By that logic a company could claim the car you use to get to work, or your laptop you use in your workplace. He didn't develop anything.
False analogy. It would only be true if he developed the car or laptop while on the clock and with said development being an intrinsic of the company's business model.
The case is simple: He developed an online resource with his company name (a company's resource) as its prefix, to produce content for publication (which constituted his job) and getting paid for it in return.
The only way out of it would have been if the fool/idiot in question - how can someone write tech reviews while being such a tech idiot - is if he had developed the twitter account on his name only. Then, if he were working as a consultant, then he could claim that the twitter account - like in your car or laptop analogy - is his own personal tool with which to deliver content to any company that hired his services.
But he didn't. He dropped the common-reason ball. It is crystal clear, and you'll see this when you see the final judgement of things.
Posting anon since the f* login page over https is giving me timeout errors...
He used the company's resources and time to make it,...
If you do something at your work time,...
Would you mind providing a citation for this? I didn't see anything in TFA that indicated he used any company time or resources to maintain the (arguably his) blog.
He created a twitter account with the company's name as the twitter account's prefix, and blogged on it as part of his job with said company, in great part, while creating/blogging about phone reviews (again, for publication in said company.) As an employee or billable consultant, the amount of time to create said work/employer-related content, that is billable time, ergo company's resources.
Not sure what is there to argue beyond that.
P.S. one would imagine that a tech gadget product reviewer for a tech-gadget magazine would be tech-savvy enough not to do the imbecile thing of creating a resource, named after his employer, to use to deliver content that his employer pays him for, and then attempt to use said resource as if it were his private property.
That. Was. Not. His. Brightest. Most. Intelligent. Moment.
If you didn't get the news, USSR was dissolved in 1992, and at that point its former members adopted Libertarian ideology provided to them by US and its local sycophants. It triggered the worst economic devastation the whole area had seen since WWII (and one may argue, worse than WWII).
Yeah, but those conditions are no more. Granted, there are still problems, but the conditions are better now, reap with opportunities for Russians ex-pats with the know-how and the heart to go for it. I came from Nicaragua, and I know what bitterness of seeing your country turn into a pile of crap (or more of a pile of crap in my case) feels like that. But you can't control those things.You can only control what you do. You either build your life here well, or you go back and try to reconstruct things. Anything else is just self-indulgent whining.
Actually it did improve my situation -- at least until 1998-2000 I was in a far better situation here than I would be dealing with a massive 90's crisis over the whole ex-USSR. However I happened to be an unusually capable and well-educated engineer who left a country while it was going through the total devastation of its economy.
It taken those both conditions to make it somewhat worthwhile for me.
So, spoke for yourself then when you said this?
I am all too familiar with immigrants spending the rest of their lives trying to convince themselves that moving to US improved their lives. Most of them are full of shit.
Stop projecting. If you are such a capable individual, I'm sure you can fix the conditions, here or abroad to make them more worthwhile. Until then, you are the one full of it. The arrogance of criticizing others' self-measure of happiness or well being is repugnant, arrogant, sour and a little bit disturbing to say the least.
Your experience, and perhaps the collective experience of the social group you belong to, they aren't the norm. Keep that in mind next time you say "most of them are full of shit".
after 50, you'll find that things have gotton worse; employers are no longer willing to consider you, your peers (should you HAVE a job, still) consider you an 'old fogey' and the cost of med insurance (even if you are mostly healthy) skyrockets.
lots of 'stuff' ahead of you and most of it is not all good.
And therein lies the problem. You should have seen that when you were in your late 20s, early 30s. By the 50's you shouldn't be relying on someone giving you employment, but on selling yourself and having sufficient connections and specific skills in a well-thought, well-carved niche. I know and work with people in their 50's and even 60's who would disagree with you (and have the jobs, careers and lives to prove it.)
hate to break it to you (as one who is 50, now).
aging SUCKS and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Welcome to life dude (as someone in his 40s, with parents in their late 60's/early 70s, with parents-in-law in their 80s and with co-workers and friends in their 50's and 60's, all of which will disagree with you). Life sucks at any age, but for an adult, suckage is a function of the effort we put in life and career planning. Unless you are hit with a terrible eventuality, act of God, war, sickness or some other type of life changing catastrophe, you reap what you sow (and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.)
What? Life didn't even get interesting until I was at least 22. The best years of life are in you 30s when you have money, friends who are more than just coincidental classmates. I pity your children.
Speak for yourself buddy. See, this is what is happening here with you:
If you are making that statement while you are still in your 30s, it means you have no basis with which to say that *that* doesn't apply when we are over the 30s. In other words, you are talking crap.
If you are above your 30's, and you are saying that based on your experiences after your 30s, then that's on you. How you live and experience life at a particular age bracket is primarily a function of your choices. Granted, life can throw a curl ball, but still, we are responsible for the outcomes in our lives. So if your best years were in the 30s, I'm not sure you are that qualified to tell others about quality of life.
== BTW, I'm speaking as someone in his 40s, with better, more solid friendships, a family, more money to pursue the things he wants, and more experience to pursue better careers than during his 30s ==
That your post was voted insightful paints a very disturbing picture of those who come to this website.
Actually that could lead to the most ironic possible turn of events... Diaspora's failure was not so much the product, as a failure to have a working product for the public at a time when the general media was paying attention... I don't know about anyone else but I actually got my diaspora invite yesterday (that I signed up for a year back). Before I get flamed, no I do not think this was planned for such, but I do think there is a 1/100 chance that his death may draw the media, that may possibly draw the public to check out his work. 10 years from now we may be looking at the digital equivalent of Van Gogh.
Yes, it was. The product is the product (no pun intended) of its concept. And the concept was flawed.
Very sad news, not only because of his vision and the fact that he was a good geek
Which vision?
but just because 22 is way too soon.
Any news on the causes yet?
Any age is way too soon for anyone active in anything and/or loved by someone. RIP to the guy and his relatives, but some of his e-sycophants herald the news as if he was Dennis Ritchie or Dijkstra. Diaspora was dead on arrival before the first line of code was typed. The he problem statement, the suggested solution, the execution of it, and the coding of it, the very concept behind it were severely flawed and doomed to failure. For anyone that reads this and who wants to learn how to write and deliver software for a living (and I'm not talking about anything revolutionary, just plain-vanilla-coding-that-brings-the-bread-home), you should do well to study Diaspora as a case-study on what not to do.
I have no problems with people expressing condolences to the deceased, but I do have a problem elevating the status and mysticism of something that wasn't.
I don't see Diaspora as anything close to a competitor of Facebook.
Indeed. Diaspora is not a competitor of anything at all. It's just a make-believe solution looking for a poorly understood problem statement that rings the bell for a very small subset of those into online communities. The saddest part, and the greatest indictment, of movements such as this, is the amount of security holes present in a software that was supposed to provide a better, safer alternative to FB. And that went beyond misunderstanding the problem, but not even knowing how to code secure web software (despite the enormous literature and industrial common knowledge on the subject.) It's like, c'mon, this isn't 1998.
We find that customers who can't understand the need for a standards-compliant browser are typically difficult to work with and have a high rate of returned merch, so we just throw them at a page that explains why and how they can get a real browser. The ones that we can have a profitable relationship with, follow the instructions. The rest, we believe we are better off without. Fools cut into profits and pandering to fools is bad for employee morale.
If your product or service is not well known or not particularly desirable (or if you actually depend on swindling fools) I can see where you might want to cater to non-compliant browsers. But if what you're selling is something intelligent people already want to buy, you don't need the fools and tools. And if you're building a community, I can understand wanting to have a little "test" up front for the same reasons.
Ok, a little bit of attention to the stuff in bold above:
1. How did that apply to Diaspora? Self-fulfilling prophesy/wishful thinking? I mean, seriously, as far as quality went, the software sucked. Intelligent people saw the silliness of it a mile a way, and more intelligent people went "ewww" when they finally had a grasp on the software. Furthermore, the security holes in it are the types that are already document, examples of what-not-to-do. Where was the intelligence in it? Where was the intelligence of actually thinking you (by you I mean anyone who bought the Diasporan tripe) could actually take on FB with a half-cooked software that required a user to install a RoR base (operational requirements anyone)?I don't mean this as a disrespect to the deceased, but a question to the statement quoted above in bold.
2. How many successful business plans or projects, even those on the bleeding edge of innovation, have actually lived by that premise (the one quoted in bold)? That's not just wishful thinking, but wishful thinking manufactured to make an argument me thinks.
So according to a two American political organizations, US is among the top countries chosen by being favorable to American companies? Stop the presses!
Regardless of the messenger's origin, the message describing the disparities between the US and India is still true. Talk to any random Indian living permanently in the US or in Canada, or Germany, or Japan. They love their country and the relatives they left behind, but they'll tell you that this is true, and that they have chosen to stay abroad permanently so that their children do not grow and/or get educated there because of those disparities.
Economics is not the only factor middle-class, college educated Indians leave their country. Ideological disagreements with the cultural status quo in India is a great motivator for many as well.
how much money/quality time with family have you lost in this argument and long-ass posts?
Much less than either a) building a PC from scratch, which is the main topic of this sub-thread, or b) taking a dump. I know you felt like you made this epic pwnage reply when you clicked the "submit" button, so I won't do anything to take that away from you. Gloat away bro, gloat away.
Someone making $100k/yr will make the equivalent of $50/hr, or $400/day. Take off ~%30 in taxes (possibly less, depending on deductions) and you're left with $280, which should be enough to get something new, though it won't be all that great.
I'd expect that someone who's been doing "software" for a while would make more than that $100k/yr figure (as someone who has and does.)
Yep. And the (legal) deductions are even greater if one is a consultant using form 1099-MISC or with a s-corporation.
I agree with you similar_name, putting computers together is fun.
As to luis_a_espinal's post: Getting a computer IS a matter of displaying knowledge. If you are not intelligent enough to build your own computer and install the OS of your choice, which is not difficult, it just takes a little research even if you know nothing of it to begin with, how are you supposed to diagnose your computer when something goes wrong? Are you really suggesting that just because someone has the money and a want to buy a computer should, even with no knowledge? That is a recipe for disaster. The person without that basic knowledge of how a tool works is in for a big surprise when they learn that they do not know how to use the product they just bought, or have something on/in it break and not know how to fix it, even if it is a quick and easy fix. A good example is a friend of mine. He spent $80 to hire a professional to fix his speakers. It was a corrupt driver. Something that took minutes to fix, and he ended up spending a lot of money that could have been spent elsewhere, just because he didn't have basic knowledge.
THAT is the point I got out of AC's post.
I completely disagree with that point, however. For example, I can make most cheap repairs on my car, but I don't. I simply take it to the mechanic and go do my thing till I get called to pick it up. Can I save money by changing the alternator myself? Sure thing. Is that the type of convenience I want to give up? No.
And that's what is entailed by customer choice. Your friend spent $80 to hire a professional to fix a driver problem. Your friend can either put dozens or possibly hundreds of hours to learn everything that is needed to know to troubleshoot most common problems in a computer. Or he can fork $80 for what one would hope to be a one-time or seldom-recurring thing. Customer choice. A trade-off between cost-saving know-how and convenience.
That your friend had to fork $80 to fix a corrupt driver is not an indication that he needs to learn how to fix these things himself. It is an indication that we in the software industry must do better (or that your friend should have gotten a Mac... btw, I don't use a Mac, but I know that those things are far more solid than PCs.) Expecting otherwise is like expecting people to 1) know how to fix a car and 2) do their own maintenance themselves, before buying one.
In particular, I have a problem with this:
Are you really suggesting that just because someone has the money and a want to buy a computer should, even with no knowledge? That is a recipe for disaster
Yes, I'm suggesting that, and no, it is not a recipe for disaster. Look around. How many people own and buy computers every day. For the most part, they do not run into problems, even with the risks of identity theft and things like that. These aren't disasters, but nuisances of owning pieces of technologies, like a smartphone, a car, or a home entertainment system.
It was great back then because of the sense of awe, accomplishment and discovery, but when it comes to usability and ROI, those times blow
Reading that I’m left thinking that you’re a bit jaded on the subject (forgive me if I’m wrong). It’s not difficult to build a computer nowadays, and I find it all a little boring now myself, but I would still recommend that any “young guns” who have an interest in computers should build or at least open one and have a look inside.
This I completely agree with you. Young guns who have a career interest in technology should, must assemble their own hardware. My contention is that this cannot be a litmus test on who should own a computer (which is the argument I was originally attacking.) I still argue that the usability and ROI of building a computer nowadays (sans the training value for young guns) is much better now than before. Pre-built computers are much cheaper now than 20 years ago, more usable and more powerful and capable (ergo better ROI). This is a fact.
Obviously there are other technologies that make this possible, in particular in terms of network technology. You only need to learn how if your career of choice is related to computers (both software or hardware). Otherwise, no. As a whole, we are no longer in the times that to use a computer you needed to know how to build one. And that is an improvement. Ergo my opposition to holding PC-assembly skills as a litmus test of who should own a piece of computing equipment.
A day of work will buy you a computer? 2 days for a fancy gaming machine? Not for most people. What kind of price points are you looking at? The average US wage is $20/hr, or $160/day. Take 20% off for taxes and you are at $128/day. I suppose $128 will get you a decent machine from Craig's list, but not retail.
Well, I didn't say that I was making an average US salary. Doing the math will tell you that much, but I guess I need to spell it out and spoon feed you with it. Also, if you apply reading comprehension you'll see that the post where I made the claim is an answer to a question addressed to me. So, I'm not sure wtf you are doing mentioning about average US wages or whether what I said was an statement applicable to most people.
I'm not going to be talking how much I make, but instead break down what typical salaries in software are, and what type of effort is entailed in making enough to buy a PC.
This is/. , where the majority of the posters who work full-time do so in IT, CS, software or some type of engineering (typically CE or EE). The worst salary a junior software engineer in the US should expect is $60K, about $28.85/hr (if you are doing software and you are getting paid less than that, you are getting ripped off, even if you are a junior.) That's $230.8 a day. In reality, junior people make more than that.
Mid-level positions go about $75K. That's 36/hr at minimum. Senior and principal positions going at $85k at least ($40/hr), many crossing the 6-figure boundary ($48 to $50/hr at least).
In that continuum, I will argue that the average software developer/IT specialist makes between $36 to $40 an hour. That gives you enough to buy a decent computer. In my case (which is all I'm claiming as a response to a question addressed *to me and nobody else but me*, I can buy a high end gaming computer in two days.
And that is the strict context in which I framed my reply. Not a matter of boasting, but simply providing a frame of reference as of why ME no care no moar about building a PC from scratch. Moreover, I make the claim that a lot of software developers, even those on the junior bracket of salaries won't really care about that either... unless (as my original post indicated for those with reading capabilities) you have some very specific specs (like building your own DVR for example).
Nothing more, nothing less. To say that this doesn't represent the status quo for most people is rather silly because that was never an argument I made. That's like me saying "well, most people don't argue in slashdot." It's like, shit, thank you captain obvious, let's cat that out to/dev/null for good measure.
>> every minute you do it
>
> Never claimed that. Nice strawman though.
If you're acting like you have some magic money machine that converts your free time to more money, then this is EXACTLY what you've claimed.
That is only true if you take a nearly universal expression such as "time is money" in a literal way, specially for the purpose of building an argument. Congratulations, you are acting like a creationist.
But let's leave that aside, and analyze the application of this figure of speech into my daily life. Taking non-working time away from me means, for example, less time for raising my daughter, which in turns means more time for my wife to take on that task and less time for her to tends to our day-to-day finances and house running (which entails losing money.) Either that or the alternative of putting my kid to watch TV alone as my wife takes those other tasks and I do whatever it is that is more important than my parental activities. This itself entails the risk of causing a negative impact in the child's development, which also inevitably means more expenses in remedial issues down the road. Ergo, time is money.
Whatever time I have left I use it for my own career development in manners specific to my career of choice, the job at hand and the type of jobs I would plan to pursue to increase my income. Deviating that for something that is really not related to my career development anymore implies less hours devoted to those tasks that will ensure me the income brackets I desire/need. Ergo, time is money.
For a leisure point of view, when I get free time, I exercise, or engage in carpentry or play with a AVR board, or code in C for leisure. These increase my well-being and enables me to do a better job. Lacking that would negatively affect me, which would also affect my work. Ergo, time is money.
It's no strawman at all.
It's a necessary and obvious implication of the "time == money" argument.
It is a necessary and obvious implication of that argument which is of your doing. *You* make the choice, the personal choice, to interpret it that way, against the well-understood meaning of the figure of speech. That is, your argument is not one of logic, but one of argumentative convenience. You choose to take a figure of speech that is popular across languages and cultures, and to 1) fabricate an absolute, literal and by-the-letter interpretation in a quasi-creationist fashion, and 2) to attribute that argument to me. That is the perfect definition of a strawman...
... though I can understand how impress you are with finding that what your counter-argument is based on a necessary and obvious implication of your interpretation of the aforementioned figure of speech. After all ex contradictione sequitur quodlibet.
So let me in on your secret: What is this thing that you get paid for
Software. A day of work pays me enough to buy a good computer online quite comfortably. Two days of work pays me enough to buy me a customized uber-machine for gaming or shit like that, also quite comfortably money wise, if I had that type of hobby (not anymore)
every minute you do it
Never claimed that. Nice strawman though.
whenever you have time to do it?
I do not, and most people do not. Ergo my point. I have a 2-year child that requires more of my attention that spending a couple of hours gathering parts and putting it together to prove I can build some shit, I could more reasonably buy with the click of a button. Got a wife, a career that requires continuous cultivation of skills above/beyond/tangential to the skills of building a custom computer. Building that type of stuff (PC's for home, for work, networks, server racks, whatever), been there, done that, as a hobby and for a living. What's the point of doing all that again?
In fact, what's the point nowadays? It was a necessity before when buying an entry-level computer off a reseller would easily cost you over $1K, in particular if you were a college student with a part-time job. You had to scavenge parts and put them together just to be able to afford some computing time. There is no ROI anymore for this, unless you are a student in the need to learn or you have some serious specs requirements. Anything else is just for the LOLs, and unlike the previous decades, there are so many HOWTO's out there, with magazines, blogs and catalogs publishing stories on how to build these things, the technical challenges in this type of endeavor are not what they used to be anymore (now, it pretty much sums up to RTFM.)
Seriously, what's the ROI?
The only justifiable ROI is a) if you are truly in need to build something that is not in anyone's specs (say an experimental node for a cluster) or b) in sufficient volumes for cost saving purposes (as in Google's internal ops), or c) if that's your business model, of PC repair and customization, or d) or if you are a student learning the know-how (and this later group isn't in a position to lecture others on computing matters). I'm neither, and neither the 99% percent (no pun intended for the OWS.)
It probably takes a couple of hours to scavenge for parts and assemble a PC if you have a reasonable source.
What if you don't have a reasonable resource? Do you think a typical user has access to a reasonable resource, or that is capable of recognizing one?
What about technical people like me? Why would I care knowing or not knowing a reasonable resource? Why would I give a shit? Why would I want to put a few hours of my precious time doing janitorial assembly for the LOLZ? Forget the hours. How much are we talking about here? A couple of hundred dollars? Any one of us, in computing or otherwise, who left school and has a stable job with a decent salary has done so just so that we get the capacity to pay, outsource, that which is menial so that we are free to do other things that are more important to us.
Seriously, people talk about assembling PCs like if 1) we are assembling a f* particle accelerator, and 2) being willing to do it is a necessary trait of technically proficient people or a mandatory rite of passage, and 3) not being willing to do it is a sure implication of a lack of skills. Can we say retarded logic?
So let's say you put together a $200 PC in a couple of hours
Here I have to question your knowledge of things. What kind of computer do you think you can assemble for $200 in a matter of hours? Something comparable to a $300 entry level eePC? You got to be f* kidding me. You only endeavor to build something if that something is of comparable or better capacity than a high-end computer.
The Anonymous Coward has a point though. The computer I use for school is made of parts from computers people throw away. It may be outdated and sometimes have hardware issues, but it works and is a free computer.
It's only free if your time is worth nothing.
^^^^ This. I completely agree with you Natas. A lot of people (specially the impetuous young guns) forget that there is more to building a computer than just the cost of the spare parts. In this time and age, for a working person, stay-at-home mom, or granny looking for online pumpkin pie recipes, to put more than 3-4 hours in building anything, that's just wasteful. Time is money.
To RandomAvatar, AC has no point at all.
If you can't build your own system, and install an OS of your choice, you're too stupid to get a computer anyway
How can one logically extracts a valid point from that???? Getting a computer is not matter of displaying knowledge in a narrow field, but a matter of economic capacity (you have the money, it's your for the taking). The only time one could hear such a comment and not finding it stupid was in the old days when having a computer was a matter of DYI hobbyism, and that's like, what, more than 25-30 years ago?
It was great back then because of the sense of awe, accomplishment and discovery, but when it comes to usability and ROI, those times blow. The average user today might not know how to assemble a computer, but that's an accomplishment of the computer industry.
The people who actually lived in the times of building your own Altair out of a DIY assembly kit dreamed of living in times like this, with tremendous amounts of computing power widely available as a popular commodity.
Only pimple-faced young lings dreaming of bygone eras they never actually lived would say that if a person cannot assemble his own computer, he is too stupid to have one. No matter how you cut it, you cannot extract a valid point out of such a ftupid remark.
So... why are a lot of us still using Windows? What would it take for us to switch?"
Convenience? At home I got the tools I need for development (Cygwin and Mingw just to be redundant, Java, C/C++ with Mingw toolchain, Mercurial, Eclipse for EE and Eclipse CDT, Vim and what not) installed on Windows XP. I have a 2nd-hand PowerMac with Linux on it that I haven't turned on in ages. Instead I simply fire up one or two Linux vmware images on Windows when I need them, plus I'm thinking to get me one or two Amazon EC2 virtual servers paired with EBS that I can fire up on demand (and just pay for the CPU time I use.) At work I have an uber-workhorse running Windows with even better tools.
I was thinking to buy a new home dev computer since the one I just described was a bit old. I did the math and it was cheaper to simply buy more gigs and a new larger drive. Instead of spending $300 (and replacing XP with Windows 7), I ended up spending less than $100.
For my wife, she uses the laptop I previously used when doing development consulting, an HP laptop with Vista (could be better, could be worse). I was thinking to get her a Mac, but then I did the math (plus there are differences in how you use a Windows or a Mac that she might not like). So, I simply did a clean OS reinstall on the HP laptop, removing all the development stuff I had on it. She is using it now without us spending an extra penny.
Our newest gadgets have been Android phones (Galaxy S) and a cheap Vizio tablet for me. Imperfect as these products might be, we are "wired" just enough to get something useful out of it in the most affordable way possible.
Apple products are superior, but I simply don't see the ROI for me to dump hardware/software combinations that do a good enough job for us. I don't think we'll buy anything anytime soon, and if we do, it will most likely be the one that give us the most bang for the buck below a certain margin tag. And that will likely will default to Windows (unless Apple products drop in price by 20% or something.)
Two things.. You are much less likely to experience work place violence from a Vet. 'Nother thing. I was Navy Air Traffic Controller, USS Theodore Roosevelt (Carrier).. Just curious, how do you define high-stress? Can't print?
Nah, worse, a business user yelled during a support call, and his little vaginated ego just cannot take the bruises. Be nice and understanding of him, he might need a hug!:)
Wouldn't it be smarter to reward the troops with decent employment, instead of hiring them into mind-numbing dead end jobs?
Besides, I'm slightly worried about hiring people who are completely comfortable with guns in the workplace into high-stress positions.
When you are talking about vets or people in the service, people who have actually had to perform professionally and methodically while other people are actually trying to fucking kill you with bullets or IEDs, don't call the nuances of cubicle politics and IT services "high-stress positions." As someone who has done tier II/III IT support getting angry calls at 3AM, yeah, it's stressing... like any other job with a lot responsibilities.
But to call it "high-stressing" specially when referring to military vets (of any country), wondering whether they can keep their cool in the face of your typical office monkey business, that's a little self-masturbatory, e-tarded and disturbing no matter how you cut it.
Slashdot Mirror
By that logic a company could claim the car you use to get to work, or your laptop you use in your workplace. He didn't develop anything.
False analogy. It would only be true if he developed the car or laptop while on the clock and with said development being an intrinsic of the company's business model.
The case is simple: He developed an online resource with his company name (a company's resource) as its prefix, to produce content for publication (which constituted his job) and getting paid for it in return.
The only way out of it would have been if the fool/idiot in question - how can someone write tech reviews while being such a tech idiot - is if he had developed the twitter account on his name only. Then, if he were working as a consultant, then he could claim that the twitter account - like in your car or laptop analogy - is his own personal tool with which to deliver content to any company that hired his services.
But he didn't. He dropped the common-reason ball. It is crystal clear, and you'll see this when you see the final judgement of things.
He used the company's resources and time to make it,...
If you do something at your work time,...
Would you mind providing a citation for this? I didn't see anything in TFA that indicated he used any company time or resources to maintain the (arguably his) blog.
He created a twitter account with the company's name as the twitter account's prefix, and blogged on it as part of his job with said company, in great part, while creating/blogging about phone reviews (again, for publication in said company.) As an employee or billable consultant, the amount of time to create said work/employer-related content, that is billable time, ergo company's resources.
Not sure what is there to argue beyond that.
P.S. one would imagine that a tech gadget product reviewer for a tech-gadget magazine would be tech-savvy enough not to do the imbecile thing of creating a resource, named after his employer, to use to deliver content that his employer pays him for, and then attempt to use said resource as if it were his private property.
That. Was. Not. His. Brightest. Most. Intelligent. Moment.
If you didn't get the news, USSR was dissolved in 1992, and at that point its former members adopted Libertarian ideology provided to them by US and its local sycophants. It triggered the worst economic devastation the whole area had seen since WWII (and one may argue, worse than WWII).
Yeah, but those conditions are no more. Granted, there are still problems, but the conditions are better now, reap with opportunities for Russians ex-pats with the know-how and the heart to go for it. I came from Nicaragua, and I know what bitterness of seeing your country turn into a pile of crap (or more of a pile of crap in my case) feels like that. But you can't control those things.You can only control what you do. You either build your life here well, or you go back and try to reconstruct things. Anything else is just self-indulgent whining.
Actually it did improve my situation -- at least until 1998-2000 I was in a far better situation here than I would be dealing with a massive 90's crisis over the whole ex-USSR. However I happened to be an unusually capable and well-educated engineer who left a country while it was going through the total devastation of its economy.
It taken those both conditions to make it somewhat worthwhile for me.
So, spoke for yourself then when you said this?
I am all too familiar with immigrants spending the rest of their lives trying to convince themselves that moving to US improved their lives. Most of them are full of shit.
Stop projecting. If you are such a capable individual, I'm sure you can fix the conditions, here or abroad to make them more worthwhile. Until then, you are the one full of it. The arrogance of criticizing others' self-measure of happiness or well being is repugnant, arrogant, sour and a little bit disturbing to say the least.
Your experience, and perhaps the collective experience of the social group you belong to, they aren't the norm. Keep that in mind next time you say "most of them are full of shit".
after 50, you'll find that things have gotton worse; employers are no longer willing to consider you, your peers (should you HAVE a job, still) consider you an 'old fogey' and the cost of med insurance (even if you are mostly healthy) skyrockets.
lots of 'stuff' ahead of you and most of it is not all good.
And therein lies the problem. You should have seen that when you were in your late 20s, early 30s. By the 50's you shouldn't be relying on someone giving you employment, but on selling yourself and having sufficient connections and specific skills in a well-thought, well-carved niche. I know and work with people in their 50's and even 60's who would disagree with you (and have the jobs, careers and lives to prove it.)
hate to break it to you (as one who is 50, now).
aging SUCKS and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Welcome to life dude (as someone in his 40s, with parents in their late 60's/early 70s, with parents-in-law in their 80s and with co-workers and friends in their 50's and 60's, all of which will disagree with you). Life sucks at any age, but for an adult, suckage is a function of the effort we put in life and career planning. Unless you are hit with a terrible eventuality, act of God, war, sickness or some other type of life changing catastrophe, you reap what you sow (and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.)
What? Life didn't even get interesting until I was at least 22. The best years of life are in you 30s when you have money, friends who are more than just coincidental classmates. I pity your children.
Speak for yourself buddy. See, this is what is happening here with you:
If you are making that statement while you are still in your 30s, it means you have no basis with which to say that *that* doesn't apply when we are over the 30s. In other words, you are talking crap.
If you are above your 30's, and you are saying that based on your experiences after your 30s, then that's on you. How you live and experience life at a particular age bracket is primarily a function of your choices. Granted, life can throw a curl ball, but still, we are responsible for the outcomes in our lives. So if your best years were in the 30s, I'm not sure you are that qualified to tell others about quality of life.
== BTW, I'm speaking as someone in his 40s, with better, more solid friendships, a family, more money to pursue the things he wants, and more experience to pursue better careers than during his 30s ==
That your post was voted insightful paints a very disturbing picture of those who come to this website.
To all young, horny, self-absorbed, invincible little gods of the internet: you're never too young. The cosmos cares not for you.
Value your health. Value your safety.
Accomplish something while you still can, just as Ilya did.
What did he accomplished? No disrespect, but what did he accomplished?
Actually that could lead to the most ironic possible turn of events... Diaspora's failure was not so much the product, as a failure to have a working product for the public at a time when the general media was paying attention... I don't know about anyone else but I actually got my diaspora invite yesterday (that I signed up for a year back). Before I get flamed, no I do not think this was planned for such, but I do think there is a 1/100 chance that his death may draw the media, that may possibly draw the public to check out his work. 10 years from now we may be looking at the digital equivalent of Van Gogh.
Yes, it was. The product is the product (no pun intended) of its concept. And the concept was flawed.
Very sad news, not only because of his vision and the fact that he was a good geek
Which vision?
but just because 22 is way too soon.
Any news on the causes yet?
Any age is way too soon for anyone active in anything and/or loved by someone. RIP to the guy and his relatives, but some of his e-sycophants herald the news as if he was Dennis Ritchie or Dijkstra. Diaspora was dead on arrival before the first line of code was typed. The he problem statement, the suggested solution, the execution of it, and the coding of it, the very concept behind it were severely flawed and doomed to failure. For anyone that reads this and who wants to learn how to write and deliver software for a living (and I'm not talking about anything revolutionary, just plain-vanilla-coding-that-brings-the-bread-home), you should do well to study Diaspora as a case-study on what not to do.
I have no problems with people expressing condolences to the deceased, but I do have a problem elevating the status and mysticism of something that wasn't.
I don't see Diaspora as anything close to a competitor of Facebook.
Indeed. Diaspora is not a competitor of anything at all. It's just a make-believe solution looking for a poorly understood problem statement that rings the bell for a very small subset of those into online communities. The saddest part, and the greatest indictment, of movements such as this, is the amount of security holes present in a software that was supposed to provide a better, safer alternative to FB. And that went beyond misunderstanding the problem, but not even knowing how to code secure web software (despite the enormous literature and industrial common knowledge on the subject.) It's like, c'mon, this isn't 1998.
We find that customers who can't understand the need for a standards-compliant browser are typically difficult to work with and have a high rate of returned merch, so we just throw them at a page that explains why and how they can get a real browser. The ones that we can have a profitable relationship with, follow the instructions. The rest, we believe we are better off without. Fools cut into profits and pandering to fools is bad for employee morale.
If your product or service is not well known or not particularly desirable (or if you actually depend on swindling fools) I can see where you might want to cater to non-compliant browsers. But if what you're selling is something intelligent people already want to buy, you don't need the fools and tools. And if you're building a community, I can understand wanting to have a little "test" up front for the same reasons.
Ok, a little bit of attention to the stuff in bold above:
1. How did that apply to Diaspora? Self-fulfilling prophesy/wishful thinking? I mean, seriously, as far as quality went, the software sucked. Intelligent people saw the silliness of it a mile a way, and more intelligent people went "ewww" when they finally had a grasp on the software. Furthermore, the security holes in it are the types that are already document, examples of what-not-to-do. Where was the intelligence in it? Where was the intelligence of actually thinking you (by you I mean anyone who bought the Diasporan tripe) could actually take on FB with a half-cooked software that required a user to install a RoR base (operational requirements anyone)?I don't mean this as a disrespect to the deceased, but a question to the statement quoted above in bold.
2. How many successful business plans or projects, even those on the bleeding edge of innovation, have actually lived by that premise (the one quoted in bold)? That's not just wishful thinking, but wishful thinking manufactured to make an argument me thinks.
So according to a two American political organizations, US is among the top countries chosen by being favorable to American companies? Stop the presses!
Regardless of the messenger's origin, the message describing the disparities between the US and India is still true. Talk to any random Indian living permanently in the US or in Canada, or Germany, or Japan. They love their country and the relatives they left behind, but they'll tell you that this is true, and that they have chosen to stay abroad permanently so that their children do not grow and/or get educated there because of those disparities.
Economics is not the only factor middle-class, college educated Indians leave their country. Ideological disagreements with the cultural status quo in India is a great motivator for many as well.
how much money/quality time with family have you lost in this argument and long-ass posts?
Much less than either a) building a PC from scratch, which is the main topic of this sub-thread, or b) taking a dump. I know you felt like you made this epic pwnage reply when you clicked the "submit" button, so I won't do anything to take that away from you. Gloat away bro, gloat away.
So with that time you saved by buying the machine instead of building, what will you do? ... oh, let me guess ... watch TV?
Projecting much? If you assume people cannot think of better things to do other than watching TV, that speaks more about you than anything else.
Someone making $100k/yr will make the equivalent of $50/hr, or $400/day. Take off ~%30 in taxes (possibly less, depending on deductions) and you're left with $280, which should be enough to get something new, though it won't be all that great.
I'd expect that someone who's been doing "software" for a while would make more than that $100k/yr figure (as someone who has and does.)
Yep. And the (legal) deductions are even greater if one is a consultant using form 1099-MISC or with a s-corporation.
I agree with you similar_name, putting computers together is fun. As to luis_a_espinal's post: Getting a computer IS a matter of displaying knowledge. If you are not intelligent enough to build your own computer and install the OS of your choice, which is not difficult, it just takes a little research even if you know nothing of it to begin with, how are you supposed to diagnose your computer when something goes wrong? Are you really suggesting that just because someone has the money and a want to buy a computer should, even with no knowledge? That is a recipe for disaster. The person without that basic knowledge of how a tool works is in for a big surprise when they learn that they do not know how to use the product they just bought, or have something on/in it break and not know how to fix it, even if it is a quick and easy fix. A good example is a friend of mine. He spent $80 to hire a professional to fix his speakers. It was a corrupt driver. Something that took minutes to fix, and he ended up spending a lot of money that could have been spent elsewhere, just because he didn't have basic knowledge. THAT is the point I got out of AC's post.
I completely disagree with that point, however. For example, I can make most cheap repairs on my car, but I don't. I simply take it to the mechanic and go do my thing till I get called to pick it up. Can I save money by changing the alternator myself? Sure thing. Is that the type of convenience I want to give up? No.
And that's what is entailed by customer choice. Your friend spent $80 to hire a professional to fix a driver problem. Your friend can either put dozens or possibly hundreds of hours to learn everything that is needed to know to troubleshoot most common problems in a computer. Or he can fork $80 for what one would hope to be a one-time or seldom-recurring thing. Customer choice. A trade-off between cost-saving know-how and convenience.
That your friend had to fork $80 to fix a corrupt driver is not an indication that he needs to learn how to fix these things himself. It is an indication that we in the software industry must do better (or that your friend should have gotten a Mac... btw, I don't use a Mac, but I know that those things are far more solid than PCs.) Expecting otherwise is like expecting people to 1) know how to fix a car and 2) do their own maintenance themselves, before buying one.
In particular, I have a problem with this:
Are you really suggesting that just because someone has the money and a want to buy a computer should, even with no knowledge? That is a recipe for disaster
Yes, I'm suggesting that, and no, it is not a recipe for disaster. Look around. How many people own and buy computers every day. For the most part, they do not run into problems, even with the risks of identity theft and things like that. These aren't disasters, but nuisances of owning pieces of technologies, like a smartphone, a car, or a home entertainment system.
It was great back then because of the sense of awe, accomplishment and discovery, but when it comes to usability and ROI, those times blow
Reading that I’m left thinking that you’re a bit jaded on the subject (forgive me if I’m wrong). It’s not difficult to build a computer nowadays, and I find it all a little boring now myself, but I would still recommend that any “young guns” who have an interest in computers should build or at least open one and have a look inside.
This I completely agree with you. Young guns who have a career interest in technology should, must assemble their own hardware. My contention is that this cannot be a litmus test on who should own a computer (which is the argument I was originally attacking.) I still argue that the usability and ROI of building a computer nowadays (sans the training value for young guns) is much better now than before. Pre-built computers are much cheaper now than 20 years ago, more usable and more powerful and capable (ergo better ROI). This is a fact.
Obviously there are other technologies that make this possible, in particular in terms of network technology. You only need to learn how if your career of choice is related to computers (both software or hardware). Otherwise, no. As a whole, we are no longer in the times that to use a computer you needed to know how to build one. And that is an improvement. Ergo my opposition to holding PC-assembly skills as a litmus test of who should own a piece of computing equipment.
A day of work will buy you a computer? 2 days for a fancy gaming machine? Not for most people. What kind of price points are you looking at? The average US wage is $20/hr, or $160/day. Take 20% off for taxes and you are at $128/day. I suppose $128 will get you a decent machine from Craig's list, but not retail.
Well, I didn't say that I was making an average US salary. Doing the math will tell you that much, but I guess I need to spell it out and spoon feed you with it. Also, if you apply reading comprehension you'll see that the post where I made the claim is an answer to a question addressed to me. So, I'm not sure wtf you are doing mentioning about average US wages or whether what I said was an statement applicable to most people.
I'm not going to be talking how much I make, but instead break down what typical salaries in software are, and what type of effort is entailed in making enough to buy a PC.
This is /. , where the majority of the posters who work full-time do so in IT, CS, software or some type of engineering (typically CE or EE). The worst salary a junior software engineer in the US should expect is $60K, about $28.85/hr (if you are doing software and you are getting paid less than that, you are getting ripped off, even if you are a junior.) That's $230.8 a day. In reality, junior people make more than that.
Mid-level positions go about $75K. That's 36/hr at minimum. Senior and principal positions going at $85k at least ($40/hr), many crossing the 6-figure boundary ($48 to $50/hr at least).
In that continuum, I will argue that the average software developer/IT specialist makes between $36 to $40 an hour. That gives you enough to buy a decent computer. In my case (which is all I'm claiming as a response to a question addressed *to me and nobody else but me*, I can buy a high end gaming computer in two days.
And that is the strict context in which I framed my reply. Not a matter of boasting, but simply providing a frame of reference as of why ME no care no moar about building a PC from scratch. Moreover, I make the claim that a lot of software developers, even those on the junior bracket of salaries won't really care about that either... unless (as my original post indicated for those with reading capabilities) you have some very specific specs (like building your own DVR for example).
Nothing more, nothing less. To say that this doesn't represent the status quo for most people is rather silly because that was never an argument I made. That's like me saying "well, most people don't argue in slashdot." It's like, shit, thank you captain obvious, let's cat that out to /dev/null for good measure.
>> every minute you do it > > Never claimed that. Nice strawman though.
If you're acting like you have some magic money machine that converts your free time to more money, then this is EXACTLY what you've claimed.
That is only true if you take a nearly universal expression such as "time is money" in a literal way, specially for the purpose of building an argument. Congratulations, you are acting like a creationist.
But let's leave that aside, and analyze the application of this figure of speech into my daily life. Taking non-working time away from me means, for example, less time for raising my daughter, which in turns means more time for my wife to take on that task and less time for her to tends to our day-to-day finances and house running (which entails losing money.) Either that or the alternative of putting my kid to watch TV alone as my wife takes those other tasks and I do whatever it is that is more important than my parental activities. This itself entails the risk of causing a negative impact in the child's development, which also inevitably means more expenses in remedial issues down the road. Ergo, time is money.
Whatever time I have left I use it for my own career development in manners specific to my career of choice, the job at hand and the type of jobs I would plan to pursue to increase my income. Deviating that for something that is really not related to my career development anymore implies less hours devoted to those tasks that will ensure me the income brackets I desire/need. Ergo, time is money.
For a leisure point of view, when I get free time, I exercise, or engage in carpentry or play with a AVR board, or code in C for leisure. These increase my well-being and enables me to do a better job. Lacking that would negatively affect me, which would also affect my work. Ergo, time is money.
It's no strawman at all.
It's a necessary and obvious implication of the "time == money" argument.
It is a necessary and obvious implication of that argument which is of your doing. *You* make the choice, the personal choice, to interpret it that way, against the well-understood meaning of the figure of speech. That is, your argument is not one of logic, but one of argumentative convenience. You choose to take a figure of speech that is popular across languages and cultures, and to 1) fabricate an absolute, literal and by-the-letter interpretation in a quasi-creationist fashion, and 2) to attribute that argument to me. That is the perfect definition of a strawman...
So let me in on your secret: What is this thing that you get paid for
Software. A day of work pays me enough to buy a good computer online quite comfortably. Two days of work pays me enough to buy me a customized uber-machine for gaming or shit like that, also quite comfortably money wise, if I had that type of hobby (not anymore)
every minute you do it
Never claimed that. Nice strawman though.
whenever you have time to do it?
I do not, and most people do not. Ergo my point. I have a 2-year child that requires more of my attention that spending a couple of hours gathering parts and putting it together to prove I can build some shit, I could more reasonably buy with the click of a button. Got a wife, a career that requires continuous cultivation of skills above/beyond/tangential to the skills of building a custom computer. Building that type of stuff (PC's for home, for work, networks, server racks, whatever), been there, done that, as a hobby and for a living. What's the point of doing all that again?
In fact, what's the point nowadays? It was a necessity before when buying an entry-level computer off a reseller would easily cost you over $1K, in particular if you were a college student with a part-time job. You had to scavenge parts and put them together just to be able to afford some computing time. There is no ROI anymore for this, unless you are a student in the need to learn or you have some serious specs requirements. Anything else is just for the LOLs, and unlike the previous decades, there are so many HOWTO's out there, with magazines, blogs and catalogs publishing stories on how to build these things, the technical challenges in this type of endeavor are not what they used to be anymore (now, it pretty much sums up to RTFM.)
Seriously, what's the ROI?
The only justifiable ROI is a) if you are truly in need to build something that is not in anyone's specs (say an experimental node for a cluster) or b) in sufficient volumes for cost saving purposes (as in Google's internal ops), or c) if that's your business model, of PC repair and customization, or d) or if you are a student learning the know-how (and this later group isn't in a position to lecture others on computing matters). I'm neither, and neither the 99% percent (no pun intended for the OWS.)
It probably takes a couple of hours to scavenge for parts and assemble a PC if you have a reasonable source.
What if you don't have a reasonable resource? Do you think a typical user has access to a reasonable resource, or that is capable of recognizing one?
What about technical people like me? Why would I care knowing or not knowing a reasonable resource? Why would I give a shit? Why would I want to put a few hours of my precious time doing janitorial assembly for the LOLZ? Forget the hours. How much are we talking about here? A couple of hundred dollars? Any one of us, in computing or otherwise, who left school and has a stable job with a decent salary has done so just so that we get the capacity to pay, outsource, that which is menial so that we are free to do other things that are more important to us.
Seriously, people talk about assembling PCs like if 1) we are assembling a f* particle accelerator, and 2) being willing to do it is a necessary trait of technically proficient people or a mandatory rite of passage, and 3) not being willing to do it is a sure implication of a lack of skills. Can we say retarded logic?
So let's say you put together a $200 PC in a couple of hours
Here I have to question your knowledge of things. What kind of computer do you think you can assemble for $200 in a matter of hours? Something comparable to a $300 entry level eePC? You got to be f* kidding me. You only endeavor to build something if that something is of comparable or better capacity than a high-end computer.
you h
The Anonymous Coward has a point though. The computer I use for school is made of parts from computers people throw away. It may be outdated and sometimes have hardware issues, but it works and is a free computer.
It's only free if your time is worth nothing.
^^^^ This. I completely agree with you Natas. A lot of people (specially the impetuous young guns) forget that there is more to building a computer than just the cost of the spare parts. In this time and age, for a working person, stay-at-home mom, or granny looking for online pumpkin pie recipes, to put more than 3-4 hours in building anything, that's just wasteful. Time is money.
To RandomAvatar, AC has no point at all.
If you can't build your own system, and install an OS of your choice, you're too stupid to get a computer anyway
How can one logically extracts a valid point from that ???? Getting a computer is not matter of displaying knowledge in a narrow field, but a matter of economic capacity (you have the money, it's your for the taking). The only time one could hear such a comment and not finding it stupid was in the old days when having a computer was a matter of DYI hobbyism, and that's like, what, more than 25-30 years ago?
It was great back then because of the sense of awe, accomplishment and discovery, but when it comes to usability and ROI, those times blow. The average user today might not know how to assemble a computer, but that's an accomplishment of the computer industry.
The people who actually lived in the times of building your own Altair out of a DIY assembly kit dreamed of living in times like this, with tremendous amounts of computing power widely available as a popular commodity.
Only pimple-faced young lings dreaming of bygone eras they never actually lived would say that if a person cannot assemble his own computer, he is too stupid to have one. No matter how you cut it, you cannot extract a valid point out of such a ftupid remark.
So... why are a lot of us still using Windows? What would it take for us to switch?"
Convenience? At home I got the tools I need for development (Cygwin and Mingw just to be redundant, Java, C/C++ with Mingw toolchain, Mercurial, Eclipse for EE and Eclipse CDT, Vim and what not) installed on Windows XP. I have a 2nd-hand PowerMac with Linux on it that I haven't turned on in ages. Instead I simply fire up one or two Linux vmware images on Windows when I need them, plus I'm thinking to get me one or two Amazon EC2 virtual servers paired with EBS that I can fire up on demand (and just pay for the CPU time I use.) At work I have an uber-workhorse running Windows with even better tools.
I was thinking to buy a new home dev computer since the one I just described was a bit old. I did the math and it was cheaper to simply buy more gigs and a new larger drive. Instead of spending $300 (and replacing XP with Windows 7), I ended up spending less than $100.
For my wife, she uses the laptop I previously used when doing development consulting, an HP laptop with Vista (could be better, could be worse). I was thinking to get her a Mac, but then I did the math (plus there are differences in how you use a Windows or a Mac that she might not like). So, I simply did a clean OS reinstall on the HP laptop, removing all the development stuff I had on it. She is using it now without us spending an extra penny.
Our newest gadgets have been Android phones (Galaxy S) and a cheap Vizio tablet for me. Imperfect as these products might be, we are "wired" just enough to get something useful out of it in the most affordable way possible.
Apple products are superior, but I simply don't see the ROI for me to dump hardware/software combinations that do a good enough job for us. I don't think we'll buy anything anytime soon, and if we do, it will most likely be the one that give us the most bang for the buck below a certain margin tag. And that will likely will default to Windows (unless Apple products drop in price by 20% or something.)
If you can't build your own system, and install an OS of your choice, you're too stupid to get a computer anyway.
Hey, teh l33t hax0r, the early 1980's is calling you back.
Two things.. You are much less likely to experience work place violence from a Vet. 'Nother thing. I was Navy Air Traffic Controller, USS Theodore Roosevelt (Carrier).. Just curious, how do you define high-stress? Can't print?
Nah, worse, a business user yelled during a support call, and his little vaginated ego just cannot take the bruises. Be nice and understanding of him, he might need a hug! :)
Wouldn't it be smarter to reward the troops with decent employment, instead of hiring them into mind-numbing dead end jobs? Besides, I'm slightly worried about hiring people who are completely comfortable with guns in the workplace into high-stress positions.
When you are talking about vets or people in the service, people who have actually had to perform professionally and methodically while other people are actually trying to fucking kill you with bullets or IEDs, don't call the nuances of cubicle politics and IT services "high-stress positions." As someone who has done tier II/III IT support getting angry calls at 3AM, yeah, it's stressing... like any other job with a lot responsibilities.
But to call it "high-stressing" specially when referring to military vets (of any country), wondering whether they can keep their cool in the face of your typical office monkey business, that's a little self-masturbatory, e-tarded and disturbing no matter how you cut it.