it's more than a little hassle to have to purchase a new phone. if i order it online, i have to wait for it to be delivered same as waiting for a new credit card to be delivered. i could possibly drive to a store, but honestly, i'd rather wait a few days than have to spend an evening at the mall or whatever getting a new phone.
that, and unless you are an apple zombie you will probably need to spend some time researching what phone to get before you plunk down $600.
So if a company has a good long-term outlook and I buy in, and the stock does well for a period of time, then six months later the CEO dies in a car accident and is replaced by somebody who immediately starts running the company into the ground
if that happened, you didn't do your homework in the first place so deal with the consequences. any company that lives and dies by a particular CEO is a bad investment.
a good example is steve j. people pretty much viewed him as *the* man with the plan, and the brain behind all of apple's recent success. did the company fall apart when he passed away? nope, stock is still going up. apple has built a culture around steve's thinking.
if you invested in apple because you thought steve was awesome, then you're a fool. if you invested in apple because apple was building a culture of innovation around the thinking of steve, then good for you.
is there any advice for someone who can't really risk the mortgage and kid's education on a whim?
realistically, no. you are probably well paid... you are in IT, which pays well compared to other trades, and a senior one at that. jumping into a new field and making anywhere close to that is a stretch of the imagination.
it's very hard to even switch specialization even within the IT field. i recently made the switch from enterprise middleware to mobile development. it was hard. i essentially had to spend a year teaching, and proving myself with self-published apps.
even if you are willing to take a large paycut to start as a newbie somewhere, you don't fit into well-defined categories. folks are looking for seasoned professionals that bring experience and knowledge with them, or young upstarts that will make up for their lack of experience with ambition. with your age (i assume) and existing knowledge base, you don't fit into the upstart group, and you won't have the exp if you switch specialization.
can seasoned professionals learn dynamically as younger folks? if a seasoned professional, if anything... and i find myself coming to the conclusion often that java is the answer to all software development problems. there's one data point for you, anyway.
If person A commits a given action, and person B does the exact same, you don't want the judge to have leeway to execute A and give B a month's probation.
yes, you do, and we do, and it's why a judge gets to determine the penalty of a conviction, within some bounds.
so let me ask, you think a guy you kills a man because that man raped and murdered his son, and a guy who kills his wife because she didn't do the laundry should get the same sentence?
the reason laws are so complex is because not every situation is the same
so you have judges with common sense look at the situation. the reason we are in deep doodoo now is because we've tried to write every permutation of every situation into law. the result is that the common person can't even understand the law. sort of defeats the purpose of a law.
That is not a matter of opinion, but legal reality.
clearly it's not reality, or we wouldn't need to pass laws sanctioning gay marriage. it's not just the letter of the law it's how it gets interpreted. why can't i own a fully automatic rifle, and why can't i brandish any weapon in public?
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
the law clearly states that my right to own and wield a weapon cannot be infringed.
So the whole kerfuffle boils down to "we don't want gays to sign a piece of paper".
no, it's that some folks see marriage as a sacred (as in religious) vow between a man and a woman, and they think their holy doctrine tells them that homosexuality is wrong.
of course i don't agree, but you should at least understand the viewpoint. if you get into a discussion with someone and you immediately boil it down to signing a piece of paper, or not, you aren't going to change any minds or make anyone think.
My personal view is that when I'm on my death bed, I don't think I'll be wondering, "I wish I had more time, to work."
that's not the point at all. TFA states that the reason people are working longer hours is not because they *want* to, it's because they *have* to. it's a fear of being laid off. i don't have any evidence of this, but considering the jobless rate and overall economic condition, the fear is most likely well founded.
you might be on your deathbed thinking "i wish i wouldn't have been laid off and had my home foreclosed upon, now my family doesn't have anywhere to live."
and insure that there are plenty of Android devices on the market regardless of the whims of Samsung
i guess you read and took the article to be something other than hogwash. in reality, samsung no where near being in a position to influence google. there are plenty of high-quality android device manufacturers waiting in the wings just drooling for samsung to back away.
I doubt Google wants to have their fate controlled by the device makers.
then why did they ever give them a piece of the pie to begin with? android can't be called anything other than a massive success for google. everyone is making $. there's no reason for anyone to be unhappy with the current arrangement. google never wanted to get into the hardware market. it's full of slim profits and stiff competition. they aren't in the market because they never wanted to be in the market.
And producing their own hardware would make them even more money,
and it's that simple eh? that's why companies like motorola, sony ericsson, dell, and others haven't been able to turn a profit selling android devices? sure google can dump oodles of money into motorola. do you think that's a guarantee of success?
Sure, Google makes up for that in ads, but they could generate more profit making the hardware too.
extremely unlikely. they have no experience producing hardware of any sort, which is why they turn to partners for everything (google tv, chromebook, and android phones).
If Google is in the business of making money, why are they giving away their operating system
because their OS keeps people using google services which keeps people using google search which is where they make 99.999% of their profits.
and buying a hardware maker that is treading water? Google will either have to discontinue Motorola hardware and scrap them for the patents, or actually get Motorola into shape as a moneymaking operation. If they already have the patents they wanted to get, why keep a turkey like Motorola around in it's current state?
in all likelihood, they won't keep motorola around. expect it to be sold.
or, google can keep them around to make prototype devices, or some other niche that doesn't threaten other device makers. they can afford to do that.
I honestly don't hear many people saying they bought a Samsung because it runs Android. Most people just want a phone with email and web, and if it's not an iPhone they want, they'll go with whatever is on sale. That usually is a Samsung. Android often doesn't play into it.
i have never met a person, no matter how low-techie they are, that isn't aware that their smartphone is android (or ios). typical/. response that assumes the masses are idiots.
Google is claiming that they are going to let Motorola's hardware development continue independently, but there are limits to that sort of reasoning. Motorola Mobility now exists to generate a profit for Google and is beholden to Google's shareholders.
google exists to make a profit. sabotaging android and all the search revenue it brings in now, and all the potential search revenue, to try and scrape some inconsequential profits from motorola hardware would be completely silly. business units within companies quite often speak to each other concerning larger business strategies.
and at the very least, make them look at a "plan b" for software.
right, since they aren't capable of taking the OSS drop of android and moving forward without google's meddling, they will write a new operating system from scratch that is better than android and maintain it and improve it all themselves. sounds likely
as an exempt employee, if you invent something that is even marginally related to your field of work, your company owns it. period. it doesn't matter that you used your own computer and did it in your "down time". as a salaried employee, there's no concept of being on or off the clock. if you have problems believing that, consider if it wasn't the case. i'm at my employment at Apple, and i think of an awesome patentable idea, say "touch screen smart phones". i run off and patent it under my name, and claim that i was on lunch when i thought of it. see the problem?
even if you can't accept that , you clearly gained knowledge of a particular problem and a way to solve it from your time on the job. you could not have built that solution without the knowledge you gained from your employment. even barring THAT, it's unclear, but it sounds like you used company resources (during your "down time") to build or test your solution. even barring THAT, can you prove that you never used company resources?
so, go and try to sell it. if your boss likes you a lot, they will feel sorry for you because of your naivety and laugh it off. if they don't like you, or if you don't have an especially good relationship with them, you'll be canned.
to boot, if that company has some lawyers hanging around, you'll be sued and they'll take your source code. that would actually be flattering. most likely they simply won't care considering there are tens or more off the shelf packages that are more robust, cheaper, and offer better support than your solution.
Are you using ideas and concepts you learned at that place of employment? Are you developing software specific to their environment? It sounds a lot like it. If so, they've got a pretty good case that you're using the benefit of their privileged information in order to develop this product and thus, yes, they have a pretty good claim on it.
exactly. pretty much how it goes is, as a salaried employee, if you do something in your "down time", even if that's at 3am in your apartment on your own computer, that is marginally related to the field of work in which you are employed, your employer owns it. this is in the USA anyway.
what he's done is more than marginally related. it's a solution to a specific problem at his work. he most certainly wouldn't have understood the problem without such employment. no question, his company has rights to the work.
the only real question is if they care enough to go through the firing process. they probably don't... they just quietly let him go during the next round of layoffs.
first, people do things outside of their job description all the time. it's how you get promoted. in my experience, you get promoted once you are already filling the requirements of the new position. "i've fulfilled my employment goals" sounds like someone that does exactly what's required and then reads slashdot for the rest of the day. that's a sure fire recipe to stay right where you are at in the IT world, and to be the first one they think of when layoffs come around.
you made it pretty clear the company doesn't have $ for anything, so IMHO don't even ask. there are all sorts of bad situations that can arise. for example, your employer starts to question if you built it on company time. even if you didn't, can you prove you spent no paid company time on this project?... or they expect that you should give them a free license, and your refusal results in bad blood.
two simple options,
1) if what you have written is so useful, and general purpose, you can sell it outside, go for it. 2) offer it for free to your company
#1 seems unlikely. either it's very specific to your company, in which case it's of no use to anyone outside, or it's general, and there's 20 other packages that can fill the same role.
with #2, you get some good brownie points, even if they don't actually deploy it. you have something to point to at your next review. sure, they aren't obligated to give you a raise or a promotion, but the worst case is that you have something awesome to write on your resume and to show at your next interview.
\ Public: "Why should I buy a $600 Transformer when I can get a $200 Fire which run's Android Apps?" Public: "This Kindle Fire is crap. Ergo, Android Apps are crap, Therefore, I'm going to write off the $200 I spent on the Kindle and write off all Android Tablets as well. Where's the nearest Apple Store?"
you should give people more credit. the public has been figuring this out with PCs since their inception, but it will all go over their heads with tablets? the average person that pays $399 for a windows laptop knows they are getting something different than when they pay $1,299. do you know anyone that thinks all PCs are the same and one is as good as another? even my 60+ yr old mom talks processor speeds, memory, and OS versions. she doesn't know much, but she understands why she'd pay more for something that is faster, etc.
Overall I have to say I am completely disappointed with Android (had high hopes) as I feel Google is doing piss poor job of ensuring a certain amount of quality and usability. Android might sell more devices, but unless Android really changes its stripes it will always be a cheap-skates paradise...
google makes the OS, not the hardware, and if you think the likes of samsung, acer, et al. would accept google coming in and demanding that the hardware meets google's quality standard, i have a bridge to sell you. hardware manufacturers are already extremely jittery about google "owning" the OS[1]. it wouldn't take much to scare them off.
Android allows zero code and knowledge reuse, and no visual development tools. iOS and Windows Mobile at least allow plain C/C++ code.
you might not like java, but there's a hell of a lot of devs that know it. you know that android uses the java language and you can use most of the same libraries available to the JVM right?
and android does allow native C applications (now, it didn't in the past).
Slashdot Mirror
*connects card to new phone*
where did this magical new phone come from?
it's more than a little hassle to have to purchase a new phone. if i order it online, i have to wait for it to be delivered same as waiting for a new credit card to be delivered. i could possibly drive to a store, but honestly, i'd rather wait a few days than have to spend an evening at the mall or whatever getting a new phone.
that, and unless you are an apple zombie you will probably need to spend some time researching what phone to get before you plunk down $600.
more than a little hassle.
Thats funny because the original iPhone did that too
no, pre-icloud the iphone only sync'd local resources ... your photos in iphoto, your contacts in address book, etc.
Apple has, what, $100B in the bank? To what end?
it's so when the start their eventual descent into stagnation, they'll be able to hang on for years making substandard products.
So if a company has a good long-term outlook and I buy in, and the stock does well for a period of time, then six months later the CEO dies in a car accident and is replaced by somebody who immediately starts running the company into the ground
if that happened, you didn't do your homework in the first place so deal with the consequences. any company that lives and dies by a particular CEO is a bad investment.
a good example is steve j. people pretty much viewed him as *the* man with the plan, and the brain behind all of apple's recent success. did the company fall apart when he passed away? nope, stock is still going up. apple has built a culture around steve's thinking.
if you invested in apple because you thought steve was awesome, then you're a fool. if you invested in apple because apple was building a culture of innovation around the thinking of steve, then good for you.
Optimizing Java is sort-of like optimizing a low-powered family car: It does not make a lot of sense. If you really need performance, go to C
probably true on the client, but not servers. every heard of JIT?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_compilation
is there any advice for someone who can't really risk the mortgage and kid's education on a whim?
realistically, no. you are probably well paid ... you are in IT, which pays well compared to other trades, and a senior one at that. jumping into a new field and making anywhere close to that is a stretch of the imagination.
it's very hard to even switch specialization even within the IT field. i recently made the switch from enterprise middleware to mobile development. it was hard. i essentially had to spend a year teaching, and proving myself with self-published apps.
even if you are willing to take a large paycut to start as a newbie somewhere, you don't fit into well-defined categories. folks are looking for seasoned professionals that bring experience and knowledge with them, or young upstarts that will make up for their lack of experience with ambition. with your age (i assume) and existing knowledge base, you don't fit into the upstart group, and you won't have the exp if you switch specialization.
can seasoned professionals learn dynamically as younger folks? if a seasoned professional, if anything ... and i find myself coming to the conclusion often that java is the answer to all software development problems. there's one data point for you, anyway.
If person A commits a given action, and person B does the exact same, you don't want the judge to have leeway to execute A and give B a month's probation.
yes, you do, and we do, and it's why a judge gets to determine the penalty of a conviction, within some bounds.
so let me ask, you think a guy you kills a man because that man raped and murdered his son, and a guy who kills his wife because she didn't do the laundry should get the same sentence?
the reason laws are so complex is because not every situation is the same
so you have judges with common sense look at the situation. the reason we are in deep doodoo now is because we've tried to write every permutation of every situation into law. the result is that the common person can't even understand the law. sort of defeats the purpose of a law.
That is not a matter of opinion, but legal reality.
clearly it's not reality, or we wouldn't need to pass laws sanctioning gay marriage. it's not just the letter of the law it's how it gets interpreted. why can't i own a fully automatic rifle, and why can't i brandish any weapon in public?
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
the law clearly states that my right to own and wield a weapon cannot be infringed.
So the whole kerfuffle boils down to "we don't want gays to sign a piece of paper".
no, it's that some folks see marriage as a sacred (as in religious) vow between a man and a woman, and they think their holy doctrine tells them that homosexuality is wrong.
of course i don't agree, but you should at least understand the viewpoint. if you get into a discussion with someone and you immediately boil it down to signing a piece of paper, or not, you aren't going to change any minds or make anyone think.
There's far, far, far more to life than work. Especially when you work for someone else. /quote.
and if you are self-employed, i am sure you hope that your employees and business partners don't have that attitude.
OTOH, getting a paycheck and making your mortgage payment is important.
My personal view is that when I'm on my death bed, I don't think I'll be wondering, "I wish I had more time, to work."
that's not the point at all. TFA states that the reason people are working longer hours is not because they *want* to, it's because they *have* to. it's a fear of being laid off. i don't have any evidence of this, but considering the jobless rate and overall economic condition, the fear is most likely well founded.
you might be on your deathbed thinking "i wish i wouldn't have been laid off and had my home foreclosed upon, now my family doesn't have anywhere to live."
and insure that there are plenty of Android devices on the market regardless of the whims of Samsung
i guess you read and took the article to be something other than hogwash. in reality, samsung no where near being in a position to influence google. there are plenty of high-quality android device manufacturers waiting in the wings just drooling for samsung to back away.
I doubt Google wants to have their fate controlled by the device makers.
then why did they ever give them a piece of the pie to begin with? android can't be called anything other than a massive success for google. everyone is making $. there's no reason for anyone to be unhappy with the current arrangement. google never wanted to get into the hardware market. it's full of slim profits and stiff competition. they aren't in the market because they never wanted to be in the market.
And producing their own hardware would make them even more money,
and it's that simple eh? that's why companies like motorola, sony ericsson, dell, and others haven't been able to turn a profit selling android devices? sure google can dump oodles of money into motorola. do you think that's a guarantee of success?
Sure, Google makes up for that in ads, but they could generate more profit making the hardware too.
extremely unlikely. they have no experience producing hardware of any sort, which is why they turn to partners for everything (google tv, chromebook, and android phones).
If Google is in the business of making money, why are they giving away their operating system
because their OS keeps people using google services which keeps people using google search which is where they make 99.999% of their profits.
and buying a hardware maker that is treading water? Google will either have to discontinue Motorola hardware and scrap them for the patents, or actually get Motorola into shape as a moneymaking operation. If they already have the patents they wanted to get, why keep a turkey like Motorola around in it's current state?
in all likelihood, they won't keep motorola around. expect it to be sold.
or, google can keep them around to make prototype devices, or some other niche that doesn't threaten other device makers. they can afford to do that.
I honestly don't hear many people saying they bought a Samsung because it runs Android. Most people just want a phone with email and web, and if it's not an iPhone they want, they'll go with whatever is on sale. That usually is a Samsung. Android often doesn't play into it.
i have never met a person, no matter how low-techie they are, that isn't aware that their smartphone is android (or ios). typical /. response that assumes the masses are idiots.
Google is claiming that they are going to let Motorola's hardware development continue independently, but there are limits to that sort of reasoning. Motorola Mobility now exists to generate a profit for Google and is beholden to Google's shareholders.
google exists to make a profit. sabotaging android and all the search revenue it brings in now, and all the potential search revenue, to try and scrape some inconsequential profits from motorola hardware would be completely silly. business units within companies quite often speak to each other concerning larger business strategies.
and at the very least, make them look at a "plan b" for software.
right, since they aren't capable of taking the OSS drop of android and moving forward without google's meddling, they will write a new operating system from scratch that is better than android and maintain it and improve it all themselves. sounds likely
... if so, here's how it goes ...
as an exempt employee, if you invent something that is even marginally related to your field of work, your company owns it. period. it doesn't matter that you used your own computer and did it in your "down time". as a salaried employee, there's no concept of being on or off the clock. if you have problems believing that, consider if it wasn't the case. i'm at my employment at Apple, and i think of an awesome patentable idea, say "touch screen smart phones". i run off and patent it under my name, and claim that i was on lunch when i thought of it. see the problem?
even if you can't accept that , you clearly gained knowledge of a particular problem and a way to solve it from your time on the job. you could not have built that solution without the knowledge you gained from your employment. even barring THAT, it's unclear, but it sounds like you used company resources (during your "down time") to build or test your solution. even barring THAT, can you prove that you never used company resources?
so, go and try to sell it. if your boss likes you a lot, they will feel sorry for you because of your naivety and laugh it off. if they don't like you, or if you don't have an especially good relationship with them, you'll be canned.
to boot, if that company has some lawyers hanging around, you'll be sued and they'll take your source code. that would actually be flattering. most likely they simply won't care considering there are tens or more off the shelf packages that are more robust, cheaper, and offer better support than your solution.
Are you using ideas and concepts you learned at that place of employment? Are you developing software specific to their environment? It sounds a lot like it. If so, they've got a pretty good case that you're using the benefit of their privileged information in order to develop this product and thus, yes, they have a pretty good claim on it.
exactly. pretty much how it goes is, as a salaried employee, if you do something in your "down time", even if that's at 3am in your apartment on your own computer, that is marginally related to the field of work in which you are employed, your employer owns it. this is in the USA anyway.
what he's done is more than marginally related. it's a solution to a specific problem at his work. he most certainly wouldn't have understood the problem without such employment. no question, his company has rights to the work.
the only real question is if they care enough to go through the firing process. they probably don't ... they just quietly let him go during the next round of layoffs.
first, people do things outside of their job description all the time. it's how you get promoted. in my experience, you get promoted once you are already filling the requirements of the new position. "i've fulfilled my employment goals" sounds like someone that does exactly what's required and then reads slashdot for the rest of the day. that's a sure fire recipe to stay right where you are at in the IT world, and to be the first one they think of when layoffs come around.
you made it pretty clear the company doesn't have $ for anything, so IMHO don't even ask. there are all sorts of bad situations that can arise. for example, your employer starts to question if you built it on company time. even if you didn't, can you prove you spent no paid company time on this project? ... or they expect that you should give them a free license, and your refusal results in bad blood.
two simple options,
1) if what you have written is so useful, and general purpose, you can sell it outside, go for it.
2) offer it for free to your company
#1 seems unlikely. either it's very specific to your company, in which case it's of no use to anyone outside, or it's general, and there's 20 other packages that can fill the same role.
with #2, you get some good brownie points, even if they don't actually deploy it. you have something to point to at your next review. sure, they aren't obligated to give you a raise or a promotion, but the worst case is that you have something awesome to write on your resume and to show at your next interview.
\
Public: "Why should I buy a $600 Transformer when I can get a $200 Fire which run's Android Apps?"
Public: "This Kindle Fire is crap. Ergo, Android Apps are crap, Therefore, I'm going to write off the $200 I spent on the Kindle and write off all Android Tablets as well. Where's the nearest Apple Store?"
you should give people more credit. the public has been figuring this out with PCs since their inception, but it will all go over their heads with tablets? the average person that pays $399 for a windows laptop knows they are getting something different than when they pay $1,299. do you know anyone that thinks all PCs are the same and one is as good as another? even my 60+ yr old mom talks processor speeds, memory, and OS versions. she doesn't know much, but she understands why she'd pay more for something that is faster, etc.
but I believe they've made some serious mis-steps that has allowed Android to take the lead
what, like not suing enough?
Overall I have to say I am completely disappointed with Android (had high hopes) as I feel Google is doing piss poor job of ensuring a certain amount of quality and usability. Android might sell more devices, but unless Android really changes its stripes it will always be a cheap-skates paradise...
google makes the OS, not the hardware, and if you think the likes of samsung, acer, et al. would accept google coming in and demanding that the hardware meets google's quality standard, i have a bridge to sell you. hardware manufacturers are already extremely jittery about google "owning" the OS[1]. it wouldn't take much to scare them off.
Phones are still sold with version 2.2 of android, 4.0 is now shipping. Faced with that, what could go wrong for developers?
i have apps written for android 1.5 that still happily run on honeycomb. the story is similar for a majority of android apps.
Android allows zero code and knowledge reuse, and no visual development tools. iOS and Windows Mobile at least allow plain C/C++ code.
you might not like java, but there's a hell of a lot of devs that know it. you know that android uses the java language and you can use most of the same libraries available to the JVM right?
and android does allow native C applications (now, it didn't in the past).