I couldn't agree more. In the projects I have been involved with, a few dedicated individuals drove development in a tremendous way. If they were able to do this at work, it was because they had pushed their employers to allow them to do it. Most did it in their spare time, and for the love and joy of working on the systems they had created.
Just look at the GCL, Abiword, and ACL2 archives to see the work that Camm Maguire, Martin Sevior, and Matt Kaufmann do on a daily basis. Although their work is extraordinary, I doubt that these projects are unique in the magnitude and importance of their leaders' influence.
Maybe if he did something useful with his four years, instead of lit-crit or queer studies, he'd have a real job.
I really love this post. Only gay people would ever have trouble finding work. Menial and oppresive jobs are not "real" work. If you have trouble finding work suited to your skills, it's your own fault. All in one sentence!
Masterfully done, hero! Now, about the 30,000 GM workers that just got laid off -- can you tell me where they're going to find new jobs suited for their ball-lickingly queer skills of assembling cars and trucks?
I take the bus. It's really convenient because there's an express route that picks me up about 3 blocks from my house and drops me off about 3 blocks from work. I can read in the morning instead of fighting with traffic, I don't have to have a car+insurance+licensing+repairs+gas, and my work has a deal with the bus company so that it's free.
I don't see why so many people find it necessary to promote their beliefs at the expense of others' beliefs in terms of religion.
I agree completely. Live and let live.
Deriding one's belief in God as a mere superstition is dismissive, intolerant, and borderline hateful, and I can't for one moment blame people who think that the culture that produces such attitudes isn't really worthy of their support. "These people aren't willing to respect my faith? Then why in the world should I take theirs seriously?"
I'm not convinced that it is dismissive, intolerant, or hateful. In fact, I think the distinction is nothing but a minor semantic detail. Religious people want to assert that their faith is something powerful, something that has helped them, that has shaped who they are as people. I don't question this in the slightest. Surely, religion can be a powerful force in someone's life.
Understand that I don't mean to trivialize your beliefs or demean you in any way, but my extensively considered opinion is that belief in God is basically the same as, say, belief in Santa Claus. After all, neither belief is based upon any measurable fact; neither is disprovable by any experiment we could concieve. I certainly don't hate you, but I definitely think that belief in God is "superstitious" by this measure.
Frankly, I don't care if no one else in the world believes in any kind of a God, but I do mind when they tell me that my belief, that my faith is no more than a petty superstition and that I should just be able to get over it. If it informs who I am, if it allows me to make intelligent decisions for myself, and it provides the foundation for the greater moral code I follow, how is that a bad thing? And why do I need to take heat from it?
Surely a strong faith could be beneficial in many aspects of life. Fortunately, as congress shall make no law preventing the exercise of religion, you can freely practice your beliefs as you see fit. Nobody is storming the churches and stopping you from going, etc. Religion is "alive and well" in America.
Science and religion needn't be mutually exclusive anymore than society and religion should be. But people like you, whose holier-than-thou attitudes are aimed specifically at dividing people instead of bringing them together, aren't helping. Not every hardcore science person has to like every single thing that every hardcore religious person does, and vice versa. But when the respect for their beliefs, for what's important to them stops, then we have a problem.
This seems like a weirdly backwards paragraph to me. In my experience, it has been the religious people who push their beliefs upon me. While I'm sure they are probably some organized atheists somewhere who go around handing out flyers and picketing churches, I've never seen them. What I have seen is people on campus, passing out bibles and telling sinners to repent. Of course, none of this matters in any real sense, we can all ignore them, and they are just extremists so lets not judge the whole by their actions. A little harder to ignore are the people in my personal life who feel that my lack of religion is something that needs to be "fixed", but that can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
But the thing that's hard to ignore is when religion spills over into a real issue of what someone can or cannot do. For example, religious people -- not some extreme minority, but as a whole -- have added constitutional ammendments prohibiting gay marriage in both states that I have lived in recently. Now that's dismissive, intolerant, and hateful. It might not be you, but it's 2/3 of the voting population, and my best guess says they are largely the religious group. That sort of thing isn't a "lets agree to disagree and be on our ways because when we get home we can do whatever we want anyway" sort of a deal, this is religious people interfering with other peoples lives. So while I don't want t
How about, why can't my *fourteen* year old drive himself to school? Why is my *seventeen* year old not allowed to spend his *paycheck* on handguns and alcohol? A five year old is one thing, but calling everyone under 18 a child and lumping them into the same category... that's quite unfortunate, and it goes to the heart of why this (and the other examples you cite) are bad laws.
I think it's great news for OO. I'll bet more people are willing to contribute to an LGPL project than to one which had such a complicated licensing scheme.
"I find it amusing that many self-avowed liberals decry economic inequality, but then they complain when the market starts to shift wealth away from their own rich countries."
I think the basic premise of these "self-avowed liberals" is that prosperity shouldn't have to leave their country to go to another.
If you want to take a global perspective instead of a european one, it makes little sense to only look at the Indian viewpoint. Viewed from a worldwide perspective, one worker somewhere has lost a $100,000 job so that another worker somewhere else can gain a $30,000 job (or whatever numbers you prefer). That's not progress.
Hear hear. Restrictions on imports in the 80s prompted the Japanese auto manufacturers to open up plants here in the US. It's high time that other industries are put under the same pressure.
Suppose you were a toothpaste company. You make toothpaste that needs to be shipped across the country, and you need to truck driver to ship it for you. Now here's the question: does that driver need to have prior experience in shipping toothpaste? Or, perhaps, would a background in shipping toilet paper, books, and oranges suffice?
You seem to be looking for something with a very particular background with J2EE. But programming isn't about J2EE -- it's about figuring out what the problems are, figuring out how to deal with those problems, and finally translating your solutions into actual code. In short, it's almost as if you're trying to find someone who explicitly has toothpaste-shipping experience, rather than generic shipping experience.
If someone is a great C++ programmer for their work and likes to program in ML in their spare time, chances are pretty damn good that they can get up to speed with J2EE in a couple of months at the most.
Languages and toolkits are a dime a dozen, and while prior experience with them is nice, it should certainly not be considered more important than "general purpose" competence in programming which can be filled by any reasonably similar language.
"Your side - or sides - isn't as holy as it makes itself out to be with regards to BS campaigns."
1. You seem to imply that there are only two sides. This false dichotomy is certainly reinforced by the media, what with their talk of "conservatives vs. liberals", "republicans vs. democrats", and "right vs. left". It seems clear to me that the political issues of today are far too complex to dichotomize in this manner.
2. You seem to imply that because "both sides" are spinning issues, the practice is somehow legitimiate. I would disagree and claim that such tactics are not in the public interest. In any legitimate public debate, the goal should be to come to an agreement that everyone can live with. When "both" sides are bent on "winning" rather than listening to each other and really considering all viewpoints, it breeds resentment and leads to bad solutions.
3. If anything, your post reinforces grandparent's point by showing that this "spinning" of issues has becoming such a prominent tactic in our political landscape.
In this particular case, it seems clear that some agreement must be eventually be reached between the media industries and the general public.
Unfortunately, the sides are not even; millions (if not billions) are spent by the copyright holders, lobby our congressmen, adding anti-piracy messages to trailers in theaters, filing lawsuits to scare off would-be file sharers, and generally painting the opposition -- people who see how screwed our current system is, and how through laws like the DMCA it is getting worse -- as pirates and criminals.
With this imbalance, we lose the ability to rationally deal with the issue.
I've found that meeting people within a company ahead of time is a far better bet than sending a resume somewhere. That is, try first to impress your future manager, or someone they trust, and get them to want to hire you. If you can do this, then the manager can push the HR department and your resume will be nothing more than a formality.
Failing that, sending resumes out "at random" is definitely a weak way to search for a job. After all, a phone call is much harder to ignore than a letter, fax, or email.
Slashdot Mirror
I couldn't agree more. In the projects I have been involved with, a few dedicated individuals drove development in a tremendous way. If they were able to do this at work, it was because they had pushed their employers to allow them to do it. Most did it in their spare time, and for the love and joy of working on the systems they had created.
Just look at the GCL, Abiword, and ACL2 archives to see the work that Camm Maguire, Martin Sevior, and Matt Kaufmann do on a daily basis. Although their work is extraordinary, I doubt that these projects are unique in the magnitude and importance of their leaders' influence.
Maybe if he did something useful with his four years, instead of lit-crit or queer studies, he'd have a real job.
I really love this post. Only gay people would ever have trouble finding work. Menial and oppresive jobs are not "real" work. If you have trouble finding work suited to your skills, it's your own fault. All in one sentence!
Masterfully done, hero! Now, about the 30,000 GM workers that just got laid off -- can you tell me where they're going to find new jobs suited for their ball-lickingly queer skills of assembling cars and trucks?
I take the bus. It's really convenient because there's an express route that picks me up about 3 blocks from my house and drops me off about 3 blocks from work. I can read in the morning instead of fighting with traffic, I don't have to have a car+insurance+licensing+repairs+gas, and my work has a deal with the bus company so that it's free.
Yey for Austin?
I don't see why so many people find it necessary to promote their beliefs at the expense of others' beliefs in terms of religion.
I agree completely. Live and let live.
Deriding one's belief in God as a mere superstition is dismissive, intolerant, and borderline hateful, and I can't for one moment blame people who think that the culture that produces such attitudes isn't really worthy of their support. "These people aren't willing to respect my faith? Then why in the world should I take theirs seriously?"
I'm not convinced that it is dismissive, intolerant, or hateful. In fact, I think the distinction is nothing but a minor semantic detail. Religious people want to assert that their faith is something powerful, something that has helped them, that has shaped who they are as people. I don't question this in the slightest. Surely, religion can be a powerful force in someone's life.
Understand that I don't mean to trivialize your beliefs or demean you in any way, but my extensively considered opinion is that belief in God is basically the same as, say, belief in Santa Claus. After all, neither belief is based upon any measurable fact; neither is disprovable by any experiment we could concieve. I certainly don't hate you, but I definitely think that belief in God is "superstitious" by this measure.
Frankly, I don't care if no one else in the world believes in any kind of a God, but I do mind when they tell me that my belief, that my faith is no more than a petty superstition and that I should just be able to get over it. If it informs who I am, if it allows me to make intelligent decisions for myself, and it provides the foundation for the greater moral code I follow, how is that a bad thing? And why do I need to take heat from it?
Surely a strong faith could be beneficial in many aspects of life. Fortunately, as congress shall make no law preventing the exercise of religion, you can freely practice your beliefs as you see fit. Nobody is storming the churches and stopping you from going, etc. Religion is "alive and well" in America.
Science and religion needn't be mutually exclusive anymore than society and religion should be. But people like you, whose holier-than-thou attitudes are aimed specifically at dividing people instead of bringing them together, aren't helping. Not every hardcore science person has to like every single thing that every hardcore religious person does, and vice versa. But when the respect for their beliefs, for what's important to them stops, then we have a problem.
This seems like a weirdly backwards paragraph to me. In my experience, it has been the religious people who push their beliefs upon me. While I'm sure they are probably some organized atheists somewhere who go around handing out flyers and picketing churches, I've never seen them. What I have seen is people on campus, passing out bibles and telling sinners to repent. Of course, none of this matters in any real sense, we can all ignore them, and they are just extremists so lets not judge the whole by their actions. A little harder to ignore are the people in my personal life who feel that my lack of religion is something that needs to be "fixed", but that can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
But the thing that's hard to ignore is when religion spills over into a real issue of what someone can or cannot do. For example, religious people -- not some extreme minority, but as a whole -- have added constitutional ammendments prohibiting gay marriage in both states that I have lived in recently. Now that's dismissive, intolerant, and hateful. It might not be you, but it's 2/3 of the voting population, and my best guess says they are largely the religious group. That sort of thing isn't a "lets agree to disagree and be on our ways because when we get home we can do whatever we want anyway" sort of a deal, this is religious people interfering with other peoples lives. So while I don't want t
How about, why can't my *fourteen* year old drive himself to school? Why is my *seventeen* year old not allowed to spend his *paycheck* on handguns and alcohol? A five year old is one thing, but calling everyone under 18 a child and lumping them into the same category... that's quite unfortunate, and it goes to the heart of why this (and the other examples you cite) are bad laws.
I think it's great news for OO. I'll bet more people are willing to contribute to an LGPL project than to one which had such a complicated licensing scheme.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/18/tiger.attack.ap/i ndex.html
By definition, open source has no ideology. That's the major distinction between the "open source" and "free software" movements.
"I find it amusing that many self-avowed liberals decry economic inequality, but then they complain when the market starts to shift wealth away from their own rich countries."
I think the basic premise of these "self-avowed liberals" is that prosperity shouldn't have to leave their country to go to another.
If you want to take a global perspective instead of a european one, it makes little sense to only look at the Indian viewpoint. Viewed from a worldwide perspective, one worker somewhere has lost a $100,000 job so that another worker somewhere else can gain a $30,000 job (or whatever numbers you prefer). That's not progress.
I think the bank needs your SSN so they can send you tax forms for interest you earn there.
Hear hear. Restrictions on imports in the 80s prompted the Japanese auto manufacturers to open up plants here in the US. It's high time that other industries are put under the same pressure.
The horror.
Suppose you were a toothpaste company. You make toothpaste that needs to be shipped across the country, and you need to truck driver to ship it for you. Now here's the question: does that driver need to have prior experience in shipping toothpaste? Or, perhaps, would a background in shipping toilet paper, books, and oranges suffice?
You seem to be looking for something with a very particular background with J2EE. But programming isn't about J2EE -- it's about figuring out what the problems are, figuring out how to deal with those problems, and finally translating your solutions into actual code. In short, it's almost as if you're trying to find someone who explicitly has toothpaste-shipping experience, rather than generic shipping experience.
If someone is a great C++ programmer for their work and likes to program in ML in their spare time, chances are pretty damn good that they can get up to speed with J2EE in a couple of months at the most.
Languages and toolkits are a dime a dozen, and while prior experience with them is nice, it should certainly not be considered more important than "general purpose" competence in programming which can be filled by any reasonably similar language.
"Your side - or sides - isn't as holy as it makes itself out to be with regards to BS campaigns."
1. You seem to imply that there are only two sides. This false dichotomy is certainly reinforced by the media, what with their talk of "conservatives vs. liberals", "republicans vs. democrats", and "right vs. left". It seems clear to me that the political issues of today are far too complex to dichotomize in this manner.
2. You seem to imply that because "both sides" are spinning issues, the practice is somehow legitimiate. I would disagree and claim that such tactics are not in the public interest. In any legitimate public debate, the goal should be to come to an agreement that everyone can live with. When "both" sides are bent on "winning" rather than listening to each other and really considering all viewpoints, it breeds resentment and leads to bad solutions.
3. If anything, your post reinforces grandparent's point by showing that this "spinning" of issues has becoming such a prominent tactic in our political landscape.
In this particular case, it seems clear that some agreement must be eventually be reached between the media industries and the general public.
Unfortunately, the sides are not even; millions (if not billions) are spent by the copyright holders, lobby our congressmen, adding anti-piracy messages to trailers in theaters, filing lawsuits to scare off would-be file sharers, and generally painting the opposition -- people who see how screwed our current system is, and how through laws like the DMCA it is getting worse -- as pirates and criminals.
With this imbalance, we lose the ability to rationally deal with the issue.
But of course, that's the whole point of spin.
"I can imagine lots of applications for this new battery including my own laptop."
So you think having radioactive materials near your balls is a good idea, eh?
I've found that meeting people within a company ahead of time is a far better bet than sending a resume somewhere. That is, try first to impress your future manager, or someone they trust, and get them to want to hire you. If you can do this, then the manager can push the HR department and your resume will be nothing more than a formality.
Failing that, sending resumes out "at random" is definitely a weak way to search for a job. After all, a phone call is much harder to ignore than a letter, fax, or email.
I'll tell you that Nader wouldn't have done the same!