Every programming job I've had in the US (four in four different and widely-separated states) has separated sick time from vacation time (and none called it "PTO"). Also, it's more common in the US to start with two weeks, not three (but it can be negotiated, of course). Nobody I work with now or at most companies I worked at felt a need to have "butts in seats" for more than ~40 hours a week. Sounds like you've been picking some real choice H1-B sweatshops. (There have been H1-B workers at companies I've worked at, and they don't feel compelled to put in 60 hours either, and were treated just like everyone else as far as I could tell.)
Be honest now: did you actually work in the US, or are you just spreading a collection of myths you've heard?
Society has (sic.) a whole is able to produce more than it can consume.
[citation needed]
Why would anyone produce what they could not sell? They would be paying for the privilege of producing something nobody would ever buy or use - losing money continually.
On the other hand, perhaps your claim is strictly is able, but doesn't, i.e., corporations are intentionally producing things less efficiently than they can, again losing money. Why would they do such a thing? Vast conspiracy against the "working classes" to overpay them?
I'm not opposed to tests, but I agree with you that they shouldn't put these demands up front in the application (at least, not something that will take 45 minutes). E.g., I'd feel better about it if the programming test was at the interview or they even contacted me after application and said they were asking a shortlist of candidates to do a test and doing well would lead to a final round of on-site interviews.
I'm also happier when I know that my colleagues at a company have been through some sort of skill testing. That's not to say there aren't bad or inappropriate tests, of course ("gotcha" questions, for example, or tests too far away from real development work so as to have no predictive value).
They do? It would seem it's more like they'd just say "Sorry, I'm not going to tell you". They might get antsy if employees start talking about it among themselves, but they can't really forbid it. Best they can do is create a "silo" culture where developers don't talk; but that's rather cutting off their nose to spite their face.
You make some good points, but, I think, miss a few things. Yes, an executive may be a low-stress job at some times - but it's a heck of a lot of work to get there for most (look at Jack Welch's biography, for instance - interestingly, he actually did have an earned Ph.D and considered teaching). You don't get hired to the top job without having proven yourself first (sometimes, I'm sure, nepotism comes into play, but it does anywhere and one would expect it to be less likely in C-level positions that need approval by the board of directors).
Regarding teachers having college degrees: do "we" expect that, or is it just another artificial barrier to entry thrown up by public school teachers and their unions? There are periodic Slashdot articles about the potential for non-degreed IT workers, and it is generally agreed that it's more difficult to break in than for those with a degree, but certainly doable. You may even say "we expect developers to have college degrees", but it's not a prescribed requirement. Many government jobs, including teaching, don't even let someone without a degree apply.
An MBA isn't necessarily even going to pay for itself, either (see, e.g., The Personal MBA site and arguments), although if lucky one might make some useful personal contacts in b-school. To just learn the material can be done without the paper - the same could be said for a Ph.D, especially in fields where expensive equipment is not required; but people don't expect to hit easy street with a Ph.D as some do with an MBA.
I would also submit that fewer people go into part-time doctoral programs not because of the difficulty of the work (everything I've seen indicates it's more mind-numbing and even demeaning than challenging) but the difficulty of getting accepted. Compared to what I expected, my part-time Master's program was fairly easy, so I took the opportunity to get decent grades (although it really doesn't matter for anything). Now, that doesn't involve original research, sure, but it still seems reasonable that getting accepted - which depends on people recommending you as a researcher - is more difficult than actually completing the degree, especially with a good adviser. And then, indeed, there's the "post-doc treadmill" to face, struggle for tenure, etc., which I think the linked article did a fairly good job of enumerating. Understanding this, we had someone return to our development team from a Ph.D program when I was at Microsoft (I offer this as a single data point only and not evidence of a trend or the like).
I got a BMath and it wasn't in APPLIED MATH... but I didn't have any trouble getting jobs given that it was in Computer Science (with a Pure Mathematics minor). The best schools teach computer science as part of the math faculty.:-)
My Master's was in Computer Science and Engineering.
I got plenty of experience along the way (co-op for undergrad, worked a few years, then I did my Master's part time and my employer paid for most of it).
Fort Hood was - yes, this seems odd to me too - practically a "gun-free zone", that is, "The Army prohibits soldiers from carrying personal firearms inside Fort Hood and other bases." (Wikipedia). So it's rather that the disarmed members of the military were unable to prevent the murders at Fort Hood, and rather argues for allowing people to carry firearms on the base.
I couldn't afford a $200k tank, but certainly a co-op made up of, say, the gun club at Microsoft (yes, Virginia...) could afford to buy a few of them (and prices would naturally fall as private ownership increased demand, manufacturing runs, competition, etc.).
Why does it seem impossible that the newspaper is (1) fear-mongering to increase their notoriety (no such thing as bad publicity, and as national publicity goes, paying for armed guards for a few days is pretty cheap), and/or (2) overreacting where no threat actually exists? There need be no dissonance (from an observer) between the fact of no threat existing and the belief that one does - people believe untrue and unprovable things all the time - or: no threat, no belief of a threat, but useful for publicity, as already mentioned.
You may be thinking of "assault weapon" (a political term without clear meaning). "Assault rifle" refers to a long gun with select fire capabilities (and a few other qualities; see link).
A common error. Government doesn't have the right to tax (how could it, or any person or entity? taxation is just a euphemism for extortion); it has the power to tax. Don't confuse right and power (or is and ought, as Hume put it). If I had more force at my command than the government, then I would have the power to tax the government. A mugger that has the advantage of someone in a dark alley has the power to "tax" them, too.
Choice is good - many would not even be willing to offer that sort of choice... but why limit it to just two? There are a lot more potential arbitration/protection systems than "the state's" and "none at all"; it borders on a false dilemma.
I too would like to see someone take you up on this, and since I don't have mod points now, perhaps this response will produce something of a bump.
I also feel compelled to ask you, sir, why you hate roads, want your house to burn down and/or be attacked by roving barbarians/British troops, and prefer to eat food which would indubitably kill you and everyone you have ever met instantly were it not for government food inspectors (blessings and peace upon them for-ever)?
I'd rather pay and use fair courts, or at least ones that pretend to it and can compete on reputation (hah, government "justice" system) and a protection service that doesn't spend most of its time and my money harassing people for using drugs and passing yet more laws against victimless "crime" to enrich public/pseudo-private prison owners/operators - but that same government "justice" system doesn't let me opt out of its depredations.
If his customers use the roads, let his customers pay for them, and don't extort him.
"You were robbed by a mugger, and he's threatening to burn down your house and rape your dog if you don't keep paying him? He's using the money he gets from you to mow my and my friend's lawn every Tuesday - we voted! - so SUCK IT UP!"
"Modern economics" does not make demands. And the idea that businesses are colluding to produce unemployment is silly. If a businessperson can hire someone that will add more to his bottom line than they cost, all things being equal, they'll do it. But demand for people, especially at minimum wage, is limited. There are plenty of people who cannot add even minimum wage to a company's bottom line: and companies are not charities (or if they are, they still want efficient employees). Already, a clue has been given as to one of the causes of unemployment: minimum wage. If a person is willing to work for less than minimum wage, and they provide over that amount of value, then they can be profitably employed - but that's not legal, so the company and the potential employee loses the value they could have gained (note that nowhere have I stated that a person can comfortably support a family of eight on minimum wage, nor that minimum wage is the only cause of unemployment).
And again, it is not "when a resource becomes short its value rises" - values are individual and subjective. If you fix that to prices rise, it's about right, but the usual term used is decrease in supply (and an increase in demand tends to have the same effect). It requires no conspiracy for there to be no buyer for a particular good or service - or worker - especially at a given price, and again, when a price floor such as minimum wage is in effect, it's easier for there to be a lack of a buyer. If a particular used car commonly goes for $3000 - that is, it is valued at $3000 by knowledgeable buyers, compared to equivalents etc. - and there is a price floor in effect requiring it to be sold for at least $3500, it will not sell as well, and not because customers are conspiring not to buy it to avoid the price being driven above $3500.
Consider Japan, which is very much in the situation of having higher demand for minimum wage (untrained) workers: did they just keep cranking up minimum wage until highschool grads can make the equivalent of $100/hour? No; they invested in robots for things like homecare for their aging population. There is no conspiracy against paying present minimum wage workers $100/hour; it's just about the value they add to the business. Even if there is reduced supply, businesses are not going to be able to pay more than the value gained for any resource, including employees, and stay in business for long. That's even more fundamental than economics: it's basic math.
Ah, yes, the magic social contract, wholly undefined and signed by nobody, but always hand-waved at when someone wants to justify plunder or harm of any sort - followed closely by asserting things that "we" agree to, where there is no such agreement in evidence.
I take my hat off to you, sir - no sarcasm intended. I know from your journals that you have a lot of haters modding you down; this post above is at -1 for no rational reason, and yet you keep posting insightful comments. Know that people do read them.
They randomize which proxies get sent to which random parts of the list (see what RTFA gets you?). Granted, the Minister signed up enough accounts hed' probably get them all (unless they got suspicious at all the requests from evil-commies.cn). Still, harder than one central website.
No - that was about Spamhaus (which is mentioned again in this current writeup but not the main point); this scenario is about Hotmail/Yahoo! having (he believes) a shared secret domain blacklist that applies to the content of emails.
Um... wow, it's sorta sad that I have to explain this.
Imagine you're the Chinese Minister of Censorship, or the flunky that manages the Great Firewall. You learn about a website with an RSS feed with a continually updated list of anti-censorship proxies. What do you do?
(On the other hand, you haven't blocked Hotmail or Yahoo! or other email providers, because, well, riots are bad for business.)
If "society" wants more kids, let people voluntarily donate to help out those that want to have them, and leave the government (and people that don't want to donate) out of it. I say society doesn't give a flying crap about it; and as a species we're in no danger of dying out.
In terms of needing people to work, left alone that's a self-healing problem too: as supply reduces but demand remains the same or even increases, prices can increase too and people will move into such jobs as the pricing mechanism signals.
God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independant 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. —Jefferson
Perhaps if any webmail client handled gpg encryption securely, I'd consider it. None do.
Pick the one you otherwise like best and start a conversation about it in their forums, or (if you write code) offer to contribute? Or perhaps chip in some cash to someone willing to fix the problems you identified?
Slashdot Mirror
Jails for some, yes - but they were designed to prepare people for working in factories.
But factory work isn't that much in demand any more - creative work is.
Every programming job I've had in the US (four in four different and widely-separated states) has separated sick time from vacation time (and none called it "PTO"). Also, it's more common in the US to start with two weeks, not three (but it can be negotiated, of course). Nobody I work with now or at most companies I worked at felt a need to have "butts in seats" for more than ~40 hours a week. Sounds like you've been picking some real choice H1-B sweatshops. (There have been H1-B workers at companies I've worked at, and they don't feel compelled to put in 60 hours either, and were treated just like everyone else as far as I could tell.)
Be honest now: did you actually work in the US, or are you just spreading a collection of myths you've heard?
[citation needed]
Why would anyone produce what they could not sell? They would be paying for the privilege of producing something nobody would ever buy or use - losing money continually.
On the other hand, perhaps your claim is strictly is able, but doesn't, i.e., corporations are intentionally producing things less efficiently than they can, again losing money. Why would they do such a thing? Vast conspiracy against the "working classes" to overpay them?
I'm not opposed to tests, but I agree with you that they shouldn't put these demands up front in the application (at least, not something that will take 45 minutes). E.g., I'd feel better about it if the programming test was at the interview or they even contacted me after application and said they were asking a shortlist of candidates to do a test and doing well would lead to a final round of on-site interviews.
I'm also happier when I know that my colleagues at a company have been through some sort of skill testing. That's not to say there aren't bad or inappropriate tests, of course ("gotcha" questions, for example, or tests too far away from real development work so as to have no predictive value).
They do? It would seem it's more like they'd just say "Sorry, I'm not going to tell you". They might get antsy if employees start talking about it among themselves, but they can't really forbid it. Best they can do is create a "silo" culture where developers don't talk; but that's rather cutting off their nose to spite their face.
You make some good points, but, I think, miss a few things. Yes, an executive may be a low-stress job at some times - but it's a heck of a lot of work to get there for most (look at Jack Welch's biography, for instance - interestingly, he actually did have an earned Ph.D and considered teaching). You don't get hired to the top job without having proven yourself first (sometimes, I'm sure, nepotism comes into play, but it does anywhere and one would expect it to be less likely in C-level positions that need approval by the board of directors).
Regarding teachers having college degrees: do "we" expect that, or is it just another artificial barrier to entry thrown up by public school teachers and their unions? There are periodic Slashdot articles about the potential for non-degreed IT workers, and it is generally agreed that it's more difficult to break in than for those with a degree, but certainly doable. You may even say "we expect developers to have college degrees", but it's not a prescribed requirement. Many government jobs, including teaching, don't even let someone without a degree apply.
An MBA isn't necessarily even going to pay for itself, either (see, e.g., The Personal MBA site and arguments), although if lucky one might make some useful personal contacts in b-school. To just learn the material can be done without the paper - the same could be said for a Ph.D, especially in fields where expensive equipment is not required; but people don't expect to hit easy street with a Ph.D as some do with an MBA.
I would also submit that fewer people go into part-time doctoral programs not because of the difficulty of the work (everything I've seen indicates it's more mind-numbing and even demeaning than challenging) but the difficulty of getting accepted. Compared to what I expected, my part-time Master's program was fairly easy, so I took the opportunity to get decent grades (although it really doesn't matter for anything). Now, that doesn't involve original research, sure, but it still seems reasonable that getting accepted - which depends on people recommending you as a researcher - is more difficult than actually completing the degree, especially with a good adviser. And then, indeed, there's the "post-doc treadmill" to face, struggle for tenure, etc., which I think the linked article did a fairly good job of enumerating. Understanding this, we had someone return to our development team from a Ph.D program when I was at Microsoft (I offer this as a single data point only and not evidence of a trend or the like).
I got a BMath and it wasn't in APPLIED MATH... but I didn't have any trouble getting jobs given that it was in Computer Science (with a Pure Mathematics minor). The best schools teach computer science as part of the math faculty. :-)
My Master's was in Computer Science and Engineering.
I got plenty of experience along the way (co-op for undergrad, worked a few years, then I did my Master's part time and my employer paid for most of it).
Fort Hood was - yes, this seems odd to me too - practically a "gun-free zone", that is, "The Army prohibits soldiers from carrying personal firearms inside Fort Hood and other bases." (Wikipedia). So it's rather that the disarmed members of the military were unable to prevent the murders at Fort Hood, and rather argues for allowing people to carry firearms on the base.
I couldn't afford a $200k tank, but certainly a co-op made up of, say, the gun club at Microsoft (yes, Virginia...) could afford to buy a few of them (and prices would naturally fall as private ownership increased demand, manufacturing runs, competition, etc.).
Why does it seem impossible that the newspaper is (1) fear-mongering to increase their notoriety (no such thing as bad publicity, and as national publicity goes, paying for armed guards for a few days is pretty cheap), and/or (2) overreacting where no threat actually exists? There need be no dissonance (from an observer) between the fact of no threat existing and the belief that one does - people believe untrue and unprovable things all the time - or: no threat, no belief of a threat, but useful for publicity, as already mentioned.
You may be thinking of "assault weapon" (a political term without clear meaning). "Assault rifle" refers to a long gun with select fire capabilities (and a few other qualities; see link).
A common error. Government doesn't have the right to tax (how could it, or any person or entity? taxation is just a euphemism for extortion); it has the power to tax. Don't confuse right and power (or is and ought, as Hume put it). If I had more force at my command than the government, then I would have the power to tax the government. A mugger that has the advantage of someone in a dark alley has the power to "tax" them, too.
Choice is good - many would not even be willing to offer that sort of choice... but why limit it to just two? There are a lot more potential arbitration/protection systems than "the state's" and "none at all"; it borders on a false dilemma.
Neither the letter nor the spirit of a law creates a moral duty.
I too would like to see someone take you up on this, and since I don't have mod points now, perhaps this response will produce something of a bump.
I also feel compelled to ask you, sir, why you hate roads, want your house to burn down and/or be attacked by roving barbarians/British troops, and prefer to eat food which would indubitably kill you and everyone you have ever met instantly were it not for government food inspectors (blessings and peace upon them for-ever)?
I'd rather pay and use fair courts, or at least ones that pretend to it and can compete on reputation (hah, government "justice" system) and a protection service that doesn't spend most of its time and my money harassing people for using drugs and passing yet more laws against victimless "crime" to enrich public/pseudo-private prison owners/operators - but that same government "justice" system doesn't let me opt out of its depredations.
If his customers use the roads, let his customers pay for them, and don't extort him.
"You were robbed by a mugger, and he's threatening to burn down your house and rape your dog if you don't keep paying him? He's using the money he gets from you to mow my and my friend's lawn every Tuesday - we voted! - so SUCK IT UP!"
"Modern economics" does not make demands. And the idea that businesses are colluding to produce unemployment is silly. If a businessperson can hire someone that will add more to his bottom line than they cost, all things being equal, they'll do it. But demand for people, especially at minimum wage, is limited. There are plenty of people who cannot add even minimum wage to a company's bottom line: and companies are not charities (or if they are, they still want efficient employees). Already, a clue has been given as to one of the causes of unemployment: minimum wage. If a person is willing to work for less than minimum wage, and they provide over that amount of value, then they can be profitably employed - but that's not legal, so the company and the potential employee loses the value they could have gained (note that nowhere have I stated that a person can comfortably support a family of eight on minimum wage, nor that minimum wage is the only cause of unemployment).
And again, it is not "when a resource becomes short its value rises" - values are individual and subjective. If you fix that to prices rise, it's about right, but the usual term used is decrease in supply (and an increase in demand tends to have the same effect). It requires no conspiracy for there to be no buyer for a particular good or service - or worker - especially at a given price, and again, when a price floor such as minimum wage is in effect, it's easier for there to be a lack of a buyer. If a particular used car commonly goes for $3000 - that is, it is valued at $3000 by knowledgeable buyers, compared to equivalents etc. - and there is a price floor in effect requiring it to be sold for at least $3500, it will not sell as well, and not because customers are conspiring not to buy it to avoid the price being driven above $3500.
Consider Japan, which is very much in the situation of having higher demand for minimum wage (untrained) workers: did they just keep cranking up minimum wage until highschool grads can make the equivalent of $100/hour? No; they invested in robots for things like homecare for their aging population. There is no conspiracy against paying present minimum wage workers $100/hour; it's just about the value they add to the business. Even if there is reduced supply, businesses are not going to be able to pay more than the value gained for any resource, including employees, and stay in business for long. That's even more fundamental than economics: it's basic math.
Ah, yes, the magic social contract, wholly undefined and signed by nobody, but always hand-waved at when someone wants to justify plunder or harm of any sort - followed closely by asserting things that "we" agree to, where there is no such agreement in evidence.
I take my hat off to you, sir - no sarcasm intended. I know from your journals that you have a lot of haters modding you down; this post above is at -1 for no rational reason, and yet you keep posting insightful comments. Know that people do read them.
They randomize which proxies get sent to which random parts of the list (see what RTFA gets you?). Granted, the Minister signed up enough accounts hed' probably get them all (unless they got suspicious at all the requests from evil-commies.cn). Still, harder than one central website.
No - that was about Spamhaus (which is mentioned again in this current writeup but not the main point); this scenario is about Hotmail/Yahoo! having (he believes) a shared secret domain blacklist that applies to the content of emails.
Um... wow, it's sorta sad that I have to explain this.
Imagine you're the Chinese Minister of Censorship, or the flunky that manages the Great Firewall. You learn about a website with an RSS feed with a continually updated list of anti-censorship proxies. What do you do?
(On the other hand, you haven't blocked Hotmail or Yahoo! or other email providers, because, well, riots are bad for business.)
If "society" wants more kids, let people voluntarily donate to help out those that want to have them, and leave the government (and people that don't want to donate) out of it. I say society doesn't give a flying crap about it; and as a species we're in no danger of dying out.
In terms of needing people to work, left alone that's a self-healing problem too: as supply reduces but demand remains the same or even increases, prices can increase too and people will move into such jobs as the pricing mechanism signals.
God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independant 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. —Jefferson
Pick the one you otherwise like best and start a conversation about it in their forums, or (if you write code) offer to contribute? Or perhaps chip in some cash to someone willing to fix the problems you identified?