If there's a fee for *using* the cards, then the employers, who presumably got a "good deal" from the vendors, have just given their employees a back-door pay cut.
a) I'm not getting an "e-reader" until I have *TOTAL* control - NO ONE ELSE gets to download, or DELETE, what I have *bought* (NOT licensed, not rented). b) Foot traffic. The problem is that B&N *really* isn't paying attention to their core business... selling books and mags. A few years ago, right outside Chicago, I went into the one nearest me.
a) they hadn't changed the "newest" mystery books in months.
b) they hadn't changed the "newest" science fiction books in months.
c) it was October, and they didn't even list the Hugo winner in their system.
d) the one and only copy of Model Railroader they had was supposed to have been taken off the stand 10 days before.
Those are far enough a spread of different areas to say that they just didn't care. I've run into similar things here in the DC 'burbs. Borders, before they went under, the "newest" section was *always* updated every month, and *always* had the current issues of magazines. This is not how you run a business... unless you care to run it into the ground.
...was one where the author noted that the US was perplexed at the delay in response to an extradition request from Chinese officials.
I emailed the author, to suggest that might have been because they hadn't picked themselves up off the floor, where they'd fallen from laughing so hard at the incontrovertable proof that the US and China spied on their own people the same way... just that the US does it a bit more covertly.
mark "where's that sigfile some folks used to use on usenet, that was intended to overload Carnivore?"
Excerpt: The "Professor Jameson" series by Neil R. Jones (early 1930s) featured human and alien minds preserved in robot bodies. Reprinted in five Ace paperbacks in the late 1960s: The Planet of the Double Sun, The Sunless World, Space War, Twin Worlds and Doomsday on Ajiat --- end excerpt ---
On a more serious note, yeah, right, once you can demonstrate the technology to literally allow one to localize their consciousness outside of their body, in a computer, then I'll take this for more than blue-sky and/or great little money-maker he's got going there.
The one issue I'd have with locating it in Japan is, of course, earthquakes. This is going to be *how* long... and the alignment is how many zeros to the right of the decimal point? All of which would suggest frequent shutdowns to re-align, and that's assuming no *major* earthquakes.
So, a vasectomy isn't reversible? Then how come the hundreds of billboards I've seen off US Interstates over the last dozen or so years advertising exactly that haven't been taken down, and the advertisers put in jail for false advertising?
Since there's not a lot of actual response to the O/P....
First, I'd document why no other department likes them: get statements not just from dept heads, but users - one manager, maybe two users in each other dept that say they have a problem with IT.
Talk to the manager, and get him to talk about why he thinks other depts don't like IT, and why his dept has had deadline and budget problems.
Then discuss with the lower level managers and/or team leads about several (three each?) projects they've been involved with, and what the big issues were that kept them from succeeding.
Finally, maybe, talk to the IT manager again, and this time you'll have some points (I don't think I have to tell you not to bring up he said/she said, or personal issues) to ask him about, and get his response. Most managers I've known want to talk... and in this case, he may give you enough rope to hang him out to dry.
They just lost a case in India a month or so ago, where the Indian court decided that there was so little difference in outcomes and side effects that they refused to allow a patent on a new drug that was to replace one whose patent was expiring.
And the ones in the last couple years pulled off the market in the US as having more side effects, and not especially better than the old ones in danger of being sold as a generic (the list is left as an excercise for the reader)?
Then the Egyptians must have been *real* hicks....
Excerpt: The Hittites appear to be the first to understand the production of iron from its ores and regard it highly in their society. They began to smelt iron between 1500 and 1200 BC and the practice spread to the rest of the Near East after their empire fell in 1180 BC.[37] The subsequent period is called the Iron Age. Iron smelting, and thus the Iron Age, reached Europe two hundred years later and arrived in Zimbabwe, Africa by the 8th century. --- end excerpt --- - wikipedia, iron, history
"Kinder" says khb, the submitter? No, idiot, more like how sure are you that the unattended robot will go around noncombatants and other things that should not be damaged, and not blow things up in the middle of cities or towns occupied by them, or start fires in cropfields that in inappropriate weather, could massively spread (I suggest you read the news over the last week about the fires around LA).
And I'm *so* glad y'all are *sure* that the self-motivated 'bot won't mistake you, the "Good Guy", for the "Bad Guys" (tm).
mark "and just wait for the unattended bot that looks like Arnie"
For one, as others have noted, no code will wind up bug-free (except, of course, for *mine*....). Why is it that the *customer* is finding them? You say you hire programmers... but do you hire *testers*, a *whole* 'nother skillset, and who will do things like regression tests? If you're not hiring them, you're doing an inadequate job.
For another, you say you can't afford $100k/yr - well, I know a *lot* of folks who don't make that - hell, I'm not there, and I've been working in the field nearly 30 years. But what *are* you paying them... and if you're in the US, do you provide a health plan they can buy into? If not, why shouldn't they look for more money, given the insane prices that the health insurance monopoly charges for their extortion?
If you can't afford what you need, perhaps you're not ready to run that larger business.
Fact (check it on the IRS website, irs.gov): in 1972, 24% of the US federal revenue stream was from corporate taxes, and 16.67% from individual income taxes. Right now, it's barely above 10% for corporate taxes, and 44+% for individual income taxes.
Meaning you, personally, are paying taxes *instead* of Apple. How much of the year are you working to pay those?
1. They're hiring H1-B visa holders at 50% of what you're getting. 2. They're finally hiring moderate-term unemployed (long term unemployed still aren't being hired) at 60% or 67% of what you're getting. 3. ROI, baby. I mean the company's got to show increasing profits every year; good isn't good enough, and the CEO and other major shareholders are just barely getting by at $15M/yr, plus options and bonuses, you need to take less away from them. 4. You don't believe in unions....
I've been talking about it for 25 years, and trying to start a conversation about it, and no one wants to pay attention.
For example, if you're having trouble getting a job right now, because so much has been shipped offshore, consider what it will be like when the folks offshore, like the women who died in the factory collapse in Pakistan, can't even get a job, because robots do it.
And when everywhere is worse than Spain's current 27% unemployment, and more like the Middle East's 70%-80%, who do you think will hire any of you to do diddly squat? What income will you live on?
And once we get over *that* hump, what will you do with your life, assuming you're not pushing a shopping cart down the street - sit on a couch and watch TV or YouTube for life?
I have more windows open than you... but then, I'm in Linux, at work and at home. Even my non-computerphile wife has no more trouble with it than she does with Windows....
And don't sweat Win8 - they've already as good as admitted they blew it, and from what I see in the trade press and from other folks, corporations, and possibly the government, will treat it like Vista... that is, wait for Win9, and keep running 7.
Tablets are great... for the people on the sales floor, like at Sears the other night. To do work? To actually get something *done* that doesn't involve clicking links? Don't be absurd. Pay a bit more attention to folks your age and older, and let the k3wl k1dz play... because that *is* all they're doing.
mark
Re:funny comparing to "high speed rail" elsewhere
on
Amtrak Upgrades Wi-Fi
·
· Score: 1
The problems are that a) Congress has consistantly underfunded Amtrak for decades, leading to slower maintenance, and b) in just about all of the rest of the country, Amtrack goes over leased trackage from other railroads... who do no, or almost no, passenger, and all freight... and so they maintain the trackage to *freight* standards (trains hitting 80mph are *very* rare - 55 or 60 is full speed, and slower for long, heavy trains.
Note that in 1915? 25? a Pennsy E6 Atlantic (passenger steam loco) was clocked in Indiana pulling the Broadway Limited at 115mph. Again, the trackage was to *passenger* standards.
And, of course, Congress let the railroads prioritize Amtrack, on the leased trackage, *lower* than the frieght traffic, leading to frequent *long* delays of schedule.
Excerpt: The Kremlin is surprised by the "crude and clumsy" espionage activities of the United States in Russia, after a suspected CIA operative was caught trying to recruit a Russian agent, a senior advisor to President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. --- end excerpt ---
The article, NOT in the US infotainment media, goes on to say that the Russians think he was trying to get information on the Boston Marathon bombers. That's even *more* stupid, since all the US had to do was *ask* - they'd *love* to have us down on the Chechens, too.
I just tried to send an indirect contact to him, with a link to the story, today, about the about-to-begin clinlical trials of the new drug that appears to stop *all* cancers, and suggested his doctor might consider trying to contact the research team.
I'll probably try another means of contacting him this evening, since I do know enough folks that probably have his personal email.
Slashdot Mirror
If there's a fee for *using* the cards, then the employers, who presumably got a "good deal" from the vendors, have just given their employees a back-door pay cut.
mark
Has he also forgotton the original subtitle of the mag, "running light without overbyte"?
mark
a) I'm not getting an "e-reader" until I have *TOTAL* control - NO ONE ELSE gets to download, or DELETE, what I have *bought* (NOT licensed, not rented).
b) Foot traffic. The problem is that B&N *really* isn't paying attention to their core business... selling books and mags. A few years ago, right outside Chicago, I went into the one nearest me.
a) they hadn't changed the "newest" mystery books in months.
b) they hadn't changed the "newest" science fiction books in months.
c) it was October, and they didn't even list the Hugo winner in their system.
d) the one and only copy of Model Railroader they had was supposed to have been taken off the stand 10 days before.
Those are far enough a spread of different areas to say that they just didn't care. I've run into similar things here in the DC 'burbs. Borders, before they went under, the "newest" section was *always* updated every month, and *always* had the current issues of magazines. This is not how you run a business... unless you care to run it into the ground.
*That's* why they don't have enough foot traffic.
mark
Six foot is *easily* in that range.
mark
...was one where the author noted that the US was perplexed at the delay in response to an extradition request from Chinese officials.
I emailed the author, to suggest that might have been because they hadn't picked themselves up off the floor, where they'd fallen from laughing so hard at the incontrovertable proof that the US and China spied on their own people the same way... just that the US does it a bit more covertly.
mark "where's that sigfile some folks used to use on usenet, that was intended to overload Carnivore?"
I mean, the four food groups are sugar, carbs, chocolate and preservatives (which makes a Boston Creme donut the perfect food...).
mark
Excerpt:
The "Professor Jameson" series by Neil R. Jones (early 1930s) featured human and alien minds preserved in robot bodies. Reprinted in five Ace paperbacks in the late 1960s: The Planet of the Double Sun, The Sunless World, Space War, Twin Worlds and Doomsday on Ajiat
--- end excerpt ---
On a more serious note, yeah, right, once you can demonstrate the technology to literally allow one to localize their consciousness outside of their body, in a computer, then I'll take this for more than blue-sky and/or great little money-maker he's got going there.
mark
The one issue I'd have with locating it in Japan is, of course, earthquakes. This is going to be *how* long... and the alignment is how many zeros to the right of the decimal point? All of which would suggest frequent shutdowns to re-align, and that's assuming no *major* earthquakes.
mark
So, a vasectomy isn't reversible? Then how come the hundreds of billboards I've seen off US Interstates over the last dozen or so years advertising exactly that haven't been taken down, and the advertisers put in jail for false advertising?
mark
Since there's not a lot of actual response to the O/P....
First, I'd document why no other department likes them: get statements not just from dept heads, but users - one manager, maybe two users in each other dept that say they have a problem with IT.
Talk to the manager, and get him to talk about why he thinks other depts don't like IT, and why his dept has had deadline and budget problems.
Then discuss with the lower level managers and/or team leads about several (three each?) projects they've been involved with, and what the big issues were that kept them from succeeding.
Finally, maybe, talk to the IT manager again, and this time you'll have some points (I don't think I have to tell you not to bring up he said/she said, or personal issues) to ask him about, and get his response. Most managers I've known want to talk... and in this case, he may give you enough rope to hang him out to dry.
mark
They just lost a case in India a month or so ago, where the Indian court decided that there was so little difference in outcomes and side effects that they refused to allow a patent on a new drug that was to replace one whose patent was expiring.
And the ones in the last couple years pulled off the market in the US as having more side effects, and not especially better than the old ones in danger of being sold as a generic (the list is left as an excercise for the reader)?
mark
Let me guess: never gotten laid, and have no expectation of ever doing so? Even for-pay won't touch you?
Then the Egyptians must have been *real* hicks....
Excerpt:
The Hittites appear to be the first to understand the production of iron from its ores and regard it highly in their society. They began to smelt iron between 1500 and 1200 BC and the practice spread to the rest of the Near East after their empire fell in 1180 BC.[37] The subsequent period is called the Iron Age. Iron smelting, and thus the Iron Age, reached Europe two hundred years later and arrived in Zimbabwe, Africa by the 8th century.
--- end excerpt ---
- wikipedia, iron, history
"Kinder" says khb, the submitter? No, idiot, more like how sure are you that the unattended robot will go around noncombatants and other things that should not be damaged, and not blow things up in the middle of cities or towns occupied by them, or start fires in cropfields that in inappropriate weather, could massively spread (I suggest you read the news over the last week about the fires around LA).
And I'm *so* glad y'all are *sure* that the self-motivated 'bot won't mistake you, the "Good Guy", for the "Bad Guys" (tm).
mark "and just wait for the unattended bot that looks like Arnie"
First, what does it provide that no other language does, or does very, very poorly, enough to make an employer want to switch?
Second, "Just experiment and use var for your types. Once the idea is tested and you’re comfortable with the design, you can add type annotations.".
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!
Translation: it actively encourages lazy, bug-ridden code, and no, NO ONE will *ever* "go back and add type annotations". Won't happen.
mark
For one, as others have noted, no code will wind up bug-free (except, of course, for *mine*....). Why is it that the *customer* is finding them? You say you hire programmers... but do you hire *testers*, a *whole* 'nother skillset, and who will do things like regression tests? If you're not hiring them, you're doing an inadequate job.
For another, you say you can't afford $100k/yr - well, I know a *lot* of folks who don't make that - hell, I'm not there, and I've been working in the field nearly 30 years. But what *are* you paying them... and if you're in the US, do you provide a health plan they can buy into? If not, why shouldn't they look for more money, given the insane prices that the health insurance monopoly charges for their extortion?
If you can't afford what you need, perhaps you're not ready to run that larger business.
mark
You're an ignorant idiot.
Fact (check it on the IRS website, irs.gov): in 1972, 24% of the US federal revenue stream was from corporate taxes, and 16.67% from individual income taxes. Right now, it's barely above 10% for corporate taxes, and 44+% for individual income taxes.
Meaning you, personally, are paying taxes *instead* of Apple. How much of the year are you working to pay those?
mark
You mean emacs, the windowing operating system masquerading as a text editor?
mark, whose website reads, 'this website proudly built in vi' (but who wish Brief was still around)
1. They're hiring H1-B visa holders at 50% of what you're getting.
2. They're finally hiring moderate-term unemployed (long term unemployed still aren't being hired) at 60% or 67% of what you're getting.
3. ROI, baby. I mean the company's got to show increasing profits every year; good isn't good enough, and the CEO and other major shareholders are just barely getting by at $15M/yr, plus options and bonuses, you need to take less away from them.
4. You don't believe in unions....
mark
I've been talking about it for 25 years, and trying to start a conversation about it, and no one wants to pay attention.
For example, if you're having trouble getting a job right now, because so much has been shipped offshore, consider what it will be like when the folks offshore, like the women who died in the factory collapse in Pakistan, can't even get a job, because robots do it.
And when everywhere is worse than Spain's current 27% unemployment, and more like the Middle East's 70%-80%, who do you think will hire any of you to do diddly squat? What income will you live on?
And once we get over *that* hump, what will you do with your life, assuming you're not pushing a shopping cart down the street - sit on a couch and watch TV or YouTube for life?
mark
Substance over surface?
I have more windows open than you... but then, I'm in Linux, at work and at home. Even my non-computerphile wife has no more trouble with it than she does with Windows....
And don't sweat Win8 - they've already as good as admitted they blew it, and from what I see in the trade press and from other folks, corporations, and possibly the government, will treat it like Vista... that is, wait for Win9, and keep running 7.
Tablets are great... for the people on the sales floor, like at Sears the other night. To do work? To actually get something *done* that doesn't involve clicking links? Don't be absurd. Pay a bit more attention to folks your age and older, and let the k3wl k1dz play... because that *is* all they're doing.
mark
The problems are that a) Congress has consistantly underfunded Amtrak for decades, leading to slower maintenance, and b) in just about all of the rest of the country, Amtrack goes over leased trackage from other railroads... who do no, or almost no, passenger, and all freight... and so they maintain the trackage to *freight* standards (trains hitting 80mph are *very* rare - 55 or 60 is full speed, and slower for long, heavy trains.
Note that in 1915? 25? a Pennsy E6 Atlantic (passenger steam loco) was clocked in Indiana pulling the Broadway Limited at 115mph. Again, the trackage was to *passenger* standards.
And, of course, Congress let the railroads prioritize Amtrack, on the leased trackage, *lower* than the frieght traffic, leading to frequent *long* delays of schedule.
mark "why, yes, I do like trains...."
Excerpt:
The Kremlin is surprised by the "crude and clumsy" espionage activities of the United States in Russia, after a suspected CIA operative was caught trying to recruit a Russian agent, a senior advisor to President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.
--- end excerpt ---
The article, NOT in the US infotainment media, goes on to say that the Russians think he was trying to get information on the Boston Marathon bombers. That's even *more* stupid, since all the US had to do was *ask* - they'd *love* to have us down on the Chechens, too.
This isn't even up to the level of Maxwell Smart.
mark
A long way from having the technical knowledge to drill through the ice?
In space, no one can hear you *sigh*
Take one small solid fuel strap-on rocket. Strap on small asteroid. Aim, Fire, from space, at orbital velocities.
*After* you've checked to make sure that you're not right above one of the Europans sub-ice cities, and that the Monolith's not there.....
mark
I just tried to send an indirect contact to him, with a link to the story, today, about the about-to-begin clinlical trials of the new drug that appears to stop *all* cancers, and suggested his doctor might consider trying to contact the research team.
I'll probably try another means of contacting him this evening, since I do know enough folks that probably have his personal email.
mark, sf fan