But I've never thought it worth changing.
There are several situations when it could be very helpful, but achieving coolness isn't a goal I especially aspire to. Am I alone in this?
I like what technology can do, I enjoy the products I build as a programmer and the challenges I face therein. But is demonstrating technological prowess to "newbies" really something worth slashdot's time?
Guess I'm just an old grouch.
When I was the CTO for the website of a large paper that's how much I spent on my staff. I wanted 8k, we settled at six. Obviously class costs vary, but I was estimating 2k/class and so wanted 4 a year and got approximately 3.
Then there were the books...
Ironically, my current employer doesn't even have a formal policy. I'd guess they spend on average about 3 or 4/k per person with a wide distribution.
Wealthy people are traditionally early adopters. They subsidize development and research costs so that the rest of us can hopefully one day enjoy the benefits of new technology.
If this guys wants to pay for a space vacation, excellent. Just make he gets trained, covers his expenses. Maybe it'll catch on.
If we can make space vacations a trendy get away for the rich we get several benefits:
1) The coolness factor of space will increase. Can you imagine People magazine introducing the concept? I suspect that most Americans only know space as the thing between their ears. More exposure can only help space exploration
2) It will create a definite justification for commercial space exploration. Hilton in space has been proposed before, but this could make it real.
I've often heard people remark on how prevalent libertarian politics are among the geeking class. I admit to subscribing to a chunk of this ideology myself. I don't think we feel powerless as much as unconnected. I don't like the idea of politics swamping my life and I have a fairly narrow view of the proper role of government.
Nonetheless... it's exactly these attitudes that hamstring us. We are loathe to get involved in issues that affect us directly. Why?
Is it because we just want politics to "go away" like the paperwork and gantt chart beauracracy that absorbs our precious coding time?
Perhaps because politics are unordered and messy and we that geek want our complex systems to follow clean rules?
Perhaps because the barriers to enter such a discussion require a frustrating anmount of explication? I know despite my best efforts I lose patience when explaining technical concepts again and again. Perhaps we're too tired for such things?
Explanations are irrelevant, though interesting. My chief complaint about myself, my friends and slashdotters in general is that we take special pride in our technical solutions and masturbatory converstaions but put so little back into the real world. Is there anyway we could us this very forum, slashdot, as a translation tool for political power? A technical pac for a technical group, perhaps where members can vote on positions in the same way we currently rail against the Patent Office and the Clinton Administration's export policies? Can't we do something besides talk?
Can't we do something besides talking about how we just talk????
Slashdot Mirror
But I've never thought it worth changing. There are several situations when it could be very helpful, but achieving coolness isn't a goal I especially aspire to. Am I alone in this? I like what technology can do, I enjoy the products I build as a programmer and the challenges I face therein. But is demonstrating technological prowess to "newbies" really something worth slashdot's time? Guess I'm just an old grouch.
When I was the CTO for the website of a large paper that's how much I spent on my staff. I wanted 8k, we settled at six. Obviously class costs vary, but I was estimating 2k/class and so wanted 4 a year and got approximately 3.
Then there were the books...
Ironically, my current employer doesn't even have a formal policy. I'd guess they spend on average about 3 or 4/k per person with a wide distribution.
Wealthy people are traditionally early adopters. They subsidize development and research costs so that the rest of us can hopefully one day enjoy the benefits of new technology.
If this guys wants to pay for a space vacation, excellent. Just make he gets trained, covers his expenses. Maybe it'll catch on.
If we can make space vacations a trendy get away for the rich we get several benefits:
1) The coolness factor of space will increase. Can you imagine People magazine introducing the concept? I suspect that most Americans only know space as the thing between their ears. More exposure can only help space exploration
2) It will create a definite justification for commercial space exploration. Hilton in space has been proposed before, but this could make it real.
Just my $.02
The thing about the original Galactica series... well, the execution of all but the first episode was poor, but IMHO the concepts are quite strong:
I've often heard people remark on how prevalent libertarian politics are among the geeking class. I admit to subscribing to a chunk of this ideology myself. I don't think we feel powerless as much as unconnected. I don't like the idea of politics swamping my life and I have a fairly narrow view of the proper role of government.
Nonetheless... it's exactly these attitudes that hamstring us. We are loathe to get involved in issues that affect us directly. Why?
Is it because we just want politics to "go away" like the paperwork and gantt chart beauracracy that absorbs our precious coding time?
Perhaps because politics are unordered and messy and we that geek want our complex systems to follow clean rules?
Perhaps because the barriers to enter such a discussion require a frustrating anmount of explication? I know despite my best efforts I lose patience when explaining technical concepts again and again. Perhaps we're too tired for such things?
Explanations are irrelevant, though interesting. My chief complaint about myself, my friends and slashdotters in general is that we take special pride in our technical solutions and masturbatory converstaions but put so little back into the real world. Is there anyway we could us this very forum, slashdot, as a translation tool for political power? A technical pac for a technical group, perhaps where members can vote on positions in the same way we currently rail against the Patent Office and the Clinton Administration's export policies? Can't we do something besides talk?
Can't we do something besides talking about how we just talk????