Man, if only I had mod points...

To be fair, most here have been called time on HP and Sco fairly well. Okay, HP is still going but let's face it, it's not the great company it used to be, even before losing out on Autonomy.

Ooops - you forgot Hinduism.

So the Jedi cult is the most popular cult in the entire country! Except for Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism.

Quoth: "The Christian church in England gets tax breaks, six unelected members in the House of Lords"

Umm, how many elected members are there in the House of Lords? I'm just curious why there's a qualifier?

This.

I was at an interview just last week for a position at a large UK telecoms company. The salary was probably 45th percentile for the country, and I was told with a straight face that I had to prove I was the "world's best of the world's best".

For the first time in my life, I actually walked out of an interview. I'm quite good at my job and get shit done well with everyone happy. I might (or might not) be world class but I don't know because I've not had the opportunities to work at the large trendy tech companies; but this condescension is only allowed if they're paying a truly awesome salary.

If they're paying shite wages and the manager is a twat, they will never be world's best of world's best, no matter how much they want to be.

Yeah, you tell the looser!

Herp derp fadgit.

Quoth: "I suspect they are not, the point they are probably making is that if the suicide rate is say 5% amongst the general population, but only 1% in the industry of tech manufacturing yet Foxconn's rate is 3% then it is striking, " If the article did that, then that would be fine and definitely news-worthy. But the problem is that they haven't. The only comparison they've made is with a national baseline. It doesn't seem good practice to assume that that statistic must be the worst-case: I'd really need see the facts (i.e., suicide rate amongst similar factory workers) before making a conclusion.

Much like I did in 1980s UK. I was sent on a work experience programme when I was 14 over summer and quite enjoyed my experience and didn't feel exploited even when looking back after several decades of work. It was about as much real work as my daughter playing with a toy kitchen is real cooking.

I'm not saying that Foxconn's younger interns are not working the typical 30-hour / day, 8 days/week-type deathmarch that articles like this seem to propound, but I'm not saying it's not either. This article needs something more than just whispers and hints of accusations.

In the UK, I took O level computer studies and was taught by a former programmer. The time was 1983-85 when I was 14-16 years old.

We covered hardware ("this is a VDU", "Winchester hard disks", etc) and software.

Software was introduced using CESIL (or CECIL?) a low-level language written for instruction by ICL. From this, I transitioned easily to 6809E Assembler (much more complex but I had the fundamentals in place).

We also learned BBC BASIC on BBC Microcomputers which gave us an intro to structured programming rather than GOTO's.

We wrote programs that we ran on the BBCs (if BASIC), or were sent away somewhere else if CESIL. Our teacher taught us to begin with unit testing (or at least, inputs and expected outputs), a flowchart (for which we had to buy a stencil) and then hand-written code on paper. This was before we even thought about sitting at a keyboard and it taught me to *plan*.

I also got to play with an old Research Machines personal computer and a Tandy TRS-80 which I liked because it had an integrated display! At home, I had to battle for the right to use the TV with my family!

Just in case: I'm not a programmer / developer and never have been. Well I do write but I'm more of a data scientist than anything.

Surely there has to be a slimy legal shit somewhere who can figure out a way to make money from each improper take-down?

What new stuff excites you most now?

Yeah. Far better for him to have been in the US and lynched.

I bet you're anaspeptic, phrasmotic, even compunctious to have cause such pericombobulation.

Alternative headline: "Branson wants to fuck off to Mars." Can't wait.

Quoth: Google's Susan Wojcicki: 'We believe that tailoring your web experience â" for example by showing you more relevant, interest-based ads, or making it easy to recommend stuff you like to friends â" is a good thing.'"

Except that I did a *lot* of research (getting a phd for the first few years) that says that tailoring experience misleads people into thinking the stuff around them is more meaningful than it is.

In some ways, the survivalist approach, while less satisfying, produces much more accurate mental models of information sources.

I really think that Google had a golden age around 2002 when they had masses of information but little customisation - but let users decide things for themselves.

Sigh. I'm a fan of DuckDuckGo now and not just because I'm #1 for my important key phrases. DDG doesn't try to 'help' - it just lets you use your brain.