Amazing. By comparison I have a 3 bedroom townhouse in Sydney, Australia. 2 adults, 2 kids. A few computers, efficient lights, no air/co, cooking and water heating is gas. I work at home, so I use stuff during the day. The house is in the inner city, so smaller than country houses but nonetheless bigger than most around here.
Looking at a random bill, it was $153. 15 November 2007 - 15 Feb 2008. So that's $50 per month (those are Aussie dollars, recently worth almost the same as USD, but now YOUR economy has collapsed, worth about 0.7 USD - I don't understand it either).
Most electricity recent bill $181 for 3 months. $60 per month. Less than that in USD.
My gas [that's not petrol, but gas you use for cooking and water heating] bills are about the same, $180 - 200 per 3 months.
We don't use coal or wood fires (the temperatures stay fairly reasonable all the time, really. We have a gas heater we use a bit in summer, and on those really hot days - like today - we use fans and sweat a little).
Anyway, that makes overall energy expenditure about $330 per 3 months, 110 per month, that's USD 77 per month.
Microsoft have just announced they are introducing a new version of Halo - Halo 4 "The One way Trip"
In this game, which costs just $15.95, you are issued a fixed set of characters. When they die, that's it. You can save where you are in the game, pause and resume as normal BUT you cannot ever come back to life.
It is supported by the American Coalition of Concerned Mothers and the American Conservative Churches Association, who have combined to condemn the continual "resurrection" in games. "Once you are dead, you stay dead" said one of the mothers - "Well almost" corrected one of the religious brethren.
Microsoft spokesman Jack Frogmouth said Microsoft is excited by the new game concept and looks forward to the great new stream of revenue. On being questioned whether Microsoft would contribute a 10% tithe to the church, he declined to comment.
Define your terms. I'm a young guy (53), and I like a lot of music made in this century, but I despise the dreck that makes it to the top of the charts. The current A&R policy for pop music is driven by a business model based on focus groups [beforethemusicdies.com]; it's a dinosaur, thrashing its tail in its dying throes, crushing a few of the tiny mammalian successors that will eventually reign supreme!!!!
Disappearing socks turned into lint? - nonsense. If that were so, it would happen steadily (and it does, you find it on the dryer filter). Thus socks would gradually get thinner - and they probably do. But to suggest that the dryer picks on one sock and eats it is less weird than my theory of an alternative sock universe.
Occam would be ashamed of you.
(Actually, Occam, being a deeply religious monk, would be horrified by the current use of his name all over the place. But I digress)
Socks are mysterious - I believe they are subject to similar laws to restaurant bills - and we all know where "bistronmathics" can lead to.
Each time I run a wash through, I end up with a pile of "lonely" socks. I try to match some with previous lonely socks, and occasionally get [cue cries of glee] a match. But not often. I get mad and chuck the unmatched socks down the back of the cupboard. Occasionally I dig them out and have another go, giving in and throwing them out (which cues the reappearance of the "other" sock, to be mercilessly thrown out at once).
So where do the socks go - do they hide in the washing machine? The drier? In someone else's sock drawer? Or, more likely, surely, in a previously undiscovered fourth sock dimension, little travelled by humans.
The problem of making web businesses profitable has been with us for a long time. Micropayments, internet dollars, memberships, the list of attempts is long - with some successes and a heck of a lot of failures. The number of sites saying "free for the first 3 months" is ridiculous. Then they try to charge and all their members go away. Nasty. Bad for business.
S3 is - basically - a tax on bytes. Maybe that's a way to go. But it would end up encouraging sites that move large amounts of data, instead of being useful and efficient. Not so good.
It's for sure we need some sort of reward mechanism to allow innovation to survive. At the moment all we have is advertising. This not enough - Google not withstanding. Heck, I turn them off.. so where is the revenue?
Well, there's - my sister. She has been working jobshare as a fairly high level administrator in a major London library for a university for some years. She works 2 or 3 days per week, and the other person works 3 or 2 days per week. It seems to work out pretty well. The arrangement has even survived her original jobshare partner leaving.
In Government jobs, it is relatively common here (I'm in Australia) for people to work part time.
It can be done. It can work. And it makes for a better life. But I haven't seen it done in IT much, sadly. I would like the opportunity myself - and have sought it, to no avail.
I live in Australia (ex Brit, couldn't stand the weather) where they went metric in 1970 (and banned rulers with inches on... but now you can get them again). However, go to a hardware store and you get nuts, bolts and screws in a blur of different sizes - there are some metric, but other dominate. You can still get wire in "gauge", whatever the heck that is.
It drives you nuts. Whitworth, in 1841, was the first to set up a standard for nuts and bolts - I think we need another one. Someone with teeth!!!
Mind you, I live in Sydney Australia, where it is mostly warm and pleasent, as opposed to London where it is usually cold and dark, at least in winter - and whilst those other 2 days are nice, it just wasn't enough. So I guess I'm not as English as I was, sorry.
I feel the real problem here is that it would be easy to conclude some 95% of Americans are, in fact demented.
Oh course, deciding whether this is true, or the whole of America is having one big joke on the rest of the world, is quite another question.
[Note - to all Americans who though this funny - nice to meet you. To all who thought it insulting, proceed directly to old folks home, do not pass Go, do not collect $200)
I'm sure I recall a professor (citation needed - well too bad, this is/.) saying:
"Back in the 80s, I used to get about 200 students studying computer science. Maybe 5 each year were spectacular.
Now I get about 2,000 per year - and maybe 10 are spectacular".
Hmm, my numbers suggest that isn't an improvement! 2.5% down to 0.5%
Kids today (laughs) all seem to expect to go to uni and get a degree - or perhaps society expects this. Like the writer of the previous post, I went to grammar school, then university (not Cambridge) and was in that fairly small elite (coughs). There were maybe 30 of us in the year doing Computer Science (Essex Uni, graduating 1976). And we were very keen, bright sparks drinking from the fountain of human knowledge. (Or maybe just drinking, but I digress).
Now, it feels more like a sausage machine. You need the bit of paper to get the job.
Boring.
As Syndro said in The Incredible - "If everybody's special, nobody is".
Make it harder. Don't take everyone.
Maybe we could try it with driving licenses? Damn, that'd be good.... breeding licenses? Now that's scary (screams, runs from room).
What the expensive cars did was lead the way. Tesla is trying to do that within itself. This has been done before - the IBM PC is a classic example, surely.
I *was* involved in a large company implementing X25 back in the... 70s. Actually it was AT&T - or was it Bell (Actually it was both, weirdly). The company was, oh well, it was a whole country actually, Belgium in fact.
Thus I have 30+ years of real world IT experience (I graduated in 1976). And I'm having real trouble getting work (In Australia - which still has a functioning economy).
It's not as if I have a grey beard and a cane (I'm just 53 - I ride a bike to work where possible, climb and skate with enthusiasm). But I do seem poorly in the weird programming tests prospective employers like to do. They didn't exist before, so I do not know if I am worse than I used to be. I like the sound of the "Hello World" challenge, though! Bring it on!
I do wonder, though, if the real world is much like their annoying tests.
>> Women prefer good pay and healthy lifestyles more where men prefer interesting work more
Sounds sensible. But there are two problems with this assumption. First, the actual results - men are paid more than women, on average. Second - women often choose nursing, childcare, teaching. Tough jobs, awkward hours (esp nursing), pretty poor pay.
So that argument does not hold up at all.
We seem to come back to the "men like things, women like people" thing.
The real question is what has changed since before - if the number of female CS graduates has dropped (and I recall women made up a very low proportion [I graduated in CS in 1976], so clearly I missed the golden age) - what has changed?
You know, I didn't think anybody remembered "Two Girls Two Catamarans"
(And in case you didn't, it's about a maverick sailboat designer who builds a cat and duly sails it across an ocean with the 2 girls - actually I think he did it twice, with 2 different boats. Not sure if it was 2 girls each time or not. Anyway, This was James Wharram in the 1950s, before sailing carts were even believed in at all [obviously the Micronesians didn't count. Obviously]. He went on to have a happy life building and designing cheap sailing catamarans with his partner. Their plans always had (have) sweet drawing of naked girls sitting about on said cats. And he is still at it).
The book is out of print, sadly, See Wharram (http://wharram.com/sales/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11&products_id=73)
Nonsense. Story One. I was living in Eindhoven (where Phillips comes from), and a car pulled up next to me and asked me something. I said "Sorry, sir, I don't speak Dutch, but I do live here and if you ask me in English I'll probably be able to help." He blinked, decided this was fair enough, asked me directions in English and I duly pointed him the right way.
Story Two. I was in Amsterdam, in a flash burger bar, and I heard a waitress at the adjacent table explain to the Dutch chap she didn't speak English. And he was a little upset. So she had a job in a restaurant. And didn't speak the local language. Incredible.
Sorry to seem negative, but if my (limited, Holland/Belgium) experience is anything to go by, you will fail to learn the language in these countries. Certainly, despite attempts, I ended up with little more than a smattering of Dutch. Why - they want to practice their (already good) English. So it's hard. And you are never going to learn Finnish. It's impossible, apparently. (There's a rumour that even Finns speak to other in English when no one else is listening, but it might not be true).
It's fun though! Go for it.
(Personally, I'm always pleased when I meet an American that even knows there are other countries, let alone has actually been there)
Slashdot Mirror
Hey - you've stolen my business model!
Fortunately I have patented it, and by publishing this you have broken the patent rules. For this offence I can and will sue.
However, if you prefer to make a payment of $50 to cover my costs, I can drop this action immediately and without prejudice.
I seem to recall there was once a famous magistrate who defined obscenity as something that stimulated him.
As he got older, he became quite liberal.
>> I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
I feel sure you mean "you're welcome"
Yes, I was known as the grammar Nazi in a previous life. Well I wasn't actually, but DID go to a grammar school. In England. So there.
Amazing.
By comparison I have a 3 bedroom townhouse in Sydney, Australia. 2 adults, 2 kids. A few computers, efficient lights, no air/co, cooking and water heating is gas. I work at home, so I use stuff during the day. The house is in the inner city, so smaller than country houses but nonetheless bigger than most around here.
Looking at a random bill, it was $153. 15 November 2007 - 15 Feb 2008. So that's $50 per month (those are Aussie dollars, recently worth almost the same as USD, but now YOUR economy has collapsed, worth about 0.7 USD - I don't understand it either).
Most electricity recent bill $181 for 3 months. $60 per month. Less than that in USD.
My gas [that's not petrol, but gas you use for cooking and water heating] bills are about the same, $180 - 200 per 3 months.
We don't use coal or wood fires (the temperatures stay fairly reasonable all the time, really. We have a gas heater we use a bit in summer, and on those really hot days - like today - we use fans and sweat a little).
Anyway, that makes overall energy expenditure about $330 per 3 months, 110 per month, that's USD 77 per month.
What are you folks doing?
Microsoft have just announced they are introducing a new version of Halo - Halo 4 "The One way Trip"
In this game, which costs just $15.95, you are issued a fixed set of characters. When they die, that's it. You can save where you are in the game, pause and resume as normal BUT you cannot ever come back to life.
It is supported by the American Coalition of Concerned Mothers and the American Conservative Churches Association, who have combined to condemn the continual "resurrection" in games. "Once you are dead, you stay dead" said one of the mothers - "Well almost" corrected one of the religious brethren.
Microsoft spokesman Jack Frogmouth said Microsoft is excited by the new game concept and looks forward to the great new stream of revenue. On being questioned whether Microsoft would contribute a 10% tithe to the church, he declined to comment.
Define your terms. I'm a young guy (53), and I like a lot of music made in this century, but I despise the dreck that makes it to the top of the charts. The current A&R policy for pop music is driven by a business model based on focus groups [beforethemusicdies.com]; it's a dinosaur, thrashing its tail in its dying throes, crushing a few of the tiny mammalian successors that will eventually reign supreme!!!!
I feel better now.
But I still wish radio didn't suck so much.
Now you're talking! Quantum-mechanical socks, yeah baby!
Disappearing socks turned into lint? - nonsense. If that were so, it would happen steadily (and it does, you find it on the dryer filter). Thus socks would gradually get thinner - and they probably do. But to suggest that the dryer picks on one sock and eats it is less weird than my theory of an alternative sock universe.
Occam would be ashamed of you.
(Actually, Occam, being a deeply religious monk, would be horrified by the current use of his name all over the place. But I digress)
Me too.
It's a good job I don't drink coffee.
Socks are mysterious - I believe they are subject to similar laws to restaurant bills - and we all know where "bistronmathics" can lead to.
Each time I run a wash through, I end up with a pile of "lonely" socks. I try to match some with previous lonely socks, and occasionally get [cue cries of glee] a match. But not often. I get mad and chuck the unmatched socks down the back of the cupboard. Occasionally I dig them out and have another go, giving in and throwing them out (which cues the reappearance of the "other" sock, to be mercilessly thrown out at once).
So where do the socks go - do they hide in the washing machine? The drier? In someone else's sock drawer?
Or, more likely, surely, in a previously undiscovered fourth sock dimension, little travelled by humans.
The problem of making web businesses profitable has been with us for a long time. Micropayments, internet dollars, memberships, the list of attempts is long - with some successes and a heck of a lot of failures. The number of sites saying "free for the first 3 months" is ridiculous. Then they try to charge and all their members go away. Nasty. Bad for business.
S3 is - basically - a tax on bytes. Maybe that's a way to go. But it would end up encouraging sites that move large amounts of data, instead of being useful and efficient. Not so good.
It's for sure we need some sort of reward mechanism to allow innovation to survive. At the moment all we have is advertising. This not enough - Google not withstanding. Heck, I turn them off .. so where is the revenue?
Any ideas?
Well ...
I code in PL1 so I can have variable names with spaces in * 2;
So there ...
Well, there's - my sister.
She has been working jobshare as a fairly high level administrator in a major London library for a university for some years.
She works 2 or 3 days per week, and the other person works 3 or 2 days per week. It seems to work out pretty well. The arrangement has even survived her original jobshare partner leaving.
In Government jobs, it is relatively common here (I'm in Australia) for people to work part time.
It can be done. It can work. And it makes for a better life.
But I haven't seen it done in IT much, sadly. I would like the opportunity myself - and have sought it, to no avail.
So the bloody hell are monitors sold in INCHES?
I live in Australia (ex Brit, couldn't stand the weather) where they went metric in 1970 (and banned rulers with inches on ... but now you can get them again).
However, go to a hardware store and you get nuts, bolts and screws in a blur of different sizes - there are some metric, but other dominate. You can still get wire in "gauge", whatever the heck that is.
It drives you nuts. Whitworth, in 1841, was the first to set up a standard for nuts and bolts - I think we need another one. Someone with teeth!!!
see http://www.wussu.com/squatting/grimages/grcats.jpg
Mind you, I live in Sydney Australia, where it is mostly warm and pleasent, as opposed to London where it is usually cold and dark, at least in winter - and whilst those other 2 days are nice, it just wasn't enough.
So I guess I'm not as English as I was, sorry.
I feel the real problem here is that it would be easy to conclude some 95% of Americans are, in fact demented.
Oh course, deciding whether this is true, or the whole of America is having one big joke on the rest of the world, is quite another question.
[Note - to all Americans who though this funny - nice to meet you. To all who thought it insulting, proceed directly to old folks home, do not pass Go, do not collect $200)
(Yes, I am English)
I'm sure I recall a professor (citation needed - well too bad, this is /.) saying:
"Back in the 80s, I used to get about 200 students studying computer science. Maybe 5 each year were spectacular.
Now I get about 2,000 per year - and maybe 10 are spectacular".
Hmm, my numbers suggest that isn't an improvement! 2.5% down to 0.5%
Kids today (laughs) all seem to expect to go to uni and get a degree - or perhaps society expects this. Like the writer of the previous post, I went to grammar school, then university (not Cambridge) and was in that fairly small elite (coughs). There were maybe 30 of us in the year doing Computer Science (Essex Uni, graduating 1976). And we were very keen, bright sparks drinking from the fountain of human knowledge. (Or maybe just drinking, but I digress).
Now, it feels more like a sausage machine. You need the bit of paper to get the job.
Boring.
As Syndro said in The Incredible - "If everybody's special, nobody is".
Make it harder. Don't take everyone.
Maybe we could try it with driving licenses? Damn, that'd be good. ... breeding licenses? Now that's scary (screams, runs from room).
Ford didn't start with expensive cars, no.
But the car industry itself did.
What the expensive cars did was lead the way. Tesla is trying to do that within itself. This has been done before - the IBM PC is a classic example, surely.
You might be right.
Mind you, I haven't met your secretary ... female? Nice? Sounds promising.
(I can't remember the last time I had a secretary)
"Laddie, when I was your age, Pluto was still a planet"
I *was* involved in a large company implementing X25 back in the ... 70s. Actually it was AT&T - or was it Bell (Actually it was both, weirdly). The company was, oh well, it was a whole country actually, Belgium in fact.
Thus I have 30+ years of real world IT experience (I graduated in 1976). And I'm having real trouble getting work (In Australia - which still has a functioning economy).
It's not as if I have a grey beard and a cane (I'm just 53 - I ride a bike to work where possible, climb and skate with enthusiasm). But I do seem poorly in the weird programming tests prospective employers like to do. They didn't exist before, so I do not know if I am worse than I used to be. I like the sound of the "Hello World" challenge, though! Bring it on!
I do wonder, though, if the real world is much like their annoying tests.
>> Women prefer good pay and healthy lifestyles more where men prefer interesting work more
Sounds sensible. But there are two problems with this assumption.
First, the actual results - men are paid more than women, on average.
Second - women often choose nursing, childcare, teaching. Tough jobs, awkward hours (esp nursing), pretty poor pay.
So that argument does not hold up at all.
We seem to come back to the "men like things, women like people" thing.
The real question is what has changed since before - if the number of female CS graduates has dropped (and I recall women made up a very low proportion [I graduated in CS in 1976], so clearly I missed the golden age) - what has changed?
You know, I didn't think anybody remembered "Two Girls Two Catamarans"
(And in case you didn't, it's about a maverick sailboat designer who builds a cat and duly sails it across an ocean with the 2 girls - actually I think he did it twice, with 2 different boats. Not sure if it was 2 girls each time or not. Anyway, This was James Wharram in the 1950s, before sailing carts were even believed in at all [obviously the Micronesians didn't count. Obviously]. He went on to have a happy life building and designing cheap sailing catamarans with his partner. Their plans always had (have) sweet drawing of naked girls sitting about on said cats. And he is still at it).
The book is out of print, sadly, See Wharram (http://wharram.com/sales/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11&products_id=73)
Nonsense.
Story One.
I was living in Eindhoven (where Phillips comes from), and a car pulled up next to me and asked me something. I said "Sorry, sir, I don't speak Dutch, but I do live here and if you ask me in English I'll probably be able to help." He blinked, decided this was fair enough, asked me directions in English and I duly pointed him the right way.
Story Two.
I was in Amsterdam, in a flash burger bar, and I heard a waitress at the adjacent table explain to the Dutch chap she didn't speak English. And he was a little upset.
So she had a job in a restaurant. And didn't speak the local language.
Incredible.
Sorry.
Sorry to seem negative, but if my (limited, Holland/Belgium) experience is anything to go by, you will fail to learn the language in these countries. Certainly, despite attempts, I ended up with little more than a smattering of Dutch.
Why - they want to practice their (already good) English. So it's hard.
And you are never going to learn Finnish. It's impossible, apparently. (There's a rumour that even Finns speak to other in English when no one else is listening, but it might not be true).
It's fun though! Go for it.
(Personally, I'm always pleased when I meet an American that even knows there are other countries, let alone has actually been there)