Direct democracy means "everybody votes on everything." Period.
Most frightening idea. Ever.
People get flooded with ideas and proposals for anything and everything. There will be an avalanche of tiny details for people -- people with short attention spans, people who find a 15 second sound bite to be "too long", people raised by MTV and Mountain Dew -- to pay attention to. Do you actually think that special interests will just pack up shop and go away because now we have "direct democracy"? Doesn't it seem much more likely that they will just funnel their efforts into advertising? Getting big names and flashy ads to splash across the consciousness of enough people to get them on board long enough to get something passed. Oh, sure, in the utopia you live in, people have time to educate themselves on each and every issue of importance. In my messy world, though, people are already overextended and too busy to care about what is happening in, say, Nigeria, let alone knowing where to find it on a map. In my world, a hot (or famous) advertisement with a catchy tune and/or slogan would be enough to tip the scales for most people who don't really have an opinion either way and are too busy getting ready to watch the Wolves game or Fear Factor...
Representative democracy may have its flaws, but it also is a safeguard against special interests from taking advantage of the overwhemlingly BORING nature of most legislation.
And I think most parents are selfish, having kids for their own amusement instead of being responsible enough to actually make the decision to procreate and then provide the proper environment and education for their offspring.
So, you subscribe to the notion that humans are somehow different than other animals on the planet? That there is something fundamentally flawed about the way we are raising our offspring as opposed to some model you propose? And what might that be, anyway?
Don't forget that the federal government has mandated that public libraries implement web censorware, and some libraries refuse to turn off the filter even for adults.
Nice try. In the case US vs. ALA decided by the US Supreme Court June 23, 2003...
...the Solicitor General "assured" the Court that if an adult wanted unfettered access to the Internet in a public library, he could ask to have the filters removed, and the library could remove them. Again, while no single opinion commanded a majority on the Court, at least five of the Justices who concurred in the judgment relied at least partly on this condition in reaching their decisions, and prophesied the possibility of a different result if the statute is not administered consistent with its terms.
So, if what you are saying is true, then these policies are illegal and a test case will have them declared so in the courts.
Seeing a conspiracy where there is none only blinds you to the others that may exist...Don't lean on arguments that aren't even true.
Many public libraries, required to install censorware by the U.S. government, have instituted a policy of never turning off the filter, even for adults carrying proof of age.
Sorry, but I call your bluff. In the case US vs. ALA decided by the US Supreme Court June 23, 2003...
...the Solicitor General "assured" the Court that if an adult wanted unfettered access to the Internet in a public library, he could ask to have the filters removed, and the library could remove them. Again, while no single opinion commanded a majority on the Court, at least five of the Justices who concurred in the judgment relied at least partly on this condition in reaching their decisions, and prophesied the possibility of a different result if the statute is not administered consistent with its terms.
So, if what you are saying is true, then these policies are illegal and a test case will have them declared so in the courts.
Don't set up such obvious strawmen, baby, or I'll just burn 'em right down...
I'm glad my parents never censored me. I'd hate them if they did
Look, you might have grown up perfectly functional, with nary an emotional problem or problem making mature decisions in your super world... But there are lots of parents out there who have kids who don't always do the right thing. These parents want have some say in how exposed their son/daughter is to some things they perceive as negative influences. The courts say that these parents have some say in the matter and, let's be frank, I think the fact these people sired you from nothing, gave you the gift of existence and paid for all the food that would let you grow into that whiney little mouth of yours, well, I'd say that merits some say into trying to present their value system as something more than a random dart thrown at a board.
But, hey, that's just me. I'm not 17, after all...
The question is, do they represent a net positive benefit to society? The answer is an obvious yes. Guns are used far more often to stop crime and save lives than they are to wrongfully injur people.
On a large scale, sure. But tell that to the kids who went to Columbine...
Look -- your point contributes nothing to the overall discussion. If parents want controls on their computer for when their children are surfing -- unattended -- good for them. If a product is created that stops children from going where their parent don't want them going unsupervised: Good for the free market. It isn't like the product doesn't allow for the child to say,
"Dad, I would like to go to this web site about guns and gun safety, but the software blocked me. Could you help?" "Sure, boy, let's go look at the site together."
At which point the parent temporarily disables the safety and it becomes a learning experience.
No one is saying that pro-gun sites couldn't have something positive to say about safety. But I know that most parents would still like to stay pretty close to that conversation with their kids and choose to share their values at the time. Good for Symantec for giving this tool to parents.
If it is true that the guy is suffering from a mental illness that causes him to believe things that are not true, and if it is true that he has engaged in retaliation against people he believes have done him wrong, would that not constitute a reasonable cause for concern about future actions?
Welcome to how the rest of the world feels about Americans who have been watching Fox News since 9/11...
Spammers want spam to be treated as protected speech. But spam isn't speech.
SPAM IS GRAFITTI
Spam is the moral equivalent of a can of spray paint on your neighbor's fence. Please -- let's be consistent and let our legislators know that they need to start talking about spam as what it is... graffiti.
I'd be interested to know how many lawyers there are versus techies and then compare the salaries of a mid level person in each field.
I appreciate where you are coming from. The one question I would ask, though, is how many years of schooling your average techie invests versus a doctor or a lawyer. On top of that, both doctors and lawyers have to spend large amounts of money on malpractice insurance and membership fees.
I'm not saying that there is a direct correlation between schooling and salary (I included teachers in my orignal post for a reason) -- but there is some reason for mid-level people in certain fields making more than others -- and the recent bubble may have inflated our expectations of what is "average".
bad programmers got greedy. good programmers are worth their weight in gold.
The same could be said of good teachers. Or good dentists. Or lots of other jobs that require equally as much talent, innate skill and hard work to earn the label of "good". Seriously, just because our field of interest happens to be technology doesn't mean there aren't other careers out there where dedicated, brilliant people don't stand apart from their peers and make a difference. And good _______ usually make more money than bad __________. But salaries for other fields still don't compare to what techies are paid. Programmers are still unrealistic about their expectations; management not so much... which is why you see the disasterously short-sighted trend to outsource overseas. They might be making the wrong decision, but they are reacting to a very real problem: IT salaries are still overinflated. (I say "over" inflated only because I think we are in the process of a correction in that valuation. If you want to get pedantic, I think that the market always pays PRECISELY what it values for careers. By definition. But because we are in the middle of a correction, those salaries will be sharply different in a few years.)
you can't, you will never prove to me you are self aware, for that matter you could be an intelligent computer posting to/.
I guess I'm going to fall back to what I wrote in my first post -- and the only part which you (conspicuously?) chose to ignore: Cogito ergo sum. Don't rule this out just because it is fashionable or you've read it 100 times. I want you to actually take a moment and consider what this means. I think, therefore I am. Consider what that means for a moment. (Don't worry, I'll wait.)
I think. As in you, MegaHamsterX, whoever you might be. You might not be sure of many things. But you can be sure of the fact that you, reading this right now, you are self-aware. Meaning that you are conscious. You exist. You are processing thoughts.
Therefore I am. The fact that you are thinking, the fact that you can consider these things, the fact that this moment exists to you -- all of this demonstrates that you are, whatever that may mean. If you don't actually exist, well, the rest of this post will have been written for my own intellectual masturbation -- but somehow I doubt it...
You see, that is why I brought up Occam's Razor. The idea that all other things being equal, the simplest explanation is nearly always the correct one. It is possible, however slimly, that you, MegaHamsterX, are surrounded by a vast assemblage of automatons; every crowd could be there to trick you. Other bodies could merely be empty shells to house machines that merely appear sentient. O....K.... I suppose that you could posit this. You could. And I wouldn't be able to "refute" it. In the same way, I can't actually "refute" the creationist's argument that the dinosaur bones that we find and carbon date and match with the geological record weren't merely planted to trick us. I suppose that this, too, is possible.
But all other things being equal, it seems that the simplest explanation -- the one which can be supported on a variety of grounds, is that if I exist then the others around me who appear to have free will and self-awareness also exist. Occam's Razor. I guess if you want to play clever games with words you are right, I won't ever be able to "prove" anyone else's self-awareness. But such a strict definition of proof sort of rules out dialogue and shared learning... Pity, yours seemed like an intersting brain to pick.
The human brain is nothing but an analog computer with a self modifying architecture
Um... you realize, of course, that you are making the classic materialist/functionalist assumption, equating "brain" with "mind" or "self" -- as if the sum of a person were nothing more than the collection of self-aware cells located inside the skull.
Look at the brains of lower-life forms, kinda neat how our brain is just like theirs, but more complex.
It seems that you are ruling out the human experience of self-awareness; our knowledge of time, our awareness of death, our intese inquisitiveness into our own nature. (I am not saying that other higher mammals might not also experience some of this, by the way. But I certainly know that humans do.) I'd encourage you to look into dualist interactionism and other related schools of thought. Bottom line: The jury is still out as to whether the mind = the brain. Just because you can replicate the data processing abilities of the brain, or even improve on them and speed them up, does not mean that you are creating a personality. A high powered camera lens can do as good a job of capturing light as the human eye, but no one actually claims that a camera lense can "see"...
how do you know you aren't the only person on earth who is alive?
I am amazed that this one keeps coming up in conversation when it was put to bed several hundreds of years ago by Descartes. Say what you will about him, but the phrase Cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") really answers this quite nicely. You, reading this post, here on Slashdot, this very moment... do you think? Are you self-aware? Doesn't it then stand to reason that all these other people who look like you around you are also alive? Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem...which can be translated as "Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity"... which can be translated as "Occam's Razor" which means all other things being equal, the simplest explanation is nearly always the correct one...
Gotta love Slashdot's incendiary headlines. "DEATH" of the PDA, indeed. But then again, headlines like these have been around as long as Slashdot has. Longer, even. Why, the following is a classic from Slashdot's vaults circa October 1993...
Death of the Calculator? "The calculator market will never be a mass market," says Cindy Brady, an analyst at Echo Blue, a market research firm. Almost everyone who now wants a calculator, she says, now has one.
In contrast, sales of "computers", high powered computing devices capable of doing things most calculators can do, are rising fast. While some industry leaders, such as Texas Instruments, believe they are positioned to eke out a niche market, others are proclaiming the death of the calculator...
A: Adobe is fully committed to honoring the terms of its product license agreements. In the event that a product is discontinued, Adobe will enable automatic approval of all activation requests for that product or provide a means to remove activation outright. In either case, the customer will not experience any change in software capabilities.
Subsistence farmers got tired of being hunter-gatherers
I'd like to point out that agriciulture is about 10,000 years old, at most. So, again, on the time scale that we are talking about, human beings have spent less than 1% of their history even farming. Take the long view -- the view that shaped our genes -- and again, you'll start to see a disconnect in the way we are living.
No, the point is that this is normal. The way it's always been.
See above. People lived the same way for 99% of our history. This is most certainly not the way it has "always been".
But, at a guess, I don't think any group of humans would choose to work in the fields all day long and die of starvation, exposure, or plague if offered an alternative. Would you?
Finally, something we agree on. I couldn't agree more. If a way of living led to any animal constantly starving or being "exposed" or prone to plague, something isn't working. If you saw a population of ducks or lions or fish experiencing this, you would say that they were unhealthy. Same thing for humans. But again, I'd ask you if this was really the way it "always was" for people. Consider how many hours a day were spent gathering the 1000-1200 calories a day that are needed to sustain a gatherer's diet. The number that is thrown around a lot is roughly two. That is two hours of work a day. How many are you working?
I used the word "sustainable" above. I'm certainly not suggesting we can all forage for food for a living. Nor do I think the planet can sustain 6 billion humans foraging for food. But I am giving some food for thought...
People don't stop and smell the roses in their relentless pursuit of *
I'm not really sure what the end result of all this hurrying and efficiency is really for. While I have no doubt that this sort of "speed learning" might allow one to increase the "breadth" of what they know, it most certainly comes at the expense of depth.
Let's think of it another way: Did human beings live satisfying lives 25,000 years ago? Now, I'm not talking about comfortable or easy or long, I am talking about satisfying. They didn't have television or the Internet or the Borg Cube TNG DVD boxed set. No video games. No cell phones. No call waiting caller ID. And while it is true that a small fraction of people migrated from time to time, the vast majority of people lived within 50 miles of where they were born their whole life. So there wasn't a lot of traveling going on. There weren't a lot of "new and exciting" people. The pace of change was slower...
And yet I am quite willing to guess that the majority of people found life satisfying. Why? Because we were living the way we had lived for thousands of generations. Appreciating certain things, wanting to live a certain way... this is hard-wired into our DNA. It doesn't matter how revolutionary the changes of the past 300 years have been -- when you are working against millions of years of evolution...
...you are going to start to get discontent. You are going to start to get masses of people starting to feel disconnected from their family and friends and feel oppressed by their jobs or the ruling class or the amount of email in their inbox every morning or being stuck in traffic or... or something. And it isn't like those types of oppression haven't always existed in some form or other. But they haven't FELT so urgent before because we've been GROUNDED before. But now...? Most people, it feels as though they are on a cart sliding down a very fast hill, out-of-control, with no brakes. And we keep picking up speed. Ask anyone over 80 about how they see the world today. ("Of course -they- will think that everything is moving too quickly. When -they- were growing up the world was..." And, of course, that is exactly the point.)
Why, why, why, why are we all moving so fast? Hurrying to get to a destination that no one has ever explained to me? Why do I have to pack it all in? Why wolf down when you can savor? Why drive when you can walk? When you are on a first date with someone you really like, do you want to hurry hurry hurry and do everything there is to do in your city right then? Or is there something to just taking a few moments outside of time to stare into each other's eyes? Why can't life be like that?
(And I am leaving out one of the most terrible costs that this faster pace of life has come at: Large pockets of selectively honed DNA disappearing forever (i.e. going extinct))
There are circumstances where a person might "need" to learn a large amount of information in a short amount of time. I don't want to take away from the article or the gee-whiz factor. It is fascinating. The brain really is capable of many amazing things. But this hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry fanaticism just makes no sense to me.
Because, when your unemployeed, any future employer will want to know why and how long you have been without work.
(First off, I'll avoid making any comments about the difference between "your" and "you're")
I think you are thinking pre-2001. Seriously. I've hired over 15 people for a medium-term project in the last month or two. Lots of qualified people. Some were amazingly over-qualified. But you know what? We all know that the job market sucks right now and really could care less if you have a three or six or nine month employment gap on your resume. Seriously. Listening to people spend five minutes trying to explain "why" they are currently "between jobs" gets old.
Interview tip: Hold your head high and don't worry too much about your current employment status. Make your cover story short and to the point and then move on.
Personal Aside: The project I have been interviewing people for is so atrociously foul that of the people we have hired, the best have already quit or are in the process of doing so. People's fears that you will jump ship because you are overqualified are justified by real world experiences.
...let's not forget us lefties out there. We are using the mouse at a totally different angle then the righty -- unless, of course, we are forced to sit at someone else's machine -- in which case we can use the mouse but our dexterity isn't what it could be...
Except for those of us who have broken down and always use the mouse on the right side. Not sure what to say about that.
(My personal opinion is that lefties who switch their mouse buttons are just weak and only add confusion to the mix...but it is 4:45am and I am tired, so that is just a cheap shot at fellow southpaws, sorry!)
To get back on track -- I'd hate to see the system not take into account the unique differences that come from the way lefties use their mice. I know I had trouble with handwriting recognition on my PDA until I could use a program like Jot/TealScript to define my own input. I could make the characters like I was "supposed" to, but because of my input angle, I was still having a problem.
When will we see a government -- a people -- that will stand up to large corporate interests
If you would be willing to step down off of that soapbox for a moment, I have an honest question for you (or any of the other neo-anarchists that have been posting in this thread) -- don't worry, I'll wait...
(waits) OK, good. Ready? Here goes: What is the difference between "a people" and a "large corporate interest"? Honestly.
There. That was a simple question. To help spur some responses, I'll jump right in with a few thoughts of my own. Such as: the reason that corporations/governments are formed is because collective activity of members of a group is more powerful than individual activity. I'll also point out that your "rallying cry" with the implicit assumption that "large corporate interests" are somehow directly against the interests of "a people" (as if a corporation isn't simply another efficient collection of people structured in such as way as to achieve results -- i.e. to produce goods and services and derive profits from said goods and services). I will secretly wonder why there is this poisonous antipathy directed at corporations when, inconvenient as it may be for your worldview, corporations have largely driven the progress/innovations/increase in wealth of the past century. Look at 1985 East Germany/West Germany. One outlawed corporations. One didn't. How did they compare? Witness the difference in living standards in parts of the world that have adopted corporations/capitalism versus those which haven't. (And before you jump in claiming racism/Westerners stealing from parts of the underdeveloped world, witness what happened to the living standards in Japan/South Korea/Taiwan/etc. when they "got with the program") Heck, just to keep it on topic -- look at what has happened to China in the last 15 years -- did you realize that number of air-conditioners owned by ordinary mainland Chinese citizens has been skyrocketing? Say what you will about people not needing cars/televisions/etc. -- but it seems to me that if a way of living can bring its people air conditioning there is some merit to it. When did this start happening? That's right -- when corporations started taking hold.
I'm not exactly a right-winger -- I have plenty to say about neo-imperialism... And I don't believe I said anywhere in my post that "the market" needs to resemble the Wild West... but give me a break... We have evolved a better way of doing things. You can go back to guilds or feudalism or hunting and gathering if you like... But if you really want to stand up and bash "large corporate interests" as if they aren't composed of people and give benefits to the people, I would love to hear your argument.
I have a friend who is an accountant. From about January to April 15th every year he is working 80 hour weeks. They need more staff. My mom is a teacher. Classroom sizes in some schools top 40 kids/teacher. They need more staff. During the recent "home mortgage refinancing boom" I knew some people who wouldn't get home until midnight each night -- they spent their days answering questions on the phone and then the evenings doing the actual work. They needed more staff.
I guess my point was that this is how the business world works. Everyone is asked to do more for less.
It is your whole job to keep the technology working smoothly in the background so other people can add VALUE to the company. And as a manager (coach, editor, chief), you are responsible for the performance of the people and the equipment in your department. If the server crashes/application doesn't perform, it WAS your job to keep it up.
I wasn't expecting you to bitch about salary. I was reminding you of the fact that you are among the highest paid in your company, that's all...
Your assistant takes it personally that you don't have enough resources to do your job effectively?
Or were you complaining about the fact that you are ultimately held accountable for your department? News flash: Editors have to resign when their reporters are found to make up things. Coaches have to resign when their players have a losing season. That's the way things work when you are paid like a professional.
Oh, and as for "meger scraps"...my guess is that HR and accounting and the shipping department all feel like they aren't given the resources they need to do their jobs effictively, either. Seriously. Ask them. (Caution Remember when asking about about how company "resources" are allocated: You are quite possibly getting paid signifcantly more than they are, so beware hidden resentment.)
The hardest lesson for me was that a lot of being a Programmer (job) has NOTHING to do with being a Programmer (activity). Once you realize it and even embrace it, you can do quite well, perhaps even better than you expected
Amen brother! Preach on!
The thing that is really shocking me (it shouldn't, I know...) as I read these comments is how entrenched all of the coders seem to be in their prima donna mindsets. "I am a programmer, I want to be able to apply my artistic and creative flair," as if the marketing department managers don't want to push the envelope and do something really off the wall like they've seen in this month's trade journal... or the human resources people don't want to do the sort of in depth interviewing and cutting edge personality screening they read about happening at the best companies... or the accountants don't want...
You all* work for companies -- in a recessession, with global competition nipping at your heels. Companies that have clear objectives that they set. They may be "corporate". They may seem "unrealistic". They may feel impossible.
* (Except for those of you who are currently pursuring non-corporate paths... but then this thread isn't about you, is it?)
You want impossible? My city is dealing with a $40 million budget shortfall. (Hell, in California they have a $40 billion (with a b) dollar budget defecit!) They've slashed the library hours. They've stopped projects. They've cut services. They've cut the number of firefighters that we have on the streets to fewer than any other major US metro area. I don't agree with the funding cuts. I don't think the library board or fire chief agreed with having to reduce their staff to an impossibly low level. But the directive came down.
Remember, you are given a salary and health care and whatever else by company X in exchange for your performing service Y. They don't care that you secretly dream of doing something aesthetically pleasing. They want to get something out the door. They believe you can help with this so they hired you. You are part of their overall plan. If you can honestly see yourself as a visionary who can help them do something even better... something that will make their widget** an even better widget... by all means do this. Don't go "under the radar"... Don't sneak around breaking rules. Do things the right way -- and if you have to do something different, make a business case for it. Explain how this will make their widget better. Just like Rebecca from accounting or Pete from sales would do.
** Face it, what your company produces is a widget... unless you believe otherwise, but if you do, then you don't need this pep talk!
If you are working with a corporation (school/government/etc.), understand that you are one piece of a team. Non-programming things will always get in the way. That's the way it works. You don't have to work in the corporate world but that is the way it works for most of the real world. What you choose to do with that knowledge is up to you.
And if, in the end, things still don't sit right...things just aren't the way you'd imagined them to be you can (1) Accept and learn to enjoy the fact that you have a job where you are reasonably well paid to keep sharp at programming (or whatever your skill is) during the day and live the dream at night by working on Linux or just enjoying time with your family or (2) Recognize that this isn't a utopia and you might need to sacrifice a little to live the kind of life you want. Which means... taking a risky cut in pay for a smaller company or even taking the plunge and starting your own, waiting tables or working at a temp service typing to pay the bills during the lean times.
...just my humble, soon to be modded down, two cents...
Slashdot Mirror
Speak for yourself. It bombs out on me all the time...
Direct democracy means "everybody votes on everything." Period.
Most frightening idea. Ever.
People get flooded with ideas and proposals for anything and everything. There will be an avalanche of tiny details for people -- people with short attention spans, people who find a 15 second sound bite to be "too long", people raised by MTV and Mountain Dew -- to pay attention to. Do you actually think that special interests will just pack up shop and go away because now we have "direct democracy"? Doesn't it seem much more likely that they will just funnel their efforts into advertising? Getting big names and flashy ads to splash across the consciousness of enough people to get them on board long enough to get something passed. Oh, sure, in the utopia you live in, people have time to educate themselves on each and every issue of importance. In my messy world, though, people are already overextended and too busy to care about what is happening in, say, Nigeria, let alone knowing where to find it on a map. In my world, a hot (or famous) advertisement with a catchy tune and/or slogan would be enough to tip the scales for most people who don't really have an opinion either way and are too busy getting ready to watch the Wolves game or Fear Factor...
Representative democracy may have its flaws, but it also is a safeguard against special interests from taking advantage of the overwhemlingly BORING nature of most legislation.
And I think most parents are selfish, having kids for their own amusement instead of being responsible enough to actually make the decision to procreate and then provide the proper environment and education for their offspring.
So, you subscribe to the notion that humans are somehow different than other animals on the planet? That there is something fundamentally flawed about the way we are raising our offspring as opposed to some model you propose? And what might that be, anyway?
Don't forget that the federal government has mandated that public libraries implement web censorware, and some libraries refuse to turn off the filter even for adults.
...the Solicitor General "assured" the Court that if an adult wanted unfettered access to the Internet in a public library, he could ask to have the filters removed, and the library could remove them. Again, while no single opinion commanded a majority on the Court, at least five of the Justices who concurred in the judgment relied at least partly on this condition in reaching their decisions, and prophesied the possibility of a different result if the statute is not administered consistent with its terms.
Nice try. In the case US vs. ALA decided by the US Supreme Court June 23, 2003...
So, if what you are saying is true, then these policies are illegal and a test case will have them declared so in the courts.
Seeing a conspiracy where there is none only blinds you to the others that may exist...Don't lean on arguments that aren't even true.
Many public libraries, required to install censorware by the U.S. government, have instituted a policy of never turning off the filter, even for adults carrying proof of age.
...the Solicitor General "assured" the Court that if an adult wanted unfettered access to the Internet in a public library, he could ask to have the filters removed, and the library could remove them. Again, while no single opinion commanded a majority on the Court, at least five of the Justices who concurred in the judgment relied at least partly on this condition in reaching their decisions, and prophesied the possibility of a different result if the statute is not administered consistent with its terms.
Sorry, but I call your bluff. In the case US vs. ALA decided by the US Supreme Court June 23, 2003...
So, if what you are saying is true, then these policies are illegal and a test case will have them declared so in the courts.
Don't set up such obvious strawmen, baby, or I'll just burn 'em right down...
I'm glad my parents never censored me. I'd hate them if they did
Look, you might have grown up perfectly functional, with nary an emotional problem or problem making mature decisions in your super world... But there are lots of parents out there who have kids who don't always do the right thing. These parents want have some say in how exposed their son/daughter is to some things they perceive as negative influences. The courts say that these parents have some say in the matter and, let's be frank, I think the fact these people sired you from nothing, gave you the gift of existence and paid for all the food that would let you grow into that whiney little mouth of yours, well, I'd say that merits some say into trying to present their value system as something more than a random dart thrown at a board.
But, hey, that's just me. I'm not 17, after all...
The question is, do they represent a net positive benefit to society? The answer is an obvious yes. Guns are used far more often to stop crime and save lives than they are to wrongfully injur people.
On a large scale, sure. But tell that to the kids who went to Columbine...
Look -- your point contributes nothing to the overall discussion. If parents want controls on their computer for when their children are surfing -- unattended -- good for them. If a product is created that stops children from going where their parent don't want them going unsupervised: Good for the free market. It isn't like the product doesn't allow for the child to say,
"Dad, I would like to go to this web site about guns and gun safety, but the software blocked me. Could you help?"
"Sure, boy, let's go look at the site together."
At which point the parent temporarily disables the safety and it becomes a learning experience.
No one is saying that pro-gun sites couldn't have something positive to say about safety. But I know that most parents would still like to stay pretty close to that conversation with their kids and choose to share their values at the time. Good for Symantec for giving this tool to parents.
If it is true that the guy is suffering from a mental illness that causes him to believe things that are not true, and if it is true that he has engaged in retaliation against people he believes have done him wrong, would that not constitute a reasonable cause for concern about future actions?
Welcome to how the rest of the world feels about Americans who have been watching Fox News since 9/11...
Here's the real problem, as I see it.
Spammers want spam to be treated as protected speech.
But spam isn't speech.
SPAM IS GRAFITTI
Spam is the moral equivalent of a can of spray paint on your neighbor's fence.
Please -- let's be consistent and let our legislators know that they need to start talking about spam as what it is... graffiti.
(Remember, kids, you heard it from ME first.)
I'd be interested to know how many lawyers there are versus techies and then compare the salaries of a mid level person in each field.
I appreciate where you are coming from. The one question I would ask, though, is how many years of schooling your average techie invests versus a doctor or a lawyer. On top of that, both doctors and lawyers have to spend large amounts of money on malpractice insurance and membership fees.
I'm not saying that there is a direct correlation between schooling and salary (I included teachers in my orignal post for a reason) -- but there is some reason for mid-level people in certain fields making more than others -- and the recent bubble may have inflated our expectations of what is "average".
Personally, I suspect everyone feels underpaid.
bad programmers got greedy. good programmers are worth their weight in gold.
The same could be said of good teachers. Or good dentists. Or lots of other jobs that require equally as much talent, innate skill and hard work to earn the label of "good". Seriously, just because our field of interest happens to be technology doesn't mean there aren't other careers out there where dedicated, brilliant people don't stand apart from their peers and make a difference. And good _______ usually make more money than bad __________. But salaries for other fields still don't compare to what techies are paid. Programmers are still unrealistic about their expectations; management not so much... which is why you see the disasterously short-sighted trend to outsource overseas. They might be making the wrong decision, but they are reacting to a very real problem: IT salaries are still overinflated. (I say "over" inflated only because I think we are in the process of a correction in that valuation. If you want to get pedantic, I think that the market always pays PRECISELY what it values for careers. By definition. But because we are in the middle of a correction, those salaries will be sharply different in a few years.)
you can't, you will never prove to me you are self aware, for that matter you could be an intelligent computer posting to /.
I guess I'm going to fall back to what I wrote in my first post -- and the only part which you (conspicuously?) chose to ignore: Cogito ergo sum. Don't rule this out just because it is fashionable or you've read it 100 times. I want you to actually take a moment and consider what this means. I think, therefore I am. Consider what that means for a moment. (Don't worry, I'll wait.)
I think. As in you, MegaHamsterX, whoever you might be. You might not be sure of many things. But you can be sure of the fact that you, reading this right now, you are self-aware. Meaning that you are conscious. You exist. You are processing thoughts.
Therefore I am. The fact that you are thinking, the fact that you can consider these things, the fact that this moment exists to you -- all of this demonstrates that you are, whatever that may mean. If you don't actually exist, well, the rest of this post will have been written for my own intellectual masturbation -- but somehow I doubt it...
You see, that is why I brought up Occam's Razor. The idea that all other things being equal, the simplest explanation is nearly always the correct one. It is possible, however slimly, that you, MegaHamsterX, are surrounded by a vast assemblage of automatons; every crowd could be there to trick you. Other bodies could merely be empty shells to house machines that merely appear sentient. O....K.... I suppose that you could posit this. You could. And I wouldn't be able to "refute" it. In the same way, I can't actually "refute" the creationist's argument that the dinosaur bones that we find and carbon date and match with the geological record weren't merely planted to trick us. I suppose that this, too, is possible.
But all other things being equal, it seems that the simplest explanation -- the one which can be supported on a variety of grounds, is that if I exist then the others around me who appear to have free will and self-awareness also exist. Occam's Razor. I guess if you want to play clever games with words you are right, I won't ever be able to "prove" anyone else's self-awareness. But such a strict definition of proof sort of rules out dialogue and shared learning... Pity, yours seemed like an intersting brain to pick.
The human brain is nothing but an analog computer with a self modifying architecture
...which can be translated as "Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity" ... which can be translated as "Occam's Razor" which means all other things being equal, the simplest explanation is nearly always the correct one...
Um... you realize, of course, that you are making the classic materialist/functionalist assumption, equating "brain" with "mind" or "self" -- as if the sum of a person were nothing more than the collection of self-aware cells located inside the skull.
Look at the brains of lower-life forms, kinda neat how our brain is just like theirs, but more complex.
It seems that you are ruling out the human experience of self-awareness; our knowledge of time, our awareness of death, our intese inquisitiveness into our own nature. (I am not saying that other higher mammals might not also experience some of this, by the way. But I certainly know that humans do.) I'd encourage you to look into dualist interactionism and other related schools of thought. Bottom line: The jury is still out as to whether the mind = the brain. Just because you can replicate the data processing abilities of the brain, or even improve on them and speed them up, does not mean that you are creating a personality. A high powered camera lens can do as good a job of capturing light as the human eye, but no one actually claims that a camera lense can "see"...
how do you know you aren't the only person on earth who is alive?
I am amazed that this one keeps coming up in conversation when it was put to bed several hundreds of years ago by Descartes. Say what you will about him, but the phrase Cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") really answers this quite nicely. You, reading this post, here on Slashdot, this very moment... do you think? Are you self-aware? Doesn't it then stand to reason that all these other people who look like you around you are also alive? Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
Gotta love Slashdot's incendiary headlines. "DEATH" of the PDA, indeed. But then again, headlines like these have been around as long as Slashdot has. Longer, even. Why, the following is a classic from Slashdot's vaults circa October 1993...
Death of the Calculator?
"The calculator market will never be a mass market," says Cindy Brady, an analyst at Echo Blue, a market research firm. Almost everyone who now wants a calculator, she says, now has one.
In contrast, sales of "computers", high powered computing devices capable of doing things most calculators can do, are rising fast. While some industry leaders, such as Texas Instruments, believe they are positioned to eke out a niche market, others are proclaiming the death of the calculator...
Even with a big vendor, what's going to happen when they end-of-life the product? Will I still be able to reactivate PhotoShop CS
So people running pirated copies of their programs might not be thrilled about this, but let's refrain from setting up straw men, shall we?
From Adobe's Website:
Q: What happens if the product is discontinued?
A: Adobe is fully committed to honoring the terms of its product license agreements. In the event that a product is discontinued, Adobe will enable automatic approval of all activation requests for that product or provide a means to remove activation outright. In either case, the customer will not experience any change in software capabilities.
Subsistence farmers got tired of being hunter-gatherers
I'd like to point out that agriciulture is about 10,000 years old, at most. So, again, on the time scale that we are talking about, human beings have spent less than 1% of their history even farming. Take the long view -- the view that shaped our genes -- and again, you'll start to see a disconnect in the way we are living.
No, the point is that this is normal. The way it's always been.
See above. People lived the same way for 99% of our history. This is most certainly not the way it has "always been".
But, at a guess, I don't think any group of humans would choose to work in the fields all day long and die of starvation, exposure, or plague if offered an alternative. Would you?
Finally, something we agree on. I couldn't agree more. If a way of living led to any animal constantly starving or being "exposed" or prone to plague, something isn't working. If you saw a population of ducks or lions or fish experiencing this, you would say that they were unhealthy. Same thing for humans. But again, I'd ask you if this was really the way it "always was" for people. Consider how many hours a day were spent gathering the 1000-1200 calories a day that are needed to sustain a gatherer's diet. The number that is thrown around a lot is roughly two. That is two hours of work a day. How many are you working?
I used the word "sustainable" above. I'm certainly not suggesting we can all forage for food for a living. Nor do I think the planet can sustain 6 billion humans foraging for food. But I am giving some food for thought...
I read this a few months ago, but alas I have no link
Alas, the NYT site requires you to pay for the archived article, but lookie here.
(PS: Is there anything Google can't do?)
People don't stop and smell the roses in their relentless pursuit of *
... this is hard-wired into our DNA. It doesn't matter how revolutionary the changes of the past 300 years have been -- when you are working against millions of years of evolution...
...you are going to start to get discontent. You are going to start to get masses of people starting to feel disconnected from their family and friends and feel oppressed by their jobs or the ruling class or the amount of email in their inbox every morning or being stuck in traffic or... or something. And it isn't like those types of oppression haven't always existed in some form or other. But they haven't FELT so urgent before because we've been GROUNDED before. But now...? Most people, it feels as though they are on a cart sliding down a very fast hill, out-of-control, with no brakes. And we keep picking up speed. Ask anyone over 80 about how they see the world today. ("Of course -they- will think that everything is moving too quickly. When -they- were growing up the world was..." And, of course, that is exactly the point.)
I'm not really sure what the end result of all this hurrying and efficiency is really for. While I have no doubt that this sort of "speed learning" might allow one to increase the "breadth" of what they know, it most certainly comes at the expense of depth.
Let's think of it another way: Did human beings live satisfying lives 25,000 years ago? Now, I'm not talking about comfortable or easy or long, I am talking about satisfying. They didn't have television or the Internet or the Borg Cube TNG DVD boxed set. No video games. No cell phones. No call waiting caller ID. And while it is true that a small fraction of people migrated from time to time, the vast majority of people lived within 50 miles of where they were born their whole life. So there wasn't a lot of traveling going on. There weren't a lot of "new and exciting" people. The pace of change was slower...
And yet I am quite willing to guess that the majority of people found life satisfying. Why? Because we were living the way we had lived for thousands of generations. Appreciating certain things, wanting to live a certain way
Why, why, why, why are we all moving so fast? Hurrying to get to a destination that no one has ever explained to me? Why do I have to pack it all in? Why wolf down when you can savor? Why drive when you can walk? When you are on a first date with someone you really like, do you want to hurry hurry hurry and do everything there is to do in your city right then? Or is there something to just taking a few moments outside of time to stare into each other's eyes? Why can't life be like that?
(And I am leaving out one of the most terrible costs that this faster pace of life has come at: Large pockets of selectively honed DNA disappearing forever (i.e. going extinct))
There are circumstances where a person might "need" to learn a large amount of information in a short amount of time. I don't want to take away from the article or the gee-whiz factor. It is fascinating. The brain really is capable of many amazing things. But this hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry fanaticism just makes no sense to me.
Because, when your unemployeed, any future employer will want to know why and how long you have been without work.
(First off, I'll avoid making any comments about the difference between "your" and "you're")
I think you are thinking pre-2001. Seriously. I've hired over 15 people for a medium-term project in the last month or two. Lots of qualified people. Some were amazingly over-qualified. But you know what? We all know that the job market sucks right now and really could care less if you have a three or six or nine month employment gap on your resume. Seriously. Listening to people spend five minutes trying to explain "why" they are currently "between jobs" gets old.
Interview tip: Hold your head high and don't worry too much about your current employment status. Make your cover story short and to the point and then move on.
Personal Aside: The project I have been interviewing people for is so atrociously foul that of the people we have hired, the best have already quit or are in the process of doing so. People's fears that you will jump ship because you are overqualified are justified by real world experiences.
ever so embarressing video
Sigh. Doesn't anyone at least take 10 seconds to proof their own submissions?
...let's not forget us lefties out there. We are using the mouse at a totally different angle then the righty -- unless, of course, we are forced to sit at someone else's machine -- in which case we can use the mouse but our dexterity isn't what it could be...
Except for those of us who have broken down and always use the mouse on the right side. Not sure what to say about that.
(My personal opinion is that lefties who switch their mouse buttons are just weak and only add confusion to the mix...but it is 4:45am and I am tired, so that is just a cheap shot at fellow southpaws, sorry!)
To get back on track -- I'd hate to see the system not take into account the unique differences that come from the way lefties use their mice. I know I had trouble with handwriting recognition on my PDA until I could use a program like Jot/TealScript to define my own input. I could make the characters like I was "supposed" to, but because of my input angle, I was still having a problem.
When will we see a government -- a people -- that will stand up to large corporate interests
If you would be willing to step down off of that soapbox for a moment, I have an honest question for you (or any of the other neo-anarchists that have been posting in this thread) -- don't worry, I'll wait...
(waits)
OK, good. Ready? Here goes: What is the difference between "a people" and a "large corporate interest"? Honestly.
There. That was a simple question. To help spur some responses, I'll jump right in with a few thoughts of my own. Such as: the reason that corporations/governments are formed is because collective activity of members of a group is more powerful than individual activity. I'll also point out that your "rallying cry" with the implicit assumption that "large corporate interests" are somehow directly against the interests of "a people" (as if a corporation isn't simply another efficient collection of people structured in such as way as to achieve results -- i.e. to produce goods and services and derive profits from said goods and services). I will secretly wonder why there is this poisonous antipathy directed at corporations when, inconvenient as it may be for your worldview, corporations have largely driven the progress/innovations/increase in wealth of the past century. Look at 1985 East Germany/West Germany. One outlawed corporations. One didn't. How did they compare? Witness the difference in living standards in parts of the world that have adopted corporations/capitalism versus those which haven't. (And before you jump in claiming racism/Westerners stealing from parts of the underdeveloped world, witness what happened to the living standards in Japan/South Korea/Taiwan/etc. when they "got with the program") Heck, just to keep it on topic -- look at what has happened to China in the last 15 years -- did you realize that number of air-conditioners owned by ordinary mainland Chinese citizens has been skyrocketing? Say what you will about people not needing cars/televisions/etc. -- but it seems to me that if a way of living can bring its people air conditioning there is some merit to it. When did this start happening? That's right -- when corporations started taking hold.
I'm not exactly a right-winger -- I have plenty to say about neo-imperialism... And I don't believe I said anywhere in my post that "the market" needs to resemble the Wild West... but give me a break... We have evolved a better way of doing things. You can go back to guilds or feudalism or hunting and gathering if you like... But if you really want to stand up and bash "large corporate interests" as if they aren't composed of people and give benefits to the people, I would love to hear your argument.
Really.
Not sure what to tell you...
I have a friend who is an accountant. From about January to April 15th every year he is working 80 hour weeks. They need more staff. My mom is a teacher. Classroom sizes in some schools top 40 kids/teacher. They need more staff. During the recent "home mortgage refinancing boom" I knew some people who wouldn't get home until midnight each night -- they spent their days answering questions on the phone and then the evenings doing the actual work. They needed more staff.
I guess my point was that this is how the business world works. Everyone is asked to do more for less.
It is your whole job to keep the technology working smoothly in the background so other people can add VALUE to the company. And as a manager (coach, editor, chief), you are responsible for the performance of the people and the equipment in your department. If the server crashes/application doesn't perform, it WAS your job to keep it up.
I wasn't expecting you to bitch about salary. I was reminding you of the fact that you are among the highest paid in your company, that's all...
smirks
Your assistant takes it personally that you don't have enough resources to do your job effectively?
Or were you complaining about the fact that you are ultimately held accountable for your department? News flash: Editors have to resign when their reporters are found to make up things. Coaches have to resign when their players have a losing season. That's the way things work when you are paid like a professional.
Oh, and as for "meger scraps"...my guess is that HR and accounting and the shipping department all feel like they aren't given the resources they need to do their jobs effictively, either. Seriously. Ask them. (Caution Remember when asking about about how company "resources" are allocated: You are quite possibly getting paid signifcantly more than they are, so beware hidden resentment.)
The hardest lesson for me was that a lot of being a Programmer (job) has NOTHING to do with being a Programmer (activity). Once you realize it and even embrace it, you can do quite well, perhaps even better than you expected
...things just aren't the way you'd imagined them to be you can (1) Accept and learn to enjoy the fact that you have a job where you are reasonably well paid to keep sharp at programming (or whatever your skill is) during the day and live the dream at night by working on Linux or just enjoying time with your family or (2) Recognize that this isn't a utopia and you might need to sacrifice a little to live the kind of life you want. Which means ... taking a risky cut in pay for a smaller company or even taking the plunge and starting your own, waiting tables or working at a temp service typing to pay the bills during the lean times.
...just my humble, soon to be modded down, two cents...
Amen brother! Preach on!
The thing that is really shocking me (it shouldn't, I know...) as I read these comments is how entrenched all of the coders seem to be in their prima donna mindsets. "I am a programmer, I want to be able to apply my artistic and creative flair," as if the marketing department managers don't want to push the envelope and do something really off the wall like they've seen in this month's trade journal... or the human resources people don't want to do the sort of in depth interviewing and cutting edge personality screening they read about happening at the best companies... or the accountants don't want...
You all* work for companies -- in a recessession, with global competition nipping at your heels. Companies that have clear objectives that they set. They may be "corporate". They may seem "unrealistic". They may feel impossible.
* (Except for those of you who are currently pursuring non-corporate paths... but then this thread isn't about you, is it?)
You want impossible? My city is dealing with a $40 million budget shortfall. (Hell, in California they have a $40 billion (with a b) dollar budget defecit!) They've slashed the library hours. They've stopped projects. They've cut services. They've cut the number of firefighters that we have on the streets to fewer than any other major US metro area. I don't agree with the funding cuts. I don't think the library board or fire chief agreed with having to reduce their staff to an impossibly low level. But the directive came down.
Remember, you are given a salary and health care and whatever else by company X in exchange for your performing service Y. They don't care that you secretly dream of doing something aesthetically pleasing. They want to get something out the door. They believe you can help with this so they hired you. You are part of their overall plan. If you can honestly see yourself as a visionary who can help them do something even better... something that will make their widget** an even better widget... by all means do this. Don't go "under the radar"... Don't sneak around breaking rules. Do things the right way -- and if you have to do something different, make a business case for it. Explain how this will make their widget better. Just like Rebecca from accounting or Pete from sales would do.
** Face it, what your company produces is a widget... unless you believe otherwise, but if you do, then you don't need this pep talk!
If you are working with a corporation (school/government/etc.), understand that you are one piece of a team. Non-programming things will always get in the way. That's the way it works. You don't have to work in the corporate world but that is the way it works for most of the real world. What you choose to do with that knowledge is up to you.
And if, in the end, things still don't sit right