You weren't fired for not being a team player, you were fired because it takes you a day to set up a LAMP stack.
Mike McNeil commented on node.js Is VB6 - Does node.js Suck?.
Well I agree with the former. As a PHP/LAMP guy for most of the early part of my career, who is now a rapid, relentless supporter of Node.js, I'd ask you to reconsider your stance. Happy to walk through direct benefits and the experience I've had running my realtime studio and using Node.js-- I'm on skype @balderdashy.
Anonymous Coward commented on LA Port Strike.
Just as an aside, all libel actions in the United Kingdom have to be in the high court.
The high court is very, very expensive.
This means that only rich people can sue for libel. In the UK the onus is on the defendant to prove his/her statements correct.
If you are poor you cannot sue for libel, nor can you say anything that might get you sued for libel.
It this way, the law is only for the rich in the UK.
Anonymous Coward commented on LA Port Strike.
I forgot to say that in the United Kingdom if you want to sue someone in the high court, then your lawyers (or the court) will ask for tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds in advance fees and deposits before they will do anything.
So if you want to sue someone (maybe they libeled you or maybe they stole from you and the case isn't a simple, low-value one) you are bang out of luck in the UK.
You need to be very, very rich to have the protection of the law.
Richard Evans commented on LA Port Strike.
I don't know what it's like in the U.K. and admit it. I have no idea where you are getting your disinformation from, but the reason employers hire back the striking workers is not a matter of law. It is because all unions make that stipulation in their contracts. They would be grossly negligent if they did not include such a requirement. Corporations have quite a bit of power. It is logical to expect that some economic force would arise in the opposite direction. I have had jobs in similar fields that have been both union and non union and essentially from the workers point of view the system under a union is generally a better deal. Any where there is a lot of wealth or money flowing expect questionably creative way to be invented in order for some one to grab a slice of the pie. When the baker gets no pie. no pies will be made or twinkies.
It's called the National Labor Relations Act, you stupid troll. Employers are legally obligated to hire back strikers after a State-approved strike in a State-approved union.
I don't like linking to Wikipedia, but it's the best source for this.
Here's another link.
So why haven't they all been fired? You may not realize it, but even non-union American workers have the right to strike and take other actions to protest and try to improve working conditions, and they can't be fired in retaliation.
Anonymous Coward commented on LA Port Strike.
> When the baker gets no pie. no pies will be made or twinkies.
Ha! That rule obviously didn't apply to me for the first decade of my life working in the software industry.
I worked hard and was careful. My employers made large amounts of money. I was always shy about asking for money and should have angled to get pay rises on switching jobs. I got very little out of it for myself.
I was smart, but not smart for my own benefit.
Anonymous Coward commented on LA Port Strike.
>When a union starts making ridiculous demands, the employer should be>allowed to fire all of them and hire replacements.
The salary of $87K is high and perhaps these union employees have too good a deal. Employers should be able to do something about this.
But in general employers have too much power.
Do you remember Amazon.com in 2001? Customer Service Representatives tried to group together to protest against unfair working hours. I know about Amazon.com. They do push people too much. So what did the management clowns do? They fired the Seattle customer service reps en masse and to some extent hired replacements in a foreign country. I heard some customers were shocked at the drop in customer service quality.
Employers do have too much power. There needs to be a counter-balance.
There was no happy ending for the fired Seattle customeer service reps.
Amazon.com does not like unions.
Joe commented on LA Port Strike.
Hey FSK, these folks are counting on the LA/Long Beach ports keeping their monopoly rents.
The real story a few years from now will be how ports in Mexico (such as Ensenada) are taking the majority of LA/Long Beach port traffic. Chinese companies are investing in expanding some Mexican ports with the encouragement of Mexican governments. NAFTA will allow the free movement of these goods northbound and the railroad/trucking industry is poised to provide those conduits.
It's already taking shape and just a matter of time before things reach critical mass.
Egor commented on I Bought Some Games.
Why don't you just get a job? Why are you unemployed? Why have you been fired numerous times? Why does reading six months worth of your posts give me the impression that you are "offended" by almost everything in the world? You obviously hate any company you could ever work for, hate all the people in any office you could ever work in, so why do you persist in trying to be a corporate wage slave?
Most jobs are lousy, but occasionally there's someone who appreciates me. At my last job, my direct boss seemed to appreciate me. However, the scum at "Bigtime Evil Consulting" wanted to get rid of me to cover up bugs in their software.
I'm in the top 1%-0.01%+ of ability. Instead of being a benefit, it's a handicap. No matter what they say, a manager never wants to hire someone smarter and more experienced. There are many more people who think "Uh oh! FSK is too smart! I'd better get rid of him!" than people who think "Wow! FSK is smart! I want him working for me!" That's hard for someone who's average or above average to understand.
It's a symptom of a corrupt economy. Most middle managers have evil tendencies. They are much more evil than the overall population. If you aren't the type of person who will backstab someone smarter than you, then you don't get to be a manager.
My long-term goal is to start my own business. In the short-term, I need another wage slave job.
Anonymous Coward commented on Josh Brent And Drunk Driving.
I went to the cinema lately. I won't mention the name of the film, just in case the vague messages I recount may act as spoilers (they won't).
1) A man is told to stop stealing and instead get a job, perhaps a government job. The man is derisive. I thought the film was saying all government jobs are paid for by theft or at the least taking from other people.
2) If you stand up to someone or are not afraid, then you will be pleasantly surprised with the results. The aggressor will back down.
3) Nobody can make you do anything. If someone threatens you with violence, then they still can't make you do anything.
Philip Kilner commented on Josh Brent And Drunk Driving.
A person's intentions *DO* matter.
You have so lost your moral compass that I must stop following this blog now. I have persevered due to my interest in the different thinking of people with autistic spectrum disorders, but this is too much for me.
:-(
Following "intentions matter", it was OK for Jon Corzine to steal $1.6B from his customers, because it was an accident and he didn't do it on purpose.
A drunk driving accident isn't different from pulling out a gun and killing someone on purpose. Either way, the victim is dead.
Also, the drunk driver made the decision to get drunk and drive. It's completely different from a regular accident. A loss due to a regular accident should be covered by insurance. If you're a drunk driver, you should be personally responsible. For a drunk driver, insurance should still reimburse the victim, but then collect from the criminal.
"Intentions matter" is used as a "get out of jail free" card for insiders.
Every time someone says "You suck! I'm not reading anymore!", that's how I know it's an important subject.
Philip Kilner commented on Josh Brent And Drunk Driving.
Re. Jon Corzine, wasn't saying the "unintentional" crime was not a crime. I would argue that an action with the same outcome may have a graduated degree of culpability - imagine (all other things being equal) pulling the trigger on a revolver and shooting someone in the head: if the person is in plain sight and you have done it deliberately that's very very bad and evil, if the person is on the other side of a wall and you have just fired carelessly into the wall that is very bad and negligent, if you are on a shooting range and the person is hiding behind a target that's bad but accidental.
Pure accidents, by definition, are not crimes. Crimes include both those where the criminal is simply evil and those where s/he is negligent.
Re. ' “Intentions matter” is used as a “get out of jail free” card for insiders ', that may be true *some* of the time, but that is not to say that evil intent is not an aggravating factor in criminal responsibility.
Re. ' “You suck!" ', to be fair I did not say any such thing, and I certainly agree that this stuff *does* matter.
You use English (or rather American English, I guess), in a very striking way, and you use the phrase "it offends me that..." a good deal. Well, I'd not go so far to say that it offends me, but I can say that it makes me feel icky to think that there are people walking around who genuinely feel that a premeditated, intentional crime is no worse than the same crime committed out of negligence. Who, to my simple way of thinking, can look evil in the face and not be able to tell the difference between it and it and criminal negligence. I've enjoyed reading you blog - your way of thinking and expressing yourself is very striking, we share many concerns, and whilst I strongly disagree with much of what you say, I agree equally strongly with some of it.
The problem with this piece is not your choice of subject or your overall position, which I understand to be that the guy got away surprisingly and inappropriately lightly, both in terms of sentence and of his treatment by the team. The problem with this piece is a frankly frightening oversimplification of a complex distinction that casually discounts the difference between malice and negligence.
Jason Beam commented on Josh Brent And Drunk Driving.
I can see both of your points. I think FSK has a point claiming that drunk driving is NOT negligence but taking a significant risk consciously.
We are missing some important information here though: How much drinking was involved and the particular circumstances. Also the guy decided to drive with a drunk driver which makes him partially guilty too in my opinion.
I believe with too little reliable information it is not possible to judge this particular case fairly.
However, it is easy to see how FSKs argument can be applied in many cases and would deserve some consideration / fixing.
FSK has an amazing ability to identify possible flaws in our society and explain the issue in simple terms and few words. I love reading his posts as he challenges my own critical thinking. What is better than critical thinking about critical thinking :)
Occasionally I find a flaw in his reasoning which makes me feel good and proves he is human and genuine.
I just wished be posts more often again and gets well, and finally decides to go independent (contractor).
Jason Beam commented on Josh Brent And Drunk Driving.
To be fair, I think if the distinction between manslaughter and murder is to be removed we have a problem defining and determining the degree of negligence. I can see high degree of negligence in conscious (significantly) drunk driving and causing an accident. However, the accident could have also happened without alcohol - who determines this? What about accidents in martial arts, or encouraging someone to do a bungy jump without properly determining the safety record of the organizer first?
In practice it is probably easier and fairer to consider the intention than trying to fairly estimate the degree of negligence. However, the thought is great and I learned a lot reflecting on this. Thank you both :)
Egor commented on Josh Brent And Drunk Driving.
"I have persevered due to my interest in the different thinking of people with autistic spectrum disorders,"
What the fuck? "Autism" is a just a name that quacks call kids who don't talk as much as society wants them to. It's not even a real medical condition. If you think it is, show me your test results.
I favor compensation-based justice and not punishment-based justice. The financial compensation for murder is the same whether the murder was intentional, gross negligence, or an accident. For an accident, insurance will cover almost all of the loss. For murder and criminal negligence, insurance should never cover the loss (but the victim's heirs still get paid). The insurer must collect from the criminal.
For an intentional murder or criminal negligence, punitive damages could be added in addition to compensation.
Drunk driving is criminal negligence.
There also is partial criminal negligence. For example, someone who was barely legally drunk might be 50% criminally negligent in a drunk driving accident. In that case, he has to pay 50% of the loss and insurance covers the remaining 50%.
Josh Brent was *REALLY* drunk. The victim was also partially responsible, being a passenger. This is different from a drunk driver killing someone in another car. However, someone else could have been seriously injured.
Even if you are an independent contractor, you're still a type of employee. Ideally, I should have my own business.
My posting motivation has been less recently. I wonder if I'm still recovering from the hospitalization. I wonder if the new drugs affect my motivation to blog.
Jason Beam commented on Josh Brent And Drunk Driving.
Egor, I agree with you. In the current growth paradigm, society will continue to come up with new diseases but it will be harder and the nonsense of it more obvious. Active kids need to take drugs to treat their "hyperactivity", quiet kids against "autism", loosing hair is a "disease", so is having a non average breast size (free surgery for girls in the UK). Not being able to sleep more than 6-10 hours - no problem take sleeping pills (many elderly people)? Fear of public speaking - we have the pill!
I just wait for the pill to treat fear of terrorism - but that would treat a lot of other diseases based on fear and reduce the profit.
I am very much for free market - minarchism or - anarchism. At least there should be a serious public discussion (Stefan Moleneaux versus Chomsky versus Obama would be hot) and people like FSK or Toby Russel (econosophy.com) in the audience asking questions!
A real free market could solve many problems but I am not sure about planned obsolescence and the creation of new needs to sustain perpetual growth. Both democracy and a free market assume people have a near free will and can decide mostly in a rational way. Pharmacology, psychology, advertising and the hijacking of science and the media in general by profits are challenging this assumption today.
"Planned obsolescence" and "artifically creating new needs" is a symptom of a corrupt State economy. That problem might not occur in a really free market.
For example, when you have a monopoly, you maximize profits by making a product that breaks after a few years and needs to be replaced. If a competitor makes a higher quality product, you can borrow from banksters at negative real interest rates and buy them out, and a restricted market makes it hard for new competitors to enter the market. In a really free market, quality will be rewarded more.
With symptom-suppressing drugs, profits are maximized when the patient takes the drug for the rest of their life. It doesn't matter if the underlying problem is cured or not.
What system better handles a mixture of intelligent people and fools? In a democracy, everyone is stuck with the majority choice. In a really free market, I can still get what I want if the majority makes bad choices.