The other guy at least didn't have the opportunity to read the explanation. But you chose not to, and if you did, you clearly need to actually read it, rather than shoe-horn some text into a worldview filter.
Here's the thing: there's a place for reasoning, there's a place for a logical discussion, and sometimes, there's a place to put the argument in a way that the other party understands.
In the case of the original poster, there was no reaching him (and it invariably is a him) via logic. That's easily seen by the structure of his argument: standard strawman demonizing the opposition and presenting an argument that places them in the category of "danger to humanity". Furthermore, his lumping of anyone disagreeing with him into the category of danger to humanity creates a very dangerous situation: it's the very first step on the way to either locking up the opponents, or outright exterminating. What's more, that's the only end point to that path. Moving away from that end-point requires backtracking from the position that the opposition is a threat to humanity.
In responding to such a conclusion, there's no logic to be used to here, because there was no logic present when he arrived at his conclusion. Yes, I could have engaged his argument as a demonstration to the rest of the readers of why he is wrong. But I've done this in the past, and in this case, I instead decided to address him on a level he understands.
I'm perfectly capable of a reasoned argument. I'm also an environmentalist because I like how I live right now - which requires the environment to be stable. I'm happy to argue endlessly of what the ROI is of composting versus recycling versus just dumping things in the garbage. However, I will not tolerate being classified as unfit to live because I happen to have a bit more foresight than the grandparent. I will fight that as harshly and as violently as necessary - because some people only understand violence.
Feel free to explain a better way to fight the argument inherent in the original post. You twat.
Come on. I couldn't disappoint you without resorting to at least one insult. Right? Right? Where's the funny tag? It's only for posts that are actually funny? Curse you, W3C!
I'm sorry to disappoint you, but the amount of hours you work have little bearing on how successful you are.This is especially true in any area where you are reporting to a boss. If you run your own business, the time you spend on it is time you pay yourself, and time you spend advancing your own career. Anywhere else, a large chunk of success depends on the whims of management and the competence of the executive team.
I'll be happy to check back with you in a few years and see whether you think that that overtime was worth it.
Good point. However, what if the data unequivocally points to a large-scale and irreversible (at least on any scale that humans care about) negative change? Can we impose a sentence that is even remotely on the same scale as the crime?
This is a situation where you carefully ramp up your testing, and not just blow shit sky-high, just to see what happens.
Can I sit this rod of plutonium next to your bed for the rest of week, just to test my theory that you may gain some super powers? No? Then why the fuck do you support something as untested as wholesale changes to global ecosystems, where we know a good chunk of the negative effects, and really aren't sure if the downsides outweigh the upsides? I'm going to guess because you have no idea how the downsides could possibly directly affect you.
No, you goddamn moron - the buzzkills are the people who think that engineering changes on a global scale without a fucking clue of the long-term ramifications is a huge, terrible and deadly idea. Heck, even simple projects like damming a river is creating all kinds of unforeseen problems if the damming is large enough: earthquakes, for one, weren't on the list when people drew up drawbacks for those.
Let me guess - you are the fucking idiot who thinks that applying changes directly to production is a brilliant way to speed up the roll-out of new features, don't you?
Oh, and since you're probably one of those people who think that property rights are everything, and the defense of your own way of life trumps everything: mind if I stop by and shoot you in the face because you support fucking up my life through planetary engineering? No? O course not - those solution are only valid if YOUR life is inconvenienced.
You know, when I looked at Elop's initial strategy, those were my thoughts as well: it's so goddamn obvious what's going to happen next, that the cratering of Nokia has to be part of the overall strategy. The only actual strategy I could come up with was that the goal was to depress Nokia's stock price so quickly that the engineering and production resources were still largely intact, but that Microsoft could still acquire it at a firesale price.
Since Microsoft though seems to be intent on launching its phone lines (and a fairly complete set, at that), that's not possible anymore. Which means that Elop must have thought that his strategy (hah!) was actually valid... and that he is just the most incompetent CEO since Carly. What angers me the most about this is that he is going to take off with a giant severance package that means he can live in luxury until the end of his life. When the rest of the working folk screw up: get fired, and beg for a new job or prepare for a life of misery. When a CEO screws up: laugh all the way to the bank. And yet, somehow, I'm supposed to accept that they are my betters. Fuck them all with a pogo stick.
To me, it looks like the lobbying by various competitors (hi, Microsoft, Expedia!) has finally paid off. There is no stickyness to Google services, outside of their quality. Switching is a click away, especially when it comes to search and maps. The complaints I've read? Nothing but sour grapes that Google didn't completely shaft their UI and search algorithm, just so that every competitor has the same or better page position (note that I didn't say search position) as any Google service listed on any of Google's pages.
If this goes through, it's the end of search algorithms: if someone is upset they aren't high-placed on the dominant search engine du jour (and there will ALWAYS be one), they can just sue for extra income.
Let me rephrase that: it will be the end of search engines in the US. China, I'm sure, will be happy to supply quality search engines that give a big middle finger to shenanigans like these.
Not that I'm surprised. To some extent, I think the patent wars are going in the second-best direction: towards total destruction of everybody in the technology business in the US. Once everything is dead on the ground, picked over by European or (gasp!) Chinese companies for scraps, maybe then the morons employing lobbyists and buying out politicians will come to their senses.
It's as profound as the realization that just mathematically speaking, a positron is just an electron traveling backwards in time. I.e., it's games with roots, squares, multiplying with -1, etc.
It's actually not even new. We covered that in Physics in college. It was an interesting exercise, and, just like the positron versus electron discussion, demonstrated that just because an equation is possible doesn't mean it has any useful application in the real world.
In short: mathematicians need to discover that they aren't physicists, and that while math is necessary for physics, it is not the same.
I appreciate you bringing some light to the issue. I had heard the argument that the farmer was actually not quite as snow-white in his actions as he made it sound like, but it's good to see some confirmation of it.
That said, I still don't care. Here's why: if Monsanto gets its way, even a farmer with snow-white intentions can be sued and bankrupted by Monsanto. Yes, we haven't seen the doomsday scenario play out - yet. But it's almost a guarantee that it will come to pass, and at that point, I don't want to have to go through this type of litigation.
As for your argument that the patents will expire.... I'm sure you're aware of how patents can essentially be extended indefinitely by making small, unrelated changes, and then packaging it all as a new patent, where partial infringement is just as a bad as full infringement.
The problem is not whether he can actually retrain himself, but whether someone will hire him for his new.NET skills. 40 year old junior - or even regular developers - are rare: they normally want to be paid more than kids out of school, but don't have the productivity of the old.NET hands. Furthermore, even if he were to become a.NET expert, many companies feel that it is more efficient to hire a kid with some.NET experience right out of school and pay them a pittance, instead of forking of lots of money for an experienced developer.
A developer at age 40 should be getting very concerned about his/her career path. Old coders are not very common, and there's not much interest in hiring them. Architect is a very different skill set, and something that people are willing to pay an old person lots of money for.
So my recommendation: retrain, yes, but retrain with an eye on running developers, not being one. And by the way, being a people person is not a requirement for managing people. The question is, can you get them to do what they need to do, and can you remove roadblocks that hinder their productivity? Oh, and if you want to go into management, get an MBA. It's just a piece of paper, but unfortunately, it's an important one.
Funny. And, living on a PvP server, I am pretty sure that the results are very similar to what you would get in a libertarian world: don't venture outside unless you have a max-level PvP-geared killer on call (whether via an Alt or a guildie), gathering materials frequently involves killing off the competition, and then guarding the spawn points with your friends, your own city gets raided for shits and giggles, at which point everyone who isn't a max-level character can just log off or hide somewhere in the lesser-traveled regions, etc. Then again, being fully-geared, fully-leveled is kinda fun when you run into some lower levels. Unless, of course, they call in their guild, and proceed to corpse camp you.
Yep. Salesforce and workday won't save your organization from misery. Unless you know that your tools are actually hindering your operation, switching tools is not going to save you. And that's coming from someone who works at Salesforce....
Personally, I see this as bad news from the top. Whitman is advertising some minor operational details as if they will save the company. And, as someone else said, a terrible indictment of HP's IT consulting business. I fully expect Whitman selling off the printer business, refocusing on PCs, and slowly grinding HP into the ground, while taking credit for every million-dollar savings that was achieved by cutting its workforce to the bone.
Too bad, because I still have good friends at HP. I don't think that bodes well for them.
It looks like that company was Salesforce. Quite frankly, I'm not entirely surprised. Their HR department is completely clueless, and wings things on a regular basis.
The president doesn't pass a budget. Congress passes a budget. The president can merely propose a budget, and then veto it.
Did you really not pay attention in Civics class? Do you really need to be lectured by foreigners about how your own government works? Please tell me you're not actually American.
True - but probable cause isn't just "hey, I think these guys may be lying! They should prove to me they are not!". Probable cause implies that you have evidence that indicates fraud, and are only looking for corroborating evidence. There are already subpoena processes for that. This is just a fishing expedition.
You didn't read the article. They're not asking to hide the data, they're asking to not reveal the email communication that goes on about the data and the research. Slashdot got the headline completely wrong (shocking, I know).
This is nothing but a fishing expedition on the part of BP to find any juicy nugget they can point at and say "see, even they knew the data was flawed!" I hate to pull out this quote, because it's most likely apocryphal, but it is still true: "Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him."
If the data is bad, discuss the data. Everything related to the data has been released. There's no need for email communication, which, as someone else already pointed out, is absolutely not for public consumption: people won't understand the purpose of the emails, their context, or even what they mean.
The difference is that when biking, you reach speeds that can easily have deadly consequences just by hitting an oily patch, a badly placed sewer grate (I hate American sewer grates - it's like they were designed as bicycle traps), or some odd gravel on the road. Walking, not so much.
To some extent, the bicycle helmet exists because people reach speeds that aren't safe anymore for the standard human body. So, no we don't have to wear protective gear everywhere. Just when we engage in activities our bodies really weren't designed to handle.
Nonsense. The reason I'm terrified of biking in most of the US is that too many drivers think that cyclists are target practice, and there are almost no bike lanes anywhere. Make biking safer by segregating traffic more, and you'll see more people doing it.
Ok, so they decided to honor the man. Great. They even named a research vessel class after him. Spiffy.
But am I the only though who is somewhat depressed that we named an ocean vessel after him, and not a class of spaceships? I mean..... isn't that just a bit a step backwards?
Sigh. Today doesn't seem to be a good day for space, research or the human race.
Yep, that's why there are so few privately funded large telescopes in the world - it's the damn government undercutting the price that private companies would be willing to pay! And private companies have no bias whatsoever, so there will never be any partisan crap - ever! Woo! Privately funded astronomy will rock! I'm sure my 24-inch Celestron will revolutionize the field of astronomy!
Yeah, go private industry! Suck it, government!
Sigh. Can't believe someone actually thinks like that.
Is it sad that I'm not quite sure this is satire? Remove the bit about fluoridation, and I've actually heard exactly that by quite a few conservative politicians and radio hosts.
Slashdot Mirror
The other guy at least didn't have the opportunity to read the explanation. But you chose not to, and if you did, you clearly need to actually read it, rather than shoe-horn some text into a worldview filter.
Here's the thing: there's a place for reasoning, there's a place for a logical discussion, and sometimes, there's a place to put the argument in a way that the other party understands.
In the case of the original poster, there was no reaching him (and it invariably is a him) via logic. That's easily seen by the structure of his argument: standard strawman demonizing the opposition and presenting an argument that places them in the category of "danger to humanity". Furthermore, his lumping of anyone disagreeing with him into the category of danger to humanity creates a very dangerous situation: it's the very first step on the way to either locking up the opponents, or outright exterminating. What's more, that's the only end point to that path. Moving away from that end-point requires backtracking from the position that the opposition is a threat to humanity.
In responding to such a conclusion, there's no logic to be used to here, because there was no logic present when he arrived at his conclusion. Yes, I could have engaged his argument as a demonstration to the rest of the readers of why he is wrong. But I've done this in the past, and in this case, I instead decided to address him on a level he understands.
I'm perfectly capable of a reasoned argument. I'm also an environmentalist because I like how I live right now - which requires the environment to be stable. I'm happy to argue endlessly of what the ROI is of composting versus recycling versus just dumping things in the garbage. However, I will not tolerate being classified as unfit to live because I happen to have a bit more foresight than the grandparent. I will fight that as harshly and as violently as necessary - because some people only understand violence.
Feel free to explain a better way to fight the argument inherent in the original post. You twat.
Come on. I couldn't disappoint you without resorting to at least one insult. Right? Right? Where's the funny tag? It's only for posts that are actually funny? Curse you, W3C!
I'm sorry to disappoint you, but the amount of hours you work have little bearing on how successful you are.This is especially true in any area where you are reporting to a boss. If you run your own business, the time you spend on it is time you pay yourself, and time you spend advancing your own career. Anywhere else, a large chunk of success depends on the whims of management and the competence of the executive team.
I'll be happy to check back with you in a few years and see whether you think that that overtime was worth it.
Good point. However, what if the data unequivocally points to a large-scale and irreversible (at least on any scale that humans care about) negative change? Can we impose a sentence that is even remotely on the same scale as the crime?
This is a situation where you carefully ramp up your testing, and not just blow shit sky-high, just to see what happens.
Can I sit this rod of plutonium next to your bed for the rest of week, just to test my theory that you may gain some super powers? No? Then why the fuck do you support something as untested as wholesale changes to global ecosystems, where we know a good chunk of the negative effects, and really aren't sure if the downsides outweigh the upsides? I'm going to guess because you have no idea how the downsides could possibly directly affect you.
No, you goddamn moron - the buzzkills are the people who think that engineering changes on a global scale without a fucking clue of the long-term ramifications is a huge, terrible and deadly idea. Heck, even simple projects like damming a river is creating all kinds of unforeseen problems if the damming is large enough: earthquakes, for one, weren't on the list when people drew up drawbacks for those.
Let me guess - you are the fucking idiot who thinks that applying changes directly to production is a brilliant way to speed up the roll-out of new features, don't you?
Oh, and since you're probably one of those people who think that property rights are everything, and the defense of your own way of life trumps everything: mind if I stop by and shoot you in the face because you support fucking up my life through planetary engineering? No? O course not - those solution are only valid if YOUR life is inconvenienced.
Go die in a fire.
You know, when I looked at Elop's initial strategy, those were my thoughts as well: it's so goddamn obvious what's going to happen next, that the cratering of Nokia has to be part of the overall strategy. The only actual strategy I could come up with was that the goal was to depress Nokia's stock price so quickly that the engineering and production resources were still largely intact, but that Microsoft could still acquire it at a firesale price.
Since Microsoft though seems to be intent on launching its phone lines (and a fairly complete set, at that), that's not possible anymore. Which means that Elop must have thought that his strategy (hah!) was actually valid... and that he is just the most incompetent CEO since Carly. What angers me the most about this is that he is going to take off with a giant severance package that means he can live in luxury until the end of his life. When the rest of the working folk screw up: get fired, and beg for a new job or prepare for a life of misery. When a CEO screws up: laugh all the way to the bank. And yet, somehow, I'm supposed to accept that they are my betters. Fuck them all with a pogo stick.
To me, it looks like the lobbying by various competitors (hi, Microsoft, Expedia!) has finally paid off. There is no stickyness to Google services, outside of their quality. Switching is a click away, especially when it comes to search and maps. The complaints I've read? Nothing but sour grapes that Google didn't completely shaft their UI and search algorithm, just so that every competitor has the same or better page position (note that I didn't say search position) as any Google service listed on any of Google's pages.
If this goes through, it's the end of search algorithms: if someone is upset they aren't high-placed on the dominant search engine du jour (and there will ALWAYS be one), they can just sue for extra income.
Let me rephrase that: it will be the end of search engines in the US. China, I'm sure, will be happy to supply quality search engines that give a big middle finger to shenanigans like these.
Not that I'm surprised. To some extent, I think the patent wars are going in the second-best direction: towards total destruction of everybody in the technology business in the US. Once everything is dead on the ground, picked over by European or (gasp!) Chinese companies for scraps, maybe then the morons employing lobbyists and buying out politicians will come to their senses.
I can always dream.
It's as profound as the realization that just mathematically speaking, a positron is just an electron traveling backwards in time. I.e., it's games with roots, squares, multiplying with -1, etc.
It's actually not even new. We covered that in Physics in college. It was an interesting exercise, and, just like the positron versus electron discussion, demonstrated that just because an equation is possible doesn't mean it has any useful application in the real world.
In short: mathematicians need to discover that they aren't physicists, and that while math is necessary for physics, it is not the same.
I appreciate you bringing some light to the issue. I had heard the argument that the farmer was actually not quite as snow-white in his actions as he made it sound like, but it's good to see some confirmation of it.
That said, I still don't care. Here's why: if Monsanto gets its way, even a farmer with snow-white intentions can be sued and bankrupted by Monsanto. Yes, we haven't seen the doomsday scenario play out - yet. But it's almost a guarantee that it will come to pass, and at that point, I don't want to have to go through this type of litigation.
As for your argument that the patents will expire.... I'm sure you're aware of how patents can essentially be extended indefinitely by making small, unrelated changes, and then packaging it all as a new patent, where partial infringement is just as a bad as full infringement.
The problem is not whether he can actually retrain himself, but whether someone will hire him for his new .NET skills. 40 year old junior - or even regular developers - are rare: they normally want to be paid more than kids out of school, but don't have the productivity of the old .NET hands. Furthermore, even if he were to become a .NET expert, many companies feel that it is more efficient to hire a kid with some .NET experience right out of school and pay them a pittance, instead of forking of lots of money for an experienced developer.
A developer at age 40 should be getting very concerned about his/her career path. Old coders are not very common, and there's not much interest in hiring them. Architect is a very different skill set, and something that people are willing to pay an old person lots of money for.
So my recommendation: retrain, yes, but retrain with an eye on running developers, not being one. And by the way, being a people person is not a requirement for managing people. The question is, can you get them to do what they need to do, and can you remove roadblocks that hinder their productivity? Oh, and if you want to go into management, get an MBA. It's just a piece of paper, but unfortunately, it's an important one.
No, they all look like Star Trek communicators or tablets.
What about those with a Paladin and a Death Knight? Should I delete one of the two? If so, which one? The ganker or the tanker?
Funny. And, living on a PvP server, I am pretty sure that the results are very similar to what you would get in a libertarian world: don't venture outside unless you have a max-level PvP-geared killer on call (whether via an Alt or a guildie), gathering materials frequently involves killing off the competition, and then guarding the spawn points with your friends, your own city gets raided for shits and giggles, at which point everyone who isn't a max-level character can just log off or hide somewhere in the lesser-traveled regions, etc.
Then again, being fully-geared, fully-leveled is kinda fun when you run into some lower levels. Unless, of course, they call in their guild, and proceed to corpse camp you.
Yay libertarian paradise!
Yep. Salesforce and workday won't save your organization from misery. Unless you know that your tools are actually hindering your operation, switching tools is not going to save you. And that's coming from someone who works at Salesforce....
Personally, I see this as bad news from the top. Whitman is advertising some minor operational details as if they will save the company. And, as someone else said, a terrible indictment of HP's IT consulting business. I fully expect Whitman selling off the printer business, refocusing on PCs, and slowly grinding HP into the ground, while taking credit for every million-dollar savings that was achieved by cutting its workforce to the bone.
Too bad, because I still have good friends at HP. I don't think that bodes well for them.
It looks like that company was Salesforce. Quite frankly, I'm not entirely surprised. Their HR department is completely clueless, and wings things on a regular basis.
The president doesn't pass a budget. Congress passes a budget. The president can merely propose a budget, and then veto it.
Did you really not pay attention in Civics class? Do you really need to be lectured by foreigners about how your own government works? Please tell me you're not actually American.
True - but probable cause isn't just "hey, I think these guys may be lying! They should prove to me they are not!". Probable cause implies that you have evidence that indicates fraud, and are only looking for corroborating evidence. There are already subpoena processes for that. This is just a fishing expedition.
You didn't read the article. They're not asking to hide the data, they're asking to not reveal the email communication that goes on about the data and the research. Slashdot got the headline completely wrong (shocking, I know).
This is nothing but a fishing expedition on the part of BP to find any juicy nugget they can point at and say "see, even they knew the data was flawed!" I hate to pull out this quote, because it's most likely apocryphal, but it is still true: "Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him."
If the data is bad, discuss the data. Everything related to the data has been released. There's no need for email communication, which, as someone else already pointed out, is absolutely not for public consumption: people won't understand the purpose of the emails, their context, or even what they mean.
The difference is that when biking, you reach speeds that can easily have deadly consequences just by hitting an oily patch, a badly placed sewer grate (I hate American sewer grates - it's like they were designed as bicycle traps), or some odd gravel on the road. Walking, not so much.
To some extent, the bicycle helmet exists because people reach speeds that aren't safe anymore for the standard human body. So, no we don't have to wear protective gear everywhere. Just when we engage in activities our bodies really weren't designed to handle.
Or do you hike naked in the Himalayas, too?
Nonsense. The reason I'm terrified of biking in most of the US is that too many drivers think that cyclists are target practice, and there are almost no bike lanes anywhere. Make biking safer by segregating traffic more, and you'll see more people doing it.
Ok, so they decided to honor the man. Great. They even named a research vessel class after him. Spiffy.
But am I the only though who is somewhat depressed that we named an ocean vessel after him, and not a class of spaceships? I mean..... isn't that just a bit a step backwards?
Sigh. Today doesn't seem to be a good day for space, research or the human race.
Yep, that's why there are so few privately funded large telescopes in the world - it's the damn government undercutting the price that private companies would be willing to pay! And private companies have no bias whatsoever, so there will never be any partisan crap - ever! Woo! Privately funded astronomy will rock! I'm sure my 24-inch Celestron will revolutionize the field of astronomy!
Yeah, go private industry! Suck it, government!
Sigh. Can't believe someone actually thinks like that.
Is it sad that I'm not quite sure this is satire? Remove the bit about fluoridation, and I've actually heard exactly that by quite a few conservative politicians and radio hosts.