Then we have our interns from India. We asked one of them for help until we find someone and she said "Ok" went home, learned the relevant material over the weekend and came in Monday already swimming circles around me. Luckily for me the interns are very transient and never stay in one place for long. They're always looking for the better job, or going off to get married (their weddings are 2 month long deals) and the Job I have really needs someone that knows the inner workings of the company and how all our tables fit together.
In The Netherlands there is a minimum wage they have to earn to get a certain visum. This is a rather high salary, but for a skilled engineer it would be reasonable (about 1.5 times the median income). For random labor it would be way too high. So this ensures that you can get skilled labor, but not cheaper than local skilled labor.
Yes, because the patentholder with 200 patents is completely interchangeable with all those young graduates with 5 years experience. I'm pretty sure they'll all rack up that sort of trackrecord too.
This sort of thinking stems from the "humans as cookies" school of thought. All cookies are the same. So you can replace cookies with other cookies. Somehow this never really works out when you work with humans.
I'll never forget my fathers company. They had one administrator do most of the bookkeeping. He didn't automate much, but he knew the status of every invoice in detail, where it was, who had it, etc. He worked about 5 hours a day and spent the other 3 composing music. In his office.
When he retired they had to hire two people who work full time to replace him. Yeah, completely interchangeable. Not.
In my case (paid by the hour as consultant) I never charge more than 40 hours a week, unless the customer specifically requests it. Because it leaves me free to work exactly 40 hours a week if I so desire, and usually I work a bit more (30 minutes on average) to make sure that everyone knows I work at least 8 hours.
If they want more, they can ask for it. And I will ask them for payment for it. No exceptions. But then again, I understand when it's crunch time and I make sure my work is done (delivery on time as specced). So they have no leverage over me. In situations where the task never ends with a department that is basically severely understaffed, this can be very different. Which is precisely why I'm not in any software development business that requires that sort of thing.
What, you don't have an inbred instict to go North, bark to the moon and use preconditions? How quaint!:)
Okay - perhaps I should have said "someone with a CS degree should have the use of pre/postconditions/invariants as automated behavior when programming". This was drilled into me when learning programming, along with "using a goto is an automatic FAIL" and assorted programming hygiene. It was sort of the basis before you actually started on programming: first they gave us a load of theory on pre and postconditions, how to prove a program correct, and assorted maths, and only THEN were we allowed to start programming (in the mean time we were also taught Pascal). I've always felt that this was one of the more useful things I've picked up, in the sense that it gives you a very specific way of looking at a program.
The court argued that, despite what Jagex would *like* to be the case, the goods were in practice sold on eBay. And that was what counted for determining whether they had value. I think Jagex's lawyers (and those of other MMORPGS) are going to be spending some time on this verdict.
Very interesting part of the verdict is this (my translation):
"Relevant is also that the rules of the game in RuneScape do not allow for a method of obtaining these goods as happened in this case. The act of removal has been committed outside the context of the game. So this is not about virtual acts in a virtual world, but factual acts that influence a virtual world."
So EVE should be okay, because it's all in the game. But if people come to your house and threaten you, it's going to be robbery and theft.
They also dealth with the argument that the victim wasn't the owner but only had a license. The court says that it is not about who operates the servers, but who has the right to determine what happens to the goods. In this case it was the account holder, as was obvious because the others had to force him to transfer goods, in order to be able to do something with them. As an example they used passports: the Dutch State owns ALL Dutch passports in existence (you only get the right to carry it but you don't own them), but the bearer of the passport can still report the document as stolen, because he no longer has the use of it.
So licenses are not as important as having the goods available. Wow, this puts a new and interesting take on things like guaranteed uptime! Is that depriving people of the right to their property? WoW is down for maintenance right now - can I sue them?
They aren't cumulative. But they can be different, which was the case here.
However, that wasn't the reasoning apparently. This went through several different courts and by the time it ended, the sentence got reduced due to it taking so long.
the IRS has already looked at the possibility of taxing virtual goods. This was held to be impossible but given this ruling, I'm not so sure there's no legal option to go and do exactly that. How'd you like to add all your virtual cash to your next tax statement? And would the subscription money be deductible? Inquiring minds want to know:)
And indeed, for EVE: what if you're scammed *in game* out of your goods? EVE considers this part of the game - but the Dutch High Court may see it in a different light now.
I think IP lawyers are having a field day right now. Because this opens up so many ambiguities. And that's what they thrive on.
Software quality: use Test Driven Design to ensure your code behaves as it should.
I don't think this is necessarily the best advice. It can make a lot of sense in some circumstances, but in others it's just a waste of time. You should try to understand the trade-off. I know there are some papers out there about it.
The important thing is that you won't know if you code is behaving as it should until the real users are using it. You need to link your sense of accomplishment to the happiness of the customers/users.
The interesting thing to me is that Test Driven Design is just a way to enforce predicate checking (preconditions, postconditions and invariants). Something anyone with a CS degree should do by instinct anyway, in my opinion. Most of my programs fail *after* the OS fails under stress tests, because I check my predicates in every routine. It adds only a bit of code but writing the checks forces you to think about your conditions and that enables you to spot bugs in an early stage. And you can do this at a finer grain than just per routine.
That's not to say TDD is worthless: it's a huge improvement over having no preconditions/postconditions/invariants (a lot of programmers do not understand the concepts) but if you have these structurally in your code, it doesn't add that much IMO.
The component vendors don't have to pay. They just manufacture stuff according to customer specs. If said customer specs something that is patented, that's their problem. Not the manufacturers problem, who isn't going to check every worldwide patent every time someone asks for something. Who knows what the customer does with them anyway. So it's usually the problem of the customer to license the patents and surprise, the smaller outfits often forget this step because they assume the manufacturer took care of that little detail.
This situation is why patentholders sometimes barge into the large expos with police, telling the small vendors to pay the license fees right there, or have everything impounded. This actually works quite well for the patentholders. Most people pay. But the background is that the manufacturers don't pay the licenses, usually.
I would like to personally apologize on behalf of my country, its legislators, and its judicial system. Frankly, I am embarrassed. Additionally, I have canceled my xs4all subscription. Xs4all - ironically known for holding the privacy and freedoms of its users in high regard - complied with this nonsensical court order and has since blocked thepiratebay.org.
I'm not quite sure what's happening with this country (and I suppose the rest of the world as well), but I know it's not good.
You don't have your head screwed on the right way, if you think the other providers will ignore court orders even for a day, and get their managers arrested doing that and themselves out of business. So I'm assuming this is your last post as you will be cut off from internet once your subscription ends: you don't have any alternatives.
But perhaps you will consider this: XS4All and Ziggo basically fought this for a very long time, trying to defend their customers from this bullshit. Especially XS4All has been at the forefront of any privacy-fight, and has actually gone to the High Council on the Fishman Affidavit trials, against attempts by Scientology to censor the internet. XS4All was also one of the biggest supporters of Bits of Freedom, the independent organisation dedicated to supporting internet freedom.
If XS4All has given up, it's not because they ignore issues like this. It's because they were forced to do so. Supporting them should be the first priority for anyone who values internet freedom.
From wikipedia: "The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season was the third most active Atlantic hurricane season on record, tying with the 1887 Atlantic hurricane season, 1995 Atlantic hurricane season and the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season."
I agree they don't mention 2012, so you may still be right for this year.
What I know is that when you inhale CO2 the acidity of your blood will increase. At a certain point your blood will be to acidic to sustain life. This is what happens when, for instance, you have a heart problem and your body starts to "compensate". I put that in quotes because the way it compensates keeps you alive for a bit longer but kills you in the long run and leads to a lot of damage to organs, especially the heart. But I digress.
"It is generally believed that CO2 toxicity is caused by displacing oxygen, leading to asphyxiation, similar to the mode of action as inert gases. This is only partly true. The inhalation of high concentrations of CO2 can lower the pH of the blood and thus trigger effects on the respiratory, cardiovascular and central nervous systems (HSE, 2007)".
Well, having worked in the automotive for 10 years, I can tell you there is a huge difference in profile between buyers of a new Mercedes and buyers of an old Toyota:) But your point is valid, IMO.
Stupid margin calculation. They should have calculated the margin over product shipped to the store, not product sold. That would have ended that practice right there.
Measure the wrong KPI's, get the wrong outcomes.
And I don't blame the executives for responding to this the way they did. If you were measured based on lines of code produced, for say 50% of your income, YOU would find a way to pad the crap out of the code real fast too (and leave asap too, likely) - leaving your replacement with a maintenance nightmare. Tough luck for him. And I know I would do it too - if my management wants to measure me on a stupid measurement, they get what they deserve: silly results. If possible, in my favor.
You're very right. The automotive industry does its best to maintain the used car market precisely because of this reason: if buyers of new cars don't have an outlet for their cars, they stop buying new cars every 2-3 years but instead drop down to buying one every 10 (or even more) years. Not good.
I'm guessing that any drop in sales will be blamed on piracy though, instead of the retarded policies of the gaming industry.
Slashdot Mirror
Then we have our interns from India. We asked one of them for help until we find someone and she said "Ok" went home, learned the relevant material over the weekend and came in Monday already swimming circles around me. Luckily for me the interns are very transient and never stay in one place for long. They're always looking for the better job, or going off to get married (their weddings are 2 month long deals) and the Job I have really needs someone that knows the inner workings of the company and how all our tables fit together.
I see a win-win if you propose to her :)
Professional actors, like Ronald Reagan or Arnold Schwarzenegger?
In The Netherlands there is a minimum wage they have to earn to get a certain visum. This is a rather high salary, but for a skilled engineer it would be reasonable (about 1.5 times the median income). For random labor it would be way too high. So this ensures that you can get skilled labor, but not cheaper than local skilled labor.
Yes, because the patentholder with 200 patents is completely interchangeable with all those young graduates with 5 years experience. I'm pretty sure they'll all rack up that sort of trackrecord too.
This sort of thinking stems from the "humans as cookies" school of thought. All cookies are the same. So you can replace cookies with other cookies. Somehow this never really works out when you work with humans.
I'll never forget my fathers company. They had one administrator do most of the bookkeeping. He didn't automate much, but he knew the status of every invoice in detail, where it was, who had it, etc. He worked about 5 hours a day and spent the other 3 composing music. In his office.
When he retired they had to hire two people who work full time to replace him. Yeah, completely interchangeable. Not.
In my case (paid by the hour as consultant) I never charge more than 40 hours a week, unless the customer specifically requests it. Because it leaves me free to work exactly 40 hours a week if I so desire, and usually I work a bit more (30 minutes on average) to make sure that everyone knows I work at least 8 hours.
If they want more, they can ask for it. And I will ask them for payment for it. No exceptions. But then again, I understand when it's crunch time and I make sure my work is done (delivery on time as specced). So they have no leverage over me. In situations where the task never ends with a department that is basically severely understaffed, this can be very different. Which is precisely why I'm not in any software development business that requires that sort of thing.
What, you don't have an inbred instict to go North, bark to the moon and use preconditions? How quaint! :)
Okay - perhaps I should have said "someone with a CS degree should have the use of pre/postconditions/invariants as automated behavior when programming". This was drilled into me when learning programming, along with "using a goto is an automatic FAIL" and assorted programming hygiene. It was sort of the basis before you actually started on programming: first they gave us a load of theory on pre and postconditions, how to prove a program correct, and assorted maths, and only THEN were we allowed to start programming (in the mean time we were also taught Pascal). I've always felt that this was one of the more useful things I've picked up, in the sense that it gives you a very specific way of looking at a program.
Good point.
Verdict (in Dutch, you will need to translate it): http://zoeken.rechtspraak.nl/detailpage.aspx?ljn=BQ9251
It's well-written and quite long. They went into all of the arguments in detail, including those you mention. It's a very interesting read.
The court argued that, despite what Jagex would *like* to be the case, the goods were in practice sold on eBay. And that was what counted for determining whether they had value. I think Jagex's lawyers (and those of other MMORPGS) are going to be spending some time on this verdict.
Okay, responding to myself: I just found the verdict (Dutch): http://zoeken.rechtspraak.nl/detailpage.aspx?ljn=BQ9251
Very interesting part of the verdict is this (my translation):
"Relevant is also that the rules of the game in RuneScape do not allow for a method of obtaining these goods as happened in this case. The act of removal has been committed outside the context of the game. So this is not about virtual acts in a virtual world, but factual acts that influence a virtual world."
So EVE should be okay, because it's all in the game. But if people come to your house and threaten you, it's going to be robbery and theft.
They also dealth with the argument that the victim wasn't the owner but only had a license. The court says that it is not about who operates the servers, but who has the right to determine what happens to the goods. In this case it was the account holder, as was obvious because the others had to force him to transfer goods, in order to be able to do something with them. As an example they used passports: the Dutch State owns ALL Dutch passports in existence (you only get the right to carry it but you don't own them), but the bearer of the passport can still report the document as stolen, because he no longer has the use of it.
So licenses are not as important as having the goods available. Wow, this puts a new and interesting take on things like guaranteed uptime! Is that depriving people of the right to their property? WoW is down for maintenance right now - can I sue them?
A very interesting verdict.
They aren't cumulative. But they can be different, which was the case here.
However, that wasn't the reasoning apparently. This went through several different courts and by the time it ended, the sentence got reduced due to it taking so long.
You're opening up a big can of worms here.
the IRS has already looked at the possibility of taxing virtual goods. This was held to be impossible but given this ruling, I'm not so sure there's no legal option to go and do exactly that. How'd you like to add all your virtual cash to your next tax statement? And would the subscription money be deductible? Inquiring minds want to know :)
And indeed, for EVE: what if you're scammed *in game* out of your goods? EVE considers this part of the game - but the Dutch High Court may see it in a different light now.
I think IP lawyers are having a field day right now. Because this opens up so many ambiguities. And that's what they thrive on.
I didn't know you could go to someone IRL, hold a knife to their throat, and have that considered part of the game.
Wow, EVE is *really* hardcore! :)
That gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "do you think you're lucky, punk?" :)
Software quality: use Test Driven Design to ensure your code behaves as it should.
I don't think this is necessarily the best advice. It can make a lot of sense in some circumstances, but in others it's just a waste of time. You should try to understand the trade-off. I know there are some papers out there about it.
The important thing is that you won't know if you code is behaving as it should until the real users are using it. You need to link your sense of accomplishment to the happiness of the customers/users.
The interesting thing to me is that Test Driven Design is just a way to enforce predicate checking (preconditions, postconditions and invariants). Something anyone with a CS degree should do by instinct anyway, in my opinion. Most of my programs fail *after* the OS fails under stress tests, because I check my predicates in every routine. It adds only a bit of code but writing the checks forces you to think about your conditions and that enables you to spot bugs in an early stage. And you can do this at a finer grain than just per routine.
That's not to say TDD is worthless: it's a huge improvement over having no preconditions/postconditions/invariants (a lot of programmers do not understand the concepts) but if you have these structurally in your code, it doesn't add that much IMO.
The component vendors don't have to pay. They just manufacture stuff according to customer specs. If said customer specs something that is patented, that's their problem. Not the manufacturers problem, who isn't going to check every worldwide patent every time someone asks for something. Who knows what the customer does with them anyway. So it's usually the problem of the customer to license the patents and surprise, the smaller outfits often forget this step because they assume the manufacturer took care of that little detail.
This situation is why patentholders sometimes barge into the large expos with police, telling the small vendors to pay the license fees right there, or have everything impounded. This actually works quite well for the patentholders. Most people pay. But the background is that the manufacturers don't pay the licenses, usually.
Yeah - OP is upset because XS4All lost a case in which they joined voluntarily to support Ziggo and internet freedom. He doesn't make sense to anyone.
I would like to personally apologize on behalf of my country, its legislators, and its judicial system. Frankly, I am embarrassed. Additionally, I have canceled my xs4all subscription. Xs4all - ironically known for holding the privacy and freedoms of its users in high regard - complied with this nonsensical court order and has since blocked thepiratebay.org.
I'm not quite sure what's happening with this country (and I suppose the rest of the world as well), but I know it's not good.
You don't have your head screwed on the right way, if you think the other providers will ignore court orders even for a day, and get their managers arrested doing that and themselves out of business. So I'm assuming this is your last post as you will be cut off from internet once your subscription ends: you don't have any alternatives.
But perhaps you will consider this: XS4All and Ziggo basically fought this for a very long time, trying to defend their customers from this bullshit. Especially XS4All has been at the forefront of any privacy-fight, and has actually gone to the High Council on the Fishman Affidavit trials, against attempts by Scientology to censor the internet. XS4All was also one of the biggest supporters of Bits of Freedom, the independent organisation dedicated to supporting internet freedom.
If XS4All has given up, it's not because they ignore issues like this. It's because they were forced to do so. Supporting them should be the first priority for anyone who values internet freedom.
Really?
From wikipedia: "The 2010 Atlantic hurricane season was the third most active Atlantic hurricane season on record, tying with the 1887 Atlantic hurricane season, 1995 Atlantic hurricane season and the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season."
I agree they don't mention 2012, so you may still be right for this year.
(see also http://www.sciencemag.org/content/293/5529/474.full for an overview up to the year 2000).
There goes my mods for the discussion. Anyway: See http://www.uigi.com/MSDS_gaseous_CO2.html (no explanation but a confirmation of the statement). See also http://www.sae.org/misc/aaf99/visteon.pdf for a report on what happens when a CO2-fueled cooling system leaks its contents into your car.
What I know is that when you inhale CO2 the acidity of your blood will increase. At a certain point your blood will be to acidic to sustain life. This is what happens when, for instance, you have a heart problem and your body starts to "compensate". I put that in quotes because the way it compensates keeps you alive for a bit longer but kills you in the long run and leads to a lot of damage to organs, especially the heart. But I digress.
The rising of the acidity in your blood (lower Ph) is also cited as an important cause for its lethality in a report from the Dutch ministry for public health and the environment, http://www.rivm.nl/milieuportaal/images/20091002_Evaluation_toxicity_CO2.pdf, that writes:
"It is generally believed that CO2 toxicity is caused by displacing oxygen, leading to asphyxiation, similar to the mode of action as inert gases. This is only partly true. The inhalation of high concentrations of CO2 can lower the pH of the blood and thus trigger effects on the respiratory, cardiovascular and central nervous systems (HSE, 2007)".
I love "The City and the Stars". Short and one of his best works, IMO.
Well, having worked in the automotive for 10 years, I can tell you there is a huge difference in profile between buyers of a new Mercedes and buyers of an old Toyota :) But your point is valid, IMO.
Stupid margin calculation. They should have calculated the margin over product shipped to the store, not product sold. That would have ended that practice right there.
Measure the wrong KPI's, get the wrong outcomes.
And I don't blame the executives for responding to this the way they did. If you were measured based on lines of code produced, for say 50% of your income, YOU would find a way to pad the crap out of the code real fast too (and leave asap too, likely) - leaving your replacement with a maintenance nightmare. Tough luck for him. And I know I would do it too - if my management wants to measure me on a stupid measurement, they get what they deserve: silly results. If possible, in my favor.
No. I think they just don't give a rat's ass about it. It's a side effect that doesn't matter to them.
You're very right. The automotive industry does its best to maintain the used car market precisely because of this reason: if buyers of new cars don't have an outlet for their cars, they stop buying new cars every 2-3 years but instead drop down to buying one every 10 (or even more) years. Not good.
I'm guessing that any drop in sales will be blamed on piracy though, instead of the retarded policies of the gaming industry.