I'm not amazed that people exchange money for goods and services.
I'm amazed at their choices in goods and services.
If somebody said to me, would you rather have $300, or an iPod, I'd take the $300.
If somebody offered me $45,000 or a BMW, I'd take the $45,000.
If somebody offered me the cash equivilent of most of what people buy, I'd take the cash and probably stick it in my IRA.
I like gizmos and gadgets as much as anybody else, but I rarely purchase them for myself, because I can almost always find a better use for the money. Paying down debt, home improvement projects, etc. When I do buy something for myself, it's meticulously researched. I'll be at the store and see "Stripes" on DVD for $9 and say to myself, "If it was $7, I might get it."
But then now and then a fuse blows in my brain and make something utterly worthless for way too much money, so I guess I'm no different than any other consumer with too much disposable income.
I can respect that, actually, just fine. What I object to is the faith of a few people causing an entire state full of children engaged in scientific discover to be disallowed from ever LEARNING about evolution as a theory. Or any other bit of that darned science that isn't compatible with religious teachings.
The problem with creationism is it's a faith-based theory, and it can't be proven correct (or incorrect, really).
It's like a guy standing there saying, "My pet dog Frank is standing next to me but he's invisible to everybody but me. PROVE THAT THIS ISN'T TRUE!"
...50,000 people with pwn3d boxes get absolutely nothing. I can't decide if that's complete injustice or exactly what they deserve.
What exactly would those injured parties have received under the $500,000 fine that Microsoft would otherwise have collected? Another $500,000 worth of security updates to Windows? Nah...
If there are 50,000 injuried parties as a result of this kid's activities, they might have legal grounds for a class-action lawsuit. But I don't really know jack about law.
Yet! I'm going to get a law degree just so I can take about legal matters on Slashdot and instead of saying "IANAL" I can respond to YOU people who post that and say, "IALSTFUPLZKTHXOMGWTF."
Most of the media ignores that a large part of the fault lies with Microsoft Windows...and Microsoft appreciates that very much.
YM
Most of the media doesn't realize that a large part of the fault lies with Microsoft Windows...and Microsoft does nothing to disabuse them of that ignorance.
HTH!
That business is afraid of technology is axiomatic. Most businesses loathe their IT departments. I've said this before, but the executives cringe every time their CIO says, "We have a problem." They grind their teeth as they sign off on the IT budget; as far as they're concerned, every cent of that is wasted. Business chugged along JUST FINE for 100 years before 1995 and now suddenly we have to dump millions every year into a department full of unwashed slobs who can't be taught to cut their hair or wear pants.
For awhile, these types of people were making millions off computers and technology, and they didn't mind so much having that IT department. "I don't know what they do, but I bought Yahoo at $25/share and sold it a day later at $125. It MUST be good to have computer guys."
Then it all ended, and they LOST millions, and now your IT people are once more a burden that the company carries, with its executives half convinced that IT is the nuclear missile of business - we don't REALLY have a legitimate use or need for it, but we have to have it because all the other big players have it, too.
They don't even appreciate that you fix their computers because mostly don't want computers in the first place. They don't understand them. And you'll know when you bump into a member of that generation that does see the value.
Anyway, I'm rambling here but if you're not getting "respect" at your job then you know what your options are. Change companies, change jobs, change expectations, change attitude, change something. But notice that I'm telling you to change, not them. You can't control what they do, you can only control your own decisions.
...after spending 10 years and 13 billion dollars of tax payer money, we are proud to announce to the US Department of Bureaucracy has determined that the Internet is:
Big
Complicated
Busy
Using Electrons
Full of pornography
We won't be able to really relax our collective guard until they add unregulatable to this list.
In my experience, there's three major reasons why projects aren't delivered on time or to the satisfaction of the end user.
Failure to Understand Business Need
Gathering requirements is fine, but there's rarely a strong feedback loop between engineering and business. For example, I see requirements like this a lot:
Each customer in the database will have a unique ID. This seems like a good requirement. Adding any more detail moves you into the realm of high level design, right? Well, maybe. In any case, engineering needs to ask important questions at this point. This was an actual requirement I got at a previous job. We assumed, erroneously, that this just meant that the data stream we received and processed would contain a unique ID for each customer and that it had to go into the database. The truth was that customers did not have unique IDs, the business was expecting us to engineer a technique by which to assign them one. For various reasons I won't go into, simple starting at 1 and assigning each user the next available number wasn't sufficient. This misunderstanding didn't come up until late in the project, and it took almost two weeks to understand what all had to go into the unique ID, and then engineer a process to calculate and assign the ID to each customer. It sounds like such a simple thing, but overlooking the simple things is what puts projects behind.
Trying to Solve Training/Documentation Issues via Engineering
There's a problem. We found a flaw in the program. If the user does X, then Y, then Z, then X again, and then Z twice, and then Y while holding down the shift key, the program behaves funny. Well, all of those functions are legitimate uses of the software, and this particular path through causes problems. Not crashes, not erroneous results, just unexpected results. Well, that's a documentation issue. Or a training issue. "What if the user goes in and manually hacks the URL and screws up our query string?" Well, then they get errors or bad results! Engineers often want to solve these problems ("take away the URL nav bar!" "But we have to support IE, Netscape 4.7, Mozilla, and 4 other browsers, plus their Macintosh and Linux versions! What a testing nightmare!") in code, but at some point it's best to accept the risk and just document the hazard. Every problem doesn't need to be solved by engineering.
Scope/Requirements Creep
"Johnson! Real quick, can you add a Print option to this right-click pop-up menu?" "Sure, no problem." Congratulations, you're part of the problem. Yeah it'll only take a few minutes to code it. And update documentation. And update test cases. And test it. But wait! If Print is on the pop-up menu THERE it ought to be available over HERE too! Changing code costs more time than just the few minutes you spent changing code. Pile up a dozen trivial requests and suddenly you've added hidden weeks of effort to the project.
Join me next week as I discuss the problem with dumbing down your architecture so that you can hire morons for less money to maintain it when all your best talent gets fed up with their 2% raises and quits.
Windows machine at home: crashing that box is about as commonplace as... well, logging in and using it for 2 hours, so my reaction is resigned frustration as I lean over to hit the reset key.
Linux machine at home: a big stupid "O"-mouth expression as I wonder how I, knowing precisely Jack and Schite about Linux, managed to crash it. This has only happened once and it didn't really crash. KDE just locked up on me.
Work machine: Bagel time.
Yeah like every.... 20 to 30. The storage media I used 20 years ago has basically undergone one major revolution.
I used to use floppy disks. Now I use CDs. And it's not really that difficult to find computers with floppy drives, nor operating systems that can wrangle a 5.25" floppy drive. And how old is that technology?
Expect CD-readers to be widely available for at least another 10-20 years. I expect DVD-readers to have an even longer lifespan. And I think it's a reasonable expectation.
I bought a new computer about a year ago. I had an LPR port, two COM ports, and a some serial ports. When was the last time you gave a crap about your UART? I don't have any devices left in my house that can't be plugged into FireWire or USB. And yet my computers all still support aging ports.
Of course, we shouldn't be too proud of ourselves. Supposedly we'll be inventing time travel just to recover IBM castaways from the 70's in the coming decades.
...are they asking how long I want the rights to use it? Or how long the file should retain its integrity? Or... something else?
I guess the intent of the question is irrelevent. In all those cases, if I paid for it I expect it to last at least as long as I do.
Nope. You forget the people who actually buy more music because of P2P.
I did not forget them, I specifically mentioned them. I'm one of them. We're a minority of filesharers. The majority are not buying anything. They're just downloading it.
Let's say in 2000 I sold 1,000 digital widgets for $10 apiece, grabbing me $10,000 in revenue.
I sold 1400 digital widgets in 2002 at $12 apiece, grabbing me $16,800 in revneue.
Then my digital widgets end up on the p2p networks. Luckily for me, a large number of people still buy them anyway. I sell 1800 digital widgets in 2004 at $14 apiece, grabbing me $25,200 in sales.
It looks like the p2p network had no impact on my sales. I made even more money. Record profits!
However, if there is even one person who would have paid for my digital widget if it wasn't avaiable for free on the p2p network, then the p2p network has cost me money. You are commiting the sin of willful ignorance, my friend. You need to brush up on basic accounting principles. It's possible to lose money and turn a profit.
Let's say that, in my above widget example, 800 of my widgets were downloaded off a p2p network. I am going to totally make up numbers here; I'm not even pretending that the following numbers might correspond to the breakdown of p2p network users, so play along. Let's say that 400 of the people who stole my widgets off p2p wouldn't have bought them anyway, so while they are stealing from me, they aren't actually costing me money. In a way, this form of theft is much better than a guy shoving a widget into his jacket at Wal*Mart. That widget cost me actual money to produce, package, and ship, and it cost the retail store money to buy from the distributor and stock it. So those 400 people aren't really costing me anything. They never would have bought one and they didn't steal a physical asset from me or anybody else. Also, some of those 400 people downloaded the widget just to try it out, and they didn't like it and promptly deleted it. In any case, none of them were going to pay for one (actually a case could be made that under a more traditional business model, that latter group would have bought one and resold it, but I'm trying to keep this simple and pretend these groups of people aren't costing me any money).
Of the other 400, let's say 200 of them ended up buying my widget anyway for one reason or another. Maybe they were Slashdot readers, who we all know have never downloaded something illegally in the history of Slashdot, so the instance they downloaded my widget and liked it, they went out and bought it. Maybe some of them bought one BEFORE they downloaded and lost or broke it, or somebody stole it from them. And the last 200 would have bought a widget, but it was free on the p2p network so they downloaded it for free instead of paying for it.
So that's 200 lost sales x $14 = $2800 in lost sales revenue.
So, I did lose money on the p2p network. I lost $2800. Note that losing money on p2p is not synonymous with failing to turn a profit. If I would have seen $28,000 worth of sales in 2004, but due to digital theft on p2p networks, I only saw $25,200 in sales, then the p2p networks have caused me to lose money. Note that other forms of theft no doubt cost me money as well: traditional theft of physical property, employee theft, people buying widget tapes and make copies for each other, etc. These people have also caused me to lose money. Again, note that losing money is not the same as not profiting. I lost $2800 at least in sales revenue. And yet turned a profit. Everybody business in every industry, ever year, will lose money, and tons of it, due to various factors that are a reality of doing business. Almost every retail enterprise expects to write off, every year, a certain percentage of their inventory as lost to theft, mostly by employees. Not only is the potential sales revenue there lost, the physical item is gone as well, meaning the cost of its manufacture is also an uncuperable expense.
You said, Yes, you need to face reality: The music industry is making loads and loads of money. Filesharing taking away their
But, but, but who would be stupid enough to pay 129 bucks for a POINT release...for the love of god!
I know you're kidding, but the people who say this are mostly those who were successfully duped by Microsoft's naming scheme, which hides versioning.
Isn't XP just a pretty Windows 2000? How many people, smiles painted on, went out and got it?
What about the 95 to 98 upgrade? I seem to recall that the "upgrade" was still a good $90 or so. Isn't it essentially a point update?
Windows ME? The difference was that Microsoft pulled a sleight-of-hand with their naming convention, whereas Apple just calls it what it is.
The complaining is silly anyway. Anybody, student or not, can go to the Apple Store and buy a copy using the "student discount" price, which is about half-off. Split it with a buddy and you've each paid about $35 for it.
Yeah, it's illegal, but this is Slashdot, where we have a God-given right to free music over p2p.
Re:An uninformed opinion-Outsourcing Opinions.
on
Game Creation and Careers
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Well I've been in programming for the last six years. I've been in telemarketing, telecommunications, the ISP networking business, radiology oncology, and the finance sector.
I work 40 hour weeks for all but maybe 1 or 2 weeks a year, I get fair benefits, a decent paycheck, and I rarely stress over my work.
Perhaps I have the fortune of working for great organizations, I don't know. I have noticed that a number of my friends have had NO LUCK in IT finding and keeping work. Two are currently unemployeed, and serveral put in 60-70 hour weeks regularly with no overtime pay, for less salary than I make.
I have two gripes about the industry. First, that corporate culture is terrified of technology and colletively is on its knees praying every day that please God may nothing break in IT today. Please. Thus, innovation is not rewarded or encouraged; new things are scarey! They might not work right. The stuff we've had since 1983... well it's been working since 1983! Second, raises are pathetic. Utterly pathetic. I've only gotten significant pay increases by changing jobs or throwing a fit, and I don't like throwing fits.
But if you put all of the various sectors of the economy in which IT professionals are employeed, those sectors that are dedicated to technology (e.g.., ISPs, gaming, web providers) tend to have the highest rates of "long hours, marginal pay, high stress, low job security."
The sectors that grudgingly must have computers but whose profits aren't highly dependent on them are often far better places to work.
I concur. I know a number of people in the industry (including major designers for both the now-defunct UO2 and Star Wars Galaxies), and that lifestyle is not for everybody. Long hours, marginal pay, high stress, low job security. Even the most talented among them have gone months, sometimes years between jobs, and most have lived in 3 or 4 different states in the last 5 years.
Perhaps I'm conservative and dull but I like a stable paycheck and living someplace long enough to memorize my own address. No, I'm not married. Just not cut out for an industry like gaming.
There's two Slashdot Official Positions on this, one is an flat-out lie, and the other is naive and stupid. They are:
Flat-Out Lie
"I never use p2p illegally, therefor neither do most people, and therefor it should be illegal." This stems from Slashdot Misconception #1, quoted in my sig, that
most people are basically like me. There's a corollary to this, which is, "I've bought a ton of music/software/videos/etc/whatever specifically because I got to preview it on p2p first. They're making money off p2p! Those idiots!" These companies spend millions on accountants. They know where their profits losses are coming from.
Naive Stupidity
"Information wants to be free, I shouldn't have to pay for music/books/movies/etc
in the first place." I won't even touch this because the people who espouse this platitude are impossible to reason with. By "reason with" I don't mean, "convince them that they're wrong," I mean, "convince them that it's POSSIBLE that they're wrong." If somebody can't accept the latter, there's no point in ever talking to them about anything. Sadly, this characterizies about 50% of this community.
I don't like the draconian legal wrangling to restrict software that has legitimate uses.
I don't like the copy-protection schemes and corporate masters who pollute music stores with the computer-enhanced carbon-copy drek that issues forth from the mouths of such talent as N Sync and Jessica Simpson.
I don't like any of this crap better than anybody else does. But there's a reality to face. The overwhelming majority of p2p network use is unquestionably illegal in the USA, and the overwhelming majority of p2p users are unquestioningly violating the law. You and I know that the content cartels won't win this fight through legal means, and you and I know that they're missing the boat on this completely. You and I know that they should be leveraging this technology to their profit rather than bullying 16 year olds with legal action.
But you guys need to, at some point, realize that these companies are protecting property that legally belongs to them (whether or not it should is another issue) and they have every right to do so.
I'm sorry but the Internet shouldn't be limited in speech and this is exactly what could happen if some "governing body" takes over enforcement of Spam laws. Yeah, it would start as Spam but it would quickly move to other communications that aren't as negatively viewed by the public.
Agreed. First it's "Spam" and next it's "indecency" and before long we've got an arm of the government akin to the FCC making it illegal to publish specific types of content on the internet for the greater good, rather than allowing the individual the freedom to consume/not consume what he wants.
Television has already been blunted to a drab arc of predictable characters and cookie-cutter reality programs by this kind of over-regulation.
Slashdot Mirror
I mind that none of it is clever or funny. Much like this post.
I'm not amazed that people exchange money for goods and services.
I'm amazed at their choices in goods and services.
If somebody said to me, would you rather have $300, or an iPod, I'd take the $300.
If somebody offered me $45,000 or a BMW, I'd take the $45,000.
If somebody offered me the cash equivilent of most of what people buy, I'd take the cash and probably stick it in my IRA.
I like gizmos and gadgets as much as anybody else, but I rarely purchase them for myself, because I can almost always find a better use for the money. Paying down debt, home improvement projects, etc. When I do buy something for myself, it's meticulously researched. I'll be at the store and see "Stripes" on DVD for $9 and say to myself, "If it was $7, I might get it."
But then now and then a fuse blows in my brain and make something utterly worthless for way too much money, so I guess I'm no different than any other consumer with too much disposable income.
It's amazing, the things people would rather have other than money.
I can respect that, actually, just fine. What I object to is the faith of a few people causing an entire state full of children engaged in scientific discover to be disallowed from ever LEARNING about evolution as a theory. Or any other bit of that darned science that isn't compatible with religious teachings.
The problem with creationism is it's a faith-based theory, and it can't be proven correct (or incorrect, really). It's like a guy standing there saying, "My pet dog Frank is standing next to me but he's invisible to everybody but me. PROVE THAT THIS ISN'T TRUE!"
We have higher standards here on Slashdot! No more crappy 4/1 jokes linked! Who's with me? Huh? Huh?
You guys aren't even trying. Paris Hilton endorsing Linux? At least try somebody that we might be able to believe, just for a second.
My point was more that the media's error here isn't an act of malicious omission so much as technical ignorance. In my opinion, anyway.
That's one topic. It has nothing to do with whether or not people are responsible for the security of their own machines.
What exactly would those injured parties have received under the $500,000 fine that Microsoft would otherwise have collected? Another $500,000 worth of security updates to Windows? Nah...
If there are 50,000 injuried parties as a result of this kid's activities, they might have legal grounds for a class-action lawsuit. But I don't really know jack about law.
Yet! I'm going to get a law degree just so I can take about legal matters on Slashdot and instead of saying "IANAL" I can respond to YOU people who post that and say, "IALSTFUPLZKTHXOMGWTF."
YM
Most of the media doesn't realize that a large part of the fault lies with Microsoft Windows...and Microsoft does nothing to disabuse them of that ignorance.
HTH!
That business is afraid of technology is axiomatic. Most businesses loathe their IT departments. I've said this before, but the executives cringe every time their CIO says, "We have a problem." They grind their teeth as they sign off on the IT budget; as far as they're concerned, every cent of that is wasted. Business chugged along JUST FINE for 100 years before 1995 and now suddenly we have to dump millions every year into a department full of unwashed slobs who can't be taught to cut their hair or wear pants. For awhile, these types of people were making millions off computers and technology, and they didn't mind so much having that IT department. "I don't know what they do, but I bought Yahoo at $25/share and sold it a day later at $125. It MUST be good to have computer guys." Then it all ended, and they LOST millions, and now your IT people are once more a burden that the company carries, with its executives half convinced that IT is the nuclear missile of business - we don't REALLY have a legitimate use or need for it, but we have to have it because all the other big players have it, too. They don't even appreciate that you fix their computers because mostly don't want computers in the first place. They don't understand them. And you'll know when you bump into a member of that generation that does see the value. Anyway, I'm rambling here but if you're not getting "respect" at your job then you know what your options are. Change companies, change jobs, change expectations, change attitude, change something. But notice that I'm telling you to change, not them. You can't control what they do, you can only control your own decisions.
- Big
- Complicated
- Busy
- Using Electrons
- Full of pornography
We won't be able to really relax our collective guard until they add unregulatable to this list.- Failure to Understand Business Need
- Trying to Solve Training/Documentation Issues via Engineering
- Scope/Requirements Creep
Join me next week as I discuss the problem with dumbing down your architecture so that you can hire morons for less money to maintain it when all your best talent gets fed up with their 2% raises and quits.Windows machine at home: crashing that box is about as commonplace as ... well, logging in and using it for 2 hours, so my reaction is resigned frustration as I lean over to hit the reset key.
Linux machine at home: a big stupid "O"-mouth expression as I wonder how I, knowing precisely Jack and Schite about Linux, managed to crash it. This has only happened once and it didn't really crash. KDE just locked up on me.
Work machine: Bagel time.
I used to use floppy disks. Now I use CDs. And it's not really that difficult to find computers with floppy drives, nor operating systems that can wrangle a 5.25" floppy drive. And how old is that technology?
Expect CD-readers to be widely available for at least another 10-20 years. I expect DVD-readers to have an even longer lifespan. And I think it's a reasonable expectation.
I bought a new computer about a year ago. I had an LPR port, two COM ports, and a some serial ports. When was the last time you gave a crap about your UART? I don't have any devices left in my house that can't be plugged into FireWire or USB. And yet my computers all still support aging ports.
Of course, we shouldn't be too proud of ourselves. Supposedly we'll be inventing time travel just to recover IBM castaways from the 70's in the coming decades.
...are they asking how long I want the rights to use it? Or how long the file should retain its integrity? Or ... something else?
I guess the intent of the question is irrelevent. In all those cases, if I paid for it I expect it to last at least as long as I do.
I did not forget them, I specifically mentioned them. I'm one of them. We're a minority of filesharers. The majority are not buying anything. They're just downloading it.
I sold 1400 digital widgets in 2002 at $12 apiece, grabbing me $16,800 in revneue.
Then my digital widgets end up on the p2p networks. Luckily for me, a large number of people still buy them anyway. I sell 1800 digital widgets in 2004 at $14 apiece, grabbing me $25,200 in sales.
It looks like the p2p network had no impact on my sales. I made even more money. Record profits!
However, if there is even one person who would have paid for my digital widget if it wasn't avaiable for free on the p2p network, then the p2p network has cost me money. You are commiting the sin of willful ignorance, my friend. You need to brush up on basic accounting principles. It's possible to lose money and turn a profit.
Let's say that, in my above widget example, 800 of my widgets were downloaded off a p2p network. I am going to totally make up numbers here; I'm not even pretending that the following numbers might correspond to the breakdown of p2p network users, so play along. Let's say that 400 of the people who stole my widgets off p2p wouldn't have bought them anyway, so while they are stealing from me, they aren't actually costing me money. In a way, this form of theft is much better than a guy shoving a widget into his jacket at Wal*Mart. That widget cost me actual money to produce, package, and ship, and it cost the retail store money to buy from the distributor and stock it. So those 400 people aren't really costing me anything. They never would have bought one and they didn't steal a physical asset from me or anybody else. Also, some of those 400 people downloaded the widget just to try it out, and they didn't like it and promptly deleted it. In any case, none of them were going to pay for one (actually a case could be made that under a more traditional business model, that latter group would have bought one and resold it, but I'm trying to keep this simple and pretend these groups of people aren't costing me any money).
Of the other 400, let's say 200 of them ended up buying my widget anyway for one reason or another. Maybe they were Slashdot readers, who we all know have never downloaded something illegally in the history of Slashdot, so the instance they downloaded my widget and liked it, they went out and bought it. Maybe some of them bought one BEFORE they downloaded and lost or broke it, or somebody stole it from them. And the last 200 would have bought a widget, but it was free on the p2p network so they downloaded it for free instead of paying for it.
So that's 200 lost sales x $14 = $2800 in lost sales revenue.
So, I did lose money on the p2p network. I lost $2800. Note that losing money on p2p is not synonymous with failing to turn a profit. If I would have seen $28,000 worth of sales in 2004, but due to digital theft on p2p networks, I only saw $25,200 in sales, then the p2p networks have caused me to lose money. Note that other forms of theft no doubt cost me money as well: traditional theft of physical property, employee theft, people buying widget tapes and make copies for each other, etc. These people have also caused me to lose money. Again, note that losing money is not the same as not profiting. I lost $2800 at least in sales revenue. And yet turned a profit. Everybody business in every industry, ever year, will lose money, and tons of it, due to various factors that are a reality of doing business. Almost every retail enterprise expects to write off, every year, a certain percentage of their inventory as lost to theft, mostly by employees. Not only is the potential sales revenue there lost, the physical item is gone as well, meaning the cost of its manufacture is also an uncuperable expense.
You said, Yes, you need to face reality: The music industry is making loads and loads of money. Filesharing taking away their
I know you're kidding, but the people who say this are mostly those who were successfully duped by Microsoft's naming scheme, which hides versioning.
Isn't XP just a pretty Windows 2000? How many people, smiles painted on, went out and got it?
What about the 95 to 98 upgrade? I seem to recall that the "upgrade" was still a good $90 or so. Isn't it essentially a point update?
Windows ME? The difference was that Microsoft pulled a sleight-of-hand with their naming convention, whereas Apple just calls it what it is.
The complaining is silly anyway. Anybody, student or not, can go to the Apple Store and buy a copy using the "student discount" price, which is about half-off. Split it with a buddy and you've each paid about $35 for it.
Yeah, it's illegal, but this is Slashdot, where we have a God-given right to free music over p2p.
I work 40 hour weeks for all but maybe 1 or 2 weeks a year, I get fair benefits, a decent paycheck, and I rarely stress over my work.
Perhaps I have the fortune of working for great organizations, I don't know. I have noticed that a number of my friends have had NO LUCK in IT finding and keeping work. Two are currently unemployeed, and serveral put in 60-70 hour weeks regularly with no overtime pay, for less salary than I make.
I have two gripes about the industry. First, that corporate culture is terrified of technology and colletively is on its knees praying every day that please God may nothing break in IT today. Please. Thus, innovation is not rewarded or encouraged; new things are scarey! They might not work right. The stuff we've had since 1983... well it's been working since 1983! Second, raises are pathetic. Utterly pathetic. I've only gotten significant pay increases by changing jobs or throwing a fit, and I don't like throwing fits.
But if you put all of the various sectors of the economy in which IT professionals are employeed, those sectors that are dedicated to technology (e.g.., ISPs, gaming, web providers) tend to have the highest rates of "long hours, marginal pay, high stress, low job security."
The sectors that grudgingly must have computers but whose profits aren't highly dependent on them are often far better places to work.
I concur. I know a number of people in the industry (including major designers for both the now-defunct UO2 and Star Wars Galaxies), and that lifestyle is not for everybody. Long hours, marginal pay, high stress, low job security. Even the most talented among them have gone months, sometimes years between jobs, and most have lived in 3 or 4 different states in the last 5 years. Perhaps I'm conservative and dull but I like a stable paycheck and living someplace long enough to memorize my own address. No, I'm not married. Just not cut out for an industry like gaming.
The obvious redundancy of that comment was the point of that comment. Nevermind. Read more books plz k thx.
In other news, open source fanatics dislike Microsoft.
I don't like the draconian legal wrangling to restrict software that has legitimate uses.
I don't like the copy-protection schemes and corporate masters who pollute music stores with the computer-enhanced carbon-copy drek that issues forth from the mouths of such talent as N Sync and Jessica Simpson.
I don't like any of this crap better than anybody else does. But there's a reality to face. The overwhelming majority of p2p network use is unquestionably illegal in the USA, and the overwhelming majority of p2p users are unquestioningly violating the law. You and I know that the content cartels won't win this fight through legal means, and you and I know that they're missing the boat on this completely. You and I know that they should be leveraging this technology to their profit rather than bullying 16 year olds with legal action.
But you guys need to, at some point, realize that these companies are protecting property that legally belongs to them (whether or not it should is another issue) and they have every right to do so.
I'll spare you the traditional flawed analogy.
I'm sorry but the Internet shouldn't be limited in speech and this is exactly what could happen if some "governing body" takes over enforcement of Spam laws. Yeah, it would start as Spam but it would quickly move to other communications that aren't as negatively viewed by the public. Agreed. First it's "Spam" and next it's "indecency" and before long we've got an arm of the government akin to the FCC making it illegal to publish specific types of content on the internet for the greater good, rather than allowing the individual the freedom to consume/not consume what he wants. Television has already been blunted to a drab arc of predictable characters and cookie-cutter reality programs by this kind of over-regulation.