... who expect to earn $200k a year when that isn't really feasible most of the time. The education requirements to become decent DBA will be a few years in a robust environment, plus a few months of courses, and voila!
It's not the same regimen as 8 years of medical school, 4 years of residency, $300,000 in student loans and years of practicing before you earn that much....
So you are saying that the only thing that should matter with pay is how hard it is to get "qualified" and years of experience (ie barriers to entry), not market demand, nor skill,... that is a really screwed up world view.
What about the people who are naturally good at something. Some people will have more skill/intelligence/... than others several years their senior.
Under capitalism (even one as heavily distorted as we have), you are paid what you are "worth". If writing a good database can bring $200K/year benefit to the company then it is reasonable to pay them that much.
The problem is society has started to believe your world view that employees should be paid nothing, but it is reasonable for a CEO to earn 30-100x more than a low level employee. Sure a CEO can have a huge effect on the bottom line, but they don't do that without help of those beneath them (yet they think it is ok for them to reap all the benefits). Every worker in the whole economy should be having higher expectations relative to those at the top. We shouldn't be letting them get away with it.
Also the entitlement isn't just in IT. It is far worse in the other professions. "If I go to an ivy league school, then do an MBA then I should be middle management and easily earning 200K+" etc etc
That's a very unemotional and informative analysis you have done there. I feel so much more enlightened from reading it. And what language should I code in, that does not "suck ass" and is a suitable substitution?
Personally of all the languages I have been made to code in, C# has been amongst the least sucky.
Credit cards cost money to use. You don't normally see it so people forget that it's not free. But the stores have to pay to process transactions and that cost gets passed to the consumers. At some places the price difference is made obvious (ie, gasoline is usually cheaper with cash). So when I use a credit card it is for things where cash is more inconvenient than normal, or for large transactions. But you can use credit cards for most things in the US, even grocery stores.
Tell that to my backup credit card bank. I have no other account with them. There is no annual fee on the card. It doesn't cost me a cent if I pay back in interest free period (30 days).
Had it 4 years now, and it has never cost me a cent.
Given corporations have legal personhood, the expression is valid.
If it is a movie reference, which one were you going for, because matrix is "the oracle" and my brain isn't coming up with any others because it's friday afternoon here.
Non-techies often giggle when I use the word "dongle". Can't we find a better word before HR hauls me in for alleged harassment?
Most people have settled on: "adapter", "converter" or any number of other equally valid choices that work for both tech and non tech people (remember the goal of language is to convey meaning, and dongle offers nothing extra over these words - unless you are talking standalone dongles eg for licensing etc)
Tesla doesn't make money by selling cars. They lose almost $7,000 average on each. They make money selling the carbon credits they earn by building the cars. It's a fake market; heavily subsidized.
Interestingly enough, they still sell cars in other markets where the subsidy you speak of does not exist. And demand still outstripping supply.
So it is not a fake market, it is a distorted market, (artificially shifted supply curve) but it will still be a market if the subsidy is removed (due to the seemingly inelastic demand curve due to people's desire to own status symbols etc).
We continue to find evidence of ancient life on Earth, and we haven't sanitized Earth. Should we stop and exterminate all current life on Earth first just to be on the safe side though?
If there's current life on Mars, odds are it's not going to be out-competed by mal-adapted Earth microbes either. And there'll be differences to tell them apart.
Because no foreign pest has ever out competed the native ones. Who says that all earth microbes would be mal-adapted? The whole point is we don't know what would and wouldn't work yet.
Let's see a car company disable your car for breaking their software license and see how long it takes for that to be outlawed.
Why would they do that when they could just disable the autopilot feature. Easy way to enforce it, leaves the user with a functional car and punishes the user.
Musk didn't get where he is by making stupid decisions (Note: stupid different to good/moral)
The more oppressive a government is, the more likely their name will include words like "people's", "republic", "democratic", "union", etc..
The republic of the united states of america, is therefore due for a name upgrade: The (rich) people's democratic republic of the unionised states of america.
The most oppressive form of government is one where you pretend to have freedom because then you yourself form part of the opression. Unfortunately at this stage most of us are in countries where we are being boiled like proverbial frogs.
Netflix could buy the rights for any show in any area. They just choose not to.
This isn't true at all. A lot of content has existing distribution deals in different regions, some of these may go back decades. Others are new deals but they can be in place before Netflix even has a chance to buy the content (bundled with broadcast rights to local TV networks, for example). I'm sure there is some content they could but chose not to buy the rights to in specific reasons, but it's definitely not "any show in any area".
Being pedantic but it is possible (but dumb) for them to buy any show in any area. They only need to buy the entire local TV network or whoever has the rights. Expensively stupid but possible.
So the answer isn't whether they can but whether they should.
This is supposedly a tech news site. There is no way that editing can accidentally be that shit. Malware in "Legitimate installer" - wow that is news. Click through to standard bullshit.
Things like this are a good way to drive away the readership. Only reason I still visit is that the community is still large enough to have interesting discussions around the articles (although the trolling etc is getting worse as time goes on)
(Just wish a few other alternatives would get more active communities)
Sawdust and ethics: again stop the reducto ad absurdum. McD is bad food, no argument there. But it is food. It is something humans can live (poorly) on. Sawdust is not. Compare apples with apples.
next - ethics and morals are subjective. Some people thing that those who would refuse to serve homosexuals are unethical but others would think they are very ethical. (and no I don't want to turn this into a what are the "correct" values thread - only to highlight that "correct" ethics are not universal).
I agree (as will most) that giving sawdust when promising food is not ethical as you did not follow through on your promise. Giving bad food when promising food (ie fulfilling promise but poorly) is still ethical. If the airline promised to fly me somewhere in exchange for money and they gave me a map instead of how to get to my destination that would be unethical. If they flew me to my destination in a rickety old plane and had no end of problems but they got me there - you cannot categorically call that unethical.
So conclusion McD are providing real working food. Not high quality but it is real working food. So they are acting ethically.
"Mandated" situations: You raised the point that anyone who promises something has some kind of moral mandate to follow through to some arbitrary level of quality. I put those points in there that if you say they should do it to this standard or not at all, they will choose not at all. The outcome then in this case is people who would otherwise get a free meal will now starve, so their offer is a net positive even if not done to the standard you like.
"customer elsewhere" You claim that if they can't afford McD they will shop elsewhere. Unfortunately not much is cheaper than McD - many of the customers in question may be reverting to either forgoing the meal entirely or "shopping" out of a dumpster of a restaurant or supermarket. I doubt the dumpster cares about loss of sales. The only way your argument holds water is if there are people who get the free lunch, but who otherwise could afford to eat elsewhere (a minority). Also if they are not spending this money on food, they have the money to spend elsewhere on other goods. So if this money is enough to make the difference in folding many local restaurants, then it could equally well be money that gets spent to keep other local shops afloat, as that money will be spent elsewhere. These people aren't going to leave this cash in a mattress. So this shouldn't be a negative point.
If we are to accept your argument, then by the same logic, any business who chooses to have a big sale should not do so from an ethical viewpoint because this may cause their competition to fold from lost sales as people take advantage of this big sale.
Why can't people see the positive side of this. Someone who is struggling is being given the chance to let their money go a bit further. Who knows, it may actually provide a way for someone to fight their way off the bottom rung of the social ladder and into a less miserable life (doubt it with the way the system is rigged against the poor). But let's criticise the help because of tangential weak arguments.
That's 0 / 2 from you mate. (although both for the same reason)
False, of course.
So you would see no problem in feeding people in homeless shelters bowls of boiled sawdust? There is no responsibility to feed people properly when you accept the responsibility to feed them?
What other things do you think you can do improperly after you've promised to do them?
This is all about opportunity cost. Situation 1 - they can't afford food. They go without food. Eventually they starve. Situation 2 - they can't afford food. But now they also have boiled sawdust. They go without food. Eventually they starve. Situation 3 - they can't afford food. Company is mandated to give top quality offering. Company decides not to pursue program. They go without food. Eventually they starve. Situation 4 - they can't afford food. Company provides low quality food. They get food. They get to eat and will not starve (although may have future health problems). Situation 5 - they can't afford food. Company is mandated to give top quality offering. Company does so for some inexplicable reason. They now have good food.
Yes I would find your reducto ad absurdum example okay, but useless, as they are in the same position (although if there is some other use for boiled sawdust they may have tangential benefits). If they are hungry enough to try to eat boiled sawdust, then they are probably desperate enough to be trying other equally stupid things for nutrients, again neither situation has a better outcome.
Of all possible outcomes I would prefer situation 4 (I would prefer 5 but in modern capitalism it is a fantasy)
Note also that "people who cannot afford to feed themselves" already do not eat at McDonald's.
When McDonalds feeds them for free they do. Do you really not remember that this entire discussion is about McD giving free lunches to people who qualify for free lunches?
Again opportunity cost principle.
Situation 1 - no program - person doesn't eat at McD - 0 sales to this person Situation 2 - program - person does eat at McD - still 0 sales to this person
This person is not someone who will ever be a paying customer was the OP's point.
Slashdot Mirror
... who expect to earn $200k a year when that isn't really feasible most of the time. The education requirements to become decent DBA will be a few years in a robust environment, plus a few months of courses, and voila!
It's not the same regimen as 8 years of medical school, 4 years of residency, $300,000 in student loans and years of practicing before you earn that much....
So you are saying that the only thing that should matter with pay is how hard it is to get "qualified" and years of experience (ie barriers to entry), not market demand, nor skill, ... that is a really screwed up world view.
What about the people who are naturally good at something. Some people will have more skill/intelligence/... than others several years their senior.
Under capitalism (even one as heavily distorted as we have), you are paid what you are "worth". If writing a good database can bring $200K/year benefit to the company then it is reasonable to pay them that much.
The problem is society has started to believe your world view that employees should be paid nothing, but it is reasonable for a CEO to earn 30-100x more than a low level employee. Sure a CEO can have a huge effect on the bottom line, but they don't do that without help of those beneath them (yet they think it is ok for them to reap all the benefits). Every worker in the whole economy should be having higher expectations relative to those at the top. We shouldn't be letting them get away with it.
Also the entitlement isn't just in IT. It is far worse in the other professions. "If I go to an ivy league school, then do an MBA then I should be middle management and easily earning 200K+" etc etc
C# just works.
Is that because the IDE now runs on Apple hardware? :P
Oh dear god please no. .net sucks ass.
That's a very unemotional and informative analysis you have done there. I feel so much more enlightened from reading it.
And what language should I code in, that does not "suck ass" and is a suitable substitution?
Personally of all the languages I have been made to code in, C# has been amongst the least sucky.
How many years experience do you have with touch strip?
So when it fails you won't be able to type emojis. Big loss.
I told her to root her phone,
In Australia when you use root as a verb it means to procreate. (yes this is a problem given how "gaining root access" is a more common discussion)
I now cannot get that image out of my head. Thanks for ruining my day.
And where there are merchant fees passed on, I use debit on primary account and still don't pay anything.
Bank makes all its money on my mortgage.
Credit cards cost money to use. You don't normally see it so people forget that it's not free. But the stores have to pay to process transactions and that cost gets passed to the consumers. At some places the price difference is made obvious (ie, gasoline is usually cheaper with cash). So when I use a credit card it is for things where cash is more inconvenient than normal, or for large transactions. But you can use credit cards for most things in the US, even grocery stores.
Tell that to my backup credit card bank.
I have no other account with them.
There is no annual fee on the card.
It doesn't cost me a cent if I pay back in interest free period (30 days).
Had it 4 years now, and it has never cost me a cent.
Given corporations have legal personhood, the expression is valid.
If it is a movie reference, which one were you going for, because matrix is "the oracle" and my brain isn't coming up with any others because it's friday afternoon here.
Non-techies often giggle when I use the word "dongle". Can't we find a better word before HR hauls me in for alleged harassment?
Most people have settled on: "adapter", "converter" or any number of other equally valid choices that work for both tech and non tech people (remember the goal of language is to convey meaning, and dongle offers nothing extra over these words - unless you are talking standalone dongles eg for licensing etc)
I'd rather have the opposite: a kit to give the new one a normal headphone jack.
You haven't seen the youtube video? You can do it yourself!
Tesla doesn't make money by selling cars. They lose almost $7,000 average on each. They make money selling the carbon credits they earn by building the cars. It's a fake market; heavily subsidized.
Interestingly enough, they still sell cars in other markets where the subsidy you speak of does not exist. And demand still outstripping supply.
So it is not a fake market, it is a distorted market, (artificially shifted supply curve) but it will still be a market if the subsidy is removed (due to the seemingly inelastic demand curve due to people's desire to own status symbols etc).
That key needs to die an ugly death.
I use it quite often for coding. sql keywords and constants. I would go nuts having to hold shift half the day.
We continue to find evidence of ancient life on Earth, and we haven't sanitized Earth. Should we stop and exterminate all current life on Earth first just to be on the safe side though?
If there's current life on Mars, odds are it's not going to be out-competed by mal-adapted Earth microbes either. And there'll be differences to tell them apart.
Because no foreign pest has ever out competed the native ones. Who says that all earth microbes would be mal-adapted? The whole point is we don't know what would and wouldn't work yet.
Banks establish trust by being a fucking Bank.
And they lost most of that with the GFC (yes I am including the finance industry in the term "Banks" because they are a home for our money too)
Let's see a car company disable your car for breaking their software license and see how long it takes for that to be outlawed.
Why would they do that when they could just disable the autopilot feature. Easy way to enforce it, leaves the user with a functional car and punishes the user.
Musk didn't get where he is by making stupid decisions (Note: stupid different to good/moral)
The more oppressive a government is, the more likely their name will include words like "people's", "republic", "democratic", "union", etc..
The republic of the united states of america, is therefore due for a name upgrade:
The (rich) people's democratic republic of the unionised states of america.
The most oppressive form of government is one where you pretend to have freedom because then you yourself form part of the opression. Unfortunately at this stage most of us are in countries where we are being boiled like proverbial frogs.
Netflix could buy the rights for any show in any area. They just choose not to.
This isn't true at all. A lot of content has existing distribution deals in different regions, some of these may go back decades. Others are new deals but they can be in place before Netflix even has a chance to buy the content (bundled with broadcast rights to local TV networks, for example). I'm sure there is some content they could but chose not to buy the rights to in specific reasons, but it's definitely not "any show in any area".
Being pedantic but it is possible (but dumb) for them to buy any show in any area. They only need to buy the entire local TV network or whoever has the rights. Expensively stupid but possible.
So the answer isn't whether they can but whether they should.
... they may lead to great ham in the wrong hands.
Someone is going to steal my prosciutto?
This is supposedly a tech news site.
There is no way that editing can accidentally be that shit. Malware in "Legitimate installer" - wow that is news. Click through to standard bullshit.
Things like this are a good way to drive away the readership. Only reason I still visit is that the community is still large enough to have interesting discussions around the articles (although the trolling etc is getting worse as time goes on)
(Just wish a few other alternatives would get more active communities)
Ok lets deal with these points now...
Sawdust and ethics:
again stop the reducto ad absurdum. McD is bad food, no argument there. But it is food. It is something humans can live (poorly) on. Sawdust is not. Compare apples with apples.
next - ethics and morals are subjective. Some people thing that those who would refuse to serve homosexuals are unethical but others would think they are very ethical. (and no I don't want to turn this into a what are the "correct" values thread - only to highlight that "correct" ethics are not universal).
I agree (as will most) that giving sawdust when promising food is not ethical as you did not follow through on your promise.
Giving bad food when promising food (ie fulfilling promise but poorly) is still ethical.
If the airline promised to fly me somewhere in exchange for money and they gave me a map instead of how to get to my destination that would be unethical. If they flew me to my destination in a rickety old plane and had no end of problems but they got me there - you cannot categorically call that unethical.
So conclusion McD are providing real working food. Not high quality but it is real working food. So they are acting ethically.
"Mandated" situations:
You raised the point that anyone who promises something has some kind of moral mandate to follow through to some arbitrary level of quality. I put those points in there that if you say they should do it to this standard or not at all, they will choose not at all. The outcome then in this case is people who would otherwise get a free meal will now starve, so their offer is a net positive even if not done to the standard you like.
"customer elsewhere"
You claim that if they can't afford McD they will shop elsewhere. Unfortunately not much is cheaper than McD - many of the customers in question may be reverting to either forgoing the meal entirely or "shopping" out of a dumpster of a restaurant or supermarket. I doubt the dumpster cares about loss of sales. The only way your argument holds water is if there are people who get the free lunch, but who otherwise could afford to eat elsewhere (a minority).
Also if they are not spending this money on food, they have the money to spend elsewhere on other goods. So if this money is enough to make the difference in folding many local restaurants, then it could equally well be money that gets spent to keep other local shops afloat, as that money will be spent elsewhere. These people aren't going to leave this cash in a mattress. So this shouldn't be a negative point.
If we are to accept your argument, then by the same logic, any business who chooses to have a big sale should not do so from an ethical viewpoint because this may cause their competition to fold from lost sales as people take advantage of this big sale.
Why can't people see the positive side of this. Someone who is struggling is being given the chance to let their money go a bit further. Who knows, it may actually provide a way for someone to fight their way off the bottom rung of the social ladder and into a less miserable life (doubt it with the way the system is rigged against the poor). But let's criticise the help because of tangential weak arguments.
No problem. Cameras can track people by their walk and any other number of ways.
Unfortunately your mum was right, you ARE a unique snowflake.
That's 0 / 2 from you mate. (although both for the same reason)
False, of course.
So you would see no problem in feeding people in homeless shelters bowls of boiled sawdust? There is no responsibility to feed people properly when you accept the responsibility to feed them?
What other things do you think you can do improperly after you've promised to do them?
This is all about opportunity cost.
Situation 1 - they can't afford food. They go without food. Eventually they starve.
Situation 2 - they can't afford food. But now they also have boiled sawdust. They go without food. Eventually they starve.
Situation 3 - they can't afford food. Company is mandated to give top quality offering. Company decides not to pursue program. They go without food. Eventually they starve.
Situation 4 - they can't afford food. Company provides low quality food. They get food. They get to eat and will not starve (although may have future health problems).
Situation 5 - they can't afford food. Company is mandated to give top quality offering. Company does so for some inexplicable reason. They now have good food.
Yes I would find your reducto ad absurdum example okay, but useless, as they are in the same position (although if there is some other use for boiled sawdust they may have tangential benefits). If they are hungry enough to try to eat boiled sawdust, then they are probably desperate enough to be trying other equally stupid things for nutrients, again neither situation has a better outcome.
Of all possible outcomes I would prefer situation 4 (I would prefer 5 but in modern capitalism it is a fantasy)
Note also that "people who cannot afford to feed themselves" already do not eat at McDonald's.
When McDonalds feeds them for free they do. Do you really not remember that this entire discussion is about McD giving free lunches to people who qualify for free lunches?
Again opportunity cost principle.
Situation 1 - no program - person doesn't eat at McD - 0 sales to this person
Situation 2 - program - person does eat at McD - still 0 sales to this person
This person is not someone who will ever be a paying customer was the OP's point.
It was prescient to know that his mistake would be pointed out, this being Slashdot
I'm going to wait for the fire sales
To be fair, with default fonts Slashdot has a keming problem.
Congratulations sir you win the internet.
You used their stupid k e r n i n g to make me read it correctly when you intentionally wrote k e m i n g.
And you used the word kerning. There is insufficient use of the word kerning in everyone's lives.