I really don't think landlords can keep you from owning a gun. Or using a public radio spectrum. Yeah, they might put that kind of bullshit in a lease, but that doesn't mean that its enforcable. If you find yourself in such a situation, I'd call the ACLU. Their lawyers are REALLY big pains in the ass, whether you agree with all of their politics or not.
I'm thinking that the "software to write" is still the most important part, since that's what you want to actually sell. Are you sure that you trust your "contacts in Bangalore" to do a good job? You're going to be the one one selling the product... managing a project like that can be a bitch. How many "outsourced" projects have you seen that have error messages pop up like "critical error 13413. Do you want to do it now? Yes/No/Cancel" I've seen more than a few. If I were you I'd write the software MYSELF in my free time, make sure that my concept and ideas were sound, THEN worry about marketing etc. It really sounds like you're working on an idea you don't know how to translate into code. If you don't know that part, they boys in Bangalore are going to leave you with serious egg on your face when your first buyer (with a support contract) calls you wonder what "error 13413" means.
Ok, I'll bite. Why do you "need help finishing up the software"? Most projects that I've been a part of are really completed by a small team, or one person. Are you saying that you layed off all of your in-house coders and need cheap replacements, or are you saying that you had a "vision" for a product but didn't want to pay the wages that good coders want in your home country? Or, are you saying that you had an idea, mucked around in VB for a while, got in over your head, and then realized how expensive help was? Telling the rest of us your actual position/role in your project would make your posts make more sense (I'm guessing your management).
You're right, China can build and maintain them for less. How good of a job are they doing? Look at China's track record with submarines: they tried to design thier own subs, failed miserably, then bought designs from the Russians. Oops, that didn't work too well either. Now they just pay the Russians to build them. They can build things for cheap, sure. They just can't build anything complex and do a very good job of it. My understanding, based on info from friends who do business there, is that it's a cultural thing. No one will say no to a stupid request or deadline to someone above them. They say "yes" to save face and throw something together. Getting high quality components from China, that are actually shipped on time, seems to difficult.
No, it's more like this: that guy across the street has LOTS of roaches. You see them coming across the street and piling up on your porch. You have to crunch through them every time you walk to the mail box. So you burn his house down, and take out that whole side of the street along with him. Oops. They probably had roach problems too. That might not be "moral", but I bet it would be effective.
No, I just like things I can measure. I make a change, it's validated on paper (or the screen), it goes into production. Thats it. Thats all. No "faith". It works or it doesn't, which is something that you can't apply to religion. Religion doesn't DO anything. You (If you are in fact religious) won't know until you die, at which point you will either be reborn or not really care. If others have gone before you, they haven't bothered to check back in with findings... you could be the first first to/. heaven!
You should really read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance" by Robert Pirsig. "What is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good" is a question for the ages. Humans know (unless they've been conditioned otherwise by religion or some other means) what is good. They know. They can make that distinction. If you read the book, the key point is that the "river of knowledge" is running wide, and shallow. It's also worth noting that Pirsig wrote that book after electroshock "therapy" to clear his head. Most people I've given that book to have come back annoyed becuase the didn't understand it, but you have to try, right?
I'm finishing up a business app for internal use, and part of the testing is to find users who always manage to find a way to make things break and install it on their boxes. You can't really assume that you thought of every way a user will use a program you wrote. It's very easy, when you've been working on something for a while, to miss things when you test it yourself. People have, in beta testing, done things that I would have never thought to try. Sometimes that caused an error or a warning somewhere. If you think like a programmer, it's hard to guess the apparantly random ways that people will try to use your software ahead of time.
Just a theory, but here's how I see society evolving:
1. Hunter-gatherer 2. Agricultural 3. Agricultural, with some cities and cottage industry. 4. Industrial 5. Technological 6. No more superstition or religion, ready to move on to other things/better places.
Superstition and religion are, in my opinion, vestiges of the caveman days when nothing was understood and explanations were just pulled out of someone's ass so that the rest of the tribe felt better. That might come acrost as flamebait, but I really do think that's how it happened. Faith (which is an odd word in and of itself) in something that can't be seen, does you no day to day good, and certainly can't be proven makes no sense to me. Let alone killing someone because they have a different faith/set of irrational beliefs. It's time for the human race to grow up.
I don't think you CAN distance yourself from the window-smashers. Not in the media, for sure. You have a utopian dream (all utopian dreams have failed, so far), and those OTHER anarchists just want to break things. They carry they same flag, use the same name and jargon, and they get the media coverage when they bust up a Starbucks in Seattle. And you're still half-ass supporting their actions with your "much more effective..." bullshit. Tactics like riots are probably a lot more effective when the average individual trying to protect his home or property is not armed. In a heavily armed society (like the Swiss) I don't think that would fly. See, they get away with having all those weapons around because they trust each other. The same thing applies for some communities in the US. You want to burn my house? You get shot. I'm probably better armed than you. And if enough anarchists try it in a row, the National Guard gets called in, and they burn their ammo. Anarchists should just grow up, become less of a pain in the ass, and become Wiccans... very similar values, overall. Then they only have to worry about poison ivy while collecting herbs, and not a round tearing some important body part off.
Anarchism is an interesting idea, just like communism, only dumber. In a country ruled like that, he who has the most guns wins (human nature, see, and you always have some sociopaths out there). Actually, a few countries have tried this... Somalia did, and they quickly sold all the metal in their power lines to buy drugs and ammo. I don't think I want to live there.
Ok, I'll bite. Other than to gather votes by promising more entitlements (read welfare), what does any presidential candidate have to gain by visiting a low-income neighborhood? Nothing, that I can see. What does the average housing project add to the GNP? Nothing. Who are they hiring? Nobody. Do they contribute anything but votes for more big government? No. Is this really a race issue? No again. The race of those low-income people stuck in the system varies by region. The whole public housing system is borked; catering to that demographic should be a black eye for any political candidate. A friend of mine once acted as a tour guide for National Geographic on a shoot of our local public housing... I remember an interview she shot of a 16 year old girl who was trying to get pregnant on purpose so HUD would give her an apartment of her own. THAT'S where your tax dollars are going, and half the country doesn't mind. If people don't care about improving their own communities, it seems just a little strange to expect anyone else to. You can see the results pretty easily, if you look. They don't care, so we don't care either. We just want to keep the roving crackheads out of our neighborhoods. Maybe you leave milk and cookies out for those poor, downtrodden, repeat violent offenders who are out on the street between prisons spells. I don't. I don't know how to fix the problem; large parts of society are atrophying before our eyes. On the other hand, at least I'm willing to say fuck them, let them rot in thier own shit, and clean their own house when they get tired of the crime.
I don't think that any war goes quite the way those running it thought it would. And I don't think, for that matter, that invading Iraq accomplished much, if anything, in the "war on terror". But, we invaded, we took out the government, so now what? Should we leave and let the Muslim extremists take over the country, and pose a future threat to Saudi? Should we try to fight the extremists while not hurting the civilians or the country's economy? Should we admit the war never ended and accept civilian casualties if we actually destroy the insurgents? I don't know, and I'm glad it's not my decision. Yeah, it looks like we made a mistake in invading. Yeah, now we have a big unstable mess of a country on our hands that we have to find a way to withdraw from. In any case, I hope the military can find a way to kill all of the radicals who are running around sawing civilian's heads off, and all of those who support them. Fuck the terrorists and their tactics. If that's not black and white, I don't know why not.
If 99% of Muslims are "good guys" who don't support terrrorism, how come we don't hear an outcry against terrorism from them? Here in the U.S., Muslims by and large seem to support terrorism by their silence. Oh sure, you get the random talking head on CNN every now and again explaining how "Islam is a religion of peace", but they don't try very hard to make me actually think that that is what they really believe. For the record: I'm agnostic, and have no real use for religion. I think it caused more trouble than it's worth, and I don't think most people need a preacher/imam/guy with the koolaid to tell them what's good and bad in life. I do think Islam is about as fucked-up as religion gets, there is nothing there that can't be twisted to support terrorism, and it runs rampant in violent, corrupt, tribally-oriented parts of the world. Whatever good Islam could theoretically do is more than offset by what it actually is today, which is a justification for terrorism and brutal theocracies. If you're married, and your not a Muslim, don't try to tell me that you're not glad that your wife wasn't born in a Muslim country. Or if she was, that you don't wish she was born somewhere else. I would appreciate a reason to change my view on the matter, but I don't have one at this point. Given current events and how far people spin things to justify the feudal serfdom and support for terrorists that seem to go hand in hand with Muslim governments, I doubt I'll have a good reason in my lifetime.
You're forgetting the fact that the Arab nations view Palistinians as lazy, worthless, second-class people. And that might be overly generous. They don't support the Palistinians because they like them, they do it because they hate the Israelis even more. Talk to someone who has spent a lot of time in the middle east if you think I made that up. No one cares about the Palistinians, even in Muslim countries. They are just an excuse to attack Israel.
I've never seen one. If you find one somewhere, please let me know. Terrorists and the regimes/groups/mindsets that support their tactics usually aren't are that reasoned or sensible. Sensible people don't commit suicide bombings.
Good mechanics drive whatever they get their hands on for cheap, and then run it into the ground. To a mechanic, it's JUST A CAR. It wasn't expensive. It does what you want to it to. And when it blows up to the point that it's not worth fixing you just have it crushed, take the $75 bucks and buy another. It's a CAR. Mechanics (in my experience, and yes I have been one) care very little about their personal rides unless it's the special classic in the garage that never gets driven anyway.
With the economy the way it is, job titles don't mean much. On paper, at the moment, I'm a "designer". No one knows what that means at my company. On the job function chart of the company, I'm a mechanical engineer. In reality, I write code (at least for the last year or so). That's not my only responsibility, at least until recently. I just have to get things done.
Sometimes I get a plant worker to bring me some blanks so I can machine a prototype. No, that's not part of an engineer's job description, that's just how it works. I'm trying to schedule time so that I can get rated (don't know what that takes) so I can take a forklift and go get my own bundle of extrusions or whatever else need to be machined. There is no easy way, for me, to define what I'm supposed to do during a workday... and I think this will become more common.
I agree. I've been looking for a programmer, and one stood out because he listed Perl and Python on his resume. So I asked him how he had used those in the past, and how he got interested. The answer? "It's neat, and it just does what I want it to". He learned it ON HIS OWN. For his own personal use, on his own websites. Because the thought it was neat. Now, I'm not quite management, but that put his resume on top of the list. Unfortunately (for me) NASA hired him instead. See, the way I look at it if I'm interviewing someone (especially fresh out of college) I'm not looking for adaptability as much as I am willingness to learn. Those aren't the same thing; someone that knows three programming languages is good; someone how actually enjoys learning new things is a whole lot better. Being self-taught in anything technical that your college doesn't offer a course in is a big plus in my book. You have no idea how hard it is to find someone self-taught (even if they got the mindset from a four-year degree). Those people are rare. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I can find another.
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I really don't think landlords can keep you from owning a gun. Or using a public radio spectrum. Yeah, they might put that kind of bullshit in a lease, but that doesn't mean that its enforcable. If you find yourself in such a situation, I'd call the ACLU. Their lawyers are REALLY big pains in the ass, whether you agree with all of their politics or not.
I love the name of the link in your profile.
I'm thinking that the "software to write" is still the most important part, since that's what you want to actually sell. Are you sure that you trust your "contacts in Bangalore" to do a good job? You're going to be the one one selling the product... managing a project like that can be a bitch. How many "outsourced" projects have you seen that have error messages pop up like "critical error 13413. Do you want to do it now? Yes/No/Cancel" I've seen more than a few. If I were you I'd write the software MYSELF in my free time, make sure that my concept and ideas were sound, THEN worry about marketing etc. It really sounds like you're working on an idea you don't know how to translate into code. If you don't know that part, they boys in Bangalore are going to leave you with serious egg on your face when your first buyer (with a support contract) calls you wonder what "error 13413" means.
Ok, I'll bite. Why do you "need help finishing up the software"? Most projects that I've been a part of are really completed by a small team, or one person. Are you saying that you layed off all of your in-house coders and need cheap replacements, or are you saying that you had a "vision" for a product but didn't want to pay the wages that good coders want in your home country? Or, are you saying that you had an idea, mucked around in VB for a while, got in over your head, and then realized how expensive help was? Telling the rest of us your actual position/role in your project would make your posts make more sense (I'm guessing your management).
If you think that's how companies use the H-1b loophole, I'd like some of what you're smoking.
You're right, China can build and maintain them for less. How good of a job are they doing? Look at China's track record with submarines: they tried to design thier own subs, failed miserably, then bought designs from the Russians. Oops, that didn't work too well either. Now they just pay the Russians to build them. They can build things for cheap, sure. They just can't build anything complex and do a very good job of it. My understanding, based on info from friends who do business there, is that it's a cultural thing. No one will say no to a stupid request or deadline to someone above them. They say "yes" to save face and throw something together. Getting high quality components from China, that are actually shipped on time, seems to difficult.
No, it's more like this: that guy across the street has LOTS of roaches. You see them coming across the street and piling up on your porch. You have to crunch through them every time you walk to the mail box. So you burn his house down, and take out that whole side of the street along with him. Oops. They probably had roach problems too. That might not be "moral", but I bet it would be effective.
The only thing to attain to would be a lack of superstition. That's all, and it would cure a multitude of ills (not all, but a lot of them).
No, I just like things I can measure. I make a change, it's validated on paper (or the screen), it goes into production. Thats it. Thats all. No "faith". It works or it doesn't, which is something that you can't apply to religion. Religion doesn't DO anything. You (If you are in fact religious) won't know until you die, at which point you will either be reborn or not really care. If others have gone before you, they haven't bothered to check back in with findings... you could be the first first to /. heaven!
You should really read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance" by Robert Pirsig. "What is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good" is a question for the ages. Humans know (unless they've been conditioned otherwise by religion or some other means) what is good. They know. They can make that distinction. If you read the book, the key point is that the "river of knowledge" is running wide, and shallow. It's also worth noting that Pirsig wrote that book after electroshock "therapy" to clear his head. Most people I've given that book to have come back annoyed becuase the didn't understand it, but you have to try, right?
I'm finishing up a business app for internal use, and part of the testing is to find users who always manage to find a way to make things break and install it on their boxes. You can't really assume that you thought of every way a user will use a program you wrote. It's very easy, when you've been working on something for a while, to miss things when you test it yourself. People have, in beta testing, done things that I would have never thought to try. Sometimes that caused an error or a warning somewhere. If you think like a programmer, it's hard to guess the apparantly random ways that people will try to use your software ahead of time.
Just a theory, but here's how I see society evolving:
1. Hunter-gatherer
2. Agricultural
3. Agricultural, with some cities and cottage industry.
4. Industrial
5. Technological
6. No more superstition or religion, ready to move on to other things/better places.
Superstition and religion are, in my opinion, vestiges of the caveman days when nothing was understood and explanations were just pulled out of someone's ass so that the rest of the tribe felt better. That might come acrost as flamebait, but I really do think that's how it happened. Faith (which is an odd word in and of itself) in something that can't be seen, does you no day to day good, and certainly can't be proven makes no sense to me. Let alone killing someone because they have a different faith/set of irrational beliefs. It's time for the human race to grow up.
I don't think you CAN distance yourself from the window-smashers. Not in the media, for sure. You have a utopian dream (all utopian dreams have failed, so far), and those OTHER anarchists just want to break things. They carry they same flag, use the same name and jargon, and they get the media coverage when they bust up a Starbucks in Seattle. And you're still half-ass supporting their actions with your "much more effective..." bullshit. Tactics like riots are probably a lot more effective when the average individual trying to protect his home or property is not armed. In a heavily armed society (like the Swiss) I don't think that would fly. See, they get away with having all those weapons around because they trust each other. The same thing applies for some communities in the US. You want to burn my house? You get shot. I'm probably better armed than you. And if enough anarchists try it in a row, the National Guard gets called in, and they burn their ammo. Anarchists should just grow up, become less of a pain in the ass, and become Wiccans... very similar values, overall. Then they only have to worry about poison ivy while collecting herbs, and not a round tearing some important body part off.
Anarchism is an interesting idea, just like communism, only dumber. In a country ruled like that, he who has the most guns wins (human nature, see, and you always have some sociopaths out there). Actually, a few countries have tried this... Somalia did, and they quickly sold all the metal in their power lines to buy drugs and ammo. I don't think I want to live there.
I thought that the end goal of a Buddhist was utter destruction, being part of the "god". That end goal isn't real appealing to me.
No, there are other motivations for violence. Religion just makes it easier to justify them.
You made my point, by posting anonymously. Thank you very much.
Ok, I'll bite. Other than to gather votes by promising more entitlements (read welfare), what does any presidential candidate have to gain by visiting a low-income neighborhood? Nothing, that I can see. What does the average housing project add to the GNP? Nothing. Who are they hiring? Nobody. Do they contribute anything but votes for more big government? No. Is this really a race issue? No again. The race of those low-income people stuck in the system varies by region. The whole public housing system is borked; catering to that demographic should be a black eye for any political candidate. A friend of mine once acted as a tour guide for National Geographic on a shoot of our local public housing... I remember an interview she shot of a 16 year old girl who was trying to get pregnant on purpose so HUD would give her an apartment of her own. THAT'S where your tax dollars are going, and half the country doesn't mind. If people don't care about improving their own communities, it seems just a little strange to expect anyone else to. You can see the results pretty easily, if you look. They don't care, so we don't care either. We just want to keep the roving crackheads out of our neighborhoods. Maybe you leave milk and cookies out for those poor, downtrodden, repeat violent offenders who are out on the street between prisons spells. I don't. I don't know how to fix the problem; large parts of society are atrophying before our eyes. On the other hand, at least I'm willing to say fuck them, let them rot in thier own shit, and clean their own house when they get tired of the crime.
I don't think that any war goes quite the way those running it thought it would. And I don't think, for that matter, that invading Iraq accomplished much, if anything, in the "war on terror". But, we invaded, we took out the government, so now what? Should we leave and let the Muslim extremists take over the country, and pose a future threat to Saudi? Should we try to fight the extremists while not hurting the civilians or the country's economy? Should we admit the war never ended and accept civilian casualties if we actually destroy the insurgents? I don't know, and I'm glad it's not my decision. Yeah, it looks like we made a mistake in invading. Yeah, now we have a big unstable mess of a country on our hands that we have to find a way to withdraw from. In any case, I hope the military can find a way to kill all of the radicals who are running around sawing civilian's heads off, and all of those who support them. Fuck the terrorists and their tactics. If that's not black and white, I don't know why not.
If 99% of Muslims are "good guys" who don't support terrrorism, how come we don't hear an outcry against terrorism from them? Here in the U.S., Muslims by and large seem to support terrorism by their silence. Oh sure, you get the random talking head on CNN every now and again explaining how "Islam is a religion of peace", but they don't try very hard to make me actually think that that is what they really believe. For the record: I'm agnostic, and have no real use for religion. I think it caused more trouble than it's worth, and I don't think most people need a preacher/imam/guy with the koolaid to tell them what's good and bad in life. I do think Islam is about as fucked-up as religion gets, there is nothing there that can't be twisted to support terrorism, and it runs rampant in violent, corrupt, tribally-oriented parts of the world. Whatever good Islam could theoretically do is more than offset by what it actually is today, which is a justification for terrorism and brutal theocracies. If you're married, and your not a Muslim, don't try to tell me that you're not glad that your wife wasn't born in a Muslim country. Or if she was, that you don't wish she was born somewhere else. I would appreciate a reason to change my view on the matter, but I don't have one at this point. Given current events and how far people spin things to justify the feudal serfdom and support for terrorists that seem to go hand in hand with Muslim governments, I doubt I'll have a good reason in my lifetime.
You're forgetting the fact that the Arab nations view Palistinians as lazy, worthless, second-class people. And that might be overly generous. They don't support the Palistinians because they like them, they do it because they hate the Israelis even more. Talk to someone who has spent a lot of time in the middle east if you think I made that up. No one cares about the Palistinians, even in Muslim countries. They are just an excuse to attack Israel.
I've never seen one. If you find one somewhere, please let me know. Terrorists and the regimes/groups/mindsets that support their tactics usually aren't are that reasoned or sensible. Sensible people don't commit suicide bombings.
Good mechanics drive whatever they get their hands on for cheap, and then run it into the ground. To a mechanic, it's JUST A CAR. It wasn't expensive. It does what you want to it to. And when it blows up to the point that it's not worth fixing you just have it crushed, take the $75 bucks and buy another. It's a CAR. Mechanics (in my experience, and yes I have been one) care very little about their personal rides unless it's the special classic in the garage that never gets driven anyway.
With the economy the way it is, job titles don't mean much. On paper, at the moment, I'm a "designer". No one knows what that means at my company. On the job function chart of the company, I'm a mechanical engineer. In reality, I write code (at least for the last year or so). That's not my only responsibility, at least until recently. I just have to get things done. Sometimes I get a plant worker to bring me some blanks so I can machine a prototype. No, that's not part of an engineer's job description, that's just how it works. I'm trying to schedule time so that I can get rated (don't know what that takes) so I can take a forklift and go get my own bundle of extrusions or whatever else need to be machined. There is no easy way, for me, to define what I'm supposed to do during a workday... and I think this will become more common.
I agree. I've been looking for a programmer, and one stood out because he listed Perl and Python on his resume. So I asked him how he had used those in the past, and how he got interested. The answer? "It's neat, and it just does what I want it to". He learned it ON HIS OWN. For his own personal use, on his own websites. Because the thought it was neat. Now, I'm not quite management, but that put his resume on top of the list. Unfortunately (for me) NASA hired him instead. See, the way I look at it if I'm interviewing someone (especially fresh out of college) I'm not looking for adaptability as much as I am willingness to learn. Those aren't the same thing; someone that knows three programming languages is good; someone how actually enjoys learning new things is a whole lot better. Being self-taught in anything technical that your college doesn't offer a course in is a big plus in my book. You have no idea how hard it is to find someone self-taught (even if they got the mindset from a four-year degree). Those people are rare. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I can find another.