Let me fix that for you:
Seems to me there are two good solutions for the customer:
Don't shop at Best Buy.
Don't shop at Best Buy.
You're not sticking it too them by helping them making only a 20% profit instead of 25%. If you think Best Buy is ripping people off, don't bother printing out their ad unless it's to take it to a competitor that price matches who won't try to rip you off. The market absolutely cannot acquiesce on this sort of thing - if they're ripping off your fellow shopper, they are eventually going to try to rip you off, too. If you believe a company is dishonest, don't give them your money, period.
Now, in all fairness to Best Buy, the thing is not open and shut to me yet. It looks bad, and I've been following this one for a while, but I'm still not 100% sold. But regarding the principles of the matter, if you've decided that they (or anybody else) are dishonest, you can't spend your money there or the problem is only going to get worse.
But I don't see any actual products, just products by other companies that licensed their technology. I guess if they made a piece of hardware that Logitech just sticks in their joystick that would be one thing, but their website is pretty vague about what Immersion itself actually creates. Theres a lot of talk about licensing, and I did find a snippet about some middleware, but thats about it. I'm not saying that they don't have their own products, but their site doesn't seem to indicate whether or not they actually develop the hardware or technology, thus my original question. Going out on a limb here, but I don't think that in itself would necessarily qualify them patent trolls. The point of patents is specifically to protect inventors without investors - they have a good idea but are unable to develop it, or are unable to compete with bigger companies who could manufacture and sell the product for less. The whole point of patents is to allow inventors to license them to other people. What makes somebody a patent troll is when that's their business model - they don't develop anything, not even a prototype, they just buy up broad patents and attempt to extort royalties from anybody selling a similar product who happens to have deep pockets. In this case, Immersion really doesn't strike me as a patent troll - they sell a service, provide the equipment (whether or not they manufacture it themselves), developed SDKs, and their business model specifically seems to relate to force feedback solutions. Not a typical troll, if you ask me.
Why is this such a big deal?
Why can't Iran do all the things that the U.S. do all the time?
What is the problem with Iran investing in nuclear research and space technologies? The big deal is that Mutually Assured Destruction does not work with the country that designed, engineered, and implemented suicide bombing. MAD should scare the crap out of people anybody who realizes that the US and Iran are both diametrically opposed countries whose foreign policy is heavily influenced (and at times, controlled) by religious fundamentalists. The US already has nuclear weapons. If Iran gets them, you can almost guarantee the US and Iran will eventually use them against each other (I'd say completely guarantee, but there's the very real possibility that Israel will beat us to the punch when it comes to a nuclear engagement with Iran).
Seriously, how many "security experts" do you know running Windows? That's like asking, "Seriously, how many 'cultural anthropologists' do you know working in Borneo?" or "how many 'astronauts' do you know working in space?" Where do you expect them to be, Boston? You go where the action is.
it isn't an "access control circumvention device" any more than something like a car key is and even if it was, an invalid serial# certainly could not be one since it doesn't even provide access
That's exactly what a key is - an access control device
Uh, NO.
An 'access control device' and an 'access control circumvention device' are not at all the same thing. A car key is an access control device, a slim jim is an access control circumvention device. Oops, guess I breezed right over the word 'circumvention.' I see your point. My point was that (common sense aside), this argument didn't work defending deCSS because regardless of whether you use the owner's key or a slim jim, actually driving off in somebody else's car without their permission is still grand theft auto. The fact that his software uses an access control device makes it eligible for DMCA protection.
Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, using someone else's serial number is not a crime - you can't copyright a serial number and the DMCA shouldn't apply to a valid serial# since it isn't an "access control circumvention device" any more than something like a car key is, and even if it was an invalid serial# certainly could not be one since it doesn't even work.
That's exactly what a key is - an access control device - and the word key, when used in cryptography, is picked specifically because it was analogous to using a key to 'access' whatever happens to be on the other side of a lock (or cipher). This sounds like a classic case of DMCA-eligible protection.
I'm reserving actually issuing my opinion on this clown's anti-piracy's measures because I'm sure I could rant for several pages, and nothing bugs me more on slashdot than seeing Read the rest of this comment...
He's a Slashdotter, why on Earth would he ask someone who knows?
But he asked what was the *moral* thing to do.
In which case I would have thought a lawyer would be the last person I would ask...;-) You know it's a sad state of affairs when lawyer jokes are moderated Insightful rather than Funny... Cheers.
The best thing you can do is never give out your information. Protect it like you're a secret agent. Protect it against torturous interrogation. Protect it to point of taking that suicide pill hidden as the third button on your shirt.
Always ask yourself why they need it, and do you trust them to secure your information.
In Canada right now their are two separatecredit card breaches under investigation. This isn't even a phishing thing, this is just plain old sloppy security.
I suspect that there are many other breaches that haven't been detected and or reported. So I strongly recommend that you refuse to give out personal information to these locations. Don't sign up for rewards cards, don't let them collect your address, and phone, and SSN, when you buy a t-shirt. They don't need it! And I don't trust them.
In that light, here are some handy tools for the justifiably paranoid:
TrueCrypt - Excellent free encryption app for most platforms (even Windows)
The only reason I ever do anything nice for anybody is because it makes me happy to see them happy. From Forbes' coverage:
People may not perform selfless acts just for an emotional reward, a new brain study suggests.
Instead, they may do good because they're acutely tuned into the needs and actions of others.
"Perhaps altruism did not grow out of a warm-glow feeling of doing good for others, but out of the simple recognition that that thing over there is a person that has intentions and goals. And therefore, I might want to treat them like I might want them to treat myself," explained study author Scott Huettel, an associate professor of psychology at Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, N.C.... For decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have puzzled over the tendency of humans to engage in altruistic acts -- defined by Huettel's group as acts "that intentionally benefit another organism, incur no direct personal benefit, and sometimes bear a personal cost." [emphasis mine]
In plain English, the part of you responsible for selfish behavior is not the same as the part of you responsible for altruistic behavior. Altruistic people really are helping others to help others rather than to just feel good about themselves or get something in return. I'd recommend reading the entire Forbes article on it, it's a pretty good read.
1. Satire: Perhaps the most confounding form of humor, note the subtle reference to the discussion embedded in a story about something else. This wasn't flaming slashdot, it was about how spam that appears to originate from your domain (but doesn't) can get you blacklisted by site admins as clueless as the moderators who flagged the parent as flamebait. Here is a good example of satire:
I'm sorry but your message from articles.slashdot.org was REJECTED because it has been flagged by our system as spam. You may not be the source of the spam, but our servers do not respect SPF flags and therefore accept, process and then bounce almost any old slutty slice of bits that get hucked our way. We blame you, the owner of the spoofed domain.
To get a hard copy of this message please send $1 to Happy Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield.
Hint to poster: Next time, just go with the "overlords" joke.
3. Relevancy: Recent news stories highlight that most spam is coming from botnets under the control of Eastern European and Russian criminal organizations. Had you bothered to read anything on/. about spam prior to moderating just now, you'd probably know this. Hence the following is, in fact, funny:
Promotional consideration has been provided by the Russian Mob.
Thank you for moderating today! We hope you enjoyed your crack!
Slightly offtopic (ready for mod-down) but one thing I've never understood about the double-slit experiment is the result you get when only one photon is sent at a time, i.e. that the interference pattern still appears. Apparently this is a good example of a) wave-particle duality (which I understand) and b) quantum determinancy (which I don't). If someone can clarify this experiment to me it would be appreciated.
Disclaimer: My exposure to quantum physics is "A Brief History Of Time", Wikipedia and teh intarweb.
Disclaimer: Mine too. I think your question is entirely on topic, though.
No, I think the wave-particle duality is specifically the same weirdness as this particular result. The single photon still behaves like a wave (as in the dual slit experiment). The surprise was that you can actually encode and preserve information about the slit in that waveform. Multiple photons went through (not much of an experiment if they only tested it on one photon), but the article also states that it is the behavior of a single photon that let them achieve this result. As others have pointed out, the reason this made the news is because they were able to store the light. The ability to store a "shadow" of the slit the photon passed through is not so much unexpected as it is just plain clever.
When a Republican wins a close election, it was stolen.
When a Dem wins a close election, it's the will of the people.
See Governor, Washington state. How many selective recounts did it take until the Dem won?
Starting Score: 0 points
Moderation 0
50% Insightful
30% Flamebait
20% Troll
Extra 'Insightful' Modifier 0 (Edit)
Total Score: 0
Heh. I do believe I find the moderation on this post more interesting than the actual flamewar that it inspired. I almost wish we had meta-meta-moderation so I could see how this plays out...
Wow. What great advice! I almost wish I'd said something about "going back to school to do something more rewarding with my life, probably major in mathematics and then either teach or maybe try engineering" in my original post!
Why is this not an option? I got sick of programming for a living, I discovered that I love teaching, and now I'm back in graduate school for a PhD. It's hard (sell your house, sell a car to pay off the other one; moreover, convince your wife that it's a good idea), but not impossible. For some it's the best choice overall.
No worries, I was being sarcastic. The post I was replying to was flamebait, but I decided to bite with a little sarcasm. No, I'm following in your footsteps. Going for my Masters, and my wife's on board, though we're both still undergrad at this point. I'm planning on teaching music (hence the name enharmonix) and math (hence me knowing what/. is), but would consider engineering in the private sector if an opportunity were to arise. But yeah, I'm done programming too (w/ the possible exception of contracts, but then only to put toward tuition). Anyway, good luck and wish me the same! Cheers.
Unionizing IT is not the answer. A couple of years ago I did a contract in a unionized IT shop and it was a nightmare! Incompetent, unqualified, downright lazy people in critical support positions, and protected by the union. Unions cater to the lowest common denominator and cause quality and productivity to suffer. Individuals have as much power as a union, they just need to stand up for it!
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Unions are rarely the employees anymore; they're often extortion rings masquerading as employees. However, there are a few places where unions do what they're meant to - I can guarantee the airline industry unions have been a boon to their members. But you have a point, where's there's money (in this case, union dues), there's bound to be corruption.
I have been in IT for 20+ years, I have worked in a lot of different shops, and you only get abused if you accept it.
I suppose that came off as suggesting my past employers were abusive, and that's not the case. I mean the environment is abusive, though I can't imagine why that is. Grocery store or fast food restaurant employees don't deserve the sort of environment I've seen in some IT shops... No, it's not that bad, but the management doesn't always seem to mesh up with the profession.
The beauty of IT is that there is ALWAYS another job out there. In 20+ years I have only been out of work ~2 months total, and yes, I have changed jobs twice in the last 5 years.
I dunno, it seems to me the jobs get fewer and farther between, but I'm glad to hear you haven't had that experience. It seems to me outsourcing is more threatening to junior and midlevel professionals. If our homegrown programmers can't get in the door, how can they ever work their way up the corporate ladder to where you're at? I think part of the reason you're in a more secure position is because of your experience. Outsourcing is removing the opportunity for new talent who will fill your shoes when you move up or retire.
Outsourcing is completely overblown, computers are here to stay and only getting more integrated into our lives and businesses, there is going to be IT work for a very long time.
Well, let's all just keep rooting for the free market. Either outsourcing isn't a problem and everything is fine, or it is a problem. If it is, then as other countries keep taking our money, they'll experience inflation and start demanding more money from us (this is already happening in India), and those employees will eventually cost too much to justify the added expense of importing them. I don't see outsourcing as something sustainable in the longterm, but I do see it as something detrimental to the US IT sector now. Just the other day, I bumped into a guy I used to work with (mid- to senior-level Applications Developer), and asked him if he was still working for the same company I'd worked with him at. Well, it turns out they'd fired their entire IT staff of about 50 and replaced them all with folks on H1-B visas at a fraction of the cost. Anyway, that's my experience. Like I said, I'm glad it hasn't been yours, and I hope it stays that way. Cheers.
Life's not fair - deal with it. Each profession has pros and cons. Quit whining and start learning something new. It's nothing to do with unions, and I've never found it abusive. At least, I don't take any crap. You need to try working in a few places until you find something you like - perhaps contracting.
Wow. What great advice! I almost wish I'd said something about "going back to school to do something more rewarding with my life, probably major in mathematics and then either teach or maybe try engineering" in my original post! You know, assuming you don't have Asperger's Syndrome, I think you'd be terrific management material. Again, thanks for the wonderful advice! Cheers.
Younger people tend not to have families and, lacking experience, will often be coerced into working longer hours etc. They could be afraid that you would not put up with such conditions and bolt as soon as you got the chance.
*sigh* This is part of the problem with programming. This is rarely an issue in any other career (except maybe medicine). For just about any other occupation, candidates who are married with children are more desirable because even though they may have commitments outside of work, other people are relying on them, and they are less likely to make haphazard career decisions. Simply put, they are better long term employees -- they are already committed to their families and are therefore more committed to their employer. Yet, somehow, in IT, a family is often a liability. Something about that is not right in my book.
I'm 26, but I am saving like hell because I know that age discrimination is rife in this industry, and the more I save for retirement right now, the less I have to worry about such things.
I'm 28 and I'm out of the programming game. Enron's collapse did me in. I'm going back to school to do something more rewarding with my life, probably major in mathematics and then either teach or maybe try engineering. If the IT industry wasn't so abusive maybe I'd still be in it, but I'm just not that interested in programming anymore (for a living, anyway - I still program in my spare time). You know, if there was ever an industry in the last 50 years that needed to unionize, it's IT...
I know exactly how you feel and have sort of done the same thing to myself. I guess the thing employers look for is experience plus skills. The longer you work without learning something new, the more archaic your skills become, but you offset that with experience. If you want to make yourself more attractive that noob candidates, you can make yourself competitive with the young bloods by going out and getting certified in more recent technologies. For example, if you've got 12 years' experience developing in C++ on Unix, you probably aren't going to attract anybody looking for ASP.NET in C#. But, you can always go out and get that certification, and I'll tell you something: MSCD + 12 years experience programming C++ in Unix is far more attractive than an MSCD by itself. If you're on equal footing in terms of current skills but have more real world experience, you win.
This is, of course, assuming you already have your degree. If you've got this much experience and are still concerned about your ability to compete with greenhorns with degrees, you may also want to consider finishing your degree. Word of advice, though: don't expect to have a career again until you finish. Quitting your career to go back to school only looks good if you actually finish school! And if you have a degree (e.g., a BS in CS), then go for your MBA and then you will be management material.
Just my advice, there are plenty of other pros here who I'm sure can elaborate on or even contradict my advice, but I guess that's why you're asking. Cheers, and good luck!
* Okay, technically the white one is called Chimay Triple
Oh, and a word of warning to the uninitiated who read this, Chimay is unfiltered and unpasteurized, so you should either use a special glass to drink it out of, or invest in some Immodium.
You know Homeland Security is gonna find a way to use this on our foreheads. It MUST be stopped now! You mean we can print messages on beer and foreheads? Brilliant!
They already use Word to compose messages in Outlook 2003 (and probably earlier), so why would they have used a different engine to render the messages?
Why even have two different rendering engines in the first place?
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I would think the word "code reuse" should have occurred to MS a long time ago. Then again, I don't doubt the corporate gears grind slowly -- better late than never, you know.
If the corporations are intelligent, they care about both the number of units moved AND the money earned. Especially when you are dealing with video game consoles, and you have to convince developers and publishers to support your console.
It's all well and good for Sony if they are pulling in the same amount of money by selling fewer PS3s for more money, but all Square-Enix is looking at is the fact that there are less than half the number of potential customers out there who have $350 less to spend on their games.
Concur. Considering Ninentdo is only barely not breaking even per console sale and they are moving a lot more units, and console manufacturers make their money from the games anyway, it really should only boil down to who sells the most units. That's why I'm not sure I trust the analysis that predicts PS3 winning by 2010... It just seems like there will be more Wiis, which means more Wii games, meaning Wii wiill wiin.
How does selling 35% as many consoles constitute being "neck and neck" is sales? What about 46%?
Well, I agree with your comment, but as somebody else pointed out in an earlier story, corporations aren't concerned w/ the number of consoles, they're concerned with money.
If you consider the average cost to the consumer per console times the number sold, PS3 and Wii really are neck and neck. In your defense, though, if you consider the cost to the manufacturer per console (how much of a loss they're taking per sale), Nintendo is absolutely trouncing Sony.
Slashdot Mirror
You're not sticking it too them by helping them making only a 20% profit instead of 25%. If you think Best Buy is ripping people off, don't bother printing out their ad unless it's to take it to a competitor that price matches who won't try to rip you off. The market absolutely cannot acquiesce on this sort of thing - if they're ripping off your fellow shopper, they are eventually going to try to rip you off, too. If you believe a company is dishonest, don't give them your money, period.
Now, in all fairness to Best Buy, the thing is not open and shut to me yet. It looks bad, and I've been following this one for a while, but I'm still not 100% sold. But regarding the principles of the matter, if you've decided that they (or anybody else) are dishonest, you can't spend your money there or the problem is only going to get worse.
Why can't Iran do all the things that the U.S. do all the time?
What is the problem with Iran investing in nuclear research and space technologies?
The big deal is that Mutually Assured Destruction does not work with the country that designed, engineered, and implemented suicide bombing. MAD should scare the crap out of people anybody who realizes that the US and Iran are both diametrically opposed countries whose foreign policy is heavily influenced (and at times, controlled) by religious fundamentalists. The US already has nuclear weapons. If Iran gets them, you can almost guarantee the US and Iran will eventually use them against each other (I'd say completely guarantee, but there's the very real possibility that Israel will beat us to the punch when it comes to a nuclear engagement with Iran).
An 'access control device' and an 'access control circumvention device' are not at all the same thing. A car key is an access control device, a slim jim is an access control circumvention device. Oops, guess I breezed right over the word 'circumvention.' I see your point. My point was that (common sense aside), this argument didn't work defending deCSS because regardless of whether you use the owner's key or a slim jim, actually driving off in somebody else's car without their permission is still grand theft auto. The fact that his software uses an access control device makes it eligible for DMCA protection.
That's exactly what a key is - an access control device - and the word key, when used in cryptography, is picked specifically because it was analogous to using a key to 'access' whatever happens to be on the other side of a lock (or cipher). This sounds like a classic case of DMCA-eligible protection.
I'm reserving actually issuing my opinion on this clown's anti-piracy's measures because I'm sure I could rant for several pages, and nothing bugs me more on slashdot than seeing
Read the rest of this comment...
But he asked what was the *moral* thing to do.
In which case I would have thought a lawyer would be the last person I would ask...
And we all know Slashdot is just crawling with Microsoft fanboys...
Hint: /.'s new tagging system includes !yro if you really feel that way...
Um, problem solved?
(Hint: Win+R)
Always ask yourself why they need it, and do you trust them to secure your information.
In Canada right now their are two separate credit card breaches under investigation. This isn't even a phishing thing, this is just plain old sloppy security.
I suspect that there are many other breaches that haven't been detected and or reported. So I strongly recommend that you refuse to give out personal information to these locations. Don't sign up for rewards cards, don't let them collect your address, and phone, and SSN, when you buy a t-shirt. They don't need it! And I don't trust them.
In that light, here are some handy tools for the justifiably paranoid:
- TrueCrypt - Excellent free encryption app for most platforms (even Windows)
- 10 Minute Mail - Free disposable email addresses
- Private Phone - Free disposable phone numbers
- MBNA Virtual Cards* - Virtual credit cards for online purchases that won't ruin your credit if stolen
Of course, if you're too paranoid to use option 4, just keep all your cash in your mattress and buy prepaid credit cards when you want to shop online.People may not perform selfless acts just for an emotional reward, a new brain study suggests.
Instead, they may do good because they're acutely tuned into the needs and actions of others.
"Perhaps altruism did not grow out of a warm-glow feeling of doing good for others, but out of the simple recognition that that thing over there is a person that has intentions and goals. And therefore, I might want to treat them like I might want them to treat myself," explained study author Scott Huettel, an associate professor of psychology at Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, N.C. ... For decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have puzzled over the tendency of humans to engage in altruistic acts -- defined by Huettel's group as acts "that intentionally benefit another organism, incur no direct personal benefit, and sometimes bear a personal cost." [emphasis mine]
In plain English, the part of you responsible for selfish behavior is not the same as the part of you responsible for altruistic behavior. Altruistic people really are helping others to help others rather than to just feel good about themselves or get something in return. I'd recommend reading the entire Forbes article on it, it's a pretty good read.
1. Satire: Perhaps the most confounding form of humor, note the subtle reference to the discussion embedded in a story about something else. This wasn't flaming slashdot, it was about how spam that appears to originate from your domain (but doesn't) can get you blacklisted by site admins as clueless as the moderators who flagged the parent as flamebait. Here is a good example of satire:
I'm sorry but your message from articles.slashdot.org was REJECTED because it has been flagged by our system as spam. You may not be the source of the spam, but our servers do not respect SPF flags and therefore accept, process and then bounce almost any old slutty slice of bits that get hucked our way. We blame you, the owner of the spoofed domain.For further reading, see the wiki.
2. Obligatory references to The Simpsons:
To get a hard copy of this message please send $1 to Happy Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield.Hint to poster: Next time, just go with the "overlords" joke.
3. Relevancy: Recent news stories highlight that most spam is coming from botnets under the control of Eastern European and Russian criminal organizations. Had you bothered to read anything on /. about spam prior to moderating just now, you'd probably know this. Hence the following is, in fact, funny:
Promotional consideration has been provided by the Russian Mob.Thank you for moderating today! We hope you enjoyed your crack!
Disclaimer: My exposure to quantum physics is "A Brief History Of Time", Wikipedia and teh intarweb.
Disclaimer: Mine too. I think your question is entirely on topic, though.
No, I think the wave-particle duality is specifically the same weirdness as this particular result. The single photon still behaves like a wave (as in the dual slit experiment). The surprise was that you can actually encode and preserve information about the slit in that waveform. Multiple photons went through (not much of an experiment if they only tested it on one photon), but the article also states that it is the behavior of a single photon that let them achieve this result. As others have pointed out, the reason this made the news is because they were able to store the light. The ability to store a "shadow" of the slit the photon passed through is not so much unexpected as it is just plain clever.
When a Republican wins a close election, it was stolen.
When a Dem wins a close election, it's the will of the people.
See Governor, Washington state. How many selective recounts did it take until the Dem won?
Starting Score: 0 pointsModeration 0
50% Insightful
30% Flamebait
20% Troll
Extra 'Insightful' Modifier 0 (Edit)
Total Score: 0
Heh. I do believe I find the moderation on this post more interesting than the actual flamewar that it inspired. I almost wish we had meta-meta-moderation so I could see how this plays out...
Why is this not an option? I got sick of programming for a living, I discovered that I love teaching, and now I'm back in graduate school for a PhD. It's hard (sell your house, sell a car to pay off the other one; moreover, convince your wife that it's a good idea), but not impossible. For some it's the best choice overall.
No worries, I was being sarcastic. The post I was replying to was flamebait, but I decided to bite with a little sarcasm. No, I'm following in your footsteps. Going for my Masters, and my wife's on board, though we're both still undergrad at this point. I'm planning on teaching music (hence the name enharmonix) and math (hence me knowing what /. is), but would consider engineering in the private sector if an opportunity were to arise. But yeah, I'm done programming too (w/ the possible exception of contracts, but then only to put toward tuition). Anyway, good luck and wish me the same! Cheers.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Unions are rarely the employees anymore; they're often extortion rings masquerading as employees. However, there are a few places where unions do what they're meant to - I can guarantee the airline industry unions have been a boon to their members. But you have a point, where's there's money (in this case, union dues), there's bound to be corruption.
I have been in IT for 20+ years, I have worked in a lot of different shops, and you only get abused if you accept it.I suppose that came off as suggesting my past employers were abusive, and that's not the case. I mean the environment is abusive, though I can't imagine why that is. Grocery store or fast food restaurant employees don't deserve the sort of environment I've seen in some IT shops... No, it's not that bad, but the management doesn't always seem to mesh up with the profession.
The beauty of IT is that there is ALWAYS another job out there. In 20+ years I have only been out of work ~2 months total, and yes, I have changed jobs twice in the last 5 years.I dunno, it seems to me the jobs get fewer and farther between, but I'm glad to hear you haven't had that experience. It seems to me outsourcing is more threatening to junior and midlevel professionals. If our homegrown programmers can't get in the door, how can they ever work their way up the corporate ladder to where you're at? I think part of the reason you're in a more secure position is because of your experience. Outsourcing is removing the opportunity for new talent who will fill your shoes when you move up or retire.
Outsourcing is completely overblown, computers are here to stay and only getting more integrated into our lives and businesses, there is going to be IT work for a very long time.Well, let's all just keep rooting for the free market. Either outsourcing isn't a problem and everything is fine, or it is a problem. If it is, then as other countries keep taking our money, they'll experience inflation and start demanding more money from us (this is already happening in India), and those employees will eventually cost too much to justify the added expense of importing them. I don't see outsourcing as something sustainable in the longterm, but I do see it as something detrimental to the US IT sector now. Just the other day, I bumped into a guy I used to work with (mid- to senior-level Applications Developer), and asked him if he was still working for the same company I'd worked with him at. Well, it turns out they'd fired their entire IT staff of about 50 and replaced them all with folks on H1-B visas at a fraction of the cost. Anyway, that's my experience. Like I said, I'm glad it hasn't been yours, and I hope it stays that way. Cheers.
Life's not fair - deal with it. Each profession has pros and cons. Quit whining and start learning something new. It's nothing to do with unions, and I've never found it abusive. At least, I don't take any crap. You need to try working in a few places until you find something you like - perhaps contracting.
Wow. What great advice! I almost wish I'd said something about "going back to school to do something more rewarding with my life, probably major in mathematics and then either teach or maybe try engineering" in my original post! You know, assuming you don't have Asperger's Syndrome, I think you'd be terrific management material. Again, thanks for the wonderful advice! Cheers.
*sigh* This is part of the problem with programming. This is rarely an issue in any other career (except maybe medicine). For just about any other occupation, candidates who are married with children are more desirable because even though they may have commitments outside of work, other people are relying on them, and they are less likely to make haphazard career decisions. Simply put, they are better long term employees -- they are already committed to their families and are therefore more committed to their employer. Yet, somehow, in IT, a family is often a liability. Something about that is not right in my book.
I'm 26, but I am saving like hell because I know that age discrimination is rife in this industry, and the more I save for retirement right now, the less I have to worry about such things.I'm 28 and I'm out of the programming game. Enron's collapse did me in. I'm going back to school to do something more rewarding with my life, probably major in mathematics and then either teach or maybe try engineering. If the IT industry wasn't so abusive maybe I'd still be in it, but I'm just not that interested in programming anymore (for a living, anyway - I still program in my spare time). You know, if there was ever an industry in the last 50 years that needed to unionize, it's IT...
I know exactly how you feel and have sort of done the same thing to myself. I guess the thing employers look for is experience plus skills. The longer you work without learning something new, the more archaic your skills become, but you offset that with experience. If you want to make yourself more attractive that noob candidates, you can make yourself competitive with the young bloods by going out and getting certified in more recent technologies. For example, if you've got 12 years' experience developing in C++ on Unix, you probably aren't going to attract anybody looking for ASP .NET in C#. But, you can always go out and get that certification, and I'll tell you something: MSCD + 12 years experience programming C++ in Unix is far more attractive than an MSCD by itself. If you're on equal footing in terms of current skills but have more real world experience, you win.
This is, of course, assuming you already have your degree. If you've got this much experience and are still concerned about your ability to compete with greenhorns with degrees, you may also want to consider finishing your degree. Word of advice, though: don't expect to have a career again until you finish. Quitting your career to go back to school only looks good if you actually finish school! And if you have a degree (e.g., a BS in CS), then go for your MBA and then you will be management material.
Just my advice, there are plenty of other pros here who I'm sure can elaborate on or even contradict my advice, but I guess that's why you're asking. Cheers, and good luck!
* Okay, technically the white one is called Chimay Triple
Oh, and a word of warning to the uninitiated who read this, Chimay is unfiltered and unpasteurized, so you should either use a special glass to drink it out of, or invest in some Immodium.
- They already use Word to compose messages in Outlook 2003 (and probably earlier), so why would they have used a different engine to render the messages?
-
Why even have two different rendering engines in the first place?
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I would think the word "code reuse" should have occurred to MS a long time ago. Then again, I don't doubt the corporate gears grind slowly -- better late than never, you know.If the corporations are intelligent, they care about both the number of units moved AND the money earned. Especially when you are dealing with video game consoles, and you have to convince developers and publishers to support your console.
It's all well and good for Sony if they are pulling in the same amount of money by selling fewer PS3s for more money, but all Square-Enix is looking at is the fact that there are less than half the number of potential customers out there who have $350 less to spend on their games.
Concur. Considering Ninentdo is only barely not breaking even per console sale and they are moving a lot more units, and console manufacturers make their money from the games anyway, it really should only boil down to who sells the most units. That's why I'm not sure I trust the analysis that predicts PS3 winning by 2010... It just seems like there will be more Wiis, which means more Wii games, meaning Wii wiill wiin.
Well, I agree with your comment, but as somebody else pointed out in an earlier story, corporations aren't concerned w/ the number of consoles, they're concerned with money.
$250 * 100% = $250 (Wii baseline)
$550 * 46% = $253 (PS3 guesstimate)
If you consider the average cost to the consumer per console times the number sold, PS3 and Wii really are neck and neck. In your defense, though, if you consider the cost to the manufacturer per console (how much of a loss they're taking per sale), Nintendo is absolutely trouncing Sony.