Not sure if I'm just feeding the trolls here, but here's some rebuttal:
Ignoring ad hominum attacks and thermal energy tangent, it appears your arguments are (1) work on everything blind to its contribution to the whole and (2) work on vehicle engines because they have a shorter product lifespan when compared to coal plants.
(1) Focus on every single piece and you end up with no focus at all. The question is, where would you have the greatest IMPACT. The solar panel company I work for is now building solar cells that are just a penny or two above the $0.10 per kilo-watt-hour of grid parity. Give us a few years and I think we'll be cheaper than coal. Kill coal and start building solar and wind farms! Coal and petroleum are currently equivalent in their CO2 emissions Source and we can get that power through alternative methods for less than the cost of replacing all of our cars with only slightly better mileage, which would have the greater impact?
(2) Using $250m cars on the road with an estimated average $30k/vehicle retail cost ( Source ), here are approximately $7.5 trillion (that's with a T) worth of cars on the road today. There are approximately 600 ( Source ) coal plants in the US. To improve the mileage of cars, you essentially have to replace them entirely. Cost: $7.5 trillion. Spending that money on coal plants instead would provide $12.5 BILLION on EACH of the 600 coal plants. Considering that a coal plant costs less than $1b ( Source ) to build, I am sure we can find significantly better uses for that extra $11.5b per plant.
Some additional arguments (1) Where do you suppose the power charging your Chevy Volt is coming from? Chase people from gas and you end up with a coal-powered car.
(2) The largest 15 ocean-going ocean tankers emit as much of some types of air pollution as every single car on earth. (!!!!) Source. I can't seem to find how much CO2 they emit... How many tankers do you think we have circling the globe?
In conclusion, I stand by my position: For CO2 emissions reduction purposes only, our dollars would be better spent on improved power generation... and to beat the CO2 drum is rhetoric designed to whip up the uninformed... or to advance someone's agenda...
Registered vehicles in the US: 250m ( Source 1, Source 2, Source 3 ) Note that this includes all passenger vehicles such as SUVs, not just "cars".
This is an important highlight because it confirms once again that power generation is a larger portion of the CO2 emission "pie" than that emitted by vehicles. So when folks talk about our need to implement CAFE or gas taxes etc in order to reduce CO2 emissions, I will continue to call it mis-direction and/or flat-out mindless drivel. Focus on the coal plants before you come after automobiles on this issue.
I'll still listen you folks about OTHER reasons such as sending flaws inherent in sending cash to despotic regions for oil... or other pollutants... but CO2-crazies: STFU.
A "cashless" black market is also exempt from taxation. Nice try though!
It is not "exempt". It is tax evasion. Ever heard of Al Capone? Jailed not for bootlegging and murder etc etc, but for not paying taxes on his ill-gotten gains.
Furthermore, estimates are that the black/underground market is as high as 28% (!!!!!) of the US economy. Source1Source2 Pay your niece to babysit using cash? You're enabling tax evasion. Pay your drywaller in cash? Probably also encouraging illegal immigration. Borrow your brother's truck in exchange for a case of beer? TAX EVASION! Tony Soprano, "legitimate businesses", drug dealers and money laundering? TAX EVASION AND THE 4 HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE!
Two conclusions:
-- Everyone is crossing the line from avoidance to evasion. Rich AND poor.
-- Tax laws (all laws, really) are draconian in their complication, pervasiveness and obscurity.
It's almost enough for me to seriously support the "FairTax"...
Agree. I had a txt conversation with my father as he was sailing past Bermuda earlier this week. Voice was not available, but we could txt just fine. I believe it had everything to do with the quality of service. If voice911 is not available but I still have a minimal signal, I'd hope there was some method of calling for help beyond txt'ing a friend.
This was in the late 90's and there was no such thing as portable mp3 players. In fact, the Roxio Rio with 32megs of capacity came out just as I was finishing the build.
Issues to consider:
I blew 1 head unit ($300) while installing due to miswiring. Ow.
MASSIVE PROBLEMS with feedback. Somehow the car-computer-stereo connections caused a constant background hum that I could only minimize. Tried induction isolators, even went to a few car stereo stores and they could only scratch their heads.
It took me 3 months to find an ATX power supply that was designed to accept 12v DC rather than 120v AC.
Unless you design in a battery back-up, you have to wait a few minutes getting in and out of your car while you wait for the system to start up or shut down.
This project was one of my major geek credentials, but you can see from the site that I quickly realized that I was being left in the dust when it came to my webdeveloping skills. I could talk for hours about how much fun this project was for a highschooler.
I tried driving both the gas and diesel Jetta wagons and noted a significant problem with the 0-60 acceleration time in the diesel. We wanted the diesel, but couldn't deal with unsafe acceleration.
I'm trying to find 0-60 references online but finding NOTHING. Even VW.com has a "TBA" on their website. In my opinion, they are hiding this fact.
Gas 0-60: 8.4 seconds. This is normal for sedans. Corolla: 9 seconds.
Diesel 0-60: TBA. My estimate is above 11 seconds. Those 3-5 seconds can be an eternity as you watch a semi grill rapidly approaching your rear-view mirror.
Trying to get on many US highways with that kind of acceleration is borderline suicidal. Especially in a miniwagon. we're not talking about some bus or 18-wheeler where people will get out of your (slow-to-get-up-to-speed) way.
In the end I had to move up to the Passat wagon (~7 seconds to 60) and give up having a manual transmission. I'd rather be driving a car without a soul (automatic) than a deathdrap.
How often have you been about to change lanes and then suddenly realized there was a car there?
Your comment above talks about having personal "radar" but I think this could really help in a vehicle... The problem might be the shift from the use outside your vehicle where the belt would be "compass" and your brain would get used to it, to the different inputs you would get when the belt hooks up (bluetooth?) to the additional sensors attached to the exterior of the car (plane?)... Could you somehow make the vibration/pulses different from the "compass" type so you could tell the difference?
I drive a Mini and one of the many things I like about it is the 360 degree visability I get. (No blind spots at all!) I looked at a 350z, but like all coupes, those flying butresses of a C-pillar are huge, thick and make me very nervous. Also being in a Mini, I feel like i have to be much more in-tune with my surroundings, since I'm that much smaller than the ginormous Tahoe's I'm always passing...
(Current inputs I have while driving beyond typical driving: [1]nav screen [2] Headset w/Trapster speedtrap warnings [3] Valentine1 radar detector. I take "situational awareness" to the next level. I'd be up for hearing additional ideas from other/.ers...)
Until this past October I would have agreed with you that calling NPR biased towards "liberal" was unreasonable.
But then I went to a live taping of NPR's version of the Daily Show: "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me". This was the week of the VP debate, so politics was foremost in most of their comments. I noticed the following:
1 ) The comments the cast makes are more liberal than those that make it into the show. They cut out the more extreme/non-PC/malicious comments.
2 ) There was not a single person on stage that would consider themselves a conservative based on their comments.
3 ) The audience was OVERWHELMINGLY liberal, based on their responses to the cast. (Clapping, cat-calls, boos)
4 ) The moderator asked the crowd afterwards if they were being too hard on Palin. The entire crowd yelled out "no".
I'm using part-to-whole logic here, but this experience really makes it hard to beleive that the rest of NPR is un-biased.
If the people that listen to NPR are mostly liberal, than you can understand why the NPR managers would want to give them more "liberal" programming: It's what their listeners want.
Unfortunately too many uneducated Americans don't do the math, they just see one price. Most of my fellow Americans also think that paying $250/month for 72 months is better than paying $350/month for 48 months for the same car.
AC doesn't seem to consider the time-value of money. Anyone who thinks about it will know that a dollar now is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. You don't just multiply the payment by the number of months to make your financing decision. (Or better yet, if you do I'll borrow $100 from you now and give you $100 in 20 years and you wouldn't care and I'll laugh all the way to the bank.)
At around 7.4%, the two described cashflows above will result in the same present value. Meaning that you would be indifferent as to which one to chose. If you think that you could invest your money and make a better better return than 7.4% (after tax!), then you would choose the smaller monthly payment and invest your cash. Or if you really need the money now you would choose this option (meaning that, to you, a dollar now is worth $1.00 but a dollar in a year is worth less than 1.00-7.4= 92.6 cents)
It really depends on the buyer's unique situation.
I hosted a party this weekend and one of the attendees was a coder from Harmonix. Some of the guys there were leaning on him to let the cat out of the bag as to this press release. He finally relented and told us that the new game was called "Flute Hero" and in it you had to master different crazy jazz songs. We were kindof suspicious, but then he jumped into this story about how everyone went nuts over Ron Burgundy's ability to play the jazz flute. At this point he started pantomiming game play. Funny! We were all drunk and actually believed him. In retrospect it was some pretty quick thinking on his part...
The thing you are forgetting is that once these guys have this web distribution up and running, there is little extra time needed besides the occasional site update or links to new songs. The rest of the time they can spend on advertising/tours/new material/second job. Think of this system as a supplementary income whereas the system is making them money while they are free to do other moneymaking things.
I'd like to point out to folks how perfect this article really is. Not only does it cover many (most) of the arguments on both sides of the issue, but it also shows how both sides twist the issue. At one point they meet and speak about the effects of copyright and free encrypted sharing, but then they diverge and start talking about bank robbers, absence of corporations, and the Federalist Papers!
How rehashed is this battleground? I've heard it all before, but until now it has been point by point. These guys have all their weapons memorized and can spout their propaganda in their sleep! Setting aside your own beliefs on this subject, (do you think/. means viewing the world from only your point of view?) take a look at what these polar opposites are saying and how they are saying it.
Does it sound like Oppenhiemer is cut and pasting corporate memos on how to talk to the public? Does it sound like Clarke is some hippie trying to spread free speech (flowers) to every corner of the mother goddess? Does it sound like two trolls flamebaiting each other until they're ready to take it outside?
These two guys are the archetypes of the two points of view on this subject. By siding with one or the other, can you see how you are painted with their brush? Do you want to be like either of them? Can you be different? Doesn't it make you want to be different? What a great article! I'm going back to read it again!!
buying a blow-up doll. (I think.) I remember a story a while ago, may have even been on Seinfeld, of people trying to fool the car pool police by purchasing "friends", be they blow-up pr0n dolls or department store manequins, to be able use the lane. This seems to be similar to buying a sticker. It seems to me that rich enough people have already figured a way around the system.
If the blow up doll costs $25, then the total sticker price will probably be slightly higher. (How much is it worth for you not to have to walk in somewhere and buy a pr0n doll?)
"But because the movie-viewing experience can be a distinctly subjective one, the Digital Cinema Laboratory is also using "expert viewers," motion picture industry professionals, to evaluate picture quality and is considering forming a viewing panel of college students, too. Picture quality is not a simple question of numbers," Mr. Swartz said. "We need to understand better how our brains fill in parts of a picture to improve its perceived quality, even if that data is not literally on the screen."
I had heard that Lucas's digital format was significantly less detailed than regular film and had discounted its popularity for the near future. Maybe once it came up to film quality, I would think it a viable option. But this quote seems to suggest that most of film's quality is lost to viewers because either we don't need it, or decreased quality wouldn't be noticable as our minds would fill it in. I would be very interested in finding out more on this subject.
Next step, mix and match and cut and paste! CatDog! Dalmations that won't go blind! Who wants a little "Compy" (procompsagnathus?) running around in their house? A pack of them would scare away burglers! Better yet, a furry trout, like in Brotherhood of the Wolf!
This system would be most useful to people who are traveling on highways and have their cruise control on, methinks. Just last night I had to let my girlfriend drive us home because i was about to fall asleap at the wheel. Maybe all the seatbelt tugging is to wake us up? I might buy into this safety device...
I immagine the system would have to have an on/off switch anyway. And that it would have to have some kind of limitations so that when I'm driving around a mountain road i don't take a flying leap over some cliff.
Take a look down the list. How many people have posted their "origional" idea that this is a dupe article? After they fix the search engine, they should figure out how to get rid of dupe posters.
Anyway, this isn't a dupe, exactly. It covers the topic of the proposed law, but this article is an expert's response and should bring up issues that/. folk hadn't thought of yet...
Do you really want Open Source to be regulated by a government agency? You actually want to become a government worker? I hear the pension and health insurance benefits are good, but most/. readers seem to be ardent opponents of big government/corporate entities.
Microsoft wouldnt be the only one to be paying for this. There are a hundred other firms working on OS projects. I mean, come on guys, lets be realistic!
And what's wrong with the situation as is? I like Linux's "underground movement" apect, it gives it more legitimacy as a labor of love, not $$$. And Red Hat is just now starting to turn a profit, if that's what you are intersted in!
Maturing industry says otherwise.
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
You believe that employers are choosing the cheaper/faster over the quality.
Reading up on the IT industry, most recently in the Economist, I would have to say that that decision would kill the company.
"Wow, he thought hard about that one," you say, but I am actually refering to the belief that the sector is becoming a commodity. The industry is maturing and users want quality more and more over new-fangled products that mess up all the time. As programs and hardware get faster and faster, they are over-reaching the public's willingness to spend for speed. Instead, we are happy with an old 1 gig processor, but will pay for smart and well written programs.
So basically, if the management wants inexperienced programers, let them. They're sure to put out bad software that fails. Then these programmers will be back on the streets looking for another job, while you have found a company that excels.
You think AOL screwed up ICQ, try WinAMP
on
AOL Bridges AIM and ICQ
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I have A real problem with what AOL has done to my favorite programs. I used ICQ a few years ago, but lost interest when none of my friends used it. (Have you loked at their user database? There must be a hundred million south east aisans!) But even worse has been WinAMP 3.0.
Nullsoft was purchased by AOL long before the latest release. Now WinAMP is not the simple, friendly, llama approved MP3 player it used to be. Now it has a web browser, video abilities, etc etc. I don't want another Microsoft Windows Media Player! Bloated is the word. All that coding for stuff I don't want and the stuff i do want doesn't work because they don't have the time to fully test it. Argh!
Slashdot Mirror
Ignoring ad hominum attacks and thermal energy tangent, it appears your arguments are (1) work on everything blind to its contribution to the whole and (2) work on vehicle engines because they have a shorter product lifespan when compared to coal plants.
(1) Focus on every single piece and you end up with no focus at all. The question is, where would you have the greatest IMPACT. The solar panel company I work for is now building solar cells that are just a penny or two above the $0.10 per kilo-watt-hour of grid parity. Give us a few years and I think we'll be cheaper than coal. Kill coal and start building solar and wind farms! Coal and petroleum are currently equivalent in their CO2 emissions Source and we can get that power through alternative methods for less than the cost of replacing all of our cars with only slightly better mileage, which would have the greater impact?
(2) Using $250m cars on the road with an estimated average $30k/vehicle retail cost ( Source ), here are approximately $7.5 trillion (that's with a T) worth of cars on the road today. There are approximately 600 ( Source ) coal plants in the US. To improve the mileage of cars, you essentially have to replace them entirely. Cost: $7.5 trillion. Spending that money on coal plants instead would provide $12.5 BILLION on EACH of the 600 coal plants. Considering that a coal plant costs less than $1b ( Source ) to build, I am sure we can find significantly better uses for that extra $11.5b per plant.
Some additional arguments
(1) Where do you suppose the power charging your Chevy Volt is coming from? Chase people from gas and you end up with a coal-powered car.
(2) The largest 15 ocean-going ocean tankers emit as much of some types of air pollution as every single car on earth. (!!!!) Source. I can't seem to find how much CO2 they emit... How many tankers do you think we have circling the globe?
In conclusion, I stand by my position: For CO2 emissions reduction purposes only, our dollars would be better spent on improved power generation... and to beat the CO2 drum is rhetoric designed to whip up the uninformed... or to advance someone's agenda...
This is an important highlight because it confirms once again that power generation is a larger portion of the CO2 emission "pie" than that emitted by vehicles. So when folks talk about our need to implement CAFE or gas taxes etc in order to reduce CO2 emissions, I will continue to call it mis-direction and/or flat-out mindless drivel. Focus on the coal plants before you come after automobiles on this issue.
I'll still listen you folks about OTHER reasons such as sending flaws inherent in sending cash to despotic regions for oil... or other pollutants... but CO2-crazies: STFU.
A "cashless" black market is also exempt from taxation. Nice try though!
It is not "exempt". It is tax evasion. Ever heard of Al Capone? Jailed not for bootlegging and murder etc etc, but for not paying taxes on his ill-gotten gains.
Furthermore, estimates are that the black/underground market is as high as 28% (!!!!!) of the US economy. Source1 Source2 Pay your niece to babysit using cash? You're enabling tax evasion. Pay your drywaller in cash? Probably also encouraging illegal immigration. Borrow your brother's truck in exchange for a case of beer? TAX EVASION! Tony Soprano, "legitimate businesses", drug dealers and money laundering? TAX EVASION AND THE 4 HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE!
Two conclusions:
-- Everyone is crossing the line from avoidance to evasion. Rich AND poor.
-- Tax laws (all laws, really) are draconian in their complication, pervasiveness and obscurity.
It's almost enough for me to seriously support the "FairTax"...
Agree. I had a txt conversation with my father as he was sailing past Bermuda earlier this week. Voice was not available, but we could txt just fine. I believe it had everything to do with the quality of service. If voice911 is not available but I still have a minimal signal, I'd hope there was some method of calling for help beyond txt'ing a friend.
Http://web.archive.org/web/20021203213216/www.portlandcompany.com/z24/
This was in the late 90's and there was no such thing as portable mp3 players. In fact, the Roxio Rio with 32megs of capacity came out just as I was finishing the build.
Issues to consider:
This project was one of my major geek credentials, but you can see from the site that I quickly realized that I was being left in the dust when it came to my webdeveloping skills. I could talk for hours about how much fun this project was for a highschooler.
I'm trying to find 0-60 references online but finding NOTHING. Even VW.com has a "TBA" on their website. In my opinion, they are hiding this fact.
Gas 0-60: 8.4 seconds. This is normal for sedans. Corolla: 9 seconds.
Diesel 0-60: TBA. My estimate is above 11 seconds. Those 3-5 seconds can be an eternity as you watch a semi grill rapidly approaching your rear-view mirror.
Trying to get on many US highways with that kind of acceleration is borderline suicidal. Especially in a miniwagon. we're not talking about some bus or 18-wheeler where people will get out of your (slow-to-get-up-to-speed) way.
In the end I had to move up to the Passat wagon (~7 seconds to 60) and give up having a manual transmission. I'd rather be driving a car without a soul (automatic) than a deathdrap.
THIS! A thousand times THIS! Mod parent up.
You know what the number one cause of fires was during those times? Fire departments.
[Citation needed]
How often have you been about to change lanes and then suddenly realized there was a car there? Your comment above talks about having personal "radar" but I think this could really help in a vehicle... The problem might be the shift from the use outside your vehicle where the belt would be "compass" and your brain would get used to it, to the different inputs you would get when the belt hooks up (bluetooth?) to the additional sensors attached to the exterior of the car (plane?)... Could you somehow make the vibration/pulses different from the "compass" type so you could tell the difference? I drive a Mini and one of the many things I like about it is the 360 degree visability I get. (No blind spots at all!) I looked at a 350z, but like all coupes, those flying butresses of a C-pillar are huge, thick and make me very nervous. Also being in a Mini, I feel like i have to be much more in-tune with my surroundings, since I'm that much smaller than the ginormous Tahoe's I'm always passing... (Current inputs I have while driving beyond typical driving: [1]nav screen [2] Headset w/Trapster speedtrap warnings [3] Valentine1 radar detector. I take "situational awareness" to the next level. I'd be up for hearing additional ideas from other /.ers...)
Somebody mod this post up please...
Until this past October I would have agreed with you that calling NPR biased towards "liberal" was unreasonable.
But then I went to a live taping of NPR's version of the Daily Show: "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me". This was the week of the VP debate, so politics was foremost in most of their comments. I noticed the following:
1 ) The comments the cast makes are more liberal than those that make it into the show. They cut out the more extreme/non-PC/malicious comments.
2 ) There was not a single person on stage that would consider themselves a conservative based on their comments.
3 ) The audience was OVERWHELMINGLY liberal, based on their responses to the cast. (Clapping, cat-calls, boos)
4 ) The moderator asked the crowd afterwards if they were being too hard on Palin. The entire crowd yelled out "no".
I'm using part-to-whole logic here, but this experience really makes it hard to beleive that the rest of NPR is un-biased.
If the people that listen to NPR are mostly liberal, than you can understand why the NPR managers would want to give them more "liberal" programming: It's what their listeners want.
AC doesn't seem to consider the time-value of money. Anyone who thinks about it will know that a dollar now is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. You don't just multiply the payment by the number of months to make your financing decision. (Or better yet, if you do I'll borrow $100 from you now and give you $100 in 20 years and you wouldn't care and I'll laugh all the way to the bank.) At around 7.4%, the two described cashflows above will result in the same present value. Meaning that you would be indifferent as to which one to chose. If you think that you could invest your money and make a better better return than 7.4% (after tax!), then you would choose the smaller monthly payment and invest your cash. Or if you really need the money now you would choose this option (meaning that, to you, a dollar now is worth $1.00 but a dollar in a year is worth less than 1.00-7.4= 92.6 cents) It really depends on the buyer's unique situation.
I hosted a party this weekend and one of the attendees was a coder from Harmonix. Some of the guys there were leaning on him to let the cat out of the bag as to this press release. He finally relented and told us that the new game was called "Flute Hero" and in it you had to master different crazy jazz songs. We were kindof suspicious, but then he jumped into this story about how everyone went nuts over Ron Burgundy's ability to play the jazz flute. At this point he started pantomiming game play. Funny! We were all drunk and actually believed him. In retrospect it was some pretty quick thinking on his part...
The thing you are forgetting is that once these guys have this web distribution up and running, there is little extra time needed besides the occasional site update or links to new songs. The rest of the time they can spend on advertising/tours/new material/second job. Think of this system as a supplementary income whereas the system is making them money while they are free to do other moneymaking things.
How rehashed is this battleground? I've heard it all before, but until now it has been point by point. These guys have all their weapons memorized and can spout their propaganda in their sleep! Setting aside your own beliefs on this subject, (do you think /. means viewing the world from only your point of view?) take a look at what these polar opposites are saying and how they are saying it.
Does it sound like Oppenhiemer is cut and pasting corporate memos on how to talk to the public? Does it sound like Clarke is some hippie trying to spread free speech (flowers) to every corner of the mother goddess? Does it sound like two trolls flamebaiting each other until they're ready to take it outside?
These two guys are the archetypes of the two points of view on this subject. By siding with one or the other, can you see how you are painted with their brush? Do you want to be like either of them? Can you be different? Doesn't it make you want to be different? What a great article! I'm going back to read it again!!
If the blow up doll costs $25, then the total sticker price will probably be slightly higher. (How much is it worth for you not to have to walk in somewhere and buy a pr0n doll?)
--PhinMak
"But because the movie-viewing experience can be a distinctly subjective one, the Digital Cinema Laboratory is also using "expert viewers," motion picture industry professionals, to evaluate picture quality and is considering forming a viewing panel of college students, too. Picture quality is not a simple question of numbers," Mr. Swartz said. "We need to understand better how our brains fill in parts of a picture to improve its perceived quality, even if that data is not literally on the screen."
I had heard that Lucas's digital format was significantly less detailed than regular film and had discounted its popularity for the near future. Maybe once it came up to film quality, I would think it a viable option. But this quote seems to suggest that most of film's quality is lost to viewers because either we don't need it, or decreased quality wouldn't be noticable as our minds would fill it in. I would be very interested in finding out more on this subject.
desÂpotÂism -- n.
No surprise there.
Next step, mix and match and cut and paste! CatDog! Dalmations that won't go blind! Who wants a little "Compy" (procompsagnathus?) running around in their house? A pack of them would scare away burglers! Better yet, a furry trout, like in Brotherhood of the Wolf!
I immagine the system would have to have an on/off switch anyway. And that it would have to have some kind of limitations so that when I'm driving around a mountain road i don't take a flying leap over some cliff.
Anyway, this isn't a dupe, exactly. It covers the topic of the proposed law, but this article is an expert's response and should bring up issues that /. folk hadn't thought of yet...
--PhinMak --
Microsoft wouldnt be the only one to be paying for this. There are a hundred other firms working on OS projects. I mean, come on guys, lets be realistic!
And what's wrong with the situation as is? I like Linux's "underground movement" apect, it gives it more legitimacy as a labor of love, not $$$. And Red Hat is just now starting to turn a profit, if that's what you are intersted in!
Reading up on the IT industry, most recently in the Economist, I would have to say that that decision would kill the company.
"Wow, he thought hard about that one," you say, but I am actually refering to the belief that the sector is becoming a commodity. The industry is maturing and users want quality more and more over new-fangled products that mess up all the time. As programs and hardware get faster and faster, they are over-reaching the public's willingness to spend for speed. Instead, we are happy with an old 1 gig processor, but will pay for smart and well written programs.
So basically, if the management wants inexperienced programers, let them. They're sure to put out bad software that fails. Then these programmers will be back on the streets looking for another job, while you have found a company that excels.
I have A real problem with what AOL has done to my favorite programs. I used ICQ a few years ago, but lost interest when none of my friends used it. (Have you loked at their user database? There must be a hundred million south east aisans!) But even worse has been WinAMP 3.0.
Nullsoft was purchased by AOL long before the latest release. Now WinAMP is not the simple, friendly, llama approved MP3 player it used to be. Now it has a web browser, video abilities, etc etc. I don't want another Microsoft Windows Media Player! Bloated is the word. All that coding for stuff I don't want and the stuff i do want doesn't work because they don't have the time to fully test it. Argh!