Hmm, you can ding the US on a lot of things, but I think there is quite a few indicators that we do quite well on.
Not saying that we are not. We can still do well and still be behind, very behind - think health care, HS graduation rate, etc. Being the richest country in the world, it is simply unacceptable. It makes no sense to prize the good things we have if we do not have the balls to really ding, and really, really ding the shit we need to fix. Yes, it is uncomfortable, but it stills needs to be done. We can't fix things if we aren't willing to acknowledge there are things to be fixes, regardless of existing niceties.
American homes are the largest in the world
Depends on where you live (certainly not in NYC.) Also, that is a function of the sheer size of the country, not because of the things we do. What is important is to look at the things we do, look at their outcomes, compare abroad and ask "am I'm getting what I should be getting given the moolah I make and the moolah that I spend?"
the American transportation system allows for people to move large distances both quickly and cheaply.
And yet, we have huge metropolitan areas where public transportation sucks, forcing people to own cars. You live in South Florida, for example, and you don't have a car, it's almost for certain you cannot have a decent job at all. You cannot get anywhere without a car (not unless you want to spend 4 hours - I know, I lived through that.) Yeah, we excel across great distances (because out of sheer geographical necessity), but what about within metropolitan areas? We don't, and we are very unwilling to learn how other country do (which do better.)
A passenger-mile by private automobile cost around 40 cents in the US, which is far cheaper than any first world public transportation system that comes to mind, especially when you factor in income.
I would argue that America is quite a nice place to live if you like large houses and driving everywhere.
And if you can afford a large house and drive everywhere without diving deeper in credit, with a good job that helps you afford good family coverage, and that you don't risk going bankrupt due to a medical emergency or you aren't mired with student loans (student loan debt surpasses all other debt, and the majority of bankruptcy cases are due to medical bills, something fundamentally wrong with that, and unique to the US.).
It is interesting how big homes and driving large are mentioned, but what about more fundamental things like health care and education?
In other words, America is extremely well suited to the average American.
The average American enjoyed large homes and driving large, even though the economy didn't support it - we call it the 2008 real state bubble. The average American might like the things you mentioned, but the average American cannot afford it.
If I were to use that line of argument, then my country of origin, Nicaragua, is a good country for the average Nicaraguan who likes to live above poverty... and yet the average Nicaraguan does not live above poverty.
So no, America is not well suited for the average American, unless by average you mean to be within a sufficiently comfortable income bracket (which would be at odds with the very definition of "average")
I would argue that GDP per capita is more important than unemployment in terms of economic indicators. To see why this is the case, consider the following policy - raise taxes by around 2% GDP and use the money to hire all the unemployed people to dig holes and fill them back in at minimum wage. This will drive unemployment to zero and have a small (and probably negative) impact on GDP. If people truly consider unemployment to be more important than GDP, you would expect for this to be a very popular policy. But it obviously isn't (or else you would hear about serious politicans suggesting it) so people obviously care more about GDP.
Exactly. It isn't (which is a shame, for there is nothing in capitalism or free market ideas that would preclude such a policy.)
Also, it's not like we are comparing the American GDP vs, say, the one from my country of origin (Nicaragua, the 2nd poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with an annual $3,185 GDP per capita, 6.6% the US GPD/capita, a whooping 93% differential.) The German per capita GDP is about 78% that of the US, a 22% differential.
Then you have to consider the price of the common basket of goods, and other quality indicators like overall health, health coverage, public transportation and infrastructure, the widespread use of technology (where Japan knocks the shit out of Germany and/or the US for example.)
With those things combined, the GDP/capita difference between the US and Germany is/might not be as significant as it might be. I would argue that having a greater GDP per capita is important only if, say, the difference is half an order of magnitude or more (and/or combined with severe income/social inequality as found in, say, Latin America.)
The reality, a sad reality, is that we are the most powerful and richest country in the world, and yet we are lagging in every indicator (except military might and academic research) compared to other developed countries with smaller GDP per capita and we have the greatest economic disparity of any developed nation. This status quo is unacceptable.
Do you think that growth you have boomed like that for 100 years if tax increases had been a significant impediment? A great deal of the growth was due to the war effort, infrastructure, etc. Infrastructure development is the numero uno factor (or one among the top) in almost any development success in the 20th century. Where the hell do you think that gets funded from? Miracles and prayers? Taxes man, taxes. That and a lot of other things provide sufficient proof that taxation is not inherently an impediment to growth.
What do you have to back up your position? A self-referencing, speculative question?
This article is just the sort of government intrusion that makes me never want to hire anyone. Freedom of contract used to mean something in this country. No more. So I'll answer my own phones.
Yeah, because one should have the right to ask (and reject) prospective employees in terms of country, race, gender, marital status, and all that shit. I get you.
Try hiring someone in Germany. Or better yet, try firing them. No wonder the German economy is doing so poorly compared to the United States.
What? Germany's growth is at 2.9% Unemployment is at 5.9% Youth (
Now, we in the US have the following: 8.3% unemployment rate. As of July 2011, the youth unemployment rate was 18%. The debt % of its GPD is at 103.3%
Where the US leads Germany is in GDP per capita (Germany: $37,935. US: $48,147) and in America's post-HS education (in particular with grad-level education) and R&D. Where the US and Germany seem to meet is the rising level of incoming inequality.
But considering all other indicators (growth, unemployment debt/GDP ratios), your comment is completely off the mark. As an American, I wish we had those numbers.
How about terminating an interview for being a naturalised sitizen from Europe or asking for a social security number
The first type of question is illegal beyond belief (the Feds and or State would love to drag said interviewer to a federal/state court.) As long as you can work legally in the states (independently of the nature of your citizenship or legal residence/immigration status), an employer cannot terminate the interview just because you are from Europe (or a naturalized citizen with Europe as the region of origin.)
The second one, it depends. If the employer asks for your social security as part of your job application and you refuse, they can (and should) stop the interview. After all, if you are a citizen (naturalized or otherwise), you will have a ssn. And your employer needs your ssn to employ you, pay you and deduct your taxes, for verification, etc. You can refuse giving it, but then the employer should reject you (I would.) And if you don't have one, it would call your naturalization (and your entire immigration status/history) into question.
I work for DoD indirectly (not a defense contractor) and my emplyoer cannot hire non-US citizens, so there are exceptions to that rule.
I work with a DoD contractor, and to be honest, that which you describe is not an exception to the rule. Requiring US citizenship is not the same as asking for one's country of origin, for example. You can have India or Guatemala as the country of origin, and a gig requiring US citizenship can only ask you to prove your citizenship (via a US passport, voter's registration, birth or naturalization certificate.)
The DoD background check that follows for a sec. clearance (either after getting hired, or as a pre-requisite to allow your employer to hire you), that process and that entity can dig around those questions, to determine if you are a risk. But that's a process distinct from employment. For employment alone, no one, and I mean no one can legally ask for such questions during an employment interview.
Maybe for some black-ops shit that is beyond the comprehension of us mere pedestrian schmucks, but that is highly speculative to begin with.
the recent few weeks seems to be US looking out for US
apparently you must have been living under a rock till recent weeks. the US has ALWAYS looked out for the US, very publicly and aggressively
By the way they conduct policy and ridiculously low penalties imposed in such infraction, I bet to differ with your opinion. Actions > political rhetoric (and the US government has been giving us a lot of the later and the mindless masses stomp the ground thinking it is the real shit.)
Statistical sampling *works*. You really -can- test the quality of a million-gallon-delivery of whatever by picking a few random samples, and test those.
Only if you can get a representative sample. Getting that from a liquid is easy, getting that from a crate of nutplates isn't. It can be done, but you need to carefully think about how it is done.
You are going to get not just one crate, but multiple crates. Pick one at random, or better yet, pick several at random, dump their content off, pick stuff off it, and put the rest back into their crates. A nutplate (or similar stuff) has a specific volume and mass, so one can estimate how much volume or mass 10, 100 or 1000 of those suckers would take. So we use that to pick stuff out of a randomly picked crates for analysis. Right there one can check if volume/mass ratios correspond to what they should be for starters.
It can never be as perfect as sampling liquid, but it is not impossible or even difficult/cost ineffective.
What, are you going to expect every plant in america to do wet chemistry testing on all their paints, primers, and sealants? In addition to vapor testing each and every rivet and nutplate?
Can't be done. Airplanes would cost billions of dollars each.
Statistical sampling?
The US govt wants to crack down on it? Here's an idea: customs can do its fucking job, and search cargo containers from china for counterfiet goods.
That is a good idea, but not without problems. You'll have to equip every Customs port with reasonable equipment to test for that kind of stuff. It is one thing to test if a perfume (in a perfume lot of thousands) is counterfeit (the specs are quite simplistic), quite another to test if a capacitor or rivet (in a lot of millions) is up to specs running the gamut of tests necessary.
What could be done is for Customs to do the most basic of tests with a small sample (1/10000), and some lots picked at random for testing with larger samples (1/1000) or for more extensive testing. Then those lots destined for government use tested again.
It would also seem that the government should built a strategic reserve of such type of equipment. For DoD/DoE work, there should never be a case of lack of inventory. Ever. We are willing to throw billions in inefficient acquisition and contracting practices, but we can't build a strategic reserve of rivets, nuts and capacitors? WTF?
Someone seems to have a fond for tooting his own game console l33t hax0r horn. That is one of the most meaningless, most juvenile posts I've seen in a while. What the hell does that mean anyways?
and for people with enough brains to not have to try to enlarge their balls by using 1980s technologies to develop software. Like VI(M) for example. A great editor for editing text files, but not a tool for developing software.
Using modern technology for real, in-the-trenches work does not amount to good street geek-creed among the junior/senior year l33t hax0rs and the "That's 70's Show" crowd.
Use VS with ReSharper with a large project and then go back to Vi and tell me that Vi makes you more productive. Hint: it's not just about cool text-editing features. Call me when Vi can do complex refactorings across dozens of projects.
^^^ This. I used to be a Emacs (and later Vim) hard code user, doing all of my coding (for-a-living-coding), first in C++ then in Java. That was the shape of things until 2005-2006'ish when I ran into Eclipse. I've never looked back. Be it the JEE version or the CDT version for C/C++ development (which is what I currently use at work), I wouldn't go back to my Vim ways. Don't get me wrong, I actively use Vim next to Eclipse CDT, but there is text editing/single file coding, and there is project development.
Yeah, managing a project can be done with Vim, a language plug-in and ctags, but then why? That's more a feat of geek-prowess than a pragmatic one. Projects are so large now that it makes no sense to do manage it (or do complex refactoring or things like that) without an integrated enviroment (not unless you have been working with large yet stable source code for so long that you know where things are).
Ever have to chase down an issue running PHP with IIS?
No, I have not, but I am not inclined to run PHP on IIS either. To be honest, I am about as likely to use PHP on any platform as I am to use Visual Basic 6 to do real work. PHP is Yet Another Abomination That Should Be Banned:-)
I have friends who swear by Notepad++, for some reason I have never grown to like it. I think it is the simplicity of code + F5 + debug. VS2010 has a very, very capable debugger. I have not seen its like in any environment, but I have heard people say there are better debuggers for Smalltalk. I have so far not had to opportunity to work with Smalltalk.
My list of preferred web application development environments in order of preference:
Ruby with Sinatra (or Rails)
Play! Framework using Scala
ASP.NET MVC 4 and C# with the async CTP
Play Framework and Java
Things I have worked with that comes in the Abomination category - in no particular order.
ASP.NET Web Forms - programming language irrelevant
Anything with JBoss in it
Almost anything with J2EE in it
PHP or anything with BASIC in it (just felt like lumping them together, no special reason)
Most PERL stuff, but not all of it. PERL can be good and it can be bad. Depends on the task. Most PERL stuff can be done better in Ruby though.
If you do web/enterprise development in Java (or deploying a war/ear), you are using JEE. Now if you are referring to J2EE as EJB 2.x (which are not the same terms), then you have a good point (EJB pre 3.x is an abomination.)
JSP is not bad either (it's actually decent) IIF you keep logic outside of the view (but that is true of any MVC framework.) Similarly if that law is broken, yeah, JSP is crap (just like anything else.) The problems that have plagues JSP usage is the same that plagues any other framework where people screws around with logic in the view.
I've never used JBoss Seams, so I can't comment on it. But Seams has JSF as one of its legs, and I've never seen a legitimate technical/business reason for that shit... err, JSF, so...
Replying to my own post - why don't markup editors (and word processors for that matter) provide a single toggle key shortcut to switch back and forth from editing and previewing? That would be a far better approach than what is suggested with Gliimpse (get rid of the animation), and than alt-tabbing+F5.
How is that "better" than a browser open you can Alt-Tab to and refresh in two keystrokes? Cognitively it looks like a mess, and I don't see the benefits, even after RTFA and WTFV. I do HTML and CSS for a living and have tried just about every IDE and tool combination that's been available since HTML was born, and (IMHO) nothing beats a code aware text editor and the latest browsers to preview the rendered markup. There just isn't much loss in productivity when you're using keyboard shortcuts to bounce back and forth from code to render in less than 3 seconds. Load times? Well, in development those should be almost nil because you should be working from a local dev server on your network. I just don't see the gain from this application's approach, especially when you add in the bane of every WYSIWYG markup editor the ever moving standards support game. The browsers are always ahead of the WYSIWYG editors as far as new standards support.
My thoughts exactly (kinda) when it comes to html editing. People can do fine (and actually do) by simply alt-tabbing+F5.
I do disagree, however, in that it cognitively looks like a mess or that there are no benefits. The algorithms explored in this research *could* be integrated into professional editing tools that spit out html (or any markup for that matter). If all I need to do is press one key to toggle back and forth from preview to editing in a single window, that on itself is efficient (subject to the editing person's predilection) than alt-tabbing+F5 with two windows.
Beyond html, this would certainly help with wikitext or latex. Call me crazy, but I would prefer a single toggle key to preview my wikitext on demand (and certainly with latex, which even with tools like LyX, previewing always take more than a few keystrokes.)
Beyond the actual need for something like this (which people can legitimate question), the algorithms and idea behind this are impressive.
While you are technically correct that the Mac Mini has an i7, it is a mobile i7. Only has two cores and significantly lower clock.
This thing has a desktop i7. Quad core and higher clock. It handily outclasses the Mini, but still way overpriced.
Yeah those stupid researchers with their fancy MDs and PhDs in virology, immunology, pharmacology, genetics, molecular biology, and decades of hands-on experience are completely ignorant of the subject. We must defer to a random group of Hollywood screen writers that just happened to land a gig adapting a decent 1950's science fiction novel into a shitty movie.
How can one with a degree that is not related to computers acquire a job that is centered around computers?
As I mentioned in another post in this thread, I started my programming career with a AA degree. I took programming courses up to the wazoo, and by the time I went for a 4-year CS degree, I had possibly 2-3 times more programming hours than most CS people in their junior years (no exaggeration). But it was people w/o a CS degree who actually shouldered me and gave me a chance to get a full-time job as a programmer when I only had a AA.
So from personal experience I know that there are people out there that can do a hell of a programming job without having a formal CS or MIS background. But in this type of economy, it is very difficult to get your foot in the door without a 4-year degree. It was already becoming very difficult in 1994-95 (which is when I started.) Most programming assignments in the real IT world do not require a full-blown CS or MIS degree. That's the reality. But how to convince HR and management, that's another issue.
At the moment, I am self-taught and can easily keep up in a conversation of computer science majors. I also do a decent amount of programming in C, Perl, and Python and have contributed to small open source projects.
You could leverage that by starting small, getting part-time programming or sysadmin jobs at school, or freelancing in, say, LAMP development.
Would Slashdot users recommend receiving a formal computer science education (only about two years, since the nonsensical general education requirements are already completed) before attempting to get such a job?
Yes. I would go for it (that's what I did after landing my first job). Having a formal CS education opens a lot more doors outside of IT. Most importantly, it will guarantee you better chances to get through the HR filters. Remember, this is a numbers game, and you will be competing with people that already have a degree. Without the sheepskin, you are at a disadvantage (and as I said, that is unfortunate because most IT programming jobs do not really require that type of skill set; a AS in CS or Information Technology would suffice.)
Depending on your finances, I would opt for a part-time job at your Uni IT/CS departments - no lab staff, but actual programming or sysadmin work or tech support (as in installing systems, opening tickets, tracking part orders, etc.) And during that time, finish your 4-year degree asap.
If that's not possible, work in whatever you can (something that can give you a flexible schedule) while pursuing your degree part-time. But you need the degree. It's almost impossible to get past the HR drones without it.
Anybody else in a similar situation?"
My situation is similar in that I also started without a 4-year degree (and even though people helped me, it was still hard to get a few managers to give the IT department the green light for hiring me. That was a very painful time in my life.)
It is also dissimilar in that times are a lot harder now. You are at greater disadvantage than I was when I started. Good luck.
Otherwise you will just be exploited and never make it up the career ladder. Sad but true.
Getting the degree won't change that result for almost all employees.
Not true, at least not in my case (and in similar cases I know). The degree is what has always saved me, specially in drought times like the dot-com crash and 2008. I started with a AA degree, and while working full-time I worked my way to a BS degree in CS. That opened me a lot of doors. I kept going to a MS, and even though I didn't finished, the work I did during my grad studies (a couple of papers and a half-baked thesis) opened me doors a lot more. Now I'm back to grad school, getting a MS in CE, and that is opening more doors.
It's not only college degrees. It's certificates as well. During 2008, I lost my job 6 days short of my wife giving birth to our daughter. Fortunately, we have been very frugal and we were well prepared for that. It is still not an enviable position. I put resumes to the left and right, had my resume inspected and proof-read by ex-colleagues, but nothing was coming my way.
At some point a friend of mine suggested that I asked the headhunters I trusted the most to give me copies of the latest (and best paid) positions they have filled (with personal info blacked out of course.) Most of their resumes looked equivalent to mine in terms of education and work experience.... with the exception of several certificates.
It dawned on me that there was so much competition (and there is still) that employers and HR departments (right or wrong) were also counting education and industry certificates to prune the tree. I crash-studied for a couple, took the exams, pasted that shit on my CV, and voila, interviews coming my way. Shortly thereafter, I was employed once again (and in much better terms.)
So, right or wrong, educational credentials (both academic and IT vocational) do help. Won't make you a better professional, but it helps getting through the HR filters, and that ladies and gents, in this downturn economy, that is shit you want on your side.
That's my personal experience, purely anecdotal, so obviously YMMV.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, you can ding the US on a lot of things, but I think there is quite a few indicators that we do quite well on.
Not saying that we are not. We can still do well and still be behind, very behind - think health care, HS graduation rate, etc. Being the richest country in the world, it is simply unacceptable. It makes no sense to prize the good things we have if we do not have the balls to really ding, and really, really ding the shit we need to fix. Yes, it is uncomfortable, but it stills needs to be done. We can't fix things if we aren't willing to acknowledge there are things to be fixes, regardless of existing niceties.
American homes are the largest in the world
Depends on where you live (certainly not in NYC.) Also, that is a function of the sheer size of the country, not because of the things we do. What is important is to look at the things we do, look at their outcomes, compare abroad and ask "am I'm getting what I should be getting given the moolah I make and the moolah that I spend?"
the American transportation system allows for people to move large distances both quickly and cheaply.
And yet, we have huge metropolitan areas where public transportation sucks, forcing people to own cars. You live in South Florida, for example, and you don't have a car, it's almost for certain you cannot have a decent job at all. You cannot get anywhere without a car (not unless you want to spend 4 hours - I know, I lived through that.) Yeah, we excel across great distances (because out of sheer geographical necessity), but what about within metropolitan areas? We don't, and we are very unwilling to learn how other country do (which do better.)
A passenger-mile by private automobile cost around 40 cents in the US, which is far cheaper than any first world public transportation system that comes to mind, especially when you factor in income.
I would argue that America is quite a nice place to live if you like large houses and driving everywhere.
And if you can afford a large house and drive everywhere without diving deeper in credit, with a good job that helps you afford good family coverage, and that you don't risk going bankrupt due to a medical emergency or you aren't mired with student loans (student loan debt surpasses all other debt, and the majority of bankruptcy cases are due to medical bills, something fundamentally wrong with that, and unique to the US.).
It is interesting how big homes and driving large are mentioned, but what about more fundamental things like health care and education?
In other words, America is extremely well suited to the average American.
The average American enjoyed large homes and driving large, even though the economy didn't support it - we call it the 2008 real state bubble. The average American might like the things you mentioned, but the average American cannot afford it.
If I were to use that line of argument, then my country of origin, Nicaragua, is a good country for the average Nicaraguan who likes to live above poverty... and yet the average Nicaraguan does not live above poverty.
So no, America is not well suited for the average American, unless by average you mean to be within a sufficiently comfortable income bracket (which would be at odds with the very definition of "average")
I would argue that GDP per capita is more important than unemployment in terms of economic indicators. To see why this is the case, consider the following policy - raise taxes by around 2% GDP and use the money to hire all the unemployed people to dig holes and fill them back in at minimum wage. This will drive unemployment to zero and have a small (and probably negative) impact on GDP. If people truly consider unemployment to be more important than GDP, you would expect for this to be a very popular policy. But it obviously isn't (or else you would hear about serious politicans suggesting it) so people obviously care more about GDP.
Exactly. It isn't (which is a shame, for there is nothing in capitalism or free market ideas that would preclude such a policy.)
Also, it's not like we are comparing the American GDP vs, say, the one from my country of origin (Nicaragua, the 2nd poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with an annual $3,185 GDP per capita, 6.6% the US GPD/capita, a whooping 93% differential.) The German per capita GDP is about 78% that of the US, a 22% differential.
Then you have to consider the price of the common basket of goods, and other quality indicators like overall health, health coverage, public transportation and infrastructure, the widespread use of technology (where Japan knocks the shit out of Germany and/or the US for example.)
With those things combined, the GDP/capita difference between the US and Germany is/might not be as significant as it might be. I would argue that having a greater GDP per capita is important only if, say, the difference is half an order of magnitude or more (and/or combined with severe income/social inequality as found in, say, Latin America.)
The reality, a sad reality, is that we are the most powerful and richest country in the world, and yet we are lagging in every indicator (except military might and academic research) compared to other developed countries with smaller GDP per capita and we have the greatest economic disparity of any developed nation. This status quo is unacceptable.
Ah, but was that because of or in spite of?
Ever heard the term "begging the question?".
Do you think that growth you have boomed like that for 100 years if tax increases had been a significant impediment? A great deal of the growth was due to the war effort, infrastructure, etc. Infrastructure development is the numero uno factor (or one among the top) in almost any development success in the 20th century. Where the hell do you think that gets funded from? Miracles and prayers? Taxes man, taxes. That and a lot of other things provide sufficient proof that taxation is not inherently an impediment to growth.
What do you have to back up your position? A self-referencing, speculative question?
One thing is certain, we wouldn't offer him a job in Norway. (because he wouldn't be able to speak proper norwegian, since he would be an immigrant).
Which kinda shows you the kind of country you have.
This article is just the sort of government intrusion that makes me never want to hire anyone. Freedom of contract used to mean something in this country. No more. So I'll answer my own phones.
Yeah, because one should have the right to ask (and reject) prospective employees in terms of country, race, gender, marital status, and all that shit. I get you.
Try hiring someone in Germany. Or better yet, try firing them. No wonder the German economy is doing so poorly compared to the United States.
What? Germany's growth is at 2.9% Unemployment is at 5.9% Youth ( Now, we in the US have the following: 8.3% unemployment rate. As of July 2011, the youth unemployment rate was 18%. The debt % of its GPD is at 103.3%
Where the US leads Germany is in GDP per capita (Germany: $37,935. US: $48,147) and in America's post-HS education (in particular with grad-level education) and R&D. Where the US and Germany seem to meet is the rising level of incoming inequality.
But considering all other indicators (growth, unemployment debt/GDP ratios), your comment is completely off the mark. As an American, I wish we had those numbers.
How about terminating an interview for being a naturalised sitizen from Europe or asking for a social security number
The first type of question is illegal beyond belief (the Feds and or State would love to drag said interviewer to a federal/state court.) As long as you can work legally in the states (independently of the nature of your citizenship or legal residence/immigration status), an employer cannot terminate the interview just because you are from Europe (or a naturalized citizen with Europe as the region of origin.)
The second one, it depends. If the employer asks for your social security as part of your job application and you refuse, they can (and should) stop the interview. After all, if you are a citizen (naturalized or otherwise), you will have a ssn. And your employer needs your ssn to employ you, pay you and deduct your taxes, for verification, etc. You can refuse giving it, but then the employer should reject you (I would.) And if you don't have one, it would call your naturalization (and your entire immigration status/history) into question.
I work for DoD indirectly (not a defense contractor) and my emplyoer cannot hire non-US citizens, so there are exceptions to that rule.
I work with a DoD contractor, and to be honest, that which you describe is not an exception to the rule. Requiring US citizenship is not the same as asking for one's country of origin, for example. You can have India or Guatemala as the country of origin, and a gig requiring US citizenship can only ask you to prove your citizenship (via a US passport, voter's registration, birth or naturalization certificate.)
The DoD background check that follows for a sec. clearance (either after getting hired, or as a pre-requisite to allow your employer to hire you), that process and that entity can dig around those questions, to determine if you are a risk. But that's a process distinct from employment. For employment alone, no one, and I mean no one can legally ask for such questions during an employment interview.
Maybe for some black-ops shit that is beyond the comprehension of us mere pedestrian schmucks, but that is highly speculative to begin with.
the recent few weeks seems to be US looking out for US
apparently you must have been living under a rock till recent weeks. the US has ALWAYS looked out for the US, very publicly and aggressively
By the way they conduct policy and ridiculously low penalties imposed in such infraction, I bet to differ with your opinion. Actions > political rhetoric (and the US government has been giving us a lot of the later and the mindless masses stomp the ground thinking it is the real shit.)
Statistical sampling *works*. You really -can- test the quality of a million-gallon-delivery of whatever by picking a few random samples, and test those.
Only if you can get a representative sample. Getting that from a liquid is easy, getting that from a crate of nutplates isn't. It can be done, but you need to carefully think about how it is done.
You are going to get not just one crate, but multiple crates. Pick one at random, or better yet, pick several at random, dump their content off, pick stuff off it, and put the rest back into their crates. A nutplate (or similar stuff) has a specific volume and mass, so one can estimate how much volume or mass 10, 100 or 1000 of those suckers would take. So we use that to pick stuff out of a randomly picked crates for analysis. Right there one can check if volume/mass ratios correspond to what they should be for starters.
It can never be as perfect as sampling liquid, but it is not impossible or even difficult/cost ineffective.
What, are you going to expect every plant in america to do wet chemistry testing on all their paints, primers, and sealants? In addition to vapor testing each and every rivet and nutplate? Can't be done. Airplanes would cost billions of dollars each.
Statistical sampling?
The US govt wants to crack down on it? Here's an idea: customs can do its fucking job, and search cargo containers from china for counterfiet goods.
That is a good idea, but not without problems. You'll have to equip every Customs port with reasonable equipment to test for that kind of stuff. It is one thing to test if a perfume (in a perfume lot of thousands) is counterfeit (the specs are quite simplistic), quite another to test if a capacitor or rivet (in a lot of millions) is up to specs running the gamut of tests necessary.
What could be done is for Customs to do the most basic of tests with a small sample (1/10000), and some lots picked at random for testing with larger samples (1/1000) or for more extensive testing. Then those lots destined for government use tested again.
It would also seem that the government should built a strategic reserve of such type of equipment. For DoD/DoE work, there should never be a case of lack of inventory. Ever. We are willing to throw billions in inefficient acquisition and contracting practices, but we can't build a strategic reserve of rivets, nuts and capacitors? WTF?
Obligatory xkcd - http://xkcd.com/154/
I have to admit Visual Studios is a Decent IDE.
Yes, it is...for beginners.
Someone seems to have a fond for tooting his own game console l33t hax0r horn. That is one of the most meaningless, most juvenile posts I've seen in a while. What the hell does that mean anyways?
and for people with enough brains to not have to try to enlarge their balls by using 1980s technologies to develop software. Like VI(M) for example. A great editor for editing text files, but not a tool for developing software.
Using modern technology for real, in-the-trenches work does not amount to good street geek-creed among the junior/senior year l33t hax0rs and the "That's 70's Show" crowd.
Use VS with ReSharper with a large project and then go back to Vi and tell me that Vi makes you more productive. Hint: it's not just about cool text-editing features. Call me when Vi can do complex refactorings across dozens of projects.
^^^ This. I used to be a Emacs (and later Vim) hard code user, doing all of my coding (for-a-living-coding), first in C++ then in Java. That was the shape of things until 2005-2006'ish when I ran into Eclipse. I've never looked back. Be it the JEE version or the CDT version for C/C++ development (which is what I currently use at work), I wouldn't go back to my Vim ways. Don't get me wrong, I actively use Vim next to Eclipse CDT, but there is text editing/single file coding, and there is project development.
Yeah, managing a project can be done with Vim, a language plug-in and ctags, but then why? That's more a feat of geek-prowess than a pragmatic one. Projects are so large now that it makes no sense to do manage it (or do complex refactoring or things like that) without an integrated enviroment (not unless you have been working with large yet stable source code for so long that you know where things are).
Ever have to chase down an issue running PHP with IIS?
No, I have not, but I am not inclined to run PHP on IIS either. To be honest, I am about as likely to use PHP on any platform as I am to use Visual Basic 6 to do real work. PHP is Yet Another Abomination That Should Be Banned :-)
I have friends who swear by Notepad++, for some reason I have never grown to like it. I think it is the simplicity of code + F5 + debug. VS2010 has a very, very capable debugger. I have not seen its like in any environment, but I have heard people say there are better debuggers for Smalltalk. I have so far not had to opportunity to work with Smalltalk.
My list of preferred web application development environments in order of preference:
Things I have worked with that comes in the Abomination category - in no particular order.
If you do web/enterprise development in Java (or deploying a war/ear), you are using JEE. Now if you are referring to J2EE as EJB 2.x (which are not the same terms), then you have a good point (EJB pre 3.x is an abomination.)
JSP is not bad either (it's actually decent) IIF you keep logic outside of the view (but that is true of any MVC framework.) Similarly if that law is broken, yeah, JSP is crap (just like anything else.) The problems that have plagues JSP usage is the same that plagues any other framework where people screws around with logic in the view.
I've never used JBoss Seams, so I can't comment on it. But Seams has JSF as one of its legs, and I've never seen a legitimate technical/business reason for that shit... err, JSF, so...
The biggest F#$@#!!#@ tease - where is that damn DOWNLOAD button?!?
Indeed. As far as academic projects go, I've always found it in bad taste for projects that do not have links to downloadable material/experiments.
Replying to my own post - why don't markup editors (and word processors for that matter) provide a single toggle key shortcut to switch back and forth from editing and previewing? That would be a far better approach than what is suggested with Gliimpse (get rid of the animation), and than alt-tabbing+F5.
How is that "better" than a browser open you can Alt-Tab to and refresh in two keystrokes? Cognitively it looks like a mess, and I don't see the benefits, even after RTFA and WTFV. I do HTML and CSS for a living and have tried just about every IDE and tool combination that's been available since HTML was born, and (IMHO) nothing beats a code aware text editor and the latest browsers to preview the rendered markup. There just isn't much loss in productivity when you're using keyboard shortcuts to bounce back and forth from code to render in less than 3 seconds. Load times? Well, in development those should be almost nil because you should be working from a local dev server on your network. I just don't see the gain from this application's approach, especially when you add in the bane of every WYSIWYG markup editor the ever moving standards support game. The browsers are always ahead of the WYSIWYG editors as far as new standards support.
My thoughts exactly (kinda) when it comes to html editing. People can do fine (and actually do) by simply alt-tabbing+F5.
I do disagree, however, in that it cognitively looks like a mess or that there are no benefits. The algorithms explored in this research *could* be integrated into professional editing tools that spit out html (or any markup for that matter). If all I need to do is press one key to toggle back and forth from preview to editing in a single window, that on itself is efficient (subject to the editing person's predilection) than alt-tabbing+F5 with two windows.
Beyond html, this would certainly help with wikitext or latex. Call me crazy, but I would prefer a single toggle key to preview my wikitext on demand (and certainly with latex, which even with tools like LyX, previewing always take more than a few keystrokes.)
Beyond the actual need for something like this (which people can legitimate question), the algorithms and idea behind this are impressive.
While you are technically correct that the Mac Mini has an i7, it is a mobile i7. Only has two cores and significantly lower clock. This thing has a desktop i7. Quad core and higher clock. It handily outclasses the Mini, but still way overpriced.
Potaytoes. Potahtos. Rihanna. Schmianna :)
Yeah those stupid researchers with their fancy MDs and PhDs in virology, immunology, pharmacology, genetics, molecular biology, and decades of hands-on experience are completely ignorant of the subject. We must defer to a random group of Hollywood screen writers that just happened to land a gig adapting a decent 1950's science fiction novel into a shitty movie.
Can you say woooosh?
Didn't Will Smith teach us not to mess with that? Zombie/Vampire things are going to eat us all!!!!(10+1)
How can one with a degree that is not related to computers acquire a job that is centered around computers?
As I mentioned in another post in this thread, I started my programming career with a AA degree. I took programming courses up to the wazoo, and by the time I went for a 4-year CS degree, I had possibly 2-3 times more programming hours than most CS people in their junior years (no exaggeration). But it was people w/o a CS degree who actually shouldered me and gave me a chance to get a full-time job as a programmer when I only had a AA.
So from personal experience I know that there are people out there that can do a hell of a programming job without having a formal CS or MIS background. But in this type of economy, it is very difficult to get your foot in the door without a 4-year degree. It was already becoming very difficult in 1994-95 (which is when I started.) Most programming assignments in the real IT world do not require a full-blown CS or MIS degree. That's the reality. But how to convince HR and management, that's another issue.
At the moment, I am self-taught and can easily keep up in a conversation of computer science majors. I also do a decent amount of programming in C, Perl, and Python and have contributed to small open source projects.
You could leverage that by starting small, getting part-time programming or sysadmin jobs at school, or freelancing in, say, LAMP development. Would Slashdot users recommend receiving a formal computer science education (only about two years, since the nonsensical general education requirements are already completed) before attempting to get such a job?
Yes. I would go for it (that's what I did after landing my first job). Having a formal CS education opens a lot more doors outside of IT. Most importantly, it will guarantee you better chances to get through the HR filters. Remember, this is a numbers game, and you will be competing with people that already have a degree. Without the sheepskin, you are at a disadvantage (and as I said, that is unfortunate because most IT programming jobs do not really require that type of skill set; a AS in CS or Information Technology would suffice.)
Depending on your finances, I would opt for a part-time job at your Uni IT/CS departments - no lab staff, but actual programming or sysadmin work or tech support (as in installing systems, opening tickets, tracking part orders, etc.) And during that time, finish your 4-year degree asap.
If that's not possible, work in whatever you can (something that can give you a flexible schedule) while pursuing your degree part-time. But you need the degree. It's almost impossible to get past the HR drones without it.
Anybody else in a similar situation?"
My situation is similar in that I also started without a 4-year degree (and even though people helped me, it was still hard to get a few managers to give the IT department the green light for hiring me. That was a very painful time in my life.)
It is also dissimilar in that times are a lot harder now. You are at greater disadvantage than I was when I started. Good luck.
Otherwise you will just be exploited and never make it up the career ladder. Sad but true.
Getting the degree won't change that result for almost all employees.
Not true, at least not in my case (and in similar cases I know). The degree is what has always saved me, specially in drought times like the dot-com crash and 2008. I started with a AA degree, and while working full-time I worked my way to a BS degree in CS. That opened me a lot of doors. I kept going to a MS, and even though I didn't finished, the work I did during my grad studies (a couple of papers and a half-baked thesis) opened me doors a lot more. Now I'm back to grad school, getting a MS in CE, and that is opening more doors.
It's not only college degrees. It's certificates as well. During 2008, I lost my job 6 days short of my wife giving birth to our daughter. Fortunately, we have been very frugal and we were well prepared for that. It is still not an enviable position. I put resumes to the left and right, had my resume inspected and proof-read by ex-colleagues, but nothing was coming my way.
At some point a friend of mine suggested that I asked the headhunters I trusted the most to give me copies of the latest (and best paid) positions they have filled (with personal info blacked out of course.) Most of their resumes looked equivalent to mine in terms of education and work experience.... with the exception of several certificates.
It dawned on me that there was so much competition (and there is still) that employers and HR departments (right or wrong) were also counting education and industry certificates to prune the tree. I crash-studied for a couple, took the exams, pasted that shit on my CV, and voila, interviews coming my way. Shortly thereafter, I was employed once again (and in much better terms.)
So, right or wrong, educational credentials (both academic and IT vocational) do help. Won't make you a better professional, but it helps getting through the HR filters, and that ladies and gents, in this downturn economy, that is shit you want on your side.
That's my personal experience, purely anecdotal, so obviously YMMV.
Lots of useless data is still useless...
Being able to forget who you were is important too.
That statement was uselessly profound.