I don't know that it is high tech jobs, or legal pot, but odd things are definitely happening in Denver. We just refinanced our house after less than two years, and the value shot up by almost $100k. Thankfully we bought when we did, but I don't know how my kids will afford to live here in the future. The townhomes they are building a block away will go from $350-$650k! Denver proper is mostly landlocked so prices will continue to rise.
Traffic is awful and getting worse. Getting up to the mountains to play on the weekend has become a real chore. We leave for skiing at 5:30am to beat the traffic up I70. Driving in or out of the city during rush hour is completely awful.
The bad traffic has brought the return of toll roads on most of the regional highways that weren't already tolled. Even the interstates have or are getting toll/express lanes now. Be prepared to pay up for your commute.
One bright spot - after decades of wrangling, our light rail network is finally being expanded out to serve much more of the metro area. Even the cheaper suburbs will have rail access to downtown in a couple of years. (Not Boulder, they hate you, sorry).
Please bring your hipster programmer selves here so I can continue to have someone local to work for and keep feeding my 401k until retirement. Then I can sell my house for a small fortune and move out of this crazy town.
Despite a long history of sucking, I'm forced to admit that Samsung & AT&T have gotten a lot better about updates. I've been a Samsung customer since the pre-Android BlackJack Windows ME phone, and started cell carriers with Cingular.
My Samsung GS6 is currently on Android 5.1.1 ("security patch Feb 2016") and look, downloading a new update now.
I wholeheartedly disagree. The Space Shuttle program was an enormous financial boondoggle that had an average cost per flight of close to $2 BILLION each. The money and mind share consumed by the shuttle program were the greatest roadblock to private space industry and I thank God it is gone.
With the government no longer sucking all the air out of the room and competing with them, private industry is finally moving ahead. Now we need to cancel the next NASA financial boondoggle: SLS.
Yes, and back in the 1970s, we all believed the space shuttle would fly 50 times a year and save tons of money with their reusable architecture. I simply can't believe these pipe dreams anymore, especially when they are backed by a government bureaucracy.
Sorry Keith, but while I'm a big supporter, AFAICT Skylon remains a pipe dream. It may be slightly closer to reality with a bit more research funding, but it still exists only in a computer simulation. I've been reading about Skylon for something like 15-20 years now, and I'm not holding my breath.
Skylon needs an 'Elon Musk' to put real money into it and build a working prototype vehicle (not just an engine). Then it might be a game changer, but definitely not now.
I'm guessing the submitter is a lot younger than I am.
When I was in college, I could (and did) easily sleep to noon or 1pm on weekends when I didn't have to work. Now in my mid-40s, I usually wake up around 5am without an alarm clock, and average at best 6-7 hours per night. I would love to sleep more, but I just can't.
Meanwhile, I have a hard time getting my teenage daughters out of bed before 9 or 10am on the weekends. Grrr.
I've had my Varidesk Pro Plus 36" ( http://www.varidesk.com/ ) for about a month and I love it. They are relatively cheap, ~$350, easily adjustable, and I even got the boss the pay for it.
I've been sitting in front of a computer for a living for about 25 years now and definitely have my share of back issues. So far, I've worked up to alternating standing and sitting for 30 minutes at a time, although I sometimes get tired by about 3pm. Overall, the Varidesk is a great improvement over sitting all day, and I've not personally found any problems working/coding from a standing position.
Perfect California weather on intensely pre-mapped out roads = 'controlled conditions'. When the cars can navigate I70 through the Rockies during a blizzard in heavy ski season traffic, let me know.
Those of us who are colorblind often struggle with the default colors used in syntax highlighting. If you can (or bother to) adjust those, it can work, but colorized syntax highlighting on a white background can often be near invisible to me. It doesn't highlight at all, it HIDES the code.
Necron69
ps. Colorized 'ls' - red on black? Are you out of your f*cking mind!?
Several years ago, I fought tooth and nail over selecting the new test automation framework we were going to start using at work. I wanted a nice, modern, resume-building language like Python/Ruby/Java. What did they pick? - a legacy internal system written in Perl (and abandoned by the original author who had left the company).
Over the last year, I've become a moderately skilled, OO Perl programmer, and it's worth six figures to me. Good enough.:)
If you think one poorly trained 'teacher' is going to be able to control a classroom of 50 elementary students, you're going to have a bad time.
Studies have repeatedly shown that the number one factor in student performance isn't teachers or technology, it is the economic status of the student's families. In Denver Public Schools, where my wife teaches, greater than 50% of the students are non-native English speakers. You really think throwing a bunch of computers at them and taking away the teacher will help?
I really don't get the big deal over Facebook or other social media. The only thing there is what you put on it. For me the value of FB vastly outweighs any possible privacy concerns. I have my account pretty locked down to friends and family, so the worst that is going to happen is that I might see some ADVERTISING. OMG! End of the world!! (and it isn't that bad with AdBlock installed either)
If an employer asked for my FB account, I would happily tell them that it is for private use. I even Google myself from time to time to make sure it stays that way, but I also watch my mouth when I post things. Keep it light, friendly, and absolutely no politics.
If my friends and family care, they will see on FB that I ski, bike, go to the gym and occasionally go out to eat at a nice restaurant. If they don't care, they don't have to look.
Facebook has allowed me to reconnect with long lost friends, 'missing' cousins and lots of other people I might care about. It isn't some deep friendship or family bond, but it is more of a relationship with those people than I had before Facebook came along. That alone is worth something.
That isn't a rumor. I was there, and yes, people did burst into song. I've never worked for a more hated CEO. She sure as Hell isn't getting my vote for anything.
If they could figure out to let me use my phone in the car to play music, hands free, when I have a mandatory IT enforced PIN code on it, I'll pay money.
that girls and boys/men and women are identical except for plumbing, you are going to have a bad time. There is far more to our gender differences than mere marketing and stereotypes.
I say expose your kids to as many different things as you can, and let them figure out what they like or are good at. I tried ridiculously hard to get my son interested in computers and geeky things from a very early age. At 21, he is now a car mechanic and loves football and UFC. Go figure.
The heavy, denser metals largely sank deep into the Earth when it was still forming. This is thought not to be true for many asteroids, although we don't know for sure. Estimates of mineral value range from billions to trillions (at current prices) for even small metallic asteroids.
In order for Uber/Lyft to be a challenge to public transportation, you first need a public transportation system that is actually useful to a significant number of people. I'm glad folks in Europe, or the US East and West Coasts have good public transit, but the vast majority of people in the US drive their own cars out of necessity.
We've made great strides here in Denver, CO, but I've lived here for almost 40 years and I can count on two hands the number of times I've taken a bus, and my light rail/train rides still stand at zero. Three years from now, the NW light rail line will finally open in the direction I need to go, yet it will still end many miles short of my office.
I know of only one friend who has ever used Uber in Denver, and her New Year's Eve ride across town caused her extreme heartburn at the price. Uber/Lyft are fancy cab services for rich people. They aren't going to put a dent in public transportation (where it exists) anytime in the next decade, if ever.
Microsoft isn't required for this. In order to qualify for the full company health insurance subsidy next year, all employees at my company now have to sign up for the 'Virgin Pulse' health website, do a (supposedly confidential) health screening, and get issued a step counter that updates your online account via computer or smartphone. You can earn 'HealthMiles' or something like that.
I'm doing it, but I'm not entirely happy about it.
You give the current car control program far too much credit. At the moment, it doesn't 'see' a 'child' - it sees a change in the pixels returned by the optical scanner, plus reflections from the lidar/radar indicating an object has moved into the road. There probably aren't (currently) sensors to indicate the number of occupants in the car. The _only_ logical thing for the programmer here is to code it to stop the car when an object unexpectedly appears in the road.
Tesla and Musk and (AI) aren't anywhere near the level of abstraction you are describing. These cars work fine on city streets (that have been well mapped out beforehand), with good lane markings, known traffic signs and signals. They don't 'recognize people' or make arbitrary decisions about them. At best, what we have now are expert systems and nowhere near an 'AI'.
No matter how much you want it to be true, corporations do not exist for the purpose of employing people or paying taxes. They just don't.
I don't know how to fix this mess either, but incentives matter. Higher taxes make companies move, and if you stop them moving, you will eventually have fewer companies to tax.
My last five years of taxes and my account would strongly disagree with you. If you both work and make good money, you will pay more in taxes after you get married. Without changing our deductions, my wife and I owed $7k the first year we were married, after both getting regular refunds (filing singly) for years beforehand.
My company is wedded at the hip to a test automation system built in Perl that dates back to the early 2000s. I grumbled a bit about continuing to use this system after a review two years ago, but it isn't really that bad, and it pays me six figures a year. Perhaps, like COBOL, the rarer it gets, the more valuable the skills will be?
I'll probably get around to learning Python or Java one of these days.:)
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know that it is high tech jobs, or legal pot, but odd things are definitely happening in Denver. We just refinanced our house after less than two years, and the value shot up by almost $100k. Thankfully we bought when we did, but I don't know how my kids will afford to live here in the future. The townhomes they are building a block away will go from $350-$650k! Denver proper is mostly landlocked so prices will continue to rise.
Traffic is awful and getting worse. Getting up to the mountains to play on the weekend has become a real chore. We leave for skiing at 5:30am to beat the traffic up I70. Driving in or out of the city during rush hour is completely awful.
The bad traffic has brought the return of toll roads on most of the regional highways that weren't already tolled. Even the interstates have or are getting toll/express lanes now. Be prepared to pay up for your commute.
One bright spot - after decades of wrangling, our light rail network is finally being expanded out to serve much more of the metro area. Even the cheaper suburbs will have rail access to downtown in a couple of years. (Not Boulder, they hate you, sorry).
Please bring your hipster programmer selves here so I can continue to have someone local to work for and keep feeding my 401k until retirement. Then I can sell my house for a small fortune and move out of this crazy town.
Yours Truly, Generation X.
And now it is on Marshmellow 6.0.1. Hard to complain right now.
- Necron69
The DEC Rainbow 100
I think it was at my first job after college in 1993. :)
- Necron69
Despite a long history of sucking, I'm forced to admit that Samsung & AT&T have gotten a lot better about updates. I've been a Samsung customer since the pre-Android BlackJack Windows ME phone, and started cell carriers with Cingular.
My Samsung GS6 is currently on Android 5.1.1 ("security patch Feb 2016") and look, downloading a new update now.
- Necron69
I wholeheartedly disagree. The Space Shuttle program was an enormous financial boondoggle that had an average cost per flight of close to $2 BILLION each. The money and mind share consumed by the shuttle program were the greatest roadblock to private space industry and I thank God it is gone.
With the government no longer sucking all the air out of the room and competing with them, private industry is finally moving ahead. Now we need to cancel the next NASA financial boondoggle: SLS.
- Necron69
Yes, and back in the 1970s, we all believed the space shuttle would fly 50 times a year and save tons of money with their reusable architecture. I simply can't believe these pipe dreams anymore, especially when they are backed by a government bureaucracy.
- Necron69
Sorry Keith, but while I'm a big supporter, AFAICT Skylon remains a pipe dream. It may be slightly closer to reality with a bit more research funding, but it still exists only in a computer simulation. I've been reading about Skylon for something like 15-20 years now, and I'm not holding my breath.
Skylon needs an 'Elon Musk' to put real money into it and build a working prototype vehicle (not just an engine). Then it might be a game changer, but definitely not now.
- Necron69
I'm guessing the submitter is a lot younger than I am.
When I was in college, I could (and did) easily sleep to noon or 1pm on weekends when I didn't have to work. Now in my mid-40s, I usually wake up around 5am without an alarm clock, and average at best 6-7 hours per night. I would love to sleep more, but I just can't.
Meanwhile, I have a hard time getting my teenage daughters out of bed before 9 or 10am on the weekends. Grrr.
- Necron69
I've had my Varidesk Pro Plus 36" ( http://www.varidesk.com/ ) for about a month and I love it. They are relatively cheap, ~$350, easily adjustable, and I even got the boss the pay for it.
I've been sitting in front of a computer for a living for about 25 years now and definitely have my share of back issues. So far, I've worked up to alternating standing and sitting for 30 minutes at a time, although I sometimes get tired by about 3pm. Overall, the Varidesk is a great improvement over sitting all day, and I've not personally found any problems working/coding from a standing position.
- Necron69
Perfect California weather on intensely pre-mapped out roads = 'controlled conditions'. When the cars can navigate I70 through the Rockies during a blizzard in heavy ski season traffic, let me know.
Necron69
Those of us who are colorblind often struggle with the default colors used in syntax highlighting. If you can (or bother to) adjust those, it can work, but colorized syntax highlighting on a white background can often be near invisible to me. It doesn't highlight at all, it HIDES the code.
Necron69
ps. Colorized 'ls' - red on black? Are you out of your f*cking mind!?
Several years ago, I fought tooth and nail over selecting the new test automation framework we were going to start using at work. I wanted a nice, modern, resume-building language like Python/Ruby/Java. What did they pick? - a legacy internal system written in Perl (and abandoned by the original author who had left the company).
Over the last year, I've become a moderately skilled, OO Perl programmer, and it's worth six figures to me. Good enough. :)
- Necron69
If you think one poorly trained 'teacher' is going to be able to control a classroom of 50 elementary students, you're going to have a bad time.
Studies have repeatedly shown that the number one factor in student performance isn't teachers or technology, it is the economic status of the student's families. In Denver Public Schools, where my wife teaches, greater than 50% of the students are non-native English speakers. You really think throwing a bunch of computers at them and taking away the teacher will help?
Necron69
I really don't get the big deal over Facebook or other social media. The only thing there is what you put on it. For me the value of FB vastly outweighs any possible privacy concerns. I have my account pretty locked down to friends and family, so the worst that is going to happen is that I might see some ADVERTISING. OMG! End of the world!! (and it isn't that bad with AdBlock installed either)
If an employer asked for my FB account, I would happily tell them that it is for private use. I even Google myself from time to time to make sure it stays that way, but I also watch my mouth when I post things. Keep it light, friendly, and absolutely no politics.
If my friends and family care, they will see on FB that I ski, bike, go to the gym and occasionally go out to eat at a nice restaurant. If they don't care, they don't have to look.
Facebook has allowed me to reconnect with long lost friends, 'missing' cousins and lots of other people I might care about. It isn't some deep friendship or family bond, but it is more of a relationship with those people than I had before Facebook came along. That alone is worth something.
-Necron69
That isn't a rumor. I was there, and yes, people did burst into song. I've never worked for a more hated CEO. She sure as Hell isn't getting my vote for anything.
- Necron69
Do you want giant ants? Because that's how you get giant ants!
- Necron69
If they could figure out to let me use my phone in the car to play music, hands free, when I have a mandatory IT enforced PIN code on it, I'll pay money.
Necron69
that girls and boys/men and women are identical except for plumbing, you are going to have a bad time. There is far more to our gender differences than mere marketing and stereotypes.
I say expose your kids to as many different things as you can, and let them figure out what they like or are good at. I tried ridiculously hard to get my son interested in computers and geeky things from a very early age. At 21, he is now a car mechanic and loves football and UFC. Go figure.
Necron69
Meteorite impact sites are in fact the locations that we mine lots of valuable minerals:
http://www.univie.ac.at/geoche...
The heavy, denser metals largely sank deep into the Earth when it was still forming. This is thought not to be true for many asteroids, although we don't know for sure. Estimates of mineral value range from billions to trillions (at current prices) for even small metallic asteroids.
Necron69
In order for Uber/Lyft to be a challenge to public transportation, you first need a public transportation system that is actually useful to a significant number of people. I'm glad folks in Europe, or the US East and West Coasts have good public transit, but the vast majority of people in the US drive their own cars out of necessity.
We've made great strides here in Denver, CO, but I've lived here for almost 40 years and I can count on two hands the number of times I've taken a bus, and my light rail/train rides still stand at zero. Three years from now, the NW light rail line will finally open in the direction I need to go, yet it will still end many miles short of my office.
I know of only one friend who has ever used Uber in Denver, and her New Year's Eve ride across town caused her extreme heartburn at the price. Uber/Lyft are fancy cab services for rich people. They aren't going to put a dent in public transportation (where it exists) anytime in the next decade, if ever.
Necron69
Microsoft isn't required for this. In order to qualify for the full company health insurance subsidy next year, all employees at my company now have to sign up for the 'Virgin Pulse' health website, do a (supposedly confidential) health screening, and get issued a step counter that updates your online account via computer or smartphone. You can earn 'HealthMiles' or something like that.
I'm doing it, but I'm not entirely happy about it.
Necron69
You give the current car control program far too much credit. At the moment, it doesn't 'see' a 'child' - it sees a change in the pixels returned by the optical scanner, plus reflections from the lidar/radar indicating an object has moved into the road. There probably aren't (currently) sensors to indicate the number of occupants in the car. The _only_ logical thing for the programmer here is to code it to stop the car when an object unexpectedly appears in the road.
Tesla and Musk and (AI) aren't anywhere near the level of abstraction you are describing. These cars work fine on city streets (that have been well mapped out beforehand), with good lane markings, known traffic signs and signals. They don't 'recognize people' or make arbitrary decisions about them. At best, what we have now are expert systems and nowhere near an 'AI'.
Necron69
No matter how much you want it to be true, corporations do not exist for the purpose of employing people or paying taxes. They just don't.
I don't know how to fix this mess either, but incentives matter. Higher taxes make companies move, and if you stop them moving, you will eventually have fewer companies to tax.
- Necron69
My last five years of taxes and my account would strongly disagree with you. If you both work and make good money, you will pay more in taxes after you get married. Without changing our deductions, my wife and I owed $7k the first year we were married, after both getting regular refunds (filing singly) for years beforehand.
Necron69
My company is wedded at the hip to a test automation system built in Perl that dates back to the early 2000s. I grumbled a bit about continuing to use this system after a review two years ago, but it isn't really that bad, and it pays me six figures a year. Perhaps, like COBOL, the rarer it gets, the more valuable the skills will be?
I'll probably get around to learning Python or Java one of these days. :)
- Necron69