areas, including finance, and it's very math-intensive. Plus you won't be tying yourself down to one career path.
I live in Austin, and I moved recently, and after the tech guy went up in my attic, I ended up with the cable modem being set up in a bedroom.
After he left, a lady purporting to be from TW called. She said it was very important that I not move my cable modem. She repeated herself 3 times but wouldn't tell me why.
I sort of didn't believe it, and so I moved it soon after to use with my XBox360, because that pig is wired.
Works fine. I was wondering if maybe they installed a usage meter on just one outlet or something. That seemed pretty tinfoil-ish, but now that I see this story, and it relates to Austin specifically, I wonder.
Masochistic programmer seeks sadistic administrator for dirty debugging sessions.
Me: hate PERL and shell scripting and really don't wanna mess around with the kernel
You: Linux admin/enterprise system architect (both a +)
Us: Debugging 40 year old bank software in Detroit. Changing linux to show us where things install to without having to search a goddamn database or hit google or whatever. Writing ATI display drivers for X11.