Fringe elements from either side of the political spectrum often resort to unethical and even illegal tactics to try to give their side more of an advantage. Consider the veteran's group that recently ran those TV ads flat-out accuse Kerry of lying about his service in Nam. While they GOP had nothing to do with this group neither the GOP nor th e White House denounced their slanderous attacks on the presidential challenger. John McCain did, but that's no suprise (last honest republican left in the Senate whos head is either in a hole or up a butt). I certainly wouldnt endorse wholesale hacking of republican sites. It's unethical, illegal, and shouldnt be done, but if it happens i'll certainly not lose sleep over it or have a whole lot of pitty for those running the sites. What's good for the goose...
I'm a long time Best Buy Customer and am currently working there due to some unforseen lack of gainful employment.
Think Best Buy salespeople are pushy and irritating? It's likely due to pushy and irritating middle and upper management who commence extensive wet noodle beatings daily for "not making numbers". Additionally, all the departements in all the stores are ranked daily by Extented Warranties sold, reward zone cards sold, and overall sales. Nevermind if you sold a bunch of stuff, if you're not in the top 1/3 of all best buy stores you're CRAP, work harder, SELL SELL SELL.
Since Best Buy sales people are not on commission, the motivaiton to sell junk has to be external. It seems like a good idea on the surface becuase it insulates customers from unethical salespeople. The problem is that it exposes customers to unethical management who spur their underlings to emphasize that they are not on commission to lull the unsuspecting customer into huge sales they would otherwise avoid, thereby making oodles of cash for the company while the honest, hardworking salespersons get their measly hourly wage.
In a commission based system a sales person knows why they should push certain items: better commissions. In a commission free setup the salespeople are typically as ignorant as most customers as to the markup, margin, and overall value of items on the retail floor.
Best Buy, Circuit City, and all other "superstores" are corporate monsters that care about one thing: money. I will say Best Buy seems like one of the better superstores out there given the better-than-average pay and treatment they give their employees, but they expect a lot of performance in return.
Contrast the Best Buy workplace to another retail environment like Walmart and it's like watching a bunch of people on speed as compared to a bunch of people on Queludes, respectively. I'm not sure which is better for the customer, but it would be nice to find a happy medium somewhere.
In today's competative job environment, being a specialist is the surest way not to get hired, especially in light of how rapidly software developement and IT continue to progress. Granted there are a few niche jobs for highly specialized professionals, but most job postings I see list required/desired skills that simply didn't exist, or were merely academic 5 years ago.
In addition, I've learned more since getting my degree and working as a software engineer than I ever learned during my formal education. This leads me to the belief that pigeon-holing your self as a (Insert Language Here) Programmer is BAD BAD BAD. The first Language I learned was ADA 95, then Modula 3, C, C++, Java, SML, Perl. Since graduating in '01 I haven't used any of those languages except for C, while learning a slew of new ones on the job. I've picked up Powerbuilder, XML, php, VB and C# as required as well as MFC and DLL programming techniques.
The process of acquiring programming skills in a new language was a painless process becuase a technical education is as much about learning HOW TO LEARN as anything else.
Also, the single most overlooked IT skill is written/verbal communication. If you're the greatest programmer ever but write worse than your average 3rd grader you'll find yourself in that $10/hour tech support job.
Writing a coherent, professional resume, cover letter, and correspondance are all pre-interview interviews. I've been in charge of some IT hiring in the past and when a piss poor resume came across my desk it was met with directional flatulance and a trip to the circular file. The content was virtually irrelevant. I should be able to read a resume and not still have major questions about an applicants skill sets or experience.
I'm an EQ, DAOC gamer and have been enjoying MUDs since the early Gemstone days. I tried E&B becuase it was different and I was VERY impressed with the game. The story was original, the characters were interesting and the dialog/plot/quests were so funny I fell out of my chair laughing on several occasions.
Really a shame their endgame content and PvP aspects fell short. The space combat was actually very well done also. Just a shame they couldnt hold everyone's interest.
In another referandum on the ballot, it has been determined that all Indian Motion Pictures will now require a minimum of 3* scenes worth of traditional indian dancing escpecially when it makes no sense in the context of the rest of the movie.
*This is an increase from the 2 currently required by law.
Last thing you want is 2 states full of pissed off Rednecks up your [Edit]. I see them first had, and they're really great people who like to drink lots and lots of beer while watching NASCAR and protecting their right to keep and bear arms with their kept and bourn arms.
It's not as much of a stereotype as you might think!.
The article, and the researchers in the article are making an assumption about intelligence: they're assuming raw information processing power IS intelligence. I would argue that a more substantial defining factor is recall of previously processed information and the clarity of that recall.
In school, the Cram -->Take Test --> Brain Dump method works but doesn't foster leaning in the way that creates "intelligence" by my definition.
If everyone were to re-take their final exams from their senior year of high school/college TODAY I would argue that those doing the best overall were the most intelligent, particularly if their school-age years were long ago.
The difference between a true PnP game of AD&D and the computerized experience of a D&D themed game can be slight or immense depending on the skill of you RL GM compared to the auto-scripted content of a computerized world.
A bad/unimaginative GM is little better, or possibly WORSE than online or computerized gaming environments. In contrast a talented GM will bend the adventure to fit the individual characters involved.
A good GM is many things, including an Actor, Story teller, statistician, and above all else a quick-thinker. Players like to try and out-smart the GM and a good one will do their best to limit how successful their players will be, preferably in humorous ways.
The real trick is the Story-telling apect. A good DM makes you believe you're actually in another world. That suspension of disbelief is only maintainable if the number crunching is done quickly and with as little distraction to the players as possible.
Computational talk should be limited to "Roll for Perception", or "Roll to hit" and even then it helps to not get too into the numbers. A good GM hears your roll and paints a picture of the action it caused.
You're not sure? I am. Terrorism is worse than reading someone else's email.
The Patriot Act(tm) would likely classify reading someone else's email AS terrorism. Or at least if it were some other government doing it instead of the US.
I've worked on both sides as a fence when I was in college. I was working towards a Comp Sci Degree at SUNY Stony Brook while working in Swimming pool construction. After entering the workforce as a professional, things like "Mandatory unpaid overtime" and staring out the window on nice days definitely makes me long for the simplier life of digging trenches, plumbing and falling into rich people's pools.
Here's the short list of why I think working in the trades would be better than my current profession (not that I'd switch).
1. Dress code: There isn't one. Paint splattered jeans and raggy sun faded T-shirts are perfectly acceptable.
2. More work = more pay. Whether it be doing more jobs in a day or just working more hours you are compensated in a linear fashion for your efforts.
3. Job market (read job security). There are never enough construction workers, plumbers, pool builders and an accute shortage of good ones.
4. Learn the trade then start your own business. While IP laws technically apply to business practices, once you learn how to be a plumber and how to deal with customers it isn't a huge leap to strike out on your own with the tricks of the trade you learned from earlier employers.
Everything is a tradeoff and its nice to know that if I were in a tragic accident leaving me a paralyzed Christopher Reeves style I could still perform my job (although typing would be a little more complicated).
You don't see many paralyzed construction workers on the job site. Although there were a lot of landscapers smoking dope, but that's neither here nor there.
As a new (and relatively young..24) homeowner I can tell you first hand paying rent is more attractive than paying a mortgage. The expense of running a household is built into your rent at an apartment complex. Landscaping, painting, wiring, air conditioning filter replacement, pest control etc are all INCLUDED in most rentals.
As a homeowner I need to spend the money on lawn equipment, pesticides, and other incidentals so at the end of the day it is much more expensive to own a home even if your mortgage equals montly rental rates.
The BEST compromise is a good condo. Condo maintenance fees usually cover all the work you'd otherwise have to do yourself. You have to pay more but you do build equity. People who live places seasonally love condos for just that reason.
Lets not even mention the time required to maintain a house. Weekends consist of yardwork and minor home improvement projects (for the more handy among us).
FYI I am a licensed real estate agent in addition to being a code monkey.
Re:Not to mention unraveling the military hierarch
on
Guilty By Association
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Classmates.com and similar sites require people to register for their information to be included. I should hope our top ranking officials aren't so dim as to put themselves out there like that. The same information is available via public record anyway, it simply isn't collected in one nice easily searchable web portal available to anyone with a computer.
At any rate, I'm not convinced the US military hierarchy is all that secretive. I know from serving in the Air Force that Base commanders and people of similar importance have their names and likeness plastered all over the place. Figuring out who's in charge of what is an unusually simple process (with the exception of special forces, but still not impossible).
I'm more concerned about how accessible personal information is on pretty much everyone, particularly important people in the afore mentioned hierarchy. Since 9/11 there's been amplified security, but suicide bombing a general's house is no less dificult(hence our fear of terrorism).
I can't wait until 10 (or 2) years from now these companies start buying each other and consolidating the network information
This is a helluva good point. I'll take it a step further: DMV records, Local law enforcement files, IRS databases, Social Security information, Credit History. All these are fairly independant systems with little pieces of data about an individual. Consilidate them into one huge data warehouse and its a Business Intelligence persons dream. Every queryable piece of info about a person instantly accessible. Thankfully, all these systems are so tied to their respective beurocracies that they will never integrate. If they did, its hello 1984 with random retinal scanners a la Minority Report.
The real problem is equating what we find mathematically with ideas that we can conceptualize. I remember reading a book(Hyperspace by Michu Kaku) about a "Unified Field Theory" that required 11 or so spatial dimmensions for all the mathematics to line up. The dificulty is that its hella confusing to try and conceptualize anything beyond 3 spacial dimensions. So, we are limited by our observational capacity to rationalize what numbers tell us. Dark/Exotic matter, Superstrings, multi-dimensional explanations of the Universe all are destined to innacuracy because of some inherent "flaw" in the design of humans, particularly relating to perception.
Mathematics can express with complete clarity a truth we have difficuly relating to our preception of reality.
Starting a business is not something to be done lightly and even when done correctly is challenging. At least once a week people say to me, hey, you're a programmer, can you make a program to XYZ specifically for my business? I tell them sure, at a rate of $50 an hour for development plus support costs. They promptly change their minds. No one wants you to make money if it costs them money.
Everyone knows the answer is simply to cut taxes for the wealthy. When the rich are richer, they'll sponsor more creative software projects of questionable profitability...no wait, they'll buy another yaht. Nevermind.
Unfortunately, with remote technology the only way to have results that are verifyable as correct is to remove anonymity from voting. Currently when you roll into your local voting precinct they record your info with a pen and paper and let you have at voting. It's irrelevant to track who you vote for because all that matters is person A showed up and voted, and as long as the number of people matches the number of ballots all is good.
With e-voting, it becomes necessary to know specifically who voted AND who they voted for and print them some sort of reciept for verification. The reason is that a computer system obfuscates accountability. Someone could attempt to screw with the results and blame it on a glitch in the system. At least with a hard copy paper trail for each voter things would be verifyable...with leads to the question: Why not do it the old fasioned way? Fill out an absentee ballot and mail it home.
Entrepeneurship (sp) is the defining difference between the software industry in the third world and in the Wester World (read US). Business opportunity exists where there are consumers. The US is the largest consumer economy in the world, ergo tremendous markets for business related software and services.
The beauty of the software industry is that for every major corporation employing a team of programmers there are just as many independant contractors and small programming teams. While the corporate software industry is fading, the independant and contract programmer is seeing increasing stock. Custom software development is too expensive for most business to afford. However, most independant contractors will hack out a respectable piece of software for a fraction of what a large firm would charge due to substantially lower overhead.
I frequently have people request software from me, and usually, after going over a cost breakdown and giving them an estimate on the project they are willing to pay my price (usually a few thousand US depending on the scope of the project). Software written for you and your business will always be better than a store-bought generic solution.
So, my advice to out-of-work or fearfull programmers is to brush up on your sales skills and embrace the entrepeneurial spirit.
I've had my set tuned to sci-fi all this week happily watching both showings of the same episode each evening. Not only have I been enjoying the new interpretation of story but i am finding some characters substantially more/less endearing that the originals. Specifically: Apollo is just not cutting the mustard. On the flip side, the new Starbuck is every bit as fiery and troublesome as the original character. Lorne Green, move over, Adama is masterfully portrayed and conveys certain conflictions and moral jostling that were not present in Tos.
Dare I forget Voltar. Just wow. He's not only likeable but practically the star of the show. I'm still not exactly sure how this interpretation will translate as the seris progresses, but its certainly nice to have less clearcut good guys vs. bad guys.
In all things. There are hidden costs to almost everything whether it be packing, shipping, delivery, surcharges, taxes and flat out mistakes. The challenge is understanding what charges are business related and which are just plain dishonest.
For example: Shipping Handling charges are often viewed as "trying to make a quick buck you a sellser isnt entitled to". There is a good reason to charge them: it costs a business to employ a shipper/handler. Due to competative pricing/marketing the true cost of goods is not build into its price, but tacked on later.
6 to one, half dozen to another, but it is misleading to the consumer!
It wasn't so much that it was a woman, but rather the epic conflict between the fuzzies and the techies. Those striving for their B.S. or B.E. degrees in University typically have certain disdain for their classmates who take nothing but fluffy liberal arts classes and then brag about their 4.0 GPA... This is particularly true when the Engineering programs are hyper-competative and highly regarded. Why go to an engineering school and major in humanities? Regardless of the program strength, there is always a certain void between the two academic tracks, and as such there is enough tension to create many situations like the one the Author decribed...several come to mind based on my experiences as a Comp. Sci Major in an Engineering College.
The Smith/Neo battle continued for a long time, but the length of the fight had nothing to do with Neo. It had everything to do with Smith. It seems Neo knew he couldn't win, but he also knew he couldn't lose. It was Smith that needed to reach "enlightenment" and realize that the battle would not end until something changed: until he merged with the other half of the One.
"So LoneStar, you see evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb"
Slashdot Mirror
if every user were root.
Fringe elements from either side of the political spectrum often resort to unethical and even illegal tactics to try to give their side more of an advantage. Consider the veteran's group that recently ran those TV ads flat-out accuse Kerry of lying about his service in Nam. While they GOP had nothing to do with this group neither the GOP nor th e White House denounced their slanderous attacks on the presidential challenger. John McCain did, but that's no suprise (last honest republican left in the Senate whos head is either in a hole or up a butt). I certainly wouldnt endorse wholesale hacking of republican sites. It's unethical, illegal, and shouldnt be done, but if it happens i'll certainly not lose sleep over it or have a whole lot of pitty for those running the sites. What's good for the goose...
I'm a long time Best Buy Customer and am currently working there due to some unforseen lack of gainful employment.
Think Best Buy salespeople are pushy and irritating? It's likely due to pushy and irritating middle and upper management who commence extensive wet noodle beatings daily for "not making numbers". Additionally, all the departements in all the stores are ranked daily by Extented Warranties sold, reward zone cards sold, and overall sales. Nevermind if you sold a bunch of stuff, if you're not in the top 1/3 of all best buy stores you're CRAP, work harder, SELL SELL SELL.
Since Best Buy sales people are not on commission, the motivaiton to sell junk has to be external. It seems like a good idea on the surface becuase it insulates customers from unethical salespeople. The problem is that it exposes customers to unethical management who spur their underlings to emphasize that they are not on commission to lull the unsuspecting customer into huge sales they would otherwise avoid, thereby making oodles of cash for the company while the honest, hardworking salespersons get their measly hourly wage.
In a commission based system a sales person knows why they should push certain items: better commissions. In a commission free setup the salespeople are typically as ignorant as most customers as to the markup, margin, and overall value of items on the retail floor.
Best Buy, Circuit City, and all other "superstores" are corporate monsters that care about one thing: money. I will say Best Buy seems like one of the better superstores out there given the better-than-average pay and treatment they give their employees, but they expect a lot of performance in return.
Contrast the Best Buy workplace to another retail environment like Walmart and it's like watching a bunch of people on speed as compared to a bunch of people on Queludes, respectively. I'm not sure which is better for the customer, but it would be nice to find a happy medium somewhere.
In today's competative job environment, being a specialist is the surest way not to get hired, especially in light of how rapidly software developement and IT continue to progress. Granted there are a few niche jobs for highly specialized professionals, but most job postings I see list required/desired skills that simply didn't exist, or were merely academic 5 years ago.
In addition, I've learned more since getting my degree and working as a software engineer than I ever learned during my formal education. This leads me to the belief that pigeon-holing your self as a (Insert Language Here) Programmer is BAD BAD BAD. The first Language I learned was ADA 95, then Modula 3, C, C++, Java, SML, Perl. Since graduating in '01 I haven't used any of those languages except for C, while learning a slew of new ones on the job. I've picked up Powerbuilder, XML, php, VB and C# as required as well as MFC and DLL programming techniques.
The process of acquiring programming skills in a new language was a painless process becuase a technical education is as much about learning HOW TO LEARN as anything else.
Also, the single most overlooked IT skill is written/verbal communication. If you're the greatest programmer ever but write worse than your average 3rd grader you'll find yourself in that $10/hour tech support job.
Writing a coherent, professional resume, cover letter, and correspondance are all pre-interview interviews. I've been in charge of some IT hiring in the past and when a piss poor resume came across my desk it was met with directional flatulance and a trip to the circular file. The content was virtually irrelevant. I should be able to read a resume and not still have major questions about an applicants skill sets or experience.
I'm an EQ, DAOC gamer and have been enjoying MUDs since the early Gemstone days. I tried E&B becuase it was different and I was VERY impressed with the game. The story was original, the characters were interesting and the dialog/plot/quests were so funny I fell out of my chair laughing on several occasions.
Really a shame their endgame content and PvP aspects fell short. The space combat was actually very well done also. Just a shame they couldnt hold everyone's interest.
Old hat... Real Genius Clicky
In another referandum on the ballot, it has been determined that all Indian Motion Pictures will now require a minimum of 3* scenes worth of traditional indian dancing escpecially when it makes no sense in the context of the rest of the movie.
*This is an increase from the 2 currently required by law.
Ubisoft has announced that their implemented features will implement easily bindable commands for: "Run", "Hide.", "Surrender" and "Collaborate."
Last thing you want is 2 states full of pissed off Rednecks up your [Edit]. I see them first had, and they're really great people who like to drink lots and lots of beer while watching NASCAR and protecting their right to keep and bear arms with their kept and bourn arms.
It's not as much of a stereotype as you might think!.
The article, and the researchers in the article are making an assumption about intelligence: they're assuming raw information processing power IS intelligence. I would argue that a more substantial defining factor is recall of previously processed information and the clarity of that recall. In school, the Cram -->Take Test --> Brain Dump method works but doesn't foster leaning in the way that creates "intelligence" by my definition. If everyone were to re-take their final exams from their senior year of high school/college TODAY I would argue that those doing the best overall were the most intelligent, particularly if their school-age years were long ago.
The difference between a true PnP game of AD&D and the computerized experience of a D&D themed game can be slight or immense depending on the skill of you RL GM compared to the auto-scripted content of a computerized world.
A bad/unimaginative GM is little better, or possibly WORSE than online or computerized gaming environments. In contrast a talented GM will bend the adventure to fit the individual characters involved.
A good GM is many things, including an Actor, Story teller, statistician, and above all else a quick-thinker. Players like to try and out-smart the GM and a good one will do their best to limit how successful their players will be, preferably in humorous ways.
The real trick is the Story-telling apect. A good DM makes you believe you're actually in another world. That suspension of disbelief is only maintainable if the number crunching is done quickly and with as little distraction to the players as possible.
Computational talk should be limited to "Roll for Perception", or "Roll to hit" and even then it helps to not get too into the numbers. A good GM hears your roll and paints a picture of the action it caused.
The Patriot Act(tm) would likely classify reading someone else's email AS terrorism. Or at least if it were some other government doing it instead of the US.
I've worked on both sides as a fence when I was in college. I was working towards a Comp Sci Degree at SUNY Stony Brook while working in Swimming pool construction. After entering the workforce as a professional, things like "Mandatory unpaid overtime" and staring out the window on nice days definitely makes me long for the simplier life of digging trenches, plumbing and falling into rich people's pools.
Here's the short list of why I think working in the trades would be better than my current profession (not that I'd switch).
1. Dress code: There isn't one. Paint splattered jeans and raggy sun faded T-shirts are perfectly acceptable.
2. More work = more pay. Whether it be doing more jobs in a day or just working more hours you are compensated in a linear fashion for your efforts.
3. Job market (read job security). There are never enough construction workers, plumbers, pool builders and an accute shortage of good ones.
4. Learn the trade then start your own business. While IP laws technically apply to business practices, once you learn how to be a plumber and how to deal with customers it isn't a huge leap to strike out on your own with the tricks of the trade you learned from earlier employers.
Everything is a tradeoff and its nice to know that if I were in a tragic accident leaving me a paralyzed Christopher Reeves style I could still perform my job (although typing would be a little more complicated).
You don't see many paralyzed construction workers on the job site. Although there were a lot of landscapers smoking dope, but that's neither here nor there.
As a new (and relatively young..24) homeowner I can tell you first hand paying rent is more attractive than paying a mortgage. The expense of running a household is built into your rent at an apartment complex. Landscaping, painting, wiring, air conditioning filter replacement, pest control etc are all INCLUDED in most rentals.
As a homeowner I need to spend the money on lawn equipment, pesticides, and other incidentals so at the end of the day it is much more expensive to own a home even if your mortgage equals montly rental rates.
The BEST compromise is a good condo. Condo maintenance fees usually cover all the work you'd otherwise have to do yourself. You have to pay more but you do build equity. People who live places seasonally love condos for just that reason.
Lets not even mention the time required to maintain a house. Weekends consist of yardwork and minor home improvement projects (for the more handy among us).
FYI I am a licensed real estate agent in addition to being a code monkey.
At any rate, I'm not convinced the US military hierarchy is all that secretive. I know from serving in the Air Force that Base commanders and people of similar importance have their names and likeness plastered all over the place. Figuring out who's in charge of what is an unusually simple process (with the exception of special forces, but still not impossible).
I'm more concerned about how accessible personal information is on pretty much everyone, particularly important people in the afore mentioned hierarchy. Since 9/11 there's been amplified security, but suicide bombing a general's house is no less dificult(hence our fear of terrorism).
This is a helluva good point. I'll take it a step further: DMV records, Local law enforcement files, IRS databases, Social Security information, Credit History. All these are fairly independant systems with little pieces of data about an individual. Consilidate them into one huge data warehouse and its a Business Intelligence persons dream. Every queryable piece of info about a person instantly accessible. Thankfully, all these systems are so tied to their respective beurocracies that they will never integrate. If they did, its hello 1984 with random retinal scanners a la Minority Report.
I just microwaved my new 20s...nothing unusual to report. I was hoping for a pop or a fizzle or something but nothing...
Oh well
The real problem is equating what we find mathematically with ideas that we can conceptualize. I remember reading a book(Hyperspace by Michu Kaku) about a "Unified Field Theory" that required 11 or so spatial dimmensions for all the mathematics to line up. The dificulty is that its hella confusing to try and conceptualize anything beyond 3 spacial dimensions. So, we are limited by our observational capacity to rationalize what numbers tell us. Dark/Exotic matter, Superstrings, multi-dimensional explanations of the Universe all are destined to innacuracy because of some inherent "flaw" in the design of humans, particularly relating to perception.
Mathematics can express with complete clarity a truth we have difficuly relating to our preception of reality.
Starting a business is not something to be done lightly and even when done correctly is challenging. At least once a week people say to me, hey, you're a programmer, can you make a program to XYZ specifically for my business? I tell them sure, at a rate of $50 an hour for development plus support costs. They promptly change their minds. No one wants you to make money if it costs them money.
Everyone knows the answer is simply to cut taxes for the wealthy. When the rich are richer, they'll sponsor more creative software projects of questionable profitability...no wait, they'll buy another yaht. Nevermind.
Unfortunately, with remote technology the only way to have results that are verifyable as correct is to remove anonymity from voting. Currently when you roll into your local voting precinct they record your info with a pen and paper and let you have at voting. It's irrelevant to track who you vote for because all that matters is person A showed up and voted, and as long as the number of people matches the number of ballots all is good.
With e-voting, it becomes necessary to know specifically who voted AND who they voted for and print them some sort of reciept for verification. The reason is that a computer system obfuscates accountability. Someone could attempt to screw with the results and blame it on a glitch in the system. At least with a hard copy paper trail for each voter things would be verifyable...with leads to the question: Why not do it the old fasioned way? Fill out an absentee ballot and mail it home.
Entrepeneurship (sp) is the defining difference between the software industry in the third world and in the Wester World (read US). Business opportunity exists where there are consumers. The US is the largest consumer economy in the world, ergo tremendous markets for business related software and services.
The beauty of the software industry is that for every major corporation employing a team of programmers there are just as many independant contractors and small programming teams. While the corporate software industry is fading, the independant and contract programmer is seeing increasing stock. Custom software development is too expensive for most business to afford. However, most independant contractors will hack out a respectable piece of software for a fraction of what a large firm would charge due to substantially lower overhead.
I frequently have people request software from me, and usually, after going over a cost breakdown and giving them an estimate on the project they are willing to pay my price (usually a few thousand US depending on the scope of the project). Software written for you and your business will always be better than a store-bought generic solution.
So, my advice to out-of-work or fearfull programmers is to brush up on your sales skills and embrace the entrepeneurial spirit.
I've had my set tuned to sci-fi all this week happily watching both showings of the same episode each evening. Not only have I been enjoying the new interpretation of story but i am finding some characters substantially more/less endearing that the originals. Specifically: Apollo is just not cutting the mustard. On the flip side, the new Starbuck is every bit as fiery and troublesome as the original character. Lorne Green, move over, Adama is masterfully portrayed and conveys certain conflictions and moral jostling that were not present in Tos.
Dare I forget Voltar. Just wow. He's not only likeable but practically the star of the show. I'm still not exactly sure how this interpretation will translate as the seris progresses, but its certainly nice to have less clearcut good guys vs. bad guys.
In all things. There are hidden costs to almost everything whether it be packing, shipping, delivery, surcharges, taxes and flat out mistakes. The challenge is understanding what charges are business related and which are just plain dishonest.
For example: Shipping Handling charges are often viewed as "trying to make a quick buck you a sellser isnt entitled to". There is a good reason to charge them: it costs a business to employ a shipper/handler. Due to competative pricing/marketing the true cost of goods is not build into its price, but tacked on later.
6 to one, half dozen to another, but it is misleading to the consumer!
It wasn't so much that it was a woman, but rather the epic conflict between the fuzzies and the techies. Those striving for their B.S. or B.E. degrees in University typically have certain disdain for their classmates who take nothing but fluffy liberal arts classes and then brag about their 4.0 GPA... This is particularly true when the Engineering programs are hyper-competative and highly regarded. Why go to an engineering school and major in humanities? Regardless of the program strength, there is always a certain void between the two academic tracks, and as such there is enough tension to create many situations like the one the Author decribed...several come to mind based on my experiences as a Comp. Sci Major in an Engineering College.
The Smith/Neo battle continued for a long time, but the length of the fight had nothing to do with Neo. It had everything to do with Smith. It seems Neo knew he couldn't win, but he also knew he couldn't lose. It was Smith that needed to reach "enlightenment" and realize that the battle would not end until something changed: until he merged with the other half of the One.
"So LoneStar, you see evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb"