Take your vacation somewhere where your tourism dollars will really help the locals: Goa, India (or just travel in India); lots of places in South America; Phuket, Thailand; etc. Skip big tourist drawing areas like the Bahamas where your money goes into the pockets of wealthy hotel and tourist industry owners.
Stay at more modest accommodations. Spend your money on small local service providers, food providers, crafts makers, and so forth. Tip them well.
By doing these things you'll stretch your vacation dollars farther, be more in touch with the local culture, have a good time, and help disadvantage people just trying to make an honest living.
As a developer: if I'm not being paid and my pet project isn't being helped along by someone willing/able to code, write documentation, etc... why should I care again?
That's kind of a straw man argument, isn't it? You even quoted the part where he said he stopped caring around the time of the PS2. Regressing his position to before that time wouldn't seem to make much sense.
Besides, when people say that "graphics don't matter", they mean that gameplay mechanics are typically paramount with them. They normally say that because graphics are too often used as a crutch that can never really make up for poor gameplay.
It's really a style vs substance debate, which is a matter of personal preference. YMMV.
I've said that and then quit the game shortly thereafter because the gameplay sucked.
I don't recall ever quitting a game with great gameplay because the graphics sucked.
I wouldn't say that I "don't care about graphics", but I'd agree with the grandfather post and the overall Nintendo stance that focusing on gameplay and the uniqueness of their system will get them further then adding a few pixels.
Creationists demand proof of evolution in the way that I demand a pony when my kids are being whiny. I don't really want a pony and I wouldn't know what to do with one if my demand was met.
If their demands reflected a sincere desire for proof, then they could easily find and understand it.. No, what Creationists want is to have everyone adhere to their belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God no matter what proof or common sense may contradict that belief.
Demanding proof is just an act of posturing to make it look like they're having a real battle of ideas about the nature of reality. Proof is not what they're looking for.
Well, Jane, as a person who has done your job and several others; I have to tell you that you're wrong. Learning changing acronyms is a difficulty of IT. But keeping up with Sales contacts, lead sources, and traveling is what makes sales suck. If you dont' understand that being a CEO at a successful company means mastering multiple disciplines and skills... just how naive can you be?
What, like Obama and Bush were intelligent choices for POTUS made by a voting populace that's informed and objective? HA!
In my universe, those guys wouldn't have made it to city council, much less POTUS.
In my universe, voters WOULD be able to control legislation much more tightly because they would vote against pork barrel kitchen sink bills where important issues like this are thrown in as part of a compromise. Politicians compromising on the liberties of their constituents would be kicked to the curb so fast they wouldn't know what had hit them.
If we want to stay a bit more in this universe, I'd speculate that Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, and wouldn't have allowed ACTA to continue as it has been.
You're switching your stance from a lack of IT respect and difficulty of the job to specifically re-education. You're looking for specific ways that IT is hard for you and trying to apply that across disciplines.
Go back to your original post and show where you were talking about re-education. You were talking about building Lamborghinis from Volkswagen budgets. The implication was that you were talking about having to perform herculean tasks (ie difficulty). That's why I'm discussing difficulty. If you wanted to discuss something else, you should have said so.
This new foray into re-education shows a strong self-image bias on your part whereby you judge others based upon your particular skill set rather than the more general difficulty argument you were framing originally.
Couple that with a somewhat disingenuous lack of being able to stick to a topic and I'm not sure this is worth my time.
Amazing that a jet-setter like you comes across like a bitter front line IT worker. I call bullshit on your straw man story and the value of your perspective on your mechanic.
Why do you have to find another way to make a living? You have a Porche and a fleet of Mercedes Benz's!?
See my previous post. I'm thoroughly familiar with starting and working in all facets of IT from startup networking to commercial and vertical software app development.
It's the height of hubris to think that your job is harder than everyone else's.
Look, I'm a start-up guy (although I've worked for fortune 500 as well). I've worn lots of hats: sales, marketing, network IT, software development grunt, field services, etc.
They're all hard TO DO WELL. You have a bias because you understand the details of your chosen field. Don't assume that someone else doesn't have equally difficult skills and strategies to master to be good at his.
Umm... I've started IT departments at two companies, one was an ISP that's been bought and sold a couple of times and is still running. The other ended up being a multinational operation. You don't know anything about IT that I didn't have to build from scratch in the 90's when a lot of it had to be invented/cobbled together from scratch.
If other jobs are so easy, go do them. Sales is normally a good place to get good money from commissions if you're good. Since it's an easy job, you'll be rich!
Where is this that auto mechanics are living the dream? Where is it that auto mechanics are allowed to run free like nobel laureates without oversight because they have all the wisdom and chutzpah to get their jobs done? Television somewhere?
IT folks are people like any others and their jobs aren't any more difficult than anyone else's in the corporate family. Don't romanticize their roles with enormously biased analogies involving Lamborghinis and Volkswagens.
Smart companies will push their IT departments, their Sales departments, their Marketing departments, their Finance departments, etc. as hard as they can. Their demands should normally be "stretch" goals because they've got competitors who will put them out of business if they take it easy for too long.
Grass is greener on the other side of the fence syndrome.
Sure, IT people are treated like crap as nerds. But Sales people are treated like crap as aggressive bullshitters. Marketing people are treated like crap as third nipples who waste everyone's time and "don't get it". Field Services people are treated like crap as gophers who have to travel. Finance folks are treated like crap as "bean counters".
The best solution to being treated like crap isn't to move laterally to another discipline, it's to move vertically up into the power structure. The higher you go the less often you're treated like crap. It never really stops, though. Even the CEO gets called to the mat by customers sometimes. At least at that point you're getting treated like crap on the company jet.
I know, become a customer! Well, then you're just working for some other power structure that will treat you like crap.
Become a hermit? Then Mother Nature treats you like crap. It never ends.:)
Ignore the haters telling you to relax and join the herd. They wouldn't know what a hard day's work or real productivity looks like anyhow, so you can't turn to them for good advice on making use of your solid work ethic. They'll do nothing but try to bring you down to their level because you make them look bad or face the uncomfortable truth that they suck at their chosen profession. Look to people giving you positive advice that will let you grow and succeed.
That said, don't bust your ass doing a buch of work for lazy coworkers who will take credit for your sweat and/or managers too corrupt or stupid to notice what you're doing. These people will suck your soul and waste your valuable time during these years when you could be learning so much about how to reach new levels of personal performance. If you're going to stay where you are, you need to "manage up" to see if you can start getting noticed for the job you're doing. Avoid the temptation to take on a lot of small tasks in your current environment. You'll never get any more credit for all the hard work than the guy next to you who simply manages to look busy but web surfs half the day. Get your manager's agreement to break down the current project into specific pieces that you can take ownership of and deliver apart from your coworkers. That way, when you deliver your piece it's obvious who did it, how well it works, and how on time it was. On a technical level, it's also great to break things out anyway to avoid overly tight component coupling.
Maneuvering things so that you can better benefit from your work ethic involves some politicking, which sucks, but you don't want to be used by those around you and never get anything out of it.
If you spend a few months working the personal ownership angle and it gets you nowhere, then you may need to cut your losses and switch to another company. My personal preference is to work at small companies where you can negotiate for better merit-based rewards like stock options, profit sharing, or performance bonuses. At a small company, your efforts will be obvious and your opportunities to learn and succeed will be greater. You'll also find more people like you from whom you can learn at small companies. They'll be looking to create successful products rather than to just punch in to collect a paycheck. Screw-ups normally latch on to the big companies where they can fade into the cubicle farms.
Look at the pathetic work ethic of your current environment as an opportunity to outshine them and people like them.
I still don't get it. Cell phones are just regular phone but without the wires.
I still don't get it. The web is just like gopher/ftp but you with pictures.
I still don't get it. The iPhone is just a bastard child of a cell phone and a pda.
What you don't get is that almost all new products that really take off are amalgamations of pre-existing technologies. Yeah, Google Wave is just a really neat way to put together IRC, Wiki, and Email. Its impact will be huge. A couple of years from now, even your mom will be talking about sending you a Wave. Numerous imitators and Wave server implementations will be around. Waves and wave-like concepts will be omnipresent.
The base advice on being friends is right, but being friends with people is one of those natural things that can be hard to explain or apply to other people you maybe aren't friends with (your spouse, for example).
My wife and I were very different coming together, and friendship/respect/interests didn't come naturally. It led to a marriage that was functional, but kind of dead inside. The Gottman book I read (7 principles) was full of useful exercises and examples that showed how respect and friendship are conveyed. We both knew what it felt to be friends with people, just not with each other. The book really helped.
This is the most important Slashdot post I've ever made (no great history of them, but I hope I can help here):
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work [amazon.com]: Overview of his work
I've been married for almost 13 years and I wish to the FSM that I had read this book very early on. Gottman is a Scientist, not some hippie PETA hugging "therapist" that Oprah happened to like some week. The above book spoke to the geek in me with studies, stats, facts, and analysis. The bottom line is this, and it's something that I thought was a stupid sentiment earlier on in life:
Your wife needs to be one of your closest friends, if not your very best friend.
It's that simple. Think of what you do with and how you treat your closest male friends. Think of what she does and how she treats her closest female friends. If you're not doing those things with and treating your spouse as well or better and vise versa, your marriage is statistically doomed.
The good news is that you can learn and practice behaviors that will help you to become closer as friends than you ever imagined. I've gone through the process and it's life-changing.
Slashdot Mirror
Take your vacation somewhere where your tourism dollars will really help the locals: Goa, India (or just travel in India); lots of places in South America; Phuket, Thailand; etc. Skip big tourist drawing areas like the Bahamas where your money goes into the pockets of wealthy hotel and tourist industry owners.
Stay at more modest accommodations. Spend your money on small local service providers, food providers, crafts makers, and so forth. Tip them well.
By doing these things you'll stretch your vacation dollars farther, be more in touch with the local culture, have a good time, and help disadvantage people just trying to make an honest living.
As a developer: if I'm not being paid and my pet project isn't being helped along by someone willing/able to code, write documentation, etc... why should I care again?
That's kind of a straw man argument, isn't it? You even quoted the part where he said he stopped caring around the time of the PS2. Regressing his position to before that time wouldn't seem to make much sense.
Besides, when people say that "graphics don't matter", they mean that gameplay mechanics are typically paramount with them. They normally say that because graphics are too often used as a crutch that can never really make up for poor gameplay.
It's really a style vs substance debate, which is a matter of personal preference. YMMV.
I've said that and then quit the game shortly thereafter because the gameplay sucked.
I don't recall ever quitting a game with great gameplay because the graphics sucked.
I wouldn't say that I "don't care about graphics", but I'd agree with the grandfather post and the overall Nintendo stance that focusing on gameplay and the uniqueness of their system will get them further then adding a few pixels.
Many humans seek power and domination over others. Religion is just a tool to that end.
Grabbing for power extends from human nature, not the Bible or religion in general.
Creationists demand proof of evolution in the way that I demand a pony when my kids are being whiny. I don't really want a pony and I wouldn't know what to do with one if my demand was met.
If their demands reflected a sincere desire for proof, then they could easily find and understand it.. No, what Creationists want is to have everyone adhere to their belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God no matter what proof or common sense may contradict that belief.
Demanding proof is just an act of posturing to make it look like they're having a real battle of ideas about the nature of reality. Proof is not what they're looking for.
Interesting example, but I don't think that fire reproduces in a cycle where any instructions (genetic material) are ever created and used.
A fire is more like one simple entity that grows until it consumes all available food and then dies of starvation.
The alternative is to consider that combustion is a process that all life forms use. It has evolved into you.
Well, Jane, as a person who has done your job and several others; I have to tell you that you're wrong. Learning changing acronyms is a difficulty of IT. But keeping up with Sales contacts, lead sources, and traveling is what makes sales suck. If you dont' understand that being a CEO at a successful company means mastering multiple disciplines and skills... just how naive can you be?
What, like Obama and Bush were intelligent choices for POTUS made by a voting populace that's informed and objective? HA!
In my universe, those guys wouldn't have made it to city council, much less POTUS.
In my universe, voters WOULD be able to control legislation much more tightly because they would vote against pork barrel kitchen sink bills where important issues like this are thrown in as part of a compromise. Politicians compromising on the liberties of their constituents would be kicked to the curb so fast they wouldn't know what had hit them.
If we want to stay a bit more in this universe, I'd speculate that Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, and wouldn't have allowed ACTA to continue as it has been.
You're switching your stance from a lack of IT respect and difficulty of the job to specifically re-education. You're looking for specific ways that IT is hard for you and trying to apply that across disciplines.
Go back to your original post and show where you were talking about re-education. You were talking about building Lamborghinis from Volkswagen budgets. The implication was that you were talking about having to perform herculean tasks (ie difficulty). That's why I'm discussing difficulty. If you wanted to discuss something else, you should have said so.
This new foray into re-education shows a strong self-image bias on your part whereby you judge others based upon your particular skill set rather than the more general difficulty argument you were framing originally.
Couple that with a somewhat disingenuous lack of being able to stick to a topic and I'm not sure this is worth my time.
Exactly.
In a dictatorship, people have a lot more room to blame the greed and violence of a very few.
In a legitimate democracy, evil government heads and "multinational corporations" aren't to blame, it's the apathetic voters.
Who keeps your Gulfstream running smoothly?
Amazing that a jet-setter like you comes across like a bitter front line IT worker. I call bullshit on your straw man story and the value of your perspective on your mechanic.
Why do you have to find another way to make a living? You have a Porche and a fleet of Mercedes Benz's!?
See my previous post. I'm thoroughly familiar with starting and working in all facets of IT from startup networking to commercial and vertical software app development.
It's the height of hubris to think that your job is harder than everyone else's.
Look, I'm a start-up guy (although I've worked for fortune 500 as well). I've worn lots of hats: sales, marketing, network IT, software development grunt, field services, etc.
They're all hard TO DO WELL. You have a bias because you understand the details of your chosen field. Don't assume that someone else doesn't have equally difficult skills and strategies to master to be good at his.
Umm... I've started IT departments at two companies, one was an ISP that's been bought and sold a couple of times and is still running. The other ended up being a multinational operation. You don't know anything about IT that I didn't have to build from scratch in the 90's when a lot of it had to be invented/cobbled together from scratch.
If other jobs are so easy, go do them. Sales is normally a good place to get good money from commissions if you're good. Since it's an easy job, you'll be rich!
Where is this that auto mechanics are living the dream? Where is it that auto mechanics are allowed to run free like nobel laureates without oversight because they have all the wisdom and chutzpah to get their jobs done? Television somewhere?
IT folks are people like any others and their jobs aren't any more difficult than anyone else's in the corporate family. Don't romanticize their roles with enormously biased analogies involving Lamborghinis and Volkswagens.
Smart companies will push their IT departments, their Sales departments, their Marketing departments, their Finance departments, etc. as hard as they can. Their demands should normally be "stretch" goals because they've got competitors who will put them out of business if they take it easy for too long.
Grass is greener on the other side of the fence syndrome.
Sure, IT people are treated like crap as nerds. But Sales people are treated like crap as aggressive bullshitters. Marketing people are treated like crap as third nipples who waste everyone's time and "don't get it". Field Services people are treated like crap as gophers who have to travel. Finance folks are treated like crap as "bean counters".
The best solution to being treated like crap isn't to move laterally to another discipline, it's to move vertically up into the power structure. The higher you go the less often you're treated like crap. It never really stops, though. Even the CEO gets called to the mat by customers sometimes. At least at that point you're getting treated like crap on the company jet.
I know, become a customer! Well, then you're just working for some other power structure that will treat you like crap.
Become a hermit? Then Mother Nature treats you like crap. It never ends. :)
Ignore the haters telling you to relax and join the herd. They wouldn't know what a hard day's work or real productivity looks like anyhow, so you can't turn to them for good advice on making use of your solid work ethic. They'll do nothing but try to bring you down to their level because you make them look bad or face the uncomfortable truth that they suck at their chosen profession. Look to people giving you positive advice that will let you grow and succeed.
That said, don't bust your ass doing a buch of work for lazy coworkers who will take credit for your sweat and/or managers too corrupt or stupid to notice what you're doing. These people will suck your soul and waste your valuable time during these years when you could be learning so much about how to reach new levels of personal performance. If you're going to stay where you are, you need to "manage up" to see if you can start getting noticed for the job you're doing. Avoid the temptation to take on a lot of small tasks in your current environment. You'll never get any more credit for all the hard work than the guy next to you who simply manages to look busy but web surfs half the day. Get your manager's agreement to break down the current project into specific pieces that you can take ownership of and deliver apart from your coworkers. That way, when you deliver your piece it's obvious who did it, how well it works, and how on time it was. On a technical level, it's also great to break things out anyway to avoid overly tight component coupling.
Maneuvering things so that you can better benefit from your work ethic involves some politicking, which sucks, but you don't want to be used by those around you and never get anything out of it.
If you spend a few months working the personal ownership angle and it gets you nowhere, then you may need to cut your losses and switch to another company. My personal preference is to work at small companies where you can negotiate for better merit-based rewards like stock options, profit sharing, or performance bonuses. At a small company, your efforts will be obvious and your opportunities to learn and succeed will be greater. You'll also find more people like you from whom you can learn at small companies. They'll be looking to create successful products rather than to just punch in to collect a paycheck. Screw-ups normally latch on to the big companies where they can fade into the cubicle farms.
Look at the pathetic work ethic of your current environment as an opportunity to outshine them and people like them.
Good luck!
If you have to demonstrate ability to get permission, doesn't that make it a privilege?
Citizens' rights are taken away as punishment for breaking laws and to prevent the further breaking of the society's laws. Isn't that a given?
Is incarcerating a murderer "flushing the 2nd amendment down the toilet"?
I still don't get it. Cell phones are just regular phone but without the wires.
I still don't get it. The web is just like gopher/ftp but you with pictures.
I still don't get it. The iPhone is just a bastard child of a cell phone and a pda.
What you don't get is that almost all new products that really take off are amalgamations of pre-existing technologies. Yeah, Google Wave is just a really neat way to put together IRC, Wiki, and Email. Its impact will be huge. A couple of years from now, even your mom will be talking about sending you a Wave. Numerous imitators and Wave server implementations will be around. Waves and wave-like concepts will be omnipresent.
So, three years ago would you have predicted that Apple would be a dominant cell phone manufacturer?
Didn't even know about the iPhone at that time?
Hmmm... you think that's air you're breathing?
Things change. I'd doubt that Apple is just going to sit on its hands for the next couple of years.
Don't try to be funny with airport security. Ever. Smiling is allowed, though.
The base advice on being friends is right, but being friends with people is one of those natural things that can be hard to explain or apply to other people you maybe aren't friends with (your spouse, for example).
My wife and I were very different coming together, and friendship/respect/interests didn't come naturally. It led to a marriage that was functional, but kind of dead inside. The Gottman book I read (7 principles) was full of useful exercises and examples that showed how respect and friendship are conveyed. We both knew what it felt to be friends with people, just not with each other. The book really helped.
This is the most important Slashdot post I've ever made (no great history of them, but I hope I can help here):
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work [amazon.com]: Overview of his work
I've been married for almost 13 years and I wish to the FSM that I had read this book very early on. Gottman is a Scientist, not some hippie PETA hugging "therapist" that Oprah happened to like some week. The above book spoke to the geek in me with studies, stats, facts, and analysis. The bottom line is this, and it's something that I thought was a stupid sentiment earlier on in life:
Your wife needs to be one of your closest friends, if not your very best friend.
It's that simple. Think of what you do with and how you treat your closest male friends. Think of what she does and how she treats her closest female friends. If you're not doing those things with and treating your spouse as well or better and vise versa, your marriage is statistically doomed.
The good news is that you can learn and practice behaviors that will help you to become closer as friends than you ever imagined. I've gone through the process and it's life-changing.
The color-tunable DNA material
Ugh...