When people start negotiating with car dealers a lot of them seem to forget that they have the option of walking away. If the dealer tells you that they can't do something you want, go to another dealer. Sooner or later, you'll find one who will do it as long as your demands are within reason.
I walked out of a lot of dealerships last time I bought a car. Some of them I walked out of because they didn't have what I wanted. Guess what? Every single one of them offered to go through the catalog with me and order what I wanted. I walked out of others because they wouldn't give me the price I wanted. Eventually, I found a dealer who had what I wanted and gave it to me at the price I wanted to pay. They were also one of the nicest and least pushy dealers but that's not really relevant.
Here's a hint guys: It's a lot easier to do the above if you start looking for a new car before you actually need one. If your car died on you and you really need a new car, you're probably going to get screwed. You have less negotiating power. Start searching before your car dies. If you find someone that gives you an unbelievable deal you can always buy sooner than expected.
If the car you want was only available with a certain stereo manufactured by a company you don't like... now that would be a bit closer.
If the car is only offered with a certain stereo that you don't (under any circumstances) want then you should buy a different car. Tell the car dealer that you would have bought the car if you could get it without the stereo. When enough people make this complaint the car manufacturer will start producing cars with other stereos or even no stereo. This won't happen soon enough for you to buy the car that you want now, but it can have enough affect to change the situation next time you want to buy a car.
However, if you really want this car but not the stereo you can buy the car and replace the stereo. Noone has forced you to buy the car. You are buying the car with full knowledge that part of that money is going to the stereo manufacturer, which you don't like. I've got news for you: Life is full of shitty compromises
But that's not the way it works with computers. Especially with laptops.
There are several options for people who don't want a computer with Windows on it. The options may not be exactly what you want but they are there. You can buy a computer with no OS quite easily. It gets more difficult with laptops. I've never looked for a laptop without an OS but I'm sure they can be found. You may have to spend your time searching for them and they may be more expensive but there are alternatives. Again, this is where we get into shitty compromise territory.
You have to stipulate that you are not on call 24 hours. I work at home 100% of the time. The people that I work with know that if there is an emergency they can call me just about any time. But, if there are too many "emergencies" then I stop answering their calls outside of business hours.
I've been programming Enterprise Java for 4 years and I'm sure I would fail this test, since I don't know anything specific about either one of those terms.
Perhaps I misinterpreted his comment. The use of the word specific made me think he has some fundamental knowledge of what recursion and ArrayList are but he does not remember the details. I know that I seldom use recursion, so when I do I have to sit down and think about it or just use a book to get a quicker refresher. No, it's not a real difficult concept. I'm sure that I'm not the only one here who doesn't bother remembering the details about what parameters every method takes. That's what books are for.
But, if he doesn't even know what they are then you guys are right to doubt if he is a good programmer as he claims.
And it would have been fine if you had approached it in a constructive manner. Saying something along the lines of "That's a little hard to swallow. Where did you hear about this?" is much more constructive than "STFU".
Personally, I too thought the original post should have been more in the format of a question. But, it seems he did locate the sources for you. I wouldn't have bothered. I have a rule. You can criticize me as much as you want as long as it is constructive. Once it stops being constructive I stop listening to what you have to say. You'd be surprised how effective this is at work, with family and in relationships. I think that a lot of people here have similar rules and you'll find that you can get more out of people if you approach them differently. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar...
Wasn't US who promoted so heavily "free markets" and "democracy" into the world?... So stop complaining about offshoring!
The problem with your argument is that the people who are pushing "free markets" are not the same people who are complaining about offshoring. The people who are pushing free markets are the people who will gain the most from them (the people at the top.) The people who are complaining about offshoring are the people whose lives are being adversely affected by it.
Why this cliche, that only in US the standard of life should be high and some developing countries should always developing and developing and developing?
This is a common misconception foreigners have about Americans. Quite frankly, I don't know if it is laughable or just sad. It is laughable because it is so wrong that I don't know where to begin to correct you. It is sad because you are allowing yourself to be deluded by whoever gave you this stupid idea. I know, I know, you thought that only Americans were allowed to have misconceptions about the rest of the world!
Let me try to clear this up. I really hope some of you who suffer from this same delusion read this and actually take it to heart. Americans don't believe that we are better than you. We don't sit around and try to figure out ways to enslave the rest of the world. We don't agree with all of the policies that our government makes. We do worry about our own lives. We do expect you to worry about your own life. To be completely honest, we don't think about you at all. Get over yourself!
If the only people that posted here were experts in their field with verifiable sources then there would only be about three posts a day on Slashdot. By telling us that he is not an expert, he is saying two things: 1. Don't take this post as expert advice. 2. If anyone who is an expert reads his post he would like to know if what he has heard is true.
One of the benefits of an open forum is that we will hopefully get someone knowledgeable to answer his post so we don't have to wonder. Personally, I think it's better that this guy put his question out there for someone to verify or debunk. I am not an expert and I am curious about his question. I don't think it is an unreasonable question to ask if people of different races, with different backgrounds, and different immunities react differently to medication. If there is an expert out there we would really appreciate your opinion.
One of the bad things about open forums is that we get people like you who don't think that an open forum should be, well, open. It's your responsibility as the reader to sift through the posts that are wrong and find the posts that are worthwhile. I don't know if this guy is wrong and apparently you don't either. If you did you would have told him he was wrong and explained why.
In short, you're really not helping the discussion.
I see corporate tax cuts as the same. Redistribution of money from the middle class to the corporation.
I have to agree with this. In fact, two of the richest men in the US agree too - Warren Buffet and George Soros. They both went on record that Bush's tax cuts were aimed at shifting more money to the rich. I can't find the article at the moment though.
Here in Florida we refer to it as "God's Waiting Room." It just sounds funnier that way for some reason. I can't really complain though. Because of the snowbirds and the tourists I don't have to pay a state tax.
Clear Channel is (apparently) the largest broadcasting donator to Dubya's campaign, and he feels that pressure was probably put on them to yank him off the air.
I don't really understand this argument. Companies give money to politicians so the politicians will do what the companies want. If there was really that much pressure put on Clear Channel by the Bush Administration, why wouldn't Clear Channel just stop donating money to the Bush campaign? It doesn't make sense to me to bribe (sorry, donate) someone if you have to do what they tell you. Maybe I am naive
You mean how like the US engages in a lot of foreign policy just to make the US richer without regard for the foreign working class?
Isn't it the job of the foreign goverments to not allow other countries to take advantage of their citizens? Why should our government look out for the foreign working class? If your government is letting American policy screw your country over, they are not doing their job.
It's a well-known fact that *every* city in the country has a subway system!
Either you missed or ignored the sarcasm in this statement.
Even if you absolutely love your car, if your area has major traffic congestion problems, it makes sense to promote public transit for no other reason than to get the other people off the road so your own commute is shorter.
In many areas, it's a Catch-22 situation. Since I live in Tampa I'll use it as an example. The bus system around here is awful. At least, it was years ago when I last checked. As a consequence, noone uses it. Since noone uses it there isn't much money to improve the system. If I remember correctly (I don't keep up with community news that much) the city made a couple attempts to put money into the bus system and improve it so people would use it. But, people were reluctant to use the buses and they fell back into their normal, craptacular state.
(I'm seriously paraphrasing here)
I think that the thing that most shows how stupid people are is the fact that helmets exist. We, as people, recognized a pattern in activities that kept cracking our skulls. So, what did we do? Instead of stopping the activity which leads to the skull-cracking, we put a piece of foam and plastic around our heads.
Another typical thing in the 90's was for companies to strip down the retirement plans for a company that it bought. I personally know several people that lost several hundred thousand dollars each from their retirement plans this way. Kind of sucks to be 60 years old and set to retire only to find out that you suddenly have half a million dollars less than you thought you did.
The article is a little hazy on just how "cool" or how good these scripts were technically, so I'll answer in a more general sense. Good craftsmanship is still good craftsmanship. Regardless of the intent, a well-crafted piece of code (or any other craft for that matter) is something we can all learn from. It is something that can make us all better craftsman.
The question in this case is not even whether the scripts were "cool" or not. The article really doesn't give enough information for us to determine that. I believe the main question here is the legality and morality of the guy's actions. The overwhelming response so far has been the the guy is scum. I have to agree. I, however, am not sure of the legality of his actions and hope there is some sort of retribution.
The answer to your question seems to be that we are not so juvenile. In fact, you could say that we are grown up enough to realize that what the guy did was wrong and still appreciate the craftsmanship that went into the scripts (again, I don't know how "cool" they really are.) I wouldn't call that juvenile. I'd call it grown up enough to be able to separate the two issues.
And if you are the low paid IT worker whose code do you give?
That depends on who has really been pissing you off lately, most likely your manager. I can imagine your manager trying to explain why his id has been used to login to the system 250,000 times in the last year.
It's money which could be better spent elsewhere. It could mean opening new factories and creating work for a lot more people.
Creating work for the "programmers" that you fire for not being able to program? In my experience, most of those people are not cheats or frauds, they're just not great programmers. We have all worked with the parasites (cheats and frauds) that you are talking about so I am not denying that they exist. I am just saying that they don't exist on the scale that you think they do.
The plan to let go of the manufacturing industry and make everyone a programmer or other high-tech expert was fundamentally flawed.
I whole-heartedly agree with this.
Those can always find another (better) job. I did. Within a month I was hired again...It might involve moving (_not_ to India), or having "only" a 5 figure salary for a change, or other mildly unpleasant stuff, but you'll survive.
I too was able to find another job relatively easily (within a month, not including the month vacation I took to do some traveling and basically goofing off), but I know other people who have skills that have not been so lucky. Actually, I would be willing to move to India simply for the new experiences. So, if anyone in India is hiring, feel free to contact me!
But, the article says nothing about any agreements he may have signed about the use of the data that he found. If he didn't sign any agreements, what he did was only really sleazy and not illegal or punishable in any way. Having said that, I too hope that he did sign something prohibiting this kind of use so some kind of action can be taken against him. I don't think there is any question that what he did was wrong.
That's exactly the reason why more people like you should be fired, and sent back to whatever burger-flipper jobs they had before the dot com scam.
Bullshit. If a company is laying you off to save money on cheaper foreign workers, you have no obligation to see to the good of the company in the future. The company-employee trust has been broken, and not by you.
That's precisely the reason the whole "send the jobs overseas" plan is happening in the first place. Because the domestic market is flooded with cheats, frauds and leeches who don't plan to do a good job, but just see it as "hey, cool, I can get a buttload of money for nothing."
Bullshit. It's about money. Don't fool yourself into thinking that there aren't people in the US who do a good job.
Here's an idea for you: how about being unreplaceable for being competent, productive and competitive? That's what a job in programming used to mean.
Bullshit. I know several people who are productive and competent, but are no longer competitive because they can't work for $3/hr. There have also always been unproductive people in programming, and there always will be. I have even worked with some of the very same unproductive programmers that my father worked with 20 years ago. Not much has changed in their level of productivity. They get jobs because they make friends with other people in the company and the other people recommend them when there are openings. It has always been that way and it always will be.
I'm going to say something nasty. You know what I really want now? To see the fraud laws applied to resumes too.
I do agree that there should be some sort of penalty applied to people who lie on their resume. I also think that there should be some sort of penalty applied to salesman who sell a product/service that the company doesn't provide and to the management that allows it to happen. I don't, however, agree with the extent of your punishments. I do think that equal punishment should apply to the person who lied on their resume and the person who hired them. If the person they hired is incompetent then it follows that the hiring manager is also incompetent, do you not agree? After all, it is the manager's job to hire competent people.
On a personal note, you seem extremely bitter and I pray that I never see the world in the same light as you.
If you want to get creative, you can also file written complaints with your boss that the trainee he refuses to follow the company standards and procedures.
Thank you. I needed a good laugh. For the most part, I used your methods when training my replacement (ie, Do no real work or training and use the time to look for a job). I just wish I would have thought of this final critical step. Sadly, I'm not very creative.
I'm having trouble finding something in this statement that is grounds for replacement. If he bought the tools they belong to him and not the company. The tools that he bought should go with him. If the company doesn't have the tools to do the job after he is gone that is the company's problem, not his.
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When people start negotiating with car dealers a lot of them seem to forget that they have the option of walking away. If the dealer tells you that they can't do something you want, go to another dealer. Sooner or later, you'll find one who will do it as long as your demands are within reason.
I walked out of a lot of dealerships last time I bought a car. Some of them I walked out of because they didn't have what I wanted. Guess what? Every single one of them offered to go through the catalog with me and order what I wanted. I walked out of others because they wouldn't give me the price I wanted. Eventually, I found a dealer who had what I wanted and gave it to me at the price I wanted to pay. They were also one of the nicest and least pushy dealers but that's not really relevant.
Here's a hint guys: It's a lot easier to do the above if you start looking for a new car before you actually need one. If your car died on you and you really need a new car, you're probably going to get screwed. You have less negotiating power. Start searching before your car dies. If you find someone that gives you an unbelievable deal you can always buy sooner than expected.
If the car you want was only available with a certain stereo manufactured by a company you don't like... now that would be a bit closer.
If the car is only offered with a certain stereo that you don't (under any circumstances) want then you should buy a different car. Tell the car dealer that you would have bought the car if you could get it without the stereo. When enough people make this complaint the car manufacturer will start producing cars with other stereos or even no stereo. This won't happen soon enough for you to buy the car that you want now, but it can have enough affect to change the situation next time you want to buy a car.
However, if you really want this car but not the stereo you can buy the car and replace the stereo. Noone has forced you to buy the car. You are buying the car with full knowledge that part of that money is going to the stereo manufacturer, which you don't like. I've got news for you: Life is full of shitty compromises
But that's not the way it works with computers. Especially with laptops.
There are several options for people who don't want a computer with Windows on it. The options may not be exactly what you want but they are there. You can buy a computer with no OS quite easily. It gets more difficult with laptops. I've never looked for a laptop without an OS but I'm sure they can be found. You may have to spend your time searching for them and they may be more expensive but there are alternatives. Again, this is where we get into shitty compromise territory.
"americans on call 24 hours a day"
You have to stipulate that you are not on call 24 hours. I work at home 100% of the time. The people that I work with know that if there is an emergency they can call me just about any time. But, if there are too many "emergencies" then I stop answering their calls outside of business hours.
I've been programming Enterprise Java for 4 years and I'm sure I would fail this test, since I don't know anything specific about either one of those terms.
Perhaps I misinterpreted his comment. The use of the word specific made me think he has some fundamental knowledge of what recursion and ArrayList are but he does not remember the details. I know that I seldom use recursion, so when I do I have to sit down and think about it or just use a book to get a quicker refresher. No, it's not a real difficult concept. I'm sure that I'm not the only one here who doesn't bother remembering the details about what parameters every method takes. That's what books are for.
But, if he doesn't even know what they are then you guys are right to doubt if he is a good programmer as he claims.
article from Forbes
You also might find this article from the Washington Post educational.
And it would have been fine if you had approached it in a constructive manner. Saying something along the lines of "That's a little hard to swallow. Where did you hear about this?" is much more constructive than "STFU".
Personally, I too thought the original post should have been more in the format of a question. But, it seems he did locate the sources for you. I wouldn't have bothered. I have a rule. You can criticize me as much as you want as long as it is constructive. Once it stops being constructive I stop listening to what you have to say. You'd be surprised how effective this is at work, with family and in relationships. I think that a lot of people here have similar rules and you'll find that you can get more out of people if you approach them differently. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar...
Wasn't US who promoted so heavily "free markets" and "democracy" into the world? ... So stop complaining about offshoring!
The problem with your argument is that the people who are pushing "free markets" are not the same people who are complaining about offshoring. The people who are pushing free markets are the people who will gain the most from them (the people at the top.) The people who are complaining about offshoring are the people whose lives are being adversely affected by it.
Why this cliche, that only in US the standard of life should be high and some developing countries should always developing and developing and developing?
This is a common misconception foreigners have about Americans. Quite frankly, I don't know if it is laughable or just sad. It is laughable because it is so wrong that I don't know where to begin to correct you. It is sad because you are allowing yourself to be deluded by whoever gave you this stupid idea. I know, I know, you thought that only Americans were allowed to have misconceptions about the rest of the world!
Let me try to clear this up. I really hope some of you who suffer from this same delusion read this and actually take it to heart. Americans don't believe that we are better than you. We don't sit around and try to figure out ways to enslave the rest of the world. We don't agree with all of the policies that our government makes. We do worry about our own lives. We do expect you to worry about your own life. To be completely honest, we don't think about you at all. Get over yourself!
If the only people that posted here were experts in their field with verifiable sources then there would only be about three posts a day on Slashdot. By telling us that he is not an expert, he is saying two things:
1. Don't take this post as expert advice.
2. If anyone who is an expert reads his post he would like to know if what he has heard is true.
One of the benefits of an open forum is that we will hopefully get someone knowledgeable to answer his post so we don't have to wonder. Personally, I think it's better that this guy put his question out there for someone to verify or debunk. I am not an expert and I am curious about his question. I don't think it is an unreasonable question to ask if people of different races, with different backgrounds, and different immunities react differently to medication. If there is an expert out there we would really appreciate your opinion.
One of the bad things about open forums is that we get people like you who don't think that an open forum should be, well, open. It's your responsibility as the reader to sift through the posts that are wrong and find the posts that are worthwhile. I don't know if this guy is wrong and apparently you don't either. If you did you would have told him he was wrong and explained why.
In short, you're really not helping the discussion.
And I'd like my cone back please.
I see corporate tax cuts as the same. Redistribution of money from the middle class to the corporation. I have to agree with this. In fact, two of the richest men in the US agree too - Warren Buffet and George Soros. They both went on record that Bush's tax cuts were aimed at shifting more money to the rich. I can't find the article at the moment though.
Here in Florida we refer to it as "God's Waiting Room." It just sounds funnier that way for some reason. I can't really complain though. Because of the snowbirds and the tourists I don't have to pay a state tax.
Clear Channel is (apparently) the largest broadcasting donator to Dubya's campaign, and he feels that pressure was probably put on them to yank him off the air.
I don't really understand this argument. Companies give money to politicians so the politicians will do what the companies want. If there was really that much pressure put on Clear Channel by the Bush Administration, why wouldn't Clear Channel just stop donating money to the Bush campaign? It doesn't make sense to me to bribe (sorry, donate) someone if you have to do what they tell you. Maybe I am naive
You mean how like the US engages in a lot of foreign policy just to make the US richer without regard for the foreign working class?
Isn't it the job of the foreign goverments to not allow other countries to take advantage of their citizens? Why should our government look out for the foreign working class? If your government is letting American policy screw your country over, they are not doing their job.
It's a well-known fact that *every* city in the country has a subway system!
Either you missed or ignored the sarcasm in this statement.
Even if you absolutely love your car, if your area has major traffic congestion problems, it makes sense to promote public transit for no other reason than to get the other people off the road so your own commute is shorter.
In many areas, it's a Catch-22 situation. Since I live in Tampa I'll use it as an example. The bus system around here is awful. At least, it was years ago when I last checked. As a consequence, noone uses it. Since noone uses it there isn't much money to improve the system. If I remember correctly (I don't keep up with community news that much) the city made a couple attempts to put money into the bus system and improve it so people would use it. But, people were reluctant to use the buses and they fell back into their normal, craptacular state.
(I'm seriously paraphrasing here)
I think that the thing that most shows how stupid people are is the fact that helmets exist. We, as people, recognized a pattern in activities that kept cracking our skulls. So, what did we do? Instead of stopping the activity which leads to the skull-cracking, we put a piece of foam and plastic around our heads.
Women in general (IN GENERAL) are indecisive drivers
This should read: Women in general are indecisive
I don't think I would volunteer to do this for free. But, if I could get paid to fling feces at people I would be all over this!
Another typical thing in the 90's was for companies to strip down the retirement plans for a company that it bought. I personally know several people that lost several hundred thousand dollars each from their retirement plans this way. Kind of sucks to be 60 years old and set to retire only to find out that you suddenly have half a million dollars less than you thought you did.
The article is a little hazy on just how "cool" or how good these scripts were technically, so I'll answer in a more general sense. Good craftsmanship is still good craftsmanship. Regardless of the intent, a well-crafted piece of code (or any other craft for that matter) is something we can all learn from. It is something that can make us all better craftsman.
The question in this case is not even whether the scripts were "cool" or not. The article really doesn't give enough information for us to determine that. I believe the main question here is the legality and morality of the guy's actions. The overwhelming response so far has been the the guy is scum. I have to agree. I, however, am not sure of the legality of his actions and hope there is some sort of retribution.
The answer to your question seems to be that we are not so juvenile. In fact, you could say that we are grown up enough to realize that what the guy did was wrong and still appreciate the craftsmanship that went into the scripts (again, I don't know how "cool" they really are.) I wouldn't call that juvenile. I'd call it grown up enough to be able to separate the two issues.
And if you are the low paid IT worker whose code do you give?
That depends on who has really been pissing you off lately, most likely your manager. I can imagine your manager trying to explain why his id has been used to login to the system 250,000 times in the last year.
It's money which could be better spent elsewhere. It could mean opening new factories and creating work for a lot more people.
Creating work for the "programmers" that you fire for not being able to program? In my experience, most of those people are not cheats or frauds, they're just not great programmers. We have all worked with the parasites (cheats and frauds) that you are talking about so I am not denying that they exist. I am just saying that they don't exist on the scale that you think they do.
The plan to let go of the manufacturing industry and make everyone a programmer or other high-tech expert was fundamentally flawed.
I whole-heartedly agree with this.
Those can always find another (better) job. I did. Within a month I was hired again...It might involve moving (_not_ to India), or having "only" a 5 figure salary for a change, or other mildly unpleasant stuff, but you'll survive.
I too was able to find another job relatively easily (within a month, not including the month vacation I took to do some traveling and basically goofing off), but I know other people who have skills that have not been so lucky. Actually, I would be willing to move to India simply for the new experiences. So, if anyone in India is hiring, feel free to contact me!
But, the article says nothing about any agreements he may have signed about the use of the data that he found. If he didn't sign any agreements, what he did was only really sleazy and not illegal or punishable in any way. Having said that, I too hope that he did sign something prohibiting this kind of use so some kind of action can be taken against him. I don't think there is any question that what he did was wrong.
That's exactly the reason why more people like you should be fired, and sent back to whatever burger-flipper jobs they had before the dot com scam.
Bullshit. If a company is laying you off to save money on cheaper foreign workers, you have no obligation to see to the good of the company in the future. The company-employee trust has been broken, and not by you.
That's precisely the reason the whole "send the jobs overseas" plan is happening in the first place. Because the domestic market is flooded with cheats, frauds and leeches who don't plan to do a good job, but just see it as "hey, cool, I can get a buttload of money for nothing."
Bullshit. It's about money. Don't fool yourself into thinking that there aren't people in the US who do a good job.
Here's an idea for you: how about being unreplaceable for being competent, productive and competitive? That's what a job in programming used to mean.
Bullshit. I know several people who are productive and competent, but are no longer competitive because they can't work for $3/hr. There have also always been unproductive people in programming, and there always will be. I have even worked with some of the very same unproductive programmers that my father worked with 20 years ago. Not much has changed in their level of productivity. They get jobs because they make friends with other people in the company and the other people recommend them when there are openings. It has always been that way and it always will be.
I'm going to say something nasty. You know what I really want now? To see the fraud laws applied to resumes too.
I do agree that there should be some sort of penalty applied to people who lie on their resume. I also think that there should be some sort of penalty applied to salesman who sell a product/service that the company doesn't provide and to the management that allows it to happen. I don't, however, agree with the extent of your punishments. I do think that equal punishment should apply to the person who lied on their resume and the person who hired them. If the person they hired is incompetent then it follows that the hiring manager is also incompetent, do you not agree? After all, it is the manager's job to hire competent people.
On a personal note, you seem extremely bitter and I pray that I never see the world in the same light as you.
If you want to get creative, you can also file written complaints with your boss that the trainee he refuses to follow the company standards and procedures.
Thank you. I needed a good laugh. For the most part, I used your methods when training my replacement (ie, Do no real work or training and use the time to look for a job). I just wish I would have thought of this final critical step. Sadly, I'm not very creative.
I'm having trouble finding something in this statement that is grounds for replacement. If he bought the tools they belong to him and not the company. The tools that he bought should go with him. If the company doesn't have the tools to do the job after he is gone that is the company's problem, not his.