I worked for a major US tech company with no union or lawsuits in it's history. I made good money, worked 40 hours a week and never got called off hours (although I did check email occasionally as a courtesy if I was home). My coworkers all had families and very good future employment potential. You fucked with their family time unnecessarily and they'd just tell you to fuck off. I was only called during a weekend once and my boss started that conversation with an apology. Most people took vacations to place where electricity was a luxury much less good internet access.
I have a few friends who have left high pressure work to spend more time with families - they are very happy and don't miss being threatened over their bread and butter with termination for not working 16 hour days.
The question is, why did they join in the first place? It's not hard to figure out what a company expects from you during the hiring process. You should also learn what you will be doing, who your manager will be and all the other vital details that will determine how much (or little) you will hate the job in question. The choice after learning all that information is yours. If you can't do simple math about how much free time you'll have and how much that compensation is really worth then you're probably screwed in life period.
If you're blindly assuming you'll work 40 hours a week without any solid information to that effect then you're a moron pure and simple.
I chose more hours at an interesting startup since my last job bored me to tears near the end. I knew the workload going in and I accepted it. Learning more in a week here than I was in months at my old job.
I know people who use Bing because google search results, for the queries they do, are so flooded with spammer sites as to be useless.
For example if I search for "ipad 3 release date" on google most of the sites are clearly spammer sites designed to catch that particular query. On Bing only two of the results are those sites and the rest are from actual tech coverage of the question.
I'm still trying to figure out, other than medical tourism, how a cheap plane ticket will extend my life.
Flying is safer than any other form of transportation so a cheap ticket that you buy instead of taking a different form of transportation for the trip lowers your risk of death during the trip. Thus a higher life expectancy.
You can go and man the barricades; become a martyr. Have fun. Personally, I'm going to make sure my ass survives. A few years ago I might have agreed with you but now? Well, no one really gives a damn to be frank and those in power won't care even if people did give a damn. Making a stand means nothing when not only does no one else put up a stand but quiet a few cheer on as you get dragged away.
What human interaction? Human interaction has been dead in school for decades now, can't have it when the state gives you a lesson plan and expect you to not deviate when teaching forty students in a classroom.
Having someone monologue for 45 minutes in person or via video is the exact same thing. Except the video may have someone whose actually a half decent public speaker.
Then the teacher may actually have time to answer student questions instead of spending all his/her time monologing.
Everything is ultimately pointless, one day you'll be nothing more than some rotting flesh in the ground. And that's it. I'm sure you got some excuse to use to claim I'm wrong but it's just that, an excuse. Granted, nihilism is pointless so we all pick some essentially pointless reason to live for. Something to flick those mental pleasure levers just like rats in a cage.
You're a slave just like those you complain about except you chose different bonds. The same pleasure levers are getting switched in your head by a bunch of pointless activities. You just picked a different set of those activities. Nothing wrong with that but don't act like you're anything but another rat in a cage.
Granted I'll admit that many people pick inefficient or downright unpleasurable activities that don't trip those mental levers so congrats on avoiding that trap. You may be happier yourself but you're just another rat like all of us and we don't all share the same happiness triggers.
Personally, I tried not working and I found it boring and generally miserable. To each his own.
Or you can go to a smaller town or rural community and get a very nice house for $70k. The Bay Area has hideously overpriced houses but it has pretty much guaranteed job security, you can always find another comparable IT job in SV. Smaller towns are the opposite.
In the end, it's up to you which one you find more valuable.
Promotion in most IT type places means quitting and getting a better job somewhere else. Pretty much no company promotes from within and certainly not for non-management jobs.
I took the last year off, and in my experience saying that to people like you who know I'm a workaholic of sorts is like telling a computer "true==false." I thought I needed a break so I took one. Simple as that and spending less money than I could to buffer for such insanities.
It was relaxing and I really needed it but it was boring at the same time. I was unfocused without work and side projects didn't help. First week back at a job was the happiest I've been in a long time (to be fair it was a much more fulfilling job than my last).) Still, without the break I would have never really known any of that.
So yes, take a break if you haven't and then figure out exactly what makes you happy.
They knew how to use Steam to power an "engine" even in ancient Rome. They simply found no need to use that knowledge for anything practical for a variety of reasons.
but they don't actually support the literal, exact bill in its current form.
Of course not, it doesn't give them enough benefit yet compared to competitors. Guess some politicians got some nice Christmas gifts this year to remedy that little problem.
No, they'll simply not make it blatantly obvious that they support it as they've already done with SOPA. And you'll fall for it as you've fallen for it this time.
Now they know just how easy it is to fool people like you and they're probably laughing about right now. While drinking $5000 wine. All it took was a bit of marketing double speak and you're their best friend again.
They haven't stopped supporting SOPA, they simply told you they have. And you're apparently the sort of gullible idiot who believes professional liars when they tell you something. God damn, sales and marketing folks have got to just love you.
If GoDaddy thought SOPA was to their benefit yesterday then they still think it's to their benefit today. The only thing that's no longer to their benefit is to make their support public. And there's no need to make it public exactly what that large political donation is exactly for.
Then again I don't expect clear thinking from someone stupid enough to work 100 hours a week.
The Bay Area has a long history with hippies. Generally people find them annoying for a variety of reasons and the hippies don't seem to care much about fixing their image. One friend wished it got below freezing in SF so all the hippies in their sandals would just die off for good. Guess who the Occupy movement got associated with in people's minds?
The way they went about "protesting" also strengthened that tie. My friend was downright amazed when the saw Occupy NY; they were very well organized (whiteboard of event, aisles to walk through the camp city, etc, etc.), generally in one area, peaceful and seemed like decent people who had it together. Occupy SF was to him a pointless mob who decided to block the center of town for their own amusement.
See? An experienced person would know the actual meaning of that phrase, obviously you don't. They would also know the proper use of the term "straw man" and again obviously you don't.
See once again you show yourself to be an arrogant prick, language changes and being pointlessly pedantic just makes people hate you even more. Another trait I've noticed in the old who wish to prove that they know more than everyone else even if it's utterly worthless.
Why, because you say so? The person experienced with Tech A is more likely to know how Tech A will relate to Tech B than the person who is inexperienced with both Tech A and Tech B.
Or they have habits honed on Tech A which taint their ability to evaluate both tech impartially. It's human nature. Arrogance is assuming someone without that experience (and thus habits) is not worth listening to at all. They have their own experiences and their untainted intelligence. Wisdom is pausing to try and untangle the whole mess.
The tech world moved quickly, it is downright stupid to act as if it doesn't.
Uh Huh... not like you eh?
Yes, except the difference is I only do this online to let it out of my system. You apparently don't. Personally, I found it both cathartic and a good way to really see how well supported my convictions are (if they're not I adjust my views).
Gee I guess people cant' just stay in a field because they like it then. Apparently in your value system you have to keep moving up the ladder or you have poor social skills. LOL that says nothing about me or reality in general and so very much about you.
Welcome to life, it's not fair as you should have realized by now. You should have enough experience by now to realize how it works and how people perceive things.
Unless the different perspective comes from being around long enough to know more than you then it's arrogance right? Where are all these guys telling you they're right because they are older than you???? I can imagine that might happen from time to time but I've never heard anyone say anything like that. But you have no trouble stereotyping a whole group of people... you know maybe it's you who attract people who say that sort of thing.
Yet you have no trouble stereotyping all young people as arrogant know it alls that you're so much above? You yourself said that age means you know better and you applied that to tech, society and everything in between. The only justification you really gave was "because my experience==age tell me so."
That, by the way, the same sort of argument that bad management uses. Their experience (in school and unrelated industries) means they know much more than the engineers (who have spent longer in the industry) and any input from the engineers is mere childish drivel.
I never said all older people by the way, I just said the ones like you. I do have others that I'm comparing against of course who I have no trouble with. They're the ones I'll happily recommend for a job if they need one at some point.
Merry Christmas and watch out for that coal in your stocking.
Looking forward to it, I need something to power the miniature steam engine I built.
Stop creating straw man arguments, everything is never equal which is the whole point of the problem.
generally someone who works X years at something will in fact know more that someone who works X/2 years at the same thing.
And when the question is if that thing is better than some other thing, they both have just as much experience. Zero.
There is a big difference between wisdom and blind arrogance, you appear to fall very much in the second. Experience is narrow and tainted by all the human irrationalities that make us who we are. Our memories literally lie to us. It is at best about vaguely related problems but in a field like tech it is rare to have too much directly related experience. Even then that experience applies directly to only the area it's in. It's damn useful but should never be counted on as the golden truth of anything.
The fact that you don't recognize that shows an attitude problem on your part.
No I simply realize my own human limitations and strive not to be crippled by them.
Maybe you have problems accepting that being more experienced than you generally does mean that they do know better than you.
They may know better than me in whatever field they have experience and that's it at the end of the day. Even then that experience is tainted with habit and isn't the best possible choice but merely they one they're used to. Until they demonstrate otherwise that is without trying to wield their age as a blunt instrument to silence debate. The arrogance of the old is to believe they have experience and wisdom in areas they do not.
LOL I only wish I could be around 20 years from now when some young punk tells you that you are just annoying and worthless and he knows just as much as you do.
Cool, maybe I can learn something from him then. It's always nice to talk to someone who sees things from a different perspective and try to learn from them. And if I haven't shown him my knowledge and wisdom through my actions and speech then that's my failure. I should know how to impart my knowledge and experience onto them in a way that they can actually learn from. Then adapt when they show that half of what I just told them is actually crap.
See that the real difference between an arrogant sob like you and me, I never really think I'm absolutely right. Like science, new observations may at any time destroy my worldview and I accept that.
I suspect that among the young guys who do have problems with older co-workers the problem they most likely have with the older guys is that the older guys do in fact know more and it makes the young guy feel inferior to admit that to himself. I bet the same guys had/have a lot of trouble with parental and other authority figures.
If it makes you feel better, keep making generalization and a smug attitude. Although I suppose you would make a horrid parent as well, not nurturing your child to grow but clubbing them down with worthless rhetoric. Then again someone who in their 50s and hasn't moved beyond software engineering likely lacks the social skills to properly convey their wisdom anyway.
Then be a senior software architect or whatever position is your cup of tea.
Point being that at 50 you're not at the top of your game and a 25 year old hot shot will run circles around you (due to lack of a life if nothing else). On the other hand you do have experience so you're much better off in a position where you aim those hotshots instead of trying to compete with them.
I don't want a new co-worker who will get all trained up, start to take on some real projects, work a bit on trying to improve things, and then leave for the next big thing, leaving us to find someone else to try and pick up the pieces.
Sounds like a boring place to be frank. I just started a new job, if I'm not running at 100% within two or three months then they consider me a bad hire. I'm expected to give my first recommendations of how to improve various products within a month while working on an infrastructure rebuild. They hired me because of what I learned at my last position and they expect me to use it here before my knowledge decays into worthlessness.
Just consider things like that long term. Are you going to want to job hop when you are 40? 50? Because the more job hopping you do, and the longer you do it for, the harder it will be for you to find work at a place that doesn't care for that.
You assume I can't slowly switch to longer stints at a place as I get older. Plus no one really hires older people that much anyway so the end game plan shouldn't depend on that happening.
Getting a half dozen promotions via switching jobs by 35 is going to net me much better options at 50 than if I had two promotions. An 50 year old IT manager is much more employable than a 50 year old Software Developer.
Just remember there ARE work environments that value keeping people around, but they want to hire people who will stay around.
Then they go under as some hot start up bankrupts them. Then you have 1000 unemployed engineers with no currently relevant experience competing for the fifty jobs they are still qualified for.
You should adjust how you live based on the location which is why I find these calculators BS to some extent. In NYC I don't have a car and don't care about a small apartment. Why? It's NYC, if you're staying at home often enough to care then you should move somewhere else. I also never cook, too many good $10 places on the way home from work. In Silicon Valley I had no need for a garage workshop, I just paid techshop $125/month for access to a 100 times as much equipment.
And yeah you may get paid 40% more and possibly even more right now with the hiring wars in Silicon Valley. Although I suspect that may shrink as the position gets higher but I really have no idea.
As for raises, my employer in SV gave me consistent 3-5% raises every year until the whole company started imploding. Then they gave me 30+% retention bonuses (some stacked) to not jump ship before they could sell themselves off. Fun times.
Face it: you are prejudiced and that's stupid. You think "new" is a feature to be counted equal weight with "does stuff" features.
It is. Tech moves quickly. If you don't move forward then by the time it's obvious you should have it may be too late.
Would you consider moving from gigabit Ethernet to 100 gigabit fiber (FDDI)? Even though that's "moving back"?
It's not moving back, usable 100gigabit fiber didn't exist back in the day . That's like saying using an ARM cpu for a netbook is moving back. Sure, using an 80s ARM cpu would be but using a 2011 ARM cpu is not.
that's what makes all the difference. I've been employed for about 3 decades (in the software field) and I've paid more dues than eric, in my time. he's attained a more powerful position but he knows far less about life than me - of that, I'm very sure. I can tell. anyone my age and with just my simple travels, can.
If you ever wonder why companies don't hire older workers, this is part of the reason. You guys are bloody annoying to work with when everyone on the team is younger than you. You expect your age to equal wisdom and to matter but frankly it doesn't. It's just annoying and worthless most of the time. Even if it is pertinent you probably can't convey it in a way that doesn't come off as "I'm older, I know better, now shut up." . You think those young hotshots will ever recommend someone with that attitude to their next company?
You should know that it doesn't matter what you know but who you know. And given your experience you should know enough people to never have HR be a problem.
Next time do even some research before spreading worthless garbage. Did a Russian rape your mother or something?
Seriously, I can't find one sentence in what you wrote that isn't false, that's downright impressive.
this will remain the case for at least 20 years
The Space X Dragon Capsule had it's first test flight in 2010.
the time it'll take for a functional Shuttle replacement to be designed, built, tested and launched given the current available funding (or lack thereof)
The Shuttle was a giant worthless dangerous money sink that should never be resurrected.
rockets are updated regularly, but when was the last time the US actually invented one from scratch through to completion?
Falcon 9- First Launch in 2010 Antares- First Launch to be in 2012
extreme age of all existing launch facilities.
I wish someone invented some way of building new things, boy would that be a wonder. Also, SpaceX is building a launch facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base right now. Guess someone did invent a way.
If a Soyuz carrying US astronauts reaches orbit but cannot dock with the ISS, the astronauts will be stranded. There's no rescue service possible.
So the ISS is populated by magical fairies that give the Soyuz their magic to get back to Earth and it can't de-orbit without their help?
More likely, if a stage failed, the rocket would be remotely destroyed along with the crew. Or it would smear itself over the landscape with much the same effect.
Unlike the stupidly dangerous Shuttle, the Soyuz system is perfectly capable of ejecting the capsule to safety even before launch. In fact, in one instance the they did do just that moments before the rocket exploded on the tarmac. Everyone survived.
We're increasingly aware that space is unsafe, but nobody is willing to stump up the cash to make it safe enough.
The Soyuz hasn't killed anyone in forty years, despite probably being run in a borderline criminally negligible manner for the last twenty. The Shuttle was handled with kid gloves in comparison and we still lost two of them. A capsule is just inherently an order of magnitude easier to shove with safety and failsafe features. More than once the Soyuz has reentered the atmosphere upside down while still strapped to it's orbital module. No one died. Imagine if the Shuttle did that.
It would also require total trust and cooperation between the US and Russia - and that would be political suicide for anyone in either country to suggest, let alone try.
The Russians seem to be doing rather well so far and I don't doubt SpaceX won't have much trouble either.
Slashdot Mirror
I just searched for "ipad 3 release date" with no quotes.
Bing gives me 3/10 SEO spam links. Google gives me 7/10 (!!!!) SEO spam links.
That's a significant difference.
Bing:
www.ipad3-release.com
blogs.computerworld.com/19558/ipad_3_release_date_specs_features
www.ipad3releasedates.net
www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/05/ipad-3-release-date-price-it
www.thetechlabs.com/tech-news/ipad-3-features
www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ipad-3-release-date.
www.iphonestuffs4u.com/ipad-3-release-date-features
www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/ipad-3-rumours-what-you
www.ipad3-release-date.com
www.ibtimes.com/articles/278123/20120107/ipad-3-release-date-march...
Google:
ipad3latest.com
www.ipad3releasedates.net/
ipad3newsblog.com/
www.iphonestuffs4u.com/ipad-3-release-date-features/
www.ipad-3-news.com/
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../ipad-3-release-date-price-itv-a
www.ipad3-release-date.com/
www.ipad3-release.com/
sequelnews.com/ipad-3-release-date-sooner-than-you-think/
www.washingtonpost.com/.../ipad-3-release-date.../gIQAM05eYP
I worked for a major US tech company with no union or lawsuits in it's history. I made good money, worked 40 hours a week and never got called off hours (although I did check email occasionally as a courtesy if I was home). My coworkers all had families and very good future employment potential. You fucked with their family time unnecessarily and they'd just tell you to fuck off. I was only called during a weekend once and my boss started that conversation with an apology. Most people took vacations to place where electricity was a luxury much less good internet access.
I have a few friends who have left high pressure work to spend more time with families - they are very happy and don't miss being threatened over their bread and butter with termination for not working 16 hour days.
The question is, why did they join in the first place? It's not hard to figure out what a company expects from you during the hiring process. You should also learn what you will be doing, who your manager will be and all the other vital details that will determine how much (or little) you will hate the job in question. The choice after learning all that information is yours. If you can't do simple math about how much free time you'll have and how much that compensation is really worth then you're probably screwed in life period.
If you're blindly assuming you'll work 40 hours a week without any solid information to that effect then you're a moron pure and simple.
I chose more hours at an interesting startup since my last job bored me to tears near the end. I knew the workload going in and I accepted it. Learning more in a week here than I was in months at my old job.
I know people who use Bing because google search results, for the queries they do, are so flooded with spammer sites as to be useless.
For example if I search for "ipad 3 release date" on google most of the sites are clearly spammer sites designed to catch that particular query. On Bing only two of the results are those sites and the rest are from actual tech coverage of the question.
Why? Where does the GPL version they were released under licence the patents in question to users or developers? Less of a risk doesn't mean no risk.
I'm still trying to figure out, other than medical tourism, how a cheap plane ticket will extend my life.
Flying is safer than any other form of transportation so a cheap ticket that you buy instead of taking a different form of transportation for the trip lowers your risk of death during the trip. Thus a higher life expectancy.
You can go and man the barricades; become a martyr. Have fun. Personally, I'm going to make sure my ass survives. A few years ago I might have agreed with you but now? Well, no one really gives a damn to be frank and those in power won't care even if people did give a damn. Making a stand means nothing when not only does no one else put up a stand but quiet a few cheer on as you get dragged away.
What human interaction? Human interaction has been dead in school for decades now, can't have it when the state gives you a lesson plan and expect you to not deviate when teaching forty students in a classroom.
Having someone monologue for 45 minutes in person or via video is the exact same thing. Except the video may have someone whose actually a half decent public speaker.
Then the teacher may actually have time to answer student questions instead of spending all his/her time monologing.
Everything is ultimately pointless, one day you'll be nothing more than some rotting flesh in the ground. And that's it. I'm sure you got some excuse to use to claim I'm wrong but it's just that, an excuse. Granted, nihilism is pointless so we all pick some essentially pointless reason to live for. Something to flick those mental pleasure levers just like rats in a cage.
You're a slave just like those you complain about except you chose different bonds. The same pleasure levers are getting switched in your head by a bunch of pointless activities. You just picked a different set of those activities. Nothing wrong with that but don't act like you're anything but another rat in a cage.
Granted I'll admit that many people pick inefficient or downright unpleasurable activities that don't trip those mental levers so congrats on avoiding that trap. You may be happier yourself but you're just another rat like all of us and we don't all share the same happiness triggers.
Personally, I tried not working and I found it boring and generally miserable. To each his own.
Or you can go to a smaller town or rural community and get a very nice house for $70k. The Bay Area has hideously overpriced houses but it has pretty much guaranteed job security, you can always find another comparable IT job in SV. Smaller towns are the opposite.
In the end, it's up to you which one you find more valuable.
Promotion in most IT type places means quitting and getting a better job somewhere else. Pretty much no company promotes from within and certainly not for non-management jobs.
Then just take a break, no one is stopping you.
I took the last year off, and in my experience saying that to people like you who know I'm a workaholic of sorts is like telling a computer "true==false." I thought I needed a break so I took one. Simple as that and spending less money than I could to buffer for such insanities.
It was relaxing and I really needed it but it was boring at the same time. I was unfocused without work and side projects didn't help. First week back at a job was the happiest I've been in a long time (to be fair it was a much more fulfilling job than my last).) Still, without the break I would have never really known any of that.
So yes, take a break if you haven't and then figure out exactly what makes you happy.
They knew how to use Steam to power an "engine" even in ancient Rome. They simply found no need to use that knowledge for anything practical for a variety of reasons.
but they don't actually support the literal, exact bill in its current form.
Of course not, it doesn't give them enough benefit yet compared to competitors. Guess some politicians got some nice Christmas gifts this year to remedy that little problem.
No, they'll simply not make it blatantly obvious that they support it as they've already done with SOPA. And you'll fall for it as you've fallen for it this time.
Now they know just how easy it is to fool people like you and they're probably laughing about right now. While drinking $5000 wine. All it took was a bit of marketing double speak and you're their best friend again.
They haven't stopped supporting SOPA, they simply told you they have. And you're apparently the sort of gullible idiot who believes professional liars when they tell you something. God damn, sales and marketing folks have got to just love you.
If GoDaddy thought SOPA was to their benefit yesterday then they still think it's to their benefit today. The only thing that's no longer to their benefit is to make their support public. And there's no need to make it public exactly what that large political donation is exactly for.
Then again I don't expect clear thinking from someone stupid enough to work 100 hours a week.
The Bay Area has a long history with hippies. Generally people find them annoying for a variety of reasons and the hippies don't seem to care much about fixing their image. One friend wished it got below freezing in SF so all the hippies in their sandals would just die off for good. Guess who the Occupy movement got associated with in people's minds?
The way they went about "protesting" also strengthened that tie. My friend was downright amazed when the saw Occupy NY; they were very well organized (whiteboard of event, aisles to walk through the camp city, etc, etc.), generally in one area, peaceful and seemed like decent people who had it together. Occupy SF was to him a pointless mob who decided to block the center of town for their own amusement.
See? An experienced person would know the actual meaning of that phrase, obviously you don't. They would also know the proper use of the term "straw man" and again obviously you don't.
See once again you show yourself to be an arrogant prick, language changes and being pointlessly pedantic just makes people hate you even more. Another trait I've noticed in the old who wish to prove that they know more than everyone else even if it's utterly worthless.
Why, because you say so? The person experienced with Tech A is more likely to know how Tech A will relate to Tech B than the person who is inexperienced with both Tech A and Tech B.
Or they have habits honed on Tech A which taint their ability to evaluate both tech impartially. It's human nature. Arrogance is assuming someone without that experience (and thus habits) is not worth listening to at all. They have their own experiences and their untainted intelligence. Wisdom is pausing to try and untangle the whole mess.
The tech world moved quickly, it is downright stupid to act as if it doesn't.
Uh Huh... not like you eh?
Yes, except the difference is I only do this online to let it out of my system. You apparently don't. Personally, I found it both cathartic and a good way to really see how well supported my convictions are (if they're not I adjust my views).
Gee I guess people cant' just stay in a field because they like it then. Apparently in your value system you have to keep moving up the ladder or you have poor social skills. LOL that says nothing about me or reality in general and so very much about you.
Welcome to life, it's not fair as you should have realized by now. You should have enough experience by now to realize how it works and how people perceive things.
Unless the different perspective comes from being around long enough to know more than you then it's arrogance right? Where are all these guys telling you they're right because they are older than you???? I can imagine that might happen from time to time but I've never heard anyone say anything like that. But you have no trouble stereotyping a whole group of people... you know maybe it's you who attract people who say that sort of thing.
Yet you have no trouble stereotyping all young people as arrogant know it alls that you're so much above? You yourself said that age means you know better and you applied that to tech, society and everything in between. The only justification you really gave was "because my experience==age tell me so."
That, by the way, the same sort of argument that bad management uses. Their experience (in school and unrelated industries) means they know much more than the engineers (who have spent longer in the industry) and any input from the engineers is mere childish drivel.
I never said all older people by the way, I just said the ones like you. I do have others that I'm comparing against of course who I have no trouble with. They're the ones I'll happily recommend for a job if they need one at some point.
Merry Christmas and watch out for that coal in your stocking.
Looking forward to it, I need something to power the miniature steam engine I built.
All other things being equal
Stop creating straw man arguments, everything is never equal which is the whole point of the problem.
generally someone who works X years at something will in fact know more that someone who works X/2 years at the same thing.
And when the question is if that thing is better than some other thing, they both have just as much experience. Zero.
There is a big difference between wisdom and blind arrogance, you appear to fall very much in the second. Experience is narrow and tainted by all the human irrationalities that make us who we are. Our memories literally lie to us. It is at best about vaguely related problems but in a field like tech it is rare to have too much directly related experience. Even then that experience applies directly to only the area it's in. It's damn useful but should never be counted on as the golden truth of anything.
The fact that you don't recognize that shows an attitude problem on your part.
No I simply realize my own human limitations and strive not to be crippled by them.
Maybe you have problems accepting that being more experienced than you generally does mean that they do know better than you.
They may know better than me in whatever field they have experience and that's it at the end of the day. Even then that experience is tainted with habit and isn't the best possible choice but merely they one they're used to. Until they demonstrate otherwise that is without trying to wield their age as a blunt instrument to silence debate. The arrogance of the old is to believe they have experience and wisdom in areas they do not.
LOL I only wish I could be around 20 years from now when some young punk tells you that you are just annoying and worthless and he knows just as much as you do.
Cool, maybe I can learn something from him then. It's always nice to talk to someone who sees things from a different perspective and try to learn from them. And if I haven't shown him my knowledge and wisdom through my actions and speech then that's my failure. I should know how to impart my knowledge and experience onto them in a way that they can actually learn from. Then adapt when they show that half of what I just told them is actually crap.
See that the real difference between an arrogant sob like you and me, I never really think I'm absolutely right. Like science, new observations may at any time destroy my worldview and I accept that.
I suspect that among the young guys who do have problems with older co-workers the problem they most likely have with the older guys is that the older guys do in fact know more and it makes the young guy feel inferior to admit that to himself. I bet the same guys had/have a lot of trouble with parental and other authority figures.
If it makes you feel better, keep making generalization and a smug attitude. Although I suppose you would make a horrid parent as well, not nurturing your child to grow but clubbing them down with worthless rhetoric. Then again someone who in their 50s and hasn't moved beyond software engineering likely lacks the social skills to properly convey their wisdom anyway.
Then be a senior software architect or whatever position is your cup of tea.
Point being that at 50 you're not at the top of your game and a 25 year old hot shot will run circles around you (due to lack of a life if nothing else). On the other hand you do have experience so you're much better off in a position where you aim those hotshots instead of trying to compete with them.
I don't want a new co-worker who will get all trained up, start to take on some real projects, work a bit on trying to improve things, and then leave for the next big thing, leaving us to find someone else to try and pick up the pieces.
Sounds like a boring place to be frank. I just started a new job, if I'm not running at 100% within two or three months then they consider me a bad hire. I'm expected to give my first recommendations of how to improve various products within a month while working on an infrastructure rebuild. They hired me because of what I learned at my last position and they expect me to use it here before my knowledge decays into worthlessness.
Just consider things like that long term. Are you going to want to job hop when you are 40? 50? Because the more job hopping you do, and the longer you do it for, the harder it will be for you to find work at a place that doesn't care for that.
You assume I can't slowly switch to longer stints at a place as I get older. Plus no one really hires older people that much anyway so the end game plan shouldn't depend on that happening.
Getting a half dozen promotions via switching jobs by 35 is going to net me much better options at 50 than if I had two promotions. An 50 year old IT manager is much more employable than a 50 year old Software Developer.
Just remember there ARE work environments that value keeping people around, but they want to hire people who will stay around.
Then they go under as some hot start up bankrupts them. Then you have 1000 unemployed engineers with no currently relevant experience competing for the fifty jobs they are still qualified for.
You should adjust how you live based on the location which is why I find these calculators BS to some extent. In NYC I don't have a car and don't care about a small apartment. Why? It's NYC, if you're staying at home often enough to care then you should move somewhere else. I also never cook, too many good $10 places on the way home from work. In Silicon Valley I had no need for a garage workshop, I just paid techshop $125/month for access to a 100 times as much equipment.
And yeah you may get paid 40% more and possibly even more right now with the hiring wars in Silicon Valley. Although I suspect that may shrink as the position gets higher but I really have no idea.
As for raises, my employer in SV gave me consistent 3-5% raises every year until the whole company started imploding. Then they gave me 30+% retention bonuses (some stacked) to not jump ship before they could sell themselves off. Fun times.
Face it: you are prejudiced and that's stupid. You think "new" is a feature to be counted equal weight with "does stuff" features.
It is. Tech moves quickly. If you don't move forward then by the time it's obvious you should have it may be too late.
Would you consider moving from gigabit Ethernet to 100 gigabit fiber (FDDI)? Even though that's "moving back"?
It's not moving back, usable 100gigabit fiber didn't exist back in the day . That's like saying using an ARM cpu for a netbook is moving back. Sure, using an 80s ARM cpu would be but using a 2011 ARM cpu is not.
that's what makes all the difference. I've been employed for about 3 decades (in the software field) and I've paid more dues than eric, in my time. he's attained a more powerful position but he knows far less about life than me - of that, I'm very sure. I can tell. anyone my age and with just my simple travels, can.
If you ever wonder why companies don't hire older workers, this is part of the reason. You guys are bloody annoying to work with when everyone on the team is younger than you. You expect your age to equal wisdom and to matter but frankly it doesn't. It's just annoying and worthless most of the time. Even if it is pertinent you probably can't convey it in a way that doesn't come off as "I'm older, I know better, now shut up." . You think those young hotshots will ever recommend someone with that attitude to their next company?
You should know that it doesn't matter what you know but who you know. And given your experience you should know enough people to never have HR be a problem.
Next time do even some research before spreading worthless garbage. Did a Russian rape your mother or something?
Seriously, I can't find one sentence in what you wrote that isn't false, that's downright impressive.
this will remain the case for at least 20 years
The Space X Dragon Capsule had it's first test flight in 2010.
the time it'll take for a functional Shuttle replacement to be designed, built, tested and launched given the current available funding (or lack thereof)
The Shuttle was a giant worthless dangerous money sink that should never be resurrected.
rockets are updated regularly, but when was the last time the US actually invented one from scratch through to completion?
Falcon 9- First Launch in 2010
Antares- First Launch to be in 2012
extreme age of all existing launch facilities.
I wish someone invented some way of building new things, boy would that be a wonder. Also, SpaceX is building a launch facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base right now. Guess someone did invent a way.
If a Soyuz carrying US astronauts reaches orbit but cannot dock with the ISS, the astronauts will be stranded. There's no rescue service possible.
So the ISS is populated by magical fairies that give the Soyuz their magic to get back to Earth and it can't de-orbit without their help?
More likely, if a stage failed, the rocket would be remotely destroyed along with the crew. Or it would smear itself over the landscape with much the same effect.
Unlike the stupidly dangerous Shuttle, the Soyuz system is perfectly capable of ejecting the capsule to safety even before launch. In fact, in one instance the they did do just that moments before the rocket exploded on the tarmac. Everyone survived.
We're increasingly aware that space is unsafe, but nobody is willing to stump up the cash to make it safe enough.
The Soyuz hasn't killed anyone in forty years, despite probably being run in a borderline criminally negligible manner for the last twenty. The Shuttle was handled with kid gloves in comparison and we still lost two of them. A capsule is just inherently an order of magnitude easier to shove with safety and failsafe features. More than once the Soyuz has reentered the atmosphere upside down while still strapped to it's orbital module. No one died. Imagine if the Shuttle did that.
It would also require total trust and cooperation between the US and Russia - and that would be political suicide for anyone in either country to suggest, let alone try.
The Russians seem to be doing rather well so far and I don't doubt SpaceX won't have much trouble either.