However, if you can carve yourself out a productive niche you are very good at, you can make a good living. I relocated to a fairly inexpensive part of North America (Atlantic Canada) with good airline access. My house cost $50k USD for a 2500sq. ft space. I set up a very nice lab, and have two employees.
Because of my near-nonexistant overhead, I bid on small embedded control and embedded linux development jobs. Being in Canada eases a lot of problems, and we're only a few hours away by plane in most cases if the situtation calls for a site visit.
Most interesting of all is we have actually been involved in reverse-outsourcing; companies in India have come to us for help.
The US is supposed to be the most free market in the world; use that advantage to carve out a niche.
This would be great, but there is NO infrastructure here to support this kind of endeavour. There is no city here. There is little university support, with the nearest school granting engineering degrees over 4 hours away. The airport service is limited, there isn't even a double divided highway from the nearest major center.
Amazing, shocking news if it were to happen. I just can't see it.
With some shiney metal and a black pot, and some scrap pipe I can make a distillation apparatus. I can make a pretty good one if I can get some valves.
With a distillation apparatus, I can make all manner of volatile organics.
With volatile organics, I can make weapons and medicine.
With volatile organics as a base I can make polymers.
With volatile organics, I can make internal combustion work.
With polymers, I can make plastics.
Oil is not required; oil is primarily needed to support LARGE numbers of people as a energy source, and a convienent means to store energy for transportation.
The biggest issue with restarting civiliation would be dealing with all the religious nut-cases and cults, as a plunge into a dark age is a major risk. Assuming you can deal with that, the rest is actually pretty easy. The problems would start if you had the generation with the skills - the scientists, the engineers - all die because a fanatical dark age appeared. Then, all bets are off.
The big thing to come out of European Civilization was secular humanism. The rest follows.
Almost useless, overstuffed with features, with no battery life, sporting a screen that can't easily be read outdoors, with the wrong form factor, over weight, in OS hell.
Where is what I should have? A super thin version of the beloved palmpilot I got in 1997! The Palm V had the form factor right smack on. The screen technology is what palm should have spent the money on; not uninspired "me too" features.
Why, oh why, does my $70 Gameboy SP look great outside and in, and my $400 palm can barely stay charged through a day of use? I recently went back to my palm V, because at least, it did what I wanted.
Hey, Palm Executives and Product Developers:
PULL YOUR HEADS OUT OF.. and make a thin, minimalist PDA with a beautiful, high contrast, maybe B&W, display. The market will do the rest, just like it did when US Robotics released their own...or, you can wait until the next generation ipod does it for you. The nano is damn close.
Doctors screw up a lot more than the bank, in my experience. You sound like someone who has never had a serious illness or watched somoene with one.
Expert AI is essentially the definition of what a MD does. Except a computer can bring it to the masses, much cheaper. With the demographics shifting, we're either going to be a nation of doctors, or people are going to be dying in the street. I'm all for mass-marketed medicine if it can help.
An expert AI would also be upgradable without extensive re-training.
Why should Microsoft make DirectX 10 available for old versions of Windows?
In one swoop, they've condemned people to upgrading if you want to play games on the dominant PC gaming platform. Do you see why that might irritate a few people? Vista sure isn't going to be free.
What's going to cost more? Vista or an Xbox 360?
On the other hand, that'd remove my main reason for not saying screw it all and moving to an x86 mac for everything. My existing PC plays all the games I'm going to have time for for the next few years recently. So maybe it's not a bad thing at all! I've stuck with Windows 2000, I haven't moved to XP yet, as all my CAD and design files work fine..
Microsoft intends to play a game of market thermonuclear war to get Vista integrated and entrenched ala XP/2000. Fortunately, that's the type of war that could also leave their market share in smouldering ruin just as easily as it will reinforce it.
Mark my words : The less technical ground Vista has to fight on, the nastier the marketing efforts are going to be.
Kinda makes you think about taking up smoking, eh?
Well you know. Smoking takes ten years off your life." Well it's the ten worst years, isn't it folks? It's the ones at the end! It's the wheelchair kidney dialysis fucking years. You can have those years!
Food for thought, as I watch my relatives fall victim to severe mental deterioration.
The laws are a joke. Robots that kill people are here now, and they're only going to get smarter. The reason is simple; UAVs are nice but they are always vulnerable to ECM jamming attacks, especially at close range against a moderately sophisticated enemy. The way you counter this is by letting the UAV make the final decision to attack or flee.
You tell me which is more likely to happen.. the UAV is never programmed to make that decision to attack, or the military accepts the possibility of some collateral losses.
Hint: Some automated defense systems on ships already make these decisions without human intervention.
Step 1: Get a written statement from one, two, or perferably, three GP's or dermatologists you have an undiagnosable skin condition or other aliment that is not psychological in nature.
Step 2: Get a phone book or google and find out the nearest university medical research center in your geographic area.
Step 3: Armed with the affadavits in Step 1, contact professors at the university specializing in pathology, dermatology, biology.. just about any -ology except geology, or phrenology, haha. You might have to try a couple, but you WILL find someone interested in your case. Those people have the training, resources, and credentials to find out if there is something novel about your condition. They will pay you no mind without Step 1.
If you have strange sores, or another infection, a biopsy will reveal abnormalities. The fact the CDC has not been sent any sample by a trained medical professional (or so the article claims), leads me to question the validity of the claims. There -are- procedures in place to deal with undiagnosed infections.
I'm not seeing the story here, and I'm reluctant to believe there is a grand conspiracy keeping a single sample from making it to the CDC.
You can improve your grammar by reading books with lots of words and no numbers. I recommend the classics, HG Wells and the Sherlock Homes novels will keep you busy for some time.
Posting on forums is one thing, everyone is lax with structure. Being able to write a business plan and present ideas and reports in an attractive to read format will make a very large difference in your career.
All the school in the world won't help you if you don't read though. My $0.02.
Doing this is just going to make them spiteful, and believe me, if anyone has the time on their hands to hurt you - it's going to be university students. Putting facist-style controls in place with the RIAA in cahoots with the Administration is going to get people mad.
You think the RIAA is mad now, wait until some crafty EE figures out how to get a UWB transmitter on the bottom of an ipod with a "instant share" button.
This may have started with IBM, but the quality on new Lenovo thinkpads is NOT the same as the older generation. I buy old thinkpads off ebay for test machines, and the older ones are metal framed, with solid latches. The new units are plastic, bendy, and do not have near the same quality feel to them. The old ones (T21's) are tanks.
The problem is not manufacture in China. I work with some top notch high end board assemblers there. The problem is companies who shave pennies in stupid places. After seeing the new generation thinkpads, I wouldn't buy them, even used.
You're being exploited because you let yourselves be. That's the harsh truth.
If you want a life, you need to control the business aspect where money is generated. Otherwise the machine is going to use you up and spit you out, if there's one thing conclomerates like EA have shown, is you can beat programmers stupid and (new) ones keep coming back, begging for more.
Get involved with the business, own the IP, sit on equal footing.
Yes, business sucks sometimes. Coding sucks sometimes too. If you're able to distingush people with the clue from those without, use that to outbid people. Yes, there's big budgets involved - but there's also people with big pockets who will fund things that look like they'll make money.
Entrepreneurs: See the above? Find some really good programmers and PARTNER with them.
Otherwise? Well.. I'm sure there's a fresh crop of programmers to burn out next year.
I'm an oldschool technie who realized he'd better figure out this business stuff, fast. We do custom embedded linux work, board-level up, MCUs, etc etc. We're booked. Solid. Yet I get stuff done with low overhead.
What did I do?
I walk the walk. I know good people are easily 100x more productive than average. I know some good people from all my days in the trenches (hi guys). When I want things done, I package it up, and send it off with a big cheque. I don't care where, when, or how.. we work online. I live in the middle of nowhere, handy an airport. That's all that's required to do business.
If one of the guys I work with is doing 10x the work - I'll actually give him 10x the pay!
It doesn't work for all business, but it is working, and I am growing clients and profit.
Something to think about if you "can't get people to relocate" - my advice - make teleconf and virtual offices work for you. Hire the best people available no matter where they are. Reap the rewards.
Slashdot Mirror
Offshoring has problems in a lot of cases.
However, if you can carve yourself out a productive niche you are very good at, you can make a good living. I relocated to a fairly inexpensive part of North America (Atlantic Canada) with good airline access. My house cost $50k USD for a 2500sq. ft space. I set up a very nice lab, and have two employees.
Because of my near-nonexistant overhead, I bid on small embedded control and embedded linux development jobs. Being in Canada eases a lot of problems, and we're only a few hours away by plane in most cases if the situtation calls for a site visit.
Most interesting of all is we have actually been involved in reverse-outsourcing; companies in India have come to us for help.
The US is supposed to be the most free market in the world; use that advantage to carve out a niche.
I went back to my m500 because my T3 was too bulky.
Someone needs to release a PDA in the same thinness factor as the nano, and they need to do it stat.
Just jam GPS signals locally. Problem solved. Others created. :)
n /0093.html
http://www.landfield.com/isn/mail-archive/2003/Ja
If you know enough to make that work, you can identify several modifcations to make it much more effective.
Obviously, the legal implications of doing such are left as a exercise to the reader.
The employment rate is over 20% here, and there is almost nobody in the 18-30 age bracket.
This area was decimated by the loss of the steel industry and coal mines over the last 35 years.
Again.. I have no idea what to make of this announcement.
First.. a spaceport! Then I shall take over the worrrrld!
This would be great, but there is NO infrastructure here to support this kind of endeavour. There is no city here. There is little university support, with the nearest school granting engineering degrees over 4 hours away. The airport service is limited, there isn't even a double divided highway from the nearest major center.
Amazing, shocking news if it were to happen. I just can't see it.
With some shiney metal and a black pot, and some scrap pipe I can make a distillation apparatus. I can make a pretty good one if I can get some valves.
With a distillation apparatus, I can make all manner of volatile organics.
With volatile organics, I can make weapons and medicine.
With volatile organics as a base I can make polymers.
With volatile organics, I can make internal combustion work.
With polymers, I can make plastics.
Oil is not required; oil is primarily needed to support LARGE numbers of people as a energy source, and a convienent means to store energy for transportation.
The biggest issue with restarting civiliation would be dealing with all the religious nut-cases and cults, as a plunge into a dark age is a major risk. Assuming you can deal with that, the rest is actually pretty easy. The problems would start if you had the generation with the skills - the scientists, the engineers - all die because a fanatical dark age appeared. Then, all bets are off.
The big thing to come out of European Civilization was secular humanism. The rest follows.
Almost useless, overstuffed with features, with no battery life, sporting a screen that can't easily be read outdoors, with the wrong form factor, over weight, in OS hell.
.. and make a thin, minimalist PDA with a beautiful, high contrast, maybe B&W, display. The market will do the rest, just like it did when US Robotics released their own. ..or, you can wait until the next generation ipod does it for you. The nano is damn close.
Where is what I should have? A super thin version of the beloved palmpilot I got in 1997! The Palm V had the form factor right smack on. The screen technology is what palm should have spent the money on; not uninspired "me too" features.
Why, oh why, does my $70 Gameboy SP look great outside and in, and my $400 palm can barely stay charged through a day of use? I recently went back to my palm V, because at least, it did what I wanted.
Hey, Palm Executives and Product Developers:
PULL YOUR HEADS OUT OF
Doctors screw up a lot more than the bank, in my experience. You sound like someone who has never had a serious illness or watched somoene with one.
Expert AI is essentially the definition of what a MD does. Except a computer can bring it to the masses, much cheaper. With the demographics shifting, we're either going to be a nation of doctors, or people are going to be dying in the street. I'm all for mass-marketed medicine if it can help.
An expert AI would also be upgradable without extensive re-training.
One thing that would make the species survive is a massive global war.
Of course, that might not be a good thing for it's individual members.
Western european cultures and asia are already well below birth replacement rates. The real problem is the next 25 years, as enery supplies dwindle.
Why should Microsoft make DirectX 10 available for old versions of Windows?
In one swoop, they've condemned people to upgrading if you want to play games on the dominant PC gaming platform. Do you see why that might irritate a few people? Vista sure isn't going to be free.
What's going to cost more? Vista or an Xbox 360?
On the other hand, that'd remove my main reason for not saying screw it all and moving to an x86 mac for everything. My existing PC plays all the games I'm going to have time for for the next few years recently. So maybe it's not a bad thing at all! I've stuck with Windows 2000, I haven't moved to XP yet, as all my CAD and design files work fine..
Microsoft intends to play a game of market thermonuclear war to get Vista integrated and entrenched ala XP/2000. Fortunately, that's the type of war that could also leave their market share in smouldering ruin just as easily as it will reinforce it.
Mark my words : The less technical ground Vista has to fight on, the nastier the marketing efforts are going to be.
My grandmother died from lung cancer (smoking).
I'm watching my father and grandfather die from mental deterioration brought on by Pick's Disease and Alzheimers.
I'd take the lung cancer in a second. YMMV.
Kinda makes you think about taking up smoking, eh?
Well you know. Smoking takes ten years off your life." Well it's the ten worst years, isn't it folks? It's the ones at the end! It's the wheelchair kidney dialysis fucking years. You can have those years!
Food for thought, as I watch my relatives fall victim to severe mental deterioration.
The laws are a joke. Robots that kill people are here now, and they're only going to get smarter. The reason is simple; UAVs are nice but they are always vulnerable to ECM jamming attacks, especially at close range against a moderately sophisticated enemy. The way you counter this is by letting the UAV make the final decision to attack or flee.
You tell me which is more likely to happen.. the UAV is never programmed to make that decision to attack, or the military accepts the possibility of some collateral losses.
Hint: Some automated defense systems on ships already make these decisions without human intervention.
Step 1: Get a written statement from one, two, or perferably, three GP's or dermatologists you have an undiagnosable skin condition or other aliment that is not psychological in nature.
Step 2: Get a phone book or google and find out the nearest university medical research center in your geographic area.
Step 3: Armed with the affadavits in Step 1, contact professors at the university specializing in pathology, dermatology, biology.. just about any -ology except geology, or phrenology, haha. You might have to try a couple, but you WILL find someone interested in your case. Those people have the training, resources, and credentials to find out if there is something novel about your condition. They will pay you no mind without Step 1.
Good luck.
If you have strange sores, or another infection, a biopsy will reveal abnormalities. The fact the CDC has not been sent any sample by a trained medical professional (or so the article claims), leads me to question the validity of the claims. There -are- procedures in place to deal with undiagnosed infections.
I'm not seeing the story here, and I'm reluctant to believe there is a grand conspiracy keeping a single sample from making it to the CDC.
Cartoon boobies!
and that's all well and good while young and single.
Yes, and when you hit 35, you'll be replaced by someone else.. who is young and single.
You're a fool for accepting those working conditions.
You can improve your grammar by reading books with lots of words and no numbers. I recommend the classics, HG Wells and the Sherlock Homes novels will keep you busy for some time.
Posting on forums is one thing, everyone is lax with structure. Being able to write a business plan and present ideas and reports in an attractive to read format will make a very large difference in your career.
All the school in the world won't help you if you don't read though. My $0.02.
Doing this is just going to make them spiteful, and believe me, if anyone has the time on their hands to hurt you - it's going to be university students. Putting facist-style controls in place with the RIAA in cahoots with the Administration is going to get people mad.
You think the RIAA is mad now, wait until some crafty EE figures out how to get a UWB transmitter on the bottom of an ipod with a "instant share" button.
This may have started with IBM, but the quality on new Lenovo thinkpads is NOT the same as the older generation. I buy old thinkpads off ebay for test machines, and the older ones are metal framed, with solid latches. The new units are plastic, bendy, and do not have near the same quality feel to them. The old ones (T21's) are tanks.
:-)
The problem is not manufacture in China. I work with some top notch high end board assemblers there. The problem is companies who shave pennies in stupid places. After seeing the new generation thinkpads, I wouldn't buy them, even used.
That's why my notebook is an Apple.
The biggest question : How big is his penis going to be? :-)
..nobody seems to know anything about
You're being exploited because you let yourselves be. That's the harsh truth.
If you want a life, you need to control the business aspect where money is generated. Otherwise the machine is going to use you up and spit you out, if there's one thing conclomerates like EA have shown, is you can beat programmers stupid and (new) ones keep coming back, begging for more.
Get involved with the business, own the IP, sit on equal footing.
Yes, business sucks sometimes. Coding sucks sometimes too. If you're able to distingush people with the clue from those without, use that to outbid people. Yes, there's big budgets involved - but there's also people with big pockets who will fund things that look like they'll make money.
Entrepreneurs: See the above? Find some really good programmers and PARTNER with them.
Otherwise? Well.. I'm sure there's a fresh crop of programmers to burn out next year.
Of course, I pay for it, too.
I'm an oldschool technie who realized he'd better figure out this business stuff, fast. We do custom embedded linux work, board-level up, MCUs, etc etc. We're booked. Solid. Yet I get stuff done with low overhead.
What did I do?
I walk the walk. I know good people are easily 100x more productive than average. I know some good people from all my days in the trenches (hi guys). When I want things done, I package it up, and send it off with a big cheque. I don't care where, when, or how.. we work online. I live in the middle of nowhere, handy an airport. That's all that's required to do business.
If one of the guys I work with is doing 10x the work - I'll actually give him 10x the pay!
It doesn't work for all business, but it is working, and I am growing clients and profit.
Something to think about if you "can't get people to relocate" - my advice - make teleconf and virtual offices work for you. Hire the best people available no matter where they are. Reap the rewards.