But the Bible and Jesus is very clear that the action of gays is wrong and defiling.
So what? If you truly believe that then DON'T DO IT. Does that mean you are compelled to spew lies about some massive homosexual conspiracy theory designed to convert straight people to gay?
The gays agenda is to destroy marriages!
Sorry. It's not going to destroy my marriage. Period. There will NEVER be a shortage of straight people willing to get married and squirt out offspring. If you believe that allowing Gay marriage will destroy your marriage, then maybe you need to re-examine your own sexuality.
They don't want marriage. How many gays stay in the same relationship for over 7 years? Not many.
I suppose you haven't looked at the statistics for straights lately either, have you? They don't want marriage? Have you asked every single one of them? So, you're saying that attaction to the same sex automatically means they're against marriage? Far out man! All they want is equal treatment under the law. Do you know that if two people spend their entire lives together, that a domestic partner can be denied the right to attend their lifelong partner's deathbed? Just because they're not married? Is that fair? Is that righteous? Does that make the baby Jesus cry?
but when they intrude on my family that crosses the line.
I'm sorry, I didn't know that the Gay Mafia were sending hit squads of goons to break into your house at night, and sit between you and your wife on the couch and steal the remote, and force you to watch Will and Grace.
When I have to explain why two men or women are kissing on TV, I have to explain why.
Explain why to whom? I'll assume you're talking about your children. Poor baby. If you don't want your children exposed to that stuff, then YOU'RE IN LUCK! You're an American, and you're free to home-school them, teach them about Creation Science, that the Earth is Flat, the Moon Landing was a Hoax, and that babies come from the Cabbage Patch, and that people do not kiss, or hug, or screw, and that nakedness is not natural. If you don't like what's on TV, shut it off. If you don't like the outside world, go back into your cave and close the door.
I, however, will properly equip my kids to deal with the realities of life on this planet - and that includes explaining to them about homosexuality. And yes - I will definately teach them that our church views it as sinful. And I will also teach them that this applies only to them, as people who choose to follow Christ and bear his cross. Those who do not choose to do so are NOT bound by those moral codes.
And NO, I am not afraid that my kids will "choose" to become gay, because I had the audacity to not teach them a lie about the real world. And if they DO turn out gay, I will still love them, and I will not exclude them from my family.
As for being gay in the genetics, how can you be a gay and your parents not if it is in the genes?
Very simple. Human bodies go through biological changes during their life cycle. Glandular functions change. Hormone balance changes, organ function changes. A human body is physically capable of producing offspring by age 13. Irregardless of whether they were attracted to their partner! *gasp!* (do you think Mary was physically attracted to the Holy Spirit?) I don't think that there are a lot of 90-year-old women who are sexually attracted to men. I *do* believe that a genetically, inherently gay person CAN choose a life of chastity, or even a hetero life. Good for them if they do. But it's not up to me (nor is it up to Government) to spend my time creating an environment that compells, cajoles, or otherwise forces a person to make a choice to follow a given moral code.
They are pushing their agenda and are destroying America as we know it. I refuse to have my kids grow up in that hostile type of climate.
But it is clear that the Homosexual group has an agenda to push their "values" on every one else. It is clear that it is becoming acceptable in society.
WHO has an agenda to push their "values" on every one else?
I only see the homosexual "agenda" as being: Leave me alone and let me live my life the way I want to. The Christian fundamentalist/evangelical "agenda" seems to be: End the sinfulness in your lives or we'll end your lives for you.
Who gives a crap if gay people want to be left alone and treated as equals? They don't want to join your "club" - and they don't care if you or anyone else joins theirs. Other people's sex lives are none of your business! That's the homosexual "agenda". If you don't want to be Gay, then don't be Gay. If someone else wants to be Gay, then let them. Any person's "agenda" should only concern their own affairs. Not other's affairs. If it's becoming acceptable in society - what concern is that of yours? All you need worry about is if YOU find it acceptable in YOUR LIFE. It's not about society. It's about YOUR personal relationship with your Creator.
But that still does not mean we should not try to stem the tide of the homosexual community. Just because we can't stop man from destroying himself doesn't mean we should fold over and except it. Rather as Jesus did, we need to try to help those who are seeking help. Even if the world is lost, we can still reach the individuals
Sure, I remember reading lots of passages of Jesus going around saying that God Hates Fags. I especially love the ones where Jesus beats the crap out of this one bulldike and tells her "I love you, and I'm going to be crucified for your sins, so stop sinning you evil lesbian." and his great sermon in Jerusalem. . . "go forth then into the world, and seek out the pillow-biters, for they are evil in my sight. It is up to you, believers, to prove to me that you love me - punish them for me by denying their rights and teasing them, and beating them, because, of course, the Father is too feeble to cast a bolt of lighting upon their flesh if he really wanted to punish them."
Passing laws is not 'helping those who are seeking help'. Passing laws is nothing more than getting off on a power trip. It goes against everything Jesus stood for, and the whole reason God sent Him in the first place.
If your eye offends thee, pluck it the fuck out, and leave other people alone.
Google is first and foremost a search engine, not a marketing tool. Those who thought otherwise are finding out they are sorely mistaken.
That said: having been a net surfer since 1993, and having NEVER EVER EVER paid money for an online service, other than my ISP - I would pay Google a subscription fee monthly, maybe even something like $5, to ENSURE that it remained a tool to serve web users, instead of a tool to serve site operators.
Google is THAT important to me.
Without Google, I believe that the web, as a resource for information and communication, would become pointless within the space of 5 years.
I still don't think I'd pay money for any other site. (Including slashdot). Many many sites have started free, then initiated a "premium service" or subscription fee - and faded into obscurity. I think that only Google could survive such a move.
This is clearly coming true now. Homosexuals are becoming more prevalent and Homosexuality will become a legitamate way of life
Okay flamebaiter, I'll bite.
No matter how prevalent or legitimate Homosexuality becomes - I'll NEVER desire other men. Just ain't ever gonna happen. So that's clearly very flawed logic your spouting. My main disagreement with that, is a LOT of Bible-believers agree with this, and take it a step further - believing that if they just outlaw homosexuality, they can somehow stop the coming of the end-times. To me, that makes about as much sense as a fish with a bicycle. Showing God that you're willing to hate his children, and embracing intolerance and violence isn't what I'd call a smart idea. Using flawed logic to support those actions is even sillier.
Guess what? If the prophesied End Times are coming, or if they're not, do you think it's wise to even try to stop it? You ought to worry about your OWN soul. Stop worrying about everyone else's. And THAT, my friend, has PLENTY of scripture to back it up. Because Guess What? If you can't forgive, you won't be forgiven.
The fall of Jerusalem was foretold about 40 years before it happened. The reformation of Israel was foretold a couple thousand years before it happened.
A "Mark on their right hand" or "in their forheads" is an allegorecal reference to "things you do" or "things you think". It's not necessarily literally a physical mark.
It's reasonably common in Judaic literature of that time period.
Most REAL biblical scholars do not believe this refers to an acutal physical mark, but instead, to some sort of compulsion of behavior or thought.
I really really liked The Matrix - and in the first half or so, I thought it was really deep and philosophical (and the producers gutsy for attempting that).
But the main thing I liked - I'll admit: Bullet Time. Period. The visual style.
The problem with the last two movies is: Bullet Time in 2003, is OLD. It's so 20th Century. Sorry. It's as simple and shallow as that. I simply don't expect deep philosophical revelations in Cinema anymore. Even from The Matrix franchise.
Frankly, my 10 year old kid felt the same way. "The Matrix was cool, but Reloaded was boring. There was too much talking and not enough fighting, and the fighting was all fists, not enough guns and explosions."
In a nutshell. Sorry I can't be deeper than that. I tried - and I was repeatedly disappointed.
Getting every person who writes software for the platform to PROPERLY USE the same installer/uninstaller. . . well, I deem that to be an impossible task. No way in hell will that ever happen.
The big quesiton I have about the Matrix is; In the first movie, the kid says something to the effect of: "to deny one's impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human."
Yet later on, they're saying that CHOICE is what differentiates us from the machines.
So what is it that makes us human? Choice? Or Impulse?
In the corporate world, $2000 is nothing in terms of software development costs.
But in the home-OpenSource-contributor/hobbyist world, $2000 is a buttload of money. And if the goal is to provide software under the GPL, it might as well be an infinite amount of money.
Commercial adoption of Linux is a great thing - and a welcome evolution. But one must not forget the roots of the platform, and how Linux got to where it is today.
Actually, a truly interesting development would be if Apple put a little bit of work into their own X11 environment (to make it more seamlessly integrate with the Cocoa environment) - and released that to the open source community through the Darwin effort, and that technology gets adopted by Sun.
It's not the first time Sun and NeXT cooperated for their mutual benefit.
If Steve Jobs truly aspires to 10% of the personal computer market, somebody else will HAVE to take more significant marketshare away from Microsoft. Microsoft simply will not sit idle with less than 95% of the market. They'll work (and spend that $40 billion) on whatever it takes to keep their share at that level. Unless someone else comes along and takes it from them. If that someone else isn't Apple (as Steve has said, because he ONLY wants 10%), then it's got to be someone else. And nobody else I know of is capable of doing it. Acutally, Scott McNeally should give Larry Ellison a call. Oracle and Sun have been in bed together before. What I can't easily imagine though, is IBM making that a threesome. . . I think Larry would require DB2 on the sacrificial altar.
"everyone that has ever commented on. .." is a generalization of a gross nature. Consolidation is often viewed as a "neat" solution to making Linux more appealing to the mass market.
But consolidation is what got us into this mess in the first place. The mass market consolidated on Windows - because corps wanted people who knew how to use their systems without having to pay for training. Since everyone (in the 80's) was getting DOS/Win3.x at home, it was a no brainer. (and this fed on itself, as people who wanted to have "compatible" systems at home, so they could do some of their work on their home system, from time to time.)
Consolidation let to Windows dominance. Dominance of KDE or Gnome on the Linux desktop will not solve the problems caused by Consolidation (monoculture - monopoly - lack of competition). Only viable choices will solve those problems. And to get there, the mass market has to learn that variety is the spice of life. Techies have to learn that specialization leads to death. We've ALL got to be fluent in ALL platforms, so that all platforms can survive in the marketplace, where the user may be fluent in only one platform.
But frankly, I've been hoping this would happen since, oh, about 1980. By now, I've learned: Ain't ever gonna.
Same thing happened to me in Tech Support. I had 10 years experience, I was the "go to guy", the most experienced with our product. I had been there the longest, and I was bar none the best at solving the really bizzarre problems, especially with OS quirks.
I had flirted with moving on into management several times, and the last time, I literally had to BEG to be put back on the line, because I got no satisfaction without the hands-on work. But I could see where the wind was blowing for the last couple of years, as they increasingly were hiring phone monkeys who did little more than read scripts - the frontline guys rarely solved any problems that the customer couldn't have looked up themselves, had we done the work of creating a decent knowledgebase. We also shifted to a paid-for-support model at this time. The "quality of life" at the job went down hill - but not nearly so bad for me as for the poor frontline guys, who had every minute monitored and accounted for, and didn't even have admin access to their own machines, and had to follow a script. Turnover on the front line increased to a frenzy-pace.
Increasingly, there were structural changes to the support department that limited what I could do to solve problems. I was no longer able to travel to customer sites myself - even if the customer BEGGED for me by name. Instead, a special team of full-time travelling onsite engineers did the field work. And the onsite engineers rarely had the time to gain any technical focus on our product. So 9 times out of 10, the onsite engineer ended up on the phone with me anyway. I wasn't given the time to populate our knowledgebase, or train the frontline people so they'd be more competant. My role became more and more constricted, until my hands were so tied, my effectiveness suffered. This was very frustrating. Of course it also led to differences of opinion and personality conflicts with management.
I scoped out a new job (not paid as much), and sat on it, because the money from my seniority at that position was so nice. Until they laid me off. So I took my severance and took the other job, where I'm more in an engineering role, and much happier. But it still pisses me off that the reason things went so bad at the old job was simply arrogant stupid management decisions, based on - (and I agree totally with the parent poster on this:) "the growing trend to consider employees as completely interchangeable commodities."
In the end, the customer gets shafted, the experienced employee gets shafted, and the interchangable incompetant phone monkeys get shafted.
Don't forget that you're also going to charge a buck and a half for every $20 withdrawn by non-bank-customers. ATM machines need to be cheap, and they need to generate revenue by themselves. They're not simply a convenience intended to generate more business. They're a profit center.
"Having said that, we'll see lots of posts of an anti-MS nature in response to this story, when in actual fact, it's down to user bad practise, patch deployment"
well, maybe the "bad practice" starts with the selection of an operating system for this platform that's not really suitable.
About three years ago, my former employer had a development team in India, doing work on a product we developed in the US which was now in "Maintenance Mode".
I ended up doing support for a problem with this product, because it was an interaction with my team's product (near as we could tell from the BSOD, it was the other product that was crashing the server, not ours).
Pune is 11 and a half hours behind, time-zone-wise.
After about a week of messing around, trying to get the memory dump uploaded to their server, the angry customer demanded a concall with the developer, and the team manager. My manger gave me a "go" to set this up. But it turned out to be difficult to coordinate a time, because of the time-zone difference. So it took a couple of days to get a time we could all agree on, and by that time, the customer, a large Canadian bank, had figured out that a timely response just wasn't in the cards, and the reason was because our developer was on the other side of the planet.
They dropped BOTH products. I was just the support guy - trying to fix things. Guess who got blamed for both the bug in the product, and the problems getting a timely response?
I am a descendent of slaves. (my ancestor that came over from europe paid for his boat passage by becoming an indentured servant, in a copper mine in Northern Michigan, and since the mining company owned the town, all the stores, all the rental property, and there were no other towns for 200 miles, he was effectively, and legally a slave).
I am not at all offended by the IDE master/slave terminology.
I AM offended when other descendants of slaves think they're special because of their particular cultural heritage.
But I'm mostly offended by the continued industry dominance of crappy technology (- trying to start a SCSI/IDE flamewar).
Slashdot Mirror
But the Bible and Jesus is very clear that the action of gays is wrong and defiling.
So what? If you truly believe that then DON'T DO IT. Does that mean you are compelled to spew lies about some massive homosexual conspiracy theory designed to convert straight people to gay?
The gays agenda is to destroy marriages!
Sorry. It's not going to destroy my marriage. Period. There will NEVER be a shortage of straight people willing to get married and squirt out offspring. If you believe that allowing Gay marriage will destroy your marriage, then maybe you need to re-examine your own sexuality.
They don't want marriage. How many gays stay in the same relationship for over 7 years? Not many.
I suppose you haven't looked at the statistics for straights lately either, have you? They don't want marriage? Have you asked every single one of them? So, you're saying that attaction to the same sex automatically means they're against marriage? Far out man!
All they want is equal treatment under the law. Do you know that if two people spend their entire lives together, that a domestic partner can be denied the right to attend their lifelong partner's deathbed? Just because they're not married? Is that fair? Is that righteous? Does that make the baby Jesus cry?
but when they intrude on my family that crosses the line.
I'm sorry, I didn't know that the Gay Mafia were sending hit squads of goons to break into your house at night, and sit between you and your wife on the couch and steal the remote, and force you to watch Will and Grace.
When I have to explain why two men or women are kissing on TV, I have to explain why.
Explain why to whom? I'll assume you're talking about your children. Poor baby. If you don't want your children exposed to that stuff, then YOU'RE IN LUCK! You're an American, and you're free to home-school them, teach them about Creation Science, that the Earth is Flat, the Moon Landing was a Hoax, and that babies come from the Cabbage Patch, and that people do not kiss, or hug, or screw, and that nakedness is not natural. If you don't like what's on TV, shut it off. If you don't like the outside world, go back into your cave and close the door.
I, however, will properly equip my kids to deal with the realities of life on this planet - and that includes explaining to them about homosexuality. And yes - I will definately teach them that our church views it as sinful. And I will also teach them that this applies only to them, as people who choose to follow Christ and bear his cross. Those who do not choose to do so are NOT bound by those moral codes.
And NO, I am not afraid that my kids will "choose" to become gay, because I had the audacity to not teach them a lie about the real world. And if they DO turn out gay, I will still love them, and I will not exclude them from my family.
As for being gay in the genetics, how can you be a gay and your parents not if it is in the genes?
Very simple. Human bodies go through biological changes during their life cycle. Glandular functions change. Hormone balance changes, organ function changes. A human body is physically capable of producing offspring by age 13. Irregardless of whether they were attracted to their partner! *gasp!* (do you think Mary was physically attracted to the Holy Spirit?) I don't think that there are a lot of 90-year-old women who are sexually attracted to men. I *do* believe that a genetically, inherently gay person CAN choose a life of chastity, or even a hetero life. Good for them if they do. But it's not up to me (nor is it up to Government) to spend my time creating an environment that compells, cajoles, or otherwise forces a person to make a choice to follow a given moral code.
They are pushing their agenda and are destroying America as we know it. I refuse to have my kids grow up in that hostile type of climate.
America, as you know it,
The words against homosexuality are NOT Christ's. Romans and Corinthians were written by Paul, who never met Christ during his lifetime.
But it is clear that the Homosexual group has an agenda to push their "values" on every one else. It is clear that it is becoming acceptable in society.
WHO has an agenda to push their "values" on every one else?
I only see the homosexual "agenda" as being:
Leave me alone and let me live my life the way I want to.
The Christian fundamentalist/evangelical "agenda" seems to be:
End the sinfulness in your lives or we'll end your lives for you.
Who gives a crap if gay people want to be left alone and treated as equals? They don't want to join your "club" - and they don't care if you or anyone else joins theirs. Other people's sex lives are none of your business! That's the homosexual "agenda". If you don't want to be Gay, then don't be Gay. If someone else wants to be Gay, then let them. Any person's "agenda" should only concern their own affairs. Not other's affairs.
If it's becoming acceptable in society - what concern is that of yours? All you need worry about is if YOU find it acceptable in YOUR LIFE. It's not about society. It's about YOUR personal relationship with your Creator.
But that still does not mean we should not try to stem the tide of the homosexual community. Just because we can't stop man from destroying himself doesn't mean we should fold over and except it. Rather as Jesus did, we need to try to help those who are seeking help. Even if the world is lost, we can still reach the individuals
Sure, I remember reading lots of passages of Jesus going around saying that God Hates Fags. I especially love the ones where Jesus beats the crap out of this one bulldike and tells her "I love you, and I'm going to be crucified for your sins, so stop sinning you evil lesbian." and his great sermon in Jerusalem. . . "go forth then into the world, and seek out the pillow-biters, for they are evil in my sight. It is up to you, believers, to prove to me that you love me - punish them for me by denying their rights and teasing them, and beating them, because, of course, the Father is too feeble to cast a bolt of lighting upon their flesh if he really wanted to punish them."
Passing laws is not 'helping those who are seeking help'. Passing laws is nothing more than getting off on a power trip. It goes against everything Jesus stood for, and the whole reason God sent Him in the first place.
If your eye offends thee, pluck it the fuck out, and leave other people alone.
Google is first and foremost a search engine, not a marketing tool. Those who thought otherwise are finding out they are sorely mistaken.
That said:
having been a net surfer since 1993, and having NEVER EVER EVER paid money for an online service, other than my ISP -
I would pay Google a subscription fee monthly, maybe even something like $5, to ENSURE that it remained a tool to serve web users, instead of a tool to serve site operators.
Google is THAT important to me.
Without Google, I believe that the web, as a resource for information and communication, would become pointless within the space of 5 years.
I still don't think I'd pay money for any other site. (Including slashdot). Many many sites have started free, then initiated a "premium service" or subscription fee - and faded into obscurity. I think that only Google could survive such a move.
This is clearly coming true now. Homosexuals are becoming more prevalent and Homosexuality will become a legitamate way of life
Okay flamebaiter, I'll bite.
No matter how prevalent or legitimate Homosexuality becomes - I'll NEVER desire other men. Just ain't ever gonna happen. So that's clearly very flawed logic your spouting. My main disagreement with that, is a LOT of Bible-believers agree with this, and take it a step further - believing that if they just outlaw homosexuality, they can somehow stop the coming of the end-times. To me, that makes about as much sense as a fish with a bicycle. Showing God that you're willing to hate his children, and embracing intolerance and violence isn't what I'd call a smart idea. Using flawed logic to support those actions is even sillier.
Guess what? If the prophesied End Times are coming, or if they're not, do you think it's wise to even try to stop it? You ought to worry about your OWN soul. Stop worrying about everyone else's. And THAT, my friend, has PLENTY of scripture to back it up. Because Guess What? If you can't forgive, you won't be forgiven.
The fall of Jerusalem was foretold about 40 years before it happened. The reformation of Israel was foretold a couple thousand years before it happened.
Does that mean Harry Seldon was a Qabbalist?
" Greed of things unhad is the root of all evil - it's what led for Satan to be cast from heaven."
No - it was PRIDE and ARROGANCE that led Satan to be cast from heaven.
A "Mark on their right hand" or "in their forheads" is an allegorecal reference to "things you do" or "things you think". It's not necessarily literally a physical mark.
It's reasonably common in Judaic literature of that time period.
Most REAL biblical scholars do not believe this refers to an acutal physical mark, but instead, to some sort of compulsion of behavior or thought.
Sorry.
Not enough explosions.
I really really liked The Matrix - and in the first half or so, I thought it was really deep and philosophical (and the producers gutsy for attempting that).
But the main thing I liked - I'll admit: Bullet Time. Period. The visual style.
The problem with the last two movies is:
Bullet Time in 2003, is OLD. It's so 20th Century.
Sorry. It's as simple and shallow as that.
I simply don't expect deep philosophical revelations in Cinema anymore. Even from The Matrix franchise.
Frankly, my 10 year old kid felt the same way. "The Matrix was cool, but Reloaded was boring. There was too much talking and not enough fighting, and the fighting was all fists, not enough guns and explosions."
In a nutshell. Sorry I can't be deeper than that. I tried - and I was repeatedly disappointed.
Installer/uninstaller ARE easy.
Getting every person who writes software for the platform to PROPERLY USE the same installer/uninstaller. . . well, I deem that to be an impossible task. No way in hell will that ever happen.
The big quesiton I have about the Matrix is;
In the first movie, the kid says something to the effect of: "to deny one's impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human."
Yet later on, they're saying that CHOICE is what differentiates us from the machines.
So what is it that makes us human? Choice? Or Impulse?
bah!
I gave up thinking about it then.
In the corporate world, $2000 is nothing in terms of software development costs.
But in the home-OpenSource-contributor/hobbyist world, $2000 is a buttload of money. And if the goal is to provide software under the GPL, it might as well be an infinite amount of money.
Commercial adoption of Linux is a great thing - and a welcome evolution.
But one must not forget the roots of the platform, and how Linux got to where it is today.
Actually, a truly interesting development would be if Apple put a little bit of work into their own X11 environment (to make it more seamlessly integrate with the Cocoa environment) - and released that to the open source community through the Darwin effort, and that technology gets adopted by Sun.
It's not the first time Sun and NeXT cooperated for their mutual benefit.
If Steve Jobs truly aspires to 10% of the personal computer market, somebody else will HAVE to take more significant marketshare away from Microsoft. Microsoft simply will not sit idle with less than 95% of the market. They'll work (and spend that $40 billion) on whatever it takes to keep their share at that level. Unless someone else comes along and takes it from them. If that someone else isn't Apple (as Steve has said, because he ONLY wants 10%), then it's got to be someone else. And nobody else I know of is capable of doing it. Acutally, Scott McNeally should give Larry Ellison a call. Oracle and Sun have been in bed together before. What I can't easily imagine though, is IBM making that a threesome. . . I think Larry would require DB2 on the sacrificial altar.
"everyone that has ever commented on. . ." is a generalization of a gross nature. Consolidation is often viewed as a "neat" solution to making Linux more appealing to the mass market.
But consolidation is what got us into this mess in the first place. The mass market consolidated on Windows - because corps wanted people who knew how to use their systems without having to pay for training. Since everyone (in the 80's) was getting DOS/Win3.x at home, it was a no brainer. (and this fed on itself, as people who wanted to have "compatible" systems at home, so they could do some of their work on their home system, from time to time.)
Consolidation let to Windows dominance. Dominance of KDE or Gnome on the Linux desktop will not solve the problems caused by Consolidation (monoculture - monopoly - lack of competition). Only viable choices will solve those problems.
And to get there, the mass market has to learn that variety is the spice of life. Techies have to learn that specialization leads to death. We've ALL got to be fluent in ALL platforms, so that all platforms can survive in the marketplace, where the user may be fluent in only one platform.
But frankly, I've been hoping this would happen since, oh, about 1980. By now, I've learned: Ain't ever gonna.
.Mac is WebDAV-based.
don't you mean;
dotDone?
Don't buy people things that need money fed into them forever.
Like a computer?
. . . or a CAR?
The problem is - when sales fall, due to the declining value of these products, the poor economy will be blamed. Not the outsourcing.
Well, I know that my current job won't be outsourced to India. It requires a security clearance. :)
Same thing happened to me in Tech Support.
I had 10 years experience, I was the "go to guy", the most experienced with our product. I had been there the longest, and I was bar none the best at solving the really bizzarre problems, especially with OS quirks.
I had flirted with moving on into management several times, and the last time, I literally had to BEG to be put back on the line, because I got no satisfaction without the hands-on work. But I could see where the wind was blowing for the last couple of years, as they increasingly were hiring phone monkeys who did little more than read scripts - the frontline guys rarely solved any problems that the customer couldn't have looked up themselves, had we done the work of creating a decent knowledgebase. We also shifted to a paid-for-support model at this time.
The "quality of life" at the job went down hill - but not nearly so bad for me as for the poor frontline guys, who had every minute monitored and accounted for, and didn't even have admin access to their own machines, and had to follow a script. Turnover on the front line increased to a frenzy-pace.
Increasingly, there were structural changes to the support department that limited what I could do to solve problems. I was no longer able to travel to customer sites myself - even if the customer BEGGED for me by name. Instead, a special team of full-time travelling onsite engineers did the field work. And the onsite engineers rarely had the time to gain any technical focus on our product. So 9 times out of 10, the onsite engineer ended up on the phone with me anyway. I wasn't given the time to populate our knowledgebase, or train the frontline people so they'd be more competant. My role became more and more constricted, until my hands were so tied, my effectiveness suffered. This was very frustrating. Of course it also led to differences of opinion and personality conflicts with management.
I scoped out a new job (not paid as much), and sat on it, because the money from my seniority at that position was so nice. Until they laid me off. So I took my severance and took the other job, where I'm more in an engineering role, and much happier. But it still pisses me off that the reason things went so bad at the old job was simply arrogant stupid management decisions, based on - (and I agree totally with the parent poster on this:) "the growing trend to consider employees as completely interchangeable commodities."
In the end, the customer gets shafted, the experienced employee gets shafted, and the interchangable incompetant phone monkeys get shafted.
Don't forget that you're also going to charge a buck and a half for every $20 withdrawn by non-bank-customers. ATM machines need to be cheap, and they need to generate revenue by themselves. They're not simply a convenience intended to generate more business. They're a profit center.
"Having said that, we'll see lots of posts of an anti-MS nature in response to this story, when in actual fact, it's down to user bad practise, patch deployment"
well, maybe the "bad practice" starts with the selection of an operating system for this platform that's not really suitable.
About three years ago, my former employer had a development team in India, doing work on a product we developed in the US which was now in "Maintenance Mode".
I ended up doing support for a problem with this product, because it was an interaction with my team's product (near as we could tell from the BSOD, it was the other product that was crashing the server, not ours).
Pune is 11 and a half hours behind, time-zone-wise.
After about a week of messing around, trying to get the memory dump uploaded to their server, the angry customer demanded a concall with the developer, and the team manager. My manger gave me a "go" to set this up. But it turned out to be difficult to coordinate a time, because of the time-zone difference. So it took a couple of days to get a time we could all agree on, and by that time, the customer, a large Canadian bank, had figured out that a timely response just wasn't in the cards, and the reason was because our developer was on the other side of the planet.
They dropped BOTH products.
I was just the support guy - trying to fix things. Guess who got blamed for both the bug in the product, and the problems getting a timely response?
I'm white.
I am a descendent of slaves. (my ancestor that came over from europe paid for his boat passage by becoming an indentured servant, in a copper mine in Northern Michigan, and since the mining company owned the town, all the stores, all the rental property, and there were no other towns for 200 miles, he was effectively, and legally a slave).
I am not at all offended by the IDE master/slave terminology.
I AM offended when other descendants of slaves think they're special because of their particular cultural heritage.
But I'm mostly offended by the continued industry dominance of crappy technology (- trying to start a SCSI/IDE flamewar).