Sorry, but you are the one doing the rationalization. (seriously, you thought we needed a definition of "rationalize"? What is this, middle-school?)
Your argument makes as much sense as saying it is evil to buy diamonds, as that makes diamonds more rare, which just increases their value, which provides more money to dealers of blood diamonds.
The fact that you claim that "if everyone tried to sell the stock, the value would crash and the company would go under" really shows that you simply don't understand how stocks work. The stock price could drop to zero, and the balance sheet could still be solidly in the black (although this would be extremely unlikely). Again, you mistake cause and effect: The stock price is a reflection of how well the company is doing....it does not influence how well the company is doing.
If everyone tried to sell the stock, the price would plummet, some other corporation would take them over, and they would continue to do exactly the same things. You cannot control companies by failing to invest in them.
By investing in a company however, you can then vote on various corporate actions. With enough investment, some policies can be swayed by threatening to sell (and thereby potentially initiating a takeover bid)
Why is Bill Gates comparing himself to a corporation like Google?
FFS, can you people bother to RTFA?
Say it with me: RTFA
Once more, all together now: READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE!
He didn't compare himself to Google, he was specifically asked to comment on Google's internet-blimp initiative and whether he thought it would help poorer countries.
Stupid sensationalist summary begets stupid irrelevant comments. Another typical day on Slashdot.....
You may prefer not to go into management, but someone does need to do it.
Someone also has to empty the trash bins at night, but they don't get 2-3x the compensation of a typical developer.
I've worked for good managers. I've worked for terrible managers. I've worked for mostly absent managers. The one variable I've noticed that is a better predictor of success than anything else: how good is the team?
Even if some developers think that project can complete itself organically with no managerial coordination.
I don't know any developers that think this. However, I do think that a good development team can complete a project with minimal managerial coordination.
Lord Farquaad of course. He sent Shrek on the quest, married the woman he wanted, and did it will all the evil pointy-haired management techniques required by modern business.
His big mistake was failing to invest in appropriate levels of dragon defense.
It depends. I have generated 'applications' by ticking some switches and letting a program spit out an application based on that. Was I engaged in programming at the time? Hardly. Just using a program for its intended use.
No, but your original post indicated that someone who is a "web programmer" is not really a programmer.
Now you are saying "it depends".
I've never seen a job posting for a "web programmer" that did not involve actual programming. Your definition makes no sense.
People dont give a shit how a structurally sound a bridge is constructed either, only a tiny tiny % of its users do
Bullshit. I don't know anyone who doesn't care whether a bridge is structurally sound. I know a number of users that assume the bridges they drive over are structurally sound however.
And WTF does this have to do with anything anyway? Companies that build bridges care whether those bridges are structurally sound, as they can face litigation and huge damages if the are not.
I'm guessing Google doesn't care whether they use open-source as they don't see any cost-benefit to doing so.
However, as person Y gets older, they see they want goal A.
They start to work towards that, perhaps giving up on getting married early, and working 2x jobs so they can make up for lost education, but they learn and work harder to get to learn physics, and then, they too can attain Goal A.
Unfortunately that's not the way it works. More and more we are finding that our environment plays a huge role in the development of children. Having started out with things like:
1) parents who drink / smoke / do drugs during pregnancy, 2) emotional and/or physical abuse, 3) poor nutrition 4) poor education
etc, many people are physically incapable later in life of obtaining Goal A, when it was entirely possible they would have done so from birth if raised in a different environment.
Yes, of course there are the tail-ends of the bell curve where little Johnny is raised in squalor and goes on to to become a successful lawyer, but these are the exceptions, not the rule.
I agree with the GP. Society should work to ensure that everyone has the as close a "starting point" as we can reasonably ensure. It is in our own best interest. To do otherwise simply ensures that the % of low income & uneducated people will continue to rise, and our overall standard of living will continue to drop.
If you assume that the local users on your machine are potentially going to try to steal your passwords, you should also assume that they are going to potentially put in the required effort to get around a scheme like this
I see. So the choices are; 1) Make it harder to get at these passwords 2) Don't
One of these choices is more secure than the other.
It is also fairly trivial to get past the door locks on most houses. I don't advocate that people remove their door locks for this reason.
I don't think people realize that
The passwords are encrypted on disk.
The key for the encryption )on Windows at least) is the user's account... so Chrome can transparently decrypt them as long as you're logged in, for user convenience, though in this case it gives the appearance of not being encrypted.
Chrome MUST be able to store the passwords in a decryptable form so it can USE them, like you asked it to!
Fantastic. I don't think that you realize that the issue people are concerned about is that Chrome will easily display these password in plain text to any user who happens to sit down at an unlocked computer.
Now to some of the silly supporters of this bizarre behavior: If I have access to an unlocked user account, I can already: install keyloggers, corupt data, pwn their machine, rape their dog, etc... Yes, yes you could. But just as there are different levels of security, there are different levels of "hackers". Not everyone out there is a l33t haxor who can own your PC with nothing more than a paper clip, a rubber band and an old FM radio. Security is also intended to stop "casual hackers". A "friend" who is just borrowing your browser for a few minutes. A neighbor who just dropped by and needs to check their email quickly. Your soon to be ex-spouse who wants to check up on what sites you've been visiting...etc. Having a UAC prompt / sudo prompt would at least stop these casual users from finding all your passwords in plain text.
If the browser stores the password, someone could just log onto the site and change it Yes, but unless they: (1) validated the password change in email, (2) deleted the email notifying the user of password change, (3) changed the browser to have the new password stored, the user would likely notice the change pretty quick. I know I'd notice password changes of this type when my (a) phone, (b) laptop, (c) other PC all stopped being able to access the site that was changed.
People shouldn't store their passwords in the browser....they should use: [insert favorite password storage site here] Agreed. But in this case, Google should just remove the feature and redirect the user to one of those sites.
The way they have it implemented is: (a) stupid (b) insecure and (c) dishonest as their messages imply that passwords are stored securely.
And their idiotic defense of this behavior makes me wonder if Google even bothers hiring security-aware people at all. It concerns me enough that even though I don't store passwords in any browser, I'm uninstalling Chrome when I get home. If they are this lax about basic password security, I am very worried about what other stupid security policies they have in Chrome.
No, that is not the way it works at all. The requirement is as follows:
The law requires H-1B workers to be paid the higher of the prevailing wage for the same occupation and geographic location, or the same as the employer pays to similarly situated employees
There are a number of other requirements, but this is the one that is supposed to make it simply "not worth it" to hire H1B workers if there are qualified domestic workers available.
The problem is that companies typically ignore this rule entirely, or get around it by hiring an external worker for some junior IT position, then passing them off (and billing them out) at client sites as senior specialists
Interesting. So if she asked for pay of a million dollars they don't have to employ her, but they can't apply for H1B visas for that position either?
No, but in this case (if you read the court documents linked to from TFA), they didn't even bother to offer her a position.
The point of H1B visa regulations is that you can't hire outside workers for a position without first attempting to fill the position locally at standard market rates and/or the rates at which you currently pay domestic workers performing the same job.
So if someone writes a desktop application that accesses data from a database, performs some business validation on it, and presents it to the user, then they are a programmer.
But if they do exactly the same thing and present it to the user in a web page, they are not?
If you are working for all of your money, you simply aren't middle class and weren't ever really. That's just a lie that people in power like to tell to keep the huddling masses from getting discontent.
This is a very good definition, but unfortunately (at least where I live), many people simply make the choice not to be middle class in favor of lifestyle.
Now, I'm in a reasonably well off "economic bubble" city, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt, but....
Many of the people I work around have 2400+ sq foot houses, 2 expensive (40K+) cars, re-modelled kitchens, multiple cell phone plans (at $80+ a pop), gadgets galore, all brand-name clothing, take 1-2 out of country vacations per year, and some even own vacation property.
Yet they live in debt.
They allow their money to actively work against them, which astonishes me.
Why are people constantly lined up a starbucks to pay $5+ for a cup of coffee? Are name-brand clothes so much better than Wal-Mart that they are worth 3-4x the price? Do they really need a data plan on your cell phone for $80 a month? etc. etc. etc.
As much as we like to blame: the president, the government, big banks, wall street, global economy, immigration policies, etc for the current financial situation, at least where I am, I see the biggest issue being: people themselves.
1) You have to double the estimate of your Software Engineer. In MBA school they taught us to always double the software guy's estimate. 2) You haven't included any quality assurance!?! At least another $120k for a good QA team, plus the tools necessary for automated testing. 3) You've got 3 people on the team now, so you should include a PM. That's another $240k at least. 4) And you'll need a business analyst. Luckily, it should be easy to find one who isn't so "morality constrained". Say another $180k for them.
Just to be on the safe side, you should overestimate everything by 50% (yes, I know we already doubled the dev estimate, but this is what Joe's MBA School of Mastering Business Administration and Cheap Web Hosting taught me).
So overall, the cost is: Software Engineer: 240K Elecrical Engineer: 120K QA: 120K PM: 240K BA: 180K Subtotal: 900K Total (add 50% for good luck): 1.3 Million.
Now you should add 15-20% per year for support/maintenance, etc. So it's 1.3 Million capital outlay, plus $260,000 per year.
Sensationalist headline & summary tries to give the impression that the car was hacked remotely.
RTFA and it says:
"Okay, now your brakes work again,” Miller says, tapping on a beat-up MacBook connected by a cable to an inconspicuous data port near the parking brake.
Likely they were hooking up to the OBD plug.
Seriously, is this really an issue? Once someone has physical access to the vehicle, they can do all sorts of nasty things...most of which require substantially less technology and computer know-how than a hacker using a MacBook.
I'm hoping the car industry spends the minimum effort fixing this problem, by applying the obvious solution: a) Put a friggin' lock on the ODB plug. b) Put the ODB plug under the hood.
Really? You seriously believe companies get money from investing in their stocks? Wow.
Companies receive no money from stock other than from the initial IPO. Honestly, look it up.
Actually, I'll do it for you: From: Investopedia: "Companies receive money from the securities market only when they first sell a security to the public....In the subsequent trading of these shares on the secondary market (what most refer to as "the stock market"), it is the regular investors buying and selling the stock who benefit from any appreciation in stock price."
From: UpDown.com "The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq are the major secondary markets in the United States. On these exchanges, investors trade stocks that they already own, and the company which initially issued new stock doesn't receive any additional money from this activity."
I'm actually quite shocked that someone wouldn't know this....
They could still get very good returns without helping out companies that pollute the world.
Ok, I'll bite. Please explain how buying stocks "helps out companies".
Yes, it may help out the shareholders, which typically include senior exec's and board members. But it also rarely provides any direct benefit to the company.
The Gates Foundation holding stock in these companies is about as evil as the Smithsonian holding an artifact of Genghis Khan's.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, but the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence".
Among developed countries, the US has one of the worst social mobility stats.
Strangely, their neighbor to the north has one of the best....even though the standard of living in each country is very similar.
Weird.
No but if we can't find anyone to run the NSA who is (moral || lawful), I'd pick (Incompetent) any day.
And Hot.
Yes, can the next Director of the NSA please be: (Incompetent && Hot)
-a^2 = -(a^2)
Order of operations....
Sorry, but you are the one doing the rationalization. (seriously, you thought we needed a definition of "rationalize"? What is this, middle-school?)
Your argument makes as much sense as saying it is evil to buy diamonds, as that makes diamonds more rare, which just increases their value, which provides more money to dealers of blood diamonds.
The fact that you claim that "if everyone tried to sell the stock, the value would crash and the company would go under" really shows that you simply don't understand how stocks work. The stock price could drop to zero, and the balance sheet could still be solidly in the black (although this would be extremely unlikely). Again, you mistake cause and effect: The stock price is a reflection of how well the company is doing....it does not influence how well the company is doing.
If everyone tried to sell the stock, the price would plummet, some other corporation would take them over, and they would continue to do exactly the same things. You cannot control companies by failing to invest in them.
By investing in a company however, you can then vote on various corporate actions. With enough investment, some policies can be swayed by threatening to sell (and thereby potentially initiating a takeover bid)
FFS, can you people bother to RTFA?
Say it with me: RTFA
Once more, all together now: READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE!
He didn't compare himself to Google, he was specifically asked to comment on Google's internet-blimp initiative and whether he thought it would help poorer countries.
Stupid sensationalist summary begets stupid irrelevant comments. Another typical day on Slashdot.....
Someone also has to empty the trash bins at night, but they don't get 2-3x the compensation of a typical developer.
I've worked for good managers. I've worked for terrible managers. I've worked for mostly absent managers. The one variable I've noticed that is a better predictor of success than anything else: how good is the team?
I don't know any developers that think this. However, I do think that a good development team can complete a project with minimal managerial coordination.
Lord Farquaad of course. He sent Shrek on the quest, married the woman he wanted, and did it will all the evil pointy-haired management techniques required by modern business.
His big mistake was failing to invest in appropriate levels of dragon defense.
Did you not watch the same movie I did?
No, but your original post indicated that someone who is a "web programmer" is not really a programmer.
Now you are saying "it depends".
I've never seen a job posting for a "web programmer" that did not involve actual programming. Your definition makes no sense.
Bullshit. I don't know anyone who doesn't care whether a bridge is structurally sound. I know a number of users that assume the bridges they drive over are structurally sound however.
And WTF does this have to do with anything anyway?
Companies that build bridges care whether those bridges are structurally sound, as they can face litigation and huge damages if the are not.
I'm guessing Google doesn't care whether they use open-source as they don't see any cost-benefit to doing so.
Unfortunately that's not the way it works. More and more we are finding that our environment plays a huge role in the development of children. Having started out with things like:
1) parents who drink / smoke / do drugs during pregnancy,
2) emotional and/or physical abuse,
3) poor nutrition
4) poor education
etc, many people are physically incapable later in life of obtaining Goal A, when it was entirely possible they would have done so from birth if raised in a different environment.
Yes, of course there are the tail-ends of the bell curve where little Johnny is raised in squalor and goes on to to become a successful lawyer, but these are the exceptions, not the rule.
I agree with the GP. Society should work to ensure that everyone has the as close a "starting point" as we can reasonably ensure. It is in our own best interest. To do otherwise simply ensures that the % of low income & uneducated people will continue to rise, and our overall standard of living will continue to drop.
I see. So the choices are;
1) Make it harder to get at these passwords
2) Don't
One of these choices is more secure than the other.
It is also fairly trivial to get past the door locks on most houses. I don't advocate that people remove their door locks for this reason.
Fantastic. I don't think that you realize that the issue people are concerned about is that Chrome will easily display these password in plain text to any user who happens to sit down at an unlocked computer.
Now to some of the silly supporters of this bizarre behavior:
If I have access to an unlocked user account, I can already: install keyloggers, corupt data, pwn their machine, rape their dog, etc...
Yes, yes you could. But just as there are different levels of security, there are different levels of "hackers". Not everyone out there is a l33t haxor who can own your PC with nothing more than a paper clip, a rubber band and an old FM radio. Security is also intended to stop "casual hackers". A "friend" who is just borrowing your browser for a few minutes. A neighbor who just dropped by and needs to check their email quickly. Your soon to be ex-spouse who wants to check up on what sites you've been visiting...etc. Having a UAC prompt / sudo prompt would at least stop these casual users from finding all your passwords in plain text.
If the browser stores the password, someone could just log onto the site and change it
Yes, but unless they: (1) validated the password change in email, (2) deleted the email notifying the user of password change, (3) changed the browser to have the new password stored, the user would likely notice the change pretty quick. I know I'd notice password changes of this type when my (a) phone, (b) laptop, (c) other PC all stopped being able to access the site that was changed.
People shouldn't store their passwords in the browser....they should use: [insert favorite password storage site here]
Agreed. But in this case, Google should just remove the feature and redirect the user to one of those sites.
The way they have it implemented is:
(a) stupid
(b) insecure
and
(c) dishonest as their messages imply that passwords are stored securely.
And their idiotic defense of this behavior makes me wonder if Google even bothers hiring security-aware people at all. It concerns me enough that even though I don't store passwords in any browser, I'm uninstalling Chrome when I get home. If they are this lax about basic password security, I am very worried about what other stupid security policies they have in Chrome.
Of course Apple isn't the next Microsoft
Microsoft used shady business practices to destroy competitors and thereby screw the customer.
Apple cuts out the middle-man, and just screws the customer directly.
No, that is not the way it works at all. The requirement is as follows:
There are a number of other requirements, but this is the one that is supposed to make it simply "not worth it" to hire H1B workers if there are qualified domestic workers available.
The problem is that companies typically ignore this rule entirely, or get around it by hiring an external worker for some junior IT position, then passing them off (and billing them out) at client sites as senior specialists
No, but in this case (if you read the court documents linked to from TFA), they didn't even bother to offer her a position.
The point of H1B visa regulations is that you can't hire outside workers for a position without first attempting to fill the position locally at standard market rates and/or the rates at which you currently pay domestic workers performing the same job.
So if someone writes a desktop application that accesses data from a database, performs some business validation on it, and presents it to the user, then they are a programmer.
But if they do exactly the same thing and present it to the user in a web page, they are not?
I don't understand your definitions.
No, of course not. When I said "live in debt", I literally mean many people have negative net worth, not that that have a mortgage.
Some debt is okay
Some kinds of debt can be smart (eg rental properties)
Too much debt (especially when debt > assets) is stupid
This is a very good definition, but unfortunately (at least where I live), many people simply make the choice not to be middle class in favor of lifestyle.
Now, I'm in a reasonably well off "economic bubble" city, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt, but....
Many of the people I work around have 2400+ sq foot houses, 2 expensive (40K+) cars, re-modelled kitchens, multiple cell phone plans (at $80+ a pop), gadgets galore, all brand-name clothing, take 1-2 out of country vacations per year, and some even own vacation property.
Yet they live in debt.
They allow their money to actively work against them, which astonishes me.
Why are people constantly lined up a starbucks to pay $5+ for a cup of coffee? Are name-brand clothes so much better than Wal-Mart that they are worth 3-4x the price? Do they really need a data plan on your cell phone for $80 a month? etc. etc. etc.
As much as we like to blame: the president, the government, big banks, wall street, global economy, immigration policies, etc for the current financial situation, at least where I am, I see the biggest issue being: people themselves.
Ahh...but you are forgetting a few things:
1) You have to double the estimate of your Software Engineer. In MBA school they taught us to always double the software guy's estimate.
2) You haven't included any quality assurance!?! At least another $120k for a good QA team, plus the tools necessary for automated testing.
3) You've got 3 people on the team now, so you should include a PM. That's another $240k at least.
4) And you'll need a business analyst. Luckily, it should be easy to find one who isn't so "morality constrained". Say another $180k for them.
Just to be on the safe side, you should overestimate everything by 50% (yes, I know we already doubled the dev estimate, but this is what Joe's MBA School of Mastering Business Administration and Cheap Web Hosting taught me).
So overall, the cost is:
Software Engineer: 240K
Elecrical Engineer: 120K
QA: 120K
PM: 240K
BA: 180K
Subtotal: 900K
Total (add 50% for good luck): 1.3 Million.
Now you should add 15-20% per year for support/maintenance, etc. So it's 1.3 Million capital outlay, plus $260,000 per year.
Pretty pricy, but still....it's cheaper than SAP.
Then don't be a dick. The developers you've worked with may have been asshats, but that doesn't mean the "typical" developer is.
Sensationalist headline & summary tries to give the impression that the car was hacked remotely.
RTFA and it says:
Likely they were hooking up to the OBD plug.
Seriously, is this really an issue? Once someone has physical access to the vehicle, they can do all sorts of nasty things...most of which require substantially less technology and computer know-how than a hacker using a MacBook.
I'm hoping the car industry spends the minimum effort fixing this problem, by applying the obvious solution:
a) Put a friggin' lock on the ODB plug.
b) Put the ODB plug under the hood.
Requiring the ODB plug to be within 2 feet of the steering column was a stupid stupid decision.
You are just wrong. Stock price / investments have nothing to do with the companies capital.
Please, spread your ignorance elsewhere. The internets are already full.
Really? You seriously believe companies get money from investing in their stocks? Wow.
Companies receive no money from stock other than from the initial IPO. Honestly, look it up.
Actually, I'll do it for you:
From: Investopedia:
"Companies receive money from the securities market only when they first sell a security to the public....In the subsequent trading of these shares on the secondary market (what most refer to as "the stock market"), it is the regular investors buying and selling the stock who benefit from any appreciation in stock price."
From: UpDown.com
"The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq are the major secondary markets in the United States. On these exchanges, investors trade stocks that they already own, and the company which initially issued new stock doesn't receive any additional money from this activity."
I'm actually quite shocked that someone wouldn't know this....
Ok, I'll bite. Please explain how buying stocks "helps out companies".
Yes, it may help out the shareholders, which typically include senior exec's and board members. But it also rarely provides any direct benefit to the company.
The Gates Foundation holding stock in these companies is about as evil as the Smithsonian holding an artifact of Genghis Khan's.
Yes, they own stocks in those companies. Now please explain how this is relevant?
You do realize that companies do not get any direct benefit from the sales of shares, don't you?