These judgement day scenarios are based on a big fallacy I haven't yet seen addressed:
The market for software developers is not standing still; it's growing tremendously. We're just not seeing it because a lot of new development is going overseas. However, there's no sign that the demand is going to slow down, and there's not an infinite number of tech workers overseas.
Already Indian workers are concerned about having their own tech bubble, as other countries start coming online with cheaper workers. China, Phillipines, and others are starting to take work away from India.
Further, despite claims to the contrary, it's not just as easy to move programming jobs overseas as it is for manufacturing jobs. Indian programmers aren't just plucked from the trees...they've gone through years of training and education just like we have. It costs a lot more time and money to train a programmer than to train an assembly-line worker. Again, there are not infinite resources available. It just seems that way because India has been building up a highly-trained workforce for a long time--without work to give them.
Our own tech boom and bust resulted in scads of untrained, unskilled workers getting paid too much to do too little. Reality check: there's no such thing as an HTML programmer. Writing VB is not going to earn you $50/hr. If you don't like what you're doing, you're not in the right line of work. The lion's share of jobs lost to offshoring are jobs that were filled by wannabes during the.com years. I personally know at least 5 administrators and programmers that refused to ever accept a lower-paying job when things went bad. They lost their cars, their houses, and their dignity as a result, and all for a job none of them liked doing in the first place.
Finally, as other posts have noted, the cost of paying a programmer is not the largest portion of developing software. Gathering requirements, testing, working with customers and clients, managing change, administering systems; all enter into it and have similar contributions to the overall cost. In the case of offshoring, almost all of these become more expensive...in some cases much more expensive.
Re:Optimization models
on
Java 1.5 vs C#
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Several JVMs use an m:n threading model (such as BEA's JRockit) that allows individual Java threads to be handled by different processor threads; this results in some extreme scalability, but obviously adds complexity to the JVM (since it is now required to manage both "green" and "real" threads). I don't believe either the.NET VM or Mono suppose m:n threading (yet).
I think the point is that this is another indication of this administration's willful disregard for advice and information from the scientific community if it conflicts with their agenda. If that isn't news for nerds (or news that should worry nerds) then I don't know what is.
Mod this up, this guy has the right idea. If you are in your job just because it pays (or paid) well, you're in the wrong career. More and more I realize that the people taking jobs from tech-loving geeks are not indians, they're lazy americans with certificates from two-year tech colleges. Get the hell out if this isn't what you want, and stop bitching that your hours are bad, your pay is unsatisfactory, and you hate your job. The world needs ditch-diggers too, and you're keeping someone more devoted from doing what they love.
People can choose to have kids. They can not, however, choose to have their job taken away or their pay cut. Most people do not choose poverty; they have it thrust upon them by events that may be out of their control.
It can also be pretty easily shown that those with more income do use a proportionately higher percentage of public resources. People with cars take a toll on the roads, while people without cars do not; people with two cars doubly so. Those with property concerns take a greater toll on government systems such as courts and public works. In addition, living in a country where individuals are given such opportunity to amass wealth comes at a cost: you pay taxes to the government because you do not have a god-given right to live in the United States. You make money off an economic system that hinges on the succesful administration of governmental processes to support it.
A graded taxation system guarantees that the people taking the most out of the system; i.e. those who have resources enough to put extra strain on governmental processes, pay proportionately more for the right to do so.
This qualifies as a review?
on
Practical C++
·
· Score: 1
The so-called book reviews getting posted on Slashdot lately are about as insubstantive as those I wrote in high school. Seriously, some of these books are as much as 1000 pages long, and the reviews amount to a few sparse paragraphs, and a total of a few hundred words. Reviews like this don't tell anyone anything useful, and they certainly don't provide an adequate overview of the book.
What happened to the real book reviews that actually covered the material? It's good to know that a couple-hundred-word essay on a several-hundred-page-book is a postable review these days.
..not everyone can afford a lawyer. I recently started a new job that had a very inclusive IP clause, basically stating that everything I did, whether related to work or not, belonged to the company. I asked them to modify that to exclude any work done independent of company projects and done using only my own time and resources, or to give me a signed letter from the CEO stating they would not pursue ownership of IP I developed independently.
Ultimately, they amended the agreement. They weren't trying to gobble up IP that their employees might work on in their spare time; it was more of an anti-compete clause to prevent someone using their internal knowledge of projects to develop competing software. The new agreement was acceptable to me, and we were able to move on.
The bottom line, though, is not to just accept what you're given. If they've offered you a position, they want you. Along with that comes accepting that you are an individual who may have your own ideas and projects, and they they simply do not own you. I fought for my rights, and so should you.
I was gonna post something about this top-level, but then I saw this reply...
I think it's a damned pathetic thing that a home multimedia appliance needs to have an "overheat" LED. First off, these things are supposed to have UL approval, which means their operating temperature range should be well within an average home temperature range. Why doesn't your TV, DVD player, Dishwasher or Toaster have an overheat indicator? Because hardware that's specified to work within a range of temperatures shouldn't break itself under heavy use. That's why UL approval is there - so equipment doesn't fail or burst into flames when operating within a set range of temperatures.
That said, I can understand why this temp indicator would be useful, but seriously: you should take this up with the manufacturer. If the hardware is failing under normal (albeit heavy) use, you've got a hell of a case for replacement. If it is really a problem that TiVos overheat and fail while operating within their approved temperature ranges, they're violating their UL approval and the units should be recalled and/or repaired.
Hardware companies pull these scams pretty often, skimping on safety or reliability measures in the name of manufacturing cost or marketability. If the TiVo needs a wind tunnel attached to the back to keep it cool, the system is poorly designed. If they don't include it and the system fails, it's TiVo's fault.
I don't own a TiVo, but I'm surprised that people would take this lying down. Stand up for your consumer rights, people; you have the right to products that don't break themselves when operating within tolerances. IANAL, but I think it's safe to say you even have the *legal* right to take action. It shouldn't be a "dirty little secret" that a piece of mainstream hardware breaks itself. It's THEIR fault, not yours.
And before someone says "well nobody guarantees the hardware in my super-duper homebuilt machine to always work" I will say this: Your homebuilt machine does not meet any approval other than your own, and if hardware in it fries, it's your own fault for not providing enough cooling. You are running the hardware outside its tolerances, and you suffer the consequences.
Exactly...I'll worry about everything until I know if it is or is not going to happen. After that, there's no point in worrying - it's not going to change outcomes. Then I can just worry about secondary effects...and then tertiary effects. Such is the sad existence of the paranoid.
I've got to agree...one point no articles or scientists have addressed is "should we be concerned?" It was unprecedented to have a large flare on an off year. It was unprecedented to have a second one. And now it's unprecedented to have a whole flurry of them within a week. At what point does unprecedented become something to worry about?
Any astrophysicists out there care to offer up any soothing words? What are the causes of solar flares? Would a large number of them signal anything of concern?
To put succinctly what goes through the heads of many paranoiacs like myself: "IS THE SUN DYING?!"
First time I've ever seen someone apologize or correct themselves on/.!
But yeah, you are right. The Hippocratic Oath doesn't apply to research scientists, but perhaps it should apply. I also understand the need to research WMD before they're created by someone else, and I suppose this sort of research will never be avoidable. I only fear the scientists (however few they may be) that are willing to create technologies purely designed for ill intent, simply because they believe in the almighty buck.
I truly hope this is the good kind of dangerous science.
Yes, you make a good point. The rapid infection and fatality rate of this strain of smallpox would make it, in a sense less viral; it wouldn't escape outside a small area.
It would, however, make it an ideal biological weapon. Since it would likely kill everyone within communication distance (as in communicable), it would kill indiscriminately for a couple weeks, and then burn out. A viral weapon is exactly the application you'd want a superfast burn rate for; you don't want the conquering heros to become infected months after the initial attack.
I think that's spelled "you're", as in "you're ignorant".
The point of my post, which you missed, was that developing a strain of virus that could be weaponized and wipe out mass numbers of creatures should perhaps not be taken so lightly. If you think that the Powers wouldn't be interested in having one more deterrent tucked quietly away, you're dead wrong.
That said, I know this research was not to produce a WMD, I know that plenty of pandemic viruses can just appear, and I know antibiotics don't work on viruses. You seemed to read in my post far more than I said.
Every day, every scientist needs to considering the long-term effects of their work, positive and negative. Far too few of us do. When it comes down to it, perhaps no good can be achieved without some evil being done in the process, but I think the Hippocratic Oath applies here: first, do no harm. Do what is best for the individual AND the group, and we'll all be better off.
I started to post a reply pointing out that they chose an already deadly virus to make invincible, but then a couple different thoughts occurred to me:
Smallpox is more easily contained than, say, the common cold, being much more difficult to communicate
Any virus would become fatal in the absence of an immune system; this is of course why immunideficient individuals are so susceptible to death by sneeze Smallpox has also been studied and puzzled over long enough that they probably know its ins and outs pretty well. Still, you'd think there'd be better ways to engineer a virus that was invincible; perhaps by limiting its reproduction in such a way that it would explode at first but die off after a few thousand generations. And choosing smallpox for this kind of research is just asking for trouble, even if only of the political kind.
I'm not going to say I'm the most moral person in the world, but really guys, how can any scientist justify working on something like this? I have to think that, given the opportunity, I would turn down the opportunity to engineer a mega-virus capable of killing all life (or all of a particular kind of life) without any antiviral agent being simultaneously developed. What can these guys possibly be thinking when they wake up in the morning, head off to work, and gleefully create the next ice-nine?
I don't think I could look my son in the face if this was the kind of work I did.
Read "Fast Food Nation" and tell me how voluntary the meat packing and fast food industries have become. Exploitation because of weak government regulation does not equal voluntary.
And people are suffering, earning minimum wage with no benefits and no compensation for crippling injuries solely to reduce the cost of consumer products while their employers earn billions and spend millions lobbying for looser restrictions on labor and disability laws.
This is nothing new. See the Tragedy of the Commons. It all comes back to abuse of abundant resources held in common. Everyone suffers eventually. As much as people fear regulation of abundant resources, government-imposed limitations are sometimes the only way to prevent abuse.
It should also be mentioned that no resource is unlimited. Take spam for instance. There's a certain signal-to-noise ratio that needs to be maintained for email to be useful. Spam abuses the system in such a way that that ratio is thrown askew. There is a narrow, limited amount of noise that can enter the system before the system is crippled. Spam has passed that threshhold, and is now almost purely noise.
Many other problems of abundance stem from the fact that the prices we pay do not reflect the true cost. While you eat a cheeseburger for $0.99, hundreds of people that had a hand in that hamburger's production, from farmers to meatpackers to fast food workers all suffer to give you the cheapest possible meal. There's not an over-abundance of food...there's just an out-of-control industry that has reduced the forward-facing price so drastically that food seems limitless.
Abundance is a mirage. You can't make something from nothing.
The article is so blind to the truth it's absurd. Yeah, the FSF flexes a little muscle once in a while to rein in companies that violate GPL. Yeah, it's a tough burden to either switch operating systems or release your modified source to the world. Yeah, it would be great for those companies if they could just use GPL'ed code without following any rules.
The bottom line, however, is that companies that use GPL'ed software are saving millions in development costs they'd otherwise have to swallow. Developing an embedded OS with the feature set and robustness of Linux would take hundreds if not thousands of man-months. That adds up to a lot of dough saved by going with available, open-source solutions.
And then, true to form, the PHBs, Executives, Suits all decide that they're not going to give back to the community. They're going to break the very rules that allow them to use such powerful software without paying cent one for the right. I support FSF's efforts to put the smack down on these companies at every turn. If you get something for free and then refuse to follow the rules under which you are allowed to use it, what right do you have to keep it?
Not surprising an AC would flame me, but just because he has an MS doesn't mean he knows enough to get a job...it means he has theoretical or technical (more often theoretical or research) training in some field. Would I hire someone solely based on an MS? No, I've turned down a number of MS grads. Would I be more likely to hire this guy than a recent MS grad? Yes, if he was qualified for the position.
No matter how smart or well educated you are or how many great projects you've worked on, you're only worth what you can accomplish now. The minute you become stagnant, you might as well join middle management.
No, I suggest learning whatever you choose to do really damned well. The reason so many "Java developers" are out of work is because they've got 2-3 years experience writing JSPs...that doesn't qualify as a deep exposure to the language. When I look into new languages, I try to get as much experience as I can in ALL aspects of that platform. When the next big thing hits, I'll either already be intimately familiar with it, or I'll damn well make myself familiar.
Anything worth learning is worth learning well. Too many people, when the dotcoms were flying high, were told they were "developers" because they could write HTML and perhaps a little scripting or Java. Now they're wondering why they can't find work. I get too many of their resumes to count, and I'm tired of it.
Any chimp can create HTML and do basic scripting or coding in 20 languages. Knowing how to implement real, quality solutions takes a lot more time, effort, and experience.
Java was used mainly as a glue layer between an ERP and the web services. We had developed our own template language which was called directly by web requests. Almost all of it was created new for a few specific projects. It wasn't the greatest marriage of technologies, but it worked ok, and I think parts of it are still in service today.
Now that you mention it, it was more like Spring of 1997, so more like 6.5 years. I just tossed off a round estimate.
I was out of work for a while when everything went under. Actually, I was out of work twice, once right at the end of 2000 and once in late 2001. The first time was because a major corporation decided to trim the fat and clear out an assload of consultants. I don't blame them for that, and I wasn't really sorry to go. The second time, I was working for an HMO provider, and they went belly-up because of shady accounting practices. Neither time was really related to the bubble.
However, the first time I was only out of work for a month, and the second time for about three months. During the inbetween times I kept studying software development, cleaning up my resume, and tossing it off. In the end, I got those new jobs because I actually had the skills necessary for "senior"-level positions.
This guy's resume is exactly the kind I walk away from. He's floated from language to language, technology to technology, and doesn't have a mastery of any of them. I won't go into specifics, but this looks exactly like a guy that doesn't learn anything he doesn't pick up from his current job. One job leads to another only by virtue of what odd jobs his former employer required him to do. A single one-off project in language X produces a marketable skill? I've been doing server-side Java development for 7 years and the market is still a tough nut to crack.
Learn how to do something (software development or tech writing, for example) and learn how to do it really well..the jobs will follow.
The answers all seem to involve $$$$$...so perhaps that's where we need to hit them.
What comes to mind is a boycot of companies that hold software patents, or at least of products and technologies they choose to hold patents on. But would that cripple us as a technological community? Software patents have become so ubiquitous and inclusive; can they even be avoided anymore from day to day?
I suppose you Europeans can't hassle us Yanks as much for having draconian patent laws. Now you see how difficult it is to inform those in power what a bad idea they are.
However, it is certainly a sad day for software freedom in the EU and around the world. What is it we are not communicating effectively? Why does this keep happening again and again?
I still waffle between the two (regardless/irregardless) but I see the latter so often it starts to sink it. I still dislike it and pause for a good minute every time I have to choose.
At any rate, WordNet defines it, although somewhat dubiously. They're certainly not Webster, but are often indicative of general language trends:
irregardless
adv : in spite of everything; without regard to drawbacks; "he
carried on regardless of the difficulties" [syn: regardless,
irrespective, disregardless, no matter, disregarding]
Perhaps it's a flammable/inflammable duality? Perhaps irregardless is "regardlessly regardless"?
Slashdot Mirror
These judgement day scenarios are based on a big fallacy I haven't yet seen addressed:
.com years. I personally know at least 5 administrators and programmers that refused to ever accept a lower-paying job when things went bad. They lost their cars, their houses, and their dignity as a result, and all for a job none of them liked doing in the first place.
The market for software developers is not standing still; it's growing tremendously. We're just not seeing it because a lot of new development is going overseas. However, there's no sign that the demand is going to slow down, and there's not an infinite number of tech workers overseas.
Already Indian workers are concerned about having their own tech bubble, as other countries start coming online with cheaper workers. China, Phillipines, and others are starting to take work away from India.
Further, despite claims to the contrary, it's not just as easy to move programming jobs overseas as it is for manufacturing jobs. Indian programmers aren't just plucked from the trees...they've gone through years of training and education just like we have. It costs a lot more time and money to train a programmer than to train an assembly-line worker. Again, there are not infinite resources available. It just seems that way because India has been building up a highly-trained workforce for a long time--without work to give them.
Our own tech boom and bust resulted in scads of untrained, unskilled workers getting paid too much to do too little. Reality check: there's no such thing as an HTML programmer. Writing VB is not going to earn you $50/hr. If you don't like what you're doing, you're not in the right line of work. The lion's share of jobs lost to offshoring are jobs that were filled by wannabes during the
Finally, as other posts have noted, the cost of paying a programmer is not the largest portion of developing software. Gathering requirements, testing, working with customers and clients, managing change, administering systems; all enter into it and have similar contributions to the overall cost. In the case of offshoring, almost all of these become more expensive...in some cases much more expensive.
Several JVMs use an m:n threading model (such as BEA's JRockit) that allows individual Java threads to be handled by different processor threads; this results in some extreme scalability, but obviously adds complexity to the JVM (since it is now required to manage both "green" and "real" threads). I don't believe either the .NET VM or Mono suppose m:n threading (yet).
FYI.
I think the point is that this is another indication of this administration's willful disregard for advice and information from the scientific community if it conflicts with their agenda. If that isn't news for nerds (or news that should worry nerds) then I don't know what is.
Mod this up, this guy has the right idea. If you are in your job just because it pays (or paid) well, you're in the wrong career. More and more I realize that the people taking jobs from tech-loving geeks are not indians, they're lazy americans with certificates from two-year tech colleges. Get the hell out if this isn't what you want, and stop bitching that your hours are bad, your pay is unsatisfactory, and you hate your job. The world needs ditch-diggers too, and you're keeping someone more devoted from doing what they love.
People can choose to have kids. They can not, however, choose to have their job taken away or their pay cut. Most people do not choose poverty; they have it thrust upon them by events that may be out of their control.
It can also be pretty easily shown that those with more income do use a proportionately higher percentage of public resources. People with cars take a toll on the roads, while people without cars do not; people with two cars doubly so. Those with property concerns take a greater toll on government systems such as courts and public works. In addition, living in a country where individuals are given such opportunity to amass wealth comes at a cost: you pay taxes to the government because you do not have a god-given right to live in the United States. You make money off an economic system that hinges on the succesful administration of governmental processes to support it.
A graded taxation system guarantees that the people taking the most out of the system; i.e. those who have resources enough to put extra strain on governmental processes, pay proportionately more for the right to do so.
The so-called book reviews getting posted on Slashdot lately are about as insubstantive as those I wrote in high school. Seriously, some of these books are as much as 1000 pages long, and the reviews amount to a few sparse paragraphs, and a total of a few hundred words. Reviews like this don't tell anyone anything useful, and they certainly don't provide an adequate overview of the book.
What happened to the real book reviews that actually covered the material? It's good to know that a couple-hundred-word essay on a several-hundred-page-book is a postable review these days.
..not everyone can afford a lawyer. I recently started a new job that had a very inclusive IP clause, basically stating that everything I did, whether related to work or not, belonged to the company. I asked them to modify that to exclude any work done independent of company projects and done using only my own time and resources, or to give me a signed letter from the CEO stating they would not pursue ownership of IP I developed independently.
Ultimately, they amended the agreement. They weren't trying to gobble up IP that their employees might work on in their spare time; it was more of an anti-compete clause to prevent someone using their internal knowledge of projects to develop competing software. The new agreement was acceptable to me, and we were able to move on.
The bottom line, though, is not to just accept what you're given. If they've offered you a position, they want you. Along with that comes accepting that you are an individual who may have your own ideas and projects, and they they simply do not own you. I fought for my rights, and so should you.
I was gonna post something about this top-level, but then I saw this reply...
I think it's a damned pathetic thing that a home multimedia appliance needs to have an "overheat" LED. First off, these things are supposed to have UL approval, which means their operating temperature range should be well within an average home temperature range. Why doesn't your TV, DVD player, Dishwasher or Toaster have an overheat indicator? Because hardware that's specified to work within a range of temperatures shouldn't break itself under heavy use. That's why UL approval is there - so equipment doesn't fail or burst into flames when operating within a set range of temperatures.
That said, I can understand why this temp indicator would be useful, but seriously: you should take this up with the manufacturer. If the hardware is failing under normal (albeit heavy) use, you've got a hell of a case for replacement. If it is really a problem that TiVos overheat and fail while operating within their approved temperature ranges, they're violating their UL approval and the units should be recalled and/or repaired.
Hardware companies pull these scams pretty often, skimping on safety or reliability measures in the name of manufacturing cost or marketability. If the TiVo needs a wind tunnel attached to the back to keep it cool, the system is poorly designed. If they don't include it and the system fails, it's TiVo's fault.
I don't own a TiVo, but I'm surprised that people would take this lying down. Stand up for your consumer rights, people; you have the right to products that don't break themselves when operating within tolerances. IANAL, but I think it's safe to say you even have the *legal* right to take action. It shouldn't be a "dirty little secret" that a piece of mainstream hardware breaks itself. It's THEIR fault, not yours.
And before someone says "well nobody guarantees the hardware in my super-duper homebuilt machine to always work" I will say this: Your homebuilt machine does not meet any approval other than your own, and if hardware in it fries, it's your own fault for not providing enough cooling. You are running the hardware outside its tolerances, and you suffer the consequences.
Exactly...I'll worry about everything until I know if it is or is not going to happen. After that, there's no point in worrying - it's not going to change outcomes. Then I can just worry about secondary effects...and then tertiary effects. Such is the sad existence of the paranoid.
I've got to agree...one point no articles or scientists have addressed is "should we be concerned?" It was unprecedented to have a large flare on an off year. It was unprecedented to have a second one. And now it's unprecedented to have a whole flurry of them within a week. At what point does unprecedented become something to worry about?
Any astrophysicists out there care to offer up any soothing words? What are the causes of solar flares? Would a large number of them signal anything of concern?
To put succinctly what goes through the heads of many paranoiacs like myself: "IS THE SUN DYING?!"
First time I've ever seen someone apologize or correct themselves on /.!
But yeah, you are right. The Hippocratic Oath doesn't apply to research scientists, but perhaps it should apply. I also understand the need to research WMD before they're created by someone else, and I suppose this sort of research will never be avoidable. I only fear the scientists (however few they may be) that are willing to create technologies purely designed for ill intent, simply because they believe in the almighty buck.
I truly hope this is the good kind of dangerous science.
Yes, you make a good point. The rapid infection and fatality rate of this strain of smallpox would make it, in a sense less viral; it wouldn't escape outside a small area.
It would, however, make it an ideal biological weapon. Since it would likely kill everyone within communication distance (as in communicable), it would kill indiscriminately for a couple weeks, and then burn out. A viral weapon is exactly the application you'd want a superfast burn rate for; you don't want the conquering heros to become infected months after the initial attack.
I think that's spelled "you're", as in "you're ignorant".
The point of my post, which you missed, was that developing a strain of virus that could be weaponized and wipe out mass numbers of creatures should perhaps not be taken so lightly. If you think that the Powers wouldn't be interested in having one more deterrent tucked quietly away, you're dead wrong.
That said, I know this research was not to produce a WMD, I know that plenty of pandemic viruses can just appear, and I know antibiotics don't work on viruses. You seemed to read in my post far more than I said.
Every day, every scientist needs to considering the long-term effects of their work, positive and negative. Far too few of us do. When it comes down to it, perhaps no good can be achieved without some evil being done in the process, but I think the Hippocratic Oath applies here: first, do no harm. Do what is best for the individual AND the group, and we'll all be better off.
Smallpox is more easily contained than, say, the common cold, being much more difficult to communicate
Any virus would become fatal in the absence of an immune system; this is of course why immunideficient individuals are so susceptible to death by sneeze
Smallpox has also been studied and puzzled over long enough that they probably know its ins and outs pretty well. Still, you'd think there'd be better ways to engineer a virus that was invincible; perhaps by limiting its reproduction in such a way that it would explode at first but die off after a few thousand generations. And choosing smallpox for this kind of research is just asking for trouble, even if only of the political kind.
I'm not going to say I'm the most moral person in the world, but really guys, how can any scientist justify working on something like this? I have to think that, given the opportunity, I would turn down the opportunity to engineer a mega-virus capable of killing all life (or all of a particular kind of life) without any antiviral agent being simultaneously developed. What can these guys possibly be thinking when they wake up in the morning, head off to work, and gleefully create the next ice-nine?
I don't think I could look my son in the face if this was the kind of work I did.
Read "Fast Food Nation" and tell me how voluntary the meat packing and fast food industries have become. Exploitation because of weak government regulation does not equal voluntary.
And people are suffering, earning minimum wage with no benefits and no compensation for crippling injuries solely to reduce the cost of consumer products while their employers earn billions and spend millions lobbying for looser restrictions on labor and disability laws.
This is nothing new. See the Tragedy of the Commons. It all comes back to abuse of abundant resources held in common. Everyone suffers eventually. As much as people fear regulation of abundant resources, government-imposed limitations are sometimes the only way to prevent abuse.
It should also be mentioned that no resource is unlimited. Take spam for instance. There's a certain signal-to-noise ratio that needs to be maintained for email to be useful. Spam abuses the system in such a way that that ratio is thrown askew. There is a narrow, limited amount of noise that can enter the system before the system is crippled. Spam has passed that threshhold, and is now almost purely noise.
Many other problems of abundance stem from the fact that the prices we pay do not reflect the true cost. While you eat a cheeseburger for $0.99, hundreds of people that had a hand in that hamburger's production, from farmers to meatpackers to fast food workers all suffer to give you the cheapest possible meal. There's not an over-abundance of food...there's just an out-of-control industry that has reduced the forward-facing price so drastically that food seems limitless.
Abundance is a mirage. You can't make something from nothing.
The article is so blind to the truth it's absurd. Yeah, the FSF flexes a little muscle once in a while to rein in companies that violate GPL. Yeah, it's a tough burden to either switch operating systems or release your modified source to the world. Yeah, it would be great for those companies if they could just use GPL'ed code without following any rules.
The bottom line, however, is that companies that use GPL'ed software are saving millions in development costs they'd otherwise have to swallow. Developing an embedded OS with the feature set and robustness of Linux would take hundreds if not thousands of man-months. That adds up to a lot of dough saved by going with available, open-source solutions.
And then, true to form, the PHBs, Executives, Suits all decide that they're not going to give back to the community. They're going to break the very rules that allow them to use such powerful software without paying cent one for the right. I support FSF's efforts to put the smack down on these companies at every turn. If you get something for free and then refuse to follow the rules under which you are allowed to use it, what right do you have to keep it?
Not surprising an AC would flame me, but just because he has an MS doesn't mean he knows enough to get a job...it means he has theoretical or technical (more often theoretical or research) training in some field. Would I hire someone solely based on an MS? No, I've turned down a number of MS grads. Would I be more likely to hire this guy than a recent MS grad? Yes, if he was qualified for the position.
No matter how smart or well educated you are or how many great projects you've worked on, you're only worth what you can accomplish now. The minute you become stagnant, you might as well join middle management.
No, I suggest learning whatever you choose to do really damned well. The reason so many "Java developers" are out of work is because they've got 2-3 years experience writing JSPs...that doesn't qualify as a deep exposure to the language. When I look into new languages, I try to get as much experience as I can in ALL aspects of that platform. When the next big thing hits, I'll either already be intimately familiar with it, or I'll damn well make myself familiar.
Anything worth learning is worth learning well. Too many people, when the dotcoms were flying high, were told they were "developers" because they could write HTML and perhaps a little scripting or Java. Now they're wondering why they can't find work. I get too many of their resumes to count, and I'm tired of it.
Any chimp can create HTML and do basic scripting or coding in 20 languages. Knowing how to implement real, quality solutions takes a lot more time, effort, and experience.
Java was used mainly as a glue layer between an ERP and the web services. We had developed our own template language which was called directly by web requests. Almost all of it was created new for a few specific projects. It wasn't the greatest marriage of technologies, but it worked ok, and I think parts of it are still in service today.
Now that you mention it, it was more like Spring of 1997, so more like 6.5 years. I just tossed off a round estimate.
I was out of work for a while when everything went under. Actually, I was out of work twice, once right at the end of 2000 and once in late 2001. The first time was because a major corporation decided to trim the fat and clear out an assload of consultants. I don't blame them for that, and I wasn't really sorry to go. The second time, I was working for an HMO provider, and they went belly-up because of shady accounting practices. Neither time was really related to the bubble.
However, the first time I was only out of work for a month, and the second time for about three months. During the inbetween times I kept studying software development, cleaning up my resume, and tossing it off. In the end, I got those new jobs because I actually had the skills necessary for "senior"-level positions.
This guy's resume is exactly the kind I walk away from. He's floated from language to language, technology to technology, and doesn't have a mastery of any of them. I won't go into specifics, but this looks exactly like a guy that doesn't learn anything he doesn't pick up from his current job. One job leads to another only by virtue of what odd jobs his former employer required him to do. A single one-off project in language X produces a marketable skill? I've been doing server-side Java development for 7 years and the market is still a tough nut to crack.
Learn how to do something (software development or tech writing, for example) and learn how to do it really well..the jobs will follow.
The answers all seem to involve $$$$$...so perhaps that's where we need to hit them.
What comes to mind is a boycot of companies that hold software patents, or at least of products and technologies they choose to hold patents on. But would that cripple us as a technological community? Software patents have become so ubiquitous and inclusive; can they even be avoided anymore from day to day?
I suppose you Europeans can't hassle us Yanks as much for having draconian patent laws. Now you see how difficult it is to inform those in power what a bad idea they are.
However, it is certainly a sad day for software freedom in the EU and around the world. What is it we are not communicating effectively? Why does this keep happening again and again?
I still waffle between the two (regardless/irregardless) but I see the latter so often it starts to sink it. I still dislike it and pause for a good minute every time I have to choose.
At any rate, WordNet defines it, although somewhat dubiously. They're certainly not Webster, but are often indicative of general language trends:
irregardless
adv : in spite of everything; without regard to drawbacks; "he
carried on regardless of the difficulties" [syn: regardless,
irrespective, disregardless, no matter, disregarding]
Perhaps it's a flammable/inflammable duality? Perhaps irregardless is "regardlessly regardless"?
Gotta love language.