So I went and looked it up. They have specific reasons cited, namely:
Women commonly face higher risks and greater burdens from the impacts of climate change in situations of poverty, and the majority of the world’s poor are women.
and
Parties to the UNFCCC have recognized the importance of involving women and men equally in UNFCCC processes and in the development and implementation of national climate policies that are gender-responsive by establishing a dedicated agenda item under the Convention addressing issues of gender and climate change and by including overarching text in the Paris Agreement
So...my interpretation of the above is: don't just focus on the issues of a specific group but make sure this is for the common good, because lord knows the history of modern (or past) civilizations doesn't have a bad tendency to focus on certain groups which may be in power and not work for the common good.
yeah, I don't have a problem with what they are saying now that I understand it. They have an effing valid point.
We don't know what you find interesting or challenging. you may not know either until you bounce through some place.
go find a company where you like the people; you've got the skill set that most companies are looking for. And figure out what you like. While happiness does in part come from not having a soul sucking job, having a not sucking job that pays enough to not have worries and be able to do the other things in life is just as important.
Despite what they tell you, a job is still just a means to make money to be able to afford to live. You can be paid to do that which you enjoy (shh, don't tell them) - and it is still a job. And before someone says "but but but" I am not saying take a job that sucks your soul out through your eye balls; I am saying I accept the fact that while I love cooking, and I also recognize that when I am done I have to clean the kitchen and if I don't clean the kitchen I suck as a person who shares that kitchen with others. Cleaning the kitchen is fun (and meaning it) said no one ever. (So as much as I do enjoy my job, it comes with some responsibilities that I have to suck it up, realize this is what I accept money for, and go do them. Much like everything in life. No parent ever said they love emptying the diaper pail either, but the end result has been worth it)
back to the first paragraph - a lot of us have bounced through companies and jobs. Our interests have changed. Our skill sets have changed. The job market has changed. When I started, the Web didn't exist. FORTRAN and C were king. I bounced through CAD/CAM, through two small startups (one still exists, and the other long since swallowed by another startup), to contracting, to a large financial company (where we're playing with Angular and such - you'd be surprised what Fortune 100 companies actually do - but also the job stability is through the roof and I have a kid about to start college, which ties back to I have a job to make the rest of life better)
Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to tie an onion to my belt and go yell at clouds. That last paragraph made me feel very old.
And the company actually had customers and contracts, but needed money to build manufacturing capacity (hence the grants). Then they had quality issues, plus Chrysler closed down its Electronic Vehicle division, and hence the bankruptcy. Of the 123 million that was actually spent, there are very large physical assets sitting in Michigan which may still be used (to, you know, employ people). The remaining 100 million was never "given" by the government to anyway; its still sitting in an approved grant account controlled by the US government. I now return you to your ranting.
As of 2012 $129 million of the grant was used to build plants in Michigan (Romulus and Livonia); the remaining grant money has not been tapped (the grant was extended to 2014, but with the company in bankruptcy...)
Originally Johnson Controls was going to buy (and use) the plants; it is still unknown if the plants will be used, but speculation is that at least one of the plants will be used.
Note that the grants were backed by all of the Michigan members of Congress, despite the party. All of them wrote letters of endorsement to the DOE. The loan program that issued the grants was created in fall of 2008. The loan program predates Obama's presidency; the company applied in January and Obama because president January 2009. Please don't make this a partisan thread. This is what looked like a promising company that had a market in 2009 and needed to build manufacturing capacity - and the market disappeared (Chrysler closing its EV division was the major hit)
Of course, this will only last for so long before robots are better servants than humans. By this stage, we'll have the technology to build a true post-scarcity society (or rather, a society in which the only scarcity is energy, and even then there's enough to go around). The questions are, how will we manage this transition? And more importantly, how will we continue to give meaning to the lives of those who literally have no way in which they can contribute to society?
I read stories published in the 80's and 90's where the premise was that the robots take over all manual labor, allowing humans to do what they want. Humans continue to work in the positions that require thought - judges, etc. - but most labor intensive repetitive tasks are done by robots. The premise was that with the robots working, there was tremendous oversupply, and the poor must consume a great deal to consume what the robots produced. The mark of the very rich is that they were allowed to consume less. So the poorest person had to live in a palatial mansion, while the richest were able to live in a two or three bedroom house. I am not saying that is what will happen, but it did make for an interesting read (and allowed the author to set up some imaginary issues and solve them).
So if solar wind strips away the atmosphere of a planet with no magnetosphere, how come the atmosphere of Venus is so thick?
Venus has an induced magnetosphere, created by an ionized layer in the ionosphere. That said, it is theorized that 4 or 5 billion years ago Venus used to have more liquid water on the surface and in the atmosphere, and over time that many of the lighter gases (such as water vapor) have been blown away by the solar wind, and those gases continue to be blown away, resulting in the atmosphere we see today.
As I said earlier, for Mars to have an atmosphere including water vapor, some protective layer would have to be created. I should have been clearer and stated it did not have to be a magnetosphere.
The only way to deal with Mars is to divert the asteroid belt's mass towards it to increase its mass. Force several tens of thousands of asteroids into a decaying orbit such that the mass is deposited on the planet. There's no water there, it all evaporates away without enough gravity to hold an atmosphere and enough pressure to remain liquid!
Mass is not the issue; the lack of a magnetosphere is. Without a magnetosphere, the solar wind will strip the atmosphere, leaving you in the same state. We would need to provide some means of creating a field which shields the atmosphere from solar winds.
This European is always astonished how Alcock and Brown's achievement of 1919 is so overshadowed by Lindbergh's 1927 flight. Perhaps that's one of the sources of resentment that lead to 'pissing contests'?
Because Lindbergh was the first to do it solo
And Alcock and Brown weren't the first to make the flight over the Atlantic, although they were the first to do a non-stop. The crew of the NC-4 did it first (but they used more than one aircraft) Alcock and Brown did have balls - climbing out on the wings to chip off the ice as they flew.
Most 13-year-olds are beginning to hit puberty or will soon be. Most 10-year-olds are nowhere close.
Sorry, but I work with two teams of 10 year old girls, and the topic of discussion among the moms was what sport bras work and where to buy them, preferred deodarants, and the preferred Under Armour for a girl who is wearing white shorts which can be seen through when wet.
Admittedly, this is a sample size of 22 healthy athletic American girls who eat well, but of the 22, only one or two are not showing signs of puberty.
And I wish I could erase the knowledge regarding who has started growing hair. Certain things a dad/coach just does NOT need to know.
Moms/wives like to torment the men around them. Just like their teenage selves. Need brain bleach.
You should see the girls flirt with the younger coaches, especially those who have English accents. And then tell me hormones haven't hit.
learn about Scrum/XP/etc that's what (I and a lot of people) to be the realistic approach for sw pm today, stay away from RUP/Waterfall, etc
That's like saying "Go learn Java (or C# or Ruby or...) only because that's what I and a lot of people say is the realistic approach." THEY'RE ALL TOOLS FOR THE ARSENAL, AND YOU SHOULD BE FAMILIAR WITH ALL OF THEM.
Just as what language you use is a choice depending on the skills of the team, the hardware at the company, and the project at hand; the project management style depends on the team, the company, the requirements, etc. Based on my 20 years of experience, WHAT PM approach you do doesn't matter as much as a good team. I do insist that you have SOME sort of plan/process/framework for requirements management, task analysis, timelines, etc... But I will state that what matters is the team. Once you have the right people, apply the project management framework that works for the team and for the project. And adapt it as needed as things evolve.
As many have said, go to PMI. Take what they say with a grain of salt. (Even though I am a coder, I've taken several of their courses and always gotten value out of them, which is more than I can say of many courses) Because we on slashdot do bring joel spolsky up frequently, I will say Joel has some though provoking posts about project management among many other things (joelonsoftware.com) Not saying I always agree with him - take what he says with a grain of salt...
If those people are great coders and "best of the best", then they'd be a tremendous asset to the remaining product team and the low-performing people from that team let go, to make room for the really excellent people from the dead product's team.
Management thinks "we need to make a quick hard decision and get moving."
To go through each person on the soon to be cut product line and determine their skill set, look at everyone's past evaluations, and then to cross train them on the new product and get them up to speed will take TIME and MONEY. It's quicker and easier to just cut them. Added bonus: we don't get into arguments about discrimination, who sucked up to which boss, etc.
Hypothetical (well, not really) situation. You've just taken over another company in an acquisition. The company had the same product line as an existing division, so you're going to combine them. The acquired company has 3/4ths more business. The existing division has a reputation of a team that Gets Things Done and Done Well. Existing division uses the same software and hardware as the rest of the company. New company uses different development architecture - I'm talking Java/Unix versus.NET/Windows. What do you standardize on? Who do you keep?
IT people start digging into the architecture and doing comparisons. Business people? They cut it short. They tell IT to stop doing that. The acquired company has more business. Ergo, it will cost more to convert their business to the existing division, so the decision is to standardize on the acquired company's systems. Don't care about the skills sets, the expertise, awards won, etc - we need to make a quick decision and get moving.
And if anyone is hiring, 10% of my group just got laid off (not me). And some of them are good. But they don't know the other system, and we have too many people...
The fact that regulators never stepped in to stop the banks from committing suicide is, unfortunately, why we're now cleaning the banks off the sidewalks with taxpayer money.
Many of the same institutions that failed (IndyMac, Lehman, Bears) lobbied aggressively and successfully delayed the regulators from enacting the constraints that would have saved them - regulations proposed as early as 2005. While the regulators deserve some blame for not sticking to their guns, the Bush administration (for bowing to business pressure) and the banks seem to be more to blame.
For those from overseas who are questioning the above cost:
- most US private universities (or public where student lives outside of the state where the university is located and gets charged "out of state" tuition) are 30k to 50k
- but most of the same universities then hand most students financial aid knocking the price back down
So the sticker price is typically very high, but most students get grants, loans, scholarships, etc. to knock the price down to a more palatable price. Of those, loans must be repaid. The others may have other strings attached.
its also not uncommon for a highly desired student to be charged "in state" tuition even thought they may live in another US state.
My daughter's seven and has already told us (wife and I work on same help desk) that fixing computers is boring and she wants to be an artist. Luckily, we're setting up a clay studio, wood and metal working shop and painting studio at home for all of us. I figure, around 12, she'll rebel from hippy artist life and become a programmer or dba.
Most of the good programmers I know are both programmers and artists or skilled artisans of some sort. I've got a coworker who is a painter; a glass blower; and a sculptor. I have within 20 feet of me a caterer; a cabinetmaker; a race car driver... (I feel like I'm writing Sue Snue. I'll stop)
Tangent: I have a hiring bias toward people with hobbies and passions. If I'm hiring someone, I want to see someone who digs into those things that interest them, and will do what it takes to learn how. I'm not alone in that unspoken bias, because I only hired one of the people near me; the others were assigned to my team. The majority of the time an attitude of "I can figure this out and do it" applied to everything around them is exactly the attitude that makes a good coworker. While an attitude of "show me how to do it and I'll repeat what you showed me and never develop an understanding of the underlying concepts and improve things" is great for drones, we don't need drones.
The team around me is a solid team, except for two exceptions - and the known "hobby" for the exceptions is going to all of the concerts that they can. Before someone says "that's just your experience" - yup, it is. I've worked for 6 or 7 companies in 20 years, and one day another guy and I sat down and wrote down our coworkers from the past and present, how competent they were, and their hobbies - and noticed that there did seem to be a correlation.
if you refuse to take an easy, reliable >4% return on an amount as large as those involved with a mortgage you will not become of one us (hint even if your tax rate is currently so low that the tax advantages accompanying the mortgage interest do not boost your marginal return above the 4% difference you cited, your tax rate will go up in time to add that bonus).
Both work; one way you net more, but must come up with a 14,000 a year to service the debt. The other way you have to come up with 14,000 a year to invest but have no debt.
Take out a $200000 dollar loan at 6% interest, paying roughly 1200 a month, and you pay roughly $180000 in interest over the lifetime of the loan. You invest that $200000, earning 10% compounded (I did annually) and you have roughly 2.4 million in the account. But you also have to come up with 14,400 a month to pay your loan, and you've had to pay the 6% interest. Because for the next calculation I want the 14,400 to invest, I'm not going to withdraw 14k a year; I'll just say investment - interest paid = 2.4 million - 180,000 = 2.2 million. Nice.
Pay off the $200,000 - and then take that 1200 a month (14000 a year) and earn 10% a year on it. You end with around 1.7 million or 1.8 million depending on how you do the numbers. Millionaire either way.
Depends on what you like. For me - since I have a wife and kids - I prefer to pay off debt and then invest. Right now, if I get hit by a bus (or have to go on disability), the family still has the house AND has enough to pay taxes and live off of. Won't be as extravagant as if I was still earning income, but will work. The other way, yes, if I get hit by a bus, they can pay off all of the debt and be further ahead due to the additional interest we may have earned - but they have to liquidate assets to do so. Potentially liquidating at a loss considering what the market has done to some of my investments (net over 30 years the investments should be ahead) If the market performs worse than 6%, I come out ahead; if my investments do better than 10%, I lose.
Moral: the point is to manage your debt and financial planning. Manage your finances, and you can be a quiet millionaire.
Face it, engineers are good at engineering, but suck at everything else. That's why they aren't chosen.
According to the September 16-17, 2006 edition of the Wall Street Journal's Weekend Edition, about 20% of the CEO's of the top US companies have engineering degrees.
I've also seen articles that mention that companies that are led by engineers tend to report better earnings than companies led my non-engineers, but that was in the days of Jack Welch (former CEO of GE).
Music is easily taught. So is coding. But both require some talent to get very good at.
I know lots of people who write code. The accounts clerk; the help desk guy; etc. I know lots of managers who think "I can write a macro in Excel - this coding shit is easy!"
I know very few people who can approach a problem, analyze it, write down the requirements, and solve the problem in code - where the solution is not a swamp of unimaginable proportions.
Just as I know very few people who, having been taught music, can sit down at a piano and pound out something that makes you weep with joy and sorrow at the same time.
Coding well takes a mix of talent, dedication and hard work. A good coder is something of a master craftsman, close kin to a talented artist.
Indiana has historically had 2 timezones. Part of it was Eastern, and part of it didn't change. They changed this year to all be on Eastern time.
Indiana had THREE time zones. Most of the state followed Eastern Standard (no Daylight Savings Time); parts of the state were Eastern but used DST (because they were near Cincinnati or other areas that followed DST); and parts of the state were Central following Daylight Savings Time (areas near Chicago or along the Illinois border)
And the state is still screwed up. The whole state now follows DST, but parts of the state are Central and parts are Eastern.
I'm going to puke if I see somebody mention that the desktop days are coming to an end!!!! Who says?
The better way to phrase it would be "the days of desktop being the preeminent focus and source of profit are coming to an end." Similar to the 60's were the heyday of the mainframe. Does IBM still make tons of money on their mainframe business? Hell yes. Are they considered a mainframe company? No - IBM is a "services" company.
The reality is that there are few apps most non-power users care about - and those apps include browser, email, word and Excel. All of those could be delivered virtually. I find this ironic - because in the late '80's and early '90's SUN was pushing their terminals where you had a central server running the software and many terminals.
Is the desktop going away? No. But the explosive growth - and the profit - seems to be in a distributed model. Whoever gets it right first (Google building on their GMail and other initiatives? Salesforce.com? MicroSoft?...) will be able to set the standards for the future of the corporate and personal user. MicroSoft will continue to make money on OS and on their office suite, just as IBM continues to sell mainframes (and quite profitably, thank you), but the noise will be about virtual apps.
We had 20+ tickets sitting in the help desk queue because people can't access our Web site. One of our end users figured out the issue before we did (bless a savvy end user) and emailed us the fix late last week. Most of our end users aren't that savvy. Luckily we now have a "here's whatcha need to do" now.
Slashdot Mirror
Women commonly face higher risks and greater burdens from the impacts of climate change in situations of poverty, and the majority of the world’s poor are women.
and
Parties to the UNFCCC have recognized the importance of involving women and men equally in UNFCCC processes and in the development and implementation of national climate policies that are gender-responsive by establishing a dedicated agenda item under the Convention addressing issues of gender and climate change and by including overarching text in the Paris Agreement
So...my interpretation of the above is: don't just focus on the issues of a specific group but make sure this is for the common good, because lord knows the history of modern (or past) civilizations doesn't have a bad tendency to focus on certain groups which may be in power and not work for the common good.
yeah, I don't have a problem with what they are saying now that I understand it. They have an effing valid point.
We don't know what you find interesting or challenging. you may not know either until you bounce through some place.
go find a company where you like the people; you've got the skill set that most companies are looking for. And figure out what you like. While happiness does in part come from not having a soul sucking job, having a not sucking job that pays enough to not have worries and be able to do the other things in life is just as important.
Despite what they tell you, a job is still just a means to make money to be able to afford to live. You can be paid to do that which you enjoy (shh, don't tell them) - and it is still a job. And before someone says "but but but" I am not saying take a job that sucks your soul out through your eye balls; I am saying I accept the fact that while I love cooking, and I also recognize that when I am done I have to clean the kitchen and if I don't clean the kitchen I suck as a person who shares that kitchen with others. Cleaning the kitchen is fun (and meaning it) said no one ever. (So as much as I do enjoy my job, it comes with some responsibilities that I have to suck it up, realize this is what I accept money for, and go do them. Much like everything in life. No parent ever said they love emptying the diaper pail either, but the end result has been worth it)
back to the first paragraph - a lot of us have bounced through companies and jobs. Our interests have changed. Our skill sets have changed. The job market has changed. When I started, the Web didn't exist. FORTRAN and C were king. I bounced through CAD/CAM, through two small startups (one still exists, and the other long since swallowed by another startup), to contracting, to a large financial company (where we're playing with Angular and such - you'd be surprised what Fortune 100 companies actually do - but also the job stability is through the roof and I have a kid about to start college, which ties back to I have a job to make the rest of life better)
Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to tie an onion to my belt and go yell at clouds. That last paragraph made me feel very old.
You're right; I read http://www.a123systems.com/567491e6-ed98-429f-b4a6-3ae3df789b90/media-room-2009-press-releases-detail.htm wrong. That's what I was basing it on.
And the company actually had customers and contracts, but needed money to build manufacturing capacity (hence the grants). Then they had quality issues, plus Chrysler closed down its Electronic Vehicle division, and hence the bankruptcy. Of the 123 million that was actually spent, there are very large physical assets sitting in Michigan which may still be used (to, you know, employ people). The remaining 100 million was never "given" by the government to anyway; its still sitting in an approved grant account controlled by the US government. I now return you to your ranting.
Sorry for the double posting all. Wrong funding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Vehicles_Manufacturing_Loan_Program [wikipedia.org] (passed in fall of 2008) which was part of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Independence_and_Security_Act_of_2007 [wikipedia.org]
Lets take a look at the Senate roll call on the bill that actually gave them this money, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009:
Wrong funding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Vehicles_Manufacturing_Loan_Program (passed in fall of 2008) which was part of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Independence_and_Security_Act_of_2007 Have a wonderful day. (If you had read my post, you would have caught the "program from 2008" and realized you had the wrong funding. )
As of 2012 $129 million of the grant was used to build plants in Michigan (Romulus and Livonia); the remaining grant money has not been tapped (the grant was extended to 2014, but with the company in bankruptcy...) Originally Johnson Controls was going to buy (and use) the plants; it is still unknown if the plants will be used, but speculation is that at least one of the plants will be used. Note that the grants were backed by all of the Michigan members of Congress, despite the party. All of them wrote letters of endorsement to the DOE. The loan program that issued the grants was created in fall of 2008. The loan program predates Obama's presidency; the company applied in January and Obama because president January 2009. Please don't make this a partisan thread. This is what looked like a promising company that had a market in 2009 and needed to build manufacturing capacity - and the market disappeared (Chrysler closing its EV division was the major hit)
Of course, this will only last for so long before robots are better servants than humans. By this stage, we'll have the technology to build a true post-scarcity society (or rather, a society in which the only scarcity is energy, and even then there's enough to go around). The questions are, how will we manage this transition? And more importantly, how will we continue to give meaning to the lives of those who literally have no way in which they can contribute to society?
I read stories published in the 80's and 90's where the premise was that the robots take over all manual labor, allowing humans to do what they want. Humans continue to work in the positions that require thought - judges, etc. - but most labor intensive repetitive tasks are done by robots. The premise was that with the robots working, there was tremendous oversupply, and the poor must consume a great deal to consume what the robots produced. The mark of the very rich is that they were allowed to consume less. So the poorest person had to live in a palatial mansion, while the richest were able to live in a two or three bedroom house. I am not saying that is what will happen, but it did make for an interesting read (and allowed the author to set up some imaginary issues and solve them).
Venus has an induced magnetosphere, created by an ionized layer in the ionosphere. That said, it is theorized that 4 or 5 billion years ago Venus used to have more liquid water on the surface and in the atmosphere, and over time that many of the lighter gases (such as water vapor) have been blown away by the solar wind, and those gases continue to be blown away, resulting in the atmosphere we see today.
As I said earlier, for Mars to have an atmosphere including water vapor, some protective layer would have to be created. I should have been clearer and stated it did not have to be a magnetosphere.
Yes I meant 2001. Crap. (Um, intentional reference to two of Arthur C Clarke's works. Yeah, that's it!)
Mass is not the issue; the lack of a magnetosphere is. Without a magnetosphere, the solar wind will strip the atmosphere, leaving you in the same state. We would need to provide some means of creating a field which shields the atmosphere from solar winds.
Did a quick google to find an article - this one was published in 2010: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast31jan_1/
Because Lindbergh was the first to do it solo
And Alcock and Brown weren't the first to make the flight over the Atlantic, although they were the first to do a non-stop. The crew of the NC-4 did it first (but they used more than one aircraft) Alcock and Brown did have balls - climbing out on the wings to chip off the ice as they flew.
Sorry, but I work with two teams of 10 year old girls, and the topic of discussion among the moms was what sport bras work and where to buy them, preferred deodarants, and the preferred Under Armour for a girl who is wearing white shorts which can be seen through when wet.
Admittedly, this is a sample size of 22 healthy athletic American girls who eat well, but of the 22, only one or two are not showing signs of puberty.
And I wish I could erase the knowledge regarding who has started growing hair. Certain things a dad/coach just does NOT need to know. Moms/wives like to torment the men around them. Just like their teenage selves. Need brain bleach.
You should see the girls flirt with the younger coaches, especially those who have English accents. And then tell me hormones haven't hit.
That's like saying "Go learn Java (or C# or Ruby or...) only because that's what I and a lot of people say is the realistic approach." THEY'RE ALL TOOLS FOR THE ARSENAL, AND YOU SHOULD BE FAMILIAR WITH ALL OF THEM.
Just as what language you use is a choice depending on the skills of the team, the hardware at the company, and the project at hand; the project management style depends on the team, the company, the requirements, etc. Based on my 20 years of experience, WHAT PM approach you do doesn't matter as much as a good team. I do insist that you have SOME sort of plan/process/framework for requirements management, task analysis, timelines, etc... But I will state that what matters is the team. Once you have the right people, apply the project management framework that works for the team and for the project. And adapt it as needed as things evolve.
As many have said, go to PMI. Take what they say with a grain of salt. (Even though I am a coder, I've taken several of their courses and always gotten value out of them, which is more than I can say of many courses) Because we on slashdot do bring joel spolsky up frequently, I will say Joel has some though provoking posts about project management among many other things (joelonsoftware.com) Not saying I always agree with him - take what he says with a grain of salt...
Management thinks "we need to make a quick hard decision and get moving."
To go through each person on the soon to be cut product line and determine their skill set, look at everyone's past evaluations, and then to cross train them on the new product and get them up to speed will take TIME and MONEY. It's quicker and easier to just cut them. Added bonus: we don't get into arguments about discrimination, who sucked up to which boss, etc.
Hypothetical (well, not really) situation. You've just taken over another company in an acquisition. The company had the same product line as an existing division, so you're going to combine them. The acquired company has 3/4ths more business. The existing division has a reputation of a team that Gets Things Done and Done Well. Existing division uses the same software and hardware as the rest of the company. New company uses different development architecture - I'm talking Java/Unix versus .NET/Windows. What do you standardize on? Who do you keep?
IT people start digging into the architecture and doing comparisons. Business people? They cut it short. They tell IT to stop doing that. The acquired company has more business. Ergo, it will cost more to convert their business to the existing division, so the decision is to standardize on the acquired company's systems. Don't care about the skills sets, the expertise, awards won, etc - we need to make a quick decision and get moving.
And if anyone is hiring, 10% of my group just got laid off (not me). And some of them are good. But they don't know the other system, and we have too many people...
Many of the same institutions that failed (IndyMac, Lehman, Bears) lobbied aggressively and successfully delayed the regulators from enacting the constraints that would have saved them - regulations proposed as early as 2005. While the regulators deserve some blame for not sticking to their guns, the Bush administration (for bowing to business pressure) and the banks seem to be more to blame.
Full article from Fortune: http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/01/news/ignored_warnings.ap/index.htm
For those from overseas who are questioning the above cost: - most US private universities (or public where student lives outside of the state where the university is located and gets charged "out of state" tuition) are 30k to 50k - but most of the same universities then hand most students financial aid knocking the price back down So the sticker price is typically very high, but most students get grants, loans, scholarships, etc. to knock the price down to a more palatable price. Of those, loans must be repaid. The others may have other strings attached. its also not uncommon for a highly desired student to be charged "in state" tuition even thought they may live in another US state.
Most of the good programmers I know are both programmers and artists or skilled artisans of some sort. I've got a coworker who is a painter; a glass blower; and a sculptor. I have within 20 feet of me a caterer; a cabinetmaker; a race car driver... (I feel like I'm writing Sue Snue. I'll stop)
Tangent: I have a hiring bias toward people with hobbies and passions. If I'm hiring someone, I want to see someone who digs into those things that interest them, and will do what it takes to learn how. I'm not alone in that unspoken bias, because I only hired one of the people near me; the others were assigned to my team. The majority of the time an attitude of "I can figure this out and do it" applied to everything around them is exactly the attitude that makes a good coworker. While an attitude of "show me how to do it and I'll repeat what you showed me and never develop an understanding of the underlying concepts and improve things" is great for drones, we don't need drones.
The team around me is a solid team, except for two exceptions - and the known "hobby" for the exceptions is going to all of the concerts that they can. Before someone says "that's just your experience" - yup, it is. I've worked for 6 or 7 companies in 20 years, and one day another guy and I sat down and wrote down our coworkers from the past and present, how competent they were, and their hobbies - and noticed that there did seem to be a correlation.
I'll believe that when I see it. It's Duke Nukem - been hearing that for years.
From where I sit, and the apps I design, code and support - nope. Not even on the radar. And we have a plan that goes out 5 years.
if you refuse to take an easy, reliable >4% return on an amount as large as those involved with a mortgage you will not become of one us (hint even if your tax rate is currently so low that the tax advantages accompanying the mortgage interest do not boost your marginal return above the 4% difference you cited, your tax rate will go up in time to add that bonus).
Both work; one way you net more, but must come up with a 14,000 a year to service the debt. The other way you have to come up with 14,000 a year to invest but have no debt.
Take out a $200000 dollar loan at 6% interest, paying roughly 1200 a month, and you pay roughly $180000 in interest over the lifetime of the loan. You invest that $200000, earning 10% compounded (I did annually) and you have roughly 2.4 million in the account. But you also have to come up with 14,400 a month to pay your loan, and you've had to pay the 6% interest. Because for the next calculation I want the 14,400 to invest, I'm not going to withdraw 14k a year; I'll just say investment - interest paid = 2.4 million - 180,000 = 2.2 million. Nice.
Pay off the $200,000 - and then take that 1200 a month (14000 a year) and earn 10% a year on it. You end with around 1.7 million or 1.8 million depending on how you do the numbers. Millionaire either way.
Depends on what you like. For me - since I have a wife and kids - I prefer to pay off debt and then invest. Right now, if I get hit by a bus (or have to go on disability), the family still has the house AND has enough to pay taxes and live off of. Won't be as extravagant as if I was still earning income, but will work. The other way, yes, if I get hit by a bus, they can pay off all of the debt and be further ahead due to the additional interest we may have earned - but they have to liquidate assets to do so. Potentially liquidating at a loss considering what the market has done to some of my investments (net over 30 years the investments should be ahead) If the market performs worse than 6%, I come out ahead; if my investments do better than 10%, I lose.
Moral: the point is to manage your debt and financial planning. Manage your finances, and you can be a quiet millionaire.
According to the September 16-17, 2006 edition of the Wall Street Journal's Weekend Edition, about 20% of the CEO's of the top US companies have engineering degrees.
I've also seen articles that mention that companies that are led by engineers tend to report better earnings than companies led my non-engineers, but that was in the days of Jack Welch (former CEO of GE).
Music is easily taught. So is coding. But both require some talent to get very good at.
I know lots of people who write code. The accounts clerk; the help desk guy; etc. I know lots of managers who think "I can write a macro in Excel - this coding shit is easy!"
I know very few people who can approach a problem, analyze it, write down the requirements, and solve the problem in code - where the solution is not a swamp of unimaginable proportions.
Just as I know very few people who, having been taught music, can sit down at a piano and pound out something that makes you weep with joy and sorrow at the same time.
Coding well takes a mix of talent, dedication and hard work. A good coder is something of a master craftsman, close kin to a talented artist.
Anyone can do HTML. You check out MySpace lately?
Indiana has historically had 2 timezones. Part of it was Eastern, and part of it didn't change. They changed this year to all be on Eastern time.
Indiana had THREE time zones. Most of the state followed Eastern Standard (no Daylight Savings Time); parts of the state were Eastern but used DST (because they were near Cincinnati or other areas that followed DST); and parts of the state were Central following Daylight Savings Time (areas near Chicago or along the Illinois border)
And the state is still screwed up. The whole state now follows DST, but parts of the state are Central and parts are Eastern.
We love Mitch.
The better way to phrase it would be "the days of desktop being the preeminent focus and source of profit are coming to an end." Similar to the 60's were the heyday of the mainframe. Does IBM still make tons of money on their mainframe business? Hell yes. Are they considered a mainframe company? No - IBM is a "services" company.
The reality is that there are few apps most non-power users care about - and those apps include browser, email, word and Excel. All of those could be delivered virtually. I find this ironic - because in the late '80's and early '90's SUN was pushing their terminals where you had a central server running the software and many terminals.
Is the desktop going away? No. But the explosive growth - and the profit - seems to be in a distributed model. Whoever gets it right first (Google building on their GMail and other initiatives? Salesforce.com? MicroSoft?...) will be able to set the standards for the future of the corporate and personal user. MicroSoft will continue to make money on OS and on their office suite, just as IBM continues to sell mainframes (and quite profitably, thank you), but the noise will be about virtual apps.
We had 20+ tickets sitting in the help desk queue because people can't access our Web site. One of our end users figured out the issue before we did (bless a savvy end user) and emailed us the fix late last week. Most of our end users aren't that savvy. Luckily we now have a "here's whatcha need to do" now.