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Comment Re:America leader on clean energy, not Europe (Score 2) 341

Well, to be fair, after a short google expedition, America does seems to be an accepted name for the United States of America, but it is so ONLY in the United States of America.

This isn't really true. When you say that you're an "American" to nearly anyone in the world, the valid assumption they make is that you're from the USA. It only follows that an "American" would be from "America," being the USA.

Comment Re:$128,000? (Score 1) 342

I assure you that neither of those things has EVER come up in a job interview.

But they have in the salary planning. They know what they're getting, and pay accordingly.

Perhaps in larger or .gov shops, but certainly not in the small shops I have experience with.

They show up in determining whether to consider a candidate for an interview. Many places will not interview someone with short experience and an associate's. I've been on the interviewing end of that equation.

Comment Re:You Tell Me If You're Too Old; What Is Your Goa (Score 0) 418

I'm a 40-year-old developer, and it's become apparent that my .NET skillset is woefully out of date after five years of doing various bits of support.

I'm sorry. Honestly, I really am sorry. I don't like that framework, I don't like that language. Also when I was growing up it was largely a "pay to play" realm and largely still is (although I know I can get my hands on an express IDE).

This really is less than helpful, albeit typical for the longer-run members in this community. It's .NET, pay-to-play, and therefore irrelevant. That, in truth, is political garbage.

To answer more fully - age is irrelevant. If you desire to pick up the variations between .NET 2.0 and 4.0, just put in the time necessary to practice some of the newer things. You could also pick up C#, though it isn't absolutely necessary, because the positions open on the market lean more heavily toward C# than VB.NET. It's primarily syntactical sugar, you'll find, but some of the newer things are performed a little more easily in C# than VB. Some of the more exciting aspects of .NET lie in the direction of F#, too, which is pretty easy to experiment with (and fully supported by Mono/Monodevelop).

Social Networks

Decentralized Social Networking — Why It Could Work 128

Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes with "a response to some of the objections raised to my last article, about a design for a distributed social networking protocol, which would allow for decentralized (and censorship-resistant) hosting of social networking accounts, while supporting all of the same features as sites like Facebook." Social networking is no longer new; whether you consider it to have started with online communities in the mid-90s or with the beginnings of sites many people still use today. As its popularity has surged, it has grown in limited ways; modern social networks have made communication between users easier, but they've also made users easier to market to advertisers as well. There's no question that the future of social networking holds more changes that can both help and harm users — perhaps something like what Bennett suggests could serve to mitigate that harm. Read on for the rest of his thoughts.

Comment Re:Statistically Meaningless Conclusions (Score 1) 203

On top of this, why were people drinking so much coffee? Because they were working long days? Staying up late? Other activities that can lead to eye strain? Sorry but this sounds like correlation rather than causation.

While a decent point, I'm pretty sure coffee is very much a cultural thing for those up near the arctic circle. It might have something to do with the lack of sunlight, so compensation is made with caffeine.

Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 192

Having seen fully-US-government-run healthcare up close and personal? Let's just say that no matter how good Canada or the UK does it, I know full well that here in the US, we'll just fuck it up, and to the detriment of anyone who will have to suffer under it.

It's not very good in Canada or the UK, even though you get a pile of Canadians and English spouting how great gov't healthcare is. That is the problem when bureaucracy is introduced to healthcare. Everyone gets crappy care that is free.

Comment Re:Bye Apple (Score 1) 451

You should never, never, never, ever use a production release as a beta test.

Tell that to Blizzard, Bethesda, Rockstar, Google, Microsoft (all OS versions before first or second svc pack), Apple...

Sure, it's ideal to catch everything, but it's ultimately unrealistic. There's also the issue of software vs. data. In Apple's maps' case, it's the data that's problematic. The software implementation seems to be solid.

Comment Re:Bye Apple (Score 1) 451

Mod parent up! Apple may have money to throw at this issue, but they do NOT have the time. They might have if they have developed this for a few more years in secret, but now that it's out, they're boned.

That's the most ridiculous thing I've read today. The issues present in the maps app are hyped up only in a very small community - and given the alternative apps, the "time" issue is irrelevant. Apple isn't in any danger over their flawed maps app.

Comment Re:They're really playing for keeps, aren't they? (Score 2) 561

Yet Apple's response was not to approach alternative mappers like Mapquest, Bing Maps, Garmin, etc. They're response was to build their own.

"Not Invented Here Syndrome" is a pretty prominent anti-pattern.

This is pretty inaccurate. They bought some geospatial companies and made some modifications to their products. This is essentially what Google has done for over ten years.

Comment Re:Old wisdom (Score 1) 278

It's an article about a sociopath, who just happened to be an attractive female. The story, American Psycho, is no more sexist than this particular anecdote, only it happens to be about an attractive male sociopath.

Your reaction makes a fair number of assumptions about the aim of the article. All it's trying to say, is don't get too mixed up with pretty people at the work place before you get to know them. That pretty much goes for men AND women alike. I think the workplace modifier is there because it's your place of employment - it makes things far more complicated than the equivalent mistake being made between visitors at a bar.

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