If people could say e.g. "No, you can't use my tax money to build that school as I don't have kids and so I'm not getting anything out of it" or "No, I don't want my tax dollars going into road construction, I don't even own a car" then there would be no schools, no roads, no public facilities, etc.
If enough people didn't want the school/road to be, then surely in a democracy/republic, the school/road shouldn't be built. It is, or at least should be, still "your money" - part of the implied social contract that you mention is that you trust the government to spend your money wisely, and accept that the amount of your money that they spend on things that you don't agree with is balanced out by the amount of other people's money that they spend on things you do agree with (personally, I don't - as too much of the UK tax is funnelled into making corporations and the rich richer - but am struggling to find an appropriate way to withdraw from the social contract without being arrested).
There's also a big difference between hoping that they don't spend it on X, as the original poster did, and demanding that they don't.
But my point was that the earlier post seemed to be suggesting that it would be worth researching the "When I die.." idea, because the mere investigation of any idea, right or wrong, is beneficial.
His post was an attempt to refute someone who was suggesting that it wasn't worth too much serious time until it had passed a "worth investigating" review.
True, but then I was talking specifically about the productivity of the language. I wouldn't recommend.NET as an enterprise server platform, but pretty much all of the actual coding that I do these days is for my own benefit, and the odd prototype, and C# is ideal for these.
Have you used C#? I've been pretty impressed with it, having taken most of Java's good points. I hate to say it but, I think I actually prefer it to Java for most development tasks now.
They are both a huge improvement on C++, as far as simplicity of development is concerned, though.
When I heard on the radio this morning that Bush was planning on sending people to Mars, I assumed that he was talking about shipping everyone out from Guantanamo Bay.
How good are mp3 CD players for jog protection? The last (non-mp3) CD player I had had got pretty much the best jog/skip protection available, yet I couldn't walk down the street without it jumping, yet the MP3 player that I've got has never jumped once - that's been walking, running, cycling etc.
Of course you usually can't predict which are the wrong ideas before you start, but to suggest that the time that was spent investigating them will always have been benefitial is a little like saying 'It's always worth investing in shares because even if the value has gone down, you've learned that you shouldn't have invested in it'.
My point was that by suggesting all ideas are worth serious time, we are denying any need to pre-filter and try to identify the ones that are more likely to be correct.
There is a real problem that the arguement can come across as racist/protectionist, and I suppose to some people it does boil down to this.
However, the main reason that most western companies are looking to outsource to India/China is simply cost. And usually this means short term cost, so what they are looking for is the cheapest supplier of 10 Java coders (or whatever), and comes from a view that most IT staff are pretty much interchangable production line units.
The real difference is not between UK/US coders and Indian/Chinese coders, it's between developers who have a solid, long-term relationship with the client company, and the hired-gun outsourced developer.
My company (UK division of major US company) has dealt with contractors/outsourcers from the US, the UK, China and India, and the same problems have occured in each case - developers being called in for a single project, who don't understand the nuances of our buinsess, or the quirks of our applications, and who are usually paid to deliver a piece of software and then walk away. The software that they have developed has usually done, pretty much literally, what the business asked for, but rarely what they actually wanted.
This is partly a problem of quite an immature business community, who are unable to clearly articulate what they really want, but this is also where real professional analysts/designers earn their money - being able to read between the lines, and challenge the needs of the client. Where you are part of the same company, or have a very close long-term relationship, then it's likely to be in your interests to do the best for the company. If you are being paid for this development, you'll probably want to take the easiest route possible that meets your contract.
In some areas it is beneficial to outsource, whether to a local company or to India/China, but this tends to be in 'commoditised' areas, where your company is getting no competititive advantage. However, in many companies, much of their IT does, or at least should, offer opportunities for business advantage, but this advantage can only be delivered by staff who work closely with, and understand, their business.
contains some features that are not seen in any language. The most common words are often repeated two or three times, for example - the equivalent of English using 'and and and'
What about Chines? From the little that I've learned, they often repeat a word for emphasis - e.g., Xie Xie meaning thank you.
The figure for oil revenues in the past 5 years was $50bn - $10bn/year. This was during a time of very tightly controlled UN sanctions. The annual projection given by Dick Cheney in April was $25-$30bn. The estimate given by Rumsfeld in April for the cost to troops was $2bn/month, and this was intended to be for a short period (a year or so). So at the level of estimates used to make the decisions, there was expected to be a profit even within the first year.
Now, troop costs have gone up since then, and oil revenues will be down for the first year due to sabotage etc. However, assuming that the troops are not there indefinitly, it's still not going to take many years to start turning a profit (this ignoring things like the current 2b of contracts that have already been awarded to Halliburton).
And as I mentioned before - costs paid by tax payers, revenue reaped by private companies, most with connections with the administration.
So are you backing down on your claim that "it's a simple unassailable fact." that the US never sold weapons?
And why do you think that Richard Perle is an honest, trustworthy, citizen that we should somehow believe? He's a Neoconservative, and parter at Trireme Partners, a company that invests in enterprises "that are of value to homeland security and defense," , while advising Bush on homeland security and defense. He had a strong interest in making Saddam look as bad as possible, and saying that the US had sold weapons to him would have rather undermined his position.
Current cost of US troops - $3.9 bn/month (theoretically for a short period). Amount of oil in Iraq - 115bn barrels confirmed (possibly up 300bn with increased exploration). Current price of oil - approx $30/barrel (with lowest cost of extraction in the world). That gives around $3-9trillion worth of oil to fight for. That's 60-180 years worth of troops.
Also, the troops are being paid for by the government (i.e., taxpayer), and the profit is going to firms like Cheyney's old company, Halliburton.
Congressional investigations after the Gulf War revealed that the Commerce Department had licensed sales of biological agents, including anthrax, and insecticides, which could be used in chemical weapons, to Iraq.
According to a sworn court affidavit prepared by (former National Security Council official) Teicher in 1995, the United States "actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry required." Teicher said in the affidavit that former CIA director William Casey used a Chilean company, Cardoen, to supply Iraq with cluster bombs that could be used to disrupt the Iranian human wave attacks. Teicher refuses to discuss the affidavit.
Is it worth pointing out that the west, including the US, was actively supporting Hussain, including supplying weapons and chemical/biological agents, throughout the 80's (even after the attack on Halabja)?
I can't believe there's no Sinclair Spectrum in there. I think it's pretty much responsible for the current UK IT industry. Most developers that I know around my age (mid 30's) in the UK learned to program on it.
When was the last time you saw a TV program or movie where they didn't use a Mac? Even my wife, who understands virtually nothing about computers, goes "Oh look, they're using an Apple" on a regular basis (her knowledge extends to identifying them by the big apple on the side).
Slashdot Mirror
If enough people didn't want the school/road to be, then surely in a democracy/republic, the school/road shouldn't be built. It is, or at least should be, still "your money" - part of the implied social contract that you mention is that you trust the government to spend your money wisely, and accept that the amount of your money that they spend on things that you don't agree with is balanced out by the amount of other people's money that they spend on things you do agree with (personally, I don't - as too much of the UK tax is funnelled into making corporations and the rich richer - but am struggling to find an appropriate way to withdraw from the social contract without being arrested).
There's also a big difference between hoping that they don't spend it on X, as the original poster did, and demanding that they don't.
But my point was that the earlier post seemed to be suggesting that it would be worth researching the "When I die.." idea, because the mere investigation of any idea, right or wrong, is beneficial.
His post was an attempt to refute someone who was suggesting that it wasn't worth too much serious time until it had passed a "worth investigating" review.
True, but then I was talking specifically about the productivity of the language. I wouldn't recommend .NET as an enterprise server platform, but pretty much all of the actual coding that I do these days is for my own benefit, and the odd prototype, and C# is ideal for these.
Have you used C#? I've been pretty impressed with it, having taken most of Java's good points. I hate to say it but, I think I actually prefer it to Java for most development tasks now.
They are both a huge improvement on C++, as far as simplicity of development is concerned, though.
When I heard on the radio this morning that Bush was planning on sending people to Mars, I assumed that he was talking about shipping everyone out from Guantanamo Bay.
How good are mp3 CD players for jog protection? The last (non-mp3) CD player I had had got pretty much the best jog/skip protection available, yet I couldn't walk down the street without it jumping, yet the MP3 player that I've got has never jumped once - that's been walking, running, cycling etc.
Of course you usually can't predict which are the wrong ideas before you start, but to suggest that the time that was spent investigating them will always have been benefitial is a little like saying 'It's always worth investing in shares because even if the value has gone down, you've learned that you shouldn't have invested in it'.
My point was that by suggesting all ideas are worth serious time, we are denying any need to pre-filter and try to identify the ones that are more likely to be correct.
But if they are wrong, they can also waste valuable research time/money while people look into them.
There is a real problem that the arguement can come across as racist/protectionist, and I suppose to some people it does boil down to this.
However, the main reason that most western companies are looking to outsource to India/China is simply cost. And usually this means short term cost, so what they are looking for is the cheapest supplier of 10 Java coders (or whatever), and comes from a view that most IT staff are pretty much interchangable production line units.
The real difference is not between UK/US coders and Indian/Chinese coders, it's between developers who have a solid, long-term relationship with the client company, and the hired-gun outsourced developer.
My company (UK division of major US company) has dealt with contractors/outsourcers from the US, the UK, China and India, and the same problems have occured in each case - developers being called in for a single project, who don't understand the nuances of our buinsess, or the quirks of our applications, and who are usually paid to deliver a piece of software and then walk away. The software that they have developed has usually done, pretty much literally, what the business asked for, but rarely what they actually wanted.
This is partly a problem of quite an immature business community, who are unable to clearly articulate what they really want, but this is also where real professional analysts/designers earn their money - being able to read between the lines, and challenge the needs of the client. Where you are part of the same company, or have a very close long-term relationship, then it's likely to be in your interests to do the best for the company. If you are being paid for this development, you'll probably want to take the easiest route possible that meets your contract.
In some areas it is beneficial to outsource, whether to a local company or to India/China, but this tends to be in 'commoditised' areas, where your company is getting no competititive advantage. However, in many companies, much of their IT does, or at least should, offer opportunities for business advantage, but this advantage can only be delivered by staff who work closely with, and understand, their business.
Google toolbar does the same thing for IE.
What about Chines? From the little that I've learned, they often repeat a word for emphasis - e.g., Xie Xie meaning thank you.
So the pollution that pumps out of power stations is making it too dark to switch to solar power. How convenient.
Surely the price will go down, as there is less demand. I would have thought it would be a better idea to invest in tanning salons.
Totally off-topic, but what the hell
Surely, the Y2K party is in 44 years (2048), not 20 year (2024).
The figure for oil revenues in the past 5 years was $50bn - $10bn /year. This was during a time of very tightly controlled UN sanctions. The annual projection given by Dick Cheney in April was $25-$30bn. The estimate given by Rumsfeld in April for the cost to troops was $2bn/month, and this was intended to be for a short period (a year or so). So at the level of estimates used to make the decisions, there was expected to be a profit even within the first year.
Now, troop costs have gone up since then, and oil revenues will be down for the first year due to sabotage etc. However, assuming that the troops are not there indefinitly, it's still not going to take many years to start turning a profit (this ignoring things like the current 2b of contracts that have already been awarded to Halliburton).
And as I mentioned before - costs paid by tax payers, revenue reaped by private companies, most with connections with the administration.
Try to get a clue.
And why do you think that Richard Perle is an honest, trustworthy, citizen that we should somehow believe? He's a Neoconservative, and parter at Trireme Partners, a company that invests in enterprises "that are of value to homeland security and defense," , while advising Bush on homeland security and defense. He had a strong interest in making Saddam look as bad as possible, and saying that the US had sold weapons to him would have rather undermined his position.
Current cost of US troops - $3.9 bn/month (theoretically for a short period). Amount of oil in Iraq - 115bn barrels confirmed (possibly up 300bn with increased exploration). Current price of oil - approx $30/barrel (with lowest cost of extraction in the world). That gives around $3-9trillion worth of oil to fight for. That's 60-180 years worth of troops.
Also, the troops are being paid for by the government (i.e., taxpayer), and the profit is going to firms like Cheyney's old company, Halliburton.
Stand against torture? Tell that to the people in Guantanamo bay.
From CBS
Congressional investigations after the Gulf War revealed that the Commerce Department had licensed sales of biological agents, including anthrax, and insecticides, which could be used in chemical weapons, to Iraq.
Or from The Washington Post.
According to a sworn court affidavit prepared by (former National Security Council official) Teicher in 1995, the United States "actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry required." Teicher said in the affidavit that former CIA director William Casey used a Chilean company, Cardoen, to supply Iraq with cluster bombs that could be used to disrupt the Iranian human wave attacks. Teicher refuses to discuss the affidavit.
Is it worth pointing out that the west, including the US, was actively supporting Hussain, including supplying weapons and chemical/biological agents, throughout the 80's (even after the attack on Halabja)?
I think we should go back to a 1 dimensional model. None of this fancy 2D directory type stuff to get data lost in :-)
I can't believe there's no Sinclair Spectrum in there. I think it's pretty much responsible for the current UK IT industry. Most developers that I know around my age (mid 30's) in the UK learned to program on it.
Word has a similar feature.
So for the 1% summarisation of the article "The sentence-based paraphrasing system could improve machine translation, according to Barzilay".
But no one's giving the state's voters a choice of whether they should trust their votes to it or not.
When was the last time you saw a TV program or movie where they didn't use a Mac? Even my wife, who understands virtually nothing about computers, goes "Oh look, they're using an Apple" on a regular basis (her knowledge extends to identifying them by the big apple on the side).