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User: loom_weaver

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  1. Re:No you don't. on No Such Thing As a Tax-Free Lunch At Google? · · Score: 1

    "Rich person" chiming in... rich as in decent technical salary and no debt i.e. possibly well represented in the slashdot audience.

    By "greedy rich people" did you refer to people who save instead?

    And "poor people" do you mean those who are completely leveraged in consumer and mortgage debt?

    The only bullshit I don't buy is that we can simply inflate our way out of debt. That will solve all our problems right?!

  2. Re:talent! on H-1B Cap Reached Today; Didn't Get In? Too Bad · · Score: 1

    For some actual salaries check out: http://www.h1bwage.com/

    Not sure how accurate it is but I'm in there.

  3. Re:Don't go there! on Getting a Literature Ph.D. Will Make You Into a Horrible Person · · Score: 1

    As a society in first-world nations (e.g. NA), I think we've moved quite a ways towards the utopia.

    Our society has become extremely efficient at converting fossil fuels into food:
    http://rankingamerica.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/the-u-s-ranks-200th-in-agricultural-workers-as-percent-of-workforce/

    There also seems to be generally enough housing to keep a roof over most people's heads. We've reached a point where as an aggregate, there is a lot of free time for society to pursue non-essential pursuits. I read continued specialization and declining employment numbers as evidence that there maybe isn't enough work to go around.

    I believe there are radical changes ahead e.g. working 20h a week if we can continue along the path of energy efficiency. I propose that there are two choices available: we can fight it kicking and screaming by consuming more and more just for the sake of growing the GDP. Or accept it in combination with being happy with enough and rethink our attitude to the amount of work that is necessary.

  4. iPad on Ask Slashdot: How Best To Set Up a Parent's PC? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    After trying several different hand-me-downs over the years including a 486, original iMacs (Lemon-lime), and a recent desktop Apple, I've concluded that the next machine will be the iPad with the largest display that I can find.

    Consuming content - check
    App in the same place as it was before - check
    buttons and menus not moved around even inadvertently - check

  5. Re:No surprises here. on Real World Code Sucks · · Score: 1

    Lots of good points but there's a doozy that didn't really exist even 10 years ago.

    24 hour development.

    I travel a lot for work and I get to observe monster codebases (10 MLoC+) in very large companies. The typical setup kind of looks like this:
    * Project managers and build and release engineers in North America in 2+ locations
    * Development groups in India, China, Eastern Europe, and maybe a few token devs in North America

    Non-stop development from teams of various level of proficiency constantly checking in code. Due to the nature of the geographically disparate teams there isn't any decent windows for downtime, refactoring, and maintenance. Add in all the communication challenges and needless to say real world code sucks even more than it used to.

  6. In Reverse on Why Facebook Is Stressing You Out · · Score: 1

    I hardly post anything to mine. In fact I don't think I've posted a status since I joined back in 2007.

    However, I probably get more stressed reading other people's pages and comparing my boring life to them.

    Once I start feeling bad I try to remind myself that I'm comparing my life lows to their highlight reel.

  7. Re:All within certain predictions on Salesforce.com's Benioff Disses Windows 8, Oracle · · Score: 1

    That's why I expect Microsoft to bet on the cloud as well. When the only way to get the latest version of Office is to pay a $99 subscription for 1 year then the river money will come back a flowing!

    Thanks to the walled garden by Apple and SaaS with SalesForce, Microsoft will happily jump onto the bandwagon.

  8. Re:crippled keyboard on Why Ultrabooks Are Falling Well Short of Intel's Targets · · Score: 1

    As much as I love my MacBook I wouldn't try and argue in its favor for the completely shitty home/end pg up/dn functionality that requires two hands and is completely inconsistent across applications.

  9. Re:Who'd miss Linux on a MAC? on Why Ultrabooks Are Falling Well Short of Intel's Targets · · Score: 1

    For me it's the little reasons. For example I can close the lid and open it up several hours later and I have a 99% chance instead of a 50% chance that the laptop will continue running. Or I can be typing away and my palm will momentarily brush the trackpad. On my macbook the cursor won't jump halfway across the screen causing my typing to be inserted in the wrong position. Or I can run VMWare Fusion and launch Windows 7 or Ubuntu VMs flawlessly. Or I can dual boot into Windows if I really want to play Skyrim. Or I needed to copy an install CD in an emergency and I've never done it before. I plop the CD into the machine and I can actually figure out what I need to do without having to consult the internet and research driver issues.

    I'm at the point where a $500-$1000 difference in a laptop isn't a big deal for me especially over the course of its lifetime. My time is much more valuable.

  10. Re:A decent canteen and staff facilities on Ask Slashdot: What Would You Include In a New Building? · · Score: 1

    I've visit at least one new company every week or so in the US and over the last 3 years, I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of places that had exceptional eateries.

    One place in particular not only had great food and selection, but external groups would routinely book meetings and events at this company's HQ because the cafeteria was that good! A nice source of extra revenue.

  11. Re:There is nothing special about programming on Can Anyone Become a Programmer? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You can put anyone through music school but they aren't going to necessarily come out as a Mozart.

  12. Re:a little pragmatism, please on Ask Slashdot: How Much Is a Fun Job Worth? · · Score: 1

    To add to your informative post I never compare the gross pay increase.

    Instead I do a cost of living calculation and compare the amount I can save with one job as opposed to another.

    Take the $70k vs $120k example. If one could save $5k per year on the $70k salary but could save $40k per year on the $120k that means a savings rate of 800% more.

    If you don't automatically up your standard of living then now you can pay off your house in 5 years instead of 40. Buy a new car in 6 months instead of 4 years. Or hit your retirement amount in 1/8 the amount of time.

  13. Re:Even though our system is unassailable on Election Tech: In Canada, They Actually Count the Votes · · Score: 1

    Hmm, your solution sounds suspiciously like Democrats and Republicans. Tada... all problems solved!

  14. Re:It's too bad on How Apple Killed the Linux Desktop · · Score: 2

    I went for a MacBook for roughly same reasons. I wanted a machine where if I closed the lid I had a reasonably good chance that when I lifted the lid I could actually continue working instead of rebooting because everything locked up.

  15. Re:It's time for another good idea, bad idea on Are You Gaming For the Right Reasons? · · Score: 2

    This is what clicked for me.

    On an old mud I was playing, my character's XP was stored in a 32 bit variable. This variable was serialized to disk.

    I had 29 days played time. Most of that time was spent incrementing that value in that variable.

    Ultimately in the end, it dawned on me that I was spending a lot of my life energy to flip a single bit on a hard-disk somewhere.

  16. Re:Best Preference on Ask Slashdot: IT Contractors, How's Your Health Insurance? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Answer: obviously the cost is split across the entire tax-payer base.

    Now imagine this scenario... his dad has heart trouble and emergency surgery ends up bankrupting him. While he doesn't croak from his sickness his insurance company conveniently drops him afterwards. Further complications cause him to lose his job as he's unable to work.

    He ends up spending the next 20 years on welfare and medicaid. Given that there's no such thing as a free lunch, who pays for it?

  17. Re:Global Outsourcing Example on Mexican Hotel Chain Outsources IT To US · · Score: 1

    Those product makers might want to research this guy and re-evaluate their business model.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-tampon-king-who-sparked-a-period-of-change-for-indias-women-7897093.html

  18. Re:Slashdot incredibly tone deaf for posting this on Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises · · Score: 2

    I have nothing against guns myself... but picture yourself there:

    Dark theater, loud sounds from the movie itself is playing, smoke suddenly appears out of nowhere, then someone dressed up like a good percentage of the other patrons starts going on a rampage.

    Now people are panicking, you still can't see shit and aren't sure what's going on, and your response is to whip out your firearm out your firearm and start shooting in a room full of innocents. Puh-leeeze...

  19. Serves Them Right on How the Inventors of Dragon Speech Recognition Technology Lost Everything · · Score: 0

    No love for Goldman Sachs here but if the inventors did what this article says (trading their entire company for the stock of a mysterious L&H company) then it sounds like they got greedy.

  20. Re:This isn't normal... on Ask Slashdot: Old Dogs vs. New Technology? · · Score: 1

    Some like to build new things but do not want to change the entire toolset/framework every year.

    Either way it's important to get a good balance of bleeding edge and introspective developers but the common thread that should bind them all is a passion for software development.

  21. Re:TRAFFIC "EXPERIMENTS" AND A CURE FOR WAVES & on Boston Using IBM Engineers To Solve Traffic Problems · · Score: 1

    I've done this on occasion and it seems to work quite nicely as I find I'm rarely braking. The cars behind me enjoy a nice smooth flow and since there is usually a space in front of me others can easily merge.

    Don't confuse this with driving slow. One average I'm going approximately the same speed as the stop-and-go cars in front. If I see congestion up ahead I take my foot off the accelerator and try to time it so that the car in front is just starting to get going again just as I arrive.

  22. Re:Specifics? on 350-Year-Old Newton's Puzzle Solved By 16-Year-Old · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here's a post where someone determined what the original equations were and verified Ray's answer (in the picture of him holding a solution) in Maple:

    http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/u7551/teen_solves_newtons_300yearold_riddle_an/c4szejb

  23. Re:Don't do this! on Ask Slashdot: How To Secure My Life-In-A-Briefcase? · · Score: 3

    My least favourite situation is when I've put my computer through the x-ray machine and then the line into the microwave gets tied up and I'm peering over security trying to make sure that no-one walks out with my precious....

  24. Re:They got it backwards on Scientists Say People Aren't Smart Enough For Democracy To Flourish · · Score: 1

    This reason is why I believe first-past-the-post style of polling is the best system we have.

    While it will not result in a true % representation (e.g. Conservatives in Canada winning with 39% of the vote) it is still the best system to get rid of someone you don't want.

  25. How do you verify your git repo? on GitHub Hacked · · Score: 1

    To calm any fears that no rogue commits have been added as a result of this hack?

    Is git log enough and looking at the last datetime stamp?