Unosolo

9 tahun yang laludiscuss

This time it is different because automation has reached the levels when it impacts most jobs profoundly and the remaining or newly created job require more skills and deeper specialisation at the same time.

A woodworker whose job was automated cannot pick computer programming in a couple of weeks. It is just not practical.

Unosolo

9 tahun yang laludiscuss

The making of the robot will produce tax revenue, however will not necessarily produce the tax revenue in the same jurisdiction. Also new wealth produced by the robot is likely to be more concentrated.

Unosolo

9 tahun yang laludiscuss

Existing tax systems burden labour more heavily, than capital. This is because capital can flee easily, but labour cannot. A dollar doesn't have a spouse, kids, parents, siblings, a social circle, it doesn't need to learn a new language or culture - it can be moved with a speed of light at a very short notice indeed. Since deploying dollars is cheaper than deploying people from the tax prospective there is a strong economic incentive to replace people with capital at workplaces.

Since Bob's productivity will increase threefold and the demand is finite it is likely Rob, Bob's mate, is going to loose his job. Now the two of them are going to compete for a single job opening and Bob will be lucky (and thankful) to stay employed with no real leverage in his salary negotiations (Rob is unemployed, lost his house and now very eager to get that job too!)

The extra profit will go mostly to the robot owner with some to the robot's inventor (although once enough people are capable of building robots the inventor will have diminishing leverage too, unless he keeps coming up with better stuff).

Then the argument goes that Rob would then become a robot inventor or a capitalist instead of working the mundane job at the widget factory. Not going to happen. He is 53, he doesn't have the capacity required and he is not going to develop on at this stage. No one is going to bet her money on Rob becoming a millionare through invention or investment or even making a decent living ever again. Rob is sad. Whenever Bob talks to Rob he is scared to loose his job to more automation.

Unosolo

10 tahun yang laludiscuss

Commonwealth and Irish citizens resident in UK could vote, whereas resident EU citizens could not.

A democracy is about people whose lives will be significantly affected by a decision having a right to take part in the decision-making.

Why this logic was applied to resident Commonwealth and Irish citizens differently from residents from EU?

Unosolo

12 tahun yang laludiscuss

On the topic of Restraint of trade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restraint_of_trade) clause which some companies insist on: in very few cases a company will take a former employee to court over a breach of such clause and then the company is still likely to lose the case unless the restriction was narrow, specific, reasonable. Usually there also need to be consideration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration) for giving up some of the freedom of trade.

Unosolo

12 tahun yang laludiscuss

Agree, in Java (and any other language) the main culprit is not the complexity that can eventually be abstracted away, but the trivial noise that cannot be abstracted at all: verbose class definitions, clumsy anonymous functions prior to SE8 (functors), lack of implicit interfaces, lack of infix method call notation, generic type erasure, lack of basic type inference, lack of continuations etc.

My point was that limited expression means of a language are sometimes compounded by inability of a programmer to make a good use of the expression means already available to them.

I also understand the desire for more a expressive language, I am a programmer after all. One has to keep in mind, however, that the more expressive a language is the harder it is on the reader. Java code is trivial for a reader to follow (if not for the excessive verbosity sometimes covering up the true intent); much of Scala code base, on the other hand, is not that trivial to comprehend due to the high expressiveness of the language.

Unosolo

12 tahun yang laludiscuss

The essence of the argument here is that Java is a poor language as it doesn't offer simple abstraction to copy standard input into standard output; that Java is too verbose and low-level for the task.

The lack of direct abstraction is not a valid argument, because as a programmer, you shouldn't be writing the logic in Java, Python, C or Scala but rather a higher order domain language implemented in the chosen host language and that's what the process of programming is all about. For the majority of real world programming tasks it's unlikely that a language that fits the domain perfectly already exist, so you have to create one.

In Java one can say:

    copyStream(System.in,System.out);

And then one will have to implement copyStream but only once:

    long copyStream (InputStream src,OutputStream dst) throws IOException {             
        long bytesCopied;
        byte[] buffer = new byte[8192];
        int bytesRead = src.read(buffer);        

        while(bytesRead!=-1) {
            bytesCopied+=bytesRead;
            dst.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
            bytesRead = src.read(buffer);
        }

        return bytesCopied;
    }

I prefer programmers taking this approach of implementing domain specific language first and then expressing the logic in its terms instead of trying to express higher order concepts without resorting to available host language abstractions.

Let's say Python or Perl let one express stream copying more concisely straight out of the box. However when faced with real life programming challenges one will very quickly encounter limits of what a language can express out of the box with one-liner. But as a programmer one has the power to create one-liners from scratch!

Disclaimer: I am not a Java expert, so the code above is just to illustrate the idea based on my very limited knowledge of Java.

Unosolo

12 tahun yang laludiscuss

"Purchase" doesn't quite reflect modern TOC, I believe the more exact term would be "pay a premium for a longer term license to view video content that is revokable at vendor's will; neither continued availability nor immutability of the initially licensed content is guaranteed".

I would really prefer to pay per view instead and retain a high degree of control over my hardware and software configuration as well as having a reasonable choice of options in terms of video quality, various subtitles and audio tracks.

Ideally I'd be able to buy audio track or subtitles separately to combine with the video content for viewing (plug-in), then there would be a robust market of competing translations.

Unosolo

12 tahun yang laludiscuss

The reasons why existing video services do not work for me and I've tried Google Play and Amazon Instant so far:

- Lack of on-demand high quality (true 1080) option: Google Play is 480 and Amazon Instant is blurry on a big screen. Besides Amazon states in their TOC that they can change quality as they see fit at the time of a video being played.

- Insistence on specific playback tech. Amazon Instant mandates Silverlight and the playback is choppy on my media centre PC due to Silverlight's graphic acceleration issues.

- Lack of audio track (and often subtitle) options: in UK that's English only. I want to be able to watch films dubbed and have a selection of translations that are already available.

More generally I am opposed to the prepackaged nature of the paid service offered and lack of control over how and what I can watch.

Some alternative ways of viewing the content offer me great choice and full control over:

  1. Title I choose to watch.
  2. Video quality.
  3. Audio quality.
  4. Audio track. 
  5. Subtitles.
  6. Streaming vs. download, so I can make the best use of my connection.
  7. Hardware and software I am using for viewing.

In other words these matters are decided based on demand, instead of someone's opinion of what the demand should be.

Unosolo

12 tahun yang laludiscuss

spindritf, not necessarily, we don't know the initial temperature of the water and on a hot day (as per the problem statement) the ice-water system will be absorbing some of the external energy.

In practical world, more likely that water will start at around 20-25°C mark and will be considerably cooler once the ice has melted but still above 4°C. So the water volume is likely to shrink a tiny bit due to the rising density and then some more due to ice and water evaporation.

But the effect might be barely noticeable and for some time water will stay level with the edges after ice melted.

Unosolo

12 tahun yang laludiscuss

Since water reaches its peak density at about 4 °C, the actual outcome will vary slightly depending on the initial and the final temperature of the water once the ice has melted.

Unosolo

13 tahun yang laludiscuss

This list is a sign of a viable business if anything else. Any company needs to stay forever young by keeping its offerings in line with the demand. Companies that fail are the ones that choose to ignore the reality.

Unosolo

13 tahun yang laludiscuss

I believe this still to be a very good advice and applies to both sexes. In family life circumstances when a household must depend only on a single source of income are abound. Families where each participating adult can provide a basic standard of living for the entire family in times of need are much stronger financially.

Unosolo

13 tahun yang laludiscuss

Contemporary LED lighting does seem much harsher with very sharp shadows and much less pleasant to the eye than older lights. I believe that lighting need to be assessed on it's overall merits, not just based on brightness / cost ratio.

Unosolo

13 tahun yang laludiscuss

At a job like this one's mind is free to ponder on whatever matters it considers important. Certainly so after the period of initial accustomisation which can be physically hard until one learns the ropes and how to pace oneself through the day. I had a chance to work in a warehouse of a jewelry store, operate a spot welder at an automotive manufacturer and act as do-it-all in a kitchen of a 600 sit venue catering for large functions working up to 18 hour shifts (normally 12-14 hours, 7 day weeks).

Programming and analysis jobs come with their own hidden health hazards physical and anxieties alike, but worse developers are essentially paid to sit and think whole day very intensely and deeply on topics set by others. This can be disturbing and have a profound impact not only on the physical and mental state, but family life.

That's why I can understand when a 52 year old web celebrity and university professor decides to apply for a job of as a USPS letter carrier. [1]

That's why Paul Grahams advice [2] resonates especially well with me: "A palliative care nurse called Bronnie Ware made a list of the biggest regrets of the dying. Her list seems plausible. I could see myself—can see myself—making at least 4 of these 5 mistakes.

If you had to compress them into a single piece of advice, it might be: don't be a cog. The 5 regrets paint a portrait of post-industrial man, who shrinks himself into a shape that fits his circumstances, then turns dutifully till he stops."

1. http://goo.gl/uVwXL8 - Google Translate, original: http://postbote.lj.ru

2. http://www.paulgraham.com/todo.html

Unosolo

13 tahun yang laludiscuss

Understanding downside is much more crucial for continual survival than upside: what is the worse case scenario, bottom line analysis - are the heuristic tools routinely used by people the world over.

A new solution to bacterial infection control problem is due and it might come with even greater benefits than antibiotics. The article makes us appreciate the pain of the problem and puts a greater value on achieving a solution.

Unosolo

13 tahun yang laludiscuss

My experience of having gone through a relationship with an abusive cheater and subsequent two-years research on the topic reading confessions and engaging with fellow men indicates that these words are written from a contemporary female perspective.

Out of failed relationships, a typical westernised woman involved tends to take a marriage like something that can be ditched at any point if anything at all goes wrong; men, on the contrary, tend to stick by their wives. Statistics tell that the majority of divorces in westernised society nowadays are initiated by women. [1]

The legal landscape at least here, in UK, means that after a relationship fails and a divorce in practical terms its predominately men who are left with the financial burden of the split.

[1] http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/divorces-in-england-and-...

Unosolo

13 tahun yang laludiscuss

I am 35 and I share this mindset about close relationships. Family is similar to a start-up in that founders should be prepared to carry each other through ups and downs pooling the risks and sharing not only profits but losses.

What I learned from failed relationships so far is that you have to be careful who you closely associate with for start-up and family purposes alike. The initial excitement and enthusiasm might be blinding, you owe it to yourself to vet candidates carefully.

Unosolo

13 tahun yang laludiscuss

A lot of modern high-paying jobs that require rare skills are all-or-nothing affairs: the choice between fewer hours & less pay and more hours & more money just isn't there.

Some teams have to be small and be able to react quickly to very tight deadlines meaning high work intensity and long hours to remain just on top of what's going on in the environment.

Unosolo

13 tahun yang laludiscuss

This. He had likely abandoned his well-paying job because of burn-out caused by the long hours and lack of appreciation at home where he was treated as an ATM.

I am talking from personal experience and many stories of my peers. In the modern Western society many men are isolated and do not talk to each other about their family problems. If they did they'd found out how similar their stories are - overworked, unappreciated by their wives with their kids brought up to despise them, quietly carrying the entire financial burden of the family on their backs.

Whilst the author had to pick up the pieces of spending gone out of control his entire "family" moved on. As soon as he became a liability instead of an asset his wife discarded him.

Submissions

Why BA's and PM's get higher salaries than programmers?

Do programmers have any special skills that non-programmers may lack?

Will taking a job in web development prevent a low-level programming career?

What Do Project Managers Do All Day?

Why [programming] job postings always looking for “rockstars?”

Software development: dealing with awful estimates

What are Agile and Scrum development methodology?

Offshoring: does it ever work?

Why business analysts and project managers get higher salaries than programmers?

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