It is possible. First time I had that kind of commute it was because we moved the office and I managed to make a good case for a building that was close to my existing house, then I moved to another house that was even closer. Next time I just bought a house that was close to the office. Last 10 years or so, there hasn't been any place that I would want to live anywhere close to the offices, so we've lived farther.
Just remember, if you can telecommute to your job than anyone can...
Posting as Coward for a reason. If you are good at your job, nobody can replace you, your depth of knowledge about the product, the market, your coworkers, the tools, systems and processes your company uses. Most skilled knowledge workers need 6 months to "get up to speed" in a new organization, and continue to grow into more valuable employees as the years go by.
If you're just taking up space in the office, then, yeah, you'll need to be present to do that. Remote workers who do nothing are available really cheap overseas.
I do a mix of remote and in-office, and a lot of days I remote at the start and end of the day just so I can miss the rush hours. Sailing in to work, and back home, in 15 minutes or less on your own private interstate highway is so much better for the soul than 45 minutes of dealing with tailgating aggressive lane changers and all the other BS that happens on that same stretch of road during rush hours.
That Bangalore pendulum swings quite a bit... the head count is cheaper, but the net productivity that translates to actual income for the company... that can actually be more expensive to get from another culture on the other side of the world, even if they do all speak English and hold college degrees.
The office can be a good thing, especially if your home is not an ideal "developer" environment. My home is less than perfect for work (wife, kids), but it's still more productive than sitting in my cube. Interruptions by e-mail and chat are so much more manageable than the "Hey, you got a minute?s" that happen all too often in the office. Also, there are times in the office where it would actually be better to fire up remote screen sharing instead of walking back and forth between cubes - when we're remote, things get shared electronically by default, copy-paste of code snippets, etc. can be a whole lot more efficient than listening to someone who doesn't know what they are doing try to explain what they are trying to do...
It's not just the burning of fuel that's saved. Cars off the road don't have to be built, maintained and recycled as often. Cars off the road means the roads don't have to be constructed to carry as much capacity. Cars off the road mean less parking spaces that need to be paved. For me the big one is: Cars off the road means an extra hour, sometimes two, of time spent not-driving every day... when you only get 16 waking hours in a day, getting 10% of them given back is a huge bonus.
Instead of hitting the road for an intense two weeks of "time off" - we've taken a couple of 3-4 week summer vacations where we travel (off work) for a week, settle down somewhere not-home and I work remote for a week or two, then travel a bit more as time off. The office doesn't "lose me" for two weeks straight, and the family gets a longer trip, even if they do have to "share me" with work in the middle of it.
There's definite value in "face-to-face time" - especially with people who don't know how to work remote. But, for big corporations, employees who know how to work remotely are more effective at inter-site (cross country, and around the world) collaboration, working with consultants, and using modern collaboration tools - even with the face-to-face crowd.
In Florida at least, roadway lighting power is provided for free to the DOT in exchange for right of way and other favors. Much cheaper all around if you can avoid a metered, or even calculated, bill for usage.
Seems to me that a "two car" charging station could provide ports for 4 cars to plug into. When there is sufficient current capacity to start charging the next car, it starts - owner need not even be present. If the first two are in their "last 20% top-up" phase, that might leave enough for a third to start their heavy/early phase charge. I understand that real-estate is often at a premium, but the waiting cars are waiting somewhere nearby, aren't they - usually?
$90K for the car, $0.40 per minute "asshat fee." A 10% asshat tax on the car would purchase 375 hours of asshat time at the free charging station. As a flat per-minute fee, I don't think it will modify behavior where it really needs to.
If I were setting the rules of the game, it would charge $0.01 for the first minute late, $0.02 for the second (total of $0.03), $0.04 for the third, $0.08 for the fourth, etc. with a "grace" of up to $1 per day free overage charges forgiven. If you haven't paid your overage fees, no more free charging until you do - pay a minimum of premium gasoline equivalent prices to get charging privileges restored.
Ummmm.... including payment (CC at the pump), the "whole process" from parked to driving away from a petrol pump is typically less than 5 minutes for 250 miles (400km) worth of fuel.
The problem with a 15-20 minute charge time is that the kind of fuck-tard who buys a Tesla in the first place can't be tied down to one spot for 20 minutes waiting for something mundane like charging their car, their time is too important for that, gotta go get a latte or something. Is it their fault that the line was so long, or that the barista got their order wrong, twice!?! Oh, you were waiting on them, sorry man, blame the -itch in the coffee shop.
It's one of the most common snake oil scams... live longer, healthier in your old age, etc.
Doesn't mean that real progress isn't also being made - although life expectancy in the US took a bit of a dive over the last measuring period (was that a year, or 5 years? they say memory is the first thing to go, or at least I think that's what I heard.) Anyway, just because the peasants are dying younger doesn't mean that Ray Kurzweil won't make it to 120.
The death rate isn't all it takes to keep human population in check. Since 1966 the number of births has outpaced the number of deaths by a wide margin.
Immortality treatments will be expensive at first (slow rollout to 1% of the 1%), whatever adjustments are necessary for a world of immortals are already mostly necessary to keep the population 20B.
In an ideal world, there will be moneyed interests who will collect the political refugees and sponsor them to continue doing good work outside of their previous government posts.
Just wait 4 or 8 years, then return to business as usual... From the inside you can see what damage is being done, thereby enabling you to undo it quicker when you get authorized to do so.
"Yes, sir, right away sir, whatever you say, sir."
Slashdot Mirror
Look around for another post... I worked for a traditional crew like that, high turnover, miserable bunch. Felt good being part of the turnover there.
If they're trying to build a fast food franchise type of business, then, sure, the bulk of employees are just another commodity.
People who try to develop software with commodity developers get what they pay for, or less. Generally less.
It is possible. First time I had that kind of commute it was because we moved the office and I managed to make a good case for a building that was close to my existing house, then I moved to another house that was even closer. Next time I just bought a house that was close to the office. Last 10 years or so, there hasn't been any place that I would want to live anywhere close to the offices, so we've lived farther.
Just remember, if you can telecommute to your job than anyone can...
Posting as Coward for a reason. If you are good at your job, nobody can replace you, your depth of knowledge about the product, the market, your coworkers, the tools, systems and processes your company uses. Most skilled knowledge workers need 6 months to "get up to speed" in a new organization, and continue to grow into more valuable employees as the years go by.
If you're just taking up space in the office, then, yeah, you'll need to be present to do that. Remote workers who do nothing are available really cheap overseas.
Have you ever actually worked for a proper manager? I've heard about them, but only as fictional academic constructs.
I do a mix of remote and in-office, and a lot of days I remote at the start and end of the day just so I can miss the rush hours. Sailing in to work, and back home, in 15 minutes or less on your own private interstate highway is so much better for the soul than 45 minutes of dealing with tailgating aggressive lane changers and all the other BS that happens on that same stretch of road during rush hours.
That Bangalore pendulum swings quite a bit... the head count is cheaper, but the net productivity that translates to actual income for the company... that can actually be more expensive to get from another culture on the other side of the world, even if they do all speak English and hold college degrees.
The office can be a good thing, especially if your home is not an ideal "developer" environment. My home is less than perfect for work (wife, kids), but it's still more productive than sitting in my cube. Interruptions by e-mail and chat are so much more manageable than the "Hey, you got a minute?s" that happen all too often in the office. Also, there are times in the office where it would actually be better to fire up remote screen sharing instead of walking back and forth between cubes - when we're remote, things get shared electronically by default, copy-paste of code snippets, etc. can be a whole lot more efficient than listening to someone who doesn't know what they are doing try to explain what they are trying to do...
It's not just the burning of fuel that's saved. Cars off the road don't have to be built, maintained and recycled as often. Cars off the road means the roads don't have to be constructed to carry as much capacity. Cars off the road mean less parking spaces that need to be paved. For me the big one is: Cars off the road means an extra hour, sometimes two, of time spent not-driving every day... when you only get 16 waking hours in a day, getting 10% of them given back is a huge bonus.
Instead of hitting the road for an intense two weeks of "time off" - we've taken a couple of 3-4 week summer vacations where we travel (off work) for a week, settle down somewhere not-home and I work remote for a week or two, then travel a bit more as time off. The office doesn't "lose me" for two weeks straight, and the family gets a longer trip, even if they do have to "share me" with work in the middle of it.
There's definite value in "face-to-face time" - especially with people who don't know how to work remote. But, for big corporations, employees who know how to work remotely are more effective at inter-site (cross country, and around the world) collaboration, working with consultants, and using modern collaboration tools - even with the face-to-face crowd.
In Florida at least, roadway lighting power is provided for free to the DOT in exchange for right of way and other favors. Much cheaper all around if you can avoid a metered, or even calculated, bill for usage.
Seems to me that a "two car" charging station could provide ports for 4 cars to plug into. When there is sufficient current capacity to start charging the next car, it starts - owner need not even be present. If the first two are in their "last 20% top-up" phase, that might leave enough for a third to start their heavy/early phase charge. I understand that real-estate is often at a premium, but the waiting cars are waiting somewhere nearby, aren't they - usually?
$90K for the car, $0.40 per minute "asshat fee." A 10% asshat tax on the car would purchase 375 hours of asshat time at the free charging station. As a flat per-minute fee, I don't think it will modify behavior where it really needs to.
If I were setting the rules of the game, it would charge $0.01 for the first minute late, $0.02 for the second (total of $0.03), $0.04 for the third, $0.08 for the fourth, etc. with a "grace" of up to $1 per day free overage charges forgiven. If you haven't paid your overage fees, no more free charging until you do - pay a minimum of premium gasoline equivalent prices to get charging privileges restored.
You are getting "free" fuel (o.k. - pre-paid in the purchase price, but, still, the incentive scheme works like free.)
Have some courtesy to your fellow electromotorists, move your junk out of their way ASAP so they can get their "free" fuel.
Don't these things "drive themselves" anyway? Couldn't it auto-repark after filling up?
AC troll much? Cars don't cost more in Switzerland, just real-estate.
Ummmm.... including payment (CC at the pump), the "whole process" from parked to driving away from a petrol pump is typically less than 5 minutes for 250 miles (400km) worth of fuel.
The problem with a 15-20 minute charge time is that the kind of fuck-tard who buys a Tesla in the first place can't be tied down to one spot for 20 minutes waiting for something mundane like charging their car, their time is too important for that, gotta go get a latte or something. Is it their fault that the line was so long, or that the barista got their order wrong, twice!?! Oh, you were waiting on them, sorry man, blame the -itch in the coffee shop.
It's one of the most common snake oil scams... live longer, healthier in your old age, etc.
Doesn't mean that real progress isn't also being made - although life expectancy in the US took a bit of a dive over the last measuring period (was that a year, or 5 years? they say memory is the first thing to go, or at least I think that's what I heard.) Anyway, just because the peasants are dying younger doesn't mean that Ray Kurzweil won't make it to 120.
Brain cells, used and unused, die with EXPERIENCE. Those that remain form a better refined control system... up to a point.
The death rate isn't all it takes to keep human population in check. Since 1966 the number of births has outpaced the number of deaths by a wide margin.
Immortality treatments will be expensive at first (slow rollout to 1% of the 1%), whatever adjustments are necessary for a world of immortals are already mostly necessary to keep the population 20B.
In the UK, it will be a while.
We are them, and they are us. And all of this has happened before, and will happen again.
In an ideal world, there will be moneyed interests who will collect the political refugees and sponsor them to continue doing good work outside of their previous government posts.
In today's world... it's hard to predict.
Shanghai Bill's art of politics:
Talk big, do little, blame others, be popular.
So very, very true.
Just wait 4 or 8 years, then return to business as usual... From the inside you can see what damage is being done, thereby enabling you to undo it quicker when you get authorized to do so.
"Yes, sir, right away sir, whatever you say, sir."
Obligatory: http://www.marshallbrain.com/m...