There's no reason for the younger worker to be cheaper. If, at age 30 with 8 years experience, you're not actually worth more than someone age 22 with zero years experience then why in the world would you expect to be paid more?
For the 2009-2010 school year men received 42.6% of bachelor's degrees awarded. Rates were higher for associate's and master's degrees, but lower for doctorates. Data here.
I wonder if you are aware that your rationalization "X is OK if it's profitable"....
That's not my rationale. In this case, Facebook declining to release these stats does no direct harm to anyone. Facebook doesn't "owe" us transparency w.r.t. the composition of its workforce. Shareholders are potentially owed that data, but only if enough of them decide they want to see it and vote accordingly.
It's no big surprise that the megacorps work this way, but to find public support for the highly sociopathic profit motive is more surprising, and indeed disturbing.
Nothing wrong, per se, with the "profit motive" as you put it. Obviously much wrong can be done (and is done) in the name of profits, and its not something I support. What irritates me is the sense people have in this case that Facebook is somehow doing something "wrong" by not releasing its data. Why is that the case? Do they have a moral imperative to be transparent w.r.t. the diversity of their workforce? Why?
He'll release the Facebook stats if and when there's a compelling profit motive to do so, and not a minute sooner. And I don't hold that against him one bit.
1. It's a waste of resources to put every student through an AP CS class. As the article notes, most won't get anything out of it. Moreover, most have no interest.
2. While AP CS is only offered in 10% of schools, you have to remember there's some self-selection going on with respect to which school a student attends. The sort of students interested in CS and likely to benefit from an AP CS class will seek out a school where it's actually offered.
3. While students and their parents have some agency with respect to what school they attend, they don't have complete agency so some students will undoubtedly fall through the cracks. I mention self-selection only to point out that the # of students falling through the cracks is likely less than the "only 10% of schools offer AP CS" statistic would suggest.
Basically there's C code and then there's architecture-optimized C code. The former should be easily ported between architectures. So, if an app's native code is architecture-agnostic and the dev doesn't include x86 (and MIPS, for that matter) versions then he's just being lazy.
Unless the native code includes ARM-specific inline assembly or uses ARM-specific processor features then the lack of x86 libs is just due to laziness on the part of developers. All the dev would need to do is compile his native code for x86 and include it in the APK. Devs feel free to be "lazy" in this way because ARM is so prevalent relative to x86.
Motorola should totally cut a deal with Lucasfilm (or Disney, or whoever owns the rights now) and put out a commercial that plays off that line from Star Wars. Could maybe make some fake desert footage of a guy looking for a phone and splice it in with clips of Alec Guinness from the movie. People would eat it up.
especially because to function in society today you have to be online.
First of all, no you don't. Second of all, what percentage of low-income families without home broadband have at least one smartphone with a data plan? Voila; they're online.
...which is undeniably the most important 21st Century skill...
Computer science is not a skill. Even if it were, however, I'd regard its status as undeniably the most important 21st Century skill to in fact be fairly deniable.
If all the authors go out of business because they can't make a living and have to get day jobs then Amazon has no new books to sell. So Amazon has a vested interest in keeping at least some authors afloat. It may well be that Amazon can do without Stross, however, and a great many other authors. But creating an environment in which nobody bothers to write books anymore isn't in Amazon's best interest.
In other words the dollar has lost 50% of it's purchasing power.
Maybe if all you bought were Big Macs and you owned no assets whose value was also inflated. It's also worth noting the Big Mac Index suggests the official figures actually overestimated inflation from about 1987-2001. That is to say, the cost of a Big Mac rose more slowly from 1987-2001 than the official inflation figure would have predicted. From 2001-2014 its price has risen more rapidly than the official figure. But how much more rapidly? Well, the official figure would project the dollar to have lost 36% of its purchasing power over that period.
That you're surprised by the fact that basic food items haven't seen their prices skyrocket like gold speaks volumes. Hint: gold isn't valued at $1300 because a dollar is worth (400/1300) what it was in 2004. Recall also that gold was around $1900 in October 2011. Does that mean the dollar has experienced deflation since October 2011? (No).
Yeah, but we're not talking about the future. We're talking about the period 1995-2013, in which you seem to be claiming the official inflation statistics are bunk. Don't change the topic. Either the official 2.4% stat is legit or it's not. If you're going to claim its not legit then you need to explain the relatively modest inflation rates for a relatively diverse assortment of basic food items.
Given the price fluctuations in commodities like precious metals and oil, you would see the cost of cable (indexed to one of these commodities) show similar wild fluctuations. Its cost would seem to increase rapidly in some years and decrease rapidly in others.
As an exercise, I looked up BLS price data on various basic food items and calculated the annual inflation rate from December 1995 to December 2013. This is the period in which the linked article claims the official rate was 2.4%. Here's what I got:
Cable hasn't remained constant over that 18 year period. Nor is it the only item to have seen its cost outstrip inflation. The cost of beef, for instance, which has remained constant, increased in cost at about 1.5x the annual inflation rate over that same period. Unfortunately I could only find price data for basic food items and not other stuff.
Not sure you get his point. He's not saying "make batteries because the electric car thing is never going to be huge". He's saying "make batteries because the electric car thing is definitely going to be huge". Putting aside the merits of his argument re: the profitability of being a car company vs. a battery company, he's not predicating that argument on the notion that electric cars are just a fad.
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There's no reason for the younger worker to be cheaper. If, at age 30 with 8 years experience, you're not actually worth more than someone age 22 with zero years experience then why in the world would you expect to be paid more?
For the 2009-2010 school year men received 42.6% of bachelor's degrees awarded. Rates were higher for associate's and master's degrees, but lower for doctorates. Data here.
That's not my rationale. In this case, Facebook declining to release these stats does no direct harm to anyone. Facebook doesn't "owe" us transparency w.r.t. the composition of its workforce. Shareholders are potentially owed that data, but only if enough of them decide they want to see it and vote accordingly.
Nothing wrong, per se, with the "profit motive" as you put it. Obviously much wrong can be done (and is done) in the name of profits, and its not something I support. What irritates me is the sense people have in this case that Facebook is somehow doing something "wrong" by not releasing its data. Why is that the case? Do they have a moral imperative to be transparent w.r.t. the diversity of their workforce? Why?
He'll release the Facebook stats if and when there's a compelling profit motive to do so, and not a minute sooner. And I don't hold that against him one bit.
I'm very, very surprised that refrigerators aren't #2. Or possibly electric water heaters, in houses that have them.
1. It's a waste of resources to put every student through an AP CS class. As the article notes, most won't get anything out of it. Moreover, most have no interest.
2. While AP CS is only offered in 10% of schools, you have to remember there's some self-selection going on with respect to which school a student attends. The sort of students interested in CS and likely to benefit from an AP CS class will seek out a school where it's actually offered.
3. While students and their parents have some agency with respect to what school they attend, they don't have complete agency so some students will undoubtedly fall through the cracks. I mention self-selection only to point out that the # of students falling through the cracks is likely less than the "only 10% of schools offer AP CS" statistic would suggest.
"...or uses ARM-specific processor features..."
I'll count byte order as a processor feature.
Basically there's C code and then there's architecture-optimized C code. The former should be easily ported between architectures. So, if an app's native code is architecture-agnostic and the dev doesn't include x86 (and MIPS, for that matter) versions then he's just being lazy.
Unless the native code includes ARM-specific inline assembly or uses ARM-specific processor features then the lack of x86 libs is just due to laziness on the part of developers. All the dev would need to do is compile his native code for x86 and include it in the APK. Devs feel free to be "lazy" in this way because ARM is so prevalent relative to x86.
Motorola should totally cut a deal with Lucasfilm (or Disney, or whoever owns the rights now) and put out a commercial that plays off that line from Star Wars. Could maybe make some fake desert footage of a guy looking for a phone and splice it in with clips of Alec Guinness from the movie. People would eat it up.
First of all, no you don't. Second of all, what percentage of low-income families without home broadband have at least one smartphone with a data plan? Voila; they're online.
Can we add large-scale interstellar colonization to the list?
Which, apparently, is distinct from what we commonly think of as "scientific literacy", i.e. what they're trying to measure.
Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest Clinton said the bit I quoted.
Computer science is not a skill. Even if it were, however, I'd regard its status as undeniably the most important 21st Century skill to in fact be fairly deniable.
If all the authors go out of business because they can't make a living and have to get day jobs then Amazon has no new books to sell. So Amazon has a vested interest in keeping at least some authors afloat. It may well be that Amazon can do without Stross, however, and a great many other authors. But creating an environment in which nobody bothers to write books anymore isn't in Amazon's best interest.
Doubt it would be that low.
Hopefully a lot. We need some more smart people.
Maybe if all you bought were Big Macs and you owned no assets whose value was also inflated. It's also worth noting the Big Mac Index suggests the official figures actually overestimated inflation from about 1987-2001. That is to say, the cost of a Big Mac rose more slowly from 1987-2001 than the official inflation figure would have predicted. From 2001-2014 its price has risen more rapidly than the official figure. But how much more rapidly? Well, the official figure would project the dollar to have lost 36% of its purchasing power over that period.
That you're surprised by the fact that basic food items haven't seen their prices skyrocket like gold speaks volumes. Hint: gold isn't valued at $1300 because a dollar is worth (400/1300) what it was in 2004. Recall also that gold was around $1900 in October 2011. Does that mean the dollar has experienced deflation since October 2011? (No).
Annualized inflation rate expressed in percentage form. So the cost of bread in Dec-2013 was 1.02837^18 what it was in Dec-1995.
Obviously. This guy? Total moron. This one too.
Yeah, but we're not talking about the future. We're talking about the period 1995-2013, in which you seem to be claiming the official inflation statistics are bunk. Don't change the topic. Either the official 2.4% stat is legit or it's not. If you're going to claim its not legit then you need to explain the relatively modest inflation rates for a relatively diverse assortment of basic food items.
Given the price fluctuations in commodities like precious metals and oil, you would see the cost of cable (indexed to one of these commodities) show similar wild fluctuations. Its cost would seem to increase rapidly in some years and decrease rapidly in others.
As an exercise, I looked up BLS price data on various basic food items and calculated the annual inflation rate from December 1995 to December 2013. This is the period in which the linked article claims the official rate was 2.4%. Here's what I got:
Bread, 2.837
Beef, 3.744
Chicken, 2.712
Eggs, 3.147
Milk, 1.848
Apples, 2.682
Bananas, 1.485
Tomatoes , 0.760
Orange Juice, 2.448
Coffee, 1.549
So if the official rate is a gross underestimate, what gives w/ these annual rates? Or do you just assert that the historical price data is fudged?
Cable hasn't remained constant over that 18 year period. Nor is it the only item to have seen its cost outstrip inflation. The cost of beef, for instance, which has remained constant, increased in cost at about 1.5x the annual inflation rate over that same period. Unfortunately I could only find price data for basic food items and not other stuff.
Not sure you get his point. He's not saying "make batteries because the electric car thing is never going to be huge". He's saying "make batteries because the electric car thing is definitely going to be huge". Putting aside the merits of his argument re: the profitability of being a car company vs. a battery company, he's not predicating that argument on the notion that electric cars are just a fad.