How do you know which aspects of its behaviour are intentional and which are bugs? What if you miss a test for a corner case that isn't apparent from the documentation and/or source code?
What if the test suite you inherited has bugs? Are you going to have a test suite for the test suite? And then a test suite for the test suite for the test suite...
Test suites are a Good Thing but they aren't a cure all and certainly don't prevent every possible problem.
Or they'll leave out both email and phone number (OMG Privacy, Can't give these awasy, might get spam or robocalled) leaving no way whatsoever to contact the person in the event that there's problem fulfilling the order (out of stock, etc.).
Sometimes they are right about the spam and robocalls and if this is the first time you are doing business with the company how do they know you won't do that as well? I've certainly had lots of companies decide without my consent to put me on a spam mailing list. Others think it is a good idea to call me for a 5 minute survey every time I speak with any member of the company. (And such surveys NEVER have any actual effect on the quality of service) I'm not saying requiring some way to contact them is a bad idea but I understand why someone might hesitate.
What I find annoying are places that make you create an account even though you will almost certainly never ever order from them again. Having an account should be optional in most cases. If I do a lot of business with you I'll create an account but forcing me to create one isn't going to increase your business by a single penny. It might however encourage me to shop elsewhere.
Your ignorance surrounding the analog between pinpoint-precision MIRV/MARV'd solid-fueled stellar-guided advanced ICBM's and orbital rockets is pretty impressive
First off, screw you for the needless insult. Second off did you even read the links you posted? They directly contradict your assertions:
"The Second Artillery continues to modernize its nuclear forces by enhancing its silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and adding more survivable mobile delivery systems. In recent years, the road-mobile, solid-propellant CSS-10 Mod 1 and CSS-10 Mod 2 (DF-31 and DF-31A) intercontinentalrange ballistic missiles have entered service. The CSS-10 Mod 2, with a range in excess of 11,200 km, can reach most locations within the continental United States. China may also be developing a new road-mobile ICBM, possibly capable of carrying a multiple independently"
Furthermore what you are claiming isn't even remotely logical. The Chinese clearly maintain a nuclear deterrence capability but they cannot do that without having at least some of the weapons easily armed and ready to be delivered. The Chinese are not so stupid as to leave their missiles disarmed when it is a certainty that Russia and the USA (and others) have nuclear tipped missiles pointed at China and ready to go on short notice.
you don't even address the most important issue regarding the potential for offensive use of the Chinese strategic rocket force: THEY DON'T HAVE REMOTELY ENOUGH launchers.
"China’s nuclear arsenal currently consists of approximately 50-75 ICBMs, including the silo-based CSS-4 (DF-5); the solid-fueled, road-mobile CSS-10 Mods 1 and 2 (DF-31 and DF-31A); and the more limited range CSS-3 (DF-4)."
That is more than enough launchers to wipe out every major city in the United States or Russia. Just because they don't have as many as the US doesn't mean they don't have enough.
If you can't decapitate and then neutralize the US's strategic defence forces, then how you can you utilize your nuclear forces to prevent annihilating counter-battery? The answer is that you can't.
Did it occur to you that China's strategy may be merely one of deterrence? The notion of "winning" a nuclear war is an absurd one. The Chinese leadership appears to be smart enough to realize this.
Nuclear weapons have saved more lives than any other technology invented by man since they have been created.
An argument that will be rendered idiotic the moment one gets used. Oh, you think no one is ever going to use a nuke ever again? Sorry but there are more than enough crazy people in the world who absolutely would use one and odds are that someday one of them will get their chance. Nukes are only a deterrent against people who actually don't want to die. One merely has to look to the middle east to see there are plenty of psychopaths out there willing to commit suicide and take a bunch of others with them.
World Wars would still be happening every 1-2 decades were it not for them.
And you plan to provide extraordinary evidence for this extraordinary claim?
Which is what these people want. I'm not seeing the problem here that would require actively decommissioning the things.
Are you really that dense? That might be the dumbest thing I've read in a long time. The reason to decommission them is so that they cannot be used and cannot be perceived as a threat to anyone. Who gives a shit about the cost to decommission them? You decommission them so that they cannot ever explode and kill a huge number of people. Even accidental use of a nuke can potentially cause armageddon which I assure you is a lot more expensive than any decommissioning.
The Chinese don't even deploy warheads mated to delivery vehicles.
Citation needed.
China's nuclear force is purely defensive, as of now, and there is no indication that China seeks expanded capabilities.
That became false the moment China sent an orbital rocket into space. If you can send a man into orbit you can send a warhead just as easily. That very fact is what set off the original space race between the USA and USSR. The most important implication of sputnik was that the soviets could drop a missile on the US with a nuclear warhead attached.
With these results, and Firefox developers focusing in fixing the UI sluggishness, can this be the start of a Firefox comeback, after years of slow market share decline?"
I see these sorts of "performance" comparisons all the time. As I type this I have both Chrome and Firefox open and in use and honestly I cannot see any meaningful difference in speed between them. I'm sure some benchmark suite could find a difference but in day to day usage it simply does not matter which I choose. Any difference in speed on my computers is basically insignificant.
I have had problems with Chrome's printing being flakey but it's not a speed issue.
I have yet to have seen a serious scientific analysis of this question, as discussions rarely get beyond general paranoia facing off against a general belief that government incompetence plus public scrutiny make backdoors unlikely.
Government's are not nearly as incompetent as many pundits would have you believe. We have some very seriously talented people doing some pretty amazing things in our government. Government isn't always a model of efficiency but inefficient does not (always) equal incompetent. And in some cases inefficiency is actually a good thing. Sometimes you want the government to be slow and deliberative and to do it right instead of fast. Some of the most remarkable organizations and talented people I've met are in government. Sadly some of the worst I've met are in government as well but my point remains. Assuming government = incompetent is in clearly wrong in the face of copious evidence to the contrary.
Your problem is you're looking at history with today's rules.
Reasonable is not the same thing as customary and sometimes people mistake what has always been done for what always should be done. Unions won a set of work rules and benefits that generally strike a pretty good balance between the company needs and those of the workers. At the time unions were much more forward thinking about what might constitute a reasonable work place. Given some of the excesses of the time it wasn't hard to see problems. Things are better now so unions need to think harder about what to focus on next.
A 40-hour work week was "not reasonable" when unions were fighting for it.
Sure it was. It just wasn't customary nor was it mandated. It clearly has proven to be a reasonable balance between economics and lifestyle. The exact number wasn't the important bit. It could have been 44 hours or 36 hours and the same basic goal would have been accomplished which was to allow workers to have some form of life outside of work and to compensate them more if they work what could be considered lengthy hours. The number 40 has no special significance other than the fact it is a round number.
Doing something to avoid "1 worker death per $1M spent on a construction project" was "not reasonable". Health insurances was "not reasonable" for rank-and-file employees.
Same argument. It was reasonable to ask for those things. It wasn't however customary at the time. If you have an argument for something that unions should be fighting for now then by all means lets hear it. You mentioned excessive management pay which is a pretty good start. What else you got? Or are you just defending unions as flawless organizations who never do anything wrong?
Yes, when executives demand worker concessions, and then give themselves millions more in pay, it's the unions that are being unreasonable. Suuuure.
No that would be management being unreasonable and that obviously happens quite a bit. In theory the shareholders or the board should take care of excessive management pay but if they don't the union certainly could take a stand. However I don't recall ever hearing about a union seriously demanding cuts to management pay or striking because of it. Sure they gripe about it a lot but when push comes to shove the unions generally are only concerned about their own paychecks. If you know of an example to the contrary I'd love to hear it. I'd love to see a union being the one that seriously looks out for the interests of the shareholders and the interests of the company. It shouldn't be hard to a union to work with shareholders to cap excessive management pay but you never see unions even try.
Executive compensation is about 300 times worker compensation. That is not reasonable.
You'll get no argument from me on that. Only way that makes sense is if the executive can somehow prove they bring in 300 times the value which is a pretty tough argument to make.
Perhaps in your tiny universe, but in mine I use it a lot.
"My tiny universe"? Hardly. Very very very few people ever touch that particular option. I'm 100% confident that the folks at Mozilla have copious data to back me up on this. Some people do use it but it is a miniscule minority. If you want it re-enabled I'm sure someone will write an extension to do just that if they haven't already. In the meantime for the 99.9% of users who will never touch that particular option it is a waste of valuable screen real estate and a source of confusion and possibly problems. It certainly fails the mom test badly. Your typical tech illiterate (who vastly outnumber anyone reading this) isn't going to even know what Javascript is much less why or when they might care to disable it completely within a browser.
Beside completely disabling Javascript is the very definition of a crude solution. Noscript solves most problems far more elegantly.
Just because you don't use that options doesn't nobody else does.
I'm well aware that a small percentage of people use the option to disable Javascript. I'm also well aware that those same people are also technologically adept enough to figure out how to disable Javascript using means other than a menu option. (Noscript, about:config, etc) A menu option deserves prominence if it is commonly used. The option to disable Javascript is very seldom used and as such does not need a prominent menu location. It's not exactly rocket science to make it possible to put the menu pick back for the 5 or so people who actually care.
More like simplifying. Everything should be made as simple as possible but no simpler. Why have a menu option that never gets used? That is pretty much the definition of pointless. I'm pretty geeky and like to tinker with things but a menu option that never ever gets used is wasteful.
I cannot remember the last time I disabled Javascript and I'm pretty confident that somewhere north of 99.9% of users never disable it either. Much of the modern web would be useless without Javascript. So long as there remains a method (extension, etc) to disable it if desired (ala NoScript) I really don't see the big deal.
I'm not saying fees are a good thing. They are quite excessive in many cases and sometimes border on criminal in my opinion. But it's worthwhile to look at things from the bank's perspective.
I agree this is heinous, but it's just a symptom of a problem that's beem going on for decades. Why are bank transaction fees acceptable *at all*?
Because the act of providing that transaction is not free. It almost certainly doesn't cost the bank what the bank actually charges (banks make a lot of profit from fees) but there is a real and significant cost to each and every transaction. The fees are at attempt to recover these costs and of course to make a profit as well. There is a cost to servicing your banking needs and it isn't unreasonable for the bank to have some means to recover that cost and yes, make a profit as well.
Banks used to pay interest for the privilege of using/investing my money while I have it in their bank.
And they still do for many types of accounts. However unless you have a rather substantial amount of money stored at the bank it is actually possible that the cost of servicing your account is higher than the investment income that can be earned from that money. These numbers are made up but illustrative of my point. Let's say you are depositing of $1. That deposit might cost the bank $0.25 to process. Let's say that your neighbor deposits $1000. Processing of the transaction is identical so it still only costs the bank $0.25 to process. The cost is the same to the bank but the profit is wildly different. That is why banks insist on maintaining a larger balance if you want higher interest payments. It also means that not all customers and all transactions are equally profitable to the bank. If you withdraw money from an ATM not owned by your bank, there is a cost to that outside bank but no income to offset the cost. So the impose a fee. Not usually a reasonably fee ($3? Seriously?!?) but in principle they are simply recovering their costs.
As for investing the money you deposited, remember that how much profit the bank can make depends on how much you deposit with them. Having a bunch of accounts with small balances is much less profitable than having a few accounts with bigger balances even if the total amount deposited is the same. Also bear in mind that when interest rates are as low as they are right now, the investment income a bank can make on your money is somewhat limited.
I personally use baning services that don't charge fees; they exist, why dont more people uae them?
I do most of my banking through one of the largest banks in the US. I don't pay ATM fees, debit card fees, account maintenance fees, overdraft fees or frankly much in the way of fees at all. It's not really terribly hard to avoid most if not all fees. If they start charging fees I consider unreasonable I'm more than willing to take my business elsewhere.
But more seriously, it is quite amusing since you know the same people who bash unions would throw a shit fit if they lost their weekends, 40 hour weeks, and other benefits that the average worker now takes for granted that took unions decades to get us.
I don't think any sensible person would argue that many of the things unions accomplished in years past have been unambiguously good. Furthermore a union can be an important counterweight to management excesses. My father was a union member for many years and it probably kept him employed in the face of some pretty inept management. Unions even can help make companies more productive in some cases. Conceptually I'm actually a supporter of unions.
The problem is that many unions have ceased trying to fight for what is reasonable. They aren't fighting anymore for a reasonable work week or improved safety or to get benefits in most cases. They often seem to care little about the health and competitiveness of the company. They make the (false) argument that their own actions and demands somehow cannot have a detrimental effect on the company and that the only goal of management is to screw the union members. Once things become reasonable the unions seem unwilling to drop their adversarial position. I have NEVER seen a union go to management and say, "hey, I see that our retirement costs have become a big burden that is hurting the company. How can we help?" No, instead they simply fight tooth and nail for more even when more isn't really possible. Unions quite simply haven't realized that they've won and keep fighting to the long term detriment of everyone.
If companies tried to change the 40 hour work week then unions likely would enjoy a surge in popularity because then they would be fighting a worthy cause for reasonable working conditions. When work conditions and pay are already are reasonable, unions need to recognize that they need to serve a much more limited purpose. Should management start behaving unreasonably then a union has every right and obligation to take measures to protect the union membership.
There is a very good chance that imposing certain fees is illegal, at least in some states. (PA, TX, NJ and more) There is nothing wrong with offering debit cards as an mutually agreed upon option for payment and there are some advantages for both employer and employee in many cases. There are a fair number of caveats however and fees and certain other restrictions seem to be pretty clearly wrong/illegal in many circumstances. There should always be a convenient way to get the entire net amount of the paycheck without any extra fees. There are a lot of unsettled legal questions surrounding the use of these though so I would expect to see additional legislative and legal action in the near future.
The techie who becomes CEO does a lot worse for the company than if some sales asshole is hired to run the thing instead.
That's because THE primary job of the CEO is sales. Sure the CEO is responsible for the whole company, engineering included, but the CEO is the most prominent public facing person in the company (usually) and as such they necessarily have to focus much of their time on outward facing issues. Sales and financing are the two biggies here. There is a reason a lot of companies have a COO to focus on the inward facing operations. CEOs involvement in operations tends to be more big picture (there are exceptions) and they spend their time trying to communicate the intended direction of the company rather than trying to micromanage the day to day stuff.
That's not to say a technie can't make a great CEO - they demonstrably can. Jack Welch (former CEO of GE) holds a PhD and was a chemist. About 20% of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies have engineering undergraduate degrees. It's just that the skillset to be a CEO and the skillset to be a good engineer don't overlap as much as the skillset for certain other professions. Since sales and financing are key parts of the CEOs job, it's not surprising that people with backgrounds in those areas tend to have an advantage in getting the top job.
Is this like Yogi Berra's argument that "no one goes there anymore, it's too crowded"? Prices go up because people DO want to live there. They may not be able to but if they didn't want to live there, real estate prices would be falling.
Silicon Valley, like NYC but spread out and requires a car.
Both are fine but Silicon Valley bears little resemblance to NYC beyond absurd real estate prices.
I've got nothing against the bay area. Cool place and I like it. If it suits you then by all means live there and enjoy it. But please don't act like it is the only decent place in the US to live. That's just wrong and frankly kind of offensive.
one thing that keeps me here is the forward thinking attitude. acceptance of different lifestyles (for the most part) and the fact that its NOT required that you participate in a religion. quite a lot of the US insists you belong to the local church and if you don't, you are never accepted by your neighbors. I want no part of that kind of lifestyle and that elimnates about 80% of the US, for me.
You are incorrectly presuming 80% of the US believes something you clearly have no knowledge of and frankly if you want acceptance of your lifestyle it's a good idea to start by accepting those of others. You seem to want others to accept your lifestyle but do not seem willing to return the favor. You want forward thinking attitudes and acceptance of different lifestyles? Come to (almost) any college town. Austin, Ann Arbor, Madison, Ithaca, Evanston, Boulder, Chapel Hill, etc. There are tons of them. You'll find exactly what you are describing. Same thing with a lot of large cities. Get a big enough population together and you'll find plenty of acceptance of anything.
It's pretty clear you haven't lived a lot of different places because you are making assertions not based in actual fact. I've lived on the east coast, in the midwest, bits of the Mississippi valley, and the south. I've also worked as a consultant at one time or another in about 2/3's of the lower 48 states. I have NEVER seen a community where you are "required" to participate in a religion. In fact I've never even been in one where the community gave a crap whether you were religious or not. There probably are exceptions in very specific areas but in 99% of the US no one really cares unless you waive it in their face. Presently I'm living in the Midwest which accounts for about 1/5 of the US population and I assure you that no one here cares what religion you are or aren't any more than they do in San Francisco. I could fairly be described as an atheist (never been to church a day in my life) and I've never felt excluded anywhere, even in places in the so called bible belt where I have a lot of family. I've lived and spent tons of time in places not noted for being "forward thinking" and the problem you describe simply does not exist.
but I keep coming back to the intellectualism of the area. if you are a thinker, you'll fit in well here. no one makes fun of you if you are smart, unlike much of the rest of the country. food selection is as good as it gets here, too; with all the different restaurants and styles of food, its a major reason for me to stay here.
OK, now you are just making shit up. Nothing against the Bay area but it is hardly the only place in the country that has a lot of smart people or good food. I was in Ann Arbor recently and the average person there is ridiculously well educated and the food is as good as anywhere I've ever been. Go to ANY of the college towns and you'll find exactly what you describe. Smart people, good food, progressive attitudes. I can point you to food and restaurants where I live which are the match of anything you'll find in the Bay area and yes I speak from personal experience. It might be a bit different but it is every bit as good.
oh, and the weather. the weather! for a snow-hater like myself, it would be hard to leave the bay area and move back to the snow and cold.
The bay area is pretty temperate compared to lots of places. Austin is an awesome town and the Bay Area is an ice box by comparison. And for the record the snow and cold aren't that bad and can be pretty fun even for someone like me that doesn't like the cold much.
The 2012 survey, the most recent from the MIT career office, has 25% of SB grads entering finance, investment banking or consulting
Not exactly shocking. That is roughly the percentage of the student body that is enrolled in MIT's Sloan School of Management (their business school). 819 / 3389 graduates = 24.16%. One would expect most of them to do something in the world of finance.
I don't have any data under my personal control that I care if the government intercepts.
Really? Are you certain of that? Here's the thing. Information you have can look circumstantially damning for reasons beyond your control. Sometimes people's identity is mistaken or they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Messages that are entirely innocent can at times be used against you in a court of law. Maybe you have communicated with someone you don't know
Is it likely that the government will come after you? Of course not. Like you say your information probably is completely uninteresting. But it's not inconceivable that it might be more interesting than you think.
My email is boring as hell.
Probably true but it doesn't follow that it could not be used against you under the right circumstances.
What's really high risk about starting your own company?
Depends on the company you decide to start. A small consulting firm hardly has any risk other than opportunity cost. A manufacturing company on the other hand has very substantial capital requirements which involve a lot of risk. A software company can have relatively low startup costs but scaling it typically involves quite a lot of risk due to the expense of trying to sell the product.
If you're just developing software, it doesn't cost anything but your time (and the other developers), and the cost of a few computers.
Not even remotely true. Look at the income statement of any software company. Microsoft, Oracle, you name it. Go ahead, we'll wait... You'll notice that engineering costs are about 10-15% of the total cost of running the business. Most of the cost is in sales, marketing and administration. You will not have time to both build the product and sell it at the same time. To get any scale you are going to have to hire people to help you and your burn rate just increased dramatically. Furthermore if the product you are making is non-trivial you'll probably need additional developers with their attendant salary requirements. That means you need to find more money. Banks generally will not loan to you without a personal guarantee and assets to back it up which means you quite likely will be either betting the house (literally) or you will be selling significant percentages of the company to raise equity investment. Pretty risky either way.
If you can develop a well needed product, the payout is immense.
Speaking as someone who has started several companies, even if your product is in demand that is no guarantee of a big pay day. It's a LOT harder to build a successful business than do just build a good product.
Slashdot Mirror
How do you know which aspects of its behaviour are intentional and which are bugs? What if you miss a test for a corner case that isn't apparent from the documentation and/or source code?
What if the test suite you inherited has bugs? Are you going to have a test suite for the test suite? And then a test suite for the test suite for the test suite...
Test suites are a Good Thing but they aren't a cure all and certainly don't prevent every possible problem.
Or they'll leave out both email and phone number (OMG Privacy, Can't give these awasy, might get spam or robocalled) leaving no way whatsoever to contact the person in the event that there's problem fulfilling the order (out of stock, etc.).
Sometimes they are right about the spam and robocalls and if this is the first time you are doing business with the company how do they know you won't do that as well? I've certainly had lots of companies decide without my consent to put me on a spam mailing list. Others think it is a good idea to call me for a 5 minute survey every time I speak with any member of the company. (And such surveys NEVER have any actual effect on the quality of service) I'm not saying requiring some way to contact them is a bad idea but I understand why someone might hesitate.
What I find annoying are places that make you create an account even though you will almost certainly never ever order from them again. Having an account should be optional in most cases. If I do a lot of business with you I'll create an account but forcing me to create one isn't going to increase your business by a single penny. It might however encourage me to shop elsewhere.
Incompetence is my biggest fear, both in others and especially in myself.
Your ignorance surrounding the analog between pinpoint-precision MIRV/MARV'd solid-fueled stellar-guided advanced ICBM's and orbital rockets is pretty impressive
First off, screw you for the needless insult. Second off did you even read the links you posted? They directly contradict your assertions:
"The Second Artillery continues to modernize its nuclear forces by enhancing its silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and adding more survivable mobile delivery systems. In recent years, the road-mobile, solid-propellant CSS-10 Mod 1 and CSS-10 Mod 2 (DF-31 and DF-31A) intercontinentalrange ballistic missiles have entered service. The CSS-10 Mod 2, with a range in excess of 11,200 km, can reach most locations within the continental United States. China may also be developing a new road-mobile ICBM, possibly capable of carrying a multiple independently"
Furthermore what you are claiming isn't even remotely logical. The Chinese clearly maintain a nuclear deterrence capability but they cannot do that without having at least some of the weapons easily armed and ready to be delivered. The Chinese are not so stupid as to leave their missiles disarmed when it is a certainty that Russia and the USA (and others) have nuclear tipped missiles pointed at China and ready to go on short notice.
you don't even address the most important issue regarding the potential for offensive use of the Chinese strategic rocket force: THEY DON'T HAVE REMOTELY ENOUGH launchers.
"China’s nuclear arsenal currently consists of approximately 50-75 ICBMs, including the silo-based CSS-4 (DF-5); the solid-fueled, road-mobile CSS-10 Mods 1 and 2 (DF-31 and DF-31A); and the more limited range CSS-3 (DF-4)."
That is more than enough launchers to wipe out every major city in the United States or Russia. Just because they don't have as many as the US doesn't mean they don't have enough.
If you can't decapitate and then neutralize the US's strategic defence forces, then how you can you utilize your nuclear forces to prevent annihilating counter-battery? The answer is that you can't.
Did it occur to you that China's strategy may be merely one of deterrence? The notion of "winning" a nuclear war is an absurd one. The Chinese leadership appears to be smart enough to realize this.
Except that hospital are not full of nuclear weapons victims.
I think Japan might dispute that.
Nuclear weapons have saved more lives than any other technology invented by man since they have been created.
An argument that will be rendered idiotic the moment one gets used. Oh, you think no one is ever going to use a nuke ever again? Sorry but there are more than enough crazy people in the world who absolutely would use one and odds are that someday one of them will get their chance. Nukes are only a deterrent against people who actually don't want to die. One merely has to look to the middle east to see there are plenty of psychopaths out there willing to commit suicide and take a bunch of others with them.
World Wars would still be happening every 1-2 decades were it not for them.
And you plan to provide extraordinary evidence for this extraordinary claim?
Which is what these people want. I'm not seeing the problem here that would require actively decommissioning the things.
Are you really that dense? That might be the dumbest thing I've read in a long time. The reason to decommission them is so that they cannot be used and cannot be perceived as a threat to anyone. Who gives a shit about the cost to decommission them? You decommission them so that they cannot ever explode and kill a huge number of people. Even accidental use of a nuke can potentially cause armageddon which I assure you is a lot more expensive than any decommissioning.
The Chinese don't even deploy warheads mated to delivery vehicles.
Citation needed.
China's nuclear force is purely defensive, as of now, and there is no indication that China seeks expanded capabilities.
That became false the moment China sent an orbital rocket into space. If you can send a man into orbit you can send a warhead just as easily. That very fact is what set off the original space race between the USA and USSR. The most important implication of sputnik was that the soviets could drop a missile on the US with a nuclear warhead attached.
With these results, and Firefox developers focusing in fixing the UI sluggishness, can this be the start of a Firefox comeback, after years of slow market share decline?"
I see these sorts of "performance" comparisons all the time. As I type this I have both Chrome and Firefox open and in use and honestly I cannot see any meaningful difference in speed between them. I'm sure some benchmark suite could find a difference but in day to day usage it simply does not matter which I choose. Any difference in speed on my computers is basically insignificant.
I have had problems with Chrome's printing being flakey but it's not a speed issue.
I have yet to have seen a serious scientific analysis of this question, as discussions rarely get beyond general paranoia facing off against a general belief that government incompetence plus public scrutiny make backdoors unlikely.
Government's are not nearly as incompetent as many pundits would have you believe. We have some very seriously talented people doing some pretty amazing things in our government. Government isn't always a model of efficiency but inefficient does not (always) equal incompetent. And in some cases inefficiency is actually a good thing. Sometimes you want the government to be slow and deliberative and to do it right instead of fast. Some of the most remarkable organizations and talented people I've met are in government. Sadly some of the worst I've met are in government as well but my point remains. Assuming government = incompetent is in clearly wrong in the face of copious evidence to the contrary.
Your problem is you're looking at history with today's rules.
Reasonable is not the same thing as customary and sometimes people mistake what has always been done for what always should be done. Unions won a set of work rules and benefits that generally strike a pretty good balance between the company needs and those of the workers. At the time unions were much more forward thinking about what might constitute a reasonable work place. Given some of the excesses of the time it wasn't hard to see problems. Things are better now so unions need to think harder about what to focus on next.
A 40-hour work week was "not reasonable" when unions were fighting for it.
Sure it was. It just wasn't customary nor was it mandated. It clearly has proven to be a reasonable balance between economics and lifestyle. The exact number wasn't the important bit. It could have been 44 hours or 36 hours and the same basic goal would have been accomplished which was to allow workers to have some form of life outside of work and to compensate them more if they work what could be considered lengthy hours. The number 40 has no special significance other than the fact it is a round number.
Doing something to avoid "1 worker death per $1M spent on a construction project" was "not reasonable". Health insurances was "not reasonable" for rank-and-file employees.
Same argument. It was reasonable to ask for those things. It wasn't however customary at the time. If you have an argument for something that unions should be fighting for now then by all means lets hear it. You mentioned excessive management pay which is a pretty good start. What else you got? Or are you just defending unions as flawless organizations who never do anything wrong?
Yes, when executives demand worker concessions, and then give themselves millions more in pay, it's the unions that are being unreasonable. Suuuure.
No that would be management being unreasonable and that obviously happens quite a bit. In theory the shareholders or the board should take care of excessive management pay but if they don't the union certainly could take a stand. However I don't recall ever hearing about a union seriously demanding cuts to management pay or striking because of it. Sure they gripe about it a lot but when push comes to shove the unions generally are only concerned about their own paychecks. If you know of an example to the contrary I'd love to hear it. I'd love to see a union being the one that seriously looks out for the interests of the shareholders and the interests of the company. It shouldn't be hard to a union to work with shareholders to cap excessive management pay but you never see unions even try.
Executive compensation is about 300 times worker compensation. That is not reasonable.
You'll get no argument from me on that. Only way that makes sense is if the executive can somehow prove they bring in 300 times the value which is a pretty tough argument to make.
Perhaps in your tiny universe, but in mine I use it a lot.
"My tiny universe"? Hardly. Very very very few people ever touch that particular option. I'm 100% confident that the folks at Mozilla have copious data to back me up on this. Some people do use it but it is a miniscule minority. If you want it re-enabled I'm sure someone will write an extension to do just that if they haven't already. In the meantime for the 99.9% of users who will never touch that particular option it is a waste of valuable screen real estate and a source of confusion and possibly problems. It certainly fails the mom test badly. Your typical tech illiterate (who vastly outnumber anyone reading this) isn't going to even know what Javascript is much less why or when they might care to disable it completely within a browser.
Beside completely disabling Javascript is the very definition of a crude solution. Noscript solves most problems far more elegantly.
Just because you don't use that options doesn't nobody else does.
I'm well aware that a small percentage of people use the option to disable Javascript. I'm also well aware that those same people are also technologically adept enough to figure out how to disable Javascript using means other than a menu option. (Noscript, about:config, etc) A menu option deserves prominence if it is commonly used. The option to disable Javascript is very seldom used and as such does not need a prominent menu location. It's not exactly rocket science to make it possible to put the menu pick back for the 5 or so people who actually care.
Why must we dumb down everything?
More like simplifying. Everything should be made as simple as possible but no simpler. Why have a menu option that never gets used? That is pretty much the definition of pointless. I'm pretty geeky and like to tinker with things but a menu option that never ever gets used is wasteful.
I cannot remember the last time I disabled Javascript and I'm pretty confident that somewhere north of 99.9% of users never disable it either. Much of the modern web would be useless without Javascript. So long as there remains a method (extension, etc) to disable it if desired (ala NoScript) I really don't see the big deal.
I'm not saying fees are a good thing. They are quite excessive in many cases and sometimes border on criminal in my opinion. But it's worthwhile to look at things from the bank's perspective.
I agree this is heinous, but it's just a symptom of a problem that's beem going on for decades. Why are bank transaction fees acceptable *at all*?
Because the act of providing that transaction is not free. It almost certainly doesn't cost the bank what the bank actually charges (banks make a lot of profit from fees) but there is a real and significant cost to each and every transaction. The fees are at attempt to recover these costs and of course to make a profit as well. There is a cost to servicing your banking needs and it isn't unreasonable for the bank to have some means to recover that cost and yes, make a profit as well.
Banks used to pay interest for the privilege of using/investing my money while I have it in their bank.
And they still do for many types of accounts. However unless you have a rather substantial amount of money stored at the bank it is actually possible that the cost of servicing your account is higher than the investment income that can be earned from that money. These numbers are made up but illustrative of my point. Let's say you are depositing of $1. That deposit might cost the bank $0.25 to process. Let's say that your neighbor deposits $1000. Processing of the transaction is identical so it still only costs the bank $0.25 to process. The cost is the same to the bank but the profit is wildly different. That is why banks insist on maintaining a larger balance if you want higher interest payments. It also means that not all customers and all transactions are equally profitable to the bank. If you withdraw money from an ATM not owned by your bank, there is a cost to that outside bank but no income to offset the cost. So the impose a fee. Not usually a reasonably fee ($3? Seriously?!?) but in principle they are simply recovering their costs.
As for investing the money you deposited, remember that how much profit the bank can make depends on how much you deposit with them. Having a bunch of accounts with small balances is much less profitable than having a few accounts with bigger balances even if the total amount deposited is the same. Also bear in mind that when interest rates are as low as they are right now, the investment income a bank can make on your money is somewhat limited.
I personally use baning services that don't charge fees; they exist, why dont more people uae them?
I do most of my banking through one of the largest banks in the US. I don't pay ATM fees, debit card fees, account maintenance fees, overdraft fees or frankly much in the way of fees at all. It's not really terribly hard to avoid most if not all fees. If they start charging fees I consider unreasonable I'm more than willing to take my business elsewhere.
But more seriously, it is quite amusing since you know the same people who bash unions would throw a shit fit if they lost their weekends, 40 hour weeks, and other benefits that the average worker now takes for granted that took unions decades to get us.
I don't think any sensible person would argue that many of the things unions accomplished in years past have been unambiguously good. Furthermore a union can be an important counterweight to management excesses. My father was a union member for many years and it probably kept him employed in the face of some pretty inept management. Unions even can help make companies more productive in some cases. Conceptually I'm actually a supporter of unions.
The problem is that many unions have ceased trying to fight for what is reasonable. They aren't fighting anymore for a reasonable work week or improved safety or to get benefits in most cases. They often seem to care little about the health and competitiveness of the company. They make the (false) argument that their own actions and demands somehow cannot have a detrimental effect on the company and that the only goal of management is to screw the union members. Once things become reasonable the unions seem unwilling to drop their adversarial position. I have NEVER seen a union go to management and say, "hey, I see that our retirement costs have become a big burden that is hurting the company. How can we help?" No, instead they simply fight tooth and nail for more even when more isn't really possible. Unions quite simply haven't realized that they've won and keep fighting to the long term detriment of everyone.
If companies tried to change the 40 hour work week then unions likely would enjoy a surge in popularity because then they would be fighting a worthy cause for reasonable working conditions. When work conditions and pay are already are reasonable, unions need to recognize that they need to serve a much more limited purpose. Should management start behaving unreasonably then a union has every right and obligation to take measures to protect the union membership.
I don't understand how this can be legal
There is a very good chance that imposing certain fees is illegal, at least in some states. (PA, TX, NJ and more) There is nothing wrong with offering debit cards as an mutually agreed upon option for payment and there are some advantages for both employer and employee in many cases. There are a fair number of caveats however and fees and certain other restrictions seem to be pretty clearly wrong/illegal in many circumstances. There should always be a convenient way to get the entire net amount of the paycheck without any extra fees. There are a lot of unsettled legal questions surrounding the use of these though so I would expect to see additional legislative and legal action in the near future.
Some of us do not have wrists so big to ascetically accommodate such a big face
That's a very spiritual outlook. Most people would be concerned with worldly matters such as asthetics. Bravo for rejecting worldly pleasures.
The techie who becomes CEO does a lot worse for the company than if some sales asshole is hired to run the thing instead.
That's because THE primary job of the CEO is sales. Sure the CEO is responsible for the whole company, engineering included, but the CEO is the most prominent public facing person in the company (usually) and as such they necessarily have to focus much of their time on outward facing issues. Sales and financing are the two biggies here. There is a reason a lot of companies have a COO to focus on the inward facing operations. CEOs involvement in operations tends to be more big picture (there are exceptions) and they spend their time trying to communicate the intended direction of the company rather than trying to micromanage the day to day stuff.
That's not to say a technie can't make a great CEO - they demonstrably can. Jack Welch (former CEO of GE) holds a PhD and was a chemist. About 20% of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies have engineering undergraduate degrees. It's just that the skillset to be a CEO and the skillset to be a good engineer don't overlap as much as the skillset for certain other professions. Since sales and financing are key parts of the CEOs job, it's not surprising that people with backgrounds in those areas tend to have an advantage in getting the top job.
It's too f-ing expensive.
Is this like Yogi Berra's argument that "no one goes there anymore, it's too crowded"? Prices go up because people DO want to live there. They may not be able to but if they didn't want to live there, real estate prices would be falling.
Silicon Valley, like NYC but spread out and requires a car.
Both are fine but Silicon Valley bears little resemblance to NYC beyond absurd real estate prices.
Idaho Falls, Idaho. They don't much hold with all that whacky stuff the liberals down in Pocatello do. Boy, do I wish I were kidding.
So a town of roughly 50,000 somehow is representative of the rest of the US? Curious...
I've got nothing against the bay area. Cool place and I like it. If it suits you then by all means live there and enjoy it. But please don't act like it is the only decent place in the US to live. That's just wrong and frankly kind of offensive.
one thing that keeps me here is the forward thinking attitude. acceptance of different lifestyles (for the most part) and the fact that its NOT required that you participate in a religion. quite a lot of the US insists you belong to the local church and if you don't, you are never accepted by your neighbors. I want no part of that kind of lifestyle and that elimnates about 80% of the US, for me.
You are incorrectly presuming 80% of the US believes something you clearly have no knowledge of and frankly if you want acceptance of your lifestyle it's a good idea to start by accepting those of others. You seem to want others to accept your lifestyle but do not seem willing to return the favor. You want forward thinking attitudes and acceptance of different lifestyles? Come to (almost) any college town. Austin, Ann Arbor, Madison, Ithaca, Evanston, Boulder, Chapel Hill, etc. There are tons of them. You'll find exactly what you are describing. Same thing with a lot of large cities. Get a big enough population together and you'll find plenty of acceptance of anything.
It's pretty clear you haven't lived a lot of different places because you are making assertions not based in actual fact. I've lived on the east coast, in the midwest, bits of the Mississippi valley, and the south. I've also worked as a consultant at one time or another in about 2/3's of the lower 48 states. I have NEVER seen a community where you are "required" to participate in a religion. In fact I've never even been in one where the community gave a crap whether you were religious or not. There probably are exceptions in very specific areas but in 99% of the US no one really cares unless you waive it in their face. Presently I'm living in the Midwest which accounts for about 1/5 of the US population and I assure you that no one here cares what religion you are or aren't any more than they do in San Francisco. I could fairly be described as an atheist (never been to church a day in my life) and I've never felt excluded anywhere, even in places in the so called bible belt where I have a lot of family. I've lived and spent tons of time in places not noted for being "forward thinking" and the problem you describe simply does not exist.
but I keep coming back to the intellectualism of the area. if you are a thinker, you'll fit in well here. no one makes fun of you if you are smart, unlike much of the rest of the country. food selection is as good as it gets here, too; with all the different restaurants and styles of food, its a major reason for me to stay here.
OK, now you are just making shit up. Nothing against the Bay area but it is hardly the only place in the country that has a lot of smart people or good food. I was in Ann Arbor recently and the average person there is ridiculously well educated and the food is as good as anywhere I've ever been. Go to ANY of the college towns and you'll find exactly what you describe. Smart people, good food, progressive attitudes. I can point you to food and restaurants where I live which are the match of anything you'll find in the Bay area and yes I speak from personal experience. It might be a bit different but it is every bit as good.
oh, and the weather. the weather! for a snow-hater like myself, it would be hard to leave the bay area and move back to the snow and cold.
The bay area is pretty temperate compared to lots of places. Austin is an awesome town and the Bay Area is an ice box by comparison. And for the record the snow and cold aren't that bad and can be pretty fun even for someone like me that doesn't like the cold much.
The 2012 survey, the most recent from the MIT career office, has 25% of SB grads entering finance, investment banking or consulting
Not exactly shocking. That is roughly the percentage of the student body that is enrolled in MIT's Sloan School of Management (their business school). 819 / 3389 graduates = 24.16%. One would expect most of them to do something in the world of finance.
I don't have any data under my personal control that I care if the government intercepts.
Really? Are you certain of that? Here's the thing. Information you have can look circumstantially damning for reasons beyond your control. Sometimes people's identity is mistaken or they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Messages that are entirely innocent can at times be used against you in a court of law. Maybe you have communicated with someone you don't know
Is it likely that the government will come after you? Of course not. Like you say your information probably is completely uninteresting. But it's not inconceivable that it might be more interesting than you think.
My email is boring as hell.
Probably true but it doesn't follow that it could not be used against you under the right circumstances.
What's really high risk about starting your own company?
Depends on the company you decide to start. A small consulting firm hardly has any risk other than opportunity cost. A manufacturing company on the other hand has very substantial capital requirements which involve a lot of risk. A software company can have relatively low startup costs but scaling it typically involves quite a lot of risk due to the expense of trying to sell the product.
If you're just developing software, it doesn't cost anything but your time (and the other developers), and the cost of a few computers.
Not even remotely true. Look at the income statement of any software company. Microsoft, Oracle, you name it. Go ahead, we'll wait... You'll notice that engineering costs are about 10-15% of the total cost of running the business. Most of the cost is in sales, marketing and administration. You will not have time to both build the product and sell it at the same time. To get any scale you are going to have to hire people to help you and your burn rate just increased dramatically. Furthermore if the product you are making is non-trivial you'll probably need additional developers with their attendant salary requirements. That means you need to find more money. Banks generally will not loan to you without a personal guarantee and assets to back it up which means you quite likely will be either betting the house (literally) or you will be selling significant percentages of the company to raise equity investment. Pretty risky either way.
If you can develop a well needed product, the payout is immense.
Speaking as someone who has started several companies, even if your product is in demand that is no guarantee of a big pay day. It's a LOT harder to build a successful business than do just build a good product.