You know, the illegality of this (and I suppose current law declares this "type" of activity to be illegal) is really not the issue here. That fact that the FBI and so many law enforcement resources can be purchased by the entertainment industry is VERY disturbing. Compared to the crimes that the FBI would traditionally make raids for (violent offenders, illegal drug manufacture, illegal weapons, smuggling) doesn't anyone else see a little bit of disparity here? I mean, let's see, I can raid this meth lab that manufactures a drug that kills and enslaves thousands and generats money for organized crime OR I can raid a school where teenagers are making and sharing copies of the latest Britney Spears CD, hummm. Which is the best use of our law enforcement resources? Well, I guess if you've got a monster industry pumping you with money you go arrest some teenagers. This is not the FBI's fault this is the leadership of law enforcements fault. WE THE PEOPLE (tm) need to do something about this and NOW. Call your congressman, send letters to the president, get a sign and march on your favorite record label. This needs to end or we need to cut law enforcement ranks by about 50% because the obviously don't have enough to do...
It's a shame that he didn't know that the most damaging Soviet spy of all time (Robert Hanssen) was a big Linux user. I understand it's very popular with kiddie porn folks too. Security works for the just and the unjust.
Of course, maybe his sympathies are more with those groups than with those that have concern for the security of our country....
Let's just hope that it doesn't change other water molecules it comes in contact with. Who wants a world where you can't get good and wet! (That sounds dirtier than it is...)
"Well, no-one wants to move earth just for the sake of it. They want to build something, like houses or a stadium or a school or whatever. A bulldozer is a tool, and a corporation is a tool.
A corporation is a means to an end. It will make money for you, as a shareholder or as an employee"
I'm sorry but I don't agree at all. A corportation can be used to do anything. Corporation is just a term for a group of people that get together to do something. They can be together to build the best darn bulldozer in the world or they can be together to make the most money they can. I'm simply saying that when corporations do the later things are good and when the do the later things are bad. Making the most money just shouldn't be an end. After all, all you're going to be able to buy with it is crappy products built by other corporations that are trying to make the most money (rather than the best product).
"98% of the time, profit is the single reason a business does anything. They aren't a charity organization, they exists to make their owners money."
or from a business management text book:
"Corporate responsibility is to maximize profit to benfit the shareholder"
Yes, this is MBA think and it's the business mind gone to seed. The problem is that this is what students are being taught in business school and it's where this last generation of Enron CEO's came from. Business exists to fullfill needs in the community and it (should) have responsibilities to that community. Business provides products and services as well as jobs and taxes. Profit is but one of it's reasons for existance. As the previous reply stated most of the current business models don't work long term. They do make a big splash on the books for the current CEO which is why they're so common. More responsibility on the part of business owners and boards of directors is what is needed. Not salary caps (or facism or communism, we know they don't work) but controls that govern corporate behavior just as the current laws govern personal behavior. I can't just kill you and take your wallet because it's the most profitable and easy way for me to make money. Microsoft shouldn't be able to negotiate to buy a company, steal it's intellectual property, and then include it into it's next release of Windows (it's done this several times). That's the type of behavior that just makes working life in this country suck. You get one guy with 100 billion dollars and 200 million with $20. That's not capitalism, it is in fact, why communism and socialism don't work. They both lead to huge social splits of have everythings and have nothings. Precisely where "uncontrolled" capitalism takes us.
You nailed it. As long as profit is the ONLY motive for business, things are going to be bad for employees. Profit is a "good thing" but if it's the "only thing", life at a company sucks for everybody but the board of directors.
Unfortunately American business has gone a long way down that road...
I get the impression from many of the responses here that most people who are saying they're happy are pretty young. I just turned 40 and, though I love what I do, I hate how I have to do it. I work with civil engineers and they just know everything about your job you're just there to support them because they're too busy (using the tools I write for them) to code things themselves. It's very annoying but at my age I've coded myself into a corner (C/C++/JAVA). I have a Masters degree in CS and an electrical engineering education with lots of civil engineering experience. I've been looking for another job for 18 months with no luck. I'm sorry, this sucks......
Why the heck would I want to compile the great and venerable C language down to a script that only runs on the Evil Empires OS?
It took less than twelve weeks for myself and 2 others to write a compiler that would compile C into a JAVA class file. It was a fairly complete representation of the basic language and worked pretty well (ok it's a school project, but still). There's got to be some professional compiler people that have done this too. Of course C is so portable to begin with (when written well) why bother. Just compile it again.
Very intelligent, and you're calling me a 12 year old?
As a matter of fact, I have read history. A great deal of it. The law states that if you are born in this country YOU DO HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HERE. Ask any pregnant Mexican woman. Sixteen foreigner's harmed me irrepairably by killing nearly 3000 of my fellow Americans and destroying an irreplacable American icon (you know, Sept 11, 2001....). Or perhaps you where celebrating with the other filth on that day. Get a clue bozo. Quit blaming the rich and business for everything.
If you can come off better in a third world country that's under constant threat of nuclear war with Pakistan and despotism by Muslum fundamentalists I feel really sorry for you.....
You act like you have a "right" to be here. You do not. This countries lack of imigration control (meaning we allow anyone to enter) has led many peoples of the world to see us as a place they can just go. Just because we have the best of everything in the world doesn't mean that anyone in world has the right to come here. America build herself and we're proud to share with others. That will change with the terrible brutalization our country is suffering for this generosity. Our boarders will be controlled eventually and hopefully we'll stop being the worlds escapees destination of choice.
By the way, if you're not under a visa you ARE an illegal alien. That's why INS won't let you back in if you leave. It's because you shouldn't be here to begin with.
"I've lived in the US for almost 20 years and I can't get my visa straightened out or work legally."
There's no way you should be here 20 years on a visa! If you want to live in America, become an American (naturalized). If you want to be Napalize or Indian, then live in Nepal or India. Don't you have any national pride? Why sit in the US and whine about how impoverished Nepal is. Go home and do something about. Stop being an alien. Be a citizen. You're just looking for a easy ride and that's the problem. So do most aliens. They come here because we're wealthy and easy. I predict that's going to change in the next few years. When Americans really feel the bite of the having so many aliens competing for American jobs things will really get ugly because politians will start getting voted out of office if they don't. Mark my words friend, your days in the US are numbered if you remain an alien.
No, when companies get greedy and won't hire the staff they really need and you end up with devoted hard working employees working overtime. It's very rarely the employees fault it's much more likely a short sighted employer or a greedy bastard.
"....especially because I've always thought that the principles of fuzzy logic should be exploited far more widely in software engineering. Still, my quest for the answer to Jaron's question seems to yield ideas orthogonal to his own. "
I fear people that talk like this. It makes me wonder if they go home at night and plug themselves into something.....
"If true, how badly will NASA's scientific mission be effected if it becomes a conduit for giving research and development money to defense contractors?"
Scientific mission? The VAST majority of NASA's budget is for nothing more than supporting the 25,000 people used to maintain the shuttle "fleet". Considering that and the $250 to $500 million dollar/launch costs I'd say the best thing that could happen is NASA fades as military projects bloom.
I've had a TI 85 for years but the screen just stinks. It's very low res and hard to see. I end up using my TI 68 (a sweet little Scientific calculater) for everything I don't need graphing for. The screen on the new TI 89 doesn't look much better though. Why the heck don't they get something color and hi-res? These things aren't exactly cheap. Why not give us our money's worth...
Give me a break will ya. I'm sure Harvard has much more ethical Indians than say "Soho Community College". I've attended 3 universities, 2 of which were in the top 10 for their programs (electrical engineering and computer science) at the time. The biggest difference I've seen is that in the last 20 years American universities appear to have been overrun with foreign students taking advantage (and I don't blame them in the least) of foolish immigration policies on the part of the US.At the same time American's seem to be so busy watching "American Idol" and "The Real World" they're getting left behind. When I got my BS (1986) my class was mostly white males with a smattering of Asians, 1 or 2 Blacks, 1 or 2 Hispanics. I don't even remember any Indians though there had to be some (this was and is the biggest university in the US folks). In finishing my Masters in CS I was one of two white males in the class. Everyone else was from outside the US. What's happening to us as Americans? Why isn't knowledge considered a profitable pursuit anymore?
"If the culture doesn't regard plagarism as unethical, then people who are caught plagarizing may well consider that you are making much ado about nothing. So they wouldn't be following *your* ethics, but they might very well be quite ethical within the context of what their culture considered important."
Couldn't care less what their culture considers ethical. Plagarism consitutes acedemic fraud and it's unethical. Right and wrong don't slide with culture no matter what we've been trying to teach our children for 30 years. If right and wrong are relative there is no right and wrong and we may as well just get out the guns and start taking what we want. To heck with this society thingy.
"But this is not India as a whole, and its unfair to say or imply it is. I hope someone from India, and the US, can see my point. It's so ---- frustrating, and its so hard to not act human in these times.
To be quite honest. Its the baby boomer CEO's who are ------- [young] America over, not dishonest foreign students. That generation needs to go."
I agree 100%. This is not an Indian (or Mexican or Chinese...) issue. It's an issue with how the US has opened it's borders and economy to the world for the sake of business (should be a 4 letter word) and profits. We've been sold out by politians and businessmen and it's time "We The People" did something about it!!! The engineers and artists and teachers and anyone that creates something (other than money!) in the US are what have made us the country we were. Love of our work makes us easy prey for those that would exploit us. It's time to take back what we've built and force the money grubbing users back into the cubicles where they belong. Crouched over spreadsheets under florescent lights in a noisy room with 100 other accounting drones. Adding up columns of number for the rest of their lives. I can't think of a better punishment.
No, you're a disgrace. America is the greatest country on Earth. Even the out of work programmers will find another job or make their own. Try that in India! And, contrary to popular belief, New York city is not the center of capatilism it's the center of socialism. That's why it's a total mess. Quit whining, get off your butt, and help contribute to a better America or, and maybe this is a better option for you, go to some other country, any other country, and let us know how you're doing! (OR NOT)
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You know, the illegality of this (and I suppose current law declares this "type" of activity to be illegal) is really not the issue here. That fact that the FBI and so many law enforcement resources can be purchased by the entertainment industry is VERY disturbing. Compared to the crimes that the FBI would traditionally make raids for (violent offenders, illegal drug manufacture, illegal weapons, smuggling) doesn't anyone else see a little bit of disparity here? I mean, let's see, I can raid this meth lab that manufactures a drug that kills and enslaves thousands and generats money for organized crime OR I can raid a school where teenagers are making and sharing copies of the latest Britney Spears CD, hummm. Which is the best use of our law enforcement resources? Well, I guess if you've got a monster industry pumping you with money you go arrest some teenagers. This is not the FBI's fault this is the leadership of law enforcements fault. WE THE PEOPLE (tm) need to do something about this and NOW. Call your congressman, send letters to the president, get a sign and march on your favorite record label. This needs to end or we need to cut law enforcement ranks by about 50% because the obviously don't have enough to do...
It's a shame that he didn't know that the most damaging Soviet spy of all time (Robert Hanssen) was a big Linux user. I understand it's very popular with kiddie porn folks too. Security works for the just and the unjust.
Of course, maybe his sympathies are more with those groups than with those that have concern for the security of our country....
Let's just hope that it doesn't change other water molecules it comes in contact with. Who
wants a world where you can't get good and wet! (That sounds dirtier than it is...)
"Well, no-one wants to move earth just for the sake of it. They want to build something, like houses or a stadium or a school or whatever. A bulldozer is a tool, and a corporation is a tool.
A corporation is a means to an end. It will make money for you, as a shareholder or as an employee"
I'm sorry but I don't agree at all. A corportation can be used to do anything. Corporation is just a term for a group of people that get together to do something. They can be together to build the best darn bulldozer in the world or they can be together to make the most money they can. I'm simply saying that when corporations do the later things are good and when the do the later things are bad. Making the most money just shouldn't be an end. After all, all you're going to be able to buy with it is crappy products built by other corporations that are trying to make the most money (rather than the best product).
$53,000,000,000.00
Need I say more....
"98% of the time, profit is the single reason a business does anything. They aren't a charity organization, they exists to make their owners money."
or from a business management text book:
"Corporate responsibility is to maximize profit to benfit the shareholder"
Yes, this is MBA think and it's the business mind gone to seed. The problem is that this is what students are being taught in business school and it's where this last generation of Enron CEO's came from. Business exists to fullfill needs in the community and it (should) have responsibilities to that community. Business provides products and services as well as jobs and taxes. Profit is but one of it's reasons for existance. As the previous reply stated most of the current business models don't work long term. They do make a big splash on the books for the current CEO which is why they're so common. More responsibility on the part of business owners and boards of directors is what is needed. Not salary caps (or facism or communism, we know they don't work) but controls that govern corporate behavior just as the current laws govern personal behavior. I can't just kill you and take your wallet because it's the most profitable and easy way for me to make money. Microsoft shouldn't be able to negotiate to buy a company, steal it's intellectual property, and then include it into it's next release of Windows (it's done this several times). That's the type of behavior that just makes working life in this country suck. You get one guy with 100 billion dollars and 200 million with $20. That's not capitalism, it is in fact, why communism and socialism don't work. They both lead to huge social splits of have everythings and have nothings. Precisely where "uncontrolled" capitalism takes us.
You nailed it. As long as profit is the ONLY motive for business, things are going to be bad for employees. Profit is a "good thing" but if it's the "only thing", life at a company sucks for everybody but the board of directors.
Unfortunately American business has gone a long way down that road...
I get the impression from many of the responses here that most people who are saying they're happy are pretty young. I just turned 40 and, though I love what I do, I hate how I have to do it. I work with civil engineers and they just know everything about your job you're just there to support them because they're too busy (using the tools I write for them) to code things themselves. It's very annoying but at my age I've coded myself into a corner (C/C++/JAVA). I have a Masters degree in CS and an electrical engineering education with lots of civil engineering experience. I've been looking for another job for 18 months with no luck. I'm sorry, this sucks......
Why the heck would I want to compile the great and venerable C language down to a script that only runs on the Evil Empires OS?
It took less than twelve weeks for myself and 2 others to write a compiler that would compile C into a JAVA class file. It was a fairly complete representation of the basic language and worked pretty well (ok it's a school project, but still). There's got to be some professional compiler people that have done this too. Of course C is so portable to begin with (when written well) why bother. Just compile it again.
Good come back. Really put me in my place....
Very intelligent, and you're calling me a 12 year old?
As a matter of fact, I have read history. A great deal of it. The law states that if you are born in this country YOU DO HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HERE. Ask any pregnant Mexican woman. Sixteen foreigner's harmed me irrepairably by killing nearly 3000 of my fellow Americans and destroying an irreplacable American icon (you know, Sept 11, 2001....). Or perhaps you where celebrating with the other filth on that day. Get a clue bozo. Quit blaming the rich and business for everything.
If you can come off better in a third world country that's under constant threat of nuclear war with Pakistan and despotism by Muslum fundamentalists I feel really sorry for you.....
You act like you have a "right" to be here. You do not. This countries lack of imigration control (meaning we allow anyone to enter) has led many peoples of the world to see us as a place they can just go. Just because we have the best of everything in the world doesn't mean that anyone in world has the right to come here. America build herself and we're proud to share with others. That will change with the terrible brutalization our country is suffering for this generosity. Our boarders will be controlled eventually and hopefully we'll stop being the worlds escapees destination of choice.
By the way, if you're not under a visa you ARE an illegal alien. That's why INS won't let you back in if you leave. It's because you shouldn't be here to begin with.
"I've lived in the US for almost 20 years and I can't get my visa straightened out or work legally."
There's no way you should be here 20 years on a visa! If you want to live in America, become an American (naturalized). If you want to be Napalize or Indian, then live in Nepal or India. Don't you have any national pride? Why sit in the US and whine about how impoverished Nepal is. Go home and do something about. Stop being an alien. Be a citizen. You're just looking for a easy ride and that's the problem. So do most aliens. They come here because we're wealthy and easy. I predict that's going to change in the next few years. When Americans really feel the bite of the having so many aliens competing for American jobs things will really get ugly because politians will start getting voted out of office if they don't. Mark my words friend, your days in the US are numbered if you remain an alien.
No, when companies get greedy and won't hire the staff they really need and you end up with devoted
hard working employees working overtime. It's very
rarely the employees fault it's much more likely a short sighted employer or a greedy bastard.
Tell them you've been working for the CIA for the last 5 years and you could tell them about it but you'd have to kill them.
"....especially because I've always thought that the principles of fuzzy logic should be exploited far more widely in software engineering. Still, my quest for the answer to Jaron's question seems to yield ideas orthogonal to his own. "
I fear people that talk like this. It makes me wonder if they go home at night and plug themselves into something.....
"a dead white man "
I guess it's a good thing he wasn't black. You'd
have had to use another phrase or the ACLU would
be after you....
"If true, how badly will NASA's scientific mission be effected if it becomes a conduit for giving research and development money to defense contractors?"
Scientific mission? The VAST majority of NASA's budget is for nothing more than supporting the 25,000 people used to maintain the shuttle "fleet". Considering that and the $250 to $500 million dollar/launch costs I'd say the best thing that could happen is NASA fades as military projects bloom.
I've had a TI 85 for years but the screen just stinks. It's very low res and hard to see. I end up using my TI 68 (a sweet little Scientific calculater) for everything I don't need graphing for. The screen on the new TI 89 doesn't look much better though. Why the heck don't they get something color and hi-res? These things aren't exactly cheap. Why not give us our money's worth...
Give me a break will ya. I'm sure Harvard has much more ethical Indians than say "Soho Community College". I've attended 3 universities, 2 of which were in the top 10 for their programs (electrical engineering and computer science) at the time. The biggest difference I've seen is that in the last 20 years American universities appear to have been overrun with foreign students taking advantage (and I don't blame them in the least) of foolish immigration policies on the part of the US.At the same time American's seem to be so busy watching "American Idol" and "The Real World" they're getting left behind. When I got my BS (1986) my class was mostly white males with a smattering of Asians, 1 or 2 Blacks, 1 or 2 Hispanics. I don't even remember any Indians though there had to be some (this was and is the biggest university in the US folks). In finishing my Masters in CS I was one of two white males in the class. Everyone else was from outside the US. What's happening to us as Americans? Why isn't knowledge considered a profitable pursuit anymore?
"If the culture doesn't regard plagarism as unethical, then people who are caught plagarizing may well consider that you are making much ado about nothing. So they wouldn't be following *your* ethics, but they might very well be quite ethical within the context of what their culture considered important."
Couldn't care less what their culture considers ethical. Plagarism consitutes acedemic fraud and it's unethical. Right and wrong don't slide with culture no matter what we've been trying to teach our children for 30 years. If right and wrong are relative there is no right and wrong and we may as well just get out the guns and start taking what we want. To heck with this society thingy.
"But this is not India as a whole, and its unfair to say or imply it is. I hope someone from India, and the US, can see my point. It's so ---- frustrating, and its so hard to not act human in these times.
To be quite honest. Its the baby boomer CEO's who are ------- [young] America over, not dishonest foreign students. That generation needs to go."
I agree 100%. This is not an Indian (or Mexican or Chinese...) issue. It's an issue with how the US has opened it's borders and economy to the world for the sake of business (should be a 4 letter word) and profits. We've been sold out by politians and businessmen and it's time "We The People" did something about it!!! The engineers and artists and teachers and anyone that creates something (other than money!) in the US are what have made us the country we were. Love of our work makes us easy prey for those that would exploit us. It's time to take back what we've built and force the money grubbing users back into the cubicles where they belong. Crouched over spreadsheets under florescent lights in a noisy room with 100 other accounting drones. Adding up columns of number for the rest of their lives. I can't think of a better punishment.
Here here. I think you're right. If they can't draw attention to themselves they can't sell their research.
No, you're a disgrace. America is the greatest
country on Earth. Even the out of work programmers
will find another job or make their own. Try that in India! And, contrary to popular belief, New York city is not the center of capatilism it's the center of socialism. That's why it's a total mess. Quit whining, get off your butt, and help contribute to a better America or, and maybe this is a better option for you, go to some other country, any other country, and let us know how you're doing! (OR NOT)