They installed air bags on cars because a few people were too stupid to use seat belts, and then people in seat belts started to die when child seats were put in the front because parents didn't read the instructions, a person was sitting too close or leaning forward to change the radio when a crash happened.
Unintended consequences happen far to often. My S&W.38 revolver is the model of simplicity. It has no safety, because there are only two ways for it to fire... pulling the trigger or dropping it just right. But some moron in California decided that wasn't enough, and legislated locks. Which people either didn't use or caused an increase in time a gun was ready for use unless you kept the key with the gun, which is kinda stupid. So California went one step further and required even more laws, which also did little good.
There are numerous people who will not purchase any gun with a built in lock, and who also disable the safeties. The magazine safeties are often the easiest to disable and there are several articles on the internet on how to do it.
So instead of being an arrogant ass.. why don't you show me design the perfect safety system for a gun that allows me and my wife to grab a gun from our nightstand and shoot it, and allows it to be carried locked and loaded. Because millions of people do that today, and there are numerous stories to show how millions of people handle such guns safely every day.
So you would rather see stories of people getting killed by intruders because they can't fire their guns due to some malfunction or other 'safety' feature, than stories of a 3 year old shooting his stupid mother who left a loaded gun around where small child could get to it.
Sure.. I see the logic in that. Let's make guns more expensive for the vast majority who use them and store them properly because a few idiots never paid attention to the barrage of ads and media telling them to lock their guns up.
You sir.. are ignorant about guns and your opinions don't amount to diddly shit. Oh wait.. you are also AC so now I KNOW you are a moron who knows little bout what he is talking about and just likes to post opinions.
I've run two characters are far as Inferno with no farming, and gotten three more through Normal. (I have one of each type.) I have never been to the Auction house, and get through the game on things I buy, build, or find. Didn't even get to level 60 on the two characters until into Act 4 at Hell level. It takes me this long is I'm married and have a life, and can't spend 24 hours a day playing it. Plus I'm a bit of a dungeon crawler, seeking out every last monster to slay and every cave and cellar to explore. I do share items between my own players though.
People that need to farm or buy things at the auction house in order to advance in the game just aren't very good the game itself.. that's all. That's why they have to 'game' it.
Really?? I haven't had the flu or a cold for.. I don't know when the last time was. Probably over 10 years now. I'm 54 and don't do any of that crap. However, I do ride a motorcycle and am outside all year round in the fresh air. Never had a flu shot, never worry about door knobs or touching my face. Couple of weeks ago I dropped my cigar onto a concrete patio in a public park, reached down, picked it up, blew the dirt off, and put it back in my mouth.
The last time I had the flu that I can remember was over 20 years ago. I remember it because I crashed my motorcycle in Sept. and it was the first year I didn't ride my bike in the winter. At the time.. I lived in Maine. And yes, I rode my motorcycle all year round, even in winter as long as the roads were clear and the temps were above 15F. Can't count how many times I got home from work, soaked to the skin because it rained and I didn't have a rain suit (and still don't). I also was outside a lot shoveling snow. I now live in Phoenix, and still ride my motorcycle all year, except not in the summer when it's above 105. Instead of shoveling snow, I do yard work and golf.
Maybe it's your over-zealous attitude towards cleanliness that's the problem. Maybe your body just doesn't know how to fight disease anymore. Maybe if fewer people weren't such germphobes things like the flu wouldn't be as bad.
We are moving to a new building. Our ops manager was all gaga over his new IP phone system, and it was so cheap at only so much a month per phone. That made me think.. I don't really use the phone. At least not as much as he is going to be charged for it. I'm a developer, I hardly every get business calls from outside the company. Most of the tech support is done over the Internet. So I suggested that with phones in the conference rooms, I don't need a phone at my desk anymore.
He was a bit reluctant, and I don't know if it will happen. But really.. why should the company spend money on a phone I'll use maybe once a month. He was concerned about the company forcing employees to use their cell phones, but I suggested that since it's my choice, no one is forcing me to do anything. And with thousands of hours of roll-over minutes, I doubt if I'll use them up anytime soon.
I think it was more like if there weren't as many phones needed, maybe his job wouldn't be as important either....
Really?? So it's OK for the unions to have a contract, but not the CEO??? The unions have their negotiating team, and so does the CEO. Both negotiate to get the best deal they can, based on (perceived) market conditions for their skills. I'm sure if you walked up to your next employer, said you wanted a million bucks a year in salary, and they agreed... you'd take it too! But you can't because there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people out there with similar skill sets that will do it for less.
Chastising the CEO for having a contract that is overpriced while support a union contract that is overpriced is a bit hypocritical.
And before anyone makes a comment about my ego.. I readily admit I'm not an expert in any of these things and there are many people that are much better than I am.
I am 53, been in computers since I was 18 years old, cutting my teeth on a TRS-80 at home and HP mini's at the college I dropped out after one semester. I've had jobs writing assembler, COBOL, C++, FORTRAN, perl, Java and who knows how many proprietary or niche programing languages. On HP, Burroughs, Tandem, IBMs and Windows boxes. Reading ISAM files at first, switching it up to Oracle, Sybase, Informix and even a few Access database. Even wrote a COBOL program that did communication via RS-232 ports. Spent 5 years as a system administrator/manager because of my Unix skills, learning Linux from a floppy disk install and dual partitioning. Spent time on HP, Burroughs, IBM, NCR, Sun and Windows computers. Even spent a year programming a phone system with my phone admin got himself fired. I sincerely doubt that I've been left behind.
But I have known several developers that have gotten left behind. For some of them, it's just because they got stuck in a rut and didn't try to learn anything new or take on new assignments in new tech. Others just wouldn't speak up and let their boss know they were getting bored with what they were working on and would like to work on something new. Happened to me once, I got passed over because my boss didn't know I was interested and I vowed to never let it happen again. If someone is willing to sit at their desk and only code in COBOL or Java or C++ or C# all day, in a few years they will look around and notice things have changed and they didn't keep up. If they wait too long, they may not be able to catch up.
But there is one batch of old IT people that are the worst -- the old programmer who absolutely refuses to learn anything new because "programs today just aren't elegant' or "these new programmers and their fancy languages today use way too many resources to get something done!". They have all kinds of reasons to not learn something new, but it all comes down to they think they know the best way to do things, and expect everyone else to change to their way instead of giving new things a chance. (My personal opinion is that many of them are just to insecure to admit they don't know something.)
Whatever the opportunity that comes up for me, you can bet that I'll dig in and learn anything new that I have to. My boss told me that the reasons she hired me was I was the only person she interviewed that basically said "I may not know it, but I can figure it out". Today's tech changes too fast, and people who rely on the excuse "But I don't know how to program in XYZ" or "But I don't know how a firewall works" will surely see their usefulness decline.
You do know that half of the businesses mentioned in the last stanza are now out of business. Steel is hardly made in the US anymore, and the other three industries aren't hanging around waiting for wages to go down. KIA, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota.. all have taken a big bite out of Ford, Chevy, and GM.
So go ahead and form your union. Too bad your children won't be able to be programmers when all the companies either pack up or move their development off shore. You thought saving a few bucks on existing wages was enough to make them do it?? Wait until you negotiate higher wages, fewer hours, cheaper insurance, and lifetime pensions.
There are a lot of companies that went out of business because of those things, what makes you think it won't happen to you???
If you are so bad at your job that your company can make do with anyone else, fine. Form a union. I hope spending months at a time on strike help feed your family while I'm doing scab work and raking in big bucks. Because I'll be the at the front of the line making more than you did, working harder, and create better quality product while you are out. It's something that happens time and time again when idiots form unions and decide to strike over unreasonably and uneconomical demands. I know.. I once ran a fork truck for a month 30 years ago, working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, double and triple overtime because some idiots wanted an extra 50 cents an hour. Made a crapload of money, and I took great pride in the letters we received from our customers asking what had changed to improve the product.
Just because you think you are overpaid doesn't mean there isn't some guy waiting for you to quit so he can have your job.
The whole point of a union is to decrease the economic power of those that have skills and good work ethics so that those that don't have advantage in the skills department can take advantage of it. It's just another way to redistribute wealth.. keep the ones that work the hardest and smartest down so those that can't keep up don't get left behind. Especially those that were just hired and do a better job than the slackers that have been around for several years and learned early how to game the system.
I have yet to see any smart and capable person that was been better off in a union, only the average and below-average. A union would 'help' the masses by making fairness based on years of service instead of skills and ability. Creating less product for more pay and benefits means prices have to go up or costs have to be cut elsewhere.. or did you miss ECON 101 class too many times??? Or maybe you want to automate your job so that you aren't even needed anymore?? Drive up software costs and I'll bet businesses will find a way.
So before you go there, look around at how many union trades have gone completely away in the US because of the abusive demands unions placed on employers. Textile, steel, shoes... the US is fast becoming a service based economy because no one can afford to make things here in union shops because of the higher wages and benefits,
Bringing unions into the IT community will outsource jobs to India faster than any corporation ever did..... It's difficult to compete with the kid making $1/day in China.
It is a commodity... companies spend money to build networks and that you have to pay for to get access. Just like phones. Are they also arguing for free cell phones?? With unlimited data access?? So now we just tax the hell out of everyone so everyone can have as much access as they want?? Is that what they are suggesting?? Why stop with data?? If everyone had a car and free gas, then they could drive anywhere and see anything and learn so much also. The hell with that, planes go much further, so why not free plane rides too.
Maybe someday we will live in a society where people will work regardless of how much free stuff they get. But we just aren't there yet. So I'm all for those with the most money getting the best Internet access.
I make a damn good living from working on legacy code. Bad legacy code. Really awful legacy code that no one else will touch. I was hired at my current job 5 years ago specifically because I am very skilled at taking very bad code and either completely rewriting it, or picking at it to find the parts that need to be fixed and fix them. I've spent the last 5 years taking C++ code written by a librarian (yes.. you read that correctly) and rewriting it in Java (bosses requirement, not mine) to make it run faster, rarely abort, and actually produce meaningful messages if it does abort. Code that we don't even know if the current source code matches what is in production, so we can't really even make changes to it. We rewrite it, then parallel test to make sure. (There were many reasons to rewrite it, and it wasn't my decision. Although I agreed.)
It takes a lot of skill to be able to read code that is 10 years old or more, has no documentation, and is so full of unnecessary convolutions and nonsensical algorithms and make sense of it. There are a lot of companies out there that are tired of hiring programmers who later on won't work on something because it's too confusing or too hard. You know.. the lazy ones that are really just not skilled enough to be able to do it.
Sure, I love to work on new stuff. But instead of whining about how hard and difficult it is, accept the challenge and wear it proudly, knowing that a significant number of your peers couldn't do the task.
And the best part of working on old stuff?? It's really difficult, so it takes time. And since no one else is working on it, they have to take your word for how long it takes to get it done. Now, I don't sit around all day in slippers sipping coffee and writing a few lines here and there. But I also don't put in 60 hour work weeks. And I'm probably getting paid more than a lot of you. (Hint.. my yearly wage has 6 digits to the left of the decimal point, and the first two aren't zero.)
So why isn't a group of people called crazy if they wear ancient torture devices around their neck often with a victim on it. Or if they believe in an all all-knowing, all-mighty spirit that can't seem to communicate with his believers very well. Or who believe that this being could shatter all laws of physics and just create something out of nothing aren't crazy. People that will call it a miracle if one person survives a fiery plane crash but won't attribute the same force to the other 200 people that died. A group that believes all the bad people that accept their savior in their heart will live forever in a beautiful and pleasant place, but all the good people that don't will be condemned to eternal torment.
Seems there is plenty of crazy in just about every religion.
And of course we all know that every moron out there becomes millionaires because they are so stupid that it's easy for them to run businesses and invest.
Sounds like Linus is getting old and Alzheimers is setting in.
Oh.. and to clarify.. there were people on the ride who don't make over $100K/year and work at crappy jobs. Many of them saved up for months to go on the ride, most of us stayed at Motel 6s and ate crappy food and didn't go to Disneyland. I ride a 1989 Honda Goldwing that cost me all of $3K, and probably spent less than $250 on gas. I'd be surprised if I spent more than $700 the entire week. For anyone to assume that I had to have a high-paying job to afford it just shows how out-of-touch some people are.
And none of my employers have ever paid for any of my training. I don't know if you are aware, but there are these places called 'book stores' that one can go to buy 'books' to learn things. It's not necessary to use the Internet for that either. It makes it easier, but it's not necessary. And no one needs high speed internet to get eBooks, I have Kindle on my phone and almost every book I have bought can be downloaded over the phone system. Takes a little time, but it takes longer to read it. Libraries are also loaning out eBooks now, or didn't you know that....
Wow.. do you have a very narrow view on life. First, learning how to use the Internet is pretty damn easy, and getting easier. Just because it was difficult for you, you shouldn't assume everyone will have a hard time. From what I can tell, the younger someone is, the easier it is to learn. And since schools and libraries all have access, I doubt if anyone young enough to be just starting in the job market and who doesn't have internet at home doesn't know how to use it. And since the original was 'fast' v/s 'slow', speed has nothing to do with it. Very few web sites that I visit require high-speed access, it's just 'nice to have'. In fact, I have been known to skip over videos if a transcript is available because it's faster for me to read the transcript than it is to watch the video. So don't give me that bullshit about 'having' to have high speed for video. I know how to download in the background and watch it later if I need to. So that leaves a very small percentage of sites that won't let you download video. Hardly worth spending billions in tax money so solve such a minor problem.
As for a 'huge number of us don't waste', aren't you wasting your time here on Slashdot accomplishing.. nothing??? If your job requires reading, researching, or writing you probably have access at work. Or are you unemployed and just reading and researching to pass the time. If so, you have the time to go to the library.
I find it interesting that you assume that my job requires me to have internet at home. It doesn't. I have it at work. I do any research at work, because that's where I work and have other things to do when I get home. I do have internet access at home so I can provide support at work, but my company would have paid for it if I didn't have it. Because they do for the ops guys. And since I also have access on my Android tablet to my desktop at work, in theory I still don't need Internet at home to provide support, I can do it using the cell network. So again.. why do I need high speed internet access at home????
What do I do to make over 100K/year?? I'm an over 50 geek who has been doing this for 30 years and knows something about how to live without it. And what a huge waste of time it is for most people. And how I'm not willing to spend my money so other people can waste their time on facebook or watching cat videos.
And you assume that I felt all parents are the same, which I know for a fact is a wrong assumption. The issues is very simple, good parents who are knowledgeable and actually raise their kids probably on average don't have obese children. Parents who are not knowledgeable or just don't give a shit probably are more likely to have obese children, money has very little to do with obesity except that many poor people are that way because they aren't too bright and don't have too much and can't pay someone to raise their kids. Of course, how someone could be so stupid to think that giving their kids McDonald's every day is good for them or cheaper than cooking is hard to fathom. I think it's more likely they just don't give a crap and it's easier. Or still have an Old World mentality that a little fat on a kid is good.
I don't have an issue with the government providing educational information. I do have a problem with them meddling in things that punish the people who are doing the right thing (i.e. get their kids out to exercise so having McDonald's once a week isn't a big deal) in the hopes that they can influence those that don't give a shit.
Because they can't influence people that don't give a shit, because they don't give a shit. Meanwhile, those that do the right thing continue to have their freedoms slowly removed from them. But you are OK with that because you don't have kids or this doesn't impact you.
And I reject your implication that I have a middle class view. I make more money than that. And I've seen fat kids in all economic classes, I don't assume any kid is fat just because their parents are compartmentalized by some prejudiced people into a class based on wealth. I've known good and bad parents from many walks of life, all it takes is a selfish attitude to be a bad parent and no amount of money will ever fix that.
... a study has confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt that bad parenting is the sole cause of obesity in kids. It has been proven that many kids eat at fast food restaurants but don't get fat because their parents limit their intake and make sure they get plenty of exercise by playing outside once in awhile.
The government can now remove all regulations on school lunches since parents are able to decide what is and isn't good for their children.
It has also confirmed that making bad choices is the sole cause of obesity in adults. Bloomberg has been slapped with an injunction to shut the fuck up and leave people alone.
Forty years ago most would just get on with their life when they didn't have enough money to pay for something, or save for it, or do without if they couldn't get it. People got along just fine 40 years ago without it. But really... how 'useful' is the Internet?? Sure, I can get email and facebook and twitter and all kinds of almost instantaneous communication. I can look up things and get answers really fast. But how has that changed my life from what it was even 10 years ago?? Very little. It's great to be able to access IMDB and look up the actors in a movie I'm watching, but who really needs it?
So that leaves schools, libraries, and research facilities, who can probably afford to have high speed internet brought in. I don't mind the government helping libraries get high speed Internet access to help people learn new things, not just browse facebook.
The sad fact is that hardly anyone really needs high speed Internet at home. Many just want it.
Don't get me wrong, I love the Internet. I went on a 2,500 mile motorcycle ride a couple of weeks ago, and it was great to have use a GPS and have access to online maps and be able to change motel rooms online. But 30 years ago I would have had an atlas with me, and if I needed to change my reservations I would just have called the hotel from a payphone. Did just that when I drove to Winnipeg in 1979 to view the solar eclipse. Got there just fine, even though there was a blizzard out. Didn't even make hotel reservations for the trip back, just took an exit and walked into a lobby. My ex-wife and I went on a vacation to Florida in 1984 and only made one reservation for the first night and a rental car. Every other night was stopping and looking for a hotel. No Hotels.com or Travelocity needed, a phone and billboard was all that was required.
It's great to download movies and books. Love Kindle and NetFlix. Used to just go to the library or video store to get books or movies. Before that, I just didn't watch that much TV.
The Internet is a nice convenience, it is far from a necessity.Except to people who have never learned how to live without it. Maybe someday they will discover there is an entire world out there and the Internet is not required to access any of it. As long as they don't expect me to pay because they haven't learned that happiness is learning to enjoy life for what you have and working for what you want to have instead of someone just giving it to you.
You are not going their to learn, you are going there to get a degree. Just play their game, give them your money, and get your degree. It doesn't matter what college you go to, so just go to the cheapest one.
No one cares whether or not you actually learned anything of value, you just need that degree so you can get past HR. Once you get past HR, you can talk to someone who probably knows what they need and show them that in your 30 years you have learned lots of stuff far in far less time than it takes any college to teach you. Hey.. I learned more Fortran in less than a week reading the WATFIV book instead of the entire semester I took later when I wanted the credit for it. I learned ADA in a few days. I took C++ from an online course in a few days. Learned Java on my own. If you really want to learn something, buy the book and learn it yourself.
Now.. if my chance there is a class that you actually want to learn something from, by all means take it. Just don't expect college requirements to give you anything you will actually find useful when you get out. It might.. just don't expect it. You will have to work to find things that are actually of value that they offer.
Trading no choice for... government mandated no choice. Wow.. that makes perfect sense. Let's just tax everyone so they can all have access to YouTube, Facebook, and other worthless crap. More of the 'me me me' generation.
Oh wait.. he's too old for that. Alzheimer's must be kicking in....
... once all the iDrones have their toys. Several of people I know are ditching their lack-of-options iPhones for full-of-options Android phones. Our office used to see several iPhones, but most people have switched over the last two years. My guess is that people want more choices than white or black and are starting to realize that Apple products just aren't that innovative, that if they wait around for a couple of months, someone will do it better and cheaper.
The endgame has nothing to do with marketshare, Apple has rarely held marketshare very long in any of the very narrow product lines they report comparisons with. It's all about profit, and Apple charges more for a product that is perceived as 'cool' and 'must have'. As long as Apple continues to profit, they will continue to create a niche product that some people go ga-ga over just because it has an Apple logo on it. And those people will continue to spend far too much money for a non-innovative product with failures like Siri and bad antennae design and exploding batteries.
'Coding' is syntax. Learning how to explain how to do something using a specific syntax. I think just about anyone can learn how to do that.
'Coding' is reading a spec and converting it to a specific syntax. I think just about anyone can learn how to do that.
'Programming' is taking a nebulous idea, breaking it down into a series of inter-related processing components, and then coding those processing components. It's being able to recognize if the processes as defined work as desired and if not, figuring out how which components do not work properly and correct them. It requires certain degrees of spatial skills depending on the complexity and number of processes being coded so that their inter-relationships can be understood.
Programming is a far more difficult thing to teach, because it requires someone to be able to develop a process where none already exists, or convert an existing process that is not computer-based, into a series of logical processing components and link them together to produce the desired results. It requires someone to step outside lines where everything is neatly defined and define their own instructions.
When so many people can't even follow directions on how to set the clock on their microwave oven, how the hell does anyone think they can learn to do anything but code what someone else has already written the instructions for.
Banks are supposed to be secure.. and a responsible person would notify the bank if they found the door unlocked instead of giving out private information to strangers on the street.
Politicians are representatives of the people. Their personal lives are not important, only what they do when on the job. Other people have jobs, should their employers have access to their private lives???
Anonymous gets all the attention they need within their own group and by the publicity they generate. Kind of like serial killers who thrive off the publicity and kill more so they get more attention. 'They' know who they are, and they know people are talking about them. It's not necessary for them for people to know their name. In fact, it's the secrecy that is so attractive, doing something wrong, and talking with your buddies about it but knowing your buddies aren't in on the secret.
Anonymous is a terrible model. For one, it requires fanatical devotion. How many programmers out there are going to get that fanatical about rewriting 20 year old COBOL code??? I'm sure it works great for open source products where people can get excited about what they are doing. But for the other 90% of tasks out there, I seriously doubt it will work.
I seem to have a different idea of the fun stuff I want to work on than what my boss wants me to work on. Without his telling me what to work on, it's doubtful the stuff he finds important would ever get done. Oh wait.. I work on the stuff he finds important because if I didn't he would fire me.
Seems to me like Anonymous is more like the establishment than they are willing to admit.
I believe a similar argument was made against all-electric cars. Sure.. it's neat to be able to charge them overnight at the house, or all day at work. But for anything other than commuter driving, they won't work. The electricity supply system is not big enough for a 'charging station' that provides anything close to a 15 minute recharge good for a hundred miles or more. Short of a Shell station having their own nuclear or huge solar/wind array and a massive battery bank, it's just not possible to pump enough electricity down the lines for more than a few cars at a time.
Slashdot Mirror
They installed air bags on cars because a few people were too stupid to use seat belts, and then people in seat belts started to die when child seats were put in the front because parents didn't read the instructions, a person was sitting too close or leaning forward to change the radio when a crash happened.
.38 revolver is the model of simplicity. It has no safety, because there are only two ways for it to fire ... pulling the trigger or dropping it just right. But some moron in California decided that wasn't enough, and legislated locks. Which people either didn't use or caused an increase in time a gun was ready for use unless you kept the key with the gun, which is kinda stupid. So California went one step further and required even more laws, which also did little good.
.. why don't you show me design the perfect safety system for a gun that allows me and my wife to grab a gun from our nightstand and shoot it, and allows it to be carried locked and loaded. Because millions of people do that today, and there are numerous stories to show how millions of people handle such guns safely every day.
.. please shut the fuck up.
Unintended consequences happen far to often. My S&W
There are numerous people who will not purchase any gun with a built in lock, and who also disable the safeties. The magazine safeties are often the easiest to disable and there are several articles on the internet on how to do it.
So instead of being an arrogant ass
Until it exists
So you would rather see stories of people getting killed by intruders because they can't fire their guns due to some malfunction or other 'safety' feature, than stories of a 3 year old shooting his stupid mother who left a loaded gun around where small child could get to it.
.. I see the logic in that. Let's make guns more expensive for the vast majority who use them and store them properly because a few idiots never paid attention to the barrage of ads and media telling them to lock their guns up.
.. are ignorant about guns and your opinions don't amount to diddly shit. Oh wait .. you are also AC so now I KNOW you are a moron who knows little bout what he is talking about and just likes to post opinions.
Sure
You sir
I've run two characters are far as Inferno with no farming, and gotten three more through Normal. (I have one of each type.) I have never been to the Auction house, and get through the game on things I buy, build, or find. Didn't even get to level 60 on the two characters until into Act 4 at Hell level. It takes me this long is I'm married and have a life, and can't spend 24 hours a day playing it. Plus I'm a bit of a dungeon crawler, seeking out every last monster to slay and every cave and cellar to explore. I do share items between my own players though.
.. that's all. That's why they have to 'game' it.
People that need to farm or buy things at the auction house in order to advance in the game just aren't very good the game itself
Really?? I haven't had the flu or a cold for .. I don't know when the last time was. Probably over 10 years now. I'm 54 and don't do any of that crap. However, I do ride a motorcycle and am outside all year round in the fresh air. Never had a flu shot, never worry about door knobs or touching my face. Couple of weeks ago I dropped my cigar onto a concrete patio in a public park, reached down, picked it up, blew the dirt off, and put it back in my mouth.
.. I lived in Maine. And yes, I rode my motorcycle all year round, even in winter as long as the roads were clear and the temps were above 15F. Can't count how many times I got home from work, soaked to the skin because it rained and I didn't have a rain suit (and still don't). I also was outside a lot shoveling snow. I now live in Phoenix, and still ride my motorcycle all year, except not in the summer when it's above 105. Instead of shoveling snow, I do yard work and golf.
The last time I had the flu that I can remember was over 20 years ago. I remember it because I crashed my motorcycle in Sept. and it was the first year I didn't ride my bike in the winter. At the time
Maybe it's your over-zealous attitude towards cleanliness that's the problem. Maybe your body just doesn't know how to fight disease anymore. Maybe if fewer people weren't such germphobes things like the flu wouldn't be as bad.
We are moving to a new building. Our ops manager was all gaga over his new IP phone system, and it was so cheap at only so much a month per phone. That made me think .. I don't really use the phone. At least not as much as he is going to be charged for it. I'm a developer, I hardly every get business calls from outside the company. Most of the tech support is done over the Internet. So I suggested that with phones in the conference rooms, I don't need a phone at my desk anymore.
.. why should the company spend money on a phone I'll use maybe once a month. He was concerned about the company forcing employees to use their cell phones, but I suggested that since it's my choice, no one is forcing me to do anything. And with thousands of hours of roll-over minutes, I doubt if I'll use them up anytime soon.
He was a bit reluctant, and I don't know if it will happen. But really
I think it was more like if there weren't as many phones needed, maybe his job wouldn't be as important either....
Really?? So it's OK for the unions to have a contract, but not the CEO??? The unions have their negotiating team, and so does the CEO. Both negotiate to get the best deal they can, based on (perceived) market conditions for their skills. I'm sure if you walked up to your next employer, said you wanted a million bucks a year in salary, and they agreed ... you'd take it too! But you can't because there are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people out there with similar skill sets that will do it for less.
Chastising the CEO for having a contract that is overpriced while support a union contract that is overpriced is a bit hypocritical.
Don't shop there.
I don't buy stuff from any store I don't like, it's called personal choice.
And before anyone makes a comment about my ego .. I readily admit I'm not an expert in any of these things and there are many people that are much better than I am.
I am 53, been in computers since I was 18 years old, cutting my teeth on a TRS-80 at home and HP mini's at the college I dropped out after one semester. I've had jobs writing assembler, COBOL, C++, FORTRAN, perl, Java and who knows how many proprietary or niche programing languages. On HP, Burroughs, Tandem, IBMs and Windows boxes. Reading ISAM files at first, switching it up to Oracle, Sybase, Informix and even a few Access database. Even wrote a COBOL program that did communication via RS-232 ports. Spent 5 years as a system administrator/manager because of my Unix skills, learning Linux from a floppy disk install and dual partitioning. Spent time on HP, Burroughs, IBM, NCR, Sun and Windows computers. Even spent a year programming a phone system with my phone admin got himself fired. I sincerely doubt that I've been left behind.
But I have known several developers that have gotten left behind. For some of them, it's just because they got stuck in a rut and didn't try to learn anything new or take on new assignments in new tech. Others just wouldn't speak up and let their boss know they were getting bored with what they were working on and would like to work on something new. Happened to me once, I got passed over because my boss didn't know I was interested and I vowed to never let it happen again. If someone is willing to sit at their desk and only code in COBOL or Java or C++ or C# all day, in a few years they will look around and notice things have changed and they didn't keep up. If they wait too long, they may not be able to catch up.
But there is one batch of old IT people that are the worst -- the old programmer who absolutely refuses to learn anything new because "programs today just aren't elegant' or "these new programmers and their fancy languages today use way too many resources to get something done!". They have all kinds of reasons to not learn something new, but it all comes down to they think they know the best way to do things, and expect everyone else to change to their way instead of giving new things a chance. (My personal opinion is that many of them are just to insecure to admit they don't know something.)
Whatever the opportunity that comes up for me, you can bet that I'll dig in and learn anything new that I have to. My boss told me that the reasons she hired me was I was the only person she interviewed that basically said "I may not know it, but I can figure it out". Today's tech changes too fast, and people who rely on the excuse "But I don't know how to program in XYZ" or "But I don't know how a firewall works" will surely see their usefulness decline.
Just like so many old programmers before them.
You do know that half of the businesses mentioned in the last stanza are now out of business. Steel is hardly made in the US anymore, and the other three industries aren't hanging around waiting for wages to go down. KIA, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota .. all have taken a big bite out of Ford, Chevy, and GM.
.. I once ran a fork truck for a month 30 years ago, working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, double and triple overtime because some idiots wanted an extra 50 cents an hour. Made a crapload of money, and I took great pride in the letters we received from our customers asking what had changed to improve the product.
So go ahead and form your union. Too bad your children won't be able to be programmers when all the companies either pack up or move their development off shore. You thought saving a few bucks on existing wages was enough to make them do it?? Wait until you negotiate higher wages, fewer hours, cheaper insurance, and lifetime pensions.
There are a lot of companies that went out of business because of those things, what makes you think it won't happen to you???
If you are so bad at your job that your company can make do with anyone else, fine. Form a union. I hope spending months at a time on strike help feed your family while I'm doing scab work and raking in big bucks. Because I'll be the at the front of the line making more than you did, working harder, and create better quality product while you are out. It's something that happens time and time again when idiots form unions and decide to strike over unreasonably and uneconomical demands. I know
Just because you think you are overpaid doesn't mean there isn't some guy waiting for you to quit so he can have your job.
The whole point of a union is to decrease the economic power of those that have skills and good work ethics so that those that don't have advantage in the skills department can take advantage of it. It's just another way to redistribute wealth .. keep the ones that work the hardest and smartest down so those that can't keep up don't get left behind. Especially those that were just hired and do a better job than the slackers that have been around for several years and learned early how to game the system.
.. or did you miss ECON 101 class too many times??? Or maybe you want to automate your job so that you aren't even needed anymore?? Drive up software costs and I'll bet businesses will find a way.
... the US is fast becoming a service based economy because no one can afford to make things here in union shops because of the higher wages and benefits,
I have yet to see any smart and capable person that was been better off in a union, only the average and below-average. A union would 'help' the masses by making fairness based on years of service instead of skills and ability. Creating less product for more pay and benefits means prices have to go up or costs have to be cut elsewhere
So before you go there, look around at how many union trades have gone completely away in the US because of the abusive demands unions placed on employers. Textile, steel, shoes
Bringing unions into the IT community will outsource jobs to India faster than any corporation ever did..... It's difficult to compete with the kid making $1/day in China.
It is a commodity ... companies spend money to build networks and that you have to pay for to get access. Just like phones. Are they also arguing for free cell phones?? With unlimited data access?? So now we just tax the hell out of everyone so everyone can have as much access as they want?? Is that what they are suggesting?? Why stop with data?? If everyone had a car and free gas, then they could drive anywhere and see anything and learn so much also. The hell with that, planes go much further, so why not free plane rides too.
Maybe someday we will live in a society where people will work regardless of how much free stuff they get. But we just aren't there yet. So I'm all for those with the most money getting the best Internet access.
And the lazy not getting any.
I make a damn good living from working on legacy code. Bad legacy code. Really awful legacy code that no one else will touch. I was hired at my current job 5 years ago specifically because I am very skilled at taking very bad code and either completely rewriting it, or picking at it to find the parts that need to be fixed and fix them. I've spent the last 5 years taking C++ code written by a librarian (yes .. you read that correctly) and rewriting it in Java (bosses requirement, not mine) to make it run faster, rarely abort, and actually produce meaningful messages if it does abort. Code that we don't even know if the current source code matches what is in production, so we can't really even make changes to it. We rewrite it, then parallel test to make sure. (There were many reasons to rewrite it, and it wasn't my decision. Although I agreed.)
.. the lazy ones that are really just not skilled enough to be able to do it.
.. my yearly wage has 6 digits to the left of the decimal point, and the first two aren't zero.)
It takes a lot of skill to be able to read code that is 10 years old or more, has no documentation, and is so full of unnecessary convolutions and nonsensical algorithms and make sense of it. There are a lot of companies out there that are tired of hiring programmers who later on won't work on something because it's too confusing or too hard. You know
Sure, I love to work on new stuff. But instead of whining about how hard and difficult it is, accept the challenge and wear it proudly, knowing that a significant number of your peers couldn't do the task.
And the best part of working on old stuff?? It's really difficult, so it takes time. And since no one else is working on it, they have to take your word for how long it takes to get it done. Now, I don't sit around all day in slippers sipping coffee and writing a few lines here and there. But I also don't put in 60 hour work weeks. And I'm probably getting paid more than a lot of you. (Hint
So why isn't a group of people called crazy if they wear ancient torture devices around their neck often with a victim on it. Or if they believe in an all all-knowing, all-mighty spirit that can't seem to communicate with his believers very well. Or who believe that this being could shatter all laws of physics and just create something out of nothing aren't crazy. People that will call it a miracle if one person survives a fiery plane crash but won't attribute the same force to the other 200 people that died. A group that believes all the bad people that accept their savior in their heart will live forever in a beautiful and pleasant place, but all the good people that don't will be condemned to eternal torment.
Seems there is plenty of crazy in just about every religion.
And of course we all know that every moron out there becomes millionaires because they are so stupid that it's easy for them to run businesses and invest.
Sounds like Linus is getting old and Alzheimers is setting in.
Oh .. and to clarify .. there were people on the ride who don't make over $100K/year and work at crappy jobs. Many of them saved up for months to go on the ride, most of us stayed at Motel 6s and ate crappy food and didn't go to Disneyland. I ride a 1989 Honda Goldwing that cost me all of $3K, and probably spent less than $250 on gas. I'd be surprised if I spent more than $700 the entire week. For anyone to assume that I had to have a high-paying job to afford it just shows how out-of-touch some people are.
And none of my employers have ever paid for any of my training. I don't know if you are aware, but there are these places called 'book stores' that one can go to buy 'books' to learn things. It's not necessary to use the Internet for that either. It makes it easier, but it's not necessary. And no one needs high speed internet to get eBooks, I have Kindle on my phone and almost every book I have bought can be downloaded over the phone system. Takes a little time, but it takes longer to read it. Libraries are also loaning out eBooks now, or didn't you know that....
Wow .. do you have a very narrow view on life. First, learning how to use the Internet is pretty damn easy, and getting easier. Just because it was difficult for you, you shouldn't assume everyone will have a hard time. From what I can tell, the younger someone is, the easier it is to learn. And since schools and libraries all have access, I doubt if anyone young enough to be just starting in the job market and who doesn't have internet at home doesn't know how to use it. And since the original was 'fast' v/s 'slow', speed has nothing to do with it. Very few web sites that I visit require high-speed access, it's just 'nice to have'. In fact, I have been known to skip over videos if a transcript is available because it's faster for me to read the transcript than it is to watch the video. So don't give me that bullshit about 'having' to have high speed for video. I know how to download in the background and watch it later if I need to. So that leaves a very small percentage of sites that won't let you download video. Hardly worth spending billions in tax money so solve such a minor problem.
.. nothing??? If your job requires reading, researching, or writing you probably have access at work. Or are you unemployed and just reading and researching to pass the time. If so, you have the time to go to the library.
.. why do I need high speed internet access at home????
As for a 'huge number of us don't waste', aren't you wasting your time here on Slashdot accomplishing
I find it interesting that you assume that my job requires me to have internet at home. It doesn't. I have it at work. I do any research at work, because that's where I work and have other things to do when I get home. I do have internet access at home so I can provide support at work, but my company would have paid for it if I didn't have it. Because they do for the ops guys. And since I also have access on my Android tablet to my desktop at work, in theory I still don't need Internet at home to provide support, I can do it using the cell network. So again
What do I do to make over 100K/year?? I'm an over 50 geek who has been doing this for 30 years and knows something about how to live without it. And what a huge waste of time it is for most people. And how I'm not willing to spend my money so other people can waste their time on facebook or watching cat videos.
That's what internet access at work is for....
And you assume that I felt all parents are the same, which I know for a fact is a wrong assumption. The issues is very simple, good parents who are knowledgeable and actually raise their kids probably on average don't have obese children. Parents who are not knowledgeable or just don't give a shit probably are more likely to have obese children, money has very little to do with obesity except that many poor people are that way because they aren't too bright and don't have too much and can't pay someone to raise their kids. Of course, how someone could be so stupid to think that giving their kids McDonald's every day is good for them or cheaper than cooking is hard to fathom. I think it's more likely they just don't give a crap and it's easier. Or still have an Old World mentality that a little fat on a kid is good.
I don't have an issue with the government providing educational information. I do have a problem with them meddling in things that punish the people who are doing the right thing (i.e. get their kids out to exercise so having McDonald's once a week isn't a big deal) in the hopes that they can influence those that don't give a shit.
Because they can't influence people that don't give a shit, because they don't give a shit. Meanwhile, those that do the right thing continue to have their freedoms slowly removed from them. But you are OK with that because you don't have kids or this doesn't impact you.
And I reject your implication that I have a middle class view. I make more money than that. And I've seen fat kids in all economic classes, I don't assume any kid is fat just because their parents are compartmentalized by some prejudiced people into a class based on wealth. I've known good and bad parents from many walks of life, all it takes is a selfish attitude to be a bad parent and no amount of money will ever fix that.
... a study has confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt that bad parenting is the sole cause of obesity in kids. It has been proven that many kids eat at fast food restaurants but don't get fat because their parents limit their intake and make sure they get plenty of exercise by playing outside once in awhile.
The government can now remove all regulations on school lunches since parents are able to decide what is and isn't good for their children.
It has also confirmed that making bad choices is the sole cause of obesity in adults. Bloomberg has been slapped with an injunction to shut the fuck up and leave people alone.
Forty years ago most would just get on with their life when they didn't have enough money to pay for something, or save for it, or do without if they couldn't get it. People got along just fine 40 years ago without it. But really ... how 'useful' is the Internet?? Sure, I can get email and facebook and twitter and all kinds of almost instantaneous communication. I can look up things and get answers really fast. But how has that changed my life from what it was even 10 years ago?? Very little. It's great to be able to access IMDB and look up the actors in a movie I'm watching, but who really needs it?
So that leaves schools, libraries, and research facilities, who can probably afford to have high speed internet brought in. I don't mind the government helping libraries get high speed Internet access to help people learn new things, not just browse facebook.
The sad fact is that hardly anyone really needs high speed Internet at home. Many just want it.
Don't get me wrong, I love the Internet. I went on a 2,500 mile motorcycle ride a couple of weeks ago, and it was great to have use a GPS and have access to online maps and be able to change motel rooms online. But 30 years ago I would have had an atlas with me, and if I needed to change my reservations I would just have called the hotel from a payphone. Did just that when I drove to Winnipeg in 1979 to view the solar eclipse. Got there just fine, even though there was a blizzard out. Didn't even make hotel reservations for the trip back, just took an exit and walked into a lobby. My ex-wife and I went on a vacation to Florida in 1984 and only made one reservation for the first night and a rental car. Every other night was stopping and looking for a hotel. No Hotels.com or Travelocity needed, a phone and billboard was all that was required.
It's great to download movies and books. Love Kindle and NetFlix. Used to just go to the library or video store to get books or movies. Before that, I just didn't watch that much TV.
The Internet is a nice convenience, it is far from a necessity.Except to people who have never learned how to live without it. Maybe someday they will discover there is an entire world out there and the Internet is not required to access any of it. As long as they don't expect me to pay because they haven't learned that happiness is learning to enjoy life for what you have and working for what you want to have instead of someone just giving it to you.
You are not going their to learn, you are going there to get a degree. Just play their game, give them your money, and get your degree. It doesn't matter what college you go to, so just go to the cheapest one.
.. I learned more Fortran in less than a week reading the WATFIV book instead of the entire semester I took later when I wanted the credit for it. I learned ADA in a few days. I took C++ from an online course in a few days. Learned Java on my own. If you really want to learn something, buy the book and learn it yourself.
.. if my chance there is a class that you actually want to learn something from, by all means take it. Just don't expect college requirements to give you anything you will actually find useful when you get out. It might .. just don't expect it. You will have to work to find things that are actually of value that they offer.
No one cares whether or not you actually learned anything of value, you just need that degree so you can get past HR. Once you get past HR, you can talk to someone who probably knows what they need and show them that in your 30 years you have learned lots of stuff far in far less time than it takes any college to teach you. Hey
Now
Trading no choice for ... government mandated no choice. Wow .. that makes perfect sense. Let's just tax everyone so they can all have access to YouTube, Facebook, and other worthless crap. More of the 'me me me' generation.
.. he's too old for that. Alzheimer's must be kicking in....
Oh wait
... once all the iDrones have their toys. Several of people I know are ditching their lack-of-options iPhones for full-of-options Android phones. Our office used to see several iPhones, but most people have switched over the last two years. My guess is that people want more choices than white or black and are starting to realize that Apple products just aren't that innovative, that if they wait around for a couple of months, someone will do it better and cheaper.
The endgame has nothing to do with marketshare, Apple has rarely held marketshare very long in any of the very narrow product lines they report comparisons with. It's all about profit, and Apple charges more for a product that is perceived as 'cool' and 'must have'. As long as Apple continues to profit, they will continue to create a niche product that some people go ga-ga over just because it has an Apple logo on it. And those people will continue to spend far too much money for a non-innovative product with failures like Siri and bad antennae design and exploding batteries.
'Coding' is syntax. Learning how to explain how to do something using a specific syntax. I think just about anyone can learn how to do that.
'Coding' is reading a spec and converting it to a specific syntax. I think just about anyone can learn how to do that.
'Programming' is taking a nebulous idea, breaking it down into a series of inter-related processing components, and then coding those processing components. It's being able to recognize if the processes as defined work as desired and if not, figuring out how which components do not work properly and correct them. It requires certain degrees of spatial skills depending on the complexity and number of processes being coded so that their inter-relationships can be understood.
Programming is a far more difficult thing to teach, because it requires someone to be able to develop a process where none already exists, or convert an existing process that is not computer-based, into a series of logical processing components and link them together to produce the desired results. It requires someone to step outside lines where everything is neatly defined and define their own instructions.
When so many people can't even follow directions on how to set the clock on their microwave oven, how the hell does anyone think they can learn to do anything but code what someone else has already written the instructions for.
Banks are supposed to be secure .. and a responsible person would notify the bank if they found the door unlocked instead of giving out private information to strangers on the street.
.. I work on the stuff he finds important because if I didn't he would fire me.
Politicians are representatives of the people. Their personal lives are not important, only what they do when on the job. Other people have jobs, should their employers have access to their private lives???
Anonymous gets all the attention they need within their own group and by the publicity they generate. Kind of like serial killers who thrive off the publicity and kill more so they get more attention. 'They' know who they are, and they know people are talking about them. It's not necessary for them for people to know their name. In fact, it's the secrecy that is so attractive, doing something wrong, and talking with your buddies about it but knowing your buddies aren't in on the secret.
Anonymous is a terrible model. For one, it requires fanatical devotion. How many programmers out there are going to get that fanatical about rewriting 20 year old COBOL code??? I'm sure it works great for open source products where people can get excited about what they are doing. But for the other 90% of tasks out there, I seriously doubt it will work.
I seem to have a different idea of the fun stuff I want to work on than what my boss wants me to work on. Without his telling me what to work on, it's doubtful the stuff he finds important would ever get done. Oh wait
Seems to me like Anonymous is more like the establishment than they are willing to admit.
I believe a similar argument was made against all-electric cars. Sure .. it's neat to be able to charge them overnight at the house, or all day at work. But for anything other than commuter driving, they won't work. The electricity supply system is not big enough for a 'charging station' that provides anything close to a 15 minute recharge good for a hundred miles or more. Short of a Shell station having their own nuclear or huge solar/wind array and a massive battery bank, it's just not possible to pump enough electricity down the lines for more than a few cars at a time.