Aside from the fact that it's fundamentally incompatible with democracy, wasn't a huge part of the American revolution the idea that there should be no taxation without representation? Those felons are taxpayers, aren't they?
All of non-citizens that work in US and pay taxes are also getting taxed without representation... and there are likely way more of them than felons.
The ones who actually make the team better dont consider themselves to be rockstars. There is a correlation between humility and talent (otherwise known as the Dunning-Kruger effect).... This is how they like to imagine they are, but not what they're like in reality. In reality they are childish and petulant. If their authority and awesomeness is not recognised they will make everyone else's life hell until it is.
Like I said, I don't think you've worked with them before. What you describe is most definitely not what people consider a "rock star developer". And, they don't go around calling themselves that, either. Other people do.
The two I've had a pleasure to work with were both very humble, and incredibly good at what they did. Everybody who worked with them got better for it... I know I did.
Largest organisation I worked for in that capacity was 80 staff with 20 developers (most in a consulting capacity). In fact that's why I ended up managing the dev teams, we didn't have enough of them to justify their own manager so it fell under my jurisdiction as IT manager.... I had a pair of senior devs who could keep the team together and moving and were great at it, I considered it my job to keep things out of their way so they could do their jobs.
Ok, not a big company, but still very bottom-heavy. One senior dev per 10 developers, and one manager for a group of 20... it explains why you do have values of a manager in a big company -- since your team works like one.
If you had 4 senior devs that could "bang out" high quality code, each could do that and still lead 2 more junior developers, and your team would be almost half the size and finish in the same amount of time. And, with that smaller team, you might actually be able to dedicate some real time to individuals you manage.
I hate managing with "rockstar" developers because they're always too arrogant and full of themselves. They detract from the team, argue and refuse to listen to others.
Those aren't rock-star developers. As another poster said, you likely have never worked with a rock-star developer. They are great at what they do, *and* they make the team better. They are rare, but it's awesome when you see somebody that inspires others around them by what they can do.
They help the junior devs and often their time is better spent doing this than banging out code even though their code is a lot better than the juniors. Someone who can manage a team is valued for more than just their coding skills, if they've got people skills they are definitely a force multiplier.
You sound like you work in a big company, on big teams. This is certainly true there, and in order to have a large team productive, you need a lot of good people keeping those juniors productive.
Several times, though, I've seen those similar good people bang out their much superior code and finish the project in the same amount of time, while have a team that's 6 or 7 times smaller, with no juniors.
If you can fix everything wrong process-wise with your 100-dev organization so that everyone can work twice as fast, well, you're 10x as productive as the guy who sits in a corner and bangs out 10x the code, aren't you? If you can invent a product that solves a problem that everyone has, but no one else thought there was a solution to, well, the guy banging out code isn't even on the same scale.
Those don't come even close to being described as "programmer" jobs. We're talking about "rock star programmers", and whether they can be 10x productive compared to a normal programmer. We're not talking about rock-star senior managers driving a 100-dev organization.
And why, exactly, do you think any of those rich individuals and corporations would remain in America, when you're forcing them to work just so you can steal their money and give it to the people who don't?
Oh, you're planning to build a wall along the border to keep your slaves in the Gulag, right? And require exit visas to leave on a plane?
Canada taxes rich individuals at much higher rates than US, and I don't see any walls and exit visas needed to keep them from leaving.
Your English is too good and very "Americanized" for a 3yr immigrant.
That's an awesome observation. Except for the fact that English is the main language of several other countries, one of the big ones being just north of you.
until smart watches battery life are measured in years, I wont buy one.
Ok. Can you elaborate? Why is that a requirement for a watch? You plan on being away from electrical outlets for years at a time?
I'm sure there are some out there than go on wilderness expeditions or whatnot, but for most of us posting on slashdot regularly, we sleep somewhere where you already plug your phone into a charger every night anyway... so why is it a problem to put your phone onto something like this on your night stand?
I've figured I was smart when I was sent to a special school that only accepted people with high IQ. It was arguably the worse year of my life.
I had the opposite experience. For the first time in my schooling years, I felt like I fit in, and I developed my social skills and found new confidence in myself. I was very happy to be there.
Like they say, every kid is different, there's no universal formula to explain what will work and what won't.
If somebody comes up with a novel patent compression algorithm, why shouldn't they be able to patent it? I read the argument about math not being patentable, but I don't really understand why. A new data compression algorithm that is truly novel seems like it should deserve some protection so that the inventor can get rewarded for her work. No?
If you are correct that taxes collect themselves, then why couldn't billing use the same technology?
I think the point is that there is a tax collection system in place already. Adding a line item on the form to cover water is not going to increase the cost and complexity of the system.
Or a road has a new road layout. The lanes have moved around. Perhaps a two way street has become a one way street. This is clearly signposted. Can your car read these signs? Will it just dumbly drive up the street the wrong way until someone thinks to update the map?
Why do you have the impression that computers these days can still only do the same things they did in the 90s?
Yes, the car can read the signs, easily. It's trivial for it to see the sign that says "one way, do not enter" and to recalculate its route. It's also easy for the first car that spots the sign that doesn't match its map to update other cars and let them know what's going on.
And, why wouldn't it have a special bus queue length algorithm, if that was important to know? How hard of an algorithm would it be? It could even query the average wait time for a particular bus stop and adjust to be even more precise. I bet it could predict the waiting time better than you would.
For the next month, I arrived at my desk at 0800, took a 15 minute break at ten and 2, left at 12 for exactly 1 hour, and left at exactly 5 p.m. Even though they got the message very clearly after the first week.
Wow, you worked regular work hours and coworkers could find you during the day... you really showed them.
If you're going to be working odd hours and come and go whenever you want, then that should be a "work from home" job. But, since somebody complained that they couldn't find you at 10am, it sounds like it wasn't that kind of a job.
Believe me, 9 out of 10 companies would prefer you to work 40 hours a week and during regular hours than this "I stay very late" BS.
I guess it's all about managing your toothpaste shopping habits. I can always easily find $25+ worth of things that I need for the house that are cheaper or same price as my local grocery store, so I just buy a bunch of things I need altogether.
Toothpaste, paper towels, garbage bags, coffee, cat litter... those are things you always need in regular intervals. Just get them together in appropriate quantities.
I figured that, like most people on/., I'm not in the target demographic.
I don't think you figured "like most people on/." part right. At least in my experience, just about every computer geek I know has Prime.
Screw the delayed gratification. When I go to store to buy something, I get it right then and there. Online was always a pain because of the delay... Prime makes the delay very manageable.
and actually you as well have taken the time to type out a response to something you think is "irrelevant"
You missed my point. You made "alot" the subject at hand, and the actual point you were trying to make on the topic became irrelevant. We're all talking about your spelling instead of whatever you were trying to say in the discussion.
If your desire is only to get noticed and get replies correcting your spelling, then saying "alot" a lot:) is a successful way of doing it. But if your desire is to get a good discussion on relevant topic going, as you say it is, then this isn't very good.
I make my words a bit grating precisely for that reason. I *want* people to pay attention...I am not making the same point everyone else has made. I **DO** believe we can all agree and move forward and I have had some very interesting conversations this way.
That doesn't make any sense. The conversation ended up being about spelling instead of your point, which is completely opposite from what you wanted it to be.
You don't make your words "grating" by misspelling them, you make them irrelevant... unfortunately.
Following that up with an argument that you did it on purpose certainly doesn't help your cause. It only leads it us even further astray from the topic.
You are ignoring the reality that people drive far more often than they skydive.
I was not ignoring it, I was addressing it head on. I believe that if it takes 100+ times of doing one thing vs. once of another thing to bring them into comparable death probabilities, then the thing you can do 100+ times is clearly safer.
That calculation is completely flawed. You can't compare the lifetime chance of death for something that is done occasionally vs something that is done multiple times a day, and say that they are equally safe.
In 100,000,000 miles traveled, at least a few million trips were made, vs. 150,000 jumps. Clearly, getting into a car and driving to a destination is an order of magnitude safer than jumping out of a plane.
I've gone through this transition once before... now every manager has a budget that pays exactly enough for a bell-curve distribution of his small team.
Now you have a choice of reducing the bottom 10%'s raise by even more to give some of the previously "middle-ranked" employees a bigger raise, or you can take away from your best performers to bring the bottom 10% into the middle-ranked category. Because your team is small, both swings are rather large, and quite unfair.
You still can't win, because "borrowing" the budget from another manager goes back to the old stack-ranking horse-trading show of trying to determine whose team has better performers.
The only way around it is to have only VP-level budgets, and allow managers to assign any ratings they feel are correct, with some adjustment of expectations by their directory. Then, the VP spreads the larger budget accordingly.
Slashdot Mirror
All of non-citizens that work in US and pay taxes are also getting taxed without representation... and there are likely way more of them than felons.
Like I said, I don't think you've worked with them before. What you describe is most definitely not what people consider a "rock star developer". And, they don't go around calling themselves that, either. Other people do.
The two I've had a pleasure to work with were both very humble, and incredibly good at what they did. Everybody who worked with them got better for it... I know I did.
Ok, not a big company, but still very bottom-heavy. One senior dev per 10 developers, and one manager for a group of 20... it explains why you do have values of a manager in a big company -- since your team works like one.
If you had 4 senior devs that could "bang out" high quality code, each could do that and still lead 2 more junior developers, and your team would be almost half the size and finish in the same amount of time. And, with that smaller team, you might actually be able to dedicate some real time to individuals you manage.
Those aren't rock-star developers. As another poster said, you likely have never worked with a rock-star developer. They are great at what they do, *and* they make the team better. They are rare, but it's awesome when you see somebody that inspires others around them by what they can do.
You sound like you work in a big company, on big teams. This is certainly true there, and in order to have a large team productive, you need a lot of good people keeping those juniors productive.
Several times, though, I've seen those similar good people bang out their much superior code and finish the project in the same amount of time, while have a team that's 6 or 7 times smaller, with no juniors.
Those don't come even close to being described as "programmer" jobs. We're talking about "rock star programmers", and whether they can be 10x productive compared to a normal programmer. We're not talking about rock-star senior managers driving a 100-dev organization.
Canada taxes rich individuals at much higher rates than US, and I don't see any walls and exit visas needed to keep them from leaving.
That's an awesome observation. Except for the fact that English is the main language of several other countries, one of the big ones being just north of you.
Ok. Can you elaborate? Why is that a requirement for a watch? You plan on being away from electrical outlets for years at a time?
I'm sure there are some out there than go on wilderness expeditions or whatnot, but for most of us posting on slashdot regularly, we sleep somewhere where you already plug your phone into a charger every night anyway... so why is it a problem to put your phone onto something like this on your night stand?
I had the opposite experience. For the first time in my schooling years, I felt like I fit in, and I developed my social skills and found new confidence in myself. I was very happy to be there.
Like they say, every kid is different, there's no universal formula to explain what will work and what won't.
Spoken like somebody who didn't have to go through the said systems to be admitted.
If somebody comes up with a novel patent compression algorithm, why shouldn't they be able to patent it? I read the argument about math not being patentable, but I don't really understand why. A new data compression algorithm that is truly novel seems like it should deserve some protection so that the inventor can get rewarded for her work. No?
No, I'm pretty sure that, on average, it will last you about 3 years less.
I think the point is that there is a tax collection system in place already. Adding a line item on the form to cover water is not going to increase the cost and complexity of the system.
Why do you have the impression that computers these days can still only do the same things they did in the 90s?
Yes, the car can read the signs, easily. It's trivial for it to see the sign that says "one way, do not enter" and to recalculate its route. It's also easy for the first car that spots the sign that doesn't match its map to update other cars and let them know what's going on.
And, why wouldn't it have a special bus queue length algorithm, if that was important to know? How hard of an algorithm would it be? It could even query the average wait time for a particular bus stop and adjust to be even more precise. I bet it could predict the waiting time better than you would.
Yeah, it is. "Disguised", my ass.
Wow, you worked regular work hours and coworkers could find you during the day... you really showed them.
If you're going to be working odd hours and come and go whenever you want, then that should be a "work from home" job. But, since somebody complained that they couldn't find you at 10am, it sounds like it wasn't that kind of a job.
Believe me, 9 out of 10 companies would prefer you to work 40 hours a week and during regular hours than this "I stay very late" BS.
I guess it's all about managing your toothpaste shopping habits. I can always easily find $25+ worth of things that I need for the house that are cheaper or same price as my local grocery store, so I just buy a bunch of things I need altogether.
Toothpaste, paper towels, garbage bags, coffee, cat litter... those are things you always need in regular intervals. Just get them together in appropriate quantities.
I don't think you figured "like most people on /." part right. At least in my experience, just about every computer geek I know has Prime.
Screw the delayed gratification. When I go to store to buy something, I get it right then and there. Online was always a pain because of the delay... Prime makes the delay very manageable.
Thanks for the link. The score in the finals was 19-8, as the played in the rain on a muddy court and neither team could dribble the ball!
Awesome :).
You missed my point. You made "alot" the subject at hand, and the actual point you were trying to make on the topic became irrelevant. We're all talking about your spelling instead of whatever you were trying to say in the discussion.
If your desire is only to get noticed and get replies correcting your spelling, then saying "alot" a lot :) is a successful way of doing it. But if your desire is to get a good discussion on relevant topic going, as you say it is, then this isn't very good.
That doesn't make any sense. The conversation ended up being about spelling instead of your point, which is completely opposite from what you wanted it to be.
You don't make your words "grating" by misspelling them, you make them irrelevant... unfortunately.
Following that up with an argument that you did it on purpose certainly doesn't help your cause. It only leads it us even further astray from the topic.
The "protocol" seems to be a simple POST with fields like "channel=32&antenna=no", etc.
That better not take too long to reverse-engineer.
I was not ignoring it, I was addressing it head on. I believe that if it takes 100+ times of doing one thing vs. once of another thing to bring them into comparable death probabilities, then the thing you can do 100+ times is clearly safer.
Not necessarily.
That calculation is completely flawed. You can't compare the lifetime chance of death for something that is done occasionally vs something that is done multiple times a day, and say that they are equally safe.
In 100,000,000 miles traveled, at least a few million trips were made, vs. 150,000 jumps. Clearly, getting into a car and driving to a destination is an order of magnitude safer than jumping out of a plane.
I've gone through this transition once before... now every manager has a budget that pays exactly enough for a bell-curve distribution of his small team.
Now you have a choice of reducing the bottom 10%'s raise by even more to give some of the previously "middle-ranked" employees a bigger raise, or you can take away from your best performers to bring the bottom 10% into the middle-ranked category. Because your team is small, both swings are rather large, and quite unfair.
You still can't win, because "borrowing" the budget from another manager goes back to the old stack-ranking horse-trading show of trying to determine whose team has better performers.
The only way around it is to have only VP-level budgets, and allow managers to assign any ratings they feel are correct, with some adjustment of expectations by their directory. Then, the VP spreads the larger budget accordingly.
It yields variable, but more fair, rewards.