The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Martin N:
Personally, I think I would've chosen a network drive letter that wasn't adjacent to the letter 'c' when hurriedly doing a quick format at a Windows command prompt.

He had a minute to stare at his command line (and check for any errors such as the one you're imagining) while he waited for the Auditor to insert the disk.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
gpb:
hoodaticus:
If I said the average Indian is better at basketball than the average Paraplegic, you would see that as racism.
Technically, being paraplegic is a condition not a race. The real question comes up when you cite studies that show results weighted towards an ethnicity. Like average Indian men are smaller than the rest of the world. Or black men are more susceptible to hypertension. Are those racist?
Cheers.
Then science must be racist.

In that case, this scientific study must be really racist:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6161691.stm

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

And what the hell is up with these unicorns???

Smitty · 2011-02-15 Reply Admin

by:
Second, PC is not socialism. It's everyone being too damn polite and stupid to realize their own countries identity being ripped out from underneath them to appease <1% of the population...

QFT.

frits · 2011-02-15 Reply Admin

ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬:
hoodaticus:
gpb:
hoodaticus:
If I said the average Indian is better at basketball than the average Paraplegic, you would see that as racism.
Technically, being paraplegic is a condition not a race. The real question comes up when you cite studies that show results weighted towards an ethnicity. Like average Indian men are smaller than the rest of the world. Or black men are more susceptible to hypertension. Are those racist?
Cheers.
Then science must be racist.
In that case, this scientific study must be really racist:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6161691.stm

Linked to on the same page: Large condoms for S African men

Interestingly, One in three South African men admit to rape, survey finds.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

frits (unregistered):
ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬:
hoodaticus:
gpb:
hoodaticus:
If I said the average Indian is better at basketball than the average Paraplegic, you would see that as racism.
Technically, being paraplegic is a condition not a race. The real question comes up when you cite studies that show results weighted towards an ethnicity. Like average Indian men are smaller than the rest of the world. Or black men are more susceptible to hypertension. Are those racist?
Cheers.
Then science must be racist.
In that case, this scientific study must be really racist:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6161691.stm

Linked to on the same page: Large condoms for S African men

Interestingly, One in three South African men admit to rape, survey finds.

But I thought South Africans are white?

boog · 2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Remy Porter:
Grenades? Fun Quake II story. We liked to play the Weapons of Destruction mod- it added the best Q2 grappling hook and gave every weapon a ridiculous alt-fire (the chaingun, for example, would fire shotgun shells). It also added the cataclysm device- a grenade that could clear a room.
Because I was a giant jerk-face, when we death-matched, I'd run into a room with other players in it, and set off a cataclysm device. Yeah, I'd die, and get -1 to my score- but they'd all also die, adding points to my score.

//And when they complained, I proceeded tear them up with the buzzsaw.

Who needs a cataclysm device? I just pulled the pin on any ordinary grenade and went kamikaze on my enemy. Sure, I'd die and lose a point, but they'd die too... sometimes. Either way I always got a good laugh out of them.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
frits:
Senior Swede:
by:
hoodaticus:
anon:
Larry:
hoodaticus:
You're saying TRWTF is free markets? Which side of supply and demand offends thee?
The way to keep jobs from going to India is to let them go ahead and go to India. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and in this case, the outsourcer will learn its lesson:

Indian Code = Shit.
TRWTF is racism

Really. There's plenty of Indian programmers who are quite talented. I've worked with more than a few. None of them work for outsourcing shops, though. Outsourcing shops invariably contain the dregs of the industry no matter what country you put them in. (True story: the new Gawker layout comes from a Turkish outsourcing shop. I rest my case.)
TRWTF is no understanding what "racism" means. That word means nothing anymore. Kiss my black ass.

THIS * 100 ^^

Racism has nothing to do with it... If the developers from the outsourcing firms were swedish, they would still be mocked for creating sub-standard garbage code. It's just that those indian shops use slave labor, and pay terrible wages... You get what you pay for. I've seen the same here (US): lower wage developer will (usually) be less talented than a developer getting 90-100k. You want to find a "senior" developer with 15 years industry experience for 60k? Good luck with that...
FTFY. People don't understand what racism is, and think it's just white folks giving black folks a hard time. Slowly, that's starting to include those of Hispanic origin. That's not it either. Racism is the mindset that "we" are inherently better than "them" at x. That means saying that blacks are better runners is racism. That means that Mexicans are better lovers is racism. That means that saying "white men can't jump" is racism. I've noticed the tendency for it to be "okay" to make fun of Indians (MetroPCS,Outsourced I'm looking at you), just as it was previously funny to make fun of Chinese. And blacks. And Irishmen. And Native Americans. That doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean that your kids won't someday call you a racist *****.

Hispanics = people of Spanish origin = white (at least partially).

I agree with your analysis. However, I'd like to point out that racism is tribalism and tribalism is the natural human condition. It's how we won against the Neanderthals, Homo Erectus, and all those other Homos.

BTW- I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying natural selection has bred the instinct into us and it takes rational thought and a progressive society to overcome racism.

Perhaps an analogy will point out the fatal flaw in this reasoning.

German Cars > American Cars

What about this statement is racist? How about this:

American Aircraft Carriers > Indian Aircraft Carriers

Am I racist yet? Okay, one more try:

American Code > Indian Code

(I've got lots more of these).

Because what I'm getting from this conversation is that I have a choice between either "racism" or intelligence.

Comment Tree!

<racism>German Cars > American Cars</racism> <translation>Germans have better engineering minds than Americans</translation>

<racism>American Aircraft Carriers > Indian Aircraft Carriers</racism> <translation>Indians cannot comprehend transportation the way Americans can.</translation>

<racism>American Code > Indian Code</racism> <translation>All Americans are smarter than all Indians.</translation>

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

boog:
Remy Porter:
Grenades? Fun Quake II story. We liked to play the Weapons of Destruction mod- it added the best Q2 grappling hook and gave every weapon a ridiculous alt-fire (the chaingun, for example, would fire shotgun shells). It also added the cataclysm device- a grenade that could clear a room.
Because I was a giant jerk-face, when we death-matched, I'd run into a room with other players in it, and set off a cataclysm device. Yeah, I'd die, and get -1 to my score- but they'd all also die, adding points to my score.

//And when they complained, I proceeded tear them up with the buzzsaw.
Who needs a cataclysm device? I just pulled the pin on any ordinary grenade and went kamikaze on my enemy. Sure, I'd die and lose a point, but they'd die too... sometimes. Either way I always got a good laugh out of them.

I'm pretty sure playing the game was pointless for you, then.

Your not too bright, are you?

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

frits:
boog:
Remy Porter:
Grenades? Fun Quake II story. We liked to play the Weapons of Destruction mod- it added the best Q2 grappling hook and gave every weapon a ridiculous alt-fire (the chaingun, for example, would fire shotgun shells). It also added the cataclysm device- a grenade that could clear a room.
Because I was a giant jerk-face, when we death-matched, I'd run into a room with other players in it, and set off a cataclysm device. Yeah, I'd die, and get -1 to my score- but they'd all also die, adding points to my score.

//And when they complained, I proceeded tear them up with the buzzsaw.
Who needs a cataclysm device? I just pulled the pin on any ordinary grenade and went kamikaze on my enemy. Sure, I'd die and lose a point, but they'd die too... sometimes. Either way I always got a good laugh out of them.
I'm pretty sure playing the game was pointless for you, then.

Your not too bright, are you?

For someone who keeps saying "not too bright..." comments, you would think that EVENTUALLY you would get the spelling of you're corrent. Unless of course this is a trolling attempt, and in that case, good job.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

David:
I never heard of a network file system that allowed for remote formats. This story is bunk.

if "format x: /q" doesn't indicate the Microsoft world, I don't know what does. Microsoft, in the 90's, wasn't exactly known for its security - even in NT.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

by:
frits:
boog:
Remy Porter:
Grenades? Fun Quake II story. We liked to play the Weapons of Destruction mod- it added the best Q2 grappling hook and gave every weapon a ridiculous alt-fire (the chaingun, for example, would fire shotgun shells). It also added the cataclysm device- a grenade that could clear a room.
Because I was a giant jerk-face, when we death-matched, I'd run into a room with other players in it, and set off a cataclysm device. Yeah, I'd die, and get -1 to my score- but they'd all also die, adding points to my score.

//And when they complained, I proceeded tear them up with the buzzsaw.
Who needs a cataclysm device? I just pulled the pin on any ordinary grenade and went kamikaze on my enemy. Sure, I'd die and lose a point, but they'd die too... sometimes. Either way I always got a good laugh out of them.
I'm pretty sure playing the game was pointless for you, then.

Your not too bright, are you?

For someone who keeps saying "not too bright..." comments, you would think that EVENTUALLY you would get the spelling of you're corrent. Unless of course this is a trolling attempt, and in that case, good job.

Good god, not every spelling error is a troll attempt, you stupid Grammer Nazi.

boog · 2011-02-15 Reply Admin

frits (cheap imitation):
boog:
I just pulled the pin on any ordinary grenade and went kamikaze on my enemy. Sure, I'd die and lose a point, but they'd die too... sometimes. Either way I always got a good laugh out of them.
Your not too bright, are you?

I was for a moment, about 3 seconds after pulling the pin.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

quake3.

or quakelive, for no money!

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Dear Earnest,

In case you can’t tell, this is a grown-up place. The fact that you insist on playing Quake on company time clearly shows that you’re too young and too stupid to be starring in B-grade comedy films.

Go away and grow up.

Sincerely, Bert Glanstron

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

frits:
by:
frits:
boog:
Remy Porter:
Grenades? Fun Quake II story. We liked to play the Weapons of Destruction mod- it added the best Q2 grappling hook and gave every weapon a ridiculous alt-fire (the chaingun, for example, would fire shotgun shells). It also added the cataclysm device- a grenade that could clear a room.
Because I was a giant jerk-face, when we death-matched, I'd run into a room with other players in it, and set off a cataclysm device. Yeah, I'd die, and get -1 to my score- but they'd all also die, adding points to my score.

//And when they complained, I proceeded tear them up with the buzzsaw.
Who needs a cataclysm device? I just pulled the pin on any ordinary grenade and went kamikaze on my enemy. Sure, I'd die and lose a point, but they'd die too... sometimes. Either way I always got a good laugh out of them.
I'm pretty sure playing the game was pointless for you, then.

Your not too bright, are you?

For someone who keeps saying "not too bright..." comments, you would think that EVENTUALLY you would get the spelling of you're corrent. Unless of course this is a trolling attempt, and in that case, good job.
Good god, not every spelling error is a troll attempt, you stupid Grammer Nazi.

Not a grammar nazi, I just like to call out people when when they're being a douchebag, that's all.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Ah, back in the day everything was so cool. Quake, and IRC and dial-up Internet access etc. Oh, and floppy drives - almost forgot we even had those :) For me as a programmer and Internet user things have evolved a lot, too. I cannot even remember what pre-Google world was like - how did we even live without search engines? How did we live without Facebook, LinkedIn, Groupon, sharing news and pictures and videos and so on?

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Unreal Tournament, released in 1999

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

WaD:
Unreal Tournament, released in 1999

Halo, released in 2001.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

by:
frits:
by:
frits:
boog:
Remy Porter:
Grenades? Fun Quake II story. We liked to play the Weapons of Destruction mod- it added the best Q2 grappling hook and gave every weapon a ridiculous alt-fire (the chaingun, for example, would fire shotgun shells). It also added the cataclysm device- a grenade that could clear a room.
Because I was a giant jerk-face, when we death-matched, I'd run into a room with other players in it, and set off a cataclysm device. Yeah, I'd die, and get -1 to my score- but they'd all also die, adding points to my score.

//And when they complained, I proceeded tear them up with the buzzsaw.
Who needs a cataclysm device? I just pulled the pin on any ordinary grenade and went kamikaze on my enemy. Sure, I'd die and lose a point, but they'd die too... sometimes. Either way I always got a good laugh out of them.
I'm pretty sure playing the game was pointless for you, then.

Your not too bright, are you?

For someone who keeps saying "not too bright..." comments, you would think that EVENTUALLY you would get the spelling of you're corrent. Unless of course this is a trolling attempt, and in that case, good job.
Good god, not every spelling error is a troll attempt, you stupid Grammer Nazi.
I just like to call out people when when they're being a douchebag.

Well, if that isn't irony, I don't no what is.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â:
WaD:
Unreal Tournament, released in 1999
Halo, released in 2001.

Call of Duty, with more releases on more systems than Madden.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Shooter:
ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â:
WaD:
Unreal Tournament, released in 1999
Halo, released in 2001.
Call of Duty, released in 2003.

FTFY

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

That would of course be Battlefield 1942, with the Desert Combat mod :D

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

by:

As someone has already pointed out, that unless outsourcing (off-shoring) firms starts actually creating quality products, the managers of these westerns companies will eventually notice that this lack of quality is actually costing them more than keeping the talent in-house (or even in-country). I'm not against free-market, but if the product is consistently sub-standard, people will begin to notice. Now when this will happen is another question. People don't learn very quickly, so I'd say at least another 5-10 years before off-shoring becomes a thing of the past (IMHO).

Then again, there are lots of people who are ok with it "just working, for now", so who knows? This trend could go on forever-more...

BTW, your client is not delighted with the work. What they are delighted in is that it only cost them 1/50 what it would cost to create that garbage at home. Now they can spend some of the money they saved to hire a few senior developers to make the code work correctly.

/rant

You have great faith in managers (particularly to remember how good it was with competent staff - who they clearly didn't recognise as exceptional, or they wouldn't have shipped offshore).

Managers WILL (probably) realise that crap is being produced. Managers MIGHT throw more money at the problem to fix it, but this will most likely result in MORE developers not BETTER developers being hired. This is a recipe for disaster. More incompetence is a bad thing (any which way you look at it). I seriously doubt that managers will ever see that the problem was caused by moving offshore - they would justify increasing costs of hiring more developers easily ("Imagine what it would cost to hire the extra people we need at home...").

Once things go offshore there is little hope of return unless it appears (not necessarily is) cost-effective. For a manager with a brain the size of a pea (rather large, by their standards) this means lower wages at home. How many of you are prepared to work for a couple of dollars a day?

As many have said before, if a better product were available overseas, we would be shipping talent in, not shipping work out. The bottom line is the bottom line, and when the end product is crap, that will simply become standard (after all, everyone is doing it).

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

hoodaticus:
gpb:
hoodaticus:
If I said the average Indian is better at basketball than the average Paraplegic, you would see that as racism.
Technically, being paraplegic is a condition not a race. The real question comes up when you cite studies that show results weighted towards an ethnicity. Like average Indian men are smaller than the rest of the world. Or black men are more susceptible to hypertension. Are those racist?
Cheers.
Then science must be racist.

Like!

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

This isn't about security. Networked file systems work with files, directories etc, whereas formatting requires a networked block device. I don't think that Microsoft ever implemented such a thing (until iSCSI).

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Great story.... but how do you format a mapped drive?

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Mason Wheeler:
Senior Swede:
FTFY. People don't understand what racism is, and think it's just white folks giving black folks a hard time. Slowly, that's starting to include those of Hispanic origin. That's not it either. Racism is the mindset that "we" are inherently better than "them" at x. That means saying that blacks are better runners is racism. That means that Mexicans are better lovers is racism. That means that saying "white men can't jump" is racism. I've noticed the tendency for it to be "okay" to make fun of Indians (MetroPCS,Outsourced I'm looking at you), just as it was previously funny to make fun of Chinese. And blacks. And Irishmen. And Native Americans. That doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean that your kids won't someday call you a racist *****.

The key word there, that you seem to be overlooking, is "inherently." While I agree that all men are created equal, we don't tend to stay that way for long, and coding is a learned skill, not an inherent talent. This means that the quality of the learning process and the surrounding culture has quite a bit of influence on the finished product.

Take a white kid, raise him in India in the Indian school system, and he'll be a heck of a lot more likely to produce really crappy code than an Indian kid of equal intelligence raised and educated in America.

And we have an example of racism. Schooling in America is probably different than in India (because the cultures are very different). A white kid (because only America has those...) in an Indian school may struggle, but an Indian kid in an American school may struggle equally.

Look up "Srinivasa Ramanujan" on wikipedia (or your resource of choice). Much of his work was quite unique - and his ability to approach problems from left field is often attributed to the fact that he wasn't constrained by Western education.

The point is, different cultures educate differently, and it is difficult to compare which is better (beauty is in the eye of the beerholder). We think our system is 'better' because we understand it and would struggle in other systems. Various research has shown that intelligence testing (the accuracy/point of which is often questioned anyway) can be skewed based on culture. This doesn't mean that some cultures are necessarily less intelligent, it just means that they don't think the same way, or are not as adapted to testing as we are. I'm sure other cultures could equally provide tests that the most intelligent of us would struggle with.

That said, I think offshoring does tend to produce bad code. The biggest reason, though, is that the better programmers (or workers full stop) will naturally seek the better wages, and is more likely to move overseas (or in another career). The problem is firstly that businesses think that they can get something cheaply and secondly that with populations the size of India or China, you will naturally have masses of people willing to work in IT, and many (usually the bottom of the bag) at minimal wages. For some (even highly skilled) it may not be feasible to move to chase better paid work, but I would think enough would be able to to make a big difference in the quality of the workforce available. Comments by some OP about the quality of Indians working in America vs Indians working in India certainly seem to support this view...Ultimately, most of the time, you will get what you pay for.

hoodaticus · 2011-02-15 Reply Admin

ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬:
hoodaticus:
gpb:
hoodaticus:
If I said the average Indian is better at basketball than the average Paraplegic, you would see that as racism.
Technically, being paraplegic is a condition not a race. The real question comes up when you cite studies that show results weighted towards an ethnicity. Like average Indian men are smaller than the rest of the world. Or black men are more susceptible to hypertension. Are those racist?
Cheers.
Then science must be racist.
In that case, this scientific study must be really racist:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6161691.stm

ZOMG +1000! ROFL

hoodaticus · 2011-02-15 Reply Admin

by:
frits:
boog:
Remy Porter:
Grenades? Fun Quake II story. We liked to play the Weapons of Destruction mod- it added the best Q2 grappling hook and gave every weapon a ridiculous alt-fire (the chaingun, for example, would fire shotgun shells). It also added the cataclysm device- a grenade that could clear a room.
Because I was a giant jerk-face, when we death-matched, I'd run into a room with other players in it, and set off a cataclysm device. Yeah, I'd die, and get -1 to my score- but they'd all also die, adding points to my score.

//And when they complained, I proceeded tear them up with the buzzsaw.
Who needs a cataclysm device? I just pulled the pin on any ordinary grenade and went kamikaze on my enemy. Sure, I'd die and lose a point, but they'd die too... sometimes. Either way I always got a good laugh out of them.
I'm pretty sure playing the game was pointless for you, then.

Your not too bright, are you?

For someone who keeps saying "not too bright..." comments, you would think that EVENTUALLY you would get the spelling of you're corrent. Unless of course this is a trolling attempt, and in that case, good job.

frits has the most well-honed sense of satire and sarcasm in this place.

hoodaticus · 2011-02-15 Reply Admin

boog:
frits (unregistered):
ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€ Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬:
hoodaticus:
gpb:
hoodaticus:
If I said the average Indian is better at basketball than the average Paraplegic, you would see that as racism.
Technically, being paraplegic is a condition not a race. The real question comes up when you cite studies that show results weighted towards an ethnicity. Like average Indian men are smaller than the rest of the world. Or black men are more susceptible to hypertension. Are those racist?
Cheers.
Then science must be racist.
In that case, this scientific study must be really racist:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6161691.stm

Linked to on the same page: Large condoms for S African men

Interestingly, One in three South African men admit to rape, survey finds.

But I thought South Africans are white?

Nah, white guys were the first to be eaten once apartheid ended.

Mason Wheeler · 2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Jimbo:
Mason Wheeler:
The key word there, that you seem to be overlooking, is "inherently." While I agree that all men are created equal, we don't tend to stay that way for long, and coding is a learned skill, not an inherent talent. This means that the quality of the learning process and the surrounding culture has quite a bit of influence on the finished product.
Take a white kid, raise him in India in the Indian school system, and he'll be a heck of a lot more likely to produce really crappy code than an Indian kid of equal intelligence raised and educated in America.

And we have an example of racism. Schooling in America is probably different than in India (because the cultures are very different). A white kid (because only America has those...) in an Indian school may struggle, but an Indian kid in an American school may struggle equally.

I'm not quite sure how this constitutes "an example of racism," especially when your explanation doesn't address what I actually wrote in the slightest. In case it wasn't clear, I wasn't talking about people struggling in school; I was talking about someone being raised and immersed in a certain culture, doing just fine in school, and then comparing the finished products. My point was that race is irrelevant; what matters when training knowledge workers is the quality of the knowledge that they're trained with.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Egypt vs the government, kinda one sided but hey so was Quake

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Pytry:
by:
cool story2:
now that everyone has let out their angsty "i didn't get any last night for valentine's", resume civilized discussion.

Resume civilized discussion? I think you're lost... This is TDWTF.

And the only angst that is being expressed here is good, hard-working developers having to compete and lose jobs to shitty, lowest bidding companies who are "CMM level 5" certified, which is about as meaningful as a MCBF certification (McDonalds Certified Burger Flipper).

I got one of those! Are you saying that I don't know how to flip burgers?

Certificates are important you know. Without them, how would we trick people into buying things they don't need or doesn't work? It's what makes the economy go round.

Perhaps more to the point the employment that Certification creates (trainers, examiners etc) keeps our unemployment rates down (well, not in the Us perhaps, but...).

I did laugh some years ago when I drove Public buses and was later hassled by a learning institution to complete a "Certificate III in Transport and Distribution " that I had apparently completed about 75% of through my work....

I love Job titles: Bus Operator (not driver??) Waste Management Engineer (wow - I'd love to drive a truck and be called engineer) Sandwich Artist (what's artistic about making lunch?) etc....

I love that we have :

a HR department to address HR issues, and their response (almost inevitably) is "this is how you can fix the issue"
an OHS department that tells you what to do in line with OHS
a planning department that asks you what we need to plan for etc...

We seem really big on making jobs sound special, and creating departments to ease the burden of non job-specific tasks, but all we seem to do is have the same positions and increased red-tape/bureacracy. Perhaps it's little wonder that the same job can be done cheaper in China - they may not have the same organisational overheads.

HR (a particular gripe of mine) must have been a good idea to begin with, but how long did it take them to realise that HR can't hire people unless they understand what jobs are required (and what skills on people's resumes mean). Does anyone know what HR actually does?

hoodaticus · 2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Mason Wheeler:
Jimbo:
Mason Wheeler:
The key word there, that you seem to be overlooking, is "inherently." While I agree that all men are created equal, we don't tend to stay that way for long, and coding is a learned skill, not an inherent talent. This means that the quality of the learning process and the surrounding culture has quite a bit of influence on the finished product.
Take a white kid, raise him in India in the Indian school system, and he'll be a heck of a lot more likely to produce really crappy code than an Indian kid of equal intelligence raised and educated in America.

And we have an example of racism. Schooling in America is probably different than in India (because the cultures are very different). A white kid (because only America has those...) in an Indian school may struggle, but an Indian kid in an American school may struggle equally.

I'm not quite sure how this constitutes "an example of racism," especially when your explanation doesn't address what I actually wrote in the slightest. In case it wasn't clear, I wasn't talking about people struggling in school; I was talking about someone being raised and immersed in a certain culture, doing just fine in school, and then comparing the finished products. My point was that race is irrelevant; what matters when training knowledge workers is the quality of the knowledge that they're trained with.

Trying to explain things to an idiot (evinced by screaming "RACISM" where the definition does not apply) is laborious. Your point was understood and well received by everyone else, though.

EDIT - nevermind. Jimbo is no idiot (see below); he was just confused.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Mason Wheeler:
Jimbo:
Mason Wheeler:
The key word there, that you seem to be overlooking, is "inherently." While I agree that all men are created equal, we don't tend to stay that way for long, and coding is a learned skill, not an inherent talent. This means that the quality of the learning process and the surrounding culture has quite a bit of influence on the finished product.
Take a white kid, raise him in India in the Indian school system, and he'll be a heck of a lot more likely to produce really crappy code than an Indian kid of equal intelligence raised and educated in America.

And we have an example of racism. Schooling in America is probably different than in India (because the cultures are very different). A white kid (because only America has those...) in an Indian school may struggle, but an Indian kid in an American school may struggle equally.

I'm not quite sure how this constitutes "an example of racism," especially when your explanation doesn't address what I actually wrote in the slightest. In case it wasn't clear, I wasn't talking about people struggling in school; I was talking about someone being raised and immersed in a certain culture, doing just fine in school, and then comparing the finished products. My point was that race is irrelevant; what matters when training knowledge workers is the quality of the knowledge that they're trained with.

Oh, I get it now.

Race is irrelevant, it's just that American schools produce better results than Indian ones.

My Bad.

hoodaticus · 2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Larry:
hoodaticus:
Remy Porter:
TRWTF is this comment thread.
Agreed. You can thank Larry for throwing the grenade.
TRWTF is getting flak for callin' 'em as I see 'em.
Which is why I am still unlisted.

The problem isn't calling it as you see it. It's your vision and perhaps your programming ability.

Quite simply, you failed to type check "Indian". It could refer to a nationality or a race. You assumed the latter, when I meant the former.

Racism has been defined as interjecting race where it is not relevant. You, sir, are the racist.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Larry:
hoodaticus:
You're saying TRWTF is free markets? Which side of supply and demand offends thee?
The way to keep jobs from going to India is to let them go ahead and go to India. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and in this case, the outsourcer will learn its lesson:

Indian Code = Shit.
TRWTF is racism

Spoken like someone who hasn't experienced outsourced indian code.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

by:
hoodaticus:
You're saying TRWTF is free markets? Which side of supply and demand offends thee?
The way to keep jobs from going to India is to let them go ahead and go to India. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and in this case, the outsourcer will learn its lesson:

Indian Code = Shit.

You're wrong! Wrong, wrong, WRONG!

It's: Indian Code == Shit

No actually it is correct as before. In order for Indian Code to be shit, you have to assign shit to it (which is what Indian programmers do... assign shit to Indian Code). Thus, you can then apply the 'equals' operator (==) on the Indian Code to test for shit. So really it should look like this:

Indian Code = shit; print( (Indian Code == shit) ? "Indian code is shit" : "Indian code is ingenium" );

captcha: ingenium

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Brad:
HR (a particular gripe of mine) must have been a good idea to begin with, but how long did it take them to realise that HR can't hire people unless they understand what jobs are required (and what skills on people's resumes mean). Does anyone know what HR actually does?

Haven't you figured that out yet? HR exists to protect the company from the employees. Nothing more, nothing less.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Jimbo:

Oh, I get it now.

Race is irrelevant, it's just that American schools produce better results than Indian ones.

My Bad.

They do, actually, and the general environment is more conducive to a motivated kid - 24/7 power, AC, lots of calories, and easy access to all the info you could ever want.

or were you being sarcastic? It's so hard to tell sometimes.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Mike:
1997, an era of before thumb-drives and when Quake was the best deathmatch money could buy
And today, the best deathmatch money can buy is... ?

Sniper

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Unreal Tournament 2004

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Wonk:
Anon:
hoodaticus:
You're saying TRWTF is free markets? Which side of supply and demand offends thee?

Perhaps the part where people are treated as commodities?
Pipe down, you Human Resource.

Oh yeah, I forgot, resources are meant to be exploited, right?

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Hasn't anybody picked up on the Axe in Quake? I never had an axe as a weapon...

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Ah well. With all pleasure you can write your own operating system.Coz... any OS you pick... contains that sht. May be you should reinvent lot of tools, apps and games you use 24/7. Coz.... they have lot of that same sht. Good luck.Hope the world won't get into any of your sh*t.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Team Fortress 2, of course.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Nobody:
Thinking you're better than someone else for whatever reason is wrong, but political correctness is just a masking term for Marxism.

It's not wrong when you actually are better than someone else.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

Black Ops for a fast-paced arcade shooter, & Battlefield 2 for more realistic combat.

2011-02-15 Reply Admin

David:
I never heard of a network file system that allowed for remote formats. This story is bunk.

RPC's, not NFS.

Gaming the System

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