Assume change happens. Make sure that and and all replacements are plug in compatible. It's been a solved problem since the 60s in many industries. Try not hiring 20-somethings that assume their latest brainwave will last forever.
This didn't happen because of regulation alone. It happened because banks were encouraged to loan (i.e. create) money by issuing more and more debt (i.e. loans). The economic "growth" since the 1970s has been almost entirely debt-driven. This is obviously not sustainable and will one day lead to massive defaults at all socioeconomic levels.
At that point, things change. Personal wealth is defined largely by the wage/price structure ratio. If prices in the USA approximated those in India, India would lose that competitive advantage. What will undoubtedly happen after the next, inevitable economic crash, is a normalization of wage and price structures, particularly as regards real estate, professional services and capital equipment prices. At that point, the wage differential between the USA and India won't be worth mentioning.
The convergent model of state capitalism the world seems to be converging on should be able to handle this until we run out of affordable, energy-positive, hydrocarbon-based energy supplies. After that, all bets are off.
I know SO MANY IT workers that are 40+ that haven't kept up on the latest technology because they're too lazy and tired of learning new things. Or perhaps because the new things are kind a of a pointless marketing scam? (Cough. Cough. Windows 8). Ruby is neat, but really, we could have lived without it. Ditto Python, delightful though it may be. In fact, standardizing on some c-form language like Java and a boring but usable interface like the Macintosh's would have saved everyone huge amounts of time and agony and we could concentrate on actually getting tasks done, instead of sorting out the latest syntax mistake in our programming language or how the darned interface should work.
The kids work hard because they are physically still able to, have few outside responsibilities, work cheap, and are still relatively interchangeable. Facts most employers understand perfectly. You can also get them to believe almost anything. All very useful, to an employer or dictator
Why should every business endeavor be a race to the bottom for everyone but the shareholders? Actually, shareholders get screwed too. The only folks who make money are at Goldman Sachs giving "advice" to muppets that benefits GS and nobody else.
Seriously. Like it or not, when most programmers get something to work, we go home. We don't think about dependencies or low probability interactions. We're happy enough to get an install to work at all. Which brings me back to my original point. Single.exe installs aren't an ideal engineering solution, but they solve the human factors problem of engineers with limited bandwidth (and no matter how good you *think* you are, you have limits).
Instead of creating single exe. Memory and disk space are cheap. Portable application creators are easily and cheaply available (e.g. Cameyo.com - both free and excellent at what it does). It's easier to copy a single file than to go through the hell that is installation for most apps.
In a work environment, just as in school, you get along by pretending to be like everyone else, and as dumb as everyone else, particularly your managers. Lip service is always given to tolerance, but lip service is all it is.
From those *thousands* of people on the forums were screaming "Don't take away the start button" and "make the metro interface optional," and hundred of other sensible rational suggestions, we told you so.
Someone, or some group, deep in the heart of Microsoft chose to ignore them all.
If they haven't been fired yet, they *should* be fired. Immediately. For incompetence AND being arrogant asses. This crap impacts the lives, businesses and productivity of millions of people. This is not a "House" episode. You get no points for being clever and obnoxious. Hopefully, all you get is shitcanned while some poor set of humbler, and more experienced SOBs go in and try and figure out a way to clean up your blundering mess.
A hideout for the incompetent. A form of welfare for academics. What we need is a system of exams. Minimal human intervention. Build this circuit in X amount of time. Program this algorithm in x amount of time. Name this many muscles, bones and nerves. While we'll still need internships and hands on experience for some things, much of the old style brick and mortar and a professor nonsense can be replaced with books and on-line learning.
How could you tell? More seriously, Verizon is simply too cheap to upgrade its network to handle more traffic (Here's a hint, Verizon. It's called a "mesh network: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking." Try asking an engineer instead of a marketing oaf or a bean counter.)
There's a shortage of people who want a shit job with huge responsibility for lousy pay. Here's a solution. Figure out what it would take to pay each and every pilot at least 6 figures, and take that percentage of salary from each and every manager. I guarantee there'll be no problem paying and very soon, not shortage of pilots.
All you need to do in order to sustain your current level of energy supply is to invest a little bit more of your energy from existing wells into these new but not as good energy sources. Well, it depends on net energy, to go back to the original point. If indeed, net energy from a well in West Texas in the 1960s was around 100:1 (http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2012/EROEI.jpg) and today a net of 10:1 is considered good, then it depends on how the decline curve goes from here on out. A 10-fold decrease in world aggregate net energy in 50 years is a problem if the decline remains linear. If we're on the "long tail" we have more time, but it's still a problem. The world's interdependent, "just-in-time" supply chains depend on cheap energy. Any significant increase is going to result in sudden, nonlinear breaks as more and more industries become unprofitable, including the supply chains that actually let us produce oil.
One problem with this analysis is determining net energy. It depends on how you measure it and I trust none of the estimate numbers exactly, even though the principal of "We got the easy, high net energy stuff first" is almost certainly valid. The other problem is the net energy/price ratio over time. Due to the situation described above. I think this is nonlinear too, and that you'll see not a gradual price increase, but a series of sudden spikes, with the price settling into a new high after each spike, just as it happened in 2005 - the year, I think that we ran out of net energy "slack" in the system, and we started paying full freight for any increase in energy that we needed.
I doubt that we can scale renewables up the point where they replace the 160 exajoules or so of energy we use each year - at least not in a timeframe likely to maintain our current level of civilization. The other problem is that petroleum is disproportionately used as transportation fuel. The only viable substitute for this in natural gas, hydrogen (eventually), or batteries that don't suck.
You might also try one of those new-fangled "calculator" things.
By 2100, it's highly unlikely we'll still be using significant fossil fuels. True, as in "none." That doesn't make it a good idea.
But today, and for the next 20-30 years, we will be relying on fossil fuels, and a lot of it is going to be from shale (and tar sands). Get used to it. Also completely true. Especially, if the natural gas numbers approach reality and we can transition in time. We will, of course, be paying up the nose for it.
In the long run, it's nuclear and batteries that don't suck, or a distinct drop in our level of civilization.
Then you should really read more. Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil. If we relied solely on oil in the continental USA, we would have enough conventional oil for less than 5 years's supply at current use rates. Wiki and Google are your friends.
There's lots of unconventional oil, which is neither energetically nor economically profitable. The assumption is that magic techno-capitalists will ride in on white horses and figure out how to make that stuff useful. On schedule. In time to avoid serious problems.
Slashdot Mirror
Assume change happens. Make sure that and and all replacements are plug in compatible. It's been a solved problem since the 60s in many industries. Try not hiring 20-somethings that assume their latest brainwave will last forever.
Um... No. Or at least, not exactly.
This didn't happen because of regulation alone. It happened because banks were encouraged to loan (i.e. create) money by issuing more and more debt (i.e. loans). The economic "growth" since the 1970s has been almost entirely debt-driven. This is obviously not sustainable and will one day lead to massive defaults at all socioeconomic levels.
At that point, things change. Personal wealth is defined largely by the wage/price structure ratio. If prices in the USA approximated those in India, India would lose that competitive advantage. What will undoubtedly happen after the next, inevitable economic crash, is a normalization of wage and price structures, particularly as regards real estate, professional services and capital equipment prices. At that point, the wage differential between the USA and India won't be worth mentioning.
The convergent model of state capitalism the world seems to be converging on should be able to handle this until we run out of affordable, energy-positive, hydrocarbon-based energy supplies. After that, all bets are off.
I know SO MANY IT workers that are 40+ that haven't kept up on the latest technology because they're too lazy and tired of learning new things.
Or perhaps because the new things are kind a of a pointless marketing scam? (Cough. Cough. Windows 8). Ruby is neat, but really, we could have lived without it. Ditto Python, delightful though it may be. In fact, standardizing on some c-form language like Java and a boring but usable interface like the Macintosh's would have saved everyone huge amounts of time and agony and we could concentrate on actually getting tasks done, instead of sorting out the latest syntax mistake in our programming language or how the darned interface should work.
The kids work hard because they are physically still able to, have few outside responsibilities, work cheap, and are still relatively interchangeable. Facts most employers understand perfectly. You can also get them to believe almost anything. All very useful, to an employer or dictator
Why should every business endeavor be a race to the bottom for everyone but the shareholders?
Actually, shareholders get screwed too. The only folks who make money are at Goldman Sachs giving "advice" to muppets that benefits GS and nobody else.
And here I thought it was turtles all the way down.
Seriously. What could the matter be?
What's a soul? Hey, just askin'...
It just means more business for the guys in mainland China and Taiwan.
Seriously. Like it or not, when most programmers get something to work, we go home. We don't think about dependencies or low probability interactions. We're happy enough to get an install to work at all. Which brings me back to my original point. Single .exe installs aren't an ideal engineering solution, but they solve the human factors problem of engineers with limited bandwidth (and no matter how good you *think* you are, you have limits).
Instead of creating single exe. Memory and disk space are cheap. Portable application creators are easily and cheaply available (e.g. Cameyo.com - both free and excellent at what it does). It's easier to copy a single file than to go through the hell that is installation for most apps.
In a work environment, just as in school, you get along by pretending to be like everyone else, and as dumb as everyone else, particularly your managers. Lip service is always given to tolerance, but lip service is all it is.
From those *thousands* of people on the forums were screaming "Don't take away the start button" and "make the metro interface optional," and hundred of other sensible rational suggestions, we told you so.
Someone, or some group, deep in the heart of Microsoft chose to ignore them all.
If they haven't been fired yet, they *should* be fired. Immediately. For incompetence AND being arrogant asses. This crap impacts the lives, businesses and productivity of millions of people. This is not a "House" episode. You get no points for being clever and obnoxious. Hopefully, all you get is shitcanned while some poor set of humbler, and more experienced SOBs go in and try and figure out a way to clean up your blundering mess.
A hideout for the incompetent. A form of welfare for academics. What we need is a system of exams. Minimal human intervention. Build this circuit in X amount of time. Program this algorithm in x amount of time. Name this many muscles, bones and nerves. While we'll still need internships and hands on experience for some things, much of the old style brick and mortar and a professor nonsense can be replaced with books and on-line learning.
Causality's in a local bubble.
It shan't cause you too much trouble.
So skip and hop and leap at will!
Your time is safe. Go take a pill.
and don't even get me started on Breatharians.....
How could you tell? More seriously, Verizon is simply too cheap to upgrade its network to handle more traffic (Here's a hint, Verizon. It's called a "mesh network: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking." Try asking an engineer instead of a marketing oaf or a bean counter.)
As a kind of mass protest AND humor enhancer.
You may have no problem, but apparently the ownership would like that money for themselves and fuck the pilots AND the passengers.
There's a shortage of people who want a shit job with huge responsibility for lousy pay. Here's a solution. Figure out what it would take to pay each and every pilot at least 6 figures, and take that percentage of salary from each and every manager. I guarantee there'll be no problem paying and very soon, not shortage of pilots.
All you need to do in order to sustain your current level of energy supply is to invest a little bit more of your energy from existing wells into these new but not as good energy sources.
Well, it depends on net energy, to go back to the original point.
If indeed, net energy from a well in West Texas in the 1960s was around 100:1 (http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2012/EROEI.jpg) and today a net of 10:1 is considered good, then it depends on how the decline curve goes from here on out. A 10-fold decrease in world aggregate net energy in 50 years is a problem if the decline remains linear. If we're on the "long tail" we have more time, but it's still a problem. The world's interdependent, "just-in-time" supply chains depend on cheap energy. Any significant increase is going to result in sudden, nonlinear breaks as more and more industries become unprofitable, including the supply chains that actually let us produce oil.
One problem with this analysis is determining net energy. It depends on how you measure it and I trust none of the estimate numbers exactly, even though the principal of "We got the easy, high net energy stuff first" is almost certainly valid. The other problem is the net energy/price ratio over time. Due to the situation described above. I think this is nonlinear too, and that you'll see not a gradual price increase, but a series of sudden spikes, with the price settling into a new high after each spike, just as it happened in 2005 - the year, I think that we ran out of net energy "slack" in the system, and we started paying full freight for any increase in energy that we needed.
I doubt that we can scale renewables up the point where they replace the 160 exajoules or so of energy we use each year - at least not in a timeframe likely to maintain our current level of civilization. The other problem is that petroleum is disproportionately used as transportation fuel. The only viable substitute for this in natural gas, hydrogen (eventually), or batteries that don't suck.
In fact, I don't shoot from the hip much. Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil
Move on to here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_States
And here: http://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/ (Warning, these may be "political" numbers).
And here: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=33&t=6
You might also try one of those new-fangled "calculator" things.
By 2100, it's highly unlikely we'll still be using significant fossil fuels.
True, as in "none." That doesn't make it a good idea.
But today, and for the next 20-30 years, we will be relying on fossil fuels, and a lot of it is going to be from shale (and tar sands). Get used to it.
Also completely true. Especially, if the natural gas numbers approach reality and we can transition in time. We will, of course, be paying up the nose for it.
In the long run, it's nuclear and batteries that don't suck, or a distinct drop in our level of civilization.
your coffee never needs ironing.
Then you should really read more. Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil. If we relied solely on oil in the continental USA, we would have enough conventional oil for less than 5 years's supply at current use rates. Wiki and Google are your friends.
There's lots of unconventional oil, which is neither energetically nor economically profitable. The assumption is that magic techno-capitalists will ride in on white horses and figure out how to make that stuff useful. On schedule. In time to avoid serious problems.
What could go wrong?