They were not sophisticated enough to pull this off, but their local IT guy (me) was, and this is a little 5-person extermination company...
Isn't that a bit like saying "they couldn't write their own Operating System, but their local Computer Science guy could, and so there's no problem with even small companies programming their computers from the bare metal"?
I don't know what you charged them, but I doubt it was any cheaper than buying a cheap secondhand PC/laptop with a copy of Windows XP on to run that one program.
I'd switch, but the horrid VBA in Excel is still far better-documented and easier to develop for than any of the OO.org macro solutions.
Umm... this is/., we write real programs, not spreadsheet macros.
Not everyone is a full time professional programmer at work. I suppose admin staff shouldn't be allowed to use Excel for adding up travel expense claims, mileage, holidays taken, stationery cupboard requirements or whatever, but should be forced to submit their requirements to the company's Elite Programming Team and given a custom-written program for each separate task?
If hiring for all of these different departments is too difficult for HR, then perhaps HR should be gotten rid of and the managers of the departments can do the hiring.
I don't think you can ever have been involved with much hiring. There is a reason companies have HR departments: they don't want their highly paid managers to spend 90% of their time reading resumes instead of doing actual work.
If you're so arrogant that you can't be bothered to tailor your resume for the job you're applying for, because you think your sheer genius should be enough to convince anyone, you don't deserve an interview, never mind a job.
If they told me I had to "look professional" while at my desk working, damn right I'd fight that.
Why do so many people here have that attitude? You're being paid to work, you're a professional, not a student hanging out in their dorm room. Do you fight against the fact that you can't sit around all day wanking to anime? That you can't get drunk, throw stuff at your co-workers and call them whores and bitches?
However I have great difficulty understanding the mind set that wearing a suit would be throwing away dignity. Is this some sort of British style worry that you will be a class traitor if you put on a suit?
If you're applying for a well paid job as a programmer at the sort of company that expects you to wear a suit and tie for an interview, you're probably not exactly a revolutionary class warrior to start with, are you?
The simple truth of the matter is that nerds like to think they're superior to all those boring suit-wearing corporate drones who work for the same company, and the jeans/t-shirt are some sort of geeky badge of difference to show you're not a manager.
Wearing a suit and tie to an interview for a tech role is definitely not a good idea (here in silicon valley at least). Maybe for a management role yeah, but otherwise its often taken as an indication that the candidate is inclined towards form over function. Or that they just got out of university and got bad advice as to how to dress to an interview.
All it amounts to is that if the cultural norm is to wear a suit and tie for a job interview, you wear a suit and tie to a job interview. If the cultural norm is to wear jeans and a t-shirt, you wear jeans and a t-shirt.
I love how Americans can cheerfully work 80 hour weeks, but moan about having to dress smartly.
the going to the job interview in suit and tie (what the fuck for, nobody knows)
Companies like to know they are employing adults who are capable of making a small effort to look professional, as it is just barely possible the future employee may have to meet real people, even customers, in their job, and not spend ten hours a day in boxer shorts and a vest staring at a screen.
If you buy an entity because you want to make money from it, it's probably not a good idea to alienate almost all of that entity's existing customers. Especially if it's something like a website for which there are hundreds or thousands of immediately available alternatives.
I still remember when, as a child, I was told God created man and woman. When I asked how, my dad took out encyclopaedia and we read the fascinating story of evolution. I never thought there was any conflict between my faith and science. That seems to be pretty standard among 'believers' in Europe. I really don't get how this can be such a deal in the US. You can only stare at provable facts (and tools like carbon dating) and ignore them for so long before you feel like a fool.
It is reasonable to tell children fairy tales, it is not reasonable for adults to still believe in them.
The argument that God "invented" Evolution as a sort of programming environment is more sophisticated than the idea that he made Adam and Eve from dust and breathed life into them, but it's still no more susceptible to falsification, and is therefore unscientific.
How about teach the Indian cosmology, Chinese creation, African tribal belief's in cosmology? Do they have to teach all of that now too?
Why not? Comparative mythology is extremely interesting. I think if you don't know the Greek and Roman myths as well you're missing out on an awful lot.
Needless to say, that doesn't involve believing that Zeus was real.
Lot has always been my hero. The man can get so drunk he doesn't recognize his own daughters & he can still get it up. That people, is truely worthy of respect.
Christians have an easy get-out for this argument: it's in the Old Testament, so it's pre-Christ, so it's not relevant. Even though, when convenient, we quote Genesis for a description of creation, or whatever.
It beggars the imagination, but anything that did not agree with the concept of the universe being created in 4004 b.c.e. was not taught. This included a whole lot of physics. You couldn't teach about radioactivity, because anything with a half life greater than 6000 years was on shaky ground. There was no discussion of dinosaurs, and of course, evolution. we had a good bit of dissection biology, electrical based physics, and chemistry, we just didn't cover the entire periodic tables, every year it was a start at the beginning, and time ran out bofore we got to the forbidden elements, and no isotopes.
This is where all the Christians pipe up with "but that's just one extreme version of Christianity, I'm a PhD in astrophysics and a priest, and I can happily reconcile the two by labelling everything wrong or inconvenient in the Bible as metaphors/parables, and finally falling back on the un-disproveable assertion that God started the universe with the Big Bang."
I think kids need to learn about different religions in the same way they need to know about the slavery, laissez faire capitalism, racism and history generally. You need to understand your enemy.
Sure, that's fine. But my point is that parents don't get to choose a religious class over a science class, or a religious alternative during evolution week of biology class.
Sure they do, It's called "sending your kids to the local Catholic school"
Bullshit. I'm an atheist but my kids go to a state Catholic school here in the UK. They are taught the same subjects as in every other school, and I can cope with the slight additional Goddiness, it's not like they're forced to go to Mass every day and only study the Bible. It's just a good school.
Catholics aren't all Opus Dei and self flagellation.
Home schooling and weirdo religious schools should be illegal anyway.
As a non-American I'm really not in favour of absolute freedom of religious expression when it gets to the point that you can force your kids to be brought up with no access to alternatives to your own religious views.
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They were not sophisticated enough to pull this off, but their local IT guy (me) was, and this is a little 5-person extermination company...
Isn't that a bit like saying "they couldn't write their own Operating System, but their local Computer Science guy could, and so there's no problem with even small companies programming their computers from the bare metal"?
I don't know what you charged them, but I doubt it was any cheaper than buying a cheap secondhand PC/laptop with a copy of Windows XP on to run that one program.
A lot of people here don't think that ordinary humans should even be allowed to use computers, never mind pseudo-program them.
I'd switch, but the horrid VBA in Excel is still far better-documented and easier to develop for than any of the OO.org macro solutions.
Umm... this is /., we write real programs, not spreadsheet macros.
Not everyone is a full time professional programmer at work. I suppose admin staff shouldn't be allowed to use Excel for adding up travel expense claims, mileage, holidays taken, stationery cupboard requirements or whatever, but should be forced to submit their requirements to the company's Elite Programming Team and given a custom-written program for each separate task?
and that's exactly the reason I don't send docs in Office format, instead I use PDF.
That's fine until someone says you have to submit docs in Office format or you won't get the job/contract/new kidney for your child.
The fact that it's wrong doesn't mean you won't suffer by not playing by their rules.
If hiring for all of these different departments is too difficult for HR, then perhaps HR should be gotten rid of and the managers of the departments can do the hiring.
I don't think you can ever have been involved with much hiring. There is a reason companies have HR departments: they don't want their highly paid managers to spend 90% of their time reading resumes instead of doing actual work.
If you're so arrogant that you can't be bothered to tailor your resume for the job you're applying for, because you think your sheer genius should be enough to convince anyone, you don't deserve an interview, never mind a job.
If they told me I had to "look professional" while at my desk working, damn right I'd fight that.
Why do so many people here have that attitude? You're being paid to work, you're a professional, not a student hanging out in their dorm room. Do you fight against the fact that you can't sit around all day wanking to anime? That you can't get drunk, throw stuff at your co-workers and call them whores and bitches?
However I have great difficulty understanding the mind set that wearing a suit would be throwing away dignity. Is this some sort of British style worry that you will be a class traitor if you put on a suit?
If you're applying for a well paid job as a programmer at the sort of company that expects you to wear a suit and tie for an interview, you're probably not exactly a revolutionary class warrior to start with, are you?
The simple truth of the matter is that nerds like to think they're superior to all those boring suit-wearing corporate drones who work for the same company, and the jeans/t-shirt are some sort of geeky badge of difference to show you're not a manager.
Wearing a suit and tie to an interview for a tech role is definitely not a good idea (here in silicon valley at least). Maybe for a management role yeah, but otherwise its often taken as an indication that the candidate is inclined towards form over function. Or that they just got out of university and got bad advice as to how to dress to an interview.
All it amounts to is that if the cultural norm is to wear a suit and tie for a job interview, you wear a suit and tie to a job interview. If the cultural norm is to wear jeans and a t-shirt, you wear jeans and a t-shirt.
I love how Americans can cheerfully work 80 hour weeks, but moan about having to dress smartly.
the going to the job interview in suit and tie (what the fuck for, nobody knows)
Companies like to know they are employing adults who are capable of making a small effort to look professional, as it is just barely possible the future employee may have to meet real people, even customers, in their job, and not spend ten hours a day in boxer shorts and a vest staring at a screen.
Or drop the name of an important and probably well-connected uncle.
If you have one of those I doubt you'll be submitting your resume to HR as part of the "interview" process.
I already paid them money, by subscribing, so that I'm not shown ads.
I don't subscribe, but can disable ads anyway (as an option, not by using AdBlock). I wonder how long that will last?
If you buy an entity because you want to make money from it, it's probably not a good idea to alienate almost all of that entity's existing customers. Especially if it's something like a website for which there are hundreds or thousands of immediately available alternatives.
I know what you're thinking, and they don't sell actual dice.
I assumed it was some sort of online gambling site.
The other thing to do is start blogging. When you see something you want to comment on, you put it on a damned blog instead of posting a comment.
That's like masturbating into a sock instead of having hot group sex.
Can we have a dice.com story category so that we can just ignore them all?
What else is there to go to? Reddit?
Between The Register and Torrent Freak, you will get most of the good stories on slashdot, and a day or two early!
It's not the stories that make slahsdot worth visiting, it's the comments.
Getting tech or any other type of news on the internet is hardly a serious challenge.
I still remember when, as a child, I was told God created man and woman. When I asked how, my dad took out encyclopaedia and we read the fascinating story of evolution. I never thought there was any conflict between my faith and science. That seems to be pretty standard among 'believers' in Europe. I really don't get how this can be such a deal in the US. You can only stare at provable facts (and tools like carbon dating) and ignore them for so long before you feel like a fool.
It is reasonable to tell children fairy tales, it is not reasonable for adults to still believe in them.
The argument that God "invented" Evolution as a sort of programming environment is more sophisticated than the idea that he made Adam and Eve from dust and breathed life into them, but it's still no more susceptible to falsification, and is therefore unscientific.
The thing is, if no one complains about or questions this, the Fundamentalist Christian Trolls will end up getting their wish.
How about teach the Indian cosmology, Chinese creation, African tribal belief's in cosmology? Do they have to teach all of that now too?
Why not? Comparative mythology is extremely interesting. I think if you don't know the Greek and Roman myths as well you're missing out on an awful lot.
Needless to say, that doesn't involve believing that Zeus was real.
Lot has always been my hero. The man can get so drunk he doesn't recognize his own daughters & he can still get it up. That people, is truely worthy of respect.
Just don't try that as your defence in court.
Christians have an easy get-out for this argument: it's in the Old Testament, so it's pre-Christ, so it's not relevant. Even though, when convenient, we quote Genesis for a description of creation, or whatever.
It beggars the imagination, but anything that did not agree with the concept of the universe being created in 4004 b.c.e. was not taught. This included a whole lot of physics. You couldn't teach about radioactivity, because anything with a half life greater than 6000 years was on shaky ground. There was no discussion of dinosaurs, and of course, evolution. we had a good bit of dissection biology, electrical based physics, and chemistry, we just didn't cover the entire periodic tables, every year it was a start at the beginning, and time ran out bofore we got to the forbidden elements, and no isotopes.
This is where all the Christians pipe up with "but that's just one extreme version of Christianity, I'm a PhD in astrophysics and a priest, and I can happily reconcile the two by labelling everything wrong or inconvenient in the Bible as metaphors/parables, and finally falling back on the un-disproveable assertion that God started the universe with the Big Bang."
I think kids need to learn about different religions in the same way they need to know about the slavery, laissez faire capitalism, racism and history generally. You need to understand your enemy.
Sure, that's fine. But my point is that parents don't get to choose a religious class over a science class, or a religious alternative during evolution week of biology class.
Sure they do, It's called "sending your kids to the local Catholic school"
Bullshit. I'm an atheist but my kids go to a state Catholic school here in the UK. They are taught the same subjects as in every other school, and I can cope with the slight additional Goddiness, it's not like they're forced to go to Mass every day and only study the Bible. It's just a good school.
Catholics aren't all Opus Dei and self flagellation.
As a non-American I'm really not in favour of absolute freedom of religious expression when it gets to the point that you can force your kids to be brought up with no access to alternatives to your own religious views.