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  1. Re:how 25 versus 15 percent is six times more like on Why Women Devs Are Hard To Recruit and Even Harder To Keep (windowsitpro.com) · · Score: 1

    New York has a law preventing male daycare workers from changing diapers.

    Citation needed.

  2. Re:They actually want to kick appliances off. on Alphabet's Nest Wants to Build a 'Citizen-Fueled' Power Plant (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    So you wouldn't be willing to say, go to the store or the library for a few hours on the hottest days of the year, for $1000 or so? Or get a fan and open your windows? Or use a window air conditioner?

  3. I plan to do this on Amazon Is Testing a 30-Hour, 75% Salary Workweek (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 1

    I plan to do this once I have kids. I am a software engineer in a low cost of living area. Even at 75%, my salary would be still be twice the median income in my county.

    Once our new robot overlords do all the jobs, we better hope this is a common arrangement. Otherwise we will be in for difficult times.

  4. My company recently switched to Macbooks Pros on More Devs Now Use OS X Than Linux, Says Survey (9to5mac.com) · · Score: 1

    We were founded 10 years ago as a software consulting firm, running and pushing Linux. Workstations were built in the office and ran Linux. Laptops were Dell and usually ran Linux.

    Last fall, we stopped purchasing Windows machines and building desktops. Now, all new employees get a Macbook Pro. Our owner is a FOSS advocate so that change was hard for him, but the change has been a significant improvement:

    • The workstations running Linux were a major pain keep updated. It seemed like whenever packages updated, at least one of the projects would break and someone would spend an hour or two fixing the problem.
    • The machines we got from Dell were unreliable. The last couple of orders we made had several machines that required hours of troubleshooting within the first few months. Several machines less than a year old are stacked in the corner of our basement, unused.
    • OS X has all the Unix-like features developers need.
    • Macbook Pros are great machines. We do not have to spend time that we could be billing clients to maintain them.
    • Given the same specs, Macbook Pros are NOT significantly more expensive than Dell, HP, etc. Those manufacturer's laptop lines start at a lower price point than Macbooks, but once you find the model with similar specs as a Macbook, they are more expensive.
    • We do some Windows .NET, and it is so easy to run Windows on a Mac. When I was doing this, I had a Bootcamp partition set up that I could also run in VmWare Fusion if I happened to be booted into OS X.
    • Our developers run OS X at home.
  5. Re:What year is this? on Grandma's Phone, DSL, and the Copper They Share (hackaday.com) · · Score: 1

    I think the 1999 thing was more to having a discussion about DSL as if that is still a viable thing.

    I have 20Mbps DSL at home for about $30/month. How is that not viable?

  6. Re:God... on Use Code From Stack Overflow? You Must Provide Attribution (stackexchange.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm not a lawyer myself, but I can say from experience that, when a lawyer finds a comment somewhere in the codebase that says "//these next two lines of code are MIT-licensed", steam shoots out of their ears and every developer in the company has to attend an all-day meeting about it.

    This is absolutely common for many large commercial companies. I have several such companies as clients and getting any FOSS approved is a major process. In fact, one client preferred to send a check to one open-source project for a license even though legally it grants them no benefit. The project's website even says that the project "is in the public domain and does not require a license." Companies with large bankrolls will glady shell out thousands of dollars for some peace of mind.

    http://www.hwaci.com/cgi-bin/l...

    As a rule, I never used code directly from SO to avoid any licensing questions for my clients.

  7. Re:Work-life balance thrives where it is prioritiz on Tech Pros' Struggle For Work-Life Balance Continues (dice.com) · · Score: 1

    In 5+ years I've never experienced anything like this. Maybe you need to look at yourself and your position and figure out where the real problem is.

  8. Work-life balance thrives where it is prioritized on Tech Pros' Struggle For Work-Life Balance Continues (dice.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've had three employers: one Fortune 500 company and two 50 employee consulting companies. At the big company, I worked 50-60 hours/week in a high stress environment, but the work was exciting and I really enjoyed it.

    At the two smaller companies, it is rare that I would work over 41 hours/week. I've never done it in 6 months at my current company. I think it is easier for small consulting companies to offer a balance like this because our clients won't pay for more than 40 hours/week except under exceptional circumstances, and our company does a great job being realistic about timelines so we almost always deliver on time.

    You can find work-life balance, but you have to look for it and prioritize it in you job search. I would probably make 10-20% more had I stayed at the large company, but the relaxed hours are worth it to me.

    I'll also note that this is in the Midwest, where all you tech people from the coasts complaining about not finding jobs should move.

  9. Re:No no no on Fury and Fear In Ohio As IT Jobs Go To India (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    the AMA has closely limited the number of doctors in America. I looked at getting a medical degree to go work in third world countries, but they've raised the barrier of entry by charging about half a million dollars in tuition, plus 6-7 years worth of apprenticeship to enter the field. Plus entry tests, etc. The tuition and time alone makes me look elsewhere for a profession.

    It may make you look elsewhere, but there are still hundreds or thousands of medical school applicants that aren't accepted into a program and move on to a different career each year.

  10. Re:Kind of like a business analyst on Ask Slashdot: Technical Resources For Non-Technical Disciplines? · · Score: 2

    Maybe I've never worked with a good one, but all BAs have ever done on my projects is muddy the message and bill hours.

  11. Re:Give it some hints ... on Ask Slashdot: Are There Any Search Engines Left That Don't Try To Think For Me? · · Score: 2

    I did a search the other day for LG G3 retailers... I tried dozens of variations, verbatim on, quotes, etc. I was given options in the US, UK, some Canadian cellphone carriers. In the end I had to go to Shopbot.ca to get Canadian companies selling the phone.

    Use "Ask Jeeves" syntax: "where can i buy lg g3?" at google. The first result came up as BestBuy. The second was an article literally entitled "Where can I buy LG's new superphone?" The third was a link to LG's website with a nice "Where to Buy" link.

  12. Re:Any wage? on Disney Replaces Longtime IT Staff With H-1B Workers · · Score: 1

    My company hires a lot of H1-B's (typically PhD's from various European countries), and while we pay a good salary, we can't find enough american workers to fill our open positions. If we were willing to pay double or triple the market rate, we could probably entice happily employed candidates to come work for us, but our salary costs are already high, and paying several times market rate would probably drive the company into the ground.

    Your post is anecdotal evidence that H1B visas are depressing market rate. Maybe you should figure out why people won't come work for you at what you consider to be "market" rate.

  13. Re:Don't divide 200m by 224 on George Lucas Building Low-Income Housing Next Door To Millionaires · · Score: 1

    (given this is America) at least seven churches.

    Only a portion of the spend will go on houses.

    But this is California, where people are too busy getting gay married and smoking medical marijuana to go to church? Right?

  14. Re:Don't fix what ain't broke on Kludgey Electronic Health Records Are Becoming Fodder For Malpractice Suits · · Score: 1

    While there's problems scheduling at the VA and getting in to see a doctor, they've had EMRs for 50 years. It's all online and easy to search.

    My sister-in-law has worked in several VAs and a medical student and resident. She has said several times that while the VA has a lot of problems, EMR is something they do better than anyone else.

  15. Just finished the season on Daredevil TV Show Debuts; Early Reviews Positive · · Score: 1

    It is excellent. There were several curveballs that I did not see coming, and several fastballs that I thought were going to be curveballs. It is not Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, but it is in the next quality tier for comic book television and film.

  16. Re:Guardian scum on German Teenager Gets Job Offer By Trying To Use FOI For His Exam Papers · · Score: 1

    I had an Indian professor us "revise" like this and it took a while to figure out that's how the Brits do it.

  17. Re:About time. on Ten US Senators Seek Investigation Into the Replacement of US Tech Workers · · Score: 1

    I don't have the visibility to say whether this is endemic, but I observer that a manager in my own organization stated openly not long ago that H-1B would get preference in new hires or backfill hires for budgetary purposes. And he has been as good as his word. About half the organization is now made up of foreign contractors, and the percentage is growing.

    Have you reported the manager and your company to the government organization that oversees the H-1B visa program?

  18. Re:Only decent episodes were the Darin Morgan ones on The X-Files To Return · · Score: 1

    Darin Morgan wrote only four episodes (and helped write a fifth), but all four of them are as good as the X-Files got. Sure, other writers had great episodes too, but they also had many stinkers.

  19. Re:6 Jose Chung episodes on The X-Files To Return · · Score: 5, Funny

    Jose Chung's I Can't Count

  20. 6 Jose Chung episodes on The X-Files To Return · · Score: 1

    Jose Chung's From Here to the Bank
    Jose Chung's Botox Galore
    Jose Chung's Doesn't Hold Up
    Jose Chung's Some Things Are Better Left In The Past
    Jose Chung's What Did You Expect?

  21. Question from a non-Linux user on Ubuntu To Officially Switch To systemd Next Monday · · Score: 1

    If everyone hates systemd so much, why is it being incorporating into all these Linux distributions? Have all the major ones incorporated it? Does this "evil" Poettering guy really have that much clout in all the disparate distros?

  22. Re:We homeschool on Ask Slashdot: Pros and Cons of Homeschooling? · · Score: 1

    The curriculum must include the five basic subjects of reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics, and good citizenship.

    Science isn't required in Texas?

  23. Was hoping for Warp 1 before Ketracel-white on New Advance Confines GMOs To the Lab Instead of Living In the Wild · · Score: 2

    the end is near

  24. "I want Americans to win the race for the kinds of discoveries that unleash new jobs – converting sunlight into liquid fuel;"

    What next? Flying unicorn cloning?

    Oh no! I better tell my colleagues that the ethanol industry we work in doesn't exist!

  25. My point is it's a concept that can be explained slowly, clearly, and even visually. You could use Poptarts and licorice rope to make a diagram.

    Yep, that's why we get such great jury rulings in patent cases!