"How many civilians died by Bush's order? I'd like to in fact see an order from Bush that directs us to attack civilians. I'm fairly certain that your claim is farce. Al-Qaida, on the other hand, has launched numerous attacks against civilians. "
It doesn't really matter if the order was explicitly "Attack civilians" or "Attack that country. Oh, and try to avoid civilian deaths", the fact is the net result is going to be civilian deaths- anyone giving an order to go to war should be pretty fucking well aware of that. George Bush can't hide away from that with excuses claiming he only said to attack the country, not to explicitly kill civilians. Civilians always die in war- you have to take responsibility for that as part of your order to go to war.
"The Taliban wasn't going to turn over Osama."
Actually, they offered to do just that in the 90s. Clinton wasn't interested at the time.
"Osama didn't need Pakistan's help."
Yes he did, without a doubt. The ISI have been fundamental to keeping the Taliban going, without support from the ISI Osama and the Taliban would've struggled to last anywhere near as long as they have.
"Did you think Osama was just going to stop trying to attack us because Pakistan didn't want to be their friends anymore?"
Yes, because he'd have no safe haven, and more importantly- no source of funding.
"He sure as hell has stopped attacking us now though."
Right, but are you safe from terrorism? I'd wager that by all the security put in place on the anniversery of 9/11 yesterday your government certainly doesn't think you are. As an aside, where was he found? A few hundred metres from a military base, and a few hundred more from an ISI base? You really think he didn't need the help of the Pakistanis?
It's long been noted that Pakistan supported the Taliban and Al Qaeda because they're paranoid about war with India. They supported the Taliban in the mountains separating Pakistan and Afghanistan because their plan was, should India invade, they could withdraw to the mountains, and Afghanistan and launch guerilla war on the occupying Indian forces. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are a fundamental part of Pakistan's defence strategy, and that's why the ISI supports them.
"So lets not be so hypocritical here. Britain has supported terrorists of their own."
Of course it has, and it's been a victim of terrorism long long before America woke up to the problem 10 years ago.
Even before the decades of IRA terrorism there was jewish extremists in then Palestine attacking us. Before that we saw another form of terror- the Blitz.
Trust me, us Brits are used to people trying to blow us up, and we're not really scared of it. It's shitty, but we get on with it.
But there's a fundamental difference- America acts all shocked "How could anyone possibly commit terrorism against us?", "What have we ever done to deserve this!", "We must go on a global crusade against terror!" - It's all bullshit. America must accept that 9/11 happened because you nurtured a foreign policy that made it happen, it must accept that Afghanistan wasn't about defeating terrorism, it was about trying not to look weak in a moment of hurt, only, it got bogged down about 9 years longer in doing that than it ever expected to.
"But if it was attacks on Britain, then why didn't the British government bring it up to our government?"
They did.
"And if they did, then why didn't we do anything about it?"
Because the Catholic/Irish vote is more important to your politicians than terrorism is.
"And stop being so pissy and trying to turn this around and cussing me out for it."
Right, so your view is your view and everyone should listen, but you shouldn't have to listen to anyone else?
"And yes, I really do only care about terrorism when it affects my country"
Okay, well, don't cry next time you get bombed to shit and no gives a fuck or is willing to help.
"And if we support them, then they're our allies."
So you're against terrorism, but you're not, because you supported the IRA who were terrorists and because you supported them they were your allies. So which is it, do you admit you support terrorists, or do you condemn your own government, country, and people and not support terrorists? Your politicians pretend terrorism is some awful thing and refer to 9/11 as their reason for this, but they're more than happy to see the same atrocities committed elsewhere. The cold hard fact is your government and your people funded a group that were willing to murder innocent civilians including children in Manchester and other places in the UK. Nice allies you've got there. I guess having allies like that officially makes you a country more evil than the likes of China who doesn't engage in such bullshit, so congratulations on sinking so low.
Might I remind you that a fair amount of British blood has been spilt fighting your wars alongside you? We stand by you when you ask, it's a shame you're so quick to stab us in the back. You get everything you deserve- and that is why 9/11 happened, because you did exactly the same with the Afghans, calling them allies one minute, then fucking them the next once they beat the Russians back.
Don't pretend what you're doing in Afghanistan is fair or just though, really, you're just committing legalised murder of people who don't want you in their country. You're not making the world a better place, you're not doing good, you're not making your homeland safer. No, you're just pursuing the same old hypocritical policies that got 3000 of your own civilians killed in New York 10 years ago. Don't be suprised when it happens again, you're just a cog in the same machine that caused Al Qaeda to come and kill your people in the first place.
Really, if those are extracts from the event then I think when they say "don't be fooled" and "the model that did that is different from the one youâ(TM)ll find online" I think they mean don't be fooled, we're talking shit, it's the same stupid thing.
"for it is not only the sovereignty for our nations, but the right for us to leave in peace without fearing a terrorist attack that i will continue to fight against those that wish harm upon my friends, family, and brethren."
Do you know how hollow that sounds when it was your country that allowed the IRA to use your backyard as a fucking training ground and fund raising arena to commit terrorist attacks against civilians in Britain?
You only give a fuck about terrorists when they've hurt you, the rest of the time you support them- even against your supposed allies. Excuse me if I can't help but let out a slight chuckle at the irony of terrorism coming back to bite you. Where were you and what were you doing before 9/11 when your government and country was at least implicitly supporting terrorism? Your wars were nothing to do with removing the global threat of terrorism, they were purely about revenge.
"Afghanistan was so full of shit. They didn't even arrest Osama but had access to him. They were harboring him and allowing him to run Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan. We had every right to go in and take out the Taliban."
Right, and America was harbouring Bush et al., they didn't even arrest him, but had access to him. They were harbouring and allowing him to run the US military out of America, and they had every right to go in and take out Americans, I mean, it's not like America hasn't been playing that game in their backyard now for how many decades?
Far more civilians died by Bush's orders, than died by Osama's you know, and for what? Is the world more secure now? No, much less secure. By crippling Iraq you emboldened Iran and it's now a resurgent power in the middle east, able to destabilise the region as it sees fit.
"As for the track record... are you suggesting that those are good reasons why we shouldn't have invaded Afghanistan and allow Al-Qaeda to continue its operations against us?"
Yes, because it has not and cannot achieve that goal as they'll just regroup in Pakistan, as they have and are. By invading Afghanitan the only net effect is more dead Americans (soldiers) and more dead civilians (Afghans). By invading Afghanistan Bush managed to double 9/11 death toll for Americans, then more than triple it with his Iraq adventure too. What a great fucking achievement that is?
When 9/11 happened America had a choice, it could've stood tall with the rest of the world standing with it, condemning what happened and forcing countries like Pakistan to sort out their own problems by withdrawing support for the Taliban across the border and removing them from their own backyard or face being linked with the atrocity. Or it could've, and did, turn round and unleash a vengeful hatred that made it lose respect, and resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands more people instead.
You really think the option they took was the smartest? Even Iran stood by America as a result of 9/11- you missed an opportunity to turn 9/11 into something good for the world, and instead made it something far, far worse than it was by multiplying the global death toll stemming from it by about 10 times.
You seem to have a more brutal experience on the web than I've ever had in the last 17 years or so.
Do you tend to buy really really cheap shitty low end PCs or something? My PC was upper mid range about 3 years ago, and this is a similar pattern for all PCs I've ever owned, yet I've never even come close to such problems with Flash. In fact, there are literally millions of people right now sat happily playing games like Farmville on Facebook using Flash without an inkling of a problem, and they'll hardly have high end gaming PCs.
I know Flash isn't always pleasant, my issues have more been with the fact it seems quite keen to crash now and again and in the past, version compatibility issues, but performance wise whilst the odd Flash app has been a bit shitty, by and large they've all worked fine on my computer. I'm not saying it's not a resource hog, but it doesn't hog resources so badly that it's somehow unsuable which is what you seem to imply- you can easily multi-task with Flash apps running. Mobile is certainly a different story where resources really are that much more limited, but then I have a shitty low end smartphone right now so I wasn't expecting much on that anyway. Even on my girlfriend's now quite dated Desire it seemed fine.
I know browsers aren't built for that, but browser plugins are- that's kinda the point, to extend the browser to do things it can't already. Using a dedicated app is a hilarious suggestion. There are plenty of situations and reasons not to use a dedicated app, if you don't even know why sometimes dedicated apps aren't an acceptable solution then you don't know much about IT at all really.
"Public transport isn't a viable option for some people, on health grounds."
WTF is that even supposed to mean? What health grounds can you not catch a train or bus on but can drive a car, walk, or cycle?
"Lets take Sheffield; it's one of the closest parts of Yorkshire to London."
It's also on a slow line to London, would make more sense to go to somewhere like Doncaster and use the east coast line which is far faster.
"To work 9-5 in London on Monday you'd have a minimum of 15m (walking either side)"
To work in x you'd have y arbitrary random added time. Yeah, okay then.
"In other words, over 5 hours travel time for a mere ã162."
Because of course everyone pays the full amount, and no one ever just gets a travel pass.
Just to show how retarded your really really poor example is, I can choose a station like Doncaster, get there in 1hr 41mins and only spend £12.40 per ticket if I buy my ticket in advance. Less again if I just get a pass.
But really it wasn't my point. My point was simply that even London is doable from places as far as Yorkshire if you really really wanted to- obviously though you'd proably just do Leeds, Sheffield, York or even Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham. The point is there are easily jobs within commuting distance for most IT workers, and especially for developers.
"There are, across the whole of the midlands, the North West, Yorkshire, the South West and London, very few employers seeking people with my skills to do the job I'm best qualified for."
So what the fuck was your point exactly? I made it clear I was talking about developer jobs from the outset, and to a lesser extent other IT jobs. So if you're not working as a developer or in IT then what exactly are you trying to argue? I never denied that some other fields have problems right now. That's made pretty clear by the high unemployment rates in most countries right now.
If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is this high paying field you work in, and where exactly are you commuting from roughly?
"Sterotypes are easy. If you think "ensuring they get awesome payouts" is an easy thing to do, why aren't you doing it?"
Mostly because to get a top job where it becomes easy requires as much luck as anything else- luck of being in the right place at the right time, or being brought up in a family that has strong business contacts, or at least has the capacity to send you to a top school where you will make said contacts. Are you seriously implying top execs have a hard time getting large payouts? really? When all these people who fuck up still get massive golden parachutes? where bankers breaking the banking system and still get massive bonuses? The fact is if you're fortunate enough to get into this position then getting an awesome payout isn't hard- you get one even if you severely fuck up. Sure there are of course some who get there through hard work, but it's by no means a majority of them.
"Fact is that actually starting, running or turning around a business is hard. VERY hard. If you think that "fiddling spreadsheets" is all it takes, you pretty much are admitting you are clueless about how to buy, own, operate, start or sell a business."
Right, but starting isn't what we're talking about is it? We're talking about managers jumping into posts in existing large companies and then fucking them up. Running and turning them round isn't hard if you have a knack for it- mostly it requires you to be sharp, pragmatic, and to have a head for money. I've been somewhat involved in a reverse takeover and large takeover in the last two years FWIW.
"The CEO job is to look at the bigger picture. They make major decisions but they don't create any products."
Of course, but they must have enough knowledge of the industry to see what products that are being developed in their company should be given a boost, and what needs to be axed. Many "businessmen" who are bought into these roles are tech companies fail miserably at this because they have no fucking idea what will work and what wont. They do know how to buy in other companies that look like they're doing well at the moment though, and how to cut margins, but still often without understanding the bigger picture whether this is not recognising that because your acquired company is doing well at point of take over, doesn't mean it's got a future, and whether cutting margins by outsourcing to India is going to fuck your customer base off.
"Even Steve Jobs doesn't create the products, he provides feedback and direction but someone else creates the "worthwhile and innovative new products""
No but again, he recognised what deserved priority and what didn't. Someone with a purely business oriented mindset would fail at that.
Many CEOs tend to come from a financial background which makes them great with money, but hopeless at understanding the market. These CEOs would excel at running a shell company that buys, restructures and sells companies, or running a hedge fund firm, but when it comes to running tech companies and the like? They often fail hard.
You can have all the business experience in the world, but if you don't know where the technology world is headed, or how it ticks because you're not genuinely interested in it then you'll struggle to be succesful in running a large tech company.
Yes, I've lived and worked here all my life, and I commute.
If you're looking to commute 180 miles, you're doing it wrong. Within a radius of 180 miles are many other large cities, which means there are plenty of alternative cities you could be commuting to instead where there are developer jobs aplenty. Sure if you live in Scotland and try to commute to London that's just dumb, you could just work in Edinburgh, Glasgow or wherever.
I live in rural Yorkshire, London is only ~1hr 30mins - 2hrs on the train. I commute to Sheffield right now, only 40mins. Plenty of other job opportunities at a shorter commute for lower paid (but still well above average wage) developer jobs. What's the problem?
I'm not saying there aren't a few exceptional places- like if you live on the South Western tip of Cornwall, or in a particularly rural area of Scotland, but these are absolute minority fringe cases. As I say, by far most people can find a place with plenty of developer jobs within an hours commute.
Yes and you're incapable of interpreting what someone has posted.
Of course he understands it, but the point is that he's long been far more focussed on being a businessman, than being a technologist.
There is also of course a gradient with these things- someone isn't necessarily either just "a businessman", or "a technologist"- Schmidt is certainly a better technologist than Ballmer, but ultimately my point is that he was just far too business oriented for what Google needed to remain an innovator.
Agreed, it's not pleasant, but ultimately it's a question of "Am I going to have a better life if I make the sacrifice, and how badly do I want what's offered?".
As you say, if things are that bad, or if the offer is that good, then I'd say the answer should absolutely be yes.
But ultimately it also depends what your priorities are in life too- if you want to go far it's almost certainly something you'll have to do at some point unless you're fortunate to have always lived somewhere like London, San Francisco, New York or wherever. If you're content with less money but likely a better worklife balance and can get that where you are already then relocation is probably not for you I guess.
It's not about being a technical genius, it's about being interested in the product, seeing where the market is going and knowing when the market is ready for something- sometimes this is in fact just pot luck. Take tablets, Microsoft tried them in 2003 but really the hardware just hadn't been shrunk enough then to make them sleek enough and to support decent enough UIs to really work. Jobs tried it again in 2010 and well, it's obvious the hardware was ready. Jobs isn't a technical genius either, but the point is his heart was in what his company was producing and that's what matters- being passionate about the product.
The same is true of Facebook, MySpace came along just that little bit too early, and arguably even acted as a catalyst starting the social revolution but Facebook came along with a much cleaner interface at a time when everyone just about had access to the internet in a lot of countrys and hit critical mass.
I guess you're probably one of those who could never see what Gates did right from a technological sense though, I understand that- there's a lot of haters on Slashdot and understandably so, his reputation against the FOSS community on Slashdot is about as low as it can get. But from an objective point of view one can't claim Gates had no interest or passion for the technology.
They're starting to weaken because Ballmer has no passion for the products and hence makes idiotic business decisions- failing to recognise technologically good products to nurture and understanding where the market is going from a technology PoV.
Meh, I'm referring to the UK. The country is small enough and has decent enough transport that you can pretty much always commute to somewhere that has jobs, and hell, in any part of the world, if things are that bad it's time to consider relocation.
I (nor any employer I've ever met) would expect a fresh graduate to have been able to access that stuff. What employers would expect though is that they have studied something similar that they can access- i.e. XNA, DirectX, OpenGL, that sort of thing, as well as the relevant maths and other technologies surrounding game development. The point is if they haven't even done that and want to jump into game development straight from a standard computer science university education then they're living in a dreamworld.
It's not about knowing specific APIs or SDKs, it's about knowing the field you want to go into- if you're a fresh graduate wanting to go into financial software development then I'd expect you to have at least gathered a basic understanding of say financial mathematics and terminology. If you want to go into database work I don't expect you to have acquired an SQL Server or Oracle license but I do expect you to have learnt about triggers, views, SPs and so forth with a free database.
So sure you're right you can't study specific proprietary tech in your own time, but you can study the free, next closest thing or at least study the theory behind said tech. (i.e. relational theory if you want to work with databases).
The fact is there's too much you need to know as a software developer nowadays to be able to go into the field with nothing other than what you have purely studied in your degree. You need to learn more than that, and you have to do it in your own time. Do that and you'll find employment laughably easy for the afformentioned reason there's more jobs than there are competent candidates out there, but if you don't do it then don't be surprised when you can't get a job in the field at all.
Honestly, I don't think it's that at all. I think it's that "business" folk in general are shit. They're great at fiddling spreadsheets, and ensuring they get awesome payouts for the most random reasons, and they're great at acquiring companies, ripping them to shreds and making headlines that give investors hardons.
But to actually innovate and get a company to produce a worthwhile product? No they're fucking useless.
The reason original founders do well isn't because they have a stake in the company, but because they are genuinely interested in what the company does- they came up with the idea they did because that idea appeals to them personally. This is why Ballmer sucks- because he's a businessman and doesn't give a flying fuck about software, it's why the company did so well under Gates.
This is why Google dumped Schmidt and handed things back to Larry, because Schmidt is a businessman. He's great at lobbying politicians and so forth, but creating worthwhile and innovative new products? That's not really Schmidt's area of expertise.
Really you need both to an extent, but there's a common pattern between all these companies who have lost their CEOs who were genuinely interested in the product of their company and replaced them purely with "business leaders" - they've all gone to shit.
Yeah, but the point is, it's still not a touch on the likes of my old Nokia 7650 which still had bluetooth, a colour screen, a camera, could run games like Doom and so forth which used to last about 8 days without charge, and still had bluetooth etc.
That's really the problem, even if you get a smartphone to last 3 days it's still relatively shit compared to what we've had over the last decade.
It is of course partly the price of progress, but there you have it. I can see why smartphone battery life pisses people off. Batterys haven't improved anywhere near as quickly as the rest of the technology has.
Whilst what you say may be true about IT support where the market was flooded long before the unemployment rate started to rise in the recession, what you say absolutely isn't true of software development. I find IT support recruitment to be rather sporadic though, there's so many good people out there who can't get jobs, and so many bad people that have jobs. I find companies desperately struggle when it comes to recruiting good IT staff- it's a blaggers industry, and those who are best at blagging get the jobs over those who are simply best at the job. The head of IT support at my current employer has the knowledge of an £18k a year helpdesk employee, and the management competence of a 3 yr old, and doesn't believe the company needs a meaningful security policy and so forth, yet he's paid around £40k a year. I know a number of vastly more skilled people who actually know about DNS, DHCP, TCP/IP, and know that there are better ways of setting up laptops than manually installing every piece of software each time (i.e. using images), who know about talking to people and don't run off to a satellite office where no one works when something goes wrong because he's too socially inept to face an angry upper management, and who can actually talk to people without jumping into a paranoid defensive mindset. Yet, they keep him, because he's all they've ever known for the last 10 years having moved him into the role from an engineering position when they decided they needed an IT department, and they think because I'm their lead developer I don't know about IT support, which is amusing, because I have more IT support experience before moving into software development than he does, but oh well, it was another reason for me to move on!
There's far more software development jobs in the UK right now than there are suitable candidates.
As such I'd wager this issue isn't so much about lack of jobs, but quality of graduates. If the graduates were of high enough quality we wouldn't have so many software development jobs that go unfilled month after month.
I've recently been job hunting myself for a better role, and had no problem at all- I had the pick of the market with a number of offers which I could confidently turn down without fear of not finding a job until I found one that was willing to offer precisely what I was asking (decent amount of leave, pension, ~38% pay rise over my old job, more senior role, enjoyable selection of technologies to work with). There's certainly a lot of companies on the market that are time wasters right now (i.e. they don't actually know what they want) but there are plenty more willing to make genuine offers to the right people. I spoke to over 50 recruitment agencies in the last few months who contacted me (which in itself shows how agencies are desperately fighting to represent candidates) and those I formed a decent relationship with and got chatting too more confirmed this is just the general way of the market right now, there just aren't software developers out there with a decent level of competence.
I think a lot of the issues stem from the attitude of many younger people today- A-Levels and GCSEs have been handed down to them on a plate due to the dumbing down of them and so they have this mindset that they don't have to work that hard to achieve anything. They get through uni (well, some of them do) and reach the work place and can't understand this concept of having to actually spend hours studying the technologies and concepts that make them relevant to the business world. But this in itself is an issue- those who really, really love computing would be studying these technologies in their own time, degree or not, so at this point graduate or not becomes irrelevant- it's really just about those who aren't willing to put in the time to study technologies to make themselves relevant and those who are - and it's the latter that are in very short supply, and it's the latter than industry desperately needs.
Battery life sucks on all smart phones. The battery life of the iPhone 4 and Windows 7 phones is no better than the equally priced high end Android phones.
Sure some of the truly budged Android phones have noticably less battery life, but like for like, smartphone battery life is pretty shit in general.
This solution gives much better guarantee of security of the work VM to not be compromised by the home VM and so forth, and is also arguably a very clean and neat solution. You only need to carry one piece of hardware, but still effectively have two phones- one for work, one for home.
The Assange thing is really irrelevant as part of the revelation. It was clear Sweden was a US puppet state long before that when the Swedish police raided TPB at the request of US authorities, and when the Swedish judiciary later deemed a trial of the TPB owners by a judge who was an active member of a US oriented media industry lobby group to be fair. Even for those who believe Assange is guilty and the US has nothing to do with that there is still evidence enough of a separate issue here- the US has far too much influence in Sweden.
Quite how any of this could happen under an independent state I do not know which is why I simply believe it could not.
I don't think it's that we're not sentient, I think it's that the universe is an unimaginably complex chaotic system and we can't possibly know what has an effect on what.
We don't recognise that we have natural tendencies that seem irrational but hold a perfectly valid evolutionary reason for it's existence.
Part the problem is also that some of these things touch on sensitive areas which are simply too taboo for any scientist hoping to have a career lasting more than 5 minutes to study. There's of course the obvious with the likes of the Stanford Prisoner experiment, but also areas such as studying different racial traits, why those difference exist and so forth. There's a wealth of evidence suggesting that some groups of people are inherently more aggressive and violent because historically they have inhabited areas where there has been greater competition for resources for example, whilst other groups are more intelligent because competing for resources has required greater ingenuity, and less physical capability.
Whilst political correctness in these sorts of areas has commendable benefits, we must not pretend that there is a negative side too- that we've perhaps crippled our ability to understand ourselves in the process, and without understanding ourselves I do not believe we can really look at solving large scale problems.
So instead we're where we are now, is that a bad thing? is it better to allow somewhat dangerous experiments? to explore issues of genetic differences in groups of people that may be used for evil as in racial discrimination, or for good in allowing people to understand who they really are?
They're difficult questions and ones I wouldn't like to try and begin to answer without spending far more time studying the subjects, but I think to get where you want us to be requires a much deeper look into who we are as people. It is not until we do this that we can genuinely understand what is at the source of things like aggression, disagreements, and so forth, but to reach that goal in itself may require us to or may result in us having to do some pretty awful things.
Many questions relate back to this limitation on what we're willing to research too- from the relatively trivial why do so many people vote for political groups who are detrimental to their wellbeing, and why are some customers so loyal to companies that aren't giving them a good deal, all the way through to why do some groupings of people seem to always end up in violent conflict?
"Again, in the UK there are specific laws covering how little you can leave to your surviving relatives. If a will violates these, it can be overturned in it entirety and it acts as if you died intestate. It's completely irrelevant in this case, because you're talking about an area with very specific laws."
This is completely false, there is no such law, it was entirely based on a judicial decision.
Slashdot Mirror
"How many civilians died by Bush's order? I'd like to in fact see an order from Bush that directs us to attack civilians. I'm fairly certain that your claim is farce. Al-Qaida, on the other hand, has launched numerous attacks against civilians. "
It doesn't really matter if the order was explicitly "Attack civilians" or "Attack that country. Oh, and try to avoid civilian deaths", the fact is the net result is going to be civilian deaths- anyone giving an order to go to war should be pretty fucking well aware of that. George Bush can't hide away from that with excuses claiming he only said to attack the country, not to explicitly kill civilians. Civilians always die in war- you have to take responsibility for that as part of your order to go to war.
"The Taliban wasn't going to turn over Osama."
Actually, they offered to do just that in the 90s. Clinton wasn't interested at the time.
"Osama didn't need Pakistan's help."
Yes he did, without a doubt. The ISI have been fundamental to keeping the Taliban going, without support from the ISI Osama and the Taliban would've struggled to last anywhere near as long as they have.
"Did you think Osama was just going to stop trying to attack us because Pakistan didn't want to be their friends anymore?"
Yes, because he'd have no safe haven, and more importantly- no source of funding.
"He sure as hell has stopped attacking us now though."
Right, but are you safe from terrorism? I'd wager that by all the security put in place on the anniversery of 9/11 yesterday your government certainly doesn't think you are. As an aside, where was he found? A few hundred metres from a military base, and a few hundred more from an ISI base? You really think he didn't need the help of the Pakistanis?
It's long been noted that Pakistan supported the Taliban and Al Qaeda because they're paranoid about war with India. They supported the Taliban in the mountains separating Pakistan and Afghanistan because their plan was, should India invade, they could withdraw to the mountains, and Afghanistan and launch guerilla war on the occupying Indian forces. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are a fundamental part of Pakistan's defence strategy, and that's why the ISI supports them.
"So lets not be so hypocritical here. Britain has supported terrorists of their own."
Of course it has, and it's been a victim of terrorism long long before America woke up to the problem 10 years ago.
Even before the decades of IRA terrorism there was jewish extremists in then Palestine attacking us. Before that we saw another form of terror- the Blitz.
Trust me, us Brits are used to people trying to blow us up, and we're not really scared of it. It's shitty, but we get on with it.
But there's a fundamental difference- America acts all shocked "How could anyone possibly commit terrorism against us?", "What have we ever done to deserve this!", "We must go on a global crusade against terror!" - It's all bullshit. America must accept that 9/11 happened because you nurtured a foreign policy that made it happen, it must accept that Afghanistan wasn't about defeating terrorism, it was about trying not to look weak in a moment of hurt, only, it got bogged down about 9 years longer in doing that than it ever expected to.
"But if it was attacks on Britain, then why didn't the British government bring it up to our government?"
They did.
"And if they did, then why didn't we do anything about it?"
Because the Catholic/Irish vote is more important to your politicians than terrorism is.
"And stop being so pissy and trying to turn this around and cussing me out for it."
Right, so your view is your view and everyone should listen, but you shouldn't have to listen to anyone else?
"And yes, I really do only care about terrorism when it affects my country"
Okay, well, don't cry next time you get bombed to shit and no gives a fuck or is willing to help.
"And if we support them, then they're our allies."
So you're against terrorism, but you're not, because you supported the IRA who were terrorists and because you supported them they were your allies. So which is it, do you admit you support terrorists, or do you condemn your own government, country, and people and not support terrorists? Your politicians pretend terrorism is some awful thing and refer to 9/11 as their reason for this, but they're more than happy to see the same atrocities committed elsewhere. The cold hard fact is your government and your people funded a group that were willing to murder innocent civilians including children in Manchester and other places in the UK. Nice allies you've got there. I guess having allies like that officially makes you a country more evil than the likes of China who doesn't engage in such bullshit, so congratulations on sinking so low.
Might I remind you that a fair amount of British blood has been spilt fighting your wars alongside you? We stand by you when you ask, it's a shame you're so quick to stab us in the back. You get everything you deserve- and that is why 9/11 happened, because you did exactly the same with the Afghans, calling them allies one minute, then fucking them the next once they beat the Russians back.
Don't pretend what you're doing in Afghanistan is fair or just though, really, you're just committing legalised murder of people who don't want you in their country. You're not making the world a better place, you're not doing good, you're not making your homeland safer. No, you're just pursuing the same old hypocritical policies that got 3000 of your own civilians killed in New York 10 years ago. Don't be suprised when it happens again, you're just a cog in the same machine that caused Al Qaeda to come and kill your people in the first place.
Yes, but I also found this:
http://cleverbot.com/machine
Really, if those are extracts from the event then I think when they say "don't be fooled" and "the model that did that is different from the one youâ(TM)ll find online" I think they mean don't be fooled, we're talking shit, it's the same stupid thing.
"for it is not only the sovereignty for our nations, but the right for us to leave in peace without fearing a terrorist attack that i will continue to fight against those that wish harm upon my friends, family, and brethren."
Do you know how hollow that sounds when it was your country that allowed the IRA to use your backyard as a fucking training ground and fund raising arena to commit terrorist attacks against civilians in Britain?
You only give a fuck about terrorists when they've hurt you, the rest of the time you support them- even against your supposed allies. Excuse me if I can't help but let out a slight chuckle at the irony of terrorism coming back to bite you. Where were you and what were you doing before 9/11 when your government and country was at least implicitly supporting terrorism? Your wars were nothing to do with removing the global threat of terrorism, they were purely about revenge.
"Afghanistan was so full of shit. They didn't even arrest Osama but had access to him. They were harboring him and allowing him to run Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan. We had every right to go in and take out the Taliban."
Right, and America was harbouring Bush et al., they didn't even arrest him, but had access to him. They were harbouring and allowing him to run the US military out of America, and they had every right to go in and take out Americans, I mean, it's not like America hasn't been playing that game in their backyard now for how many decades?
Far more civilians died by Bush's orders, than died by Osama's you know, and for what? Is the world more secure now? No, much less secure. By crippling Iraq you emboldened Iran and it's now a resurgent power in the middle east, able to destabilise the region as it sees fit.
"As for the track record... are you suggesting that those are good reasons why we shouldn't have invaded Afghanistan and allow Al-Qaeda to continue its operations against us?"
Yes, because it has not and cannot achieve that goal as they'll just regroup in Pakistan, as they have and are. By invading Afghanitan the only net effect is more dead Americans (soldiers) and more dead civilians (Afghans). By invading Afghanistan Bush managed to double 9/11 death toll for Americans, then more than triple it with his Iraq adventure too. What a great fucking achievement that is?
When 9/11 happened America had a choice, it could've stood tall with the rest of the world standing with it, condemning what happened and forcing countries like Pakistan to sort out their own problems by withdrawing support for the Taliban across the border and removing them from their own backyard or face being linked with the atrocity. Or it could've, and did, turn round and unleash a vengeful hatred that made it lose respect, and resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands more people instead.
You really think the option they took was the smartest? Even Iran stood by America as a result of 9/11- you missed an opportunity to turn 9/11 into something good for the world, and instead made it something far, far worse than it was by multiplying the global death toll stemming from it by about 10 times.
"this feels really ironic."
It shouldn't, because it's not.
You seem to have a more brutal experience on the web than I've ever had in the last 17 years or so.
Do you tend to buy really really cheap shitty low end PCs or something? My PC was upper mid range about 3 years ago, and this is a similar pattern for all PCs I've ever owned, yet I've never even come close to such problems with Flash. In fact, there are literally millions of people right now sat happily playing games like Farmville on Facebook using Flash without an inkling of a problem, and they'll hardly have high end gaming PCs.
I know Flash isn't always pleasant, my issues have more been with the fact it seems quite keen to crash now and again and in the past, version compatibility issues, but performance wise whilst the odd Flash app has been a bit shitty, by and large they've all worked fine on my computer. I'm not saying it's not a resource hog, but it doesn't hog resources so badly that it's somehow unsuable which is what you seem to imply- you can easily multi-task with Flash apps running. Mobile is certainly a different story where resources really are that much more limited, but then I have a shitty low end smartphone right now so I wasn't expecting much on that anyway. Even on my girlfriend's now quite dated Desire it seemed fine.
I know browsers aren't built for that, but browser plugins are- that's kinda the point, to extend the browser to do things it can't already. Using a dedicated app is a hilarious suggestion. There are plenty of situations and reasons not to use a dedicated app, if you don't even know why sometimes dedicated apps aren't an acceptable solution then you don't know much about IT at all really.
"Public transport isn't a viable option for some people, on health grounds."
WTF is that even supposed to mean? What health grounds can you not catch a train or bus on but can drive a car, walk, or cycle?
"Lets take Sheffield; it's one of the closest parts of Yorkshire to London."
It's also on a slow line to London, would make more sense to go to somewhere like Doncaster and use the east coast line which is far faster.
"To work 9-5 in London on Monday you'd have a minimum of 15m (walking either side)"
To work in x you'd have y arbitrary random added time. Yeah, okay then.
"In other words, over 5 hours travel time for a mere ã162."
Because of course everyone pays the full amount, and no one ever just gets a travel pass.
Just to show how retarded your really really poor example is, I can choose a station like Doncaster, get there in 1hr 41mins and only spend £12.40 per ticket if I buy my ticket in advance. Less again if I just get a pass.
But really it wasn't my point. My point was simply that even London is doable from places as far as Yorkshire if you really really wanted to- obviously though you'd proably just do Leeds, Sheffield, York or even Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham. The point is there are easily jobs within commuting distance for most IT workers, and especially for developers.
"There are, across the whole of the midlands, the North West, Yorkshire, the South West and London, very few employers seeking people with my skills to do the job I'm best qualified for."
So what the fuck was your point exactly? I made it clear I was talking about developer jobs from the outset, and to a lesser extent other IT jobs. So if you're not working as a developer or in IT then what exactly are you trying to argue? I never denied that some other fields have problems right now. That's made pretty clear by the high unemployment rates in most countries right now.
If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is this high paying field you work in, and where exactly are you commuting from roughly?
"Sterotypes are easy. If you think "ensuring they get awesome payouts" is an easy thing to do, why aren't you doing it?"
Mostly because to get a top job where it becomes easy requires as much luck as anything else- luck of being in the right place at the right time, or being brought up in a family that has strong business contacts, or at least has the capacity to send you to a top school where you will make said contacts. Are you seriously implying top execs have a hard time getting large payouts? really? When all these people who fuck up still get massive golden parachutes? where bankers breaking the banking system and still get massive bonuses? The fact is if you're fortunate enough to get into this position then getting an awesome payout isn't hard- you get one even if you severely fuck up. Sure there are of course some who get there through hard work, but it's by no means a majority of them.
"Fact is that actually starting, running or turning around a business is hard. VERY hard. If you think that "fiddling spreadsheets" is all it takes, you pretty much are admitting you are clueless about how to buy, own, operate, start or sell a business."
Right, but starting isn't what we're talking about is it? We're talking about managers jumping into posts in existing large companies and then fucking them up. Running and turning them round isn't hard if you have a knack for it- mostly it requires you to be sharp, pragmatic, and to have a head for money. I've been somewhat involved in a reverse takeover and large takeover in the last two years FWIW.
"The CEO job is to look at the bigger picture. They make major decisions but they don't create any products."
Of course, but they must have enough knowledge of the industry to see what products that are being developed in their company should be given a boost, and what needs to be axed. Many "businessmen" who are bought into these roles are tech companies fail miserably at this because they have no fucking idea what will work and what wont. They do know how to buy in other companies that look like they're doing well at the moment though, and how to cut margins, but still often without understanding the bigger picture whether this is not recognising that because your acquired company is doing well at point of take over, doesn't mean it's got a future, and whether cutting margins by outsourcing to India is going to fuck your customer base off.
"Even Steve Jobs doesn't create the products, he provides feedback and direction but someone else creates the "worthwhile and innovative new products""
No but again, he recognised what deserved priority and what didn't. Someone with a purely business oriented mindset would fail at that.
Many CEOs tend to come from a financial background which makes them great with money, but hopeless at understanding the market. These CEOs would excel at running a shell company that buys, restructures and sells companies, or running a hedge fund firm, but when it comes to running tech companies and the like? They often fail hard.
You can have all the business experience in the world, but if you don't know where the technology world is headed, or how it ticks because you're not genuinely interested in it then you'll struggle to be succesful in running a large tech company.
Yes, I've lived and worked here all my life, and I commute.
If you're looking to commute 180 miles, you're doing it wrong. Within a radius of 180 miles are many other large cities, which means there are plenty of alternative cities you could be commuting to instead where there are developer jobs aplenty. Sure if you live in Scotland and try to commute to London that's just dumb, you could just work in Edinburgh, Glasgow or wherever.
I live in rural Yorkshire, London is only ~1hr 30mins - 2hrs on the train. I commute to Sheffield right now, only 40mins. Plenty of other job opportunities at a shorter commute for lower paid (but still well above average wage) developer jobs. What's the problem?
I'm not saying there aren't a few exceptional places- like if you live on the South Western tip of Cornwall, or in a particularly rural area of Scotland, but these are absolute minority fringe cases. As I say, by far most people can find a place with plenty of developer jobs within an hours commute.
Yes and you're incapable of interpreting what someone has posted.
Of course he understands it, but the point is that he's long been far more focussed on being a businessman, than being a technologist.
There is also of course a gradient with these things- someone isn't necessarily either just "a businessman", or "a technologist"- Schmidt is certainly a better technologist than Ballmer, but ultimately my point is that he was just far too business oriented for what Google needed to remain an innovator.
Agreed, it's not pleasant, but ultimately it's a question of "Am I going to have a better life if I make the sacrifice, and how badly do I want what's offered?".
As you say, if things are that bad, or if the offer is that good, then I'd say the answer should absolutely be yes.
But ultimately it also depends what your priorities are in life too- if you want to go far it's almost certainly something you'll have to do at some point unless you're fortunate to have always lived somewhere like London, San Francisco, New York or wherever. If you're content with less money but likely a better worklife balance and can get that where you are already then relocation is probably not for you I guess.
It's not about being a technical genius, it's about being interested in the product, seeing where the market is going and knowing when the market is ready for something- sometimes this is in fact just pot luck. Take tablets, Microsoft tried them in 2003 but really the hardware just hadn't been shrunk enough then to make them sleek enough and to support decent enough UIs to really work. Jobs tried it again in 2010 and well, it's obvious the hardware was ready. Jobs isn't a technical genius either, but the point is his heart was in what his company was producing and that's what matters- being passionate about the product.
The same is true of Facebook, MySpace came along just that little bit too early, and arguably even acted as a catalyst starting the social revolution but Facebook came along with a much cleaner interface at a time when everyone just about had access to the internet in a lot of countrys and hit critical mass.
I guess you're probably one of those who could never see what Gates did right from a technological sense though, I understand that- there's a lot of haters on Slashdot and understandably so, his reputation against the FOSS community on Slashdot is about as low as it can get. But from an objective point of view one can't claim Gates had no interest or passion for the technology.
They're starting to weaken because Ballmer has no passion for the products and hence makes idiotic business decisions- failing to recognise technologically good products to nurture and understanding where the market is going from a technology PoV.
Meh, I'm referring to the UK. The country is small enough and has decent enough transport that you can pretty much always commute to somewhere that has jobs, and hell, in any part of the world, if things are that bad it's time to consider relocation.
I (nor any employer I've ever met) would expect a fresh graduate to have been able to access that stuff. What employers would expect though is that they have studied something similar that they can access- i.e. XNA, DirectX, OpenGL, that sort of thing, as well as the relevant maths and other technologies surrounding game development. The point is if they haven't even done that and want to jump into game development straight from a standard computer science university education then they're living in a dreamworld.
It's not about knowing specific APIs or SDKs, it's about knowing the field you want to go into- if you're a fresh graduate wanting to go into financial software development then I'd expect you to have at least gathered a basic understanding of say financial mathematics and terminology. If you want to go into database work I don't expect you to have acquired an SQL Server or Oracle license but I do expect you to have learnt about triggers, views, SPs and so forth with a free database.
So sure you're right you can't study specific proprietary tech in your own time, but you can study the free, next closest thing or at least study the theory behind said tech. (i.e. relational theory if you want to work with databases).
The fact is there's too much you need to know as a software developer nowadays to be able to go into the field with nothing other than what you have purely studied in your degree. You need to learn more than that, and you have to do it in your own time. Do that and you'll find employment laughably easy for the afformentioned reason there's more jobs than there are competent candidates out there, but if you don't do it then don't be surprised when you can't get a job in the field at all.
So why is Steve Ballmer so shit?
Honestly, I don't think it's that at all. I think it's that "business" folk in general are shit. They're great at fiddling spreadsheets, and ensuring they get awesome payouts for the most random reasons, and they're great at acquiring companies, ripping them to shreds and making headlines that give investors hardons.
But to actually innovate and get a company to produce a worthwhile product? No they're fucking useless.
The reason original founders do well isn't because they have a stake in the company, but because they are genuinely interested in what the company does- they came up with the idea they did because that idea appeals to them personally. This is why Ballmer sucks- because he's a businessman and doesn't give a flying fuck about software, it's why the company did so well under Gates.
This is why Google dumped Schmidt and handed things back to Larry, because Schmidt is a businessman. He's great at lobbying politicians and so forth, but creating worthwhile and innovative new products? That's not really Schmidt's area of expertise.
Really you need both to an extent, but there's a common pattern between all these companies who have lost their CEOs who were genuinely interested in the product of their company and replaced them purely with "business leaders" - they've all gone to shit.
"I think Apple has just gotten started and recently bought even more stock. You truly have no idea what is about to happen, do you?"
Wait, don't tell us, Steve Jobs is about to die and become more powerful than we could possibly imagine right?
Yeah, but the point is, it's still not a touch on the likes of my old Nokia 7650 which still had bluetooth, a colour screen, a camera, could run games like Doom and so forth which used to last about 8 days without charge, and still had bluetooth etc.
That's really the problem, even if you get a smartphone to last 3 days it's still relatively shit compared to what we've had over the last decade.
It is of course partly the price of progress, but there you have it. I can see why smartphone battery life pisses people off. Batterys haven't improved anywhere near as quickly as the rest of the technology has.
Whilst what you say may be true about IT support where the market was flooded long before the unemployment rate started to rise in the recession, what you say absolutely isn't true of software development. I find IT support recruitment to be rather sporadic though, there's so many good people out there who can't get jobs, and so many bad people that have jobs. I find companies desperately struggle when it comes to recruiting good IT staff- it's a blaggers industry, and those who are best at blagging get the jobs over those who are simply best at the job. The head of IT support at my current employer has the knowledge of an £18k a year helpdesk employee, and the management competence of a 3 yr old, and doesn't believe the company needs a meaningful security policy and so forth, yet he's paid around £40k a year. I know a number of vastly more skilled people who actually know about DNS, DHCP, TCP/IP, and know that there are better ways of setting up laptops than manually installing every piece of software each time (i.e. using images), who know about talking to people and don't run off to a satellite office where no one works when something goes wrong because he's too socially inept to face an angry upper management, and who can actually talk to people without jumping into a paranoid defensive mindset. Yet, they keep him, because he's all they've ever known for the last 10 years having moved him into the role from an engineering position when they decided they needed an IT department, and they think because I'm their lead developer I don't know about IT support, which is amusing, because I have more IT support experience before moving into software development than he does, but oh well, it was another reason for me to move on!
There's far more software development jobs in the UK right now than there are suitable candidates.
As such I'd wager this issue isn't so much about lack of jobs, but quality of graduates. If the graduates were of high enough quality we wouldn't have so many software development jobs that go unfilled month after month.
I've recently been job hunting myself for a better role, and had no problem at all- I had the pick of the market with a number of offers which I could confidently turn down without fear of not finding a job until I found one that was willing to offer precisely what I was asking (decent amount of leave, pension, ~38% pay rise over my old job, more senior role, enjoyable selection of technologies to work with). There's certainly a lot of companies on the market that are time wasters right now (i.e. they don't actually know what they want) but there are plenty more willing to make genuine offers to the right people. I spoke to over 50 recruitment agencies in the last few months who contacted me (which in itself shows how agencies are desperately fighting to represent candidates) and those I formed a decent relationship with and got chatting too more confirmed this is just the general way of the market right now, there just aren't software developers out there with a decent level of competence.
I think a lot of the issues stem from the attitude of many younger people today- A-Levels and GCSEs have been handed down to them on a plate due to the dumbing down of them and so they have this mindset that they don't have to work that hard to achieve anything. They get through uni (well, some of them do) and reach the work place and can't understand this concept of having to actually spend hours studying the technologies and concepts that make them relevant to the business world. But this in itself is an issue- those who really, really love computing would be studying these technologies in their own time, degree or not, so at this point graduate or not becomes irrelevant- it's really just about those who aren't willing to put in the time to study technologies to make themselves relevant and those who are - and it's the latter that are in very short supply, and it's the latter than industry desperately needs.
Battery life sucks on all smart phones. The battery life of the iPhone 4 and Windows 7 phones is no better than the equally priced high end Android phones.
Sure some of the truly budged Android phones have noticably less battery life, but like for like, smartphone battery life is pretty shit in general.
Efficient? Maybe.
Secure and solid solution? Probably not.
This solution gives much better guarantee of security of the work VM to not be compromised by the home VM and so forth, and is also arguably a very clean and neat solution. You only need to carry one piece of hardware, but still effectively have two phones- one for work, one for home.
The Assange thing is really irrelevant as part of the revelation. It was clear Sweden was a US puppet state long before that when the Swedish police raided TPB at the request of US authorities, and when the Swedish judiciary later deemed a trial of the TPB owners by a judge who was an active member of a US oriented media industry lobby group to be fair. Even for those who believe Assange is guilty and the US has nothing to do with that there is still evidence enough of a separate issue here- the US has far too much influence in Sweden.
Quite how any of this could happen under an independent state I do not know which is why I simply believe it could not.
I don't think it's that we're not sentient, I think it's that the universe is an unimaginably complex chaotic system and we can't possibly know what has an effect on what.
We don't recognise that we have natural tendencies that seem irrational but hold a perfectly valid evolutionary reason for it's existence.
Part the problem is also that some of these things touch on sensitive areas which are simply too taboo for any scientist hoping to have a career lasting more than 5 minutes to study. There's of course the obvious with the likes of the Stanford Prisoner experiment, but also areas such as studying different racial traits, why those difference exist and so forth. There's a wealth of evidence suggesting that some groups of people are inherently more aggressive and violent because historically they have inhabited areas where there has been greater competition for resources for example, whilst other groups are more intelligent because competing for resources has required greater ingenuity, and less physical capability.
Whilst political correctness in these sorts of areas has commendable benefits, we must not pretend that there is a negative side too- that we've perhaps crippled our ability to understand ourselves in the process, and without understanding ourselves I do not believe we can really look at solving large scale problems.
So instead we're where we are now, is that a bad thing? is it better to allow somewhat dangerous experiments? to explore issues of genetic differences in groups of people that may be used for evil as in racial discrimination, or for good in allowing people to understand who they really are?
They're difficult questions and ones I wouldn't like to try and begin to answer without spending far more time studying the subjects, but I think to get where you want us to be requires a much deeper look into who we are as people. It is not until we do this that we can genuinely understand what is at the source of things like aggression, disagreements, and so forth, but to reach that goal in itself may require us to or may result in us having to do some pretty awful things.
Many questions relate back to this limitation on what we're willing to research too- from the relatively trivial why do so many people vote for political groups who are detrimental to their wellbeing, and why are some customers so loyal to companies that aren't giving them a good deal, all the way through to why do some groupings of people seem to always end up in violent conflict?
"Again, in the UK there are specific laws covering how little you can leave to your surviving relatives. If a will violates these, it can be overturned in it entirety and it acts as if you died intestate. It's completely irrelevant in this case, because you're talking about an area with very specific laws."
This is completely false, there is no such law, it was entirely based on a judicial decision.