On a pure cost basis there are basically 4 grades of software.
1. Stuff that's more media than software. I.e. modern games. Even if all the code for a good game was open source, people would still pay for the graphics plot and access to the game world where they can play with other people.
2. Stuff that almost everyone uses. Operating system, web browser, Office suite and Small business accounting (coming soon). This stuff can be viable as full open source and some of it already is (Linux, Firefox etc...)
3. Software so specialised that it suites you to cut out the middleman and take development in-house. Ask Bruce Perens about this. Far as I know that's how he makes a living.
4. That grey area between category 2 and category 3 Applications. Like a specialised cad software which is useful to a relatively small number of companies. No reason to not buy that from a closed source vendor.
No need to go that far. Most programmers work for companies that do not sell software.
If your employer sells pants then removing the cost of Operating systems Accounting software and Fabric CAD software (yes, I made that up) would lower your cost of operation without undermining your employer's business model at all.
It's not a closed system. It requires the input of kilowatts of electricity. Megawatts for any kind of large scale production.
However it dose solve the biggest problem with a Hydrogen economy. We have existing networks for transporting Water, Electricity, Natural Gas, and Gasoline. Hydrogen is more volatile than any of those items and requeiers new transport network to get it from the point of production to the filling stations.
If you are just transporting water and electricity to the filling station which will product hydrogen on-site using the machine these geeks are designing, problem solved. No new network. Just additional equipment at Gas stations.
Still a problem but a much smaller one. Depending on the process, the recycling itself may be possible on-site. Making this a lower logistical hurdle than the 100+ year old Gasoline economy is.
Office buildings work just as well on Arid infertile land as they do on prime farmland.
In fact I read a book once that recommended building your house on Rock.
Growing crops for food on the other hand is picky in the opposite direction. Here is a similar scenario which might make more seance to Slashdot users.
2 rooms in a building. room A) has a constant temperature of 90 degrees and very high humidity. Room B) is 30 degrees with extremely low humidity.
But for a Home user Gigabit Nics are standard on recent (2 year old) PCs from big vendors and fairly cheap if you are not married to "big brands" like iNTEL. The modem comes with your 1st patch cable.
Why should "flood Geology", (I.e. The notion that 4 or 5 thousand years ago the earth was flooded) predict where oil, coal and natural gas are buried?
According to the scripture, the whole flood lasted less than 3 months, from 1st raindrops till water subsided enough for the Arc to land and it's passengers disembark.
My reasoning may be a little simplistic but it gos like this: If your skills are 50% below the standard for your job it means you will be worth 1/2 as much to the company. A problem which can be handled in different ways without a large financial impact. I.e. Smaller salary to match your skill level, which increases as you are trained and grow with practice.
If however you are a misfit you could drag down the performance of other people. The wrong kind of misfit can cause your best people to quit or just not like the job any more.
What's the wrong kind of misfit? Imagine if you will an office like Slashdot (I hear google looks like a bank by comparison). How would Malder, Hemos and Cowboy Neal cope with the kind of person who won't even answer you unless addressed by his formal title I.e. "Dr. Doe", not "John" or "Doe". Worse yet "Mrs. Row" who will start an argument if called "Miss Row".
PS: An eager and ambitius recruit with below standard skills may be a great investment. Like buying a shoddy looking house which just needs a coat of paint at 1/2 the going rate.
This is a genetic disease affecting people from West Africa, and hence Black people west of the Atlantic. Those with this disease are practically immune to Malaria.
How many other defects work that way?
PS: This means I agree with you. I just wanted to identify a specific, real life case of what you describe.
Wow. Reading your response, it looks like I was clearer than I thought possible.
You have it right. I sort of lumped 2 points together towards the end and made them look related. Sorry for that.
Point 1. Being successful, either in physical or mental endeavors dose not improve your chances of reproducing.
Point 2. Since there is no connection between success and reproduction, we had better hope that the genetics which affect size and strength, don't also apply to intelligence.
Once man learned to manipulate his environment rather than evolve to fit it, the rate of human evolution slowed down. Not only that but it started going in strange directions.
Think about it. Gazels have been getting faster because the slowest gazel ends up in a Lions stomach before mating season. Humans have devised ways to protect even our paraplegics.
A chimp with the physical limitations of Stephen Hawkins would be lunch. As a human he not only survives but has managed to reproduce and even maintains high ranking in our social order.
Think about it. If you can be an Alpha Male without even being able to stand then genetic features become less relevant in determining who reproduces. Dramatically slowing the process of human evolution.
As for direction. Our professional athletes, scientists and Engineers produce far fewer children than those at the bottom of our social order. For the sake of our species, I would advise you all (Creationists and Evolutionist) to pray (To Jesus or Darwin) that human intelligence is not seriously impacted by our genetic makeup. If it is our society will collapse when we are no longer able to maintain what our parents built.
"More advanced" is primarily a technological judgement. As much as Gia and GrenPeace might not like it, Sometimes the more advanced technology is worse for the environment. I.e. Nukes are more advanced than a spear. Jet planes are more advanced than sailing ships and a PC is more advanced than a wooden abacus.
Guess you haven't been to Burger King lately? Or Taco Bell, or any other fast food join. Where I live, the workers are almost all illegals, judging by their lack of mastery of the English language.
There is no language requierment for legal imigration. The tighter system I refer to prety much screws over the people you want to imigrate to the US in favor of those you don't.
I.e A set number of skilled workers and an unlimited number of "family immigrants". That means Abdul has a Masters in Computer Science it is MORE difficult for him to immigrate than for his illiterate sister who marries an American janitor. As if that isn't bad enough the waiting list for her to file for the elderly parents is
If his parents then decide to file for him the waiting list will be longer if he gets married.
The confusion goes on. By contrast a university graduate with no criminal record who finds a job in Canada is automatically granted a work permit. they only try for the US because Canada is so @#$%ing cold.
PS: Ask Burger King (or any other US corporation) what penalties they face for employing an illegal alien.
====
No country in the world accepts more immigrants per year than the United States, both illegal and legal.
That is true overall. However for the category you should be receiving (Skilled workers) America accepts around 160,000 per year. or ~0.05% of your population.
This represents a deap misonderstanding of what imigration dose to nations. Here is how it work,
Step 1: Workers leave == Country gets poorer. Step 2. Workers come in == Country gets richer.
In the 1800s through to the mid 1900s America was the destination of choice for people fleeing everything from religious persecution to communism.
That is one of the reasons that the USA got to be a Superpower. Now that you are tightening up immigration and reducing the number of legal immigrants. Then structuring systems to keep illegal immigrants out of the formal system (illegal aliens can't even work at Burger King, but can peddle, sex and drugs like anybody else)
The US is on it's way down realetive to the rest of the world and I am frightened by what may happen when you loose economic dominance while still retaining Military dominance.
"...You'd have to buy into Creationism to think that such as we could never have happened anywhere else."
It's worse than that. You would have to buy into the "Earth is the centre of the universe" ideology. Even the Bible hints at other civilisations.
And why not? Creationism assumes that God loves life and diversity, hence the variety of lifeforms on this planet and the strange local habitats. Such a God would logically take even greater liberties with the design of life when he has extra planets to work with.
Intelligence just makes things more interesting. In other words, creationism predicts millions of planets with life in this galaxy and a significant portion of those (perhaps 1/4) will have intelligent life.
Some Christian sects believe sin slowed down humanity and our cousins on other planets are all more advanced.
Get certified as a project manager (PMP if I remember correctly). Also consider doing an MBA. You see as a veteran programmer the young geeks WILL look up to you. Even if you are not a great programmer.
That means with the additional training I recommend you will be able to apply for management level jobs leading a programing team and the guys will have much less of a problem with you than any other boss. Especially if you sit down and hack out a few bits of code yourself once in a while.
Slashdot Mirror
On a pure cost basis there are basically 4 grades of software.
1. Stuff that's more media than software. I.e. modern games. Even if all the code for a good game was open source, people would still pay for the graphics plot and access to the game world where they can play with other people.
2. Stuff that almost everyone uses. Operating system, web browser, Office suite and Small business accounting (coming soon). This stuff can be viable as full open source and some of it already is (Linux, Firefox etc...)
3. Software so specialised that it suites you to cut out the middleman and take development in-house. Ask Bruce Perens about this. Far as I know that's how he makes a living.
4. That grey area between category 2 and category 3 Applications. Like a specialised cad software which is useful to a relatively small number of companies. No reason to not buy that from a closed source vendor.
No need to go that far. Most programmers work for companies that do not sell software.
If your employer sells pants then removing the cost of Operating systems Accounting software and Fabric CAD software (yes, I made that up) would lower your cost of operation without undermining your employer's business model at all.
It's not a closed system. It requires the input of kilowatts of electricity. Megawatts for any kind of large scale production.
However it dose solve the biggest problem with a Hydrogen economy. We have existing networks for transporting Water, Electricity, Natural Gas, and Gasoline. Hydrogen is more volatile than any of those items and requeiers new transport network to get it from the point of production to the filling stations.
If you are just transporting water and electricity to the filling station which will product hydrogen on-site using the machine these geeks are designing, problem solved. No new network. Just additional equipment at Gas stations.
Still a problem but a much smaller one. Depending on the process, the recycling itself may be possible on-site. Making this a lower logistical hurdle than the 100+ year old Gasoline economy is.
$4.5 Billion single unit disposable device (Lake a hard drive, or an Ipod).
It make perfect sence, except for that overall pricetag.
Office buildings work just as well on Arid infertile land as they do on prime farmland.
In fact I read a book once that recommended building your house on Rock.
Growing crops for food on the other hand is picky in the opposite direction. Here is a similar scenario which might make more seance to Slashdot users.
2 rooms in a building. room A) has a constant temperature of 90 degrees and very high humidity. Room B) is 30 degrees with extremely low humidity.
You need a Sauna and a server room. Choose.
Can anyone say Angel (Bufy's Vampire boyfriend. Not the "tuched by ..." version).
But for a Home user Gigabit Nics are standard on recent (2 year old) PCs from big vendors and fairly cheap if you are not married to "big brands" like iNTEL. The modem comes with your 1st patch cable.
n tity_key=PCT2708_LAPRCLCOMX&entity_type=CFGSET&l=e n&s=bsd&shopper_country=jm&shopper_language=en&sho pper_segment=bsd&store_key=LATRANS
If your set-up is a little more complex $119 gets you 8 1GB ports in a Dell PowerConnect 2708. http://lastore.dell.com/store/frameset.asp?c=jm&e
If that's not enough then you pushing the definition of "Family" used by ISPs. The Torvalds come to mind.
Actually he meant "Virtually Disgusting Virtual Pig".
As for this virtual rape. How do you even do that? (note I'm no longer a 2nd life user since I visited http://www.getafirstlife.com/ ).
I don't get it.
Why should "flood Geology", (I.e. The notion that 4 or 5 thousand years ago the earth was flooded) predict where oil, coal and natural gas are buried?
According to the scripture, the whole flood lasted less than 3 months, from 1st raindrops till water subsided enough for the Arc to land and it's passengers disembark.
It would however cause a drop in the price of regular toilet paper. Supply and demand.
They know the digits. It's just a little tough to figure out where they fit.
Hello. Excuse me,
SlashDot mods. Pleas mod this "plus 3, disturbing"
*/Bigin Grumble
Slashdot dosn't alow a mopderation of +6 ROTFLOL
*/End Grumble
There is retail and there is retail. Let's see how far Dell takes it.
It's more important.
My reasoning may be a little simplistic but it gos like this: If your skills are 50% below the standard for your job it means you will be worth 1/2 as much to the company. A problem which can be handled in different ways without a large financial impact. I.e. Smaller salary to match your skill level, which increases as you are trained and grow with practice.
If however you are a misfit you could drag down the performance of other people. The wrong kind of misfit can cause your best people to quit or just not like the job any more.
What's the wrong kind of misfit? Imagine if you will an office like Slashdot (I hear google looks like a bank by comparison). How would Malder, Hemos and Cowboy Neal cope with the kind of person who won't even answer you unless addressed by his formal title I.e. "Dr. Doe", not "John" or "Doe". Worse yet "Mrs. Row" who will start an argument if called "Miss Row".
PS: An eager and ambitius recruit with below standard skills may be a great investment. Like buying a shoddy looking house which just needs a coat of paint at 1/2 the going rate.
Dyslexia.
People with this disorder are often capable of posting to Slashdot more often than average.
ROTFLOL
Adopt a child.
Preferably one with dumb biological parents.
Will moving into a clan of intellectuals make that child grow up to be smart?
I hope it dose. Otherwise, our species is in deep trouble. (See my parent post.)
cycle cell anemia.
This is a genetic disease affecting people from West Africa, and hence Black people west of the Atlantic. Those with this disease are practically immune to Malaria.
How many other defects work that way?
PS: This means I agree with you. I just wanted to identify a specific, real life case of what you describe.
Wow. Reading your response, it looks like I was clearer than I thought possible.
You have it right. I sort of lumped 2 points together towards the end and made them look related. Sorry for that.
Point 1. Being successful, either in physical or mental endeavors dose not improve your chances of reproducing.
Point 2. Since there is no connection between success and reproduction, we had better hope that the genetics which affect size and strength, don't also apply to intelligence.
Once man learned to manipulate his environment rather than evolve to fit it, the rate of human evolution slowed down. Not only that but it started going in strange directions.
Think about it. Gazels have been getting faster because the slowest gazel ends up in a Lions stomach before mating season. Humans have devised ways to protect even our paraplegics.
A chimp with the physical limitations of Stephen Hawkins would be lunch. As a human he not only survives but has managed to reproduce and even maintains high ranking in our social order.
Think about it. If you can be an Alpha Male without even being able to stand then genetic features become less relevant in determining who reproduces. Dramatically slowing the process of human evolution.
As for direction. Our professional athletes, scientists and Engineers produce far fewer children than those at the bottom of our social order. For the sake of our species, I would advise you all (Creationists and Evolutionist) to pray (To Jesus or Darwin) that human intelligence is not seriously impacted by our genetic makeup. If it is our society will collapse when we are no longer able to maintain what our parents built.
"More advanced" is primarily a technological judgement. As much as Gia and GrenPeace might not like it, Sometimes the more advanced technology is worse for the environment. I.e. Nukes are more advanced than a spear. Jet planes are more advanced than sailing ships and a PC is more advanced than a wooden abacus.
Someone mod parent up as insightful. Too bad I'm out of mod point.
There is no language requierment for legal imigration. The tighter system I refer to prety much screws over the people you want to imigrate to the US in favor of those you don't.
I.e A set number of skilled workers and an unlimited number of "family immigrants". That means Abdul has a Masters in Computer Science it is MORE difficult for him to immigrate than for his illiterate sister who marries an American janitor. As if that isn't bad enough the waiting list for her to file for the elderly parents is
If his parents then decide to file for him the waiting list will be longer if he gets married.
The confusion goes on. By contrast a university graduate with no criminal record who finds a job in Canada is automatically granted a work permit. they only try for the US because Canada is so @#$%ing cold.
PS: Ask Burger King (or any other US corporation) what penalties they face for employing an illegal alien.
====
No country in the world accepts more immigrants per year than the United States, both illegal and legal.
That is true overall. However for the category you should be receiving (Skilled workers) America accepts around 160,000 per year. or ~0.05% of your population.
Spot on? really?
This represents a deap misonderstanding of what imigration dose to nations. Here is how it work,
Step 1: Workers leave == Country gets poorer.
Step 2. Workers come in == Country gets richer.
In the 1800s through to the mid 1900s America was the destination of choice for people fleeing everything from religious persecution to communism.
That is one of the reasons that the USA got to be a Superpower. Now that you are tightening up immigration and reducing the number of legal immigrants. Then structuring systems to keep illegal immigrants out of the formal system (illegal aliens can't even work at Burger King, but can peddle, sex and drugs like anybody else)
The US is on it's way down realetive to the rest of the world and I am frightened by what may happen when you loose economic dominance while still retaining Military dominance.
Kevin.
"...You'd have to buy into Creationism to think that such as we could never have happened anywhere else."
It's worse than that. You would have to buy into the "Earth is the centre of the universe" ideology. Even the Bible hints at other civilisations.
And why not? Creationism assumes that God loves life and diversity, hence the variety of lifeforms on this planet and the strange local habitats. Such a God would logically take even greater liberties with the design of life when he has extra planets to work with.
Intelligence just makes things more interesting. In other words, creationism predicts millions of planets with life in this galaxy and a significant portion of those (perhaps 1/4) will have intelligent life.
Some Christian sects believe sin slowed down humanity and our cousins on other planets are all more advanced.
Get certified as a project manager (PMP if I remember correctly). Also consider doing an MBA. You see as a veteran programmer the young geeks WILL look up to you. Even if you are not a great programmer.
That means with the additional training I recommend you will be able to apply for management level jobs leading a programing team and the guys will have much less of a problem with you than any other boss. Especially if you sit down and hack out a few bits of code yourself once in a while.