• Mark (unregistered) in reply to SomeCoder
    SomeCoder:
    pink_fairy:
    You need help. Or Sarah Palin. Or both.

    Badly.

    Alternatively, you could just read the Bible again (the Old Testament, presumably), and realise what a prat you are.

    I'd suggest Ecclesiastes I, although it's always worth giving the Psalms a reappraisal. If you're feeling naughty (and imagining Sarah Palin in a slightly soiled blue dress), there's always the Song of Solomon.

    Enjoy!

    What... the.... f*ck??

    This post is the real WTF

    Yeah, last I checked we're not a theocracy. All good intentions from the Bible aside, I sure as hell don't want the US Government based on any religious dogma. If it happens to coincide, so be it.

  • Mark (unregistered) in reply to Son of Kafka
    Son of Kafka:
    Me:
    That is *exactly* the attitude that most Corporate CEOs have about their companies. Companies always have enough money for them to make [bm]illions in salaries, and for them to give each up interest free loans, and bonuses. ... Funny, how these need to be frugal with money only comes out when you start discussing the people in the corporation that actually work.

    Were the government not so wrapped around large corporations, and vice versa, perhaps this wouldn't be as much of a problem as it is. The answer is not to bail out companies, and maybe when this financial debacle is over, investors will remain leary of golden parachutes and disproportionate salaries.

    Nah... won't happen. You people voted in the idiot Republicans and Democrats that caused all this.

    Also, it's kind of arrogant and ignorant to suggests that CEOs don't work. Most of them got where they are by working 60-80 hour weeks.

    No, CEOs got to where they are because they're "winners of life's lottery". Former Democrat Senator Tom Daschle told me that.

  • Fnord Prefect (unregistered) in reply to me
    me:
    In many cases, I am sure the persons at the agencies just don't even UNDERSTAND the requirements they were given. Thus, even if they wanted, they cannot do it.

    A friend of mine was rejected by a headhunter because, even though his resume listed experience in building local area networks, it didn't explicitly list "LAN experience".

    Stupid headhunters.

  • Fnord Prefect (unregistered) in reply to WhiskeyJack

    In one job interview I had (which was related to ISP billing), I was asked what I would do if an error was found that meant that a customer was being overcharged; in effect, would I lie to the customer in order to avoid having to give them a refund. I stumbled a bit and basically said, no I wouldn't - that's management's job.

    I still got the job (without the lying to customers bit).

  • (cs) in reply to Mark
    Mark:
    I thought this country was supposed to be free and welcoming of immigrants. So what if a non-citizen has a job? What are you, xenophobic? Do you propose that every employer in this country first prove that they tried hiring a citizen before ever hiring a non-citizen? Under what authority?

    Whose job is it anyways? It's the employers; and they can damn well do with it as they please.

    Sorry if that rant wasn't "fair", whatever the hell that means.

    Well generally non citizens aren't allowed to work in this country. They have to get permission from the government to work here, and the employer is responsible for trying to hire citizens before non citizens. Sure they employer can damn well do with it as they please, but what happens when your employee is deported and the employer is fined for not following the law?

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Asiago Chow
    Asiago Chow:
    The real kicker, though, is found in the annals modern medical research. A growing body of evidence shows that humans, social creatures that we are, are less happy, and less healty, when we live alone or in very small social groups. People living alone are more depressed, more likely to suffer health issues, less happy, and more likely to die early, than their cohabitating and more social peers. This brings into stark relief the true cost of so-called "living wages"... far from living, they enable lifestyles which science shows correlate directly with early mortality and reduced happiness in life. The so-called living wage kills, kills in large numbers, by alowing people to live self-destructively solo lifestyles.

    What in the holy hell kind of pseudoscientific garbage have you been getting your hands on? A living wage "kills in large numbers"? Do you even read what you wrote before posting?

    The very thought that people must make less than the minimum amount to survive to protect them from the horrors of being single is sickening. In any other context, for example saying that ugly people are more likely to be single and therefore live self-destructive lives, you would be vilified and ousted from the community.

    I voluntarily choose to be childless and single, and I make a decent living. It is no business of yours to make moral judgements about my "self-destructive solo lifestyle" since I harm precisely no one.

  • Son of Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Mark
    Mark:
    No, CEOs got to where they are because they're "winners of life's lottery". Former Democrat Senator Tom Daschle told me that.

    I can't tell if that's humor or not. I hope so.

    Q. How do you know when politicians are lying? A. When their mouths move.

    All hail the New Religion under the New Regime of Hope. We tear down those who have achieved in society and redistribute the wealth. We can then reap their fruits whilst we sit on our Free Riding Thumbs.

  • jcs (unregistered) in reply to Asiago Chow

    I used to work for a company that calculated the cost of various modes of transportation. A private jet that seats 6 costs the typical flight department about $2700/hour to fly (after staff costs, depreciation, and other tax accounting tricks.)

    I don't the figures for a jet that seats 10, but your estimate of $4000 sounds reasonable.

  • ShatteredArm (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    What in the holy hell kind of pseudoscientific garbage have you been getting your hands on? A living wage "kills in large numbers"? Do you even read what you wrote before posting?

    The very thought that people must make less than the minimum amount to survive to protect them from the horrors of being single is sickening. In any other context, for example saying that ugly people are more likely to be single and therefore live self-destructive lives, you would be vilified and ousted from the community.

    I voluntarily choose to be childless and single, and I make a decent living. It is no business of yours to make moral judgements about my "self-destructive solo lifestyle" since I harm precisely no one.

    I think you missed the entire point.

    Also, if you're egalitarian enough that you believe in a living wage for everybody, it would follow that you are, indeed, harming others, because any amount you're making above a living wage is money that should go to people who aren't. But I get it, you want other people to pay for that.

  • (cs) in reply to Asiago Chow
    Asiago Chow:
    If you were in IT your job was to answer "yes that would work" or "no that wouldn't work." Your opinion of another deparment's priorities really have no merit or bearing.

    I happen to have worked as a programmer on the team in question, so I had quite a bit more knowledge of the situation than your typical IT guy would have, and because this is such a small company I find myself dealing with various aspects of every team, not just the IT issues. For example, I had a significant role in designing the next copy protection scheme for our software products. I'm also the person who "gets" to install 64-bit operating systems on the computers in question, and I have enough on my plate that if they can't even compile the 64-bit version of the program, I don't want to try to squeeze some OS installations into my schedule.

    If my only responsibility in the company were "fix the computers when they break", then I would agree with you that my comments were out of line, but my responsibilities extend quite a bit further than that.

  • (cs) in reply to ShatteredArm
    ShatteredArm:
    Also, if you're egalitarian enough that you believe in a living wage for everybody, it would follow that you are, indeed, harming others, because any amount you're making above a living wage is money that should go to people who aren't.
    No, it doesn't follow, and you are a moron for suggesting such.

    Now, how about we talk about coding?

  • The Fake WTF (unregistered) in reply to Michael
    Michael:
    Ha ha ha ha! I took a combined 6 years of Italian through junior high and high school. All I retained was: mi piace le tue tette!

    Captcha: tristique. A mystifying trisquit?

    And this is how they punish those who are completely honest on their resumes.

    If anyone asks, I have many years of programming experience, counting the decade or so where I knew nothing more than 10 PRINT "YOU STINK!" 20 GOTO 10.

  • Mark (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Asiago Chow:
    The real kicker, though, is found in the annals modern medical research. A growing body of evidence shows that humans, social creatures that we are, are less happy, and less healty, when we live alone or in very small social groups. People living alone are more depressed, more likely to suffer health issues, less happy, and more likely to die early, than their cohabitating and more social peers. This brings into stark relief the true cost of so-called "living wages"... far from living, they enable lifestyles which science shows correlate directly with early mortality and reduced happiness in life. The so-called living wage kills, kills in large numbers, by alowing people to live self-destructively solo lifestyles.

    What in the holy hell kind of pseudoscientific garbage have you been getting your hands on? A living wage "kills in large numbers"? Do you even read what you wrote before posting?

    The very thought that people must make less than the minimum amount to survive to protect them from the horrors of being single is sickening. In any other context, for example saying that ugly people are more likely to be single and therefore live self-destructive lives, you would be vilified and ousted from the community.

    I voluntarily choose to be childless and single, and I make a decent living. It is no business of yours to make moral judgements about my "self-destructive solo lifestyle" since I harm precisely no one.

    I thought we agreed to stop feeding the trolls.

  • Mark (unregistered) in reply to TopCod3rsBottom
    TopCod3rsBottom:
    Now, how about we talk about coding?

    I'd love to. But for some reason people keep insisting that what I earn in my paycheck each week isn't mine. Not so long as other people need it. Also, apparently I'm supposed to "give back". Last I checked, I never stole anything so I don't need to return anything to anyone. Every thing I have taken, I paid for or otherwise compensated the other party.

  • David Short (unregistered) in reply to i still remember some italian
    i still remember some italian:
    Michael:
    Ha ha ha ha! I took a combined 6 years of Italian through junior high and high school. All I retained was: mi piace le tue tette!

    should have studied more...it's mi piaciano le tue tette.

    You too. It's “mi piacciono le tue tette”.

    (I was going to let the first mistake slide, but then...)

  • kevin (unregistered) in reply to Satanicpuppy

    If you did teach yourself, keep it TO yourself. Self-taught coders have tons of bad habits.

    I resent that statement.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Mark
    Mark:
    Franz Kafka:
    The pretense is that we don't want people starving; we can either mandate a minimum wage that you can survive on or implement the dole (ala germany) and remove minimum wage.

    To address your immigrant thing, a lot of companies don't like to pay the prevailing wage and prefer indentured servants that are stuck with limited bargaining power and a lower wage. It's not xenophobic to object to an abuse of the rules/law surrounding temporary visas.

    So, you have the same goal as everyone else: "we don't want people starving".

    Your proposed solutions:

    1. mandate a minimum wage that you can survive on
    2. implement the dole (ala germany) and remove minimum wage [I'm assuming you're talking about welfare?]

    Both your proposals make you sound like a lover of The State. Ever consider any alternatives? So basically your only answer is to use governmental force to either disrupt freedom of contract or redistribute wealth. Neither sound particularly tasty to me kind sir. Perhaps you'd prefer taking a time machine to 1970 to Hungary, Poland, or to their motherland, the USSR? What fun you'd have as a partisan!

    Your other point: "companies don't like to pay the prevailing wage". Last I checked, no company wants to pay more than it has to. Same goes for employees, they don't want to work for less than they have to. Somewhere in the middle is where a rate is set and a job is filled. That's how it works in a free country. Voluntarily. No government force needed. No force or fraud used by either party.

    "It's not xenophobic to object to an abuse of the rules/law surrounding temporary visas." No, it's not xenophobic. It's also not too bright to expect to make it rich when you have no leverage. When you come to America with a Visa that stipulates work status, then you have little leverage over your employer. So? That's the game.

    "indentured servants that are stuck with limited bargaining power" Once again, those immigrants know they will come here with less leverage than their American counterparts. That's what they signed up for. If they didn't know how things would work out, I don't blame it on the employers. I feel bad for the immigrants in those situations, but they should've done their due diligence.

    I suppose I could explain a bit more: I don't want people starving because poor people on the dole watching cable because they have no drive to better themselves is a lot cheaper than waiting for them to get desperate and stupid and end up in jail or a trauma ward. Also safer for the ones paying for it.

    I'm glad you recognize the conditions of a work visa; know that I oppose them for the vast majority of purposes, as they depress properly set wages and give employers virtual slaves. See arguments against living wages in light of corporations who games the system so they don't have to pay a competitive wage and see if you don't change your mind a bit.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to David Short
    David Short:
    i still remember some italian:
    Michael:
    Ha ha ha ha! I took a combined 6 years of Italian through junior high and high school. All I retained was: mi piace le tue tette!

    should have studied more...it's mi piaciano le tue tette.

    You too. It's “mi piacciono le tue tette”.

    (I was going to let the first mistake slide, but then...)

    My favorite is "l'etat c'est moi'. Sure, it's french, but they're both very latinish languages.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to ShatteredArm
    ShatteredArm:
    I think you missed the entire point.

    Also, if you're egalitarian enough that you believe in a living wage for everybody, it would follow that you are, indeed, harming others, because any amount you're making above a living wage is money that should go to people who aren't. But I get it, you want other people to pay for that.

    That's a stupid thing to say and you're stupid for saying it (insert snark emoticon).

    The idea of a living wage is that someone who's worth employing is worth paying enough that they aren't eternally a hair's breadth from starvation. This doesn't mean that they have a glamorous life on minimum wage, but they do get enough to eat, a safe place to sleep, and some money left over that can be used for some sort of luxury - going out a couple times per month or something like that. Nowhere in there is the notion that money above subsistence + epsilon should be taken and given to others, just that starving masses are a bad idea all round.

  • mitschke (unregistered)

    There is always the same WTF in the Tales:

    Stupid interviewers who think they are so smart and can tell if a person would be a capable candidate by asking them a question that has zero bandwith. Such questions will only show whether a person has a specific knowledge. Knowledge that casn be easily learned within 5 minutes. And then they write Alex an Email and we all laugh... WTF?!?

  • Herby (unregistered)

    On "relevant experience":

    Once I was shopping my resume around at a job fair. Nicely formatted and all that. I included both my High School, and College locations just to be through. At one desk, an HR drone took one look at my resume and rejected it by saying "we only accept college graduates". I then pointed out that I in fact had graduated, and pointed it out in the resume. What a dolt. I had the good fortune to NOT work at that location.

    Another instance was in a want-ad (back when they were used) that expressed a need for "5 years experience with Java". Unfortunately Java was only about 3 years old at the time. It was typical of the time.

  • (cs) in reply to Mark
    Mark:
    So basically your only answer is to use governmental force to either disrupt freedom of contract or redistribute wealth. Neither sound particularly tasty to me kind sir. Perhaps you'd prefer taking a time machine to 1970 to Hungary, Poland, or to their motherland, the USSR? What fun you'd have as a partisan!
    It always amuses me that Americans don't seem to understand the difference between socialism (as implemented in most Western European countries) and communism. Here the system is referred to as a "socially corrected liberalism"
    Mark:
    Once again, those immigrants know they will come here with less leverage than their American counterparts. That's what they signed up for. If they didn't know how things would work out, I don't blame it on the employers. I feel bad for the immigrants in those situations, but they should've done their due diligence.
    They usually don't know what will happen do them. Immigrants are promised a golden future in a rich, civilized country. They blow all their life savings on getting here only to realize they are bottom of the pile.
  • Never watched Lost (unregistered) in reply to Frost

    What kind of a tree?

    If I asked that question I would expect something like a Fibonacci heap as the best answer. To much theoretic?

  • (cs) in reply to kevin
    kevin:
    > If you did teach yourself, keep it TO yourself. Self-taught coders have tons of bad habits.

    I resent that statement.

    So do I. One of the best programmers I've ever worked with was self taught. Strangely enough he gets rejected for jobs because they think hes too old (mid 40s) to be a good programmer.

  • Non-serious coder (unregistered) in reply to Andy

    Shush! Dont tell them how to sort out the serious (i.e "all I want in life is to code!") coders from the non-serious (i.e "I like coding, but i also like other things").. ;)

    Us non-serious coders need jobs as well.

    I got a MsC and 4-5 years of coding experience, but I dont consider myself a "serious" coder as i dont spend every waking moment thinking of coding or reading books on the subject.

    If all coders have to be super-serious, being a developer isnt a job anymore, its either a hobby or a LIFE.

  • grumble (unregistered)

    After finishing my degree I worked in the teaching lab at my university part time while trying to find a real job. Jobs were thin on the ground for recent graduates in my home town and I was applying for anything even remotely related to my degree and went through about 100 job applications and 20 interviews before a very similar permanent job to my part time job came up at another university. I applied, quietly confident that I would get it.

    The interview went swimmingly and I had all the skills and experience they were looking for and more (and it was a rather long and detailed list). I got on really well with the interviewer and the other people working in that area that I would be working with if I got the job. I thought I was a total shoo in for the role.

    I was a little shocked to finally get some feedback almost 2 weeks later that I hadn't made it through to the 2nd round of interviews. After asking for feedback on why I didn't get through when I was such a good fit for the role I was totally stonewalled. It really knocked my confidence that I couldn't even get a 2nd interview for a job that sounded like it was almost created for me it was such a great fit. Sure I didn't get a bunch of other jobs that were only tenuously related to my skills but this job should have been in the bag.

    Months later I found out from a friend who knew the interviewer that the job was filled before it was even advertised with an internal person and the job advertisement and interviews were a charade for the mandatory process to advertise jobs externally. They were pretty shocked that the custom written job spec aimed at the guy they had already chosen fitted me even better than him. They were required to interview me since I had all the skills and experience they needed but had no intention of giving me the job. They also couldn't tell me I had no chance to get the job because I could have some sort of legal recourse if they did.

    Looking back years later it is kind of funny but at the time it made me wonder if I would ever get a real job. I did and am now quite successful and happy in my career but that was one hell of a speed bump back then.

  • WOLA (unregistered)

    Bar the discussion about US financial politics I'm quite interested in the priorityqueue, especially since I have no formal education dealing with patterns etc.

    Given a defined set of priorities wouldn't some sort of tree-based queue or container-based queue where each root defines a priority be a faster way to traverse than reindexing an array?

  • (cs) in reply to Gerhard
    Gerhard:
    kevin:
    > If you did teach yourself, keep it TO yourself. Self-taught coders have tons of bad habits.

    I resent that statement.

    So do I. One of the best programmers I've ever worked with was self taught. Strangely enough he gets rejected for jobs because they think hes too old (mid 40s) to be a good programmer.

    Help ! I'm self-taught and mid-50s; I guess I'd better give up now. I mainly code in C, on embedded platforms, and Delphi; luckily these are simple enough for my aging brain cells.

    Regarding 'bad habits', I'm aware I may have some and strive to eliminate them. Since I'm self-taught mainly from studying other people's code, from whom do I get my bad habits ?

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Buddy
    Buddy:
    wee:

    So your "debug skills" essentially amount to a bunch of print statements? People are failing to sprinkle alert()s throughout their code and you're getting on their case for not knowing how to properly debug? Uh...

    Don't get me wrong, using print statements to "step" through code has uses, but if the code only has a simple typo, there are all manner of tools you can use as a first pass which can show you such errors in much less time that it takes to pop up an alert after each and every line of code. And then of course there are actual javascript debuggers that will let you set breakpoints, etc...

    I can guarantee, this was not a guy you'd want to show advanced tools to, dear God, no. Stick to alert for this guy.

    I know plenty of developers who I wouldn't consider the sharpest tool in the shed. However, most of them are capable of and willing to learn. I have found that most of the cases where they aren't is because of the person teaching them. Not everyone learns or understands things the same way you do. It's called situational leadership... You have to adjust your leadership and teaching to each person's style not just try to brute force them into learning the same way that you might. But from the sound of your arrogance, I'm sure you're the mostest awesomest teacher in your opinion. I'm sure that couldn't have had anything to do with it and everyone else is just stupid.

  • (cs) in reply to Chris
    Chris:
    We're also going to need XML, Webservices, PHP, a neural net, and some assembly sprinkled in (to make it very fast).

    I call dibs on writing the nueral net code and I'll be sure to do it in assembly. Is this for an arm, intel, or other chip?

  • Krupuk (unregistered) in reply to Addison
    Addison:
    Wow the American government sounds retarded. The worst we have it here in Canada is the fact that the government I work for is bilingual, so everyone who's hired full time (unless they just work off in a corner) has to know both English and French. Since almost no English person ever bothers to learn French (unless they want a government job :P) 60% of my co-workers are French even though the city I live in is only about 10% French.

    I live in Luxembourg where every government hiree has to know French, German, English and Luxembourgish. TRWFT is that correspondance is done in French, press statements in German and conversations in Luxembourgish. Websites are mostly in French and/or German and some informational brochures are even in Portuguese. Government computers have the operating system in English, the office suite in French and other programs (browser, mail client...) in German. Applying updates, security fixes etc. is sometimes a nightmare if they aren't multilingual.

  • (cs) in reply to pink_fairy
    pink_fairy:
    If you're feeling naughty (and imagining Sarah Palin in a slightly soiled blue dress), there's always the Song of Solomon.
    Well, I don't know that her breath is as the fragrance of apples, but I'd consider climbing the palm tree to take hold of her date stalks.
  • pbhj (unregistered) in reply to hikari
    hikari:
    SysKoll:
    So what you are saying is that you don't reward honesty in résumés. You just want another carefully weasel-worded, buzzword-compliant, boring résumé.

    That'd be TRWTF.

    Well if you read as far as something that says "I don't know how to use interfaces" and more or less says "and I can't be bothered to learn them" [...] I'd hate to work on even a moderately sized project with someone who didn't know how to use them.

    I think you're missing the real situation here. The guy obviously can learn programming stuff, but it seems like he's self taught. If you know enough to tell him how interfaces work then I reckon he'd be a goer. If you don't know enough about it yourself, stay away.

    I'd call and ask if he's willing to learn, despite what the resume says.

    Honesty is worth a lot IMO.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to KenW
    KenW:
    The fact that they "acted bored" isn't admissible evidence.

    Oh, really? Under what Rule would you object to that testimony, Mr. Hot Shot? I'm referring, of course, to the Federal Rules of Evidence which govern admissibility of evidence and with which you are so thoroughly familiar.

  • SCB (unregistered) in reply to David Short
    David Short:
    i still remember some italian:
    Michael:
    Ha ha ha ha! I took a combined 6 years of Italian through junior high and high school. All I retained was: mi piace le tue tette!

    should have studied more...it's mi piaciano le tue tette.

    You too. It's “mi piacciono le tue tette”.

    (I was going to let the first mistake slide, but then...)

    So... is this some Italian version of Muphry's law?

  • Asiago Chow (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Asiago Chow:
    The real kicker, though, is found in the annals modern medical research. A growing body of evidence shows that humans, social creatures that we are, are less happy, and less healty, when we live alone or in very small social groups. People living alone are more depressed, more likely to suffer health issues, less happy, and more likely to die early, than their cohabitating and more social peers. This brings into stark relief the true cost of so-called "living wages"... far from living, they enable lifestyles which science shows correlate directly with early mortality and reduced happiness in life. The so-called living wage kills, kills in large numbers, by alowing people to live self-destructively solo lifestyles.

    What in the holy hell kind of pseudoscientific garbage have you been getting your hands on? A living wage "kills in large numbers"? Do you even read what you wrote before posting?

    There are many studies. Look up Berkman and Syme 1979, Lonergan 1991, and do your own googling for many more.

    The very thought that people _must_ make less than the minimum amount to survive to protect them from the horrors of being single is sickening. In any other context, for example saying that ugly people are more likely to be single and therefore live self-destructive lives, you would be vilified and ousted from the community.

    I voluntarily choose to be childless and single, and I make a decent living. It is no business of yours to make moral judgements about my "self-destructive solo lifestyle" since I harm precisely no one.

    I hear the same thing from smokers. "It's no business of yours if I am willing to accept lung cancer." Same thing from people who don't wear seatbelts. "It's no busienss of yours if I'm willing to be launched trough my car windshield and die on the road." Same thing from people who visit prostitutes, "It's no business of yours if I get HPV or HIV." Same thing from pot smokers, "It's no business of yours if I whoa that's a cool shirt it has buttons can I press them?!" Same thing from alcohol drinkers, "It's no business of yours if I want to damage my liver."

    Living alone is just another vice. It has known mortality implications. You can deny those risks. A smoker can deny her risk of lung cancer. Denial does not reduce risks.

    As a society we have clearly decided that it IS our business. We tax alcohol and cigarettes prohibitively. We criminalzie drugs. We ticket drivers who don't wear seatbelts. We criminalize or severly restrict prostitution. We penalize people who engage in vice.

    The US income tax code charges higher rates for singles than for heads of household or married groups. It would make no sense for one arm of government to penalize a particular vice while another encourages the same behavior. That's what living wage regulations would do.

    There is only one US political party that supports the idea that you have a right to engage in vice so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. That's the Libertarian Party. They are a bunch of losers. If they are lucky they get 2% of the vote. Unless you are willing to join the Libertarian Party and actually vote Libertarian you are nothing but a hypocrite for thinking that your particular vice is OK and should be supported while allowing your politicians to penalize other vices.

  • (cs) in reply to Asiago Chow
    Asiago Chow:
    Historically it took the labor of more than two people to sustain a household. Parents or kids were needed to maintain stability. Kids started contributing young, and multi-generation households were the norm. This provided not just economic stability but major social benefits.

    Have there been no technological improvements since the days when everyone lived on the farm and everyone worked all day just to provide for themselves? It does not take as much work as it used to to produce the basic needs of a person.

  • Worthstream (unregistered) in reply to Michael
    Michael:
    Ha ha ha ha! I took a combined 6 years of Italian through junior high and high school. All I retained was: mi piace le tue tette!

    And even that is not correct. The plural form of "like" is "piacciono" and when referring to female secondary sexual attributes you should use the plural, as they are a pair.

  • Logician (unregistered) in reply to Asiago Chow
    I hear the same thing from smokers. "It's no business of yours if I am willing to accept lung cancer." Same thing from people who don't wear seatbelts. "It's no busienss of yours if I'm willing to be launched trough my car windshield and die on the road." Same thing from people who visit prostitutes, "It's no business of yours if I get HPV or HIV." Same thing from pot smokers, "It's no business of yours if I whoa that's a cool shirt it has buttons can I press them?!" Same thing from alcohol drinkers, "It's no business of yours if I want to damage my liver."

    Living alone is just another vice. It has known mortality implications. You can deny those risks. A smoker can deny her risk of lung cancer. Denial does not reduce risks.

    As a society we have clearly decided that it IS our business. We tax alcohol and cigarettes prohibitively. We criminalzie drugs. We ticket drivers who don't wear seatbelts. We criminalize or severly restrict prostitution. We penalize people who engage in vice.

    The US income tax code charges higher rates for singles than for heads of household or married groups. It would make no sense for one arm of government to penalize a particular vice while another encourages the same behavior. That's what living wage regulations would do.

    There is only one US political party that supports the idea that you have a right to engage in vice so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. That's the Libertarian Party. They are a bunch of losers. If they are lucky they get 2% of the vote. Unless you are willing to join the Libertarian Party and actually vote Libertarian you are nothing but a hypocrite for thinking that your particular vice is OK and should be supported while allowing your politicians to penalize other vices.

    You've commited every logical fallacy that exists. I just wanted to congratulate you on that.

  • Asiago Chow (unregistered) in reply to SuperousOxide
    SuperousOxide:
    Asiago Chow:
    Historically it took the labor of more than two people to sustain a household. Parents or kids were needed to maintain stability. Kids started contributing young, and multi-generation households were the norm. This provided not just economic stability but major social benefits.

    Have there been no technological improvements since the days when everyone lived on the farm and everyone worked all day just to provide for themselves? It does not take as much work as it used to to produce the basic needs of a person.

    You are on the right track.

    Historically life was hard work. Now we have technology to do most of that work. Great, right? Except... We spent the last 100,000 years adapting to a type of existence that involved a lot of work. Agriculture and hunting/gathering were hard. 100 years of work-reducing technology simply cannot overcome 100,000 of evolution. My great grandparents and earlier ancestors were farmers and fisherfolk, they probably burned 4000-8000 calories a day just living normal lives. Over the last 3 generations that has shifted until now I sit in front of a computer and probably burn 1500 ... but my body carries that 100,000 years of adaptation to a 6000 calorie existence. It needs fake work to remain healty. We had to invent "exercise" because of the gap between evolution and technical revolution. My body thinks it is starving if I eat what I need. Again, evolution hasn't caught up with technology.

    I'm not arguing that we cannot evolve into individualists who thrive in a social vacuum and live longest when we live alone. I'm not arguing that after such an evolutionary change a living wage would be a social good. I'm arguing that we have 100,000 years or more (a lot more... look at most primates; very social... we grew from them) of evolution as social creatures and until we change at that low level a living wage just encourages lifestyles that kill us. It's no different than offering incentives for developing and selling fatty foods. 100 years ago that was a great idea. People could starve while filling their bellies three times a day because you just couldn't pack enough calories into a meal without fat. Problems change with technology.

    The living wage is no different. It's a good idea that is very bad for humans. Not because it's innately bad but because we haven't evolved to live full lives in the conditions it supports.

  • Asiago Chow (unregistered) in reply to Logician
    Logician:
    You've commited every logical fallacy that exists. I just wanted to congratulate you on that.

    :)

  • Anonymous (unregistered)
    Asiago Chow:
    ...snip...
    I don't see why so many people are taking the flame bait here - this guy is obviously Chinese and we all know how important reproduction (read: available child labour) is to the Chinese. That is why they suffer from rampant overpopulation which just happens to be a major contributing factor to high mortality rates and societal malaise. Only a complete idiot would take lessons in effective social structures from the Chinese - they are so dysfunctional that they actually need LAWS to prevent them from reproducing FFS!!!
  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Asiago Chow:
    ...snip...
    - this guy is obviously Chinese
    Yes, it's as obvious that he's Chinese as it is that I'm codependent.
  • Asiago Chow (unregistered)

    For the record: My posts were not flame bait. Nor were they trolling. I was exposing a core question that should be part of any dialog about ANY change in our social structure: will the change do harm?

    Will it cause unhappiness? Will it shorten life? Will it make us a more divided people? Will it enable negative outcomes that, however unintended, must be counted against the positives no matter how well intended the change?

    It is convenient to think something like a living wage is only positive. It is wrong. There are positives, yes, but there are also changes to the shape of our society. Changes that cause real harm. Lives cut short, happiness reduced, social bonds weakend, all in measurable ways.

    This isn't about economics or "welfare states". Yes, those are important factors to consider...but they are abstractions. We as humans are real, concrete, organic beings with a concrete evolutionary history. We have needs. We have vulnerabilities. At the end of the day those needs and vunlerabilities trump any talk about the merits of a particular economic policy or the likelihood of inflationary pressures or raised costs. Social changes that push us farther from our evolutionary history will expose our weaknesses and leave us unhealthy, unhappy, and dead. The intentions don't matter at that point.

    I can smile at "logical fallacy" comments because I was aiming for populist appeal. That means fallacious. Fallacious doesn't mean wrong.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to wee
    wee:
    Jo Bob:
    wee:
    Don't get me wrong, using print statements to "step" through code has uses, but if the code only has a simple typo, there are all manner of tools you can use as a first pass which can show you such errors in much less time that it takes to pop up an alert after each and every line of code. And then of course there are actual javascript debuggers that will let you set breakpoints, etc...

    How in the HELL is someone going to understand what an automated tool is doing, when they can't even learn to do the simple manual equivalent?

    Why the hell is anyone hiring a developer who doesn't know what tools exist for debugging? Why the hell would a company pay for the tedium of having a dev sit there for hours on end, adding print statements to his code, when a couple minutes in one of hundreds of tools could find a missing curly brace in seconds? Why in the hell is the person without the knowledge of these tools allowed to mentor junior developers?

    Finding a missing brace is not what I would call "debugging". That is "reading the error messages from the compiler". And yes, sure, there are plenty of programmer's editors that can find matching braces and would help you fix this problem very quickly.

    By "debugging" we normally mean "finding logic problems in code that runs but produces incorrect results". I agree with the original poster: A few well-placed print statements are usually far more effective than any debugging tool I have ever used. Every now and then I try spending a few hours stepping through code line by line, or setting breakpoints and watch variables, etc etc. And I've almost always found it to be a very inefficient way to debug. An intelligent programmer can usually quickly spot the places in a program where a crucial test is made or value is set, insert a print statement to tell him what the value is or which branch the program took, and find out what's wrong. Yes, occasionally I come across a bug where I just can't figure out where the problem is, and I'm force to sigh and resigned single-step through the code until I see where it is giving unexpected results. But this is a once-a-year phenomenon. For day to day problems, I prefer print statements.

  • (cs) in reply to Asiago Chow
    Asiago Chow:
    Living alone is just another vice.
    Not according to the apostle Paul. 1 Corinthians 7:7 -- "I would like everyone to be unmarried, like I am."
  • Frost (unregistered) in reply to joe
    joe:
    Not sure if I'm missing something, Frost, but you're aware that a heap is a special case of a tree, which happens to have the nice property of being easy to store in an array? (left-balanced, root at element 1, child of n at 2n and 2n+1, etc.)

    Yeah, I was being pedantic.

  • Duke of New York (unregistered) in reply to Asiago Chow
    Asiago Chow:
    For the record: My posts were not flame bait. Nor were they trolling. I was exposing a core question that should be part of any dialog about ANY change in our social structure: will the change do harm?
    stop posting
  • Fast Eddie (unregistered) in reply to Jo Bob
    Jo Bob:
    wee:
    Don't get me wrong, using print statements to "step" through code has uses, but if the code only has a simple typo, there are all manner of tools you can use as a first pass which can show you such errors in much less time that it takes to pop up an alert after each and every line of code. And then of course there are actual javascript debuggers that will let you set breakpoints, etc...

    How in the HELL is someone going to understand what an automated tool is doing, when they can't even learn to do the simple manual equivalent?

    So because you don't know how to tell time by judging the angle of the sun, you shouldn't use a wristwatch?

    I'm just sayin'...

  • Jo Bob (unregistered) in reply to Fast Eddie
    Fast Eddie:
    Jo Bob:

    How in the HELL is someone going to understand what an automated tool is doing, when they can't even learn to do the simple manual equivalent?

    So because you don't know how to tell time by judging the angle of the sun, you shouldn't use a wristwatch?

    I'm just sayin'...

    Nope, but if the concept of Sun coming up = Morning; Sun overhead ~ Noon; Sun going down = evening is lost on someone, then the arbitrary division of hours/ minutes/ seconds ain't going to make it any easier.

    Just sayin' too... ;-)

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