Don't feel bad, I ordered an old Compaq VRM from the U.K. because even after shipping it was like $30 cheaper than I could find in the U.S. I got this great email from the firm saying that "the goods have been shipped" and I was envisioning a little heroin bonus in the package.
It's kind of hard to steer a train into the side of a building?
And it's pretty easy to fly a plane into a building, as we witnessed on You Know When.
Well, I guess it's a little hard to fly a plane into the White House. It's only like two or three stories tall, with taller buildings on three sides. The World Trade Centers were pretty easy to hit, and I pulled off a similar feat in the 80's flying a Cessna into Chicago's Hancock Building in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2 on the Commodore 64.
I don't think that flying is any safer. But going through security and everything is definitely a major pain in the ass. Air travel in the first place pretty much sucks, and now it sucks a lot worse.
I almost feel guilty; the exent of my legislative injury being so mundane compared to the death of all those people. But then again I guess that unless you are a lawyer working the liability case, or a librarian, or you're currently being held prisoner in a facility run by the United States military and don't have access to a lawyer, let alone Slashdot, or even Constitutional rights, the Patriot Act and what not don't really, directly, affect you.
At least not yet.
Wouldn't you just love to know what they're monitoring, now that they can basically monitor any communication so long as it relates to investigation of a foreign national on American soil? If you work in tech, you probably work with a foreign national. There's all the justification they need to intercept your phone calls, dsl connection, whatever. I wonder if they're finding anything good or if the terrorists are too slick. I have to think the terrorists are pretty slick, and how do you deal with a signal/noise ratio of 50 terrorists / 280,000,00 people? Seriously, folks, if that can be accomplised via today's technology, that is very very scary. Noone who has power willingly gives it up.
Well I don't use an insulin pump, (knock wood) but I have flown five times since You Know When. The security thing with airplanes has always annoyed me. Why is it that I can hop on a train with complete ease, possibly even buying a ticket from a conductor, but air travel has all these extra hoops you jump through?
Anyway, that was the question I used to ask myself, in the Pre-Apocalyptic Era. Now, I have to tack on, what was the purpose of all those security checks in the first place if they didn't stop 9/11?
But there IS an upside: You no longer have assholes bringing their rolly-cart laptop case, a regular suitcase, and one of those garment baggie things on as carryons. It's horrifying, but from my perspective that's what 3,000 deaths has achieved: People obey the rules regarding carryons now. (That used to piss me off so much, when I'd be getting on the plane with my one measly carryon and I'd have to check it at the gate because people before me brought like three or four huge-ass carryons on.)
That and the fact that drinks were free for like a few weeks after 9/11 was nice. (I flew on 9/14, the day that the No-Fly Zone was lifted I think.)
As for the erosion/suspension of civil liberties, that has filled me with a nagging worry and FUD. I realize that it's pretty unlikely that I am the next Enemy Combatant, but I'm quite aware that if our Maximum Leader decides I am, I'll spend the rest of my life in jail. That *scares* me. Being scared of what our government can do and will do to its own citizens (as if I wasn't after Waco and Ruby Ridge) -- it's tough to quantify, as is evident from most comments here, but it definitely affects me. Mostly it makes me dream about moving to a smaller, less prominent country in the southern hemisphere called New Zealand.
One more thing about airport security: On my last flight I had an unopened bottle of champagne in my carryon. We never got around to drinking it after the wedding; I figured that security would take it from me, but they didn't. Are they really supposed to let you through with big glass bottles that could easily become sharp jagged edged knives? Another friend at the wedding had one of those credit-card sized metal multifunction tools in his wallet,with a screwdriver and box wrench and a sharp edge. Security told him: "Some security guards might not let you take this on the plane. But I'm going to let you take it on." Hello???
I think that the major airlines were criminally negligent when they formed little companies to pay immigrants eight bucks an hour to provide security. All in the name of saving a few bucks, and making shareholders happy. Those bastard CEOs should be held criminally accountable, which will probably never happen. But I bet when the lawsuits come, American and United are going down, while the execs cry all the way to the bank. Not even 9/11 can change Business as Usual.
I'm not sure if the comment about North Dakota is true.. even if it is, turing N.D. into a wind farm is, well, that's a *lot* of windmills. North Dakota is like 1,000,000,000 times larger than like your average Quake level.
But this brings up another problem, which is that we don't have superconducting power lines. I haven't actually done (can't actually do) the math, but you lose juice when you ship power from North Dakota to New York. I really have no idea how much you lose, but I think it's a lot, to the point that it's really not worth it to try to generate power that's 2,000 miles away. BUT if we had superconducting power lines, there would be no loss, and the USA could actually sell energy to Denmark or what have you.
Does anyone know how much power is lost just in transmitting power from one place to another? I would really love to know. All I know is that they use really high voltages because resistance does down as voltage goes up. Anyone?
This is correct. Microsoft's genius lies in the marketing. Not that their products are all terrible, and thrive ONLY because of marketing, but marketing got them and keeps them where they are today.
Microsoft's corporate sales pitch deliberately glosses over the technical side of things. The corporate execs aren't technical people anyway, so why try to explain the benefits of a product in technical terms that only a select few understand? No, Microsoft invented the term "TCO" (Total Cost of Ownership) and sold the concept that Microsoft was the less costly way to go. Execs understand the concept of money very well. Everyone responds to emotional sales pitches (unless they are Noam Chomsky or something). Through a combination of $$$ claims about lower TCO and carefully placed FUD, they have established a dominant position on the LANs they were merely clients on ten years ago.
Another thing Microsoft realized is that computers would be everywhere, and they wouldn't always be under the control of UNIX admins with pocket protectors and advanced CS degrees. There just aren't enough uber-geeks to go around for all the offices in the world. Billiant foresight. It might be the CFO who suddenly finds the company has grown and now they need to bring the network back under control. Microsoft has hands down the slickest sales materials I've seen in the computer field.
Microsoft sells a culture, a lifestyle, in which you don't have to worry about computer problems because there are teeming millions of MCSEs and phone support and etc. to hold your hand through whatever problems may arise. And in fact this is true. Microsoft will smile and nod and politely empty your wallet.
A few months ago, there was a story on Slashdot about MS sending the BSA after school districts in the Northwest. After the admins got into a tizzy and threated to install Linux everywhere, Microsoft had the Come to Jesus meeting. "The themes for today are friendly and flexible," the sales lady said. It's the classic good cop/bad cop routine, a pure psychology play, and Microsoft knows their shit in this regard. Geeks, being socially stunted and sexually frustrated, are putty in Microsoft's hands, especially when the nice woman in the business suit shows up to put down the rebellion.
That is how Microsoft has achieved their monopoly. Unlike the other computer companies, they don't try to sell the technology itself. Instead they sell the REWARDS of implementing a Microsoft solution, they sell a warm fuzzy bundle of love, a pre-made community of smiling, personable non-geeks who are there to ease your assimilation into the Collective.
Microsoft was the first to bring big-time Madison Avenue marketing psychology to an exponentially growing computer market, that's why they're on top now.
This T-shirt I saw said it best:
Political <---------- You are here Presentation Session Application Transpor t Network Data link Physical
Myabe you should get a Sony Clie PEG-SJ30. It really has a nice screen, 320 x 320, with proper backlighting and everything. Here in USA, the Palm m130 is like $250 and the Sony PEG-SJ30 is $300. Definitely worth the extra 50 bucks if you ask me.
Tech plummets in value so fast, I would return the m130 and reinvest in something newer.
The Napster CEO used to work for Berteslsmann, and the judge suspects a conflict of interest. Whoa, man. I haven't been paying much attention to this whole case, but...
Bertelsmann was trying to pull off the Coen Brother's "The Hudsucker Proxy" with Napster???
You have hit upon The Myth of Progess, one of the necessary elements of Western Civilization. Or as Voltaire would say "This is the best of all possible worlds!" (from Candide, for those who haven't read it.)
Did you know that kids in school NEED their cell phones today? What's up with that? When I was a kid, which wasn't so long ago, if there was an emergency your parents would call the school and the school would track you down.
Sure, cellphones have had some positive benefits. For example, Finland has an economy now because of cellphones. But how are we actually BETTER OFF being able to instantly call anyone or be called anywhere?
Remember pay phones? They are dying faster than FreeBSD because noone needs them anymore, everyone has a cell phone.. Personally I liked pay phones, and you hackers should too since your 300bps acoustic coupled modem will get the job done anonymously from a pay phone.
Remember when if a pager went off in a movie or theater it was because the person getting paged was ACTUALLY A DOCTOR and had to do save someone's life right away? What makes ubiquitous synchronous communication So Freakin' Great That EVERYONE Has To Have It? I was on vacation a few weeks ago and it took me three days to really be at peace with not checking my email. What's up with that?
Cellphones might give us freedom, but then you lose your cell phone with everyone's phone numbers in it and you're back in the stone age. As much freedom as your phone gives you, it's that much of a tether too.
But don't take my word for it, listen to some Stereolab:
(insert HTML for mucical notes here) We communicate more and more In more defined ways than ever before But no one has got anything to say It's all very poor it's all just a bore
Someone has got to make the difference Between the seeming and the meaning
But the war on drug *users* has been a great success! Our prison population is about four or five times what it was twenty years ago, thanks to mandatory minimums that send drug users off for 20 years for possession.
The standard by which the war on drugs is a raging success is: Correction Corporation of America. They are our nation's sixth-largest imprisoner, behind the Feds, California, FLA, and so on.
Even better, CCA has no motive to rehabilitate their prisoners, since that might reduce the recidivism rate. If they rehabilitated drug users, they might work themselves out of a job.
Follow the money, the war on drugs is just another way to fleece the tax base (like when prisoners are mistreated at a private prison, the state who sent them to prison has to pay the damages, because the corporate entity is shielded.)
Check out nomoreprisons.org for more info. Not that I agree with all of what they have to say.
And kudos to America, the Land of Opportunity. The land where the same people who brought you the ease and convenience of the Colonel's Original Recipe saw that the War on Drugs created a market for privatised, for-profit prisons.
I use my computer to: Read Slashdot and Hotmail Look at pr0n and other cool web sites Play computer games Listen to MP3s that I download from Kazaa.
Occasionally some "computing" happens there but my broadband-connected computer is basically a TV replacement device.
Now, I would never buy a mass-market PC like HP or Dell for home use (though I recommend Dell to non-geeks looking for a system) but I can totally see how some fool might buy one of these things, based on the media blitz we'll see around XMas.
In the inevitable lawsuits, HP will be left holding the bag while Microsoft laughs all the way to the bank. It amazes me that there are still companies gullible enough to partner with Microsoft on hardware. (Like have you seen Nvidia's stock lately?)
Well, I have 128 MB graphics card running at 350 MHz or something. What I would like to do is use that ram and idle cycles to work on folding@home or something like that.
There has to be some kind of seti-style challenge which could be optimized for the types of calculations that a good graphics card does. Anyone?
Are there ways of communicating to management that long hours to rush a project to completion is not the way to complete a successful project?
Quitting might get the message across. But, management may choose to be oblivious, that's their perogative.
Also, you have to realize that "successful" may mean something completely different to management than it does to a developer. Successful to a dev means the nasty bugs are gone and the product performs the intended functions. Successful to management might mean that they finally got the thing out the door just in time to capture a high-profile customer that was being romanced by the competition, and we can worry about the bugs later.
There are lots of people who are happy to put in 80 hours a week (Microsofties for example) but it doesn't sound like you're in that position. Putting in overtime because you love your job is one thing, "required" overtime is different.
Your well-worded voluntary resignation, quoting the "15 hours a day," and CCd to your State Attorney General will get the message across.
Something is fucked up in the world with the death of a human being is compaied to what happened to JAVA.
No offense to the deceased, who are already dead and won't be reading this so I don't know why I bother with the disclaimer:
Human beings are cheap and plentiful. Especially the brown ones. Java, on the other hand, is worth more than most people.
To give you an example, the FAA has this formula when they want to decide if a defect on a plane has to be fixed. They figure out the chances that the defect will cause a crash, and how likely it is that people will die from this defect. Each death has a cost of around three million dollars. They run the numbers, and if it would cost too much vs. the risk for all the airlines to, say, keep the center fuel tanks from exploding, then the advisory doesn't go out.
Or, as Stalin said: One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.
Get over it, people have a quantifiable cash value, and few people are worth as much as what java was trying to offer.
Personally, I tend to agree that something is fucked up in the world. Unfortunately, moral outrage doesn't speak as loudly as cold, hard cash. Everyone has their price.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, I've given up grammer trolling, but...
Fry's. Not fries. as in Fry's Electroncis.
Don't feel bad, I ordered an old Compaq VRM from the U.K. because even after shipping it was like $30 cheaper than I could find in the U.S. I got this great email from the firm saying that "the goods have been shipped" and I was envisioning a little heroin bonus in the package.
Isn't this already a problem with usenet?
Problem? Yeah, there's lots of porn on usenet. That's a problem?
SYS 64738 always worked for me.
Thank you, that was one of the most insightful things I've read, on Slashdot or elsewhere. Brilliant.
It's kind of hard to steer a train into the side of a building?
And it's pretty easy to fly a plane into a building, as we witnessed on You Know When.
Well, I guess it's a little hard to fly a plane into the White House. It's only like two or three stories tall, with taller buildings on three sides. The World Trade Centers were pretty easy to hit, and I pulled off a similar feat in the 80's flying a Cessna into Chicago's Hancock Building in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2 on the Commodore 64.
I don't think that flying is any safer. But going through security and everything is definitely a major pain in the ass. Air travel in the first place pretty much sucks, and now it sucks a lot worse.
I almost feel guilty; the exent of my legislative injury being so mundane compared to the death of all those people. But then again I guess that unless you are a lawyer working the liability case, or a librarian, or you're currently being held prisoner in a facility run by the United States military and don't have access to a lawyer, let alone Slashdot, or even Constitutional rights, the Patriot Act and what not don't really, directly, affect you.
At least not yet.
Wouldn't you just love to know what they're monitoring, now that they can basically monitor any communication so long as it relates to investigation of a foreign national on American soil? If you work in tech, you probably work with a foreign national. There's all the justification they need to intercept your phone calls, dsl connection, whatever. I wonder if they're finding anything good or if the terrorists are too slick. I have to think the terrorists are pretty slick, and how do you deal with a signal/noise ratio of 50 terrorists / 280,000,00 people? Seriously, folks, if that can be accomplised via today's technology, that is very very scary. Noone who has power willingly gives it up.
Well I don't use an insulin pump, (knock wood) but I have flown five times since You Know When. The security thing with airplanes has always annoyed me. Why is it that I can hop on a train with complete ease, possibly even buying a ticket from a conductor, but air travel has all these extra hoops you jump through?
Anyway, that was the question I used to ask myself, in the Pre-Apocalyptic Era. Now, I have to tack on, what was the purpose of all those security checks in the first place if they didn't stop 9/11?
But there IS an upside: You no longer have assholes bringing their rolly-cart laptop case, a regular suitcase, and one of those garment baggie things on as carryons. It's horrifying, but from my perspective that's what 3,000 deaths has achieved: People obey the rules regarding carryons now. (That used to piss me off so much, when I'd be getting on the plane with my one measly carryon and I'd have to check it at the gate because people before me brought like three or four huge-ass carryons on.)
That and the fact that drinks were free for like a few weeks after 9/11 was nice. (I flew on 9/14, the day that the No-Fly Zone was lifted I think.)
As for the erosion/suspension of civil liberties, that has filled me with a nagging worry and FUD. I realize that it's pretty unlikely that I am the next Enemy Combatant, but I'm quite aware that if our Maximum Leader decides I am, I'll spend the rest of my life in jail. That *scares* me. Being scared of what our government can do and will do to its own citizens (as if I wasn't after Waco and Ruby Ridge) -- it's tough to quantify, as is evident from most comments here, but it definitely affects me. Mostly it makes me dream about moving to a smaller, less prominent country in the southern hemisphere called New Zealand.
One more thing about airport security: On my last flight I had an unopened bottle of champagne in my carryon. We never got around to drinking it after the wedding; I figured that security would take it from me, but they didn't. Are they really supposed to let you through with big glass bottles that could easily become sharp jagged edged knives? Another friend at the wedding had one of those credit-card sized metal multifunction tools in his wallet,with a screwdriver and box wrench and a sharp edge. Security told him: "Some security guards might not let you take this on the plane. But I'm going to let you take it on." Hello???
I think that the major airlines were criminally negligent when they formed little companies to pay immigrants eight bucks an hour to provide security. All in the name of saving a few bucks, and making shareholders happy. Those bastard CEOs should be held criminally accountable, which will probably never happen. But I bet when the lawsuits come, American and United are going down, while the execs cry all the way to the bank. Not even 9/11 can change Business as Usual.
- Art of War
is still relevant thousands of years later.Some people just hit the nail on the head, that's all.
I'm not sure if the comment about North Dakota is true.. even if it is, turing N.D. into a wind farm is, well, that's a *lot* of windmills. North Dakota is like 1,000,000,000 times larger than like your average Quake level.
But this brings up another problem, which is that we don't have superconducting power lines. I haven't actually done (can't actually do) the math, but you lose juice when you ship power from North Dakota to New York. I really have no idea how much you lose, but I think it's a lot, to the point that it's really not worth it to try to generate power that's 2,000 miles away. BUT if we had superconducting power lines, there would be no loss, and the USA could actually sell energy to Denmark or what have you.
Does anyone know how much power is lost just in transmitting power from one place to another? I would really love to know. All I know is that they use really high voltages because resistance does down as voltage goes up. Anyone?
I can't remember where I saw the shirt. It might have been when I was at H2K, or it might have just been some guy I saw somewhere.
It was a totally awesome T-shirt though, I wish I had one.
Simple, brand name
r t
This is correct. Microsoft's genius lies in the marketing. Not that their products are all terrible, and thrive ONLY because of marketing, but marketing got them and keeps them where they are today.
Microsoft's corporate sales pitch deliberately glosses over the technical side of things. The corporate execs aren't technical people anyway, so why try to explain the benefits of a product in technical terms that only a select few understand? No, Microsoft invented the term "TCO" (Total Cost of Ownership) and sold the concept that Microsoft was the less costly way to go. Execs understand the concept of money very well. Everyone responds to emotional sales pitches (unless they are Noam Chomsky or something). Through a combination of $$$ claims about lower TCO and carefully placed FUD, they have established a dominant position on the LANs they were merely clients on ten years ago.
Another thing Microsoft realized is that computers would be everywhere, and they wouldn't always be under the control of UNIX admins with pocket protectors and advanced CS degrees. There just aren't enough uber-geeks to go around for all the offices in the world. Billiant foresight. It might be the CFO who suddenly finds the company has grown and now they need to bring the network back under control. Microsoft has hands down the slickest sales materials I've seen in the computer field.
Microsoft sells a culture, a lifestyle, in which you don't have to worry about computer problems because there are teeming millions of MCSEs and phone support and etc. to hold your hand through whatever problems may arise. And in fact this is true. Microsoft will smile and nod and politely empty your wallet.
A few months ago, there was a story on Slashdot about MS sending the BSA after school districts in the Northwest. After the admins got into a tizzy and threated to install Linux everywhere, Microsoft had the Come to Jesus meeting. "The themes for today are friendly and flexible," the sales lady said. It's the classic good cop/bad cop routine, a pure psychology play, and Microsoft knows their shit in this regard. Geeks, being socially stunted and sexually frustrated, are putty in Microsoft's hands, especially when the nice woman in the business suit shows up to put down the rebellion.
That is how Microsoft has achieved their monopoly. Unlike the other computer companies, they don't try to sell the technology itself. Instead they sell the REWARDS of implementing a Microsoft solution, they sell a warm fuzzy bundle of love, a pre-made community of smiling, personable non-geeks who are there to ease your assimilation into the Collective.
Microsoft was the first to bring big-time Madison Avenue marketing psychology to an exponentially growing computer market, that's why they're on top now.
This T-shirt I saw said it best:
Political <---------- You are here
Presentation
Session
Application
Transpo
Network
Data link
Physical
Many people think it stands for
Spelling InCorrect. It doesn't really mean that, but it might as well.
Myabe you should get a Sony Clie PEG-SJ30. It really has a nice screen, 320 x 320, with proper backlighting and everything. Here in USA, the Palm m130 is like $250 and the Sony PEG-SJ30 is $300. Definitely worth the extra 50 bucks if you ask me.
Tech plummets in value so fast, I would return the m130 and reinvest in something newer.
So, which elephant to I have to copy in order to get, uh, punished??
Signed,
CmdrTaco
Dude: Go buy Bejeweled. Quit being a cheap ass and pay the twenty bucks or whatever.
Your wife will probably think it's sweet if you go out and buy Bejeweled for her, too.
The Napster CEO used to work for Berteslsmann, and the judge suspects a conflict of interest.
Whoa, man. I haven't been paying much attention to this whole case, but...
Bertelsmann was trying to pull off the Coen Brother's "The Hudsucker Proxy" with Napster???
Napster. You know, for kids!
You have hit upon The Myth of Progess, one of the necessary elements of Western Civilization. Or as Voltaire would say "This is the best of all possible worlds!" (from Candide, for those who haven't read it.)
Did you know that kids in school NEED their cell phones today? What's up with that? When I was a kid, which wasn't so long ago, if there was an emergency your parents would call the school and the school would track you down.
Sure, cellphones have had some positive benefits. For example, Finland has an economy now because of cellphones. But how are we actually BETTER OFF being able to instantly call anyone or be called anywhere?
Remember pay phones? They are dying faster than FreeBSD because noone needs them anymore, everyone has a cell phone.. Personally I liked pay phones, and you hackers should too since your 300bps acoustic coupled modem will get the job done anonymously from a pay phone.
Remember when if a pager went off in a movie or theater it was because the person getting paged was ACTUALLY A DOCTOR and had to do save someone's life right away? What makes ubiquitous synchronous communication So Freakin' Great That EVERYONE Has To Have It? I was on vacation a few weeks ago and it took me three days to really be at peace with not checking my email. What's up with that?
Cellphones might give us freedom, but then you lose your cell phone with everyone's phone numbers in it and you're back in the stone age. As much freedom as your phone gives you, it's that much of a tether too.
But don't take my word for it, listen to some Stereolab:
(insert HTML for mucical notes here)
We communicate more and more
In more defined ways than ever before
But no one has got anything to say
It's all very poor it's all just a bore
Someone has got to make the difference
Between the seeming and the meaning
The seeming over runs the meaning
Amen and Amen.
I would write more, but I'm smoking b0ng h1ts and my response wouldn't be very sesnical.
\
Someone's gonna mod this comment down...oh well
But the war on drug *users* has been a great success! Our prison population is about four or five times what it was twenty years ago, thanks to mandatory minimums that send drug users off for 20 years for possession.
The standard by which the war on drugs is a raging success is: Correction Corporation of America. They are our nation's sixth-largest imprisoner, behind the Feds, California, FLA, and so on.
Even better, CCA has no motive to rehabilitate their prisoners, since that might reduce the recidivism rate. If they rehabilitated drug users, they might work themselves out of a job.
Follow the money, the war on drugs is just another way to fleece the tax base (like when prisoners are mistreated at a private prison, the state who sent them to prison has to pay the damages, because the corporate entity is shielded.)
Check out nomoreprisons.org for more info. Not that I agree with all of what they have to say.
And kudos to America, the Land of Opportunity. The land where the same people who brought you the ease and convenience of the Colonel's Original Recipe saw that the War on Drugs created a market for privatised, for-profit prisons.
I use my computer to:
Read Slashdot and Hotmail
Look at pr0n and other cool web sites
Play computer games
Listen to MP3s that I download from Kazaa.
Occasionally some "computing" happens there but my broadband-connected computer is basically a TV replacement device.
Now, I would never buy a mass-market PC like HP or Dell for home use (though I recommend Dell to non-geeks looking for a system) but I can totally see how some fool might buy one of these things, based on the media blitz we'll see around XMas.
In the inevitable lawsuits, HP will be left holding the bag while Microsoft laughs all the way to the bank. It amazes me that there are still companies gullible enough to partner with Microsoft on hardware. (Like have you seen Nvidia's stock lately?)
What other company was named after its founder's penis?
(this is just too easy...)
WANG
Didn't you hear President Bush on Labor Day? He said that we have the Best Workers In The World.
To me, that sounds like something you would hear in a Communist country.
Well, I have 128 MB graphics card running at 350 MHz or something. What I would like to do is use that ram and idle cycles to work on folding@home or something like that.
There has to be some kind of seti-style challenge which could be optimized for the types of calculations that a good graphics card does. Anyone?
Are there ways of communicating to management that long hours to rush a project to completion is not the way to complete a successful project?
Quitting might get the message across. But, management may choose to be oblivious, that's their perogative.
Also, you have to realize that "successful" may mean something completely different to management than it does to a developer. Successful to a dev means the nasty bugs are gone and the product performs the intended functions. Successful to management might mean that they finally got the thing out the door just in time to capture a high-profile customer that was being romanced by the competition, and we can worry about the bugs later.
There are lots of people who are happy to put in 80 hours a week (Microsofties for example) but it doesn't sound like you're in that position. Putting in overtime because you love your job is one thing, "required" overtime is different.
Your well-worded voluntary resignation, quoting the "15 hours a day," and CCd to your State Attorney General will get the message across.
Something is fucked up in the world with the death of a human being is compaied to what happened to JAVA.
No offense to the deceased, who are already dead and won't be reading this so I don't know why I bother with the disclaimer:
Human beings are cheap and plentiful. Especially the brown ones. Java, on the other hand, is worth more than most people.
To give you an example, the FAA has this formula when they want to decide if a defect on a plane has to be fixed. They figure out the chances that the defect will cause a crash, and how likely it is that people will die from this defect. Each death has a cost of around three million dollars. They run the numbers, and if it would cost too much vs. the risk for all the airlines to, say, keep the center fuel tanks from exploding, then the advisory doesn't go out.
Or, as Stalin said: One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.
Get over it, people have a quantifiable cash value, and few people are worth as much as what java was trying to offer.
Personally, I tend to agree that something is fucked up in the world. Unfortunately, moral outrage doesn't speak as loudly as cold, hard cash. Everyone has their price.
It's hardly significant which side fired the first shot
To Greedo, tell that!
-- Yoda