Comment Re:Maybe (Score 1) 658
Forget the mail-man. Read the letter.
The vast majority of industry trade shows look quite professional. A small minority of industries that attract people with developmental problems (automobiles, guns, and games) don't.
I can't speak for the "vast majority" of trade shows, but many of the energy industry shows I've been to have had "booth babes". It is quite a common tactic (not the only one, but common nonetheless). It's about catching your eye. This can been done with brightly coloured displays, animated signs, movement etc, but with a large male patronage, attractive women seems to be effective.
If we are going to damn some companies for being so "stupid" or exploitative that they require beautiful women to attract men to their products, then perhaps we should also damn them for using other cheap tricks like bright colours, flashing signs etc.
Is it really wrong for attractive women or men to exploit their good looks for commercial gain? How about a man exploiting his natural physical strength for financial gain? Is it really so much better to be exploited for your brain than for your body? Being exploited for your brain can be very demeaning indeed. If I could earn good money standing around smiling at a trade show, I'd certainly consider it. Perhaps I'd feel exploited, I don't know, but I've certainly felt exploited in software development jobs I've had.
If you're taking any other approach, namely one that will force your client to remain attached to you I'd have to question your ethics, motive, and ability because what you're doing is creating a dependence on you that is borderline blackmail (if that's something you're doing).
Why is it that employees are supposed to work hard, be as professional as possible, take pride in their work, be ethical etc? All these virtuous practices are things that largely benefit the employer. It's effectively work ethic propaganda that has been drilled into the population.
In contrast employers work you as hard as possible for as little reward as possible (often including unpaid overtime which is effectively theft of your time) then dump you for a cheaper college graduate at the first opportunity. Employers do not adopt a strategy that benefits the employee as much as possible, they adopt a strategy that benefits them as much as possible. Why then shouldn't employees be just as ruthless, conniving and unethical as employers?
"Virtuous" work ethics have been drilled into successive populations over the aeons by those who directly benefit from them, i.e. the powerful. Don't fall for them.
How can the people support or oppose Chavez's policies if they don't even know what he's doing?
Well if they watched the privately owned media in Venezuela, they will certainly have no idea what he was doing. The hugely powerful privately owned media spent most of the time writing stories about how he is insane or a criminal. It was the private media that took an active part in the coup attempt against Chavez in 2002. There was plenty of incredibly critical coverage of Chavez in Venezuela, make no mistake about that.
The weird scope rules and lack of proper object/class support drive me up the wall when working on projects with ~40,000 lines of code.
HAXE has has classes, static typing and all the things you probably want. Then you can just transpile it into javascript (among other languages). There are other efforts along similar lines. Increasingly it seems, due to it's unsuitability for large projects, Javascript is being treated as a sort of assembly language you compile to as a last step.
certainly nowhere near as much as what their strangely negative reputation in the U.S. would lead you to believe
There was a lot of propaganda against Al Jazeera but it really was just nonsense. The US and Allies had grown used to their own media's kid-gloves reporting on their military adventures and were absolutely incensed that a news outlet would question their motives and/or pay too much attention to their victims. Al Jazeera has really been a breath of fresh air in the world of news media. They cover issues that are simply ignored by other outlets and have become one of my primary news sources.
All they need to do acknowledge that Israel is a legitimate nation. But you know, Hamas won't do that.
By continuously building settlements in the West Bank in violation of international law, Israel refuses to even recognise basic Palestinian land rights. Yet we expect Palestinians to recognise Israel?
I would like nothing better than for the Palestinians to have a normal economy
The Palestinians would like that too, but Israel will not allow it. This all goes far beyond firing rockets at each other. Israel really believes that all the Palestinian land should belong to them, which is why there are so many settlements in the West Bank (in violation of international law). Israel has always viewed the Palestinians as a demographic threat, which is why they never allowed Palestinian refugees to return.
One way to help ease the whole situation in Gaza would have been to allow in a peacekeeping force, but Israel will not allow it. Their excuse in the past has been that a peace-keeping force would "interfere with Israeli security measures". The truth is that a peacekeeping force would remove many of the excuses the Israeli government has for blockading Gaza and preventing it growing economically.
So yes, Hamas are terrorists, but Israel behaves no better and they have their own agenda.
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." -- Karl, as he stepped behind the computer to reboot it, during a FAT