I decided to leave my first tech job shortly after several people were laid off. While doing some one-on-one tutoring of the CEO's admin assistant, I spotted a sheet of paper on her desk with several names and positions listed on it, a few of them at the bottom crossed off. The uncrossed names had one thing in common: they were the people who'd been laid off. And one of the crossed-off names was mine. Which meant that when/if a new list was created, mine would be at the top. Six months after I resigned, my replacement was laid off.
Right. Thanks for stating what should be obvious from the context of the question, which was how to draft a contract that changes that state of affairs, such that the code he writes isn't Work Made For Hire.
And any response that doesn't include the phrase "ask a lawyer" or its logical equivalent should be modded down.
For myself, I see not blogging as a form of therapy.
I've been doing a "this is what I think about stuff" blog for a couple years, sometimes adding articles several times a week. But I recently deprecated it: turning off comments, deleting the bookmark to it, and basically swapping the whole thing out to disk. I've got too many balls in the air (so to speak), and taking the blog out of my day-to-day juggling act is one step on my road to greater happiness. I have books I want to read... and to write and to illustrate. The only way that's going to happen is to stop spending my time on less important things, like the blog.
And I think next I'm going to delete my bookmark to Slashdot.
if a walk is too far, cycling is not an option but you don't want a car, then get a motorcycle or a scooter or something similar..
A scooter is the one hole left in my Transportation Schema. I walk up to a mile or two for neighborhood errands, I bike or take the bus to work and bike for small errands up to about five miles, and I have a small car for laundry/grocery trips and out of town trips. What I still need is something that can take me on errands or to the movie theater across town without wearing me out (as the bike would) making me wait (for the bus) or waste fuel (like the car). A scooter would be perfect for that.
My senior year in college - the first time - I wrote a program which would automatically derive proofs for arguments of propositional logic, or declare them unverifiable. I wrote it in Prolog (a language I'd learned studying abroad at the University of Aberdeen), and drew upon the Logic class I'd taken over in the Philosophy department. I coded up a batch of theorems and axioms (e.g. transitivity, DeMorgan's), plus a shell to parse the input and return the results, then told the Prolog machine to go solve! A bit trivial, I suppose, but doing it with 1980's microcomputers made it a challenge.
The second time I went to college, my last-semester project was a bit different. This time I was studying digital media and illustration, and the project was to build a portfolio site using Flash that would help get me a job. On the left side was a structured outline of my technical skills, and on the the right side was a more free-flowing demonstration of my creative work. Naturally, I used Leonardo's Vitruvian Man as the visual theme.
Which I'm sure is nothing like what you're asking about, but it does reflect the difference between being a CS major in the late 80s with a few job offers already in the bag, and being a Digital Media major in the early 00s just hoping to get a job that'll pay what those late-80s jobs did.
I don't expect my boss to understand everything I do or to be someone for me to "learn from". The best boss I ever had was a guy who was a year behind me in college, and whom I coached in real-world tech when he graduated. He went on to become manager of an IT dept and hired me a few years later. I did learn a bit about management and various other things from him, and it's not as if I'd taught him everything he knew about tech. But his job wasn't to teach me; his job was to play the role of "manager" and mine was to play the role of "techie". The important thing was that he understood my role, and generally trusted and respected my judgment, and it was mutual.
The DECwriter was a wondrous piece of machinery. A bit of nuisance for entering new programs (compared to the Teleray terminal next to it in our "computer lab", but a lot more convenient than submitting a print job when you wanted a program listing to take home and debug.
I just bought a 1920's Royal typewriter on ebay for $35, for the explicit purpose of turning it into a PC case.
I bought an old Underwood typewriter a while back for the explicit purpose of using it as... a typewriter. Not quite the same as the machine I used to write A-quality papers and C-minus-quality short stories back in high school (circa l98O), but close enough.
Since the closest thing to a "pocket computer" in my college days was a calculator, I got by without a PDA. Not a problem. But instead of a plain notepad, I used little checkbook-sized calendars (the kind with one month per two-page spread). Something due on 27 September? Flip to "September" and write it in the square with a "27" in it. If it's a big project, WRITE IT BIG. Quick and easy data entry, and easy as pi to see what's coming up, whether you've got two big projects due within a couple days of each other, etc. Concerned about backups? Copy them to a pin-up calendar on your dormroom wall.
A PDA becomes a lot more useful after finishing school, when the tidiness of discrete assignments and teacher-specified due dates (and the delicious freedom of wiping the to-do list clean at thge end of every semester) vanish into the past. But if you just want to keep track of when your assignments have to be finished, a simple calendar is all you need.
"Investing" is only of value to society when it provides new capital to businesses. The rest of the time (the vast majority of stock transactions) is just people trading pieces of paper*, with no practical benefit to society... just to the individual who plays the game better than the other guy and makes a profit. It's mostly side bets. The fact that we assign value to companies, shut them down, etc. based on the selling prices of those pieces of paper is just piling insanity upon inanity. I'm not saying that a stock market is inherently worthless. If people still bought stock for the purpose of providing capital for a good business plan in exchange for some of the profits, that'd be swell. But the stock market - the one we have, in which it's degenerated into a game of maximizing portfolio value by the quarter (or by the hour) - is darn near worthless.
*Of course there aren't actual pieces of paper involved anymore.
I just made a nice chunk o' cash when Amazon blipped up last week. Exactly at whose expense did I make that money?
Hard to say. (The fact that the losers are often indirect is one of the things that makes the stock-market game so pernicious. It's so much easier to hurt other people when you don't have to see them.) But whoever bought your shares at (if you played the game well) a local maximum, would be my first guess.
So no, markets don't only serve the needs of society by accident.
I wasn't talking about markets in general, dolt. I was talking about the stock market, which - despite its occasionally-used function of helping businesses raise capital (i.e. when new shares are put up for sale) - generally serves no purpose except to allow people to try to make deals that benefit them financially (at others' expense, of course).
If you want to buy or sell financial instruments, you go the goddamn stockmarket.
Exactly. But the buying and selling of "financial instruments" is no of real value to society. It's a vacuous, pointless game that - unfortunately - is becoming the basis of our economy, rather than activities that have some actual value, such as manufacturing things, or producing food, or providing practical services. The "financial instrument" market is just buying and selling... money. (Hell, even the drug market is more useful: it brings people a product they demand, and provides income for the suppliers.)
The only thing "astounding" about the dot-com boom/bust is that it puts into clear relief just how divorced from reality - or any other productive use of time and energy - the stock market has become. It serves only as a means for people to make money on paper, and contributes to the well-being of society and the economy only by accident.
I'd be just as interested in protecting Wikipedia from the presumably-well-intended contributions of people who don't have a clue what "encyclopedia" means and sometimes couldn't even spell it if their lives depended on it.
The worst (IMHO) are the (forgive the political incorrectness) dyslexics, Aspergerists, and other "rainman"-esque editors who will persistently dump, re-dump, and perpetu-dump barely-legible, generally-useless garbage into otherwise-good articles, no matter how nicely and how often you ask them not to.
Slashdot Mirror
...I'm going to celebrate World Standards Day today (15 October) instead.
I decided to leave my first tech job shortly after several people were laid off. While doing some one-on-one tutoring of the CEO's admin assistant, I spotted a sheet of paper on her desk with several names and positions listed on it, a few of them at the bottom crossed off. The uncrossed names had one thing in common: they were the people who'd been laid off. And one of the crossed-off names was mine. Which meant that when/if a new list was created, mine would be at the top. Six months after I resigned, my replacement was laid off.
How about "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Taiwan"? It works well enough in the Balkans.
And any response that doesn't include the phrase "ask a lawyer" or its logical equivalent should be modded down.
I've been doing a "this is what I think about stuff" blog for a couple years, sometimes adding articles several times a week. But I recently deprecated it: turning off comments, deleting the bookmark to it, and basically swapping the whole thing out to disk. I've got too many balls in the air (so to speak), and taking the blog out of my day-to-day juggling act is one step on my road to greater happiness. I have books I want to read... and to write and to illustrate. The only way that's going to happen is to stop spending my time on less important things, like the blog.
And I think next I'm going to delete my bookmark to Slashdot.
My mom had that done. Saved her life. I'm just glad the problem was detected early enough.
Never was stupid enough to play in the first place, actually.
They got on the "B" Ark.
A scooter is the one hole left in my Transportation Schema. I walk up to a mile or two for neighborhood errands, I bike or take the bus to work and bike for small errands up to about five miles, and I have a small car for laundry/grocery trips and out of town trips. What I still need is something that can take me on errands or to the movie theater across town without wearing me out (as the bike would) making me wait (for the bus) or waste fuel (like the car). A scooter would be perfect for that.
The second time I went to college, my last-semester project was a bit different. This time I was studying digital media and illustration, and the project was to build a portfolio site using Flash that would help get me a job. On the left side was a structured outline of my technical skills, and on the the right side was a more free-flowing demonstration of my creative work. Naturally, I used Leonardo's Vitruvian Man as the visual theme.
Which I'm sure is nothing like what you're asking about, but it does reflect the difference between being a CS major in the late 80s with a few job offers already in the bag, and being a Digital Media major in the early 00s just hoping to get a job that'll pay what those late-80s jobs did.
I don't expect my boss to understand everything I do or to be someone for me to "learn from". The best boss I ever had was a guy who was a year behind me in college, and whom I coached in real-world tech when he graduated. He went on to become manager of an IT dept and hired me a few years later. I did learn a bit about management and various other things from him, and it's not as if I'd taught him everything he knew about tech. But his job wasn't to teach me; his job was to play the role of "manager" and mine was to play the role of "techie". The important thing was that he understood my role, and generally trusted and respected my judgment, and it was mutual.
But for a lot less money, eh?
Well in that case, I won't bother.
You should see my posture, and how decorously I eat chicken-noodle soup.
The DECwriter was a wondrous piece of machinery. A bit of nuisance for entering new programs (compared to the Teleray terminal next to it in our "computer lab", but a lot more convenient than submitting a print job when you wanted a program listing to take home and debug.
I bought an old Underwood typewriter a while back for the explicit purpose of using it as... a typewriter. Not quite the same as the machine I used to write A-quality papers and C-minus-quality short stories back in high school (circa l98O), but close enough.
Reminds me of an assignment I did for typography class.
A PDA becomes a lot more useful after finishing school, when the tidiness of discrete assignments and teacher-specified due dates (and the delicious freedom of wiping the to-do list clean at thge end of every semester) vanish into the past. But if you just want to keep track of when your assignments have to be finished, a simple calendar is all you need.
*Of course there aren't actual pieces of paper involved anymore.
Hard to say. (The fact that the losers are often indirect is one of the things that makes the stock-market game so pernicious. It's so much easier to hurt other people when you don't have to see them.) But whoever bought your shares at (if you played the game well) a local maximum, would be my first guess.
You might be interested in Wolverine, the more feature-rich, commercial cousin of Coyote Linux (which I have used contentedly for several years).
I wasn't talking about markets in general, dolt. I was talking about the stock market, which - despite its occasionally-used function of helping businesses raise capital (i.e. when new shares are put up for sale) - generally serves no purpose except to allow people to try to make deals that benefit them financially (at others' expense, of course).
If you want to buy or sell financial instruments, you go the goddamn stockmarket.
Exactly. But the buying and selling of "financial instruments" is no of real value to society. It's a vacuous, pointless game that - unfortunately - is becoming the basis of our economy, rather than activities that have some actual value, such as manufacturing things, or producing food, or providing practical services. The "financial instrument" market is just buying and selling... money. (Hell, even the drug market is more useful: it brings people a product they demand, and provides income for the suppliers.)
The only thing "astounding" about the dot-com boom/bust is that it puts into clear relief just how divorced from reality - or any other productive use of time and energy - the stock market has become. It serves only as a means for people to make money on paper, and contributes to the well-being of society and the economy only by accident.
The worst (IMHO) are the (forgive the political incorrectness) dyslexics, Aspergerists, and other "rainman"-esque editors who will persistently dump, re-dump, and perpetu-dump barely-legible, generally-useless garbage into otherwise-good articles, no matter how nicely and how often you ask them not to.
Again?! But that trick never works!
Seriously, this whole Pluto-isn't-a-planet argument's been made before, and the public didn't buy it.