If my co-workers were in the same timezone that I am in then maybe I wouldn't need it. But I spend my entire morning and evening talking to people in China and Ireland. Skype and the other voip alternatives just don't have the quality needed to sustain an 8 way hour long call.
Community College is an excellent idea here too but again, it doesn't get respect.
CC's works in a couple of ways -
1. They're an excellent training facility for older people who want to train in a new field while still working in an old one.
2. They're an affordable alternative for the first two years of schooling for someone who wants to switch to a university later. This is particularly good in fields where a Masters degree is the end goal. There's no point in paying through the nose for a bachelor's degree if what you really want/need is a masters anyway.
3. They're a great way to accelerate through a university program. My sisters' kids took courses at the local CC during the summer, shaving off a whole semester so that they could graduate from a 4 year university in 3.5 years.
So, let me get this straight. We're using actual India numbers from an IBM memo versus estimated numbers coming from a pro-union group with an agenda/axe to grind with IBM to make this assertion?
Look, I'm not in favor of offshoring any more than the next person, but at least use apples-to-apples comparisons if you're going to make it the basis of a thesis.
The dumbest thing I've seen is iCar, iPhone Siri integration. Yeah, let's tie ourselves to technology that's not only going to be obsolete (If it isn't already - have you seen its performance up against Google Voice search?) -- but is proprietary besides.
Give me a cheap car with no gadgets but lots of industry standard ports and I'll be much more likely to buy your car.
Old news. I have had this on my S3 since Day 1. I also have Barometer Monitor, which generated this pretty cool graph on Monday and Tuesday, October 29-30, the days Hurricane Sandy came to town and then left.
http://i.imgur.com/tuM8x.png
As a 50+ year old still earning good money at an IT company, I can say that yes, there is age discrimination, but yes, you can and SHOULD be able to work around it.
The biggest problem that I see with fellow 50+ year olds is that they still want to be doing the job they signed up for when they were 22. Sorry, but if you are making a lot more money than you were when you were 20, then you should be doing a lot more. I keep seeing 50 year olds with resumes that brag about coding in Java or PHP. I'm sorry, but at your age and with that many years of experience behind you, you should be doing a lot more than coding. You should be leading, setting direction, defining architecture, setting the ground rules for the younger generation to avoid the mistakes that 20 year olds make.
If you want an IT job at 50+, you need to show that you can do MORE than the 20 year old, not as much as the 20 year old.
Having been in a couple of Beijing taxis over the past two years, I'm thinking that if you can't get one, it may not be a bad thing.// Beijing taxicabs....shudder.
I would not limit yourself so much, pure programmer jobs are considered low skill these days, particularly if you can't demonstrate skills beyond them. Pure programming jobs these days are easily outsourced to cheaper and younger labor overseas. It sucks to say that but it is the truth.
Better to think a little outside your comfort zone. If you have speaking, writing, organizational skills, you should consider starting your own firm or working as a consultant. Consider looking into jobs that require more high level skills like solutions/systems/enterprise architecture, program and project management. Teaching others is also not a bad way to extend your horizons. Check around at local community colleges or universities to see if they need adjunct professors for courses in programming. One way to think about this move is this: If programming didn't exist, what else would you do? That might give you a good look at the other skills you have that you could use to go in another direction.
Programming is wonderful. I've loved doing it myself for the past 30 years, but like anything, you never want to tie yourself down to one thing. Always keep your other skills sharp.
I think for a lot of nerds/geeks, who never had dates in high school or many friends, and never were anywhere near the top of the social pecking order, college is the first time that they get a glimpse of hope. They see and understand that with their skills, they'll be able to get a decent job that takes them out of Mitt's 47%, probably make a few dollars more than the HS quarterback, who despite his local celebrity, isn't exactly NFL material and is just as likely to wind up a bartender. Even the nerdiest nerds stand a chance in the gene pool if he's pulling down six figures five years after graduation... or so it seems.
I think Google announced this in reaction to Amazon's WhisperCast introduction. Whispercast has the potential to put lots of Amazon devices (Fire, Kindle e-ink readers) into schools. I think that's exactly the audience that Samsung/Google are looking for here.
Frankly, I would never count on any third party to protect MY property, whether that be Verizon or the government.
So I password my phone and installed Cerberus on it in such a way that it cannot be removed without a bit of effort.
Those two steps alone will ensure that the thief will not get far. As soon as the thief tries a password and gets it wrong, my phone snaps a picture. If I can get to a web console or even another phone that has SMS capability, I can send all sorts of messages to my phone to track the location, sound an alarm, take video, movie or record audio, wipe memory, wipe the SD card or reboot, The phone will become all but useless once that's done.
Sure, we might get a particularly talented thief who would know enough to root and install a new ROM, but that procedure takes time and the chances of that happening are pretty low given that a thief with that kind of know-how is likely to make a good living without risking jailtime.
To stop making so many people.
I really think that that's going to happen anyway.
Consider this, there is a whole generation of kids graduating college right now who are putting off having kids because they are saddled with debt, plus they are finding themselves in need of longer education because a 4 year degree today is like a HS degree used to be. So, the childbearing age will get squeezed to the point where we'll be producing people at less than the replacement rate.
Eventually, this could paradoxically lead to unemployment receding a bit. That is, we'll have jobs go wanting because there won't be as many young people plus we'll have older workers age out of the workforce in larger numbers than can be replaced.
I tend to think he's right on principle. Every "good deed" a government does comes with unintended consequence, particularly when it hands out free money.
But Mr. Paul's Achilles' heel seems to be his lack of understanding that we are a global market now. We have to compete as a country with other countries, so you have to be very agile, which means you have to pick the hill you want to die on.
China, you'll notice, has decided not to die on the hill of perfect communism anymore, which is why, in part they are eating our lunch. I certainly don't want the US to be China, that's not my point. My point is that we need to stop being ideologically correct on the right or the left and carve a practical line out of the middle somewhere.
I think businesses large and small should get a tax break to sponsor students through university or trade schools, kind of a GI Bill for business. In the end, you'll have less unemployed or unemployable students, and hopefully more taxpayers and revenue. Yeah, I'm sure you could poke holes in that too but at least it resolves the saddling the young with debt or leaving a generation unable to afford education.
What makes you think the market for US universities and colleges is limited to American students?
They'll keep the price up so long as someone is willing to pay it. Maybe American students couldn't afford it anymore, but foreign students, who could still be funded by their governments, will.
You also aren't considering the millions of foreign students who come into the US every year to attend colleges and universities. Their governments are not cutting off student loans, so the schools still would not need to lower their prices. I'm still not convinced that the deflation naturally follows.
The devil is in the details.
He'd better have a plan for the huge bubble he's about to create in between the time when federal loans are cut off and colleges/universities actually lower their prices.
It's easy to say these things on paper, but there's always a lag and that's where the problems start. See the Medicare "Donut Hole" for an example of that.
Computer programming, software engineering are great and if you keep your skills up, you can do it for a long time. But always be mindful that there are a lot of people who do it well and these days, a lot of very young people around the world who will do it for a lower salary than one might find comfortable in the West.
If you want to raise a family on the salary you will make in the software industry, be sure to keep up not just your technical skills but your leadership, writing and project management skills as well.
Making machines do stuff in an automated way is impressive, but a lot of people can do that. Leading a large group of people to produce great works is very impressive and much harder to accomplish than you might think.
It makes little sense to do so until they've stablized it for release. This has always been the case with Android. The AOSP always follows after the Nexus announce. I know all the Android haters want to see a conspiracy here but this has been AOSP standard operating procedure all along.
Wow. Have you actually done any research on the subject? Cyanogen is amazingly popular, useful, and solid. So solid, in fact, that Samsung sent its phones to the creators of Cyanogen for test. Then, they hired the Cyanogen founder who continues to build and invest in the project. If anything, it has made for a better product.
Slashdot Mirror
Until tablets come out with a display that can be as easy on the eyes and a battery that lasts 2 months, I don't think I'll be ditching my e-reader.
"Live Free or Die!" -State motto of New Hampshire. ....unless you're buying too many iPhones.
If my co-workers were in the same timezone that I am in then maybe I wouldn't need it. But I spend my entire morning and evening talking to people in China and Ireland. Skype and the other voip alternatives just don't have the quality needed to sustain an 8 way hour long call.
Community College is an excellent idea here too but again, it doesn't get respect. CC's works in a couple of ways - 1. They're an excellent training facility for older people who want to train in a new field while still working in an old one. 2. They're an affordable alternative for the first two years of schooling for someone who wants to switch to a university later. This is particularly good in fields where a Masters degree is the end goal. There's no point in paying through the nose for a bachelor's degree if what you really want/need is a masters anyway. 3. They're a great way to accelerate through a university program. My sisters' kids took courses at the local CC during the summer, shaving off a whole semester so that they could graduate from a 4 year university in 3.5 years.
...and you would accomplish this how? And how, exactly, would it help workers in the US?
So, let me get this straight. We're using actual India numbers from an IBM memo versus estimated numbers coming from a pro-union group with an agenda/axe to grind with IBM to make this assertion? Look, I'm not in favor of offshoring any more than the next person, but at least use apples-to-apples comparisons if you're going to make it the basis of a thesis.
The dumbest thing I've seen is iCar, iPhone Siri integration. Yeah, let's tie ourselves to technology that's not only going to be obsolete (If it isn't already - have you seen its performance up against Google Voice search?) -- but is proprietary besides. Give me a cheap car with no gadgets but lots of industry standard ports and I'll be much more likely to buy your car.
Old news. I have had this on my S3 since Day 1. I also have Barometer Monitor, which generated this pretty cool graph on Monday and Tuesday, October 29-30, the days Hurricane Sandy came to town and then left. http://i.imgur.com/tuM8x.png
As a 50+ year old still earning good money at an IT company, I can say that yes, there is age discrimination, but yes, you can and SHOULD be able to work around it. The biggest problem that I see with fellow 50+ year olds is that they still want to be doing the job they signed up for when they were 22. Sorry, but if you are making a lot more money than you were when you were 20, then you should be doing a lot more. I keep seeing 50 year olds with resumes that brag about coding in Java or PHP. I'm sorry, but at your age and with that many years of experience behind you, you should be doing a lot more than coding. You should be leading, setting direction, defining architecture, setting the ground rules for the younger generation to avoid the mistakes that 20 year olds make. If you want an IT job at 50+, you need to show that you can do MORE than the 20 year old, not as much as the 20 year old.
Having been in a couple of Beijing taxis over the past two years, I'm thinking that if you can't get one, it may not be a bad thing. // Beijing taxicabs....shudder.
I would not limit yourself so much, pure programmer jobs are considered low skill these days, particularly if you can't demonstrate skills beyond them. Pure programming jobs these days are easily outsourced to cheaper and younger labor overseas. It sucks to say that but it is the truth. Better to think a little outside your comfort zone. If you have speaking, writing, organizational skills, you should consider starting your own firm or working as a consultant. Consider looking into jobs that require more high level skills like solutions/systems/enterprise architecture, program and project management. Teaching others is also not a bad way to extend your horizons. Check around at local community colleges or universities to see if they need adjunct professors for courses in programming. One way to think about this move is this: If programming didn't exist, what else would you do? That might give you a good look at the other skills you have that you could use to go in another direction. Programming is wonderful. I've loved doing it myself for the past 30 years, but like anything, you never want to tie yourself down to one thing. Always keep your other skills sharp.
I think for a lot of nerds/geeks, who never had dates in high school or many friends, and never were anywhere near the top of the social pecking order, college is the first time that they get a glimpse of hope. They see and understand that with their skills, they'll be able to get a decent job that takes them out of Mitt's 47%, probably make a few dollars more than the HS quarterback, who despite his local celebrity, isn't exactly NFL material and is just as likely to wind up a bartender. Even the nerdiest nerds stand a chance in the gene pool if he's pulling down six figures five years after graduation ... or so it seems.
IBM mainframes vs. Amdahl. Yeah, I'm old.
I think Google announced this in reaction to Amazon's WhisperCast introduction. Whispercast has the potential to put lots of Amazon devices (Fire, Kindle e-ink readers) into schools. I think that's exactly the audience that Samsung/Google are looking for here.
Frankly, I would never count on any third party to protect MY property, whether that be Verizon or the government. So I password my phone and installed Cerberus on it in such a way that it cannot be removed without a bit of effort. Those two steps alone will ensure that the thief will not get far. As soon as the thief tries a password and gets it wrong, my phone snaps a picture. If I can get to a web console or even another phone that has SMS capability, I can send all sorts of messages to my phone to track the location, sound an alarm, take video, movie or record audio, wipe memory, wipe the SD card or reboot, The phone will become all but useless once that's done. Sure, we might get a particularly talented thief who would know enough to root and install a new ROM, but that procedure takes time and the chances of that happening are pretty low given that a thief with that kind of know-how is likely to make a good living without risking jailtime.
To stop making so many people. I really think that that's going to happen anyway. Consider this, there is a whole generation of kids graduating college right now who are putting off having kids because they are saddled with debt, plus they are finding themselves in need of longer education because a 4 year degree today is like a HS degree used to be. So, the childbearing age will get squeezed to the point where we'll be producing people at less than the replacement rate. Eventually, this could paradoxically lead to unemployment receding a bit. That is, we'll have jobs go wanting because there won't be as many young people plus we'll have older workers age out of the workforce in larger numbers than can be replaced.
I tend to think he's right on principle. Every "good deed" a government does comes with unintended consequence, particularly when it hands out free money. But Mr. Paul's Achilles' heel seems to be his lack of understanding that we are a global market now. We have to compete as a country with other countries, so you have to be very agile, which means you have to pick the hill you want to die on. China, you'll notice, has decided not to die on the hill of perfect communism anymore, which is why, in part they are eating our lunch. I certainly don't want the US to be China, that's not my point. My point is that we need to stop being ideologically correct on the right or the left and carve a practical line out of the middle somewhere. I think businesses large and small should get a tax break to sponsor students through university or trade schools, kind of a GI Bill for business. In the end, you'll have less unemployed or unemployable students, and hopefully more taxpayers and revenue. Yeah, I'm sure you could poke holes in that too but at least it resolves the saddling the young with debt or leaving a generation unable to afford education.
I'm pretty sure Mr. Paul would call those two options meddling in the free market.
What makes you think the market for US universities and colleges is limited to American students? They'll keep the price up so long as someone is willing to pay it. Maybe American students couldn't afford it anymore, but foreign students, who could still be funded by their governments, will.
You also aren't considering the millions of foreign students who come into the US every year to attend colleges and universities. Their governments are not cutting off student loans, so the schools still would not need to lower their prices. I'm still not convinced that the deflation naturally follows. The devil is in the details.
He'd better have a plan for the huge bubble he's about to create in between the time when federal loans are cut off and colleges/universities actually lower their prices. It's easy to say these things on paper, but there's always a lag and that's where the problems start. See the Medicare "Donut Hole" for an example of that.
Computer programming, software engineering are great and if you keep your skills up, you can do it for a long time. But always be mindful that there are a lot of people who do it well and these days, a lot of very young people around the world who will do it for a lower salary than one might find comfortable in the West. If you want to raise a family on the salary you will make in the software industry, be sure to keep up not just your technical skills but your leadership, writing and project management skills as well. Making machines do stuff in an automated way is impressive, but a lot of people can do that. Leading a large group of people to produce great works is very impressive and much harder to accomplish than you might think.
....which they have clearly stated they intend to do. So what is the problem?
It makes little sense to do so until they've stablized it for release. This has always been the case with Android. The AOSP always follows after the Nexus announce. I know all the Android haters want to see a conspiracy here but this has been AOSP standard operating procedure all along.
Wow. Have you actually done any research on the subject? Cyanogen is amazingly popular, useful, and solid. So solid, in fact, that Samsung sent its phones to the creators of Cyanogen for test. Then, they hired the Cyanogen founder who continues to build and invest in the project. If anything, it has made for a better product.