You're right about the clerk just not caring. And I'm sure you'll agree that it's Target's fault.
About eight years ago I was with a friend when she bought a $2,800 Macintosh from CompUSA for $1,400. Somehow, the computer running pricing had gotten misprogrammed, and as a result, all Macintosh models -- from the lowly entry-level desktop, to the top-of-the-line tower model -- were given the same sale price.
I was with my friend helping her pick out a computer. She was going to get the entry-level model, but on a whim asked how much the tower was selling for. When the clerk told us, I asked him to double check, because I knew that towers (at the time) started at $1,900. As we both bent down to check the SKU, I saw that this was the top-of-the-line model. He confirmed that it was selling for $1,300. I recommended to my friend that she purchase it.
If this were a mom and pop shop, I would have put a stop to the problem right then and there. But, you know what? I figured this is the cost of doing business the way these big shops do it. They hire kids, pay them peanuts, give them little or no training, and basically tell them, "Don't think! Just do what the computer tells you to do." If that's how you put together your sales force, then you'll have to eat these losses when they come along.
The sick thing is, the accountants at CompUSA probably had it all figured out -- staff compensation versus shrinkage -- and decided they'd make more money this way.
I'm not advocating stealing, but I shed no tears for these stores when their employees pay so little attention.
I'll second the "never say, 'Who the hell did this...'" advice. I was a house painter once. I proclaimed the very same thing, and it turned out it was our company who did the thing I was complaining about. We were working for a repeat customer (who never got up on a ladder, I presume).
Creating new applications is speculative and brings in no money, unless you create good applications, in which case the money comes in long afterwards. Most likely he couldn't take his staff away from the jobs he had them doing, and it would make no sense to hire more programmers for work that would not be producing a "sure thing."
I know nothing about FogBUGZ, so maybe it does suck. But, I don't think it's a contradiction to argue for paying programmers well and to use interns the way he does. (I'll bet the paid programmers end up doing a lot of work on the new products the interns create, after they go back to school.
H-1B is the answer to "herding cats"
on
The H-1B Swindle
·
· Score: 1
I worked for a company that designs software for the retail industry -- point of sale and back office systems. There were many H-1B VISA workers there, and still are from what I know.
Some of us other workers weren't convinced it was what the company was paying them that was the big attraction in hiring them; rather, we thought it was the "advantage" of having a worker who, if he or she failed to "please" you for any reason, could be shipped back to whatever godforsaken country they came from.
I worked at this company up until about June of this year. Numerous american programmers had decided to jump ship, finding work at other companies, work with better pay and working conditions. The foreigners who were there on the H-1B didn't have this option, from my understanding.
I'm not saying it's not the money. What I am saying is H-1B -- aside from the money -- is the answer to the problem of "herding cats." No more "prima donna" programmers who have the temerity to say "take this job and shove it." Instead, you have workers who dread being shipped home.
I think the grandparent of my post is going a bit overboard, because I believe that many of those on "The Right" would not do a better job if they had more influence in education; however, I don't think it's controversial to say the "The Left" has dominated education in the United States since the 1960's at least. In both universities and the public schools, the overwhelming "intellectual" influence stems from leftist/liberal thinking and traditions.
Spend some time among the faculty of a high school or college. It's taken for granted that "everyone agrees" with any liberal claptrap that comes up in conversation, lesson planning, or policy making.
I find it interesting that your quote only goes as far as to suggest that an ideology other than capitalism is responsible for producing more psychopaths, and yet your quote has become the subject of so much abuse. This is a symptom of the sickness that has gripped our society since the 20th century: criticize the West and you're applauded; criticize any other society no matter how awful and you're called to the carpet as intellectually shallow, hateful, prejudiced, and what-not.
Your comment makes me wonder if some research needs to be done to determine the effect of what all this information on the Web may have on doctors. The article notes how it takes about 5 years of clinical experience to get good at differential diagnosis. I'm sure there are positive benefits to having doctors making use of the Web in diagnosing and learning about disease and treatment, but I wonder if there aren't some negatives as well.
Maybe having the shortcut of the Web available undermines some of the experience gaining doctors go through -- for some doctors at least.
You're not talking to me are you? I'm all for Objective-C and I use it. I said that "Objective-C programmers don't use the language grudgingly" -- meaning, they enjoy using it.
With all due respect, have you tried Objective-C? It's far easier to learn than C++, and in some ways far more powerful. Objective-C is a dynamic (late-binding) language. The Cocoa framework could not have been written in C++ -- many, many decisions are made at run-time.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not one for "language wars"; I'm just saying that C++ is not a replacement. I'm not sure what is, given that Objective-C is fully compatible with C code -- all pointer and bit-twidling nonsense -- and dynamic.
Objective-C coders don't use the language grudgingly.
Already there are a number of comments sarcastically noting how patents stifle innovation. The problem here was not the patent system but Iridian's short sightedness in developing and marketing the product. If government was one of their main buyers, and if governments were reluctant to rely on one supplier, then Iridian should have licensed their patent to a number of other companies.
IBM licensed their PC design to a large number of companies, did they not? Because of patents they recouped the money they invested in PC development and allowed for competitors -- promoting innovation.
Moreover, that Iridian's handling of their patent worked to "stifle" innovation just doesn't hold up in the long run. If iris recognition is an idea that will last, it's only been about twenty years that this patent has enforced a monopoly. Twenty years is hardly holding back society.
Abuse of the patent system hurts us all; but patents issued properly are a boon to society, providing the hope of reward to the creator. Some creators may squander their patents, that can't be helped. Some people crash their automobiles, killing themselves and others, but the automobile is still regarded as a societal good in the balance.
To get rid of the patent system is to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Not counting the citations at the end, the book is 1,577 pages of "guidelines." Who's got that kind of time for a hobby? Who, having a job as a programmer, even has the time to read a book like that?
How about somebody writing a book called The New Writing Standard for Books on Programming? Most of the programming books I own are unecessarily long winded, but this book takes the cake!
On my Linux system's command line, if I have two files in a directory, named "candle" and "jacket," as soon as I type in the letter "c" and hit TAB, the computer's "brain" immediately finds the file, "candle." If however I have two files -- "candle" and "candy" -- and type in "can," the computer's "brain" hesitates in a gray area between "candle" and "candy." This is true even if a third file, "jacket," is in that directory.
Now, I'm not saying that the above is a definitive comparison between the human brain and a computer (in light of the article's experiment); I'm saying that I agree with you that the facts of the experiment don't prove anything. I think before throwing out any hypothesis of discreet processing, more experiments and, more importantly, more thinking needs to be done.
That's funny that you should make that comment. (I'm not the original poster, by the way.)
I had a one-bedroom apartment some years ago. I turned the living room into more of a studio apartment and the bedroom into a study. Having no washer and dryer I used the laudromat, which I happened to enjoy. You can get all of your wash done in one sitting, and it's a great place to people watch. (Of course, I was living in a college town, where the ratio of attractive to non-attractive people increases.)
As for his priorities, each to his own;-)
I just prefer to have a room for my books, desk, and computer.
I took the work done on the icon as a good sign that an attractive interface mattered. The icon itself is only of little importance, but after finding out that there were plans to improve the looks of the GUI, I was willing to take the icon's appearance as an indication that there was good taste among this development team.
Sheesh, I thought that would be obvious to anyone!
I'm glad you beat me to my post, because I was going to say something about the appearance.
I hope that you're right and the developer team is planning on improving the appearance. This sort of thing is important to Macintosh users. (I say this even though I know I risk the flames of Macintosh critics about "superficiality.")
The responsiveness of the windows is impressive, and overall it does look good. The icon especially is superb. Other than a slight delay when first typing text, the application seems quick enough, and quicker than many Java apps.
By the way, I'm using an iMac G4 at 800MHz with 512MB of RAM running Panther -- not exactly a speed demon machine.
This is a good first release. I look forward to improvements, but it's ready to go now.
You know, from what I hear, jet airliners basically fly themselves. It's not a major problem for a pilot to land or take off in one of these things, and once you get it up, it's basically cruise control. Of course, as they say, when you need an experienced airline pilot, there is no substitute.
What happens when something goes wrong? If this thing isn't built to have some human control when things are out of the ordinary, no one in his right mind would go up in one of these things.
Putting aside criticism of a decision that would support this suggestion from Microsoft, what's to stop the Samba people from incorporating and "selling" their product for $1 (or Euro, or whatever), if the stipulation is that free software can't make use of this?
It would of course require a change in license. But, apart from developers who have a moral objection to terms like this and would no longer work on the project, wouldn't it still be a viable project? Would people no longer be willing to work for free on "dollar-ware" -- especially if the idea is to beat Microsoft at its own game?
Maybe the project would fork: Samba would continue to more or less reverse engineer, and a new project could make use of Microsoft's publication.
Before buying that book, I would suggest a person sit down and at least read a chapter. I have that book. While I'm sure its approach appeals to some people, I found it overly pedantic. It was a little like sitting through a boring lecture.
From my reading, the whole point of the article is that children who bring assignments home to an environment supportive of education will over time outpace their peers whose home lives undermine learning. I think it is this focus on "equity" (meaning, trying to develop across-the-board mediocrity) that is what is wrong with the education establishment, especially in the U.S.
Compare two types of homes. The first -- be it rich or poor, or somewhere in between -- has parents that stress the importance of education. The children have a quiet place to do homework, and the parents, at the very least, help the kids with homework, and encourage reading (if only the newspaper) and, from time to time, watching a science, history, or nature show on television. They also take the time to direct conversation with their children towards discussing what they have read or seen.
Now take the second home -- again, rich or poor. Here, the parents lie around lazy after work, scream at their kids, take no interest in learning or their childrens' homework, and such. There is no quiet place to work, reading is something unheard of, and the kids either run the streets or sit in front of their Nintendo.
The problem the article has is with the first set of parents. If you send kids home with homework, this first set of parents may actually foster greater achievement in their children, which, by the standards of egalitarians, is anti-social.
It would be far better if these eggheads in education schools applauded the first set of parents and were interested in seeing the best achieve their potential. Instead, they would like to see children "develop" only under their direct supervision and influence, rather than be "influenced" by their homes -- even if their homes would do these students a great good.
I understand the sentiment expressed by the many people complaining of the "irresponsibility" of publishing this information, that it will cost the lives of troops, but I really think the outrage is misplaced.
There is no security through obscurity. Good intelligence doesn't rely on it; in fact, it demands that we assume "the attacker" has discovered what was "obscured."
The government here is at fault for this security breach. I think it's the responsibility of journalists to uncover and report governmental failings like this, and to report in full.
Slashdot Mirror
It's only fair that I not take credit for this. I found it somewhere in a collection of Latin proverbs and spoofs. Like you, I found it really funny!
I miss Latin class :-(
You're right about the clerk just not caring. And I'm sure you'll agree that it's Target's fault.
About eight years ago I was with a friend when she bought a $2,800 Macintosh from CompUSA for $1,400. Somehow, the computer running pricing had gotten misprogrammed, and as a result, all Macintosh models -- from the lowly entry-level desktop, to the top-of-the-line tower model -- were given the same sale price.
I was with my friend helping her pick out a computer. She was going to get the entry-level model, but on a whim asked how much the tower was selling for. When the clerk told us, I asked him to double check, because I knew that towers (at the time) started at $1,900. As we both bent down to check the SKU, I saw that this was the top-of-the-line model. He confirmed that it was selling for $1,300. I recommended to my friend that she purchase it.
If this were a mom and pop shop, I would have put a stop to the problem right then and there. But, you know what? I figured this is the cost of doing business the way these big shops do it. They hire kids, pay them peanuts, give them little or no training, and basically tell them, "Don't think! Just do what the computer tells you to do." If that's how you put together your sales force, then you'll have to eat these losses when they come along.
The sick thing is, the accountants at CompUSA probably had it all figured out -- staff compensation versus shrinkage -- and decided they'd make more money this way.
I'm not advocating stealing, but I shed no tears for these stores when their employees pay so little attention.
I'll second the "never say, 'Who the hell did this...'" advice. I was a house painter once. I proclaimed the very same thing, and it turned out it was our company who did the thing I was complaining about. We were working for a repeat customer (who never got up on a ladder, I presume).
Creating new applications is speculative and brings in no money, unless you create good applications, in which case the money comes in long afterwards. Most likely he couldn't take his staff away from the jobs he had them doing, and it would make no sense to hire more programmers for work that would not be producing a "sure thing."
I know nothing about FogBUGZ, so maybe it does suck. But, I don't think it's a contradiction to argue for paying programmers well and to use interns the way he does. (I'll bet the paid programmers end up doing a lot of work on the new products the interns create, after they go back to school.
I worked for a company that designs software for the retail industry -- point of sale and back office systems. There were many H-1B VISA workers there, and still are from what I know.
Some of us other workers weren't convinced it was what the company was paying them that was the big attraction in hiring them; rather, we thought it was the "advantage" of having a worker who, if he or she failed to "please" you for any reason, could be shipped back to whatever godforsaken country they came from.
I worked at this company up until about June of this year. Numerous american programmers had decided to jump ship, finding work at other companies, work with better pay and working conditions. The foreigners who were there on the H-1B didn't have this option, from my understanding.
I'm not saying it's not the money. What I am saying is H-1B -- aside from the money -- is the answer to the problem of "herding cats." No more "prima donna" programmers who have the temerity to say "take this job and shove it." Instead, you have workers who dread being shipped home.
I think the grandparent of my post is going a bit overboard, because I believe that many of those on "The Right" would not do a better job if they had more influence in education; however, I don't think it's controversial to say the "The Left" has dominated education in the United States since the 1960's at least. In both universities and the public schools, the overwhelming "intellectual" influence stems from leftist/liberal thinking and traditions.
Spend some time among the faculty of a high school or college. It's taken for granted that "everyone agrees" with any liberal claptrap that comes up in conversation, lesson planning, or policy making.
I find it interesting that your quote only goes as far as to suggest that an ideology other than capitalism is responsible for producing more psychopaths, and yet your quote has become the subject of so much abuse. This is a symptom of the sickness that has gripped our society since the 20th century: criticize the West and you're applauded; criticize any other society no matter how awful and you're called to the carpet as intellectually shallow, hateful, prejudiced, and what-not.
Good job on your post, by the way!
Nevermind the caffeine -- maybe his brain needs more oxygen.
Great! Now you've got an entire continent angry at you. G'day, mate!
Your comment makes me wonder if some research needs to be done to determine the effect of what all this information on the Web may have on doctors. The article notes how it takes about 5 years of clinical experience to get good at differential diagnosis. I'm sure there are positive benefits to having doctors making use of the Web in diagnosing and learning about disease and treatment, but I wonder if there aren't some negatives as well.
Maybe having the shortcut of the Web available undermines some of the experience gaining doctors go through -- for some doctors at least.
You're not talking to me are you? I'm all for Objective-C and I use it. I said that "Objective-C programmers don't use the language grudgingly" -- meaning, they enjoy using it.
With all due respect, have you tried Objective-C? It's far easier to learn than C++, and in some ways far more powerful. Objective-C is a dynamic (late-binding) language. The Cocoa framework could not have been written in C++ -- many, many decisions are made at run-time.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not one for "language wars"; I'm just saying that C++ is not a replacement. I'm not sure what is, given that Objective-C is fully compatible with C code -- all pointer and bit-twidling nonsense -- and dynamic.
Objective-C coders don't use the language grudgingly.
IBM PC on Wikipedia.
My mistake on the example. Thanks for pointing that out. I don't agree with the rest of your argument though.
Already there are a number of comments sarcastically noting how patents stifle innovation. The problem here was not the patent system but Iridian's short sightedness in developing and marketing the product. If government was one of their main buyers, and if governments were reluctant to rely on one supplier, then Iridian should have licensed their patent to a number of other companies.
IBM licensed their PC design to a large number of companies, did they not? Because of patents they recouped the money they invested in PC development and allowed for competitors -- promoting innovation.
Moreover, that Iridian's handling of their patent worked to "stifle" innovation just doesn't hold up in the long run. If iris recognition is an idea that will last, it's only been about twenty years that this patent has enforced a monopoly. Twenty years is hardly holding back society.
Abuse of the patent system hurts us all; but patents issued properly are a boon to society, providing the hope of reward to the creator. Some creators may squander their patents, that can't be helped. Some people crash their automobiles, killing themselves and others, but the automobile is still regarded as a societal good in the balance.
To get rid of the patent system is to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Yeah, and I've read it more than once. Call me crazy, but it's an easier read -- and I'm including the parts in elvish.
Not counting the citations at the end, the book is 1,577 pages of "guidelines." Who's got that kind of time for a hobby? Who, having a job as a programmer, even has the time to read a book like that?
How about somebody writing a book called The New Writing Standard for Books on Programming? Most of the programming books I own are unecessarily long winded, but this book takes the cake!
On my Linux system's command line, if I have two files in a directory, named "candle" and "jacket," as soon as I type in the letter "c" and hit TAB, the computer's "brain" immediately finds the file, "candle." If however I have two files -- "candle" and "candy" -- and type in "can," the computer's "brain" hesitates in a gray area between "candle" and "candy." This is true even if a third file, "jacket," is in that directory.
Now, I'm not saying that the above is a definitive comparison between the human brain and a computer (in light of the article's experiment); I'm saying that I agree with you that the facts of the experiment don't prove anything. I think before throwing out any hypothesis of discreet processing, more experiments and, more importantly, more thinking needs to be done.
That's funny that you should make that comment. (I'm not the original poster, by the way.)
I had a one-bedroom apartment some years ago. I turned the living room into more of a studio apartment and the bedroom into a study. Having no washer and dryer I used the laudromat, which I happened to enjoy. You can get all of your wash done in one sitting, and it's a great place to people watch. (Of course, I was living in a college town, where the ratio of attractive to non-attractive people increases.)
As for his priorities, each to his own ;-)
I just prefer to have a room for my books, desk, and computer.
I took the work done on the icon as a good sign that an attractive interface mattered. The icon itself is only of little importance, but after finding out that there were plans to improve the looks of the GUI, I was willing to take the icon's appearance as an indication that there was good taste among this development team.
Sheesh, I thought that would be obvious to anyone!
I'm glad you beat me to my post, because I was going to say something about the appearance.
I hope that you're right and the developer team is planning on improving the appearance. This sort of thing is important to Macintosh users. (I say this even though I know I risk the flames of Macintosh critics about "superficiality.")
The responsiveness of the windows is impressive, and overall it does look good. The icon especially is superb. Other than a slight delay when first typing text, the application seems quick enough, and quicker than many Java apps.
By the way, I'm using an iMac G4 at 800MHz with 512MB of RAM running Panther -- not exactly a speed demon machine.
This is a good first release. I look forward to improvements, but it's ready to go now.
You know, from what I hear, jet airliners basically fly themselves. It's not a major problem for a pilot to land or take off in one of these things, and once you get it up, it's basically cruise control. Of course, as they say, when you need an experienced airline pilot, there is no substitute.
What happens when something goes wrong? If this thing isn't built to have some human control when things are out of the ordinary, no one in his right mind would go up in one of these things.
(Just my two cents.)
Putting aside criticism of a decision that would support this suggestion from Microsoft, what's to stop the Samba people from incorporating and "selling" their product for $1 (or Euro, or whatever), if the stipulation is that free software can't make use of this?
It would of course require a change in license. But, apart from developers who have a moral objection to terms like this and would no longer work on the project, wouldn't it still be a viable project? Would people no longer be willing to work for free on "dollar-ware" -- especially if the idea is to beat Microsoft at its own game?
Maybe the project would fork: Samba would continue to more or less reverse engineer, and a new project could make use of Microsoft's publication.
This is just a thought. Please, no flames!
Before buying that book, I would suggest a person sit down and at least read a chapter. I have that book. While I'm sure its approach appeals to some people, I found it overly pedantic. It was a little like sitting through a boring lecture.
As always, your mileage may vary.
From my reading, the whole point of the article is that children who bring assignments home to an environment supportive of education will over time outpace their peers whose home lives undermine learning. I think it is this focus on "equity" (meaning, trying to develop across-the-board mediocrity) that is what is wrong with the education establishment, especially in the U.S.
Compare two types of homes. The first -- be it rich or poor, or somewhere in between -- has parents that stress the importance of education. The children have a quiet place to do homework, and the parents, at the very least, help the kids with homework, and encourage reading (if only the newspaper) and, from time to time, watching a science, history, or nature show on television. They also take the time to direct conversation with their children towards discussing what they have read or seen.
Now take the second home -- again, rich or poor. Here, the parents lie around lazy after work, scream at their kids, take no interest in learning or their childrens' homework, and such. There is no quiet place to work, reading is something unheard of, and the kids either run the streets or sit in front of their Nintendo.
The problem the article has is with the first set of parents. If you send kids home with homework, this first set of parents may actually foster greater achievement in their children, which, by the standards of egalitarians, is anti-social.
It would be far better if these eggheads in education schools applauded the first set of parents and were interested in seeing the best achieve their potential. Instead, they would like to see children "develop" only under their direct supervision and influence, rather than be "influenced" by their homes -- even if their homes would do these students a great good.
I understand the sentiment expressed by the many people complaining of the "irresponsibility" of publishing this information, that it will cost the lives of troops, but I really think the outrage is misplaced.
There is no security through obscurity. Good intelligence doesn't rely on it; in fact, it demands that we assume "the attacker" has discovered what was "obscured."
The government here is at fault for this security breach. I think it's the responsibility of journalists to uncover and report governmental failings like this, and to report in full.