This post immediately leads to an (off-topic) flame war about the relative merits (and lack thereof) of said notation, AND at the same time it gets modded up to 5!
Again, I think we are in agreement... I just thought I'd take this thread to the next level since it isn't a black-and-white issue and your responses seem thoughtful enough that I would WELCOME your thoughts on any of the above.
Actually, we are in agreement when it comes to the big picture. If you have read any of my other posts on the topic (doubtful since that is like finding a needle in a haystack!), I don't think that the outsourcing trend in IT is going to the economic collapse of the economy. I don't even think that offshore outsourcing in high-tech is going to work, long term.
However, where we disagree is the fact that certain professions are always going to have a strong demand, no matter what. Hopefully, we won't have to test my hypothesis in a real-world setting!
I wasn't claiming things will remain exactly as we know them now... I was trying to start a thread about the sorts of jobs that would always remain "local"...
I agree that these jobs will always remain "local". However, what I am saying is that there will be less of a demand for them, which is pretty much the same as outsourcing them directly. Let's face it - if you lose your job because it is outsourced or if you lose your job because the demand for it has waned, you are still out of a job!
I admit I was somewhat flippant about my take on Construction jobs. However, let's think about it logically. If jobs are outsourced, the workers who lose theor jobs are going to be less likely to build new houses, or make big additions to their existing houses. On the commercial side, there is going to be less need to build offices here in the US. Therefore, there will be less work out there for people in the construction trade. Will construction jobs go away completely? Of course not! Will there be less demand for these skills? Absolutely!
The same goes for the other trades you mention. They aren't going to disappear completely, but there will be less demand for them.
This is even true of doctors and nurses. Yes, if you are having a heart attack, you will seek medical attention whether or not you are going to pay. However, there are a lot of medical procedures that you are probably going to put off if you can't afford them. Who is going to get that yearly cholesterol test if you are barely able to put food on the table? Who is going to seek medical attention for a sore throat when it'll probably go away after a few days? The bottom line is that less money is going to be spent on health care, which means that there will be less demand for doctors.
Besides, with tele-communications the way it is, perhaps we will be seeing doctors who are 5000 miles away!!
I lived and worked in Ithaca NY for a couple of years, and it definitely meets your requirements for rural living. Ithaca is a small rural town in the finger lakes region of NY (think wineries and dairy farms) that is also the home to Ithaca College and Cornell University. The area definitely has the rural "feel" to it, but because of the two schools it isn't totally backwards, technologically speaking. Finding work in your field shouldn't be an issue, either through one of the universities or through a private company based in the area.
If you dont like long, cold upstate NY winters, I would imagine that other rural college towns might meet your needs, as well.
I have been on both sides of the interviewing table, and in my experience, the best technical interviews are language-agnostic, regardless of what language is used in your shop. All of the questions that I ask start with "here's a programming problem, now solve it in whatever language you want". I am more interested in seeing a person's thought process as they go through the steps of solving the problem than their syntactic recall for a particular language.
My rationale is that a software developer who has excellent problem solving skills can transfer their skills to any language. However, someone who knows the syntax and tricks of a language cold may or may not be a good problem solver.
The only exception to this is that if I want someone with OO skills, I will ask language-agnostic questions about OO design and development concepts (ex: define polymorphism, state why it is useful, and give an example of how it can be used).
Also, a question that "tricks people into trying to store a primitive in a collections object", doesn't seem like a very useful question. First, you are testing for knowledge of a Java syntactic quirk. Secondly, even if a person didn't know about this quirk right off the bat, any developer worth their salt certainly would figure it out the first time they tried to compile the progam.
In fairness, I do like the question about determining if a bit is set, although I wouldn't hold it against the person if they didn't have the Java bit operators memorized. As long as they understood the CONCEPT of bit manipulation, I'd be happy.
I don't got to italian pages, german pages or spanish pages because unless the have some idea who I'm writing for I'm not likely to find help there. They're trying to write for their own targets. I won't bother with Builder.com for the same reason, as they evidently only mean for indian readers. What a disappointment it will be when they realise they can't make the same revenues because outsourced employees don't have the same spending power.
I think you are in the minority here. One thing about technology is that it transcends borders. Non-Americans can be (and are) just as knowledgeable about tech as we Americans. When I am looking for an article or a book, content is the thing that I am most interested in.
Would you not read a book or article on Linus by the creator of Linux because he is Finnish? Would you not read a book or article on C++ by the creator of C++ because he is Danish? I find that writings by these two gentleman are just as insightful and engaging as the writings of my American brethren. Of course, you'd just dismiss them because they don't have the "native point of view" (whatever that means).
It's also funny that you accuse MSDN, a site written by Americans primarily, as being useless technical mumbo-jumbo. I guess even Americans don't have that "native point of view" that you crave.
With today's travel technology and communication infrastructure, what ISN'T an outsourceable skill set?
Doctor Nurse Veterinarian Auto Repair Bartender Server Construction
Sorry if those aren't your cup of tea but no matter how grim things get, there are some jobs that will always be around. If you really think that the writing is on the wall, start reading...
Although you are correct in that it is difficult to oursource these jobs directly, outsourcing has an indirect effect on these professions. For instance, if large numbers of people in the US are out of work:
- they won't be buying very many cars, - they won't be spending money on their pets, - they won't be building their new dream house, - they won't be going out to eat a lot, - they won't have health insurance to pay all those medical bills
As you can see, even those professions which you say can't be outsourced will be affected. It's funny how interconnected the economy is.
One downside which nobody has mentioned is that if the venture goes downhill for whatever reason, everyone in the family is out of a job. Unless your family member has skills that your business can't do without, it may be better for the family member to diversify where they are getting their paycheck from.
On the upside, if a family member might take more care in their work than your average worker, because they have a personal stake in the business. Of course, you have to judge if the family member is deserving of that kind of trust. If you have a close family, this can work out well. If you are just hiring a relative as a favor to your mom, then you might think twice of that decision.
One final observation: if you have non-relative employees, you may need to carefully monitor how they are reacting to working side-by-side with the boss' . They may feel threatened if they perceive that the relative is getting special treatment. It may also hurt your ability to lead if the relative uses their relationship with you as an excuse to undermine your authority.
Personally, I would think long and hard before bringing a relative on board. It may not be worth the trouble.
I agree to a certain extent. My handwriting was marginal at best until I took a class called "Mechanical Drawing" in high school. Our first lesson was to learn how to print letters and numbers in a very specific block-letter format. One thing that helped was that the teacher was very picky when it came to grading our assignments. In order to get a good grade, your lettering had to be perfect. After some practice and self-discipline, I was able to get the hang of it.
The downside to writing using this block-lettering style is that it takes longer to write something using it. If I am taking notes, I use cursive, which I find is faster for me. However, if I am addressing envelopes or otherwise writing something for public consumption, I use block-lettering.
What passed for workplace flirtation in 1972 is grounds for dismissal today.
There was actually a gameshow from the 70's called _Three's a Crowd_ that I've seen replayed on the Game Show Network from time to time that is filled with blatant and unapologetic sexual harassment. The show involves a business man, his wife, and his secretary. The wife and secretary compete to see who knows more about the husband. The questions often ranged from mildly suggestive to blatantly embarassing and would be grounds for lawsuits in today's society.
I wonder what the statute of limitations is for harassment lawsuits. Some lawyer could make a killing on those re-runs!
The points you make are true, but they're arguments about a learned interface, not an intuitive one. If the interface were truly intuitive, it wouldn't have to become "ingrained," nor would we have to be "be brought up with it as kids."
I completely agree that an analog watch is superior in many ways. But it isn't more intuitive.
Actually, by your standards, a digital watch is not intuitive either, since it requires one to be able to read numbers. After all, identifying numbers is "ingrained" - something we are "brought up with as kids".
Personally, I find it easier to judge relative times at a glance using an analog watch, but that's just me...
I have a unique perspective on this since I have degrees in both CS and EE. Based upon overall job prospects, if I had to choose one or the other, I would definitely choose the Electrical Engineering degree.
The reason why isn't because I think there will be more EE jobs than CS jobs. I don't have a crystal ball, so it is hard to guess what is going to happen. However, I have noticed that an EE degree (or an engineering degree, in general) opens a lot of doors in a lot of industries, compared to a CS degree. It seems like people have a lot more respect for someone with an engineering background. It could be the perception that an engineering grad has gone through a rigorous course load, so they have the brains and logical thinking that it takes to get the job done.
I know when I graduated in 1993 with my EE degree, the country was still in the throes of a recession. That coupled with the fact that the defense sector was being hit hard, meant that jobs for entry-level engineers were few and far between. After months of looking, I ended up landing a job at an insurance company in their actuarial department (the department that does all of the statistical studies for the company). I was hired even though I didn't have any formal training in insurance or statistics. The company's reasoning was anyone who could handle the math and science coursework that I typical EE grad has to take could easily handle the workload. That gave me a greater appreciation of what I had accomplished by earning my degree. In hindsight, it makes a lot of sense that engineering grads are prized even outside of the traditional engineering mold.
I have heard of similar stories from many of my fellow EE classmates. The engineering background has helped people land spots in lawschool, jobs on Wall Street, and even accepatances to medical school. Engineering grads are viewed as having a solid logic and quantitative background - sort of the liberal arts equivalent for the math and sciences.
It doesn't have any fancy cameras or GPS devices or data storage features, but it meets my one requirement of a watch: if I get sucked into some kind of spacetime vortex and end up trapped on some prehistoric planet with two times Earth's gravity, the watch had better last me at least until I get eaten by a dinosaur.
I just wanted to point out that if said scenario comes to pass, you probably won't be able to synchronize with said atomic clock signal. Not to mention that the planet's "local" time might not be on a 24 hour cycle.
If the planet you happen to end up on is Mars, perhaps you can use a watch like the one described here
I'd recommend listening to eyewitnesses or books written by persons involved in wars instead of watching a movie, of all things. But sure, these are based on actual events. However, the key word here is "based".
I agree. In other post on this thread, I recommend reading the books by Steven Ambrose, who wrote the book on which _Band of Brothers_ is based. All of his books contain detailed interviews with the soldiers who were there (on both sides), and some of the accounts are downright amazing. I do have to say that having both read and watched _Band of Brothers_, the mini-series does capture the overall "feel" of the book (although the book is still more authentic, in my opinion).
Let's give credit where credit is due; WWII wouldn't have been won on the Western Front without the USA; but the Brits held out for a couple of years against the greatest military in the world, and were instrumental in defeating the Luftwaffe and the Afrika Korps. That shouldn't be taken away from them.
While we are handing out credit for the victory in WW2, let's not forget about our friends, the Russians. The Russians fought the brunt of the German war machine, and wore them down through sheer attrition. I don't recall the exact number of Russian war dead, but it ranges in the millions. If the Western Allies had to face the main core of the German army, I don't know if we would have won.
The German army was so strung out by the time of D-Day that they had to resort to conscripting men from many of their Eastern European conquests (Russians, Poles). It was these men who manned the beaches of Normandy, by and large, on D-Day. There is even a story about how the Allies captured a group of soliders from the Far East (Korea, I believe). It turned out that they had been conscripted in the Russian army to fight the Germans, captured by the Germans, and then conscripted into the German army! Other than the German officer pointing a Luger at them from behind, they were not very motivated to fight in this battle.
If you are interested in learning more about the contributions of the US during WWII, I urge you to read _D-Day_ and _Citizen Soldier_ by the late Steven Ambrose (the same historian who wrote the book _Band of Brothers_ on which the mini-series is based). If you want more insight into the Russian Front, a good book to read is _Stalingrad_ by Anthony Beevor. While this book doesn't cover the whole Eastern campaign, it does give a lot of insight into the brutality of the fighting on the Eastern Front. While the Germans and the Western Allies were at war with one another, there was a great deal of respect between the grunts on both sides. However, the Germans and Russians absolutely hated each other, which made for brutal fighting conditions, the likes of which were rarely seen on the Western Front.
1) why hasn't the Mac done better? I think it has always been a point of price, especially in the business/office world. I bought a Mac 128K in 1985 new for something like $1,499. It really hurt. That's the most I've paid for a computer, ever.
I think saying that it's the "price" only tells half the story. The huge advantage that PC's have had is their "clone"-ability. Let's face it, many (if not most) PC's that were sold during the growth of the personal computer were not, in fact, IBM-PC's. They were clones by fledgling companies like Dell, Compaq, Gateway, et al. Because of all of the competition in the PC market, prices were driven down. In addition, because of the PC's standard archetecture, there was a much more robust PC peripheral market, which made the PC even more inviting.
2) why hasn't the Mac died? Innovation, I'd say.
I think one big factor in the Mac's success is marketing. Macs (and Apple in general) have this counter-cultural appeal that a lot of people buy into. Macs aren't this emotionless off-white box that every cubicle in America has. They are friendly, colorful, hip accessories that only a select few elite trendsetters dare to own. Look at the original "1984" ad, or their "Think Different" ad. There are enough people who buy into this hip message to keep the Mac product line afloat.
That's not to say that they are or aren't innovative machines, but let's face it - anything you can do on a Mac you can pretty much do on a PC. Neither is particularly innovative when it comes to 99% of the stuff that the average computer user needs to do.
I think people are realizing that not everything can be moved offshore and that programmers with domain/business experience are actually worth what you pay them here in the states. Dell, for example, is moving some of thier IT facilities back to the US after outsourcing it to India.
Actually Dell is moving one particular CALL CENTER facility (the one that handles large corporate accounts, if memory serves) back to the US. I would hardly call this an IT facility. While I have the utmost respect for call center workers (I was one in a previous life), it doesn't take a lot of technical skill to work in a call center. All you need is a high school education and a good phone voice...
One thing I don't understand is why companies (not just yours, but many others) are actually cutting back on telecommuting during these "tough times". You would think that companies would be more likely to embrace telecommuting since it'll save them money in the long run.
One of the so-called advantages of offshore outsourcing is that you don't need to pay to lease office space and its associated costs (toilet paper, janitors, heating and air conditioning, etc). It would seem like you could get the same cost benefit from moving to a telecommuting environment, with the added benefit of being able to bring the same people onsite for face-to-face meetings if necessary without having to fly them half way across the world. Plus, workers would probably accept a lower salary since telecommuting offers workers a better quality of life.
I guess this type of thinking is too "outside the box" for your standard MBA. It is easier to follow the trends than start your own trend.
I went to the original posters website to look at the libraries in question, and they appear to be trivial little code snippets. Here are some examples:
1. Lanuching a browser window 2. Creating a password dialog box 3. Base64 encoding of text
I find it hard to believe that any commercial company would expose themselves to liability by stealing pieces of code that any code monkey worth their salt can write in less than a day. It is more likely that they happened to develop the similiar libraries in parallel. Since these tasks are so trivial (and examples of them appear in many places, both in print and on the web), I can see how two programmers would code up these tasks in the same way. In fact, given how widespread the implementation of, say, Base64 encoding is, I wouldn't be surprised if the original poster's libraries are nearly identical to a previous implementation of the libraries.
It would be akin to someone trying to copyright a musical chord and then suing everyone for trying to use it in their music!
You mention that you are a W2 employee of the contracting company that placed you. My question is this: Are you still employed by the contracting company (i.e. "on the bench"), or did the contracting company fire you since you don't have any billable hours. I would think that since you seem to have an employee-employer relationship with the contracting company that they would be obligated to honor the terms of the ADA. It may get a little "sticky" because the decision to not follow the ADA was made by a third-party (the company you were contracted out to), but that's where you would need a good lawyer to argue your case.
Anyway, I wish you good luck with your illness and your case.
Optimum Online is _Cablevision_, not Verizon. Also, if you are already a cable subscriber, the price is $40/month.
I have Verizon DSL (I am also in northern NJ) and it is $34.95/month. However, if you have Verizon for local and long distance I believe they will give you DSL for as low as $29.95/month.
>The problem is that there just aren't enough people to fill all these jobs
Can we be sure? New Scientist, April 18 1992,p.6 "Skill shortages in US a 'myth'" "Claims made by the National Science Foundation during the 1980s that the US faced a shortage of scientists and engineers were based on a flawed scientific study...At the hearing, before Representative Howard Wolpe's subcommittee, witnesses said...the unemployment level among scientists and engineers is higher than aveage."
DO PEOPLE ACTUALLY _READ_ POSTS ON SLASHDOT????
Obviously not, because if you did read my post, you would have realized that I was talking about the fact that there aren't enough educated people in the third-world to fill all of the high-skill high-tech jobs that we are supposedly going to be offshoring in the next few years.
I did not deny that companies are going to be able to successful offshoring lower skilled jobs (call centers, light industrial, clerical). My contention is that that industry is going to have a much harder time offshoring high-skill jobs to the extent that people think. Sure there may be some companies who are able to do it, but to suggest that entire high-skill professions will be migrate to the third-world is crazy for the reasons I state in my original post.
You may be right when you say that corps may TRY to offshore as many jobs as possible. However, whether they will be successful at it is a totally different question entirely.
All this offshore outsourcing is not going to succeed in the way that everyone envisions. Maybe some low-skill call center jobs will go overseas, but the high-skill jobs like those mentioned in the article aren't going to leave in the numbers that people predict.
The problem is that there just aren't enough people to fill all these jobs. Countries like India and China just don't have the infrastructure to handle them. Unlike here in the US, education is carefully rationed since there isn't enough money or facilities to give everyone a high-tech college education. Sending students to the West to be educated is the excpetion rather than the rule. As more companies look for offshore workers, salaries for these people are going to increase (greater demand but limited supply). As this occurs, the cost savings is going to vaporize!
In addition, a lot of these countrys' best and brightest are already over here on H1-B visas. The allure of living in the US - the opportunities for themselves and their children - is very very strong. In order to compete with H1-B opportunities, companies will again need to raise salaries in order to keep these workers at home. Eventually, offshore outsourcing is going to look like not such a good deal!
Again, I am not talking about low-skill call center jobs. I am talking about high-skill high tech jobs. Don't get me wrong... I have the utmost respect for the call-center worker. I did that job myself for a time, and it is a tough thankless job. However, I don't have any illusions about what is needed to do the job. If you have a good phone voice and a tough skin, you will probably be successful at it if you choose to. If you have a grade-school equivalent education, you can handle the work.
I think you are misunderstanding my point. I said that the movie does a better job at realizing JACKSON'S MIDDLE EARTH than the book does at realizing TOLKIEN'S MIDDLE EARTH. What you are saying is that the book does a better job at realizing TOLKIEN'S MIDDLE EARTH than the movies does at realizing TOLKIEN'S MIDDLE EARTH. There is a subtle difference between the two. I happen to agree with your statement. However, I also agree with my statement.
When I read the book, what I picture in my mind is probably very different than what Tolkien envisioned when he was writing the book. This is because books are limited in their sensory input; they rely so much on the reader's own imagination and experience. When I see the movie, however, what I see and hear is pretty much what Peter Jackson wants me to see and hear. This is because movies are a much richer medium in terms of the senses that they stimulate.
I am not saying that one medium is better than the other. I happen to enjoy books as much as I enjoy movies. However, if you are judging the value of books vs movies based upon the criteria of being able to get across what the author/director is imagining (which is what the original poster was trying to do) then movies are superior to books BASED soley upon that criteria.
What you say about how a book can easily build up a character's background information while a film must find other ways is true only because of the artificial limitations that film makers work under. When you have a limited budget of both time and money, there is only so much exposition that you can do in a film. However, this limitation is not a consequence of the medium itself.
Slashdot Mirror
This has got to be the perfect troll!!
This post immediately leads to an (off-topic) flame war about the relative merits (and lack thereof) of said notation, AND at the same time it gets modded up to 5!
I bow down before your superior posting skills...
Again, I think we are in agreement... I just thought I'd take this thread to the next level since it isn't a black-and-white issue and your responses seem thoughtful enough that I would WELCOME your thoughts on any of the above.
Actually, we are in agreement when it comes to the big picture. If you have read any of my other posts on the topic (doubtful since that is like finding a needle in a haystack!), I don't think that the outsourcing trend in IT is going to the economic collapse of the economy. I don't even think that offshore outsourcing in high-tech is going to work, long term.
However, where we disagree is the fact that certain professions are always going to have a strong demand, no matter what. Hopefully, we won't have to test my hypothesis in a real-world setting!
I wasn't claiming things will remain exactly as we know them now... I was trying to start a thread about the sorts of jobs that would always remain "local"...
I agree that these jobs will always remain "local". However, what I am saying is that there will be less of a demand for them, which is pretty much the same as outsourcing them directly. Let's face it - if you lose your job because it is outsourced or if you lose your job because the demand for it has waned, you are still out of a job!
I admit I was somewhat flippant about my take on Construction jobs. However, let's think about it logically. If jobs are outsourced, the workers who lose theor jobs are going to be less likely to build new houses, or make big additions to their existing houses. On the commercial side, there is going to be less need to build offices here in the US. Therefore, there will be less work out there for people in the construction trade. Will construction jobs go away completely? Of course not! Will there be less demand for these skills? Absolutely!
The same goes for the other trades you mention. They aren't going to disappear completely, but there will be less demand for them.
This is even true of doctors and nurses. Yes, if you are having a heart attack, you will seek medical attention whether or not you are going to pay. However, there are a lot of medical procedures that you are probably going to put off if you can't afford them. Who is going to get that yearly cholesterol test if you are barely able to put food on the table? Who is going to seek medical attention for a sore throat when it'll probably go away after a few days? The bottom line is that less money is going to be spent on health care, which means that there will be less demand for doctors.
Besides, with tele-communications the way it is, perhaps we will be seeing doctors who are 5000 miles away!!
I lived and worked in Ithaca NY for a couple of years, and it definitely meets your requirements for rural living. Ithaca is a small rural town in the finger lakes region of NY (think wineries and dairy farms) that is also the home to Ithaca College and Cornell University. The area definitely has the rural "feel" to it, but because of the two schools it isn't totally backwards, technologically speaking. Finding work in your field shouldn't be an issue, either through one of the universities or through a private company based in the area.
If you dont like long, cold upstate NY winters, I would imagine that other rural college towns might meet your needs, as well.
I have been on both sides of the interviewing table, and in my experience, the best technical interviews are language-agnostic, regardless of what language is used in your shop. All of the questions that I ask start with "here's a programming problem, now solve it in whatever language you want". I am more interested in seeing a person's thought process as they go through the steps of solving the problem than their syntactic recall for a particular language.
My rationale is that a software developer who has excellent problem solving skills can transfer their skills to any language. However, someone who knows the syntax and tricks of a language cold may or may not be a good problem solver.
The only exception to this is that if I want someone with OO skills, I will ask language-agnostic questions about OO design and development concepts (ex: define polymorphism, state why it is useful, and give an example of how it can be used).
Also, a question that "tricks people into trying to store a primitive in a collections object", doesn't seem like a very useful question. First, you are testing for knowledge of a Java syntactic quirk. Secondly, even if a person didn't know about this quirk right off the bat, any developer worth their salt certainly would figure it out the first time they tried to compile the progam.
In fairness, I do like the question about determining if a bit is set, although I wouldn't hold it against the person if they didn't have the Java bit operators memorized. As long as they understood the CONCEPT of bit manipulation, I'd be happy.
I don't got to italian pages, german pages or spanish pages because unless the have some idea who I'm writing for I'm not likely to find help there. They're trying to write for their own targets. I won't bother with Builder.com for the same reason, as they evidently only mean for indian readers. What a disappointment it will be when they realise they can't make the same revenues because outsourced employees don't have the same spending power.
I think you are in the minority here. One thing about technology is that it transcends borders. Non-Americans can be (and are) just as knowledgeable about tech as we Americans. When I am looking for an article or a book, content is the thing that I am most interested in.
Would you not read a book or article on Linus by the creator of Linux because he is Finnish? Would you not read a book or article on C++ by the creator of C++ because he is Danish? I find that writings by these two gentleman are just as insightful and engaging as the writings of my American brethren. Of course, you'd just dismiss them because they don't have the "native point of view" (whatever that means).
It's also funny that you accuse MSDN, a site written by Americans primarily, as being useless technical mumbo-jumbo. I guess even Americans don't have that "native point of view" that you crave.
With today's travel technology and communication infrastructure, what ISN'T an outsourceable skill set?
Doctor
Nurse
Veterinarian
Auto Repair
Bartender
Server
Construction
Sorry if those aren't your cup of tea but no matter how grim things get, there are some jobs that will always be around. If you really think that the writing is on the wall, start reading...
Although you are correct in that it is difficult to oursource these jobs directly, outsourcing has an indirect effect on these professions. For instance, if large numbers of people in the US are out of work:
- they won't be buying very many cars,
- they won't be spending money on their pets,
- they won't be building their new dream house,
- they won't be going out to eat a lot,
- they won't have health insurance to pay all those medical bills
As you can see, even those professions which you say can't be outsourced will be affected. It's funny how interconnected the economy is.
One downside which nobody has mentioned is that if the venture goes downhill for whatever reason, everyone in the family is out of a job. Unless your family member has skills that your business can't do without, it may be better for the family member to diversify where they are getting their paycheck from.
On the upside, if a family member might take more care in their work than your average worker, because they have a personal stake in the business. Of course, you have to judge if the family member is deserving of that kind of trust. If you have a close family, this can work out well. If you are just hiring a relative as a favor to your mom, then you might think twice of that decision.
One final observation: if you have non-relative employees, you may need to carefully monitor how they are reacting to working side-by-side with the boss' . They may feel threatened if they perceive that the relative is getting special treatment. It may also hurt your ability to lead if the relative uses their relationship with you as an excuse to undermine your authority.
Personally, I would think long and hard before bringing a relative on board. It may not be worth the trouble.
I agree to a certain extent. My handwriting was marginal at best until I took a class called "Mechanical Drawing" in high school. Our first lesson was to learn how to print letters and numbers in a very specific block-letter format. One thing that helped was that the teacher was very picky when it came to grading our assignments. In order to get a good grade, your lettering had to be perfect. After some practice and self-discipline, I was able to get the hang of it.
The downside to writing using this block-lettering style is that it takes longer to write something using it. If I am taking notes, I use cursive, which I find is faster for me. However, if I am addressing envelopes or otherwise writing something for public consumption, I use block-lettering.
What passed for workplace flirtation in 1972 is grounds for dismissal today.
There was actually a gameshow from the 70's called _Three's a Crowd_ that I've seen replayed on the Game Show Network from time to time that is filled with blatant and unapologetic sexual harassment. The show involves a business man, his wife, and his secretary. The wife and secretary compete to see who knows more about the husband. The questions often ranged from mildly suggestive to blatantly embarassing and would be grounds for lawsuits in today's society.
I wonder what the statute of limitations is for harassment lawsuits. Some lawyer could make a killing on those re-runs!
The points you make are true, but they're arguments about a learned interface, not an intuitive one. If the interface were truly intuitive, it wouldn't have to become "ingrained," nor would we have to be "be brought up with it as kids."
I completely agree that an analog watch is superior in many ways. But it isn't more intuitive.
Actually, by your standards, a digital watch is not intuitive either, since it requires one to be able to read numbers. After all, identifying numbers is "ingrained" - something we are "brought up with as kids".
Personally, I find it easier to judge relative times at a glance using an analog watch, but that's just me...
I have a unique perspective on this since I have degrees in both CS and EE. Based upon overall job prospects, if I had to choose one or the other, I would definitely choose the Electrical Engineering degree.
The reason why isn't because I think there will be more EE jobs than CS jobs. I don't have a crystal ball, so it is hard to guess what is going to happen. However, I have noticed that an EE degree (or an engineering degree, in general) opens a lot of doors in a lot of industries, compared to a CS degree. It seems like people have a lot more respect for someone with an engineering background. It could be the perception that an engineering grad has gone through a rigorous course load, so they have the brains and logical thinking that it takes to get the job done.
I know when I graduated in 1993 with my EE degree, the country was still in the throes of a recession. That coupled with the fact that the defense sector was being hit hard, meant that jobs for entry-level engineers were few and far between. After months of looking, I ended up landing a job at an insurance company in their actuarial department (the department that does all of the statistical studies for the company). I was hired even though I didn't have any formal training in insurance or statistics. The company's reasoning was anyone who could handle the math and science coursework that I typical EE grad has to take could easily handle the workload. That gave me a greater appreciation of what I had accomplished by earning my degree. In hindsight, it makes a lot of sense that engineering grads are prized even outside of the traditional engineering mold.
I have heard of similar stories from many of my fellow EE classmates. The engineering background has helped people land spots in lawschool, jobs on Wall Street, and even accepatances to medical school. Engineering grads are viewed as having a solid logic and quantitative background - sort of the liberal arts equivalent for the math and sciences.
It doesn't have any fancy cameras or GPS devices or data storage features, but it meets my one requirement of a watch: if I get sucked into some kind of spacetime vortex and end up trapped on some prehistoric planet with two times Earth's gravity, the watch had better last me at least until I get eaten by a dinosaur.
I just wanted to point out that if said scenario comes to pass, you probably won't be able to synchronize with said atomic clock signal. Not to mention that the planet's "local" time might not be on a 24 hour cycle.
If the planet you happen to end up on is Mars, perhaps you can use a watch like the one described here
I'd recommend listening to eyewitnesses or books written by persons involved in wars instead of watching a movie, of all things. But sure, these are based on actual events. However, the key word here is "based".
I agree. In other post on this thread, I recommend reading the books by Steven Ambrose, who wrote the book on which _Band of Brothers_ is based. All of his books contain detailed interviews with the soldiers who were there (on both sides), and some of the accounts are downright amazing. I do have to say that having both read and watched _Band of Brothers_, the mini-series does capture the overall "feel" of the book (although the book is still more authentic, in my opinion).
Let's give credit where credit is due; WWII wouldn't have been won on the Western Front without the USA; but the Brits held out for a couple of years against the greatest military in the world, and were instrumental in defeating the Luftwaffe and the Afrika Korps. That shouldn't be taken away from them.
While we are handing out credit for the victory in WW2, let's not forget about our friends, the Russians. The Russians fought the brunt of the German war machine, and wore them down through sheer attrition. I don't recall the exact number of Russian war dead, but it ranges in the millions. If the Western Allies had to face the main core of the German army, I don't know if we would have won.
The German army was so strung out by the time of D-Day that they had to resort to conscripting men from many of their Eastern European conquests (Russians, Poles). It was these men who manned the beaches of Normandy, by and large, on D-Day. There is even a story about how the Allies captured a group of soliders from the Far East (Korea, I believe). It turned out that they had been conscripted in the Russian army to fight the Germans, captured by the Germans, and then conscripted into the German army! Other than the German officer pointing a Luger at them from behind, they were not very motivated to fight in this battle.
If you are interested in learning more about the contributions of the US during WWII, I urge you to read _D-Day_ and _Citizen Soldier_ by the late Steven Ambrose (the same historian who wrote the book _Band of Brothers_ on which the mini-series is based). If you want more insight into the Russian Front, a good book to read is _Stalingrad_ by Anthony Beevor. While this book doesn't cover the whole Eastern campaign, it does give a lot of insight into the brutality of the fighting on the Eastern Front. While the Germans and the Western Allies were at war with one another, there was a great deal of respect between the grunts on both sides. However, the Germans and Russians absolutely hated each other, which made for brutal fighting conditions, the likes of which were rarely seen on the Western Front.
1) why hasn't the Mac done better?
I think it has always been a point of price, especially in the business/office world. I bought a Mac 128K in 1985 new for something like $1,499. It really hurt. That's the most I've paid for a computer, ever.
I think saying that it's the "price" only tells half the story. The huge advantage that PC's have had is their "clone"-ability. Let's face it, many (if not most) PC's that were sold during the growth of the personal computer were not, in fact, IBM-PC's. They were clones by fledgling companies like Dell, Compaq, Gateway, et al. Because of all of the competition in the PC market, prices were driven down. In addition, because of the PC's standard archetecture, there was a much more robust PC peripheral market, which made the PC even more inviting.
2) why hasn't the Mac died?
Innovation, I'd say.
I think one big factor in the Mac's success is marketing. Macs (and Apple in general) have this counter-cultural appeal that a lot of people buy into. Macs aren't this emotionless off-white box that every cubicle in America has. They are friendly, colorful, hip accessories that only a select few elite trendsetters dare to own. Look at the original "1984" ad, or their "Think Different" ad. There are enough people who buy into this hip message to keep the Mac product line afloat.
That's not to say that they are or aren't innovative machines, but let's face it - anything you can do on a Mac you can pretty much do on a PC. Neither is particularly innovative when it comes to 99% of the stuff that the average computer user needs to do.
I think people are realizing that not everything can be moved offshore and that programmers with domain/business experience are actually worth what you pay them here in the states. Dell, for example, is moving some of thier IT facilities back to the US after outsourcing it to India.
Actually Dell is moving one particular CALL CENTER facility (the one that handles large corporate accounts, if memory serves) back to the US. I would hardly call this an IT facility. While I have the utmost respect for call center workers (I was one in a previous life), it doesn't take a lot of technical skill to work in a call center. All you need is a high school education and a good phone voice...
One thing I don't understand is why companies (not just yours, but many others) are actually cutting back on telecommuting during these "tough times". You would think that companies would be more likely to embrace telecommuting since it'll save them money in the long run.
One of the so-called advantages of offshore outsourcing is that you don't need to pay to lease office space and its associated costs (toilet paper, janitors, heating and air conditioning, etc). It would seem like you could get the same cost benefit from moving to a telecommuting environment, with the added benefit of being able to bring the same people onsite for face-to-face meetings if necessary without having to fly them half way across the world. Plus, workers would probably accept a lower salary since telecommuting offers workers a better quality of life.
I guess this type of thinking is too "outside the box" for your standard MBA. It is easier to follow the trends than start your own trend.
I went to the original posters website to look at the libraries in question, and they appear to be trivial little code snippets. Here are some examples:
1. Lanuching a browser window
2. Creating a password dialog box
3. Base64 encoding of text
I find it hard to believe that any commercial company would expose themselves to liability by stealing pieces of code that any code monkey worth their salt can write in less than a day. It is more likely that they happened to develop the similiar libraries in parallel. Since these tasks are so trivial (and examples of them appear in many places, both in print and on the web), I can see how two programmers would code up these tasks in the same way. In fact, given how widespread the implementation of, say, Base64 encoding is, I wouldn't be surprised if the original poster's libraries are nearly identical to a previous implementation of the libraries.
It would be akin to someone trying to copyright a musical chord and then suing everyone for trying to use it in their music!
First off, IANAL...
You mention that you are a W2 employee of the contracting company that placed you. My question is this: Are you still employed by the contracting company (i.e. "on the bench"), or did the contracting company fire you since you don't have any billable hours. I would think that since you seem to have an employee-employer relationship with the contracting company that they would be obligated to honor the terms of the ADA. It may get a little "sticky" because the decision to not follow the ADA was made by a third-party (the company you were contracted out to), but that's where you would need a good lawyer to argue your case.
Anyway, I wish you good luck with your illness and your case.
Optimum Online is _Cablevision_, not Verizon. Also, if you are already a cable subscriber, the price is $40/month.
I have Verizon DSL (I am also in northern NJ) and it is $34.95/month. However, if you have Verizon for local and long distance I believe they will give you DSL for as low as $29.95/month.
>The problem is that there just aren't enough people to fill all these jobs
Can we be sure?
New Scientist, April 18 1992,p.6
"Skill shortages in US a 'myth'"
"Claims made by the National Science Foundation during the 1980s that the US faced a shortage of scientists and engineers were based on a flawed scientific study...At the hearing, before Representative Howard Wolpe's subcommittee, witnesses said...the unemployment level among scientists and engineers is higher than aveage."
DO PEOPLE ACTUALLY _READ_ POSTS ON SLASHDOT????
Obviously not, because if you did read my post, you would have realized that I was talking about the fact that there aren't enough educated people in the third-world to fill all of the high-skill high-tech jobs that we are supposedly going to be offshoring in the next few years.
Jeepers!!! Are you ever out of the loop!????
Jeepers!!! Are you even reading my post????
I did not deny that companies are going to be able to successful offshoring lower skilled jobs (call centers, light industrial, clerical). My contention is that that industry is going to have a much harder time offshoring high-skill jobs to the extent that people think. Sure there may be some companies who are able to do it, but to suggest that entire high-skill professions will be migrate to the third-world is crazy for the reasons I state in my original post.
You may be right when you say that corps may TRY to offshore as many jobs as possible. However, whether they will be successful at it is a totally different question entirely.
All this offshore outsourcing is not going to succeed in the way that everyone envisions. Maybe some low-skill call center jobs will go overseas, but the high-skill jobs like those mentioned in the article aren't going to leave in the numbers that people predict.
The problem is that there just aren't enough people to fill all these jobs. Countries like India and China just don't have the infrastructure to handle them. Unlike here in the US, education is carefully rationed since there isn't enough money or facilities to give everyone a high-tech college education. Sending students to the West to be educated is the excpetion rather than the rule. As more companies look for offshore workers, salaries for these people are going to increase (greater demand but limited supply). As this occurs, the cost savings is going to vaporize!
In addition, a lot of these countrys' best and brightest are already over here on H1-B visas. The allure of living in the US - the opportunities for themselves and their children - is very very strong. In order to compete with H1-B opportunities, companies will again need to raise salaries in order to keep these workers at home. Eventually, offshore outsourcing is going to look like not such a good deal!
Again, I am not talking about low-skill call center jobs. I am talking about high-skill high tech jobs. Don't get me wrong... I have the utmost respect for the call-center worker. I did that job myself for a time, and it is a tough thankless job. However, I don't have any illusions about what is needed to do the job. If you have a good phone voice and a tough skin, you will probably be successful at it if you choose to. If you have a grade-school equivalent education, you can handle the work.
I think you are misunderstanding my point. I said that the movie does a better job at realizing JACKSON'S MIDDLE EARTH than the book does at realizing TOLKIEN'S MIDDLE EARTH. What you are saying is that the book does a better job at realizing TOLKIEN'S MIDDLE EARTH than the movies does at realizing TOLKIEN'S MIDDLE EARTH. There is a subtle difference between the two. I happen to agree with your statement. However, I also agree with my statement.
When I read the book, what I picture in my mind is probably very different than what Tolkien envisioned when he was writing the book. This is because books are limited in their sensory input; they rely so much on the reader's own imagination and experience. When I see the movie, however, what I see and hear is pretty much what Peter Jackson wants me to see and hear. This is because movies are a much richer medium in terms of the senses that they stimulate.
I am not saying that one medium is better than the other. I happen to enjoy books as much as I enjoy movies. However, if you are judging the value of books vs movies based upon the criteria of being able to get across what the author/director is imagining (which is what the original poster was trying to do) then movies are superior to books BASED soley upon that criteria.
What you say about how a book can easily build up a character's background information while a film must find other ways is true only because of the artificial limitations that film makers work under. When you have a limited budget of both time and money, there is only so much exposition that you can do in a film. However, this limitation is not a consequence of the medium itself.