I've never seen one proper city that didn't feel like a very suffocating place, full of busy little bees who have no idea what it is to take the time to smell the roses. I could never live in one. Any ideas about which suburban or rural areas are good/bad to work in for IT jobs?
Suburban Boston is pretty nice. I don't hear gunshots on a regular basis (at least not since my last job, where the office park was right next to the shooting range), nor am I afraid to walk outside my door after sunset. I see plenty of trees outside my window, and my apartment complex is all off-street parking. If you want a little excitement, I'm a 15-minute drive or a 25-minute bus ride to the subway station, so getting to the city is pretty easy. The northwest suburbs have the "128 tech corridor" of Woburn, Burlington, Bedford, Lexington, and Waltham, so there's quite a bit of work where you don't have to commute into the city.
That line is the property of Paramount Pictures. Please remit settlement payment of $5,000, or hire legal representation.
No, it is property of the writers of ST:TNG, Patrick Stuart, and Paramount Pictures.
The words would be property of the writer, though I'm not sure exactly how something like this would work out if multiple writers used the same line. Only the performance of it would be the property of Paramount, and as far as I know, nothing is really the property of the actors, they just receive whatever royalties are set in their contracts.
With Companies you can always switch to someone else
How many different companies have run power lines to your home? How about sewage drains? There are certain times when your grand Free Market is simply impossible.
Wireless power loses energy, so the only places it makes sense are were wires can't go or batteries can't easily be replaced.
It's also useful for small devices that would be safer without exposed contacts. Electric toothbrushes are the first thing that come to mind, though I'm sure there are plenty of better examples.
I am just having doubts that agents are told to do absolutely nothing that can influence the outcome
I can think of one good reason why foreign agents would receive orders not to interfere. There's still some doubt about which side is ultimately going to win this showdown. If the agents and/or their superior officers pick a side and that side loses, those agents are suddenly in mortal danger (even more so than they normally are). It's better for them to wait and see who will win than it is to end up choosing the losing side.
I don't know how many CS students learn any assembly these days. I had to take two semesters of assembly, one in 8086 and one in 68k (which was from the ECE department, so it also taught some very basic circuit stuff like gates), but since I haven't used either of them since those classes 10 years ago, it would take me quite a while to get back into them. For the kind of employee you're looking for, experience will be much more important than a degree, especially since you're looking for fairly specific knowledge on one topic.
I think you're giving too much credit to the voting population. In the United States, the areas that tend to vote Republican are poorer, rural areas, where there's almost no chance of anyone ever becoming rich. College students also tend towards voting for Democrats. I think you'll find most voters making their decisions based on issues like gay marriage instead of any kind of economic self-interest (or ethical beliefs, in the rare cases of us left-leaning libertarians).
While I agree that anyone with a university title for computer science should at least have some basic ability in actually writing code, I think you misunderstand what computer science is all about. It is simply not intended as vocational training for programmers. Of course, a student with any sense at all would make sure he is at least employable outside academia, but the point of a computer science study is not to become a programmer.
I kept getting told by my computer science professors that "Computer science is as much about programming as astronomy is about telescopes." Which is true in both directions; there's a lot more to computer science than just programming, just as there's a lot more to astronomy than just using a telescope, but it's reasonable to expect that a professional astronomer knows how to use a telescope. Also similarly, an astronomer doesn't need to know every detail about every telescope ever made because they can use their general knowledge of telescopes to figure out the details of a new telescope you put in front of them, a good computer scientist or software engineer can use their general knowledge of programming to quickly learn the details of new programming languages.
Sure, you'll get a programmer that way, I imagine. There's also a good chance he's fairly interesting and knows where to get the good curry. Maybe doing that is the "productive" and "financially conscious" thing to do - or whatever the going phrase is these days for selling your country (and countryman) short to the benefit of your company.
You know, I enjoyed most of your post, but found this section really lacking.
You seem to be suggesting that you should hire the inferior person, if he's a native of the country you happen to be born in (or are a current resident of), over the superior person who is not a member of the same group.
Maybe I'm being generous, but that's not how I read it. I assumed he meant that a person who's education has been highly focused will be better at that specific task, such as programming in the language that has the most job postings, but someone who went to a typical four-year college to get a Computer Science degree will have a broader range of knowledge that allows them to better handle situations outside of normal programming problems or to learn new programming languages as needed.
In the case of Kubuntu 8.10 and KDE4, one problem is that Ubuntu sees the x.04 ("Long Term Support") releases as stable, and the x.10 releases as developmental.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to toss a [citation needed] at this one. x.04 releases are not LTS unless specifically labeled as such. 9.04 is not an LTS version, nor was 7.04. Kubuntu 8.04 was not an LTS version because they couldn't promise long-term support for KDE 3.5, and KDE4 was not at all ready for normal use. I'll agree that Kubuntu 8.10 was a pretty shaky release, since KDE4 wasn't quite ready yet. Kubuntu 9.04, with KDE 4.2, has worked quite well for me.
As a side note, KDE 4.0 was never meant to be seen by normal users, and the KDE developers did everything they could to make that clear. The purpose of 4.0 was to finalize the basic infrastructure so that more effort could be focused on porting applications. KDE 4.1 was mostly usable, though there were still some issues, and KDE 4.2 is definitely ready for normal users.
Western governments don't make fist-shaking speeches that include discussions about their glorious nuclear programs and also about wiping another country and its people off the map.
You haven't been paying much attention to what's been going on here in the United States the last decade (or four), have you?
fring is being used a lot in this too. the servers are in tel aviv.
"go figure"
I can easily understand plenty of Israelis supporting this effort. There's probably little that Israel wants more than a progressive government in Iran that will stop threatening to nuke them.
The Government does not grant rights! The government is granted rights by the people
"Granted" is probably the wrong word there. "Guaranteed" would probably be a better word. While it's true that governments don't grant rights, especially in an American style of constitutional republic, in reality, the only rights you have are the ones that either you can defend yourself or the government promises to defend for you. You might think that free speech is a fundamental right (and I agree that it should be a right of everyone), a government that doesn't think so can almost certainly silence you, by force of arms if by no other means.
....Just like the rest of us who work for a living?...
Without the existence of copyright, all human creativity would cease. Oh wait... that is how it was for thousands of years before the modern age. I wonder if the ancient Egyptians had a copyright on the design plans of the pyramids.
Copying in almost any practical form has only existed for about 500 years, with copying on what today would be called even a moderate scale existing for less than 100 years. In addition, today's society has an unfortunate tendency to focus on short-term profit, so people willing to sponsor artistic work purely for the bragging rights are few and far between.
Note that I am in no way arguing about the insanely absurd 150-year copyright period or the life-destroying penalties being given out in court.
If as an electrician I design and wire someone's electrical system I get paid once, there are no future payments if the house is sold or if guests come use the system I installed.
Something like that is a poor analogy, because no matter how many electrical systems you do, it requires the same amount of time and resources to do the next system as it did to do the last system. Once someone writes a book or releases a song, though, other people can duplicate them easily (and almost for free these days). Copyright was meant to ensure that artists had a fair chance to make enough money to live on so that they would be able to continue to create art, which greatly benefits society. Obviously, the copyright laws in many countries have been perverted to greatly favor publishers (not even the artists, which makes it even worse). Hopefully it isn't too late to restore the laws to a sane level.
Personally, I think Android is not a very good choice for netbooks; Ubuntu Netbook edition is a much better choice.
It's disturbing how many people still don't realize that software that's designed for a specific purpose is better at that purpose than software that was designed for some other purpose.
Slashdot Mirror
I've never seen one proper city that didn't feel like a very suffocating place, full of busy little bees who have no idea what it is to take the time to smell the roses. I could never live in one. Any ideas about which suburban or rural areas are good/bad to work in for IT jobs?
Suburban Boston is pretty nice. I don't hear gunshots on a regular basis (at least not since my last job, where the office park was right next to the shooting range), nor am I afraid to walk outside my door after sunset. I see plenty of trees outside my window, and my apartment complex is all off-street parking. If you want a little excitement, I'm a 15-minute drive or a 25-minute bus ride to the subway station, so getting to the city is pretty easy. The northwest suburbs have the "128 tech corridor" of Woburn, Burlington, Bedford, Lexington, and Waltham, so there's quite a bit of work where you don't have to commute into the city.
If the 'poor' person has a good case, they will win.
Unfortunately, such an ideal of justice does not always match reality.
"Tea, Earl Grey, Hot"
That line is the property of Paramount Pictures. Please remit settlement payment of $5,000, or hire legal representation.
No, it is property of the writers of ST:TNG, Patrick Stuart, and Paramount Pictures.
The words would be property of the writer, though I'm not sure exactly how something like this would work out if multiple writers used the same line. Only the performance of it would be the property of Paramount, and as far as I know, nothing is really the property of the actors, they just receive whatever royalties are set in their contracts.
With Companies you can always switch to someone else
How many different companies have run power lines to your home? How about sewage drains? There are certain times when your grand Free Market is simply impossible.
Wireless power loses energy, so the only places it makes sense are were wires can't go or batteries can't easily be replaced.
It's also useful for small devices that would be safer without exposed contacts. Electric toothbrushes are the first thing that come to mind, though I'm sure there are plenty of better examples.
I am just having doubts that agents are told to do absolutely nothing that can influence the outcome
I can think of one good reason why foreign agents would receive orders not to interfere. There's still some doubt about which side is ultimately going to win this showdown. If the agents and/or their superior officers pick a side and that side loses, those agents are suddenly in mortal danger (even more so than they normally are). It's better for them to wait and see who will win than it is to end up choosing the losing side.
I don't know how many CS students learn any assembly these days. I had to take two semesters of assembly, one in 8086 and one in 68k (which was from the ECE department, so it also taught some very basic circuit stuff like gates), but since I haven't used either of them since those classes 10 years ago, it would take me quite a while to get back into them. For the kind of employee you're looking for, experience will be much more important than a degree, especially since you're looking for fairly specific knowledge on one topic.
I think you're giving too much credit to the voting population. In the United States, the areas that tend to vote Republican are poorer, rural areas, where there's almost no chance of anyone ever becoming rich. College students also tend towards voting for Democrats. I think you'll find most voters making their decisions based on issues like gay marriage instead of any kind of economic self-interest (or ethical beliefs, in the rare cases of us left-leaning libertarians).
While I agree that anyone with a university title for computer science should at least have some basic ability in actually writing code, I think you misunderstand what computer science is all about. It is simply not intended as vocational training for programmers. Of course, a student with any sense at all would make sure he is at least employable outside academia, but the point of a computer science study is not to become a programmer.
I kept getting told by my computer science professors that "Computer science is as much about programming as astronomy is about telescopes." Which is true in both directions; there's a lot more to computer science than just programming, just as there's a lot more to astronomy than just using a telescope, but it's reasonable to expect that a professional astronomer knows how to use a telescope. Also similarly, an astronomer doesn't need to know every detail about every telescope ever made because they can use their general knowledge of telescopes to figure out the details of a new telescope you put in front of them, a good computer scientist or software engineer can use their general knowledge of programming to quickly learn the details of new programming languages.
Sure, you'll get a programmer that way, I imagine. There's also a good chance he's fairly interesting and knows where to get the good curry. Maybe doing that is the "productive" and "financially conscious" thing to do - or whatever the going phrase is these days for selling your country (and countryman) short to the benefit of your company.
You know, I enjoyed most of your post, but found this section really lacking.
You seem to be suggesting that you should hire the inferior person, if he's a native of the country you happen to be born in (or are a current resident of), over the superior person who is not a member of the same group.
Maybe I'm being generous, but that's not how I read it. I assumed he meant that a person who's education has been highly focused will be better at that specific task, such as programming in the language that has the most job postings, but someone who went to a typical four-year college to get a Computer Science degree will have a broader range of knowledge that allows them to better handle situations outside of normal programming problems or to learn new programming languages as needed.
In the case of Kubuntu 8.10 and KDE4, one problem is that Ubuntu sees the x.04 ("Long Term Support") releases as stable, and the x.10 releases as developmental.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to toss a [citation needed] at this one. x.04 releases are not LTS unless specifically labeled as such. 9.04 is not an LTS version, nor was 7.04. Kubuntu 8.04 was not an LTS version because they couldn't promise long-term support for KDE 3.5, and KDE4 was not at all ready for normal use. I'll agree that Kubuntu 8.10 was a pretty shaky release, since KDE4 wasn't quite ready yet. Kubuntu 9.04, with KDE 4.2, has worked quite well for me.
As a side note, KDE 4.0 was never meant to be seen by normal users, and the KDE developers did everything they could to make that clear. The purpose of 4.0 was to finalize the basic infrastructure so that more effort could be focused on porting applications. KDE 4.1 was mostly usable, though there were still some issues, and KDE 4.2 is definitely ready for normal users.
Anyone know what Starcraft means? Galactic warfare? Space-land-for-battle? It kinda reminds me of Chevy Starcraft, too...
It's because the game is essentially Warcraft in space.
Okay, on the off chance that you're serious here: John Madden
Western governments don't make fist-shaking speeches that include discussions about their glorious nuclear programs and also about wiping another country and its people off the map.
You haven't been paying much attention to what's been going on here in the United States the last decade (or four), have you?
fring is being used a lot in this too. the servers are in tel aviv.
"go figure"
I can easily understand plenty of Israelis supporting this effort. There's probably little that Israel wants more than a progressive government in Iran that will stop threatening to nuke them.
Whether or not that right is granted
The Government does not grant rights! The government is granted rights by the people
"Granted" is probably the wrong word there. "Guaranteed" would probably be a better word. While it's true that governments don't grant rights, especially in an American style of constitutional republic, in reality, the only rights you have are the ones that either you can defend yourself or the government promises to defend for you. You might think that free speech is a fundamental right (and I agree that it should be a right of everyone), a government that doesn't think so can almost certainly silence you, by force of arms if by no other means.
WMDs (rocks HURT!)
Weapons of Minor Denting?
He must be a socialist atheist gay-marrying cheese-eating surrender monkey terrorist lover!
Dude, Wisconsin is gonna be so pissed off at you for this.
Well, they obviously haven't been protecting it. Isn't that one of the requirements of keeping a patent?
Nope, that only applies to trademarks.
....Just like the rest of us who work for a living?...
Without the existence of copyright, all human creativity would cease. Oh wait... that is how it was for thousands of years before the modern age. I wonder if the ancient Egyptians had a copyright on the design plans of the pyramids.
Copying in almost any practical form has only existed for about 500 years, with copying on what today would be called even a moderate scale existing for less than 100 years. In addition, today's society has an unfortunate tendency to focus on short-term profit, so people willing to sponsor artistic work purely for the bragging rights are few and far between.
Note that I am in no way arguing about the insanely absurd 150-year copyright period or the life-destroying penalties being given out in court.
If as an electrician I design and wire someone's electrical system I get paid once, there are no future payments if the house is sold or if guests come use the system I installed.
Something like that is a poor analogy, because no matter how many electrical systems you do, it requires the same amount of time and resources to do the next system as it did to do the last system. Once someone writes a book or releases a song, though, other people can duplicate them easily (and almost for free these days). Copyright was meant to ensure that artists had a fair chance to make enough money to live on so that they would be able to continue to create art, which greatly benefits society. Obviously, the copyright laws in many countries have been perverted to greatly favor publishers (not even the artists, which makes it even worse). Hopefully it isn't too late to restore the laws to a sane level.
Pansy. Where I grew up and went to college, as soon as it got above 40 F, it was time to break out the t-shirts.
Of course, as soon as it hit 80 F, we all ran inside and cranked the AC.
Not to mention the perverts who like to kidnap and molest children. No wonder kids don't want to go outside today.
Then don't take them to church.
Follow it up with Cambridge, MA please.
As wacky as they often are over in Cambridge, I don't think you'll get a huge amount of support here for getting rid of MIT.
If you were just talking about the bad parts of Cambridge, then you should have said Somerville to begin with.
Personally, I think Android is not a very good choice for netbooks; Ubuntu Netbook edition is a much better choice.
It's disturbing how many people still don't realize that software that's designed for a specific purpose is better at that purpose than software that was designed for some other purpose.