Actually my point is that the industry is broken. It's like asking me: "I need to hire two more prostitutes because the demand has increased. What should my selection criteria be?". I would say that you shouldn't be in the business of hiring prostitutes.
It's just part of a bigger issue I have with modern business in general. We are so geared towards giving people what they want that we've lost sight of what people truly need.
If there is even the remote possibility that a bug exists, we continue testing until we find the bug or prove it does not exist. And by zero defect I don't mean that what we release to the consumer has no defects, I mean what we release for QA has no defects.
Are you using "formal methods" for specification and verification of code? How are you PROVING that a bug does not exist. Also, if you KNOW your code has no defects before you release it to QA then why do you have a QA? It sounds redundant.
Actually I'm a thesis away from a master's degree in computer science from a respected university now, so get off your high horse.
I might be more impressed if you told me what your thesis was. Creating a "sorting algorithm that took advantage of multiple processor" wouldn't be something I would really care about. On the other hand if your thesis was "Extending LINT to check for security vulnerabilities", I would be really impressed. Assuming it actually worked of course.
As to little or no technological bias, apparently you have not read my posting history. I'm mostly Anti-windows and pro-Unix. I use Macs and Linux for everything except gaming.
You are one of the most prolific posters to Slashdot I have encountered so far with over 750 posts. I got tired of scrolling through them so I'll have to give you that.
I'm a strong advocate of secure code and spend a good chunk of my day fighting with people to ensure we don't compromise on the important stuff.
Being flexible isn't compromising on security or usability, it's knowing when you CAN compromise without damaging the project. At some point compromises must be made, or nothing gets released.
You can SAY whatever you want but since, as you say, I don't know you at all I have no way of evaluating the truth of it. I found that with software it wasn't always possible to know what part was important and what part wasn't. That's why compromise and software don't usually go well together.
But hey, thanks for painting me as some sort of hack who's gotten by on charm and good looks (neither of which I have in any abundance by the way) for the last 12 years. Especially since you don't know me. That's appreciated.
I'm not sure how you got "charm and good looks" from "knows how to schmooze". I was referring to your ability to put a great spin on whatever you had done and tell people what they want to hear. These are essential requirements for being successful in the corporate world, which it sounds like you are.
And trust me I do believe that solid engineering is worth every penny, and stand by a 0 defect policy (my team has not release a single engineering defect in well over a year, and we release projects about every other month). But in the end if you can't get the product to the consumer, when they are willing to pay for it, then you don't really have a product.
I don't really understand why you had to qualify your "zero defect" policy. Do you really have the time to create the product you want or do you quit testing at some point and only fix the outstanding bugs to meet some customer deadline? I can create a "zero defect" product too if I choose not to even test the product?
Stand out, be flexible, and make your resume the one that the guy with the checkbook wants to hire. It's taken me pretty far for a guy with a BA in History who started as phone in tech support on Windows boxes for just above minimum wage 12 years ago.
Just so we're clear, it's people like you that make people that ACTUALLY started out wanting to be a software engineer/programmer hate the industry. If you learned on the job I would bet that you learned to "hack code", not "engineer code", because that's what the bosses want now. They want someone supremely confident, that has little or no technological bias, is literate, and knows how to schmooze. Most managers don't give a damn about anything but creating something that is "good enough" to sell. Most engineers hate being rushed or making too many compromises so they come off as "non-team players" since their goal isn't just "good enough". They usually have a hard time accepting the fact that "fast time to market" is way more important than not having a lot of bugs.
It sounds like programming has worked for you so of course you can't relate to the people who got squeezed out for not understanding or not giving in to what companies REALLY want. Just hope that there isn't a special level of Hell for people that created or facilitated software products with insecure code, memory leaks, unintentional data losses, data errors, or just enormous amounts of user frustration.
Kids that REALLY want to do programming will put up with the irrelevant or poor classes. I sure did. I really don't think that is an issue and certainly not the main issue. I can think of LOTS of other reasons why kids don't want to sign up for computer science classes:
Outsourcing. Not many people want a career that can be easily sent anywhere in the world.
Discouraged by people already in the field. For many of us, the joy of working on computers disappeared years ago. All it takes is having to fix code written in India for any length of time and you will start telling people not to get into programming
ADD/ADHD. People may debate this but I am convinced that most people that eat processed foods will develop some level of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) or ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder). The combination of excito-toxins (like MSG) and high amounts of white sugar in most frozen and processed food is sure to mess up any kid. Children who can't focus are NOT going to become programmers if they can help it. Although it would explain some of the REALLY crappy code I've seen.
Stress. My perception is that the stress level has gone up as the system complexity and dependency has increased. I don't believe the pay has kept up with the stress for most IT/Development jobs. Of course now people are happy just to have a job.
Having worked in IT and software development for over 15 years and seen the steady decline in job satisfaction for most people I'm amazed that ANYONE would choose to work in the field now unless they were physically handicapped or had some other unique reason that ruled out other professions.
What's next? Only hiring folks that play D&D? Not hiring people who like Halo? Attend a Gay Pride rally and you're fired? Vote the wrong way and you're suspended for a week?
Yes. The simple answer is yes. It's a free country filled with people who have very different views and belief systems. Where you expecting something different? Fortunately, there are other people who think like you. You just have to find them.
By the way, if you have a video of your wife dancing like Lady Gaga you should post in on YouTube. Maybe you can make some money off ad revenue;).
I think that what you're saying is true but I don't think managers are trained to be abusive. It's more "The shit flows downhill" that makes bosses jerks. The CEO/President/Big Boss sets the tone for the company. If the chief screams/abuses/threatens the middle managers then that attitude gets passed on. That's why I'm dubious when a manager gets replaced with a new manager about whether anything really improves. Either the new manager will quit because of the threats or he/she will pass on the stress to the people underneath.
People get a B.A. in Economics, not a B.S. because it isn't a science but an attempt to make useful generalizations about commerce. Because each human being makes economic decisions for a myriad of reasons that is the best you can do. When you say that "Real markets do not in any way require perfect information to function well" you have an idea in your head what that means that may not be shared by everyone else. This causes a lot of frustration because Monsanto making a lot of money may be your idea of a functioning market but Monsanto going out of business my be another persons idea of a functioning market.
The world is filled with good and bad information that we can't always sort out by getting more informed. Sometimes we have to base our beliefs on faith or gut instinct. Everyone does it and anyone who says they don't is lying. Our limited experience of the world based on living in it for a mere 100 years or less will give us a worldview that necessarily can't incorporate all the information out there.
For me, the moral issues trump anything else. If you can't see that Monsanto's behavior is morally wrong for wanting, among other things, to hide the fact that a particular food is GM food then we will never agree.
You really should take the time to watch the man that treats you that way when he interacts with other men. If he is rude and condescending with other men then you can't really ASSUME that he treats you just badly because you're a woman.
The nice thing about being a white male is that I don't have a chip on my shoulder when interacting with other people. I figure that people that treat me badly do so because they think they can get away with it. I then find a way to make sure it doesn't continue. If that means leaving a job then so be it.
Remember that it's always the more mature person that goes first when trying to graciously solve personal issues.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the biggest reason that there aren't more people over 40 working in IT and software development. For me anyway, it was the realization that technology keeps changing but it doesn't really improve. Sure, there is more "eye candy" and "cool" interfaces but how is it really improving our lives? The challenge to get some technology to work when your young can very appealing but after a while you get tired of fixing the same problems over and over. Especially when the benefits of the new product is marginally better, or maybe even worse, than the previous product.
The problem seems to be phrased most of the time as "older people can't keep up with the technology" when the real issue is "people with experience realize the futility and silliness of most of the new technology". Technology like social web sites and mobile phones have become almost pure entertainment pretending to be a useful tool. The CEOs of these high-tech companies don't want people around that keep bringing up the fact that "the Emperor has no clothes". Young people can be easily entranced with shiny objects and not realize that there are wasting enormous amounts of their lives. Especially when they're getting paid to waste their time.
I'm sure cognitive dissonance will keep most Slashdotters from accepting any of this but if I can help free one mind then it will have been worth it.
That is only half true. We have exchanged a less healthy life for a longer life. Modern conveniences have allowed more feeble people to survive. Now we have more people with chronic illnesses that require vast and expensive amounts of medical intervention to stay alive. Arterial bypasses, hip replacements, a slew of expensive drugs are just a few of the costs associated with growing old. We now have children getting type 2 diabetes which was unheard of a hundred years ago because they didn't have access to the processed foods that are high in sugar and fat that we have today.
It's sad to say but soon that expensive health care, or really "sick care", is going to be out of reach for all but the wealthy. The people that don't take care of their own health are going to be in for a rude awakening
You have been brainwashed into thinking that the last 100 years of industrialization has been mostly a good thing instead of the reality which is that it was mostly a bad thing. Jumping off a building can feel very liberating but when you hit the ground it won't seem like such a good idea anymore. All industrialization has done is give us more of what we want and less of what we need.
I'm going to neglect the spiritual and emotional needs of mankind, since they can be harder to agree on, and just focus on the physical needs. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services's "Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2005", Americans should:
Consume a variety of nutrient-dense foods and beverages within and among the basic food groups while choosing foods that limit the intake of saturated and trans fats, cholesterol, added sugars, salt, and alcohol.
and
To reduce the risk of chronic disease in adulthood: Engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity, above usual activity, at work or home on most days of the week.
Most American "cubicle dwellers" with "9 to 5" jobs (usually more like "6 to 6") struggle to try and maintain even the minimum requirements for good health. This is evidenced by the increase in obesity and chronic illness in this country. According to the WHO (World Health Organization):
The U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds.
I believe it is safe to say that the trend in this country from agriculture to manufacturing to services had been the main culprit. Lack of mandatory physical activity has caused us to become sedentary, which eventually decreases our overall health. A side-effect of that is that people usually don't have the energy to cook so they eat less healthy microwave meals or eat out, which compounds the problem. It is intrinsically unhealthy to spend most of your day sitting at a desk!. Younger people can get away with it for a while but it will eventually take its toll on them. What human beings want is contrary to what they need and if they have the option they will chose what they want. It will always be easier or more appealing to do the wrong thing than to do the right thing.
If you really think that a few tweaks to the system will solve our problems then you don't have the big picture. Not only is our economic model unhealthy, it is unsustainable. It destroys the Earth, depends on resources, like oil, that WILL run out one day, and have created an imbalance of power that is making democracy in this country a joke. I believe the best quote for this age is "Be the change you want to see in the world". We need to examine the impact our lives have on the planet and other people and act like responsible citizens. I can assure you from personal experience, if you do then your life will NOT be the same.
The idea of "working with a bank" is somewhat of an oxymoron. I agree with the Frank that opening your own bank is really the way to go.
If you're not greedy I'm told it's very hard to lose money running a bank. You're guaranteed to make the difference between the interest you pay on savings accounts and the treasury bill rate at the very least. Maybe times have changed and that's not really true anymore but it's worth looking into IMHO.
I hope you're not saying what I think you're saying. Transmissions CAN'T increase horsepower. All they do is keep the engine from stalling by trading speed for torque. Horsepower is rotational speed X torque so the total horsepower doesn't change just the ratio of torque to rotational speed.
I think the transmission design is very cool and I'm amazed that someone can still come up with new ways to combine gears that haven't been done before. In fact, there was a post claiming someone had come up with a substantially similar design so maybe it isn't really new after all. For safety reasons the D-Drive will probably still require some sort of clutch since a sudden failure of one of the inputs could do really bad things to the driver and the vehicle.
I noticed your sig and thought: "A faster horse would solve a lot of problems right now! It may be the ultimate sustainable, renewable, mostly pollution free transportation there is. Combine it with a high-tech carriage and a poop catcher and you've got a sale!
Sorry! What were we talking about? Oh yeah, massive amounts of oil spilling into the ocean and potentially catastrophic consequences. How did we get here again?
I have no fucking idea what the weather will be like two weeks from today.
You can't tell me what the weather's going to be like in two weeks from today but you're going to tell what the weather is going to be like in 10 or 100 years from now? That's like saying: "I've never seen a map of the U.S. but this road goes in the right general direction so I'm sure it will take you where you want to go in the U.S..
When you can predict the weather next week like I can predict the times for sunrises and sunsets then we can talk about climate change.
Until then why don't you go peddle that snake oil somewhere else!
"climate scientists"? What a joke. A climate scientist is like an economist. Their theories sound great until they don't. The concept of trying to account for all the energy inputs and output alone is ridiculous, let alone all the other factors. The fallacy that most people don't seem to address is the fallacy that we can EVER predict the future to any useful degree of accuracy. I would be happy if anyone could predict the weather for the upcoming week with more accuracy.
Your list is really nothing more than saying that competition is tough and not everybody wins. As a general rule that is good for the consumer in the long run and where it isn't you will typically find that it is most often the government regulation that is causing the problem, not the free competition.
Your conclusion is not based on any objective analysis but on your unswerving devotion to capitalism as you understand it. It is obvious that whatever I say you will just keep parroting the tired old phrase: "If business is left to its own, the consumer will win". I try to avoid religious arguments as much as possible. They're not productive.
How do corporations get the power that you speak of? Under a free market system (which we do NOT have) a corporation can only get rich and powerful by selling its products, which it can only do if it provides better products and lower prices than their competitors so that their customers will voluntarily pay for them. A corporation cannot take money from you by force, which is the crucial difference between them and the government.
That is an extremely simplistic view. That's the fairy tale they tell you in business school. You obviously haven't been exposed to the machinations of corporations. There are ways to dominate in a particular industry without making a better product. One can make an inferior product in a foreign country and sell it for less money. One can buy the competition and close them down. One can make unreasonable patents that scare away competition. One can collude with other companies to lock out certain competition. The list goes on an on.
Competing in the marketplace is like fighting a war. This is why Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" is in vogue right now. Many times it has little to do with producing a better product and more to do with killing or out maneuvering the competition. Also, marketing (basically telling people what they want to hear) goes a long way to selling inferior products.
The corporations AND the government are both corrupt. Blaming one over the other is like trying to argue which came first, the chicken or the egg. You can take a side if you want but expecting much out of either of them is not a good strategy IMHO.
For you construction folks...
The time and money it takes to add another outlet to that wall will end up being larger than just starting over with a new house.... ....Ahhhhh, maybe NOT!
Rewriting something that cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars because it's hard to maintain would look wasteful and ridiculous to anyone that didn't work with software but it happens all the time. This is what made me realize that programming is still an immature field. I keep a copy of Edsger Dykstra's (or Dijkstra) lecture to University of Texas computer science students in 1988 on my desktop and read it every time I feel the urge to work for a software company again. His premise is that if you teach people how to write code before you teach them the discrete math and logic framework that applies to programming you cripple them. By not giving them the tools to write formal specifications that anyone with training could read and comprehend fairly quickly, you end with the industry situation we have now. The next programmer will either get a textual description of the functionality that is incomplete and not detailed enough or just get a copy of the source code. Since the code mixes WHAT is supposed to be done with HOW it is supposed to be done it can be incredibly difficult to follow.
This means that the poor smuck that has to maintain someone else's code has to spend a huge amount of time reading and/or stepping through the code to try and understand how it works before any actual "code maintenance" can start. It's ALWAYS possible to reverse engineer code and start drawing diagrams or commenting the code to help understand how it works. Unfortunately, many programmers think they can do better and push hard for a refactoring of the code. This is usually pure folly since the pressure to get something working will be even greater because there is already code available that mostly works so the odds of the next iteration getting any better is incredibly low unless the current code is TRULY a pile of excrement.
Since I've never been in a position to force a company to use formal methods for writing software specifications, and none of them thought they needed it, I've grown weary of watching new programmers thinking they are smarter than the people before them and choose to rewrite code. This usually ends badly. As a System Test engineer for a number of years who has written "black box" and "white box" tests, I can say without a doubt that you can't create quality code through testing, especially in a commercial environment. All you can do is cause the release date to slip until the really awful and obvious bugs are fixed.
The most important thing is to not give them any real experience with using chemicals and put the fear of God into them so they will never be tempted to do any real chemistry experiments. This will keep any of them from creating explosives and joining a Jihad, which would probably cause you to either go to jail or at least get on a no-fly list. Just teach them the laws of thermodynamics, gas laws and a lot of theory without ANY practical experience which will keep everyone safe. They will be so bored that most will lose any desire to pursue any further study of chemistry.
Actually, you should think of yourself as an anti-chemistry teacher. Why invite trouble when you can give students A's without any risk to yourself. Remember, big-brother is watching you!
THIS MESSAGE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY YOUR FRIENDLY HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT
Apparently you are not familiar with the Navy NMCI Contract with EDS. I haven't been following it lately (as in the last few years) but it had VERY overpriced systems on the contract and mostly hired people who didn't have much experience because they were cheap. That contract would keep even the worst managed company in gravy for quite a while. I don't know what most of the military guys thought about it but just ask any civilian employee for the Navy what they thought of NMCI and listen to the expletives fly.
I'm not sure how any company can sell computer software or services without lying, even unintentionally. Anything worth bidding on by EDS is going to be complicated enough to keep them from knowing what they really have for a month at least.
The worst part is if you're going to expect technology salesmen to tell the truth then you're going to eliminate at lot of material for the Dilbert comic strip, among others.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually my point is that the industry is broken. It's like asking me: "I need to hire two more prostitutes because the demand has increased. What should my selection criteria be?". I would say that you shouldn't be in the business of hiring prostitutes.
It's just part of a bigger issue I have with modern business in general. We are so geared towards giving people what they want that we've lost sight of what people truly need.
If there is even the remote possibility that a bug exists, we continue testing until we find the bug or prove it does not exist. And by zero defect I don't mean that what we release to the consumer has no defects, I mean what we release for QA has no defects.
Are you using "formal methods" for specification and verification of code? How are you PROVING that a bug does not exist. Also, if you KNOW your code has no defects before you release it to QA then why do you have a QA? It sounds redundant.
Actually I'm a thesis away from a master's degree in computer science from a respected university now, so get off your high horse.
I might be more impressed if you told me what your thesis was. Creating a "sorting algorithm that took advantage of multiple processor" wouldn't be something I would really care about. On the other hand if your thesis was "Extending LINT to check for security vulnerabilities", I would be really impressed. Assuming it actually worked of course.
As to little or no technological bias, apparently you have not read my posting history. I'm mostly Anti-windows and pro-Unix. I use Macs and Linux for everything except gaming.
You are one of the most prolific posters to Slashdot I have encountered so far with over 750 posts. I got tired of scrolling through them so I'll have to give you that.
I'm a strong advocate of secure code and spend a good chunk of my day fighting with people to ensure we don't compromise on the important stuff.
Being flexible isn't compromising on security or usability, it's knowing when you CAN compromise without damaging the project. At some point compromises must be made, or nothing gets released.
You can SAY whatever you want but since, as you say, I don't know you at all I have no way of evaluating the truth of it. I found that with software it wasn't always possible to know what part was important and what part wasn't. That's why compromise and software don't usually go well together.
But hey, thanks for painting me as some sort of hack who's gotten by on charm and good looks (neither of which I have in any abundance by the way) for the last 12 years. Especially since you don't know me. That's appreciated.
I'm not sure how you got "charm and good looks" from "knows how to schmooze". I was referring to your ability to put a great spin on whatever you had done and tell people what they want to hear. These are essential requirements for being successful in the corporate world, which it sounds like you are.
And trust me I do believe that solid engineering is worth every penny, and stand by a 0 defect policy (my team has not release a single engineering defect in well over a year, and we release projects about every other month). But in the end if you can't get the product to the consumer, when they are willing to pay for it, then you don't really have a product.
I don't really understand why you had to qualify your "zero defect" policy. Do you really have the time to create the product you want or do you quit testing at some point and only fix the outstanding bugs to meet some customer deadline? I can create a "zero defect" product too if I choose not to even test the product?
Stand out, be flexible, and make your resume the one that the guy with the checkbook wants to hire. It's taken me pretty far for a guy with a BA in History who started as phone in tech support on Windows boxes for just above minimum wage 12 years ago.
Just so we're clear, it's people like you that make people that ACTUALLY started out wanting to be a software engineer/programmer hate the industry. If you learned on the job I would bet that you learned to "hack code", not "engineer code", because that's what the bosses want now. They want someone supremely confident, that has little or no technological bias, is literate, and knows how to schmooze. Most managers don't give a damn about anything but creating something that is "good enough" to sell. Most engineers hate being rushed or making too many compromises so they come off as "non-team players" since their goal isn't just "good enough". They usually have a hard time accepting the fact that "fast time to market" is way more important than not having a lot of bugs.
It sounds like programming has worked for you so of course you can't relate to the people who got squeezed out for not understanding or not giving in to what companies REALLY want. Just hope that there isn't a special level of Hell for people that created or facilitated software products with insecure code, memory leaks, unintentional data losses, data errors, or just enormous amounts of user frustration.
Kids that REALLY want to do programming will put up with the irrelevant or poor classes. I sure did. I really don't think that is an issue and certainly not the main issue. I can think of LOTS of other reasons why kids don't want to sign up for computer science classes:
Outsourcing. Not many people want a career that can be easily sent anywhere in the world.
Discouraged by people already in the field. For many of us, the joy of working on computers disappeared years ago. All it takes is having to fix code written in India for any length of time and you will start telling people not to get into programming
ADD/ADHD. People may debate this but I am convinced that most people that eat processed foods will develop some level of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) or ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder). The combination of excito-toxins (like MSG) and high amounts of white sugar in most frozen and processed food is sure to mess up any kid. Children who can't focus are NOT going to become programmers if they can help it. Although it would explain some of the REALLY crappy code I've seen.
Stress. My perception is that the stress level has gone up as the system complexity and dependency has increased. I don't believe the pay has kept up with the stress for most IT/Development jobs. Of course now people are happy just to have a job.
Having worked in IT and software development for over 15 years and seen the steady decline in job satisfaction for most people I'm amazed that ANYONE would choose to work in the field now unless they were physically handicapped or had some other unique reason that ruled out other professions.
Yes. The simple answer is yes. It's a free country filled with people who have very different views and belief systems. Where you expecting something different? Fortunately, there are other people who think like you. You just have to find them.
By the way, if you have a video of your wife dancing like Lady Gaga you should post in on YouTube. Maybe you can make some money off ad revenue ;).
I think that what you're saying is true but I don't think managers are trained to be abusive. It's more "The shit flows downhill" that makes bosses jerks. The CEO/President/Big Boss sets the tone for the company. If the chief screams/abuses/threatens the middle managers then that attitude gets passed on. That's why I'm dubious when a manager gets replaced with a new manager about whether anything really improves. Either the new manager will quit because of the threats or he/she will pass on the stress to the people underneath.
People get a B.A. in Economics, not a B.S. because it isn't a science but an attempt to make useful generalizations about commerce. Because each human being makes economic decisions for a myriad of reasons that is the best you can do. When you say that "Real markets do not in any way require perfect information to function well" you have an idea in your head what that means that may not be shared by everyone else. This causes a lot of frustration because Monsanto making a lot of money may be your idea of a functioning market but Monsanto going out of business my be another persons idea of a functioning market.
The world is filled with good and bad information that we can't always sort out by getting more informed. Sometimes we have to base our beliefs on faith or gut instinct. Everyone does it and anyone who says they don't is lying. Our limited experience of the world based on living in it for a mere 100 years or less will give us a worldview that necessarily can't incorporate all the information out there.
For me, the moral issues trump anything else. If you can't see that Monsanto's behavior is morally wrong for wanting, among other things, to hide the fact that a particular food is GM food then we will never agree.
You really should take the time to watch the man that treats you that way when he interacts with other men. If he is rude and condescending with other men then you can't really ASSUME that he treats you just badly because you're a woman.
The nice thing about being a white male is that I don't have a chip on my shoulder when interacting with other people. I figure that people that treat me badly do so because they think they can get away with it. I then find a way to make sure it doesn't continue. If that means leaving a job then so be it.
Remember that it's always the more mature person that goes first when trying to graciously solve personal issues.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the biggest reason that there aren't more people over 40 working in IT and software development. For me anyway, it was the realization that technology keeps changing but it doesn't really improve. Sure, there is more "eye candy" and "cool" interfaces but how is it really improving our lives? The challenge to get some technology to work when your young can very appealing but after a while you get tired of fixing the same problems over and over. Especially when the benefits of the new product is marginally better, or maybe even worse, than the previous product.
The problem seems to be phrased most of the time as "older people can't keep up with the technology" when the real issue is "people with experience realize the futility and silliness of most of the new technology". Technology like social web sites and mobile phones have become almost pure entertainment pretending to be a useful tool. The CEOs of these high-tech companies don't want people around that keep bringing up the fact that "the Emperor has no clothes". Young people can be easily entranced with shiny objects and not realize that there are wasting enormous amounts of their lives. Especially when they're getting paid to waste their time.
I'm sure cognitive dissonance will keep most Slashdotters from accepting any of this but if I can help free one mind then it will have been worth it.
That is only half true. We have exchanged a less healthy life for a longer life. Modern conveniences have allowed more feeble people to survive. Now we have more people with chronic illnesses that require vast and expensive amounts of medical intervention to stay alive. Arterial bypasses, hip replacements, a slew of expensive drugs are just a few of the costs associated with growing old. We now have children getting type 2 diabetes which was unheard of a hundred years ago because they didn't have access to the processed foods that are high in sugar and fat that we have today.
It's sad to say but soon that expensive health care, or really "sick care", is going to be out of reach for all but the wealthy. The people that don't take care of their own health are going to be in for a rude awakening
You have been brainwashed into thinking that the last 100 years of industrialization has been mostly a good thing instead of the reality which is that it was mostly a bad thing. Jumping off a building can feel very liberating but when you hit the ground it won't seem like such a good idea anymore. All industrialization has done is give us more of what we want and less of what we need.
I'm going to neglect the spiritual and emotional needs of mankind, since they can be harder to agree on, and just focus on the physical needs. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services's "Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2005", Americans should:
Consume a variety of nutrient-dense foods and beverages within and among the basic food groups while choosing foods that limit the intake of saturated and trans fats, cholesterol, added sugars, salt, and alcohol.
and
To reduce the risk of chronic disease in adulthood: Engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity, above usual activity, at work or home on most days of the week.
Most American "cubicle dwellers" with "9 to 5" jobs (usually more like "6 to 6") struggle to try and maintain even the minimum requirements for good health. This is evidenced by the increase in obesity and chronic illness in this country. According to the WHO (World Health Organization):
The U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance, the report finds.
I believe it is safe to say that the trend in this country from agriculture to manufacturing to services had been the main culprit. Lack of mandatory physical activity has caused us to become sedentary, which eventually decreases our overall health. A side-effect of that is that people usually don't have the energy to cook so they eat less healthy microwave meals or eat out, which compounds the problem. It is intrinsically unhealthy to spend most of your day sitting at a desk!. Younger people can get away with it for a while but it will eventually take its toll on them. What human beings want is contrary to what they need and if they have the option they will chose what they want. It will always be easier or more appealing to do the wrong thing than to do the right thing.
If you really think that a few tweaks to the system will solve our problems then you don't have the big picture. Not only is our economic model unhealthy, it is unsustainable. It destroys the Earth, depends on resources, like oil, that WILL run out one day, and have created an imbalance of power that is making democracy in this country a joke. I believe the best quote for this age is "Be the change you want to see in the world". We need to examine the impact our lives have on the planet and other people and act like responsible citizens. I can assure you from personal experience, if you do then your life will NOT be the same.
The idea of "working with a bank" is somewhat of an oxymoron. I agree with the Frank that opening your own bank is really the way to go. If you're not greedy I'm told it's very hard to lose money running a bank. You're guaranteed to make the difference between the interest you pay on savings accounts and the treasury bill rate at the very least. Maybe times have changed and that's not really true anymore but it's worth looking into IMHO.
I hope you're not saying what I think you're saying. Transmissions CAN'T increase horsepower. All they do is keep the engine from stalling by trading speed for torque. Horsepower is rotational speed X torque so the total horsepower doesn't change just the ratio of torque to rotational speed.
I think the transmission design is very cool and I'm amazed that someone can still come up with new ways to combine gears that haven't been done before. In fact, there was a post claiming someone had come up with a substantially similar design so maybe it isn't really new after all. For safety reasons the D-Drive will probably still require some sort of clutch since a sudden failure of one of the inputs could do really bad things to the driver and the vehicle.
I noticed your sig and thought: "A faster horse would solve a lot of problems right now! It may be the ultimate sustainable, renewable, mostly pollution free transportation there is. Combine it with a high-tech carriage and a poop catcher and you've got a sale!
Sorry! What were we talking about? Oh yeah, massive amounts of oil spilling into the ocean and potentially catastrophic consequences. How did we get here again?
I have no fucking idea what the weather will be like two weeks from today.
You can't tell me what the weather's going to be like in two weeks from today but you're going to tell what the weather is going to be like in 10 or 100 years from now? That's like saying: "I've never seen a map of the U.S. but this road goes in the right general direction so I'm sure it will take you where you want to go in the U.S..
When you can predict the weather next week like I can predict the times for sunrises and sunsets then we can talk about climate change.
Until then why don't you go peddle that snake oil somewhere else!
"climate scientists"? What a joke. A climate scientist is like an economist. Their theories sound great until they don't. The concept of trying to account for all the energy inputs and output alone is ridiculous, let alone all the other factors. The fallacy that most people don't seem to address is the fallacy that we can EVER predict the future to any useful degree of accuracy. I would be happy if anyone could predict the weather for the upcoming week with more accuracy.
Your conclusion is not based on any objective analysis but on your unswerving devotion to capitalism as you understand it. It is obvious that whatever I say you will just keep parroting the tired old phrase: "If business is left to its own, the consumer will win". I try to avoid religious arguments as much as possible. They're not productive.
How do corporations get the power that you speak of? Under a free market system (which we do NOT have) a corporation can only get rich and powerful by selling its products, which it can only do if it provides better products and lower prices than their competitors so that their customers will voluntarily pay for them. A corporation cannot take money from you by force, which is the crucial difference between them and the government.
That is an extremely simplistic view. That's the fairy tale they tell you in business school. You obviously haven't been exposed to the machinations of corporations. There are ways to dominate in a particular industry without making a better product. One can make an inferior product in a foreign country and sell it for less money. One can buy the competition and close them down. One can make unreasonable patents that scare away competition. One can collude with other companies to lock out certain competition. The list goes on an on.
Competing in the marketplace is like fighting a war. This is why Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" is in vogue right now. Many times it has little to do with producing a better product and more to do with killing or out maneuvering the competition. Also, marketing (basically telling people what they want to hear) goes a long way to selling inferior products.
The corporations AND the government are both corrupt. Blaming one over the other is like trying to argue which came first, the chicken or the egg. You can take a side if you want but expecting much out of either of them is not a good strategy IMHO.
There is a failsafe. It's called "stepping on the brake and turning of the ignition to stop the engine".
For you construction folks...
....Ahhhhh, maybe NOT!
The time and money it takes to add another outlet to that wall will end up being larger than just starting over with a new house....
Rewriting something that cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars because it's hard to maintain would look wasteful and ridiculous to anyone that didn't work with software but it happens all the time. This is what made me realize that programming is still an immature field. I keep a copy of Edsger Dykstra's (or Dijkstra) lecture to University of Texas computer science students in 1988 on my desktop and read it every time I feel the urge to work for a software company again. His premise is that if you teach people how to write code before you teach them the discrete math and logic framework that applies to programming you cripple them. By not giving them the tools to write formal specifications that anyone with training could read and comprehend fairly quickly, you end with the industry situation we have now. The next programmer will either get a textual description of the functionality that is incomplete and not detailed enough or just get a copy of the source code. Since the code mixes WHAT is supposed to be done with HOW it is supposed to be done it can be incredibly difficult to follow.
This means that the poor smuck that has to maintain someone else's code has to spend a huge amount of time reading and/or stepping through the code to try and understand how it works before any actual "code maintenance" can start. It's ALWAYS possible to reverse engineer code and start drawing diagrams or commenting the code to help understand how it works. Unfortunately, many programmers think they can do better and push hard for a refactoring of the code. This is usually pure folly since the pressure to get something working will be even greater because there is already code available that mostly works so the odds of the next iteration getting any better is incredibly low unless the current code is TRULY a pile of excrement.
Since I've never been in a position to force a company to use formal methods for writing software specifications, and none of them thought they needed it, I've grown weary of watching new programmers thinking they are smarter than the people before them and choose to rewrite code. This usually ends badly. As a System Test engineer for a number of years who has written "black box" and "white box" tests, I can say without a doubt that you can't create quality code through testing, especially in a commercial environment. All you can do is cause the release date to slip until the really awful and obvious bugs are fixed.
Simply running out of the room screaming "No!!!!!!" should suffice. There IS life after programming, believe it or not.
The most important thing is to not give them any real experience with using chemicals and put the fear of God into them so they will never be tempted to do any real chemistry experiments. This will keep any of them from creating explosives and joining a Jihad, which would probably cause you to either go to jail or at least get on a no-fly list. Just teach them the laws of thermodynamics, gas laws and a lot of theory without ANY practical experience which will keep everyone safe. They will be so bored that most will lose any desire to pursue any further study of chemistry.
Actually, you should think of yourself as an anti-chemistry teacher. Why invite trouble when you can give students A's without any risk to yourself. Remember, big-brother is watching you!
THIS MESSAGE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY YOUR FRIENDLY HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT
Apparently you are not familiar with the Navy NMCI Contract with EDS. I haven't been following it lately (as in the last few years) but it had VERY overpriced systems on the contract and mostly hired people who didn't have much experience because they were cheap. That contract would keep even the worst managed company in gravy for quite a while. I don't know what most of the military guys thought about it but just ask any civilian employee for the Navy what they thought of NMCI and listen to the expletives fly.
I'm not sure how any company can sell computer software or services without lying, even unintentionally. Anything worth bidding on by EDS is going to be complicated enough to keep them from knowing what they really have for a month at least.
The worst part is if you're going to expect technology salesmen to tell the truth then you're going to eliminate at lot of material for the Dilbert comic strip, among others.