I keep seeing everyone talking about $9 and $14 watches....what's the deal, is everyone cheap, or broke?!?

A watch is a piece of jewelry you wear every day...functional jewelry, but jewelry just the same. Guys don't generally get to wear as much 'bling' as women, so you need to make what you do wear, count.

Nowadays you can't tell a cheap watch from an expensive one at a glance. Look at how many $20-$100 "Roll-ex" Rolex knock-offs there are.

As for a watch being jewelry, I'd rather spend it on earrings, a ring, bracelet or necklace. A watch is just a watch. Something that will inevitably break.

If you're not a broke college student...the grow up a bit, and spend a little cash and get something that is NICE, and makes you look more like an adult.

A watch doesn't make you look "more like an adult" any more than an expensive cell phone or laptop or tablet does. Adults are (mostly) a bit more discerning.

Red Hat just posted 1 billion in profits.

No, they posted a billion in annual revenue.

I pretty much agree with everything else - the linux world is a mess, a mish-mash wasted effort on too many forks, each of which has to duplicate 99% of the work before adding their own 1% of "differentiation bling" that is supposed to "add value."

Fedora[*], Slackware, Debian, Arch, Gentoo - that's about it?

Please update your list - slackware is dead. No new release in more than a year, the "updated package browser" that was supposed to take a couple of weeks has also been missing in action for more than a year, the server has had many outages (it's currently responds to pings, but no page loads), and the few mirrors don't have much in the way of security and other updates (2 - 3 dozen packages in the last year, depending on the mirror).

I wear my $9 Wal Mart timepiece (analog) because it's not a crime if I lose it or scratch the face of it.

Almost the same here. A cheap ($14.95) watch at a small place in the local mall. When the battery dies, $5 for a new battery, installed. When it finally gives up the ghost (I tend not to take it off to wash the dishes), I'll just buy a new one.

If someone were to give me an expensive watch, I'd be worried about breaking it, or losing it, or scratching it, so I'd only wear it occasionally. So what's the point?

An architect wouldn't go design a building, and manage the actual construction

Really?

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings, that have as their principal purpose human occupancy or use.

Throughout the project (planning to occupancy), the architect co-ordinates a design team. Structural, mechanical, and electrical engineers and other specialists, are hired by the client or the architect, who must ensure that the work is co-ordinated to construct the design.

Architects typically put projects to tender on behalf of their clients, advise on the award of the project to a general contractor, and review the progress of the work during construction. They typically review contractor shop drawings and other submittals, prepare and issue site instructions, and provide construction contract administration and Certificates for Payment to the contractor (see also Design-bid-build). In many jurisdictions, mandatory certification or assurance of the work is required.

Go on a construction site and look for the people in the white hard-hats in the mobile trailer with the blueprints, etc. You know, the one with the big sign that has the architect firms name on it.

I understand their issues, developers are expensive, and cheap ones produce shoddy code

No, you don't. You left out part. "developers are expensive, and cheap ones produce shoddy code, and the company is so incompetent (and/or bloated) in terms of management, marketing and sales that they can't produce enough perceived value to be able to pay market rates."

They're doomed.

This is a death spiral.

In the end, they'll close up, the companies that did the outsourced work will have the code but no customer, no worry about being sued, so you've financed the creation of a foreign competitor for what were your products. Way to go, Charlie Brown. The New American Way. To Eleventeen!!!!

That should be handled through contracts and litigation.

Good luck litigating in a foreign jurisdiction ... esp. India, where bribes are the norm.

There's another problem - as you continue to offshore, you lose the ability to bring in people at the entry level locally. So what happens when a significant portion of the local labour pool can no longer get an entry-level job?

The answer is more insidious than you'd think at first glance. Not only do the entry-level jobs disappear, but eventually so do the mid-level jobs, since you don't have anyone local who's grown into the position. Repeat often enough, and the local industry is dead as more of the work just "naturally" shifts overseas.

It's the same thing that happened with electronics manufacturing - everyone's in China now because everyone else is in China. No wonder software development is a dead-end career.

Again, your experience, your "putting in your time" is irrelevant.

The only reason you did so was, as you admit, that you were bored. So switching scratched your itch.

Other people want to work to make money. That's their itch. You're going to have to pay market rates, or you're simply not in the market. Why should a total stranger agree to waste time at a lower rate of pay so that your employer can reap the benefit for the next two years while you guys get your act together?

If you want to pay less, you're going to have to offer to scratch other itches to compensate. Telecommuting is one. Flex time is another. Giving them more authority to make design and implementation decisions is yet another.

If you are a developer, and your boss thinks programming is "monkey work", I'd be looking for a different job, right now.

I know that's not the question you asked, but that's the answer I have.

Absolutely 100% the right answer.

Because you're next no matter how it goes.

It will go badly. And then there won't be the budget to fix the problem. Whose fault is that? Well, let's see ... the First Law of Business Physics is "Sh*t always rolls downhill." Since it's just you and your boss, guess who's at the bottom of the hill?

So you will be blamed for the failure.

Some problems are intractable - they cannot be solved under the given conditions and constraints. This is one of them. It's way past time to leave. Try to contact everyone else who's left, tell them you're ready to jump ship and would appreciate any assistance they can give.

If the boss complains when you tell him that it can't be done, tell him you want a big raise. What's he going to do - fire you? Then he's out of a job as well. He's already looking around for another opportunity anyway ... the minute he finds one, you're dead in the water.

False dichotomy alert!

if everybody used this test, and the people who tested positive seek treatment, then you just reduced the transmission rate among the people who would not otherwise get tested by 93%.

Your argument is based on people either using this test or no test at all. This (inaccurate) test will drive down the number of people who get the more accurate test, resulting in increased numbers of false negatives, which is the real risk.

The second false dichotomy inherent in your position is that people will only have one partner. Multiple partners over the course of a year will increase the transmission rate due to false negatives impacting multiple people.

Simplification - 10 people, all test negative (including 1 false negative). If each person only has sex with 2 other people over the course of a year, it's conceivable that within a year they can all be infected. This scenario is especially likely given that infections are much harder to detect at an early stage.

Comparing HIV to, say, the flu, is a bad example. We're not talking about an HIV vaccine here. Also, simple hand washing and teaching people not to pick their noses will greatly reduce transmission, you can tell when someone has had the flu after a few days just by looking at them or listening to them hacking away, and the flu isn't for life - you're only able to infect someone for a short period of time, then flu season burns itself out as most of the people who can get infected are either infected or over it.

HIV infection is, by far, the most deadly STD, and considerably more scientific evidence exists regarding condom effectiveness for prevention of HIV infection than for other STDs. The body of research on the effectiveness of latex condoms in preventing sexual transmission of HIV is both comprehensive and conclusive. The ability of latex condoms to prevent transmission of HIV has been scientifically established in "real-life" studies of sexually active couples as well as in laboratory studies.

... and of course it also reduces the incidence of other STDs.

We need to do things like giving people both the self-assurance and the almost automatic reflex to say "cut the crap" when a guy says he doesn't want to use a condom because "it will get between us" or "it takes the spontaneity out of it" or "it's like wearing a raincoat" or "if you loved me you'd let me". (in other words, a working "b.s. detector"). And not just in high schools and colleges - this should start in grade school.

It's the parents who don't want their "little precious" to be exposed to "such smut" who end up with kids raising kids, so the fools who preach abstinence need to be exposed for what they are.

A society that won't encourage their kids to attend sex ed classes to get the information they need that could save their life but lets them watch gruesome simulated murders and rapes in high-def as a part of their daily ration of entertainment is messed up.

Both are better than 7% (even 1% sucks, but it shows that it's possible to reach this level today). A 7% error rate is, for all intents and purposes, worse than no test at all. At least with no test, people aren't going to falsely believe that they're not infected. They can take precautions.

The error rate can be brought down. We did it for other types of home testing. Sure, part of it involves taking the time to teach people how to do it. In this case, there's no reason not to go beyond the simple instruction sheet - we can have videos on the net showing the right and wrong way, for example. That's a lot better than "displaying a phone number prominently" that the user can call. The typical user is going to want privacy. Same as a pregnancy test. Same as pretty much any other test - it's their body.

Bandwidth is cheap - a lot cheaper than a funeral.

What's a 1 gig usb key cost in bulk? Throw a video on it and stuff it in the box, and make it worth a $5 credit on the next purchase.

We can do better. We *need* to do better. HIV affects everyone.