On the note of developers having to make money from games, I think everyone could work some kind of compromise out by lowering the price of the average game and creating a "tip jar" for each game online or something. People who liked the game would tip, people who didn't (or had no disposable income, or were horrible people) would not, and the game itself would become cheap enough for everyone to purchase.
After giving it some thought, I've figured we could also do the thing that makes doctors and lawyers so damn wealthy: create a professional association that actually requires competence and education to enter, rather than just a union. It would require that one join the tiny fraction of the population able to pass a computer-science/informatics degree and an entrance exam to join, and thus employers would pay more for members.
No, IT workers cannot unionize or protect ourselves collectively because the very technology we create makes it possible to automate or outsource our jobs. So IT workers form a professional association with real power. OK, so companies outsource everything to India and Eastern Europe. Now what? Do we become rent-seekers and demand that the government stop outsourcing somehow?
I'd like to see outsourcing quashed, but I don't believe it's practical in a political climate that accepts such an inadequate knowledge of basic economics as to allow the concept of a "shortage" of labor while simultaneously treating labor as a fungible commodity.
So approximately how much are you offering to pay? I'll bet you it's roughly "Not Enough" dollars. If you can't find a developer willing to work in Perl, raise the salary until you find someone who can do what you need.
"Shortages" only ever exist on the economy-wide level. Locally, shortages do not exist, insufficient local buying power exists.
The ground is quite fertile right now for a national fascist movement
Quite fertile? We've lived under a national fascist movement for 8 years. Fascists are never true nationalists, but always corporatists speaking the language of nationalism for the sake of domination.
Over a long enough time line, maybe we'll make machines that make us obsolete. Our technology could be a step of evolution. We might exist to bring create our replacements.
So you're saying that in the future Cybermen will take our jobs?
WOW, you really don't know how the American political system works, do you? We have these little things called term limits. Bush even running for election a third time would violate the (already violated, but even so) Constitution.
Yeah, like getting Slashdotters to mod you up counts as people-skills when dealing with normal people. No politician thus far owes his job to the Slashdot crowd, anyway.
I think that Obama is rare, dually gifted individual. He's got the intellect to be a professor of Constitutional law, but he also has really strong people skills.
We're that rare? Maybe I should get out of computing and pursue that childhood dream of becoming President after all!
Or maybe I should go into mad computer science and become a super-villain!
Of course, it would be nice if the Wiimote itself had good enough resolution to really use as a mouse. I'd love to play FPS games with it on my Linux PC.
Dear God, are you really suggesting that not only do the Apple employees not have a case, but that they're getting too "uppity" and deserve to work even harder for less money?
Do you work in management or something? I haven't seen such open contempt for workers since I was bagging groceries in high school.
The reason you don't hear teachers complaining about their pay is because they are compensated well for their expertise (the year I got my undergrad 40% of education majors were on the deans list less then 5% of engineers were).
I don't see what these two statements have to do with one another. Education majors being bloody easy has little to do with monetary compensation of teachers.
California doesn't exactly set the standard for what constitutes "winter". Their depths of winter are usually more of a late-fall, very-early-spring rainy season as we experience it everywhere else.
Sod the environmental issues, we need our very-limited fossil fuels for making the various plastics and other common compounds based on simple organic molecules!
EDIT: Reading in the context of an article on deserts, I thought you meant the USA would move to Iraq, what with the army already being there. Fuck Canada. They can keep their freezing-cold continental climates.
OH FUCK NO. Half my damn people are over in that region. You lot can't move in, you'd ruin the neighborhood. It would go from "full of terrorist warmonger religious fanatics with unemployment issues" to "full of bitter underemployed IT and service workers without the guts for terrorism but who still, somehow, manage to support some of the greatest warmongering in the world".
Slashdot Mirror
On the note of developers having to make money from games, I think everyone could work some kind of compromise out by lowering the price of the average game and creating a "tip jar" for each game online or something. People who liked the game would tip, people who didn't (or had no disposable income, or were horrible people) would not, and the game itself would become cheap enough for everyone to purchase.
Well we could do that.
After giving it some thought, I've figured we could also do the thing that makes doctors and lawyers so damn wealthy: create a professional association that actually requires competence and education to enter, rather than just a union. It would require that one join the tiny fraction of the population able to pass a computer-science/informatics degree and an entrance exam to join, and thus employers would pay more for members.
No, IT workers cannot unionize or protect ourselves collectively because the very technology we create makes it possible to automate or outsource our jobs. So IT workers form a professional association with real power. OK, so companies outsource everything to India and Eastern Europe. Now what? Do we become rent-seekers and demand that the government stop outsourcing somehow?
I'd like to see outsourcing quashed, but I don't believe it's practical in a political climate that accepts such an inadequate knowledge of basic economics as to allow the concept of a "shortage" of labor while simultaneously treating labor as a fungible commodity.
So approximately how much are you offering to pay? I'll bet you it's roughly "Not Enough" dollars. If you can't find a developer willing to work in Perl, raise the salary until you find someone who can do what you need.
"Shortages" only ever exist on the economy-wide level. Locally, shortages do not exist, insufficient local buying power exists.
But not everyone is qualified to design or architect things, and society only has a limited demand for design/architecture.
The ground is quite fertile right now for a national fascist movement
Quite fertile? We've lived under a national fascist movement for 8 years. Fascists are never true nationalists, but always corporatists speaking the language of nationalism for the sake of domination.
It is because a B was reason for punishment for the asian kid
Now, I know everyone will jump on me for this, but why should a B be a reason for punishment?
But I don't want to be EX-TER-MIN-ATED :'-(.
Funny thing, the best way to get rich is to save, scrimp and invest rather than indulging in conspicuous consumption.
What, you mean they trained people in-house when the economy was good?
Over a long enough time line, maybe we'll make machines that make us obsolete. Our technology could be a step of evolution. We might exist to bring create our replacements.
So you're saying that in the future Cybermen will take our jobs?
WOW, you really don't know how the American political system works, do you? We have these little things called term limits. Bush even running for election a third time would violate the (already violated, but even so) Constitution.
Yeah, like getting Slashdotters to mod you up counts as people-skills when dealing with normal people. No politician thus far owes his job to the Slashdot crowd, anyway.
I think that Obama is rare, dually gifted individual. He's got the intellect to be a professor of Constitutional law, but he also has really strong people skills.
We're that rare? Maybe I should get out of computing and pursue that childhood dream of becoming President after all!
Or maybe I should go into mad computer science and become a super-villain!
Of course, it would be nice if the Wiimote itself had good enough resolution to really use as a mouse. I'd love to play FPS games with it on my Linux PC.
And by FPS games I mean Portal.
AHhhhh.... I always did hate all those little GPA-based awards. It punishes people for doing hard things.
Books also get used to spew propaganda. Big woop.
It only says "slavery" in the Slashdot summary, AFAIK.
Dear God, are you really suggesting that not only do the Apple employees not have a case, but that they're getting too "uppity" and deserve to work even harder for less money?
Do you work in management or something? I haven't seen such open contempt for workers since I was bagging groceries in high school.
The reason you don't hear teachers complaining about their pay is because they are compensated well for their expertise (the year I got my undergrad 40% of education majors were on the deans list less then 5% of engineers were).
I don't see what these two statements have to do with one another. Education majors being bloody easy has little to do with monetary compensation of teachers.
California doesn't exactly set the standard for what constitutes "winter". Their depths of winter are usually more of a late-fall, very-early-spring rainy season as we experience it everywhere else.
Sod the environmental issues, we need our very-limited fossil fuels for making the various plastics and other common compounds based on simple organic molecules!
EDIT: Reading in the context of an article on deserts, I thought you meant the USA would move to Iraq, what with the army already being there. Fuck Canada. They can keep their freezing-cold continental climates.
OH FUCK NO. Half my damn people are over in that region. You lot can't move in, you'd ruin the neighborhood. It would go from "full of terrorist warmonger religious fanatics with unemployment issues" to "full of bitter underemployed IT and service workers without the guts for terrorism but who still, somehow, manage to support some of the greatest warmongering in the world".
In Cowboy Neal's mother's basement.