It's more of an illustration. Anyway, I would have thought that the computer scientist were hoping that the analogy with the real world would convince people their algorithms are a good idea, rather than the other way round!
I can't see how anyone with even a small insight into biochemistry can doubt the biodiversity on earth came about through evolution...
> In the case of GA, some people insist on using the technique as an argument advocating biological evolution
How can you "advocate" biological evolution? That's like saying people researching meteorology are "advocating" fluid dynamics.
People in GA might be trying to *imitate* biological evolution, which sounds like a good idea, seeing how evolution has created some of the most amazing machines and materials on earth.
> First and foremost, in the US, if I want to wear a yalkmaka (skull cap or whatever you want > to call it) because my religion requires me to wear a head covering, *Bam* i can.
Dress is often used to segregate people. Sometimes this is done by the state (e.g. Nazis making all Jews wear a star of David), and sometimes it is done by communities to separate themselves from others (e.g. the Amish). As for communities doing it themselves, in principle I agree that it's everyone's right to do so...
A slightly different question arises when it comes to children. For example we wouldn't allow kids to be forced into arranged marriages in the western world, even though it is a religious custom. We won't allow sex with underage kids, even if it was accepted by a religion elsewhere. We won't allow polygamy, even though it is a religious custom. In all these cases it is felt that one person is being taken advantage of and not being given an equal chance in this world, even if everything is done voluntarily.
The Fench government has a similar opinion on religious dress. It's argument is that girls in particular (there's no equivalent to the head scarf for boys) are being kept intentionally segregated from their western peers. They are being prevented from participating in activities such as sports, swimming, class trips, etc. and are being excluded from social interaction by means of a traditional dress code. The position of the French government thus is that this custom discriminates against people the same way that polygamy or forced marriage do and thus is banned at least in public schools for underage pupils. The ban is applied to all religions so as to not be discriminatory. Interestingly Turkey (a Muslim country) also has a ban on head-scarfs as they see it as a symbol of extremist Islam and oppression.
I'm not sure it's a sensible policy, but it warrents a closer examination before labelling it "intolerant and inexcusable". The target very clearly are not "muslims" or "jews" or "catholics", but extremists of any volition.
Firstly, as you rightly point out the book is not "banned" but simply the copyright holders don't allow it to be published. To my knowledge there is no law saying " you can't sell Mein Kampf".
Secondly, it is entirely possible to read "Mein Kampf" even in Germany, however it is only published in editions that include some form of commentary.
> On a more serious note, France is getting to be a shady place and not somewhere to be if you > are visibly religous, that's for sure (Muslim, Catholic, or Jewish primarily).
What are you talking about? According to the CIA (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/fr.html) about 85% of the french population are catholic... who exactly do you think is persecuting them? The 2% protestants or the 4% who are not affiliated to any church?
Just because there has been a ban on wearing overtly religious symbols in school (of any religion) doesn't mean that all religious people are being persecuted. They have merely decided that schools should be neutral on the topic of religion (much like the US courts).
> Or presumably because it would get them sued > by copyright holders because the deal under > which they sell songs in the USA only covers > the USA
but that's exactly my point. It should not be legally possible to give someone the right to sell a product (and that's what music is) "in country x", you either sell people the right to trade music or you don't...
These laws allow companies to arbitrarily separate markets which in my opinion is a very bad thing...
> or indicted for tax evasion because > each nation has it's own laws & taxes.
A large number of US shops will deliver to me in the UK, including places that let me download and pay for software online. Surely if this is possible legally it'll be the same for music...
Big business has been arguing (quite rightly) the case for a free flow of goods and services as a means of creating more efficient markets and thus lowering their production cost. Unfortunately, at the same time they appear very hesitant in extending these benefits to the consumer.
Region encoding on DVDs was only the most blatant example where markets were kept artifically separate, but it extends to many other areas, particularly cars (VW has been convicted under EU law for trying to stop Germans buying VWs abroad where they sell them cheaper), fashion (companies prosecuting anyone who dares to "re-import" produce that was to be sold cheaper abroad), CDs (CD-wow was prosecuted for importing CDs to the UK and selling them for US-prices)...
It's a world of free trade, so if I want to source my products from the cheapest source I should be allowed to. I can see that some companies warrenties might not be valid abroad, or that I'd have to pay additional shipping, but creating artifically separated markets can only be bad for the consumer!
I'm particularly annoyed in the case of downloadable music. There are *no* shipping costs, yet i-tunes US won't sell music to a UK customer, presumably because they figured out they can extract more money from them...
This is even more galling when it happens internally in the EU where there are supposed to be *no* trade-barriers, yet i-tunes germany also won't sell to the UK.
Companies should not get away with having their cake and eating it. If they want globalisation they also have to face global competition for customers and can't be allowed to create artificial niches. If the Brits are prepared to pay a few pennies more in return for a more British service and not having to convert currencies, that's fine, but if I want to buy from the US (or Europe) I should definitely be allowed to do so!
They have it absolutely right. Outsourcing jobs like call-centres to india is something the indian government should be worried about as it means that their high-quality workers are doing menial tasks.
Essentially the US buys in a workforce for $2 an hour. In return India imports from the US things like some high-tech products, IP, media, branded soft-drinks, etc. etc. all based on work that is done for at least $20 an hour (once you factor in the cost of companies for taxes, health care etc.)
So basically for every hour an american works for the indian people, the american people get 10 hours of an indian working for them. The work done is the "ware" in this place, not the work-place. The end result is that due to this trade the US gets to consume more wares than it would be able to produce on its own.
Complaining about "the indians" stealing our jobs by doing them for 1/10th of what we would charge is a bit like accusing the slaves who worked on US sugar plantations of taking the jobs from good honest american farmers.
As the article you link to also pointed out, this just about wrecked the mobile phone network in london for a few hours. I happened to be there and tried to call someone, no chance... even SMS arrived hours later...
In part british Xenophobia is to blame for this i'm afraid, and in particular the resistance to adopting the Euro. Even the most stupid SUN reader would realise they're being ripped off if they saw the prices in EURO both in the UK and on the beach in Spain.
As long as they still have to divide prices by 1.5 or something like that most people simply don't realise how much they're being taken advantage of!
There's plenty of products I simply refuse to buy in the UK. These include virtually any electronics, music, as well as most alcoholic beverages (and even that price differential is only in part explained by tax!).
But considering the kind of profits the PC Worlds, Dixons and HMVs make on this side of the channel, I can't see why they'd want to change!!
That's completely normal. For some reason everyone has decided to simply charge more in Europe...
I've recently tried to buy a new camera from Amazon. Canon EOS 300D is priced at: Amazon US: $850 (adding 20% sales tax-> $1020) Amazon UK: UKP 780 ($1400) Amazon Germany: EUR 1000 ($1200)
I thought these markets are meant to be competitive? Why is Amazon UK charging a mark-up of more than 40% on a digital camera???
Similar things go for cars, clothing, CDs, DVDs, etc. What is needed with all this globalisation is a complete freedom to re-import things from anywhere in the world, that would see prices crashing down right, left and centre!
Actually, thinking about it, our club is full of scientists, particularly physicists, and they also appear to be amoung the more successful competitors, and I can think of a few people going into IT as well...
I guess i just didn't think anyone would admit to it on Slashdot;)
> We did not go to war with Egypt or Saudi Arabia, because those who perpetrated 9/11 were > not there to represent their nationalities. They were there to represent a certain brand of > Islam. Subscribers to that brand are not isolated to one or two countries.
Indeed.
The one middle eastern country where they wouldn't have been however, was Iraq. While a pretty vile dictatorship, it was a secular country.
Of course now radical islamists appear to be filling the power vaccuum in Iraq. If the US were to fulfil its promise to turn Iraq into a democractic country there is an inherent danger that the Iraqi people would democratcially chose a regime whose policies are at odds with US interests.
This might turn out to be a very interesting chapter in future history books. I still have hope it's all going to work out for the better though...
> No matter how many years you spent doing ballroom dancing you'd never become a > professional until you got paid. And even if you were terrible at it but got paid you'd still > be a professional.
That is not entirely true. As a dancer you can simply declare yourself "pro" and start entering competitions for professionals.
On the other hand in many countries amateurs teach and do demonstrations and get paid for all of these, though usually there are some limits. The distinction between amateur and pro is pretty arbitrary really... In the case of space rockets i think amateur has come to mean "not financed by the government or a business with intent of making a profit", or something similar.
> We use the term "amateurish" to talk about things which are crappy and I really think this > helps to add to the confusion.
In the sometimes rather bizarre dancing world "amateurish" can actually mean the opposite. In this case it is a distinction to the social dancer. In this case "looking like an amateur" means to look like a serious competitive dancer...
Anyway, i never thought i'd see a ballroom dancing reference on slashdot!
> Puh-lease. I've had the 'pleasure' of working with two physicists and several mathemetaicans > in my IT career. *None* was worth a shit. Couldn't touch-type, couldn't write logical code.
How ironic, accusing others of poor touch-typing skills...
But seriously, just because you had some lousy colleagues with a science/maths background does not prove that all of them are bad. I know a lot of CS majors that are completely useless because they did not keep up with technological advances over the last 10 years, but that doesn't mean CS majors are all terrible sys-admins.
For most any career out there the general skills you learn in your degree are worth much more than any detailed information (with a few exceptions like medicine). Logical thinking and understanding the world in terms of models and parameters are things a good maths or physics degree will teach and they're invaluable for a good programmer. Of course they need to learn to program, but so do most CS majors.
A lot of IT recruitment (certainly in the UK) actively targets maths and physics graduates, i can only assume that they must have had some positive experiences....
> we have to know math because the math majors cant program, usually
Conversely this is the very reason why physicists and mathematicians have good job opportunities in IT, consulting or banking. In many cases it's easier to teach a physicist programming (or economics) than to teach a programmer the relevant understanding of mathematics.
Of course it depends on what you're progrogramming and of course a programmer who is good at the kind of maths required for the job will have the edge anyway...
I think the point is that losing 20% of an inflated wage is not a real disincentive. It's like clothes being 20% off at Versace. They are still not cheap (or even a good deal in any normal person's opinion).
Ridiculous incomes are not made solely by CEOs. For a start, anyone with a C in their title in big business is doing pretty well, but also numerous other managers/bankers/consultants. By pretty well I mean 7 figure salaries, the kind of people who make enough in a year to last any "normal" person a life-time.
> Why are you against people making lots of money?
I'm not against people making lots of money if they "earned" it. Of course this is just my personal opinion, but i think the "elite" in the city have made themselves a pretty cushy deal where one manager / board member / banker / consultant makes sure the other doesn't come to any real harm.
> I think you underestimate the responsibility these people have.
A lot less in my opinion than say a general, the president, or even just a measly medical doctor, medical research scientist, structural engineer etc. etc.
Anyway, my point is that they can have a good salary for a high-pressure job. But a good salary is *not* in 7 or 8 figures. Pay-outs in that magnitude might be justified if they have done exceptionally well, but from my rather limited experience it seems that even when firms go bust, downsize or are taken over in a hostile take-over, the top of the ladder find themselves a nice golden parachute while the simple person is kicked out on the street with 2 weeks notice (if lucky).
Anyway, I've got quite a few friends in such jobs and you can't blame the people because the system is there and people are free to use it. I just think that the system is skewed and the pay-differential is one thing that has the potential of creating a lot of strain on capitalism, if left unchecked...
> The original poster was hardly complementary of any religious faith and prefaced that > particular question with "So who did you turn your thinking over to?" [...]
This was a direct quote from your post: > If you're dumb enough to turn over your thinking to a religious > Pope/Evangelist/whatever, that's your idiocy, not God's.
In fact it was you who called everyone "dumb" who based their faith on the teaching of a "Pope/Evangelist/whatever". Hence I believe that my question was perfectly justified and worded in a manner consistent with your style.
For me one of the most intruiging things about religions is the difference between a "religion" and a "cult". A lot of christians will (rightfully) warn people of cult leaders who make unsubstantiated promises and ask for money in return (or sometimes just people's times), perform rites of some sort etc. etc. I have many religious friends and some of them are of the opinion that the main difference between their religion and a cult is that "my religion is true, and their cult isn't". In fact many evangelical christians call the catholic church a cult, etc. etc. which brings us back to planks etc...
Anyway, to come back to my point, you accused a large number of religious people of being dumb for believing things because a "pope/evangelist/whatever" told them. I was wondering in which way your faith differs from that.
> Instead, my comments were directed at that individual in particular and everyone else who > operates under the stereotype that religious faith is nothing more than simply a sickness > that for the frightened and weak minded.
That, I never said. I believe religious faith is a superstition that makes it easier to explain the world. Just like you can "explain" your good and bad luck with any number of weird superstitions (cats, ladders and mirrors come to mind).
The human mind is as succesful as it is by trying to "make sense" of events, understanding cause and effect, that it finds it difficult to handle the concept of "chance" or "randomness". In some cases it is much easier to believe in a "great plan" that transcends our experience than to accept the inherent randomness and "unfairness" of the world.
So anyway, I don't see anything inherently wrong with having such superstitions, and i'm sure it can make life a lot more comforting and easier.
When it starts going much beyond that and leads people to declare that they would die defending their faith if they had to, then i think it's getting dangerous...
I'm all for software patents... of course, a condition of a patent is the disclosure of the patent. Ie you limited legal protection of your invention in return for giving the information to the public.
So any software that is patented must open its source code, must allow others to license it for modification and resale, must allow others to build compatible software, publish interfaces etc. etc.
Closed source and patent don't work together... it's either trade-secret or patent, you can't have both...
> Dude, you've got a seriously skewed view of religion.
One might argue that it's atheists who have a less skewed view of religion as they're not part of it.
> And finally RELIGION != FAITH IN GOD
Religion = "the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or any such system of belief and worship:" (from http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=667 31&dict=CALD )
Anyway, to many people who are not religious, the belief in a god, and particularly the common varieties that send their children to earth, seemingly arbitrarily bless or smite people etc. are as real as Father Christmas or Zaphod Beeblebrox.
The mere fact that a lot of people believe it is no convincing argument, especially when those people proclaim their belief being due to faith rather than any evidence. For 1000s of years everyone believed the earth was flat.
Even today, a lot of people believe summer is warmer than winter because the earth is closer to the sun then, or that the entire world is only 6000 years old because some religous nut tells them so, or any other number of demonstrably wrong things. The number of people believing something is not sufficient reason to assume it is true.
This is precisely the reason i trust science more than tradition or religion: Scientific dogma is subject to revision in the face of new evidence, religious dogma usually isn't. It's 2000 years out of date.
> If you're dumb enough to turn over your thinking to a religious > Pope/Evangelist/whatever, that's your idiocy, not God's.
So who did you turn your thinking over to? What made you a "believer"? A charismatic person? An old book? Indoctrination from your community? Peer pressure? Anyway, i completely agree with your statement bar the last two words...
> Actually many CEOs do make less money if they make bad decisions
As long as "less money" means 2 million dollars/year rather than 10 million dollars, most people wouldn't see this as a particularly hard lots in life...
Which is exactly my point. Even if you cut 50% of their wages for bad performance, they're still earning 100 times as much as some of their underlings...
Anyway, I'm not just talking CEOs, the ridiculous pay starts a couple of levels below, depending on the size of the company...
> Over time it has come to mean Science = > Anti-religion, but that was not the intention.
I've always maintained that some of the best things to come out of science are by pure chance...
Re:Thanks, unions, government, and greedy employee
on
Train Your Own Replacement
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
> CEOs make crucial decisions all the time, decisions that can result in millions gained or > lost. They are worth every penny providing they do this job well.
If they are to gain a percentage of the millions won through their decisions that's perfectly ok, so long as they also pay for a similar percentage of the millions lost to their incompetence...
Unfortunately the story that managers have such a risky life, risk being fired with no income at no notice etc. is complete nonsense. The closer to the the top you get the less personal risk there is. For a start they have enough capital to cope without any income ever again, which reduces personal risk to 0. Even if they screw up, they get pensions, severance pay etc. etc. in amounts that any of the 1000s who lost their jobs due to their incompetence can only dream about...
So anyway, entrepreneurs i'm ok with earning lots of money as it's their captial that's at stake. Managers risk nothing and thus should be paid like an ordinary professional, not like a successful entrepreneur..
Slashdot Mirror
It's more of an illustration. Anyway, I would have thought that the computer scientist were hoping that the analogy with the real world would convince people their algorithms are a good idea, rather than the other way round!
I can't see how anyone with even a small insight into biochemistry can doubt the biodiversity on earth came about through evolution...
> In the case of GA, some people insist on using the technique as an argument advocating biological evolution
How can you "advocate" biological evolution? That's like saying people researching meteorology are "advocating" fluid dynamics.
People in GA might be trying to *imitate* biological evolution, which sounds like a good idea, seeing how evolution has created some of the most amazing machines and materials on earth.
> First and foremost, in the US, if I want to wear a yalkmaka (skull cap or whatever you want
> to call it) because my religion requires me to wear a head covering, *Bam* i can.
Dress is often used to segregate people. Sometimes this is done by the state (e.g. Nazis making all Jews wear a star of David), and sometimes it is done by communities to separate themselves from others (e.g. the Amish). As for communities doing it themselves, in principle I agree that it's everyone's right to do so...
A slightly different question arises when it comes to children. For example we wouldn't allow kids to be forced into arranged marriages in the western world, even though it is a religious custom. We won't allow sex with underage kids, even if it was accepted by a religion elsewhere. We won't allow polygamy, even though it is a religious custom. In all these cases it is felt that one person is being taken advantage of and not being given an equal chance in this world, even if everything is done voluntarily.
The Fench government has a similar opinion on religious dress. It's argument is that girls in particular (there's no equivalent to the head scarf for boys) are being kept intentionally segregated from their western peers. They are being prevented from participating in activities such as sports, swimming, class trips, etc. and are being excluded from social interaction by means of a traditional dress code. The position of the French government thus is that this custom discriminates against people the same way that polygamy or forced marriage do and thus is banned at least in public schools for underage pupils. The ban is applied to all religions so as to not be discriminatory. Interestingly Turkey (a Muslim country) also has a ban on head-scarfs as they see it as a symbol of extremist Islam and oppression.
I'm not sure it's a sensible policy, but it warrents a closer examination before labelling it "intolerant and inexcusable". The target very clearly are not "muslims" or "jews" or "catholics", but extremists of any volition.
Firstly, as you rightly point out the book is not "banned" but simply the copyright holders don't allow it to be published. To my knowledge there is no law saying " you can't sell Mein Kampf".
Secondly, it is entirely possible to read "Mein Kampf" even in Germany, however it is only published in editions that include some form of commentary.
> On a more serious note, France is getting to be a shady place and not somewhere to be if you
s /fr.html)
> are visibly religous, that's for sure (Muslim, Catholic, or Jewish primarily).
What are you talking about? According to the CIA (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
about 85% of the french population are catholic... who exactly do you think is persecuting them? The 2% protestants or the 4% who are not affiliated to any church?
Just because there has been a ban on wearing overtly religious symbols in school (of any religion) doesn't mean that all religious people are being persecuted. They have merely decided that schools should be neutral on the topic of religion (much like the US courts).
> Or presumably because it would get them sued
> by copyright holders because the deal under
> which they sell songs in the USA only covers
> the USA
but that's exactly my point. It should not be legally possible to give someone the right to sell a product (and that's what music is) "in country x", you either sell people the right to trade music or you don't...
These laws allow companies to arbitrarily separate markets which in my opinion is a very bad thing...
> or indicted for tax evasion because
> each nation has it's own laws & taxes.
A large number of US shops will deliver to me in the UK, including places that let me download and pay for software online. Surely if this is possible legally it'll be the same for music...
Big business has been arguing (quite rightly) the case for a free flow of goods and services as a means of creating more efficient markets and thus lowering their production cost. Unfortunately, at the same time they appear very hesitant in extending these benefits to the consumer.
...
Region encoding on DVDs was only the most blatant example where markets were kept artifically separate, but it extends to many other areas, particularly cars (VW has been convicted under EU law for trying to stop Germans buying VWs abroad where they sell them cheaper), fashion (companies prosecuting anyone who dares to "re-import" produce that was to be sold cheaper abroad), CDs (CD-wow was prosecuted for importing CDs to the UK and selling them for US-prices)
It's a world of free trade, so if I want to source my products from the cheapest source I should be allowed to. I can see that some companies warrenties might not be valid abroad, or that I'd have to pay additional shipping, but creating artifically separated markets can only be bad for the consumer!
I'm particularly annoyed in the case of downloadable music. There are *no* shipping costs, yet i-tunes US won't sell music to a UK customer, presumably because they figured out they can extract more money from them...
This is even more galling when it happens internally in the EU where there are supposed to be *no* trade-barriers, yet i-tunes germany also won't sell to the UK.
Companies should not get away with having their cake and eating it. If they want globalisation they also have to face global competition for customers and can't be allowed to create artificial niches. If the Brits are prepared to pay a few pennies more in return for a more British service and not having to convert currencies, that's fine, but if I want to buy from the US (or Europe) I should definitely be allowed to do so!
They have it absolutely right. Outsourcing jobs like call-centres to india is something the indian government should be worried about as it means that their high-quality workers are doing menial tasks.
Essentially the US buys in a workforce for $2 an hour. In return India imports from the US things like some high-tech products, IP, media, branded soft-drinks, etc. etc. all based on work that is done for at least $20 an hour (once you factor in the cost of companies for taxes, health care etc.)
So basically for every hour an american works for the indian people, the american people get 10 hours of an indian working for them. The work done is the "ware" in this place, not the work-place. The end result is that due to this trade the US gets to consume more wares than it would be able to produce on its own.
Complaining about "the indians" stealing our jobs by doing them for 1/10th of what we would charge is a bit like accusing the slaves who worked on US sugar plantations of taking the jobs from good honest american farmers.
Ponxxx
As the article you link to also pointed out, this just about wrecked the mobile phone network in london for a few hours. I happened to be there and tried to call someone, no chance... even SMS arrived hours later...
In part british Xenophobia is to blame for this i'm afraid, and in particular the resistance to adopting the Euro. Even the most stupid SUN reader would realise they're being ripped off if they saw the prices in EURO both in the UK and on the beach in Spain.
As long as they still have to divide prices by 1.5 or something like that most people simply don't realise how much they're being taken advantage of!
There's plenty of products I simply refuse to buy in the UK. These include virtually any electronics, music, as well as most alcoholic beverages (and even that price differential is only in part explained by tax!).
But considering the kind of profits the PC Worlds, Dixons and HMVs make on this side of the channel, I can't see why they'd want to change!!
That's completely normal. For some reason everyone has decided to simply charge more in Europe...
I've recently tried to buy a new camera from Amazon. Canon EOS 300D is priced at:
Amazon US: $850 (adding 20% sales tax-> $1020)
Amazon UK: UKP 780 ($1400)
Amazon Germany: EUR 1000 ($1200)
I thought these markets are meant to be competitive? Why is Amazon UK charging a mark-up of more than 40% on a digital camera???
Similar things go for cars, clothing, CDs, DVDs, etc. What is needed with all this globalisation is a complete freedom to re-import things from anywhere in the world, that would see prices crashing down right, left and centre!
> do you have a USABDA chapter in your area
I currently live in the UK...
> Whats wrong with ballroom dancing?
;)
Absolutely nothing, i love it!
Actually, thinking about it, our club is full of scientists, particularly physicists, and they also appear to be amoung the more successful competitors, and I can think of a few people going into IT as well...
I guess i just didn't think anyone would admit to it on Slashdot
> We did not go to war with Egypt or Saudi Arabia, because those who perpetrated 9/11 were
> not there to represent their nationalities. They were there to represent a certain brand of
> Islam. Subscribers to that brand are not isolated to one or two countries.
Indeed.
The one middle eastern country where they wouldn't have been however, was Iraq. While a pretty vile dictatorship, it was a secular country.
Of course now radical islamists appear to be filling the power vaccuum in Iraq. If the US were to fulfil its promise to turn Iraq into a democractic country there is an inherent danger that the Iraqi people would democratcially chose a regime whose policies are at odds with US interests.
This might turn out to be a very interesting chapter in future history books. I still have hope it's all going to work out for the better though...
> No matter how many years you spent doing ballroom dancing you'd never become a
> professional until you got paid. And even if you were terrible at it but got paid you'd still
> be a professional.
That is not entirely true. As a dancer you can simply declare yourself "pro" and start entering competitions for professionals.
On the other hand in many countries amateurs teach and do demonstrations and get paid for all of these, though usually there are some limits. The distinction between amateur and pro is pretty arbitrary really... In the case of space rockets i think amateur has come to mean "not financed by the government or a business with intent of making a profit", or something similar.
> We use the term "amateurish" to talk about things which are crappy and I really think this
> helps to add to the confusion.
In the sometimes rather bizarre dancing world "amateurish" can actually mean the opposite. In this case it is a distinction to the social dancer. In this case "looking like an amateur" means to look like a serious competitive dancer...
Anyway, i never thought i'd see a ballroom dancing reference on slashdot!
> And why Americans should not forget that those
> people who drove the airplanes into those
> buildings are "at war" with us.
So if those 19 Saudis and Egyptians attacked us, why did we not start a war with Egypt or Saudi Arabia?
Unfortunately most Americans HAVE forgotten that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11...
> Puh-lease. I've had the 'pleasure' of working with two physicists and several mathemetaicans
> in my IT career. *None* was worth a shit. Couldn't touch-type, couldn't write logical code.
How ironic, accusing others of poor touch-typing skills...
But seriously, just because you had some lousy colleagues with a science/maths background does not prove that all of them are bad. I know a lot of CS majors that are completely useless because they did not keep up with technological advances over the last 10 years, but that doesn't mean CS majors are all terrible sys-admins.
For most any career out there the general skills you learn in your degree are worth much more than any detailed information (with a few exceptions like medicine). Logical thinking and understanding the world in terms of models and parameters are things a good maths or physics degree will teach and they're invaluable for a good programmer. Of course they need to learn to program, but so do most CS majors.
A lot of IT recruitment (certainly in the UK) actively targets maths and physics graduates, i can only assume that they must have had some positive experiences....
> we have to know math because the math majors cant program, usually
Conversely this is the very reason why physicists and mathematicians have good job opportunities in IT, consulting or banking. In many cases it's easier to teach a physicist programming (or economics) than to teach a programmer the relevant understanding of mathematics.
Of course it depends on what you're progrogramming and of course a programmer who is good at the kind of maths required for the job will have the edge anyway...
I think the point is that losing 20% of an inflated wage is not a real disincentive. It's like clothes being 20% off at Versace. They are still not cheap (or even a good deal in any normal person's opinion).
Ridiculous incomes are not made solely by CEOs. For a start, anyone with a C in their title in big business is doing pretty well, but also numerous other managers/bankers/consultants. By pretty well I mean 7 figure salaries, the kind of people who make enough in a year to last any "normal" person a life-time.
> Why are you against people making lots of money?
I'm not against people making lots of money if they "earned" it. Of course this is just my personal opinion, but i think the "elite" in the city have made themselves a pretty cushy deal where one manager / board member / banker / consultant makes sure the other doesn't come to any real harm.
> I think you underestimate the responsibility these people have.
A lot less in my opinion than say a general, the president, or even just a measly medical doctor, medical research scientist, structural engineer etc. etc.
Anyway, my point is that they can have a good salary for a high-pressure job. But a good salary is *not* in 7 or 8 figures. Pay-outs in that magnitude might be justified if they have done exceptionally well, but from my rather limited experience it seems that even when firms go bust, downsize or are taken over in a hostile take-over, the top of the ladder find themselves a nice golden parachute while the simple person is kicked out on the street with 2 weeks notice (if lucky).
Anyway, I've got quite a few friends in such jobs and you can't blame the people because the system is there and people are free to use it. I just think that the system is skewed and the pay-differential is one thing that has the potential of creating a lot of strain on capitalism, if left unchecked...
> The original poster was hardly complementary of any religious faith and prefaced that
> particular question with "So who did you turn your thinking over to?" [...]
This was a direct quote from your post:
> If you're dumb enough to turn over your thinking to a religious
> Pope/Evangelist/whatever, that's your idiocy, not God's.
In fact it was you who called everyone "dumb" who based their faith on the teaching of a "Pope/Evangelist/whatever". Hence I believe that my question was perfectly justified and worded in a manner consistent with your style.
For me one of the most intruiging things about religions is the difference between a "religion" and a "cult". A lot of christians will (rightfully) warn people of cult leaders who make unsubstantiated promises and ask for money in return (or sometimes just people's times), perform rites of some sort etc. etc. I have many religious friends and some of them are of the opinion that the main difference between their religion and a cult is that "my religion is true, and their cult isn't". In fact many evangelical christians call the catholic church a cult, etc. etc. which brings us back to planks etc...
Anyway, to come back to my point, you accused a large number of religious people of being dumb for believing things because a "pope/evangelist/whatever" told them. I was wondering in which way your faith differs from that.
> Instead, my comments were directed at that individual in particular and everyone else who
> operates under the stereotype that religious faith is nothing more than simply a sickness
> that for the frightened and weak minded.
That, I never said. I believe religious faith is a superstition that makes it easier to explain the world. Just like you can "explain" your good and bad luck with any number of weird superstitions (cats, ladders and mirrors come to mind).
The human mind is as succesful as it is by trying to "make sense" of events, understanding cause and effect, that it finds it difficult to handle the concept of "chance" or "randomness". In some cases it is much easier to believe in a "great plan" that transcends our experience than to accept the inherent randomness and "unfairness" of the world.
So anyway, I don't see anything inherently wrong with having such superstitions, and i'm sure it can make life a lot more comforting and easier.
When it starts going much beyond that and leads people to declare that they would die defending their faith if they had to, then i think it's getting dangerous...
I'm all for software patents... of course, a condition of a patent is the disclosure of the patent. Ie you limited legal protection of your invention in return for giving the information to the public.
So any software that is patented must open its source code, must allow others to license it for modification and resale, must allow others to build compatible software, publish interfaces etc. etc.
Closed source and patent don't work together... it's either trade-secret or patent, you can't have both...
> Dude, you've got a seriously skewed view of religion.
7 31&dict=CALD )
One might argue that it's atheists who have a less skewed view of religion as they're not part of it.
> And finally RELIGION != FAITH IN GOD
Religion = "the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or any such system of belief and worship:" (from http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=66
Anyway, to many people who are not religious, the belief in a god, and particularly the common varieties that send their children to earth, seemingly arbitrarily bless or smite people etc. are as real as Father Christmas or Zaphod Beeblebrox.
The mere fact that a lot of people believe it is no convincing argument, especially when those people proclaim their belief being due to faith rather than any evidence. For 1000s of years everyone believed the earth was flat.
Even today, a lot of people believe summer is warmer than winter because the earth is closer to the sun then, or that the entire world is only 6000 years old because some religous nut tells them so, or any other number of demonstrably wrong things. The number of people believing something is not sufficient reason to assume it is true.
This is precisely the reason i trust science more than tradition or religion: Scientific dogma is subject to revision in the face of new evidence, religious dogma usually isn't. It's 2000 years out of date.
> If you're dumb enough to turn over your thinking to a religious
> Pope/Evangelist/whatever, that's your idiocy, not God's.
So who did you turn your thinking over to? What made you a "believer"? A charismatic person? An old book? Indoctrination from your community? Peer pressure? Anyway, i completely agree with your statement bar the last two words...
> Actually many CEOs do make less money if they make bad decisions
As long as "less money" means 2 million dollars/year rather than 10 million dollars, most people wouldn't see this as a particularly hard lots in life...
Which is exactly my point. Even if you cut 50% of their wages for bad performance, they're still earning 100 times as much as some of their underlings...
Anyway, I'm not just talking CEOs, the ridiculous pay starts a couple of levels below, depending on the size of the company...
> Over time it has come to mean Science =
...
> Anti-religion, but that was not the intention.
I've always maintained that some of the best things to come out of science are by pure chance
> CEOs make crucial decisions all the time, decisions that can result in millions gained or
> lost. They are worth every penny providing they do this job well.
If they are to gain a percentage of the millions won through their decisions that's perfectly ok, so long as they also pay for a similar percentage of the millions lost to their incompetence...
Unfortunately the story that managers have such a risky life, risk being fired with no income at no notice etc. is complete nonsense. The closer to the the top you get the less personal risk there is. For a start they have enough capital to cope without any income ever again, which reduces personal risk to 0. Even if they screw up, they get pensions, severance pay etc. etc. in amounts that any of the 1000s who lost their jobs due to their incompetence can only dream about...
So anyway, entrepreneurs i'm ok with earning lots of money as it's their captial that's at stake. Managers risk nothing and thus should be paid like an ordinary professional, not like a successful entrepreneur..