This thread didn't demand an anti-European outburst anymore than it demanded an anti-American outburst.
Maybe you missed the point I made. Here it is again: Solutions to problems which work in the EU would be unworkable here, just because the cost per unit of distance for much of this would just be too much to bear.
The main problem isn't any flag-waving which didn't happen, it's the European arrogance that Europeans have the obvious and singular answer to every question. It's about what is effective HERE, not THERE.
And just for your own, personal edification, I went to college in Germany. I have a personal understanding of the infrastructure differences inherent in things like buried cables, the expense of Deutsche Telekom, and the noisy "joy" of cobblestone roads and pedestrian-only streets, which make sense at places THERE but not HERE.
The difference is that I don't go onto internet boards placing on public display my navel-gazing obsession with how the part of the world I happen to come from does its business.
You know, every time we talk about infrastructure issues here on Slashdot, some Euro comes along, tells us all how Europe does it (as if every country in the EU does anything the same), and states they just can't see why the US doesn't do the same thing.
Here's the reason.
Europeans live in 4 times the population density. To the senses of most Americans, you live on top of each other like rats or cockroaches. But this density does have its advantages....namely, that you can dump obscene amounts of money (relatively speaking) into things like mass transit, power distribution and roads. Having 4 times the population density and a greater total tax burden when compared to an average US citizen allows for this. Solutions to problems which work in the EU would be unworkable here, just because the cost per unit of distance for much of this would just be too much to bear.
There are a lot more perspective changes which come with a shift in population density, but I'll leave that for some other thread. But look at a county-by-county map of US political leanings shaded red and blue, and you might get the picture.
First off, pasteurization has killed the flavor of milk. You see, you could do a slow cook at somewhat lower temperatures to kill any possible bad stuff. But that takes time, and time is money. So nearly all milk gets rocketed up to about 162F, killing the flavor, a good part of the vitamin content, and much of what would let you digest it properly. Real milk is precious little like what you get at the store, even here in Wisconsin where I am. (if you're curious, read the Wikipedia article on raw milk, it's not half bad, if somewhat biased to my POV)
Second, there are some really good soft-cheeses you can't make for sale in the US. The type you need to use unpasteurized milk for. Shame, really.
Third, as you could probably guess, pasteurization is an excuse for not maintaining a clean milking facility. My grandpa was a dairy farm supervisor for a huge US-based food company. Time was, you could eat off any surface in a milkhouse. You could practically fab CPUs in there. I wouldn't try either one today. Pasteurization leads to sloppiness.
And just for lasting this far, here are some goodies for you: Wisconsin Guide to Cutting the Cheese A real cheesecake recipe. Just leave out the orange zest, keep the lemon zest. And screw the toppings - good cheesecake don't need no steenking toppings. Seems appropriate for a thread on cream cheese. (Thanks, Emeril)
Oh, and just for the sake of being topical, government-funded research on improving the foodstocks and on breaking knowledge monopolies in food production can only be a good thing. This is exactly the non-sexy sort of research that we need to do more often.
1. It's actually your great-grandmother's suffering you're reliving. You see, the way to wash the sweat and human oils out of clothes was to take the big pot (like a witch's cauldron) and make Clothes Soup over an open fire. So good job on advancing yourself to 1890.
2. If you went back to freshman chemistry, you'd learn that water and oil do not mix. Which means, if you want to get the human soils out of your underwear, and the human sweat/grease out of your clothes, you're going to have to use soap. Water won't do it. Or, if you don't believe me, just stop buying laundry detergent. You do use it, right, hypocrite? FYI: The water is the medium for the soap, and removed soils. It all has to go somewhere - the soap alone won't carry it.
3a. A liberal arts guy, huh? 'Nuff said.
3b. Just for general info, did you ever see what your top-loader does with your Clothes Soup? The paddle in the middle spins a turn clockwise, then a turn counter-clockwise....and so forth. It also has to spin the drum for the spin cycle (you know, the only major moving part on a front-loader). So you have 2 major moving parts, one of which has to support counter-movement. So you're actually on the WRONG END OF THE SIMPLICITY ARGUMENT. Duh.
You do have the efficienty argument down, though. Front-loaders use 40% less water and much less soap, along with being much easier on the actual clothes because there is no paddle-like implement used to pummel your clothes. Gravity and water do that for the front-loader, off that one mono-dirctional moving part.
4. So...you do change the water in your washing machine from time to time, right?
How do you get it out?
Could it be...........a cute little rubber seal? At the bottom of the drum? Under way more standing water pressure than a front-loader sees?
PS: Check into how long Mankind has been making watertight seals. I bet you'll be suprised. We've had time to actually get kinda good at it.
How the hell did your particular brand of idiocy get modded up?
The main problem with your pollution data is that it does not concern itself with concentration.
You see, the USA is a big place. In a manner of speaking, it can absorb a greater amount of pollution before becoming polluted.
The UK is roughly 1/40th the size of the USA. So, if the UK puts out 1/40th the pollution as the US, then they can be thought of as being equally polluted.
I think this simple fact explains most of the contrary views between much of Europe's view on pollution and much of the USA's view on pollution - a little goes a long way in the high-population density parts of the world.
In WI, it doesn't take much to prove residency and get the "in-state" rates for the University of Wisconsin system. Between that and the various financial aid programs, you'd actually be surprised how many kids are the children of immigrants and going to colleges. Even here in the midwest.
Milwaukee, for example, has a very large population of Mexican immigrants in the SE part of the city. For example, the 13th Street Viaduct is called the longest bridge in the world....because it connects Mexico to Africa. (large black population is in the NE part of the city)
Time to fill in the blanks....it sounds like your efforts need the input of a deftly-wielded clue-X-4.
"I have a BS in EECE/CompSci, MS in Physics, and took all of the courses to get a Ph.D. in Computer Eng. I have 15 years unix experience, 10 years hands on sysadmin experience"
Translated: I got a BS via night-school at a school you've never heard of while I played whiz-kid during the day. I then got my masters in a completely unrelated discipline, showing my lack of interest in what I'm doing. I then took all the classes for a Ph.D., but when the time came to complete a project proving what I learned, I couldn't handle the work and quit.
So I decided to find a job outside of the company that paid for me to get my BS. Having clearly demonstrated my non-commital, prima-donna attitude by my educational path, by my lack of ability to finish my Ph.D. work, and almost assuredly in the interview, no one seems to want to hire me.
-----------------
"And 1.5 years and 1000s of resumes (with college degrees and experience and all) later, I am still without employment in the US."
My failures are the fault of someone who isn't me. I haven't realized that not having a good explanation for not finishing my degree is a poison pill for most employers. I don't get why badmouthing every school I've attended and every company that ever took a chance on me isn't a good idea.
I also don't get why someone wouldn't want to pay the Ph.D. money I'm demanding for someone who not only hasn't finished the degree, but also wants to do the same work as a fresh-minted BS who'll be fairly paid at half the cost.
1. The context does not exist where Gore's statement is not, at least, an enormous misstatement. Here is his entire quote...YOU tell me what the meaning, with his full quote below, could otherwise be. The conventions of the English language allow only one interpretation. ----------- GORE: Well, I will be offering - I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.
But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
During a quarter century of public service, including most of it long before I came into my current job, I have worked to try to improve the quality of life in our country and in our world. And what I've seen during that experience is an emerging future that's very exciting, about which I'm very optimistic, and toward which I want to lead. -----------
As for JFK, the correct German is "Ich bin auch Berliner". No article should be used (ein). Again, there is no other intrepretation, although the sentiment was certainly not lost on the audience. In my personal experience with Germans and with speaking German, they are a people who generously forgive non-native speakers making mistakes.
Why would someone sacrifice application performance for ease of development?
Here's a reality check for you: Suppose you have a semi-large development task ahead of your team. In.net, you can create the code and have it working with 1200 developer hours, with standard C code it can be done in about 1400.
Those extra 200 hours are charged to your department at $45/hour internally. Which means that the extra development time necessary to extend/create new libraries and start "from scratch" instead of using the.net framework is $9000. That's a pretty decent server to handle the extra load.
Quite simply, hardware is cheaper than developer time. That's the driver - overall cost to create and maintain your application. NOT overall performance, unless the difference is so significant that the hardware cost to make up the difference would be astronomical.
You want to understand the allure of.net? It's right there.
One more thing...I stole the following shamelessly from MS's.net website: Microsoft.NET is the Microsoft strategy for connecting systems, information, and devices through Web services so people can collaborate and communicate more effectively.
So...you want to write an OS as a web service? Here's a question for you: What are you going to run your OS service on? I guess that means you want Microsoft to have an OS for their OS!
Because, quite simply, PINs act from the assumption that: 1. The card is present 2. A machine needs to do the validation, because when the card system was created, we didn't have the capability to verify a signature purely electronically. A stand-in, or Personal Identification Number, was needed to take the signature's place. (mostly at ATMs)
Most fraudsters don't have blank cards and the proper embossing/encoding equipment to create fake cards. So PIN usage would save you nothing in most cases. Fraud usually starts with someone being careless about the card number - whether merchant, issuer or cardholder.
CVV2, the code numbers on the back of your card in the signature blank, are going in that direction for Internet and other non-personal transactions, but it's not fully used yet, and not perfect.
Really, a signature is far safer than PINs. But the best thing is to just be careful with your personal info from the start, and don't do business with anyone who feels/acts any different.
Donald: Jake ain't lyin', though. We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline. Tom: But we'll never get that fat sound again, not without some more horns. We'll never get Mr. Fabulous. Jake: Where is he? Murph: Forget it. Mr Fabulous is the top Maitre D at the Chez Paul. He's pullin' down six bills a week. Steve: Yeah. And Matt Murphy went up and got himself married.
Simple answer: We're put here to take care of each other. But modern civilization values privacy and self-indulgence so highly that, when the artifical falls away, nothing is left.
Long answer: We in the western world invest ourselves incredibly heavily in things which do not matter. Computers, cars, homes, iPods, music and TV acts occupy our concious thought and dominate our collective self image. If you don't have a white headphone cord sticking out of your ears, you're no one, right?
When you don't have much, you focus on things which matter more - the people who live around you, the world as-it-is. When American Idol isn't stealing your attention, you appreciate the beauty of a sunset. Daily. You take an interest in your neighbors' and friends' joys and sorrows. All this stuff has destroyed our simple senses of wonder and community - and those two are most of what makes life worth living.
And when all the things which distract us from the truly important things fall away, we see ourselves as a shell filled with nothing. And so making an end doesn't really seem so significant.
The answer, my friends, is to log off, tune out and shut down. Go outside, meet your neighbors, and begin to have a locally meaningful life.
1. Employees of the NSA sign in to computers in a sealed lab with a secured, high-speed connection to the internet. 2. They begin to surf Russian porn sites, skipping the innocuous Playboy knockoffs and looking for hardcore fetish sites, usually along the lines of http://goatse.ragingfist.net/ . Warez sites are also checked with the following top-secret search terms: "OMG BF2 TRAINER LOL". 3. All viruses and portscans are logged from above activity. 4. After 36 hours of nonstop scanning, the machines are given to the IRS to store taxpayer information. Subsequent identity theft cases are noted and logged for private laughter. 5. 20 pounds of banannas are mailed to the White House. Secret Service response time noted. 6. Operations are wrapped up with a rousing game of paintball, pitting the Warriors team from the BATF against the I's Innocent team from HUD. Event is unofficially referred to in operative circles as "Ghettoblast 4". 7. Press release centering on preparedness is issued.
Right now, almost every Fortune 500 company which sends out bills to consumers has one thing in common:
A large IBM mainframe architecture running a plethora of night-batch COBOL apps, mostly written by baby boomers who are looking longingly at retirement RIGHT NOW.
The cost to recreate these applications in.NET, Java, or whatever other language and platform you could choose would be immense. Which is to say, it's all going absolutely nowhere, even if they have to hire liberal arts people, train them, and set them to the task. Business people don't pay for expensive rework, because they have to demonstrate business value derived from large expenses.
Therefore, competent coders who understand the following terms and can work within the environment they imply will be in huge demand in about 5 years: COBOL, JCL, DB2, VSAM, CICS, CA7.
You wanna work in mission-critical code? Like the idea of 5-9s uptime? Start with z/OS.
Slashdot Mirror
I have no problem with disagreement whatsoever.
Rampaging morons, however, are another story.
Your link includes the "New Independent States".
As in Russia.
As in fucking Siberia.
Last I checked, both were pretty unpopulated......AND BOTH ARE IN ASIA.
Think that might pull the average down just a touch? I guess they stopped teaching Math and Geography where you are.
That's funny.
Wikipedia shows the EU population density at 115 per square kilometer, and the US density at 30 per square kilometer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
What orifice did you pull your numbers out of?
This thread didn't demand an anti-European outburst anymore than it demanded an anti-American outburst.
Maybe you missed the point I made. Here it is again:
Solutions to problems which work in the EU would be unworkable here, just because the cost per unit of distance for much of this would just be too much to bear.
The main problem isn't any flag-waving which didn't happen, it's the European arrogance that Europeans have the obvious and singular answer to every question. It's about what is effective HERE, not THERE.
And just for your own, personal edification, I went to college in Germany. I have a personal understanding of the infrastructure differences inherent in things like buried cables, the expense of Deutsche Telekom, and the noisy "joy" of cobblestone roads and pedestrian-only streets, which make sense at places THERE but not HERE.
The difference is that I don't go onto internet boards placing on public display my navel-gazing obsession with how the part of the world I happen to come from does its business.
You know, every time we talk about infrastructure issues here on Slashdot, some Euro comes along, tells us all how Europe does it (as if every country in the EU does anything the same), and states they just can't see why the US doesn't do the same thing.
Here's the reason.
Europeans live in 4 times the population density. To the senses of most Americans, you live on top of each other like rats or cockroaches. But this density does have its advantages....namely, that you can dump obscene amounts of money (relatively speaking) into things like mass transit, power distribution and roads. Having 4 times the population density and a greater total tax burden when compared to an average US citizen allows for this. Solutions to problems which work in the EU would be unworkable here, just because the cost per unit of distance for much of this would just be too much to bear.
There are a lot more perspective changes which come with a shift in population density, but I'll leave that for some other thread. But look at a county-by-county map of US political leanings shaded red and blue, and you might get the picture.
Second, there are some really good soft-cheeses you can't make for sale in the US. The type you need to use unpasteurized milk for. Shame, really.
Third, as you could probably guess, pasteurization is an excuse for not maintaining a clean milking facility. My grandpa was a dairy farm supervisor for a huge US-based food company. Time was, you could eat off any surface in a milkhouse. You could practically fab CPUs in there. I wouldn't try either one today. Pasteurization leads to sloppiness.
And just for lasting this far, here are some goodies for you:
Wisconsin Guide to Cutting the Cheese
A real cheesecake recipe. Just leave out the orange zest, keep the lemon zest. And screw the toppings - good cheesecake don't need no steenking toppings. Seems appropriate for a thread on cream cheese. (Thanks, Emeril)
Oh, and just for the sake of being topical, government-funded research on improving the foodstocks and on breaking knowledge monopolies in food production can only be a good thing. This is exactly the non-sexy sort of research that we need to do more often.
Well, let's confront your misconceptions:
1. It's actually your great-grandmother's suffering you're reliving. You see, the way to wash the sweat and human oils out of clothes was to take the big pot (like a witch's cauldron) and make Clothes Soup over an open fire. So good job on advancing yourself to 1890.
2. If you went back to freshman chemistry, you'd learn that water and oil do not mix. Which means, if you want to get the human soils out of your underwear, and the human sweat/grease out of your clothes, you're going to have to use soap. Water won't do it. Or, if you don't believe me, just stop buying laundry detergent. You do use it, right, hypocrite? FYI: The water is the medium for the soap, and removed soils. It all has to go somewhere - the soap alone won't carry it.
3a. A liberal arts guy, huh? 'Nuff said.
3b. Just for general info, did you ever see what your top-loader does with your Clothes Soup? The paddle in the middle spins a turn clockwise, then a turn counter-clockwise....and so forth. It also has to spin the drum for the spin cycle (you know, the only major moving part on a front-loader). So you have 2 major moving parts, one of which has to support counter-movement. So you're actually on the WRONG END OF THE SIMPLICITY ARGUMENT. Duh.
You do have the efficienty argument down, though. Front-loaders use 40% less water and much less soap, along with being much easier on the actual clothes because there is no paddle-like implement used to pummel your clothes. Gravity and water do that for the front-loader, off that one mono-dirctional moving part.
4. So...you do change the water in your washing machine from time to time, right?
How do you get it out?
Could it be...........a cute little rubber seal? At the bottom of the drum? Under way more standing water pressure than a front-loader sees?
PS: Check into how long Mankind has been making watertight seals. I bet you'll be suprised. We've had time to actually get kinda good at it.
How the hell did your particular brand of idiocy get modded up?
There is a very similarly-worded paragraph in the Constitution regarding "arms".
Yet, there are many, many laws regarding handguns, assualt rifles, and other weapons.
If you consider the First amendment violated, the way to fix it lies with the Second. I am certain the writer did not intend this to be a coincidence.
Wake me when they make Cobra Commander.
Joey stole mine when I was 12. He rocked.
Spinners, HID-headlights and a massive wing spoiler to go with that fat chrome tip.
Time to pimp das Auto! Amerikan engineering in da Haus, ja.
The main problem with your pollution data is that it does not concern itself with concentration.
You see, the USA is a big place. In a manner of speaking, it can absorb a greater amount of pollution before becoming polluted.
The UK is roughly 1/40th the size of the USA. So, if the UK puts out 1/40th the pollution as the US, then they can be thought of as being equally polluted.
I think this simple fact explains most of the contrary views between much of Europe's view on pollution and much of the USA's view on pollution - a little goes a long way in the high-population density parts of the world.
In WI, it doesn't take much to prove residency and get the "in-state" rates for the University of Wisconsin system. Between that and the various financial aid programs, you'd actually be surprised how many kids are the children of immigrants and going to colleges. Even here in the midwest.
Milwaukee, for example, has a very large population of Mexican immigrants in the SE part of the city. For example, the 13th Street Viaduct is called the longest bridge in the world....because it connects Mexico to Africa. (large black population is in the NE part of the city)
Time to fill in the blanks....it sounds like your efforts need the input of a deftly-wielded clue-X-4.
"I have a BS in EECE/CompSci, MS in Physics, and took all of the courses to get a Ph.D. in Computer Eng. I have 15 years unix experience, 10 years hands on sysadmin experience"
Translated: I got a BS via night-school at a school you've never heard of while I played whiz-kid during the day. I then got my masters in a completely unrelated discipline, showing my lack of interest in what I'm doing. I then took all the classes for a Ph.D., but when the time came to complete a project proving what I learned, I couldn't handle the work and quit.
So I decided to find a job outside of the company that paid for me to get my BS. Having clearly demonstrated my non-commital, prima-donna attitude by my educational path, by my lack of ability to finish my Ph.D. work, and almost assuredly in the interview, no one seems to want to hire me.
-----------------
"And 1.5 years and 1000s of resumes (with college degrees and experience and all) later, I am still without employment in the US."
My failures are the fault of someone who isn't me. I haven't realized that not having a good explanation for not finishing my degree is a poison pill for most employers. I don't get why badmouthing every school I've attended and every company that ever took a chance on me isn't a good idea.
I also don't get why someone wouldn't want to pay the Ph.D. money I'm demanding for someone who not only hasn't finished the degree, but also wants to do the same work as a fresh-minted BS who'll be fairly paid at half the cost.
Two essential problems with your post:
1. The context does not exist where Gore's statement is not, at least, an enormous misstatement. Here is his entire quote...YOU tell me what the meaning, with his full quote below, could otherwise be. The conventions of the English language allow only one interpretation.
-----------
GORE: Well, I will be offering - I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.
But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
During a quarter century of public service, including most of it long before I came into my current job, I have worked to try to improve the quality of life in our country and in our world. And what I've seen during that experience is an emerging future that's very exciting, about which I'm very optimistic, and toward which I want to lead.
-----------
As for JFK, the correct German is "Ich bin auch Berliner". No article should be used (ein). Again, there is no other intrepretation, although the sentiment was certainly not lost on the audience. In my personal experience with Germans and with speaking German, they are a people who generously forgive non-native speakers making mistakes.
[iiiiippp]
[Scientist 1] Hey, man. This weed is awesome.
[Scientist 2] Yeah, dude.
[Scientist 1] Hey, you know what, man?
[Scientist 2] What, dude.
[Scientist 1] Your skull bong totally looks like a missing link! I bet it could, like, totally fit in by Australopithecus anamensis.
[Scientist 2] Wow, man, and I totally thought it was an ancient bong.
Why would someone sacrifice application performance for ease of development?
.net, you can create the code and have it working with 1200 developer hours, with standard C code it can be done in about 1400.
.net framework is $9000. That's a pretty decent server to handle the extra load.
.net? It's right there.
.net website: .NET is the Microsoft strategy for connecting systems, information, and devices through Web services so people can collaborate and communicate more effectively.
Here's a reality check for you:
Suppose you have a semi-large development task ahead of your team. In
Those extra 200 hours are charged to your department at $45/hour internally. Which means that the extra development time necessary to extend/create new libraries and start "from scratch" instead of using the
Quite simply, hardware is cheaper than developer time. That's the driver - overall cost to create and maintain your application. NOT overall performance, unless the difference is so significant that the hardware cost to make up the difference would be astronomical.
You want to understand the allure of
One more thing...I stole the following shamelessly from MS's
Microsoft
So...you want to write an OS as a web service? Here's a question for you: What are you going to run your OS service on? I guess that means you want Microsoft to have an OS for their OS!
Duh indeed.
Uh....we call it certified mail over here. To most closely match what you're talking about, you would need to request Return Receipt with it.
i ces/certifiedmailservice.htm
http://www.usps.com/send/waystosendmail/extraserv
Because, quite simply, PINs act from the assumption that:
1. The card is present
2. A machine needs to do the validation, because when the card system was created, we didn't have the capability to verify a signature purely electronically. A stand-in, or Personal Identification Number, was needed to take the signature's place. (mostly at ATMs)
Most fraudsters don't have blank cards and the proper embossing/encoding equipment to create fake cards. So PIN usage would save you nothing in most cases. Fraud usually starts with someone being careless about the card number - whether merchant, issuer or cardholder.
CVV2, the code numbers on the back of your card in the signature blank, are going in that direction for Internet and other non-personal transactions, but it's not fully used yet, and not perfect.
Really, a signature is far safer than PINs. But the best thing is to just be careful with your personal info from the start, and don't do business with anyone who feels/acts any different.
Anti-trust investigation of a company strong-arming consumers? Delivered to you by the Bush Administration and the evil henchman Alberto Gonzales.
Because, you know, they're in the back pocket of business.
Donald: Jake ain't lyin', though. We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Tom: But we'll never get that fat sound again, not without some more horns. We'll never get Mr. Fabulous.
Jake: Where is he?
Murph: Forget it. Mr Fabulous is the top Maitre D at the Chez Paul. He's pullin' down six bills a week.
Steve: Yeah. And Matt Murphy went up and got himself married.
The Ultimate Budget Box includes LCD monitor for over $500. So your "deal" is actually $200 more than what Ars is showing.
RTFA.
"$500 CDN."
So that's free like beer, right?
Simple answer: We're put here to take care of each other. But modern civilization values privacy and self-indulgence so highly that, when the artifical falls away, nothing is left.
Long answer: We in the western world invest ourselves incredibly heavily in things which do not matter. Computers, cars, homes, iPods, music and TV acts occupy our concious thought and dominate our collective self image. If you don't have a white headphone cord sticking out of your ears, you're no one, right?
When you don't have much, you focus on things which matter more - the people who live around you, the world as-it-is. When American Idol isn't stealing your attention, you appreciate the beauty of a sunset. Daily. You take an interest in your neighbors' and friends' joys and sorrows. All this stuff has destroyed our simple senses of wonder and community - and those two are most of what makes life worth living.
And when all the things which distract us from the truly important things fall away, we see ourselves as a shell filled with nothing. And so making an end doesn't really seem so significant.
The answer, my friends, is to log off, tune out and shut down. Go outside, meet your neighbors, and begin to have a locally meaningful life.
It's a complicated, 7 step process.
1. Employees of the NSA sign in to computers in a sealed lab with a secured, high-speed connection to the internet.
2. They begin to surf Russian porn sites, skipping the innocuous Playboy knockoffs and looking for hardcore fetish sites, usually along the lines of http://goatse.ragingfist.net/ . Warez sites are also checked with the following top-secret search terms: "OMG BF2 TRAINER LOL".
3. All viruses and portscans are logged from above activity.
4. After 36 hours of nonstop scanning, the machines are given to the IRS to store taxpayer information. Subsequent identity theft cases are noted and logged for private laughter.
5. 20 pounds of banannas are mailed to the White House. Secret Service response time noted.
6. Operations are wrapped up with a rousing game of paintball, pitting the Warriors team from the BATF against the I's Innocent team from HUD. Event is unofficially referred to in operative circles as "Ghettoblast 4".
7. Press release centering on preparedness is issued.
Do Know Evil
There, fixed that for ya.
Right now, almost every Fortune 500 company which sends out bills to consumers has one thing in common:
.NET, Java, or whatever other language and platform you could choose would be immense. Which is to say, it's all going absolutely nowhere, even if they have to hire liberal arts people, train them, and set them to the task. Business people don't pay for expensive rework, because they have to demonstrate business value derived from large expenses.
A large IBM mainframe architecture running a plethora of night-batch COBOL apps, mostly written by baby boomers who are looking longingly at retirement RIGHT NOW.
The cost to recreate these applications in
Therefore, competent coders who understand the following terms and can work within the environment they imply will be in huge demand in about 5 years: COBOL, JCL, DB2, VSAM, CICS, CA7.
You wanna work in mission-critical code? Like the idea of 5-9s uptime? Start with z/OS.