How about off-northed? I'm a 22 year old Canadian working on my Business degree (switched from Computer Science, and find it incredibly more interesting and valuable), and I have been working for several development firms in NYC and surrounding for several years now. I have never travelled there for work, and the pay is great. So why is it that an American company seeking a developer would hire a young chap from Canada (for $50/hour) as opposed to someone from their own country? Surely my rates are on par with thousands of other folks, so I've been struggling to figure this one out. Is the quality of your education system lacking, or are job seekers simply expecting too much?
The latter notion reminds me of the book Bait and Switch: (The Futile Pursuit of the American Dream) by Barbara Ehrenreich. In it, she fluffs up her resume and goes searching for work that pays a minimum of $50,000 with benefits. She attends workshops, seminars, coaching clinics, and other things to improve her likelihood of finding work. Months later, she fails to reach this goal and in turns calls the American Dream a pointless pursuit. I realized this is not true, but that she was just too damn picky. Nobody can realistically expect a job paying $50,000 annually without qualified skills and plenty of experience.
Is this a reality of American developers? Perhaps indicative of why fewer students graduate with CS because they are not as qualified as they could be if they graduated in other disciplines?
In order to avoid the crunch of outsourcing, we should suggest to our technically-skilled population to start pursuing management skills? What is this, a fast-forward button for the Peter Principle?
Let skilled workers be skilled workers (since it's what they do best), and managers be managers. At the very least, put emphasis on being a leader instead of being a manager. Many can manage, few can lead.
A little over five years ago the idea of offering download-to-own movies struck me after reading an article on illegal downloading and the complaints about movie theatres. While it may not have been an innovative idea or a stretch to fathom (I thought it was unique), I genuinely thought the system could work. You sign up and download a movie at full resolution. And it's yours to keep, no restrictions other than the obvious. And you would pay around the neighbourhood of $10. That's roughly double the cost of a rental, about the same as a theatre ticket, but less than half the cost of purchasing the DVD. Plus its out of the convenience of your own home. And if you've got a home theatre setup, even better.
I had estimated the system would work more on volume than on individual sales. Five years later, at $35 a piece, it just makes me wonder why useless minds were put behind this great idea.
I find it perticulary funny that executives want to smack the ones resonsible for random features.
Oh it's very typical for management to put the heat on individuals, but problems like this come about because of an extremely poor process. While one may argue that an individual has a responsibility to follow standards, it is also management's responsibility to ensure everyone else does, too.
So when something like this leaks, you can blame management, not the programmer. He made the mistake, but the even larger mistake is that the process didn't catch it. There will be no success when the course of action is for an executive to call out a programmer, but it is strongly indicative that these problems will be repeated.
If you think humans are at the top of the food chain, I suspect if you haven't been outdoors very much in your life. How powerless we really all is due to perspective, and thinking the opposite is due to a lack of.
What astounds me is that there is a person out there, who has managed to stand up on his hind legs, and is stating that this is his invention. How does this guy interface with other people? How does he stand being laughed out of every conversation where his job or his "abilities" come up? Is ripping off one of the rare successes from the internet bubble a legitimate career now? Do these guys have no pride whatsoever?
The reason they don't leave is because they are overpaid. If a worker is being underpaid, leaving their place of employment is not such a chore because they are confident they can find other work that provides equal or better pay.
When an employee knows they are overpaid, is unsatisfied with their job but has not vacated, it's usually indicitative that they know they will not be paid as much in another position. So next time you hear someone complaining about their employment but vacated for a lengthy period of time, there's a fair chance they are being overpaid.
He said Canada's largest municipal electrical utility, which last year purchased Toronto's street light system for $60 million, will likely install the necessary wireless transmitters and receivers atop every fourth or fifth lamp post as a way to blanket the city with coverage"
I've got no knowledge in wireless networking, but to me this statement says that the wireless signal distance is no greater than the distance between five lamp posts; and that, given this, those areas without lamp posts (unpopulated areas) will not receive any coverage? Am I understanding this correctly?
In any event, it would be a luxury to visit Toronto and have wireless in populated areas.
Out of curiosity, do you know what the lawyer rates are for these types of cases? I really have no idea, but I'm going to guess $1000 or more an hour? Thanks!
See, it's one thing to say "our search technology will make incredible improvements over the current technology" and please the crowd, but something altogether different to precipitate beating Google with search technology that hasn't been seen. Microsoft is no idiot (but I'm sure someone will point out that I am wrong), so I'm sure they are on to something othewise they likely wouldn't be going public with mere delusions.
"Those ideas might work in a perfect world, but we need to concentrate on our code."
This happens in both corporate and open source development. Some wild ideas get adopted, other's don't.
"It would be great to do the project like that, but we just don't have time."
See above.
Yet it is rare to find a corporate environment where the project team has anything approaching the level of planning, documentation, or review found in successful open source projects.
For some reason, as soon as a budget and a deadline are involved, all of the lessons we've learned over the years and applied successfully to open source projects seem to fly out the window.
Which is why all proprietary software is garbage? Reality check?
When a corporate developer tries to bring people together to discuss the design of the software or to make plans for how code is added or maintained, he's met with groans about "yet another meeting."
This is true of any business. Unproductive meetings are a hassle to everyone.
their managers often tell them to be careful "not to spend too much time" on it, implying that any activity other than writing code is somehow "frivolous" or "over-engineering."
Apparantely these authors have never seen the inside of business or safety software.
and the programmers should just stick to writing code
Yes, they should. One of the major problems in software companies is that programmers get promoted to positions of management because they excelled at what they did, but they lack management skills. So you've taken someone out of a position they excel at, and put them into a position they need to learn. I forget the term for this.
However, it's well known that corporate projects routinely fail to produce quality software. or even any results at all!
Comparable to the number of abandoned open-source projects you see not updated since 2004. Corporate or open source, they fail just the same.
Open Source has strong merits, but to suggest that Corporate Software is akin to someone hacking out sphagetti code in their basement is just nonsense. What this article should be discussing is how Open Source has adopted and improved many techniques created and employed by the corporate world.
Unfortunately everyone else that utilized the CCD struck it rich, not Boyle himself. I saw this on Daily Planet yesterday, and how they were sort of joking about it.
He didn't get rich because he didn't own the rights to the patent, his company did. That's what happens when you get paid to research / invent.
The MGL has been active somewhere in the neighborhood of two years as far as I know, so it is not a new league. It just has new funding and I guess a new direction.
Precisely, man. I'm in the latter stages of releasing a very niche web application to a specific audience (not computer-related, as an aside), but offering it completely for free. Since there is no application close to its kind (and again, it is very niche), the aim is to attract users in such a way that they become dependent on it. Plus, it's free. And when the traffic is moving, introduce some inconspicuous ads.
Instead of collecting fees from the consumers, you collect it from the advertisers who are more than willing to pay for millions of consumers to see their advertisement. Not only is it a keen approach financially, but you avoid the "I don't really feel like paying" barrier that most consumers put up.
I didn't say it was 'so' expensive, but it is expensive for the average person to file a patent.
Leecher companies? Leecher companies with plenty of capital. You suggest it's all in a days work to file some obtuse patent and then sit on it, when it actuality it does require money and thought. Both of which the average person cannot or does not do. Of course there are some idiotic patents that make their way through the system (you can congratulate your superior country for that), but that doesn't imply that all patenting is easy.
Right, but if you understood the context of my reply, you would realize that I wasn't saying that waiting two years is a bad thing. I was pointing out that patenting is not as easy, relaxing and cheap as people think it is.
I'm not sure how you came to any other conclusion.
Now it's lovely that we are moving on from even that, and can earn money by letting others do the hard work and implementation while we can sit at the patent office all day and submit vague, obtuse applications to gain a monopoly on "methods", "software", etcetera all in the name of "innovation"
Yes, because it's just so easy forking out $5000-$10000+ to file and succeed in a patent application. I guess that's akin to sitting on your ass all day and just submitting random applications?
Give me a break. I dislike the American's patenting system as much as the next, but in no certain terms is the patenting process cheap and easy. You do realize it can take anywhere up to 2 years or more to have a patent approved?
It's because trademarks do not apply to everything -- they apply to the specific line of products and/or services that the trademark represents. In this case, Jeep applies to the automobile. I can make a product called JeepCandy, or a product called JeepHeadphones. That's not a trademark infringment. But if I make a new vehicle called TheJeep, then I'm infringing.
Don't waste your time. Read a more interesting article: How Do Computers Work?. At least this one has pictures.
Are the editors even paying attention here? How can a 500-word, Grade 6 public speech-quality editorial makes it to the frontpage? Where is the quality here, folks?
Slashdot Mirror
The latter notion reminds me of the book Bait and Switch: (The Futile Pursuit of the American Dream) by Barbara Ehrenreich. In it, she fluffs up her resume and goes searching for work that pays a minimum of $50,000 with benefits. She attends workshops, seminars, coaching clinics, and other things to improve her likelihood of finding work. Months later, she fails to reach this goal and in turns calls the American Dream a pointless pursuit. I realized this is not true, but that she was just too damn picky. Nobody can realistically expect a job paying $50,000 annually without qualified skills and plenty of experience.
Is this a reality of American developers? Perhaps indicative of why fewer students graduate with CS because they are not as qualified as they could be if they graduated in other disciplines?
Let skilled workers be skilled workers (since it's what they do best), and managers be managers. At the very least, put emphasis on being a leader instead of being a manager. Many can manage, few can lead.
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
I had estimated the system would work more on volume than on individual sales. Five years later, at $35 a piece, it just makes me wonder why useless minds were put behind this great idea.
You know, you're right -- it actually makes HyperCompuGlobalNet sound legit.
Oh it's very typical for management to put the heat on individuals, but problems like this come about because of an extremely poor process. While one may argue that an individual has a responsibility to follow standards, it is also management's responsibility to ensure everyone else does, too.
So when something like this leaks, you can blame management, not the programmer. He made the mistake, but the even larger mistake is that the process didn't catch it. There will be no success when the course of action is for an executive to call out a programmer, but it is strongly indicative that these problems will be repeated.
What do you think a soldier is these days?
If you think humans are at the top of the food chain, I suspect if you haven't been outdoors very much in your life. How powerless we really all is due to perspective, and thinking the opposite is due to a lack of.
Someone mod this up please. Very insightful.
Welcome to Business 101.
When an employee knows they are overpaid, is unsatisfied with their job but has not vacated, it's usually indicitative that they know they will not be paid as much in another position. So next time you hear someone complaining about their employment but vacated for a lengthy period of time, there's a fair chance they are being overpaid.
I've got no knowledge in wireless networking, but to me this statement says that the wireless signal distance is no greater than the distance between five lamp posts; and that, given this, those areas without lamp posts (unpopulated areas) will not receive any coverage? Am I understanding this correctly?
In any event, it would be a luxury to visit Toronto and have wireless in populated areas.
Do you know how much porn one man is capable of downloading in a day?
Out of curiosity, do you know what the lawyer rates are for these types of cases? I really have no idea, but I'm going to guess $1000 or more an hour? Thanks!
See, it's one thing to say "our search technology will make incredible improvements over the current technology" and please the crowd, but something altogether different to precipitate beating Google with search technology that hasn't been seen. Microsoft is no idiot (but I'm sure someone will point out that I am wrong), so I'm sure they are on to something othewise they likely wouldn't be going public with mere delusions.
"We have a business to run."
Exactly?
"Those ideas might work in a perfect world, but we need to concentrate on our code."
This happens in both corporate and open source development. Some wild ideas get adopted, other's don't.
"It would be great to do the project like that, but we just don't have time."
See above.
Yet it is rare to find a corporate environment where the project team has anything approaching the level of planning, documentation, or review found in successful open source projects.
So Requirements Analysis, Feasibility Studies, Quality Assurance, Systems Design Documents, and so forth, are all offspring of the Open Source movement, and Open Source is the only entity which employs this 'level of documentation and planning'? Utter nonsense, folks.
For some reason, as soon as a budget and a deadline are involved, all of the lessons we've learned over the years and applied successfully to open source projects seem to fly out the window.
Which is why all proprietary software is garbage? Reality check?
When a corporate developer tries to bring people together to discuss the design of the software or to make plans for how code is added or maintained, he's met with groans about "yet another meeting."
This is true of any business. Unproductive meetings are a hassle to everyone.
their managers often tell them to be careful "not to spend too much time" on it, implying that any activity other than writing code is somehow "frivolous" or "over-engineering."
Apparantely these authors have never seen the inside of business or safety software.
and the programmers should just stick to writing code
Yes, they should. One of the major problems in software companies is that programmers get promoted to positions of management because they excelled at what they did, but they lack management skills. So you've taken someone out of a position they excel at, and put them into a position they need to learn. I forget the term for this.
However, it's well known that corporate projects routinely fail to produce quality software. or even any results at all!
Comparable to the number of abandoned open-source projects you see not updated since 2004. Corporate or open source, they fail just the same.
Open Source has strong merits, but to suggest that Corporate Software is akin to someone hacking out sphagetti code in their basement is just nonsense. What this article should be discussing is how Open Source has adopted and improved many techniques created and employed by the corporate world.
Unfortunately everyone else that utilized the CCD struck it rich, not Boyle himself. I saw this on Daily Planet yesterday, and how they were sort of joking about it. He didn't get rich because he didn't own the rights to the patent, his company did. That's what happens when you get paid to research / invent.
The MGL has been active somewhere in the neighborhood of two years as far as I know, so it is not a new league. It just has new funding and I guess a new direction.
Instead of collecting fees from the consumers, you collect it from the advertisers who are more than willing to pay for millions of consumers to see their advertisement. Not only is it a keen approach financially, but you avoid the "I don't really feel like paying" barrier that most consumers put up.
You must be new here. Welcome!
Leecher companies? Leecher companies with plenty of capital. You suggest it's all in a days work to file some obtuse patent and then sit on it, when it actuality it does require money and thought. Both of which the average person cannot or does not do. Of course there are some idiotic patents that make their way through the system (you can congratulate your superior country for that), but that doesn't imply that all patenting is easy.
Thanks for understanding what I said.
Thanks for missing my point entirely.
I'm not sure how you came to any other conclusion.
Yes, because it's just so easy forking out $5000-$10000+ to file and succeed in a patent application. I guess that's akin to sitting on your ass all day and just submitting random applications?
Give me a break. I dislike the American's patenting system as much as the next, but in no certain terms is the patenting process cheap and easy. You do realize it can take anywhere up to 2 years or more to have a patent approved?
It's because trademarks do not apply to everything -- they apply to the specific line of products and/or services that the trademark represents. In this case, Jeep applies to the automobile. I can make a product called JeepCandy, or a product called JeepHeadphones. That's not a trademark infringment. But if I make a new vehicle called TheJeep, then I'm infringing.
Are the editors even paying attention here? How can a 500-word, Grade 6 public speech-quality editorial makes it to the frontpage? Where is the quality here, folks?