As a non-native German speaker living and working in Germany, I have to wonder why your experiences are so different to mine! Your "overall" assessment that's it's good is spot on, but your negative details seem a little off. The pay here is great for the work that I do (programmer), people are very friendly, most people speak English well, and the tech level really isn't so bad (definitely comparable to the US from what I've seen (but neither really hold a candle to New Zealand or Japan)).
3500-4000 euro per month would be a basic starting wage while "proving" someone that was completely untested - a good programmer will rise up above that level very quickly. Plus, it's paid 13 months a year as standard, so that's the equivalent of $76k USD before tax as a minimum... when you add on the fact that you get 6 weeks leave per year, generally have flexitime, and there's a lot of public holidays, it's definitely not something to sneeze at for a "starting"/"proving" salary!
Note that by "programmer" I do actually mean someone who writes real code though - I don't really know what the situation is for people that do scripting and "building" web sites rather than real coding. Your figure of 3000 euro a month roof for a PHP coder would only be accurate here if it were more of a "person who does web stuff with PHP" rather than a real "PHP coder" who would be around 4500 a month roof. Learn something else like C++ (or especially C# these days) and your roof will go up to 6000 pretty easily. Start doing more project management sort of things as well, and the roof will get higher again.
Tax is definitely pretty high though - my base salary, minus all of the various things I pay before it enters my bank, gives me roughly 52% of what I've earned. That's ALL of the various things though, so not only taxes (includes my healthcare, insurances, taxes and so on).
Hmmm... you seem to forget Brno - I know of good places there for developers also. But I wouldn't be so hard on Germany if I were you... see my post below where I mention a job specifically if the submitter (or anyone else) is interested.
Hello original submitter - I have no idea if you'll read this or not, since it's probably destined to be buried right at the bottom of your view, well below MANY pointless discussions about things completely offtopic.
The company I work for, in Germany, is currently looking for a programmer type working closely with me (also a programmer). The job is about 25% actual coding, 50% helping other programmers with our own specific API and 25% other stuff (including various kinds of planning meetings, lots of travel around Europe and occasional travel outside of Europe (Japan being the most common, but US from time to time also)).
We're looking for someone with good C# knowledge, since that's what our API is based around, however strong Java and web-based skills is also a very big plus for something else we'll be doing quite soon.
I've actually already passed on one slashdotter's resume (a guy from Chicago) to my boss, and we have NO problem looking outside of Germany (we're required to look within Germany first, but the response has been less than stellar so far, so once we've finished looking inside Germany, we'll open it up to anyone, anywhere). I myself also do not come from Europe originally, so I myself am pretty good evidence we'll hire from anywhere if we need to. English is the defacto standard language for business in our company since we're the European HQ of a large multi-national. German is good to learn for "day to day life" here, but it's definitely not required for work.
If you're interested, please send me an email - my slashdot username minus the last 3 characters at Google's mail provider.
(if the other slashdotter who I have already talked to about this job reads this - don't worry, we haven't forgotten you or thrown away your resume - you're still in the running as well)
Well thank you (and everyone else) for the string/thread suggestion - I hadn't heard of it before... I just tried it, but unfortunately it didn't help. It compressed the fleshy bits of the finger enough to move the ring up to the joint, but the joint itself is definitely larger than the ring, so without crushing the bone, there's no way the ring is coming off the normal way.
Looks like I'll be getting it cut off. So, the next question is kind of a stupid one, but where does one go to get a ring cut off? A medical centre or a jeweller?
Actually, I'd sort of like to ask about this... serious question here...
I got a ring when I was 12 years old from my dying grandmother (she gave rings to all her grandchildren, as she knew she didn't have long left). I put it on, and it fit well on my middle finger. Well, now it's 17 years later, and the ring is still on the same finger. Of course, my hands are much larger than when I was that age. There's no pain, no discomfort, and it's definitely not having any negative effects on the bloodflow, however it is now completely impossible for me to remove the ring - it is much smaller than the finger's joint.
I don't particular want to remove it, but should I ever get married, I'll want to wear a wedding band of course, and having two rings on the same hand on fingers that are beside each other would probably be a little annoying. The ring can probably be cut quite easily (it's gold), but I think my finger will probably be quite deformed underneath it.
In the case of a ring being removed after so long, does the finger ever regain a "normal" shape? (maybe not a question you can answer)
Also, given this case, is my ring MORE likely than others to be a problem in the case of an accident that causes damage/swelling etc? (probably a question you're more qualified to answer)
I feel a little sorry for you actually. It sounds like you've pretty much accepted that you have no say in your workplace at all. You say that "they tell me what to do, and so long as its within my ethics ranges, I do it". I myself am just a "lowly programmer", but I get invited to every meeting to discuss the future of our projects, get to give my input, and am often listened to. If I suggest we go with an open source approach on a project, there's a good chance it'll happen (unless there's a compelling business reason from someone else why we shouldn't).
It's a good thing to be involved in your company a bit more than JUST what your employment contract says you should do.
I have a 120dpi scanned transparent GIF of the CEO's signature.
And what would you really do with such a low-res scan? 120dpi is definitely not good enough to print it out again as a "fake" signature. I suppose you could use it to learn his style of handwriting, but you could've done that with a physical piece of paper with his signature. I don't really see how that relates to the subject of admins at all...
I'm NOT an admin, and I have 600dpi scans of MANY people's signatures - not because I am trying to steal them, but because I archive all of my paper correspondence in an electronic filing system before destroying the original.
but French speakers don't usually think of it that way.
Very true, but I'm not a native French speaker (actually, my French is really quite poor in general unfortunately). My observation was from the point of view of an "outsider". As far as being anyone's native language, it's pretty much the same either way.
For reference, my native language is English, my second language is Dutch, and the language I use most in "day to day life" is German since I live in Germany at present.
"Canadian French" (spoken by French Canadians) is very similar to French, however not exactly identical. I'd say it's a similar level of difference to "English" and "American English", in that they're completely mutually intelligible (differing accents aside), except for the occasional word that makes the other side say, "uh, what?"
Even though I've never even been to Canada, I actually prefer Canadian French to French French (I prefer English to American English though) as it tends to be more logical. There are different dialects of French even within Canada though, and some are closer to the Swiss French, while others are closer to French French. Numbers tend to be the big giveaway - 70, 80, 90 = septante, huitante/octante, nonante vs soixante-dix, quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt-dix. I personally find it much easier to say "dix-neuf cent nonante-neuf" than "dix-neuf cent quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" when referring to the year I first visited Paris since the latter seems like far too much of an exercise in mathematics just to figure out what someone is saying ("quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" being 99, is "four-twenty-ten-nine" (multiply four by twenty, add ten, add nine)).
there are two problems with its implementation in Australia
Absolutely - I lived in Australia for quite a while (although I've since left) and I really felt that the system of "preferences" was almost designed to keep power with the major parties. Most people will vote for one or the other, so a vote for a smaller party really just ends up being a vote for one of the major ones anyway.
We have compulsory voting. We all have to turn up to the voting booth and get our name crossed off, or we get fined!
Becoming an Australian citizen was the worst mistake I ever made. Being forced to vote, when I KNEW that my vote would be passed to someone I didn't want just felt wrong.
At want point in the advertisers wet-dream did you decide you wanted it?
About 2 days before I saw the ad... Specifically, last time I was playing the card game with my friends, they suggested that since I'm new at it, it would be a good idea for me to find a computer version so I can practice when I'm not playing with them (it's a disturbingly complex game until you get used to it - Doppelkopf).
If you'd not seen this ad would you have maybe forgotten about that game and bought something else? Or even perhaps just saved the cash.
Unlikely, I play the game regularly with my friends. (we're aiming for once a month if we can all find the time)
I don't have money to waste on frippery
That's a shame... I do. If I didn't spend my money on this game, I would've spent it on something else (approximately 2 beers from the price of it). A wise man (me) once said, "If I die with a million dollars in my pocket, I've wasted a million dollars"
and I don't want to be psychologically persuaded into purchasing something (or being pursuaded I'm missing out) just because some companies shareholders require more cash
Neither do I, but this ad didn't "psychologically persuade" me in to buying it. I already wanted it, and the ad made it clear where I could get it. That's the advantage of highly targetted advertising vs non-targetted advertising - it's more likely to show me something I actually want. It's certainly true that at least 99.9% of the ads I see are things I don't want, but I attribute that to the targetting not being good enough yet. If it can gather MORE information about me, and understand the semantics of my emails and searches more, then it will likely give me better ads.
It's probably also worth pointing out that these are of course just Google's standard "text" ads - bright flashy things annoy the hell out of me, and I definitely keep those blocked.
I know that so un-US-american, but I'm not USAmerican.
Neither am I... I'm a Dutch/Australian/New Zealander, and I currently live in Germany.
And lastly, did I, anywhere in my post, suggest that you or anyone else should look at ads, click on them, and buy stuff? Did I even suggest you would want to look at ads? No... I simply stated that FOR ME, Google's model of targetted advertising is a good thing, and that I like it.
Yes, it is nice to have a choice... and I wasn't saying that "no one should use it" or anything as clear cut as that. As it goes, my choice is actually to not use Internet Explorer, so this particular feature actually makes no difference to me at all anyway.
Absolutely... however, I have to wonder if physicists get the a similar thing that programmers get - the ability to write amazingly well working code while completely smashed, but be completely unable to determine the workings of it a few days later when completely sober. (well, that happens to me anyway) (also note that I say "well working code" since calling it "good code" is FAR from accurate!)
I'm almost certain I'll get called a Google fanboy (or maybe even a shill) for this comment, but here goes...
Google's style of advertising is the ONLY advertising I'm interested in seeing, precisely BECAUSE it tracks me and specifically targets me. They offer ads that are RELEVANT to me - things I actually MIGHT be interested in. If I don't want them to track me, I'll tweak the relevant settings in my browser's settings/plugins. I'm quite happy for Google to do so though (just recently, after I received an email about a new card I'm playing with some friends, I was given a nice text ad on the top of my gmail that linked me to an online version of the game - excellent advertising, because it's something I actually wanted!)
Your BANK has pop-up ads? That's really quite disturbing... one would think they should make enough money by BEING A BANK without needing to resort to advertising revenue from their website!
How many other 'facts' about things in the universe might merely be tainted observations?
Likely, several. But that doesn't lessen the value of the work at all. If something appears to work in a particular way, it probably does. If it turns out it doesn't, then the last body of evidence isn't just "thrown away" - it's just tweaked a little more - the previous assumptions, even if wrong, can still serve a useful purpose for explaining things.
Right now, we're pretty certain that there's a black hole at the centre of most (or maybe all) galaxies. We might be wrong. There might be a large, as yet unknown, type of gravity source there that is NOT a black hole. If that turns out to be the case though, it's not a bad thing for science - since every model so far works nicely with a black hole in that position, it will continue to work with a black hole in that position even if there isn't one. Just as Newtonian physics is wrong, but still serves as a very useful set of mathematics for most situations.
So many times I read the most fantastical things astronmers have discovered a billion light-years away, and I think, how do they really know that? When there's that much distance, couldn't there be something out there fooling with their observation?
Yes, there could - which is why we do lots of experiments regarding the kinds of things which may mess up observations as well. Could there be other things? Absolutely. Could that mean we're wrong about a lot of stuff we're observing? Yes, it could. Would that be catastrophic to science? Not at all - we'd have a lot of new things to study! We can build up a very accurate but completely incorrect model of the universe and as long as it's valid from our frame of reference, it can be useful for doing things.
Imagine if it turns out that MOND is probably correct - it doesn't automatically mean all the research in to dark matter has been wasted - a lot of that research could be used as "test cases" for MOND, to help "prove" it. If any of our information about dark matter gave results that could NOT be explained by MOND, we'd have to concede that either the observations are wrong (and then explain how), or that MOND is wrong. Either way, we enhance our understanding, which is good.
and I don't believe it is just the public mis-interpreting something that the scientists said was 'probable'. A lot of these guys pass off their discoveries as facts.
Anyone who does so is being dishonest - that's a problem of the people explaining the science, not of the science itself. That said though, if anyone ever tells me something is "fact", I take it to mean, "all current evidence points towards this being the case and we can't imagine any realistic way that this could not be the case". So, even if some scientists are being dishonest and saying something is fact, then it's STILL the public's misunderstanding of science that is at least partly to blame if they get all upset when new data points to a different answer. I myself am dishonest in this exact way whenever I tell someone that "gravity pulls you down towards the earth", or "We evolved from simpler life over a LONG period of time". I am presenting these theories as facts, because any alternative is completely inconceivable to me, and it's just quicker than explaining, "Given all the available evidence, it appears as if, from your reference frame, gravity will pull you towards the earth". For less well entrenched theories, I tend to avoid such strong statements, and prefer the "longer" explanation, but the meaning should be considered pretty much the same. If clarification is needed, then you should ask how strong the evidence is that points to this theory being correct.
Your post fundamentally disturbs me... and for a number of reasons.
I say this every time a science post like this is posted: modern science is a joke. What I hate the most is the very concept of theories.
Theories are pretty much entirely what science is about - so, if you have a problem with theories, you have a problem with ALL science, not just "modern science"
The idea that some half-assed guess gets passed around as an acceptable explanation until proven otherwise just strikes a nerve with me. I wish science would stick to black and white, "we know this" and "we don't know this".
Science has never been "black and white" and never will be. If you want that level of certainty, you'll find religion a few doors down the hall.
Theories are also not "half-assed guesses" - they're "best guesses" based on the results of experimentation (note that in some sciences direct experimentation isn't possible, so instead, precise modelling from the available evidence can also be used - this includes most of astronomy and historical things such as large timescale geology and evolution (both geology and evolution on short time scale, we've got experimental science already)).
If you walk in to the room, and I look at you, I can form a hypothesis, almost immediately, based on visual evidence, that you are human. If I then ran some tests based on my hypothesis and they agreed that with the hypothesis, then I'd have a working theory that you're human. I'd probably be right, however I can never know for sure - maybe you're an alien that just happens to be "human enough" that all of the tests I did would pass you as human. Now, I will work on the idea that you're human based on this theory. If however, a few weeks later, I get access to a new kind of DNA test, and for some reason decide to test you again, and find out you're NOT human, then the scientific method has NOT failed. I've determined you're not human, but I ALSO know with a lot more certainty how close to human you are (enough to pass all my initial tests).
That can relate back to the topic at hand by saying that we now know a lot more about HOW spots on a distant sun can LOOK like planets.
Stop this "we think this and that, have no real clue, but are going to pat ourselves on the back for pretending to know something we don't".
I wonder if perhaps you're just not familiar with what makes a theory compared to a hypothesis. Self-congratulations because of a hypothesis, would be bad, but self-congratulations because of a theory are definitely in order if it's interesting enough.
Science doesn't claim to know anything. Scientists will happily pat themselves on the back for a new theory, but anyone who then calls it "fact" is being intellectually dishonest (or perhaps just lazy, which is actually fine if they're not doing it in information that they're actively disseminating). Imagine, after my discovery that you're an alien, I throw a bit of a party because my theory now points to there being alien life on Earth. That party is pretty well justified I think, and some self-congratulation is definitely in order (if I'd thrown a party just after you walked in for looking at you and saying, "yep, that's probably a human" (or even, "yep, that's a probably an alien"), that'd be pretty stupid as I hadn't done any tests to try to confirm it). Then however, a few weeks after that, it turns out that some humans can have the strange DNA traits I found in you. I've gone from thinking you're human, to thinking you're an alien, to it turning out you're probably human after all. I'll say, "oops, looks like my theory was incomplete - sorry for the false alarm everyone!" and that should be fine. Even though I found out you're not an alien, I now know more about what I'm looking for next time, and also I've just learned something new about humans, so it's still a good thing. At this point, I assume you're human, even though I've changed my mi
Whereas eliminating all non-Western countries puts it around 70%, which is the figure I cited. Note that this also excludes some countries with much higher than average belief in gods, e.g. Croatia and Slovakia because they're not Western countries; it also includes Western European countries that aren't part of the EC with lower belief thresholds (e.g. Switzerland and Norway).
Sorry, but in what way are Eastern and Central European countries not "western"? They may not be a part of "Western Europe", but neither is the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, all of which are considered "Western" countries. The second bottom on the list was the Czech Republic (with 19%), which is absolutely a "Western culture" (yes, they were under communist rule for awhile, and their economy was really bad for quite a while (not any more though), but as far as culture goes, they're definitely more like Western Europe than anything to the east of them).
But, let's just say there's some magical cut-off point around the eastern edge of Germany, then the figures I see would still give a lower value than 70% (actually only 7 countries were higher than 70% and only 4 were higher than 80%). Germany was 47%, UK was 38%, France was 34% and the Netherlands was 34%. By drawing that magical cut-off line that excludes countries like the Czech Republic, you also exclude countries like Poland, which was one of the higher ones at 80%.
2) The question they asked was specifically about belief in _a_ god, whereas my post deliberately uses the phrase "believe in gods".
Most people who believe in multiple Gods I would imagine answering "yes" to that question. They didn't ask for "belief in God", but "belief in a god", which is roughly the same as "belief in gods", unless you're specifically targetting people who believe in multiple (which would be vanishingly small in Western Europe)
As I posted above, I'm not really sure about our "IT Department", but in my department, there's 1 real programmer ("guy who writes code" - that's me), around 7 high-skilled technical people that aren't programmers (range of skills from dealing with print data streams (PCL intepreter in his brain etc), document management systems experts, print workflow experts, colour theory experts etc), a couple of "project manager" / "financial" types who both have pretty good technical skills, and one manager (who used to be an ASIC designer/programmer). We're also in the process of looking for another programmer type. So, you could say it's a ratio of 3 non-technical to 8 technical by job definition, or 0 non-technical to 11 technical by skill-set (or 10 non-programmers to 1 programmer if you want to look at it that way, but we're not really a "development" department, so that wouldn't be fair!).
Which brings me over to the question "what is an IT person?"
I am sure that different companies define this differently, and some might consider e.g. payroll processing "IT work", while others include non-IT personnel working for the IT department, like (in order of importance) janitors, cafeteria workers and CIOs. In a big company, they still may be employed in the IT division, and count as IT.
That's a very good point. It can work the other way as well, where you have "IT people" who don't work for the IT department. I have no idea how many people work in my company's "IT Department", because I don't work there and generally have no need to talk to them about anything. I work for a department called the "Solution Centre", which is in charge of finding and developing IT solutions for customers (rather than internal IT, which is what our IT department does). I'm employed primarily as a programmer. So, am I an "IT Person" or not? How about the guy in my department who (amongst other things) is responsible for making sure our test network stays up? He doesn't work in the "IT Department" either, but in almost every way can be considered a sys admin.
If you ONLY count our "IT Department", I GUESS we have a ratio of around 1:100 or maybe less, but if you count people outside of the IT department who do IT related work, it's probably closer to 1:5. We've got somewhere around 40000 employees worldwide (not counting third party companies that "live and die" solely by what we do and for all intents and purposes are part of us, just not from the "business" side)
Our main "normal" IT infrastructure is a mix of Linux and Windows servers for various tasks and I think an AS/400 type system somewhere, with almost exclusively Windows XP workstations for employees. In departments such as mine, we tend to be 25% Linux, 40% Windows, 30% MacOS X and 5% Other (including things like a couple of Solaris boxes, one Mac OS 9, and so on. Most of the people in our department have TWO laptops per person - one (usually WinXP system) for the "corporate network" (where we check our email, etc) and one for the "test network" where we do all our real work. On top of that, we have the mix of systems I just described as desktop systems and servers on our test network. The IT department only looks after our corporate network systems (which are mostly WinXP).
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As a non-native German speaker living and working in Germany, I have to wonder why your experiences are so different to mine! Your "overall" assessment that's it's good is spot on, but your negative details seem a little off. The pay here is great for the work that I do (programmer), people are very friendly, most people speak English well, and the tech level really isn't so bad (definitely comparable to the US from what I've seen (but neither really hold a candle to New Zealand or Japan)).
3500-4000 euro per month would be a basic starting wage while "proving" someone that was completely untested - a good programmer will rise up above that level very quickly. Plus, it's paid 13 months a year as standard, so that's the equivalent of $76k USD before tax as a minimum... when you add on the fact that you get 6 weeks leave per year, generally have flexitime, and there's a lot of public holidays, it's definitely not something to sneeze at for a "starting"/"proving" salary!
Note that by "programmer" I do actually mean someone who writes real code though - I don't really know what the situation is for people that do scripting and "building" web sites rather than real coding. Your figure of 3000 euro a month roof for a PHP coder would only be accurate here if it were more of a "person who does web stuff with PHP" rather than a real "PHP coder" who would be around 4500 a month roof. Learn something else like C++ (or especially C# these days) and your roof will go up to 6000 pretty easily. Start doing more project management sort of things as well, and the roof will get higher again.
Tax is definitely pretty high though - my base salary, minus all of the various things I pay before it enters my bank, gives me roughly 52% of what I've earned. That's ALL of the various things though, so not only taxes (includes my healthcare, insurances, taxes and so on).
Hmmm... you seem to forget Brno - I know of good places there for developers also. But I wouldn't be so hard on Germany if I were you... see my post below where I mention a job specifically if the submitter (or anyone else) is interested.
Hello original submitter - I have no idea if you'll read this or not, since it's probably destined to be buried right at the bottom of your view, well below MANY pointless discussions about things completely offtopic.
The company I work for, in Germany, is currently looking for a programmer type working closely with me (also a programmer). The job is about 25% actual coding, 50% helping other programmers with our own specific API and 25% other stuff (including various kinds of planning meetings, lots of travel around Europe and occasional travel outside of Europe (Japan being the most common, but US from time to time also)).
We're looking for someone with good C# knowledge, since that's what our API is based around, however strong Java and web-based skills is also a very big plus for something else we'll be doing quite soon.
I've actually already passed on one slashdotter's resume (a guy from Chicago) to my boss, and we have NO problem looking outside of Germany (we're required to look within Germany first, but the response has been less than stellar so far, so once we've finished looking inside Germany, we'll open it up to anyone, anywhere). I myself also do not come from Europe originally, so I myself am pretty good evidence we'll hire from anywhere if we need to. English is the defacto standard language for business in our company since we're the European HQ of a large multi-national. German is good to learn for "day to day life" here, but it's definitely not required for work.
If you're interested, please send me an email - my slashdot username minus the last 3 characters at Google's mail provider.
(if the other slashdotter who I have already talked to about this job reads this - don't worry, we haven't forgotten you or thrown away your resume - you're still in the running as well)
Well thank you (and everyone else) for the string/thread suggestion - I hadn't heard of it before... I just tried it, but unfortunately it didn't help. It compressed the fleshy bits of the finger enough to move the ring up to the joint, but the joint itself is definitely larger than the ring, so without crushing the bone, there's no way the ring is coming off the normal way.
Looks like I'll be getting it cut off. So, the next question is kind of a stupid one, but where does one go to get a ring cut off? A medical centre or a jeweller?
Actually, I'd sort of like to ask about this... serious question here...
I got a ring when I was 12 years old from my dying grandmother (she gave rings to all her grandchildren, as she knew she didn't have long left). I put it on, and it fit well on my middle finger. Well, now it's 17 years later, and the ring is still on the same finger. Of course, my hands are much larger than when I was that age. There's no pain, no discomfort, and it's definitely not having any negative effects on the bloodflow, however it is now completely impossible for me to remove the ring - it is much smaller than the finger's joint.
I don't particular want to remove it, but should I ever get married, I'll want to wear a wedding band of course, and having two rings on the same hand on fingers that are beside each other would probably be a little annoying. The ring can probably be cut quite easily (it's gold), but I think my finger will probably be quite deformed underneath it.
In the case of a ring being removed after so long, does the finger ever regain a "normal" shape? (maybe not a question you can answer)
Also, given this case, is my ring MORE likely than others to be a problem in the case of an accident that causes damage/swelling etc? (probably a question you're more qualified to answer)
I feel a little sorry for you actually. It sounds like you've pretty much accepted that you have no say in your workplace at all. You say that "they tell me what to do, and so long as its within my ethics ranges, I do it". I myself am just a "lowly programmer", but I get invited to every meeting to discuss the future of our projects, get to give my input, and am often listened to. If I suggest we go with an open source approach on a project, there's a good chance it'll happen (unless there's a compelling business reason from someone else why we shouldn't).
It's a good thing to be involved in your company a bit more than JUST what your employment contract says you should do.
I have a 120dpi scanned transparent GIF of the CEO's signature.
And what would you really do with such a low-res scan? 120dpi is definitely not good enough to print it out again as a "fake" signature. I suppose you could use it to learn his style of handwriting, but you could've done that with a physical piece of paper with his signature. I don't really see how that relates to the subject of admins at all...
I'm NOT an admin, and I have 600dpi scans of MANY people's signatures - not because I am trying to steal them, but because I archive all of my paper correspondence in an electronic filing system before destroying the original.
If my door is open, it isn't...
What doesn't cause cancer these days?
Dying young.
but French speakers don't usually think of it that way.
Very true, but I'm not a native French speaker (actually, my French is really quite poor in general unfortunately). My observation was from the point of view of an "outsider". As far as being anyone's native language, it's pretty much the same either way.
For reference, my native language is English, my second language is Dutch, and the language I use most in "day to day life" is German since I live in Germany at present.
"Canadian French" (spoken by French Canadians) is very similar to French, however not exactly identical. I'd say it's a similar level of difference to "English" and "American English", in that they're completely mutually intelligible (differing accents aside), except for the occasional word that makes the other side say, "uh, what?"
Even though I've never even been to Canada, I actually prefer Canadian French to French French (I prefer English to American English though) as it tends to be more logical.
There are different dialects of French even within Canada though, and some are closer to the Swiss French, while others are closer to French French. Numbers tend to be the big giveaway - 70, 80, 90 = septante, huitante/octante, nonante vs soixante-dix, quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt-dix. I personally find it much easier to say "dix-neuf cent nonante-neuf" than "dix-neuf cent quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" when referring to the year I first visited Paris since the latter seems like far too much of an exercise in mathematics just to figure out what someone is saying ("quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" being 99, is "four-twenty-ten-nine" (multiply four by twenty, add ten, add nine)).
there are two problems with its implementation in Australia
Absolutely - I lived in Australia for quite a while (although I've since left) and I really felt that the system of "preferences" was almost designed to keep power with the major parties. Most people will vote for one or the other, so a vote for a smaller party really just ends up being a vote for one of the major ones anyway.
We have compulsory voting. We all have to turn up to the voting booth and get our name crossed off, or we get fined!
Becoming an Australian citizen was the worst mistake I ever made. Being forced to vote, when I KNEW that my vote would be passed to someone I didn't want just felt wrong.
At want point in the advertisers wet-dream did you decide you wanted it?
About 2 days before I saw the ad... Specifically, last time I was playing the card game with my friends, they suggested that since I'm new at it, it would be a good idea for me to find a computer version so I can practice when I'm not playing with them (it's a disturbingly complex game until you get used to it - Doppelkopf).
If you'd not seen this ad would you have maybe forgotten about that game and bought something else? Or even perhaps just saved the cash.
Unlikely, I play the game regularly with my friends. (we're aiming for once a month if we can all find the time)
I don't have money to waste on frippery
That's a shame... I do. If I didn't spend my money on this game, I would've spent it on something else (approximately 2 beers from the price of it). A wise man (me) once said, "If I die with a million dollars in my pocket, I've wasted a million dollars"
and I don't want to be psychologically persuaded into purchasing something (or being pursuaded I'm missing out) just because some companies shareholders require more cash
Neither do I, but this ad didn't "psychologically persuade" me in to buying it. I already wanted it, and the ad made it clear where I could get it. That's the advantage of highly targetted advertising vs non-targetted advertising - it's more likely to show me something I actually want.
It's certainly true that at least 99.9% of the ads I see are things I don't want, but I attribute that to the targetting not being good enough yet. If it can gather MORE information about me, and understand the semantics of my emails and searches more, then it will likely give me better ads.
It's probably also worth pointing out that these are of course just Google's standard "text" ads - bright flashy things annoy the hell out of me, and I definitely keep those blocked.
I know that so un-US-american, but I'm not USAmerican.
Neither am I... I'm a Dutch/Australian/New Zealander, and I currently live in Germany.
And lastly, did I, anywhere in my post, suggest that you or anyone else should look at ads, click on them, and buy stuff? Did I even suggest you would want to look at ads? No... I simply stated that FOR ME, Google's model of targetted advertising is a good thing, and that I like it.
Hah, nice theory, but no... I wouldn't work for Microsoft if they offered me three times my current salary.
Yes, it is nice to have a choice... and I wasn't saying that "no one should use it" or anything as clear cut as that. As it goes, my choice is actually to not use Internet Explorer, so this particular feature actually makes no difference to me at all anyway.
No, they dont. Wal-Mart has Yttrium, Barium, and Copper Oxides on sale right now though
Ummm... isn't traffic in human beings illegal? Or do I not count? Please don't buy me. :-(
- Yttrium Oxide
Absolutely... however, I have to wonder if physicists get the a similar thing that programmers get - the ability to write amazingly well working code while completely smashed, but be completely unable to determine the workings of it a few days later when completely sober. (well, that happens to me anyway)
(also note that I say "well working code" since calling it "good code" is FAR from accurate!)
I'm almost certain I'll get called a Google fanboy (or maybe even a shill) for this comment, but here goes...
Google's style of advertising is the ONLY advertising I'm interested in seeing, precisely BECAUSE it tracks me and specifically targets me. They offer ads that are RELEVANT to me - things I actually MIGHT be interested in. If I don't want them to track me, I'll tweak the relevant settings in my browser's settings/plugins. I'm quite happy for Google to do so though (just recently, after I received an email about a new card I'm playing with some friends, I was given a nice text ad on the top of my gmail that linked me to an online version of the game - excellent advertising, because it's something I actually wanted!)
Your BANK has pop-up ads? That's really quite disturbing... one would think they should make enough money by BEING A BANK without needing to resort to advertising revenue from their website!
Unfortunately, I couldn't agree more... it was with a heavy heart that I wrote that post. :-(
How many other 'facts' about things in the universe might merely be tainted observations?
Likely, several. But that doesn't lessen the value of the work at all. If something appears to work in a particular way, it probably does. If it turns out it doesn't, then the last body of evidence isn't just "thrown away" - it's just tweaked a little more - the previous assumptions, even if wrong, can still serve a useful purpose for explaining things.
Right now, we're pretty certain that there's a black hole at the centre of most (or maybe all) galaxies. We might be wrong. There might be a large, as yet unknown, type of gravity source there that is NOT a black hole. If that turns out to be the case though, it's not a bad thing for science - since every model so far works nicely with a black hole in that position, it will continue to work with a black hole in that position even if there isn't one. Just as Newtonian physics is wrong, but still serves as a very useful set of mathematics for most situations.
So many times I read the most fantastical things astronmers have discovered a billion light-years away, and I think, how do they really know that? When there's that much distance, couldn't there be something out there fooling with their observation?
Yes, there could - which is why we do lots of experiments regarding the kinds of things which may mess up observations as well. Could there be other things? Absolutely. Could that mean we're wrong about a lot of stuff we're observing? Yes, it could. Would that be catastrophic to science? Not at all - we'd have a lot of new things to study! We can build up a very accurate but completely incorrect model of the universe and as long as it's valid from our frame of reference, it can be useful for doing things.
Imagine if it turns out that MOND is probably correct - it doesn't automatically mean all the research in to dark matter has been wasted - a lot of that research could be used as "test cases" for MOND, to help "prove" it. If any of our information about dark matter gave results that could NOT be explained by MOND, we'd have to concede that either the observations are wrong (and then explain how), or that MOND is wrong. Either way, we enhance our understanding, which is good.
and I don't believe it is just the public mis-interpreting something that the scientists said was 'probable'. A lot of these guys pass off their discoveries as facts.
Anyone who does so is being dishonest - that's a problem of the people explaining the science, not of the science itself. That said though, if anyone ever tells me something is "fact", I take it to mean, "all current evidence points towards this being the case and we can't imagine any realistic way that this could not be the case". So, even if some scientists are being dishonest and saying something is fact, then it's STILL the public's misunderstanding of science that is at least partly to blame if they get all upset when new data points to a different answer. I myself am dishonest in this exact way whenever I tell someone that "gravity pulls you down towards the earth", or "We evolved from simpler life over a LONG period of time". I am presenting these theories as facts, because any alternative is completely inconceivable to me, and it's just quicker than explaining, "Given all the available evidence, it appears as if, from your reference frame, gravity will pull you towards the earth". For less well entrenched theories, I tend to avoid such strong statements, and prefer the "longer" explanation, but the meaning should be considered pretty much the same. If clarification is needed, then you should ask how strong the evidence is that points to this theory being correct.
Your post fundamentally disturbs me... and for a number of reasons.
I say this every time a science post like this is posted: modern science is a joke. What I hate the most is the very concept of theories.
Theories are pretty much entirely what science is about - so, if you have a problem with theories, you have a problem with ALL science, not just "modern science"
The idea that some half-assed guess gets passed around as an acceptable explanation until proven otherwise just strikes a nerve with me. I wish science would stick to black and white, "we know this" and "we don't know this".
Science has never been "black and white" and never will be. If you want that level of certainty, you'll find religion a few doors down the hall.
Theories are also not "half-assed guesses" - they're "best guesses" based on the results of experimentation (note that in some sciences direct experimentation isn't possible, so instead, precise modelling from the available evidence can also be used - this includes most of astronomy and historical things such as large timescale geology and evolution (both geology and evolution on short time scale, we've got experimental science already)).
If you walk in to the room, and I look at you, I can form a hypothesis, almost immediately, based on visual evidence, that you are human. If I then ran some tests based on my hypothesis and they agreed that with the hypothesis, then I'd have a working theory that you're human. I'd probably be right, however I can never know for sure - maybe you're an alien that just happens to be "human enough" that all of the tests I did would pass you as human. Now, I will work on the idea that you're human based on this theory. If however, a few weeks later, I get access to a new kind of DNA test, and for some reason decide to test you again, and find out you're NOT human, then the scientific method has NOT failed. I've determined you're not human, but I ALSO know with a lot more certainty how close to human you are (enough to pass all my initial tests).
That can relate back to the topic at hand by saying that we now know a lot more about HOW spots on a distant sun can LOOK like planets.
Stop this "we think this and that, have no real clue, but are going to pat ourselves on the back for pretending to know something we don't".
I wonder if perhaps you're just not familiar with what makes a theory compared to a hypothesis. Self-congratulations because of a hypothesis, would be bad, but self-congratulations because of a theory are definitely in order if it's interesting enough.
Science doesn't claim to know anything. Scientists will happily pat themselves on the back for a new theory, but anyone who then calls it "fact" is being intellectually dishonest (or perhaps just lazy, which is actually fine if they're not doing it in information that they're actively disseminating). Imagine, after my discovery that you're an alien, I throw a bit of a party because my theory now points to there being alien life on Earth. That party is pretty well justified I think, and some self-congratulation is definitely in order (if I'd thrown a party just after you walked in for looking at you and saying, "yep, that's probably a human" (or even, "yep, that's a probably an alien"), that'd be pretty stupid as I hadn't done any tests to try to confirm it). Then however, a few weeks after that, it turns out that some humans can have the strange DNA traits I found in you. I've gone from thinking you're human, to thinking you're an alien, to it turning out you're probably human after all. I'll say, "oops, looks like my theory was incomplete - sorry for the false alarm everyone!" and that should be fine. Even though I found out you're not an alien, I now know more about what I'm looking for next time, and also I've just learned something new about humans, so it's still a good thing. At this point, I assume you're human, even though I've changed my mi
Whereas eliminating all non-Western countries puts it around 70%, which is the figure I cited. Note that this also excludes some countries with much higher than average belief in gods, e.g. Croatia and Slovakia because they're not Western countries; it also includes Western European countries that aren't part of the EC with lower belief thresholds (e.g. Switzerland and Norway).
Sorry, but in what way are Eastern and Central European countries not "western"? They may not be a part of "Western Europe", but neither is the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, all of which are considered "Western" countries. The second bottom on the list was the Czech Republic (with 19%), which is absolutely a "Western culture" (yes, they were under communist rule for awhile, and their economy was really bad for quite a while (not any more though), but as far as culture goes, they're definitely more like Western Europe than anything to the east of them).
But, let's just say there's some magical cut-off point around the eastern edge of Germany, then the figures I see would still give a lower value than 70% (actually only 7 countries were higher than 70% and only 4 were higher than 80%). Germany was 47%, UK was 38%, France was 34% and the Netherlands was 34%. By drawing that magical cut-off line that excludes countries like the Czech Republic, you also exclude countries like Poland, which was one of the higher ones at 80%.
2) The question they asked was specifically about belief in _a_ god, whereas my post deliberately uses the phrase "believe in gods".
Most people who believe in multiple Gods I would imagine answering "yes" to that question. They didn't ask for "belief in God", but "belief in a god", which is roughly the same as "belief in gods", unless you're specifically targetting people who believe in multiple (which would be vanishingly small in Western Europe)
As I posted above, I'm not really sure about our "IT Department", but in my department, there's 1 real programmer ("guy who writes code" - that's me), around 7 high-skilled technical people that aren't programmers (range of skills from dealing with print data streams (PCL intepreter in his brain etc), document management systems experts, print workflow experts, colour theory experts etc), a couple of "project manager" / "financial" types who both have pretty good technical skills, and one manager (who used to be an ASIC designer/programmer). We're also in the process of looking for another programmer type. So, you could say it's a ratio of 3 non-technical to 8 technical by job definition, or 0 non-technical to 11 technical by skill-set (or 10 non-programmers to 1 programmer if you want to look at it that way, but we're not really a "development" department, so that wouldn't be fair!).
Which brings me over to the question "what is an IT person?"
I am sure that different companies define this differently, and some might consider e.g. payroll processing "IT work", while others include non-IT personnel working for the IT department, like (in order of importance) janitors, cafeteria workers and CIOs. In a big company, they still may be employed in the IT division, and count as IT.
That's a very good point. It can work the other way as well, where you have "IT people" who don't work for the IT department. I have no idea how many people work in my company's "IT Department", because I don't work there and generally have no need to talk to them about anything. I work for a department called the "Solution Centre", which is in charge of finding and developing IT solutions for customers (rather than internal IT, which is what our IT department does). I'm employed primarily as a programmer. So, am I an "IT Person" or not? How about the guy in my department who (amongst other things) is responsible for making sure our test network stays up? He doesn't work in the "IT Department" either, but in almost every way can be considered a sys admin.
If you ONLY count our "IT Department", I GUESS we have a ratio of around 1:100 or maybe less, but if you count people outside of the IT department who do IT related work, it's probably closer to 1:5. We've got somewhere around 40000 employees worldwide (not counting third party companies that "live and die" solely by what we do and for all intents and purposes are part of us, just not from the "business" side)
Our main "normal" IT infrastructure is a mix of Linux and Windows servers for various tasks and I think an AS/400 type system somewhere, with almost exclusively Windows XP workstations for employees. In departments such as mine, we tend to be 25% Linux, 40% Windows, 30% MacOS X and 5% Other (including things like a couple of Solaris boxes, one Mac OS 9, and so on. Most of the people in our department have TWO laptops per person - one (usually WinXP system) for the "corporate network" (where we check our email, etc) and one for the "test network" where we do all our real work. On top of that, we have the mix of systems I just described as desktop systems and servers on our test network. The IT department only looks after our corporate network systems (which are mostly WinXP).