The original poster probably doesn't count as a "good" tech person in that context. I.e., he's not willing to work the wages that are offered to H1B guest workers who can be effectively deported at the whim of their employer. And he's probably not willing to work 60 hours/week for unwritten promises of future wealth.
Unless you're unusually gifted, you're probably learning new things, and thinking, a somewhat more slowly than you were when you were 25.
On the other hand, if you have good hygiene, nice manners, aren't creepy, and are efficient, people might welcome you into their homes.
So how about being self-employed, going to people's homes and small businesses to help them with configuration / purchase / maintenance of computers and simple networks?
It wouldn't pay great, but you may have to live with that anyway, given that you're competing with hungry recent-graduates in a depressed labor market.
I think the fundamental issue you'll run into, when trying to apply the ethical standard you describe, is determining what a "fair" market price is for someone's labor.
I don't think you'll find a single, undeniably superior way of reckoning what it should be.
As an employer who wants quality employees, employees that want to bleed me dry because they feel special, but really aren't, are not a commodity I want to keep anyway. (I am not actually an employer, but that's how I view the situation.)
With all due respect, I imagine you will/would have a different perspective on the issue if/when you are an employer.
It's mostly about negotiating, and keeping the peace.
The more someone knows what others are being paid, the more he knows about what the employer is truly willing to pay someone for that work. In salary negotiations, information is power. So employers try to scare employees away from gathering that kind of info.
Also, when people know each other's salaries, it tends to make people discontent, when they'd previously been happy. Everyone wants to make more than everyone else. When people don't know each other's salaries, they're generally happy if they think they're making market rate. Want a recipe for a nasty workplace? Negotiate different salaries for each employee, and then let them all know who's making what.
Okay, but that's just one name. Not a bad start, but the previous post stated there was a plurality of actual scientists holding that contrarian view. The power of that argument hinges on it being more than just one guy, regardless of his credentials.
I was under the impression that U.S. law was still unsettled regarding the ability to patent software.
But if that were true, I would have expected at least *one* patent lawsuit in recent years make headlines by claiming that software patents were invalid, and getting a ruling on that issue.
If you're already assuming that a data center can include its own power generation systems (solar, wind, hamsters, etc.), then of course it's possible.
Just include a local coal or nuclear plant on the datacenter's property. Or, if the "renewable" detail is critical, create one in the middle of the Mojave dessert, with 30 sq. miles of solar panels, which during the sunny times also charge up a 400-ton array of lithion-ion batteries or a flywheel generator.
So I wonder if "possible" is really what you're asking.
Agreed. But I also imagine that there are people who could have seen Jesus perform miracles, and then seen him dead on a cross, and then seen him arise 3 days later. And they still wouldn't believe.
As someone else in this conversation stated, you can find dogmatism on any side of a debate.
That's why it's important that each of us consider all the facts carefully, when it really matters what we believe. Both sides tend to have smart people, average people, and crack-pots advocating for their position.
Seems to me a healthy theology does its best to understand each portion of the Bible as the author intended it.
That takes studying, plain and simple.
There is a contingency of Christians who believe that God intends them to understand whatever their lay understanding of a passage is each time they read the Bible. I can see the appeal to this, because they hold that the Bible is the Word of God, and so it seems bizarre to them that its intended message would only be understandable to those with a particular education.
However, I would have thought that people would discard that view, once they saw that applying such an approach to understanding the Bible has led different persons to radically different understandings of the messages contained therein.
I believe I've actually heard a pretty convincing case that the Genesis' parallel accounts of creation pretty clearly follow a poetic structure. Seems to me that makes a stronger case for the author(s) not having intended a strictly literal understanding.
The problem with holding up the "falsifiable" notion of knowledge is that it's self-refuting. It is not, itself, falsifiable. By your own standard, it has no place in science either.
I'm just saying that in this topic, you need to be careful about concepts that cut both ways.
Agreed. I don't think Dr. Leakey's argument holds water. The main problem isn't that there's a lack of evidence now, it's that people who don't believe it simply don't believe it, and choose not to. More evidence isn't likely to get change people's beliefs.
Maybe in that time frame people who believe the evidence will come up with more convincing arguments, better debating material, but not simply more discoveries.
Many Christians say the same thing about non-believers. Just sayin'.
Your problem is likely not with their maps, but with their business model. Tomtom earns money by selling map UPDATES.
It's probably more accurate to say they did earn money by selling me updates. They've demonstrated to me that those updates of a value to me of approximately $0.
(since they need the phone subscription anyway, and yes the tomtom is probably "better", but 130€ buys quite a lot of gasoline, even at current prices).
Actually, I have a TomTom, but I do not have a phone subscription. And amazingly I'm getting by in life at least as well as the average phone subscriber.
I've made the mistake of buying U.S. maps from TomTom twice. Fooled me twice, so shame on me.
In both cases, I needed TomTom to get me to hotels in the south east, where the hotels are located on roads that were created about 3-4 years ago. Google Maps had the roads, but even the most recent update of TomTom did not.
So I emailed TomTom and I was like, hey, your maps are really stale regarding this address. Their response? "Here's how you can correct our maps."
Excuse me, but I'm not paying ~ $50 for the privilege of correcting your maps. If I take the time to show you where your maps are wrong, and I can point your customer support people to the correct data on Google Maps, you do the damn work of updating your fscking maps.
I've found TomTom quite useful over the past few years, but I really can't see continuing my business relationship with them.
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The original poster probably doesn't count as a "good" tech person in that context. I.e., he's not willing to work the wages that are offered to H1B guest workers who can be effectively deported at the whim of their employer. And he's probably not willing to work 60 hours/week for unwritten promises of future wealth.
On the other hand, you probably make fewer typos than I do.
Unless you're unusually gifted, you're probably learning new things, and thinking, a somewhat more slowly than you were when you were 25.
On the other hand, if you have good hygiene, nice manners, aren't creepy, and are efficient, people might welcome you into their homes.
So how about being self-employed, going to people's homes and small businesses to help them with configuration / purchase / maintenance of computers and simple networks?
It wouldn't pay great, but you may have to live with that anyway, given that you're competing with hungry recent-graduates in a depressed labor market.
Actually, I'd say technically it is part of a language, because it provides the primitive in which you express your logic.
Now .NET as a language isn't that bad, I actually like it..
.NET as a language isn't that bad because it's not a language. It's a frikkin framework.
I think you're making a somewhat artificial distinction. I'd call it a part of the language, with VB-proper being the other part.
I assume you haven't protested Putin's recent re-election.
You wouldn't be challenged at the border regarding that, because you wouldn't have made it to the border.
I think the fundamental issue you'll run into, when trying to apply the ethical standard you describe, is determining what a "fair" market price is for someone's labor.
I don't think you'll find a single, undeniably superior way of reckoning what it should be.
With all due respect, I imagine you will/would have a different perspective on the issue if/when you are an employer.
You're kidding, right?
It's mostly about negotiating, and keeping the peace.
The more someone knows what others are being paid, the more he knows about what the employer is truly willing to pay someone for that work. In salary negotiations, information is power. So employers try to scare employees away from gathering that kind of info.
Also, when people know each other's salaries, it tends to make people discontent, when they'd previously been happy. Everyone wants to make more than everyone else. When people don't know each other's salaries, they're generally happy if they think they're making market rate. Want a recipe for a nasty workplace? Negotiate different salaries for each employee, and then let them all know who's making what.
Okay, but that's just one name. Not a bad start, but the previous post stated there was a plurality of actual scientists holding that contrarian view. The power of that argument hinges on it being more than just one guy, regardless of his credentials.
Not disagreeing, but names please.
I was under the impression that U.S. law was still unsettled regarding the ability to patent software.
But if that were true, I would have expected at least *one* patent lawsuit in recent years make headlines by claiming that software patents were invalid, and getting a ruling on that issue.
Anyone know where we're at with this?
Oh, DHS, is there anything you can't screw up?
If you're already assuming that a data center can include its own power generation systems (solar, wind, hamsters, etc.), then of course it's possible.
Just include a local coal or nuclear plant on the datacenter's property. Or, if the "renewable" detail is critical, create one in the middle of the Mojave dessert, with 30 sq. miles of solar panels, which during the sunny times also charge up a 400-ton array of lithion-ion batteries or a flywheel generator.
So I wonder if "possible" is really what you're asking.
Josephus probably qualifies.
I'm surprised you didn't mention him.
Agreed. But I also imagine that there are people who could have seen Jesus perform miracles, and then seen him dead on a cross, and then seen him arise 3 days later. And they still wouldn't believe.
As someone else in this conversation stated, you can find dogmatism on any side of a debate.
That's why it's important that each of us consider all the facts carefully, when it really matters what we believe. Both sides tend to have smart people, average people, and crack-pots advocating for their position.
Seems to me a healthy theology does its best to understand each portion of the Bible as the author intended it.
That takes studying, plain and simple.
There is a contingency of Christians who believe that God intends them to understand whatever their lay understanding of a passage is each time they read the Bible. I can see the appeal to this, because they hold that the Bible is the Word of God, and so it seems bizarre to them that its intended message would only be understandable to those with a particular education.
However, I would have thought that people would discard that view, once they saw that applying such an approach to understanding the Bible has led different persons to radically different understandings of the messages contained therein.
I believe I've actually heard a pretty convincing case that the Genesis' parallel accounts of creation pretty clearly follow a poetic structure. Seems to me that makes a stronger case for the author(s) not having intended a strictly literal understanding.
The problem with holding up the "falsifiable" notion of knowledge is that it's self-refuting. It is not, itself, falsifiable. By your own standard, it has no place in science either.
I'm just saying that in this topic, you need to be careful about concepts that cut both ways.
Agreed. I don't think Dr. Leakey's argument holds water. The main problem isn't that there's a lack of evidence now, it's that people who don't believe it simply don't believe it, and choose not to. More evidence isn't likely to get change people's beliefs.
Maybe in that time frame people who believe the evidence will come up with more convincing arguments, better debating material, but not simply more discoveries.
Many Christians say the same thing about non-believers. Just sayin'.
I'm really surprised they chose that name. I mean, who wants to pronounce "four-ormat"?
Your problem is likely not with their maps, but with their business model. Tomtom earns money by selling map UPDATES.
It's probably more accurate to say they did earn money by selling me updates. They've demonstrated to me that those updates of a value to me of approximately $0.
Good.
Actually, I have a TomTom, but I do not have a phone subscription. And amazingly I'm getting by in life at least as well as the average phone subscriber.
I've made the mistake of buying U.S. maps from TomTom twice. Fooled me twice, so shame on me.
In both cases, I needed TomTom to get me to hotels in the south east, where the hotels are located on roads that were created about 3-4 years ago. Google Maps had the roads, but even the most recent update of TomTom did not.
So I emailed TomTom and I was like, hey, your maps are really stale regarding this address. Their response? "Here's how you can correct our maps."
Excuse me, but I'm not paying ~ $50 for the privilege of correcting your maps. If I take the time to show you where your maps are wrong, and I can point your customer support people to the correct data on Google Maps, you do the damn work of updating your fscking maps.
I've found TomTom quite useful over the past few years, but I really can't see continuing my business relationship with them.