I also think you probably aren't named John Smith:)
Actually, this a perfect example for why is "good" for the U.S. that so many immigrants settle there. It keeps a high variation in names associated with SSNs, which makes the risk of overlapping numbers and overlapping names occuring at the same time.
Actually, what I found is "A new Social Security number may be issued if you can prove that someone has stolen your number and is using it illegally." which sounds a bit weird to me. That is, they expect you to keep checking whether your number is used by only one person, which is - in a fortunate case - is yourself. I even heard rumors (that is, gossip, urban legend, etc) that even the case can happen when the SS office itself gives out a number that is already in use - can that really happen? If some illegal worker-wannabe takes a lucky guess - known to happen - and picks an existing number, how will you find that out?
All of you who keep trying to find excuses not to say this is a cool piece of equipment are just jealous. There are carmakers on this planet who have the knowledge, the manpower, the money, the vision to create, build and sell such machines. And this is awesome. Now come on, your wildest car-dreams probably wasn't about a Jetta, or a Civic. I really like to see such cars being built, not just for the speed and power, but for the quality of the whole package, the style, and the looks. We need the almost-insanely-above-the-higher-end category too:):P
Well, every time when diagrams and charts come into play I tend to get all sleepy and comatose. All projects I've been in and started with diagrams and charts got overengineered and overstaffed at the end, with questionable results. I'm not against diagrams, but I'm all in the favor of what "pros" like to buzz-call agility, start quickly, code small working parts, fit them together, if something wrong, go back change it or rewrite it, but constantly keep going. If you can manage to actually see some preliminary - even not entirely correct - results early on, motivation is also easier to keep up. I never saw exercising, quitting coffee and other suggested bullshit to help either (I still do both, coffee and exercising). The two largest motivation factors are getting working results and getting the work done and finished as quickly as possible. Maybe my case is a bit niche, since 90% of my coding time (which in itself is about half of my average work time) I do algorithmic stuff, still, getting even partial results quickly, and evolving from there always helped me keep on track.
Well, I could make an app to watch your face and eye activity and shout out loudly something like 'lazy worker! boss down here!' when seemingly comatose:)
#6 Headphones and "elevator music" are great for interruptions
Exactly as I think. If I don't have music handy, I just quickly tap into skyfm's chillout or eurodance. Also, after some hours of continous sitting and typing I sometimes have to remind myself to drink (water, that is:)) but if you needed that extra explanation, well:)) ), it might sound minor, but it helps.
Thing is, there's high probability that a 3.x earthwuake will happen in the drilling area around the time of the drilling, whether they drill or not, and most certainly people wouldn't even notice. Unless, of course, seismologists will especially listen to that moment and say the drilling caused the quakes, which they won't be able to prove, since such quakes are so common it's not even news.
Fear of quakes should not justify dropping the idea of using drilled geotermics, it's stupid.
Unless you ask common people for advice:P:D: It's terrifying [...] What's happening to all these rocks that they're busting into a million pieces?
I hate to say this, and I'd slap my own face for it too - which I won't -, but it's "easier" to invent good stuff when you don't work 12-16/7 on slave coding to feed yourself and your family.
I'd switch the order of those, but I probably am a bit biased - my being european and all:D Also, I've always thought "western" sw eng.s&coders tend to overengineer stuff from time to time.
They'd rather copy paste from my examples than look at the approach I've taken to a problem.
This probably has much to do with the work philosophies they come in contact with. Most of the time they are probably expected to deliver "faster" than "better". Also, outsource coders are probably working at companies which try to catch as many work as they can, dumping the work on their workforce, most of them working on many things at a time. I - thankfully - never worked at such a company, but I know people who did, and sometimes they have a hard time keeping up. I'm not saying I like the way it's being done, but I somewhat understand why they sometimes produce under expected quality.
Sacrificing quality is something you'd do for an in-house project, but would you really want to do that for a public-facing product?
A good point. But you see, if one can be as good for the third of that sum, then to compete with, those americans will just need to change their living standards, stop living off of credit, and so on. The rest of the world manages too. And you don't have to think third world countries. E.g. I'm in Europe, my income is about 1/4 of someone in the US doing the same job, my income tax is ~20 times higher than a CA resident's for the same income, the gas price is ~double the US average, and I could go on. And I still don't die in hunger.
Being well paid and being creative don't always come together, I could list quite some examples, I've met my share of those who were well paid and still being unable to solve any problems (engineering, algorithmic, theoretic, you name it) that mattered. Being overworked is just a state of being, which also doesn't mean you got overworked while being under-motivated and under-paid, since you could be well paid, motivated and still be overworked. I could go on with this, but the point is, your points don't always correlate.
it's pointed out that we actually get more done in those hours than they do in their longer day
Would be interesting to prove that, because it seems one of those unprovable fishy arguments. Also, it depends what one means under "work" and "done". Cause you know, we've all been to those places where meetings are a half day's time, and some people just seem to like sitting the days out on meetings. There are also those days when 10 lines of code mean more "work" being "done" than writing 200 or 2000 on any other day.
One other thing, the more west you go, the more the I-want-a-high-salary-job-cause-I'm-thaman attitute becomes the average. And it is such attitutes why I constantly hear "there's no work, there are no jobs" from the one side, and "there are jobs wherever I look" from the other. Standards and expectations need to be adjusted to economy, industry and social circumstances, and one needs to be flexible in almost every aspect of life these days. Crying won't help.
So, what's your problem with efficient coding robots? They have their places. Problem is, when an employer can't see what he needs most, and replaces too many sw engineers with coder robots. Other than that, I can see no problem with hiring a worker who makes the job cheaper and is willing to invest more effort.
... sincerely, so what ? How come, calculations of fuel consumption and pollution of army vehicles (planes, trucks, ships, submarines, carriers (!)) and of industries are less frequently slapped in our face than those of public transport and cars? They frequently preach us about how much pollution our cars produce, but all of it pales in comparison to army pollution. Also, there are very many trains that carry more people than most smaller planes, and they travel more frequently, and even more so on smaller distances. Who gives a rat's ass whether a plane pollutes less when there's no option to go with a plane on a gazillion routes?
Now let's talk about some topic that matters even less (if you can find one).
Well, maybe it isn't, but my Vista Home Premium at work "complained" this morning it had a new update, which was SP2, I let it download and play with it, now it's installed and it seems to work ok up to now.
Simple: one that is reliable, cheap (talking about TCO, not "free"ness[1]). Has the tools I need to produce [...] things I need from a computer [...]
The problem is you expect something to deliver exactly to your expectations, which is impossible. You want an OS that fits your knowledge level, your patience level, your usage patterns. Which is also impossible.
With Windows a lot of people were willing to learn and get accustomed to how things are done. Leagions of people. With Linux you come and say it doesn't fit to your expectations thus it is flawed.
transform the field of customer service. Such enthusiasts
These people - meaning the guy talking there - are really this dumb, or are they? Tech forums, irc channels, etc. around the world have been always swarming with higher-than-average knowledgeable users who are willing to help others, since I can remember, from day one of internet connectivity. Now we have newspeak for this too, enthusiasts giving free customer service:)
Get a clue, people. It would be better if they'd recognize already, that people seek advice in such places because company customer services have always been s*cking, and big time.(*)
(*) as a recent example, me solving a problem for someone in around 5 minutes, after she spent countless hours during 4 days on the phone and online with different customer service people; you all know the drill
Uhmm, no? It's millions. What's a few perks in comparison? One just needs to find the right place for them, to be at hand, should such problems arise again.
Now, first, dumb as a shoelace. Surveillance camera feeds are not posted on websites for everyone to see, no law allows that, at least in countries I'd be comfortable living in. In very many cases those feeds aren't een recorded. In some other cases the feeds are recorded for a specific amount of time (i.e. 24-48-... hours) and then automatically overwritten. There are - or at least legally should be - no places where every feed's recordings could be retained forever, or disclosed for the general public.
This guy should really get a girl with a beer and wake up.
many people have already told him they wouldn't be comfortable being filmed
As they should. If he won't go around with a large sign stating he's recording what he sees, he'll surel get some beating up at one point or the other in his formidable career.
If you have too much of something (workers in this case), it's simply not prudent to import more of it.
True, of course, to an extent. What I mean is there wouldn't be any point in bringing in workers if there's no work. But there is, just the allocation and/or selection process of the existing workforce pool is bogus, also there are quite a number of people who e.g. won't relocate, or won't further self-educate for another job, and so on. There are companies who probably think H1Bs are more flexible and less demanding in many areas, which is partially understandable, but such properties are not something which locals couldn't provide. I think the current situation in the whole industry will create a more flexible workforce in many areas and change the attitute of a lot of people, which will turn out to be a very good thing in the long run.
the US is no longer a place that one typically immigrates to
Well, probably holds true at least for the last decade. Yet, the current situation could also change this, since if people believe the US economy will come out faster from this than others, that could mean a renewed interest. Out of peculiar turn of events, I just got a green card, but for the moment I value my current job (not in the US) more than to try out my luck in the US. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how things will run out in the long term.
Slashdot Mirror
I also think you probably aren't named John Smith :)
Actually, this a perfect example for why is "good" for the U.S. that so many immigrants settle there. It keeps a high variation in names associated with SSNs, which makes the risk of overlapping numbers and overlapping names occuring at the same time.
B) they can't be changed
Actually, what I found is "A new Social Security number may be issued if you can prove that someone has stolen your number and is using it illegally." which sounds a bit weird to me. That is, they expect you to keep checking whether your number is used by only one person, which is - in a fortunate case - is yourself. I even heard rumors (that is, gossip, urban legend, etc) that even the case can happen when the SS office itself gives out a number that is already in use - can that really happen? If some illegal worker-wannabe takes a lucky guess - known to happen - and picks an existing number, how will you find that out?
All of you who keep trying to find excuses not to say this is a cool piece of equipment are just jealous. There are carmakers on this planet who have the knowledge, the manpower, the money, the vision to create, build and sell such machines. And this is awesome. Now come on, your wildest car-dreams probably wasn't about a Jetta, or a Civic. I really like to see such cars being built, not just for the speed and power, but for the quality of the whole package, the style, and the looks. We need the almost-insanely-above-the-higher-end category too :) :P
And you'd certainly do more damage ecologically in a Prius.
You're full of shit.
So, who cares if he's full of it or not. The shit comes pouring down anyway when you start talking about Priuses in a thread about a Bugatti...
Well, every time when diagrams and charts come into play I tend to get all sleepy and comatose. All projects I've been in and started with diagrams and charts got overengineered and overstaffed at the end, with questionable results. I'm not against diagrams, but I'm all in the favor of what "pros" like to buzz-call agility, start quickly, code small working parts, fit them together, if something wrong, go back change it or rewrite it, but constantly keep going. If you can manage to actually see some preliminary - even not entirely correct - results early on, motivation is also easier to keep up. I never saw exercising, quitting coffee and other suggested bullshit to help either (I still do both, coffee and exercising). The two largest motivation factors are getting working results and getting the work done and finished as quickly as possible. Maybe my case is a bit niche, since 90% of my coding time (which in itself is about half of my average work time) I do algorithmic stuff, still, getting even partial results quickly, and evolving from there always helped me keep on track.
Well, I could make an app to watch your face and eye activity and shout out loudly something like 'lazy worker! boss down here!' when seemingly comatose :)
#6 Headphones and "elevator music" are great for interruptions
:)) but if you needed that extra explanation, well :)) ), it might sound minor, but it helps.
Exactly as I think. If I don't have music handy, I just quickly tap into skyfm's chillout or eurodance. Also, after some hours of continous sitting and typing I sometimes have to remind myself to drink (water, that is
Well, there must've been at least a few Batemans here to mod that quote up, and to insightful while there were at it:) Killer coders :)
Thing is, there's high probability that a 3.x earthwuake will happen in the drilling area around the time of the drilling, whether they drill or not, and most certainly people wouldn't even notice. Unless, of course, seismologists will especially listen to that moment and say the drilling caused the quakes, which they won't be able to prove, since such quakes are so common it's not even news.
:P :D: It's terrifying [...] What's happening to all these rocks that they're busting into a million pieces?
Fear of quakes should not justify dropping the idea of using drilled geotermics, it's stupid.
Unless you ask common people for advice
$50-200k in student loans to pay back. It's basic economics
All true. Expensive education pushes towards expensive labor force. Nothing miraculous.
American college grads will be inventing
I hate to say this, and I'd slap my own face for it too - which I won't -, but it's "easier" to invent good stuff when you don't work 12-16/7 on slave coding to feed yourself and your family.
I'd switch the order of those, but I probably am a bit biased - my being european and all :D Also, I've always thought "western" sw eng.s&coders tend to overengineer stuff from time to time.
They'd rather copy paste from my examples than look at the approach I've taken to a problem.
This probably has much to do with the work philosophies they come in contact with. Most of the time they are probably expected to deliver "faster" than "better". Also, outsource coders are probably working at companies which try to catch as many work as they can, dumping the work on their workforce, most of them working on many things at a time. I - thankfully - never worked at such a company, but I know people who did, and sometimes they have a hard time keeping up. I'm not saying I like the way it's being done, but I somewhat understand why they sometimes produce under expected quality.
Sacrificing quality is something you'd do for an in-house project, but would you really want to do that for a public-facing product?
Of course not, I'm with you on this one.
A good point. But you see, if one can be as good for the third of that sum, then to compete with, those americans will just need to change their living standards, stop living off of credit, and so on. The rest of the world manages too. And you don't have to think third world countries. E.g. I'm in Europe, my income is about 1/4 of someone in the US doing the same job, my income tax is ~20 times higher than a CA resident's for the same income, the gas price is ~double the US average, and I could go on. And I still don't die in hunger.
Being well paid and being creative don't always come together, I could list quite some examples, I've met my share of those who were well paid and still being unable to solve any problems (engineering, algorithmic, theoretic, you name it) that mattered. Being overworked is just a state of being, which also doesn't mean you got overworked while being under-motivated and under-paid, since you could be well paid, motivated and still be overworked. I could go on with this, but the point is, your points don't always correlate.
it's pointed out that we actually get more done in those hours than they do in their longer day
Would be interesting to prove that, because it seems one of those unprovable fishy arguments. Also, it depends what one means under "work" and "done". Cause you know, we've all been to those places where meetings are a half day's time, and some people just seem to like sitting the days out on meetings. There are also those days when 10 lines of code mean more "work" being "done" than writing 200 or 2000 on any other day.
One other thing, the more west you go, the more the I-want-a-high-salary-job-cause-I'm-thaman attitute becomes the average. And it is such attitutes why I constantly hear "there's no work, there are no jobs" from the one side, and "there are jobs wherever I look" from the other. Standards and expectations need to be adjusted to economy, industry and social circumstances, and one needs to be flexible in almost every aspect of life these days. Crying won't help.
So, what's your problem with efficient coding robots? They have their places. Problem is, when an employer can't see what he needs most, and replaces too many sw engineers with coder robots. Other than that, I can see no problem with hiring a worker who makes the job cheaper and is willing to invest more effort.
... sincerely, so what ? How come, calculations of fuel consumption and pollution of army vehicles (planes, trucks, ships, submarines, carriers (!)) and of industries are less frequently slapped in our face than those of public transport and cars? They frequently preach us about how much pollution our cars produce, but all of it pales in comparison to army pollution. Also, there are very many trains that carry more people than most smaller planes, and they travel more frequently, and even more so on smaller distances. Who gives a rat's ass whether a plane pollutes less when there's no option to go with a plane on a gazillion routes?
Now let's talk about some topic that matters even less (if you can find one).
SP2 isn't included in Automatic Update yet
Well, maybe it isn't, but my Vista Home Premium at work "complained" this morning it had a new update, which was SP2, I let it download and play with it, now it's installed and it seems to work ok up to now.
Simple: one that is reliable, cheap (talking about TCO, not "free"ness[1]). Has the tools I need to produce [...] things I need from a computer [...]
The problem is you expect something to deliver exactly to your expectations, which is impossible. You want an OS that fits your knowledge level, your patience level, your usage patterns. Which is also impossible.
With Windows a lot of people were willing to learn and get accustomed to how things are done. Leagions of people. With Linux you come and say it doesn't fit to your expectations thus it is flawed.
Get a clue.
the world of high-end PC graphics simply go away?
No. It means the times of paying unreasonably high prices for a graphics card might go away. It's long overdue.
transform the field of customer service. Such enthusiasts
:)
These people - meaning the guy talking there - are really this dumb, or are they? Tech forums, irc channels, etc. around the world have been always swarming with higher-than-average knowledgeable users who are willing to help others, since I can remember, from day one of internet connectivity. Now we have newspeak for this too, enthusiasts giving free customer service
Get a clue, people. It would be better if they'd recognize already, that people seek advice in such places because company customer services have always been s*cking, and big time.(*)
(*) as a recent example, me solving a problem for someone in around 5 minutes, after she spent countless hours during 4 days on the phone and online with different customer service people; you all know the drill
can we please stop enabling these people?"
Uhmm, no? It's millions. What's a few perks in comparison? One just needs to find the right place for them, to be at hand, should such problems arise again.
they are filmed every day
Now, first, dumb as a shoelace. Surveillance camera feeds are not posted on websites for everyone to see, no law allows that, at least in countries I'd be comfortable living in. In very many cases those feeds aren't een recorded. In some other cases the feeds are recorded for a specific amount of time (i.e. 24-48-... hours) and then automatically overwritten. There are - or at least legally should be - no places where every feed's recordings could be retained forever, or disclosed for the general public.
This guy should really get a girl with a beer and wake up.
many people have already told him they wouldn't be comfortable being filmed
As they should. If he won't go around with a large sign stating he's recording what he sees, he'll surel get some beating up at one point or the other in his formidable career.
If you have too much of something (workers in this case), it's simply not prudent to import more of it.
True, of course, to an extent. What I mean is there wouldn't be any point in bringing in workers if there's no work. But there is, just the allocation and/or selection process of the existing workforce pool is bogus, also there are quite a number of people who e.g. won't relocate, or won't further self-educate for another job, and so on. There are companies who probably think H1Bs are more flexible and less demanding in many areas, which is partially understandable, but such properties are not something which locals couldn't provide. I think the current situation in the whole industry will create a more flexible workforce in many areas and change the attitute of a lot of people, which will turn out to be a very good thing in the long run.
the US is no longer a place that one typically immigrates to
Well, probably holds true at least for the last decade. Yet, the current situation could also change this, since if people believe the US economy will come out faster from this than others, that could mean a renewed interest. Out of peculiar turn of events, I just got a green card, but for the moment I value my current job (not in the US) more than to try out my luck in the US. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how things will run out in the long term.