So you got to keep your house that you obviously can't afford
We could afford it at the time. We bought an "as is" house with numerous problems because it was the cheapest one on the market in an area we wanted to be in. We figured we'd just keep working, and fixing the problems as we saved our money along.
We didn't buy a house with 0 down either. My wife and I both cashed in stock options (that we had earned and vested at.coms) and had a $50k downpayment on a $500k house. So how dare you discredit the hard work we did getting to that point.
Why did you refinance repeatedly?
After 2001-9/11 it wasn't just the banks screwing people over. The counties lost a ton of funding (again, went to Iraq) Everyone's property taxes got raised sky high (we're at about $7k@year)
Let's face it man, with every city in the bay area suffering a deficit, from San Jose to Vallejo (who went bankrupt) everyone, everywhere lost funding. Inflation really hit hard. Gas prices skyrocketed.
Guys like countrywide home loans really set up a lot of hardworking folks to fail. We were with countrywide in the beginning.
How can you look yourself in the mirror now that you've taken such obvious charity from the rest of us?
I'm not pimping any skills anymore. I'm perfectly happy where I am, not climbing the corporate ladder. I've gotten enough roots planted now where my future looks pretty solid.
You quote my "fucked" like it's inaccurate. If you had any concept of the world outside of your cubicle, you'd see it's still fucked. Local Silicon Valley cities are tanking. Here's some good reads since it doesn't seem like you see the world outside anymore.
Our economy tanked because of this stupid war we've been fighting for the last 10 years. Where we were during the.com would have sustained if we had actually stayed the course, just stuck to going after Osama, and not blown trillions of dollars "liberating Iraq"
Another reason our economy is tanking is because of the buzzwords uttered left and right by the 1% as our salvation to creating the ultimate world utopia. "Globalization" IT Salaries are increasing, but are the jobs actually increasing? No, they aren't. China has proven to stand on their own when it comes to engineering. I look at my Android HTC phones in awe. My LG microwave runs circles around any GE (which oddly enough, was made in china, and rebranded as GE)
The investing 1% doesn't give a rats ass about you. At the end of the day, if it's a choice between hiring you or someone overseas to do the same quality of work for cheaper. Guess what? You're nothing more than a sum() function on a spreadsheet to them.
This is what the OWS people have been fighting for. Sure, you might be making good money, but your "cloud" skills are just going to be used until your product is stable enough to get shipped overseas. Cloud means it doesn't have to be here.. Think about that... Corporations shouldn't be allowed to setup shop overseas unless they're willing to provide the same levels of safety, and workers rights that they would get in the states.
2 weeks after my wife and I bought our house in 2001, I was laid off. After 3 months of searching 9/11 happened, and the shit really hit the fan. Silicon Valley for a time looked like a ghost town. Moving trucks were moving east (getting the fuck out of dodge so to speak)
A year later I wound up getting a crappy job at a bar. 10 years later I'm still here, working on my own software that runs certain aspects of the bar (very profitably I might add) When we bought our house in 2001 interest rates were sky high, and the wife and I thought our futures in tech were pretty secured. I think we were at 10% interest. We refinanced twice over the 10 years trying to keep payments down so we could stay in our house.
In the last 2 years the ARM on our loan got so high we were paying over $1600@mo for the new interest charges alone. We were virtually on the brink of losing our house. Then the "Obama Affordable home" plan was passed. Bank of America didn't make it easy. My wife had to call them every single day for a year. (like calling your AT&T subcontractor when your T1 goes down) At one point they denied us because "We couldn't verify your identity" (one of the loan modders wrote my social security number down wrong)
Despite what you might think of Obama.. He's just doing the best he can. He's no Bill Clinton, but having to clean up after GWB can't be easy. He stopped the banks from bending over hardworking people. Osama was killed during his term. Troops are withdrawing from Iraq.
I made $85k in 2001, before 9/11 and before my layoff (after 10 years in IT) Ever hear the saying, "If you're out 6 months, you're back at square one?" It's true.
The economy is fucked as ever. The kids they're paying $78k to have vastly more talent than I ever did, and had they been getting paid 2001 wages, would be making closer to 130k if not more.
Been meaning to point this out since/. has been using the green cross category picture. Here in California if you see a green cross, it means there's a marijuana club nearby.
I'm all for uncensored sites to a point BTW, it's just that I know yelp is a bunch of sleazebags and is using DMCA (they actually quoted it to me over the phone) as leverage to extort money from people.
Because of DMCA, a user generated content site can publish anything, without fear of direct reprise from the person libelled.
Despite TFA being about an asshat, who probably deserved bad reviews/blogs, for everyone Joseph, there are 1000's of legitimate business that are getting slandered on review sites by their competitors.
If you read my link(RTFL), you would understand that the business I work for, was in the same boat with Yelp. Another business was recruiting people to libel us on yelp, but yelp rather than investigate it told us, "Pay us money, and we'll make those reviews sort to the bottom"
When we refused to pay, yelp floated the bad reviews towards the top, and persisted trying to extort us.
I don't think DMCA safe harbour was intended to be used this way. Claiming, "We didn't post it" would be like if I spray painted the word "Nigger" on your house, but instead of YOU cleaning it up you tell all your neighbours, "I didn't create it, fuck it, I'm not gonna do anything about it unless you pay me" The extortion racket that yelp has set up, is starting to be reproduced by less reputable firms, and the same "Pay us, or these libels stay up" is becoming a new business.
Yelp (and blog sites) aren't completely powerless to let astroturfing happen. That's a crock.
Granted you're right, but why do we hold newspapers accountable for what they publish, but we don't hold sites like Yelp accountable?
One serious oversight I have seen with the DMCA is parts of the safe harbour provision allow sites to not be responsible for user generated content. I think this needs to change, and content should in the least be moderated by the community if they want DMCA safe harbour coverage(works here, works on reddit doesn't it?)
If a site owner doesn't use some type of meta-moderation, then they should put comments in a moderation queue, and wait for moderator approval before it goes live on the site if they want the same safe harbour coverage. Profiting from libel (like yelp) does while hiding behind DMCA is chicken shit.
Doctors should be worried, because yelp can be gamed, and they'll let the gaming happen if it's in their best interest... An anecdotal story.
I've work in a karaoke bar the last 10 years. This is before American Idol made it go crazy popular. FF>> to a few years ago...
There was a local karaoke company (this is multiple individuals, not one guy in a bar like me) who were tired of all the good press, yelp reviews, and awards our place has gotten over the years. They'd play favourites with karaoke singers to gain favour with them, then have them write negative reviews about our place (without even having set foot ONCE in there)
Around the same time yelp starts calling, "We can sort those bad reviews to the bottom of the list for $400@mo" I'd be on the phone with these jackasses for hours, saying these reviews were bogus, and how dare you try and extort money from us...
Few days later, bad review start floating to the top. The little "soundbites" (don't know what else to call them, the little highlighted bits of reviews at the top) started being nothing but negative.
I got tired of it. Being the old school dickhead BOFH that I am, I started dropping dox weekly on our website of yelp employees one by one(upper level management mostly, was leading up to stoppleman). Sure, I'd get threats, but I'd just give them the same bullshit answer they gave me, "Hey, it's publicly available info man, just like you guys told me!"
One day the owner's son (of where I work) came down to talk to me. He said, "Dude, I know these guys, they got a lawyer full time on staff, they just gotta drop this off on their desk and say "attack". Please, take down the docs.
So I did. And magically these dickheads reviews got sorted, or deleted.
Moral of the story is, yelp is fucking corrupt. If your competitor wants to slander you on yelp, you have 0 recourse without full legal action. Fuck you yelp, go suck a dick. (and yes I probably typed something similar before)
There's a rash of game emulators based on GPL code that is for sale in the andoid market. I actually purchased one "nesnoid" but later while I was browsing around for SNES emu's I found SNES9X for android.
The description for it on the market said, "DON'T PAY ANY OF THESE CLOWNS FOR SELLING YOU GPL CODE!"
It just doesn't happen with kernels or OS components, it happens ALOT with applications. Another example I found was a WEP cracker. There was one (name escapes me atm) for $10 advertising "GET FREE WIFI ANYWHERE", while WEP cracker stated "These guys are ripping you off, their code is based on ngcrack and a few other OSS libraries and they're not giving you the source"
I understand that the GPL allows some recoup of costs for development and distribution, but at all times the source must be available for free. I'm sure THAT list of companies is much larger than the one Matthew lists on his page.
I work at a karaoke bar.
http://www.justin.tv/7bamboo
I'd really like to use this to track singers as they move around the room, or have spotlights follow.
If we have the technology to selectively erase memories (it was posted on slash a few weeks back) then everyday could be a new day for our intrepid explorers.
There's other ways to make the trip less psychologically damaging. If we're at the point where we're erasing memories, then maybe we're also at the point where we can slow down our internal perception of time.
With our perception of time slowed down, a year could move by in seconds. For that matter, do people even have to be awake the entire time? (suspended animation)
I really wish I had mod points for you, because apparently whoever the mods are don't understand that you're referencing gods that according to scripture, were once human, obtained immortality for their good deeds and ascended.
I don't see how that's offtopic to this discussion.
Then the immortals ascended to the heavans
on
Aging Reversed In Mice
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
While I see some folks saying "no one should live forever" let me ask you this...
What about space travelers? Don't you think on 100+ year trips, living forever might be a good thing?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0274518/
So if GNFOS can make it in, why can't this movie? It's never been shown in theaters, sold, shown at a film festival and yet it has a spot on imdb.
It's interesting to see how mobile phones are not only starting to encroach on netbooks/laptops, but also now on e-readers. How long until they encroach on home PCs?
I'm sold on my phone. It has VNC, SSH, and a slide out keyboard. I have a choice between sitting inside at work at a PC browsing the web, or sitting outside on my phone. Guess which one I pick every night?
I can *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* anywhere, anytime*FAP* *FAP* *FAP* even while driving*FAP* *FAP* *FAP*
Skyfire lets me *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* flash video sites like redtube *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* (I love the asian section)
It's this politicians own damn *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* fault for not having the *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* forsight to get *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* a data phone *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* and *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* plan *FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP*
They will have to ship almost perfect code with no map flaws or seems in the levels. Any even minor flaw will need to be cleared before the game can ship.
Nah they'll just patch it again and again. ID did this with the original Doom, and that seems to be the normal development cycle for just about everything these days. Release what you have, see if the customer notices/finds your bugs, patch, profit.
Ahh sailing and wireless, two topics I couldn't resist hitting reply to sir.
I used to work for a wireless company years ago. One of the main reasons you get such a good signal over water is due to line of sight. On water there isn't any obstructions.
Even though Speakeasy was slashdot recommended, a lot of my geek friends used it, I had to cut them this year.
I never got the advertised speed out of them for what I was paying. My business was close to the CO, but when I'd complain their answer would always be "Replace the wire going from the pole into your building"
Why should I have to do that? I'm old, I hurt when I fall. NO thanks.
So after 6 years with SE, I called up Comcast. They sent an installer who made sure everything was working right. My speeds were out of sight, 20mbps down and 5mbps up. My bill is $20@mo less too.
DSL can compete, but they have to give up a little margin for better customer service.
Slashdot Mirror
We could afford it at the time. We bought an "as is" house with numerous problems because it was the cheapest one on the market in an area we wanted to be in. We figured we'd just keep working, and fixing the problems as we saved our money along.
We didn't buy a house with 0 down either. My wife and I both cashed in stock options (that we had earned and vested at .coms) and had a $50k downpayment on a $500k house. So how dare you discredit the hard work we did getting to that point.
After 2001-9/11 it wasn't just the banks screwing people over. The counties lost a ton of funding (again, went to Iraq) Everyone's property taxes got raised sky high (we're at about $7k@year)
Let's face it man, with every city in the bay area suffering a deficit, from San Jose to Vallejo (who went bankrupt) everyone, everywhere lost funding. Inflation really hit hard. Gas prices skyrocketed.
Guys like countrywide home loans really set up a lot of hardworking folks to fail. We were with countrywide in the beginning.
I'm not the only one in this boat. I am the 99%.
I'm not pimping any skills anymore. I'm perfectly happy where I am, not climbing the corporate ladder. I've gotten enough roots planted now where my future looks pretty solid.
You quote my "fucked" like it's inaccurate. If you had any concept of the world outside of your cubicle, you'd see it's still fucked. Local Silicon Valley cities are tanking. Here's some good reads since it doesn't seem like you see the world outside anymore.
San Jose City Budget Deficit.
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/mayor/goals/budget/BudgetDeficit.asp#impact
In the North bay Vallejo had to declare bankruptcy protection.
http://www.ci.vallejo.ca.us/GovSite/default.asp?serviceID1=712&Frame=L1
City of Santa Clara in Deficit.
http://santaclaraca.gov/index.aspx?page=50&recordid=560
I live in San Jose, CA.
Our economy tanked because of this stupid war we've been fighting for the last 10 years. Where we were during the .com would have sustained if we had actually stayed the course, just stuck to going after Osama, and not blown trillions of dollars "liberating Iraq"
Another reason our economy is tanking is because of the buzzwords uttered left and right by the 1% as our salvation to creating the ultimate world utopia. "Globalization" IT Salaries are increasing, but are the jobs actually increasing? No, they aren't. China has proven to stand on their own when it comes to engineering. I look at my Android HTC phones in awe. My LG microwave runs circles around any GE (which oddly enough, was made in china, and rebranded as GE)
The investing 1% doesn't give a rats ass about you. At the end of the day, if it's a choice between hiring you or someone overseas to do the same quality of work for cheaper. Guess what? You're nothing more than a sum() function on a spreadsheet to them.
This is what the OWS people have been fighting for. Sure, you might be making good money, but your "cloud" skills are just going to be used until your product is stable enough to get shipped overseas. Cloud means it doesn't have to be here.. Think about that... Corporations shouldn't be allowed to setup shop overseas unless they're willing to provide the same levels of safety, and workers rights that they would get in the states.
So enjoy your time in the clouds anon.
2 weeks after my wife and I bought our house in 2001, I was laid off. After 3 months of searching 9/11 happened, and the shit really hit the fan. Silicon Valley for a time looked like a ghost town. Moving trucks were moving east (getting the fuck out of dodge so to speak)
A year later I wound up getting a crappy job at a bar. 10 years later I'm still here, working on my own software that runs certain aspects of the bar (very profitably I might add) When we bought our house in 2001 interest rates were sky high, and the wife and I thought our futures in tech were pretty secured. I think we were at 10% interest. We refinanced twice over the 10 years trying to keep payments down so we could stay in our house.
In the last 2 years the ARM on our loan got so high we were paying over $1600@mo for the new interest charges alone. We were virtually on the brink of losing our house. Then the "Obama Affordable home" plan was passed. Bank of America didn't make it easy. My wife had to call them every single day for a year. (like calling your AT&T subcontractor when your T1 goes down) At one point they denied us because "We couldn't verify your identity" (one of the loan modders wrote my social security number down wrong)
Despite what you might think of Obama.. He's just doing the best he can. He's no Bill Clinton, but having to clean up after GWB can't be easy. He stopped the banks from bending over hardworking people. Osama was killed during his term. Troops are withdrawing from Iraq.
You call this going up?
I made $85k in 2001, before 9/11 and before my layoff (after 10 years in IT) Ever hear the saying, "If you're out 6 months, you're back at square one?" It's true.
The economy is fucked as ever. The kids they're paying $78k to have vastly more talent than I ever did, and had they been getting paid 2001 wages, would be making closer to 130k if not more.
How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read if they can't even fit inside the building!
Been meaning to point this out since /. has been using the green cross category picture. Here in California if you see a green cross, it means there's a marijuana club nearby.
I'm all for uncensored sites to a point BTW, it's just that I know yelp is a bunch of sleazebags and is using DMCA (they actually quoted it to me over the phone) as leverage to extort money from people.
I guess you're OK with extortion.
It's covered in section 512 of the DMCA
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000512----000-.html
So I'm right, or your wrong, or we're both right. (or both wrong, pick one) I think it's joint time.
You really haven't been here long have you?
Because of DMCA, a user generated content site can publish anything, without fear of direct reprise from the person libelled.
Despite TFA being about an asshat, who probably deserved bad reviews/blogs, for everyone Joseph, there are 1000's of legitimate business that are getting slandered on review sites by their competitors.
If you read my link(RTFL), you would understand that the business I work for, was in the same boat with Yelp. Another business was recruiting people to libel us on yelp, but yelp rather than investigate it told us, "Pay us money, and we'll make those reviews sort to the bottom"
When we refused to pay, yelp floated the bad reviews towards the top, and persisted trying to extort us.
I don't think DMCA safe harbour was intended to be used this way. Claiming, "We didn't post it" would be like if I spray painted the word "Nigger" on your house, but instead of YOU cleaning it up you tell all your neighbours, "I didn't create it, fuck it, I'm not gonna do anything about it unless you pay me" The extortion racket that yelp has set up, is starting to be reproduced by less reputable firms, and the same "Pay us, or these libels stay up" is becoming a new business.
Yelp (and blog sites) aren't completely powerless to let astroturfing happen. That's a crock.
Granted you're right, but why do we hold newspapers accountable for what they publish, but we don't hold sites like Yelp accountable?
One serious oversight I have seen with the DMCA is parts of the safe harbour provision allow sites to not be responsible for user generated content. I think this needs to change, and content should in the least be moderated by the community if they want DMCA safe harbour coverage(works here, works on reddit doesn't it?)
If a site owner doesn't use some type of meta-moderation, then they should put comments in a moderation queue, and wait for moderator approval before it goes live on the site if they want the same safe harbour coverage. Profiting from libel (like yelp) does while hiding behind DMCA is chicken shit.
Doctors should be worried, because yelp can be gamed, and they'll let the gaming happen if it's in their best interest... An anecdotal story.
I've work in a karaoke bar the last 10 years. This is before American Idol made it go crazy popular. FF>> to a few years ago...
There was a local karaoke company (this is multiple individuals, not one guy in a bar like me) who were tired of all the good press, yelp reviews, and awards our place has gotten over the years. They'd play favourites with karaoke singers to gain favour with them, then have them write negative reviews about our place (without even having set foot ONCE in there)
Around the same time yelp starts calling, "We can sort those bad reviews to the bottom of the list for $400@mo" I'd be on the phone with these jackasses for hours, saying these reviews were bogus, and how dare you try and extort money from us...
Few days later, bad review start floating to the top. The little "soundbites" (don't know what else to call them, the little highlighted bits of reviews at the top) started being nothing but negative.
I got tired of it. Being the old school dickhead BOFH that I am, I started dropping dox weekly on our website of yelp employees one by one(upper level management mostly, was leading up to stoppleman). Sure, I'd get threats, but I'd just give them the same bullshit answer they gave me, "Hey, it's publicly available info man, just like you guys told me!"
One day the owner's son (of where I work) came down to talk to me. He said, "Dude, I know these guys, they got a lawyer full time on staff, they just gotta drop this off on their desk and say "attack". Please, take down the docs.
So I did. And magically these dickheads reviews got sorted, or deleted.
Moral of the story is, yelp is fucking corrupt. If your competitor wants to slander you on yelp, you have 0 recourse without full legal action. Fuck you yelp, go suck a dick. (and yes I probably typed something similar before)
There's a rash of game emulators based on GPL code that is for sale in the andoid market. I actually purchased one "nesnoid" but later while I was browsing around for SNES emu's I found SNES9X for android.
The description for it on the market said, "DON'T PAY ANY OF THESE CLOWNS FOR SELLING YOU GPL CODE!"
It just doesn't happen with kernels or OS components, it happens ALOT with applications. Another example I found was a WEP cracker. There was one (name escapes me atm) for $10 advertising "GET FREE WIFI ANYWHERE", while WEP cracker stated "These guys are ripping you off, their code is based on ngcrack and a few other OSS libraries and they're not giving you the source"
I understand that the GPL allows some recoup of costs for development and distribution, but at all times the source must be available for free. I'm sure THAT list of companies is much larger than the one Matthew lists on his page.
I work at a karaoke bar. http://www.justin.tv/7bamboo I'd really like to use this to track singers as they move around the room, or have spotlights follow.
If we have the technology to selectively erase memories (it was posted on slash a few weeks back) then everyday could be a new day for our intrepid explorers. There's other ways to make the trip less psychologically damaging. If we're at the point where we're erasing memories, then maybe we're also at the point where we can slow down our internal perception of time. With our perception of time slowed down, a year could move by in seconds. For that matter, do people even have to be awake the entire time? (suspended animation)
I really wish I had mod points for you, because apparently whoever the mods are don't understand that you're referencing gods that according to scripture, were once human, obtained immortality for their good deeds and ascended. I don't see how that's offtopic to this discussion.
While I see some folks saying "no one should live forever" let me ask you this... What about space travelers? Don't you think on 100+ year trips, living forever might be a good thing?
Anyone else thinks this bears some good resemblance to the Short Circuit robot?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0274518/ So if GNFOS can make it in, why can't this movie? It's never been shown in theaters, sold, shown at a film festival and yet it has a spot on imdb.
I'm sold on my phone. It has VNC, SSH, and a slide out keyboard. I have a choice between sitting inside at work at a PC browsing the web, or sitting outside on my phone. Guess which one I pick every night?
I can *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* anywhere, anytime*FAP* *FAP* *FAP* even while driving*FAP* *FAP* *FAP*
Skyfire lets me *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* flash video sites like redtube *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* (I love the asian section)
It's this politicians own damn *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* fault for not having the *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* forsight to get *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* a data phone *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* and *FAP* *FAP* *FAP* plan *FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP**FAP* *FAP* *FAP*
Sorry i f you disagree, but I think she's cute. I'd love to give her my toqerstick.
Nah they'll just patch it again and again. ID did this with the original Doom, and that seems to be the normal development cycle for just about everything these days. Release what you have, see if the customer notices/finds your bugs, patch, profit.
Ahh sailing and wireless, two topics I couldn't resist hitting reply to sir.
I used to work for a wireless company years ago. One of the main reasons you get such a good signal over water is due to line of sight. On water there isn't any obstructions.
Even though Speakeasy was slashdot recommended, a lot of my geek friends used it, I had to cut them this year.
I never got the advertised speed out of them for what I was paying. My business was close to the CO, but when I'd complain their answer would always be "Replace the wire going from the pole into your building"
Why should I have to do that? I'm old, I hurt when I fall. NO thanks.
So after 6 years with SE, I called up Comcast. They sent an installer who made sure everything was working right. My speeds were out of sight, 20mbps down and 5mbps up. My bill is $20@mo less too.
DSL can compete, but they have to give up a little margin for better customer service.
I prefer porn and baitin.