I'm typing this on another M (mine was made on 9/25/91). I remember seeing a Model M for sale awhile ago on Ebay that had built-in USB. The last owner replaced the plug and whoever it was did a really good job on it--the plug was a bit longer than most but aside from that it looked like it was originally built that way.
That sounds like a great mod, great score!!! My M is only about a year older and looking at the connector I see what you mean - a usb port would fit in there nicely.
Honestly I feel it's not a waste. A lot of the older keyboards in the 80's were made to be a hell of a lot more durable then the flimsy plastic crap you buy now. I fondly remember my *old* IBM keyboard from the mid 80's that was very heavy but man oh man did it sound beautiful with the clicking noises it made and it felt great to type with it.
Remember? This post is being typed on one. This M just keeps going with the odd cleaning of parts in the dishwasher to make it look new again.
I think you are dead on with the plastic crap keyboards - the ones at the office simply aren;t as good. A pity all those great PC, XT and PS2 era keyboards ended up in the bin. The M2 is a great keyboard as well - but not as heavy so it is good on a desk.
This is a cool project for that reason. I think an arduino conversion of a M to USB would be great as I found the adapters don't work that well.
Reprocessing nuclear waste back into nuclear fuel is not cost effective with today's current technology. Entirely possible, and not that much more expensive. It's simply cheaper to dig up with conventional means. Reprocessing also comes with risks you don't have when you dig it out of the ground. On the flip side, you accumulate large amounts of waste.
You won't find any disagreement with me there, materials technology isn't at the point where an IFR style of Burner reactor is feasible. Only a molten lead cooled burner would be appropriate so that the burn up rate is high enough to make a large scale infrastructure project a possibility.
It hasn't been perfect, there have been cost overruns and issues with reprocessing. But all and all, they have to deal with a lot less highly radioactive waste. Reprocessing does generate a fair amount of low radioactive waste,
It depends on the context of re-processing, in a breeder style it make a whole lot of waste. The elements mixed in a breeder means that you put, say 5Kg Plutonium in and get 15Kg out through transmutation of the other 10Kg of elements in the reactor core. A plutonium economy only makes sense when you are in space.
The best argument against reprocessing is "Uh, that's a LOT of weapons grade plutonium". Which is correct, and a concern. One that can be handled. Best argument there would be to have a couple highly trusted parties handle the reprocessing. Yes, you would have to either built reactors that burn plutonium, or stockpile it. It still drastically reduces (or closes) the fuel cycle.
Who you trust is a matter of perspective. Who the USA trusts is different from who Russia or China or India trusts. All of whom are Nuclear nations.
The only alternative is what we do now. Let it sit and built up at each and every reactor site. Yucca had its own engineering issues, mostly dealing with water, and cost overruns. But NIMBY was probably the issue that actually got it canceled.
No, it wasn't NIMBY, it was engineering. Nimby is what landed it in Yucca in the first place. The science was corrupted and everything the DOE specified for 'Defense in Depth' about the Yucca site was not met. Yucca was dead from day one and the only reason it ended up there is because one Senator didn't show up for the vote.
The water only revealed that the geology was inappropriate. When the water was sampled from *inside* the mountain it was found to have Cl-36 produced in atmospheric nuclear testing. That demonstrated that the ingress of water was less than 50 years.
The CSIRO (in Australia) found that granite was appropriate because it captured the radioactive isotopes into crystaline structures in the rock. Yucca is Pumice.
Which will happen ANYWHERE you try to build a repository. Since it's the government, there will be engineering issues and it'll go over budget. But two Senators deeply driving an issue will usually trump 98 Senators that don't really care. That makes central repository politically impossible. For the moment, that leaves us two options. Stockpile the waste or reprocessing.
Of course, I think though most people see it as a garbage dump as opposed to a centralised fuel storage area that could also contain a new type of nuclear reactor, immune to fukashima style issues because it's in the belly of a mountain.
I see something like that would set America up for the next 1000 years but I simply don't see the long term planning required to make it happen and it's simply not possible with the corporate mindset.
Even the transport infrastructure is a project that lasts 30 years and for it to be implemented you would already have to have an energy infrastructure based on WInd and Solar in operation to pick up the lost energy load for the 'failed generation' of nuclear reactors as all of the energy they produc
...that the same human who had the birds wings clipped so it can't move has had to build him a fucking go kart so he's able to move around again.
Fuck you, Andrew Gray, and the horse you rode in on. IF you haven't clipped its hooves at the knee, that is!
The bird is well looked after and you can tell that just by looking at it's feathers. The very fact that the bird knows how to *drive* the buggy means that it is getting enough attention to be healthy and the fact that his wings are clipped means that the bird has appropriate flight power for being indoors - from which we can deduce that the bird is completely domesticated and thinks of it's cage as it's own 'room' - so it also has it's own territory.
From the video the bird only flapped it's wings to maintain it's balance, that means the bird *chooses* to play with the cart. Parrots are fast, manuverable birds, and just because it's wings are clipped doesn't mean it can't fly - it just means that it won't get out of control, frustrated, scared and hurt itself inside a house. If it was a wild bird then you might have a point. The guy owns a parrot, that's a 25-60 year commitment to a pet, so before you go judging the guy ask yourself if you could do the same thing.
Honestly settle down with the political correctness, it's far more offensive than a parrot with it's wings clipped.
I'm still annoyed at President Carter. On 7 April 1977,
Here is the history surrounding Carter's decision.
1975 the first commercial reprocessing plant at West Valley, NY, had been shut down for modifications to double its size. The regulators called for complete seismic upgrades and the owners gave up. Another pilot-sized plant had been abandoned without operating. But a full-sized commercial reprocessing plant named Barnwell was under construction.
Sept. 25, 1976 speech in San Diego, Jimmy Carter raised concerns about proliferation and promised that he would stop Barnwell until it was"needed" and safe, and only ever allow it to operate if it were on a multi-national basis.
President Ford initiated a secret study to set a nonproliferation policy. Ford's statement was finally presented in a campaign speech at Portsmouth, Ohio, just five days before the 1976 election. He said that control of nuclear proliferation had to take precedence over commercial and national economic interests. He called for a delay of up to three years in starting the Barnwell reprocessing plant. Some argue that it was Ford who actually stopped reprocessing, not Carter.
On April 7, 1977, President Jimmy Carter announced that the United States would defer indefinitely the reprocessing of spent nuclear reactor fuel. He stated that after extensive examination of the issues, he had reached the conclusion that this action was necessary to reduce the serious threat of nuclear weapons proliferation, and that by setting this example, the U. S. would encourage other nations to follow its lead.
President Carter's Executive Order also announced that the U. S. would sponsor an international examination of alternative fuel cycles, seeking to identify approaches which would allow nuclear power to continue without adding to the risk of nuclear proliferation.
In early 1982, President Reagan rescinded the Carter policy, allowed programmatic (as opposed to case-by-case) approvals for reprocessing of U.S. origin fuel by the Euratom nations and Japan, and even said that reprocessing could again be considered in the U. S.
So there you have it. Carters policy was rescinded by Reagan just 5 years after it's inception. Any argument and gnashing of teeth about Carters decision has been a moot point for well over 2 decades. Arguments about breeder reactors must be carried out on the basis of the merits of the technology which is known to be costly to implement and very hard to run safely.
If you are arguing for the creation of a plutonium economy it still isn't the right thing to do. There is ample reserves of plutonium ( well over 70,000 tons) and absolutely no need to create any more so breeder reactors still don't make any sense. We have reached the limits of our existing infrastructure to handle existing pu-239 reserves, still have no proper plan to contain it and Yucca mountain has proven itself to be totally unsuitable.
Bread actually can be frozen and taken out slice by slice when required. It remains quite fresh if it's wrapped and sealed. An amazing piece of technology called a "Freezer" can do this for you at minimal expense.
Now, if it says fresh after sixty days - then you have a breakthrough. Bread without mould after sixty days could be re-used as quite an effective mallet for woodwork.
In Silicon valley, when you reached the age of 40 you supposed to have at least 50 millions dollars under you name.
Sounds like hacker culture and interest in technology has been completely crushed by corporate culture.
The role that people 40 and above play in Silicon Valley is that of the Angel Investor.
Ok, I'm really interested in mastering a new aspect of technology that I hadn't experienced before and applying it back to my career. For me IT has never about getting rich, it's about lifestyle and it sounds like that is not on offer in the Valley.
Living 5 minutes walk from the best beaches and surf since I decided that's how I wanted my life to be in my 20's is what I wanted from IT. I'm not certain I could have sacrificed all that for my business, which was quite profitable, but I decided that I was having more fun recording music with my band, catching waves and training martial arts. I'm not sure if that lifestyle would have been available and look as young as I do if I focused on just making money. Maybe I should have taken my band more seriously.
I would have liked to have made a lot of money but I didn't want to give up on spending time with friends and family. Because I've made that choice and I'm now over 40 does it mean I'm locked out of a career I love to do? I probably sound naive but is there no room in IT for people who love what they do AND want to have a life?
If you are over 40 and still looking for opportunity to toil through the night hacking away - man, you do not belong in the Valley.
I always thought that innovation was about the willingness to try and the courage to fail. Sounds to me a lot like the same vapid exclusivity that geeks and nerds rebelled against at the hands of the jocks. If ageism has become the modus operandi then the Valley has limited it's pool of good ideas and longevity whilst perverting the very thing that made it a career destination in the first place, namely that ideas trump perceptions.
This concerns me because it makes people ask if IT is a viable career at any age
I certainly hope that as IT matures it's attitudes will value the wisdom of IT workers with 25 years+ experience. Every company I have worked for has benefited from the innovation I bring because experience has taught me which innovations matter most.
If experiences, drive to learn, capability and proven ability to innovate in a systematic way is not welcome in the Valley any more because of a perception of age, then perhaps it is no longer viable. After all it was born in 1956.
Stop declaring war and sending money overseas. You'd get back about $500-750bn a year instantly.
It's because there has been this perception that money on wars boosts economies. That may have been true when the countries were building production capacity and put every scrap of resources into doing so but now the production capacity exists governments take loans our to operate that capacity for political purposes.
Science and innovation is not as sexy to uninformed populations so even though it creates jobs by building industry all that science stuff is just confusing so people don't support it. It kinda sucks how once you let it go it's a downward spiral. War is more important than innovation, except when the innovation is killing.
Think about the entities who lobby your congress critters, do you think they want their business models disturbed by some disruptive technology created by *cough* scientists?
The American science programs that landed the first man on the moon, found cures for deadly diseases and bred crops that feed the world now face the possibility of becoming relics in the story of human progress
Wow, human progress is becoming a relic of human progress. Those humans must be a bunch of oxymorons!
Anyone who has actually encountered an Organisational Psychopath (OP) would understand the terror they can inspire. They are glib, talented liars willing to manipulate and do anything that raises the general suffering of those around them. There should be no sympathy or romantic notions about their strengths as they will maneuver their victims into positions where they are trapped and then systematically destroy their careers and lives.
Organisational Psychopaths destroy lives.
Whilst I am not qualified to say whether my experience was with a true OP I got my hands on reading material written by a specialist in the field who's job as a consultant was to assist organisations, at a management level, diagnose and identify OPs and eject them from the company. OP do not care for the welfare of the company or it's employees and will drive a business to bankruptcy and then move on.
The two areas I remember were the skilful lying, identified in the book, which made you question if you had a sincere grip on reality. How people around you were manipulated to work against each other and see the OP as the true source of the "truth". I directly witnessed an OP deliberately hide the completed work of a team to invoke the penalty clauses of a corporate contract to position himself in better control of the team, much to the bewilderment of the team.
The final straw, for me, was when the OP described to me how, as a child, he tortured peoples pets in the most gruesome way, and whilst on the inside I wanted to run away and never return, I somehow realised that if I showed any sense of abhorrence towards his behaviour he would target me even more. I planned to get away as quickly as possible.
There is no doubt that these people are talented, but in a way that is completely destructive. If you are unfortunate to encounter an OP and come to understand what I mean you will recognise them immediately and steer well clear. One of the most telling things in the book was how psychopaths were able to identify sexual abuse victims just from the way they walked. An OP is as adept at finding their victims, highly talented individuals with solid sense of self and morals. Computer geeks are a prime target for these type of predator.
So yeah a method to limit the damage they do to an organisation is very wise.
You know..rather that strengthening UNIONs and their like...
Why don't we try to strengthen laws for individuals....and make things easier for people to self employ, self incorporate and contract themselves.
In itself this is a good idea...but... Who will do it?
Few people have the motivation to do this for themselves until they have to. When they have to and are still an individual they do not have the same economies of scale or lobbying power that a union vs a corporation has to influence laws in the individuals favour. If an individual had the time to draft legislations and submit it to a congress-critter for support it would not receive the same attention that a sponsor delivering millions of dollars in campaign funds.
That's why the rights you enjoy as am individual worker were negotiated by unions.
The true power of unions is that they can influence power with votes. Now whilst I understand that Unions in the US are kind of fucked up right now it's not the case everywhere. If you can't fix your unions to perform how you want them to then how do you expect to fix *anything*. Besides individuals have a hard enough time just surviving, and speaking as someone who writes letters to politicians it's hard enough to stop them doing something stupid let alone influence any progressive policy for the individual. Right now the rich are using money to influence and relying on the apathy of individuals.
That's why democracies include the right to free association and gather, so if your unions are all fucked up then make a union that isn't because whatever influence an individual can wield is limited to the amount of votes controlled. That's what power listens to, 300,000 votes means a lot more than one so no matter what an individual does what ever disjointed action you expect to make happen has to involve a group and you are back to an organised gathering such as a union.
Take responsibility. It's a shit load easier to blame unions than it is to blame ourselves. Unions have their problems because it's OUR fault, we are responsible for the failings of the unions because we have made no effort to fix them. Until then any bleating about unions is for sheeple.
Let each person be responsible for negotiating their own pay rates, etc.
Simply put, you can't negotiate as hard as I can. Your inability to do so makes the market rates for all knowledge workers lower, which means less money for me. However, If I was negotiating for you on your behalf than you would have all the skills of someone who understands inquiry modes, fixed pattern behaviours, behavioural ques and many other things required to negotiate successfully with a group of human beings. Face it - you are not interested or motivated to do so, which is a lot harder than going to the gym.
You may not have encountered these concepts before in a C++ programming manual, so you probably don't know what they are let alone be motivated enough to learn how to apply them to a negotiation. There is no return for a programmer to hire a skilled negotiator to act in their interest, but there is for a union, erh, a group.
Make it easier for people to do their own healthcare, and retirement.....have co-ops out there, etc?
You are basically talking about forming a union. Pray tell how will a individual negotiate economies of scale with a health care provider. It's not impossible but it is hugely time-consuming. Less time for you to code and play with technology.
Why do we keep going down the path of group-think, and putting everyone into the same bowl and treating everyone the same.
Because that's how you think of organisations that are their to act on your behalf. Instead of fixing them sheeple say 'unions bad, mmmkkaayy'. Make a union that performs the way it should, but remember that it attracts people who are attracted to power which is good and bad. Until then you get th
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Loving what you are doing on the nuke thread!!! Temper and conserve your power for when you need it, my son!! Well done and much Kudos to you!!! enjoy
I'm typing this on another M (mine was made on 9/25/91). I remember seeing a Model M for sale awhile ago on Ebay that had built-in USB. The last owner replaced the plug and whoever it was did a really good job on it--the plug was a bit longer than most but aside from that it looked like it was originally built that way.
That sounds like a great mod, great score!!! My M is only about a year older and looking at the connector I see what you mean - a usb port would fit in there nicely.
Honestly I feel it's not a waste. A lot of the older keyboards in the 80's were made to be a hell of a lot more durable then the flimsy plastic crap you buy now. I fondly remember my *old* IBM keyboard from the mid 80's that was very heavy but man oh man did it sound beautiful with the clicking noises it made and it felt great to type with it.
Remember? This post is being typed on one. This M just keeps going with the odd cleaning of parts in the dishwasher to make it look new again.
I think you are dead on with the plastic crap keyboards - the ones at the office simply aren;t as good. A pity all those great PC, XT and PS2 era keyboards ended up in the bin. The M2 is a great keyboard as well - but not as heavy so it is good on a desk.
This is a cool project for that reason. I think an arduino conversion of a M to USB would be great as I found the adapters don't work that well.
You won't find any disagreement with me there, materials technology isn't at the point where an IFR style of Burner reactor is feasible. Only a molten lead cooled burner would be appropriate so that the burn up rate is high enough to make a large scale infrastructure project a possibility.
It depends on the context of re-processing, in a breeder style it make a whole lot of waste. The elements mixed in a breeder means that you put, say 5Kg Plutonium in and get 15Kg out through transmutation of the other 10Kg of elements in the reactor core. A plutonium economy only makes sense when you are in space.
Who you trust is a matter of perspective. Who the USA trusts is different from who Russia or China or India trusts. All of whom are Nuclear nations.
No, it wasn't NIMBY, it was engineering. Nimby is what landed it in Yucca in the first place. The science was corrupted and everything the DOE specified for 'Defense in Depth' about the Yucca site was not met. Yucca was dead from day one and the only reason it ended up there is because one Senator didn't show up for the vote.
The water only revealed that the geology was inappropriate. When the water was sampled from *inside* the mountain it was found to have Cl-36 produced in atmospheric nuclear testing. That demonstrated that the ingress of water was less than 50 years.
The CSIRO (in Australia) found that granite was appropriate because it captured the radioactive isotopes into crystaline structures in the rock. Yucca is Pumice.
Of course, I think though most people see it as a garbage dump as opposed to a centralised fuel storage area that could also contain a new type of nuclear reactor, immune to fukashima style issues because it's in the belly of a mountain.
I see something like that would set America up for the next 1000 years but I simply don't see the long term planning required to make it happen and it's simply not possible with the corporate mindset.
Even the transport infrastructure is a project that lasts 30 years and for it to be implemented you would already have to have an energy infrastructure based on WInd and Solar in operation to pick up the lost energy load for the 'failed generation' of nuclear reactors as all of the energy they produc
its!
Sorry I, was. in a Hurrie,
Perhaps the could be called iPirateThings?
...that the same human who had the birds wings clipped so it can't move has had to build him a fucking go kart so he's able to move around again.
Fuck you, Andrew Gray, and the horse you rode in on. IF you haven't clipped its hooves at the knee, that is!
The bird is well looked after and you can tell that just by looking at it's feathers. The very fact that the bird knows how to *drive* the buggy means that it is getting enough attention to be healthy and the fact that his wings are clipped means that the bird has appropriate flight power for being indoors - from which we can deduce that the bird is completely domesticated and thinks of it's cage as it's own 'room' - so it also has it's own territory.
From the video the bird only flapped it's wings to maintain it's balance, that means the bird *chooses* to play with the cart. Parrots are fast, manuverable birds, and just because it's wings are clipped doesn't mean it can't fly - it just means that it won't get out of control, frustrated, scared and hurt itself inside a house. If it was a wild bird then you might have a point. The guy owns a parrot, that's a 25-60 year commitment to a pet, so before you go judging the guy ask yourself if you could do the same thing.
Honestly settle down with the political correctness, it's far more offensive than a parrot with it's wings clipped.
I'm still annoyed at President Carter. On 7 April 1977,
Here is the history surrounding Carter's decision.
So there you have it. Carters policy was rescinded by Reagan just 5 years after it's inception. Any argument and gnashing of teeth about Carters decision has been a moot point for well over 2 decades. Arguments about breeder reactors must be carried out on the basis of the merits of the technology which is known to be costly to implement and very hard to run safely.
If you are arguing for the creation of a plutonium economy it still isn't the right thing to do. There is ample reserves of plutonium ( well over 70,000 tons) and absolutely no need to create any more so breeder reactors still don't make any sense. We have reached the limits of our existing infrastructure to handle existing pu-239 reserves, still have no proper plan to contain it and Yucca mountain has proven itself to be totally unsuitable.
stop talking about my sex life!
If I'm talking about your sex life, then your sex life is what the Zwurg tells you it is.
Just sayin.
badum ching
Coincidentally, this is the sound the Zwurg hull made as it struck the rings around Uranus.
It didn't make it past 15 years of operation
The Zwurg captured it, crushed it, and have been spoofing empty space readings back to us to hide the fact we are inside a giant experimental sphere.
Where voyager would be right now is actually solid lead.
Hmmmm, that's interesting. That would put the giant experimental sphere very close to Uranus.
Still, Voyager was able to take photos of Uranus for all of humanity to see. So if you are right, they probably started spoofing around Uranus then.
Reported to taste like chicken!
Bread actually can be frozen and taken out slice by slice when required. It remains quite fresh if it's wrapped and sealed. An amazing piece of technology called a "Freezer" can do this for you at minimal expense.
Now, if it says fresh after sixty days - then you have a breakthrough. Bread without mould after sixty days could be re-used as quite an effective mallet for woodwork.
trolololol
Millions of years of genetic variation has produced....this
In Silicon valley, when you reached the age of 40 you supposed to have at least 50 millions dollars under you name.
Sounds like hacker culture and interest in technology has been completely crushed by corporate culture.
The role that people 40 and above play in Silicon Valley is that of the Angel Investor.
Ok, I'm really interested in mastering a new aspect of technology that I hadn't experienced before and applying it back to my career. For me IT has never about getting rich, it's about lifestyle and it sounds like that is not on offer in the Valley.
Living 5 minutes walk from the best beaches and surf since I decided that's how I wanted my life to be in my 20's is what I wanted from IT. I'm not certain I could have sacrificed all that for my business, which was quite profitable, but I decided that I was having more fun recording music with my band, catching waves and training martial arts. I'm not sure if that lifestyle would have been available and look as young as I do if I focused on just making money. Maybe I should have taken my band more seriously.
I would have liked to have made a lot of money but I didn't want to give up on spending time with friends and family. Because I've made that choice and I'm now over 40 does it mean I'm locked out of a career I love to do? I probably sound naive but is there no room in IT for people who love what they do AND want to have a life?
If you are over 40 and still looking for opportunity to toil through the night hacking away - man, you do not belong in the Valley.
I always thought that innovation was about the willingness to try and the courage to fail. Sounds to me a lot like the same vapid exclusivity that geeks and nerds rebelled against at the hands of the jocks. If ageism has become the modus operandi then the Valley has limited it's pool of good ideas and longevity whilst perverting the very thing that made it a career destination in the first place, namely that ideas trump perceptions.
This concerns me because it makes people ask if IT is a viable career at any age I certainly hope that as IT matures it's attitudes will value the wisdom of IT workers with 25 years+ experience. Every company I have worked for has benefited from the innovation I bring because experience has taught me which innovations matter most.
If experiences, drive to learn, capability and proven ability to innovate in a systematic way is not welcome in the Valley any more because of a perception of age, then perhaps it is no longer viable. After all it was born in 1956.
iNotCoolNoMore
Stop declaring war and sending money overseas. You'd get back about $500-750bn a year instantly.
It's because there has been this perception that money on wars boosts economies. That may have been true when the countries were building production capacity and put every scrap of resources into doing so but now the production capacity exists governments take loans our to operate that capacity for political purposes.
Science and innovation is not as sexy to uninformed populations so even though it creates jobs by building industry all that science stuff is just confusing so people don't support it. It kinda sucks how once you let it go it's a downward spiral. War is more important than innovation, except when the innovation is killing.
Think about the entities who lobby your congress critters, do you think they want their business models disturbed by some disruptive technology created by *cough* scientists?
Wow, human progress is becoming a relic of human progress. Those humans must be a bunch of oxymorons!
Murderers don't always receive life sentences. I wasn't aware the "life" of a corporation was more important than the rest of us.
Read: Don't mess with our intelligence services.
Organisational Psychopaths destroy lives.
Whilst I am not qualified to say whether my experience was with a true OP I got my hands on reading material written by a specialist in the field who's job as a consultant was to assist organisations, at a management level, diagnose and identify OPs and eject them from the company. OP do not care for the welfare of the company or it's employees and will drive a business to bankruptcy and then move on.
The two areas I remember were the skilful lying, identified in the book, which made you question if you had a sincere grip on reality. How people around you were manipulated to work against each other and see the OP as the true source of the "truth". I directly witnessed an OP deliberately hide the completed work of a team to invoke the penalty clauses of a corporate contract to position himself in better control of the team, much to the bewilderment of the team.
The final straw, for me, was when the OP described to me how, as a child, he tortured peoples pets in the most gruesome way, and whilst on the inside I wanted to run away and never return, I somehow realised that if I showed any sense of abhorrence towards his behaviour he would target me even more. I planned to get away as quickly as possible.
There is no doubt that these people are talented, but in a way that is completely destructive. If you are unfortunate to encounter an OP and come to understand what I mean you will recognise them immediately and steer well clear. One of the most telling things in the book was how psychopaths were able to identify sexual abuse victims just from the way they walked. An OP is as adept at finding their victims, highly talented individuals with solid sense of self and morals. Computer geeks are a prime target for these type of predator.
So yeah a method to limit the damage they do to an organisation is very wise.
You know..rather that strengthening UNIONs and their like...
Why don't we try to strengthen laws for individuals....and make things easier for people to self employ, self incorporate and contract themselves.
In itself this is a good idea...but... Who will do it?
Few people have the motivation to do this for themselves until they have to. When they have to and are still an individual they do not have the same economies of scale or lobbying power that a union vs a corporation has to influence laws in the individuals favour. If an individual had the time to draft legislations and submit it to a congress-critter for support it would not receive the same attention that a sponsor delivering millions of dollars in campaign funds.
That's why the rights you enjoy as am individual worker were negotiated by unions.
The true power of unions is that they can influence power with votes. Now whilst I understand that Unions in the US are kind of fucked up right now it's not the case everywhere. If you can't fix your unions to perform how you want them to then how do you expect to fix *anything*. Besides individuals have a hard enough time just surviving, and speaking as someone who writes letters to politicians it's hard enough to stop them doing something stupid let alone influence any progressive policy for the individual. Right now the rich are using money to influence and relying on the apathy of individuals.
That's why democracies include the right to free association and gather, so if your unions are all fucked up then make a union that isn't because whatever influence an individual can wield is limited to the amount of votes controlled. That's what power listens to, 300,000 votes means a lot more than one so no matter what an individual does what ever disjointed action you expect to make happen has to involve a group and you are back to an organised gathering such as a union.
Take responsibility. It's a shit load easier to blame unions than it is to blame ourselves. Unions have their problems because it's OUR fault, we are responsible for the failings of the unions because we have made no effort to fix them. Until then any bleating about unions is for sheeple.
Let each person be responsible for negotiating their own pay rates, etc.
Simply put, you can't negotiate as hard as I can. Your inability to do so makes the market rates for all knowledge workers lower, which means less money for me. However, If I was negotiating for you on your behalf than you would have all the skills of someone who understands inquiry modes, fixed pattern behaviours, behavioural ques and many other things required to negotiate successfully with a group of human beings. Face it - you are not interested or motivated to do so, which is a lot harder than going to the gym.
You may not have encountered these concepts before in a C++ programming manual, so you probably don't know what they are let alone be motivated enough to learn how to apply them to a negotiation. There is no return for a programmer to hire a skilled negotiator to act in their interest, but there is for a union, erh, a group.
Make it easier for people to do their own healthcare, and retirement.....have co-ops out there, etc?
You are basically talking about forming a union. Pray tell how will a individual negotiate economies of scale with a health care provider. It's not impossible but it is hugely time-consuming. Less time for you to code and play with technology.
Why do we keep going down the path of group-think, and putting everyone into the same bowl and treating everyone the same.
Because that's how you think of organisations that are their to act on your behalf. Instead of fixing them sheeple say 'unions bad, mmmkkaayy'. Make a union that performs the way it should, but remember that it attracts people who are attracted to power which is good and bad. Until then you get th
To the Mars natives, Curiosity is known as the "Rocknest Monster"
This is the expected pattern, followed by a steady progression into the food chain as these fish are eaten by their predators.
And the expected reaction by the nukler fanbois
US Aircraft Carrier (I believe the Enterprise)
FYI: The Ronald Reagan