The presumption of innocence is extremely important, and it's frightening that everyone is so quick to throw that concept out of the window. Even commenters here on Slashdot are doing it.
And after the NBC edit. This is how it your comments come through:
The presumption of innocence... throw that concept out of the window.
Where did your mythical person get their $10 million? I'm guessing that they were selfmade millionaires (approx 80% of todays millionaires are) and that they are going to do a LOT better job of putting that "back into the market" and putting that money to work effectively than someone who hasn't been so "lucky"! They've already shown they know how to build wealth.
Would you rather have one guy with $10Million who can run a successful business and employ 50 people indefinitely or give each of those 50 $200k and see what happens? I'm guessing that within a couple of years you'd up with close to 50 broke people and all of them wishing they had jobs. I have my doubts you'd get another $10,000,000 man out of that 50, but let's say you hit the jackpot and did, what are you going to do then? Take the money out of their control and give it to another 50 rolling the dice again? Or may you would let him manage it and grow it since he obviously knows how? I'm curious.
The "theory of evolution" is still a "theory". The "theory of evolution" discussed here is specifically a theory of how man came to be, not whether evolution is real or not. Everyone (including the Tennessee educators) agrees that things evolve, but, right or wrong, not everyone agrees that man was evolved through the same process by chance.
That's because in university both the mathematicians and the physicists are constantly trying to make the others contributions simple child's play that is an offshoot of their own area of expertise. The university math profs were bound to make you doubt, even if unconciously, anything that you might have thought you knew about physics from before you entered their domain. Your university maths would like nothing more than to do dreadful things to your high school physics.
Most people never experience a home invasion unless they're a criminal.
Well, most women never get raped unless they're a slut in the first place. Surely you see how idiotic that line of thinking actually is. Let's just assume we're talking about non-criminals and then we can have a sane discussion. I don't know the statistics, but since I've had two homes in which I lived - two different homes actually in two different cities that were simple middle class homes in middle class neighborhoods - broken into I call bullshit on your criminal ties comment.
Second, I don't think you've put any thought into why people are shooting at close targets. That or maybe you weren't paying any attention in the training you had when you got your conceal and carry... of course I'm assuming that you are a trained gun owner as opposed to just an ordinary gun owner. Both are fine, but if you have not had permit training you might want to sit in a few classes to see why they are doing things rather than making fun of them for it. Here's the deal, for the most part these people have / want their carry weapons to protect themselves from threats. Not just any threats though. Immediate threats. If the threat is a long distance off (more than 20 feet or so), then they can run, take cover, hide, or maybe even just wait it out depending on the distance. The threat isn't an immediate threat at a distance unless they have a projectile weapon of their own. Once they are within about 20 feet the studies show that even with a knife you can be killed by the attacker within about 1 second. At that point you have no other choice other than to eliminate the threat that wants to eliminate you. When you have no other choice is the only time you should be considering the use of your firearm for self defense purposes. Those people you mock are practicing for the right event. Shooting 50 yards down the lane serves no purpose, but to waste ammo and maybe show off a little skill (nothing wrong with that). For the most part they're preparing to deal with an immediate threat, not to get a role in Lethal Weapon 8.
... most ardent gun advocates live in areas with very little threat from the 'the bad guys
To that that this makes their arguments specious actually somewhat begs the question. Are the bad guys such a small threat (do they not even come around) because they know that every one of those "crazy gun nuts" is packin' and will not hesitate to put an immediate end to anyone that intends to harm them or their neighbors? Or is there just some kind of badguy cryptonite buried underground that keeps the bad guys more away than in other places? Even criminals are generally rational in a purely basic psychological since and therefore very interested in self preservation...
Unless you're an "industry standard" (Adobe's shit, MS Office, 3DS Max), you can't charge out the ass.
If it takes you 3 - 7 years to build something for a niche market of a couple hundred customers, and you try to sell it for $10,000 a pop, you're going to go bankrupt fast.
It's ongoing licensing and support contracts that make money in those small markets.
Not even close to true. I've experienced more than one situation where a company has been looking to buy software to help them with the core of what they did. They'd already developed a system that did most of the same things in house, but some of those hard to reach items were worth the money. Not only the money to buy the software, but worth the money it was going to cost to switch from their own software products to a purchased product from a third party.
I've seen the same "basic" software being sold for between $200k and $500k. The $200k was without support. The $500k was with support and source code to play with as you please (but not release to anyone else). There are a limited number of customers in this niche (probably in the low 100s), and so the developers have to charge a lot to make it worth it.
To propose that you can't sell software that does something someone NEEDS (or thinks they need) for $10k just makes me wonder if you've ever actually been a part of that type of decision making process.
The monetary value in a domain name is the traffic it will bring. If the traffic is going through to the new site maintainer either way then they don't really care if they own the domain name or not... not from a "value" perspective.
As long as they can still monetize it (or whatever they're trying to do) they should only care that it not be pulled out from under them once they build up even more traffic - which is a very legit fear. If they are building up the traffic in hopes of selling it to yet another individual down the road then they will also have legit concerns in not "owning it" outright.
However, there's still nothing preventing the OP from just selling the "www" rights to the domain and both parties being covered until such time that it's worth it to the guy to buy the whole thing.
I downloaded an app the other day on my iPad called "Color Uncovered" for exploratorium.edu (I thought it would be cool to go over with my kids - and it was). One of the items in the app was a mention that, like a honeybee, impressionist painter Claude Monet could see ultraviolet light following cataract surgery.
The below quotes are from the app (I just happened to have my iPad handy as I read this and remembered basically where it was).
"Actually your eyes are partially equipped to see ultraviolet light. The color-sensitive cone cells in your retina can detect it just fine. But the lenses of your eyes filter out the ultraviolet light before it can reach your retina, so you never get a chance to see it."
"Late in his career, Monet developed a cataract that dulled his vision. In 1923 he underwent cataract surgery to remove the clouded lens. Without a lens in the way Monet was suddenly able to see ultravioet, which looks whitish blue to humans. The change is apparent in his painting as he began to pain his water lilies - which look white to the rest of us - a pale blue."
You said it exactly right, but you assumed that the computer was under his control or that you could prove that even when it was not under his control it was still executing the commands that he specified.
In your really good car analogy all the judge knows is that my car was speeding. They don't know that I had anything to do with it. It could have been stolen, loaned, etc. Now it could be a different story if my face was photographed or I was pulled over and physically verified as present and in control on all these instances.
However, with a computer you're tracking the data the computer accessed - not the controller. You can't know who is sitting behind it (if anyone). And if I say "sometimes it just does crazy stuff", and you take it out of the box, and low and behold it does crazy stuff, then I'm thinking you need to either prove that I made it do the crazy stuff or send me on my way back to my house with instruction not to let it back on the net until it quits acting crazy. If you tried to go down the "you own it so it's your problem" direction then I could point out the I don't have exclusive access (even if the other access is a virus / whatever) to said machine and you'd have to prove otherwise.
I'm not sure how what I've said somehow says people and corporations should not "learn by example". If B eats the berry and dies then they'd be an idiot too. But B might consider that the berries had nothing to do with it. Maybe those berries were tainted. Maybe the person was allergic. There's more than one reason a berry can kill. If you know it's poisonous that's one thing, and you'd be an idiot to eat it. If you see someone die after eating one then you'd be stupid to just shove one in your mouth without considering the possibilities. But if you just assume correlation = causation then you'll be making a lot of false connections in your head. Of course, I'm also not sure what Apple donating to AIDS research has to do with gay marriage. I don't equate AIDS with homosexuality - even if you do. Something to do with that whole correlation / causation thing again.
GoDaddy was "ahead of the curve" to those in favor of SOPA. But we mostly all agree that the wrong curve was being utilized as the measuring stick. And their support of it and the immediate price that they paid (it was a VERY easy and immediate boycott to hold and to quantify) actually drew enough attention to SOPA to cause it to be killed in the end.
I'm typing this on a Mac right now not because I believe in their political stances, but because they make good products that satisfy my needs at a price I'm willing to pay. I used to hate Apple because they were so overpriced and low value, but then Jobs turned them into a company who focused on making a few good things rather than a ton of crappy ones. Am I going to quit using them with no decent alternative because of their differing political stance on topics I might be interested in? Unlikely. They'd have to push a lot of buttons as they also do somethings right. But when a viable option comes along I will glady migrate to a provider who's politics are more in line with my own (or maybe who just has the good sense to keep their politics to themselves). And I'll let the old provider know exactly why they no longer have my business.
I wouldn't argue with anything you said there except that you make the common cognitive error of believing that just because person 'A' thinks a certain way in all cases (making it a truly cognitive error) that a person 'B' who thinks that way in a single case must also be making the same cognitive error. Taking certain items into consideration when evaluating something is just that. Consideration... not error.
Microsoft is only "ahead of the curve" because of who is defining the right / wrong answers on which MS is being graded. In this case progay people are sure about the "right" answers. But just because that person was defining the right / wrong answers doesn't mean that they were right when they defined them. The rightness of the answers to the questions we're talking about here are opinions, that is, until they become fact. And hindsight is probably the only way to judge some of the correctness. Of course, you could allow principles to guide you... a quaint concept, I know, but then you might miss an opportunity to be "ahead of the curve".
Keep in mind that just recently with SOPA there were plenty of corporations and politicians who felt that it would be a great idea to support this legislation. After all, it must be good to keep American IP valuable. But what we found was that they didn't "believe" that at all. They weren't ahead of any curve. They believed they could get away with it and that it would help them in certain ways. Soon though they found out that they were the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ask Godaddy. When it came down to it and push came to shove they decided to believe the exact opposite and not only pulled their support but they supported the opposing side instead. It would have been better for SOPA itself if Godaddy would have simply stayed out of it altogether. The big christmas boycott caused the news to be all about the pressure Godaddy was under and them having to defend their position and finally eventually changing stances altogether. GoDaddy was ahead of the curve for all of those in favor of SOPA as noone else in their business was of the same mind. But Godaddy was not the teammate you wanted when it came down to it if you were on the side of the ones who called them "ahead of the curve" at the beginning. GoDaddy might be partially to blame for killing SOPA all because they were forced to abandon it. And Microsoft might find that by getting involved they raise awareness and rile both the vocal minority and vocal majority to a point that the vocal minority wishes they had just stayed out of it in the first place and Microsoft wishes they'd stayed out of it as they lose support going forward. Stranger things have happened and happen more often when you have no moral compass.
Interestingly, when they agree with your point of view they are ahead of the curve, but most of the time they are lagging and have absolutely no moral compass to speak of... I wonder if the fact that they are "ahead of the curve" in pushing for this might actually be a clue that the idea is NOT in our best interest rather than something to be happy about.
That is unless you are trying to ensure that the police have no way of knowing you are armed either, and while I understand that could cause licensed carriers to possibly be unduly harassed if the cops decided that every weapon carrier was a criminal, it doesn't discriminate against legal gun owners...
followed by
I don't see many good reasons to conceal a licensed sidearm from an officer of the law in pursuit of their duties.
You assume the second point when making the first... when in reality you should assume the opposite of the second point (that's what our founding fathers did) in order to get in the right mindset.
The reason that concealed carry exists is not to hide the fact that you are armed, because honestly, it works better as a deterrent if you don't carry concealed. The actual reason to carry concealed is that you want to be able to carry it in public without alarming the general population, and sometimes the law requires you to conceal it for that purpose.
You are partially correct here. Concealed carry helps to prevent your carrying from worrying the sheep (and I mean "sheep" nicely, think of someone carrying as a sheepdog), but concealed carry does more than just that. With concealed carry the wolves have one more variable to worry about... namely "Is this guy I'm thinking about attacking carrying?" or "is this 110 lb woman gonna end my life if I put her in a situation that is obviously her or me"? If everyone carried openly then the wolf could just catch someone who obviously wasn't carrying away from the herd and be evil. But that's not true with concealed because any one of those sheep might actually be a sheepdog ready and able to deal with the big, bad wolf.
So custom-built commodities are scarce, while mass-produced ones are non-scarce? Amazing, why didn't I see it before?
My sarcasm detector is going off. I'll just assume you chose to miss the point again... I'm pretty sure I've been as clear as I'm willing to take the time to be right now, but sometimes it's best to just say "okay". So, thanks for the discussion opportunity. I atleast got the chance to put my own thoughts on the matter down so it was not a total waste. Good luck.
How many layers do you have there? Geez I worked for a company that got bought by US Bank. Even after the reorg I didn't have a boss's boss's bosse's boss (including the CEO of USBank). And your current employer org chart shows that you have an extra one on top of that plus presumably a CEO over all of those?! Freaking amazing structure there.
You seem to think of these people as skilled labor. I'm guessing it is only because "smart people do it" or because "only those willing to take the time to learn it do it". IT is probably more skilled labor than some other sorts, but as you pointed out it's not all THAT skilled.
Most valuable will be those that understand the industry and the company that they are supporting. It's not being able to build to a spec (that's important too), but it's being able to UNDERSTAND why. To be able articulate other options rather than just "do the job" or argue and sound like some snooty dev that knows everything. Those who truly know what is going on within the company they work for are scarce and they're going to succeed. They aren't going to need a union to help them earn their magic number. And unionizing them would be weird because their actual value to most other employers in need of IT workers would be much less that with their current one. I suppose you could get real specific, but then you're missing out the numbers game that helps make unions work.
Perhaps there is a need for a union for non-scarce IT workers - ones that just want to go whack on the keyboard and call it day when 5:00pm rolls around no matter what else is happening. There is certainly no shortage of them and they can therefore be abused as someone else will happily fill their role if they make a stink. But those that choose to be scarce on their own don't need a union to make them so.
We're not talking "everyone is different just like the snowflakes so everyone is scarce and yet no one is because there are lots of snowflakes". We have an actual frame of reference for this conversation and it is based on the value of IT people in the business world.
All you have said as far as I can tell is that no one is special. And that's true... and not. Some people have a skill set and an existing knowledge base WAY more valuable than others. But only in certain circumstances. Take that person and put them somewhere else and they'll be f-ing useless for quite a while. They won't have the background knowledge they'll need to do the work that needs to be done for the person that needs it done. Please think about that for a minute and I just truly can't imagine you not seeing it.
Sometimes people need work done RIGHT NOW. Like... you know... they are competing against another startup and first one there wins. Or they are about to lose a major customer and they need someone to build what they need right now. You can't walk in the door and do that job just because you have an IT degree. It's just not happening. I can't walk in the door and do certain work. I would have neither the experience in the particular technologies nor the background to understand wtf they want me to do. People that have those... they're scarce. Many many programmers know code and could give a shit about the business they support. For that reason, they're not scarce to their employer. Or to any other employer.
Oy mate, I'm the only one who knows the language I'm creating. No shit. I don't expect others to know it, or consider it a job skill. Lay off that one.
For someone who claims that noone is special you're pretty damn vain. I wasn't even making a reference to your project. I was actually referencing my own graduate work in AI involving PROLOG and a custom language we created to assist in non-routine problem solving within software agents. You know how much anyone cares about that work right now (other than me and the others on the team)? It makes for interesting conversation sometimes, but that is about it. I still mess with it occasionally and I suppose in a certain world my involvment with it would make me more scarce in a way that adds value to someone's team. But in and of itself it's worth nothing NOW. In any case you're getting all upset as if I said your dog was ugly or something... and even if I did I don't know your dog... so why would you get pissed about that? If it makes you feel warm and fuzzy I can tell you your project looks interesting, but it has nothing to do with the context of the discussion.
Anybody that tells me that I should research them is almost guaranteed not worth researching, and probably not that scarce. However, just in case I was wrong I went ahead and checked you out. My goodness I'm getting old, and I'm not that old....
You know, when I got my BS degree in CS I knew I was scarce. I had done some pretty cool stuff and had been doing it longer than anyone I knew. Then I got a job and with it I got a clue (well it took a while actually) . After a while I found I wasn't actually that scarce - or not in ways that mattered. I went back to school while still working this same job and got my masters in CS. I did more cool stuff in grad school and was making serious enhancements (we were making things happened that weren't even hoped for when we got started) on the systems I was building at my j-o-b and I just knew once again that I was one scarce dude. The funny thing is I didn't know why I was scarce until I got an offer for my next job.
Part of what makes me scarce has nothing to do with what I know about computers per se. It's what I know about the industry in which I work. It's having built a system from the ground up multiple times and for more than one company. You better believe I'm the right guy to build this type of system. There may only be 10 guys in the US that know what I know about the types of systems I've built. It's about knowing the history of that industry and all the little gotchas that come along with it. It's knowing exactly what the type of people that want to hire me need and it's having the ability to come in and do it. It's not that I have a degree. It's not that I've been programming at some level for 20 years. It's not the programming languages I've learned. It's that I'm the right guy for the right job. Not for every job, but for the right job.
A lot of people know more about programming in the newest languages than me, but very few can say they can do what I do and could provide results right away. They would take several months to even understand (not KNOW deeply; just understand) the industry... forget about the programming. They would take longer than that to figure out what they need to know in order to understand WHAT they should be programming.
Until someone has been doing the work for some time they probably don't have a clue about what they do or don't know yet. They don't know if they are scarce or not. One doesn't simply become scarce when they learn to program, they become scarce because of the jobs they can do - the tasks they can get done. Some might be born scarce, but unlikely.Most will become scarce because of what they pick up along they way. And you can be both scarce and useless (for example, being the only one that knows some language nobody needs). The sooner you realize that the better it will be for you.
In the context of the rest of the post he has obviously limited his discussion to those that he has dealt with. Specifically, as he has now clarified even further, the "blow hards". If you're talking about the people you know and you have qualified it then it isn't a generalization beyond that group. He didn't say everyone is either ron paul or carl marx and that the ron pauls are better programmers. He said that those that he has come across and that he would classify as ron paul types are generally competent about their jobs. He MIGHT have insinuated (by leaving out the same statement about the marx group) that they were not as competent. He did not insinuate that all developers who are not of a ron paul type mindset suck at programming. I mean, this is pretty simple discreet math (logic / set theory) and if you're "reading into it" or adding "facts" then you're going way beyond what is needed to understand his comment within the context it was made.
Out of context is, well, out of context. Not much to discuss there since someone who is taking things out of context wouldn't be worth have a discussion with. Those type of people just hear what they want and ignore everything else that was said.
No, he said that the people he has dealt with have come across either one way or the other. Not that those are the only two options.
And, as unwilling as I am to join a union, I would probably do so if the only other option available was to have my testicles eaten off of me by fire ants.
I didn't see a single generalization there. He specifically stated that he was talking about the ones that he runs across in IT. I would say he's got every right to say how he sees that group without that same commentary being attached to everyone in IT. Did I miss something?
Slashdot Mirror
The presumption of innocence is extremely important, and it's frightening that everyone is so quick to throw that concept out of the window. Even commenters here on Slashdot are doing it.
And after the NBC edit. This is how it your comments come through:
The presumption of innocence... throw that concept out of the window.
Moreover, any funding for regulations could be (and often are) paid for with fees instead of taxes.
Fees and "penalties". [wink][wink] Penalties are NOT taxes, am I right!? I see what you're trying to do here. You sly dog. [bleh]
Where did your mythical person get their $10 million? I'm guessing that they were selfmade millionaires (approx 80% of todays millionaires are) and that they are going to do a LOT better job of putting that "back into the market" and putting that money to work effectively than someone who hasn't been so "lucky"! They've already shown they know how to build wealth.
Would you rather have one guy with $10Million who can run a successful business and employ 50 people indefinitely or give each of those 50 $200k and see what happens? I'm guessing that within a couple of years you'd up with close to 50 broke people and all of them wishing they had jobs. I have my doubts you'd get another $10,000,000 man out of that 50, but let's say you hit the jackpot and did, what are you going to do then? Take the money out of their control and give it to another 50 rolling the dice again? Or may you would let him manage it and grow it since he obviously knows how? I'm curious.
The only hope I have is that if I repeat the truth often enough, it will sink in.
I'm pretty certain that what you meant was "the only hope I have is that if I repeat what I want you to believe often enough, it will sink in."
It's not quite the same thing, ya know. Then again... it's quite possible that may never have occurred to you....
The "theory of evolution" is still a "theory". The "theory of evolution" discussed here is specifically a theory of how man came to be, not whether evolution is real or not. Everyone (including the Tennessee educators) agrees that things evolve, but, right or wrong, not everyone agrees that man was evolved through the same process by chance.
That's because in university both the mathematicians and the physicists are constantly trying to make the others contributions simple child's play that is an offshoot of their own area of expertise. The university math profs were bound to make you doubt, even if unconciously, anything that you might have thought you knew about physics from before you entered their domain. Your university maths would like nothing more than to do dreadful things to your high school physics.
Most people never experience a home invasion unless they're a criminal.
Well, most women never get raped unless they're a slut in the first place. Surely you see how idiotic that line of thinking actually is. Let's just assume we're talking about non-criminals and then we can have a sane discussion. I don't know the statistics, but since I've had two homes in which I lived - two different homes actually in two different cities that were simple middle class homes in middle class neighborhoods - broken into I call bullshit on your criminal ties comment.
Second, I don't think you've put any thought into why people are shooting at close targets. That or maybe you weren't paying any attention in the training you had when you got your conceal and carry... of course I'm assuming that you are a trained gun owner as opposed to just an ordinary gun owner. Both are fine, but if you have not had permit training you might want to sit in a few classes to see why they are doing things rather than making fun of them for it. Here's the deal, for the most part these people have / want their carry weapons to protect themselves from threats. Not just any threats though. Immediate threats. If the threat is a long distance off (more than 20 feet or so), then they can run, take cover, hide, or maybe even just wait it out depending on the distance. The threat isn't an immediate threat at a distance unless they have a projectile weapon of their own. Once they are within about 20 feet the studies show that even with a knife you can be killed by the attacker within about 1 second. At that point you have no other choice other than to eliminate the threat that wants to eliminate you. When you have no other choice is the only time you should be considering the use of your firearm for self defense purposes. Those people you mock are practicing for the right event. Shooting 50 yards down the lane serves no purpose, but to waste ammo and maybe show off a little skill (nothing wrong with that). For the most part they're preparing to deal with an immediate threat, not to get a role in Lethal Weapon 8.
... most ardent gun advocates live in areas with very little threat from the 'the bad guys
To that that this makes their arguments specious actually somewhat begs the question. Are the bad guys such a small threat (do they not even come around) because they know that every one of those "crazy gun nuts" is packin' and will not hesitate to put an immediate end to anyone that intends to harm them or their neighbors? Or is there just some kind of badguy cryptonite buried underground that keeps the bad guys more away than in other places? Even criminals are generally rational in a purely basic psychological since and therefore very interested in self preservation...
That's a dark elf mohawk! Pity the fool!
Pretty sure you had it right the first time. Higher seed = lower number of seed.
Unless you're an "industry standard" (Adobe's shit, MS Office, 3DS Max), you can't charge out the ass. If it takes you 3 - 7 years to build something for a niche market of a couple hundred customers, and you try to sell it for $10,000 a pop, you're going to go bankrupt fast.
It's ongoing licensing and support contracts that make money in those small markets.
Not even close to true. I've experienced more than one situation where a company has been looking to buy software to help them with the core of what they did. They'd already developed a system that did most of the same things in house, but some of those hard to reach items were worth the money. Not only the money to buy the software, but worth the money it was going to cost to switch from their own software products to a purchased product from a third party.
I've seen the same "basic" software being sold for between $200k and $500k. The $200k was without support. The $500k was with support and source code to play with as you please (but not release to anyone else). There are a limited number of customers in this niche (probably in the low 100s), and so the developers have to charge a lot to make it worth it.
To propose that you can't sell software that does something someone NEEDS (or thinks they need) for $10k just makes me wonder if you've ever actually been a part of that type of decision making process.
The monetary value in a domain name is the traffic it will bring. If the traffic is going through to the new site maintainer either way then they don't really care if they own the domain name or not... not from a "value" perspective.
As long as they can still monetize it (or whatever they're trying to do) they should only care that it not be pulled out from under them once they build up even more traffic - which is a very legit fear. If they are building up the traffic in hopes of selling it to yet another individual down the road then they will also have legit concerns in not "owning it" outright.
However, there's still nothing preventing the OP from just selling the "www" rights to the domain and both parties being covered until such time that it's worth it to the guy to buy the whole thing.
I downloaded an app the other day on my iPad called "Color Uncovered" for exploratorium.edu (I thought it would be cool to go over with my kids - and it was). One of the items in the app was a mention that, like a honeybee, impressionist painter Claude Monet could see ultraviolet light following cataract surgery.
The below quotes are from the app (I just happened to have my iPad handy as I read this and remembered basically where it was).
"Actually your eyes are partially equipped to see ultraviolet light. The color-sensitive cone cells in your retina can detect it just fine. But the lenses of your eyes filter out the ultraviolet light before it can reach your retina, so you never get a chance to see it."
"Late in his career, Monet developed a cataract that dulled his vision. In 1923 he underwent cataract surgery to remove the clouded lens. Without a lens in the way Monet was suddenly able to see ultravioet, which looks whitish blue to humans. The change is apparent in his painting as he began to pain his water lilies - which look white to the rest of us - a pale blue."
First, IANAL (and it will be obvious probably).
You said it exactly right, but you assumed that the computer was under his control or that you could prove that even when it was not under his control it was still executing the commands that he specified.
In your really good car analogy all the judge knows is that my car was speeding. They don't know that I had anything to do with it. It could have been stolen, loaned, etc. Now it could be a different story if my face was photographed or I was pulled over and physically verified as present and in control on all these instances.
However, with a computer you're tracking the data the computer accessed - not the controller. You can't know who is sitting behind it (if anyone). And if I say "sometimes it just does crazy stuff", and you take it out of the box, and low and behold it does crazy stuff, then I'm thinking you need to either prove that I made it do the crazy stuff or send me on my way back to my house with instruction not to let it back on the net until it quits acting crazy. If you tried to go down the "you own it so it's your problem" direction then I could point out the I don't have exclusive access (even if the other access is a virus / whatever) to said machine and you'd have to prove otherwise.
I'm not sure how what I've said somehow says people and corporations should not "learn by example". If B eats the berry and dies then they'd be an idiot too. But B might consider that the berries had nothing to do with it. Maybe those berries were tainted. Maybe the person was allergic. There's more than one reason a berry can kill. If you know it's poisonous that's one thing, and you'd be an idiot to eat it. If you see someone die after eating one then you'd be stupid to just shove one in your mouth without considering the possibilities. But if you just assume correlation = causation then you'll be making a lot of false connections in your head. Of course, I'm also not sure what Apple donating to AIDS research has to do with gay marriage. I don't equate AIDS with homosexuality - even if you do. Something to do with that whole correlation / causation thing again.
GoDaddy was "ahead of the curve" to those in favor of SOPA. But we mostly all agree that the wrong curve was being utilized as the measuring stick. And their support of it and the immediate price that they paid (it was a VERY easy and immediate boycott to hold and to quantify) actually drew enough attention to SOPA to cause it to be killed in the end.
I'm typing this on a Mac right now not because I believe in their political stances, but because they make good products that satisfy my needs at a price I'm willing to pay. I used to hate Apple because they were so overpriced and low value, but then Jobs turned them into a company who focused on making a few good things rather than a ton of crappy ones. Am I going to quit using them with no decent alternative because of their differing political stance on topics I might be interested in? Unlikely. They'd have to push a lot of buttons as they also do somethings right. But when a viable option comes along I will glady migrate to a provider who's politics are more in line with my own (or maybe who just has the good sense to keep their politics to themselves). And I'll let the old provider know exactly why they no longer have my business.
I wouldn't argue with anything you said there except that you make the common cognitive error of believing that just because person 'A' thinks a certain way in all cases (making it a truly cognitive error) that a person 'B' who thinks that way in a single case must also be making the same cognitive error. Taking certain items into consideration when evaluating something is just that. Consideration... not error.
Microsoft is only "ahead of the curve" because of who is defining the right / wrong answers on which MS is being graded. In this case progay people are sure about the "right" answers. But just because that person was defining the right / wrong answers doesn't mean that they were right when they defined them. The rightness of the answers to the questions we're talking about here are opinions, that is, until they become fact. And hindsight is probably the only way to judge some of the correctness. Of course, you could allow principles to guide you... a quaint concept, I know, but then you might miss an opportunity to be "ahead of the curve".
Keep in mind that just recently with SOPA there were plenty of corporations and politicians who felt that it would be a great idea to support this legislation. After all, it must be good to keep American IP valuable. But what we found was that they didn't "believe" that at all. They weren't ahead of any curve. They believed they could get away with it and that it would help them in certain ways. Soon though they found out that they were the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ask Godaddy. When it came down to it and push came to shove they decided to believe the exact opposite and not only pulled their support but they supported the opposing side instead. It would have been better for SOPA itself if Godaddy would have simply stayed out of it altogether. The big christmas boycott caused the news to be all about the pressure Godaddy was under and them having to defend their position and finally eventually changing stances altogether. GoDaddy was ahead of the curve for all of those in favor of SOPA as noone else in their business was of the same mind. But Godaddy was not the teammate you wanted when it came down to it if you were on the side of the ones who called them "ahead of the curve" at the beginning. GoDaddy might be partially to blame for killing SOPA all because they were forced to abandon it. And Microsoft might find that by getting involved they raise awareness and rile both the vocal minority and vocal majority to a point that the vocal minority wishes they had just stayed out of it in the first place and Microsoft wishes they'd stayed out of it as they lose support going forward. Stranger things have happened and happen more often when you have no moral compass.
Interestingly, when they agree with your point of view they are ahead of the curve, but most of the time they are lagging and have absolutely no moral compass to speak of... I wonder if the fact that they are "ahead of the curve" in pushing for this might actually be a clue that the idea is NOT in our best interest rather than something to be happy about.
That is unless you are trying to ensure that the police have no way of knowing you are armed either, and while I understand that could cause licensed carriers to possibly be unduly harassed if the cops decided that every weapon carrier was a criminal, it doesn't discriminate against legal gun owners...
followed by
I don't see many good reasons to conceal a licensed sidearm from an officer of the law in pursuit of their duties.
You assume the second point when making the first... when in reality you should assume the opposite of the second point (that's what our founding fathers did) in order to get in the right mindset.
The reason that concealed carry exists is not to hide the fact that you are armed, because honestly, it works better as a deterrent if you don't carry concealed. The actual reason to carry concealed is that you want to be able to carry it in public without alarming the general population, and sometimes the law requires you to conceal it for that purpose.
You are partially correct here. Concealed carry helps to prevent your carrying from worrying the sheep (and I mean "sheep" nicely, think of someone carrying as a sheepdog), but concealed carry does more than just that. With concealed carry the wolves have one more variable to worry about... namely "Is this guy I'm thinking about attacking carrying?" or "is this 110 lb woman gonna end my life if I put her in a situation that is obviously her or me"? If everyone carried openly then the wolf could just catch someone who obviously wasn't carrying away from the herd and be evil. But that's not true with concealed because any one of those sheep might actually be a sheepdog ready and able to deal with the big, bad wolf.
So custom-built commodities are scarce, while mass-produced ones are non-scarce? Amazing, why didn't I see it before?
My sarcasm detector is going off. I'll just assume you chose to miss the point again... I'm pretty sure I've been as clear as I'm willing to take the time to be right now, but sometimes it's best to just say "okay". So, thanks for the discussion opportunity. I atleast got the chance to put my own thoughts on the matter down so it was not a total waste. Good luck.
How many layers do you have there? Geez I worked for a company that got bought by US Bank. Even after the reorg I didn't have a boss's boss's bosse's boss (including the CEO of USBank). And your current employer org chart shows that you have an extra one on top of that plus presumably a CEO over all of those?! Freaking amazing structure there.
You seem to think of these people as skilled labor. I'm guessing it is only because "smart people do it" or because "only those willing to take the time to learn it do it". IT is probably more skilled labor than some other sorts, but as you pointed out it's not all THAT skilled.
Most valuable will be those that understand the industry and the company that they are supporting. It's not being able to build to a spec (that's important too), but it's being able to UNDERSTAND why. To be able articulate other options rather than just "do the job" or argue and sound like some snooty dev that knows everything. Those who truly know what is going on within the company they work for are scarce and they're going to succeed. They aren't going to need a union to help them earn their magic number. And unionizing them would be weird because their actual value to most other employers in need of IT workers would be much less that with their current one. I suppose you could get real specific, but then you're missing out the numbers game that helps make unions work.
Perhaps there is a need for a union for non-scarce IT workers - ones that just want to go whack on the keyboard and call it day when 5:00pm rolls around no matter what else is happening. There is certainly no shortage of them and they can therefore be abused as someone else will happily fill their role if they make a stink. But those that choose to be scarce on their own don't need a union to make them so.
All you have said as far as I can tell is that no one is special. And that's true... and not. Some people have a skill set and an existing knowledge base WAY more valuable than others. But only in certain circumstances. Take that person and put them somewhere else and they'll be f-ing useless for quite a while. They won't have the background knowledge they'll need to do the work that needs to be done for the person that needs it done. Please think about that for a minute and I just truly can't imagine you not seeing it.
Sometimes people need work done RIGHT NOW. Like... you know... they are competing against another startup and first one there wins. Or they are about to lose a major customer and they need someone to build what they need right now. You can't walk in the door and do that job just because you have an IT degree. It's just not happening. I can't walk in the door and do certain work. I would have neither the experience in the particular technologies nor the background to understand wtf they want me to do. People that have those... they're scarce. Many many programmers know code and could give a shit about the business they support. For that reason, they're not scarce to their employer. Or to any other employer.
Oy mate, I'm the only one who knows the language I'm creating. No shit. I don't expect others to know it, or consider it a job skill. Lay off that one.
For someone who claims that noone is special you're pretty damn vain. I wasn't even making a reference to your project. I was actually referencing my own graduate work in AI involving PROLOG and a custom language we created to assist in non-routine problem solving within software agents. You know how much anyone cares about that work right now (other than me and the others on the team)? It makes for interesting conversation sometimes, but that is about it. I still mess with it occasionally and I suppose in a certain world my involvment with it would make me more scarce in a way that adds value to someone's team. But in and of itself it's worth nothing NOW. In any case you're getting all upset as if I said your dog was ugly or something... and even if I did I don't know your dog... so why would you get pissed about that? If it makes you feel warm and fuzzy I can tell you your project looks interesting, but it has nothing to do with the context of the discussion.
Anybody that tells me that I should research them is almost guaranteed not worth researching, and probably not that scarce. However, just in case I was wrong I went ahead and checked you out. My goodness I'm getting old, and I'm not that old....
You know, when I got my BS degree in CS I knew I was scarce. I had done some pretty cool stuff and had been doing it longer than anyone I knew. Then I got a job and with it I got a clue (well it took a while actually) . After a while I found I wasn't actually that scarce - or not in ways that mattered. I went back to school while still working this same job and got my masters in CS. I did more cool stuff in grad school and was making serious enhancements (we were making things happened that weren't even hoped for when we got started) on the systems I was building at my j-o-b and I just knew once again that I was one scarce dude. The funny thing is I didn't know why I was scarce until I got an offer for my next job.
Part of what makes me scarce has nothing to do with what I know about computers per se. It's what I know about the industry in which I work. It's having built a system from the ground up multiple times and for more than one company. You better believe I'm the right guy to build this type of system. There may only be 10 guys in the US that know what I know about the types of systems I've built. It's about knowing the history of that industry and all the little gotchas that come along with it. It's knowing exactly what the type of people that want to hire me need and it's having the ability to come in and do it. It's not that I have a degree. It's not that I've been programming at some level for 20 years. It's not the programming languages I've learned. It's that I'm the right guy for the right job. Not for every job, but for the right job. A lot of people know more about programming in the newest languages than me, but very few can say they can do what I do and could provide results right away. They would take several months to even understand (not KNOW deeply; just understand) the industry... forget about the programming. They would take longer than that to figure out what they need to know in order to understand WHAT they should be programming.
Until someone has been doing the work for some time they probably don't have a clue about what they do or don't know yet. They don't know if they are scarce or not. One doesn't simply become scarce when they learn to program, they become scarce because of the jobs they can do - the tasks they can get done. Some might be born scarce, but unlikely.Most will become scarce because of what they pick up along they way. And you can be both scarce and useless (for example, being the only one that knows some language nobody needs). The sooner you realize that the better it will be for you.
Now get tf off my lawn!
In the context of the rest of the post he has obviously limited his discussion to those that he has dealt with. Specifically, as he has now clarified even further, the "blow hards". If you're talking about the people you know and you have qualified it then it isn't a generalization beyond that group. He didn't say everyone is either ron paul or carl marx and that the ron pauls are better programmers. He said that those that he has come across and that he would classify as ron paul types are generally competent about their jobs. He MIGHT have insinuated (by leaving out the same statement about the marx group) that they were not as competent. He did not insinuate that all developers who are not of a ron paul type mindset suck at programming. I mean, this is pretty simple discreet math (logic / set theory) and if you're "reading into it" or adding "facts" then you're going way beyond what is needed to understand his comment within the context it was made.
Out of context is, well, out of context. Not much to discuss there since someone who is taking things out of context wouldn't be worth have a discussion with. Those type of people just hear what they want and ignore everything else that was said.
No, he said that the people he has dealt with have come across either one way or the other. Not that those are the only two options.
And, as unwilling as I am to join a union, I would probably do so if the only other option available was to have my testicles eaten off of me by fire ants.
I didn't see a single generalization there. He specifically stated that he was talking about the ones that he runs across in IT. I would say he's got every right to say how he sees that group without that same commentary being attached to everyone in IT. Did I miss something?