Here's my take, based on my experience, working for firms ranging from small (5 employees) to big (>500,000). 1. Small firms have few resources. In the US, estimates are that more than half new small businesses fail in the first 2 years. 2. Successful small businesses innovate, but because of #1, lack the resources to fund say, a full-time development staff, or spend substantially on an open-source project. 3. Successful small businesses grow ever larger, adding layers of management and bureaucracy, because more people and more business means more communication and coordination required. Also, once a firm 'hits the wall' and goes public, if they do, they gain huge amounts of cash but suffer from huge reporting requirements and are instant slaves to the 'hit quarterly numbers' idiocy of public equity markets. Plus, at this point, the early employees/founders quit in disgust because their equity stake is worth $BANK and the B.S. is starting to slop over the edges of the ship. When you have to hire a full-time Human Resources department and publish an employee handbook larger than one typed page, you are pretty well dead in the water from a 'gee, this is a wonderful, innovative, challenging but rewarding place to work' standpoint. Note: My current employer, a large, multinational bak, can barely fit their dress code on one typed page. Their latest 'innovation', announced in a memo 12/20/05, is 'sell more retirement investment vehicles'. The memo classified this as an innovation, so I guess it must be. 4. Successful small business has now become slightly less-fast-growing medium sized business. They have also suffered the corporate equivalent of a lobotomy. It no longer employs leaders, it hires managers and administrators. Employees no longer know, or can know, all the other employees. Teams do not form in the lunchroom over discussions of what is possible, they are engineered by managers who are looking at an org chart populated with job descriptions. Sitting in the lunchroom for two hours with pencils and napkins is a productivity problem, rather than something to be regarded with wonder, hope and respect. The creatives are kept in the advertising department if they are lucky. 'Creative' CS/IT/IS people get paid way too much and have little to no measurable output (these are managers with MBAs, mind you, doing the measurement, in other words, people least likely to 'get' what a solid, disciplined creative process is all about - if you doubt this, ask yourself how many Harvard MBAs run successful small businesses and how many toil for $MEGACORP. You can get an MBA with a focus on entrepreneurship, but many of those I know who did so never opened their own firm, but used the experience to go out and 're-engineer' part of a large firm - not really inovation or leadership in the pure sense) and so are let go. 5. Heat death. 'Real' creatives (innovators) recycle into a new, small firm, where they tell the new, up-and-coming innovators about how they got their start. Newbie's don't listen, but that's ok.
I wonder, what specifically declines? Memory? Cognitive ability? Is the decline an 'on average'? What was the study like? I know a lot of people in their mid-30's, like me, for example. Most stopped school long ago and are settled in their careers. Stop learning, stop growing - that I'll buy, but I've seen too many examples personally of people who are far brighter in their mid-30s and on than they were in their teens and twenties. Again - myself for an example. Maybe I just was such a slacker back then that anything is an improvement. My own experience is obviously nothing to generalize about.
Where did you find this info? I've read items in some of the popular science mags, but nothing I would take seriously.
What pile of steaming craptastic correlation-not-causation pseudoscientific garbage did you get that from? Memory tends to fade with age, studies show, but not in the 40s, and usually not enough to seriously impair learning.
One of the best teachers at my University is closing on 70 - he's been coding since Davy Crockett was the big TV show. He still actively develops - he just doesn't have to take peon-crappy jobs now. Arthur C. Clarke is still writing, and if you've ever watched an interview with him, he has one of the most 'fluid' minds around.
I hope when I cross the 40-year mark, I can be one-tenth as 'fluid' as Clarke.
True, it is sometimes hard to tell how fluid an older person's mind is, maybe because they've been around long enough to know when not to open their mouths and make an ass of themselves, as opposed to the young, who often make that mistake (myself included, it must be said...).
To sum up: 1. You gave notice and were available for productive work. 2. Your firm chose not to take you up on that, and instead hedged their bets by paying you to stay home. They lost your 'brain dump', but that's their call.
Both of you acted professionally - it sounds likeyou felt a sense of ownership over what you used to do, hence feeling like you've been 'cut off', but bear in mind, while that is an admirable trait, you don't own the system. Your employer does. What happens to your area now is not your problem, it is theirs.
I had some problems with DVD storage storing scanned family photos I can't replace. I found out it was the el-cheapo DVDs I was getting by the spool from CompUSA. Now, I use Verbatim MediDisc DVD-Rs. Not as good as the Hard Drive solution, perhaps, but much cheaper. These are used to store medical records and imagery, and I've been told that they are manufactured to much higher quality standards than the average DVDs. Not too much more expensive, either, especially in spools of 100.
On a side note, for those of you who have not been to a hospital cancer ward lately, in some hospitals, they give you a DVD of your loved ones' MRI imagery, complete with annotations showing where the inoperable brain tumor is, so you can check it out at home on your home PC (requires custom software to view, so no *NIX). Geek-creepy in a big way, IMHO.
This logic is flawed. It suggests that somehow, you could figure out a way to make "X" right out of your undergrad or masters such that as X increases, it will stay ahead of "Y" - your post-PhD earnings. Salaries are not linear, no matter what industry, as far as I've ever seen.
That, and Economists rarely take both sides of opportunity costs into account - and financial analysts never do, in my experience (I say that as a recovering analyst).
Consider the 'hybrid car' issue - studies show you'll never recover the additional cost via saved gas - but the point is that you don't pollute as much (in CO2, anyway) or contribute as much soot to the environment. So, did you come out ahead, or did you take a loss? Confused yet?
Ask yourself, who is morelikely to develop a saleable idea, a PhD in CS, or someone with an undergrad degree? Sure, undergrads come up with great ideas, BUT I suggest that more knowledge translates into a wider skills base which raises the probability of them 'puting the pieces together'. I would be highly surprised if the study looked at such trends.
Now, my arguments are far from perfect, but they are at least as theoretically sound as some BS in Econ. could make. Maybe a PhD could do better...
Besides, who goes in for higher education, just for the money? I mean besides MBAs, who I work with and for whom I worked as the employee of an MBA program. From my experience, MBAs are not an 'academic' degrees by pretty much any standard - we had a professor who taught at Northwestern (top 10 MBA school in the US) who explained, when I asked him about the 'lightweight' class content, that it was ok - it was impossible to get less than a 'B' unless you just didn't go to class or do the work. The students were nice enough, but wanted a ticket-punch and a golf outing to network at. That was it. Intellectual curiousity? Not part of the student profile.
If I understand correctly, this suggests that there is no real correlation between what is played and what is paid for - by which I mean, the venue owners pay $X, in exchange for which, they can 'host' performances. Since there is no practical way for any of the parties to know what specific songs are or are not allowed, the venue owner then basically has to buy the boradest possible license for what s/he reasonably expects to host.
How do the PROs then figure out how much to pay an artist whose songs may or may not be played?
I'm an accountant, so I agree with your assessment on mixing accounting and legislation - this agreement sounds like something a clever accountant would use to guarantee a revenue stream regardless of what was played...
I did not know this - and had I read some of the previous posts, I might have figured it out... I appreciate you telling me, and especially not adding "dumbass" to your reply - you would have been right to do so.
As you know a lot more than I do about this, obviously, do I understand correctly that if I took my "Metallica-Lite" cover act to a bar, I would have to pay one of the PROs' and Metallica for playing their song?
This is kinda like the "we don't sing 'Happy Birthday' in restaurants anymore" thing, isn't it?
My (prior) firm had the same thing happen. Difference was, they DIDN'T tell us - we found out because one employee had a high-level friend who worked in another firm in the same industry, who heard on the golf course about the impending closure FROM A MEMBER OF OUR MANAGEMENT. My firm was planning on waiting until the last minute to tell employees so we wouldn't leave, then just toss us. When the rumor got back, the source had enough credibility that we checked with 'head office' who hemmed, hawed and then (after three days of non-answers) told the truth. I ran like hell. Those who stayed were granted a retention package, and at that point, they were a lot happier - they ended up with six months of 'guaranteed' work plus about 2 months severance - a lot for the industry (accounting).
If management has been honest and told you their plans, give them credit - they are apparently trying to 'do the right thing' by you. Get the team together and pitch management for relocation/severance packages, and include the willingness to stay to the bitter end.
When I made my living as a photographer, clients would gripe about the cost. "I could have my cousin Freddy shoot my wedding for free!" Well, when cousin Freddy did so, no surprise, he knew nothing about selecting the right gear for the job, even if he could afford it, and nothing about composition, lighting, etc. Recording is the same - you may have a great quality MIDI file. You may, as I do, rip mp3s of your favorite songs, import them to garage band and then replicate the drum track to the song a measure at a time, so you can then play your bass and guitar(s) over the beat and get a 'real' recorded version of the song. You could, like me, sound nothing like Metallica at all. Even if you did sound good, and there are Metallica tribute albums released by major studios that suck, your version would not be a threat to Metallicas.
Besides, an artist, as I recall from a IP class I took (IANAL), has first recording rights to whatever they write. I write a song, I have all rights to it. As I recall, Bob Dylan once used this to deny himself permission to record a song of his. He was in a dispute with his record company, and this was the only way he could get around their demands legally - they could make him produce a record, but not one with content he did not have permission to use, and the songs had not yet been recorded by him or anyone else. Once recorded, however, anyone can cover the song - you can sell tickets to a performance by your band, "Metallica-Lite" and play all Metallicas songs, and sell CDs of your band doing so, but you can't represent yourselves to be Metallica.
If you distribute commercially, you may have to pay royalties, and that seems kinda crappy, but I would think it would be 'a piece of the action' rather than a fixed amount - so if your Metallica tribute album sells 4 copies, you owe a percent of those four sales. I'd get a lawyer if you go that route...
Short answer - replicate/remix/reproduce all you like - derivative works are just that - the property of the creator, unless they are so close to the original that they are identical, in which case, it is a replica and (as of now) illegal to sell/distribute without permission.
I understand your anger. One item to note, it is the large lawsuits that make headlines. Those usually involve a large, litigious, ethics-impaired public corporation, or a gold-digging 'victim'. In my lifetime, I have known several people who had to resort to lawsuits over various claims - getting hit by a delivery truck speeding on a side-road, getting hit with broken glass from a promotional item because the restaurant giving the item away just stacked them on a third-partys' tray, and a case of medical malpractice which resulted in nerve damage to a newborn. The first one went to court, since the company refused to acknowledge that their employee was speeding or that he should have been watching for children playing on a residential side-street or should have stopped instead of dragging a five-year-old on the undercarriage of the truck for 200M. The delivery company paid a six-figure settlement and all medical and court costs. The second was settled out of court very quickly with a polite 'I'm sorry', a free meal and an all-expenses paid trip to the ER (not in that order). The last was also resolved out-of-court, in a mutually beneficial manner (the child got therapy and some cash, the hospital and doctors didn't have to pay punitive damages or see their insurance premiums rise due to an adverse court decision). Overall, the 'right thing' was done in all three cases, in my opinion.
Things have probably changed a bit since then, but... long story short, both parties to a given transaction need to be prepared to behave like civilized human beings. Corporations who treat people like objects, which have a price to be paid for damage and which therefore may be damaged at will if there is sufficient 'upside' need to be driven into oblivion and the managers held accountable. Likewise, individuals who look at large corporations, or other people as sources of revenue because some ambulance-chaser talked them into thinking they are entitled to a meal ticket because they got a scar need to be booted in the arse and sent packing.
US laws aren't the problem (note: except the USA Patriot Act, but that is new and still under challenge - our system of government allows stupid laws to be enacted, the courts can only review after they are in place and someone is contesting the law based on a conflict with his/her rights) - stupid and/or evil people are the problem.
Amen - Too often, 'mainstream' is equated with 'good'. This kind of lowest-common-denominator thinking has messed up many products:
1. Honda Civic, used to be very popular with motorheads for its easy-to-mod-and-customize frame, Honda saw how popular it was getting and changed the body design to try and attract even more buyers (middle market buyers) and ended up killing the features the hobbyists loved. They moved. Honda is now trying to remedy the situation. 2. McDonalds vs. Local Burgers - I live in Chicago. Show me anyone who would take a Quarter Pounder with Cheese over a ButterBurger from Carvers and I'll show you, well, a person with no taste. 3. Financial Services - one size does not fit all. Every business is different, all have different needs, suggesting that all require 'the same' corporate or financial structure is wrong on its face. IT is just as complex, if not more so, and requires a similar level of customization _in order to function properly_ (emphasis definitely added)
I use *nix. I love *nix. I want it to be popular, but I dread the dumbing down that would come with market share even approaching that of Apple.
Besides, who loses if *nix stays small? No one. Those who can use it, will. Those who can't will pay the price for their insistence on using a lowest-common-denominator tool.
I am a CPA. In my industry (internal audit), unless you get promoted or get a bonus or some sort of performance-based incentive, cost-of-living (or COA+1%) raises are pretty normal. For public auditors, large raises are common, because it is hard to keep people in that environment (high stress, high travel).
How is it news that 'most' people don't get huge raises? Did you add so much value that you deserve a 31% raise?
Just curious, I understand that "doing it for the money" is a generally bad idea in any field (I learned that one the hard way...) but I see a recurring theme on/. that IT/IS jobs are hard to find/crappy/being outsourced/unfulfilling. Maybe it's just griping, but I am curious - does the community generally think the industry for design-savvy programmers (or programming-savvy software designers) sucks? Besides CS for the sake of science, isn't it just a damn cool area to work in?
I'm a CPA in my day job, so it doesn't take much to be 'cool' to me, but hey...
Okay, there is some back and forth over who 'owns' the code. IMO, you don't want to get into a pissing contest this way - the company can likely hire more lawyers, and make life crappy, even if you are ultimately the victor. Take the bosses aside, off-premises (lunch hour, after work) and have a candid conversation. They agree to a contract with you to code said software. Be nice and professional and all that, and don't threaten. If they refuse, tell them ok, they can have the thing as-is, but you won't work on it any more, since you don't want to be accused of using company resources for a personal project (which is what it is unless the company wants to pay for it). Then deliver the POS code listed in earlier post - the 'rigged demo' version. It should do something marginally useful, but as little as possible. If they gripe, tell them you hadn't gotten around to making it fully functional yet, as it was a 'personal project". This gives you plausible deniability. Playing stupid is one of the only defenses against a malevolent boss. Oh, if they do refuse the contract, find their competitor and offer it to them. Since your current employer refused it, it should be fair game, and they can't sue you over something they can't even identify.
Agreed. There is a new "model" in the US, per the 'news' and talking heads - and they have it partially right. Low-end workers (i.e., those easily replaced - burger flippers, entry level anything) are treated like cattle. Higher end workers, unless they own a piece of the company, are tolerated as long at their pay packages doen't get too high. The rise of the 'independant consultant' on long-term contract seems the best way to go. At my firm, we have two people I work with daily who are full employees, but they have very niche jobs and very specific (and useful) skillsets. As a result, they telecommute (800 miles, in one case) and rarely come to an office, but they are happy. Downside - they'll never get promoted, and if our parent ever looks closely at them, they'll likely be let go - not because they aren't key people (they are - both are 'extreme problem solvers' who do great work), but because our parent can't think beyond the typical org structure. They aren't 'independant consultants' per se, but they may as well be. If they were let go tomorrow, we'd likely have to hire them back at least part-time to keep their projects running. These two are professionally happy, well-compensated and will never leave unless kicked out - and they get stuff done, too. Personally, short of owning my own business, they have the best deal ever. By looking for what worked for them personally, they are actually doing a *better* job for our employer - whether the employer is smart enough to realize it is another. (They got their deals by having a particularly smart VP-level boss who signed off on their arrangements.) Summary - be a cubicle monkey long enough to show you are a problem solver who gets good work done, then get as far away as you can and develop a broad, transferable skills base and a decent network - just keep in touch with the people you've solved problems for. They'll throw you work whenever they can - that skill and drive is not terribly common, IME.
This just happened where I work - one VP, who does not get IT at all, blocked the purchase of some software that would save weeks worth of time. The President of IT backed this because "so few people use the tool, there is no support here for it, and what if $LONESUPPORTPERSON gets hit by a bus and dies?"
$PROBLEMSOLVER figured $SOFTWARETOOL was worth its' weight in time saved and purchased and installed it anyway on three workstations used by some high-level financial managers whose time was worth a LOT. Got them addicted to it.
Now, I just found out about $SOFTWARETOOL, got it installed, and since I work for abovementioned VP, I got the quizzical look, but since HIS BOSS had been sold on the $SOFTWARETOOL by my explanation and testing of it for our group, VP can't say jack. I even arranged for VP to hear about the purchase from someone besides me, so I couldn't be blamed for "going over his head".
As an aside, my coworkers, when they saw $DRUDGEWORK levels drop, were very happy with me for getting $SPROBLEMSOLVERs attention.
Briefly, start solving the problems of the best and brightest and most senior in your organization. We all know what flows downhill, but sometimes it doesn't have to be on you, but on the stupid people.
You would be correct IF we were talking about people who were willing to consider anything new. When a prior employer tasked me with rolling out Word 97 (over W95), despite the fact that they were the same product with an almost unnoticeably different interface, people complained. "Every time I open one of my documents, I get this error message..." (the "The document you are opening was created in a prior version of Word, would you like to convert it to 97..." dialog).
I did have some great end-users, and they generally all treated me well, but in my experience, most end-users are stuck in the "lowest common denominator" passive-mode of computer interaction. Sad, really. I'm doing what I can to help, but there is a long slog - people have gotten way too used to not being curious about pretty much anything. Maybe it was always this way, and I'm just noticing it - but there it is.
Also, most corporate users don't see the cost - their bosses do. "Free" doesn't go very far with staff - generally, telling someone "I can save your boss a lot of money if you do things totally differently than you do now..." doesn't go over well. I know, that's not really what we're saying, but it is beyond my selling skills to get past that - and I can sling B$ with the best of them...
I've used every version of word since 5.0, WordPerfect 5.x and 6.x and now OpenOffice, plus others.
It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes of looking at the menus - which are almost identical for most end-user functionality anyway - to grok OpenOffice.
Inertia keeps MS Office in place - the vast majority of the functionality of Word, for example, is either unused or not-understood anyway. I am asked *weekly* how to insert tables, align text, etc., by people who have never used anything else but Word for their entire professional careers. Say 'mail merge' and you get blank stares from most users, IME.
Yah, it has fine functionality - my only substantive gripes with Word are the price and the opacity of the.doc file format. I use OO at home, but I don't expect my Corporate Overlords to bother switching. Ever. They would have to think too much about something they regard as beneath their notice - that, and the admin staff would likely scream bloody murder. They'll allow a retraining on 'new features' of Word, but if you try to explain that 'gee, this would be a perfect time to try a new/better/free/different/similar alternative to Word, since the file formats a re new...' you'll get absolutely nowhere - they 'know' word, and that is powerful motive for maintaining the status quo
Remember, what we worry about is abuse of said information. So, I get my DNA sampled and stored. I am worried that:
1. The government will sanction me in some way (deny medicaid benefits, etc.) based on my profile. 2. Private sector actors (insurance carriers, hospitals) sanction me in some way based on the data (deny coverage, raise fees). 3. Illegal use is made of my information by some 'other' party - the American Nazi Party starts a 'hate list' of genetically inferior people based on their analysis of the data. 4. Unforseen other use.
For #1-3 above, it is perfectly possible to protect the use of the information by enforcing a prohibition on abuse. For example, If an insurance company has better information about their clients, they can better hedge their risk. With enough valid data, it is possible to hedge virtually any risk to within reasonable tolerances - Wall Street does it all the time. Better hedging = less risk to the insurer, so they can actually adjust their cost/coverage better. Enforce a certain "risk profile" to be allowed to serve as an insurance provider - i.e., make it illegal and civilly actionable to refuse coverage, and everyone wins. An insurance carrier is "stuck" with providing coverage to higher-risk clients, but known risks can be hedged. They already do this sort of thing by pooling customers - young, healthy people and older, sick people offset one another, so overall, the risk is lower - everyone get some coverage, with the healthy subsidizing the sick. That's how it's supposed to work. Better information (DNA) leads to better hedging.
So, you set up the laws such that information is available, may be used for analysis, but if it is used against you, you have a solid legal foundation for a lawsuit, with HUGE fines for violators.
As far as the police use of DNA goes - I live in Illinois, where we have the death penalty, but it is so broken that we've had several people on death row exonerated after their cases were reviewed and DNA evidence was admitted. There is also evidence we may have actually executed innocent people - the state doesn't re-open cases where the convict has already been executed. Frankly, mass DNA testing would not only solve a lot of crimes, but prevent gross miscarriages of justice. More data would mean better prosecutions.
Not just that, but if a person has a genetic predisposition towards, say, Alzheimers, a public database of DNA could be used by researchers to find the prevalance of that gene or gene-sequence in the population and thereby plan for future medical treatments, allocate research resources and maybe even warn the poor, unsuspecting SOB before s/he starts losing mental function.
Of course, someone out there will come up with a "yah, but the secret-government agency who REALLY runs America will use your profile for Bad Things..." If they start rounding people up based on DNA, it's an obvious abuse, and only a Tinfoil Hat would actually think that is anything close to likely - heck, The Economist reports that Guantanamo is shipping prisoners back to their countries of origin because of the uproar - in the US and from abroad - over the abuses there. The administration might (will) do unethical things, but they will pay at election time. As long as the framework is open and transparent, there is reasonable protection afforded to the public.
Yah, I know, you can't always trust the public, we re-elected W, but NOT BY MUCH, and he's on a much shorter leash - see above Economist citation.
And lets face it, if the government wanted a 'secret DNA database', they could already have it and we couldn't do bupkus.
So what exactly is so holy about our DNA that it shouldn't be on file? Unitl I am actually deprived of life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness, how are my rights being violated exactly?
This is just my opinion, based on personal experience. Companies I have worked for do not realize the value of the data they keep. As such, they do not see the value in maintaining high-quality facilities to maintain that data. They pay for servers and big ERPs, because the CFO and his friends at $LARGE_CONSULTING_FIRM told them to, but mining the data in those servers is considered too expensive to do and support, so they don't do it. Customizing a user interface to let workers input and retrieve information more efficiently is likewise too expensive to implement and support. Since most white-collar joobs are salaried (i.e., no overtime) in the US, the waste of employee time is not a 'cost' per se - they'll have to spend whatever time it takes to do their jobs, no matter how bad their IT support infrastructure is. For the above reasons, companies don't need to hire quality IT people - an A+, MCSE is sufficient to do most things a business 'needs' done. Managers have no idea what solid infrastructure and intelligent, IT savvy employees and good Engineering staff can do.
I am right now fighting to use FoxPro in my office - as it stands right now, it can save my department (12 auditors) 5 WEEKS of prep-time for a particular review we do by pulling a bunch of reports in and selecting test samples automatically, which would otherwise be done by hand. The head of IT would rather we waste 5 weeks per year (on this one test alone - there are many more we can and will reengineer) because "we don't support FoxPro, only two people in the company know it, and what if they leave?"
That is the kind of managerial idiocy that makes for the hit-or-miss market for good IT/engineering. Some firms 'get it', others just don't. You can't apply typical business math to good infrastructure - "if I invest $X today in efficient, well-engineered data support, when will it pay me back? Will I recoup my costs by Q2?"
Well, you can, but most don't - I posed this issue to a friend who has an MBA from U of C, on of the best MBAs' you can get. His response was, "you ask your IT guy and your CFO for an IT budget. Who are you gonna trust to get good numbers? The CFO, of course, so you put him in charge of IT." If the CFO doesn't 'get it', and in my experience, they don't, then your stuck. Increasing your capacity by using your employees time and intelligence will pay huge dividends, but since opportunity-cost accounting is simply not part of the typical American business process, they can't actually quantify what they get - so they assume (incorrectly) the value is $0.
Me - I'm figuring to create or work for one who 'gets it', then go back and eat my previous employers' lunch for them. All you un- and under-employed engineers out there - find yourselves a business geek and start a company. Finance and Accounting are screaming for good solutions, and companies will pay - just not their own employees. Remember, the expert is always the Person from Out of Town.
BTW - anyone know a good open-source solution that does what FoxPro does?
Just to point out - the 'taxpayer money' that is saved is not for the district (homeschoolers still pay the same income and property taxes - to my knowledge there is no tax credit for homeschooling). The break they get is on grant money, spent per pupil, from the state or federal gov't, who pays schools 'per head' in class. 'Saving tax dollars' saves 'everyone' a few bucks, but hits local schools harder, since they lose the money for every student not in school on a particular day, whether homeschooled or just absent.
Which brings up an interesting question - how can the state or federal gov't 'give' money back to a school district in excess of what it took to begin with? Someone, somewhere is losing money in revenue transfer. Business income taxes? I'd be curious if there is actually a 'financial map' showing inflows and outflows of gov't cash. Heck, I'm an accountant, and I've never heard of such a thiing, other than those piddly charts at the back of the IRS booklets.
Living in Illinois, I knew many homeschoolers while working and studenting in Central IL - every one I met (note, *I* met) claimed religion as a primary reason to home school - they didn't want their children exposed to 'corrupting influences' they perceived in public schools - in Champaign-Urbana, home of UofI. These were also people who said they would keep having kids "until god tells me to stop", and I suspect they were perhaps not representative of homeschoolers in general, but they were some seriously, wilfully ignorant people - is there a 'national standard' that is enforced, or do the kids just show up for standardized tests periodically?
And how does one ensure 'socialization' occurs? Yah, public schools teach socialization skills by basically lumping together a bunch of kids who *have none* and assuming they'll develop them by trial and error, but can exposure only to ones own family truly socialize a child?
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Here's my take, based on my experience, working for firms ranging from small (5 employees) to big (>500,000).
1. Small firms have few resources. In the US, estimates are that more than half new small businesses fail in the first 2 years.
2. Successful small businesses innovate, but because of #1, lack the resources to fund say, a full-time development staff, or spend substantially on an open-source project.
3. Successful small businesses grow ever larger, adding layers of management and bureaucracy, because more people and more business means more communication and coordination required. Also, once a firm 'hits the wall' and goes public, if they do, they gain huge amounts of cash but suffer from huge reporting requirements and are instant slaves to the 'hit quarterly numbers' idiocy of public equity markets. Plus, at this point, the early employees/founders quit in disgust because their equity stake is worth $BANK and the B.S. is starting to slop over the edges of the ship. When you have to hire a full-time Human Resources department and publish an employee handbook larger than one typed page, you are pretty well dead in the water from a 'gee, this is a wonderful, innovative, challenging but rewarding place to work' standpoint. Note: My current employer, a large, multinational bak, can barely fit their dress code on one typed page. Their latest 'innovation', announced in a memo 12/20/05, is 'sell more retirement investment vehicles'. The memo classified this as an innovation, so I guess it must be.
4. Successful small business has now become slightly less-fast-growing medium sized business. They have also suffered the corporate equivalent of a lobotomy. It no longer employs leaders, it hires managers and administrators. Employees no longer know, or can know, all the other employees. Teams do not form in the lunchroom over discussions of what is possible, they are engineered by managers who are looking at an org chart populated with job descriptions. Sitting in the lunchroom for two hours with pencils and napkins is a productivity problem, rather than something to be regarded with wonder, hope and respect. The creatives are kept in the advertising department if they are lucky. 'Creative' CS/IT/IS people get paid way too much and have little to no measurable output (these are managers with MBAs, mind you, doing the measurement, in other words, people least likely to 'get' what a solid, disciplined creative process is all about - if you doubt this, ask yourself how many Harvard MBAs run successful small businesses and how many toil for $MEGACORP. You can get an MBA with a focus on entrepreneurship, but many of those I know who did so never opened their own firm, but used the experience to go out and 're-engineer' part of a large firm - not really inovation or leadership in the pure sense) and so are let go.
5. Heat death. 'Real' creatives (innovators) recycle into a new, small firm, where they tell the new, up-and-coming innovators about how they got their start. Newbie's don't listen, but that's ok.
I wonder, what specifically declines? Memory? Cognitive ability? Is the decline an 'on average'? What was the study like? I know a lot of people in their mid-30's, like me, for example. Most stopped school long ago and are settled in their careers. Stop learning, stop growing - that I'll buy, but I've seen too many examples personally of people who are far brighter in their mid-30s and on than they were in their teens and twenties. Again - myself for an example. Maybe I just was such a slacker back then that anything is an improvement. My own experience is obviously nothing to generalize about.
Where did you find this info? I've read items in some of the popular science mags, but nothing I would take seriously.
What pile of steaming craptastic correlation-not-causation pseudoscientific garbage did you get that from? Memory tends to fade with age, studies show, but not in the 40s, and usually not enough to seriously impair learning.
One of the best teachers at my University is closing on 70 - he's been coding since Davy Crockett was the big TV show. He still actively develops - he just doesn't have to take peon-crappy jobs now. Arthur C. Clarke is still writing, and if you've ever watched an interview with him, he has one of the most 'fluid' minds around.
I hope when I cross the 40-year mark, I can be one-tenth as 'fluid' as Clarke.
True, it is sometimes hard to tell how fluid an older person's mind is, maybe because they've been around long enough to know when not to open their mouths and make an ass of themselves, as opposed to the young, who often make that mistake (myself included, it must be said...).
To sum up:
1. You gave notice and were available for productive work.
2. Your firm chose not to take you up on that, and instead hedged their bets by paying you to stay home. They lost your 'brain dump', but that's their call.
Both of you acted professionally - it sounds likeyou felt a sense of ownership over what you used to do, hence feeling like you've been 'cut off', but bear in mind, while that is an admirable trait, you don't own the system. Your employer does. What happens to your area now is not your problem, it is theirs.
Best of luck in whatever your plans are -
... it doubles as one of those, you know, 'pumps' they sell. For guys who... wear big diving watches...
Mods: Its funny, not a troll! I'm first in line to get one!
The revolution, that is, not the pump.
Nice... I almost missed it. Not the most subtle thing I've ever read, but for /., a work of brilliance.
If you are wondering WTF, re-read the parent until you get it.
I had some problems with DVD storage storing scanned family photos I can't replace. I found out it was the el-cheapo DVDs I was getting by the spool from CompUSA. Now, I use Verbatim MediDisc DVD-Rs. Not as good as the Hard Drive solution, perhaps, but much cheaper. These are used to store medical records and imagery, and I've been told that they are manufactured to much higher quality standards than the average DVDs. Not too much more expensive, either, especially in spools of 100.
On a side note, for those of you who have not been to a hospital cancer ward lately, in some hospitals, they give you a DVD of your loved ones' MRI imagery, complete with annotations showing where the inoperable brain tumor is, so you can check it out at home on your home PC (requires custom software to view, so no *NIX). Geek-creepy in a big way, IMHO.
This logic is flawed. It suggests that somehow, you could figure out a way to make "X" right out of your undergrad or masters such that as X increases, it will stay ahead of "Y" - your post-PhD earnings. Salaries are not linear, no matter what industry, as far as I've ever seen.
That, and Economists rarely take both sides of opportunity costs into account - and financial analysts never do, in my experience (I say that as a recovering analyst).
Consider the 'hybrid car' issue - studies show you'll never recover the additional cost via saved gas - but the point is that you don't pollute as much (in CO2, anyway) or contribute as much soot to the environment. So, did you come out ahead, or did you take a loss? Confused yet?
Ask yourself, who is morelikely to develop a saleable idea, a PhD in CS, or someone with an undergrad degree? Sure, undergrads come up with great ideas, BUT I suggest that more knowledge translates into a wider skills base which raises the probability of them 'puting the pieces together'. I would be highly surprised if the study looked at such trends.
Now, my arguments are far from perfect, but they are at least as theoretically sound as some BS in Econ. could make. Maybe a PhD could do better...
Besides, who goes in for higher education, just for the money? I mean besides MBAs, who I work with and for whom I worked as the employee of an MBA program. From my experience, MBAs are not an 'academic' degrees by pretty much any standard - we had a professor who taught at Northwestern (top 10 MBA school in the US) who explained, when I asked him about the 'lightweight' class content, that it was ok - it was impossible to get less than a 'B' unless you just didn't go to class or do the work. The students were nice enough, but wanted a ticket-punch and a golf outing to network at. That was it. Intellectual curiousity? Not part of the student profile.
Making fun of the handicapped is not funny, dammit! The poor bastard is a SALESPERSON, for chrissakes, have some pity... Geez.
Sorry, I had too much Karma...
If I understand correctly, this suggests that there is no real correlation between what is played and what is paid for - by which I mean, the venue owners pay $X, in exchange for which, they can 'host' performances. Since there is no practical way for any of the parties to know what specific songs are or are not allowed, the venue owner then basically has to buy the boradest possible license for what s/he reasonably expects to host.
How do the PROs then figure out how much to pay an artist whose songs may or may not be played?
I'm an accountant, so I agree with your assessment on mixing accounting and legislation - this agreement sounds like something a clever accountant would use to guarantee a revenue stream regardless of what was played...
I did not know this - and had I read some of the previous posts, I might have figured it out... I appreciate you telling me, and especially not adding "dumbass" to your reply - you would have been right to do so.
As you know a lot more than I do about this, obviously, do I understand correctly that if I took my "Metallica-Lite" cover act to a bar, I would have to pay one of the PROs' and Metallica for playing their song?
This is kinda like the "we don't sing 'Happy Birthday' in restaurants anymore" thing, isn't it?
My (prior) firm had the same thing happen. Difference was, they DIDN'T tell us - we found out because one employee had a high-level friend who worked in another firm in the same industry, who heard on the golf course about the impending closure FROM A MEMBER OF OUR MANAGEMENT. My firm was planning on waiting until the last minute to tell employees so we wouldn't leave, then just toss us. When the rumor got back, the source had enough credibility that we checked with 'head office' who hemmed, hawed and then (after three days of non-answers) told the truth. I ran like hell. Those who stayed were granted a retention package, and at that point, they were a lot happier - they ended up with six months of 'guaranteed' work plus about 2 months severance - a lot for the industry (accounting).
If management has been honest and told you their plans, give them credit - they are apparently trying to 'do the right thing' by you. Get the team together and pitch management for relocation/severance packages, and include the willingness to stay to the bitter end.
You're getting a better deal than many...
When I made my living as a photographer, clients would gripe about the cost. "I could have my cousin Freddy shoot my wedding for free!" Well, when cousin Freddy did so, no surprise, he knew nothing about selecting the right gear for the job, even if he could afford it, and nothing about composition, lighting, etc. Recording is the same - you may have a great quality MIDI file. You may, as I do, rip mp3s of your favorite songs, import them to garage band and then replicate the drum track to the song a measure at a time, so you can then play your bass and guitar(s) over the beat and get a 'real' recorded version of the song. You could, like me, sound nothing like Metallica at all. Even if you did sound good, and there are Metallica tribute albums released by major studios that suck, your version would not be a threat to Metallicas.
Besides, an artist, as I recall from a IP class I took (IANAL), has first recording rights to whatever they write. I write a song, I have all rights to it. As I recall, Bob Dylan once used this to deny himself permission to record a song of his. He was in a dispute with his record company, and this was the only way he could get around their demands legally - they could make him produce a record, but not one with content he did not have permission to use, and the songs had not yet been recorded by him or anyone else. Once recorded, however, anyone can cover the song - you can sell tickets to a performance by your band, "Metallica-Lite" and play all Metallicas songs, and sell CDs of your band doing so, but you can't represent yourselves to be Metallica.
If you distribute commercially, you may have to pay royalties, and that seems kinda crappy, but I would think it would be 'a piece of the action' rather than a fixed amount - so if your Metallica tribute album sells 4 copies, you owe a percent of those four sales. I'd get a lawyer if you go that route...
Short answer - replicate/remix/reproduce all you like - derivative works are just that - the property of the creator, unless they are so close to the original that they are identical, in which case, it is a replica and (as of now) illegal to sell/distribute without permission.
My $.025 (inflation, y'know...)
I understand your anger. One item to note, it is the large lawsuits that make headlines. Those usually involve a large, litigious, ethics-impaired public corporation, or a gold-digging 'victim'. In my lifetime, I have known several people who had to resort to lawsuits over various claims - getting hit by a delivery truck speeding on a side-road, getting hit with broken glass from a promotional item because the restaurant giving the item away just stacked them on a third-partys' tray, and a case of medical malpractice which resulted in nerve damage to a newborn. The first one went to court, since the company refused to acknowledge that their employee was speeding or that he should have been watching for children playing on a residential side-street or should have stopped instead of dragging a five-year-old on the undercarriage of the truck for 200M. The delivery company paid a six-figure settlement and all medical and court costs. The second was settled out of court very quickly with a polite 'I'm sorry', a free meal and an all-expenses paid trip to the ER (not in that order). The last was also resolved out-of-court, in a mutually beneficial manner (the child got therapy and some cash, the hospital and doctors didn't have to pay punitive damages or see their insurance premiums rise due to an adverse court decision). Overall, the 'right thing' was done in all three cases, in my opinion.
Things have probably changed a bit since then, but... long story short, both parties to a given transaction need to be prepared to behave like civilized human beings. Corporations who treat people like objects, which have a price to be paid for damage and which therefore may be damaged at will if there is sufficient 'upside' need to be driven into oblivion and the managers held accountable. Likewise, individuals who look at large corporations, or other people as sources of revenue because some ambulance-chaser talked them into thinking they are entitled to a meal ticket because they got a scar need to be booted in the arse and sent packing.
US laws aren't the problem (note: except the USA Patriot Act, but that is new and still under challenge - our system of government allows stupid laws to be enacted, the courts can only review after they are in place and someone is contesting the law based on a conflict with his/her rights) - stupid and/or evil people are the problem.
Amen - Too often, 'mainstream' is equated with 'good'. This kind of lowest-common-denominator thinking has messed up many products:
1. Honda Civic, used to be very popular with motorheads for its easy-to-mod-and-customize frame, Honda saw how popular it was getting and changed the body design to try and attract even more buyers (middle market buyers) and ended up killing the features the hobbyists loved. They moved. Honda is now trying to remedy the situation.
2. McDonalds vs. Local Burgers - I live in Chicago. Show me anyone who would take a Quarter Pounder with Cheese over a ButterBurger from Carvers and I'll show you, well, a person with no taste.
3. Financial Services - one size does not fit all. Every business is different, all have different needs, suggesting that all require 'the same' corporate or financial structure is wrong on its face. IT is just as complex, if not more so, and requires a similar level of customization _in order to function properly_ (emphasis definitely added)
I use *nix. I love *nix. I want it to be popular, but I dread the dumbing down that would come with market share even approaching that of Apple.
Besides, who loses if *nix stays small? No one. Those who can use it, will. Those who can't will pay the price for their insistence on using a lowest-common-denominator tool.
I am a CPA. In my industry (internal audit), unless you get promoted or get a bonus or some sort of performance-based incentive, cost-of-living (or COA+1%) raises are pretty normal. For public auditors, large raises are common, because it is hard to keep people in that environment (high stress, high travel).
How is it news that 'most' people don't get huge raises? Did you add so much value that you deserve a 31% raise?
Just curious, I understand that "doing it for the money" is a generally bad idea in any field (I learned that one the hard way...) but I see a recurring theme on /. that IT/IS jobs are hard to find/crappy/being outsourced/unfulfilling. Maybe it's just griping, but I am curious - does the community generally think the industry for design-savvy programmers (or programming-savvy software designers) sucks? Besides CS for the sake of science, isn't it just a damn cool area to work in?
I'm a CPA in my day job, so it doesn't take much to be 'cool' to me, but hey...
Okay, there is some back and forth over who 'owns' the code. IMO, you don't want to get into a pissing contest this way - the company can likely hire more lawyers, and make life crappy, even if you are ultimately the victor.
Take the bosses aside, off-premises (lunch hour, after work) and have a candid conversation. They agree to a contract with you to code said software. Be nice and professional and all that, and don't threaten. If they refuse, tell them ok, they can have the thing as-is, but you won't work on it any more, since you don't want to be accused of using company resources for a personal project (which is what it is unless the company wants to pay for it). Then deliver the POS code listed in earlier post - the 'rigged demo' version. It should do something marginally useful, but as little as possible. If they gripe, tell them you hadn't gotten around to making it fully functional yet, as it was a 'personal project". This gives you plausible deniability. Playing stupid is one of the only defenses against a malevolent boss.
Oh, if they do refuse the contract, find their competitor and offer it to them. Since your current employer refused it, it should be fair game, and they can't sue you over something they can't even identify.
Agreed. There is a new "model" in the US, per the 'news' and talking heads - and they have it partially right.
Low-end workers (i.e., those easily replaced - burger flippers, entry level anything) are treated like cattle. Higher end workers, unless they own a piece of the company, are tolerated as long at their pay packages doen't get too high.
The rise of the 'independant consultant' on long-term contract seems the best way to go. At my firm, we have two people I work with daily who are full employees, but they have very niche jobs and very specific (and useful) skillsets. As a result, they telecommute (800 miles, in one case) and rarely come to an office, but they are happy. Downside - they'll never get promoted, and if our parent ever looks closely at them, they'll likely be let go - not because they aren't key people (they are - both are 'extreme problem solvers' who do great work), but because our parent can't think beyond the typical org structure. They aren't 'independant consultants' per se, but they may as well be. If they were let go tomorrow, we'd likely have to hire them back at least part-time to keep their projects running.
These two are professionally happy, well-compensated and will never leave unless kicked out - and they get stuff done, too.
Personally, short of owning my own business, they have the best deal ever.
By looking for what worked for them personally, they are actually doing a *better* job for our employer - whether the employer is smart enough to realize it is another. (They got their deals by having a particularly smart VP-level boss who signed off on their arrangements.)
Summary - be a cubicle monkey long enough to show you are a problem solver who gets good work done, then get as far away as you can and develop a broad, transferable skills base and a decent network - just keep in touch with the people you've solved problems for. They'll throw you work whenever they can - that skill and drive is not terribly common, IME.
This just happened where I work - one VP, who does not get IT at all, blocked the purchase of some software that would save weeks worth of time. The President of IT backed this because "so few people use the tool, there is no support here for it, and what if $LONESUPPORTPERSON gets hit by a bus and dies?"
$PROBLEMSOLVER figured $SOFTWARETOOL was worth its' weight in time saved and purchased and installed it anyway on three workstations used by some high-level financial managers whose time was worth a LOT. Got them addicted to it.
Now, I just found out about $SOFTWARETOOL, got it installed, and since I work for abovementioned VP, I got the quizzical look, but since HIS BOSS had been sold on the $SOFTWARETOOL by my explanation and testing of it for our group, VP can't say jack. I even arranged for VP to hear about the purchase from someone besides me, so I couldn't be blamed for "going over his head".
As an aside, my coworkers, when they saw $DRUDGEWORK levels drop, were very happy with me for getting $SPROBLEMSOLVERs attention.
Briefly, start solving the problems of the best and brightest and most senior in your organization. We all know what flows downhill, but sometimes it doesn't have to be on you, but on the stupid people.
You would be correct IF we were talking about people who were willing to consider anything new. When a prior employer tasked me with rolling out Word 97 (over W95), despite the fact that they were the same product with an almost unnoticeably different interface, people complained. "Every time I open one of my documents, I get this error message..." (the "The document you are opening was created in a prior version of Word, would you like to convert it to 97..." dialog).
I did have some great end-users, and they generally all treated me well, but in my experience, most end-users are stuck in the "lowest common denominator" passive-mode of computer interaction. Sad, really. I'm doing what I can to help, but there is a long slog - people have gotten way too used to not being curious about pretty much anything. Maybe it was always this way, and I'm just noticing it - but there it is.
Also, most corporate users don't see the cost - their bosses do. "Free" doesn't go very far with staff - generally, telling someone "I can save your boss a lot of money if you do things totally differently than you do now..." doesn't go over well. I know, that's not really what we're saying, but it is beyond my selling skills to get past that - and I can sling B$ with the best of them...
I've used every version of word since 5.0, WordPerfect 5.x and 6.x and now OpenOffice, plus others.
.doc file format. I use OO at home, but I don't expect my Corporate Overlords to bother switching. Ever. They would have to think too much about something they regard as beneath their notice - that, and the admin staff would likely scream bloody murder. They'll allow a retraining on 'new features' of Word, but if you try to explain that 'gee, this would be a perfect time to try a new/better/free/different/similar alternative to Word, since the file formats a re new...' you'll get absolutely nowhere - they 'know' word, and that is powerful motive for maintaining the status quo
It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes of looking at the menus - which are almost identical for most end-user functionality anyway - to grok OpenOffice.
Inertia keeps MS Office in place - the vast majority of the functionality of Word, for example, is either unused or not-understood anyway. I am asked *weekly* how to insert tables, align text, etc., by people who have never used anything else but Word for their entire professional careers. Say 'mail merge' and you get blank stares from most users, IME.
Yah, it has fine functionality - my only substantive gripes with Word are the price and the opacity of the
Remember, what we worry about is abuse of said information. So, I get my DNA sampled and stored. I am worried that:
1. The government will sanction me in some way (deny medicaid benefits, etc.) based on my profile.
2. Private sector actors (insurance carriers, hospitals) sanction me in some way based on the data (deny coverage, raise fees).
3. Illegal use is made of my information by some 'other' party - the American Nazi Party starts a 'hate list' of genetically inferior people based on their analysis of the data.
4. Unforseen other use.
For #1-3 above, it is perfectly possible to protect the use of the information by enforcing a prohibition on abuse. For example, If an insurance company has better information about their clients, they can better hedge their risk. With enough valid data, it is possible to hedge virtually any risk to within reasonable tolerances - Wall Street does it all the time. Better hedging = less risk to the insurer, so they can actually adjust their cost/coverage better. Enforce a certain "risk profile" to be allowed to serve as an insurance provider - i.e., make it illegal and civilly actionable to refuse coverage, and everyone wins. An insurance carrier is "stuck" with providing coverage to higher-risk clients, but known risks can be hedged. They already do this sort of thing by pooling customers - young, healthy people and older, sick people offset one another, so overall, the risk is lower - everyone get some coverage, with the healthy subsidizing the sick. That's how it's supposed to work. Better information (DNA) leads to better hedging.
So, you set up the laws such that information is available, may be used for analysis, but if it is used against you, you have a solid legal foundation for a lawsuit, with HUGE fines for violators.
As far as the police use of DNA goes - I live in Illinois, where we have the death penalty, but it is so broken that we've had several people on death row exonerated after their cases were reviewed and DNA evidence was admitted. There is also evidence we may have actually executed innocent people - the state doesn't re-open cases where the convict has already been executed. Frankly, mass DNA testing would not only solve a lot of crimes, but prevent gross miscarriages of justice. More data would mean better prosecutions.
Not just that, but if a person has a genetic predisposition towards, say, Alzheimers, a public database of DNA could be used by researchers to find the prevalance of that gene or gene-sequence in the population and thereby plan for future medical treatments, allocate research resources and maybe even warn the poor, unsuspecting SOB before s/he starts losing mental function.
Of course, someone out there will come up with a "yah, but the secret-government agency who REALLY runs America will use your profile for Bad Things..." If they start rounding people up based on DNA, it's an obvious abuse, and only a Tinfoil Hat would actually think that is anything close to likely - heck, The Economist reports that Guantanamo is shipping prisoners back to their countries of origin because of the uproar - in the US and from abroad - over the abuses there. The administration might (will) do unethical things, but they will pay at election time. As long as the framework is open and transparent, there is reasonable protection afforded to the public.
Yah, I know, you can't always trust the public, we re-elected W, but NOT BY MUCH, and he's on a much shorter leash - see above Economist citation.
And lets face it, if the government wanted a 'secret DNA database', they could already have it and we couldn't do bupkus.
So what exactly is so holy about our DNA that it shouldn't be on file? Unitl I am actually deprived of life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness, how are my rights being violated exactly?
This is just my opinion, based on personal experience. Companies I have worked for do not realize the value of the data they keep. As such, they do not see the value in maintaining high-quality facilities to maintain that data. They pay for servers and big ERPs, because the CFO and his friends at $LARGE_CONSULTING_FIRM told them to, but mining the data in those servers is considered too expensive to do and support, so they don't do it. Customizing a user interface to let workers input and retrieve information more efficiently is likewise too expensive to implement and support. Since most white-collar joobs are salaried (i.e., no overtime) in the US, the waste of employee time is not a 'cost' per se - they'll have to spend whatever time it takes to do their jobs, no matter how bad their IT support infrastructure is.
For the above reasons, companies don't need to hire quality IT people - an A+, MCSE is sufficient to do most things a business 'needs' done. Managers have no idea what solid infrastructure and intelligent, IT savvy employees and good Engineering staff can do.
I am right now fighting to use FoxPro in my office - as it stands right now, it can save my department (12 auditors) 5 WEEKS of prep-time for a particular review we do by pulling a bunch of reports in and selecting test samples automatically, which would otherwise be done by hand. The head of IT would rather we waste 5 weeks per year (on this one test alone - there are many more we can and will reengineer) because "we don't support FoxPro, only two people in the company know it, and what if they leave?"
That is the kind of managerial idiocy that makes for the hit-or-miss market for good IT/engineering. Some firms 'get it', others just don't. You can't apply typical business math to good infrastructure - "if I invest $X today in efficient, well-engineered data support, when will it pay me back? Will I recoup my costs by Q2?"
Well, you can, but most don't - I posed this issue to a friend who has an MBA from U of C, on of the best MBAs' you can get. His response was, "you ask your IT guy and your CFO for an IT budget. Who are you gonna trust to get good numbers? The CFO, of course, so you put him in charge of IT." If the CFO doesn't 'get it', and in my experience, they don't, then your stuck. Increasing your capacity by using your employees time and intelligence will pay huge dividends, but since opportunity-cost accounting is simply not part of the typical American business process, they can't actually quantify what they get - so they assume (incorrectly) the value is $0.
Me - I'm figuring to create or work for one who 'gets it', then go back and eat my previous employers' lunch for them. All you un- and under-employed engineers out there - find yourselves a business geek and start a company. Finance and Accounting are screaming for good solutions, and companies will pay - just not their own employees. Remember, the expert is always the Person from Out of Town.
BTW - anyone know a good open-source solution that does what FoxPro does?
Just to point out - the 'taxpayer money' that is saved is not for the district (homeschoolers still pay the same income and property taxes - to my knowledge there is no tax credit for homeschooling). The break they get is on grant money, spent per pupil, from the state or federal gov't, who pays schools 'per head' in class. 'Saving tax dollars' saves 'everyone' a few bucks, but hits local schools harder, since they lose the money for every student not in school on a particular day, whether homeschooled or just absent.
Which brings up an interesting question - how can the state or federal gov't 'give' money back to a school district in excess of what it took to begin with? Someone, somewhere is losing money in revenue transfer. Business income taxes? I'd be curious if there is actually a 'financial map' showing inflows and outflows of gov't cash. Heck, I'm an accountant, and I've never heard of such a thiing, other than those piddly charts at the back of the IRS booklets.
Living in Illinois, I knew many homeschoolers while working and studenting in Central IL - every one I met (note, *I* met) claimed religion as a primary reason to home school - they didn't want their children exposed to 'corrupting influences' they perceived in public schools - in Champaign-Urbana, home of UofI. These were also people who said they would keep having kids "until god tells me to stop", and I suspect they were perhaps not representative of homeschoolers in general, but they were some seriously, wilfully ignorant people - is there a 'national standard' that is enforced, or do the kids just show up for standardized tests periodically?
And how does one ensure 'socialization' occurs? Yah, public schools teach socialization skills by basically lumping together a bunch of kids who *have none* and assuming they'll develop them by trial and error, but can exposure only to ones own family truly socialize a child?
Must... resist... red... state... joke...