Perhaps you don't have an Apple TV. I use mine, and I've NEVER bought or rented a single movie from Apple. I use it exclusively for Netflix and PBS, neither of which are Apple owned.
I also AirPlay to it from my iPhone so I can watch Amazon Instant Video shows. Again, not an Apple product.
Your point is invalid.
It wouldn't hurt for NASA to send out a general message so all named and unnamed agencies could check their overstock list.. who knows, perhaps there's a Mars lander or two in there as well.
Oh, and that 'other' country isn't just as provocative by openly planning bombing raids, not to mention turning a nearby nation into a massive prison camp? Of course, the best part of it all is that the 'other' country already fucking has nuclear weapons!
Wake up Sheeple!
I suppose Microsoft will claim that this is another integral part of an OS. While my first reaction is to scoff, I can imagine how that could be a good argument. I mean, Microsoft gaffs aside, any OS as popular as Windows will invite viruses, and not patching and protecting every Windows OS just opens all the others to attacks via trojans and bots.
However, this is a really tough one for the lawyers to argue. If today Messenger is shipped with windows as a communication tool, then can a virtual VoIP client be shipped tomorrow as an updatd communication tool? How about a middle of a road version of SQLServer, with licenses that would fit the needs of small and mid-sized business just fine?
Our anti-trust laws obviously need to be updated. I don't think for a moment that Apple is any better than Microsoft. In some ways, they may be worse. But, how can one stop them when our current anti-trust laws were made for steel an railroad barons?
Are there any other countries that have better ideas of how to approach anti-trust in the digital age? Any examples of how it's been applied successfully?
First off, thanks for sharing your personal and insightful perspective, and I'm truly sorry for your loss.
Four years ago, I went on vacation to Zambia (and had a truly marvellous Safari experience at the South Luangwa National Park), where I also visited a village that was on the "tourist trail" near the Park. There was a guest book there, and I found something truly revealing -- Of the people that signed it, there were many young Europeans and Japanese, but the youngest American I could find there was 66 years old!!
That told me a lot -- while Europeans and Japanese were taking vacations and 'recharging', my American colleagues were working like crazy toward that one day when they told themselves they would 'take off', and retire. Unfortunately, as a recent PBS Show had it, that is becoming something of a rarity, as more and more Americans are finding retirement less than it's cracked up to be.
Where have we gone wrong? Has our 'work-centric' life taken away from the fundamental realization that life is about more than 9-5 jobs, but about appreciating and enjoying living itself?
What does it mean to have a GDP Per Capita of $35,000, but being an obese and generally sicker nation than other industrialized countries that have a lower GDP, but score higher on the 'Human Development Index.' Surely, a nation as rich and creative as ours could arrive at a better deal, if we put our minds to it, and re-think the value of time off.
I don't care. Try the W3C complaince tool against any popular website, and it's virtually guaranteed to fail... while still loading properly in just about every popular browser.
Likewise, anyone who can read and understand English can comprehend what we're all writing here, while not much of the text may be up to the standards of the Queen's English.
The fact that Americans can be led to support just about any conclusion is an unfortunate matter of fact. Just hurl the flag around enough, and there you have it -- like sheep we bleat in acquiescence.
I'm appalled at how President Bush has gotten away with extending Presidential Power to such limits that he has effectively put himself above the law. The administration has refused to answer specific questions about the NSA Spying program, while denying Congress the right to question administration officials in an open forum, thus effectively putting the spying program beyond ANY oversight. How scary is that?!
And this... from a President from the Republican party?! This is the party of less government? HA! This party has so enraged traditional Republicans and terrified Americans of every other stripe that I'm inclined to believe (hope), that the neo-cons are banished once and for all in 2008.
Consier this admittedly rough calculation:
An American coder can produce x widgets for $90,000
A Chinese coder can produce x widgets for $15,000
An Indian coder can produce x widgets for $10,000
Whom would you hire, if you were a C-Level exec -- remember, your concerns include strategy and shareholder value.
The answer it seems is quite simply -- you forget about the American coder who's far too expensive and produces marginally more than his Chinese or Indian counterparts. These days in fact, no bank, insurance company or large IT company can appear for shareholder meetings without a serious outsourcing plan. That's just how the market forces act.
Imagine if companies in your 401-K decided to use American coders, thus enduring lower earnings and/or losses -- how quickly would you drop them?! Imagine now if their competition did use outsourcing and achieved far higher returns for their shareholders -- any wonder then, why outsourcing is so huge, and will only grow bigger and bigger.
I've resigned myself to the fact that I must soon leave the coding to coders in India/China, and move myself up the ladder to management. I have to imagine that that's what my parent's generation went through when the American steel industry went through it's pains adjusting to international competition... and they survived, and thrived. I must too.
My My! This is truly a stunning accomplishment by India, to see its Space Program (by far, the most advanced amongst developing countries, and very favorably comparable to even the Japanese program), recognized so well by NASA. This is truly a coming of age for a very important country in the world, and I have to say, Hats off to the Indians -- they are making their rightful claim to being one of the most important nations in the world.
India has been courted by Presidents of both parties in America, and counts a full 1/3 of Congress in the India Caucus. That speaks volumes for how important India is to our American interests. Then there's the obvious close ties India has to Europe, and especially Britain. American foreign policy interests are also greatly helped by a country that is the world's largest democracy in a rather un-democratic neighborhood, and has very good relations with Israel, also in a neighborhood where Israel has few friends.
The cold war relations between America and India were truly a mistake, and a lost opportunities for both our countries, and I'm glad to see the US finally form the strong bonds with a country that will necessarily be one of the most important in the world in the coming years.
Years of propping up dictators in Africa and Pakistan have done us no good, and have only bred festering flash-points. It's time we gave some serious thought to a relataionship that has and will continue to produce excellent dividends for both parties.
There are many things to consider when pondering why there are fewer American CS majors in our colleges today, and why other fields, such as Management and Finance are recruiting more.
First off, as a country we are living FAR FAR beyond our means. You only have to consider the almost $1 Trillion (yes, Trillion with a 'T') a year in the budget deficit. That implicitly means that are are borrowing $1T mostly from foreigners, to subsidize our standard of living. In other words, we're a borrower nation gone nuts, paying off our debt with yet more debt.
What does that mean for graduates? Well, consider that basically what it's saying is that our standard of living is being propped up by borrowed money. In order for salary increments that many of us techies saw in the boom years to continue, we would only have to continue and increase that crazy borrowing streak of our nation as a whole, since we're living well beyond our means.
Now onto the problem of Management and Finance getting more recruits: I've found in my career, that 'knowing the numbers' of your business and/or company, is the absolute fundamental requirement to rise up into ranks of company officers. Not knowing the numbers means that you cannot really claim to have a birds eye view of the picture of your contract or engagement, because you have no sound basis to make any judgements. All you know is your code -- and how much different is that these days, then car factory workers who assemble parts on an assembly line, and who don't pay attention to market trends, the cost of inventory, the costs to the company, etc.
We've got to stop imagining programming as being a field where you can experience boundless salary and title inflation. It's silly to think so, because in the end, it's the management and finance folks in an organization that really make the stretegic decisions, and it cannot be any other way.
All in all, I think programmers complaining about the job situation in our field need to reconcile themselves with the fact that Computer Science is like English -- you can learn it anywhere in the world be just as good at it as anyone. The real value you can build in your career and in yourself, is to get to 'Know the Numbers', so that you can add some strategic decision making value to your self, thereby making yourself more valuable to your company. That, in a nutshell, is the best way to progress in your career, and keep your salary and title on the right slope.
So called Science is crap and always being revised. Meanwhile, the Lord Jesus is a Constant. The comparison is stark -- choose the relative ignorance of shifting goal posts, or choose JESUS, who SAVES, and is ONE GOD, FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN!!
Most Google tools are generally better thought out, better engineered, better developed, and simply head and shoulders above the competition. That's not hype, it's simple fact, evidenced by their tools.
Where are you situated? In Northern Virginia for example, getting a techie job is not a problem at all! In fact, my brother-in-law, who is in the market for a senior J2EE position, got five written offers in less than 6 days, all of which exceeded $100K!
HEY, my idol Bill O'Reilly said I'd become gay if I look at Pink. I'm afraid my priest (who fondeled Bill O'Reilly when he was young), will turn me in if he finds out I visit a pink website./.tters, I'm in a fix -- what do I do? Keep visiting the website I'm fond of... or earn Mr. O'Reilly's wrath.
AAAAHHHHHH...
Fellow/.tters,
Everybody who has partaken in, endorsed or voiced a paranoia about losing their jobs to developers in India, China or suchlike foreign countries with lower costs of living, spare a minute before you last out at Pork.
After all, Pork is the onething that's guaranteed not to be outsourced! Think about it -- you can finally ignore all those teaser/. articles about the newest company to invest $1B in India... you won't give a crap, because your job will be safe for 10 years or more, which in the Tech industry is an eon.
Now the only thing you'll have to worry about is getting the right Pork project, so that your skills don't languish in those 10 years, so much so that you become outmoded even for Pork projects.
Cheer up fellow/.tters. It's Washington to the rescue!
For all the talk about the economy picking up, jobs being plentiful and it being an employee's market, I have to say the raises for the past few years have been dismal at best. A raise of about 3% has been pretty much standard this year, which doesn't even keep up with inflation, let alone the rising cost of keeping your home (presuming you've bought one in this crazy market).
The value of my home just went up by $146,000 this year alone -- and before you start accusing me of being too greedy, know that I'm not interested in selling, just living here. All that extra value is pure fluff, the stuff that dot-com stocks were made of. The problem is, I'm being forced to pay property taxes that are going up at the rate of 25% a year just to keep my house. Fat chance trying to find a job where my income increases commensurately.
I've no idea what to do, and I'm seriously considering moving to India, and joining the growing contingent of foreign workers there.
Somebody explain to my why it seems that despite the dollar figure of my salary that's far above what my parents earned at my age, I still feel poorer.... and I'm a good saver!
Whos truth do you want access to? Mr. Bush & Co wanted to bomb Al Jazeera. See the documentary called "Control Room". Whos truth are we being told?
Far from justifying China's restriction of speech, which I find highly objectionable, but the fact is that to do business in ANY country, companies must follow the laws of that country.
American law prohibits any company operating in the US from investing more than $25 million dollars in Iran. Is that not arbitrary and a violation of their right to invest and do business where they want? How is that so different -- after all, the benefits of access to information and ideas as as applicable in Iran as they are in China.
Just as we have laws in the US, which we expect ALL multinationals to follow, China has laws too. And just as others object to some of the laws we have, we too may object to some of China's laws. However, that does not mean that companies operating in China have the right to FLOUT their laws, no more than they have the right to flout our laws here in the US.
We are NOT the paragon of free society or the chosen people, and it's silly to read self-righteous responses to the effect. While we may have more freedom here in the US, that was not the case for a large portion of our population until the civil rights era. In that time, we in the US would not have tolerated the Europeans telling us how to run things, or having their companies flout our obviously misguided laws.
Anyone who's worked with Open Source knows that OS offerings can suck big time, but unlike most experiences with paid-for software, you'll frequently run into situations where the software simply does not deliver on the most basic and fundamental level. The recourse? Well, there is none -- It's Open Source you see.
The gambit then is to wait for someone (or if you're inclined, yourself), to fix it.
While I use and apprciate Open Source, I can hardly point to it as a panacea for all that ails the Software industry.
How one can go about making wild claims about large companies producing worthless stuff while Open Source and small companies producing good stuff is completely beyond me. Whatever this guy has been smoking... pass it on!
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps you don't have an Apple TV. I use mine, and I've NEVER bought or rented a single movie from Apple. I use it exclusively for Netflix and PBS, neither of which are Apple owned. I also AirPlay to it from my iPhone so I can watch Amazon Instant Video shows. Again, not an Apple product. Your point is invalid.
It wouldn't hurt for NASA to send out a general message so all named and unnamed agencies could check their overstock list.. who knows, perhaps there's a Mars lander or two in there as well.
Oh, and that 'other' country isn't just as provocative by openly planning bombing raids, not to mention turning a nearby nation into a massive prison camp? Of course, the best part of it all is that the 'other' country already fucking has nuclear weapons! Wake up Sheeple!
I suppose Microsoft will claim that this is another integral part of an OS. While my first reaction is to scoff, I can imagine how that could be a good argument. I mean, Microsoft gaffs aside, any OS as popular as Windows will invite viruses, and not patching and protecting every Windows OS just opens all the others to attacks via trojans and bots. However, this is a really tough one for the lawyers to argue. If today Messenger is shipped with windows as a communication tool, then can a virtual VoIP client be shipped tomorrow as an updatd communication tool? How about a middle of a road version of SQLServer, with licenses that would fit the needs of small and mid-sized business just fine? Our anti-trust laws obviously need to be updated. I don't think for a moment that Apple is any better than Microsoft. In some ways, they may be worse. But, how can one stop them when our current anti-trust laws were made for steel an railroad barons? Are there any other countries that have better ideas of how to approach anti-trust in the digital age? Any examples of how it's been applied successfully?
Four years ago, I went on vacation to Zambia (and had a truly marvellous Safari experience at the South Luangwa National Park), where I also visited a village that was on the "tourist trail" near the Park. There was a guest book there, and I found something truly revealing -- Of the people that signed it, there were many young Europeans and Japanese, but the youngest American I could find there was 66 years old!!
That told me a lot -- while Europeans and Japanese were taking vacations and 'recharging', my American colleagues were working like crazy toward that one day when they told themselves they would 'take off', and retire. Unfortunately, as a recent PBS Show had it, that is becoming something of a rarity, as more and more Americans are finding retirement less than it's cracked up to be.
Where have we gone wrong? Has our 'work-centric' life taken away from the fundamental realization that life is about more than 9-5 jobs, but about appreciating and enjoying living itself?
What does it mean to have a GDP Per Capita of $35,000, but being an obese and generally sicker nation than other industrialized countries that have a lower GDP, but score higher on the 'Human Development Index.' Surely, a nation as rich and creative as ours could arrive at a better deal, if we put our minds to it, and re-think the value of time off.
Likewise, anyone who can read and understand English can comprehend what we're all writing here, while not much of the text may be up to the standards of the Queen's English.
Who cares?
I'm appalled at how President Bush has gotten away with extending Presidential Power to such limits that he has effectively put himself above the law. The administration has refused to answer specific questions about the NSA Spying program, while denying Congress the right to question administration officials in an open forum, thus effectively putting the spying program beyond ANY oversight. How scary is that?!
And this... from a President from the Republican party?! This is the party of less government? HA! This party has so enraged traditional Republicans and terrified Americans of every other stripe that I'm inclined to believe (hope), that the neo-cons are banished once and for all in 2008.
Consier this admittedly rough calculation:
An American coder can produce x widgets for $90,000
A Chinese coder can produce x widgets for $15,000
An Indian coder can produce x widgets for $10,000
Whom would you hire, if you were a C-Level exec -- remember, your concerns include strategy and shareholder value.
The answer it seems is quite simply -- you forget about the American coder who's far too expensive and produces marginally more than his Chinese or Indian counterparts. These days in fact, no bank, insurance company or large IT company can appear for shareholder meetings without a serious outsourcing plan. That's just how the market forces act.
Imagine if companies in your 401-K decided to use American coders, thus enduring lower earnings and/or losses -- how quickly would you drop them?! Imagine now if their competition did use outsourcing and achieved far higher returns for their shareholders -- any wonder then, why outsourcing is so huge, and will only grow bigger and bigger.
I've resigned myself to the fact that I must soon leave the coding to coders in India/China, and move myself up the ladder to management. I have to imagine that that's what my parent's generation went through when the American steel industry went through it's pains adjusting to international competition... and they survived, and thrived. I must too.
India has been courted by Presidents of both parties in America, and counts a full 1/3 of Congress in the India Caucus. That speaks volumes for how important India is to our American interests. Then there's the obvious close ties India has to Europe, and especially Britain. American foreign policy interests are also greatly helped by a country that is the world's largest democracy in a rather un-democratic neighborhood, and has very good relations with Israel, also in a neighborhood where Israel has few friends.
The cold war relations between America and India were truly a mistake, and a lost opportunities for both our countries, and I'm glad to see the US finally form the strong bonds with a country that will necessarily be one of the most important in the world in the coming years.
Years of propping up dictators in Africa and Pakistan have done us no good, and have only bred festering flash-points. It's time we gave some serious thought to a relataionship that has and will continue to produce excellent dividends for both parties.
First off, as a country we are living FAR FAR beyond our means. You only have to consider the almost $1 Trillion (yes, Trillion with a 'T') a year in the budget deficit. That implicitly means that are are borrowing $1T mostly from foreigners, to subsidize our standard of living. In other words, we're a borrower nation gone nuts, paying off our debt with yet more debt.
What does that mean for graduates? Well, consider that basically what it's saying is that our standard of living is being propped up by borrowed money. In order for salary increments that many of us techies saw in the boom years to continue, we would only have to continue and increase that crazy borrowing streak of our nation as a whole, since we're living well beyond our means.
Now onto the problem of Management and Finance getting more recruits: I've found in my career, that 'knowing the numbers' of your business and/or company, is the absolute fundamental requirement to rise up into ranks of company officers. Not knowing the numbers means that you cannot really claim to have a birds eye view of the picture of your contract or engagement, because you have no sound basis to make any judgements. All you know is your code -- and how much different is that these days, then car factory workers who assemble parts on an assembly line, and who don't pay attention to market trends, the cost of inventory, the costs to the company, etc.
We've got to stop imagining programming as being a field where you can experience boundless salary and title inflation. It's silly to think so, because in the end, it's the management and finance folks in an organization that really make the stretegic decisions, and it cannot be any other way.
All in all, I think programmers complaining about the job situation in our field need to reconcile themselves with the fact that Computer Science is like English -- you can learn it anywhere in the world be just as good at it as anyone. The real value you can build in your career and in yourself, is to get to 'Know the Numbers', so that you can add some strategic decision making value to your self, thereby making yourself more valuable to your company. That, in a nutshell, is the best way to progress in your career, and keep your salary and title on the right slope.
PLEASE IGNORE!!! The last post was a stupid joke from a friend sent from my laptop. URGH!!! Why did I forget to lock my computer?!
So called Science is crap and always being revised. Meanwhile, the Lord Jesus is a Constant. The comparison is stark -- choose the relative ignorance of shifting goal posts, or choose JESUS, who SAVES, and is ONE GOD, FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN!!
Most Google tools are generally better thought out, better engineered, better developed, and simply head and shoulders above the competition. That's not hype, it's simple fact, evidenced by their tools.
Where are you situated? In Northern Virginia for example, getting a techie job is not a problem at all! In fact, my brother-in-law, who is in the market for a senior J2EE position, got five written offers in less than 6 days, all of which exceeded $100K!
This contest is useless... it's already been won and unlikely to be outdone -- dear member of slashdot, I give you... WINDOWS!
HEY, my idol Bill O'Reilly said I'd become gay if I look at Pink. I'm afraid my priest (who fondeled Bill O'Reilly when he was young), will turn me in if he finds out I visit a pink website. /.tters, I'm in a fix -- what do I do? Keep visiting the website I'm fond of... or earn Mr. O'Reilly's wrath.
AAAAHHHHHH...
Three Cheers! If /. endorses you, will you run for Prez?
After all, Pork is the onething that's guaranteed not to be outsourced! Think about it -- you can finally ignore all those teaser /. articles about the newest company to invest $1B in India... you won't give a crap, because your job will be safe for 10 years or more, which in the Tech industry is an eon.
Now the only thing you'll have to worry about is getting the right Pork project, so that your skills don't languish in those 10 years, so much so that you become outmoded even for Pork projects.
Cheer up fellow /.tters. It's Washington to the rescue!
If anyone can make that claim about a web-based tool, then http://www2.writely.com/info/WritelyOverflowWelcom e.htm/ Writely surely is at the top of the list.
This little toy called ajaxWrite is marginally better than the HTML text editor on Hotmail!!
For all those who were just as stumped as I was trying to figure out what EFI was, here's Wiki to the rescue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_I nterface
For all the talk about the economy picking up, jobs being plentiful and it being an employee's market, I have to say the raises for the past few years have been dismal at best. A raise of about 3% has been pretty much standard this year, which doesn't even keep up with inflation, let alone the rising cost of keeping your home (presuming you've bought one in this crazy market).
The value of my home just went up by $146,000 this year alone -- and before you start accusing me of being too greedy, know that I'm not interested in selling, just living here. All that extra value is pure fluff, the stuff that dot-com stocks were made of. The problem is, I'm being forced to pay property taxes that are going up at the rate of 25% a year just to keep my house. Fat chance trying to find a job where my income increases commensurately.
I've no idea what to do, and I'm seriously considering moving to India, and joining the growing contingent of foreign workers there.
Somebody explain to my why it seems that despite the dollar figure of my salary that's far above what my parents earned at my age, I still feel poorer.... and I'm a good saver!
Whos truth do you want access to? Mr. Bush & Co wanted to bomb Al Jazeera. See the documentary called "Control Room". Whos truth are we being told?
Far from justifying China's restriction of speech, which I find highly objectionable, but the fact is that to do business in ANY country, companies must follow the laws of that country.
American law prohibits any company operating in the US from investing more than $25 million dollars in Iran. Is that not arbitrary and a violation of their right to invest and do business where they want? How is that so different -- after all, the benefits of access to information and ideas as as applicable in Iran as they are in China.
Just as we have laws in the US, which we expect ALL multinationals to follow, China has laws too. And just as others object to some of the laws we have, we too may object to some of China's laws. However, that does not mean that companies operating in China have the right to FLOUT their laws, no more than they have the right to flout our laws here in the US.
We are NOT the paragon of free society or the chosen people, and it's silly to read self-righteous responses to the effect. While we may have more freedom here in the US, that was not the case for a large portion of our population until the civil rights era. In that time, we in the US would not have tolerated the Europeans telling us how to run things, or having their companies flout our obviously misguided laws.
The gambit then is to wait for someone (or if you're inclined, yourself), to fix it.
While I use and apprciate Open Source, I can hardly point to it as a panacea for all that ails the Software industry.
How one can go about making wild claims about large companies producing worthless stuff while Open Source and small companies producing good stuff is completely beyond me. Whatever this guy has been smoking... pass it on!
Actually, according to Symantec, 70% of their 2004 and 2005 patents have come from their R&D facilities in India.