Speaking as one who has a large part of my net worth invested in Apple shares, I am grateful to Mr. Ballmer for the job he's done over the last 13 years. I'm even more grateful to Jim Alchin, for botching the Window Longhorn project in a manner that was damned close to optimal for Apple's interests.
Afterall, if they do legally obtain some of my private information for whatever reason, I'd sleep a lot better knowing that at least it will be safe from some 12 year old Chinese hacker.
I'd trust a random 12 year-old Chinese hacker before I'd trust an organization that's currently torturing and keeping people locked up illegally.
BYTE died for me when they let Jerry Pournelle spew his pig-ignorance all over its pages as a regular columnist. I loved it back in the days of Steve Ciarcia.
I think Ballmer's trying to do the right thing by breaking down the internal barriers, but there are a hell of a lot of managers there who built their little empires, and won't give them up just because the CEO tells them to. What I'm waiting to see is whether anyone obeys him.
I'm 49, and not having any trouble at all finding work to do, because I keep my skills up to date. I've got several decades of programming experience, and right now I'm pretty well situated since I'm a Mac developer with more Obj-C experience than most people will ever get. But, if some better platform comes along, then I'll switch to it.
When workers "threaten" to refuse to work -- which is their right in a free market -- you call that "intimidation."
I said no such thing, and you bloody well know it. You can quit, you can say you're going to quit, you can tell other people that your employer sucks, and that's all just fine and dandy.
It's when you threaten the next guy who wants to take the job you're walking off of that you're out of line.
Don't try to put words in my mouth, sparky. You have every right to quit a job if you want more than they're paying. The violence and intimidation is when the union goons try to scare other people away from replacing strikers.
Yeah, history is full of examples of people trying to fight against supply and demand. Unions happen to be one egregious example of how such efforts impede us all.
Do you believe that there is such a thing as negotiating skill?
Sure there is, and when I need it, I employ an agent to market my services. Unions don't do that, they just use violence and intimidation tactics to try to keep other suppliers out of the market.
When workers organized together into unions, they were able to negotiate a bigger slice of the pie.
Nope. You're giving unions the credit for the fact that businesses have to compete for resources, including labor. What pushes wages up isn't unions demanding it, it's employers needing workers that other businesses also need.
Actually, unions have been among the strongest advocates of raising the minimum wage.
Yeah, and that's one of the most evil things they do. The real minimum wage is always ZERO, and the effect of minimum wage laws is to forcibly prevent anyone from being employed if they're not able to earn some arbitrary cutoff price.
The whole purpose of the minimum wage, going back to when it started in this country, was to exclude competition. Its proponents were pretty blatant about the need for minimum wage laws to keep blacks from taking jobs that whites wanted to keep for themselves at higher cost.
Slashdot Mirror
if the state actually lived by the same rules as its subjects, there would be no state.
So, what's the down side?
-jcr
I'm not a short term trader. I plan to hold these shares for another decade or so.
-jcr
Anybody who thinks honour-systems or voluntary self-regulation actually works is a dumber than a barrel of bricks.
Or they're aware of the Underwriter's Laboratories, which does an excellent job of regulating the safety of electrical devices sold in the USA.
-jcr
Speaking as one who has a large part of my net worth invested in Apple shares, I am grateful to Mr. Ballmer for the job he's done over the last 13 years. I'm even more grateful to Jim Alchin, for botching the Window Longhorn project in a manner that was damned close to optimal for Apple's interests.
-jcr
I used HP3000s back in high school. They had plenty of other security holes, too.
-jcr
With that logic every penny we all spend is taken from our employers?
Please shut up. Your ignorance is painful to anyone who reads it.
-jcr
The government isn't a producer of wealth. Every penny it spends is taken from us.
-jcr
Afterall, if they do legally obtain some of my private information for whatever reason, I'd sleep a lot better knowing that at least it will be safe from some 12 year old Chinese hacker.
I'd trust a random 12 year-old Chinese hacker before I'd trust an organization that's currently torturing and keeping people locked up illegally.
-jcr
BYTE died for me when they let Jerry Pournelle spew his pig-ignorance all over its pages as a regular columnist. I loved it back in the days of Steve Ciarcia.
-jcr
There's a difference between falling in line and paying lip service to the plan.
-jcr
I think Ballmer's trying to do the right thing by breaking down the internal barriers, but there are a hell of a lot of managers there who built their little empires, and won't give them up just because the CEO tells them to. What I'm waiting to see is whether anyone obeys him.
-jcr
None? Nothing to see here. More idiot legislators trying to get attention.
-jcr
Unions? Not so much. They just add an layer of management. ...and taxation.
-jcr
I'm 49, and not having any trouble at all finding work to do, because I keep my skills up to date. I've got several decades of programming experience, and right now I'm pretty well situated since I'm a Mac developer with more Obj-C experience than most people will ever get. But, if some better platform comes along, then I'll switch to it.
-jcr
When workers "threaten" to refuse to work -- which is their right in a free market -- you call that "intimidation."
I said no such thing, and you bloody well know it. You can quit, you can say you're going to quit, you can tell other people that your employer sucks, and that's all just fine and dandy.
It's when you threaten the next guy who wants to take the job you're walking off of that you're out of line.
-jcr
"Union violence" is a straw man.
You are a liar.
-jcr
Actually, the criminals who make their living from the union scam tend to live in NYC, LA and DC.
-jcr
Don't try to put words in my mouth, sparky. You have every right to quit a job if you want more than they're paying. The violence and intimidation is when the union goons try to scare other people away from replacing strikers.
-jcr
Yeah, history is full of examples of people trying to fight against supply and demand. Unions happen to be one egregious example of how such efforts impede us all.
-jcr
low-wage workers from another country
That's called competition, son. If your skills aren't worth more than those people you're complaining about, then work on improving yourself.
A job is not a property right.
-jcr
Do you believe that there is such a thing as negotiating skill?
Sure there is, and when I need it, I employ an agent to market my services. Unions don't do that, they just use violence and intimidation tactics to try to keep other suppliers out of the market.
-jcr
When workers organized together into unions, they were able to negotiate a bigger slice of the pie.
Nope. You're giving unions the credit for the fact that businesses have to compete for resources, including labor. What pushes wages up isn't unions demanding it, it's employers needing workers that other businesses also need.
-jcr
Actually, unions have been among the strongest advocates of raising the minimum wage.
Yeah, and that's one of the most evil things they do. The real minimum wage is always ZERO, and the effect of minimum wage laws is to forcibly prevent anyone from being employed if they're not able to earn some arbitrary cutoff price.
-jcr
The whole purpose of the minimum wage, going back to when it started in this country, was to exclude competition. Its proponents were pretty blatant about the need for minimum wage laws to keep blacks from taking jobs that whites wanted to keep for themselves at higher cost.
-jcr
There are countless examples of unions making the world a better place
Yeah, like Detroit.
Oh, wait.
-jcr