It is of course nice and good when people do what they really like but big part of any software job is engineering and no science or art etc. Inspired people gave us great software because they were good engineers not because they were inspired.
I suppose some basic level of programming say scripting may be useful. Today there is almost no job (in the west) that does not involve some sort of data processing and tasks involving data processing devices which can be simplified by use of said scripting. This and some basic statistics so that the kids have basic foundations for intelligent ignoring of nonsense pumped into our brains by media, politicians etc.
...Maybe offer programming as an alternative to having to take a foreign language (why is that mandatory anyway?).
You realize of course that foreign language is a basic skill for almost anybody in the world as it lets kids recognize the fact that there are people beyond borders of your country and that these people speak, it allows you also to know about these people and communicate with them. Besides this it may allow you to be exposed to other cultures which may be beneficial.
OTOH I always hated big part of my curriculum. I understood at some point that the school (university also) is just a tool that lets you learn basics among them how to learn effectively as well as exposes you to things I never thought existed. Surviving pointless classes is a ability that lets you also surviving blah-blah produced by management and marketing deps of different companies as well as nonsense produced by politicians in your country by providing you with well trained ability to ignore them effortlessly.
Of course it also may be that you live in a country that such exposure and access to foreign media is not appreciated and even forbidden, ever wondered why is that? Could this be that the command of 'foreign' language may be used a weapon against tyranny?
Yet another thought - in country I live in at least 14% of population speak another language than I do. It is 'foreign' language yet it can be useful for my son to speak it as majority of his peers at school speaks it off of school. Of course learning some languages may be less useful as others.
meanwhile I work a big (still albeit managers are trying their best) software company and what I see is that my customer is a so called product owner of which I constantly have to ask what he means and how he wants it to be delivered. Swearing at the poor guy makes no sense so we negotiate and waste a lots of time. It could be better if we could communicate in formulas abut it is as it is. I guess society based on efficiency would be very tough to live in: no friends, no family and no other things that make up life because they are inefficient. The other end: nice people with social skills but incapable of averting the danger of being eaten by a tiger, hit by an ice berg etc is possibly hell too.
What counts is a common sense and finding a middle way. Running generalizations like: IT engineers are low on social skills is mostly taken from basic and generally available in most interlocutors inability to use brains and logic to understand technical issues they want these engineers to solve and blaming this inability on engineers (who else). Geeks of course do not help but openly explaining that customer is an idiot (which may be true but does not have to be said).
that is all interesting but besides geeks behaving like assholes we have salespeople behaving differently but still being assholes, marketing people behaving yet more differently and still being assholes etc The problem here may be that we got used to ways for instance marketing&sales people are bullshitting us all the way up their arse and the geeks way is much more open and straight more like evil boss'es way but without associated power. What I wanted to say is that social skills are important but being nice and polished does not mean you are a good person, good engineer etc.The skills are however used as a useful proxy to determine whether or not you are a nice person which may but does not have to back fire ever so often.
In a sense it is similar a difference as between coaching and telling: one is nicer the other more suitable in fast changing hostile environment that is not forgiving the difference between comma and full stop. You change if you have to of course, most of us did in a life time.
well it makes a difference if you can continue business as usual or you not only have to find new customers but also new ways of transporting the stuff. Apparently Saudis preemptively built an alternative i.e. pipe to the other side of their peninsula so the reduction of oil delivered to the markets will be less savage as Iran possibly hopes it to be. Granted if the straights will be blocked there will be a serious distraction. What I wanted to say is that the distraction will be likely to be more savage to Iran than to us. We depend on their oil much less than they do.
There is always something to fear from hands of insurance companies after all they are not there to pay you but to provide good salary to their bosses. The good ones among them sometimes pay as you expect. The bad ones invest in lawyers and calculate their fees into your premiums. So let us see the black box shows that indeed you have not sped up at the time of accident but you did that few times before - you are a reckless driver and albeit not at the time of accident you violated pour terms of service etc or your black box shows that you used hard breaking involving ABS activation 10 times last week so albeit you did not drive too fast you were not watching what you do etc I am not a lawyer of course but I know enough about insurance companies, if they are bad in Europe the chances are that they are even 'better' in US of A.
Other than that I agree: black boxes are a good thing. If (and that is a big if) their use is regulated and assessment of their contents standardizes. I guess we have nothing to say in that matter anyway and can only hope this will not bite us in the arse by first occasion.
well all empires die eventually (and some come back from ashes) and I am not so sure you will be so happy minding your business when US were actually to collapse (in whatever sense and however unlikely that is actually) - I actually prefer their corrupt governments so far than what else is there in store - not because they are so good but because they corrupt ways are less painful for other peoples than what the alternatives are out there.
it would also have quite an impact on Iran itself. The fact is that paradoxically the lunatics on persian side are dependent on fuel imports as they spent so much time building nukes that they did not manage to build enough refineries. So they would have a fuel problem themselves and this on top of the bombs that US and few their neighbours would drop on them.
well if they did not maybe we would have a chance to see soviet tanks in action in western EU then? It is indeed interesting line of though: there is a problem, somebody actively i.e. with some expense seeks to avoid it and it succeeds and then they come and say it all was not necessary because we the problem was not one in the first place. That sounds like a fallacy to me. The rest of course is true - military prepares to last war. Only the last war for US was never longer than 10 years earlier over the course of last 60 years or? You can reuse big parts of these preparations at least you have some basis on which you can do your changes instead of waiting to see what the evil side has in store.
The bad thing is that CNN indeed did not have anything to cover for quite some time. Lunatics in Teheran are bound to try their new toys and losses are justified for them (they are not losses anyway as people go to heaven directly of course). They are maybe not silly enough to try yet but there will be time when they think USA is hopelessly stretched and will not answer - Saddam did the same mistake. At some point some of the lunatics will succeed of course but not before some major loss of life on CCN can be observed. OTOH if price of fuel goes up it is good for producers - Iran is a producer of oil so....
OTOH it is us or them. You are not seriously thinking that they spend a thought or two losses that can be incurred if they thought that at the same time this would bring them some major profit in terms of popularity inland or even a great win against infidels??? Argentina did also the same and if you live in the west then yes you are with us (and US) on this one - you are also an infidel. I only wonder when do they try biological weapons - judged on recent developments in flu research you do not need this much money and equipment to produce something nasty. It is not question if but when and how.
these are not the same glaciers that induced the story. The ones in Alps are melting all right and produced a nice body for science and touristic attraction for Northern Italy (I think). The other thing I was wondering about is this: global warming is this: the change in climate caused by melting ice caps may cause decrease of temperatures further down towards equator as massive amounts of cold water hit the oceans. Hos is this going to affect averages?
Other thing that wonders me is the climate warming is based on average temperatures per earth and year which is a terrible proxy for determining anything and is a no go for a discussion with a person that is bound to use any feasible fallacy to prevent you from reaching any conclusion. I guess we do not have one but I somehow feel that some explanations of this could help explain the phenomenon of: it is warmer in general but today morning I was freezing in my apartment this morning (because I set the air conditioner too low).
you are not often here are you - I can see from logical and (OMG) systematic approach to argument that you are not used to/. discussions. Good to have you here though get an account and get abused properly I'd say.
This and the fact that stop global warning by talk- with-big-business-and-US,-Chinese-and-other-silly-but-authoritarian-govs'-(are those not the same???)-so-that-a-common-approach-and-global-action-can-be-achieved sort of approach was never going to go beyond talk makes me think t hat one indeed should start looking at the ways to adopt instead of talking with idiots. OTOH these idiots have enough burning power to make you choke anyway so dealing with them is a must only talking instead using a stick is not working as we see.
well the state is structure built on some believes or fantasies if you will and these believes or fantasies keep the underlying society coherent. from this perspective politics of the state must involve some sort of recognition of these fantasies. These fantasies do not have to bind to any existing religion but there were times when it was easier if they at least formally did. Whether they i.e. politics also recognize reason is one thing that is not clear but I think we may misinterpret things just slightly if we consider our politicians as ignorant morons w/o brains.. Let us take a single politician and his her perspective. Such person has rarely a chance to get to absolute top but a chance to get to reasonable but not always formal power is big enough. To get there and to keep hold of such warm and well funded place means one must make decisions which are optimized for keeping the post/position/power not to show up as a bright mind, just person or a reasonable guy, great leader etc. If you optimize things that way then your own short, medium and long term profits may not be associated with the well being of community that you represent in any viable time frame.
From certain perspective the coherence needed for a country to function properly and for leaders of such country to make decisions based on reason and best guestimates science can get can only exists if society in such country is bound with some set of common ideas - if it does not what you get is cacophony of voices i.e. noise and clear leadership only in times of clear and visible danger (that is easy to explain in two sentences so that people understand). The non-coherent society may function quite well if it is strong enough but if tensions (economic, demographic, natural, military etc) become great enough the need for coherence arises - these great time for religion actually. IT seems that societies that face stress have better chances of survival if they they have some common set of rules and these are usually but not always based on global religion. This of course is not to say that for instance US of A faces such situation today but somehow when I look at the mess there (and elsewhere in the west) I have impression judgment day is not far away (of course this is real world so after judgment day there is another w/ or w/o us).
This could actually be a fascinating discussion but I guess noise to signal ratio is too high.
Slashdot Mirror
It is of course nice and good when people do what they really like but big part of any software job is engineering and no science or art etc. Inspired people gave us great software because they were good engineers not because they were inspired.
Dragging into the street is OK but wooden sticks, metal or rubber bars are much better at handling in this situation.
I think MacGyver usually succeeded?
you missed free pr0n but then again if you ask nobody is watching it anyway so maybe not....
I'm personally of the opinion that the vast majority of modern white collar jobs are going to be off shored in the near future.
.
Here it is I fixed it for you.
I suppose some basic level of programming say scripting may be useful. Today there is almost no job (in the west) that does not involve some sort of data processing and tasks involving data processing devices which can be simplified by use of said scripting. This and some basic statistics so that the kids have basic foundations for intelligent ignoring of nonsense pumped into our brains by media, politicians etc.
...Maybe offer programming as an alternative to having to take a foreign language (why is that mandatory anyway?).
You realize of course that foreign language is a basic skill for almost anybody in the world as it lets kids recognize the fact that there are people beyond borders of your country and that these people speak, it allows you also to know about these people and communicate with them. Besides this it may allow you to be exposed to other cultures which may be beneficial.
OTOH I always hated big part of my curriculum. I understood at some point that the school (university also) is just a tool that lets you learn basics among them how to learn effectively as well as exposes you to things I never thought existed. Surviving pointless classes is a ability that lets you also surviving blah-blah produced by management and marketing deps of different companies as well as nonsense produced by politicians in your country by providing you with well trained ability to ignore them effortlessly.
Of course it also may be that you live in a country that such exposure and access to foreign media is not appreciated and even forbidden, ever wondered why is that? Could this be that the command of 'foreign' language may be used a weapon against tyranny?
Yet another thought - in country I live in at least 14% of population speak another language than I do. It is 'foreign' language yet it can be useful for my son to speak it as majority of his peers at school speaks it off of school. Of course learning some languages may be less useful as others.
What counts is a common sense and finding a middle way. Running generalizations like: IT engineers are low on social skills is mostly taken from basic and generally available in most interlocutors inability to use brains and logic to understand technical issues they want these engineers to solve and blaming this inability on engineers (who else). Geeks of course do not help but openly explaining that customer is an idiot (which may be true but does not have to be said).
amen
In a sense it is similar a difference as between coaching and telling: one is nicer the other more suitable in fast changing hostile environment that is not forgiving the difference between comma and full stop. You change if you have to of course, most of us did in a life time.
well it makes a difference if you can continue business as usual or you not only have to find new customers but also new ways of transporting the stuff. Apparently Saudis preemptively built an alternative i.e. pipe to the other side of their peninsula so the reduction of oil delivered to the markets will be less savage as Iran possibly hopes it to be. Granted if the straights will be blocked there will be a serious distraction. What I wanted to say is that the distraction will be likely to be more savage to Iran than to us. We depend on their oil much less than they do.
so no one has to worry - heroes of Wall Street will save the day for everyone....
There is always something to fear from hands of insurance companies after all they are not there to pay you but to provide good salary to their bosses. The good ones among them sometimes pay as you expect. The bad ones invest in lawyers and calculate their fees into your premiums. So let us see the black box shows that indeed you have not sped up at the time of accident but you did that few times before - you are a reckless driver and albeit not at the time of accident you violated pour terms of service etc or your black box shows that you used hard breaking involving ABS activation 10 times last week so albeit you did not drive too fast you were not watching what you do etc I am not a lawyer of course but I know enough about insurance companies, if they are bad in Europe the chances are that they are even 'better' in US of A. Other than that I agree: black boxes are a good thing. If (and that is a big if) their use is regulated and assessment of their contents standardizes. I guess we have nothing to say in that matter anyway and can only hope this will not bite us in the arse by first occasion.
three different lines of thought??? a joke?
well all empires die eventually (and some come back from ashes) and I am not so sure you will be so happy minding your business when US were actually to collapse (in whatever sense and however unlikely that is actually) - I actually prefer their corrupt governments so far than what else is there in store - not because they are so good but because they corrupt ways are less painful for other peoples than what the alternatives are out there.
it would also have quite an impact on Iran itself. The fact is that paradoxically the lunatics on persian side are dependent on fuel imports as they spent so much time building nukes that they did not manage to build enough refineries. So they would have a fuel problem themselves and this on top of the bombs that US and few their neighbours would drop on them.
well if they did not maybe we would have a chance to see soviet tanks in action in western EU then? It is indeed interesting line of though: there is a problem, somebody actively i.e. with some expense seeks to avoid it and it succeeds and then they come and say it all was not necessary because we the problem was not one in the first place. That sounds like a fallacy to me. The rest of course is true - military prepares to last war. Only the last war for US was never longer than 10 years earlier over the course of last 60 years or? You can reuse big parts of these preparations at least you have some basis on which you can do your changes instead of waiting to see what the evil side has in store.
OTOH it is us or them. You are not seriously thinking that they spend a thought or two losses that can be incurred if they thought that at the same time this would bring them some major profit in terms of popularity inland or even a great win against infidels??? Argentina did also the same and if you live in the west then yes you are with us (and US) on this one - you are also an infidel. I only wonder when do they try biological weapons - judged on recent developments in flu research you do not need this much money and equipment to produce something nasty. It is not question if but when and how.
Well Swedes managed to do it right and albeit EU Commission tries hard to destroy it systembolaget shops still work. I must say from all the countries I visited in Europe the common source of refreshments is the best in Sweden. The special wine shops are missing but with good quality of goods in normal shop I hardly ever needed the specialists. From a red neck perspective this is of course communism but look I do not care what some uneducated asshole or some other neoliberal uneducated redneck says is or is not good - if I enjoy using it and it works for bigger part of the society why not have it? But I digress - what I wanted to say is that having state monopoly shops for alcohol beverages is not by itself a bad thing. It is the way it is done which matters.
fits nicely into immigration policies of majority if not all countries on earth....
Other thing that wonders me is the climate warming is based on average temperatures per earth and year which is a terrible proxy for determining anything and is a no go for a discussion with a person that is bound to use any feasible fallacy to prevent you from reaching any conclusion. I guess we do not have one but I somehow feel that some explanations of this could help explain the phenomenon of: it is warmer in general but today morning I was freezing in my apartment this morning (because I set the air conditioner too low).
you are not often here are you - I can see from logical and (OMG) systematic approach to argument that you are not used to /. discussions. Good to have you here though get an account and get abused properly I'd say.
This and the fact that stop global warning by talk- with-big-business-and-US,-Chinese-and-other-silly-but-authoritarian-govs'-(are those not the same???)-so-that-a-common-approach-and-global-action-can-be-achieved sort of approach was never going to go beyond talk makes me think t hat one indeed should start looking at the ways to adopt instead of talking with idiots. OTOH these idiots have enough burning power to make you choke anyway so dealing with them is a must only talking instead using a stick is not working as we see.
yes and it is me
From certain perspective the coherence needed for a country to function properly and for leaders of such country to make decisions based on reason and best guestimates science can get can only exists if society in such country is bound with some set of common ideas - if it does not what you get is cacophony of voices i.e. noise and clear leadership only in times of clear and visible danger (that is easy to explain in two sentences so that people understand). The non-coherent society may function quite well if it is strong enough but if tensions (economic, demographic, natural, military etc) become great enough the need for coherence arises - these great time for religion actually. IT seems that societies that face stress have better chances of survival if they they have some common set of rules and these are usually but not always based on global religion. This of course is not to say that for instance US of A faces such situation today but somehow when I look at the mess there (and elsewhere in the west) I have impression judgment day is not far away (of course this is real world so after judgment day there is another w/ or w/o us).
This could actually be a fascinating discussion but I guess noise to signal ratio is too high.