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Comment The language is only a tool... (Score 1) 277

You will be the most important factor in getting that 6 figure salary, not the language you use. All decent programmers should be able to break down complex problems into smaller pieces and use whatever tools are at hand to solve the problem. It doesn't matter the tools you choose to use so long as you can adapt to the situations, learn how to use new tools, and get the job done well. I find the many people allow recruiters and HR departments to tell them what they are worth; based on prior budget meetings, market value, and what they feel the job is worth. A job interview is a sales presentation; you are selling yourself to them and they are selling you on their company. Plain and simple. Once they are sold on you, and you are sold on them, then its about negotiating a price that benefits both parties. Mind you that interviewing at these companies can be quite laborious task; some interviews can be hours in front of a white board writing code in response to questions, then answering a bunch of S.T.A.R. questions, multiple rounds of interviews, etc. By the time it is done and over with, as soon as they toss that old "market value" bit, i toss that out the window. The market isn't in this room writing code for you on the white board, answering silly college questions about algorithm run times, and self-evicting maps. Then start negotiating, if you have the experience, you showed them you have the knowledge, you can negotiate much higher salaries. The language is just a tool. You are what they are paying for, you have to be worth the money. For the record, I do make almost twice the salary you were asking about as a lead java developer, i know and have used many other languages, and the post someone made about quality of life should probably trump you want for a 6 figure salary. What good is it to make the salary you want, only to have to work 60 hour weeks and then your spouse leaves you and you paying them half your check plus child support anyways?
Google

Google Wants Your Voice Data 138

00_NOP writes "Peter Norvig, Google's director of research, has told New Scientist that one of the reasons the search engine launched Google Voice is that it needs more human voice data to perfect the sort of 'big data, simple algorithm' probabilistic approach to translating voices to text that drives Google Translate. Norvig says that no one is listening to your calls on Google Voice — it is simply their servers trying to get the translation right."

Comment Re:This is why I have given up on Adobe (Score 1) 272

Gimp is not just not "exactly like photoshop", it's not layed out like any other Windows application. If you're on Mac or Linux is fine, but someone accustomed to Gimp will struggle needlessly with the (incidentally monstrously ugly [to the point of making it difficult to use]) interface. Gimpshop and gimphoto are fine but are several major revisions behind gimp proper.

Comment Re:Sign me up! (Score 1) 599

Not taking antibiotics and not being properly treated for a mental disorder are two ENTIRELY different things. Having an infection does not render you less capable of making rational decisions about your own treatment. Many mental illnesses do - and not just the way-out-there ones, either. Should those people get treatment? Of course. If it's unhealthy for their loved ones to be around them when they're not treated, should those loved ones do what's healthy for themselves? Of course. But saying that you're "disgusted" by something that is a god damned symptom of the illness in and of itself is disgusting.

I believe strongly in equal rights for both genders-but exactly equal. No special favors, no special treatment, no monthly excuse for bad behavior. Men don't get those, so that can hardly be asserted as an "equal" right. It's not "misogynist" to think people of any gender should be held equally accountable for their decisions and behavior.

No, it's misogynistic to ignore biology and claim that accepting it is "special treatment." Do you think that women who have pre-menstrual problems enjoy them? Many women do go on birth control specifically to avoid those problems! But to say, as the grandparent did, that ANY woman who has this problem and is not fixing with through HBC is "negligent" is to completely ignore the fact that for some women it is not treatable or the treatment is worse for them than the condition.

Why is the male experience the default that women must try to match in your scenario? I would say that it's special fucking treatment for a man to expect the women in his life to ignore hormonal problems that he will never have to experience or try to ignore so that they can live up to his ideal. Why does he deserve for her to do that when he will never do it for her?

Yes, there are probably women out there who use their periods as an excuse to act extra bitchy when they don't really need to. Just like there are men who use their wives' premenstrual touchiness as an excuse to cheat on her. Both are examples of unethical behavior. But if you really think that that's the norm instead of an anomaly, you should just go say a little prayer, or thank your lucky stars, or whatever you do that you will never experience the hormonal hell that many women have to deal with on a regular basis. Be glad things aren't equal in that regard.

Comment Re:Sign me up! (Score 4, Informative) 599

Wow, this has to be one of the most misogynistic comments I've ever seen on Slashdot - and that's saying a lot.

Here, I will pretend like you're not a total douche, merely ignorant, and try to explain things politely:

The implant is hormonal birth control. Many women cannot take HBC, or only some HBC, due to extreme side effects such as depression or mood swings, weight gain, and heavy bleeding. Only some women stop getting their period on the implant - up to 20% actually have heavier periods than before. Also, HBC puts you at higher risk of clotting problems (such as heart attacks, strokes, and embolisms), which means that women with other risk factors may want to avoid it. And women on certain medications, such as anti-epileptics, can't use the implant.

Other women may simply prefer other forms of birth control for other reasons. For example, some women actually appreciate getting a "Hey, you're still not pregnant" reminder every month. Some are uncomfortable with getting something implanted in their body. While their preferences may inconvenience you, it is far from "negligent" for them to make that decision for themselves.

Perhaps if you feel you are having to "endure" your significant other, you should let her know that. In those exact words. I'm sure she'll be refreshed by your honesty and see you in a completely new light, and will happily rearrange her biology for your convenience.

Comment Re:Why not block them entirely? (Score 1) 131

Disclaimer: This management method looks like it would be a bitch to scale. Not my fucking problem, thank Cthulu.

IDK, it's pretty much how academia works. Maybe without #2, even (depends on just how embarrassing and in what direction). Some schools only have a couple hundred faculty, but the largest state schools can have a couple thousand, plus other research staff. And all that matters is getting your job done - other than the time you're actually teaching a class, nobody cares where you are or what you're doing at any given moment, so long as your tenure file is nice and fat when they come around to take a look at it.

Comment Re:That's Half the Problem. (Score 1) 545

While I agree with you on what the problem is, I disagree with your solution. Yes, having experts around is important, but relying on them exclusively is a mistake - all it takes is a few deceitful "experts" and the whole population is hopelessly misled. Not to mention the fact that you're trying to close the barn door after the cows are gone.

What needs to happen is that we need to wake up and realize that our educational system, which is currently focused on teaching content in most cases, needs to be reworked to focus on giving people the skills to deal with masses of information. Content is no longer the problem - all the content in the world is available at the touch of a button. Now what kids/citizens need is the ability to access, sort, and evaluate that content critically. Because the day of the media experts controlling the flow is over - permanently, barring some major catastrophe that brings down the internet. Knowledge is now created and disseminated in a less hierarchical, two-way (or many-way) street. Our schools are still operating in a one-way, transmission model of knowledge.

Luckily, this revolution is underway - but incredibly slowly. Thanks in part to NCLB, making any sort of substantive changes is now even harder than it was twenty years ago. Many of the standards actually are written to include these kinds of skills, but the assessments (which are what really matter) are only written to test the facts. So if you've got, say, a new science curriculum that aims to teach students how to build and test a scientific explanation and support it with substantive arguments - that's very nice, but if the kids don't also learn this list of 100 facts this year you lose. Who cares that, given the right skills, they could go out and find that same information online anytime they want AND be able to evaluate which sites are giving them good information and which are pseudoscience. No, all that matters at the end of the year is whether they can remember those 100 facts at test time.

Comment Re:removing annoying wait when Firefox first loads (Score 5, Insightful) 570

First, install the update when I shut down the browser. You're not wasting my time then because I'm done using it.

Unless the whole reason you're shutting it down, as is often the case for me, is that FF has been running so long that it's become an enormous memory hog and you need to shut it down then restart it so your system will speed back up. Or you're shutting it down in order to shut down or reboot your entire computer. I agree with the previous commenter, just give us the choice.

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