Anyway, if this interests you check out a Washington Post magazine article
I only had time and interest to read part of the article. I find it interesting that you can spin things virtually any way that you want. I'll be the first to admit that we all have biases. But I think that there are two important questions to ask when looking at these types of studies:
Are the biases unique? - A study that has you associate words like "poor" with "black" and "rich" with "white" could be equally as well be performed on "poor" and "Hillbilly" with "rich" and "New Yorker". If I'm walking down a dark alley and come upon a group of individuals, I'm more likely to move the opposite side of the road if they're poorly dressed than if they're well dressed. In both cases, I can pull race completely from the picture and come up with a group of people that fit the profile that somehow proves that people of color are discriminated against.
Will you act on the bias? - Just because you have a bias doesn't mean that you'll act on it. For example, I'm biased in favor of hot young women in short skirts, but if you put one in front of me for an interview do you think that I'll hire her? Well absolutely, but only if she can write good code; just like any other candidate that I'd see. And I don't think that I'm different than most hiring managers in this regard. Smart people hire anyone they think can do the job, regardless of color or skirt length.
I remember a few years back that Microsoft was sued by a group of black employees who claimed racial discrimination. Their lawyers compared their employment to that of slaves, which was an obvious attempt to gain sympathy. The reverse happened, however, but probably not for the reason that you think. I'm in the majority of people who abhor slavery, and I couldn't believe that any group of people making $80K/yr and drinking free pop all day long would even dare compare their lives to those who were captured, sold, chained, whipped, and forced to work by their masters or face certain death. It's totally unbelievable that anyone would even attempt to exploit the memories of slavery for their own personal gain.
Because this discussion is about exactly one thing: non-white programmers.
In the context of the overall article, you're right. Take a look at his parent though. The discussion had shifted towards "I can't see your race because you're on the Internet" so race should no longer be a part of the equation. What I find really interesting is that, as far as I can see, his parent never identifies his race, yet the response is "It's really easy for you as a white person to say that color doesn't matter..." I'm not sure what race AuMatar is, but I certainly wouldn't assume that he's white like you might if his handle was JohnSmith or BillyBobFromArkansas. I think that la_migra perceives the comment to have come from a white man, but there are plenty of blacks and other people of color (like Bill Cosby) who are asking the same question about why the focus on race.
If you are a high school student, black/hispanic/white/whatever, and your family can't afford a PC and internet service, you would be at a severe disadvantage for getting into the IT field.
Forgive me for smiling, but I have to kind of chuckle when I read this. I grew up in an age when getting computer time cost real money, and my only access to a machine was a DECwriter in the lab at my high school connecting to a remote PDP-11 via a "fast" 300 baud modem. I was excited when I got to college and there was a whole room full of computer terminals connected at 9600 baud to a room-size Prime machine located just down the hallway. For printing, however, we were still limited to the old 300 baud dot-matrix printer.
I actually think that easy access to computer hardware with tons of processing power and lots of memory is bad for computer science. Too many CS students don't have any clue how the hardware works, and wouldn't know why row vs. column access of an array makes a difference. If you want to know why code these days is so bloated, blame the PC. Now I'm not suggesting that we go back to "the good old days" of computing (when we also walked 10 miles to school in the snow in our bare feet, both ways), but I would recommend to anyone that they take some time to learn the theory behind programming to become a better programmer. It's amazing how much you can learn by cracking open a book.
coming from the perspective of struggling Latino programmer trying to make it in the United States
So tell me, why do you identify yourself as a "Latino programmer"? I come from a Dutch background, yet I don't identify myself as a "Dutch programmer". There are also lots of other labels that I could use: "male programmer", "Christian programmer", "fat guy programmer", etc. I chose not to put a label on myself, and maybe when you stop thinking of yourself as a Latino programmer then you'll take the time to critically evaluate your skills and compare yourself to the only label that matters: "Professional Programmer".
Here's a taste of some reality: In the United States, blacks and hispanics have less good home life, less good schools, less good treatment by the government, less wealth, less college education. Just because you think you do not personally discriminate does not mean that your color of your skin isn't important to ending up being a big star in the computer field.
I've hired tons of people in my career working for a Fortune 100 company. Some of our best people were those who came from exactly the background you describe. In all honesty, I prefer someone with a "real" background than some pampered brat from an Ivy league school who expects everything handed to them on a silver platter. For myself personally, while I did have access to good schools and a good home life, much of the success that I have can be attributed to hard work. I'm not super smart, but I'll always out-hussle anyone on the block. I've also learned that the way to succeed in life is taking on the jobs that nobody else wants to do because it earned me recognition that I'd never have received otherwise. I'd recommend that you spend less time worrying about what you don't have and look for ways to get what you want. Just keep in mind that the path to the goal might not be what you expect.
Now taking that down to the code inside of a program is just ridiculous. If you've got a team of 10 people (which is small in the grand scheme), each one of them could, individuall write totally secure code. However, come integration time, it turns out that they are opening up holes in eachother's code. So then who's fault is it? What about QA? Shouldn't they have some liability too?
You're on to something here but didn't take it far enough. When my friends complain about bugs, I say something like this: "Your computer represents the work of literally millions of people, from hardware to software, that have worked virtually independently of one another to create a complete product. The fact that it works at all is a miracle. Please don't complain if something isn't to your liking."
I doubt that legislation like this would ever fly. The courts would be instantly buried in litigation, and assigning blame would be virtually impossible. I can think of 1/2 dozen bugs in our site that we could easily blame on PHP "not working as expected". The resulting chaos would simply bring the software industry to a standstill. I, for one, wouldn't write code any more after being in the business for nearly 30 years.
Not that Bush's idea (subsidize the building of oil refineries) is a great one. The oil companies are making big bucks: they should do it right? I heard that one made more profit last quarter than any other company in history. Could have been Exxon, I don't remember.
Ok, I have to admit that I hold some XOM, so take my comments for what you think they're worth. To me, there's a big difference between government *allowing* something and government *promoting* it. In the case of oil refinement, government has done neither. For the most part, due to lobbying by environmentalists, government has *discouraged* all forms of energy generation with the exception of co-generation. Want to burn off all the US natural gas supplies to create electricity? Here's your permit! But if you want to do anything with oil (drill, refine) or coal or nuclear or hydro then you're screwed. As a country we have to understand that we've created an artificially low supply by standing in the way of those who would deliver energy to us. And I'm sure that you remember from Econ 101 what happens why demand exceeds supply.
For what it's worth, I also don't advocate a "no holds barred" energy policy. Let them drill in ANWR and watch what they're doing, just like in Prudhoe Bay. Energy production doesn't have to be a win-lose proposition. It can be win-win.
Maybe not directly, but they sure hate their policies. As far as I'm aware, one of the main reasons that people illegally download music is for the "one good song" on the album. The popularity of iTunes reinforces that argument.
For example, if you write a hit song, and someone else TAKES it......what happens to you?
You know, I'm totally against stealing other people's stuff, but I think your comment hits the nail on the head as to what is wrong with the entertainment industry today. It used to be that people produced content because they loved what they did, and they were more concerned about the quality of what they were producing than how much money they were making. Today's mainstream music and movies really lack any serious passion because they're intended to bring in a revenue stream. (Star Wars Episode III would be the poster child for this kind of mentality.) Most of the interesting stuff out there comes in through independent channels. So I'd make the argument that we don't need the RIAA because we want something more than they're willing to give us. If you really want quality, you're probably better of investing your cash in your local performing arts. I doubt you'd see Ashley Simpson in a play at your neighborhood theater.
I have a serious question. If people are tired of the record companies, why don't they just stop listening for a while and find other forms of entertainment? Wouldn't the most effective way of sending the message that these guys are being jerks be to stop buying music? This isn't like gas, where a "boycott" means that you just delay your purchase a few days. Put enough economic pressure on the studios and artists and maybe things will change.
Why should the government get involved with a market like this?
I'm a huge believer in the free market, and the only reason I would ever advocate government involvement is when you're dealing with a scarce resource. In the case of cell phones, there is a limited amount of bandwidth available. It would be virtually impossible for someone today to start a cell phone company without having to deal with the existing players in some way. Maybe you can explain how you think MA could encourage new entries into the market. They certainly can't start allocating new frequencies for cell phone use.
Who is "they"? You are the one who made the big deal about memory slots.
A big selling point of virtually any system is its ability to expand. Vendors routinely publish numbers on how many memory slots are in a motherboard and how much memory can be jammed into a system. Are you trying to say that vendors don't publish these figures as a way of selling their products? What good does it do to say that a system can be expanded when you immediately fill all the memory slots? I'm not trying to claim that Gateway falsely advertised their system. I'm saying they were stupid in making that a selling point because then I would use it as a metric in determining the value of the system that they delivered.
I know slashdot UIDs aren't really a good indicator, but the fact that mine is less than 1/4th of yours should tell you something.
Golly geez, I have a really low Social Security number. Doesn't that count for something?
Really, what a stupid argument. Tell me that you were around back when COBOL and FORTRAN were current programming languages. Tell me that you bootstrapped your system using front panel switches and that you actually knew the bootloader sequence without looking it up. Tell me about the time you dropped a stack of punchcards and had to figure out how to resequence them. Not that this would make you any more or less important. It's just that you made lots of random statements about the state of hardware 10 years ago and your initial comments seemed to indicate that you weren't around during that period. If you were, that's fine, because then you'd know the pain of having to replace memory in matched pairs on the original Pentium processors.
For what it's worth, I've been a professional programmer since the mid-70's. This really doesn't mean anything other than a/. UID is totally worthless when ranking experience or knowledge.
Tell me two things then: A) Why did Gateway give you 4x4MB chips when it would have been more expensive to do so?
I suspect that it was an inventory issue. A simple call saying "we're out of 8MB chips and all we got is 4MB, is that ok?" would have put the burden on me. I will admit some failure in all of this. In hindsight it would have been a good idea to open the machine and look instead of making an assumption. But the whole idea of my comment is that I can't trust Gateway to do what's in my best interest, therefore I don't purchase from them any more. Wouldn't you do the same if you were in my position? (If you're tempted to answer "no", consider how you'd feel if you purchased a brand new car and a major system failed just after the warranty expired. Wouldn't you take that into account the next time you went to buy a new car?)
B) Assuming you have an answer to that, why would you be upset when your 4x4MB chips were worth "more" than the 8MB chips you wanted?
Because they weren't worth more, they were worth less because I effectively had to throw away two good modules to upgrade the machine. The market for used memory sucks.
When you buy a pre-built machine, you trust the vendor to do what's in your best interest, especially when they make a big deal about free slots for extra memory. Gateway failed that test.
If a 4MB chip cost $100 back then (I don't think it did)...
If you weren't around for the $100/4MB memory days, how would know how much an 8MB memory module was relative to a 4MB chip? Even if you go by today's standards, memory chips with twice as much memory are usually less than double the money. So I'm real curious what data you have to back up your statements.
I'm in total agreement with this. I've seldom ever seen a paper to electronic system work well. Plus there are a lot of things companies do today that's no longer required. For example, there are many smaller receipts that no longer need to be kept. If I remember right (and I'm not a tax accountant, so go talk to yours), I think that receipts under $75 are no longer required in an audit. I don't know about your company, but in most companies this means that 50%-75% of receipts don't need to be kept. Of the remaining receipts, you may want to revist the way that you handle expense reports. If I remember right, Amex will give you copies of everything at year-end that you just stuff in a folder. If you're smart, you can get rid of virtually all receipts.
The only caveat is that businesses are usually very reluctant to change business processes, so make absolutely sure that you have buy-off from the bean counters before approaching the management. Document the cost of handling all that paper, and you may find yourself with a new hardware budget to simplify the transition.
Nope. But the reality of the situation is that with the new technology people will steal stuff when they feel they're being ripped off. Drugs are illegal too, but that doesn't keep lots of people from using them. The record studios are supposed to be businessmen, which means that they should look at this from a business perspective. Sure, they can use the law as a huge hammer and get the government to enforce the rules, but the end result of that behavior is to alienate your user base who may use the power of the government against you. (Like in some ways what happened to Microsoft.)
I bought a machine from Gateway in 1995 (really!) and I'd never buy another one. Ordered a P-100 with 16MB of memory, back when 4MB of memory ran a cool $100 and had to be bought/installed in matched pairs. When I went to upgrade memory on the machine, I found all four slots had been filled with 4MB sticks, so I had to throw away $200 worth of memory before I could even think of putting more in. I called them to ask them what we could do about it, and they basically told me I was screwed. I was very unhappy with their answer, and I haven't bought another Gateway since. It always amazes me how a few stupid actions of customer service can cost a company so much business.
I suspect what we really want are free movies and that the 'downloadable' mantra was just a nice excuse.
I disagree. There are a lot of people and companies who are paying Linux vendors for the work they do. They don't need to, but they know that if they don't then those folks doing the work will just go away. If the studios are smart, they'll cut out all of the distribution costs and deliver movies at a price that people will be willing to pay. There's tons of money to be made if you charge what people feel is a fair price.
Funny you should say that $399 is cheap. If you want cheap, pick up a Microtel machine from Walmart, or build your own from any number of people selling parts on the Internet. I haven't paid more than $300 for a desktop machine in a few years now. I've also picked up a couple of bug-ridden Windows boxes that my friends gave me for free that I subsequently flattened and installed Linux on. Then again, I don't want/need support, and if I did then I'd probably buy a Dell.
While I'm glad to see any lawsuit that opens up the free market, I'm also not sure to what extent this is really needed any more. The "cat is out of the box" so to speak, and listing agents that try to close up their listing sources are just shooting themselves in the foot. Let's face it - there will always be a private listing pool that each agent will keep for themself, but the majority of listings need as broad an audience as possible to sell. As the market cools, the pressure increases to get more visibility to every listing.
Even if you didn't like the album you can show your support for artists (and tweek the nose of the RIAA) who support free(dom) content by acting as seeders for the file.
I have virtually no interest in music, but I decided to do exactly what you recommend. Why? Because I see a fundamental shift in "information" of all kinds and I think that the transformation that we're undergoing as a society has real benefits. The record companies aren't the only monopolists that have controlled the distribution of content for their own advantage. Take something as simple as the real estate market. Brokers used to be able to charge 7% for the "privilege" of listing on the MLS. Now you can get that number down to half that if you're saavy. (My last house sold for 3% total - 1% to my broker and 2% to the buyer's agent). What's interesting though is that there hasn't been a whole lot of resistance in the real estate community to the Internet. I think that they realize that they can conduct a lot more transactions with the help of the Internet, so on the whole they can make a whole lot more money easier than they did before. But the RIAA doesn't seem to get that, so the only way that they'll get the message is to have it pounded into their brains by artists and consumers. There really is no need for a middle man any more, whether it's music or real estate or news (bloggers) or so many other industries that make money by controlling information.
Google has a large team of developers, and they are probably capable of forking preexisting GPL code under the GPL2.
I'd also think that IBM, et al would take a close look at a fork as well. Right now they support Linux development as a way to build a community outside of Microsoft that will come to them for service and support. If a web site was forced to release their code (not sure based on other threads, but let's just assume for now) then you might see a shift toward BSD or (*gasp*) Windows. That would not be so good for IBM, nor would it be good for F/OSS.
Let's face it, corporate support for F/OSS will only continue as long as it serves their long-term interests. If the platform becomes unpopular then we're sure to see corporate backing for these projects dry up.
I wouldn't disagree with your statement about subsidies for farms, but I also think that you'd agree that this is good for cities. Most people forget that all the food on our store shelves comes from somewhere, so when Western Washington builds roads in Eastern Washington then those roads are used to transport food to keep the cities alive. It's impossible any more to buy and operate a farm in King-Pierce-Snohomish county because of land costs and land use restrictions. Many farmers operate east of the mountains because there is no other way for them to make a profit based on what they get for their product. You want cheap food? Better build road to it.
I've heard this same argument used the other way, namely that investment in Seattle benefits those people living in Spokane because they get the goods and services that they need, and to some degree that's true. The question is really one of "how much". Does investment in the Port of Seattle make sense for Eastern Washington? Sure, because a farmer out east may need a new tractor and have it imported. Does building a new sports stadium make sense? Well, this is a dubious claim. If someone could really show that sports stadiums bring in that many more people to the city then maybe you could make the argument that the farmer benefits from a larger customer base. But the reality is that we bought a brand new football field a few years back that gets used very little, and that money could have been spent on some other project like the monorail. To ask all the citizens of the state, both urban and rural, to support a project that's in trouble because previous spending priorities were out of whack just doesn't make sense.
There is an episode of Seinfeld where Elaine laments that all of Jerry's knowledge of high culture comes from watching Bugs Bunny. My fear is that the Simpsons is just this generation's Bugs.;-)
I respectfully disagree. It's true that the politicians pushed it, but when the 50 year bond proposal came to light, very few politicians were willing to jump on the bandwagon. I remember a few years ago when light rail was something like $1 billion over budget, Ron Sims was quoted as saying that money didn't matter and the project should move forward full steam ahead. That didn't happen here. I believe that both the mayor and city council would still be fully supportive if it weren't for the financial mismanagement of the monorail board. It really does take a lot of guts for them to take a stand on this issue, mainly because your average citizen doesn't understand (or care to understand) what a bond issue is and how it works. Usually projects like this are "feel good", meaning that we act not because it makes financial sense but rather that it makes us feel good about our community. The mayor's stand runs in stark contrast to that way of doing business, and it's about time. Had we seen this kind of fiscal responsibility earlier, we'd have no Seahawks Stadium which sits idle most of the time at a cost of nearly $1/2 billion.
Slashdot Mirror
I only had time and interest to read part of the article. I find it interesting that you can spin things virtually any way that you want. I'll be the first to admit that we all have biases. But I think that there are two important questions to ask when looking at these types of studies:
I remember a few years back that Microsoft was sued by a group of black employees who claimed racial discrimination. Their lawyers compared their employment to that of slaves, which was an obvious attempt to gain sympathy. The reverse happened, however, but probably not for the reason that you think. I'm in the majority of people who abhor slavery, and I couldn't believe that any group of people making $80K/yr and drinking free pop all day long would even dare compare their lives to those who were captured, sold, chained, whipped, and forced to work by their masters or face certain death. It's totally unbelievable that anyone would even attempt to exploit the memories of slavery for their own personal gain.
In the context of the overall article, you're right. Take a look at his parent though. The discussion had shifted towards "I can't see your race because you're on the Internet" so race should no longer be a part of the equation. What I find really interesting is that, as far as I can see, his parent never identifies his race, yet the response is "It's really easy for you as a white person to say that color doesn't matter..." I'm not sure what race AuMatar is, but I certainly wouldn't assume that he's white like you might if his handle was JohnSmith or BillyBobFromArkansas. I think that la_migra perceives the comment to have come from a white man, but there are plenty of blacks and other people of color (like Bill Cosby) who are asking the same question about why the focus on race.
Ok, this is slightly off-topic, but you aren't the guy responsible for UNICEF Bombing the Smurfs, are you?
Forgive me for smiling, but I have to kind of chuckle when I read this. I grew up in an age when getting computer time cost real money, and my only access to a machine was a DECwriter in the lab at my high school connecting to a remote PDP-11 via a "fast" 300 baud modem. I was excited when I got to college and there was a whole room full of computer terminals connected at 9600 baud to a room-size Prime machine located just down the hallway. For printing, however, we were still limited to the old 300 baud dot-matrix printer.
I actually think that easy access to computer hardware with tons of processing power and lots of memory is bad for computer science. Too many CS students don't have any clue how the hardware works, and wouldn't know why row vs. column access of an array makes a difference. If you want to know why code these days is so bloated, blame the PC. Now I'm not suggesting that we go back to "the good old days" of computing (when we also walked 10 miles to school in the snow in our bare feet, both ways), but I would recommend to anyone that they take some time to learn the theory behind programming to become a better programmer. It's amazing how much you can learn by cracking open a book.
So tell me, why do you identify yourself as a "Latino programmer"? I come from a Dutch background, yet I don't identify myself as a "Dutch programmer". There are also lots of other labels that I could use: "male programmer", "Christian programmer", "fat guy programmer", etc. I chose not to put a label on myself, and maybe when you stop thinking of yourself as a Latino programmer then you'll take the time to critically evaluate your skills and compare yourself to the only label that matters: "Professional Programmer".
Here's a taste of some reality: In the United States, blacks and hispanics have less good home life, less good schools, less good treatment by the government, less wealth, less college education. Just because you think you do not personally discriminate does not mean that your color of your skin isn't important to ending up being a big star in the computer field.
I've hired tons of people in my career working for a Fortune 100 company. Some of our best people were those who came from exactly the background you describe. In all honesty, I prefer someone with a "real" background than some pampered brat from an Ivy league school who expects everything handed to them on a silver platter. For myself personally, while I did have access to good schools and a good home life, much of the success that I have can be attributed to hard work. I'm not super smart, but I'll always out-hussle anyone on the block. I've also learned that the way to succeed in life is taking on the jobs that nobody else wants to do because it earned me recognition that I'd never have received otherwise. I'd recommend that you spend less time worrying about what you don't have and look for ways to get what you want. Just keep in mind that the path to the goal might not be what you expect.
You're on to something here but didn't take it far enough. When my friends complain about bugs, I say something like this: "Your computer represents the work of literally millions of people, from hardware to software, that have worked virtually independently of one another to create a complete product. The fact that it works at all is a miracle. Please don't complain if something isn't to your liking."
I doubt that legislation like this would ever fly. The courts would be instantly buried in litigation, and assigning blame would be virtually impossible. I can think of 1/2 dozen bugs in our site that we could easily blame on PHP "not working as expected". The resulting chaos would simply bring the software industry to a standstill. I, for one, wouldn't write code any more after being in the business for nearly 30 years.
Ok, I have to admit that I hold some XOM, so take my comments for what you think they're worth. To me, there's a big difference between government *allowing* something and government *promoting* it. In the case of oil refinement, government has done neither. For the most part, due to lobbying by environmentalists, government has *discouraged* all forms of energy generation with the exception of co-generation. Want to burn off all the US natural gas supplies to create electricity? Here's your permit! But if you want to do anything with oil (drill, refine) or coal or nuclear or hydro then you're screwed. As a country we have to understand that we've created an artificially low supply by standing in the way of those who would deliver energy to us. And I'm sure that you remember from Econ 101 what happens why demand exceeds supply.
For what it's worth, I also don't advocate a "no holds barred" energy policy. Let them drill in ANWR and watch what they're doing, just like in Prudhoe Bay. Energy production doesn't have to be a win-lose proposition. It can be win-win.
Maybe not directly, but they sure hate their policies. As far as I'm aware, one of the main reasons that people illegally download music is for the "one good song" on the album. The popularity of iTunes reinforces that argument.
You know, I'm totally against stealing other people's stuff, but I think your comment hits the nail on the head as to what is wrong with the entertainment industry today. It used to be that people produced content because they loved what they did, and they were more concerned about the quality of what they were producing than how much money they were making. Today's mainstream music and movies really lack any serious passion because they're intended to bring in a revenue stream. (Star Wars Episode III would be the poster child for this kind of mentality.) Most of the interesting stuff out there comes in through independent channels. So I'd make the argument that we don't need the RIAA because we want something more than they're willing to give us. If you really want quality, you're probably better of investing your cash in your local performing arts. I doubt you'd see Ashley Simpson in a play at your neighborhood theater.
I can hardly imagine a post more conforming to the slashbot troll mentality. Congratulations for your rather incisive commentary sir!
I have a serious question. If people are tired of the record companies, why don't they just stop listening for a while and find other forms of entertainment? Wouldn't the most effective way of sending the message that these guys are being jerks be to stop buying music? This isn't like gas, where a "boycott" means that you just delay your purchase a few days. Put enough economic pressure on the studios and artists and maybe things will change.
I'm a huge believer in the free market, and the only reason I would ever advocate government involvement is when you're dealing with a scarce resource. In the case of cell phones, there is a limited amount of bandwidth available. It would be virtually impossible for someone today to start a cell phone company without having to deal with the existing players in some way. Maybe you can explain how you think MA could encourage new entries into the market. They certainly can't start allocating new frequencies for cell phone use.
A big selling point of virtually any system is its ability to expand. Vendors routinely publish numbers on how many memory slots are in a motherboard and how much memory can be jammed into a system. Are you trying to say that vendors don't publish these figures as a way of selling their products? What good does it do to say that a system can be expanded when you immediately fill all the memory slots? I'm not trying to claim that Gateway falsely advertised their system. I'm saying they were stupid in making that a selling point because then I would use it as a metric in determining the value of the system that they delivered.
I know slashdot UIDs aren't really a good indicator, but the fact that mine is less than 1/4th of yours should tell you something.
Golly geez, I have a really low Social Security number. Doesn't that count for something?
Really, what a stupid argument. Tell me that you were around back when COBOL and FORTRAN were current programming languages. Tell me that you bootstrapped your system using front panel switches and that you actually knew the bootloader sequence without looking it up. Tell me about the time you dropped a stack of punchcards and had to figure out how to resequence them. Not that this would make you any more or less important. It's just that you made lots of random statements about the state of hardware 10 years ago and your initial comments seemed to indicate that you weren't around during that period. If you were, that's fine, because then you'd know the pain of having to replace memory in matched pairs on the original Pentium processors.
For what it's worth, I've been a professional programmer since the mid-70's. This really doesn't mean anything other than a /. UID is totally worthless when ranking experience or knowledge.
Tell me two things then: A) Why did Gateway give you 4x4MB chips when it would have been more expensive to do so?
I suspect that it was an inventory issue. A simple call saying "we're out of 8MB chips and all we got is 4MB, is that ok?" would have put the burden on me. I will admit some failure in all of this. In hindsight it would have been a good idea to open the machine and look instead of making an assumption. But the whole idea of my comment is that I can't trust Gateway to do what's in my best interest, therefore I don't purchase from them any more. Wouldn't you do the same if you were in my position? (If you're tempted to answer "no", consider how you'd feel if you purchased a brand new car and a major system failed just after the warranty expired. Wouldn't you take that into account the next time you went to buy a new car?)
B) Assuming you have an answer to that, why would you be upset when your 4x4MB chips were worth "more" than the 8MB chips you wanted?
Because they weren't worth more, they were worth less because I effectively had to throw away two good modules to upgrade the machine. The market for used memory sucks.
When you buy a pre-built machine, you trust the vendor to do what's in your best interest, especially when they make a big deal about free slots for extra memory. Gateway failed that test.
If a 4MB chip cost $100 back then (I don't think it did)...
If you weren't around for the $100/4MB memory days, how would know how much an 8MB memory module was relative to a 4MB chip? Even if you go by today's standards, memory chips with twice as much memory are usually less than double the money. So I'm real curious what data you have to back up your statements.
The only caveat is that businesses are usually very reluctant to change business processes, so make absolutely sure that you have buy-off from the bean counters before approaching the management. Document the cost of handling all that paper, and you may find yourself with a new hardware budget to simplify the transition.
Nope. But the reality of the situation is that with the new technology people will steal stuff when they feel they're being ripped off. Drugs are illegal too, but that doesn't keep lots of people from using them. The record studios are supposed to be businessmen, which means that they should look at this from a business perspective. Sure, they can use the law as a huge hammer and get the government to enforce the rules, but the end result of that behavior is to alienate your user base who may use the power of the government against you. (Like in some ways what happened to Microsoft.)
I bought a machine from Gateway in 1995 (really!) and I'd never buy another one. Ordered a P-100 with 16MB of memory, back when 4MB of memory ran a cool $100 and had to be bought/installed in matched pairs. When I went to upgrade memory on the machine, I found all four slots had been filled with 4MB sticks, so I had to throw away $200 worth of memory before I could even think of putting more in. I called them to ask them what we could do about it, and they basically told me I was screwed. I was very unhappy with their answer, and I haven't bought another Gateway since. It always amazes me how a few stupid actions of customer service can cost a company so much business.
I disagree. There are a lot of people and companies who are paying Linux vendors for the work they do. They don't need to, but they know that if they don't then those folks doing the work will just go away. If the studios are smart, they'll cut out all of the distribution costs and deliver movies at a price that people will be willing to pay. There's tons of money to be made if you charge what people feel is a fair price.
Funny you should say that $399 is cheap. If you want cheap, pick up a Microtel machine from Walmart, or build your own from any number of people selling parts on the Internet. I haven't paid more than $300 for a desktop machine in a few years now. I've also picked up a couple of bug-ridden Windows boxes that my friends gave me for free that I subsequently flattened and installed Linux on. Then again, I don't want/need support, and if I did then I'd probably buy a Dell.
While I'm glad to see any lawsuit that opens up the free market, I'm also not sure to what extent this is really needed any more. The "cat is out of the box" so to speak, and listing agents that try to close up their listing sources are just shooting themselves in the foot. Let's face it - there will always be a private listing pool that each agent will keep for themself, but the majority of listings need as broad an audience as possible to sell. As the market cools, the pressure increases to get more visibility to every listing.
I have virtually no interest in music, but I decided to do exactly what you recommend. Why? Because I see a fundamental shift in "information" of all kinds and I think that the transformation that we're undergoing as a society has real benefits. The record companies aren't the only monopolists that have controlled the distribution of content for their own advantage. Take something as simple as the real estate market. Brokers used to be able to charge 7% for the "privilege" of listing on the MLS. Now you can get that number down to half that if you're saavy. (My last house sold for 3% total - 1% to my broker and 2% to the buyer's agent). What's interesting though is that there hasn't been a whole lot of resistance in the real estate community to the Internet. I think that they realize that they can conduct a lot more transactions with the help of the Internet, so on the whole they can make a whole lot more money easier than they did before. But the RIAA doesn't seem to get that, so the only way that they'll get the message is to have it pounded into their brains by artists and consumers. There really is no need for a middle man any more, whether it's music or real estate or news (bloggers) or so many other industries that make money by controlling information.
I'd also think that IBM, et al would take a close look at a fork as well. Right now they support Linux development as a way to build a community outside of Microsoft that will come to them for service and support. If a web site was forced to release their code (not sure based on other threads, but let's just assume for now) then you might see a shift toward BSD or (*gasp*) Windows. That would not be so good for IBM, nor would it be good for F/OSS.
Let's face it, corporate support for F/OSS will only continue as long as it serves their long-term interests. If the platform becomes unpopular then we're sure to see corporate backing for these projects dry up.
I've heard this same argument used the other way, namely that investment in Seattle benefits those people living in Spokane because they get the goods and services that they need, and to some degree that's true. The question is really one of "how much". Does investment in the Port of Seattle make sense for Eastern Washington? Sure, because a farmer out east may need a new tractor and have it imported. Does building a new sports stadium make sense? Well, this is a dubious claim. If someone could really show that sports stadiums bring in that many more people to the city then maybe you could make the argument that the farmer benefits from a larger customer base. But the reality is that we bought a brand new football field a few years back that gets used very little, and that money could have been spent on some other project like the monorail. To ask all the citizens of the state, both urban and rural, to support a project that's in trouble because previous spending priorities were out of whack just doesn't make sense.
There is an episode of Seinfeld where Elaine laments that all of Jerry's knowledge of high culture comes from watching Bugs Bunny. My fear is that the Simpsons is just this generation's Bugs. ;-)
I respectfully disagree. It's true that the politicians pushed it, but when the 50 year bond proposal came to light, very few politicians were willing to jump on the bandwagon. I remember a few years ago when light rail was something like $1 billion over budget, Ron Sims was quoted as saying that money didn't matter and the project should move forward full steam ahead. That didn't happen here. I believe that both the mayor and city council would still be fully supportive if it weren't for the financial mismanagement of the monorail board. It really does take a lot of guts for them to take a stand on this issue, mainly because your average citizen doesn't understand (or care to understand) what a bond issue is and how it works. Usually projects like this are "feel good", meaning that we act not because it makes financial sense but rather that it makes us feel good about our community. The mayor's stand runs in stark contrast to that way of doing business, and it's about time. Had we seen this kind of fiscal responsibility earlier, we'd have no Seahawks Stadium which sits idle most of the time at a cost of nearly $1/2 billion.