I am a programmer not a marketer, but your attitude towards marketing is something I hear all the time in technical departments. It creates an unhealthy us vs. them dynamic in companies that hurts communication. Communication between techies and marketing people is hard enough already.
Marketing people are not idiots because they cant program a computer. The really good ones are experts at manipulating peoples emotions and desires in subtle ways. Since people's emotions are not rational things, the work of marketing people does not follow rational rules either. This makes their work seem "dumb" to obsessively rational people like us programmers.
Why do you think upper management seems to always "fall for" the "idiotic" ideas of marketing and not listen to the "rational" arguments of developers? It's partially because marketing people are experts at making compelling arguments. While we are really good at making logical arguments that are factually accurate yet convince no one but other logical people.
The other reason is because marketing may not be as "smart" as development, but they get a fundamental truth that seems to evade many programmers. It's more important (to the company) to SELL your product than to make it good. Look at all the half-asses crap around you to see how true that is.
Your understanding of evolution is incorrect. Evolution isn't something an animal "does" or even something nature "does". It's just the simple fact that ANYTHING that leads to better reproductive success will lead to more offspring and gradually replace animals that don't have that SOMETHING. Evolution is not hard to understand, it's just common sense once you understand it.
Imagine two valleys separated by a hard to cross mountain ridge. In one valley some animals develop a random mutation that gives off a strong "death stench" when they die. Over time the other animals in the valley learn or evolve an aversion to this smell because staying away from things that kill you is an advantage.
The animals in this valley will avoid certain contagious or dangerous deaths because of this aversion. They will prosper slightly more than the animals in the next valley that don't have this combination. Over a long period of time the population in this valley grows enough that they start migrating into the other valley and over a long time they dominate and replace the animals in the next valley because of their ability.
Jeez. Please read the article before posting. The article states that power company officials have found very small Chinese people hiding in cabinets inside 75% of our power stations. The situation is very precarious.
> It didn't topple our economy, which was their aim, but put a dent in it.
Yes it did. The cost of the buildings is negligible compared to our GNP. But the cost of the followup war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, DHS, etc have toppled our already shaky economy. What's more their aim wasn't to topple our economy, it was to ruin our way of life. I'd say our descent into security theater, torture, surveillance and paranoia has gone a long way towards destroying our way of life. America the free?
Awesome! Now the minimum wage employees who screen thousands of hours of video can sell the best clips to whoever needs them. Say some juicy clips of you stopping at the local massage parlor while you are supposed to be working. Or clips of you parking in no-parking spots.
Actually I am going to start a company to PURCHASE these clips and broker selling them to interested parties. I'm sure each political party would like to know who is driving to rallies and meeting of their adversaries.
Slashdot, it is Friday and I am tired. I can't bring myself to read the article, or even the summary. Please tell me if we are loving this or hating this so I can feel appropriately without any effort.
It's not just the Desktop. Many applications store configuration information and even data in {user}/Application Data, and IE bookmarks are stored in {user}/Favorites, and most configuration settings are stored in the registry. That means you can't easily backup up a user's complete state in Windows separate from the entire system and OS. I find this setup worse than annoying.
My backup script first copies Desktop, Favorites and Application Settings to a folder under My Documents before using rsync to backup to a Solaris fileserver. But even this is clumsy and problematic.
> Out of curiosity, do you happen to know what software they were using to detect CD burning? I would love more info on that one.
I wish I knew. Not that we were stealing anything, but still we were shocked that they were able to be alerted to our activity. I do remember the CD burner was an external SCSI one that we plugged in, so maybe that triggered an alert. The computers didn't have CD burners normally.
No, I have gratitude that I didn't lose my job and get a reputation for being an idiot. Because I actually was. The PC didn't have a CD burner. We plugged one in.
I used to work at Lehman Brothers years ago. I was developing new trading software. Once a buddy brought me a PC game. He put a CD in a drive, copied the files to his PC and burned it to a new blank CD.
The network admins got an alert from the CD burning and within 15 minutes security was making sure nobody entered or left the section we were in. We both almost got fired from the shit-storm that followed. They didn't overreact one bit. We were wrong. We were being paid good money to know better than to copy our personal files on the same network as proprietary company software. It was a good thing they reacted so quickly so we could hand them both CDs to prove we hadn't been stealing the company's proprietary competitive advantage to sell it to a competitor. That kind of inter-company espionage goes on ALL THE TIME.
I love StarCraft, and I only ever play against my friends and family on a LAN. I don't care if I have to be connected to the 'net to do it. Will I be able to play against my friends on a LAN, even if it means the packets round-trip to the Internet on their way to the computer 3 feet away from me? I don't care at all about BattleNet or teams leagues ladders whatever everyone is talking about.
> More accurately, a single payer system that will cover you if you need it to. Companies should always be welcome to compete against the single payer system... if they can make money, then good for them!
I don't think 'single payer' means what you think it means. If you have companies competing with the public option then there is not a 'single payer', there are multiple payers. Anyway, let's call what you described the a 'public option' plan that covers you if you need it, and companies competing against it.
I agree with you that this is the best route given where we are starting. However nothing is ever simple. Consider that in your scenario insurance companies will woo young healthy people with plans that are cheaper than the single payer option. The only people left in the public option plan will be older and less healthy people. The plan will therefore not fund itself.
> give a discount or rebate for people who join a gym,
I am in favor of this in general, however, I personally use high intensity interval training outside with very limited equipment. I'd like MY gym rebate in cash, thank you.
As soon as someone starts talking about those damn Democrats or those damn Republicans I know there will be no sensible discussion following. How about which policies and which initiates you think have merit, which need tweaking, and which are bad ideas, irregardless of which clique is pushing it through the propaganda machines?
To myself, someone without strong ties to either political party, I see two groups who are almost identical. They use very similar strategies, similar ways of using their power, similar ways of blocking and discrediting the other party and any initiatives of the other party no matter how good or bad they may be. Both parties spout crazy rhetoric designed to appeal to certain people's greed and insecurity. They just have chosen different people to court.
I have voted Republican and Democratic in local and national elections depending on which candidate and which issue I felt was better. I HATE this idea that you are "with us or against us." It ruins all sensible progress in politics.
If you follow that link and look at the gas-pump shaped chart on the right you will see that Diesel has far higher taxes imposed on it than Gasoline, or put another way Gasoline is subsidized through lower taxes than Diesel. And still Diesel averages only a couple of pennies per gallon more expensive.
> You know those tricks that people use to figure their stage/porn name, take your middle name and the street you grew up on, combine it, and voila, instant new name!
Great. You're telling me my porn name is "Caesar Cedar-Swamp". Lovely.
Does anyone else think that developing an "evil" A.I. isn't a great idea? Sure this is a silly little Eliza type Evil, but in a few generations on the proper hardware... they might be selling us vinegar and doing unspeakable things to us
Slashdot Mirror
I am a programmer not a marketer, but your attitude towards marketing is something I hear all the time in technical departments. It creates an unhealthy us vs. them dynamic in companies that hurts communication. Communication between techies and marketing people is hard enough already.
Marketing people are not idiots because they cant program a computer. The really good ones are experts at manipulating peoples emotions and desires in subtle ways. Since people's emotions are not rational things, the work of marketing people does not follow rational rules either. This makes their work seem "dumb" to obsessively rational people like us programmers.
Why do you think upper management seems to always "fall for" the "idiotic" ideas of marketing and not listen to the "rational" arguments of developers? It's partially because marketing people are experts at making compelling arguments. While we are really good at making logical arguments that are factually accurate yet convince no one but other logical people.
The other reason is because marketing may not be as "smart" as development, but they get a fundamental truth that seems to evade many programmers. It's more important (to the company) to SELL your product than to make it good. Look at all the half-asses crap around you to see how true that is.
So.... I forgot my point, but you get my point.
Your understanding of evolution is incorrect. Evolution isn't something an animal "does" or even something nature "does". It's just the simple fact that ANYTHING that leads to better reproductive success will lead to more offspring and gradually replace animals that don't have that SOMETHING.
Evolution is not hard to understand, it's just common sense once you understand it.
Imagine two valleys separated by a hard to cross mountain ridge. In one valley some animals develop a random mutation that gives off a strong "death stench" when they die. Over time the other animals in the valley learn or evolve an aversion to this smell because staying away from things that kill you is an advantage.
The animals in this valley will avoid certain contagious or dangerous deaths because of this aversion. They will prosper slightly more than the animals in the next valley that don't have this combination. Over a long period of time the population in this valley grows enough that they start migrating into the other valley and over a long time they dominate and replace the animals in the next valley because of their ability.
Jeez. Please read the article before posting. The article states that power company officials have found very small Chinese people hiding in cabinets inside 75% of our power stations. The situation is very precarious.
> It didn't topple our economy, which was their aim, but put a dent in it.
Yes it did. The cost of the buildings is negligible compared to our GNP. But the cost of the followup war in Afghanistan, war in Iraq, DHS, etc have toppled our already shaky economy. What's more their aim wasn't to topple our economy, it was to ruin our way of life. I'd say our descent into security theater, torture, surveillance and paranoia has gone a long way towards destroying our way of life. America the free?
Awesome! Now the minimum wage employees who screen thousands of hours of video can sell the best clips to whoever needs them. Say some juicy clips of you stopping at the local massage parlor while you are supposed to be working. Or clips of you parking in no-parking spots.
Actually I am going to start a company to PURCHASE these clips and broker selling them to interested parties. I'm sure each political party would like to know who is driving to rallies and meeting of their adversaries.
Slashdot, it is Friday and I am tired. I can't bring myself to read the article, or even the summary.
Please tell me if we are loving this or hating this so I can feel appropriately without any effort.
> scumbag [...] lawyers and the sooner there are legal moves to BAN thme all
Yeah! We need to initiate LEGAL MOVES to ban all lawyers. Wait, what?
It's not just the Desktop. Many applications store configuration information and even data in {user}/Application Data, and IE bookmarks are stored in {user}/Favorites, and most configuration settings are stored in the registry. That means you can't easily backup up a user's complete state in Windows separate from the entire system and OS. I find this setup worse than annoying.
My backup script first copies Desktop, Favorites and Application Settings to a folder under My Documents before using rsync to backup to a Solaris fileserver. But even this is clumsy and problematic.
Anyone know a better way?
> there's no women on the moon, or on that ridge in Antarctica, which is a major drawback of accepting either of those jobs.
Don't worry, at the end of a highly paid 3 year stint, your replacement will arrive and you will be able to go home a wealthy man...
or will you?
I've never gotten over the childhood trauma of seeing a naked child smelling of bacon fat running around in the woods in the middle of nowhere.
No one would believe me, they put me through years of therapy. I still cringe when I smell bacon.
> Out of curiosity, do you happen to know what software they were using to detect CD burning? I would love more info on that one.
I wish I knew. Not that we were stealing anything, but still we were shocked that they were able to be alerted to our activity.
I do remember the CD burner was an external SCSI one that we plugged in, so maybe that triggered an alert.
The computers didn't have CD burners normally.
> You appear to have a form of Stockholm syndrome
No, I have gratitude that I didn't lose my job and get a reputation for being an idiot. Because I actually was. The PC didn't have a CD burner. We plugged one in.
I used to work at Lehman Brothers years ago. I was developing new trading software. Once a buddy brought me a PC game. He put a CD in a drive, copied the files to his PC and burned it to a new blank CD.
The network admins got an alert from the CD burning and within 15 minutes security was making sure nobody entered or left the section we were in. We both almost got fired from the shit-storm that followed. They didn't overreact one bit. We were wrong. We were being paid good money to know better than to copy our personal files on the same network as proprietary company software. It was a good thing they reacted so quickly so we could hand them both CDs to prove we hadn't been stealing the company's proprietary competitive advantage to sell it to a competitor. That kind of inter-company espionage goes on ALL THE TIME.
I love StarCraft, and I only ever play against my friends and family on a LAN. I don't care if I have to be connected to the 'net to do it. Will I be able to play against my friends on a LAN, even if it means the packets round-trip to the Internet on their way to the computer 3 feet away from me?
I don't care at all about BattleNet or teams leagues ladders whatever everyone is talking about.
If so, I'll buy it. If not, I won't.
So the private medical insurance is similar to an "umbrella policy" that covers what isn't covered by the public plan?
I think I may open a cigar-smoking club and name it 'Stogie Health and Fitness Club' to get employer coverage.
> More accurately, a single payer system that will cover you if you need it to. Companies should always be welcome to compete against the single payer system... if they can make money, then good for them!
I don't think 'single payer' means what you think it means. If you have companies competing with the public option then there is not a 'single payer', there are multiple payers. Anyway, let's call what you described the a 'public option' plan that covers you if you need it, and companies competing against it.
I agree with you that this is the best route given where we are starting. However nothing is ever simple. Consider that in your scenario insurance companies will woo young healthy people with plans that are cheaper than the single payer option. The only people left in the public option plan will be older and less healthy people. The plan will therefore not fund itself.
> give a discount or rebate for people who join a gym,
I am in favor of this in general, however, I personally use high intensity interval training outside with very limited equipment. I'd like MY gym rebate in cash, thank you.
> > irregardless
> Really? Really?!
From Wikipedia: Irregardless is a term meaning in spite of or anyway,
What's the problem?
As soon as someone starts talking about those damn Democrats or those damn Republicans I know there will be no sensible discussion following.
How about which policies and which initiates you think have merit, which need tweaking, and which are bad ideas, irregardless of which clique is pushing it through the propaganda machines?
To myself, someone without strong ties to either political party, I see two groups who are almost identical. They use very similar strategies, similar ways of using their power, similar ways of blocking and discrediting the other party and any initiatives of the other party no matter how good or bad they may be. Both parties spout crazy rhetoric designed to appeal to certain people's greed and insecurity. They just have chosen different people to court.
I have voted Republican and Democratic in local and national elections depending on which candidate and which issue I felt was better. I HATE this idea that you are "with us or against us." It ruins all sensible progress in politics.
And I took this photo to prove it.
I'm calling the Wired editors now to give the password and collect my money.
If you follow that link and look at the gas-pump shaped chart on the right you will see that Diesel has far higher taxes imposed on it than Gasoline, or put another way Gasoline is subsidized through lower taxes than Diesel. And still Diesel averages only a couple of pennies per gallon more expensive.
> You know those tricks that people use to figure their stage/porn name, take your middle name and the street you grew up on, combine it, and voila, instant new name!
Great. You're telling me my porn name is "Caesar Cedar-Swamp". Lovely.
Oh Noes! Even worse would be putting a "pure evil A.I." into this soylent green harvester!
Does anyone else think that developing an "evil" A.I. isn't a great idea?
Sure this is a silly little Eliza type Evil, but in a few generations on the proper hardware... they might be selling us vinegar and doing unspeakable things to us