1,595 karma · joined February 29, 2012
I'd imagine this technology having the potential to enable many people to perhaps start businesses much more easily or cheaply. Is it possible to imagine every single human being a self employed business? Could the economy work that way?
Any chance you can offer some insights into how it works?
Where is the plan B for doctors? Where is the plan B for Lawyers? Why do these other professionals have respect in the their old age and not us software engineers/programmers?
How depressing.
> The half-life of an engineer, software or hardware, is only a few years.
And I still don't get this. Move out of software and you'll find loads of over 40's and over 50's engineers. Here in Perth I know loads of older engineers, that are given dignity and respect along with their peers in Medicine and Law.
This plan B stuff is because of the culture that surrounds programmers. If there is any plan B, it is to maybe start admitting that older programmers might actually be useful and worthwhile for employment, much like every other white collar profession.
It's true that a 40 year old might not be able to work as many hours as a 20 year old, but that doesn't mean each hour is worth the same. At 40, you'd hope that the older programmers hours put in are more considered with all their experience and are most certainly worth it.
The same goes for older Lawyers and older doctors, they might not be as energetic as 20 year olds, but with all that experience to make that much more of an informed decision, it certainly means the older generation can compete.
This is a culture issue.
> Software engineering reliably undergoes a major technology shift at least every 10 years.
I doubt any shift invalidates real fundamental knowledge. Sure if your entire career has only been a couple of languages with very little algorithm theory, then true, but that's because you never studied the subject, on your own or formally, that isn't because you're 40.
For example, Doctors and Lawyers have to have the fundamentals down, it's very important. I guess it's true that not enough programmers have the fundamentals down and that is an issue.
But if you're 40 and have training in the fundamentals such as algorithms and design before even hitting the code, you should easily be able to adapt.
> The more irrelevant experience a candidate has, the more lopsided the utility/value equation becomes
Again this is a HR issue. A software engineer/programmer that starts their work from the design and algorithm level should be able to pick up a new language in a couple of weeks. This issue is mainly with the way we hire programmers not with the programmers themselves.
It's like the job ad for 10 years experience in Node.js when Node.js was 3 years old. Just because HR are clueless doesn't mean we need to all start changing our careers.
If you want my advice, it's learn that knowing people is as important (or more!) than what you know.
If you build up your career around being an expert and networking, you will be in a better position than the expert who knows no one.
I agree with the OP. The content creator was not upfront about wanting money and used adverts, and we are within our right to say no, I'm not lowering myself to watch this advert.
It's time we accept that adverts are not the solution.
In addition, is it just me or are most adverts just crap and garbage that lower the overall experience every time?
Softforks cannot add more coins into the network, they can, at most, restrict earlier valid transactions.
It's always been known that someone with over 51% of the power can rewrite the blockchain, but only within the rules of the Bitcoin nodes.
For example, a softfork could never spend coins from your wallet without your key, it could never make more coins or delete a users balance.
This is a good post on the difference: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/30817/what-is-a-s...
51% certainly gives someone a lot of power, but it's power with limits, and the limits are the rules coded into every Bitcoin node.
Side chains will be interesting, as the specification of Bitcoin becomes fixed and never changing, new additions could be added onto Bitcoin outside of the core specification via these side chains.
Will this work? Who knows.
Point (2), Bitcoin hasn't really had to rely on the foundation except for the salaries of two core developers. As I understand it most of the Bitcoin core development team are not supported by the foundation.
(3) Instead of no blockchain, I wonder if there is a way to make a more distributed blockchain? Imagine that a single copy of the blockchain could exist on perhaps 1000 nodes instead of just 1?
Just a thought? I think the essence of the blockchain, this immortal database that proves the integrity of each Bitcoin, I really think we need to keep this in some way.
Satoshi was simply a single point of failure, some obvious element of the system that could be attacked, especially knowing how many Bitcoin this person amassed.
When Satoshi left, Bitcoin became that little bit more decentralised, as others had to take on the lead development role and the community had to allow others to take the lead.
All the decisions about Bitcoin's future with regard to technical issues is now heavily debated, if Satoshi were still here there might not be a debate, just a decision.
Most of us in the community agree that Satoshi's departure was for the good of Bitcoin.
Most people only really entertained the idea of the foundation as it was paying Gavin and another core developer a salary for their work, which is the only upside.
Miners still have to obey the rules of the Bitcoin nodes. If a miner tried to generate more coins, even if 100% of miners tried, it would fail as the several thousand active Bitcoin nodes would simply reject the blocks.
In your case of the car falling off a cliff, perhaps it is gratuitous negativity to say "We've just driven off a cliff! Lets open the door and get out of here!" but it's not gratuitous negativity to say "We've just driven off a cliff! Lets open the door and get out of here because this car is falling towards the ground at high speed due to gravity and motion and we're all about to die!"
I think if there is at least some reasoning shown with the negativity, the argument is more clear and others can learn from it.
Again, I could have misunderstood both the OP and your comment, if so I apologize.
They were caught out by scammers (or unknowing people with scammed notes) several times last year and the bank rejected the notes (and of course wouldn't hand them back)
Apparently the counterfeit notes are sometimes on a plastic too, but not sturdy enough to withstand a quick tear. I'm not sure how long that will hold true though.
Honest question, is this really possible? I write webapps and Javascript + Jquery makes a lot of stuff easy, hooking into button clicks, getting text from an input box and sending AJAX requests back to my server.
Does anyone have an example of a web application with no Javascript? My next project will most likely use Golang as the server side, and I'm having a really hard time imagining how to send AJAX requests back to the server on user events (such as the user typing into a box in a real time search application) without using Javascript.
Apparently I've missed a whole area of web development if this is all possible with no Javascript. Isn't this like saying your Windows game should be fully functional without a graphics card?
I mean, on most web applications, they are that, applications. Maybe I just don't know enough, but I feel like I need a programming language in the browser to create the client side of the application, how do I fire off AJAX events when a user types something without Javascript?
I'm honestly trying to learn more here, I need examples of web apps with no Javascript, I need a book or something. Just being told I can replicate my application in html and css isn't helping.
And you're spot on about the cost of development. I'd imagine 12 - 48 hours of profits from Apple would be enough to fund its database R&D for the next 10 years.
Even though research suggests that they have little negative long term side effects I do worry about taking them and would prefer a more natural method to get the same result.
Basically it's like this; If I get home from a 10 hour workday almost falling asleep, I can take one pill and suddenly it's like the day starts over again as my focus has returned. At the moment I feel like I need to do it as I have projects I work on in the evening that are important for my career progression.
Did your research turn up anything negative about Modafinil?
I find Modafinil to be much more powerful than caffeine, however I do worry about long term side effects, even though my research suggests they are safe to use.
It does make for a massive attack surface with the massive amount of complexity a modern browser brings to the table, however it's also giving us a truly Operating System agnostic world. (I think? Javascript based applications are OS agnostic right?)
The browser may become a universal operating system, where web applications become the norm and it brings an end to the Linux vs Windows vs Mac wars.
Who knows?
Is it really fair to say developer salaries around the $200k mark are being inflated?
Developers work can have an impact on millions of people, yet we keep expecting all of this work for a $60k salary.
I've found that only developers/programmers do this self flagellation, almost all other professions complain about $200k being too low, not too high, and expect more. (Lawyers, Doctors, and even some electrical/mechanical engineers)
It's just a shame, as I find it hard finding good work as a programmer as my peers fight for lower and lower salaries.
I had a naive hope that this industry would mature and fight for higher salaries, but whenever I see programmers getting paid half that of a Lawyer or Doctor, self flagellation start to come into play.
Such as shame for an industry with the most potential to change the world.
You can have a drink and drive, you can watch a film, you can program or even sleep!
And these positives aren't even fundamental, addressing the safety gains etc..., but I think talking up these positives that will affect you the most is the best way to sell this technology. Most people don't think they are going to get hit by another car, but most people would love to be able to do something else in the boring morning commute.
Lots of people around the world depend on the anonymity of Tor today and having the Government take it out, whilst indirectly kick-starting the next generation anonymity network is all and well for me and my armchair, but it's going to be life threatening for many.
Until this 100x better solution exists Tor must be kept running at any cost, many lives depend on it.
And with most software projects, much like real world engineering, it's less about the fundamentals (language, base logic, etc...) and more about managing and working with highly complex systems.
If this is the case, then putting in a hardware decoder would be a needless expense.