I know, basically every enjoyable activity (with a slight twist of mind even every non-enjoyable one) can be addictive. But there are some modificators to apply for MMORPGS:
The modifiers apply to other activites as well. Playing an MMO isn't that much different than sports, movies, gambling, etc. If a particular activity doesn't explicitly try to take advantage of a modifier your brain will make it up all by itself
1. The +1 Syndrome (aka carrot-on-a-stick)
Like a runner pushing themselves for "just one more mile", or a gambler with 1 more coin, playing football for 1 more hour, shopping at just 1 more store, 1 more drink at the bar, sleeping for just 15 more minutes, etc. Basically your mind just convinces itself that the marginal investment will be made up for with some sort of reward.
2. Teamwork 4. Community
I would lump these two together. People are social creatures, we tend to gravitate to those who share something in common with us. Teamwork lets us define ourselves by the accomplishments of a group, while competition lets us define ourselves relative to others who share similar goals. Both fall under the umbrella of a community, where we are able to interact with those who are similar to us. Whether its the bartender, store clerk, or the player on the other team, you feel like they are part of the same group as you. Like the show "Cheers," you want to go where others know your name. Even the gambler in the dark corner of the casino will feel a sense of community through familiarity with the machines, with the waiting staff, getting a feeling of home when they play.
3. Freedom of aesthetics and personality
Often times people take on different personas even in without the anonymity of a computer. At the bar you're no longer "Bob the accountant," you are "Bob the guy who predicted the superbowl". You may not even have a name, and are just known as "the guy who chugged a 12 pack in an hour, or that guy who never missed a shot, or the guy who won the illegal street race in his old Honda"
knowledge can be shared without being diminished by the act of sharing.
The knowledge itself will not be diminished, but the effect of that knowledge may.
If I'm the only person who figures out how to get the bananas from the top of the tree that knowledge has value. I have access to harvest more bananas, less competition, etc. If I share that knowledge, everybody will have access to those bananas. The effect of that knowledge is dimished for me as an individual, because now I'm competing with others to get bananas again. However, for the group as a whole the effect is multiplied as the amount of accessible resources is increased. That's where IP law comes in, to give incentive for the individual to share knowledge so the community can benefit. Basically everybody agreeing for a limited time to not pick the bananas from the top of the tree if you tell them how you did it. Trade short term personal gain for long term community gain.
Similarly, if you light a candle from the flame of mine, my room does not get darker
But your candle consumes air that otherwise could be used for my candle. It doesn't seem like much because air is so plentiful, but if our two rooms shared a limited air supply then I might not allow you to light a candle. Money and recognition are limited resources. If I simply allow you to take credit for something I created, sure it doesn't dimish the creation, but it does dimish the returns I receive.
There is no such thing as an "intangible asset". It is a legal fiction
You mean like personal privacy, human rights, free speech. All of those are merely legal defined terms, which only exist because we as a society agree they should.
So much of US Capitalism now relies on these outmoded artificial concepts that it is becoming necessary to invent increasingly bizarre laws to deal with it.
It's not just IP law, the world is becoming more complex. How do you define speech, life, ownership, privacy, property? This is the 21st century, IP has become increasingly important because it's what we do. Not just the usual software, music, movie debate, but even in the creation of physical goods. Thanks to automation and mass production, the cost to actually make something is less significant compared to the cost to design something. Just because it costs nothing to distribute doesn't mean it costs nothing to create.
The songs you write, the films you make, the programs you write, the inventions you invent, the clever little logos you create -- they are all ours and you can't take any of them off us. And if you don't like that, I suggest you stop having ideas.
Cops going after people downloading a movie or something is different and would be completely wrong, in my opinion.
What is the difference? Counterfeiting merchandise is similar in that the damage done to the company is dilution in the value of an intangible assest (copyright or trademark).
"T-shirt inspector!" / *slap*
/ "No, really! I am a t-shirt inspector!"
Of all the possible articles of clothing that you would want to have somebody remove so you can "inspect", and you chose T-shirt?! That's the equivalent of being "that guy" who during a riot loots a box of Rice Crispies, when everybody else is grabbing TV sets and stereos. You couldn't have chosen, bikini inspector? Well I guess this is/.
I'd love it if Sony and Nintendo got their act together and made the hardware information a little bit more available to the "bedroom coders" so we could get some "endorsed" grassroot fanboyism going....you know...like in the C64/Amiga/Spectrum heydays...I really miss that.
I'm sure Sony and Nintendo would love to have the same long term economic prosperity as C64/Amiga/Spectrum.
Deus Ex (ONE, dear god not two) is as close as you'll ever get to a successor to System Shock 1 or 2.
After playing the FEAR demo, I had flashbacks to System Shock 2. Maybe it will have less adventure type gameplay, but I found the mood of the game to be very similar
We do possess these skills, the problem is not -us-, the problem is the image you have inside your head that the techies are just coders.
But as you pointed out, "very rarely can we ever -just- do our work." Most people just want to get their work done. Some may possess the skills to manage, but not possess the desire to deal with the political issues. But those issues have to be dealt with by somebody
Most managers I would say are not ambitious about that field of study, but are ambitious to their own selfish means (make more money, appear more powerful)
Ideally you have technically knowledgable person with the soft skills to manage, but not everybody is so well rounded. If I had to choose, I would choose somebody who could manage, over somebody who was technically knowledgable to manage my team. Often what you find with a good manager is if they don't have the knowledge they will rely on their team. For example my work is in the area of electronics and metallurgy, and my manager was a statistician. He didn't have the background to understand intermetallic growth, crack propogation, joint fatigue, etc. He didn't have to, it wasn't his job to know what those things were, it was mine. He was, however, intelligent enough to understand the data and follow my interpretations from a logical standpoint, sometimes pointing out conflicts in my logic and the data, or finding points that weren't fully supported. He also had the skills to effectively communicate my work at a high level to others, and negotiate away issues that prevented me from accomplishing my tasks.
This is dangerous, one reason there are annoying politcal things to do is because the organization itself creates alot of red tape in order to get some simple things done.
While some is just red tape, other times its the fact that tough decisions have to be made. Resources are limited within a company, and everybody needs resources to be effective.
I can tell you every team i've had in school was the most successful team in the class. The reason is because each and everyone of us were experts, the elected manager was an expert plus a great communicator, and he also was down in the ditches coding with us late at night. On a note of leadership, natural leadership arises within the team depending on the situation, why physics is needed, someone on the team with more expertise in physics speaks up about it and we get excited. If graphic design is needed, the same thing happens. We all have strengths to contribute at times of leadership. That is what the team needs.
Manager does not always = leader for every situation. Managers are decision makers. An important skill to learn is how to influence those decisions, so they aren't telling you what to do, you are telling them what you need. Often good managers, if not technically savvy themselves, will have technical leads (people who are experts within the team) who help them make decisions. The difference between school and the working world is there are alot less barriers to success. Typically in school you are not resource constrained, or at least there is resource parity between teams. Your team structure would probably be different if you had to negotiate against the other teams. Imagine if there is only one computer for the teams to share, and the instructor got to decide how much time each team would have to use it. While internally the physics guy may be leading the technical side of the project, you will probably need somebody with a different set of skills to get you the computer time you need to be successful.
The type of modern capital risk nowadays is not a blacksmith who paid off his anvil and hammer years ago deciding whether or not to make a new horseshoe, it is a factory producing millions of horseshoes, and not knowing whether or not anyone wants to buy them.
I addressed that issue, the higher level of risk you are talking about is what gave rise to the corporate system. In fact the corporate system allows people to control their risk exposure. Let's say nobody wants horseshoes. While on the whole the million dollar horseshoe factory will lose out more (millions vs thousands), at the personal level the individual investor in the factory will likely lose out less than the individual blacksmith (investment dollars vs entire livelihood).
What is the alternative to risk? You said it yourself it takes millions of dollars to start up a factory. If somebody wants 20,000 computers, it is extremely inefficient to build a factory that can only build 20,000 computers. The reason is once that order is gone what are you going to do? Also, we live in a world of competition. If you are waiting on an order to build a factory, somebody else who already has a factory can fill it before you have a chance to even break ground. People on/. always take shots at marketing. But their job isn't just advertising, they are there to trying to understand the market needs. To ensure that factories are making products that people want to buy. If they fail you have factories over or under producing, if technical folks fail you have a broken product. In either case the company loses. The technical folks build it, the marketing folks sell it.
All flaws in the system - chronic overproduction, recessions, chronic unemployment (to where in the US, the economic term "full employment" actually means 5% or so are unemployed who want jobs and can't find them).
Wow, this must be the worst possible economic system, what is a better one? Every single economic system has flaws. You have limited resources, you can't make everything for everybody. All economics does is try to find the most efficient way to use and distribute limited resources.
Not to mention that the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage in the US is below what it was 30 years ago. But that too is just another side effect.
And our standard of living has increased. It doesn't matter what we make, it matters how we live.
The effects of this problem were alluded to by former GE CEO Jack Welch recently, "I think...you have a lot of capacity. So you got weak pricing power....You've got globalization. You've got global capacity everywhere...There are plants all over China that just built 20 million things that are coming in to this or that, so pricing pressure is what we're facing. The reason why jobs are tough is not volume. The reason why jobs are tough is there's no profitability
It's not just production in other countries, technology also has the same impact as globalization. Or do you not think jobs are lost when somebody creates a program that reduces the number of people needed to accomplish a task? How many bankers have been replaced by ATM machines, manufacturing workers by automation, statisticians and financial analysts by computer programs. Technology improves capacity without increasing jobs, do we abandon that too?
in my opinion the team should elect its own manager.
Who would you elect? The guy who is nice to everybody, knows exactly how the job can be done, can mentor you, but isn't very well spoken, and not abrasive enough to attack somebody else when they are wavering. Or the guy who may not know as much, is well spoken, able to debate and subvert others arguments, and is agressively trying to get ahead. Now before you answer, remember this guy is representing you to higher management. He will likely be debating other groups for resources, and debating higher management and marketing on timelines. Personally I've had both kinds of managers, and as much as I thought I would like the former, the workplace environment is better under the latter. Your managers responsibility is to get you what you need. If they know the nature of the job, all the better, but it isn't necessarily a requirement. What you want is for them to trust you, have enough intelligence to communicate your needs to others. Then you want to set them loose like a bulldog to get you those things. A key skill is to learn how to manage your manager.
very rarely can we ever -just- do our work, walking into the corporate world for me exposed me to a world of office politics and a slow bureaucratic mind numbing machine.
That's because we don't work in a vaccuum. There are people out of work who want your job, there are people in other divisions who want a raise, there are people who need your help to accomplish their job.
currently the people who get on top are the ones who are well spoken, have the best presentable image, but they are not the experts. so if they are not the experts why are they paid insanely magnified times the salary of a worker is actually the expert?
Because they have skills you and ambition many other people don't posess. If you are the expert, why don't you lead?
what does this guy above me do all day anyway?
Probably stuff you wouldn't want to do, all those annoying political things. Plus alot of difficult decision making. You can always try for the position to find out.
Why should there be any "risk" at all? If one goes back to the 16th century, a blacksmith and a tanner would come to an agreement - the blacksmith would work a few hours on a few horseshoes, the tanner would work a few hours on a hide, and then they would trade. If the blacksmith didn't know someone needed a horseshoe, and would pay him (or the tanner with the hide for that manner), he wouldn't make one.
There is always risk. The blacksmith took the risk, he has tools, workshop, training. He invested his time and capital to have the ability to make a horseshoe. The tanner doesn't go to anybody and say "make me a horseshoe", he goes to the guy who took the risk and became a blacksmith. The corporate system came about when the capital risks became so high, it was difficult for any single person to absorb. How many people have $1M to start up a small company? Now how many people have $10,000 to invest in a small company.
You can't treat something like a computer company that requires millions of dollars in investment as a true work-for-hire environment. It has to constantly be churning out product and trying to sell it, to cover the long term costs associated with the fixed investments (eg property taxes, electricity, upkeep, etc).
He fired most of the top managers and got rid of most management layers; there are now three. He eliminated nearly all job titles. There's still a CEO, but a half-dozen senior managers trade the title every six months, in March and September
Doesn't sound like democracy, more like getting rid of middle management and placing more trust at the worker level.
Like another poster said, if the standards are different, you can't compare them
Not meaningless if you actually think about it. "For example, rich nations generally employ more generous standards of poverty than poor nations." A comparison can be made so long as the country with the higher poverty rate also has a lower poverty lifestyle. For example when comparing 3rd world country to the US, where there is a clear difference in standards, the comparison can be made. A country with 50% poverty rate means that the poverty rate is actually >50% if using the same scale as the US. So the data supports that there are more poor people in other countries.
I have also visited many countries in Asia. When most of the people in a city live in homes consisting of partial concrete walls and corrugated aluminum (conditions basically considered homeless in the US) you quickly get a sense of relative living conditions.
People want something for nothing, and are willing to enslave others, then justify it to themselves because they're "saving" these people from poverty
That includes "Joe Average" consumer, who buys the $30 DVD player made in China. It's fine for somebody to save money buying shoes, TVs, and clothes made using cheaper labor; but as soon as it threatens their job, outsourcing becomes evil
Or did you think all poor people have a house, two cars, and satelite TV?
No but a hell of a lot of them have a trailer with electricity, running water, probably a TV set or at least a radio, food on the table, and a beat up chevy. Which is alot more than many people have in the rest of the world The percentage of people actually living on the streets eating from garbage cans in the US is far far less than in other countries.
The issue here in software programming which is skilled labor as opposed to who has the fanciest manufacturing plant.
It's a fallacy that electronic hardware manufacturing does not require skilled labor. Sure the people running the machines don't require alot of skill. But essentially they are the equivalent of call center people. Those factories also need: Technicians - Maintain equipment Mechanical Engineers/ChemE/MatSci/EE - develop machine processes, techical documentation, troubleshoot complex problems Industrial engineers - layouts, material flows, production improvements Business educated people - manage supply lines Other college educated - managerial, training, quality,etc.
don't think the whole mechanic/engineer analogy fits so well for programming. I think there is a
much closer relationship between compter science and programming than for mech eng and being a mechanic
As programming tools have improved, the level of thought for programming has decreased. Programming is segregating into the pure coder, whose purpose is to write and maintain code (eg outsourced programmers); and the software engineer who designs and programs. You also see an expansion on the other side. Because the types of tasks for computers has expanded, CS has moved more into mathematical/theoretical space, where programming, or even developing computer algorithms may not even be necessary (eg encryption, compression, linguistics, etc)
Programming well requires a good deal of abstract thought, so I'd expect that a typical CS grad from
a university is probably a better programmer than a typical computer programmer college* grad.
It depends, theory and practice don't always agree. While 90% of the time a CS major would be better than a programmer, there may be instances where theory doesn't translate. You can find excellent programmers who are more problem solving oriented, so can write tight maintainable code. While a CS may have a more elegant design that isn't suitable for a real application. You can also find instances where the CS may not even have the skills to fill the role of a programmer. Programmers typically will be skilled in many languages, as their role is to code. While a CS may only have theoretical knowledge of how each one works. Especially at graduate levels, where you don't necessarily need to write a line of code to be a CS.
The grass and roots are real, but seeds do have to planted and allowed to grow. what would we call it? Farmed grass? Cultivated roots? Lawn grass (as opposed to wild grass roots)? Bamboo?
Slashdot Mirror
I know, basically every enjoyable activity (with a slight twist of mind even every non-enjoyable one) can be addictive. But there are some modificators to apply for MMORPGS:
The modifiers apply to other activites as well. Playing an MMO isn't that much different than sports, movies, gambling, etc. If a particular activity doesn't explicitly try to take advantage of a modifier your brain will make it up all by itself
1. The +1 Syndrome (aka carrot-on-a-stick)
Like a runner pushing themselves for "just one more mile", or a gambler with 1 more coin, playing football for 1 more hour, shopping at just 1 more store, 1 more drink at the bar, sleeping for just 15 more minutes, etc. Basically your mind just convinces itself that the marginal investment will be made up for with some sort of reward.
2. Teamwork
4. Community
I would lump these two together. People are social creatures, we tend to gravitate to those who share something in common with us.
Teamwork lets us define ourselves by the accomplishments of a group, while competition lets us define ourselves relative to others who share similar goals.
Both fall under the umbrella of a community, where we are able to interact with those who are similar to us. Whether its the bartender, store clerk, or the player on the other team, you feel like they are part of the same group as you. Like the show "Cheers," you want to go where others know your name. Even the gambler in the dark corner of the casino will feel a sense of community through familiarity with the machines, with the waiting staff, getting a feeling of home when they play.
3. Freedom of aesthetics and personality
Often times people take on different personas even in without the anonymity of a computer. At the bar you're no longer "Bob the accountant," you are "Bob the guy who predicted the superbowl". You may not even have a name, and are just known as "the guy who chugged a 12 pack in an hour, or that guy who never missed a shot, or the guy who won the illegal street race in his old Honda"
knowledge can be shared without being diminished by the act of sharing.
The knowledge itself will not be diminished, but the effect of that knowledge may.
If I'm the only person who figures out how to get the bananas from the top of the tree that knowledge has value. I have access to harvest more bananas, less competition, etc. If I share that knowledge, everybody will have access to those bananas. The effect of that knowledge is dimished for me as an individual, because now I'm competing with others to get bananas again. However, for the group as a whole the effect is multiplied as the amount of accessible resources is increased.
That's where IP law comes in, to give incentive for the individual to share knowledge so the community can benefit. Basically everybody agreeing for a limited time to not pick the bananas from the top of the tree if you tell them how you did it. Trade short term personal gain for long term community gain.
Similarly, if you light a candle from the flame of mine, my room does not get darker
But your candle consumes air that otherwise could be used for my candle. It doesn't seem like much because air is so plentiful, but if our two rooms shared a limited air supply then I might not allow you to light a candle. Money and recognition are limited resources. If I simply allow you to take credit for something I created, sure it doesn't dimish the creation, but it does dimish the returns I receive.
There is no such thing as an "intangible asset". It is a legal fiction
You mean like personal privacy, human rights, free speech. All of those are merely legal defined terms, which only exist because we as a society agree they should.
So much of US Capitalism now relies on these outmoded artificial concepts that it is becoming necessary to invent increasingly bizarre laws to deal with it.
It's not just IP law, the world is becoming more complex. How do you define speech, life, ownership, privacy, property?
This is the 21st century, IP has become increasingly important because it's what we do. Not just the usual software, music, movie debate, but even in the creation of physical goods. Thanks to automation and mass production, the cost to actually make something is less significant compared to the cost to design something.
Just because it costs nothing to distribute doesn't mean it costs nothing to create.
The songs you write, the films you make, the programs you write, the inventions you invent, the clever little logos you create -- they are all ours and you can't take any of them off us. And if you don't like that, I suggest you stop having ideas.
Way to promote progress.
Cops going after people downloading a movie or something is different and would be completely wrong, in my opinion.
What is the difference? Counterfeiting merchandise is similar in that the damage done to the company is dilution in the value of an intangible assest (copyright or trademark).
"T-shirt inspector!" / *slap* / "No, really! I am a t-shirt inspector!"
/.
Of all the possible articles of clothing that you would want to have somebody remove so you can "inspect", and you chose T-shirt?!
That's the equivalent of being "that guy" who during a riot loots a box of Rice Crispies, when everybody else is grabbing TV sets and stereos.
You couldn't have chosen, bikini inspector?
Well I guess this is
:)
We're (laregly) made of carbon... This new material is also made of carbon.
So what you are saying is aggregated diamond nanorods are made of PEOPLE!!!
NoooOOOoooOOooOOooOO I have karma to burn
Master of Magic was a great game, and I know many people have longed for a sequel. It was a cross between Magic the Gathering and Civilization.
I'd love it if Sony and Nintendo got their act together and made the hardware information a little bit more available to the "bedroom coders" so we could get some "endorsed" grassroot fanboyism going....you know...like in the C64/Amiga/Spectrum heydays...I really miss that.
I'm sure Sony and Nintendo would love to have the same long term economic prosperity as C64/Amiga/Spectrum.
Deus Ex (ONE, dear god not two) is as close as you'll ever get to a successor to System Shock 1 or 2.
After playing the FEAR demo, I had flashbacks to System Shock 2. Maybe it will have less adventure type gameplay, but I found the mood of the game to be very similar
We do possess these skills, the problem is not -us-, the problem is the image you have inside your head that the techies are just coders.
But as you pointed out, "very rarely can we ever -just- do our work." Most people just want to get their work done. Some may possess the skills to manage, but not possess the desire to deal with the political issues. But those issues have to be dealt with by somebody
Most managers I would say are not ambitious about that field of study, but are ambitious to their own selfish means (make more money, appear more powerful)
Ideally you have technically knowledgable person with the soft skills to manage, but not everybody is so well rounded. If I had to choose, I would choose somebody who could manage, over somebody who was technically knowledgable to manage my team. Often what you find with a good manager is if they don't have the knowledge they will rely on their team. For example my work is in the area of electronics and metallurgy, and my manager was a statistician. He didn't have the background to understand intermetallic growth, crack propogation, joint fatigue, etc. He didn't have to, it wasn't his job to know what those things were, it was mine. He was, however, intelligent enough to understand the data and follow my interpretations from a logical standpoint, sometimes pointing out conflicts in my logic and the data, or finding points that weren't fully supported. He also had the skills to effectively communicate my work at a high level to others, and negotiate away issues that prevented me from accomplishing my tasks.
This is dangerous, one reason there are annoying politcal things to do is because the organization itself creates alot of red tape in order to get some simple things done.
While some is just red tape, other times its the fact that tough decisions have to be made. Resources are limited within a company, and everybody needs resources to be effective.
I can tell you every team i've had in school was the most successful team in the class. The reason is because each and everyone of us were experts, the elected manager was an expert plus a great communicator, and he also was down in the ditches coding with us late at night. On a note of leadership, natural leadership arises within the team depending on the situation, why physics is needed, someone on the team with more expertise in physics speaks up about it and we get excited. If graphic design is needed, the same thing happens. We all have strengths to contribute at times of leadership. That is what the team needs.
Manager does not always = leader for every situation. Managers are decision makers. An important skill to learn is how to influence those decisions, so they aren't telling you what to do, you are telling them what you need. Often good managers, if not technically savvy themselves, will have technical leads (people who are experts within the team) who help them make decisions.
The difference between school and the working world is there are alot less barriers to success. Typically in school you are not resource constrained, or at least there is resource parity between teams. Your team structure would probably be different if you had to negotiate against the other teams. Imagine if there is only one computer for the teams to share, and the instructor got to decide how much time each team would have to use it. While internally the physics guy may be leading the technical side of the project, you will probably need somebody with a different set of skills to get you the computer time you need to be successful.
The type of modern capital risk nowadays is not a blacksmith who paid off his anvil and hammer years ago deciding whether or not to make a new horseshoe, it is a factory producing millions of horseshoes, and not knowing whether or not anyone wants to buy them.
/. always take shots at marketing. But their job isn't just advertising, they are there to trying to understand the market needs. To ensure that factories are making products that people want to buy. If they fail you have factories over or under producing, if technical folks fail you have a broken product. In either case the company loses. The technical folks build it, the marketing folks sell it.
I addressed that issue, the higher level of risk you are talking about is what gave rise to the corporate system. In fact the corporate system allows people to control their risk exposure. Let's say nobody wants horseshoes. While on the whole the million dollar horseshoe factory will lose out more (millions vs thousands), at the personal level the individual investor in the factory will likely lose out less than the individual blacksmith (investment dollars vs entire livelihood).
What is the alternative to risk? You said it yourself it takes millions of dollars to start up a factory. If somebody wants 20,000 computers, it is extremely inefficient to build a factory that can only build 20,000 computers. The reason is once that order is gone what are you going to do? Also, we live in a world of competition. If you are waiting on an order to build a factory, somebody else who already has a factory can fill it before you have a chance to even break ground.
People on
All flaws in the system - chronic overproduction, recessions, chronic unemployment (to where in the US, the economic term "full employment" actually means 5% or so are unemployed who want jobs and can't find them).
Wow, this must be the worst possible economic system, what is a better one? Every single economic system has flaws. You have limited resources, you can't make everything for everybody. All economics does is try to find the most efficient way to use and distribute limited resources.
Not to mention that the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage in the US is below what it was 30 years ago. But that too is just another side effect.
And our standard of living has increased. It doesn't matter what we make, it matters how we live.
The effects of this problem were alluded to by former GE CEO Jack Welch recently, "I think...you have a lot of capacity. So you got weak pricing power....You've got globalization. You've got global capacity everywhere...There are plants all over China that just built 20 million things that are coming in to this or that, so pricing pressure is what we're facing. The reason why jobs are tough is not volume. The reason why jobs are tough is there's no profitability
It's not just production in other countries, technology also has the same impact as globalization. Or do you not think jobs are lost when somebody creates a program that reduces the number of people needed to accomplish a task? How many bankers have been replaced by ATM machines, manufacturing workers by automation, statisticians and financial analysts by computer programs. Technology improves capacity without increasing jobs, do we abandon that too?
in my opinion the team should elect its own manager.
Who would you elect? The guy who is nice to everybody, knows exactly how the job can be done, can mentor you, but isn't very well spoken, and not abrasive enough to attack somebody else when they are wavering. Or the guy who may not know as much, is well spoken, able to debate and subvert others arguments, and is agressively trying to get ahead.
Now before you answer, remember this guy is representing you to higher management. He will likely be debating other groups for resources, and debating higher management and marketing on timelines.
Personally I've had both kinds of managers, and as much as I thought I would like the former, the workplace environment is better under the latter. Your managers responsibility is to get you what you need. If they know the nature of the job, all the better, but it isn't necessarily a requirement. What you want is for them to trust you, have enough intelligence to communicate your needs to others. Then you want to set them loose like a bulldog to get you those things. A key skill is to learn how to manage your manager.
very rarely can we ever -just- do our work, walking into the corporate world for me exposed me to a world of office politics and a slow bureaucratic mind numbing machine.
That's because we don't work in a vaccuum. There are people out of work who want your job, there are people in other divisions who want a raise, there are people who need your help to accomplish their job.
currently the people who get on top are the ones who are well spoken, have the best presentable image, but they are not the experts. so if they are not the experts why are they paid insanely magnified times the salary of a worker is actually the expert?
Because they have skills you and ambition many other people don't posess. If you are the expert, why don't you lead?
what does this guy above me do all day anyway?
Probably stuff you wouldn't want to do, all those annoying political things. Plus alot of difficult decision making. You can always try for the position to find out.
Why should there be any "risk" at all? If one goes back to the 16th century, a blacksmith and a tanner would come to an agreement - the blacksmith would work a few hours on a few horseshoes, the tanner would work a few hours on a hide, and then they would trade. If the blacksmith didn't know someone needed a horseshoe, and would pay him (or the tanner with the hide for that manner), he wouldn't make one.
There is always risk. The blacksmith took the risk, he has tools, workshop, training. He invested his time and capital to have the ability to make a horseshoe. The tanner doesn't go to anybody and say "make me a horseshoe", he goes to the guy who took the risk and became a blacksmith.
The corporate system came about when the capital risks became so high, it was difficult for any single person to absorb. How many people have $1M to start up a small company? Now how many people have $10,000 to invest in a small company.
You can't treat something like a computer company that requires millions of dollars in investment as a true work-for-hire environment. It has to constantly be churning out product and trying to sell it, to cover the long term costs associated with the fixed investments (eg property taxes, electricity, upkeep, etc).
He fired most of the top managers and got rid of most management layers; there are now three. He eliminated nearly all job titles. There's still a CEO, but a half-dozen senior managers trade the title every six months, in March and September
Doesn't sound like democracy, more like getting rid of middle management and placing more trust at the worker level.
Like another poster said, if the standards are different, you can't compare them
Not meaningless if you actually think about it. "For example, rich nations generally employ more generous standards of poverty than poor nations."
A comparison can be made so long as the country with the higher poverty rate also has a lower poverty lifestyle. For example when comparing 3rd world country to the US, where there is a clear difference in standards, the comparison can be made. A country with 50% poverty rate means that the poverty rate is actually >50% if using the same scale as the US. So the data supports that there are more poor people in other countries.
For example, rich nations generally employ more generous standards of poverty than poor nations.
Poverty comparison
I have also visited many countries in Asia. When most of the people in a city live in homes consisting of partial concrete walls and corrugated aluminum (conditions basically considered homeless in the US) you quickly get a sense of relative living conditions.
People want something for nothing, and are willing to enslave others, then justify it to themselves because they're "saving" these people from poverty
That includes "Joe Average" consumer, who buys the $30 DVD player made in China. It's fine for somebody to save money buying shoes, TVs, and clothes made using cheaper labor; but as soon as it threatens their job, outsourcing becomes evil
Or did you think all poor people have a house, two cars, and satelite TV?
No but a hell of a lot of them have a trailer with electricity, running water, probably a TV set or at least a radio, food on the table, and a beat up chevy. Which is alot more than many people have in the rest of the world
The percentage of people actually living on the streets eating from garbage cans in the US is far far less than in other countries.
The issue here in software programming which is skilled labor as opposed to who has the fanciest manufacturing plant.
It's a fallacy that electronic hardware manufacturing does not require skilled labor. Sure the people running the machines don't require alot of skill. But essentially they are the equivalent of call center people. Those factories also need:
Technicians - Maintain equipment
Mechanical Engineers/ChemE/MatSci/EE - develop machine processes, techical documentation, troubleshoot complex problems
Industrial engineers - layouts, material flows, production improvements
Business educated people - manage supply lines
Other college educated - managerial, training, quality,etc.
don't think the whole mechanic/engineer analogy fits so well for programming. I think there is a much closer relationship between compter science and programming than for mech eng and being a mechanic
As programming tools have improved, the level of thought for programming has decreased. Programming is segregating into the pure coder, whose purpose is to write and maintain code (eg outsourced programmers); and the software engineer who designs and programs. You also see an expansion on the other side. Because the types of tasks for computers has expanded, CS has moved more into mathematical/theoretical space, where programming, or even developing computer algorithms may not even be necessary (eg encryption, compression, linguistics, etc)
Programming well requires a good deal of abstract thought, so I'd expect that a typical CS grad from a university is probably a better programmer than a typical computer programmer college* grad.
It depends, theory and practice don't always agree. While 90% of the time a CS major would be better than a programmer, there may be instances where theory doesn't translate.
You can find excellent programmers who are more problem solving oriented, so can write tight maintainable code. While a CS may have a more elegant design that isn't suitable for a real application.
You can also find instances where the CS may not even have the skills to fill the role of a programmer. Programmers typically will be skilled in many languages, as their role is to code. While a CS may only have theoretical knowledge of how each one works. Especially at graduate levels, where you don't necessarily need to write a line of code to be a CS.
The grass and roots are real, but seeds do have to planted and allowed to grow. what would we call it? Farmed grass? Cultivated roots? Lawn grass (as opposed to wild grass roots)? Bamboo?
How about domestication of geeks?
And which company haves the higher revenue? 14% of a lot is more than 17% of a little.
The point is AMD isn't choosing to not advertise to save money. They just don't have the economy of scale to get the same bang for the buck.
AMD don't have an incompetent marketing department they just choose not to advertise much and save the money.
AMD spends more (~17%) on Marketing/General/Adminstrative as a % of revenue than Intel (~14%).