So why stick to 8-10 hour shifts just because that was the working hours 100 years ago, even though it's completely brainless and not suiting modern "thinking jobs"?
So you'd be willing to take a 25%-33% pay cut to work shorter shifts? It's not about productivity, it's about being there for a lot of jobs.
Imagine your power company shutting off the electricity at 8pm saying "Oh sorry, 12 hour shifts are an outdated relic, we only work 4 hours a day now. It'll be back on tomorrow."
Or a big queue at the supermarket, the person on the checkout goes home saying "I've been productive enough today" leaving everyone just stood there with full trollies.
Chefs stop cooking half way through the evening because they've already done their 6 hours. The diners go hungry.
Make the case to the manager of a factory: "Instead of running for 24 hours a day, let's only run for 18 hours a day. Yes we'll lose 25% of our output, but it gives the workers more rest..."
No policing after 3pm, no TV outside of 9am-3pm, no bars, no shops, no productivity at all. Countries where they can be actually bothered doing a hard day's work take over the world.
Seriously though, the European 35-hour week is a disaster, they're having to get rid of it because they can't compete. Doesn't help that they just want to strike instead though.
If you only want to work 6 hours, that means the employer needs to employ another person for every 3 workers. Say there are current three shifts of 8 hours each day, now there need to be four shifts of 6 hours. I hope you're willing to take a 25% pay cut to fund this. Of course it would mean other things like more lockers, more personnel staff. so expect an even bigger cut.
And how would this work for 24/7 shifts that give an average 42 hours a week? If instead of working 4 12-hour days every 8, it'd be 4 8-hour days every 8, meaning another FIFTY PERCENT more people. That means you'd be taking a 33% pay cut to compensate.
Say I run a factory, and I need someone to sweep up. I bring someone in, tell them to sweep up the factory. They can't do anything else because they're not trained or qualified, so they just have to sweep up, all day. Yes, it's a daily grind, but someone has to do it.
Same with shelf stacking, brick laying, bin emptying, bar work, waiting tables, mowing lawns. We don't all do intellectual, creative jobs where such a thing is possible, most jobs are just cogs in the machine. Not jobs where you need to think, not jobs where there's any benefit to 'creative time' or 'recovery'.
I doubt that, at least where I work, management often work absurd hours, even though they don't need to.
On the other hand, those at the bottom of the ladder would work 0 hours a day if they could get away with it. Think 2 hour lunch breaks, constant smoke breaks, even more tea breaks, then finishing an hour early to wind down. Thinking sleeping through night shifts.
It's not YOUR money, it's Microsoft's money. They can spend it where they like. Unless you're advocating some sort of Iron-Curtail style embargo on China, which would be a massive step backwards.
If you're going to argue like that, then give up ALL, and I mean ALL, goods manufactured in China. There are probably hundreds of things made in China in the average American house.
Would you like to pay a whole load extra for things made in America instead? Of course not, yet you criticise corporations for doing the same. That's called hypocricy.
How about because it is jobs currently being done by Americans (you know, the workers that made Microsoft the success it is) that are being identified and sent offshore in an apparent quid pro quo for Chinese cooperation.
So what? No-one has a right to a job, no-one owes anyone a living, Microsoft is not a charity. If someone can do your job cheaper than you, that's just tough. I'm sure if a Chinese company was looking to employ Americans they wouldn't think about the poor unemployed Chinese.
Anyway even an unemployed American has it better than most Chinese. I won't be shedding any tears. Sell the giant TV and that's a year's worth of food right there. Sell the gas-guzzling SUV and you've enough money to spend months, or years looking for a new job. Perhaps you don't really need that 6-bedroom house in Silicon Valley with a 10 acre garden, three garages and four bathrooms.
What difference does it make where the jobs are going? It's still bad for American workers.
And good for Chinese workers. Overall, no-one loses out. It's no different between a company sacking someone and replacing him. There's the same number of jobs as before. It makes no difference to me whether an American or a Chinaman gets a job. If I were American I'd love it if other Americans' jobs were outsourced, would mean I would have relatively more money.
It's just thinly-disguised racism. I bet if a company from New York employed people in Chicago because it was cheaper to do business there, there wouldn't be an outcry about them not employing New Yorkers, putting them out of jobs, there wouldn't be endless complaining about them shafting the people who made them successful in the first place, they'd just get on with it.
A lot of the places hit by outsourcing are just too expensive. Why pay $100k a year for a prima donna in Redmond when you can get the same work for $20k in India? If American's wages all went down, and the cost of living went down, outsourcing wouldn't be a problem. But then it's in the American psyche to be better and richer than everyone else. Hubris is your downfall.
There are places in the world which don't suffer huge natural disasters. Of course if you're willing to risk flooding/hurricanes/earthquakes/tornadoes for a better view and better trade routes, well that's a risk you take. Just don't expect us in more boring, safe areas to bail you out.
The Chinese and Indians are free to open all the companies they want to employ their own people. They don't need American companies coming there to have jobs.
And Americans are free to open all the companies they want to employ their own people. They don't need Microsoft to use a nationalistic hiring policy to give them jobs.
I would think it's pretty good for China's economy. But that's not what you meant is it? Well, I don't see why Americans deserve jobs more than China.
In the long-term, outsourcing is good. The Chinese/Indians get more jobs, they get more money, their standard of living goes up. Eventually they become better places to live. Surely that's a good thing? You know most people in China and India live in poverty? By contrast even the poorest Americans live in luxury, excuse me if I don't shed any tears.
No-one stays on top forever, you have to work at it. The Roman empire collapsed, the British empire collapsed, all sorts of superpowers have been and gone. America's going to sink back eventually. Instead of complaining about jobs being outsourced, how about Americans get skilled and jobs which can't be outsourced? Why not start companies which employ solely Americans if you're bothered that much? Perhaps it's time to take responsibility for your own lives rather than blaming big evil corporations.
Linux doesn't really have this economic effect attached to it. Even if you buy a distro, you can buy the distro(s) made in your country.
I don't think that jobs lost through open source software would do much for the economy. Yes, they could make money from support, but then so can people whose jobs are outsourced. That argument cuts both ways.
Of course, Linux softare contains code from big corporations who definitely outsource employees. You forgot about that didn't you? Choosing your distro on the country it's from is a stupid thing to do anyway. Choose your products based on quality and price, there's no other way. Nationalism has no place in computing.
Microsoft is a company with employees all over the world. They do business all over the world. They don't operate entirely within America, their sole interest isn't the economy in America. If their interests are best served by employing people in China, they they should do it. It could mean that Chinaman being able to feed his family, perhaps get some electricity and TV, heating and indoor plumbing. So an American instead has to get the 32" TV instead of the 56" TV, that's not the worst thing in the world.
Of course Slashdotters are always saying that national boundaries don't mean anything in this Internet age, usually when it comes to visiting dodgy foreign mp3 or porn sites or downloading TV programmes. But as soon as jobs have the same freedom they want 20" walls around the borders. You can't have your cake and eat it.
What? They're talking about DVD players, not wireless Internet. Have you even read the article? By the way, unauthorised access to wireless networks can get you arrested.
Also you're not including the cost of the computer, and the general hassle of running one.
Problem with that, not everyone wants a PC in charge of TV and DVDs and music. You'll probably need to mess about upgrading and installing software. Only an option for computer nerds I'm afraid.
1. Computers are expensive. Second hand ones are a liability and probably won't work with any hardware you want to use in them. Again you need to know about obscure computer terms.
2. They're unreliable. Want your 'TV' crashing during the World Cup final? Want the picture freezing because the computer is doing some heavy processing for some reason? Want your TV to be hacked? Want your TV to take the best part of a minute to boot up? Want to lose recorded programmes because your hard disk had problems? Want a command line on your 40" TV telling you to fsck manually?
3. They're complicated: TIVO: Plug in, turn on, the end. MythTV: Get computer. Install Linux (an achievement in itself), get TV card. Find out it doesn't work with Linux. Take it back. Repeat a few times until you (by a miracle) find a compatible one. Install software. Spend hours finding out how to get it to work. Learn the command line. Try installing the TV card drivers. Go onto IRC to find out. Six hours later, get a working TV card. Drag PC into living room. Set it up next to the TV, making the room look a mess. Drag wires all over your house. Manage to wire it up by a miracle. Have a computer making constant noise whilst you watch TV. Have Internet-enabled computer nearby for when something goes wrong.
4. People don't want that, other than a fraction of a percentage. Devices such as TVs, DVD players, recorders, should plug in and then be operated simply by a simple remote control. Menus and all that.
Problem with computer paper, is that it's a computer. It needs electricity, it's not disposable and permanent.
With a real document on paper, you can give it away, you can photocopy it, you can fax it without having to use the over-complex and unreliable Internet, you can pin it to the wall, you can write things on it, you can fold it up and keep it in your pocket, if it gets damaged you can replace it cheaply, you can rip bits off, it has a low barrier to entry.
Let's see: "Open source software is just as user friendly as closed-source software." - Standard claim on this site. "Sure you have your dependencies right?" - AC.
Gnumeric is still effectively in its alpha phase. It crashes very easily, and the interface seems to be going BACKWARDS with each version. They can't even get the save-file box right. It used to be better years ago, but they're making things worse.
I had to uninstall the latest version because it caused too many problems compared to the years-old version I was using.
The graphing facilities are also very very poor compared to even Excel 97. It can't even get them in its own tab, just as a floating object over a spreadsheet which is ridiculous.
In the summary, it was refered to as 'THE Mars Probe'. As there are only a few probes, it would have made sense to say which one, or at least to refer to it as 'A Mars Probe'. Saying 'the' probe makes it look like there is only one, and I for one would have assumed it's the rover thing.
Imagine a newspaper headline after the hurricane:
Hurricane Destroys City Today the city was devastated by the hurricane. More details on page 23.
I prefer the old rules of war, if you are in civies and caught, you must be a spy
Even if you're in your own country? By that logic if someone invaded America they could arrest all the rednecks as spies or illegal combatants if they dared to defend their country.
until you are released back to your home country, from there you are allowed to start shooting at US servicemen again
If you're occupying another country, the locals have every right to shoot at you. If you don't like it, don't invade.
To be fair large parts of America are deserts of mountain ranges, so they don't count. If you count the populated areas, it's effectively the same as Europe, so there's no excuse for driving 10 times further.
You just build you country wrong. Houses take up too much room, shops are too far away from where people live, towns are built too far apart, 'zoning' etc...
Slashdot Mirror
So why stick to 8-10 hour shifts just because that was the working hours 100 years ago, even though it's completely brainless and not suiting modern "thinking jobs"?
So you'd be willing to take a 25%-33% pay cut to work shorter shifts? It's not about productivity, it's about being there for a lot of jobs.
Imagine your power company shutting off the electricity at 8pm saying "Oh sorry, 12 hour shifts are an outdated relic, we only work 4 hours a day now. It'll be back on tomorrow."
Or a big queue at the supermarket, the person on the checkout goes home saying "I've been productive enough today" leaving everyone just stood there with full trollies.
Chefs stop cooking half way through the evening because they've already done their 6 hours. The diners go hungry.
Make the case to the manager of a factory: "Instead of running for 24 hours a day, let's only run for 18 hours a day. Yes we'll lose 25% of our output, but it gives the workers more rest..."
No policing after 3pm, no TV outside of 9am-3pm, no bars, no shops, no productivity at all. Countries where they can be actually bothered doing a hard day's work take over the world.
PostgreSQL = Incredible
MySQL = Ridiculous.
Discuss.
And they wonder why jobs are being outsourced...
Seriously though, the European 35-hour week is a disaster, they're having to get rid of it because they can't compete. Doesn't help that they just want to strike instead though.
If you only want to work 6 hours, that means the employer needs to employ another person for every 3 workers. Say there are current three shifts of 8 hours each day, now there need to be four shifts of 6 hours. I hope you're willing to take a 25% pay cut to fund this. Of course it would mean other things like more lockers, more personnel staff. so expect an even bigger cut.
And how would this work for 24/7 shifts that give an average 42 hours a week? If instead of working 4 12-hour days every 8, it'd be 4 8-hour days every 8, meaning another FIFTY PERCENT more people. That means you'd be taking a 33% pay cut to compensate.
Doesn't work in practice.
Say I run a factory, and I need someone to sweep up. I bring someone in, tell them to sweep up the factory. They can't do anything else because they're not trained or qualified, so they just have to sweep up, all day. Yes, it's a daily grind, but someone has to do it.
Same with shelf stacking, brick laying, bin emptying, bar work, waiting tables, mowing lawns. We don't all do intellectual, creative jobs where such a thing is possible, most jobs are just cogs in the machine. Not jobs where you need to think, not jobs where there's any benefit to 'creative time' or 'recovery'.
I doubt that, at least where I work, management often work absurd hours, even though they don't need to.
On the other hand, those at the bottom of the ladder would work 0 hours a day if they could get away with it. Think 2 hour lunch breaks, constant smoke breaks, even more tea breaks, then finishing an hour early to wind down. Thinking sleeping through night shifts.
Why is an American more deserving of a job than a chinaman? Because he lives in America. Because he contributes to our society.
A chinaman lives in China. He contributes to his society. Surely then he deserves the job.
What a stupid thing to say.
It's not YOUR money, it's Microsoft's money. They can spend it where they like. Unless you're advocating some sort of Iron-Curtail style embargo on China, which would be a massive step backwards.
If you're going to argue like that, then give up ALL, and I mean ALL, goods manufactured in China. There are probably hundreds of things made in China in the average American house.
Would you like to pay a whole load extra for things made in America instead? Of course not, yet you criticise corporations for doing the same. That's called hypocricy.
How about because it is jobs currently being done by Americans (you know, the workers that made Microsoft the success it is) that are being identified and sent offshore in an apparent quid pro quo for Chinese cooperation.
So what? No-one has a right to a job, no-one owes anyone a living, Microsoft is not a charity. If someone can do your job cheaper than you, that's just tough. I'm sure if a Chinese company was looking to employ Americans they wouldn't think about the poor unemployed Chinese.
Anyway even an unemployed American has it better than most Chinese. I won't be shedding any tears. Sell the giant TV and that's a year's worth of food right there. Sell the gas-guzzling SUV and you've enough money to spend months, or years looking for a new job. Perhaps you don't really need that 6-bedroom house in Silicon Valley with a 10 acre garden, three garages and four bathrooms.
What difference does it make where the jobs are going? It's still bad for American workers.
And good for Chinese workers. Overall, no-one loses out. It's no different between a company sacking someone and replacing him. There's the same number of jobs as before. It makes no difference to me whether an American or a Chinaman gets a job. If I were American I'd love it if other Americans' jobs were outsourced, would mean I would have relatively more money.
It's just thinly-disguised racism. I bet if a company from New York employed people in Chicago because it was cheaper to do business there, there wouldn't be an outcry about them not employing New Yorkers, putting them out of jobs, there wouldn't be endless complaining about them shafting the people who made them successful in the first place, they'd just get on with it.
A lot of the places hit by outsourcing are just too expensive. Why pay $100k a year for a prima donna in Redmond when you can get the same work for $20k in India? If American's wages all went down, and the cost of living went down, outsourcing wouldn't be a problem. But then it's in the American psyche to be better and richer than everyone else. Hubris is your downfall.
There are places in the world which don't suffer huge natural disasters. Of course if you're willing to risk flooding/hurricanes/earthquakes/tornadoes for a better view and better trade routes, well that's a risk you take. Just don't expect us in more boring, safe areas to bail you out.
Let me guess, your job was outsourced?
The Chinese and Indians are free to open all the companies they want to employ their own people. They don't need American companies coming there to have jobs.
And Americans are free to open all the companies they want to employ their own people. They don't need Microsoft to use a nationalistic hiring policy to give them jobs.
When people from all over the world can write for Linux, it's a good thing.
When people from all over the world can write for Microsoft, it's a bad thing, because Americans should get all the jobs?
I don't follow. What's so special about Americans that they should get all the jobs? Doesn't sound like that's a very healthy situation.
What would be the repsonse if jobs were being outsourced to Britain or Australia?
Exporting jobs is just plain bad for any economy.
I would think it's pretty good for China's economy. But that's not what you meant is it? Well, I don't see why Americans deserve jobs more than China.
In the long-term, outsourcing is good. The Chinese/Indians get more jobs, they get more money, their standard of living goes up. Eventually they become better places to live. Surely that's a good thing? You know most people in China and India live in poverty? By contrast even the poorest Americans live in luxury, excuse me if I don't shed any tears.
No-one stays on top forever, you have to work at it. The Roman empire collapsed, the British empire collapsed, all sorts of superpowers have been and gone. America's going to sink back eventually. Instead of complaining about jobs being outsourced, how about Americans get skilled and jobs which can't be outsourced? Why not start companies which employ solely Americans if you're bothered that much? Perhaps it's time to take responsibility for your own lives rather than blaming big evil corporations.
Linux doesn't really have this economic effect attached to it. Even if you buy a distro, you can buy the distro(s) made in your country.
I don't think that jobs lost through open source software would do much for the economy. Yes, they could make money from support, but then so can people whose jobs are outsourced. That argument cuts both ways.
Of course, Linux softare contains code from big corporations who definitely outsource employees. You forgot about that didn't you? Choosing your distro on the country it's from is a stupid thing to do anyway. Choose your products based on quality and price, there's no other way. Nationalism has no place in computing.
Microsoft is a company with employees all over the world. They do business all over the world. They don't operate entirely within America, their sole interest isn't the economy in America. If their interests are best served by employing people in China, they they should do it. It could mean that Chinaman being able to feed his family, perhaps get some electricity and TV, heating and indoor plumbing. So an American instead has to get the 32" TV instead of the 56" TV, that's not the worst thing in the world.
Of course Slashdotters are always saying that national boundaries don't mean anything in this Internet age, usually when it comes to visiting dodgy foreign mp3 or porn sites or downloading TV programmes. But as soon as jobs have the same freedom they want 20" walls around the borders. You can't have your cake and eat it.
1) The NRA defence of "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is now dead
What would an American gun association have to do with Australian courts?
As far as this case goes, I think that 99% of Kazaa is used for piracy, but I couldn't be sure. There might be legitimate uses but I haven't seen any.
What? I should be modded down for daring to insinuate that open source software isn't as good as is claimed?
Can the last person to give up on Slashdot please turn out the lights...
What? They're talking about DVD players, not wireless Internet. Have you even read the article? By the way, unauthorised access to wireless networks can get you arrested.
Also you're not including the cost of the computer, and the general hassle of running one.
Problem with that, not everyone wants a PC in charge of TV and DVDs and music. You'll probably need to mess about upgrading and installing software. Only an option for computer nerds I'm afraid.
1. Computers are expensive. Second hand ones are a liability and probably won't work with any hardware you want to use in them. Again you need to know about obscure computer terms.
2. They're unreliable. Want your 'TV' crashing during the World Cup final? Want the picture freezing because the computer is doing some heavy processing for some reason? Want your TV to be hacked? Want your TV to take the best part of a minute to boot up? Want to lose recorded programmes because your hard disk had problems? Want a command line on your 40" TV telling you to fsck manually?
3. They're complicated:
TIVO: Plug in, turn on, the end.
MythTV: Get computer. Install Linux (an achievement in itself), get TV card. Find out it doesn't work with Linux. Take it back. Repeat a few times until you (by a miracle) find a compatible one. Install software. Spend hours finding out how to get it to work. Learn the command line. Try installing the TV card drivers. Go onto IRC to find out. Six hours later, get a working TV card. Drag PC into living room. Set it up next to the TV, making the room look a mess. Drag wires all over your house. Manage to wire it up by a miracle. Have a computer making constant noise whilst you watch TV. Have Internet-enabled computer nearby for when something goes wrong.
4. People don't want that, other than a fraction of a percentage. Devices such as TVs, DVD players, recorders, should plug in and then be operated simply by a simple remote control. Menus and all that.
Problem with computer paper, is that it's a computer. It needs electricity, it's not disposable and permanent.
With a real document on paper, you can give it away, you can photocopy it, you can fax it without having to use the over-complex and unreliable Internet, you can pin it to the wall, you can write things on it, you can fold it up and keep it in your pocket, if it gets damaged you can replace it cheaply, you can rip bits off, it has a low barrier to entry.
Let's see:
"Open source software is just as user friendly as closed-source software." - Standard claim on this site.
"Sure you have your dependencies right?" - AC.
Those two sentences don't add up.
I don't care what program it is, opening the help system should not cause an instant crash.
Gnumeric is still effectively in its alpha phase. It crashes very easily, and the interface seems to be going BACKWARDS with each version. They can't even get the save-file box right. It used to be better years ago, but they're making things worse.
I had to uninstall the latest version because it caused too many problems compared to the years-old version I was using.
The graphing facilities are also very very poor compared to even Excel 97. It can't even get them in its own tab, just as a floating object over a spreadsheet which is ridiculous.
In the summary, it was refered to as 'THE Mars Probe'. As there are only a few probes, it would have made sense to say which one, or at least to refer to it as 'A Mars Probe'. Saying 'the' probe makes it look like there is only one, and I for one would have assumed it's the rover thing.
Imagine a newspaper headline after the hurricane:
Hurricane Destroys City
Today the city was devastated by the hurricane. More details on page 23.
I prefer the old rules of war, if you are in civies and caught, you must be a spy
Even if you're in your own country? By that logic if someone invaded America they could arrest all the rednecks as spies or illegal combatants if they dared to defend their country.
until you are released back to your home country, from there you are allowed to start shooting at US servicemen again
If you're occupying another country, the locals have every right to shoot at you. If you don't like it, don't invade.
Holland is about three miles across, don't you all cycle to work anyway?
To be fair large parts of America are deserts of mountain ranges, so they don't count. If you count the populated areas, it's effectively the same as Europe, so there's no excuse for driving 10 times further.
You just build you country wrong. Houses take up too much room, shops are too far away from where people live, towns are built too far apart, 'zoning' etc...