More likely it shows the force of marketing that drives people to buy 2.0GHz+ desktops.
Theory was that the prices of computers would fall. Nope - you just can't buy 333MHz packages anymore. Instead you get sold something superpowered that you [most of you] don't need for as much or more as you did before.
This is the sort of site that gets/.'d so here's the full text.
Just to summarize - they don't know how it was done but they're pretty certain no damage was done.
Text
On December 2nd at approximately 03:45 UTC, one of the servers that makes up
the rsync.gentoo.org rotation was compromised via a remote exploit. At this
point, we are still performing forensic analysis. However, the compromised
system had both an IDS and a file integrity checker installed and we have a
very detailed forensic trail of what happened once the box was breached, so
we
are reasonably confident that the portage tree stored on that box was
unaffected. The attacker appears to have installed a rootkit and
modified/deleted some files to cover their tracks, but left the server
otherwise untouched.
The box was in a compromised state for approximately one hour before it was
discovered and shut down. During this time, approximately 20 users
synchronized against the portage mirror stored on this box. The method used
to gain access to the box remotely is still under investigation. We will
release more details once we have ascertained the cause of the remote explo
it.
This box is not an official Gentoo infrastructure box and is instead donated
by a sponsor. The box provides other services not related to Gentoo Linux
as
well and the sponsor has requested that we not publicly identify the box at
this time. Because the Gentoo part of this box appears to be unaffected by
this exploit, we are currently honoring the sponsor's request. That said, =
if
at any point, we determine that any file in the portage tree was
inappropriately modified, we will release full details about the compromised
server.
Again, based on the forensic analysis done so far, we are reasonably confid=
ent
that no files within the Portage tree on the box were affected. However, t=
he
server has been removed from all rsync.*.gentoo.org rotations and will rema=
in
so until the forensic analysis has been completed and the box has been wiped
and rebuilt. Thus, users preferring an extra level of security may ensure
that they have a correct and accurate portage tree by running:
emerge sync
Which will perform a sync against another server, thus ensuring that all fil
les
are up to date.
Hmmmm. This was a little while ago as it was Windows ME but I think it still applies. Basically, instead of a CD form which you can install Windows, they give you a repair CD that will only restore (i.e. reload system files etc) to a HD that it can already detect Windows is on (albeit mangled). I assumed that there is information recorded in (hopefully multiple) locations on the HD that lets it recognize this.
It wouldn't work for example if you put a new HD into your box. The same applied, at least with me, after re-partioning.
Perhaps the system has been changed, but it was extremely annoying at the time as I had paid for Windows but had been prevented from installing it. Essentially they had decided how my computer was to be set up and done it for me. By not giving me a proper OS install disc they'd ripped me off.
I'm in the UK. Possibly they do things different where you are?
How does this work as far as distributing the source code? Is that available for modification and if so is it possible to upload a self-improved OS to the phone?
Does that open up the possibility of doing clever things or am I being ignorant? If the former then this could be great, if the latter - hey, I only wrote telecommns code for two years, what do you expect?
This isn't limited to Dell but it's where I first ran into the problem. I bought a laptop from them and paid for MS Windows. When it arrived Windows was pre-installed (fine) and all I got was a re-install disc (most definitely not fine).
How was I suppose to add Linux to the HD? Reinstall discs are no good after re-partitioning. I called them and they very clearly didn't give a shit and the problem appeared to actually be beyond their comprehension. After five minutes I decided to write off the loss of Windows and just enjoy myself by annoying the person on the other end of the line as much as possible.
Half an hour later I did indeed feel much better.
And I won't be buying from them again... even assuming they were willing to sell. 8)
Ahhh, pharmaceuticals. You have a valid point and I have considered this but I was just addressing the previous comment and I didn't have much time.
The thing that the pharmaceuticals industry illustrates (although it can apply to other areas) is a particular scenario - a high level of effort to make something possible and then a much lower level of effort to produce it - a good parrallel to the software industry too. And this was long ago the original justification for patents - why should anyone put time and money into producing something if there is nothing to keep the benefits of that research in-house.
That's the strongest argument for patents. My feelings however are that it is still not necessary to enforce patent controls. The research would still get done and it would be less of a land-grab fight between the companies. Any reduction in development speed would be offset many many times by the fall in drug prices. The third world in particular would benefit massively both in terms of health and in terms of stimulating local industry. Besides, they get patents not just on the methods of manufacturing certain molecules but on the molecules themselves. That is definitely wrong.
As regards your situation, I don't think the patent system would have helped you at all. I'd be surprised if the company you worked for had allowed you to keep the rights to anything you came up with while you were there, particularly in a process orientated industry like pharmaceuticals. In fact, re-reading your post, they didn't. Loosening of the patent system would actually help you.
By the way, I have also been in the situation you describe. I think a lot of us here have had to deal with idea-stealing colleagues. It's not pretty and there are only two options - find somewhere better (they exist) or fight back, which in my experience gets you sacked but it can feel good.
"Hey, Wait a minute! It's one guy holding up both puppets!"
Seriously though - most rich people are rich people first and whatever else they are second. It's best not to get too caught up what it said to the public.
If you really want to scare them, you could always vote for the Greens. A single green MP (or congressman?) may not be able to do much, but those bastards ain't half loud.:)
It's taking us nowhere. All ideas are built on previous ideas and the reason they are built at all is to get ahead. When a small group owns the latest ideas then (a) no-one else can build on them for their own gain and (b) the owning group has no incentive to.
There is no moral justification for granting exclusive ownership to someone - it implies that they alone were responsible for the idea rather than it being a product of every idea and event preceding it and that it wouldn't have been reached by others for the same reason.
Offering bounties on people so that their peers turn them in is nasty. I'm old fashioned but encouraging people to betray each other for money is repugnant to me.
If there was a mod for uninformative then I'd be about to get it, because I have no idea what's going to happen over the next 10 years in this regard. What is clear from VoIP is that the government has just lost it's ability to trace / bug calls easily. VoIP is not complicated or a secret protocol, and if it were it could be duplicated easily. Any attempt to control it via limiting software will fail unless they make Windoows mandatory (wouldn't be surprised;). That leaves monitoring internet traffic in detail.
Of course the government could try that (going to be even more of a technical nightmare with wireless P2P), but they can't even justify it with the old "Government is your friend and only bad guys would oppose it" shtick because they will not be the only ones with access to this technology. Look at this. A stalkers best friend.
Nope, no idea what's going to happen in the next ten years but it seems like the Privacy Warriors have just got some new weapons. This is an interesting time to live. What happens in the next decade will shape things to come long after.
Living in Britain, I benefit from regular and well-placed ads. In a half-hour slot there will be a break half-way through for a couple of minutes and then the program resumes. Slots are book-ended with ads. The shock came when I moved to the states and the ads were just rammed into the program with little consideration for placing them at the end of a scene or other convenient pause in the action and no warning. It was super-aggressive.
It's no wonder that the US public are first to fight back. I expect demand in the UK to be less initially.
But then when I do watch TV, it's mostly BBC which I've already paid for and has no ads. Ethically dubious because it's compulsory, but it has a positive effect. Maybe this will result in a move towards more paid-for channels in the US.
Of course, there are two arguments against having the ISP block illeagal data. The first is the technical difficulty of detecting it which most/.s are probably familiar with. Not every music file is called Britney_Spears_Bootleg.mp3 and that's not even touching the ways that pirates can fight back ("Arghh!") and the logistics of scanning those file names.
The second issues is more subtle and that is who is deciding the legality of this data? Does the **AA just send a list of filenames to all ISPs that they are obliged to block? What grants the **AA this authority, what about disputes over legality, are the ISPs liable?
The first issue is what gets most/.s rolling their eyes, but the second might be what the lawyers see as a nightmare.
Of course there is the ethics of scanning everyone's internet traffic without just cause or warrants, but let's keep to things that might have an effect.:)
The judge in this article says that caching of popular web-pages by ISPs changes their role as mere conduits for information to providers.
Next my modem will be impounded by **AA because it buffers the data coming into it.
There are so many things wrong with what SOCAM are proposing it makes my skin crawl. This is the same principle as the Recording Industry getting a tax on blank CDs because of course they are all being used to pirate the music of those artists owned by them. The principle is that everyone is judged guilty and punishment (fines in the form of tax) are automated and mandatory.
Extending this principle beyond the music industry, you would then logically get the movie tax, a tax on news to reimburse newspaper distributors and those who turn off FOX half-way through, a literature tax to reimburse Random House and McGraw-Hill etc etc.
In fact, what the proposed laws are doing are creating the following viable business model
1. Fail to sell stuff.
2. Introduce laws to make other industries compensate you.
3.???
4. Profit!
Actually, I think number 3 is probably incarcerate any civil liberties campaigners and fine a few people loudly and publicy to financial ruin to scare any transgressors.
Go back to sleep, Canada - your Government is in control.
For the benefit of the non-elves here, the cred-sticks were essentially sophisticated credit-card devices that were tied to a specific account.
They came in certified and non-certified forms, the former being allocated a certain amount of credit on purchase from your local bank / authority and the latter being keyed to a registered individual.
The other nice detail was that certified ones were colour coded so you could wave around your black and gold one in the club to impress people.:) - At least if you were a cat shaman and you liked to behave like that... *yuk yuk*
A few years ago when I was a naive young UNIX programmer I came to the cash machine and got the firght of my life. There, floating over the blocky PIN login screen was a windows Illegal Error box.
Up until that moment I had always assumed the cash machines were running some specially written firmware on specially made hardware. This was a massively important and widespread system after all.
It's been said before, but Capatalists will sell you the very rope you want to hang them with.
The reason for this is that under the system you have at the moment there are large incentives to realize immediate profits (for the sake of company stock price) and bigger penalties for failing (answering to the stock holders who are in it for money rather than bound to the success of the company itself means CEOs etc can be dumped quicker than a you can click Agree to a five page EULA).
Thus American companies are incapable of not selling those hangmen the rope.
Once, long ago - every ape was out for itself, but over time families developed with family loyalty, morality and empathy. This enabled some groups to prosper at the expense of others. Now America has enjoyed a period of being the only group and so the only valid competition was between americans. Now other groups are on the Savannah and the rules are going to have to change.
It's probably too late to clarify what I meant - I should log in more often!
I didn't mean that the people who thought elections were going to be rigged by the makers of these machines were TFH's. There have been attempts to rig elections right back to the days of the Abolitionists. There's no reason that it will change now, and we can see that Diebold has the means and the motive.
I was referring to something in the article dismissing concerns as 'conspiracy theory' with all the Roswell/JFK/Zionist Elder overtones it carries. Looking back at my post though, I can see the ambiguity.
My apologies to anyone who was offended and still checks the replies to their comments. The potential for vote-rigging is scary as Hell here.
Although hopefully some people realized what I meant or else why was I modded up so much.
First step in concealing your conspiracy is to make it sound stupid. The moment a few TFHs (Tin Foil Hatters) appear and start raving about every voting machine in the country being rigged or the banking system being controlled by the Elders of Zion, then more moderate critics and theorists coming afterwards get lumped into the same category.
Essentially, the loonies lay claim to an issue and then you can no longer support the issue without being seen to support the loonies.
Not saying that this is the case here - just a general principle.
I've actually asked prospective employers to give me some formal assessment. The problem is that the people interviewing me have rarely known enough about programming to do so.
I got my first big break in programming at a company that produced telecomms code. The interviewer was commenting on my limted (6 months) experience in C++ and I told him to get someone to assess my technincal knowledge. He called my bluff and got this scary old woman who I think started out with punch cards. She interrogated me about C++ templates and memory allocation for ten terrifying minutes, then turned to the interview and said, "Yep, he'll do."
I skipped all sorts of graduate training programs and crap through that assessment.
Now however, I'm back in the same situation being passed over by employers for idiots who've been working for a few more years than me. Never mind that in those three years they haven't learned a thing and still have no conception of software design.
Well if computer programming is no longer a hard job, if it has become equivalent to labouring, then we are all in trouble. Why? Because with a massive surplus pool of unemployed, companies can lower wages to ridiculous levels by picking up anyone (students, interns, live-at-home twenty-year olds) to do the work. Result: anyone who wants to live the house-buying, child-raising reasonable lifestyle is going to have trouble finding that work. If this is the case with computer programming (which most of us here are involved in) then what jobs are there these days that are hard enough to justify the wage that will supply such a lifestyle?
If this happens on a large scale (and it is), then you can expect people not to spend much money on anything other than essentials. As has been pointed out, the whole world (thanks to US influence) is more or less on the capitalist RoadRunner effect (once you stop running and look down, THEN you suddenly fall down into the ravine).
IANA (I am not American), but I sympathize with those in the US who through no fault of their own suddenly find their skilled proffession has become a casual college job.
Likewise no-one can blame the Indians (which I think are who we're talking about here) from half-inching the work off them. There's a massive imbalance of wealth between the West and the rest of the world which must (and will) end.
But America as in its people, do not gain the benefit of the cost savings from employing foreign labour because (this is the important bit) the profit goes straight to wealthy corporations at the top who DO NOT pass it back into the American community but instead keep it floating around in an International stratosphere beyond the reach of ordinary american workers (and ordinary Indian workers too).
Name calling wont solve the problem. If the US hits recession, it will be bad news for everyone. Trust me on this.
(The one thing I must add though, is that programming has not become easier - it's just that there are many more people who think they can do it and mnay PHBs who can't tell the difference)
Slashdot Mirror
More likely it shows the force of marketing that drives people to buy 2.0GHz+ desktops.
Theory was that the prices of computers would fall. Nope - you just can't buy 333MHz packages anymore. Instead you get sold something superpowered that you [most of you] don't need for as much or more as you did before.
I love the free-market.
This is the sort of site that gets /.'d so here's the full text.
Just to summarize - they don't know how it was done but they're pretty certain no damage was done.
Text
On December 2nd at approximately 03:45 UTC, one of the servers that makes up the rsync.gentoo.org rotation was compromised via a remote exploit. At this point, we are still performing forensic analysis. However, the compromised system had both an IDS and a file integrity checker installed and we have a very detailed forensic trail of what happened once the box was breached, so we are reasonably confident that the portage tree stored on that box was unaffected. The attacker appears to have installed a rootkit and modified/deleted some files to cover their tracks, but left the server otherwise untouched.
The box was in a compromised state for approximately one hour before it was discovered and shut down. During this time, approximately 20 users synchronized against the portage mirror stored on this box. The method used to gain access to the box remotely is still under investigation. We will release more details once we have ascertained the cause of the remote explo it.
This box is not an official Gentoo infrastructure box and is instead donated by a sponsor. The box provides other services not related to Gentoo Linux as well and the sponsor has requested that we not publicly identify the box at this time. Because the Gentoo part of this box appears to be unaffected by this exploit, we are currently honoring the sponsor's request. That said, = if at any point, we determine that any file in the portage tree was inappropriately modified, we will release full details about the compromised server.
Again, based on the forensic analysis done so far, we are reasonably confid= ent that no files within the Portage tree on the box were affected. However, t= he server has been removed from all rsync.*.gentoo.org rotations and will rema= in so until the forensic analysis has been completed and the box has been wiped and rebuilt. Thus, users preferring an extra level of security may ensure that they have a correct and accurate portage tree by running: emerge sync Which will perform a sync against another server, thus ensuring that all fil les are up to date.
Hmmmm. This was a little while ago as it was Windows ME but I think it still applies. Basically, instead of a CD form which you can install Windows, they give you a repair CD that will only restore (i.e. reload system files etc) to a HD that it can already detect Windows is on (albeit mangled). I assumed that there is information recorded in (hopefully multiple) locations on the HD that lets it recognize this.
It wouldn't work for example if you put a new HD into your box. The same applied, at least with me, after re-partioning.
Perhaps the system has been changed, but it was extremely annoying at the time as I had paid for Windows but had been prevented from installing it. Essentially they had decided how my computer was to be set up and done it for me. By not giving me a proper OS install disc they'd ripped me off.
I'm in the UK. Possibly they do things different where you are?
How does this work as far as distributing the source code? Is that available for modification and if so is it possible to upload a self-improved OS to the phone?
Does that open up the possibility of doing clever things or am I being ignorant? If the former then this could be great, if the latter - hey, I only wrote telecommns code for two years, what do you expect?
This isn't limited to Dell but it's where I first ran into the problem. I bought a laptop from them and paid for MS Windows. When it arrived Windows was pre-installed (fine) and all I got was a re-install disc (most definitely not fine).
How was I suppose to add Linux to the HD? Reinstall discs are no good after re-partitioning. I called them and they very clearly didn't give a shit and the problem appeared to actually be beyond their comprehension. After five minutes I decided to write off the loss of Windows and just enjoy myself by annoying the person on the other end of the line as much as possible.
Half an hour later I did indeed feel much better.
And I won't be buying from them again... even assuming they were willing to sell. 8)
Let me get this straight? You have commercials on the DVDs you buy in the States?
That's HORRIBLE! What sort of ads are we talking about here? Trailers for other movies or products (Budweiser, Nike etc)?
Ahhh, pharmaceuticals. You have a valid point and I have considered this but I was just addressing the previous comment and I didn't have much time.
The thing that the pharmaceuticals industry illustrates (although it can apply to other areas) is a particular scenario - a high level of effort to make something possible and then a much lower level of effort to produce it - a good parrallel to the software industry too. And this was long ago the original justification for patents - why should anyone put time and money into producing something if there is nothing to keep the benefits of that research in-house.
That's the strongest argument for patents. My feelings however are that it is still not necessary to enforce patent controls. The research would still get done and it would be less of a land-grab fight between the companies. Any reduction in development speed would be offset many many times by the fall in drug prices. The third world in particular would benefit massively both in terms of health and in terms of stimulating local industry. Besides, they get patents not just on the methods of manufacturing certain molecules but on the molecules themselves. That is definitely wrong.
As regards your situation, I don't think the patent system would have helped you at all. I'd be surprised if the company you worked for had allowed you to keep the rights to anything you came up with while you were there, particularly in a process orientated industry like pharmaceuticals. In fact, re-reading your post, they didn't. Loosening of the patent system would actually help you.
By the way, I have also been in the situation you describe. I think a lot of us here have had to deal with idea-stealing colleagues. It's not pretty and there are only two options - find somewhere better (they exist) or fight back, which in my experience gets you sacked but it can feel good.
"Hey, Wait a minute! It's one guy holding up both puppets!"
Seriously though - most rich people are rich people first and whatever else they are second. It's best not to get too caught up what it said to the public.
If you really want to scare them, you could always vote for the Greens. A single green MP (or congressman?) may not be able to do much, but those bastards ain't half loud.
and I have to wonder where it's taking us.
It's taking us nowhere. All ideas are built on previous ideas and the reason they are built at all is to get ahead. When a small group owns the latest ideas then (a) no-one else can build on them for their own gain and (b) the owning group has no incentive to.
There is no moral justification for granting exclusive ownership to someone - it implies that they alone were responsible for the idea rather than it being a product of every idea and event preceding it and that it wouldn't have been reached by others for the same reason.
Try this to hear it put better.
Offering bounties on people so that their peers turn them in is nasty. I'm old fashioned but encouraging people to betray each other for money is repugnant to me.
I'm sure I can't be the only one here to have avoided buying products where the adverts have become irritating.
Is there any solid research into the point at which advertising reaches saturation and cost/benefit falls over?
If there was a mod for uninformative then I'd be about to get it, because I have no idea what's going to happen over the next 10 years in this regard. What is clear from VoIP is that the government has just lost it's ability to trace / bug calls easily. VoIP is not complicated or a secret protocol, and if it were it could be duplicated easily. Any attempt to control it via limiting software will fail unless they make Windoows mandatory (wouldn't be surprised
Of course the government could try that (going to be even more of a technical nightmare with wireless P2P), but they can't even justify it with the old "Government is your friend and only bad guys would oppose it" shtick because they will not be the only ones with access to this technology. Look at this. A stalkers best friend.
Nope, no idea what's going to happen in the next ten years but it seems like the Privacy Warriors have just got some new weapons. This is an interesting time to live. What happens in the next decade will shape things to come long after.
Living in Britain, I benefit from regular and well-placed ads. In a half-hour slot there will be a break half-way through for a couple of minutes and then the program resumes. Slots are book-ended with ads. The shock came when I moved to the states and the ads were just rammed into the program with little consideration for placing them at the end of a scene or other convenient pause in the action and no warning. It was super-aggressive.
It's no wonder that the US public are first to fight back. I expect demand in the UK to be less initially.
But then when I do watch TV, it's mostly BBC which I've already paid for and has no ads. Ethically dubious because it's compulsory, but it has a positive effect. Maybe this will result in a move towards more paid-for channels in the US.
For privacy issues with your TV, try this
Of course, there are two arguments against having the ISP block illeagal data. The first is the technical difficulty of detecting it which most
The second issues is more subtle and that is who is deciding the legality of this data? Does the **AA just send a list of filenames to all ISPs that they are obliged to block? What grants the **AA this authority, what about disputes over legality, are the ISPs liable?
The first issue is what gets most
Of course there is the ethics of scanning everyone's internet traffic without just cause or warrants, but let's keep to things that might have an effect.
The judge in this article says that caching of popular web-pages by ISPs changes their role as mere conduits for information to providers.
Next my modem will be impounded by **AA because it buffers the data coming into it.
There are so many things wrong with what SOCAM are proposing it makes my skin crawl. This is the same principle as the Recording Industry getting a tax on blank CDs because of course they are all being used to pirate the music of those artists owned by them. The principle is that everyone is judged guilty and punishment (fines in the form of tax) are automated and mandatory.
Extending this principle beyond the music industry, you would then logically get the movie tax, a tax on news to reimburse newspaper distributors and those who turn off FOX half-way through, a literature tax to reimburse Random House and McGraw-Hill etc etc.
In fact, what the proposed laws are doing are creating the following viable business model
1. Fail to sell stuff.
2. Introduce laws to make other industries compensate you.
3.???
4. Profit!
Actually, I think number 3 is probably incarcerate any civil liberties campaigners and fine a few people loudly and publicy to financial ruin to scare any transgressors.
Go back to sleep, Canada - your Government is in control.
My favourite result from typing SCO into Google is this!!!
The SCO 419 Scam... Oh, how I laughed.
For the benefit of the non-elves here, the cred-sticks were essentially sophisticated credit-card devices that were tied to a specific account.
They came in certified and non-certified forms, the former being allocated a certain amount of credit on purchase from your local bank / authority and the latter being keyed to a registered individual.
The other nice detail was that certified ones were colour coded so you could wave around your black and gold one in the club to impress people.
- At least if you were a cat shaman and you liked to behave like that... *yuk yuk*
Excellent - now we have allies in our war against the privacy invaders.
Let's see if the United Geeks and God Botherers can derail the 'Security' juggernaut.
If you really want to find ways around this, for those who choose to fight. Try this
It's time mankind grew out of prophecies.
A few years ago when I was a naive young UNIX programmer I came to the cash machine and got the firght of my life. There, floating over the blocky PIN login screen was a windows Illegal Error box.
Up until that moment I had always assumed the cash machines were running some specially written firmware on specially made hardware. This was a massively important and widespread system after all.
Oh - how young I was.
It's been said before, but Capatalists will sell you the very rope you want to hang them with.
The reason for this is that under the system you have at the moment there are large incentives to realize immediate profits (for the sake of company stock price) and bigger penalties for failing (answering to the stock holders who are in it for money rather than bound to the success of the company itself means CEOs etc can be dumped quicker than a you can click Agree to a five page EULA).
Thus American companies are incapable of not selling those hangmen the rope.
Once, long ago - every ape was out for itself, but over time families developed with family loyalty, morality and empathy. This enabled some groups to prosper at the expense of others. Now America has enjoyed a period of being the only group and so the only valid competition was between americans. Now other groups are on the Savannah and the rules are going to have to change.
It's probably too late to clarify what I meant - I should log in more often!
I didn't mean that the people who thought elections were going to be rigged by the makers of these machines were TFH's. There have been attempts to rig elections right back to the days of the Abolitionists. There's no reason that it will change now, and we can see that Diebold has the means and the motive.
I was referring to something in the article dismissing concerns as 'conspiracy theory' with all the Roswell/JFK/Zionist Elder overtones it carries. Looking back at my post though, I can see the ambiguity.
My apologies to anyone who was offended and still checks the replies to their comments. The potential for vote-rigging is scary as Hell here.
Although hopefully some people realized what I meant or else why was I modded up so much.
First step in concealing your conspiracy is to make it sound stupid. The moment a few TFHs (Tin Foil Hatters) appear and start raving about every voting machine in the country being rigged or the banking system being controlled by the Elders of Zion, then more moderate critics and theorists coming afterwards get lumped into the same category.
Essentially, the loonies lay claim to an issue and then you can no longer support the issue without being seen to support the loonies.
Not saying that this is the case here - just a general principle.
God! Where were you at my last interviews
I've actually asked prospective employers to give me some formal assessment. The problem is that the people interviewing me have rarely known enough about programming to do so.
I got my first big break in programming at a company that produced telecomms code. The interviewer was commenting on my limted (6 months) experience in C++ and I told him to get someone to assess my technincal knowledge. He called my bluff and got this scary old woman who I think started out with punch cards. She interrogated me about C++ templates and memory allocation for ten terrifying minutes, then turned to the interview and said, "Yep, he'll do."
I skipped all sorts of graduate training programs and crap through that assessment.
Now however, I'm back in the same situation being passed over by employers for idiots who've been working for a few more years than me. Never mind that in those three years they haven't learned a thing and still have no conception of software design.
*phew* I feel better now.
Well if computer programming is no longer a hard job, if it has become equivalent to labouring, then we are all in trouble. Why? Because with a massive surplus pool of unemployed, companies can lower wages to ridiculous levels by picking up anyone (students, interns, live-at-home twenty-year olds) to do the work. Result: anyone who wants to live the house-buying, child-raising reasonable lifestyle is going to have trouble finding that work. If this is the case with computer programming (which most of us here are involved in) then what jobs are there these days that are hard enough to justify the wage that will supply such a lifestyle?
If this happens on a large scale (and it is), then you can expect people not to spend much money on anything other than essentials. As has been pointed out, the whole world (thanks to US influence) is more or less on the capitalist RoadRunner effect (once you stop running and look down, THEN you suddenly fall down into the ravine).
IANA (I am not American), but I sympathize with those in the US who through no fault of their own suddenly find their skilled proffession has become a casual college job.
Likewise no-one can blame the Indians (which I think are who we're talking about here) from half-inching the work off them. There's a massive imbalance of wealth between the West and the rest of the world which must (and will) end.
But America as in its people, do not gain the benefit of the cost savings from employing foreign labour because (this is the important bit) the profit goes straight to wealthy corporations at the top who DO NOT pass it back into the American community but instead keep it floating around in an International stratosphere beyond the reach of ordinary american workers (and ordinary Indian workers too).
Name calling wont solve the problem. If the US hits recession, it will be bad news for everyone. Trust me on this.
(The one thing I must add though, is that programming has not become easier - it's just that there are many more people who think they can do it and mnay PHBs who can't tell the difference)
If you have a look under the sample pages you get a good idea - this is a nice piece, I thought - it has an extra layer of insight into the situation.
:)
They do take a purely self-interested^H^H^H^H objective aproach though. It can sometimes make you go "Hang on..." But it's definitely factual.
It makes a nice Christmas present for someone who's already got all the tin-foil hats they need.