Unfortunately the link does not work, but I assume this is some shareholder proposal to limit income of top execs and will work on that assumption...
A shareholder may have good reason to reject such proposals. A shareholder wants the best talent at the top. Why would a shareholder want the CEO who would work the cheapest rather than the one that was most effective (and therefore in most demand and could demand the most money). It makes sense for shareholders to push measures that structure exec compensation in a way to insure that iff the shareholders win (probably somewhat relative to an industry index), do the execs win. There is of course the problem that some shareholders want short term gains and some want long term growth - so there is no perfect exec pay plan that motivates the execs to benefit all shareholders.
I agree that at times, older and wiser means making a decision to move on (just not working as hard as expected of course may result in that -- just not on the right terms!).
I suspect we have different employment experiences. I'm fully aware there are sweatshops out there - I'd never work at them for any extended period of time, nor should anyone else who can do better. However, I can assure you (esp. in the Silicon Valley), there are places that are not sweatshops where top notch developers work very hard because they enjoy it.
Sure, this does not mean that every minute of work is fun in these places. For example, most folks really don't like sending the emails updating status on the process of tracking down a nasty multi-tasking related corruption problem that happens once every 1000 processor hours under heavy stress and is holding up the product release. Nor may they really like working 16 hours a day working on the problem. But, it's a hell of an interesting puzzle that begs to be solved and hence, on the whole, is interesting and engaging. Note, BTW, that in a case like this, making a one character code fix in response to hundreds of hours of diagnosis and analysis can count as "excellent output quantity" (if other lesser developers would never have solved it, only masked it, or even taken twice as long).
Fundamentally, if a developer doesn't enjoy most of what they are doing, they should consider finding another job (either in the same or different field).
I know some 60+ year old developers I would hire without bothering to interview. But I also know many more that I might have been willing to hire 20 years ago, but would not hire now because they just are not as sharp, up-to-date, and/or energetic as they were 20 years ago. Bottom line is that age doesn't matter -- but unfortunately, in some cases those things that do matter decline as a developer gets older and I actually don't care if this is because their priorities change, their brains are turning to mush, or they are just not interested anymore. Obviously, given a fixed raise pool, developers I would not hire (but might not yet fire) will not do as well as those I would hire today if they were working somewhere else!
I wasn't trying to be too serious with my original comment:)
Most of my career I've worked for startups shooting to build product to put at or near the core of the enterprise's computing infrastructure. Needless to say, the second 40 hours a week worked is paid - it is just paid in stock options of unknown value. Even as these companies went public and most of the "interesting" stock options have vested, it's still a lot of fun for the first few years so people keep working hard mostly because they enjoy it.
Actually, I would not want a job that pays hourly or for overtime. If I'm "on the clock", I'd have a moral problem doing a lot of the experimental and "unfunded" things I've done in my career that turned out to be useful and interesting -- as it is now, I can branch off on these things during the day if appropriate with no guilt - I just know that I'm probably not going to bed until 3AM or will be working a lot of hours on the weekend because, of course, I do have "funded" mandates also. Of course, I expect to be rewarded well for my efforts on a salaried basis.
I really hadn't intended that chessmaster or athlete models to be analogies, but merely a sample of truly competitive fields where politics, BS ability, etc mean little - when you're done, you're done and the stats show it. I'm not a student of this, but every study I've seen (sorry, I don't archive these and have links) does show that across large sample sets, overall raw mental capabilities decline with age and that this starts well before traditional retirement age.
Each person is of course an individual and will have different curves. I've never seen someone's core curiosity, intellectual, and energy levels increase with age. Those that come closest to maintaining these levels (and started out with high ones!) may remain strong contributors through traditional retirement ages and beyond -- but, in my experience, this is not the norm. Certainly I've seen people, including myself, lose motivation periodically in situations which are too absurd even for a Dilbert strip and then move on to other situations and "regain" their motivation but this is not what I'm talking about.
For very "good" developers, certainly 12 years of experience is not where the curves normally cross. The main exception being when outside factors such as family intrude after having a few kids - but this is more of a redirection of efforts (although, from an employer's standpoint, it really doesn't matter why output quantity reduces). Certainly some (maybe most) very good developers with two years of experience (i.e., 10 years younger - and I assume less experienced than you) really haven't accomplished much - but that's just about one release cycle in my part of the development world so this is not surprising. That said, I love to hire good developers with a couple years of experience because they are over some of the initial "why we usually shouldn't write self modifying code just because we can^H^H^Hcould" (oops, I think I just dated myself) and are still very eager and inquisitive. Note the experience I value has little to do with knowing more languages, tools, operating systems and the like -- but developing intuitive understanding of tradeoffs, debugging in complex multi-tasking server environments, the enormous cost of bugs in critical areas if they make it to a customer etc...
(BTW, I'm about 50 and have worked closely with people of all ages in fairly demanding environments all of my career.)
Workers get older and gain experience. More experienced workers are worth more than fresh college grads (in some industries, at least).
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If experience matters in your industry, you should expect raises somewhat higher than the cost of living increases as you get older
I think this is only true to a point. Most software developers, for example, rise to some "terminal" level of job/role and really don't add much relevant total experience after that - sure, the 60 year old has more war stories than the 40 year old, but having debugged a program using an analog oscilloscope just isn't all that relevant to current technology.
Also, like it or not, I'm convinced the effort put in by most people declines over the years - usually because of some combination of increasing familial responsibilities, lowered energy levels, or cynicism. Also mental skills (memory for example) decline in some dimensions. Usually the "increasing experience" phenomena is overcome by the "decreasing effort/capability" phenomena and the person becomes less, not more, valuable as they ferment. Notice how chess masters and sports figures rarely are as good at their craft at 60 as they were at 35? By this ranking, the oldest of the top ten chess players in the world is 40, and the average age is 29 - chess is a primarily a mental exercise (much like software development and IT) so I would expect that if the "more experience is more valuable" claim is true w/o qualification, the average age would be closer to 55.
Once one has reached their "terminal level", they really should expect nothing more than cost of living increases. The goal of course is to move that terminal level as high as possible!
without us, they would not be rich, but without them, we couls still produce and sell the same product.
I don't know what business you are in, but if this is the case, why don't you start your own business and keep the money for yourself (or spread it among your workers if you like)?
Actually, maybe the owners are betting that they could still be rich without you because they think they can replace you. You would know better than I if they could, but if you're so sure, why not take a chance and bail out? Or, are you too risk adverse? Perhaps one reason the owners are rich is because they are willing to take personal risks and bet right more often than they bet wrong.
The 'raw material' problem seems like a serious concern. Remember that (at least for the earlier missions) NASA developed toothpaste that was swallowed after brushing to avoid uncaptured gobs of saliva-toothpaste glop floating around the craft.
Hmm... I think a device would be needed here -- I really wouldn't be looking forward to being on board for 30 months without a good plan for raw material capture and containment (visions of unidentified flying globs floating around - ugh...).
But if the breathalyzer's accuracy has been tested and verified
Unfortunately, testing and verification does not insure 100% "correctness". Some problems are only likely to be found via code inspection (or in some cases, more efficiently by requirements, architecture, and design reviews - but ultimately, flaws upstream are reflected in the code).
NASA works pretty hard at test and verification of its software, but still missions, such as this or this (pg 26) [PDF warning], have failed due to software problems (bugs and/or design flaws) or process errors. Recall also the little division problem on Pentium chips which was caused by a lookup table having a few entries downloaded incorrectly - and Intel surely did a lot of testing, yet missed this flaw.
I don't know anything about how breathalyzers work. However, it would not surprise me to see that various calibration information (perhaps "known sample", factory calibration of internal sensors, and/or calibration to "zero"), environmental factors (temperature, humidity, and/or barometric pressure), and tested sample information (volume and/or temperature) are factored into the final "BAC" number displayed. There may also be lookup tables (which may have been downloaded incorrectly) involved as well. It is likely impossible to test all combinations of factors (since, if nothing else, doing so would probably result in the product not shipping for many, many years - by which time it would be obsolete).
For these reasons, I don't think that it is possible to say that a breathalyzer is "tested and verified". Since the freedom of thousands of individuals every year depends on the correct operation of breathalyzers, it seems like good public policy to open up the source code, circuit designs, and specs for viewing by all. Note this would not require relinquishing copyrights or patents on these materials.
Selecting "more money" over "cleaner air" is something most people do every day (instead of forgoing a day's wages, most people use some form of transport, public or private, which dirties the air in order for them to get to work) and it can be perfectly rational. If offered $100M to burn a piece of scrap paper, I think most people (maybe not Bill Gates since $100M isn't much to him personally!) would take the money and dirty the air slightly.
It's all cost/benefit -- the amount of money involved and how much dirtier the air becomes. From a personal level, more money can mean improved health care which can mean a longer and more comfortable life even with slightly dirtier air.
I care what was there when we invaded. That is what we're spending these troops' lives on (not to mention the money).
While I can understand your concerns about the money because it is partially your money, I don't understand your emphasis on troops' lives (I assume you are referring to American troops based on your overall comments). These lives didn't come from you, they came from the soldiers who VOLUNTEERED to join the military. I don't mean to be crass and most certainly don't intend to trivialize the sacrifices made by our troops, but this is not like back in Vietnam where the lives being lost were those of people forced to serve. Do you think people who join the military are so stupid that they don't know they may be called on to put their lives at risk? Do you think they don't have the right to make that decision for themselves?
Interestingly, it appears that support for our involvement in Iraq is much higher among those whose lives are at risk because they are serving (and really know what is going on) than among those who are kibitzing from the safety of their living rooms lapping up all the bad news (since good stuff is apparently unworthy of being "news") from the MSM.
The comparison is not relevant. Unlike the latter days in Nazi Germany, in the U.S., Federal laws are created by a legislative process in which we, the people, regularly and freely elect representatives - the longest any one representative can (normally) hold office without standing for reelection is six years (a Senator). Thus, we always have a remedy if the laws are defective and the courts (at all levels) should ONLY apply the (written and case) law and, except where the law allows it, judges should have no discretion - although, obviously, there are issues of fact, application, and legislative intent (in the case of conflicting laws) that may be in dispute and require judgement calls. The POTUS also has broad pardon powers which can be exercised to deal with any case where a law unintentionally has had unjust consequences.
Your first hypothetical is absurd as the SCOTUS would certainly deem a law banning someone from being a Muslim as unconstitutional on any number of grounds - there is no need for doing anything but rigorously applying the Constitution here.
In the second case, if the Constitution gives the President powers to detain people and hold secret trials, I disagree that the SCOTUS should do anything about it. Now, in this specific case, the SCOTUS will be called upon to decide if the scope of the Presidential powers under the Constitution includes the right to take such actions and may eventually decide he does not. If the voters don't like this outcome (i.e., allowing Bush to hold prisoners w/o due process), he can be impeached by our elected representatives (albeit, it's not clear this would be a valid reason for impeachment, but the House and Senate both are granted pretty broad powers in this area) and/or the Constitution changed by a well defined process.
You appear to believe the SCOTUS should be able to ignore the law just because at least five elderly folks in black robes who were potentially appointed decades earlier believe it's "unjust". These judges are of course not subjected to removal by the people (although, contrary to popular belief, they are not actually guaranteed the opportunity to remain on the bench for the rest of their life - they only "hold their Offices during good Behaviour" [US Constitution Article 3, Section 1] - whatever the hell that means).
How about a counter hypothetical for what happens if we believe the SCOTUS should have the power to ignore the law in order to achieve a "just outcome"? Suppose the Supreme Court, in some vaguely related case, declares that in order to "insure a just outcome", online postings that criticize the President constitute treason and are not protected by the first amendment? Would you suddenly think this is "okay" because the SCOTUS decided this and we can't throw them out of office by a vote of the people?
Yep... I only meant civil cases since that was what was being discussed. It wouldn't be appropriate in criminal cases.
Although, in criminal cases I would not be adverse to a third verdict being available to juries - something like "Definitely Innocent on All Material Counts - Recommend Defendant be Compensated for Legal Expenses". If this third verdict were returned, and with judicial review, perhaps the defendant should be compensated for reasonable legal expenses (or if the state withdraws or fails to pursue charges that have been made). After all, in this case, the people (us) cost one person a lot of money w/o justification and it seems appropriate to distribute the burden across all those who voted for the DA et al... Note that the people already pay for legal defense (at least in theory) for defendants who can't pay (even if the defendant IS found guilty) - why should a middle class family have to give up everything they worked for over many decades because a overzealous prosecutor or police pursued a false charge?
In civil cases there would have to be some reasonableness limit. At first glance, I think a "winning party gets reimbursed at the lower of the bills of the two parties" might work pretty well -- although this would require continuous accounting and monitoring by the court which would be expensive (too easy to game if the recording/accounting is left until the end - esp. when most of the cost is staff lawyer time for a corporation since the losing party would have every motivation to not report their expenses). This is not perfect, but it would tend to reduce the ability to squash the "little guy" since as long as the "big guy" is spending money and the little guy is sure he is right, the little guy (or his sponsers) can keep spending with some hope of getting legal costs back eventually.
Now you have just raised taxes on the people of the State of New York.
You see, settlement save tax dollars by not taking every case to trial.
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But in your "reality" based world, we should bankrupt the citizens to keep the system free from possible extortion.
Simple solution... Loser pays the court for the resources consumed by the court - NO tax dollars spent on these cases (better than today's situation!). Coupled with a modified "loser pays winner's legal expenses" (winning party gets LESSER of his legal expenses and losing parties legal expenses paid - this reduces asymmetric lawyering), this would do a lot to get only meritous cases to trial.
The current SCOTUS is conservative. When was the last justice put in by a liberal democrat?
Just because most of the current SCOTUS justices were put on the bench by Republican administrations doesn't imply that the court is conservative (it is not nearly as conservative as this metric would suggest). All it means is that Republican administrations are not very good at nominating justices that do what the administration thinks they will do. Souter and Stevens (and perhaps O'Connor) fall in this category. The Democratic administrations on the other hand are batting 100% - think Ginsburg and Breyer. (BTW, here's an interesting page showing how the various pairs of justices voted in the 2002 term).
[the justices] DO try to make decisions that are good for the health of the country
But, that is not their job. They have two main jobs - one (which many people people forget) is to decide non-constitutional issues (such as how to interpret Federal laws where they conflict or are unclear) and constitutional issues. In neither case should they care "what is good for the health of the country" (that job is for the other two branches of the Federal government). Even if following the Constitution results in a horrible outcome for society, they should follow the Constitution (hopefully, in their opinions, they would point out that the other branches could get off their butts and fix the law in question).
...filling said holes with I assume by this you mean filling said holes with bureaucrats after they are finished with Project Gallows.
Happily, this may also reduce required funds for road maintenience...
As attractive as this all sounds, what will we do when we run out of bureaucrats in year 9700? They do, after all, rot after a few weeks of service as a pothole filler (although, they probably will contribute more to society in those few weeks than they did in the first 30 years of their career).
the company that wants to make compatible parts buys one and strips it down.
Just stripping down one (or many) instances won't yield the specifications.
First, dimensions are within a tolerance, for example 1.25+/-.01 inches, so even if the parts on the sample car(s) are within the range, the aftermarket mfg could not derive the original specification which will work with all other mating parts in the world. Consider that if the sample car(s) had a part that measured 1.2600 inches it would be "in spec" - however, even if the aftermarket mfg knew the tolerance was +/-.01 inches, they would not know if the spec was 1.27+/-.01 or 1.25+/-.01. Depending on what they pick, the parts they build might be too big or too small to work properly with mating parts.
Second, determining the relevant actual material specification including such things as heat and pressure treatments during manufacturing of various metal and plastic parts seems pretty tough to do - yet if not duplicated, the aftermarket part may fail to have the same strengths (or, ironically, the same weaknesses which could be important in crumple zones and the like) across all weather conditions as the manufacturer's parts and may fail to function within the complete system as designed.
That said... In the US, aftermarket parts manufacturers may have some access to the specs (either in response to fear of or actual legislation regarding antitrust/anti-monopolistic behaviors).
Nothing gets rolled out until it is completely and totally tested.
That must be some very simple software to be "completely" and/or "totally" tested. Really, it's not possible to do this in the real world (and if it is possible, the program is simple enough you probably could have written a formal proof of correctness of this four line program).
How about this. Ford publishes the blueprints for all it's cars and truck every year, most major automakers do. (You can pick them up at most auto parts stores)
I've never seen an auto parts store that had blueprints for any commercial car available. There are service manuals (both the manufacturers' own and third party such as Chilton), but these are far short of "blueprints". From a service manual one cannot, for example, find a specification of the exact length of a brake line to the front brakes or the internal construction of said line (minimally necessary information to determine if the line is so long it can get caught in another part at some steering angles or so short that it gets stressed on some steering angles at temperatures below -10C). This isn't to say that such information isn't available (perhaps for a price) to aftermarket manufacturers...
Don't buy. Right. While you're at it, don't go to any movies that might have RIAA music as part of the soundtrack and don't go to any store that might have a radio playing RIAA music.
A person's decision not to buy personal copies of RIAA "taxed" music doesn't mean that they must avoid all places where such music is heard. It is perfectly principled to make a decision to behave in this way. Indeed, it is even very logical - if everyone acted this way, stores wouldn't play the RIAA music (no one would recognize it) and movie producers would not use RIAA music (they would seek deals with independents since RIAA artists would be unknown).
This is an excellent idea which, for some reason, has not been adopted.
The act of "certification" across the broad range of subject areas would be very labor intensive - perhaps more than can be managed if the wikipedia site team had to do the certification?
Perhaps wikipedia should have a moderation system like/. but "ubermoderators" who have achieved that status have great power -- they *always* have mod points and "troll" or "offtopic" is enough to insure that the moderated edits never get to the stable branch -- of course, with that "uber" status comes responsibility -- if other ubermoderators accuse them of misuse of those points, they risk losing their "uber" status (and rather quickly). The number of disputes where ubermoderators vote to "unuber" another ubermoderator should be small enough that the site team could arbitrate.
Seriously, if you're in the Senate, and your party is in the minority, how would you go about fighting for what you believe?
Umm... Work on gaining a majority? Author and vote for bills that get enough majority party support to pass? Make a cogent argument to voters in states with a Senator in the majority party that convinces them to vote for the minority party Senator in the next election?
What is magic about 2/3 - why not require unanimous agreement?
A perfect example of why specs are useful -- without specifications, the Intelligent Designer's developers would end up developing too many models of women with non-standard breast placement. This would then require way too many bra models which would result in way too much confusion about how to remove them quickly -- it could have lead to the end of the human race before it really got a good start.
And now, even Google maps can't find NeverNeverLand. It truely is sad.
Perhaps if all/.ers look at all the images from Google maps, we can find a hole somewhere where NeverNeverLand used to be?
So, how long before the UN would impose a tax (say 0.50 USD for starters) for every lookup and "rent" (say 300 USD/year for starters) for each domain name accessible through the system - and perhaps additional taxes for domains and traffic to sites deemed "culturally insensitive" by a new UN bureaucracy. Of course, this tax would be waived for developing countries and for any country who bribed the right UN officials.
Yep, if the UN wants the Internet, fine - they can develop the UNternet and let the market decide which one is best. Maybe the UN will do a better job and we will all flock to their superior system.
Alternatively, maybe the UN wants it bad enough to pay the US back for its (DARPA et al) investment that led to the success of the Internet. Of course, the price would reflect not the original investment made, but the current value of what grew from that investment (just as I can't buy stock in Microsoft for the same price as the IPO investors did). Indeed, this is sounding good - it would at least pay for the war in Iraq and the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast - probably with a few hundred billion to spare. Of course, so people can still register domains like "FreedomChicks.com" and "BushSucks.com" and "KerrySucks.com", the US will probably have to immediately start development of a competing net (USNet) - Halliburton could probably get this deployed quickly.
Slashdot Mirror
A shareholder may have good reason to reject such proposals. A shareholder wants the best talent at the top. Why would a shareholder want the CEO who would work the cheapest rather than the one that was most effective (and therefore in most demand and could demand the most money). It makes sense for shareholders to push measures that structure exec compensation in a way to insure that iff the shareholders win (probably somewhat relative to an industry index), do the execs win. There is of course the problem that some shareholders want short term gains and some want long term growth - so there is no perfect exec pay plan that motivates the execs to benefit all shareholders.
I suspect we have different employment experiences. I'm fully aware there are sweatshops out there - I'd never work at them for any extended period of time, nor should anyone else who can do better. However, I can assure you (esp. in the Silicon Valley), there are places that are not sweatshops where top notch developers work very hard because they enjoy it. Sure, this does not mean that every minute of work is fun in these places. For example, most folks really don't like sending the emails updating status on the process of tracking down a nasty multi-tasking related corruption problem that happens once every 1000 processor hours under heavy stress and is holding up the product release. Nor may they really like working 16 hours a day working on the problem. But, it's a hell of an interesting puzzle that begs to be solved and hence, on the whole, is interesting and engaging. Note, BTW, that in a case like this, making a one character code fix in response to hundreds of hours of diagnosis and analysis can count as "excellent output quantity" (if other lesser developers would never have solved it, only masked it, or even taken twice as long).
Fundamentally, if a developer doesn't enjoy most of what they are doing, they should consider finding another job (either in the same or different field).
I know some 60+ year old developers I would hire without bothering to interview. But I also know many more that I might have been willing to hire 20 years ago, but would not hire now because they just are not as sharp, up-to-date, and/or energetic as they were 20 years ago. Bottom line is that age doesn't matter -- but unfortunately, in some cases those things that do matter decline as a developer gets older and I actually don't care if this is because their priorities change, their brains are turning to mush, or they are just not interested anymore. Obviously, given a fixed raise pool, developers I would not hire (but might not yet fire) will not do as well as those I would hire today if they were working somewhere else!
Most of my career I've worked for startups shooting to build product to put at or near the core of the enterprise's computing infrastructure. Needless to say, the second 40 hours a week worked is paid - it is just paid in stock options of unknown value. Even as these companies went public and most of the "interesting" stock options have vested, it's still a lot of fun for the first few years so people keep working hard mostly because they enjoy it.
Actually, I would not want a job that pays hourly or for overtime. If I'm "on the clock", I'd have a moral problem doing a lot of the experimental and "unfunded" things I've done in my career that turned out to be useful and interesting -- as it is now, I can branch off on these things during the day if appropriate with no guilt - I just know that I'm probably not going to bed until 3AM or will be working a lot of hours on the weekend because, of course, I do have "funded" mandates also. Of course, I expect to be rewarded well for my efforts on a salaried basis.
Each person is of course an individual and will have different curves. I've never seen someone's core curiosity, intellectual, and energy levels increase with age. Those that come closest to maintaining these levels (and started out with high ones!) may remain strong contributors through traditional retirement ages and beyond -- but, in my experience, this is not the norm. Certainly I've seen people, including myself, lose motivation periodically in situations which are too absurd even for a Dilbert strip and then move on to other situations and "regain" their motivation but this is not what I'm talking about.
For very "good" developers, certainly 12 years of experience is not where the curves normally cross. The main exception being when outside factors such as family intrude after having a few kids - but this is more of a redirection of efforts (although, from an employer's standpoint, it really doesn't matter why output quantity reduces). Certainly some (maybe most) very good developers with two years of experience (i.e., 10 years younger - and I assume less experienced than you) really haven't accomplished much - but that's just about one release cycle in my part of the development world so this is not surprising. That said, I love to hire good developers with a couple years of experience because they are over some of the initial "why we usually shouldn't write self modifying code just because we can^H^H^Hcould" (oops, I think I just dated myself) and are still very eager and inquisitive. Note the experience I value has little to do with knowing more languages, tools, operating systems and the like -- but developing intuitive understanding of tradeoffs, debugging in complex multi-tasking server environments, the enormous cost of bugs in critical areas if they make it to a customer etc...
(BTW, I'm about 50 and have worked closely with people of all ages in fairly demanding environments all of my career.)
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If experience matters in your industry, you should expect raises somewhat higher than the cost of living increases as you get older
I think this is only true to a point. Most software developers, for example, rise to some "terminal" level of job/role and really don't add much relevant total experience after that - sure, the 60 year old has more war stories than the 40 year old, but having debugged a program using an analog oscilloscope just isn't all that relevant to current technology.
Also, like it or not, I'm convinced the effort put in by most people declines over the years - usually because of some combination of increasing familial responsibilities, lowered energy levels, or cynicism. Also mental skills (memory for example) decline in some dimensions. Usually the "increasing experience" phenomena is overcome by the "decreasing effort/capability" phenomena and the person becomes less, not more, valuable as they ferment. Notice how chess masters and sports figures rarely are as good at their craft at 60 as they were at 35? By this ranking, the oldest of the top ten chess players in the world is 40, and the average age is 29 - chess is a primarily a mental exercise (much like software development and IT) so I would expect that if the "more experience is more valuable" claim is true w/o qualification, the average age would be closer to 55.
Once one has reached their "terminal level", they really should expect nothing more than cost of living increases. The goal of course is to move that terminal level as high as possible!
I don't know what business you are in, but if this is the case, why don't you start your own business and keep the money for yourself (or spread it among your workers if you like)?
Actually, maybe the owners are betting that they could still be rich without you because they think they can replace you. You would know better than I if they could, but if you're so sure, why not take a chance and bail out? Or, are you too risk adverse? Perhaps one reason the owners are rich is because they are willing to take personal risks and bet right more often than they bet wrong.
Please explain this concept of "earning more" by working overtime. I'm very confused. :)
Hmm... I think a device would be needed here -- I really wouldn't be looking forward to being on board for 30 months without a good plan for raw material capture and containment (visions of unidentified flying globs floating around - ugh...).
Unfortunately, testing and verification does not insure 100% "correctness". Some problems are only likely to be found via code inspection (or in some cases, more efficiently by requirements, architecture, and design reviews - but ultimately, flaws upstream are reflected in the code).
NASA works pretty hard at test and verification of its software, but still missions, such as this or this (pg 26) [PDF warning], have failed due to software problems (bugs and/or design flaws) or process errors. Recall also the little division problem on Pentium chips which was caused by a lookup table having a few entries downloaded incorrectly - and Intel surely did a lot of testing, yet missed this flaw.
I don't know anything about how breathalyzers work. However, it would not surprise me to see that various calibration information (perhaps "known sample", factory calibration of internal sensors, and/or calibration to "zero"), environmental factors (temperature, humidity, and/or barometric pressure), and tested sample information (volume and/or temperature) are factored into the final "BAC" number displayed. There may also be lookup tables (which may have been downloaded incorrectly) involved as well. It is likely impossible to test all combinations of factors (since, if nothing else, doing so would probably result in the product not shipping for many, many years - by which time it would be obsolete).
For these reasons, I don't think that it is possible to say that a breathalyzer is "tested and verified". Since the freedom of thousands of individuals every year depends on the correct operation of breathalyzers, it seems like good public policy to open up the source code, circuit designs, and specs for viewing by all. Note this would not require relinquishing copyrights or patents on these materials.
It's all cost/benefit -- the amount of money involved and how much dirtier the air becomes. From a personal level, more money can mean improved health care which can mean a longer and more comfortable life even with slightly dirtier air.
Besides, cruise control lets you catch a little sleep while you drive.
While I can understand your concerns about the money because it is partially your money, I don't understand your emphasis on troops' lives (I assume you are referring to American troops based on your overall comments). These lives didn't come from you, they came from the soldiers who VOLUNTEERED to join the military. I don't mean to be crass and most certainly don't intend to trivialize the sacrifices made by our troops, but this is not like back in Vietnam where the lives being lost were those of people forced to serve. Do you think people who join the military are so stupid that they don't know they may be called on to put their lives at risk? Do you think they don't have the right to make that decision for themselves?
Interestingly, it appears that support for our involvement in Iraq is much higher among those whose lives are at risk because they are serving (and really know what is going on) than among those who are kibitzing from the safety of their living rooms lapping up all the bad news (since good stuff is apparently unworthy of being "news") from the MSM.
The comparison is not relevant. Unlike the latter days in Nazi Germany, in the U.S., Federal laws are created by a legislative process in which we, the people, regularly and freely elect representatives - the longest any one representative can (normally) hold office without standing for reelection is six years (a Senator). Thus, we always have a remedy if the laws are defective and the courts (at all levels) should ONLY apply the (written and case) law and, except where the law allows it, judges should have no discretion - although, obviously, there are issues of fact, application, and legislative intent (in the case of conflicting laws) that may be in dispute and require judgement calls. The POTUS also has broad pardon powers which can be exercised to deal with any case where a law unintentionally has had unjust consequences.
Your first hypothetical is absurd as the SCOTUS would certainly deem a law banning someone from being a Muslim as unconstitutional on any number of grounds - there is no need for doing anything but rigorously applying the Constitution here.
In the second case, if the Constitution gives the President powers to detain people and hold secret trials, I disagree that the SCOTUS should do anything about it. Now, in this specific case, the SCOTUS will be called upon to decide if the scope of the Presidential powers under the Constitution includes the right to take such actions and may eventually decide he does not. If the voters don't like this outcome (i.e., allowing Bush to hold prisoners w/o due process), he can be impeached by our elected representatives (albeit, it's not clear this would be a valid reason for impeachment, but the House and Senate both are granted pretty broad powers in this area) and/or the Constitution changed by a well defined process.
You appear to believe the SCOTUS should be able to ignore the law just because at least five elderly folks in black robes who were potentially appointed decades earlier believe it's "unjust". These judges are of course not subjected to removal by the people (although, contrary to popular belief, they are not actually guaranteed the opportunity to remain on the bench for the rest of their life - they only "hold their Offices during good Behaviour" [US Constitution Article 3, Section 1] - whatever the hell that means).
How about a counter hypothetical for what happens if we believe the SCOTUS should have the power to ignore the law in order to achieve a "just outcome"? Suppose the Supreme Court, in some vaguely related case, declares that in order to "insure a just outcome", online postings that criticize the President constitute treason and are not protected by the first amendment? Would you suddenly think this is "okay" because the SCOTUS decided this and we can't throw them out of office by a vote of the people?
In civil cases there would have to be some reasonableness limit. At first glance, I think a "winning party gets reimbursed at the lower of the bills of the two parties" might work pretty well -- although this would require continuous accounting and monitoring by the court which would be expensive (too easy to game if the recording/accounting is left until the end - esp. when most of the cost is staff lawyer time for a corporation since the losing party would have every motivation to not report their expenses). This is not perfect, but it would tend to reduce the ability to squash the "little guy" since as long as the "big guy" is spending money and the little guy is sure he is right, the little guy (or his sponsers) can keep spending with some hope of getting legal costs back eventually.
Now you have just raised taxes on the people of the State of New York.
You see, settlement save tax dollars by not taking every case to trial.
But in your "reality" based world, we should bankrupt the citizens to keep the system free from possible extortion.
Simple solution... Loser pays the court for the resources consumed by the court - NO tax dollars spent on these cases (better than today's situation!). Coupled with a modified "loser pays winner's legal expenses" (winning party gets LESSER of his legal expenses and losing parties legal expenses paid - this reduces asymmetric lawyering), this would do a lot to get only meritous cases to trial.
Just because most of the current SCOTUS justices were put on the bench by Republican administrations doesn't imply that the court is conservative (it is not nearly as conservative as this metric would suggest). All it means is that Republican administrations are not very good at nominating justices that do what the administration thinks they will do. Souter and Stevens (and perhaps O'Connor) fall in this category. The Democratic administrations on the other hand are batting 100% - think Ginsburg and Breyer. (BTW, here's an interesting page showing how the various pairs of justices voted in the 2002 term).
[the justices] DO try to make decisions that are good for the health of the country
But, that is not their job. They have two main jobs - one (which many people people forget) is to decide non-constitutional issues (such as how to interpret Federal laws where they conflict or are unclear) and constitutional issues. In neither case should they care "what is good for the health of the country" (that job is for the other two branches of the Federal government). Even if following the Constitution results in a horrible outcome for society, they should follow the Constitution (hopefully, in their opinions, they would point out that the other branches could get off their butts and fix the law in question).
Happily, this may also reduce required funds for road maintenience...
As attractive as this all sounds, what will we do when we run out of bureaucrats in year 9700? They do, after all, rot after a few weeks of service as a pothole filler (although, they probably will contribute more to society in those few weeks than they did in the first 30 years of their career).
Just stripping down one (or many) instances won't yield the specifications.
First, dimensions are within a tolerance, for example 1.25+/-.01 inches, so even if the parts on the sample car(s) are within the range, the aftermarket mfg could not derive the original specification which will work with all other mating parts in the world. Consider that if the sample car(s) had a part that measured 1.2600 inches it would be "in spec" - however, even if the aftermarket mfg knew the tolerance was +/-.01 inches, they would not know if the spec was 1.27+/-.01 or 1.25+/-.01. Depending on what they pick, the parts they build might be too big or too small to work properly with mating parts.
Second, determining the relevant actual material specification including such things as heat and pressure treatments during manufacturing of various metal and plastic parts seems pretty tough to do - yet if not duplicated, the aftermarket part may fail to have the same strengths (or, ironically, the same weaknesses which could be important in crumple zones and the like) across all weather conditions as the manufacturer's parts and may fail to function within the complete system as designed.
That said... In the US, aftermarket parts manufacturers may have some access to the specs (either in response to fear of or actual legislation regarding antitrust/anti-monopolistic behaviors).
That must be some very simple software to be "completely" and/or "totally" tested. Really, it's not possible to do this in the real world (and if it is possible, the program is simple enough you probably could have written a formal proof of correctness of this four line program).
How about this. Ford publishes the blueprints for all it's cars and truck every year, most major automakers do. (You can pick them up at most auto parts stores)
I've never seen an auto parts store that had blueprints for any commercial car available. There are service manuals (both the manufacturers' own and third party such as Chilton), but these are far short of "blueprints". From a service manual one cannot, for example, find a specification of the exact length of a brake line to the front brakes or the internal construction of said line (minimally necessary information to determine if the line is so long it can get caught in another part at some steering angles or so short that it gets stressed on some steering angles at temperatures below -10C). This isn't to say that such information isn't available (perhaps for a price) to aftermarket manufacturers...
A person's decision not to buy personal copies of RIAA "taxed" music doesn't mean that they must avoid all places where such music is heard. It is perfectly principled to make a decision to behave in this way. Indeed, it is even very logical - if everyone acted this way, stores wouldn't play the RIAA music (no one would recognize it) and movie producers would not use RIAA music (they would seek deals with independents since RIAA artists would be unknown).
The act of "certification" across the broad range of subject areas would be very labor intensive - perhaps more than can be managed if the wikipedia site team had to do the certification?
Perhaps wikipedia should have a moderation system like /. but "ubermoderators" who have achieved that status have great power -- they *always* have mod points and "troll" or "offtopic" is enough to insure that the moderated edits never get to the stable branch -- of course, with that "uber" status comes responsibility -- if other ubermoderators accuse them of misuse of those points, they risk losing their "uber" status (and rather quickly). The number of disputes where ubermoderators vote to "unuber" another ubermoderator should be small enough that the site team could arbitrate.
Umm... Work on gaining a majority? Author and vote for bills that get enough majority party support to pass? Make a cogent argument to voters in states with a Senator in the majority party that convinces them to vote for the minority party Senator in the next election?
What is magic about 2/3 - why not require unanimous agreement?
A perfect example of why specs are useful -- without specifications, the Intelligent Designer's developers would end up developing too many models of women with non-standard breast placement. This would then require way too many bra models which would result in way too much confusion about how to remove them quickly -- it could have lead to the end of the human race before it really got a good start.
And now, even Google maps can't find NeverNeverLand. It truely is sad. Perhaps if all /.ers look at all the images from Google maps, we can find a hole somewhere where NeverNeverLand used to be?
Yep, if the UN wants the Internet, fine - they can develop the UNternet and let the market decide which one is best. Maybe the UN will do a better job and we will all flock to their superior system.
Alternatively, maybe the UN wants it bad enough to pay the US back for its (DARPA et al) investment that led to the success of the Internet. Of course, the price would reflect not the original investment made, but the current value of what grew from that investment (just as I can't buy stock in Microsoft for the same price as the IPO investors did). Indeed, this is sounding good - it would at least pay for the war in Iraq and the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast - probably with a few hundred billion to spare. Of course, so people can still register domains like "FreedomChicks.com" and "BushSucks.com" and "KerrySucks.com", the US will probably have to immediately start development of a competing net (USNet) - Halliburton could probably get this deployed quickly.